Thus to draw back from God,
Who doth protect thee?
Look then for his sharp rod,
Next to correct thee.

Lord Jesus, take my spirit:
I trust thy love and merit:
Take home this wandering sheep,
For Thou hast sought it:
This soul in safety keep,
For Thou hast bought it.

Samuel Wesley Fun.

THE RESURRECTION.

THE Sun of Righteousness appears,

To set in blood no more! Adore the healer of your fears,

Your rising Sun adore.

The saints, when He resign'd his breath,

Unclosed their sleeping eyes,

Epitaph on an Infant.

He breaks again the bonds of death,
Again the dead arise.

Alone the dreadful race He ran,

Alone the wine-press trod ; He died and suffer'd as a man,

He rises as a God!

In vain the stone, the watch, the seal,
Forbid an early rise,

To Him who breaks the gates of hell,
And opens paradise.

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT.

Beneath, a sleeping infant lies,

To earth whose ashes lent, More glorious shall hereafter rise, Though not more innocent.

When the archangel's trump shall blow,
And souls and bodies join,

What crowds will wish their lives below

Had been as short as thine!

219

John Mason.

A MORNING HYMN.

My God was with me all this night,
And gave me sweet repose:

My God did watch, even whilst I slept,

Or I had never rose.

How many groan'd and wish'd for sleep,

Until they wish'd for day;

Measuring slow hours with their quick pains, Whilst I securely lay!

Whilst I did sleep, all dangers slept,
No thieves did me affright;

Those evening wolves, those beasts of prey,

Disturbers of the night.

No raging flames nor storms did rend

The house that I was in;

I heard no dreadful cries without,

No doleful groans within.

A Morning Hymn.

What terrors have I 'scaped this night,

Which have on others fell!

My body might have slept its last,
My soul have waked in hell.

Sweet rest hath gained that strength to me,
Which labour did devour :

My body was in weakness sown,
But it is raised in power.

Lord, for the mercies of the night,

My humble thanks I

pay;

And unto Thee I dedicate

The first-fruits of the day.

Let this day praise Thee, O my God,

And so let all my days:

And, O let mine eternal day
Be thine eternal praise.

221

Sir Matthew Hale.

ON CHRIST'S BIRTH.

WHEN the great lamp of heaven, the glorious sun,
Had touch'd this southern period, and begun
To leave the winter tropic, and to climb
The zodiac's ascending signs; that time
The brighter Sun of Righteousness did choose
His beams of light and glory to diffuse
O'er our dark lower world, and by that ray
To chase the darkness, and to make it day.
And lest the glorious and resplendent light
Of his eternal beam might be too bright
For mortal eyes to gaze upon, he shrouds,
And clothes his fiery pillar, with the clouds
Of human flesh; that in that dress He

may

Converse with men, acquaint them with the way
To life and glory, show his Father's mind
Concerning them, how bountiful and kind

His thoughts were to them; what they might expect
From Him, in the observance or neglect

Of what He did require ;—and then He seal'd, With his dear blood, the Truth He had reveal'd.