And mighty the tones which the firmament rended; When on wheels of the thunder, and wings of

the wind,

By lightning and hail, and thick darkness attended, He uttered, on Sinai, his laws to mankind.

And sweet was the voice of the First-born of heaven, (Tho' poor his apparel, tho' earthly his form,) Who said to the mourner, "Thy sins are forgiven!" "Be whole!" to the sick; and "Be still!" to

the storm.

O Judge of the World! when array'd in thy glory, Thy summons again shall be heard from on high; When Nature stands trembling and naked before thee,

And waits on thy sentence to live or to die,

When the Heavens shall fly fast from the sound of thy thunder,

And the Sun, in thy lightnings, grow languid

and pale,

And the Sea yields her dead, and the Tomb cleaves

asunder,

In the hour of thy terrors, let mercy prevail!

HEBER.

Stanzas.

I LOOK'D unto God in the season of anguish, When earth and its trifles could charm me no

more;

When pain and affliction had caused me to languish And the dream of my youthful existence was o'er: I look'd unto Him who alone can deliver,

Whose arm of omnipotence never shall yield: And I prayed that his grace might support me for ever,

My Rock and my Refuge, my Sun and my Shield.

How bitterly then did my conscience upbraid me;

For the least of my crimes I had nothing to plead; But I thought of the promise which Jesus had made

me,

And I cried unto him in the time of my need. Yes: He whose entreaties so oft I'd neglected, And met all his kind invitations with scorn; The Saviour and Prince whom I thus had rejected Was my only relief when I wander'd forlorn.

Yet still-O the baseness that reigns in my spirit!-
I often forget thee, thou heavenly Friend,
And thankless for all which from thee I inherit,
Deny thee, and grieve thee-ay, times without
end.

How oft when the worldling has dar'd me to trial,
Have I pass'd him in silence regardlessly by ;
Was this like the courage, the boundless denial,
Which a sense of thy favour should ever supply?

O Father of mercies, assist me to cherish

Thy light of thy word in my innermost soul; Without thine assistance I feel I must perish

In the tempest of sin which I cannot control; But Thou who canst say to the foam-crested ocean, "Thus far and no farther thy proud waves shall come,"

Thou only can'st curb each unhallow'd emotion, And guide me in peace to thy glorious home. JOHN BUCHANAN,

Song of the Stars.

WHEN the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,

And the empty realms of darkness and death Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath:

And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame
From the void abyss by myriads came,
In the joy of youth as they darted away,
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rang,

And this was the song the bright ones sang:

"Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,
The fair blue fields that before us lie;

Each sun with the worlds that round us roll,
Each planet poised on her turning pole,

With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And waters that lie like fluid light.

"For the Source of Glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space :
And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides;
Lo, yonder the living splendours play!
Away, on our joyous path, away!

B

16

SONG OF THE STARS.

"Look, look through our glittering ranks afa:, In the infinite azure, star after star,

How they brighten and gloom as they swiftly pass? How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass!

And the path of the gentle winds is seen,

Where the small waves dance and the

lean.

young woods

"And see where the brighter day-beams pour, How the rainbow hangs in the sunny shower; And the morn and the eve, with their pomp of hues, Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their dews, And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground, With her shadowy cone, the Night goes round.

"Away, away! In our blossoming bowers,
In the soft air wrapping those spheres of ours,
In the seas and fountains that shine with morn,
See Love is brooding and Life is born,
And breathing myriads are breaking from night,
To rejoice, like us, in motion and light."

Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres,
To weave the dance that measures the years;
Glide on in the glory and gladness sent
To the farthest wall of the firmament,
The boundless visible smile of HIM,

To the veil of whose brows our lamps are dim.

ANON.