I JEHOVAH TSIDKENU. ONCE was a stranger to grace and to God, I knew not my danger, and felt not my load, on the tree, Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me. I oft read with pleasure, to soothe or engage, But e'en when they pictured the blood-sprinkled tree, Jehovah Tsidkenu seemed nothing to me. Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll, Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree 12 JEHOVAH TSIDKENU. When free grace awoke me, by light from on high, My terrors all vanished before the sweet name, My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came To drink at the fountain, life-giving and free; Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me. Jehovah Tsidkenu! my treasure and boast! Even treading the valley, the shadow of death, This watchword shall rally my faltering breath; For while from life's fever my God sets me free, Jehovah Tsidkenu my death-song shall be. REV. ROBERT M'CHEYNE. THE CHARMER. "Socrates. However, you and Simmias appear to me a if you wished to sift this subject more thoroughly, and to be afraid, like children, lest, on the soul's departure from the body, winds should blow it away.' Upon this Cebes said, 'Endeavour to teach us better, Socrates. Perhaps there is a childish spirit in our breast that has such a dread. Let us endeavour to persuade him not to be afraid of death, as of hobgoblins.' "But you must charm him every day,' said Socrates, ' until you have quieted his fears.' "But whence, O Socrates,' he said, 'can we procure a skilful charmer for such a case, now you are about to leave us?' "Greece is wide, Cebes,' he said, 'and in it surely there are skilful men; and there are many barbarous nations, all of which you should search, seeking such a charmer, sparing neither money nor toil.'"-Last words of Socrates as narrated by Plato in the "Phædo." E need that charmer, for our hearts are sore Dark with distrust, or wrung with agony. 14 THE CHARMER. "What is this life? and what to us is death? Whence came we? whither go? and where are those Who, in a moment stricken from our side, "And are they dust? and dust must we become ? "O man divine! on thee our souls have hung; Thou wert our teacher in these questions high; But ah! this day divides thee from our side, "Where is that Charmer whom thou bidst us seek? On what far shores may his sweet voice be heard? When shall these questions of our yearning souls Be answered by the bright Eternal Word ?" THE CHARMER.' So spake the youth of Athens, weeping round, When Socrates lay calmly down to die; So spake the sage, prophetic of the hour 15 When earth's fair morning-star should rise on high. They found Him not, those youths of soul divine, Long-seeking, wandering, watching on life's shore ; Reasoning, aspiring, yearning for the light, Death came and found them-doubting as before. But years passed on; and lo! the Charmer came, Pure, simple, sweet, as comes the silver dew; And the world knew Him not,-He walked alone, Encircled only by His trusting few. Like the Athenian sage, rejected, scorned, nigh; He drew His faithful few more closely round, And told them that His hour was come-to die. |