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Come, for the truth is weak,

And error pours abroad
Its subtle poison o'er the earth,—
An earth that hates her God.
Come, for love waxes cold,

Its steps are faint and slow;
Faith now is lost in unbelief,
Hope's lamp burns dim and low.
Come, for the grave is full,

Earth's tombs no more can hold,
The sated sepulchres rebel,

And groans the heaving mould.
Come, for the corn is ripe,

Put in thy sickle now,

Reap the great harvest of the earth-
Sower and reaper thou!

Come, in thy glorious might,
Come with the iron rod,
Scattering thy foes before thy face,
Most mighty Son of God.

Come, spoil the strong man's house,
Bind him and cast him hence,
Show thyself stronger than the strong
Thyself Omnipotence.

Come, and make all things new,

Build up this ruined earth,
Restore our faded Paradise,
Creation's second birth.

Come, and begin thy reign

Of everlasting peace,

Come, take the kingdom to thyself,

Great King of Righteousness.
Horatius Bonar.

42. ADVENT, Preparation for the.

Lord, come away,
Why dost thou stay?

Thy road is ready and thy paths, made straight,

With longing expectation, wait • The consecration of thy beauteous feet. Ride on triumphantly; behold we lay Our lusts and proud wills in the way. Hosanna! welcome to our hearts, Lord, here Thou hast a temple too, and full as dear As that of Zion; and as full of sin. [in. Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell thereEnter, and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor.

Crucify them, that they may nevermore

Profane that holy place,

Where Thou hast chose to set thy face. And then if our stiff tongues shall be Mute in the praises of thy Deity,

The stones out of the temple wall Shall cry aloud, and call Hosanna! and thy glorious footsteps greet. Jeremy Taylor.

43. ADVERSITY, A Brother in. When every scene, this side the grave, Seems dark and cheerless to the eye,

How sweet at such an hour to have
A brother in adversity!

When father, mother, all are gone,

When burst affection's closest tie,How sweet to claim, as still their own, A brother in adversity!

When frowns an angry world unkind,
And hope's delusive visions fly,
How sweet in such an hour, to find,
A brother in adversity!

And who is this whom still we find,

When father, mother, husband die, Still faithful, tender, loving, kind? A brother in adversity!

Jesus! my Lord! ah, who can trace Thy love unchanging, full, and free; Or tell the riches of thy grace,

Thou Brother in adversity!

Ye travellers in this wilderness,
Who somewhat of His beauty see;
Forever, oh! forever bless

This Brother in adversity!

44. ADVERSITY, Application of.

I ask

What He would have this evil do for me?
What is its mission? What its misery?
What golden fruit lies hidden in its husk?
How shall it nurse my virtue, nerve my will,
Chasten my passions, purify my love,
And make me in some goodly sense like Him
Who bore the cross of evil while He lived,
Who hung and bled upon it when He died,
And now in glory wears the victor's crown.
J. G. Holland.

45. ADVERSITY, Benefit of.
'Mid pleasure, plenty, and success,
Freely we take from Him who lends:
We boast the blessing we possess,

Yet scarcely thank the One who sends. But let affliction pour its smart,

How soon we quail beneath the rod! With shattered pride, and prostrate heart, We seek the long-forgotten God.

46. ADVERSITY, Comfort in.

Eliza Cook.

The man, perhaps, Thou pitiest, draws his comfort from distress. That mind so poised, and centred in the good Supreme, so kindled with devotion's flame, Might, with prosperity's enchanting cup Inebriate, have forgot the All-giving hand; Might on earth's vain and transitory joys Have built its sole felicity, nor e'er Winged a desire beyond. George Bally.

47. ADVERSITY, Correction of.

When urged by strong temptation to the brink

Of guilt and ruin, stands the virtuous mind, With scarce a step between; all-pitying

Heaven,

Severe in mercy, chastening in its love,

Ofttimes in dark and awful visitation,
Doth interpose, and leads the wanderer back
To the straight path, to be forever after
A firm, undaunted, onward-bearing traveller,
Strong in humility, who swerves no more.
Joanna Baillie.

48. ADVERSITY, Cup of

My God once mixed a harsh cup, for me to
drink from it,

And it was full of acrid bitterness intensest;
The black and nauseating draught did make
me shrink from it, [dispensest,
And cry,
"O Thou who every draught alike
This cup of anguish sore, bid me not quaff
of it,
[half of it!"
Or pour away the dregs and the deadliest
But still the cup He held; and seeing He
ordained it,
[as I drained it.
One glance at Him-it turned to sweetness
Oriental Tr. by W. R. Alger.

49. ADVERSITY, Gain of
The good man suffers but to gain,
And every virtue springs from pain;
As aromatic plants bestow

No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But, crushed or trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.
Oliver Goldsmith.

50. ADVERSITY, Hope in.
Where is the troubled heart consigned to share
Tumultuous toils, or solitary care,
Unblest by visionary thoughts that stray
To count the joys of Fortune's better day!
Lo, nature, life, and liberty relume
The dim-eyed tenant of the dungeon gloom,
A long-lost friend, or hapless child restored,
Smiles at his blazing hearth and social board;
Warm from his heart the tears of rapture flow,
And virtue triumphs o'er remembered woe.
Thomas Campbell.

51. ADVERSITY, Hymn to
Daughter of Jove, relentless power,

Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain,
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy sire to send on earth

Virtue, his darling child, designed, To thee he gave the heavenly birth,

And bade to form her infant mind. Stern, rugged nurse! thy rigid lore With patience many a year she bore; What sorrow was thou bad'st her know,

Light they dispense, and with them gó
The summer friend, the flatt'ring foe;
By vain Prosperity received, [believed.
To her they vow their truth, and are again
Wisdom in sable garb array'd,

Immers'd in rapt'rous thought profound,
And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend;
Warm Charity, the gen'ral friend,
With Justice, to herself severe,
[tear.
And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing
Oh! gently on thy suppliant's head,
Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Not circled with the vengeful band
(As by the impious thou art seen), [mien,
With thund'ring voice, and threat'ning
With screaming Horror's fun'ral cry, [erty.
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Pov-
Thy form benign, oh goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart,

Thy philosophic train be there

To soften, not to wound my heart.
The gen'rous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive,

Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a
Man.
Thomas Gray.

52. ADVERSITY, Reviewing.

When we are young, this year we call the

worst

That we can know; this bitter day is cursed,
And no more such our hearts can bear, we say.
But yet, as time from us falls fast away,
There comes a day, son, when all this is fair
And sweet to what, still living, we must bear.
"Bettered is bale by bale that follows it,"
The saw saith.
William Morris.

53. AFFECTATION, Ministerial.
In man or woman, but far most in man,
And most of all in man that ministers
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe
All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn;
Object of my implacable disgust.
What! will a man play tricks, will he indulge
A silly, fond conceit of his fair form
And just proportion, fashionable mien,
And pretty face, in presence of his God?
Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes,
As with the diamond on his lily hand,
And play his brilliant parts before my eyes,
When I am hungry for the bread of life?
He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shames
His noble office, and, instead of truth,
Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock.

And from her own she learn'd to melt at Therefore avaunt all attitude, and stare,

others' woe.

Scar'd at thy frowns, terrific fly

Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,
Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.

And start theatric, practised at the glass!
I seek divine simplicity in him
Who handles things divine; and all besides,
Though learned with labor, and though much
admired

By curious eyes and judgments ill-informed,

To me is odious as the nasal twang
Heard at conventicle, where worthy men,
Misled by custom, strain celestial themes
Through the pressed nostril, spectacle-bestrid.
William Couper.

54. AFFECTION, Elevating.

O! there is one affection which no stain
Of earth can ever darken,-when two find,
The softer and the manlier, that a chain
Of kindred taste has fastened mind to mind.
"Tis an attraction from all sense refined;
The good can only know it; 'tis not blind
As love is unto baseness; its desire
Is but with hands entwined to lift our being
higher.

James Gates Percival.

55. AFFECTION, Filial.

There is a dungeon in whose dim drear light
What do I gaze on? Nothing: look again!
Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight,
Two insulated phantoms of the brain:
It is not so; I see them full and plain,—
An old man and a female young and fair,
Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein
The blood is nectar: but what doth she there,
With her unmantled neck, and bosom white
and bare?

Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life,

Where on the heart and from the heart we took
Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife,
Blest into mother, in the innocent look,
Or even the piping cry of lips that brook
No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives
Man knows not, when from out its cradled

nook

She sees her little bud put forth its leavesWhat may the fruit be yet? I know not

Cain was Eve's.

56. AFFECTION, Inspiring.

I think of thee! my thoughts do twine and
About thee, as wild vines, about a tree, [bud
Put out broad leaves, and soon there's naught
to see
[wood.
Except the straggling green which hides the
Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
I will not have my thoughts instead of thee
Who art dearer, better! rather instantly
Renew thy presence. As a strong tree should,
Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,
And let these bands of greenery which in-
sphere thee
[everywhere!
Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee
Drop heavily down,
burst, shattered,
And breath within thy shadow a new air,
I do not think of thee,-I am too near thee.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

57. AFFECTION, Instinctive.

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As thy young mother why she dotes on thee
With such unmeasured, fond intensity!

I cannot look on thee, but springing thought
Perfumes the air with blossoms fancy fraught!
I cannot think on thee, but life seems bright
With gushing sunbeams, ever new delight!—
Thou darling simpleton! thy vacant eye
ex-As yet to my long gaze makes no reply;

But here youth offers to old age the food,
The milk of his own gift: it is her sire
To whom she renders back the debt of blood
Born with her birth. No! he shall not
pire

While in those warm and lovely veins the fire
Of health and holy feeling can provide
Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises
higher

Than Egypt's river;-from that gentle side Drink, drink and live, old man! Heaven's realm holds no such tide.

The starry fable of the milky-way
Has not thy story's purity; it is
A constellation of a sweeter ray,
And sacred Nature triumphs more in this
Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss
Where sparkle distant worlds: O, holiest
nurse!

No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss
To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the uni-

verse.

George Gordon Byron.

Breathing and crying are thy only speech-
But, oh! for me, what eloquence hath each!
Sounds of my first-born!-how my heart they
thrill,

Like the sweet babblings of a hidden rill;
A well of future blessedness art thou!
My morning star, my crown of gladness now!
Mrs. Richardson.

58. AFFECTION, Maternal.

When first thou camest, gentle, shy, and fond, [treasure, My eldest born, first hope, and dearest My heart received thee with a joy beyond

All that it yet had felt of earthly pleasure! Nor thought that any love again might be So deep and strong as that I felt for thee.

Then thou, my merry love, bold in thy glee, Under the bough, or by the firelight danc

ing,

With thy sweet temper, and thy spirit free,Didst come, as restless as a bird's wing glancing,

Full of a wild and irrepressible mirth, Like a young sunbeam to the gladdened earth!

At length THOU camest, thou, the last and least, [ing brothers, Nicknamed "the Emperor" by thy laughBecause a haughty spirit swelled thy breast, And thou didst seek to rule and sway the others, Mingling with every playful infant wile A mimic majesty that made us smile.

Different from both! yet each succeeding

claim

I, that all other love had been forswearing,
Forthwith admitted, equal and the same;
Nor injured either by this love's comparing,
Nor stole a fraction for the newer call,—
But in the mother's heart found room for all!
Caroline E. Norton.

59. AFFECTION, Paternal.
Between the dark and the daylight,
When night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the children's hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper and then a silence;
Yet I know by their merry eyes

They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,

A sudden raid from the hall,

By three doors left unguarded,
They enter my castle wall.

They climb up into my turret,

O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me:
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me intwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine.
Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am

Is not a match for you all?
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you into the dungeon

In the round tower of my heart.

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

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I did not wrong myself so, but I placed A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may [faced,'Neath master-hands, from instruments deAnd great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat. Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

62. AFFECTION, Superior.

He who once wept with Mary-angels keeping

Their unthank'd watch-are a foreshadowing
Of what love is in heaven. We may believe
That we shall know each other's forms here-
after,

And, in the bright fields of the better land,
Call the lost dead to us. Oh conscious heart!
That in the lone paths of this shadowy world
Hast bless'd all light, however dimly shining,
That broke upon the darkness of thy way-
Number thy lamps of love, and tell me, now,
How many canst thou relight at the stars
And blush not at their burning? One-only

one

Lit while your pulses by one heart kept time, And fed with faithful fondness to your grave,

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63. AFFECTION, Tenacious.

In my boy's loud laughter ringing,
In the sigh more soft than singing

Of my baby-girl that nestles up into this mortal breast,

And every voice most dear

Comes a whisper-"Rest not here." And the rest Thou art preparing, is it best, Lord, is it best?

"Lord, a little, little longer!"

Sobs the earth-love, growing stronger: He will miss me, and go mourning through his solitary days.

And heaven were scarcely heaven
If these lambs which Thou hast given
Were to slip out of our keeping and be lost
in the world's ways.

Lord, it is not fear of dying,
Nor an impious denying

Of Thy will, which forevermore on earth, in heaven, be done :

But the love that desperate clings
Unto these my precious things

In the beauty of the daylight, and the glory of the sun.

Ah, Thou still art calling, calling,
With a soft voice unappalling;

And it vibrates in far circles through the everlasting years;

When Thou knockest, even so!
I will arise and go.

D. M. Muloch Craik.

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With anxious tossings, still, the veil behind Of earth-born mists, the faith-directed mind Sees throned in cloudless light the Invisible, At whose right hand delights in fulness dwell,

And bliss for ever lasting. Be resigned, Thou child of sorrow, to His sovereign will;

Drink, as He bids, the bitter cup, and bear Thy cross in patience! From the holy hill

A gleam shall cheer thee, till, safe-harbored there,

Thou feel how faintly earth's severest ill
May with the weight of heavenly joys
compare!
Richard Mant.

65. AFFLICTION, Compensation for.

Deem not that they are blest alone

Whose days a peaceful tenor keep; The Anointed Son of God makes known A blessing for the eyes that weep.

The light of smiles shall fill again

The lids that overflow with tears, And weary hours of woe and pain Are promises of happier years.

Oh, there are days of sunny rest

For every dark and troubled night,
And Grief may bide, an evening guest,
But Joy shall come with early light.

And thou, who, o'er thy friend's low bier,
Dost shed the bitter drops like rain,
Hope that a brighter, happier sphere
Will give him to thy arms again.

Nor let the good man's trust depart,

Though life its common gifts deny; Though with a pierced and bleeding heart, And spurned of men, he goes to die.

For God hath marked each sorrowing day,
And numbered every secret tear,
And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay
For all His children suffer here.
William Cullen Bryant.

66. AFFLICTION, Enduring.
Pain's furnace-heat within me quivers-
God's breath upon the fire doth blow,
And all my heart in anguish shivers,

And trembles at the fiery glow;
And yet I whisper, "As God will!"
And in his hottest fire hold still.

He comes and lays my heart, all heated,
On the bare anvil, minded so,

Into his own fair shape to beat it

With his great hammer, blow on blow;
And yet I whisper, "As God will!"
And at his heaviest blows hold still.
He takes my softened heart and beats it-
The sparks fly off at every blow;
He turns it o'er and o'er, and heats it,
And lets it cool, and makes it glow;
And yet I whisper, "As God will! "
And in his mighty hand hold still.

Why should I murmur? for the sorrow
Thus only longer-lived would be ;
Its end may come, and will to-morrow,

When God has done his work in me;
So I say, trusting, "As God will!"
And, trusting, to the end hold still.
He kindles for my profit purely,

Affliction's glowing, fiery brand;
And all his heaviest blows are surely
Inflicted by a Master-hand;
So I say, praying, "As God will!"
And hope in him and suffer still.
Julius Sturm.

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