Thou that minist`rest to care,
Temporal, canst thou hush despair?
Thou that heal'st the body`s pain,
Canst thou charm back peace again?
Thou, that holy text doth bring,
Canst thou stop the spirit's wing!
All that can the soul concern,
Of that onward, dread eterne-
All that can harass, alarm,
All that may death's sting disarm,
All that God to man hath given
Of the unrevealed heaven;
All of earth's deceiving schemes,
All that realizes dreams
Of infernal horror-all
Of that unnamed, bitter thrall
Memory wakened, conscience smarting, All that waits the mind, departing
To the mind's appalling doom,
To its ever living tomb,—
All of wasted life that's past,
All the future, at the last
Gathering in a fearful might,
All of everlasting night,
All of tortured body's ill,
All of unsubdued will,
All that was and is to be,
All of vast eternity,
With an overwhelming power,
Crowded in the ELEVENTH HOUR!
How simple, godlike, the device that brings
The thought in contact with eternal things!
Such is the Tract, whose silent power is seen
As kindly dew upon the margent green.
Such is the monthly call, when counsel given
Confirms the faint, the erring leads to Heaven,
And not to opulence confined, that goes
To the low dwelling, redolent of woes,
Searches out want-unwearied, by the bed
Of sickness kneels, and bathes the aching head;
And points the dying to a better shore,
Life's ocean passed - where storms shall vex no
I've seen the hovel, o'er whose threshold ne'er
Came minister of Christ. No herald here
Had crossed to bind the broken hearted up;
Its inmate drank of misery's bitter cup:
And the gay, smiling world knew not his grief—
Yet came an angel, seeming, with relief.
She, with a Tract, her passport, entered there,
And soothed the sufferer; lightened every care;
And having won his love, her errand gave
Of Him who only can the sinner save.
Her converse, prayers, were blest, and he, the rod
Had failed to move, by love was brought to God.
WHO would be buried in a city? Who
Would choose, life's labors done, to lay him down
In the scant ground, assigned as resting place,
Where no grass grows? Or in the sullen tomb,
Loathsome, and sad, to be inurned, or 'neath
The solemn church, where in the dusky aisles
Are rows of vaults, on whose dark, dripping doors
Never falls sunbeam? Sympathy dwells not
In crowded towns; - there Avarice hath its reign.
Avarice, that calculates the very worth
And nice proportion of each petty thing
That can be coined to gold. Why, I have seen
In this good city, where a plot of land
Two hundred years ago our sires had given,
To this most sacred purpose consecrate-
Where men might lay their dead: a spot
That opened to the breeze, and shaded, too,
By cheerful trees, which threw their shadow o'er
The grassy graves—now, all begirt with walls
Tow'ring to heaven, that seem to covet e'en
The niggard space allotted to the dead.
And in one corner of this holy soil,
With thrift, a cunning Yankee had him made
A kitchen garden! Yea, I saw the graves
Teeming with corn and squash. 'Twas sad to note
The stalk o'ertop the monuments, and vines
Spreading and curling round the stones that time
Had spared for ages;-spared, to be thus mocked
By calculating plodders, who would fain
Eat vegetables gathered from the bones
Of a dead father, and lick up the food
Grown on a mother's dust. He that would gaze On such perversion, may himself betake
To the King's Chapel burying ground, and weep. July, 1839.
I Do remember thee, transparent stream!
And cause there is that I should sometimes dwell
Gratefully on the season loved so well-
Glances of which, in fancy's witching dream,
Come up in sober manhood, Childhood's hour!
When wasted with disease, my languid frame They plunged beneath thy waters. Newly came, By oft-repeated trial, health and power
To my unhopeful system. Strength of limb,
And renovated life, didst thou restore
To him so helpless and so dead before.
For this, while I gaze on thee, unto Him
Who scooped thy winding way, and fringed thy banks
With drapery of green, I render joyful thanks.
The Proconsul of Judea here found the termination of his impious life; having, after spending years in the recesses of this mountain, which bears his name, at length, in remorse and despair, rather than in penitence, plunged into the dismal lake which occupies the summit. - Legend in Anne of Geierstein.
When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to it. St. Matthew, xxvii. 24.
IMMORTAL infamy is his
Who gave the Saviour up
To bear the Jewish scourge and scorn,
And drink the Roman cup.
He washed his hands in sight of men,
And slander thought to kill,-
Yet was he foul, and to this hour
His hands are spotted still.
There's something of audacious crime
In guilty Judas found,
Though viler than the vilest thing
That crawls upon the ground;
But he who had not fortitude
In trial's honest hour,
To own the outward influence
Of conscience' secret power,
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