It is the day of Worship. Where the rill,
Bright with the sunbeams, gives its soothing sound,
The Church adorns the gently rising hill,
And flowers spring up, and trees are planted round.
The villagers, within its sacred wall,
Are wont upon the Sabbath's hours to meet,
Upon the great Creator's name to call,
And pour their homage at the Saviour's feet,
In supplication's voice, and anthem simply sweet.
And now it is the customary time,
When to their rural temple they repair.
Filled with the thoughts of duty, pure, sublime, The Holy Bible in their hands they bear. Matrons their little flock prepare to lead; And village maids, in youth's rejoicing bloom, And feeble, aged men, the staff that need, And childhood gay, with Sunday frock and plume, Churchward their solemn way at wonted hour resume.
And from the holy place behold him rise,
God's messenger; his locks are thin and white;
He upward lifts his mildly glancing eyes,
And supplicates the God of life and light,
Not with mere lips, but with the spirit's breath;
For in his mind it is no vulgar prize,
To pluck the soul from sin, and woe, and death,
And plant it, starlike, in the spotless skies,
To shine with quenchless blaze, when man and nature dies.
He was indeed the shepherd of his fold,
And sought in body and in soul their good.
Unbribed to labor by the charms of gold,
He patient toiled, and strong in virtue stood.
The sordid ties, that human hearts control,
The bonds of earth, swayed not his stedfast mind,
That pointed, like the needle to the pole,
To Him, who died to rescue human kind;
In nothing else did he abiding pleasure find.
Sometimes his cherished people mourned their dead; Perhaps a darling child his head doth bow;
And bitter are the tears the parents shed,
As they bend o'er the loved one's pallid brow.
At that sad hour the constant pastor near
His sympathy and consolation lends.
Skillful, he wipes away the mourner's tear,
And shows that God, in what of ill he sends,
Though now his ways are dark, some secret good intends.
His days were days of watchfulness and prayer,
And, while he trod himself the narrow road,
He taught the lost to turn their footsteps there,
And cast away transgression's heavy load.
And for their help he plead the Holy Page,
The promise fair, in words of light displayed,
That those, who tread the heavenly pilgrimage
And humbly seek, shall have the needed aid,
To the Redeemer dear, though oft by sins betrayed.
Nor was he all unheeded; but his voice,
As if an angel's joyous lips were nigh,
Availed to make the trembling heart rejoice;
Nor seldom penitence bedewed the eye
Of those, who long the Savior set at nought.
Then was his spirit glad; peace filled his soul,
If he availed, by heavenly wisdom taught,
To lead from sin, and its attendant dole,
E'en one to better paths and virtue's blest control.
Yes, there's a rest, he said, a Sabbath near,
More pure and holy than we now behold.
There may we all, in long communion dear,
Together meet, the shepherd and the fold.
Peace to his silent dust! And may he find,
As o'er that Sabbath clime his feet shall tread,
The wanderer and the lost, the halt and blind,
By precept taught and by example led,
Up to the realms of light, to Christ their blessed head.
HUSHED was the tumult of the day, The evening's wonted breeze was still; with silver ray,
Chequered the groves of vale and hill, And not a cloud o'er all the sky, Was witnessed by my wandering eye.
The light was out in each lone cot,
The farmer slept at nature's call,
And sound or action reached me not,
Save but the cricket in the wall.
The beast was on his lair; his breast
The bird had pillowed on his nest.
Then thought my soul of each dear scene, Where childhood sported gay and boon; The gambols on the village green,
Beneath the pale and watchful moon, When friends and nature had a charm The sting of sorrow to disarm.
Nor did my soul find resting here;
But prompted by this hour of bliss,
She soared above this earthly sphere,
And found a scene more calm than this;
A heaven, where there is endless joy,
No cares invade, no griefs annoy.
["Then the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians, an hundred and four-score and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses: So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed." Isa. Xxxvii. 36, 37.]
THE trumpet pealed its joyful cry,
The coal-black war-horse neighed ;
The glittering banner floated high,
With heart of steel and threatening eye
Each warrior drew his blade.
The setting sun at close of day,
O'er Carmel's mount of dew,
Bathed with its light the proud array
Of champing steeds and plumage gay,
And flags that glittering flew.
But lo! The morn returns from far,
And snowy plume and sword,
The haughty chief, the steed of war,
The lifted trump, the smoking car,
Have fall'n before the Lord.
God's angel, like the desert's blast,
Came flying down the sky;
He hurled his vengeance as he past,
And every warrior breathed his last,
And closed was every eye.
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