If God hath made this world so fair,
Where sin and death abound,
How beautiful beyond compare
Will paradise be found!
WHAT IS PRAYER?
PRAYER is the soul's sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpress'd;
The motion of a hidden fire,
That trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.
Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try;
Prayer, the sublimest strains that reach
The Majesty on high.
Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,
The Christian's native air;
His watchword at the gates of death-
He enters heaven by prayer.
Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice,
Returning from his ways;
While angels in their songs rejoice,
And cry, "Behold, he prays!"
The saints in prayer appear as one,
In word, and deed, and mind;
While with the Father and the Son,
Sweet fellowship they find.
Nor prayer is made on earth alone:
The Holy Spirit pleads;
And Jesus on the eternal throne
For mourners intercedes.
O Thou! by whom we come to God,
The life, the truth, the way;
The path of prayer thyself hast trod:
Lord, teach us how to pray.
As fail the waters from the deep,
As summer brooks run dry,
Man lieth down in dreamless sleep,
His life is vanity.
Man lieth down, no more to wake,
Till yonder arching sphere
Shall with a roll of thunder break,
And nature disappear.
Oh! hide me till thy wrath be past,
Thou, who canst slay or save!
Hide me where hope may anchor fast,
In my Redeemer's grave!
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
BORN, 1772; DIED, 1834.
HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF
CHAMOUNI.
HAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc !
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above,
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!
O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought: entranc'd in prayer,
I worshipp'd the Invisible alone.
Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,
Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy,
Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfus'd
Into the mighty vision passing-there,
As in her natural form, swell'd vast to heaven!
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn!
Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the Vale!
Oh, struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink:
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald! wake, oh wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who call'd you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
For ever shatter'd, and the same for ever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?
And who commanded (and the silence came),
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?
Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain—
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen, full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you
with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest hue, spread garlands at your feet?
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!
Ye living flowers that skirt th' eternal frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the element !
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!
Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast-
Thou too, again, stupendous Mountain! thou,
That, as I raise my head, awhile bow'd low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travel'ing, with dim eyes suffus'd with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me,-rise, oh, ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense, from the Earth!
Thou kingly spirit, throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
CHILD'S EVENING PRAYER.
ERE on my bed my limbs I lay,
God grant me grace my prayers to say!
O God, preserve my mother dear
In health and strength for many a year,
And oh! preserve my father too,
And may I pay him reverence due;
And may I my best thoughts employ
To be my parents' hope and joy!
My sisters and my brothers both
From evil guard, and save from sloth,
And may we always love each other,
Our friends, our father, and our mother!
And still, O Lord, to me impart
A contrite, pure, and grateful heart,
That after my last sleep I may
Awake to thy eternal day. Amen.
A CHILD'S HYMN FOR THE CLOSE OF THE WEEK.
BEFORE thy footstool, God of truth,
A humble child bows down,
To thank thee for the joys of youth,
And errors all to own.
I know thou art the fountain head
Whence all my blessings flow;
But all thy glory and thy good,
I dare not seek to know:
Whether thy way is on the wind,
The pathway of the storm;
Or on the waste of waters wide,
Which rolling waves deform;
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