Thee may we rev'rence with that prayerful awe
That sees in water more than Calvin saw.

"Soul of an infant! passive thing, In thy young depths can no repulsion lurk, Nor can concurrent reason bring Man's aiding will, to blend with God's own work; And thus, thy second birth we justly call Pure act divine, where grace does all in all.

"Vital, though viewless, is the germ Baptismally by grace implanted there;

Waiting, perchance, time's destined term, When, quicken'd up by penitence and prayer, GOD's hidden seed will gloriously arise, And flourish towards its unforgotten skies!

"By nameless laws, to man unknown,
Water and word may with the Spirit blend,
And what as magic men disown
Eternal Wisdom may in secret send,-
Ruling the soul with heaven's attractive sway,
Till deadly sin" shall grieve that power away.

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"Coeval thus with conscious thought The Church's heaven-born education is;

By faith, far more than science, fraught,
The babe she fosters for angelic bliss ;
And on the platform of baptismal gift
Erects the hopes which man to heaven uplift.

"Regenerate by the law of grace,

Here is the bulwark of our Church's creed !
The earnest of the Spirit's race
Which more than satisfies our infant need :-
Baptismal doctrine is the Prayer Book's key,
By which unlock'd can all its service be.

"And here the standard, and the test By which true holiness is seen and tried,Whether within thy votive breast

The CHRIST internal hath advanced, or died,
Since vows baptismal with a seal divine
Gave thee to GOD, by Sacrament and sign."

"MYSTERIOUSNESS OF INFANCY.

"Sinless in fact, untempted babes depart

To where, O CHRIST, ensphered in bliss Thou art; And, ere time's language to their lips is known, They learn the Cross before salvation's throne.

"And who remembers not some deep-eyed child,
Unearthly, pale, and exquisitely mild,
Purer than chiselled alabaster shines
Where sculptured poesy hath traced its lines?

"But 'tis not beauty, delicate and bright, Nor limbs elastic as incarnate light,

Nor that seraphic grace of brow and cheek
More eloquent of mind, than words can speak.

"And who denies, prophetic babes may see
Secrets and shapes which throng eternity,
Visions of glory, such as elder man
Has never imaged in the course he ran?

"A wordless infant in some mystic hour

May have the Spirit in His deeper power,
Converse with angels, and in GoD behold
Truths which heroic saints have never told.

"The tearful radiance of a baby's eye,

The pleading music of its pensive sigh,
The looks that seem so spiritually deep
Turn'd on beholders, till they almost weep,-

"May be the symbols of a faded heaven

To infants in angelic slumber given,

Which leaves them, when they face the world again,
In dim remembrance, and in dawning pain.

"And none can tell, but hov'ring babes above
To babes on earth may whisper tones of love,
Melodious fragments of cherubic song
On glory's breeze for ever borne along."

"THE PRIEST'S OFFICE.

"To guard, premonish, and with truth provide

The SAVIOUR's Body, here on earth which roams; Pure unto death, to preach the Crucified,

And beckon pilgrims to their sainted homes:

"Such was the charge we messengers received, Such the high call our stewardship obey'd; Woe be to us! if truths were unbelieved,

Our bosom Christless, and the Church betrayed.

"Thus, living Shepherd of immortal sheep!

If to our pastoral work the soul was given, Though for sad errors all must wail and weep, Still, let us hope there breathed a gift from heaven.

"Years since have roll'd, of trial, change, and grief,
But still that ordination-vow is heard ;
And what can soothe us with sublime relief,

•

But, I am with you!' O, Incarnate Word?

"And, blent with awfulness of faith and fear,

For each young watchman, then for CHRIST ordain'd, Prophetic fancy sketch'd some quiet sphere,

Where souls for JESU might be sought and gain'd.

"Visions, perchance, of rural cots retired

Hover'd around the priested hearts of those Who, ne'er by sad ambition inly fired,

Haunt the lone hamlet where the poor repose.

"Such was the scene our peerless Herbert loved,
Pictured in quaint and quiet Walton's lines;
Which Hooker sought, and Hammond's taste approved,
In whom the image of a pastor shines.

"Yet, little boots it, what our destined place

In the large vineyard of the LORD may be, Weave but the spells of Thine ordaining grace, And time and scene are lost, O LORD, in Thee.

"THE OCEAN'S GRANDEUR.

"Eternity of waters! there Thou art,

Dear to the eye, and glorious to the heart;
Bounding in brightness as they plunge on shore,
I greet thy waves, and gladden in their roar.

"Alone in grandeur, ever-living Sea !

Thou swelling anthem sung to Deity,
When thy deep thunders, with a dying fall,
Roll like hosannahs to the LORD of All.

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'Religion only to thy power replies,
And echoes back thy solemn harmonies,
That seem to tell with supernatural tone,-
Here God is reigning on His ocean-throne!

"And ever, O thou Element of might !

Hast thou administer'd a dread delight
To all who heard thy loud pulsations beat,
Till shores embay'd seem'd throbbing at their feet.

"Before the birth of billow, or of wind,
Thou rollest through the Everlasting Mind,

In waves hereafter destined to expand
And bathe the shores of many a famous land.

"Man rules the earth, but God upon the sea
By vast distinction doth appear to be,
Whose swelling glories baffle change and time,
And awe the conscience, like a creed sublime."

THE CHURCH'S SHADOW.

BY THE REV. RICHARD TOMLINS, M.A.

I WAS taking a solitary ramble through the quiet fields and lanes. A chill February evening was closing in. The pale, watery beams of the setting sun were scarcely able to struggle through the leaden veil of clouds which hung over the skies.

Damp wreaths of mist were settling heavily upon the cheerless shrubs, and straggling branches of the trees. All was still, save when the dull, indistinct sounds of the distant hamlet on the hill-side fell at intervals on my ear; or the monotonous cawing of the rooks, as they sailed slowly over head on the way to their home among the distant elms, gave notice of approaching night. At length I found that I had reached the gate of the village Churchyard; and, in a manner instinctively, I approached it, and resting my arms upon the rails beside it, I soon became lost in many thoughts. Suddenly the last rays of the sun broke forth, and shed a farewell flood of yellow lustre on the peaceful little Church. Strong and clear its shadow fell across the Churchyard, and the green hillocks, and white stones, which marked the resting-place of the dust and ashes committed to its charge for yet a little while. Not many yards from my feet an open grave lay awaiting another tenant; and it was evidently intended for the reception of one who had been early called away from this transitory life, into that place where early and late must cease for ever.

4

After some little time I became so far absorbed in my own thoughts, that the indistinctness of the evening shadows which were gathering round, and the indistinctness also of my own shadowy thoughts, clothed the objects before my eyes with a vague colouring, and brought, uncalled, many fresh objects before my mind's eye; the inner creations of the mind strangely mingling and blending with the outer scene before me, until the two were so closely and harmoniously blended and interwoven, and melted into one another, as to form one whole vision, in which what belonged to each was not to be consciously distinguished.

I gazed upon the Church's lengthening shadow, until it seemed to me as though it had overspread the whole neighbourhood of the Church, even as far as the dim hamlet on the side of the hill. There it lay,-gently embracing within its folds the Churchyard and the graves; the quiet parsonage, and the village school; the bridge, and the mill; the farm, the gabled inn, and the labourer's cottage; the sheepfold, the trees, and the green; and many a patch of field and garden interspersed, falling on all alike;—the abodes of men, the objects of human industry and human care; the graves of the dead; the cattle even ; the works of nature, and the house of GOD: in a manner binding them in one, without constraint, unfelt, unthought of even by all. There it lay, and, transient as it was, I felt as though this mighty shadow had not now, for the first time, overspread these places, but rather was a thing to which they had, like myself, become unconsciously habituated, as to the daily return of the