But Thou wilt meet the suppliant eye,
And Thou wilt mark the lowly sigh;
And Thou the holy tear wilt see
Which penitence devotes to Thee;
That sigh thy breezes waft to heaven,
That holy tear is grateful incense given;
Low, humble, sad, to Thee I bend;

Oh! listen from thy blest abode !
And though celestial hymns ascend,
Oh! deign a mortal's prayer attend,

My Father and my God!

Teach me if hope, if joy, be mine,
To bless Thy bounteous hand divine ;
And still, with trembling homage, raise
The grateful pæan of exalted praise !
When deep affliction wounds the soul;
Still let me own thy mild control;
Teach me, submissive and resigned,
To calm the tempest of the mind;
To lift the meek, adoring eye,
Suppress the tear and hush the sigh;
Gaze on one bright, unclouded star,
And hail “ the day-spring” from afar,-
Bid angel-faith dispel surrounding gloom,
And soar, on cherub wing, beyond the tomb.

THE PRAYER OF NATURE.

BY MRS. HEMANS.

FATHER of Light! great God of Heaven'

Hearest thou the accents of despair ? Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven?

Can vice atone for crimes by prayer ? Father of light, on thee I call!

Thou seest my soul is dark within ; Thou who canst mark the sparrow's fall,

Avert from me the death of sin. No shrine I seek to sects unknown;

Oh point to me the path of truth! Thy dread omnipotence I own;

Spare, yet amend, the faults of youth.
Let bigots rear a gloomy fane,

Let superstition hail the pile,
Let priests, to spread their sable reign,

With tales of mystic rites beguile.
Shall man confine his Maker's sway

To Gothic domes of mouldering stone ? Thy temple is the face of day;

Earth, ocean, heaven, thy boundless throne, Shall man condemn his race to hell

Unless they bend in pompous form ; Tell us that all, for one who fell,

Must perish in the mingling storm?

Shall each pretend to reach the skies,

Yet doom his brother to expire,
Whose soul a different hope supplies,

Or doctrines less severe inspire ?
Shall these, by creeds they can't expound,

Prepare a fancied bliss or wo ?
Shall reptiles, grovelling on the ground,

Their great Creator's purpose know?
Shall those, who live for self alone,

Whose years float on in daily crimeShall they by Faith for guilt atone,

And live beyond the bounds of time ? Father! no prophet's laws I seek

Thy laws in Nature's works appear :I own myself corrupt and weak,

Yet will I pray, for thou wilt hear! Thou, who canst guide the wandering star

Through trackless realms of ether's space! Who calmst the elemental war,

Whose hand from pole to pole I trace; Thou, who in wisdom placed me here,

Who, when thou wilt, can take me hence, Ah! whilst I tread this earthly sphere,

Extend to me the wide defence. To thee, my God, to thee I call,

Whatever weal or wo beride,
By thy command I rise or fall,

In thy protection I confide.
If, when this dust to dust restored,

My soul shall float on airy wing,

How shall thy glorious name adored

Inspire her feeble voice to sing ! But, if this fleeting spirit share

With clay the grave's éternal bed, While life yet throbs I raise my prayer,

Though doomed no more to quit the dead. To thee I breathe my humble strain,

Grateful for all thy mercies past, And hope, my God, to thee again

This erring life may fly at last.

MORNING HYMN.

BY CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN.

“LET THERE BE LIGHT!" The Eternal spoke,

And from the abyss where darkness rode The earliest dawn of nature broke,

And light around creation flow'd. The glad earth smiled to see the day,

The first-born day, come blushing in; The young day smiled to shed its ray

Upon a world untouch'd by sin. “Let there be light!” O'er heaven and earth,

The God who first the day-beam pour'd, Utter'd again his fiat forth,

And shed the gospel's light abroad,

And, like the dawn, its cheering rays

On rich and poor were meant to fall;
Inspiring their Redeemer's praise,

In lowly cot and lordly hall.
Then come, when in the orient first

Flushes the signal-light for prayer;
Come with the earliest beams that burst

From God's bright throne of glory there. Come kneel to him who through the night

Hath watch'd above thy sleeping soul, To Him whose mercies, like his light,

Are shed abroad from pole to pole.