Then in a nobler, sweeter song

I'll sing thy power to save;

When this poor lisping, stammering tongue Lies silent in the grave.

Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared,
Unworthy though I be,

For me a blood-bought free reward,
A golden harp for me!

Tis strung, and tuned for endless years,
And formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father's ears
No other name but thine.

JOY AND PEACE IN BELIEVING.

Sometimes a light surprises

The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord who rises

With healing in his wings:
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after rain.

In holy contemplation,
We sweetly then pursue
The theme of God's salvation,
And find it ever new;
Set free from present sorrow,
We cheerfully can say,
E'en let the unknown to-morrow,
Bring with it what it may.

It can bring with it nothing,
But He will bear us through;
Who gives the lilies clothing,
Will clothe his people too;

JOHN NEWTON was born in London, July 24th, 1725. From the year 1736 to 1754, he followed a seafaring life. In 1764 he was ordained by the Bishop of Lincoln to the curacy of Olney, where he continued for nearly sixteen years, and was then appointed to the rectory of St. Mary Woolnoth, London. He died on the 21st December, 1807, and was interred in his own church on the last day of that year. He wrote, jointly with Cowper, the Olney Hymns, and from those contributed by him, the two following, graphically experimental and analytic of the Christian life, are taken.

LOVEST THOU ME?

'Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causeth anxious thought!
Do I love the Lord, or no?
Am I his, or am I not?

If I love, why am I thus ?
Why this dull, this lifeless frame ?
Hardly, sure, can they be worse,
Who have never heard his name!

Could my heart so hard remain,
Prayer a task and burden prove,
Every trifle give me pain,
If I knew a Saviour's love?

When I turn my eyes within,
All is dark, and vain, and wild,
Filled with unbelief and sin,
Can I deem myself a child?

If I pray, or hear, or read,
Sin is mixed with all I do;
You that love the Lord indeed,
Tell me, Is it thus with you?

Yet I mourn my stubborn will,
Find my sin a grief and thrall
Should I grieve for what I feel,
If I did not love at all?

Could I joy his saints to meet,
Choose the ways I once abhorred,
Find, at times, the promise sweet,
If I did not love the Lord ?

Lord, decide the doubtful case !
Thou, who art thy people's Sun,
Shine upon thy work of grace,
If it be indeed begun.

Let me love Thee more and more,
If I love at all, I pray;
If I have not loved before,
Help me to begin to day.

THE INWARD WARFARE.

Strange and mysterious is my life,
What opposites I feel within!
A stable peace, a constant strife;
The rule of grace, the power of sin;
Too often I am captive led,

Yet daily triumph in my Head.

I prize the privilege of prayer,
But oh what backwardness to pray !
Though on the Lord I cast my care,
I feel its burden every day;

I seek his will in all I do,

Yet find my own is working too.

I call the promises my own

And prize them more than mines of gold;
Yet though their sweetness I have known,
They leave me unimpressed and cold;
One hour upon the truth I feed,
The next I know not what I read.

I love the holy day of rest,

When Jesus meets his gathered saints;
Sweet day, of all the week the best!
For its return my spirit pants;
Yet often, through my unbelief,
It proves a day of guilt and grief.

While on my Saviour I rely,
I know my foes shall lose their aim;
And therefore dare their power defy,
Assured of conquest through his name:
But soon my confidence is slain,
And all my fears return again.

Thus different powers within me strive,
And grace and sin by turns prevail;
I grieve, rejoice, decline, revive,
And victory hangs in doubtful scale:
But Jesus has his promise past,
That grace shall overcome at last.

ROBERT BURNS was born near Ayr, in the year 1759. To follow circumstantially a life in which passion and religion, circumstance and genius, wrestled continually together, would give no great number of facts in keeping with the natural idea of a writer of sacred verse. But indeed the productions of Burns in this kind are few; and the works of his biographers, critics, and eulogizers, are at every man's right hand. Burns died at Dumfries in 1796, "in disease, and in utter poverty, but without one farthing of debt." Hazlitt says, "In naiveté, in spirit, in characteristic humour, in vivid description of natural objects, and of the natural feelings of the heart, he has left behind him no superior." The second extract, from "The Cotter's Saturday Night," is a beautifully touching picture of "the saint, the father, and the husband," in the act of conducting the domestic devotions of humble life.

The wintry West extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;
Or the stormy North sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw: