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THE NECESSITY OF SELF-ABASEMENT.

SOURCE of love, my brighter sun,
Thou alone my comfort art;
See, my race is almost run;
Hast thou left this trembling heart?

In my youth thy charming eyes
Drew me from the ways of men;
Then I drank unmingled joys;
Frown of thine saw never then.

Spouse of Christ was then my name;
And devoted all to thee.

Strangely jealous, I became
Jealous of this self in me.

Thee to love, and none beside,
Was my darling, sole employ;
While alternately I died,
Now of grief, and now of joy.

Through the dark and silent night
On thy radiant smiles I dwelt;
And to see the dawning light
Was the keenest pain I felt.

Thou my gracious teacher wert;
And thine eye, so close applied,
While it watch'd thy pupil's heart,
Seem'd to look at none beside.

Conscious of no evil drift,

This, I cried, is love indeed-
"Tis the giver, not the gift,
Whence the joys I feel proceed.
But soon humbled, and laid low,
Stript of all thou hast conferr'd,
Nothing left but sin and woe,
I perceived how I had err'd.
Oh, the vain conceit of man,
Dreaming of a good his own,
Arrogating all he can,
Though the Lord is good alone!

He the graces thou hast wrought
Makes subservient to his pride;
Ignorant, that one such thought
Passes all his sin beside.

Such his folly-proved, at last,
By the loss of that repose
Self-complacence cannot taste,
Only love divine bestows.

'Tis by this reproof severe,
And by this reproof alone,
His defects at last appear,
Man is to himself made known.

Learn, all earth! that feeble man,
Sprung from this terrestrial clod,
Nothing is, and nothing can;
Life and power are all in God.

LOVE INCREASED BY SUFFERING.

"I LOVE the Lord," is still the strain This heart delights to sing;

But I reply your thoughts are vain,
Perhaps 'tis no such thing.

Before the power of love divine
Creation fades away;

Till only God is seen to shine

In all that we survey.

In gulfs of awful night we find
The God of our desires;

'Tis there he stamps the yielding mind, And doubles all its fires.

Flames of encircling love invest,

And pierce it sweetly through;
'Tis fill'd with sacred joy, yet press'd
With sacred sorrow too.

Ah love! my heart is in the right-
Amidst a thousand woes,

To thee, its ever new delight,
And all its peace it owes.

Fresh causes of distress occur

Where'er I look or move;

The comforts I to all prefer

Are solitude and love.

Nor exile I nor prison fear;

Love makes my courage great;
I find a Saviour every where,
His grace in every state.

Nor castle walls, nor dungeons deep,
Exclude his quickening beams;
There I can sit, and sing, and weep,
And dwell on heavenly themes.

There sorrow, for his sake, is found
A joy beyond compare ;
There no presumptuous thoughts abound,
No pride can enter there.

A Saviour doubles all my joys,
And sweetens all my pains,

His strength in my defence employs,

Consoles me and sustains.

I fear no ill, resent no wrong;

Nor feel a passion move,

When malice whets her slanderous tongue;
Such patience is in love.

SCENES FAVOURABLE TO MEDITATION.

WILDS horrid and dark with o'ershadowing trees, Rocks that ivy and briers infold,

Scenes nature with dread and astonishment sees, But I with a pleasure untold.

Though awfully silent, and shaggy, and rude,
I am charm'd with the peace ye afford,
Your shades are a temple where none will intrude,
The abode of my lover and Lord.

I am sick of thy splendour, O fountain of day,
And here I am hid from its beams,
Here safely contemplate a brighter display
Of the noblest and holiest of themes.

Ye forests, that yield me my sweetest repose,
Where stillness and solitude reign,

To you I securely and boldly disclose
The dear anguish of which I complain.

Here, sweetly forgetting and wholly forgot
By the world and its turbulent throng,
The birds and the streams lend me many a note
That aids meditation and song.

Here, wandering in scenes that are sacred to night,
Love wears me and wastes me away,

And often the sun has spent much of his light
Ere yet I perceive it is day.

While a mantle of darkness envelopes the sphere,
My sorrows are sadly rehearsed,

To me the dark hours are all equally dear,
And the last is as sweet as the first.

Here I and the beasts of the deserts agree,
Mankind are the wolves that I fear,
They grudge me my natural right to be free,
But nobody questions it here.

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