3 Another year is gone,

True teacher of the wise,
Who will by its experience learn,
And its instruction prize.

4 Another year is gone,

All years will soon be past;
Then let us try each one to live
As if it were our last.

5 Another year is gone,

125.

Gone to the judgment seat,
And there, in this and every year,
A witness we shall meet.

Spring.

SWEET is the time of spring,

When nature's charms appear;

The birds with ceaseless pleasure sing,
And hail the opening year.

2 But sweeter far, the spring
Of wisdom and of grace;

S.M.

When children bless and praise their King,
Who loves their youthful race.

3 Sweet is the opening flower,
Which just begins to bloom;
Which every day and every hour
Fresh beauties will assume.

4 But sweeter that young heart,
Where faith, and love, and peace,

Blossom and bloom in every part,
With sweet and varied grace.

5 Oh may life's early spring,
And morning, ere they flee,
Youth's flower and its fair blossoming,
Be given, my God, to Thee.

126.

1

GOD might have bade the earth bring forth Enough for great and small,

The oak tree and the cedar tree,

Without a flower at all.

2 He might have made the herbs enough For every want of ours,

For medicine, luxury, and food,

And yet have made no flowers!

3 Then wherefore, wherefore were they made, All dyed in rainbow light,

All fashion'd with supremest grace,
Upspringing day and night?

4 Springing in valleys green and low,
And on the mountains high,
And in the secret wilderness,
Where no man passeth by.

5 Our outward life requires them not;
Then wherefore had they birth?
To minister delight to man,
And beautify the earth.

6 To comfort man, and whisper hope,
Whene'er his faith is dim;

For God, who careth for the flowers,
Will much more care for him!

127.

1

SEE

Autumn.

the leaves around us falling,
Dry and withered, to the ground;
Thus to thoughtless mortals calling,
With a sad and solemn sound.

2 Youth, on length of days presuming,
Who the paths of pleasure tread,
View us, late in beauty blooming,
Number'd now among the dead.

3 What though yet no losses grieve you,
Gay in health and manly grace;
Let not cloudless skies deceive you,
Summer gives to autumn place.

4 Yearly in our course recurring,
Messengers of shortest stay;
Thus we preach this truth, unerring,
Heaven and earth shall pass away.

5 On the tree of life eternal,

Man, let all thy hopes be stayed,
Which alone, for ever vernal,
Bears a leaf that ne'er shall fade.

8.7.

128.

1

Winter.

NOW winter holds his solemn reign;
The snow is on the ground,-

The rills and streams across the plain
In icy chains are bound.

C.M.

2 The flowers and trees now take their sleep, Their vigour to renew:

But soon their leaves will upward peep,
And burst to open view.

3 And soon will winter's robe of white
Give place to spring's sweet green,
Bedeck'd with colours gay and bright;—
A fair and joyful scene.

4 There is a winter of the heart
A gloomy time and cold :-
Love only makes it to depart,
And bids heart-flowers unfold.

5 There is a winter of the tomb,
Will close round all who live :-
But Christ will banish all its gloom,
And life immortal give.

6 Jesus, my Sun, my day's bright King,
Rise higher in my sky;

O, bring to me th' eternal spring,
Whose flowers shall never die!

129.

Christmas Day.

GOD! whose holy child this morn
Appeared on earth below,

To mortal want and labour born,
And more than mortal woe ;-

2 Messiah meek, by every grief,
By each temptation tried;
Who lived to yield our ills relief,
And to redeem us died :-

3 If gaily clothed, and proudly fed,
In dangerous wealth we dwell';
Remind us of His manger bed,
And lowly cottage cell.

4 If pressed by poverty seyere,

În envious want we pine,

His spirit, Lord, can make appear
The poorest lot divine.

C.M.

5 And when, through fortune's various scenes,
We've meekly served as He,-

Like Him, who hath a mourner been,
May we rejoice with Thee.

130.

1

Christmas Hymn.

OH! let us all be glad to-day,

And with the shepherds homage pay:
Come, see what God to us hath given,
His only Son, sent down from heaven.

L.M.