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The substance of thy hope and trust now fearlessly declare,

Amid the cheerful hymns of praise and solemn tones of prayer.

Stand up in holy reverence, yet lowly bend the knee

To Him, who in the pangs of death once "bowed his head" for thee;

O! wert thou prostrate in the dust, as low as thou couldst fall,

Yet to the Saviour of thy soul the homage would be small.

Stand up in bold sincerity, and fearless look abroad For him who from the "scorner's seat" would stigmatize thy Lord;

Yet dare not to espouse his cause by fierce and worldly strife,

But let thy strong contention be for "Holiness of life."

Stand up, thy breastplate righteousness, and faith thy chosen shield,

And in Salvation's panoply essay to take the field; The "Word of God," thy trusty sword that pierceth through and through,

Will render thee invincible, to conquer and subdue.

Stand up against the EVIL ONE: though he should come arrayed

In all the strong world's wickedness, do thou be not dismayed;

Amid the fight Christ's presence still the battle

shall restore,

For in His name is victory, and glory evermore

Stand up then in his temple, and look towards the

board,

Where he the riches of his love perpetually hath

stored;

Stand up the cross to magnify, thy zeal a heavenly

flame;

Yet in thy heart, and thought, and word, now bow before his name. W. MARTIN.

THOUGHTS AMONG THE STARS.
O THOU all-glorious temple, mighty dome!
Thou bright and gorgeous concave of the sky,
Ten thousand lustres blazing in pure ether!
Innumerable multitudes of glowing worlds,
Unnumber'd suns and systems! sparkling orbs
And satellites of fire! ye in your pride
Are the hand-writing of the Holy One,
In which he pens in words of deathless fire
Wisdom, and power, and glory ye are mine,
Bright pageantry of heaven! ye crowding host
Of multitudinous and endless stars!

Whence come ye? and why fix your steadfast look
So wistfully upon us?-Millions have gazed
Upon your brilliance, and the sage's eye
Has lost its fire in looking on you ;-yet
Ye are the same; still beautiful, still bright;
And have beheld, and will behold, in calm
Contemptuous grandeur, the vain eye of man
Scanning your ways.-Still myriad souls will look
Upon your courses,-strive to pierce the veil
That wraps you from the finite mind; but sense
Shall fail and falter nightly. Onwards still,

By telescopic vision far in space
To the remotest orb that decks the sky,
The eye will soar and dare to penetrate,
But yet in vain; for this is but the verge
The mere frontiers of God's immensity.
How grand will be the scene! how glorious
The view unlimited, the stretch sublime
Of these poor eyes, when they shall have put on
Their immortality! Worms may destroy
This body, and the dank dark grave may close
Upon us with her flinty jaws; but oh!
She cannot shut us from the presence of
The Deity,- -we shall behold him yet
In all his glory and perfections, full
Of harmony and beauty, full of love,

And full of truth. These are the shadows only
Of the Eternal; atoms loosely flung
Through the immensity of boundless space,
All perishable creatures of an hour;
Only the soul comes near His essence-that
Alone survives the universal wreck,

To that alone is given the privilege

To know its Deity. Rejoice then, man!

Rejoice through all thy powers; rejoice through all The glorious works of nature; still rejoice

In him through all the stages of the day,

And through the star-lit watches of the night

out the dust;

Let thy heart shout with joy: for thou shalt spring,
Immortal spirit, yea, from
And all will be revealed.
That flood of glory now.

Thou canst not bear
Thy eye half dim

With tears, thy aspirations made in sighs,

Thy high conceptions-what are they? how weak, How vain, how abject! why, the very whole

Of boundless space, with all its glittering stars
And suns, and wheeling spheres, and satellites,
Could mortal eye take the vast compass in,
With the bright choir of angels-hosts seraphic-
Legions of towering cherubim, and ranks

Of the high archangels in all their glory,

Would be a sight but mean and poor compared Unto that which doth await thee:-THOU SHALT

LOOK

UPON THY GOD.

W. MARTIN.

A MORNING THOUGHT.

"Who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day, defend us in the same by thy mighty power."-COLLECT FOR GRACE. SAFELY from darkness, and the deep Wild chaos of our midnight sleep, Where fitfully our inward world Seem'd into dire confusion hurl'd, Thy love was with us still to bless Our dreams of tangled nothingness. When bound in chains of living death, Spite of the heart-throb, and the breath, Thy goodness, Lord, then set us free In daylight's sunny liberty. But now our ministers of sense, Our reason's bright intelligence, And its vast temple, were cast down, Their trophies of high wisdom strewn About in fragments through a gloom Black as the night shades of the tomb. But yet through all Thou hast been by To watch this solemn mystery;

Our thoughts and powers didst soon restore,
That we might learn to love thee more.
Upholding with a power sublime
The spirit in this helpless time;
Giving back life unto the slain
To build that temple up again.
Raising from death each faculty
Once more to praise and worship Thee.
Thus day comes on, and all our powers
Are summon'd for our waking hours.
But day hath perils like the night;
Clouds that obscure, and mists that blight;
Tempests that rage, and roar, and swell,
Too wild for human strength to quell;
And darkness thick on every side,

In which vague dreams of power and pride,
Or wealth, or glory, ever rise

To win our spirits from the skies.

The world is all with danger fraught;

Deceit and falsehood through it wrought
Weave for the soul a web and snare;
Amid our pleasures everywhere,
Baubles of pomp and vanity
Would dazzle with their glare the eye.
The smouldering heart's volcanic fires,
The earthquakes of our low desires,
The chaos of our thoughts, the blind
And deep confusion of the mind,—
All we renounced, when we were made
Children of God-would dim and shade
Our earthly course from day to day:
And therefore, Lord, we kneel, and pray
For thy good help to guide and cheer
Our rugged steps and pathway here,

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