XII.

CONFESSION.

My smile is bright, my glance is free,
My voice is calm and clear;
Dear friend, I seem a type to thee
Of holy love and fear.

But I am scanned by Eyes unseen,
And these no saint surround;
They mete what is by what has been,
And joy the lost is found.

Erst my good Angel shrank to see
My thoughts and ways of ill;
And now he scarce dare gaze on me,

Scar-seamed and crippled still.

S.

XIII.

AWE.

I BOW at Jesus' Name, for 'tis the Sign
Of awful mercy towards a guilty line.-
Of shameful ancestry, in birth defiled,
And upwards from a child

Full of unlovely thoughts and rebel aims
As hastening judgment flames,

How can I lightly view my Means of life ?-
The Just assailing sin, and death-stained in the strife!

And so, albeit His woe is our release,

Thought of that woe aye dims our earthly peace;
The Life is hidden in a Fount of Blood!-

And this is tidings good,

But in the Angels' reckoning, and to those
Who Angel-wise have chose

And kept, like Paul, a virgin course, content

To go where Jesus went;

But for the many, laden with the spot

And earthly taint of sin, 'tis written, "Touch Me not."

с

d.

XIV.

THE CROSS OF CHRIST.

"Ad omnem progressum atque promotum, ad omnem aditum et exitum, ad vestitum, ad calciatum, ad lavacra, ad mensas, ad lumina, ad cubilia, ad sedilia, quacunque nos conversatio exercet, frontem Crucis signaculo terimus." Tertull. de Corona, § 3.

WHENE'ER across this sinful flesh of mine
I draw the Holy Sign,

All good thoughts stir within me, and collect
Their slumbering strength divine;

Till there springs up that hope of God's elect
My faith shall ne'er be wrecked.

And who shall say, but hateful spirits around,
For their brief hour unbound,

Shudder to see, and wail their overthrow?

While on far heathen ground

Some lonely Saint hails the fresh odour, though
Its source he cannot know.

"And there shall in nowise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie; but they which are written in the Lamb's Book of Life."

EACH morn and eve, the Golden Keys

Are lifted in the sacred hand,

To shew the sinner on his knees

Where heaven's bright doors wide open stand.

On the dread Altar duly laid

The Golden Keys their witness bear,
That not in vain the Church hath pray'd,
That He, the Life of Souls, is there.

Full of the past, all shuddering thought,
Man waits his hour with upward eye-†
The Golden Keys in love are brought

That he may hold by them and die.

1. In the Daily Service. 2. In the Communion. 3. In the Visitation of the Sick.

† Vid. Death-bed Scenes, "The Barton Family." §3.

But touch them trembling; for that gold

Proves iron in the unworthy hand,

To close, not ope, the favour'd fold,

To bind, not loose, the lost soul's band.

XVI.

7.

"And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. soever will, let him take of the waters of life freely."

O LORD, I hear, but can it be

The gracious word was meant for me?
O Lord, I thirst, but who shall tell
The secret of that living well,
By whose waters I may rest
And slake this lip unblest?

O Lord, I will, but cannot do,
My heart is hard, my faith untrue :
The Spirit and the Bride say, Come,
The eternal ever-blessed Home

Ope'd its portals at my birth,
But I am chained to earth :

him that

And who