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Did Shadrach's zeal my glowing breast inspire,
To weary tortures, and rejoice in fire;
Or had I faith like that which Israel saw,
When Moses gave them miracle and law;
Yet, gracious charity! indulgent guest!
Were not thy power exerted in my breast,
Those speeches would send up unheeded prayer,
That scorn of life would be but wild despair;
A cymbal's sound were better than my voice;
My faith were form, my eloquence were noise.
Charity! decent, modest, easy, kind,

Softens the high, and rears the abject mind;
Knows the just reins and gentle hand to guide
Betwixt vile shame and arbitrary pride.
Not soon provoked, she easily forgives,
And much she suffers, as she much believes;
Soft peace she brings wherever she arrives;
She builds our quiet, as she forms our lives;
Lays the rough paths of peevish Nature even,
And opens in each heart a little heaven.

Each other gift which God on man bestows,
Its proper bounds and due restriction knows;
To one fixed purpose dedicates its power,
And finishing its act, exists no more.
Thus in obedience to what heaven decrees,
Knowledge shall fail, and prophecy shall cease;
But lasting Charity's more ample sway,

Nor bound by time, nor subject to decay,

In happy triumph shall for ever live,

And endless good diffuse, and endless praise receive As through the artist's intervening glass,

Our eye observes the distant planets pass,

A little we discover, but allow

That more remains unseen than art can show;

So whilst our mind its knowledge would improve

(Its feeble eye intent on things above),

High as we may we lift our reason up,

By Faith directed, and confirmed by Hope;
Yet are we able only to survey

Dawnings of beams and promises of day.

Heaven's fuller effluence mocks our dazzled sight, Too great its swiftness, and too strong its light. But soon the mediate clouds shall be dispelled, The Sun shall soon be face to face beheld,

In all his robes, with all his glory on,
Seated sublime on his meridian throne.

Then constant Faith and holy Hope shall die,
One lost in certainty, and one in joy;

Whilst thou, more happy power, fair Charity,
Triumphant sister, greatest of the three,
Thy office and thy nature still the same,
Lasting thy lamp, and unconsumed thy flame,
Shalt still survive-

Shalt stand before the host of heaven confest,
For ever blessing, and for ever blest.

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ROBERT BLAIR, eldest son of the Rev. David Blair, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and chaplain to the king, was born about the year 1699. Having completed his education at the University of Edinburgh, he spent some time in continental travel, and after his return was ordained to the parish of Athelstaneford, in East Lothian, January 5th, 1731. He died of a fever, February 4th, 1746, and was succeeded in his incumbency by Home, the author of the tragedy of "Douglas."

Blair was a man of general and elegant attainments, "of sincere piety, and very assiduous in discharging the duties of his clerical function. As a preacher he was serious and warm, and discovered the imagination of the coet." To this verdict of his biographer, Dr. Anderson, it may be added, that as a poet he discovered the fervour

and directness of the preacher. His well-known poem in blank verse, called "The Grave," is "remarkable," says Craik," for its masculine vigour of thought and expression, and for the imaginative solemnity with which it invests the most familiar truths; and it has always been one of our most popular religious poems."

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"O GRAVE! WHERE IS THY VICTORY ?"

But know that thou must render up thy dead,
And with high interest too. They are not thine,
But only in thy keeping for a season,

Till the great promised day of restitution;
When loud diffusive sound from brazen trump
Of strong-lunged cherub shall alarm thy captives,
And rouse the long, long sleepers into life,
Daylight, and liberty.

Then must thy doors fly open and reveal

The mines, that lay long forming under ground,
In their dark cells immured; but now full ripe,
And pure as silver from the crucible,

That twice has stood the torture of the fire,
And inquisition of the forge. We know
The illustrious Deliverer of mankind,

The Son of God, thee foiled. Him in thy power
Thou couldst not hold: self-vigorous He rose,
And, shaking off thy fetters, soon retook
Those spoils his voluntary yielding lent:
(Sure pledge of our releasement from thy thrall!)
Twice twenty days he sojourned here on earth,
And showed Himself alive to chosen witnesses,

By proof so strong that the most slow assenting
Had not a scruple left. This having done,
He mounted up to heaven. Methinks I see Him
Climb the aërial heights, and glide along
Athwart the severing clouds: but the faint eye,
Flung backwards in the chase, soon drops its hold,
Disabled quite, and jaded with pursuing.
Heaven's portals wide expand to let Him in!
Nor are his friends shut out; as a great prince

Not for himself alone procures admission,
But for his train. It was his royal will,
That where He is, there should his followers be;
Death only lies between-a gloomy path!
Made yet more gloomy by our coward fears:
But not untrod nor tedious: the fatigue
Will soon go off. Besides, there's no by-road
To bliss. Then why, like ill-conditioned children,
Start we at transient hardships in the way
That leads to purer air and softer skies,

And a ne'er-setting sun? Fools that we are!
We wish to be where sweets unwithering bloom;
But straight our wish revoke, and will not go.
So have I seen, upon a summer's even,
Fast by the rivulet's brink, a youngster play:
How wishfully he looks to stem the tide!
This moment resolute, next unresolved:
At last he dips his foot; but as he dips,
His fears redouble, and he runs away
From the inoffensive stream, unmindful now
Of all the flowers that paint the further bank,

And smiled so sweet of late. Thrice welcome, Death! That after many a painful bleeding step

Conducts us to our home, and lands us safe

On the long wished-for shore. Prodigious change;
Our bane turned to a blessing! Death disarmed
Loses its fellness quite. All thanks to Him
Who scourged the venom out!

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ISAAC WATTS, eldest of the nine chidren of a father of both his names, who kept a boarding-school of considerable repute at Southampton, was born in that town in July, 1674. Being a strict Nonconformist, and the son of parents who had suffered severely for the same religious opinions, he declined the offer made by some gentlemen of his native town to defray his expenses at one of the universities. In 1690 he repaired to London, to prosecute his education in the academy of Mr. Rowe, and in 1696 accepted the situation of tutor in the family of Sir John Hartopp. In 1702 he assumed the pastorate of a dissenting congregation in London, the duties of which his feeble health-and it was said of him by Whitefield, that for years together he might be said rather to gasp than to live-compelled him to relinquish. He went, in 1712, to reside with Sir Thomas Abney, and prolonged what was intended for a week's stay to a period of thirtysix years. This visit, in the thirtieth year of its duration, Lady Abney, to the credit of all parties, handsomely declared to have been the shortest her family ever received. Dr. Watts died at the house of the hospitable knight, November 25th, 1748.

In his blameless character, Dr. Johnson, in such a case likely to be cynical, could find no fault except his

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