GOD DECLARES THE DREADFUL CONSE.

QUENCE OF ADAM's SIN,

TO HIM AND HIS POSTERITY,

UNLESS SATISFACTION IS MADE TO HIS JUSTICE,

WHICH THE SON OF GOD UNDERTAKES.

MILTON.

MAN disobeying,

Disloyal breaks his fealty, and sins
Against the high supremacy of Heaven.
Affecting Godhead, and so losing all,
To expiate his treason hath nought left,
But to destruction sacred and devote.
He, with his whole posterity, must die;
Die he or Justice must; unless for him
Some other able, and as willing, pay
The rigid satisfaction, death for death.
Say, heavenly Pow'rs, where shall we find such love!
Which of ye will be mortal to redeem
Man's mortal crime, the just, th' unjust to save?
Dwells in all heaven charity so dear?

He ask'd, but all the heav'nly choir stood mute, And silence was in heaven: on man's behalf

Patron or intercessor none appear’d,
Much less that durst upon his own head draw
The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set.
And now without redemption all mankind
Must have been lost, adjudg’d to death and hell
By doom severe, had not the Son of God,
In whom the fullness dwells of love divine,
His dearest mediation thus renew’d.

Father, thy word is past, Man shall find grace; And shall not Grace find means, that finds her way, The specdiest of thy winged messengers, To visit all thy creatures, and to all Comes unprevented, unimplor’d, unsought. Happy for man, so coming, he her aid Can never seek, once dead in sins and lost; Atonement for himself or offering meet, Indebted and undone, hath none to bring: Behold me then; me for him, life for life I offer; on me let thine

anger Account me man; I for his sake will leave Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee Freely put off, and for him lastly die Well pleas’d; on me let Death wreak all his rage: Under his gloomy power I shall not long Lie vanquish’d; thou hast giv’n m: to possess Life in myself for ever; by thee I live,

fall;

Though now to Death I yield, and am his due,
All that of me can die; yet that debt paid,
Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave
His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul
For ever with corruption there to dwell;
But I shall rise victorious, and subdue
My vanquisher, spoild of his vaunted spoil;
Death his death's wound shallthen receive, and stoop
Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarmid,
I through the ample air in triumph high,
Shall lead hell captive, maugre hell, and shew
The powers of darkness bound. Thou at the sight
Pleas’d, out of heaven shalt look down and smile;
While by thee rais’d, I ruin all my foes,
Death last, and with his carcass glut the grave;
Then with the multitude of

my

redeem'd
Shall enter heaven long absent, and return,
Father, to see thy face, wherein no cloud
Of anger shall remain, but peace assur'd
And reconcilement; wrath shall be no more
Thenceforth, but in thy presence joy entire.

INCIDENTAL MISERIES ATTEN

DANT ON POVERTY.

Pity the

sorrowS

of a poor

old man, Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your

door; Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span;

O give relief, and Heaven will bless your store! These tatter'd clothes my poverty bespeak,

These hoary locks proclaim my length of years! And many a furrow in this grief-worn cheek

Has been the channel of a stream of tears.

Yon house, erected on a rising ground,

With tempting aspect drew me from the road, For Plenty there a residence has found,

And Grandeur a magnificent abode.

a

Hard is the fate of the infirm and poor,

Here craving for a morsel of their bread, A pamper'd menial forc'd me from the door,

To seek a shelter in an humbler shed.

O take me to your hospitable dome!

Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold, Short is my passage to the friendly tomb,

For I am poor, and miserably old.

Should I reveal the source of ev'ry grief,

If soft humanity e'er touch'd your breast,
Your hands would not with-hold the kind relief,

And tears of pity could not be represt.
Heaven sends misfortunes, why should we repine?

'Tis Heaven has brought me to the state you see;
And
your
condition

may

be soon like mine, The child of sorrow and of misery. A little farm was my paternal lot,

There, like the lark, I sprightly hail'd the morn; But, ah! Oppression forc'd me from my cot,

My cattle dy'd, and blighted was my corn. My daughter, once the comfort of my age,

Lur'd by a villain from her native home, Is cast abandon'd on the world's wide stage,

And doom'd in scanty poverty to roam. My tender wife, sweet soother of my care,

Struck with sad anguish at the stern decree, Fell, ling'ring fell! a victim to Despair,

And left the world to wretchedness and me.