And, binding nature fast in fate, Left free from human will.
What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do,
This teach me more than hell to shun, That, more than heaven pursue.
What blessings thy free bounty gives Let me not cast away;
For God is paid when man receives, T'enjoy is to obey.
Yet not to earth's contracted span Thy goodness let me bound, Or think Thee Lord alone of man, When thousand worlds are round.
Let not this weak, unknowing hand Presume thy bolts to throw, And deal damnation round the land On each I judge thy foe.
If I am right, thy grace impart, Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, O teach my heart To find that better way.
Save me alike from foolish pride, Or impious discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has deny'd, Or aught thy goodness lent.
Teach me to feel another's woe, To hide the fault I see; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me.
Mean tho' I am, not wholly so, Since quicken'd by thy breath, O lead me wheresoe'er I go,
Thro' this day's life, or death.
This day, be bread and peace my lot; All else beneath the sun,
Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not; And let thy will be done.
To Thee, whose temple is all space, Whose altar, earth sea, skies! One chorus let all being raise ! All Nature's incense rise?
MESSIAH! at thy glad approach The howling wilds are still! Thy praises fill the lonely waste, And breathe from every hill.
The hidden fountains, at thy call, Their sacred stores unlock; Loud in the desert, sudden streams Burst living from the rock.
The incense of the spring ascends Upon the morning gale;
Red o'er the hill the roses bloom, The lilies in the vale.
Renew'd, the earth a robe of light, A robe of beauty wears;
And in new heavens a brighter sun Leads on the promis'd years.
The kingdom of Messiah come Appointed time disclose : And fairer in Emanuel's land The new creation glows.
Let Israel to the Prince of Peace The loud Hosannah sing! With Hallelujahs and with hymns, O Zion, hail thy King!
MAN'S IMMORTALITY PROVED BY NATURE.
NATURE, thy daughter, ever-changing birth Of thee the great Immutable, to man Speaks wisdom; is his oracle supreme; And he who most consults her, is most wise. Look nature through, 'tis revolution all.
All change, no death. Day follows night; and night The dying day; stars rise, and set, and rise! Earth takes th' example. See the summer gay With her green chaplet, and ambrosial flow'rs, Droops into pallid autumn winter grey, Horrid with frost, and turbulent with storm, Blows autumn, and his golden fruits away, Then melts into the spring; soft spring, with breath Favonian, from warm chambers of the south, Recalls the first. All, to reflourish, fades : As in a wheel, all sinks, to re-ascend: Emblems of man, who passes, not expires. With this minute distinction, emblems just, Nature revolves, but man advances; both Eternal, that a circle, this a line. That gravitates, this soars. Th' aspiring soul Ardent, and tremulous, like flame ascends; Zeal, and humility, her wings to heaven.
The world of matter, with its various forms, All dies into new life. Life born from death Rolls the vast mass, and shall for ever roll. No single atom, once in being, lost, With change of counsel charges the Most High. Matter, immortal? and shall spirit die?- Above the nobler, shall less nobler rise? Shall man alone, for whom all else revives, No resurrection know? shall man alone, Imperial man! be sown in barren ground, Less privileg'd than grain, on which he feeds? Is man, in whom alone is power to prize The bliss of being, or with previous pain Deplore its period, by the spleen of fate Severely doom'd death's single unredeem'd?
When Israel, of the Lord belov'd, Out from the land of bondage came, Her father's God before her mov'd, An awful guide in smoke and flame. By day, along the astonish'd lands The cloudy pillar glided slow; By night, Arabia's crimson'd sands Return'd the fiery column's glow.
There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answer'd keen, And Zion's daughters pour'd their lays, With priest's and warrior's voice between. No portents now our foes amaze,
Forsaken Israel wanders lone;
Our fathers would not know THY ways, And THOU hast left them to their own.
But, present still, though now unseen! When brightly shines the prosperous day, Be thoughts of THEE a cloudy screen To temper the deceitful ray.
And oh, when stoops on Judah's path In shade and storm the frequent night, Be THOU, long-suffering, slow to wrath, A burning and a shining light!
Our harps we left by Babel's streams, The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn; No censer round our altar beams,
And mute are timbrel, trump, and horn. But THOU hast said, the blood of goat, The flesh of rams, I will not prize; A contrite heart, a humble thought, Are mine accepted sacrifice.
CHRISTIAN ENCOURAGED.
CHILDREN of God, who, pacing slow, Your pilgrim path pursue,
In strength and weakness, joy and woe, To God's high calling true:
Why move ye thus, with ling'ring tread, A doubtful, mournful band?
Why faintly hangs the drooping head; Why fails the feeble hand?
Oh! weak to know a Saviour's pow'r, To feel a Father's care;
A moment's toil, a passing show'r Is all the grief ye share.
The Lord of Light, though, veil'd awhile, He hides his noontide ray,
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