That worship's deeper meaning lies In mercy, and not sacrifice; Not proud humilities of sense And posturing of obedience, But love's unforced obedience; That Book and Church and Day are given That the dear Christ dwells not afar, The blending lines of prayer aspire; -John Greenleaf Whittier. "T" A Father Reading the Bible. AS early day, and sunlight streamed Soft through a quiet room, That hushed, but not forsaken, seemed A father communed with the page Pure fell the beam, and meekly bright, On his gray holy hair, And touched the page with tenderest light, A radiance all the spirit's own, Caught not from sun or star. Some word of life e'en then had met His calm benignant eye; Some ancient promise breathing yet Of immortality! Some martyr's prayer, wherein the glow Of quenchless faith survives: While every feature said "I know That my Redeemer lives!" And silent stood his children by Of thoughts o'ersweeping death. -Felicia Dorothea Hemans. I Hymn To The Night. HEARD the trailing garments of the Night I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light I felt her presence, by its spell of might, The calm, majestic presence of the Night, As of the one I love. Theard the sounds of sorrow and delight, That fills the haunted chambers of the Night, From the cool cisterns of the midnight air The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,- O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear What man has borne before! Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, And they complain no more. Peace! Peace! Orestes-like, I breathe this prayer! The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Scatter the Germs of the Beautiful. Scatter the germs of the beautiful In the temples of our God- Scatter the germs of the beautiful In the depths of the human soul! They shall bud and blossom and bear the fruit, While the endless ages roll; Plant with the flowers of charity The portals of the tomb, -Anonymous. In the old ages ripe with mystery: An aged man with grave, but gentle look- Flitting across the pages of his book, Until the very words a freshness took Deep in his cell Sat the Monk Gabriel. "Great is the misery But would I now might see, Might feast on Thee!" -The blood with sudden start, Nigh rent his veins apart (Oh, condescension of the Crucified:) In all the brilliancy Of His humanity— The Christ stood by his side! Pure as the early lily was his skin, Of autumn sunset on eternal snows; Such nameless beauties, wondrous glories dwelt. The monk in speechless adoration knelt. In each fair hand, in each fair foot there shone The thorn marks lingered like the flash of dawn; 'Twas but a moment-then, upon the spell Of this sweet presence, lo! a something broke; A something trembling, in the belfry woke, A shower of metal music flinging O'er wold and moat, o'er park and lake and fell, THE God's First Temple. HE groves were God's first temples. Ere man To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, The sound of anthems-in the darkling wood, And from the gray old trunks, that high in heaven, Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect Only among the crowd, and under roofs That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least, Offer one hymn-thrice happy, if it find -William Cullen Bryant. 0, O, May I Join The Choir Invisible. MAY I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, in deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn Of miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge men's minds To vaster issues. So to live is heaven: To make undying music in the world, For which we struggled, failed, and agonized That watched to ease the burden of the world, Laboriously tracing what must be, And what may yet be better,-saw within This is life to come, Which martyred men have made more glorious For us, who strive to follow. May I reach That purest heaven,-be to other souls So shall I join the choir invisible, Whose music is the gladness of the world. TALK! No Sects in Heaven. ALKING of sects till late one eve, And a "Churchman" down to the river came: But the aged father did not mind; And his long gown floated out behind, As down to the stream his way he took, His pale hands clasping a gilt-edged book. "I'm bound for heaven; and when I'm there, Shall want my Book of Common Prayer; And, though I put on a starry crown, Ishould feel quite lest without my gown." |