I

JEHOVAH TSIDKENU.

ONCE was a stranger to grace and to God,

I knew not my danger, and felt not my load,
Though friends spoke in raptures of Christ

on the tree,

Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me.

I oft read with pleasure, to soothe or engage,
Isaiah's wild measure, and John's simple page;

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,
I wept when the waters went over His soul;

Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree
Jehovah Tsidkenu-'twas nothing to me.

12

JEHOVAH TSIDKENU.

When free grace awoke me, by light from on high,
When legal fears shook me I trembled to die ;
No refuge, no safety in self could I see;
Jehovah Tsidkenu my Saviour must be.

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!
Jehovah Tsidkenu! I ne'er can be lost!
In Thee I shall conquer by flood and by field,
My cable, my anchor, my breastplate and shield !

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
With longings for the things that may not be,
Faint for the friends that shall return no more

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,
Passed to that land of shadow and repose?

"And are they dust? and dust must we become ?
Or are they living in some unknown clime ?
Shall we regain them in that far-off home,
And live anew beyond the waves of time?

"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,
And veils in dust thy kindly-guiding eye.

"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,
Betrayed, condemned, His day of doom drew

nigh;

He drew His faithful few more closely round,

And told them that His hour was come-to die.