A voice to the Old Men!-speed ye the prayer, A voice to the living! it comes from the dead; By the prayers they have uttered, the tears they have shed, By their nights of sighs and days of toil, To win of the heathen for Jesus a spoil, By the stillness that lingers round their graves It calls ye, invites-demands ye, and know Where dangers wait, where deliverance is nigh, SUNDAY SCHOOL JUBILEE. WE praise thee, Lord, for light that shone In gladness and in peace it came Its token toil, its watchword "Try!” Its eagle track is high in air; Its standard sheet is wide unfurled, Whose waving folds of victory bear Release and ransom to a world. Joy for its blessings to the child Joy for its Christian-soldier bands Whose high emprize hath millions blest; Whose march is o'er the Eastern lands, Whose conquests reach the distant West. O, as this hour, the world's deep gaze, Withdrawn from its own dark misrule, Is fixed in wonder on the rays That cluster round the Sunday School; In that pure brightness bid it see The day-dawn blushing o'er the skies, In whose meridian every knee Shall bend, while earth's hosannas rise. SUPPLICATION IN PROSPECT OF THE CHOLERA: WRITTEN ON HEARING IT HAD ENTERED CANADA. O GOD! thine oriental scourge Its errand bade to run, Has measured realms and seas to hail Above his chariot is seen The victor's flag unfurled; To sweep the western world. And on our troubled border, now A moment stands-his steady march Our land, is it not valour's land, Yet, if the chosen of the earth, And vainly fling we round its hem And crowd its walls with watch and guard, O rashly have we deemed our spear We've plucked the honour from thy brow, Now wisely taught our helplessness, Then come, not by thy messenger- PRAISE FOR DELIVERANCE FROM PESTILENCE. To God, who gave thee joys for tears, And on it bent his beauteous bow- In deepest penitence and prayer. And Woman! o'er whose heart has swept O'er joys forever past away- Child! to thy mother's joy restored, And shed upon thee dews of love, And ye! whose dwellings, hedged about, His curtain o'er ye-troubled men! Hark, from those beds of pain, a voiceHark to the whisper from those graves : "Rejoice with fear, and yet rejoice, In Him that slays, in him that saves!" |