Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this Child is

regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ's Church.”

[PART.]

CHURCH RITES.

A BABE in deep repose

Where holy water flows,

Is bathed, while o'er him holiest words are said.

A child of wrath he came

Now hath he Jesus' Name :

A glory like a Saint's surrounds his favoured head.

What is this silent might,
Making our darkness light,

New wine our waters, Heavenly Blood our wine

Christ, with His Mother dear,

And all His Saints, is here,

And where they dwell is Heaven, and what they touch

divine.

Lyra Innocentium.

Seeing now, dearly belobed brethren, that this Child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ's Church."

LORD, may the inward grace abound
Through Thine appointed outward sign;
A milder seal than Abraham found,
Of covenant blessings more divine;
Which opens glory to our view,
Beyond the brightest hope he knew.

Type of the Spirit's living flow,
In faith we pour the hallow'd stream:
We sign the Cross upon the brow,
The solemn pledge of truth to Him
Who shed for us His precious blood,
To seal the covenant of God.

Baptiz'd into the Trinity,

Adopted children of Thy grace,
Oh help us, Lord, to live to Thee,
A humble, pure, and faithful race.
Instruct us, sanctify, defend,

And crown with heavenly life our end!

Unknown.

"Let us gibe thanks to Almighty God for these benefits; and with one accord make our prayers unto Him, that this Child may lead the rest of his life according to the beginning."

[PART.]

TO MY GOD-CHILD.

DEAR child, and happy shalt thou be,
If from this hour with just increase
All good things shall grow up in thee,
By such unmarked degrees.

If there shall be no dreary space
Between thy present self and past,

No dreary miserable place

With spectral shapes aghast ;

But the full graces of thy prime
Shall, in their weak beginnings, be
Lost in an unremembered time

Of holy infancy.

This blessing is the first and best;

Yet has not prayer been made in vain

For them, though not so amply blest,
The lost and found again.

And shouldest thou, alas! forbear
To choose the better, nobler lot,
Yet may we not esteem our prayer
Unheard or heeded not;

If after many a wandering,

And many a devious pathway trod,
If having known that bitter thing,
To leave the Lord thy God;

It yet shall be, that thou at last,
Although thy noon be lost, return
To bind life's eve in union fast
With this, its blessed morn.

'Make our prayers unto Him, that this Child may lead the rest of his life according to this beginning."

THE glittering grass, with dewdrops bright, . Is all astir with twinkling light;

What pity such a fair array,

So soon is meant to melt away!

Yet hath God given those drops a power
To raise the grass and cheer the flower;
All the hot noon their grace shall bide,
And fresh shall fall at eventide.

So day by day, O Lord, renew,
The grace of my baptismal dew;
Let its sweet power be with me now,
As when it sparkled on my brow.

And evermore that gift bestow,
While in my garden here I grow ;

That still to Heaven my growth may tend,

From whence those blessed dews descend.

REV. THOMAS WHYTEHEAD.