Chapter 8

Is this a time for moonlight dreams Of love and home by mazy streams, For Fancy with her shadowy toys, Aërial hopes and pensive joys, While souls are wandering far and wide, And curses swarm on every side?

No—rather steel thy melting heart To act the martyr’s sternest part, To watch, with firm unshrinking eye, Thy darling visions as thy die, Till all bright hopes, and hues of day, Have faded into twilight gray.

Yes—let them pass without a sigh, And if the world seem dull and dry, If long and sad thy lonely hours, And winds have rent thy sheltering bowers, Bethink thee what thou art and where, A sinner in a life of care.

The fire of God is soon to fall (Thou know’st it) on this earthly ball; Full many a soul, the price of blood, Marked by th’ Almighty’s hand for good, To utter death that hour shall sweep— And will the saints in Heaven dare weep?

Then in His wrath shall GOD uproot The trees He set, for lack of fruit, And drown in rude tempestuous blaze The towers His hand had deigned to raise; In silence, ere that storm begin, Count o’er His mercies and thy sin.

Pray only that thine aching heart, From visions vain content to part, Strong for Love’s sake its woe to hide May cheerful wait the Cross beside, Too happy if, that dreadful day, Thy life be given thee for a prey.

Snatched sudden from th’ avenging rod, Safe in the bosom of thy GOD, How wilt thou then look back, and smile On thoughts that bitterest seemed erewhile, And bless the pangs that made thee see This was no world of rest for thee!

Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.

And looking up to heaven, He sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. _St. Mark_ vii. 34.

THE Son of God in doing good Was fain to look to Heaven and sigh: And shall the heirs of sinful blood Seek joy unmixed in charity? God will not let Love’s work impart Full solace, lest it steal the heart; Be thou content in tears to sow, Blessing, like Jesus, in thy woe:

He looked to Heaven, and sadly sighed— What saw my gracious Saviour there, “With fear and anguish to divide The joy of Heaven-accepted prayer? So o’er the bed where Lazarus slept He to His Father groaned and wept: What saw He mournful in that grave, Knowing Himself so strong to save?”

O’erwhelming thoughts of pain and grief Over His sinking spirit sweep;— What boots it gathering one lost leaf Out of yon sere and withered heap, Where souls and bodies, hopes and joys, All that earth owns or sin destroys, Under the spurning hoof are cast, Or tossing in th’ autumnal blast?

The deaf may hear the Saviour’s voice, The fettered tongue its chain may break; But the deaf heart, the dumb by choice, The laggard soul, that will not wake, The guilt that scorns to be forgiven;— These baffle e’en the spells of Heaven; In thought of these, His brows benign Not e’en in healing cloudless shine.

No eye but His might ever bear To gaze all down that drear abyss, Because none ever saw so clear The shore beyond of endless bliss: The giddy waves so restless hurled, The vexed pulse of this feverish world, He views and counts with steady sight, Used to behold the Infinite.

But that in such communion high He hath a fount of strength within, Sure His meek heart would break and die, O’erburthened by His brethren’s sin; Weak eyes on darkness dare not gaze, It dazzles like the noonday blaze; But He who sees God’s face may brook On the true face of Sin to look.

What then shall wretched sinners do, When in their last, their hopeless day, Sin, as it is, shall meet their view, God turn His face for aye away? Lord, by Thy sad and earnest eye, When Thou didst look to Heaven and sigh: Thy voice, that with a word could chase The dumb, deaf spirit from his place;

As Thou hast touched our ears, and taught Our tongues to speak Thy praises plain, Quell Thou each thankless godless thought That would make fast our bonds again. From worldly strife, from mirth unblest, Drowning Thy music in the breast, From foul reproach, from thrilling fears, Preserve, good Lord, Thy servants’ ears.

From idle words, that restless throng And haunt our hearts when we would pray, From Pride’s false chime, and jarring wrong, Seal Thou my lips, and guard the way: For Thou hast sworn, that every ear, Willing or loth, Thy trump shall hear, And every tongue unchainèd be To own no hope, no God, but Thee.

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity.

And He turned Him onto His disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: for I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them: and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. _St. Luke_ x. 23, 24.

ON Sinai’s top, in prayer and trance, Full forty nights and forty days The Prophet watched for one dear glance Of thee and of Thy ways:

Fasting he watched and all alone, Wrapt in a still, dark, solid cloud, The curtain of the Holy One Drawn round him like a shroud:

So, separate from the world, his breast Might duly take and strongly keep The print of Heaven, to be expressed Ere long on Sion’s steep.

There one by one his spirit saw Of things divine the shadows bright, The pageant of God’s perfect law; Yet felt not full delight.

Through gold and gems, a dazzling maze, From veil to veil the vision led, And ended, where unearthly rays From o’er the ark were shed.

Yet not that gorgeous place, nor aught Of human or angelic frame, Could half appease his craving thought; The void was still the same.

“Show me Thy glory, gracious Lord! ’Tis Thee,” he cries, “not Thine, I seek.” Na, start not at so bold a word From man, frail worm and weak:

The spark of his first deathless fire Yet buoys him up, and high above The holiest creature, dares aspire To the Creator’s love.

The eye in smiles may wander round, Caught by earth’s shadows as they fleet; But for the soul no help is found, Save Him who made it, meet.

Spite of yourselves, ye witness this, Who blindly self or sense adore; Else wherefore leaving your own bliss Still restless ask ye more?

This witness bore the saints of old When highest rapt and favoured most, Still seeking precious things untold, Not in fruition lost.

Canaan was theirs; and in it all The proudest hope of kings dare claim: Sion was theirs; and at their call Fire from Jehovah came.

Yet monarchs walked as pilgrims still In their own land, earth’s pride and grace: And seers would mourn on Sion’s hill Their Lord’s averted face.

Vainly they tried the deeps to sound E’en of their own prophetic thought, When of Christ crucified and crowned His Spirit in them taught:

But He their aching gaze repressed, Which sought behind the veil to see, For not without us fully blest Or perfect might they be.

The rays of the Almighty’s face No sinner’s eye might then receive; Only the meekest man found grace To see His skirts and live.

But we as in a glass espy The glory of His countenance, Not in a whirlwind hurrying by The too presumptuous glance,

But with mild radiance every hour, From our dear Saviour’s face benign Bent on us with transforming power, Till we, too, faintly shine.

Sprinkled with His atoning blood Safely before our God we stand, As on the rock the Prophet stood, Beneath His shadowing hand.—

Blessed eyes, which see the things we see! And yet this tree of life hath proved To many a soul a poison tree, Beheld, and not beloved.

So like an angel’s is our bliss (Oh! thought to comfort and appal) It needs must bring, if used amiss, An angel’s hopeless fall.

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.

And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. _St. Luke_ xvii. 17, 18.

TEN cleansed, and only one remain! Who would have thought our nature’s stain Was dyed so foul, so deep in grain? E’en He who reads the heart— Knows what He gave and what we lost, Sin’s forfeit, and redemption’s cost,— By a short pang of wonder crossed Seems at the sight to start:

Yet ’twas not wonder, but His love Our wavering spirits would reprove, That heavenward seem so free to move When earth can yield no more Then from afar on God we cry, But should the mist of woe roll by, Not showers across an April sky Drift, when the storm is o’er,

Faster than those false drops and few Fleet from the heart, a worthless dew. What sadder scene can angels view Than self-deceiving tears, Poured idly over some dark page Of earlier life, though pride or rage, The record of to-day engage, A woe for future years?

Spirits, that round the sick man’s bed Watched, noting down each prayer he made, Were your unerring roll displayed, His pride of health to abase; Or, when, soft showers in season fall Answering a famished nation’s call, Should unseen fingers on the wall Our vows forgotten trace:

How should we gaze in trance of fear! Yet shines the light as thrilling clear From Heaven upon that scroll severe, “Ten cleansed and one remain!” Nor surer would the blessing prove Of humbled hearts, that own Thy love, Should choral welcome from above Visit our senses plain:

Than by Thy placid voice and brow, With healing first, with comfort now, Turned upon him, who hastes to bow Before Thee, heart and knee; “Oh! thou, who only wouldst be blest, On thee alone My blessing rest! Rise, go thy way in peace, possessed For evermore of Me.”

Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. _St. Matthew_, vi. 28.

SWEET nurslings of the vernal skies, Bathed in soft airs, and fed with dew, What more than magic in you lies, To fill the heart’s fond view? In childhood’s sports, companions gay, In sorrow, on Life’s downward way, How soothing! in our last decay Memorials prompt and true.

Relics ye are of Eden’s bowers, As pure, as fragrant, and as fair, As when ye crowned the sunshine hours Of happy wanderers there. Fall’n all beside—the world of life, How is it stained with fear and strife! In Reason’s world what storms are rife, What passions range and glare!

But cheerful and unchanged the while Your first and perfect form ye show, The same that won Eve’s matron smile In the world’s opening glow. The stars of heaven a course are taught Too high above our human thought: Ye may be found if ye are sought, And as we gaze, we know.

Ye dwell beside our paths and homes, Our paths of sin, our homes of sorrow, And guilty man where’er he roams, Your innocent mirth may borrow. The birds of air before us fleet, They cannot brook our shame to meet— But we may taste your solace sweet And come again to-morrow.

Ye fearless in your nests abide— Nor may we scorn, too proudly wise, Your silent lessons, undescried By all but lowly eyes: For ye could draw th’ admiring gaze Of Him who worlds and hearts surveys: Your order wild, your fragrant maze, He taught us how to prize.

Ye felt your Maker’s smile that hour, As when He paused and owned you good; His blessing on earth’s primal bower, Ye felt it all renewed. What care ye now, if winter’s storm Sweep ruthless o’er each silken form? Christ’s blessing at your heart is warm, Ye fear no vexing mood.

Alas! of thousand bosoms kind, That daily court you and caress, How few the happy secret find Of your calm loveliness! “Live for to-day! to-morrow’s light To-morrow’s cares shall bring to sight, Go sleep like closing flowers at night, And Heaven thy morn will bless.”

Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity.

I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.

_Ephesians_ iii. 13.

WISH not, dear friends, my pain away— Wish me a wise and thankful heart, With GOD, in all my griefs, to stay, Nor from His loved correction start.

The dearest offering He can crave His portion in our souls to prove, What is it to the gift He gave, The only Son of His dear love?

But we, like vexed unquiet sprights, Will still be hovering o’er the tomb, Where buried lie our vain delights, Nor sweetly take a sinner’s doom.

In Life’s long sickness evermore Our thoughts are tossing to and fro: We change our posture o’er and o’er, But cannot rest, nor cheat our woe.

Were it not better to lie still, Let Him strike home and bless the rod, Never so safe as when our will Yields undiscerned by all but God?

Thy precious things, whate’er they be, That haunt and vex thee, heart and brain, Look to the Cross and thou shalt see How thou mayst turn them all to gain.

Lovest thou praise? the Cross is shame: Or ease? the Cross is bitter grief: More pangs than tongue or heart can frame Were suffered there without relief.

We of that Altar would partake, But cannot quit the cost—no throne Is ours, to leave for Thy dear sake— We cannot do as Thou hast done.

We cannot part with Heaven for Thee— Yet guide us in Thy track of love: Let us gaze on where light should be, Though not a beam the clouds remove.

So wanderers ever fond and true Look homeward through the evening sky, Without a streak of heaven’s soft blue To aid Affection’s dreaming eye.

The wanderer seeks his native bower, And we will look and long for Thee, And thank Thee for each trying hour, Wishing, not struggling, to be free.

Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling-block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols. _Ezekiel_ xiv. 4.

STATELY thy walls, and holy are the prayers Which day and night before thine altars rise: Not statelier, towering o’er her marble stairs, Flashed Sion’s gilded dome to summer skies, Not holier, while around him angels bowed, From Aaron’s censer steamed the spicy cloud,

Before the mercy-seat. O Mother dear, Wilt thou forgive thy son one boding sigh? Forgive, if round thy towers he walk in fear, And tell thy jewels o’er with jealous eye? Mindful of that sad vision, which in thought From Chebar’s plains the captive prophet brought.

To see lost Sion’s shame. ’Twas morning prime, And like a Queen new seated on her throne, GOD’S crownèd mountain, as in happier time, Seemed to rejoice in sunshine all her own: So bright, while all in shade around her lay, Her northern pinnacles had caught th’ emerging ray.

The dazzling lines of her majestic roof Crossed with as free a span the vault of heaven, As when twelve tribes knelt silently aloof Ere GOD His answer to their king had given, Ere yet upon the new-built altar fell The glory of the LORD, the Lord of Israel.

All seems the same: but enter in and see What idol shapes are on the wall portrayed: And watch their shameless and unholy glee, Who worship there in Aaron’s robes arrayed: Hear Judah’s maids the dirge to Thammuz pour, And mark her chiefs yon orient sun adore.

Yet turn thee, son of man—for worse than these Thou must behold: thy loathing were but lost On dead men’s crimes, and Jews’ idolatries— Come, learn to tell aright thine own sins’ cost,— And sure their sin as far from equals thine, As earthly hopes abused are less than hopes divine.

What if within His world, His Church, our LORD Have entered thee, as in some temple gate, Where, looking round, each glance might thee afford Some glorious earnest of thine high estate, And thou, false heart and frail, hast turned from all To worship pleasure’s shadow on the wall?

If, when the LORD of Glory was in sight, Thou turn thy back upon that fountain clear, To bow before the “little drop of light,” Which dim-eyed men call praise and glory here; What dost thou, but adore the sun, and scorn Him at whose only word both sun and stars were born?

If, while around thee gales from Eden breathe, Thou hide thine eyes, to make thy peevish moan Over some broken reed of earth beneath, Some darling of blind fancy dead and gone, As wisely might’st thou in JEHOVAH’S fane Offer thy love and tears to Thammuz slain.

Turn thee from these, or dare not to inquire Of Him whose name is Jealous, lest in wrath He hear and answer thine unblest desire: Far better we should cross His lightning’s path Than be according to our idols beard, And God should take us at our own vain word.

Thou who hast deigned the Christian’s heart to call Thy Church and Shrine; whene’er our rebel will Would in that chosen home of Thine instal Belial or Mammon, grant us not the ill We blindly ask; in very love refuse Whate’er Thou knowest our weakness would abuse.

Or rather help us, LORD, to choose the good, To pray for nought, to seek to none, but Thee, Nor by “our daily bread” mean common food, Nor say, “From this world’s evil set us free;” Teach us to love, with CHRIST, our sole true bliss, Else, though in CHRIST’S own words, we surely pray amiss.

Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God. _Ezekiel_ xx. 35, 36.

IT is so—ope thine eyes, and see— What viewest thou all around? A desert, where iniquity And knowledge both abound.

In the waste howling wilderness The Church is wandering still, Because we would not onward press When close to Sion’s hill.

Back to the world we faithless turned, And far along the wild, With labour lost and sorrow earned, Our steps have been beguiled.

Yet full before us, all the while, The shadowing pillar stays, The living waters brightly smile, The eternal turrets blaze,

Yet Heaven is raining angels’ bread To be our daily food, And fresh, as when it first was shed, Springs forth the SAVIOUR’S blood.

From every region, race, and speech, Believing myriads throng, Till, far as sin and sorrow reach, Thy grace is spread along;

Till sweetest nature, brightest art, Their votive incense bring, And every voice and every heart Own Thee their God and King.

All own; but few, alas! will love; Too like the recreant band That with Thy patient spirit strove Upon the Red-sea strand.

O Father of long-suffering grace, Thou who hast sworn to stay Pleading with sinners face to face Through all their devious way:

How shall we speak to Thee, O LORD, Or how in silence lie? Look on us, and we are abhorred, Turn from us, and we die.

Thy guardian fire, Thy guiding cloud, Still let them gild our wall, Nor be our foes and Thine allowed To see us faint and fall.

Too oft, within this camp of Thine, Rebellions murmurs rise; Sin cannot bear to see Thee shine So awful to her eyes.

Fain would our lawless hearts escape, And with the heathen be, To worship every monstrous shape In fancied darkness free.

Vain thought, that shall not be at all! Refuse we or obey, Our ears have heard the Almighty’s call, We cannot be as they.

We cannot hope the heathen’s doom To whom GOD’S Son is given, Whose eyes have seen beyond the tomb, Who have the key of Heaven.

Weak tremblers on the edge of woe, Yet shrinking from true bliss, Our rest must be “no rest below,” And let our prayer be this:

“LORD, wave again Thy chastening rod, Till every idol throne Crumble to dust, and Thou, O GOD, Reign in our hearts alone.

“Bring all our wandering fancies home, For Thou hast every spell, And ’mid the heathen where they roam, Thou knowest, LORD, too well.

“Thou know’st our service sad and hard, Thou know’st us fond and frail; Win us to be loved and spared When all the world shall fail.

“So when at last our weary days Are well-nigh wasted here, And we can trace Thy wondrous ways In distance calm and clear,

“When in Thy love and Israel’s sin We read our story true, We may not, all too late, begin To wish our hopes were new.

“Long loved, long tried, long spared as they, Unlike in this alone, That, by Thy grace, our hearts shall stay For evermore Thine own.”

Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity.

Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. _Daniel_ iii. 24, 25.

WHEN Persecution’s torrent blaze Wraps the unshrinking Martyr’s head; When fade all earthly flowers and bays, When summer friends are gone and fled, Is he alone in that dark hour Who owns the Lord of love and power?

Or waves there not around his brow A wand no human arm may wield, Fraught with a spell no angels know, His steps to guide, his soul to shield? Thou, Saviour, art his Charmèd Bower, His Magic Ring, his Rock, his Tower.

And when the wicked ones behold Thy favourites walking in Thy light, Just as, in fancy triumph bold, They deemed them lost in deadly night, Amazed they cry, “What spell is this, Which turns their sufferings all to bliss?

“How are they free whom we had bound? Upright, whom in the gulf we cast? What wondrous helper have they found To screen them from the scorching blast? Three were they—who hath made them four? And sure a form divine he wore,

“E’en like the Son of God.” So cried The Tyrant, when in one fierce flame The Martyrs lived, the murderers died: Yet knew he not what angel came To make the rushing fire-flood seem Like summer breeze by woodland stream.

He knew not, but there are who know: The Matron, who alone hath stood, When not a prop seemed left below, The first lorn hour of widowhood, Yet cheered and cheering all, the while, With sad but unaffected smile;—

The Father, who his vigil keeps By the sad couch whence hope hath flown, Watching the eye where reason sleeps, Yet in his heart can mercy own, Still sweetly yielding to the rod, Still loving man, still thanking GOD;—

The Christian Pastor, bowed to earth With thankless toil, and vile esteemed, Still travailing in second birth Of souls that will not be redeemed: Yet stedfast set to do his part, And fearing most his own vain heart;—