"Hear my prayer, O Lord; give ear to my supplications." cxliii. 1. FROM the recesses of a lowly spirit, Our humble prayer ascends; O Father! hear it, Upsoaring on the wings of awe and meekness; Forgive its weakness! We see thy hand; it leads us, it supports us: We hear thy voice; it counsels us and it courts us: And then we turn away; and still thy kind ness Forgives our blindness. O, how long-suffering, Lord! but thou delightest To win with love the wandering; thou in vitest, By smiles of mercy, not by frowns or terrors, Man from his errors. Father Almighty! plant within each bosom The seeds of holiness; and bid them blossom In fragrance and in beauty bright and vernal, And spring eternal. Then place them in thine everlasting gardens, Where angels walk, and seraphs are the war dens; Where every flower escaped through death's dark portal Becomes immortal. 28. L. M. ADDISON. "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want." — - Psalm xxiii. 1. THE Lord my pasture shall prepare, When in the sultry glebe I faint, Though in a bare and rugged way, Though in the paths of death I tread, "I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me."- Psalm xxiii. 4. THE Lord my Shepherd is; I shall be well supplied; Since he is mine, and I am his, What can I want beside? He leads me to the place Where heavenly pasture grows, Where living waters gently pass, And full salvation flows. If e'er I go astray, He doth my soul reclaim, And guides me in his own right way, For his most holy name. While he affords his aid, I cannot yield to fear; Though I should walk through death's dark shade, My Shepherd's with me there. 3 THE WORKS OF GOD. 30. C. M. KEBLE. "Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things." Isaiah xl. 26. "He hath made every thing beautiful in its time."- Ecclesiastes iii. 11. THERE is a book, who runs may read, Which heavenly truth imparts; And all the lore its scholars need, The works of God, above, below, Are pages in that book, to show How God himself is found. |