66

THE SABBATH.

O'er palmy woods where summer radiance falls,
In the glad islands of the Indian main,
What thronging crowds the missionary calls

To raise to heaven the Christian's glorious strain.
Lo! where, engirt by children of the sun,
Stands the white man, and counts his vict'ries won.

In the fierce deserts of a distant zone,

Mid

savage nations terrible and stern, A lonely atom, severed from his own,

The traveller wends, death or renown to earn. Parched, fasting, wearied, verging to despair, He kneels, he prays-hope kindles in his prayer.

O'er the wide world, blest day, thine influence flies! Rest o'er the sufferer spreads her balmy wings; Love wakes, joy dawns, praise fills the listening skies; Th' expanding heart from earth's enchantment

Heaven for one day withdraws its ancient ban, Unbars its gates, and dwells once more with man.

WILLIAM HOWITT.

Miriam's Song.

SOUND the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah has triumphed-his people are free!
Sing for the pride of the tyrant is broken-

His chariots, his horsemen, all splendid and brave; How vain was their boasting! the Lord hath but

spoken,

And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave. Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea: Jehovah has triumph'd-his people are free!

Praise to the Conqueror, praise to the Lord,
His word was our arrow, his breath was our sword!
Who shall return to tell Egypt the story

Of those she sent forth in the hour of her pride? For the Lord hath look'd out from his pillar of glory, And all her brave thousands are dash'd in the tide. Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea: Jehovah has triumph'd-his people are free!

MOORE

Spiritual Warship.

THOUGH glorious, O God! must thy temple have been

On the day of its first dedication,

When the cherubim's wings widely waving were seen
On high o'er the ark's holy station;

When even the chosen of Levi, though skill'd
To minister, standing before Thee,

Retired from the cloud which the temple then fill'd,
And thy glory made lsrael adore Thee:

Though awfully grand was thy majesty then;
Yet the worship thy gospel discloses,
Less splendid in pomp to the vision of man,
Far surpasses the ritual of Moses.

And by whom was that ritual for ever repeal'd?
But by Him unto whom it was given

To enter the oracle where is reveal'd,

Not the cloud, but the brightness of heaven.

Who, having once entered, hath shown us the way,
O Lord, how to worship before thee;

Not with shadowy forms of that earlier day,
But in spirit and truth to adore thee!

SPIRITUAL WORSHIP.

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This, this is the worship the Saviour made known
When she of Samaria found him,

By the patriarch's well, sitting weary, alone,
With the stillness of noontide around him.

How sublime, yet how simple the homage he taught
To her who enquired by that fountain,
If Jehovah at Solyma's shrine would be sought?
Or adored on Samaria's mountain ?
"Woman, believe me, the hour is near,
When He, if ye rightly would hail him,
Will neither be worshipped exclusively here,
Nor yet at the altar of Salem.

"For God is a Spirit! and they, who aright
Would perform the pure worship he loveth,
In the heart's holy temple will seek with delight
That spirit the Father approveth."

And many that prophecy's truth can declare,
Whose bosoms have livingly known it:
Whom God hath instructed to worship him there,
And convinced that his mercy will own it.

The temple that Solomon built to his name,
Now lives but in history's story;

Extinguish'd long since is its altar's bright flame
And vanish'd each glimpse of its glory.

70

ODE TO DISAPPOINTMENT.

But the Christian, made wise by a wisdom divine,

Though all human fabrics may falter,

Still finds in his heart a far holier shrine,

Where the fire burns unquench'd on the altar.

BARTON.

Ode to Disappointment.

COME, Disappointment, come!
Not in thy terrors clad;

Come in thy meekest, saddest guise,
The chastening rod but terrifies

The restless and the bad.

But I recline

Beneath thy shrine,

And round my brow resigned
The peaceful cypress twine.

Though Fancy flies away

Before thy hollow tread ;

Yet meditation, in her cell,

Hears with faint ear the lingering knell,

That tells her hopes are dead.

And though the tear

By chance appear,

Yet she can smile, and say,