My heart, I said, by deadly frost is bound,
And never will warm days again come round:
But now more hopefully I learn to say—
Either some sin is lurking in my breast,
Troubling the host, which being once confest,
He will His presence and His light restore,
Or thus one needful lesson He is fain

To teach that in ourselves we are always poor,
Which learned, He soon will make me rich again.

Preserve and continue this sick member in the unity of the Church;

EMPLOYMENT.

George Herbert.

F as a flower doth spread and die,

IF

Thou would'st extend me to some good,

Before I were by frosts' extremity

Nipt in the bud;

The sweetness and the praise were Thine;
But the extension and the room

Which in Thy garland I should fill, were mine,
At Thy great doom.

For as Thou dost impart Thy grace,

The greater shall our glory be.

The measure of our joys is in this place,

The stuff with Thee.

1 See Josh. vii. 25.

Let me not languish, then, and spend
A life as barren to Thy praise,

As in the dust to which that life doth tend,
But with delays.

All things are busy; only I

Neither bring honey with the bees, Nor flowers to make that, nor the husbandry To water these.

I am no link of Thy great chain,
But all my company is as a weed.

Lord! place me in Thy concert; give one strain
To my poor reed. ·

Preserve and continue this sick member in the unity of the

Church;

THE CONSTELLATION.

(PART.)

Henry Vaughan.

'HUS, by our lusts disordered into wars,

THU

Our guides prove wand'ring stars,

Which for these mists and black days were reserved,

What time we from our first love swerved.

Yet O for His sake who sits now by Thee,
All crowned with victory,

So guide us through this darkness, that we may
Be more and more in love with day!

Settle and fix our hearts, that we may move
In order, peace, and love;

And, taught obedience by Thy whole creation,
Become an humble, holy nation!

Give to Thy spouse her perfect and pure dress,
BEAUTY and HOLINESS;

And so repair these rents, that men may see
And say, "Where God is, all agree."

Preserve and continue this sick member in the unity of the

Church;

SUNDAY.

(PART.)

George Herbert.

DAY most calm, most bright!

The fruit of this, the next world's bud;

Th' indorsement of supreme delight,

Writ by a friend, and with His blood;

The couch of time, care's balm and bay :—

The week were dark but for thy light;

Thy torch doth show the way.

The Sundays of man's life

Threaded together on time's string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal glorious King.

On Sunday, heav'n's gate stands ope,
Blessings are plentiful and rife,
More plentiful than hope.

Thou art a day of mirth h;

And, where the week-days trail on ground,
Thy flight is higher, as thy birth.

O let me take thee at the bound,

Leaping with thee from seven to seven,
Till that we both, being tossed from earth,
Fly hand in hand to heaven.

Preserve and continue this sick member in the unity of the

Church;

SECRET PRAYER.

S. Wilberforce.

F

ROM the deep stillness of its mossy head, Full-fed by seething mists, the lonely rill Bounds on from stone to stone at its free will, Murmuring sweet music in its rocky bed; By all save lonely bird unvisited

Yet ever with straight course advancing still Towards the common sea which all streams fill,

As one by an unswerving instinct led.---
Most like the sigh of solitary prayer,

From the hid fountains of some burthened heart,
Poured forth in secret, e'en as though there were
None with itself life's mystery to share ;—

Yet adding still, by an unconscious art,

To the whole Church's voice its own melodious part.

Preserve and continue this sick member in the unity of the

Towards spire and tower, 'midst shadowy elms as

cending,

Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallowed day!

The halls from old heroic ages grey

Pour their fair children forth; and hamlets low,

With whose thick orchard-blooms the soft winds

play,

Send out their inmates in a happy flow,

Like a freed vernal stream.

I may not tread

With them those pathways-to the feverish bed