He was a HENRY USTICK ONDERDONK, a bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was born in New York City, in March, 1789, and died at Philadelphia, Dec. 6. 1858. graduate of Columbia College, and took a degree in medicine in Edinburgh, in 1810. WHEN, Lord, to this our Western land, Led by thy providential hand, Our wandering fathers came, Their ancient homes, their friends in youth, Sent forth the heralds of thy truth, To keep them in thy name. Then, through our solitary coast, Thy temples there arose; Our shores, as culture made them fair, And oh, may we repay this debt LOOK from thy sphere of endless day, O God of mercy and of might; In pity look on those who stray, Benighted, in this land of light. In peopled vale, in lonely glen, In crowded mart, by stream or sea, How many of the sons of men Hear not the message sent from thee. Send forth thy heralds, Lord, to call Be gathered to thy peaceful fold. Send them thy mighty word to speak, And bind and heal the broken heart. Then all these wastes, a dreary scene, That make us sadden as we gaze, Shall grow with living waters green, And lift to heaven the voice of praise. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 1840. ATTRACTION OF THE EAST. WHAT secret current of man's nature turns Unto the golden East with ceaseless flow? The pilgrim spirit would adore and glow; Rapt in high thoughts, though weary, faint, and slow, Lay in bright peace? O thou true eastern star, FELICIA HEMANS SCRIPTURAL PLACES, SCENES, AND CHARACTERS. SACRED AND PROFANE WRITERS. SIR AUBREY DE VERE, Bart., was born at Curragh Chase, Adare, in the interesting county of Limerick, Ireland, Aug. 28, 1788. As a poet he is known chiefly by his sonnets, which were pronounced by Wordsworth to be among the most perfect of the age, and by his dramas, which challenged comparison with Tennyson's on the same subject, the life of Mary Tudor. Sir Aubrey's life was that of a country gentleman, and was mainly passed at the place of his birth, the ancestral home. now occupied by his son, who bears his name. he died July 28, 1845. There With the glide of a spirit I traverse the sod Made bright by the steps of the angels of God. Blue sea of the hills!-- in my spirit I hear Thy waters, Genesaret, chime on my ear; Where the Lowly and Just with the people sat down, And thy spray on the dust of his sandals was thrown. Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green, And the desolate hills of the wild Gadarene; And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see The gleam of thy waters, O dark Galilee ! Hark, a sound in the valley! where, swollen and strong, Thy river, O Kishon, is sweeping along; Where the Canaanite strove with Jehovah in vain, And thy torrent grew dark with the blood of the slain. Oh, the outward hath gone! — but in glory and power, The Spirit surviveth the things of an hour; Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame On the heart's secret altar is burning the same! JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. THE PATHWAYS OF THE HOLY LAND. THE pathways of Thy land are little changed Since Thou wert there; The busy world through other ways has ranged, And left these bare. The rocky path still climbs the glowing steep Of Olivet, Though rains of two millenniums wear it deep. Still to the gardens o'er the brook it leads, Before his sheep the shepherd on it treads, The wild fig throws broad shadows o'er it still Peasants go home at evening up that hill And as when gazing thou didst weep o'er them, The white roofs of discrowned Jerusalem These ways were strewed with garments once, and palm, Which we tread thus: Here through thy triumph on thou passedst, calm, On to thy cross. The waves have washed fresh sands upon the shore Of Galilee; But chiselled in the hillsides evermore Thy paths we see. Man has not changed them in that slumbering land, Nor time effaced: Where thy feet trod to bless we still may stand; All can be traced. Yet we have traces of thy footsteps far Where'er the poor and tried and suffering are. |