III. CONCLUDED. AMERICAN EPISCOPACY.
PATRIOTS informed with Apostolic light Were they, who, when their Country had been freed, Bowing with reverence to the ancient creed,
Fixed on the frame of England's Church their sight, And strove in filial love to reunite
PASTORAL CHARACTER.
A GENIAL hearth, a hospitable board, And a refined rusticity, belong
To the neat mansion, where his flock among, The learned Pastor dwells, their watchful Lord. Though meek and patient as a sheathed sword;
What force had severed. Thence they fetched the seed Though pride's least lurking thought appear a wrong
Of Christian unity, and won a meed
Of praise from Heaven. To thee, O saintly WHITE, Patriarch of a wide-spreading family, Remotest lands and unborn times shall turn Whether they would restore or build to thee, As one who rightly taught how zeal should burn, As one who drew from out Faith's holiest urn The purest stream of patient Energy.
To human kind; though peace be on his tongue, Gentleness in his heart-can earth afford Such genuine state, pre-eminence so free, As when, arrayed in Christ's authority, He from the pulpit lifts his awful hand; Conjures, implores, and labours all he can For re-subjecting to divine command The stubborn spirit of rebellious man?
BISHOPS and Priests, blessed are ye, if deep (As yours above all offices is high) Deep in your hearts the sense of duty lie; Charged as ye are by Christ to feed and keep From wolves your portion of his chosen sheep: Labouring as ever in your Master's sight, Making your hardest task your best delight, What perfect glory ye in Heaven shall reap!- But, in the solemn Office which ye sought And undertook premonished, if unsound Your practice prove, faithless though but in thought, Bishops and Priests, think what a gulf profound Awaits you then, if they were rightly taught Who framed the Ordinance by your lives disowned!
YES, if the intensities of hope and fear Attract us still, and passionate exercise Of lofty thoughts, the way before us lies Distinct with signs, through which in set career, As through a zodiac, moves the ritual year Of England's Church; stupendous mysteries! Which whoso travels in her bosom eyes, As he approaches them with solemn cheer. Upon that circle traced from sacred story We only dare to cast a transient glance, Trusting in hope that others may advance With mind intent upon the King of Glory, From his mild advent till his countenance Shall dissipate the seas and mountains hoary.
As star that shines dependent upon star Is to the sky while we look up in love;
As to the deep fair ships which though they move Seem fixed, to eyes that watch them from afar; As to the sandy desert fountains are, With palm-groves shaded at wide intervals, Whose fruit around the sun-burnt Native falls Of roving tired or desultory war— Such to this British Isle her christian Fanes, Each linked to each for kindred services;
Her Spires, her Steeple-towers with glittering vanes Far-kenned, her Chapels lurking among trees, Where a few villagers on bended knees
Find solace which a busy world disdains.
FATHER! to God himself we cannot give A holier name! then lightly do not bear Both names conjoined, but of thy spiritual care Be duly mindful: still more sensitive Do thou, in truth a second Mother, strive Against disheartening custom, that by thee Watched, and with love and pious industry Tended at need, the adopted Plant may thrive For everlasting bloom. Benign and pure This ordinance, whether loss it would supply, Prevent omission, help deficiency,
Or seek to make assurance doubly sure. Shame if the consecrated vow be found An idle form, the word an empty sound!
I SAW a Mother's eye intensely bent Upon a Maiden trembling as she knelt; In and for whom the pious Mother felt Things that we judge of by a light too faint: Tell, if ye may, some star-crowned Muse, or Saint! Tell what rushed in, from what she was relieved — Then, when her child the hallowing touch received, And such vibration through the Mother went That tears burst forth amain. Did gleams appear? Opened a vision of that blissful place Where dwells a Sister-child? And was power given Part of her lost one's glory back to trace Even to this rite? For thus She knelt, and, ere The summer-leaf had faded, passed to Heaven.
FROM Little down to Least, in due degree, Around the Pastor, each in new-wrought vest, Each with a vernal posy at his breast, We stood, a trembling, earnest company! With low soft murmur, like a distant bee, Some spake, by thought-perplexing fears betrayed And some a bold unerring answer made: How fluttered then thy anxious heart for me, Beloved Mother! Thou whose happy hand Had bound the flowers I wore, with faithful tie: Sweet flowers! at whose inaudible command Her countenance, phantom-like, doth re-appear: O lost too early for the frequent tear, And ill requited by this heartfelt sigh!
By chain yet stronger must the Soul be tied: One duty more, last stage of this ascent, Brings to thy food, mysterious Sacrament! The offspring, haply at the parent's side; But not till they, with all that do abide In Heaven, have lifted up their hearts to laud And magnify the glorious name of God, Fountain of Grace, whose Son for sinners died. Ye, who have duly weighed the summons, pause No longer; ye, whom to the saving rite The Altar calls; come early under laws That can secure for you a path of light Through gloomiest shade; put on (nor dread its
Armour divine, and conquer in your cause!
THE Young-ones gathered in from hill and dale, With holiday delight on every brow: 'Tis passed away; far other thoughts prevail; For they are taking the baptismal vow Upon their conscious selves; their own lips speak The solemn promise. Strongest sinews fail, And many a blooming, many a lovely, cheek Under the holy fear of God turns pale; While on each head his lawn-robed Servant lays An apostolic hand, and with prayer seals The covenant. The Omnipotent will raise Their feeble souls; and bear with his regrets, Who, looking round the fair assemblage, feels That ere the sun goes down their childhood sets.
THANKSGIVING AFTER CHILDBIRTH.
WOMAN! the Power who left his throne on high, And deigned to wear the robe of flesh we wear, The power that through the straits of infancy Did pass dependent on maternal care, His own humanity with thee will share,
Pleased with the thanks that in his people's eye Thou offerest up for safe delivery
From childbirth's perilous throes. And should the heir
Of thy fond hopes hereafter walk inclined To courses fit to make a mother rue That ever he was born, a glance of mind Cast upon this observance may renew A better will; and, in the imagined view Of thee thus kneeling, safety he may find.
FORMS OF PRAYER AT SEA.
To kneeling worshippers no earthly floor Gives holier invitation than the deck
Of a storm-shattered vessel saved from wreck (When all that Man could do avail'd no more) By him who raised the tempest and restrains; Happy the crew who this have felt, and pour Forth for his mercy, as the Church ordains, Solemn thanksgiving. Nor will they implore In vain who, for a rightful cause, give breath To words the Church prescribes aiding the lip For the heart's sake, ere ship with hostile ship Encounters, armed for work of pain and death. Suppliants! the God to whom your cause ye trust Will listen, and ye know that He is just.
VISITATION OF THE SICK.
THE Sabbath bells renew the inviting peal; Glad music! yet there be that, worn with pain And sickness, listen where they long have lain, In sadness listen. With maternal zeal Inspired, the Church sends ministers to kneel Beside the afflicted; to sustain with prayer, And soothe the heart confession hath laid bare That pardon, from God's throne, may set its seal On a true penitent. When breath departs From one disburthened so, so comforted, His Spirit Angels greet; and ours be hope That, if the sufferer rise from his sick-bed, Hence he will gain a firmer mind, to cope With a bad world, and foil the Tempter's arts.
THE COMMINATION SERVICE.
SHUN not this rite, neglected, yea abhorred, By some of unreflecting mind, as calling Man to curse man, (thought monstrous and appalling.) Go thou and hear the threatenings of the Lord; Listening within his Temple see his sword Unsheathed in wrath to strike the offender's head, Thy own, if sorrow for thy sin be dead, Guilt unrepented, pardon unimplored. Two aspects bears Truth needful for salvation; Who knows not that? — yet would this delicate age Look only on the Gospel's brighter page: Let light and dark duly our thoughts employ; So shall the fearful words of Commination Yiela timely fruit of peace and love and joy.
FROM the Baptismal hour, thro' weal and woe, The Church extends her care to thought and deed; Nor quits the body when the soul is freed, The mortal weight cast off to be laid low. Blest rite for him who hears in faith, "I know That my Redeemer liveth," — hears each word That follows — striking on some kindred chord Deep in the thankful heart; yet tears will flow Man is as grass that springeth up at morn, Grows green, and is cut down and withereth Ere nightfall truth that well may claim a sigh, Its natural echo; but hope comes reborn At Jesu's bidding. We rejoice, “O Death Where is thy Sting-O Grave where is thy Victory?'
RURAL CEREMONY.*
CLOSING the sacred Book which long has fed Our meditations, give we to a day Of annual joy one tributary lay;
This day, when forth by rustic music led, The village children, while the sky is red With evening lights, advance in long array That carried sceptre-like, o'ertops the head Through the still church-yard, each with garland gay,
Of the proud bearer. To the wide church-door, Charged with these offerings which their fathers bore For decoration in the papal time,
The innocent procession softly moves:
The spirit of Laud is pleased in heaven's pure clime, And Hooker's voice the spectacle approves!
FROM low to high doth dissolution climb, And sink from high to low, along a scale Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail; A musical but melancholy chime,
Which they can hear who meddle not with crime, Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.
Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear The longest date do melt like frosty rime, That in the morning whitened hill and plain And is no more; drop like the tower sublime Of yesterday, which royally did wear
His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain Some casual shout that broke the silent air, Or the unimaginable touch of Time.
CONGRATULATION.
THUS all things lead to Charity, secured By THEM who blessed the soft and happy gale That landward urged the great Deliverer's sail, Till in the sunny bay his fleet was moored! Propitious hour! had we, like them, endured Sore stress of apprehension,† with a mind Sickened by injuries, dreading worse designed, From month to month trembling and unassured, How had we then rejoiced! But we have felt, As a loved substance their futurity:
Good, which they dared not hope for, we have seen; A State whose generous will through earth is dealt; A State which, balancing herself between License and slavish order, dares be free.
MONASTIC Domes! following my downward way, Untouched by due regret I marked your fall! Now, ruin, beauty, ancient stillness, all Dispose to judgments temperate as we lay On our past selves in life's declining day: For as, by discipline of Time made wise, We learn to tolerate the infirmities And faults of others - gently as he may, So with our own the mild Instructor deals, Teaching us to forget them or forgive.* Perversely curious, then, for hidden ill Why should we break Time's charitable seals? Once yo were holy, ye are holy still;
Your spirit freely let me drink, and live?
NEW CHURCHES.
BUT liberty, and triumphs on the Main, And laurelled armies, not to be withstood What serve they? if, on transitory good Intent, and sedulous of abject gain,
The State (ah, surely not preserved in vain!) Forbear to shape due channels which the Flood Of sacred truth may enter―till it brood O'er the wide realm, as o'er the Egyptian plain The all-sustaining Nile. No more — - the time Is conscious of her want; through England's bounds,
In rival haste, the wished-for Temples rise?
I hear their sabbath bells' harmonious chime
This is borrowed from an affecting passage in Mr. the east wind so anxiously expected and prayed for, wai George Dyer's history of Cambridge.
called the Protestant wind."
CHURCH TO BE ERECTED.
BE this the chosen site; the virgin sod, Moistened from age to age by dewy eve, Shall disappear, and grateful earth receive The corner-stone from hands that build to God. Yon reverend hawthorns, hardened to the rod Of winter storms, yet budding cheerfully; Those forest oaks of Druid memory, Shall long survive, to shelter the Abode
Of genuine Faith. Where, haply, 'mid this band Of daisies, shepherds sate of yore and wove May-garlands, there let the holy altar stand For kneeling adoration; - while — above, Broods, visibly portrayed, the mystic Dove That shall protect from blasphemy the Land.
OPEN your gates, ye everlasting Piles!
Types of the spiritual Church which God hath reared Not loth we quit the newly-hallowed sward And humble altar, 'mid your sumptuous aisles
| To kneel, or thrid your intricate defiles, Or down the nave to pace in motion slow; Watching, with upward eye, the tall tower grow And mount, at every step, with living wiles Instinct to rouse the heart and lead the will By a bright ladder to the world above. Open your gates, ye Monuments of love Divine! thou Lincoln, on thy sovereign hill! Thou, stately York! and Ye, whose splendours cheer Isis and Cam, to patient Science dear
MINE ear has rung, my spirit sunk subdued, Sharing the strong emotion of the crowd, When each pale brow to dread hosannas bowed While clouds of incense mounting veiled the rood, That glimmered like a pine-tree dimly viewed Through Alpine vapours. Such appalling rite Our church prepares not, trusting to the might Of simple truth with grace divine imbued; Yet will we not conceal the precious Cross,* Like men ashamed: the Sun with his first smile Shall greet that symbol crowning the low Pile: And the fresh air of incense-breathing morn Shall wooingly embrace it; and green moss Creep round its arms through centuries unborn.
NEW CHURCH-YARD.
THE encircling ground, in native turf arrayed, Is now by solemn consecration given To social interests, and to favouring Heaven, And where the rugged colts their gambols played, And wild deer bounded through the forest glade, Unchecked as when by merry outlaw driven, Shall hymns of praise resound at morn and even; And soon, full soon, the lonely Sexton's spade Shall wound the tender sod. Encincture small, But infinite its grasp of weal and woe! Hopes, fears, in never-ending ebb and flow;- The spousal trembling, and the "dust to dust," The prayers, the contrite struggle, and the trust That to the Almighty Father looks through all.
The Lutherans have retained the Cross within their churches: it is to be regretted that we have not done the
WHAT awful perspective! while from our sight With gradual stealth the lateral windows hide Their Portraitures, their stone-work glimmers, dyed In the soft chequerings of a sleepy light. Martyr, or King, or sainted Eremite, Whoe'er ye be, that thus yourselves unseen, Imbue your prison-bars with solemn sheen, Shine on, until ye fade with coming Night!- But from the arms of silence-list! O list! The music bursteth into second life; The notes luxuriate, every stone is kissed By sound, or ghost of sound, in mazy strife; Heart-thrilling strains, that cast, before the eye Of the devout, a veil of ecstasy!
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