Your silent lessons, undescried By all but lowly eyes: For ye could draw th' admiring gaze Ye felt your Maker's smile that hour, What care ye now, if winter's storm Christ's blessing at your heart is warm, Ye fear no vexing mood. Alas! of thousand bosoms kind, That daily court you and caress, How few the happy secret find "And Heaven thy morn will bless." LXVI. SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. Ephesians iii. 13. WISH not, dear friends, my pain away— Wish me a wise and thankful heart, With GOD, in all my griefs, to stay, Nor from His lov'd correction start. The dearest offering He can crave The only Son of His dear love? But we, like vex'd unquiet sprights, Nor sweetly take a sinner's doom. In Life's long sickness evermore Our thoughts are tossing to and fro: We change our posture o'er and o'er, But cannot rest, nor cheat our woe. Were it not better to lie still, Let Him strike home and bless the rod, Never so safe as when our will Yields undiscern'd by all but God? Thy precious things, whate'er they be How thou may'st turn them all to gain. Lovest thou praise? the Cross is shame : We of that altar would partake, But cannot quit the cost-no throne Is ours, to leave for Thy dear sake We cannot do as Thou hast done. We cannot part with Heaven for Thee Yet guide us in thy track of love: So wanderers ever fond and true Look homeward through the evening sky, Without a streak of heaven's soft blue To aid Affection's dreaming eye. The wanderer seeks his native bower, 4 And thank thee for each trying hour, Wishing, not struggling, to be free. LXVII. SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling-block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the Prophet, I the Lord will answer him according to the multitude of his idols. Ezeiel xiv. 4. STATELY thy walls, and holy are the prayers, Which day and night before thine altars rise; Not statelier, towering o'er her marble stairs, Flash'd Sion's gilded dome to summer skies, Not holier, while around him angels bow'd, From Aaron's censer steam'd the spicy cloud, Before the mercy-seat. O mother dear, Wilt thou forgive thy son one boding sigh? Forgive, if round thy towers he walk in fear, And tell thy jewels o'er with jealous eye? |