That worship's deeper meaning lies In mercy, and not sacrifice; Not proud humilities of sense And posturing of obedience, But love's unforced obedience; That Book and Church and Day are given For man, now God-for earth, not heaven, The blessed means the holiest ends, Not masters, but benignant friends, That the dear Christ dwells not afar, The blending lines of prayer aspire; -John Greenleaf Whittier. A Father Reading the Bible. WAS early day, and sunlight streamed Soft through a quiet room, That hushed, but not forsaken, seemed Still, but with naught of gloom. A father communed with the page Pure fell the beam, and meekly bright, And touched the page with tenderest light, As if its shrine were there! But oh! that patriarch's aspect shone A radiance all the spirit's own, Some word of life e'en then had met His calm benignant eye; Some ancient promise breathing yet Of immortality! Some martyr's prayer, wherein the glow And silent stood his children by Of thoughts o'ersweeping death. -Felicia Dorothea Hemans. I Hymn To The Night. HEARD the trailing garments of the Night I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light From the cool cisterns of the midnight air The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,- O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, And they complain no more. Peace! Peace! Orestes-like, I breathe this prayer! Descend with broad-winged flight, The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair, The best-beloved Night! -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Scatter the Germs of the Beautiful. 'CATTER the germs of the beautiful, By the wayside let them fall, That the rose may spring by the cottage gate, With a veil of leaves and flowers, And mark with the opening bud and cup The march of summer hours! Scatter the germs of the beautiful In the holy shrine of home; Let the pure, and the fair, and the graceful there In the loveliest lustre come. Leave not a trace of deformity In the temple of the heart, But gather about its hearth the gems Of nature and of art! Scatter the germs of the beautiful In the temples of our God- Scatter the germs of the beautiful In the depths of the human soul! They shall bud and blossom and bear the fruit, While the endless ages roll; Plant with the flowers of charity The portals of the tomb, An aged man with grave, but gentle look- With which the simple-hearted spring abounds; Lowing of cattle from the abbey grounds, Chirping of insect, and the building rook Mingled like murmurs of a dreaming shell; Quaint tracery of bird, and branch, and brook, Flitting across the pages of his book, Sat the Monk Gabriel. In his book he read The words the Master to His dear ones said: "A little while and ye Shall see, Shall gaze on Me; A little while again, Ye shall not see Me then." A little while! The monk looked up-a smile Making his visage brilliant, liquid-eyed: Thou who gracious art Unto the poor of heart, "Great is the misery But would I now might see, Might feast on Thee!" -The blood with sudden start, Nigh rent his veins apart (Oh, condescension of the Crucified:) In all the brilliancy Of His humanity The Christ stood by his side! Pure as the early lily was his skin, Of autumn sunset on eternal snows; Such nameless beauties, wondrous glories dwelt. The monk in speechless adoration knelt. In each fair hand, in each fair foot there shone The thorn marks lingered like the flash of dawn; And heard the angels singing! 'Twas but a moment-then, upon the spell Of this sweet presence, lo! a something broke; A something trembling, in the belfry woke, A shower of metal music flinging O'er wold and moat, o'er park and lake and fell, THE God's First Temple. HE groves were God's first temples. learned Ere man To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, The sound of anthems-in the darkling wood, And from the gray old trunks, that high in heaven, Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect Only among the crowd, and under roofs That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least Offer one hymn-thrice happy, if it find O, O, May I Join The Choir Invisible. MAY I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn Of miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge men's minds To vaster issues. So to live is heaven: To make undying music in the world, For which we struggled, failed, and agonized That watched to ease the burden of the world, Laboriously tracing what must be, And what may yet be better,-saw within This is life to come, Which martyred men have made more glorious For us, who strive to follow. May I reach That purest heaven,-be to other souls Whose music is the gladness of the world. |