AND HE WAS NOT: FOR GOD TOOK HIM." "SERVANT of God, well done! Rest from thy loved employ ; The battle fought, the victory won, Enter thy Master's joy." -The voice at midnight came, He started up to hear; A mortal arrow pierced his frame, Tranquil amidst alarms, It found him on the field; His sword was in his hand, Still warm with recent fight, Ready that moment, at command, Through rock and steel to smite. It was a two-edged blade, Of heavenly temper keen; And double were the wounds it made, 'Twas death to sin,-'twas life Oft with its fiery force His arm had quelled the foe, And laid, resistless in his course, The alien armies low. Bent on such glorious toils, The world to him was loss; Yet all his trophies, all his spoils, He hung upon the Cross. At midnight came the cry, He woke, and caught his Captain's eye; His spirit, with a bound, Left its encumbering clay; His tent, at sun-rise, on the ground, A darkened ruin lay. The pains of death are past, Labour and sorrow cease; And, life's long warfare closed at last, His soul is found in peace. Soldier of Christ, well done! Praise be thy new employ; And while eternal ages run, Rest in thy Saviour's joy. 66 LIKE A SHADOW THAT DEPARTETH." THIS shadow on the dial's face, That steals, from day to day, With slow, unseen, unceasing pace, Moments, and months, and years away; This shadow, which, in every clime, Since light and motion first began, Hath held its course sublime; What is it? mortal man! It is the scythe of time: Yet, in its calm career, It levels all beneath the sky; And still, through each succeeding year, Right onward, with resistless power, Its stroke shall darken every hour, Till nature's race be run, And time's last shadow shall eclipse the sun. Nor only o'er the dial's face, This silent phantom, day by day, With slow, unseen, unceasing pace, Steals moments, months, and years away; From hoary rock, and aged tree, From proud Palmyra's mouldering walls, O'er evanescent joys; Life's flowrets glittering with the dew of morn, Then time, the conqueror, will suspend Each frail beholder's doom. O'er the wide earth's illumined space, Though time's triumphant flight be shown, The truest index on its face, Points from the churchyard-stone. |