CHRIST OUR PORTION.
“There is none on earth I desire besides thee.”—Ps. lxxiii. 25.
“The Lord is the portion of mine
inheritance.”—Ps. xvi. 5.
“Your life is hid with Christ in God.”—Colos. iii. 3.
Whom have I in the heavens but Thee
Adoring faith desires to see,
Divinely pure and perfect fair
Whom all Thy works and words declare?
The heavenliness of heaven art Thou,
Who bor'st the curse upon Thy brow;
And round the Throne no glories shine
Which issue not from Thee, or Thine.
Imbruted Minds, that think, nor pray,
Basking in pleasure's sensual ray,—
No cloud appears to shade their sky,
And nothing tells them Sin must die!
Yet, soon the lying spell recedes,
The worm awakes, and conscience bleeds
When sickness chokes the ebbing breath,
And life is darken'd into death.
Oh, in that hour of shudd'ring prayer
Eternity from God may glare,
And luridly emerge from hell
Secrets, and Shapes, no tongue can tell!
Lord of true bliss, in joy and health
Be Thou our wisdom, hope, and wealth;
Without Thee, vain are creatures all!—
A universe we nothing call
If center'd not in this high creed,
That God alone can help our need;
Christ in the creature is the goal
Of all which should attract the soul.
The Lord our true perfection is,
Both law of Being, and the bliss;
Dark, dead, and cold, creation seems,
If not enrobed with sacred gleams
Caught from the Presence, and the power
Of Christ, who hallows scene and hour,
Matter and mind, and makes them good,
By showing each with heaven imbued.
Friendship and love, though pure and deep,
Can echo not lone cares which sleep
Unsyllabled within the mind,
And shun the gaze of mortal kind.
And shifting hues there play of thought,
And feelings with devotion fraught,
Dejected hours, and voiceless moods
When souls are thinking solitudes,—
Sigh, tear, nor language then reveals
The awful gloom pale conscience feels,
When man's o'erburden'd heart within
Bows with eternity, and sin.
Alone we live, alone we die,
Unfathom'd by no human eye,
But search'd by Him, whose wisdom can
Peruse the depths of inward man.
Thus, orphan'd Souls who cannot see
On earth one source of sympathy,
Whose hearts unecho'd pray and beat,
Are answer'd at the Mercy-Seat,
Where Heaven's incarnate Love replies
To each mysterious heart that sighs,
And while unwitness'd tear-drops fall,
In grace descends, and dries them all.
God in the mind makes glory there,
The spring of thought, the source of prayer;
From Whom adoring saints derive
Stern grace against themselves to strive.
Let God then thy religion be,
And not religion, God to thee:
Without Him, worlds would leave us poor,
And with Him, who can want for more?
