PART II.

REVELATION: THE OLD TESTAMENT.

THE BIBLE.

BERNARD BARTON.

LAMP of our feet! whereby we trace
Our path, when wont to stray;
Stream from the fount of heavenly grace!
Brook by the traveller's way!

Bread of our souls! whereon we feed;
True manna from on high!

Our guide and chart! wherein we read
Of realms beyond the sky.

Pillar of fire, through watches dark!

Of radiant cloud, by day!

When waves would whelm our tossing bark, Our anchor and our stay!

Pole-star on life's tempestuous deep! Beacon! when doubts surround; Compass! by which our course we keep; Our deep-sea lead, to sound!

Riches in poverty! our aid
In every needful hour!
Unshaken rock! the pilgrim's shade,
The soldier's fortress tower!

Our shield and buckler in the fight!
Victory's triumphant palm!
Comfort in grief! in weakness, might!
In sickness, Gilead's balm!

Childhood's preceptor! manhood's trust!

Old age's firm ally!

Our hope

when we go down to dust

Of immortality!

Pure oracles of Truth Divine!

Unlike each fabled dream

Given forth from Delphos' mystic shrine,

Or groves of Academe!

Word of the Ever-living God!

Will of his glorious Son!

Without thee how could earth be trod?

Or heaven itself be won?

PLEDGES OF MERCY.

Yet to unfold thy hidden worth,
Thy mysteries to reveal,

That SPIRIT which first gave thee forth
Thy volume must UNSEAL!

And we, if we aright would learn

The wisdom it imparts,

Must to its heavenly teachings turn
With simple, child-like hearts!

PLEDGES OF MERCY.

JOHN KEBLE. CHRISTIAN YEAR.

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"I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth."

Gen. ix. 13.

SWEET Dove! the softest, steadiest plume

In all the sun-bright sky,

Brightening in ever-changeful bloom,

As breezes change on high;

Sweet Leaf! the pledge of peace and mirth,

"Long sought and lately won,"

Blest increase of reviving earth,

When first it felt the sun;

Sweet Rainbow! pride of summer days,

High set at Heaven's command, Though into drear and dusky haze Thou melt on either hand;

Dear tokens of a pardoning God,
We hail ye, one and all,

As when our fathers walked abroad,
Freed from their twelvemonth's thrall.

How joyful from the imprisoning ark
On the green earth they spring!
Not blither, after showers, the lark
Mounts up with glistening wing.

So home-bound sailors spring to shore,
Two oceans safely past;

So happy souls, when life is o'er,
Plunge in the empyreal vast.

What wins their first and fondest gaze In all the blissful field,

And keeps it through a thousand days? Love, face to face revealed;

Love, imaged in that cordial look
Our Lord in Eden bends

On souls that sin and earth forsook
In time to die his friends.

PLEDGES OF MERCY.

And what most welcome and serene
Dawns on the Patriarch's eye
In all the emerging hills so green,
In all the brightening sky?

What but the gentle rainbow's gleam,
Soothing the wearied sight

That cannot bear the solar beam,
With soft undazzling light?

Lord, if our fathers turned to thee

With such adoring gaze,

Wondering frail man thy light should see Without thy scorching blaze,

Where is our love, and where our hearts,
We who have seen thy Son,
Have tried thy Spirit's winning arts,
And yet we are not won?

The Son of God in radiance beamed

Too bright for us to scan,

But we may face the rays that streamed
From the mild Son of Man.

There, parted into rainbow hues,

In sweet, harmonious strife,

We see celestial love diffuse

Its light o'er Jesus' life.

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