The Earth, all prostrate, to the Clouds complains--
"Send to my heart your fertilizing rains;"

The Clouds invoke the Heavens-" Collect, dispense
Through us your healing, quickening influence;"
The Heavens to Him that rules them raise their moan--
"Command thy blessing, and it shall be done.”
-The Lord is in his temple :-hushed and still,
The suppliant Universe awaits his will.

2.

He speaks;—and to the clouds the heavens dispense With lightning speed their genial influence :

The gathering, breaking clouds pour down the rains,
Earth drinks the bliss thro' all her eager veins.
From teeming furrows start the fruits to birth,
And shake their riches on the lap of Earth:
Man sees the harvests grow beneath his eye,
Turns, and looks up with rapture to the sky;
All that have breath and being then rejoice,
All Nature's voices blend in one great voice;
"Glory to God, who thus Himself makes known!"
-When shall all tongues confess Him God alone?
Lord, as the rain comes down from heaven-the rain
That waters Earth, and turns not thence again,
But makes the tree to bud, the corn to spring,
And feeds and gladdens every living thing;
So come thy Gospel o'er a world destroyed,
In boundless blessings, and return not void:
So let it come, in universal showers,

To fill Earth's dreariest wilderness with flowers,
-With flowers of promise, fill the wild within
Man's heart, laid waste and desolate by sin:

Where thorns and thistles curse the infested ground,
Let the rich fruits of righteousness abound;

And trees of life, forever fresh and green,

Flourish, where only trees of death have been;
Let Truth look down from heaven, Hope soar above,
Justice and Mercy kiss, Faith work by I.ɔve;
Heralds the year of jubilee proclaim;
Bow every knee at the Redeemer's name;
Nations new-born, their father's idols spurn:
The ransomed of the Lord with songs return;
Through realms, with darkness, thraldom, guilt, o'er
spread,

In light, joy, freedom, be the spirit shed.
Speak thou the word :-to Satan's power say,
But to a world of pardoned sinners-"Peace!"

3.

"Cease!"'

Thus, in thy grace, O God, Thyself make known, Then shall all tongues confess Thee God alone!

THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL.-Croly.

"And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying: Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and He will dwell with them. And they shall be His people; and God Himself with them shall be their God."-APOC. xxi. 3.

King of the dead! how long shall sweep
Thy wrath! how long thy outcasts weep

Two thousand agonizing years

Has Israel steeped her bread in tears;
The vial on her head been poured-

!

Flight, famine, shame, the scourge, the sword!

'Tis done! Has breathed thy trumpet b. ast,
The Tribes at length have wept their last!
On rolls the host! From land and wave
The earth sends up th' unransomed slave!
There rides no glittering chivalry,

No banner purples in the sky;

The world within their hearts has died; Two thousand years have slain their pride! The look of pale remorse is there,

The lip, involuntary prayer;

The form still marked with many a stain—
Brand of the soil, the scourge, the chain;
The serf of Afric's fiery ground;
The slave, by Indian suns embrowned,
The weary drudges of the oar,

By the swart Arab's poisoned shore,

The gatherings of earth's wildest tract-
On bursts the living cataract!

What strength of man can check its speed?

They come the Nation of the Freed;
Who leads their march?

Beneath His wheel

Back rolls the sea, the mountains reel!
Before their tread His trump is blown,
Who speaks in thunder, and 'tis done!
King of the dead! Oh, not in vain
Was Thy long pilgrimage of pain;
Oh, not in vain arose Thy prayer,
When pressed the thorn Thy temples bare;
Oh, not in vain the voice that cried,
Tc spare Thy maddened homicide

Even for this hour Thy heart's blood stromed! They come !-the Host of the Redeemed.

2.

What flames upon the distant sky?
'Tis not the comet's sanguine dye,
'Tis not the lightning's quivering spire,
'Tis not the sun's ascending fire.

And, now, as nearer speeds their march,
Expands the rainbow's mighty arch;
Though there has burst no thunder-cloud
No flash of death the soil has ploughed,
And still ascends before their gaze,
Arch upon arch, their lovely blaze;
Still, as the gorgeous clouds unfold,
Rise towers and domes, immortal mould.
3.

Scenes! that the patriarch's visioned eye
Beheld, and then rejoiced to die ;—
That, like the altar's burning coal,
Touched the pale prophet's harp with soul,-
That the throned seraphs longed to see,
Now given, thou slave of slaves, to thee!
Whose city this? What potentate
Sits there the King of Time and Fate?
Whom glory covers like a robe,

Whose sceptre shakes the solid globe,

Whom shapes of fire and splendor guard?

There sits the Man, "whose face was marred,' To whom archangels bow the knee

The weeper in Gethsemane !

Down in the dust, aye, Israel, kneel;
For now thy withered heart can feel!
Aye, let thy wan cheek burn like flame,
There sits thy glory and thy shame!

THE CHURCH THE MISTRESS OF KNOWLEDGE.-Lacordaire.

We have already seen, gentlemen, or rather have faintly perceived, that the Church possesses the highest rational certainty, since she trusts for support to ideas, to history, to morals, and to society, to an extent unexercised by any other teaching body; and this assures tc her here below, the empire of persuasion. It only remains, then, for us to treat of her moral certainty and infallibility.

2. The certainty or moral authority of a teaching body results from three conditions, which furnish for that body and for those whom it teaches the proof that it is in affinity with truth, and that it dispenses that truth with exactitude and reverence. These three con ditions are, knowledge, virtue, and number.

3. Knowledge is the first condition of certainty or moral authority; for how is it possible to be certain of that which we do not understand, and how can we understand that which we do not know? When men know, on the contrary, the more they know the more they possess for themselves and for others a guarantee from error. Knowledge is the eye which perceives, scrutinizes, compares, and reflects, which watches for and seizes the light, which adds to past ages the weight of new ones: it is the patient sentinel of time, and