Stealthily wild fears hover

About with noiseless tread;
And hopeless midnights cover
The soul with weight like lead.

Firm earth upheaves like ocean;
No longer law can hind;
The thoughts with giddy motion
Have left the will behind.

Madness entices, dragging
Resistlessly astray;
The pulse of life is flagging,
And fades each sense away.

Who lifts the cross before us,

A hiding-place from grief? In heaven who waiteth o'er us, To come with quick relief? Go to the tree of wonder;

Give silent longing room :
Outbursting flames asunder
The weary dream consume.

An angel thee is raising,
Safe on the solid strand;
And lo! thine eyes are gazing
Upon the promised land.

X.

I know not what were left for seeking,
If that one Being were my friend;
If he said Brother, plainly speaking,
And dwelt beside me without end.

So many search with wide endeavour,
Distorted visage, eager eye!
They think themselves the wisest ever,
And yet they pass this treasure by.

This man believes his toil availeth:
"Tis only gold for labour hard;
That man around the whole world saileth,
And brings a name for his reward.

This man the battle crown pursueth,
And that man longs for laurel wreaths;
So each deceived, vain toil reneweth,
And glittering vanity bequeaths.

Has he to you then never spoken ?

Nor shown the face for you grown wan? From life, love sent him, anguish broken, For us driven out, despised man.

For wondrous gifts no thanks ye render ?
Of him have heard no little word?
Not read his deeds, how heavenly tender?
His simple grace ye have not heard?

From heaven to earth he came, right willing, The loveliest mother's mighty Son;

With words from him the world is thrilling;
The blind men see, the lame men run.

To us in love's pure consecration,
He gave his very self away;
And for a city's new foundation,
Down in the lowly grave he lay.

Is not this man's love unabating
Enough to give your heart its due ?
Fling then its doors wide open, waiting
For him who closed the gulf for you.

Now you will part with any treasure,
And gladly any wish deny ;

Yea, keep your heart for his pure pleasure,
If he look on you graciously?

Hero of love! receive my spirit!

Thou art my life, thou art my world! Thy peace, thy joy, I now inherit,

Were all the earth in rain hurled.

Thou comest, my lost love restoring;
Love everlasting thine will be;
Down at thy feet heaven sinks adoring,
And yet thy dwelling is with me.

XI.

Hope of the earth, where tarriest thou?
A dwelling waits thee long, below;

Each heart looks up through seeking eyes,

And open to thy blessing lies.

Pour it, O Father, forth with power

Send him to us this very hour;

Love only, innocence, and shame,
Have kept him that he never came.

Give him from thine into our arm,
Descending with thy breath yet warm;
The heavy clouds around him throw,
And let the child thus downward go.

Send him to us in cooling streams,
In fiery flames with tremulous beams,
In breeze and oil, in sound and dew,
Thrilling our old earth's body through.

So shall the holy fight be fought,
The rage of hell thus come to nought,
And ever-blooming spring abroad
The ancient paradise of God.

The earth awakes, with green revives;
Each form, with spirit teeming, strives
To greet with love the Saviour guest,
And offer him the mother's breast.

The winter yields. A new year high
The manger's altar standeth by;
It is the first year of the earth,
Born with the child in one glad birth.

The eye beholds the Saviour well;
Yet in it doth the Saviour dwell.

With flowers his head is wreathed about-
From each himself looks smiling out.

He is the star, he is the sun;
Life's spring that evermore doth run;
From herb and stone, light, sea's expanse,
Glimmers his childish countenance.

His childish ways, by none represt,
His ardent love will never rest;
He nestles, with unconscious art,
Divinely fast to every heart.

418

A Word concerning the London Missionary Society.

In the remarkable speech of the Rev. Joseph Mullens, at the last anniversary meeting of the London Missionary Society, there occurred a statement which must have been heard with regretful surprise by the large number of friends and subscribers to the society who remained to listen to Mr. Mullens' address. Twenty years ago,' said the speaker, the annual income of our society and our donations, subscriptions, and collections, amounted to 50,000l. We heard this morning that in the last year it was only 44,0007. Again, in 1839, the number of our missionaries was 151; it rose to 170, and it remained at that point for several years. You have heard to-day that in the last year it dropped down to 152.'

We take advantage of the prominent manner in which this fact has now been brought before the public to say a word concerning the London Missionary Society which has long needed to be said, but which we should have been glad if some other member of the religious or ecclesiastical press had seen occasion to utter. The 'Christian Spectator' has so frequently had occasion to discharge the duties of censor and critic when it would willingly have had to fulfil only the more pleasant offices of a friend and teacher, that it would be glad to have been relieved of all such unwelcome tasks for the future. It is always an ungracious labour to find the least fault with a great and useful public institution; and, in the present instance, if the extent of the Christian missionary work were not involved in the matter, we should have declined the task.

Mr. Mullens asks, 'Is the state of things to which he made reference "wise or sound?"' and, 'Is it right?'

We answer, on behalf of very many to whom the position of the London Missionary Society has been a source of no little pain for some years past, it was to be expected. It cannot be unknown, even to those who are most welcome at Blomfield-street, and who are the best patrons, or who are the best patronized by the officers of the society. that the London Mission has come to be regarded as not only giving expression to the missionary feelings of the Independent denomination, but as representing a mere section, or clique, of Congregational Dis sent. It is the Carlton Club of the Dissenting world, a club that, like its West-end prototype, has its 'Standard' amongst the press, and its own Foresters and W. B.'s.'

A 'liberal' Dissenter, of unquestionable genius, and undoubted piety, may vainly knock at the door of the Mission House for its introduction to a vacant church; a conservative dullard will be recommended to the best and most promising spheres. Stem its influence, and if you are a man of little power, and as little connexion, why, it were as well that you wrote yourself down 'a German' (whatever that

may mean!) at once, for the millstone of a doubtful reputation will assuredly be hanged around your neck.

And why not? perhaps the reader may say. Why not conservative as well as liberal head quarters? Not a word have we to say against such an arrangement, but a thousand words, if necessary, against the prostitution of a missionary society to the purposes of a 'School for Scandal,' with a new dramatis persona of modern Sneerwells, Snakes, Candours, and Joseph Surfaces. We should be glad to see Tory Dissent occupying its own offices, eating at its own clubs, writing letters to its own newspaper, editing its own magazine, in its proper place, but its proper place is not the office, nor the board-room of a missionary institution. Is it wise or sound? Is it right?' No; but if such things be, is it not to be expected that the income of such a society should actually decrease in twenty years? Christian men may err in allowing personal or political prejudices to interfere with their benevolence; but as it is possible to be benevolent without contributing to a specific society, they will scarcely err in turning the stream of their charity into other channels than those which are habitually polluted by such courses as we have described.

Its

Here, in honour and fairness, we must limit the application of our remarks. The foreign agency of the society is, as far as we know, conducted with perfect impartiality and without prejudice. 'liberal' missionaries are as courteously treated as its more conservative; none of either party with whom we have become acquainted but has expressed his high sense of the generosity of the society. Where the funds are spent, they are spent without prejudice; if there were as little where they are collected, the collections might very soon be doubled.

The society's income is certainly not increased by the correspondence and intelligence which it publishes in its monthly paper, the 'Missionary Chronicle.' The writer of this is in the habit of reading every missionary journal that is issued from the press. With one or two remarkable exceptions, none of these can boast of much literary power; it is not needful that they should. But the 'Chronicle' is lower than the very lowest; nothing weaker, worse arranged, or more generally uninteresting issues from the religious press. Reference has been made to this circumstance more than once in the Record of Christian Missions' in this journal, and we greatly regret to have to bring it up again, but the interests of the society and of the Christian missions which it conducts, require that some change should be made in its conduct. We do not know who edits it, or if it have an editor, but with Dr. Tidman's literary power and cultivation it would be easy to make it the first missionary journal in this country. The writer of the Annual Reports' of the society could very considerably deepen the interest of every reader of the 'Chronicle,' in all the operations of the London Missionary Society.

We are sorry to add a harder word concerning the contents of the 'Missionary Chronicle.' It is matter of public notoriety that the letters