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He blessed the bread, but vanished at the word,
And left them both exclaiming, ""Twas the Lord:
Did not our hearts feel all He deigned to say?
Did they not burn within us by the way?"
Now theirs was converse such as it behoves
Man to maintain, and such as God approves;
Their views, indeed, were indistinct and dim,
But yet successful, being aimed at Him.
Christ and His character their only scope,
Their object, and their subject, and their hope,
They felt what it became them much to feel,
And, wanting Him to loose the sacred seal,
Found Him as prompt as their desire was true,
To spread the new-born glories in their view.
Well-what are ages and the lapse of time
Matched against truths as lasting as sublime?
Can length of years on God Himself exact?
Or make that fiction which was once a fact?
No; marble and recording brass decay,
And, like the graver's memory, pass away;
The works of man inherit, as is just,
Their author's frailty, and return to dust;
But truth divine for ever stands secure,
Its head is guarded as its base is sure;
Fixed in the rolling flood of endless years,
The pillar of the eternal plan appears;
The raving storm and dashing wave defies,
Built by that Architect who built the skies.
Hearts may be found, that harbour at this hour
That love of Christ, and all its quickening power;
And lips unstained by folly or by strife,

Whose wisdom, drawn from the deep well of life,

Tastes of its healthful origin, and flows
A Jordan for the ablution of our woes.

Oh, days of heaven, and nights of equal praise,
Serene and peaceful as those heavenly days,
When souls, drawn upwards in communion sweet,
Enjoy the stillness of some close retreat,
Discourse, as if released and safe at home,
Of dangers past, and wonders yet to come,
And spread the sacred treasures of the breast
Upon the lap of covenanted Rest!

COWPER.

SPIRITUAL SIGHT.

HAPPY the man who sees a God employed
In all the good and ill that chequer life!
Resolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will
And arbitration wise of the Supreme!

Did not His eye rule all things, and intend

The least of our concerns (since from the least
The greatest oft originate); could chance
Find place in His dominion, or dispose
One lawless particle to thwart His plan,
Then God might be surprised, and unforeseen
Contingence might alarm Him, and disturb
The smooth and equal course of His affairs.
This truth Philosophy, though eagle-eyed
In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks;
And, having found his instrument, forgets,
Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still,

Denies the power that wields it. God proclaims
His hot displeasure against foolish men

That live an atheist life: involves the heaven
In tempests; quits His grasp upon the winds,
And gives them all their fury; bids a plague
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,

And putrefy the breath of blooming health.
He calls for Famine, and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from between his shrivelled lips,
And taints the golden ear. He springs his mines,
And desolates a nation at a blast.

Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells
Of homogeneal and discordant springs,
And principles; of causes, how they work
By necessary laws their sure effects;
Of action and reaction. He has found
The source of the disease that nature feels,
And bids the world take heart and banish fear.
Thou fool! will thy discovery of the cause
Suspend the effect, or heal it? Has not God
Still wrought by means since first He made the world?
And did He not of old employ His means
To drown it? What is His creation less

Than a capacious reservoir of means
Formed for His use, and ready at His will?
Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve; ask of Him,
Or ask of whomsoever He has taught;

And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.

COWPER,

EMPLOYMENT.

How various his employments whom the world Calls idle; and who justly in return

Esteems that busy world an idler too!

Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen,
Delightful industry enjoyed at home,

And nature in her cultivated trim
Dressed to his taste, inviting him abroad-
Can he want occupation who has these?
Will he be idle who has much to enjoy?
Me, therefore, studious of laborious ease,
Not slothful; happy to deceive the time,
Not waste it; and aware that human life
Is but a loan to be repaid with use,

When He shall call His debtors to account,
From whom are all our blessings, business finds
E'en here; while sedulous I seek to improve,
At least neglect not, or leave unemployed,
The mind He gave me; driving it, though slack
Too oft, and much impeded in its work
By causes not to be divulged in vain,
To its just point-the service of mankind.
He that attends to his interior self,

That has a heart and keeps it; has a mind
That hungers, and supplies it; and who seeks
A social, not a dissipated life,

Has business; feels himself engaged to achieve
No unimportant, though a silent, task.

A life all turbulence and noise may seem
To him that leads it wise, and to be praised;

But wisdom is a pearl with most success
Sought in still water and beneath clear skies:
He that is ever occupied in storms,

Or dives not for it, or brings up instead,
Vainly industrious, a disgraceful prize.

COWPER.

TRUE FREEDOM.

HE is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain
That hellish foes, confederate for his harm,
Can wind around him, but he casts it off
With as much ease as Samson his green withes.
He looks abroad into the varied field

Of nature, and, though poor perhaps compared
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,
Calls the delightful scenery all his own.
His are the mountains, and the valleys his,
And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel,
But who, with filial confidence inspired,
Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And, smiling, say-" My Father made them all!”
Are they not his by a peculiar right,

And by an emphasis of interest his,

Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy,
Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind
With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love
That planned, and built, and still upholds a world
So clothed with beauty for rebellious man?
Yes-ye may fill your garners, ye that reap

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