Chapter 10

THE mid-day sun, with fiercest glare, Broods o’er the hazy twinkling air: Along the level sand The palm-tree’s shade unwavering lies, Just as thy towers, Damascus, rise To greet you wearied band.

The leader of that martial crew Seems bent some mighty deed to do, So steadily he speeds, With lips firm closed and fixèd eye, Like warrior when the fight is night, Nor talk nor landscape heeds.

What sudden blaze is round him poured, As though all Heaven’s refulgent hoard In one rich glory shone? One moment—and to earth he falls: What voice his inmost heart appalls?— Voice heard by him alone.

For to the rest both words and form Seem lost in lightning and in storm, While Saul, in wakeful trance, Sees deep within that dazzling field His persecuted Lord revealed, With keen yet pitying glance:

And hears time meek upbraiding call As gently on his spirit fall, As if th’ Almighty Son Were prisoner yet in this dark earth, Nor had proclaimed His royal birth, Nor His great power begun.

“Ah! wherefore persecut’st thou Me?” He heard and saw, and sought to free His strained eyes from the sight: But Heaven’s high magic bound it there, Still gazing, though untaught to bear Th’ insufferable light.

“Who art Thou, Lord?” he falters forth:— So shall Sin ask of heaven and earth At the last awful day. “When did we see Thee suffering nigh, And passed Thee with unheeding eye? Great God of judgment, say!”

Ah! little dream our listless eyes What glorious presence they despise, While, in our noon of life, To power or fame we rudely press.— Christ is at hand, to scorn or bless, Christ suffers in our strife.

And though heaven’s gate long since have closed, And our dear Lord in bliss reposed, High above mortal ken, To every ear in every land (Thought meek ears only understand) He speaks as he did then.

“Ah! wherefore persecute ye Me? ’Tis hard, ye so in love should be With your own endless woe. Know, though at God’s right hand I live, I feel each wound ye reckless give To the least saint below.

“I in your care My brethren left, Not willing ye should be bereft Of waiting on your Lord. The meanest offering ye can make— A drop of water—for love’s sake, In Heaven, be sure, is stored.”

O by those gentle tones and dear, When thou hast stayed our wild career, Thou only hope of souls, Ne’er let us cast one look behind, But in the thought of Jesus find What every thought controls.

As to Thy last Apostle’s heart Thy lightning glance did then impart Zeal’s never-dying fire, So teach us on Thy shrine to lay Our hearts, and let them day by day Intenser blaze and higher.

And as each mild and winning note (Like pulses that round harp-strings float When the full strain is o’er) Left lingering on his inward ear Music, that taught, as death drew near, Love’s lesson more and more:

So, as we walk our earthly round, Still may the echo of that sound Be in our memory stored “Christians! behold your happy state: Christ is in these, who round you wait; Make much of your dear Lord!”

The Purification.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. _St. Matthew_ v. 8.

BLESS’D are the pure in heart, For they shall see our God, The secret of the Lord is theirs, Their soul is Christ’s abode.

Might mortal thought presume To guess an angel’s lay, Such are the notes that echo through The courts of Heaven to-day.

Such the triumphal hymns On Sion’s Prince that wait, In high procession passing on Towards His temple-gate.

Give ear, ye kings—bow down, Ye rulers of the earth— This, this is He: your Priest by grace, Your God and King by birth.

No pomp of earthly guards Attends with sword and spear, And all-defying, dauntless look, Their monarch’s way to clear;

Yet are there more with Him Than all that are with you— The armies of the highest Heaven, All righteous, good, and true.

Spotless their robes and pure, Dipped in the sea of light, That hides the unapproachèd shrine From men’s and angels’ sight.

His throne, thy bosom blest, O mother undefiled— That throne, if aught beneath the skies, Beseems the sinless child.

Lost in high thoughts, “whose son The wondrous Babe might prove,” Her guileless husband walks beside, Bearing the hallowed dove;

Meet emblem of His vow, Who, on this happy day, His dove-like soul—best sacrifice— Did on God’s altar lay.

But who is he, by years Bowed, but erect in heart, Whose prayers are struggling with his tears? “Lord, let me now depart.

“Now hath Thy servant seen Thy saving health, O Lord; ’Tis time that I depart in peace, According to Thy word.”

Yet swells this pomp: one more Comes forth to bless her God; Full fourscore years, meek widow, she Her heaven-ward way hath troth.

She who to earthly joys So long had given farewell, Now sees, unlooked for, Heaven on earth, Christ in His Israel.

Wide open from that hour The temple-gates are set, And still the saints rejoicing there The holy Child have met.

Now count His train to-day, Auth who may meet Him, learn: Him child-like sires, meek maidens find, Where pride can nought discern.

Still to the lowly soul He doth Himself impart, And for His cradle and His throne Chooseth the pure in heart.

St. Matthias’ Day.

Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, unto the same day that He was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection. _Acts_ i. 21, 22.

WHO is God’s chosen priest? He, who on Christ stands waiting day and night, Who traceth His holy steps, nor ever ceased, From Jordan banks to Bethphage height:

Who hath learned lowliness From his Lord’s cradle, patience from His Cross; Whom poor men’s eyes and hearts consent to bless; To whom, for Christ, the world is loss;

Who both in agony Hath seen Him and in glory; and in both Owned Him divine, and yielded, nothing loth, Body and soul, to live and die,

In witness of his Lord, In humble following of his Saviour dear: This is the man to wield th’ unearthly sword, Warring unharmed with sin and fear.

But who can o’er suffice— What mortal—for this more than angels’ task, Winning or losing souls, Thy life-blood’s price? The gift were too divine to ask.

But Thou hast made it sure By Thy dear promise to thy Church and Bride, That Thou, on earth, wouldst aye with her endure, Till earth to Heaven be purified.

Thou art her only spouse, Whose arm supports her, on Whose faithful breast Her persecuted head she meekly bows, Sure pledge of her eternal rest.

Thou, her unerring guide, Stayest her fainting steps along the wild; Thy merit is on the bowers of lust and pride, That she may pass them undefiled.

Who then, uncalled by Thee, Dare touch Thy spouse, Thy very self below? Or who dare count him summoned worthily, Except Thine hand and seal he show?

Where can Thy seal be found, But on thou chosen seed, from age to age By thine anointed heralds duly crowned, As kings and priests Thy war to wage?

Then fearless walk we forth, Yet full of trembling, Messengers of God: Our warrant sure, but doubting of our worth, By our own shame alike and glory awed.

Dread Searcher of the hearts, Thou who didst seal by Thy descending Dove Thy servant’s choice, O help us in our parts, Else helpless found, to learn and teach Thy love.

The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

And the Angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

_St. Luke_ i. 28.

OH! Thou who deign’st to sympathise With all our frail and fleshly ties, Maker yet Brother dear, Forgive the too presumptuous thought, If, calming wayward grief, I sought To gaze on Thee too near.

Yet sure ’twas not presumption, Lord, ’Twas Thine own comfortable word That made the lesson known: Of all the dearest bonds we prove, Thou countest sons and mothers’ love Most sacred, most Thine own.

When wandering here a little span, Thou took’st on Thee to rescue man, Thou had’st no earthly sire: That wedded love we prize so dear, As if our heaven and home were here, It lit in Thee no fire.

On no sweet sister’s faithful breast Wouldst Thou Thine aching forehead rest, On no kind brother lean: But who, O perfect filial heart, E’er did like Thee a true son’s part, Endearing, firm, serene?

Thou wept’st, meek maiden, mother mild, Thou wept’st upon thy sinless Child, Thy very heart was riven: And yet, what mourning matron here Would deem thy sorrows bought too dear By all on this side Heaven?

A Son that never did amiss, That never shamed His Mother’s kiss, Nor crossed her fondest prayer: E’en from the tree He deigned to bow, For her His agonised brow, Her, His sole earthly care.

Ave Maria! blessèd Maid! Lily of Eden’s fragrant shade, Who can express the love That nurtured thee so pure and sweet, Making thy heart a shelter meet For Jesus’ holy dove?

Ave Maria! Mother blest, To whom, caressing and caressed, Clings the eternal Child; Favoured beyond Archangels’ dream, When first on Thee with tenderest gleam Thy new-born Saviour smiled:—

Ave Maria! thou whose name All but adoring love may claim, Yet may we reach thy shrine; For He, thy Son and Saviour, vows To crown all lowly lofty brows With love and joy like thine.

Blessed is the womb that bare Him—blessed The bosom where His lips were pressed, But rather blessed are they Who hear His word and keep it well, The living homes where Christ shall dwell, And never pass away.

St. Mark’s Day.

And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other. _Acts_ xv. 30.

Compare 2 _Tim._ iv. 11. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.

OH! who shall dare in this frail scene On holiest happiest thoughts to lean, On Friendship, Kindred, or on Love? Since not Apostles’ hands can clasp Each other in so firm a grasp But they shall change and variance prove.

Yet deem not, on such parting sad Shall dawn no welcome dear and glad: Divided in their earthly race, Together at the glorious goal, Each leading many a rescued soul, The faithful champions shall embrace.

For e’en as those mysterious Four, Who the bright whirling wheels upbore By Chebar in the fiery blast. So, on their tasks of love and praise This saints of God their several ways Right onward speed, yet join at last.

And sometimes e’en beneath the moon The Saviour gives a gracious boon, When reconcilèd Christians meet, And face to face, and heart to heart, High thoughts of holy love impart In silence meek, or converse sweet.

Companion of the Saints! ’twas thine To taste that drop of peace divine, When the great soldier of thy Lord Called thee to take his last farewell, Teaching the Church with joy to tell The story of your love restored.

O then the glory and the bliss, When all that pained or seemed amiss Shall melt with earth and sin away! When saints beneath their Saviour’s eye, Filled with each other’s company, Shall spend in love th’ eternal day!

St. Philip and St. James.

Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: but the rich in that he is made low. _St. James_ i. 9. 10.

DEAR is the morning gale of spring, And dear th’ autumnal eve; But few delights can summer bring A Poet’s crown to weave.

Her bowers are mute, her fountains dry, And ever Fancy’s wing Speed’s from beneath her cloudless sky To autumn or to spring.

Sweet is the infant’s waking smile, And sweet the old man’s rest— But middle age by no fond wile, No soothing calm is blest.

Still in the world’s hot restless gleam She plies her weary task, While vainly for some pleasant dream Her wandering glances ask.—

O shame upon thee, listless heart, So sad a sigh to heave, As if thy SAVIOUR had no part In thoughts, that make thee grieve.

As if along His lonesome way He had not borne for thee Sad languors through the summer day, Storms on the wintry sea.

Youth’s lightning flash of joy secure Passed seldom o’er His spright,— A well of serious thought and pure. Too deep for earthly light.

No spring was His—no fairy gleam— For He by trial knew How cold and bare what mortals dream, To worlds where all is true.

Then grudge not thou the anguish keen Which makes thee like thy LORD, And learn to quit with eye serene Thy youth’s ideal hoard.

Thy treasured hopes and raptures high— Unmurmuring let them go, Nor grieve the bliss should quickly fly Which CHRIST disdained to know.

Thou shalt have joy in sadness soon; The pure, calm hope be thine, Which brightens, like the eastern moon, As day’s wild lights decline.

Thus souls, by nature pitched too high, By sufferings plunged too low, Meet in the Church’s middle sky, Half way ’twixt joy and woe,

To practise there the soothing lay That sorrow best relieves; Thankful for all God takes away, Humbled by all He glass.

St. Barnabas.

The sea of consolation, a Levite. _Acts_ iv. 36.

THE world’s a room of sickness, where each heart Knows its own anguish and unrest; The truest wisdom there, and noblest art, Is his, who skills of comfort best; Whom by the softest step and gentlest tone Enfeebled spirits own, And love to raise the languid eye, When, like an angel’s wing, they feel him fleeting by:—

_Feel_ only—for in silence gently gliding Fain would he shun both ear and sight, ’Twixt Prayer and watchful Love his heart dividing, A nursing-father day and night. Such were the tender arms, where cradled lay, In her sweet natal day, The Church of JESUS; such the love He to His chosen taught for His dear widowed Dove.

Warmed underneath the Comforter’s safe wing They spread th’ endearing warmth around: Mourners, speed here your broken hearts to bring, Here healing dews and balms abound: Here are soft hands that cannot bless in vain, By trial taught your pain: Here loving hearts, that daily know The heavenly consolations they on you bestow.

Sweet thoughts are theirs, that breathe serenest calms, Of holy offerings timely paid, Of fire from heaven to bless their votive alms And passions on GOD’S altar laid. The world to them is closed, and now they shine With rays of love divine, Through darkest nooks of this dull earth Pouring, in showery times, their glow of “quiet mirth.”

New hearts before their Saviour’s feet to lay, This is their first, their dearest joy: Their next from heart to heart to clear the way For mutual love without alloy: Never so blest as when in JESUS’ roll They write some hero-soul, More pleased upon his brightening road To wait, than if their own with all his radiance glowed.

O happy spirits, marked by God and man Their messages of love to bear, What though long since in Heaven your brows began, The genial amarant wreath to wear, And in th’ eternal leisure of calm love Ye banquet there above; Yet in your sympathetic heart We and our earthly griefs may ask and hope a part.

Comfort’s true sons! amid the thoughts of down That strew your pillow of repose, Sure ’tis one joy to muse, how ye unknown By sweet remembrance soothe our woes; And how the spark ye lit, of heavenly cheer, Lives in our embers here, Where’er the cross is borne with smiles, Or lightened secretly by Love’s endearing wiles:

Where’er one Levite in the temple keeps The watch-fire of his midnight prayer, Or issuing thence, the eyes of mourners steeps In heavenly balm, fresh gathered there; Thus saints, that seem to die in earth’s rude strife, Only win double life: They have but left our weary ways To live in memory here, in Heaven by love and praise.

St. John Baptist’s Day.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers. _Malachi_ iv. 5, 6.

TWICE in her season of decay The fallen Church hath felt Elijah’s eye Dart from the wild its piercing ray: Not keener burns, in the chill morning sky, The herald star, Whose torch afar Shadows and boding night-birds fly.

Methinks we need him once again, That favoured seer—but where shall he be found? By Cherith’s side we seek in vain, In vain on Carmel’s green and lonely mound: Angels no more From Sinai soar, On his celestial errands bound.

But wafted to her glorious place By harmless fire, among the ethereal thrones, His spirit with a dear embrace Thee the loved harbinger of Jesus owns, Well-pleased to view Her likeness true, And trace, in thine, her own deep tones.

Deathless himself, he joys with thee To commune how a faithful martyr dies, And in the blest could envy be, He would behold thy wounds with envious eyes, Star of our morn, Who yet unborn Didst guide our hope, where Christ should rise.

Now resting from your jealous care For sinners, such as Eden cannot know, Ye pour for us your mingled prayer, No anxious fear to damp Affection’s glow, Love draws a cloud From you to shroud Rebellion’s mystery here below.

And since we see, and not afar, The twilight of the great and dreadful day, Why linger, till Elijah’s car Stoop from the clouds? Why sheep ye? Rise and pray, Ye heralds sealed In camp or field Your Saviour’s banner to display.

Where is the lore the Baptist taught, The soul unswerving and the fearless tongue? The much-enduring wisdom, sought By lonely prayer the haunted rocks among? Who counts it gain His light should wane, So the whole world to Jesus throng?

Thou Spirit, who the Church didst lend Her eagle wings, to shelter in the wild, We pray Thee, ere the Judge descend, With flames like these, all bright and undefiled, Her watch-fires light, To guide aright Our weary souls by earth beguiled.

So glorious let thy Pastors shine, That by their speaking lives the world may learn First filial duty, then divine, That sons to parents, all to Thee may turn; And ready prove In fires of love, At sight of Thee, for aye to burn.

St. Peter’s Day.

When Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping. _Acts_ xii. 26.

THOU thrice denied, yet thrice beloved, Watch by Thine own forgiven friend; In sharpest perils faithful proved, Let his soul love Thee to the end.

The prayer is heard—else why so deep His slumber on the eve of death? And wherefore smiles he in his sleep As one who drew celestial breath?

He loves and is beloved again— Can his soul choose but be at rest? Sorrow hath fled away, and Pain Dares not invade the guarded nest.

He dearly loves, and not alone: For his winged thoughts are soaring high Where never yet frail heart was known To breathe its vain Affection’s sigh.

He loves and weeps—but more than tears Have sealed Thy welcome and his love— One look lives in him, and endears Crosses and wrongs where’er he rove:

That gracious chiding look, Thy call To win him to himself and Thee, Sweetening the sorrow of his fall Which else were rued too bitterly.

E’en through the veil of sheep it shines, The memory of that kindly glance;— The Angel watching by, divines And spares awhile his blissful trance.

Or haply to his native lake His vision wafts him back, to talk With JESUS, ere His flight He take, As in that solemn evening walk,

When to the bosom of His friend, The Shepherd, He whose name is Good. Did His dear lambs and sheep commend, Both bought and nourished with His blood:

Then laid on him th’ inverted tree, Which firm embraced with heart and arm, Might cast o’er hope and memory, O’er life and death, its awful charm.

With brightening heart he bears it on, His passport through this eternal gates, To his sweet home—so nearly won, He seems, as by the door he waits,

The unexpressive notes to hear Of angel song and angel motion, Rising and falling on the ear Like waves in Joy’s unbounded ocean.—

His dream is changed—the Tyrant’s voice Calls to that last of glorious deeds— But as he rises to rejoice, Not Herod but an Angel leads.

He dreams he sees a lamp flash bright, Glancing around his prison room— But ’tis a gleam of heavenly light That fills up all the ample gloom.

The flame, that in a few short years Deep through the chambers of the dead Shall pierce, and dry the fount of tears, Is waving o’er his dungeon-bed.

Touched he upstarts—his chains unbind— Through darksome vault, up massy stair, His dizzy, doubting footsteps wind To freedom and cool moonlight air.

Then all himself, all joy and calm, Though for a while his hand forego, Just as it touched, the martyr’s palm, He turns him to his task below;

The pastoral staff, the keys of Heaven, To wield a while in grey-haired might, Then from his cross to spring forgiven, And follow JESUS out of sight.

St. James’s Day.

Ye shall drink indeed of My cup, and be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with: but to sit on My right hand, and on My left, is not Mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of My Father. _St. Matthew_ xx. 23.

SIT down and take thy fill of joy At God’s right hand, a bidden guest, Drink of the cup that cannot cloy, Eat of the bread that cannot waste. O great Apostle! rightly now Thou readest all thy Saviour meant, What time His grave yet gentle brow In sweet reproof on thee was bent.

“Seek ye to sit enthroned by me? Alas! ye know not what ye ask, The first in shame and agony, The lowest in the meanest task— This can ye be? and came ye drink The cup that I in tears must steep, Nor from the ’whelming waters shrink That o’er Me roll so dark and deep?”