A

SOLDIER'S course, from battles won

To new-commencing ftrife;

A pilgrim's, reftless as the sun;

Behold the Chriftian's life!

Prepared the trumpet's call to greet,

Soldier of Jesus, stand!
Pilgrim of Chrift, with ready feet
Await thy Lord's command.

The hofts of Satan pant for spoil;
How can thy warfare close?
Lonely, thou treadft a foreign soil;
How canft thou hope repose?

Seek, soldier! pilgrim! seek thine home,
Revealed in sacred lore;

The land whence pilgrims never roam,
Where soldiers war no more;

Where grief fhall never wound, nor death Disturb the Saviour's reign;

Nor fin, with peftilential breath,

His holy realm profane;

Where founts of life their treasures yield

In ftreams that never cease; Where everlasting mountains shield Vales of eternal peace :

Where they who meet shall never part;

Where grace achieves its plan; And God, uniting every heart,

Dwells face to face with man.

Thomas Gisborne. 1803.

LUTHER'S PRAYER.

O

way;

UR God, our Father, with us ftay,
And make us keep thy narrow
Free us from fin and all its power;
Give us a joyful dying hour;
Deliver us from Satan's arts,

And let us build our hopes on thee,
Down in our very heart of hearts!
O God, may we true servants be,
And serve thee ever perfectly.
Help us, with all thy children here,
To fight and flee with holy fear;

Flee from temptation, and to fight
With thine own weapons for the right;
Amen! Amen! so let it be!

So fhall we ever fing to Thee,

Hallelujah!

1483-1501.

CHRISTMAS.

IT

T came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,

From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold, —
"Peace to the earth, good-will to men,
From Heaven's all-gracious King":

The world in solemn ftillness lay,
To hear the angels fing.

Still through the cloven fkies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly mufic floats
O'er all the weary world:
Above its sad and lowly plains

They bend on heavenly wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds

The bleffed angels fing.

Yet with the woes of fin and ftrife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-ftrain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And men, at war with men, hear not
The love-song which they bring :
O, hufh the noise, ye men of ftrife,
And hear the angels fing!

And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful fteps and flow;
Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing:

O, reft befide the weary road,
And hear the angels fing!

For lo! the days are haftening on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When Peace fhall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,

And the whole world send back the song

Which now the angels fing.

Rev. E. H. Sears.

THE WORD.

IN

N the beginning was the Word:
Athwart the chaos-night

It gleamed with quick creative power,
And there was life and light.

Thy Word, O God! is living yet,

Amid earth's reftless ftrife,

New harmony creating still,
And ever higher life.

And as that Word moves surely on,
The light, ray after ray,

Streams farther out athwart the dark,
And night grows into day.

O Word that broke the ftillness first,
Sound on! and never cease,

Till all Earth's darkness be made light,
And all her discord peace!

Till

wail of woe and clank of chain And bruit of battle ftilled

The world with thy great mufic's pulse,

O Word of Love! be thrilled;