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The Baptistery, or the way of eternal life

By the author of "The Cathedral." [i.e. Isaac Williams] A new edition

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IMAGE THE SECOND. The Complaint of the Penitent.
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IMAGE THE SECOND. The Complaint of the Penitent.

O Thou that send'st the genial drop from Heaven,
On the dry bud else withering ere it blooms!
O Thou that hear'st the cry of famish'd birds,
When Nature's stores are lock'd by Winter's hand,
Letting a gentle-handed spirit forth
To ope the doors of the relenting South!
To Thee looks forth and supplicates Thy dew
Each bud of Grace Thou graftest in my breast,
Scorch'd 'neath the blasting influence of the world:
To Thee each better thought doth feebly cry,
Upon the wintry branch of my cold heart,
That it may be restor'd and sing to Thee.
Thou bidd'st the waters flow, and o'er the heart
Shall flow the fount of penitential tears.
Like some soft opening wind Thy Spirit breathes,
And breaks the icy fetters of the soul:
Then, from the frost-barr'd gates of wintry thought,
Love shall awaken to melodious praise,
And vernal green shall shew Hope is not dead,
In that great world wherein the Spirit lives.

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Where have I wander'd on the edge of death,
Of death that dieth not, of endless death?
While Doubt stood list'ning to the syren notes
That call'd me to the world, and knowing not,
I drank th' intoxications of her cup,
Which fill'd my fancy with unreal joys;—
Wreathing my fever'd brow with withering flowers,
I eyed me in the glass of vanity,
And stalk'd a painted shadow on the stage.
Awful infatuation! for the while
Death unperceiv'd his ever-ready dart,
Big with the fate of all eternity,
Aim'd—but deferr'd the blow! Thy mercy still
Held his pois'd hand, while I discern'd Thee not.
On bended knees I would return to Thee,
Renouncing this bad world: now I behold
How on the verge of never-ending woe
Man doubting stands, yet plum'd with pride the while,
Folding his arms in self-admir'd repose,
Cased in self-confidence; embodied there,
In the world's mirror I behold myself;
I too like him have listen'd to the world,
And while her syren notes were on my ear,
Hung on th' enchantment; as when one at eve
In distance hears some sweet melodious chime,
And lost in dreams of pleasing phantasy,
Forgets his home and his unfinish'd work,—
How have I in the ways of pride and care,
Labour'd in doing what I must undo;
Undoing that which Christ hath wrought in me!
Still nightly, with confession and remorse,
Fain to unmake the work of the past day,

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I weav'd the web of that fam'd heroine,
Yet to beguile not others, but myself,—
Not false fidelity, like that fam'd wife
Faithful though false,—but weaving the vain web
Of self-deceiving falseness. Now I turn,
And with uplifted hands again abjure
Sin and the world, and turn again to Thee.
Thine own good Angel doth before me come,
And with his hand points to Thy dying wounds,—
The scourge—the pillar—and the twisted thorn.—
Tortures and mockeries rude together wreath'd,
Around Thine innocent brows a burning crown,
While drops of blood run down Thy pallid cheeks.
And then I hear Thee preach,—as up that hill,
When sinking 'neath the weight of that dread Tree,—
To Sion's daughters—and in them to us,
“Weep not for Me; weep, mortal, for thyself;
For thou thyself hast greater cause for tears.”
Lo, in the shades, half earthly, half divine,
Stands Virtue's form in silent eloquence,
Born from the seas of that Baptismal wave
Which issued from Thy side, the fount of Love,
Pointing to Thee, and beck'ning on to Heaven;—
All-cas'd in arms of Thy celestial store,
Who givest gifts to men; and in her hand
The golden crown of an immortal Heaven!
All have I cast upon a moment's die,
Thy Blood, Eternity, the prize of Life,
Barter'd for baubles, and have sold Thy love,
Sold endless bliss, to buy eternal pains.
Between the porch and altar , lo, I kneel,
Unworthy to find entrance—where the Font

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Against me witness bears, wash'd, ah, in vain,
In vain Thy grace receiv'd! Alas, e'en now
The Altar, where Thy presence is unseen,
Appeals to where Thy Face shall be beheld—
The dread tribunal of Thy Majesty.
O awful hour that endeth all our time,
When we before the Judge shall trembling stand,
Who shall disclose the heart's deep labyrinth,
When sins of night shall see the face of day:
When earth and Heaven as witnesses stand by,
And faltering tongues to gather'd worlds confess!
Where is the Priest who at the Altar waits,
Who shall e'en now receive th' o'erchargèd breast,
Unload the labouring bosom of the stuff
That weighs and stifles now the spark of life?
That clad in deep abasement here below
A sinner may go forth in th' eye of Heaven,
And so, self-humbling, may compassion win
Of Angels, who have seen his guilty deeds,
And loath'd and in abhorrence turn'd away,
With hands averted and with looks of shame.
How have I soil'd Thy garb of Heavenly white!
Now for the spotless white of Thy pure robe
I clothe myself in sackcloth's mourning weeds,
And sit in sorrow: nay, will rise and walk
On penitential thorns, and wander forth
From place to place along the wilderness
To expiate my heart-engrain'd deep stains.
But who are these who from th' Egyptian sea
Come forth, with palms and garments wash'd blood?
Ah, I, like you, from that dark prison-house
Once pass'd, and from Egyptian bondage freed,

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Was led between the walls of hanging seas;
But now shut out from Canaan's holy rest,
Look on the shrines of my true heritance,
And wander round but cannot enter in.
How has my heart disloyal travers'd back
Beyond the waves of my baptismal birth,
Where yonder the Egyptian city lies,
Beneath the curse of God; yon shining towers
Of Pharaoh's house, where Satan holds his court!
Those walls are figures of this evil world,
Where, as in his own temple, Satan sits,
Maker of phantoms and the sire of lies,—
And worldly men there worship him; and then
From smoke and glare of sacrificial fumes,
He forms bright vanities and shadowy shapes,
To mould fit guerdons for his worshippers,
Prince of the air: and still their eyes before
Brings an unreal show to mock the sense,
Illusive forms to cheat each age of life,—
A sky unreal and unreal earth,—
A gold that glitters but which is not gold,—
A rain that waters but which fosters not,—
Unfaithful rainbows shining to deceive,—
Phantoms of beauty,—beck'ning forms of love,
Holding unreal converse, as in dreams,
All form'd of smoke and shadow, empty shades!
These paint before our path a golden Heaven,
And setting suns with braided beauteous clouds,
Cities of sapphire, bowers of amaranth,
A many-gated Heaven come down to man,
Where shining Angels walk the glittering streets:
Till Day-spring breaks, then suddenly appears
A burning Sodom with its fiery walls.

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When the heart turns to God the vision flies,
And in the place of such false paradise
Dire faces come to view, and hostile shapes,
Dragging the captive soul away to flames.
O vain assemblage of deluding shapes,
Strange mockeries of good in God's own world,
Fram'd by the Evil One! For here below
All things are Thine, O Lord of our new birth,
And shadow forth realms of immortal Truth,
Semblance and pledge of sure reality,
While we for substance catch at empty shades!
Thence as from fire-doom'd Sodom I would flee:
Open thy gates, thou Zoar 'neath the hills,
For by the road the awful pillar stands
Of her that doubted—turning back her eyes.
I seek thy sheltering refuge by the way,
The House of Penitence; for my weak knees
Cannot unto the mountain further go.
Ye of the house where stern Repentance dwells,
Pity a pilgrim who doth come to lay
His unstaunch'd sorrows in your pitying breast!
The porter who doth hold your strong-barr'd gates,
The meek-brow'd child of truth, Humility,
Doth gaze and knows him not, a stranger there,
And turns the key; then I will strip me bare
Of these my worldly weeds and marks of pride,
That scare me from the gate where Wisdom dwells.
O Thou the true, the good Samaritan,
The Keeper who dost slumber not nor sleep,
I from Thine own, the true Jerusalem,
With Thy protecting mountains girded round,
Have wandered down into this lower world,
To Jericho, that city of the moon,

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That city of the valleys 'neath the curse,—
And wounded by the way-side dying lie.
Thy Priest and Levite give me no relief,
Nor stretch the hand, but pass unheeding by.
Wilt Thou not on Thy heavenly journey bend,
And come down in Thy creature's guise, on us
To look with brotherly and human eyes?
If not unto Thy Salem of the hills,
Wherein Thy blessed Saints and Angels dwell,
Is there no Inn by the celestial road,
Wherein a wounded man may find repose?
Thou bidd'st the heavy-laden come to Thee;
Thou lookest out, and hastenest on the way
To meet the poor returning Prodigal.
My sins are more in number than the sands,
More than the sands Thy mercies are to me:
Yea, though my sins are deep as hell beneath,
Thy pity is more ample than the Heavens.
I count Thy words of promise, Thou hast set
Seventy-times seven the measure of our love,
What then shall be the measure of Thine own
But seven times seventy,—Sabbath-days of Heaven?
Infinite is Thy patience as the Sea,
The Sea of Baptism, sea without a shore;
Thy love is as unbounded as the sky,
Reflected in the waves of that calm sea.
The body of this death doth hem me round,
No part of my whole frame is freed from sin,
No part of Thine is free from bleeding wounds.
Thy Spirit griev'd to see me leagu'd with death,
Let Him not take His everlasting flight:
With fasting and with prayer and painful alms,

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Still let me strive to hold and win Thy stay.
Can mothers e'er forget their dear birth-pangs?
I am the child of Thine own bitter pains.
Thou once hast wash'd me with Thine heart's own blood;
Thou since hast often wash'd me with Thy tears;
And drops will wear at length the rocky stone;
Thy promise is to open if I knock,
Yea, Thou Thyself hast knock'd at my dull heart;
By warning—by Thy mercies—by Thy grace—
But I have still refus'd to let Thee in.
Close not against me the eternal door,
Although my hand is palsied; and in vain
Would I assay to lift it to the door,
But Thou didst heal Thyself the palsied hand.
And now within Thy calm and holy grove
I fain would hasten on the road of Heaven;
Guide me to haunts of lowly Penury,
That I may cast aside my worldly wealth,
And gird my loins with holier hope; and now
Lead me to bowers of silent Abstinence,
And Heavenly Contemplation; further still
And nearer to Thy holy mount, where Prayer
Kneels at her orisons, and gentle gales
Breathe of new hope, and Angel-harps are heard;
At sound of which o'er my regretful heart
There shall awake remembrance of past years,
And flow afresh, flow forth my bitter tears.
In that deep grove replete with airs of Heaven,
Where Abstinence dwells, and Charity, and Prayer,
I would approach Thy portals, but therein
I hear no sounds of sweet Angelic hymns,
But a still voice in the dead silent night,—

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Be dark, ye Heavens, and black, ye Heavenly gates;
Your child hath left the fountains of true life,
For broken cisterns, and now dies of thirst!
The lions of the forest stood amaz'd
At one that leaveth Thee, the living Font,
For way of Egypt and th' Assyrian stream ;
Be dark, ye Heavens, be clos'd, eternal doors!
A famish'd Syrian, sitting at Death's gate,
My father was when Thou didst take me up ,
Long in the Egyptian furnace did I dwell,
But Thou on feather'd plumes hast borne me thence,
And set me here to till Thy blissful land:
And when I should my first-fruits bring to Thee,
A serpent in the basket hidden lies;
I bring Thee nought but silence and my tears.
Thy mercies and Thy warnings came to me,
And fain would lead me to th' eternal house,
But now on time's fleet wings have hurried by.
The arrow of Thy vengeance drinks my blood,
And one good Angel now alone remains,
Penitence, wrapped in mourning weeds and woe.
And if to her I cleave, walk her sad ways,
And kneel in prayer without th' eternal gates,
The rays through Heaven's dark portals shall break forth,
And sounds be heard of blissful melodies,
In soft and soothing distance sadly sweet,
From Heavenly courts where Angels tune their harps,

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Rejoicing o'er one sinner that repents:—
Songs of immortal joy, all sadly sweet
As thoughts of Heaven in penitential woes!
And at the sound of those relenting harps,
Again o'er my forgetful silent heart
Shall wake the sad remembrance of past years,
And flow afresh, flow forth my bitter tears.
 

Joel ii. 17.

Jer. ii. 15, 18.

Deut. xxvi. 5.