But his eternal love is sure
To all the saints, and shall endure :
From age to age his truth shall reign,
Nor children's children hope in vain.
TRUE Dignity is his, whose tranquil mind
Virtue has raised above the things below;
Who every hope and fear to Heaven resigned,
Shrinks not, though Fortune aim her deadliest
blow.
WE are pilgrims all on life's rugged way,
And some wear the stole and the staff;
But how tried are these through their toilsome day,
By the scorner's dreaded laugh!
For while on they go in their pilgrim guise,
And hat with cockle-shells,
How oft the worldly scorner cries,
"Lo, Folly, with cap and bells!"
But the pilgrim prays, and then trials are light,
For prayer to him on his way
Resembles the pillar of fire by night,
And the guiding cloud by day.
And vain were the hat, the staff, and stole,
And all outward signs were a snare,
Unless the pilgrim's endangered soul,
Were inwardly clothed with prayer.
And salvation's helm the pilgrim wears,
Or vain were all other dress-
And the shield of faith the pilgrim bears,
With "the breastplate of righteousness."
So clad, so armed, to his journey's end
He goes secure from wrongs,
And when Zion's hill his feet ascend,
How sweetly will sound her songs!
But rough are its sides, and steep its ascent,
Yet onward he firmly go,
Protecting wings will o'er him be bent,
And the Saviour will strength bestow.
And when Zion's glittering walls are near,
Though his eyes may with tears be dim,
Some rays from her gates his soul will cheer,
And the swell of her choral hymn.
At length, his tears all wiped away,
He enters the city of light,
And how gladly he changes his gown of gray,
For Zion's robe of white!
Then the dear and the blessed ones meet his gaze, From whom death no more shall sever,
And he joins in their endless hymn of praise, "Hallelujah! for ever and ever!"
THOUGHTS of heaven! they come when low
The summer even breeze doth faintly blow;
When the mighty sea shines clear, unstirred
By the wavering tide, or the dipping bird:
They come in the rush of the surging storm,
When the blackening waves rear their giant form—
When o'er the dark rocks curl the breakers white,
And the terrible lightnings rend the night—
When the noble ship hath vainly striven
With the tempest's might, come thoughts of heaven.
They come where man doth not intrude,
In the untracked forest's solitude;
In the stillness of the gray rock's height,
Where the lonely eagle takes his flight;
On peaks where lie the eternal snows;
In the sunbright isle, mid its rich repose.
In the heathy glen; by the dark clear lake,
When the fair swan sails from her silent brake;
When nature reigns in her deepest rest,
Pure thoughts of heaven come unrepressed.
They come as we gaze on the midnight sky,
When the star-gemmed vault looks dark and high,
And the soul, on the wings of thought sublime,
Soars from the dim world, and the bounds of time.
Till the mental eye becomes unsealed,
And the mystery of being in light revealed.
They rise in the gothic chapel dim,
When slowly comes forth the holy hymn,
And the organ's rich tones swell full and high,
Till the roof peals back the melody.
Thoughts of heaven! from his joy beguiled,
They come to the bright-eyed, sinless child;
To the man of age in his dim decay,
Bringing hope that his youth had borne away ;
To the woe-smit soul in its dark distress,
As flowers spring up in the wilderness;
And in silent chambers of the dead,
When the mourner goes with soundless tread;
For as the day-beams freely fall,
Pure thoughts of heaven are sent to all.
THE BIBLE OUR ONLY TRUE GUIDE.
WHAT is the world?—a wildering maze,
Where sin hath tracked ten thousand ways,
Her victims to ensnare;
All broad, and winding, and aslope,
All tempting with perfidious hope,
All ending in despair.
Millions of pilgrims throng these roads,
Bearing their baubles or their loads
Down to eternal night;
One only path that never bends,
Narrow, and rough, and steep, ascends
From darkness into light.
Is there no guide to show that path?
The Bible!-He alone who hath
The Bible need not stray;
But he who hath, and will not give
That light of life to all that live,
Himself shall lose the way.
I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours:
Where are they! With the years beyond the flood.
It is the signal that demands despatch.
How much is to be done? My hopes and fears
Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-on what? a fathomless abyss;
A dread eternity! how surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,
Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour!
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