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Thro' the darkness that clear star
Which has marshall'd you so far,
Even unto this strawy tent,
Dancing up the Orient?

Shall we name you kings indeed,
Or is this our idle creed?
Kings of Seba, with the gold
And the incense long foretold?
Would the Gentile world by you
First-fruits pay of tribute due ;
Or have Israel's scatter'd race,
From their unknown hiding-place,
Sent to claim their part and right
In the Child new-born to night?

But although we may not guess
Of your lineage, not the less
We the self-same gifts would bring
For a spiritual offering.
May the frankincense in air
As it climbs instruct our prayer,
That it ever upward tend,
Ever struggle to ascend,
Leaving earth, yet ere it go
Fragrance rich diffuse below.
As the myrrh is bitter sweet,
So in us may such things meet,
As unto the mortal taste
Bitter seeming, yet at last
Shall to them who try be known
To have sweetness of their own-
Tears for sin, which sweeter far
Than the world's mad laughters are ;

Desires, that in their dying give
Pain, but die that we may live.
And the gold from Araby-
Fitter symbol who could see
Of the love which, thrice refined,
Love to God and to our kind,
Duly tender'd, He will call

Best pleasing sacrifice of all?

Thus so soon as far apart

From the proud world, in our heart
As in stable dark, defiled,
There is born th' Eternal Child,

May to Him the spirit's kings
Bear their choicest offerings;
May the affections, reason, will,
Wait upon Him to fulfil
His behests, and early pay
Homage to His natal day.

Archbishop Trench

XXXVI

THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST

By cool Siloam's shady rill

How sweet the lily grows;

How sweet the breath beneath the hill

Of Sharon's dewy rose:

Lo such the child whose early feet
The paths of peace have trod;

Whose secret heart with influence sweet
Is lifted up to God.

By cool Siloam's shady rill

The lily must decay;

The rose that blooms beneath the hill
Must shortly fade away;

And soon, too soon, the wintry hour

Of man's maturer age

Will shake the soul with sorrow's power,
And stormy passion's rage.

O Thou whose infant feet were found
Within Thy Father's shrine,

Whose years with changeless virtue crown'd
Were all alike Divine:

Dependent on Thy bounteous breath,
We seek Thy grace alone

In childhood, manhood, age, and death,

To keep us still Thine own.

Bishop Heber

XXXVII

GLORIES OF THE MESSIAH.

Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem rise,
Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes!
See a long race thy spacious courts adorn;
See future sons and daughters, yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations at thy gate attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend;
See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,
And heap'd with products of Sabean springs!
For thee, Idume's spicy forests blow,

And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.

See Heaven its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day.

No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn ;
But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze

O'erflow thy courts: the Light Himself shall shine
Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine !
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fixed His word, His saving power remains ;
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns.
A. Pope

XXXVIII

CHRIST BETRAYED

Eighteen hundred years agone
Was that deed of darkness done-
Was that sacred thorn-crown'd head
To a shameful death betray'd,
And Iscariot's traitor name
Blazon'd in eternal shame.
Thou, disciple of our time,
Follower of the faith sublime,
Who with high and holy scorn
Of that traitorous deed dost burn,
Though the years may nevermore
To our earth that form restore,
The Christ-spirit ever lives-
Ever in thy heart He strives.
When pale misery mutely calls,
When thy brother tempted falls,
When thy gentle words may chain

Hate, and anger, and disdain,
Or thy loving smile impart
Courage to some sinking heart:
When within thy troubled breast
Good and evil thoughts contest,
Though unconscious thou mayst be,
The Christ-spirit strives with thee.

When He trod the holy land With His small disciple band, And the fated hour had come For that august martyrdomWhen the man, the human love, And the God within Him stroveAs in Gethsemane He wept, They, the faithless watchers, slept : While for them He wept and pray'd, One denied and one betray'd!

If to-day thou turn'st aside
In thy luxury and pride,
Wrapp'd within thyself, and blind
To the sorrows of thy kind,

Thou a faithless watch dost keep-
Thou art one of those who sleep :
Or, if waking, thou dost see
Nothing of divinity

In our fallen struggling race-
If in them thou see'st no trace
Of a glory dimmed, not gone,
Of a future to be won,
Of a future, hopeful, high,
Thou, like Peter, dost deny :

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