And there He taught; and, from that dread abode
Driving unhallowed things with scourge and rod.
Called it His Father's House a House of Prayer.
Accept both lessons, Man! God's love is free,
Is universal as pervading Heaven;
Yet be fair temples to His worship given,
The best our hands can offer. And trust, ye
Who turn His gifts unto the Giver's praise,
His smile hath prompted and will bless your ways.
"None that trust in him shall be desolate." Psalm xxxiv. 22.
DISTRUST is that which makes the curse of life.
Oh, if we trusted God, what ills were spared!
The feeling of the outcast makes us hard,
And fierce and places in our hand the knife!
Did man trust man, what desolating strife
Of fiery thought we back from us should ward!
Sweet Faith would be our fortress and our guard
From every anguish with which souls are rife.
And so the Book of God makes all sin light
Weighed with distrust the giant ill of man:
Our happiness commanding under ban
Placing whatever dims the soul with blight;
It whispers still unto our troubled sense,
Heaven would'st thou know? Heaven's charm is con
"There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Acts, iv. 12.
NATURE'S defect, the ground-work of our woe,
Shadowed in all religions grandly forth,
We find from the rude Sagas of the north,
To the high visions bright with India's glow.
This, then, as knowledge which ourselves do know Too sadly this is not the boon to earth
Which makes the Bible so divinely worth,
Or Thou didst come, O Saviour, to bestow!
'Tis the dear love, that, pointing the disease,
Doth also whisper of the remedy;
'Tis the high gift of all that best agrees
With our soiled nature and its sovereign cry,
Forgiveness
- restoration means to rise
Out of ourselves. And these Christ's Word alone supplies.
"The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." St. Mark, ii. 27.
I LOVE thee, Day of God! If rather not
We christen thee, with Christ, the Day of Man!
And thee as offspring of our nature scan,
The very need and yearning of our lot
That, once in seven days, our toil forgot,
We rest; not only the tired artisan,
But all who keep our being's healthful plan,
Lest mind or body overstrained we blot.
When shall we learn that God for His own sake
Nothing commands? that arbitrary powers
Dwell not in Him? that all the gain is ours
When He an ordinance for man doth make:
Chief when He tells us that, one day in seven,
We need a foretaste of our rest in Heaven?
"Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free." Galatians, v. 1.
ARE we beneath the Law of Liberty,
Of God in vain for us the chains undone
That bound us to our nature's slavery?
To pant and strive, yet never once be free;
To labor, as in dreams, at deeds begun
But never ended; all that fancy won
To see dissolved in airy vacancy
Is this to last for ever? Shame, oh shame!
So much of beauty that we will not seize
Upbraids us. When, as now, our thwarted aim
Turns back God's remedies to our disease
Again when broken is the loveliest charm
Of all our toiling days when Sabbaths harm!
"Which of you shall have an ass, or an ox, fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day?" St. Luke, xiv. 5.
WISDOM profound! But do we know it yet!
Alas, beneath our dread of Sabbath-works
Of love and need, a dread deception lurks,
And makes a mischief of a benefit!
What would Christ say, if now His feet were set
Again on earth? He, who from mercy's debt,
Ev'n to an ox or ass, absolved not man
By Sabbath-law? How would He clear His plan
Unto our eyes? now, when our hearts forget
All that we owe our fellow-beings
And care for all; — Love, that all care bestows
That none shall suffer by a day's repose,
And setteth human welfare far above
The pre-conceivéd notions we can bring
To force God's Book to our interpreting.
"It pleased the Father by him to reconcile all things unto himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven." Colossians, i. 19, 20.
WHERE spreads not Thy dominion, Saviour dear?
Where is not Thy salvation's glory thrown?
In heaven Thou wert- to earth Thou camest down — Hell was dissolved before Thee. The vast tear
Of all creation Thou away didst clear,
And turn to music the tremendous groan
And travail of the birth that's laid upon
Whatever is not God!.. Thrilled out of fear,
The air by Thee was touched with rapture's glow!
At the brightness of Thy presence Earth did move
Her burthens to cast off and put on love!
The sea saw that, and fled from her deep woe.
Heaven laughed, and glittered, as if fresh with morn;
God gave a glorious smile
"Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." Ephesians, iv. 30.
EARTH'S giants, to be strong, must touch the Earth, -
Heaven's children must grasp Heaven! Forfeit not
The high prerogative of thy great lot,
Thou soul, that once hast ta'en from Christ thy
Sensual delights not only will make dearth
Within thee; but thy tender God forgot
Will grieve, because thou form'st a thoughtless plot
To mar creation's end thy joy and mirth.
Oh, say, what threatening of a wrath to come
Can move thee like thy own upbraiding heart
Whispering thou hast returned upon thy doom
To pierce thy Saviour with a newer dart.
Ingratitude! that word Heaven's self might dim!
God means thee well-wilt thou mean ill to Him!
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