Thou, infinite in love, Guide this bewildered mind, No resting-place can find On the wild waters, - God of light, Bid the fierce conflict cease, Terror and anguish fly; Let there again be peace, As in the days gone by: Fain would earth's true and dear Though through the future's shade Let me not shrink dismayed, But ever feel thee nigh; There may be grief, and pain, and care, The following pieces, as before stated, are published here for the first time: THE HOUR OF DARKNESS. HOW long, O Lord! how long Shall on my spirit rest This weight of darkness and distress? How long unto my burning lips be pressed O God! my God! only thine arm hath power How long, O Lord! how long! Many to rest have gone ; The lovely and beloved are with thee In peace and glory — while I faint alone Yet not alone, art thou not near? I bend, How long, O Lord! how long! I bow me to thy will, Believing in tender love thou dost chastise Say to my heart's wild throbbings, Peace! be still! Father, to thee, to thee I lift mine eyes! Is not thy smile to patient sufferance given, Gilding earth's darkness with a gleam of heaven? How long, O Lord! how long! A soft still voice I hear, Speaking to my worn spirit words of life, "O thou of little faith! how canst thou fear? I, even I, am with thee through the strife. "THOU GOD SEEST ME." FATHER, to thee alone Is thy child's spirit known, To thee it lieth open as the light. Thine eye of mercy sees The heart's deep mysteries, Which are so closely veiled from human sight. And I rejoice to feel, As I before thee kneel, From thee there is no covering, no disguise. Though heavy clouds of sin Obscure the light within, My God, I would not hide me from thine eyes. Save in the evil hour! Save from the tempter's power! Thou to whom darkness shineth as the day, The heart, which rests on thee In contrite trust, thou wilt not cast away. Bless, purify, control The fountains of the soul; Bid thy good Spirit o'er the waters move. Be as a holy shrine, Filled with thy Spirit, glowing with thy love. 幣 O O LORD, DELIVER! LORD, deliver! when the unclouded ray Of earthly joy upon our path is glowing, When gentle waters flow beside the way, And flowers of Eden are around us blowing; And gladness founts of pleasure are unsealing; O Lord, deliver! when the tempest's wing Sweeps wildly o'er the way our feet are treading, When deep and deeper shades are gathering, A horror of great darkness round us spreading; When hope deferred is preying on the heart; When friends, true friends, in death's embrace are sleeping; When, cold and faithless, trusted ones depart, O Lord, deliver! in that solemn hour When mysteries of life and death are blending; STEPHEN GREENLEAF BULFINCH. (1809-1870.) REV. STEPHEN G. BULFINCH, D.D., was born in Boston, June 18, 1809, and was the son of Charles Bulfinch, a prominent citizen and a well-known architect, who was the designer of the National Capitol at Washington, and removed thither with his family in 1818. The son graduated at Columbia College, in that city, in 1827, and at the Theologi. cal School at Cambridge in 1830. He soon entered upon the work of an evangelist at Augusta, Ga., and received ordination to the ministry from Rev. Samuel Gilman, of Charleston, S.C., Jan. 9, 1831. At subsequent periods of his life, he was settled over various Unitarian societies in other parts of the country, ‚—at Pittsburgh, Pa., during the winter of 18371838; at Washington, D.C., in 1838; at Nashua, N.H., in 1845; at Dorchester (Harrison Square) in 1852; and at East Cambridge, Mass., in 1865. He died at the last-named place, suddenly, of disease of the heart, Oct. 12, 1870. Said the "Boston Transcript," in a fitting tribute to his worth, just after his decease: "Of a beautiful spirit, earnest convictions, sympathetic and devout nature, he won the respect and love of the people wherever he served, and was known by them all for his pure and blameless life, and his conscientious and Christian fidelity in all professional and personal relations." He married, Oct. 4, 1836, Miss Maria Howard, of Savannah, Ga., who died during his ministry at Pittsburgh. His second marriage was in December, 1842, to Miss Caroline Phelps, of Hadley, Mass., now resident at Cambridge. Dr. Bulfinch was a laborious student and a most diligent writer, and enriched the Christian literature of the religious body to which he belonged with a large number of excellent published discourses and maga zine articles, and with many volumes of his prose and poetry. The latter are, "Contemplations of the Saviour," a series of extracts from the Gospels, with reflections and original and selected hymns, 1832 (reprinted in England); 'Poems," dedicated to Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Gilman, of Charleston, 1834; "The Holy Land and its Inhabitants," a number of the 'Sunday School Library," 1834; "Lays of the Gospel," founded on his "Contemplations of the Saviour," and embracing most of the author's sacred hymns and poems, 1845; "Communion Thoughts," consisting of extracts from sermons and of some verses not before published, 1850; "Palestine and the Hebrew People," a Sunday school text-book, 1853; "The Harp and the Cross," a collection of religious poetry from different sources, prepared for the American Unitarian Association, 1857; "Honor, or the Slave-Dealer's Daughter," a novel, 1864; choice selections from Shakespeare, entitled "Shakespeare, adapted for Reading Classes and for the Family Circle," which he edited, in connection with his brother, Thomas Bulfinch, 1865; "Manual of the Evidences of Christianity," 1866; and "Studies in the Evidences of Christianity," 1869. He prepared also some Grecian stories, which were about to appear in the Student and Schoolmate" at the time of his death. Dr. Bulfinch was a good Greek and Hebrew scholar, and, during the first term of the college year at Cambridge, in 1864–1865, he taught Hebrew in the Divinity School for Dr. Noyes, who was sick; and in the last hours of his own life he received a notice of his appointment as the teacher of Greek in the same institution. He received his degree of D.D. from Columbia College in 1864. As a writer of hymns, Dr. Bulfinch has had few superiors in the communion to which he belonged. Most of his poetry is of a deeply religious character, and is marked by a natural simplicity and flow of thought, an unusual purity and beauty of diction, a high degree of spiritual fervor, and that element of devout feeling and tender love which dwelt so richly in the soul itself of this gentle and saintly bard, from earliest youth even to the last. Many of his hymns, originally published in his own volumes, are now to be found in numerous Compilations. Some of the best and most cherished of them, such as "Hail to the Sabbath day," "Lord, in whose might the Saviour trod," "O suffering Friend of human kind," "Hath not thy heart within thee burned," and others of like merit, When his little appeared in his "Contemplations of the Saviour," as long ago as 1832, when their author was only twenty-three years of age. was published in Charleston, in 1834, only five volume of "Poems copies of it were sold in that city, and of these Dr. and Mrs. Gilman bought three. Since then, not a few of the hymns which it contained have been sung in numberless churches, of different sects, in our own We take such as we present here mostly country and across the seas. from the larger edition of his poetical writings, "Lays of the Gospel," in which some of his earlier verses appear variously altered or extended. |