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THE HEAVENLY

VISITANT.

37

This heart of guilt, of stone?

This wayward, fickle, contumacious soul? And of my secret sins, the long, long roll, Couldst Thou for these atone?

All power from heaven is Thine!

Long have I known thy glorious works, O Lord! But them, not Thee, have worshiped and adored,

Now Thou thyself art mine!

Spirit of God! bright guest!
God of the Bible! of my inmost heart!
God of my pardon'd soul! in every part
My comforter, my rest!

Exceeding great reward

Of Thine atoning, sacrificial love,

How hast Thou raised my thoughts this world above,

Saviour, Deliverer, Guard!

Such, such Thou art to me!

So here, e'en here, within mine inmost breast, Reign Thou o'er all, and let me be Thy guest, And let me sup with Thee!

Assist thy servant, Lord,

In holy converse bland, to sup with thee!
As face doth answer face, set each doubt free,
By thine own precious word!

Sublime each thought; the soul,
As leaven, leaveneth the whole; restore
To life, till love no compass hath for more,
And heaven imbue the whole.

The whole, the whole be Thine!

Vain world, with all thy blandishments, adieu ! Bright Guest! blest Host! I feel thy promise true! I taste the life divine.

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WHAT are we set on earth for? Say to toil-
Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines,
For all the heat o' the day, till it declines,
And Death's mild curfew shall from work assoil.
God did anoint thee with his odorous oil

To wrestle, not to reign; and he assigns
All thy tears over, like pure crystallines,
For younger fellow-workers of the soil
To wear for amulets. So others shall

Take patience, labour, to their heart and hands,
From thy hands, and thy heart, and thy brave

cheer,

And God's grace fructify through thee to all. The least flower, with a brimming cup, may

stand,

And share its dew-drop with another near.

The Orphan's Dream of Christmas.

Ir was Christmas Eve-and lonely,
By a garret-window high,
Where the city chimney barely
Spared a hand's breadth of the sky,
Sat a child in age,-but weeping,
With a face so small and thin,
That it seem'd too scant a record
To have eight years traced therein.

O, grief looks most distorted

When his hideous shadow lies
On the clear and sunny life-stream
That doth fill a child's blue eyes!
But her eye was dull and sunken,
And the whiten'd cheek was gaunt;
And the blue veins on the forehead

Were the penciling of want.

ORPHAN'S DREAM OF CHRISTMAS.

And she wept for years like jewels,
Till the last year's bitter gall,
Like the acid of the story,

In itself had melted all;

But the Christmas time returned,
As an old friend, for whose eye
She would take down all the pictures
Sketch'd by faithful memory.

Of those brilliant Christmas seasons,
When the joyous laugh went round;
When sweet words of love and kindness
Were no unfamiliar sound;
When, lit by the log's red luster,

She her mother's face could see,
And she rock'd the cradle, sitting
On her own twin brother's knee.

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Of her father's pleasant stories,

Of the riddles and the rhymes,

All the kisses and the presents

That had mark'd those Christmas times.

'T was as well that there was no one
(For it were a mocking strain)
To wish her a merry Christmas,

For that could not come again.

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