So it was, that 'Creation's wondrous choir' began with full harmony of praise; and still 'all' the works of the Lord praise Him, and magnify Him for ever;' and nothing mars their sweet music save man, who should have been its leader, but now overpowers

'with harsh din

The music of Thy works and word,

Ill matched with grief and sin.'

Sin and the world overpower the voice of nature all day; but in the silence of evening, any susceptible soul must become alive to the solemnity and purity of the scene; and the 'still and deep,' though often undefined, impressions that fall on our souls, are the same

'At which high spirits of old would start,
Even from their pagan sleep.'

It would not be easy here to specify the proofs of such yearnings; they are
too numerous, and perhaps more in the spirit than the letter of individual
passages; but let us recollect Hesiod's four ages, Homer's wonderful
passage on the halting prayers that follow in the track of evil; the
Pythagorean theory of the harmony of creation; the grand Promethean
legend, and that of Eros and Psyche, and the whole tone of Æschylus,
and we feel the throbbings of those great bewildered hearts.
Or, again, take these lines of Euripides:

'We will not look on her burial sod
As the cell of sepulchral sleep;

It shall be as the shrine of a radiant God;
And the pilgrim shall visit that blest abode,
To worship, and not to weep.'

Even a child cannot read of Socrates' life and death, without reverence for his grasp of the truth, almost out of reach; and Plato's system was only too perfect for a heathen. Nay, Virgil almost divined the restoration at hand; and though Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, the Seekers after God,' failed to comprehend the Light when it was already shining in the world, they were deeply sensible of the longing for perfection. Even the rude north looked beyond the dread Twilight of the gods,' to a perfect restitution of all things. These thoughts were 'the wreck of Paradise,' and long upbore whatever was good or pure; but though the suffering of nature was perceived, neither reason nor hope could have discovered the remedy.

The hour that saw from opening heaven
Redeeming glory stream,

Beyond the summer hues of heaven,

Beyond the mid-day beam.

Thenceforth to eyes of high desire,

The meanest things below,

As with a seraph's robe of fire
Invested, burn and glow.

The rod of Heaven has touched them all,
The word from Heaven is spoken;
Rise, shine, and sing, thou captive thrall;
Are not thy fetters broken ?'

Yet all is not mirth and joy in creation. Living things still feel pain, the more acute in proportion to their finer development; decay passes on all in existence; and, as Dante touchingly says, the loveliest forms in nature are as if made by an artificer with a trembling hand. Why is this? Because, though the world is redeemed, 'sin lingers still:' the full adoption of the sons of God is not complete; the redemption of the body,' which belongs to the world of Adam, is not yet complete; and until our Lord return, creation still must be subject to vanity, i.e. nothingness and decay, in hope of that hour when He shall make new heavens and a new earth; when old things shall have passed away, and all things shall have become new.

'The creature' sings his chant of promise again in the person of the robin-redbreast, that so often haunts our churches, that it seems hardly needful to specify one which spent its winters in Winchester Cathedral as a home, and which we believe to have been the subject of this poem, especially as it was often heard singing throughout the Anthem, and continuing through the ensuing prayers and the Thanksgiving. To the poet, the sweet joyous song, breaking forth from the top of the old crowned chests of the bones of kings a thousand years ago, and chiming in as we bless God for our creation, preservation, and the redemption of the world, seems to say,

'Not man alone

Lives in the shade of JESU's Throne,
And shares the saints' employ.'

The angels, who were not purchased by the Death of Christ, like us, adore It with us, we know; and may not some gleams of light have fallen from our Lord on our sinless companions, who suffer because he who has dominion over them has transgressed?

We know that the sheep at Bethlehem saw the angelic choir; and the ox and ass shared the cave where the holy Babe was born; nay, the patient and often misused animal, whom our Lord selected for His triumphal procession, bears the mark of His own Cross. Surely we who bear that sign should fear to enthrall to woe and wrong His

'creatures sealed

For blessing; aid to earn and yield,

As ere our father's fall.'

The spirit is akin to that of the beautiful legends of St. Francis and the birds; or of St. Antony of Padua and the frogs, whose croakings he silenced because they interfered with his devotions, until he felt himself rebuked by coming to the words, 'O ye whales, and all that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord! praise Him and magnify Him for ever.'

FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

MUCH more simple than those we have had lately to study, is this song of the fishermen of Bethsaida. It is of course primarily the meditation of one of the 'fishers of men,' the ministry of the Church; but it also touches the hearts of all who are in any way set to seek the souls' that Christ hath bought;' and who is not? Who has not felt how far from tranquil is our ocean? who has not watched in anxiety? who has not been disappointed in the best considered schemes, and known the sad dawn of cheerless day,' when those for whom we have most earnestly sought refuse to be brought in? Yet still there is the same confidence:

'Our Master is at hand

To cheer our solitary song,
And guide us to the strand :'

but only in His own time, and when we have toiled in many waters, still patiently, hopefully, dutifully. There are times of success too; and then well is it if we take the warning from the prophet of old, against worshipping our own nets; namely, ascribing the work to our own contrivance; adoring, so to speak, our own influence, our pains, care, or good management, and saying, 'My own right hand, and the strength of my might, hath gotten me these.'

Perhaps St. Bernard best met such a temptation when, on feeling some complacency in a sermon of his own, he burst forth aloud, 'Satan, I did not make this for thee; neither hast thou any part therein.'

In the Lyra, the Christiaff child is addressed as anointed, even as David was, and reminded of his Christian conflict. The lion and the bear represent childish faults conquered by prayer; but the mightier foe, the battle of the life, is approaching. Confirmation bestows a stronger life, and the armour must be put on; not sword, shield, or spear, but ‘Charm words from our Book,' and 'Gems from our baptismal brook,' are the weapons. For since Satan attacks us through all our five gateways' of the senses, each must be guarded with the smooth stones from the Fount; namely, the Commandments, the Word of God, that we know to be the best weapon against Satan. Then

Mark and use the trial hour;

When his whispers nearest sound,
Be thou then most faithful found;
Then tread down his power.

Stripling though thou be and frail,
Thy right hand shall wield his sword;
From him take his head abhorred,
Christ in thee prevail.

(To be continued.)

MEDIEVAL SEQUENCES AND HYMNS.

No. XVIII.-ON THE HOLY TRINITY.

(Vox clarescat, meus purgetur)

VOICES clear and souls unstained
Bring with emulation high,
Joining innocence unfeigned

To the lips' best melody.
Father, Son, and Spirit praise we,

With exultant hearts and minds;
To the Three one anthem raise we,
Whom One simple Essence binds.

God the Father, self-existent,

God the sole-begotten Son,
Love of God, in them subsistent,
Are in very Nature One;
Three in Person unconfounded,
One in Godhead, One in Name,

One in Majesty unbounded,
In all attributes the Same.

Each in His own function truly
From the Two distinguished is,
But no human mind can duly
Fathom such deep mysteries.
Father, Son, and Spirit, ever

Aid us in our ghostly strife;
Us from bonds of sin dissever,
Bring us to eternal life.

Amen.

ENOUGH TO KNOW.

We need not seek for strange outlying lands
Of thought and knowledge: as we onward go
In paths of God's appointment and commands,
There is enough to learn, enough to know.

Was Moses bound to teach geology

To the young world, scarce able to avow That God is not the earth, or sea, or sky?

That God made all things was enough to know.

Yon stars may be the homes of heavenly bliss;
They may be hells of unimagined woe:
Christ's Passion may have saved more worlds than this :
It saved this world; this is enough to know.

This earth is one among a million orbs;

Our system one 'mid myriads more that glow : Nor need we think that our sad state absorbs God's mercy His mercy is enough to know.

Throughout His universe may be a plan

Of worlds and creatures, high in the scale and low, Intact, fallen, redeemed; like this world's man, Perhaps our Saviour is enough to know.

We know not yet the history of our earth;
Yet think to see God moving to and fro,
Among the ages ere our planet's birth:

God was and is; this is enough to know.

Some think God cannot wash away our sins
In water; or in bread and wine stoop low

To feed our souls: but our reply begins,

'The TRUTH spake thus-:' This is enough to know.

How little even the wisest knows! The child

May know all needful things; and even so

As children we receive Truth undefiled:

Our God is Truth; this is enough to know.

F. HARRISON.