I wish I'd lived in those old times,
And been a Grecian child,
To hear that old man's blessing kind,
To meet him when he smiled,

To learn the words of holy love
That ever from his lips
Fell, gentle as the evening dew
The thirsty blossom sips.

But love endureth through all age;
Nor time, nor distance drear,

Divide the living and the dead,

Of CHRIST'S communion dear.

For all His saints in Him are one;
The exile o'er the sea,

The child within his English home,
The struggling, and the free.

The good Saint John hath rest at last;
He wears the promised crown;
And still by the dear church he watched,
His words are handed down;

And we shall meet him, not as once
On that far island shore,

But where apostles, martyrs, saints,
Have peace for evermore.

When the exiles of Domitian's brutal rule were recalled by his gentler successor, Nerva, St. John returned to Asia, his ancient charge, but chiefly fixed his abode at Ephesus,* where St. Timothy, the Bishop, had been lately martyred by the people, for urging upon them the abandonment of their pagan games and holidays. With the assistance of seven bishops, St. John administered the affairs of his important province, in which employment he continued till his death, A.D. 101, when he was about ninety-eight years of

*Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History; lib. iii. c. 20.

LAST WORDS AND DEATH.

57

age. The end of St. John, the latest survivor of all the apostolic band, was so peaceful as to lead many of the ancients, down to the time of St. Augustine, to imagine that he did not actually resign his breath, but only fell into a sleep, from which he was not to awake till the consummation of all things. It was thus that they persisted in interpreting, in spite of the instant disclaimer of such a sense by the Speaker Himself, the answer of our Lord to Peter's question :—“If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" (John xxi. 22.)

The accounts of St. John's death are not perfectly uniform in every particular. The one most favoured by the industrious Hildebrand is to the following effect :—“ At the feast of the Passover, when St. John was engaged about the divine offices, and had preached a sermon before the congregation, he added prayers of burning devotion for the Church, especially of Ephesus, and partook of the Eucharist. This being done, he commanded a tomb to be made, entering into which, with hands outstretched to heaven, he blessed the Church with the formula, Filioli, Pax vobiscum. Having so said, he reclined in the tomb, like one sleeping, and was covered with earth, amidst the lamentations of the church at Ephesus."*

Such was the termination of the long life of one whose unique honour it was to be at once an Apostle, an Evangelist, a Prophet, and a Martyr in everything short of the actual and fatal consummation of self-sacrifice. Amidst the various distinctions of so great a name, the Church has ever delighted to think of him chiefly in connection with that heavenly grace of which he was an incarnate exposition-that grace of which, as he himself said that it alone was sufficient, so another apostle said that "charity never faileth," and that though there "abide faith, hope, charity, these three; the greatest of these is charity." The senti

*Joachim Hildebrand: De Diebus Festis Libellus.

ments of St. John, and the words of St. Paul, are enforced in the following poem, by Matthew Prior, who forbore what Cowper fondly called his "easy jingle," and his easier morals, to do honour to “Charity" in a "Paraphrase on the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians."

Did sweeter sounds adorn my flowing tongue
Than ever man pronounced or angel sung;
Had I all knowledge, human and divine,
That thought can reach, or science can define;
Aud had I power to give that knowledge birth
In all the speeches of the babbling earth;
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 miracles 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 ray 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!

59

The Innorruts' Aoy.

DECEMBER 28.

As rays around the source of light
Stream upward ere he glow in sight,
And watching by his future flight
Set the clear heavens on fire;

So on the King of Martyrs wait
Three chosen bands, in royal state,
And all earth owns, of good and great,
Is gathered in that choir.

One presses on,

and welcomes death:

One calmly yields his willing breath,
Nor slow, nor hurrying, but in faith
Content to die or live:

And some, the darlings of their Lord,
Play smiling with the flame and sword,
And, ere they speak, to his sure word
Unconscious witness give.

The Christian Year: St. Stephen's Dag.

O the early Church it seemed fit that the commemorations of the representatives of the various orders of martyrdom should follow as closely as

possible upon the celebration of the Nativity of their Lord, the degree of nearness to which anniversary was determined by their rank in the "noble army." "For, according to ancient classification, martyrs are of three