5.

O Holy Truth, whene'er thy voice is heard,

A thousand echoes answer to the call;
Tho' oft inaudible thy gentle word,

While we regard not. Take me from the thrall
Of passionate Hopes, be thou my All in All;
So may Obedience lead me by the hand

Into thine inner shrine and secret hall.

Thence hath thy voice gone forth o'er Sea and Land, And all that voice may hear,-but none can understand,

6.

Save the obedient. From both love and hate,
Affections vile, low cares, and envy's blight,
And controversial leanings and debate,
Save me! from earthly film my mental sight
Purge thou, make my whole body full of Light!
So may my eyes from all things Truth convey,
My ears in all thy lessons read aright,

My dull heart understand, and I obey,

Following where'er the Church hath mark'd the Ancient Way.

ૐ.

DISSENT.

XCVIII.

"That we should earnestly contend for the faith that was once [for all] delivered unto the saints.”—St. Jude, 3.

ONE only Way to life;

One Faith, delivered once for all;

One holy Band, endow'd with Heaven's high call; One earnest, endless Strife ;

This is the Church th' Eternal fram'd of old.

Smooth open ways, good store;

A creed for every clime and age

By Mammon's touch new moulded o'er and o'er ;
No cross, no war to wage ;-

This is the church our earth-dimm'd eyes behold.

But ways must have an end,

Creeds undergo the trial-flame,

Nor with th' impure the Saints for ever blend,
Heaven's glory with our shame :—

Think on that hour, and chuse 'twixt soft and bold.

M

Y.

CI.

"I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd.

POOR wanderers, ye are sore distrest

To find that path which CHRIST has blest
Tracked by His saintly throng;

Each claims to trust his own weak will,
Blind idol !—so ye languish still,
All wranglers, and all wrong.

He saw of old, and met your need,
Granting you prophets of His creed,

The throes of fear to suage;

They fenced the rich bequest He made,
And sacred hands have safe conveyed
Their charge from age to age.

Wanderers! come home! when erring most
Christ's Church aye kept the faith, nor lost
One grain of Holy Truth;

She ne'er has erred as those ye trust,
And now shall lift her from the dust,

And REIGN as in her youth!

RELIGIOUS STATES.

CII.

PATRIARCHAL FAITH.

WE are not children of a guilty sire,

Since Noe stept from out his wave-tossed home, And a stern baptism flushed earth's faded bloom. Not that the heavens then cleared, or cherub's fire From Eden's portal did at once retire;

But thoughts were stirred of Him who was to come, Whose rainbow hues so streaked the o'ershadowing

gloom,

That faith could e'en that desolate scene admire.
The Lord has come and gone; and now we wait
The second substance of the deluge type,

When our slight ark shall cross a molten surge;
So, while the gross earth melts, for judgment ripe,
Ne'er with its haughty turrets to emerge,

We shall mount up to Eden's long lost gate.

8.

XCIX.

IDOLATRY AND DISSENT.

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."

"THE thing that hath been, it shall be."

Through every clime and age

Doth haughty man, 'gainst Heav'n's decree,
The same mad warfare wage;

Deeming, of old, the homage shame
Which One on High of right could claim,
Loathing a power that based not still

Its throne upon his own wild will,

Gods whom he chose, and made, he served alone, And worshipped his own pride, in blocks of wood and

stone.

"The thing that hath been, it shall be."

The self-same pride this hour

Bids headstrong myriads round us flee

The Church's sheltering bower.