LIGHT FROM RELIGION.

IF all our hopes and all our fears
Were prison'd in life's little bound;
If, travellers through this vale of tears,
We saw no better world beyond ;—
O what should check the rising sigh?
What earthly thing could pleasure give?
Who then in peace could ever die?

Or who would breathe a wish to live?

Were life a dark and desert moor,

Where clouds and mists eternal spread Their gloomy veil behind, before, And tempests thunder overhead; Where not a sunbeam breaks the gloom, And not a flow'ret smiles beneath;— Who could exist in such a tomb?

Who dwell in darkness and in death?

Yet such were life without the ray
From our divine religion given:
'Tis this that makes our darkness day;

'Tis this that makes our earth a heaven.

Bright is the golden sun above,

And beautiful the flowers that bloom;

And all is joy, and all is love,

Reflected from a world to come.

LOVE TO GOD.

"THUS shalt thou love the Almighty Lord—
With all thy heart and soul and mind.".
So speaks to man that sacred Word
For counsel and reproof design'd.

"With all thy HEART"-no idol thing, Though close around the heart it twine, Its interposing shade must fling,

To darken that pure love of thine.

"With all thy MIND"-each varied power,
Creative fancy, musings high,

And thoughts that glance behind, before,
These must religion sanctify.

"With SOUL and STRENGTH"-thy days of ease, While vigor nerves each youthful limb,

And hope and joy, and health and peace,
All must be freely brought to Him.

Thou Power Supreme, in whom we move,
Vouchsafe thy servants, in their day,
The mind to adore, the heart to love,

And strength to serve thee, while they may.

SABBATH HYMN.

WHEN, as returns this solemn day,
Man comes to meet his Maker, God,
What rites, what honors shall he pay?
How spread his Sovereign's praise abroad?

From marble domes and gilded spires

Shall curling clouds of incense rise?
And gems, and gold, and garlands deck
The costly pomp of sacrifice?

Vain, sinful man!-Creation's Lord
Thy golden offerings well may spare;
But give thy heart, and thou shalt find
Here dwells a God who heareth prayer.

TYPES of eternal rest-fair buds of bliss,

In heavenly flowers unfolding week by weekThe next world's gladness imaged forth in this— Days of whose worth the Christian's heart can speak!

Eternity in Time-the steps by which

We climb to future ages-lamps that light
Man through his darker days, and thought enrich,
Yielding redemption for the week's dull flight.

Wakeners of prayer in man-his resting bowers
As on he journeys in the narrow way,
Where, Eden-like, Jehovah's walking hours
Are waited for as in the cool of day.

Days fix'd by God for intercourse with dust,
To raise our thoughts, and purify our powers-
Periods appointed to renew our trust—

A gleam of glory after six days' showers.

A milky-way mark'd out through skies else drear,
By radiant suns that warm as well as shine—
A clue, which he who follows knows no fear,
Though briers and thorns around his pathway twine.

Foretastes of heaven on earth-pledges of joy
Surpassing fancy's flight and fiction's story—
The preludes of a feast that cannot cloy,
And the bright out-courts of immortal glory!

THE SPIRITUAL LAW.

DEUT. XXX. 11-14.

SAY not the law divine

Is hidden from thee, or afar removed;

That law within would shine,

If there its glorious light were sought and loved.

Soar not on high,

Nor ask who thence shall bring it down to earth;
That vaulted sky

Hath no such star, didst thou but know its worth.

Nor launch thy bark

In search thereof upon a shoreless sea

Which has no ark,

No dove to bring this olive-branch to thee.

Then do not roam

In search of that which wandering cannot win; At home! at home!

That word is placed, thy mouth, thy heart within.

O! seek it there,

Turn to its teachings with devoted will;
Watch unto prayer,

And in the power of faith this law fulfi!.

THE HAPPINESS OF THE GODLY.

BLESSED state! and happy he
Who is like that planted tree;
Living waters lave his root,
Bends his bough with golden fruit.

Thine, O Lord! the power and praise
Which a sight like this displays;
Power of thine must plant it there,
Praise of thee it should declare.

Thou must first prepare the ground,
Sow the seed and fence it round;
Streams that water, suns that shine,
Each and all are ever thine.