In human flesh and shape He went, O happy pledge of pardon sure, And of an endless blissful state, Since human nature once made pure, For Heaven becomes so fit a mate! Lord, raise our sinking minds therefore, To fit us for those regions clear. That when He shall return again And so may mount to His bright hosts And be conducted to the courts Henry Moore LI CHRIST OUR GOD He, Who on earth as man was known, And bore our sins and pains, Now, seated on the eternal Throne, His hands the wheels of Nature guide And countless worlds, extended wide, While harps unnumber'd sound His praise His righteousness, to faith reveal'd, This land through which His pilgrims go, But streams of grace from Him o'erflow, When troubles, like a burning sun, Beat heavy on their head, And find a pleasing shade. How glorious He! how happy they Whose love secures them all the way, And crowns them at the end. J. Newton LII THE MEDIATOR Where high the heavenly temple stands, He who for man in mercy stood, Though now ascended up on high, Our fellow-sufferer yet retains In every pang that rends the heart With boldness, therefore, at the throne, J. Logan III THE WRITTEN WORD LIII THE BIBLE Dim-as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars Is reason to the soul: and as on high, When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere, LIV THE GOSPELS And so the Word had breath, and wrought Which he may read that binds the sheaf, A. Tennyson LV THE SECOND DAY OF CREATION This world I deem But a beautiful dream Of shadows that are not what they seem, Where visions rise, Giving dim surmise Of the things that shall meet our waking eyes. Arm of the Lord! Creating Word! Whose glory the silent skies record In scrolls of flame On the firmament's high-shadowing frame. I gaze o'erhead, Where Thy hand hath spread For the waters of Heaven that crystal bed, In its deeps of blue, Which the fires of the sun come temper'd through. Soft they shine Through that pure shrine, As beneath the veil of Thy flesh divine, Beams forth the light That were else too bright For the feebleness of a sinner's sight. I gaze aloof On the tissued roof, Where time and space are the warp and woof, |