XXXVIII.
Bishops Fullarton and Sage
ARE CONSECRATED IN SCOTLAND.
(The Conversion of S. Paul, 1704.)
The snow-drifts were thick on the mountain and moor,
The windows were barred, and the doors were secure;
The cottage was lonely, and mildew'd the room,
And the tapers that gleamed there ill lighted its gloom:
The brave Church of Scotland! Her Bishops were there,
Their strength was departed, and hoary their hair;
And they perill'd their lives at the end of their race,
To consecrate those who should stand in their place.
Time was that the mitre and staff were their own;
The Cathedral and Palace their footsteps had known:
Till he, whose name reeks with the blood of Glencoe,
Had schismatics for friends, and the Church for his foe;
He laid Her, the insolent, under his ban,
And the Bishops of God were the felons of man:
Her Temples he sack'd,—he assaulted Her sore;
He seized all Her wealth, and he could do no more!
For Her treasures Celestial, Her pride and Her joy,
No monarch could give Her, no monarch destroy:
And Her Priests suffer'd gladly the worst he could send,
If they might but be faithful and true to the end.
They were hunted on mountains, they hid them in rocks;
They fled with the deer, and lay down with the fox:
They met on the moor by the cold winter moon;
They were watch'd and pursued by the bloody dragoon:
In peril and fear in one place they have met,
And in seemly array are the Fatherhood set:
These lift up the Hand, and those bend on the knees,
And they give them the Grace and the Power of the Keys.
The brave Church of Scotland! Her perils are o'er;
We look for the times of Her Glory once more:
The days of the strangers' usurping are told;
Oh! when shall the Shepherds return to their fold?
