The Sanctuary :: :: University of Virginia Library

Dread father of the lie first-born,
Dark victim of apostate will,
Who dared the thunder-blast of God defy
And earth with desolation fill,—
How did the Lord that Satan see alone
In darkness scowling on th' Almighty-throne!

And Love, and Law, and Life, were seen,
By God incarnate, in their essence true;
While all the mysteries which float between
Faith's present hope and future view,
By searchless wisdom were to Him disclosed
On Whose high will the universe reposed.

Alone in merit, and in might,—
So did Emanuel win the grace
Whereby the Spirit-born obtain the right
Which seals our God's adopted race:
And who, save He, could see with dreadless eye
Where, deep in God, salvation's fountains lie?

And thus, unechoed by mankind,
Cloister'd in spirit lived the Lord
In that hid sphere, where gazed no human mind,
Nor friendship breathed one soothing word;
By sinner bann'd, by saint not understood,—
A Saviour-God in mental solitude!

If ever heart unfathom'd were,
Or, grief a lone and lofty thing,
Say, was it not when Jesu breathed His prayer
Under cold Midnight's dewy wing
On some lone hill, while stars their vigils kept,
And Angels worshipp'd, as their Maker wept!

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Alone, too, was the Lord of grace,
In seeing all His Church would prove,
When o'er the heaven of His almighty face
Fell shades of superhuman love,—
Those outward symbols of diviner thought
Than earth-toned language into meaning brought.

Alone in life, in death the same,
So lived Incarnate God for man,
Who bow'd eternity, and Flesh became
To realise great Mercy's plan:
For all He felt, yet, no compassions won,—
His tears were many, but His smiles were none!

John viii. 44.

Second Sunday in Lent.

“The lost sheep of the house of Israel.” —Gospel for the Day.

'Tis not, because Thou art creation's King
And, all the energies of wisdom Thine,
Prostrate in prayer, would kneeling Worship bring
A holocaust of hearts to deck Thy shrine:

But we, by purchase and by portion, are
Sheep of Thy fold, elected and redeem'd,
And in life's wilderness, when faint and far,
Bright on our path Thy pardon-smiles have beam'd.

“Now” is man's time; salvation's priceless now!
Divine Consoler, may we guard it well;
And to Thyself our lives this moment vow,—
They next may hover round the brink of hell!

Dread we, O Lord! Thine awful love to grieve
As once of old degraded Israel did;
Nor tempt Thee, in dark wilds of death to leave
Souls which pursue what faith and Heaven forbid.

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Hush we the heart! “Venite” let us hear
Creation, Providence, and Grace repeat;
Till Christ receive us, and the soul's career
Be ever circling round His mercy-seat.

The church's Canaan is no earth-made rest,
No land of palm, or vine-clad hill, and glade;
But that true Palestine, where all the blest
In beams of glory are by God array'd.

Heaven is the father-land of christian souls,
The home, where all the holy yearn to be—
By faith, while flesh their present doom controls,
In fact, when time becomes eternity.

Third Sunday in Lent.

“Followers of God, as dear children.” —Epistle for the Day.

Bend, Angel! from thy throne of bliss,
A living type to see
Whose pureness, in a world like this,
Partakes of heaven and thee:—

With lisping grace, and lovely awe,
God's infant kneels in prayer,
Looking, as if by faith it saw
What lips cannot declare:

For oh! that face with worship rife
Tells more than tones convey,—
Soft pulses of a secret life
Deep in the bosom play.

On earth, my Saviour once enwreath'd
Around a sinless child
His loving arms, and o'er it breathed
A blessing deep as mild.

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And still, His breath of awful Love
So charms our inward ear,
That children seem to God above
Angelically near.

In vain would plastic Sculpture dream
It moulds such beauty now;
Or, poet-words reflect the gleam
That sanctifies thy brow.

For, earth and heaven around thee twine
A double charm, which glows
With more than marble can define,
Or lyre-born language knows.

How blest, to watch thy myriad ways
Of fawn-like grace and glee,
And call thee bright as vernal rays,
Or, sun-tints on the sea!

Or, hear the music of thy mind
In broken lisps of song,
Whose echo seems the spring-toned wind
O'er leaflets borne along.

Elastic as the vital breeze
Thy fairy motions glide,
With flexures of infantile ease
To each glad step supplied.

While golden locks in glitt'ring play
Like woven sunbeams dance,
And purer than the young-eyed May
Thy soul's ethereal glance;

And buds and blossoms, too, of thought
Betray their beauteous spell,—
Telling, that Christ within hath wrought
What Angels love so well.

143

Fourth Sunday in Lent.

“We for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished.” —Collect for the Day.

Unsoothed by pardon, what is boastful life
When burden'd with remember'd sin?—
Gnaw'd by remorse, or gall'd with goading strife
How hell-like is the heart within?
Abroad, at home, awake, asleep,
Ghosts of dead crime around us creep!

A Nemesis there rules, which haunts the soul,
A sightless Fury none can see;
Whom neither falsehood, nor the fiends control,
Whose lash is lost eternity—
And that is,—guilt! beneath the curse
Of Him who sways the Universe!

Pris'ners of hope in Christ alone have found,
By His anointed Priests imparted,—
A threefold pardon, which the Lord has crown'd,
To cheer the bruised and broken-hearted;
Whose sins, through penitence and prayer,
Absolving lips of Truth declare

On earth remitted, and in heaven the same,
By charter'd Priesthood:—such the creed
Christ and His Church to contrite hearts proclaim,
When pardon is their public need,
Who in God's absolution find
An anchor for the guilt-toss'd mind.

O Thou! Whose Justice is “consuming fire”
With which accusing conscience glows,
Less than Thine Oath could never love inspire
To feel, what rudest peasant knows,—
How, not in vengeance, but in grace
We most adore th' almighty-Face.

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Thy Paraclete, and true repentance, give,
Fountain of all which faith imparts!
And, since we learn, precisely as we live,—
Be love the decalogue of Hearts,
Who in Thy law their wills employ
And find obedience perfect joy.

See Comber, &c.

Matt. xvi. 19.

Ezek. xviii. 32.

Fifth Sunday in Lent.

“He that is of God, heareth God's word.” —Gospel for the Day.

The glorious Sun no man can see
Except his eye may sun-like be;
And thus, the Bible is not understood,
Unless a sympathy divine
The heart attracts for Truth divine,
And love, not learning, prompt it to be good.

But if they read with child-like awe,—
Diviner truths than Plato saw
Adoring peasants on their knees discern;
While Secrets, which were veil'd of yore,
And Angels study, more and more,
The infant-scholars of The Spirit learn.

Oh, peerless Book, for heart and head!—
Though thirteen years St. Basil read
Its saving wisdom, in the light of prayer;
And all of Creed the Church can know,
To guide her on through weal, and woe,
Flows from a Thummim, and a Urim, there.

Dungeon and cell, and martyr's den,
Whate'er has tried, or tortured men
By scorching fire, or persecuting sword,—
How have they borne them unafraid,
Those Heroes, whom the Lord array'd
And inly weapon'd with His matchless Word?

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And she, of martyr'd saints the Mother,
Our guide to heaven, and not another,—
Free as the air the glorious Bible gives!
And, bless we God, that in this Book
The lowest of her children look,
And hear His voice by Whom creation lives.

Each Lesson, with maternal care
Adjusted well for praise, and prayer,
Long may adoring hearts in love peruse;
Until, from sin and self made free,
Our lives embodied scripture be,
And, when the Saviour calls, no cross refuse!

Holding His piercèd Hands on high
Before enthronèd Deity,
The God incarnate as our Priest prevails:—
Go, seek His interceding grace,
And in the light of That blest Face
Behold a Sympathy, which never fails!

If, as we live, the truth we learn,
And as we love, our God discern,
Spirit of Christ! Thy Word interpret all,—
Till scripture with divine control
Reign like a soul within a soul,
And, prove us, Children, when on God we call.