Love in a bodily shape; and Christian works are no more than

Animate Love and faith, as flowers are the animate spring-tide.

Works do follow us all unto God; there stand and bear witness

Not what they seemed,-but what they were only. Blessed is he who

Hears their confession secure; they are mute apon earth until death's hand

Opens the mouth of the silent. Ye children, does Death e'er alarm you?

Death is the brother of Love, twin-brother is he, and is only

More austere to behold. With a kiss upon lips that are fading

Takes he the soul and departs, and rocked in the arms of affection,

Places the ransomed child, new born, 'fore the face of its father.

Sounds of his coming already I hear,-see dimly his pinions,

Swart as the night, but with stars strewn upon them! I fear not before him.

Death is only release, and in mercy is mute. On his bosom

Freer breathes, in its coolness, my breast; and face to face standing

Look I on God as he is, a sun unpolluted by

vapors;

Look on the light of the ages I loved, the spirits majestic,

Nobler, better than I; they stand by the throne all transfigured,

Vested in white, and with harps of gold, and are singing an anthem,

Writ in the climate of heaven, in the language spoken by angels.

You, in like manner, ye children beloved, he one day shall gather,

CHILDREN OF THE LORD'S SUpper. 119

Never forgets he the weary;-then welcome, ye loved ones, hereafter!

Meanwhile forget not the keeping of vows, forget not the promise,

Wander from holiness onward to holiness; earth shall ye heed not;

Earth is but dust and heaven is light; I have pledged you to heaven.

God of the Universe, hear me! thou fountain of Love everlasting,

Hark to the voice of thy servant! I send up my prayer to thy heaven!

Let me hereafter not miss at thy throne one spirit of all these,

Whom thou hast given me here! I have loved them all like a father.

May they bear witness for me, that I taught them the way of salvation,

Faithful, so far as I knew of thy word; again may they know me,

Fall on their Teacher's breast, and before thy face may I place them,

Pure as they now are, but only more tried, and exclaiming with gladness,

Father, lo! I am here, and the children, whom thou hast given me!"

Weeping he spake in these words; and now at the beck of the old man

Knee against knee they knitted a wreath round the altar's enclosure.

Kneeling he read then the prayers of the consecration, and softly

With him the children read; at the close, with tremulous accents,

Asked he the peace of heaven, a benediction upon

them.

Now should have ended his task for the day; the following Sunday

Was for the young appointed to eat of the Lord's holy Supper.

Sudden, as struck from the clouds, stood the Teacher silent and laid his

Hand on his forehead, and cast his looks upward; while thoughts high and holy

Flew through the midst of his soul, and his eyes glanced with wonderful brightness.

"On the next Sunday, who knows! perhaps I shall rest in the grave-yard!

Some one perhaps of yourselves, a lily broken untimely,

Bow down his head to the earth; why delay I? the hour is accomplished.

Warm is the heart-I will so! for to-day grows the harvest of heaven.

What I began accomplish I now; for what failing therein is

I, the old man, will answer to God and the reverend father.

Say to me only, ye children, ye denizens new-come in heaven,

Are ye ready this day to eat of the bread of Atonement?

What it denoteth, that know ye full well, I have told it you often.

Of the new covenant a symbol it is, of Atonement a token,

Stablished between earth and heaven. Man by his sins and transgressions

Far has wandered from God, from his essence. 'T was in the beginning

Fast by the Tree of Knowledge he fell, and it hangs its crown o'er the

Fall to this day; in the Thought is the Fall; in the Heart the Atonement.

Infinite is the Fall, the Atonement infinite like

wise.

See! behind me, as far as the old man remembers, and forward,

CHILDREN OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 121

Far as Hope in her flight can reach with her wearied pinions,

Sin and Atonement incessant go through the lifetime of mortals.

Brought forth is sin full-grown; but Atonement sleeps in our bosoms

Still as the cradled babe; and dreams of heaven and of angels,

Cannot awake to sensation; is like the tones in the harp's strings,

Spirits imprisoned, that wait evermore the deliverer's finger.

Therefore, ye children beloved, descended the Prince of Atonement,

Woke the slumberer from sleep, and she stands now with eyes all resplendent,

Bright as the vault of the sky, and battles with Sin and o'ercomes her.

Downward to earth he came and transfigured, thence reascended,

Not from the heart in like wise, for there he still lives in the Spirit,

Loves and atones evermore. So long as Time is,

is Atonement.

Therefore with reverence receive this day her visible token.

Tokens are dead if the things do not live. The light everlasting

Unto the blind man is not, but is born of the eye that has vision.

Neither in bread nor in wine, but in the heart that is hallowed

Lieth forgiveness enshrined; the intention alone of amendment

Fruits of the earth ennobles to heavenly things, and removes all

Sin and the guerdon of sin. Only Love with his arms wide extended,

Penitence weeping and praying; the Will that is tried, and whose gold flows

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Purified forth from the flames; in a word, mankind by Atonement

Breaketh Atonement's bread, and drinketh Atonement's wine-cup.

But he who cometh up hither, unworthy, with hate in his bosom,

Scoffing at men and at God, is guilty of Christ's blessed body,

And the Redeemer's blood! To himself he eateth and drinketh

Death and doom! And from this, preserve us, thou heavenly Father!

Are ye ready, ye children, to eat of the bread of Atonement?"

Thus with emotion he asked, and together answered the children

Yes! with deep sobs interrupted. Then read he the due supplications,

Read the Form of "Communion, and in chimed the organ and anthem;

O! Holy Lamb of God, who takest away our transgressions,

Hear us! give us thy peace! have mercy, have mercy upon us!

Th' old man, with trembling hand, and heavenly pearls on his eyelids,

Filled now the chalice and paten, and dealt round the mystical symbols.

O! then seemed it to me, as if God, with the broad eye of mid-day,

Clearer looked in at the windows, and all the trees in the churchyard

Bowed down their summits of green, and the grass on the graves 'gan to shiver.

But in the children, (I noted it well; I knew it) there ran a

Tremor of holy rapture along through their icy-cold

members.

Decked like an altar before them, there stood the green earth, and above it