than a brother,' to Him Who alone can perfectly feel as Man for what He perfectly knows as God-seem to us surpassingly beautiful.

The Gospel tells of the healing touch of faith, merely on 'the border of His sacred vest;' and thereon is founded a meditation upon the type presented by the child, no longer carried in his mother's arms, but satisfied to cling to her dress, even while she seems not to heed himso well is he assured of her love and care. In the little one is seen the likeness of ourselves-set down, as we are, on this earth to try 'how we can walk alone.' Nay, 'not alone,' is added. The Lord is close to us— our place is safe within His Heart; we cling to Him by the touch of Faith in Sacraments and ordinances, in which we grasp the hem of His garment, and whence we derive the healing virtue that upholds us in our walk-not alone, for His Presence is with us.

TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

THE uncertainty of the number of Trinity Sundays required at this season has made us have only one poem specially fitted to the day— following up that beautiful proverb in the Lesson, 'The hoary head is a crown of glory if it be found going in the way,' and drawing the like signification from the country saying

'A rainbow at night

Is the shepherd's delight;
A rainbow in the morning
Is the shepherd's warning.'

The same thought is in some measure found in those exquisite verses, in

which Southey apologizes for the mirthfulness of his ballad of The Young

* His error in that poem was not the gaiety which he so beautifully defends, but the scoffing tone in which he was wont to treat legends which, though not historically true, dealt with sacred subjects, and were often allegorically real.

Nor marvel you if I prefer

Of playful themes to sing;

The October grove hath brighter tints
Than autumn or than spring.

For o'er the leaves before they fall,
Such hues hath Nature thrown,
That the woods wear in sunless days
A sunshine of their own.

There is some of Southey's self-consciousness and self-complacency here, but the idea is beautifully expressed, and is a worthy parallel to half the thought of Mr. Keble's poem. For this begins with the chastening warning against what Soutbey merely hints at as 'intemperate gladness.' The morning splendour-so brightly described that we almost see the sparkling of the drops on the glistening quivering branches, and the glowing blue and gold of the eastern sky, where the sun has just broken out his way-in contrast with the purple cloud, on whose dark depths towers the gorgeous arch, 'pride of the dewy morning'-that glittering, laughing beauty is but a token 'of a noon of storm and shower;' for the western rainbow is but the glory on the approaching cloud, advancing from the stormy quarter.

So there are other shepherds, who watch the lambs of their flock. They fear to trust that morning radiance:

''Tis not the eye of keenest blaze,
Nor the quick swelling breast,

That soonest thrills at touch of praise—

These do not please him best.'

The vehement passionate nature-responsive indeed and brilliant, but easily daunted, dependent on human praise for stimulus, and therefore more noticeable and more attractive-this nature is like the morning rainbow. It bodes storm and shower. It will surely need much chastening. Well if it meet that chastening aright, so that as it was with David after his repentance

'The matin psalm,

Due cadence find in evening calm.'

There is more tranquil hope for the 'timid glances shy,' 'still wishing, longing to be right, yet fearing to be wrong.' For their wishes and fears do not depend on man's praise or blame, but on the essential right or wrong; and this conscientiousness is often accompanied by a diffidence and shrinking tenderness of feeling—a reverence and shyness, that prevents all display in youth; so that the weather-wise old Scottish proverb is often realized

Such a morning grey-not dull, but from the slow evaporation of the beneficent dew, in such a mist as watered the Garden of Eden ere yet showers were, laden with all the blessings of the heaven above, and blessings of the deep that lieth under,'-is verily full of goodly though silent promise, that 'at evening-time there shall be light.'

These in life's distant evening
Shall shine serenely bright,
As in the autumnal heaven

Mild rainbow tints at night.

When the last shower is stealing down,

And ere they sink to rest,

The sunbeams weave a parting crown

For some sweet woodland nest.

The promise of the morrow

Is glorious on that eve,

Dear as the holy sorrow,

When good men cease to live.

When brightening ere it die away,
Mounts up their altar flame,
Still tending with intenser ray
To Heaven, whence first it came.

Say not it dies, that glory-
'Tis caught unquenched on high;
Those saint-like brows so hoary
Shall wear it in the sky.

No smile is like the smile of death,
When all good musings past,
Rise wafted with the parting breath,
The sweetest thought the last.'

No analyzing is needed by these lovely verses, yet it may add a touching association to them to bring to mind that they were the solace of one 'whose sun is gone down while it was yet day,' yet to whom his sudden evening came as rest from his labours.

On that dreary islet in the African river, where Bishop Mackenzie waited in vain for succour, on the last Sunday of his life, he read aloud this poem to his companion in suffering and soon after in death-just ere 'his altar-flame' of love was received back into Heaven, whence first it came.

SUNDAY BEFORE ADVENT.

How often does this hymn strike to our hearts with its sad and humbling retrospect; and alas! how often have we felt how little our advance since the last time it formed and expressed our sense of failure.

'Gather up the fragments,'—the remnants of the Gospel feast—is the summons; and the question follows, Will fragments and dregs be accepted

from those who might have given a whole life-time? When the heedless indolent mariner finds himself on the verge of the whirl-pool, is it of any benefit for him to cross in prayer the hands which might have kept him out of danger? But if there be indeed time, let us cease to waste it in 'sighs that exhaust but not relieve,' as we look back on our past year, and the festival of love that has been lavished on hearts all too thankless.

Christmas, Passion-tide, Easter, Whitsuntide, all have come in their turn to uplift us; and among these, according to our needs, the

'rites

By which our Mother's voice invites
Our God to bless our home delights,
And sweeten every secret tear.'

And chief of all, 'the dear feast of JESUS dying:' all these have passed by us in turn, without leaving us all the holiness that might have come but for our cold hearts. And yet, it is not that we are disheartened by having no Example nearer and more after our own imperfect powers than that of our Lord Himself afforded to us; for

'Earth's gems the fire of heaven have caught; Martyrs and Saints, each glorious day,

Dawning in order on our way,

Reminds us how our darksome clay

May keep th' ethereal warmth our new Creator brought.'

Nothing-neither feast day, rite, fast, nor example-has done all for us that it might have done; all have been more or less wasted, and our What if it were our life that were as nearly run out as is

year is gone.

the year?

'Our weeks all numbered to the last,

With time and hope behind us cast,

And all our work to do with palsied hands and cold.'

Who knows that it is not even thus? Who knows that death is not as near as is Advent? Well may we be called on to watch and pray at once, well knowing that if there be Love, it can never be vain; and that the knock, if of love, not of fear alone, can never come too late, since Love can glean the scattered fragments, refine the dregs, and purify us for the regions where one thought serene is sweeter than our years of striving imperfect sacrifice below.

Yet that sacrifice below is a blessed and precious thing; and how beloved the thought of it was by the faithful priest may be seen in this day's poem in the Lyra, one of those few which (to our mind) transcend anything in the Christian Year. What can be more exquisite than the opening, in which is poetized the curious facts that science has discovered respecting power and motion. So much is summed up in a few tender lines, that it is hard to reduce them to a cold technical explanation. It may be enough to recall how the form of the earth is just not perfectly

spherical, the axis not perpendicular to the plane of the orbit, the length of the year not perfectly divisible by days or even hours, far less by the revolutions of the moon; and how all these (and other) apparent inequalities combine to produce that tender graduation of heat and cold, day and night, seasons and years, which makes every change insensible at the moment; each period overlapping one another, so that the whole course is not in sharply defined divisions, or sudden leaps,

'But smooth as sea-bird's wing,
Gliding unwearied, now in air,
And now in ocean,

As though life's only call or care
Were graceful motion.'

There is something in this beautiful image of the sweep, dip, and float upwards of the sea-bird, that reminds one of the line of the ecliptic on a globe; and the rhythm of the lines has something of the same perfect grace of sound, while they point out how

'Moon to moon gives silent place,

And bright stars waning

Gradual retire, while morn's still pace

On night is gaining.

Thus for increase or for decay

The seasons hold their viewless way;
Nor but by word of man,

Or measure rude by man imposed,
Know we when day or year hath closed,

Summer or winter's span:

And ever onward as we go,

The wide earth rounding,

The horizon moves in gentle flow,

Not in harsh bounding.'

The cause, of course, is traced to the unseen Providence, guiding His
creatures by His Law, so that their course may be equable, and ‘the
Church may joyfully serve Him in all godly quietness.'
Such, the next verse tells us, are the meditations of

'the instructed soul,

Watching young fingers idly roll

The mimic earth, or trace
In picture bright of blue and gold,
The orbs that round the sky's deep fold

Each other circling chase.'

In the corners of the dining-room at Hursley stood a tall old-fashioned pair of globes, with broad horizons and meridian lines, and the celestial one with the stars so well defined that those of the first magnitude were as big as peas. It would seem that these globes, moved so often by the delighted baby fingers of little visitors, inspired the deep and earnest thought of this poem, the complement less of the Christian Year for this