Her terror-stricken ear rejoicing raise
Unto the gospel's music. Bring again
Thy scattered people who so long have borne
A fearful punishment, so long wrung out
The bitter dregs of pale astonishment
Into the wine-cup of the wondering earth.
And oh, to us, who from our being's dawn
Lisp out salvation's lessons, yet do stray
Like erring sheep, to us thy spirit give,

That we may keep thy law and find thy fold,

Ere in the desolate city of the dead

We make our tenement, while earth doth blot

Our history from the record of mankind.

LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY.

REBECCA'S HYMN.

WHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved,
Out from the land of bondage came,
Her fathers' God before her moved,
An awful guide in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonished lands

The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night Arabia's crimsoned sands

Returned the fiery column's glow.

There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answered keen;
And Zion's daughters poured their lays,
With priest's and warrior's voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze,

Forsaken Israel wanders lone;
Our fathers would not know thy ways,
And thou hast left them to their own.

BETHLEHEM AND GOLGOTHA.

"Er ist in Bethlehem geboren."

The city of Shiraz, already referred to on page 158, lies in a Persian valley of surpassing loveliness, at an elevation of forty-five hundred feet above the sea. For five centuries it was a centre of science, art, and literature, and was noted for the splendor of its buildings, as well as for the beauty of its groves, vineyards, and gardens of roses. The Caaba (AlKaaba, square house) is a stone building in the mosque of Mecca, enclosing a black stone of an irregular oval shape, about seven inches in diameter, which, before the time of Mohammed, received idolatrous worship from the Arabians, and is still their most sacred object of veneration. Many thousands of pilgrims visit it every year. Every true Mohammedan feels bound to see this stone once if possible.

Away, ye pyramids, whose bases

Lie shrouded in Egyptian gloom! Eternal graves! no resting-places,

Where hope immortal gilds the tomb. Ye sphinxes, vain was your endeavor To solve life's riddle, dark forever,

Until the answer came with awe
From Bethlehem and Golgotha.
Fair paradise, where ever blowing
The roses of Shiraz expand!
Ye stately palms of India, growing
Along her scented ocean-strand !
I see, amid your loveliest bowers,
Death stalking in the sunniest hours.

Look up! To you life comes from far,
From Bethlehem and Golgotha.

Thou Caaba, half the world, benighted,
Is stumbling o'er thee, as of old;
Now, by thy crescent faintly lighted,
The coming day of doom behold:
The moon before the sun decreases,
A sign shall shiver thee to pieces;
The Hero's sign, "Victoria!"
Shout Bethlehem and Golgotha.

O Thou who, in a manger lying,
Wert willing to be born a child,
And on the cross, in anguish dying,

The world to God hast reconciled!
To pride, how mean thy lowly manger!
How infamous thy cross! yet stranger!
Humility became the law
At Bethlehem and Golgotha.

Proud kings, to worship One descended From humble shepherds, thither came; And nations to the cross have wended,

As pilgrims, to adore his name.

By war's fierce tempest rudely battered,
The world, but not the cross, was shattered,
When East and West it struggling saw
Round Bethlehem and Golgotha.

Oh, let us not with mailed legions,

But with the spirit, take the field, To win again those holy regions,

As Christ compelled the world to yield! Let rays of light, on all sides streaming, Dart onward, like apostles gleaming,

Till all mankind their light shall draw From Bethlehem and Golgotha!

With staff and hat, the scallop wearing,

The far-off East I journeyed through; And homeward, now, a pilgrim bearing

This message, I have come to you: Go not with hat and staff to wander Beside God's grave and cradle yonder; Look inward, and behold with awe His Bethlehem and Golgotha.

O heart! what profits all thy kneeling, Where once he laid his infant head, To view with an enraptured feeling

His grave, long empty of its dead? To have him born in thee with power, To die to earth and sin each hour, And live to him, this only, ah! Is Bethlehem and Golgotha.

Translated from the German of RÜCKERT, by THOMAS C. PORTER, 1868.

PAUL.

SAMUEL JOHNSON, author and clergyman, was born in Sa em, Mass., Oct. 10, 1822, and graduated at Harvard College in 1842. He compiled a book of hymns with the Rev. Samuel Longfellow in 1846, and has published elabo rate works on the religions of India (1872) and China (1879). THE Will Divine that woke a waiting time, With desert cry and Calvary's cross sublime, Had equal need on thee its power to prove, Thou soul of passionate zeal and tenderest love!

As to thy last Apostle's heart
Thy lightning glance did then impart
Zeal's never-dying fire,

So teach us on thy shrine to lay
Our hearts, and let them day by day
Intenser blaze and higher.

And as each mild and winning note
(Like pulses that round harp-strings float
When the full strain is o'er)
Left lingering on his inward ear
Music, that taught, as death drew near,
Love's lesson more and more:

So as we walk our earthly round,
Still may the echo of that sound
Be in our memory stored:
"Christians, behold your happy state;
Christ is in these who round you wait;
Make much of your dear Lord!"
JOHN KEBLE.

ST. JOHN.

ST. JOHN, wandering over the face of the Earth.
THE Ages come and go,
The Centuries pass as Years;
My hair is white as the snow,
My feet are weary and slow,
The earth is wet with my tears!
The kingdoms crumble, and fall
Apart, like a ruined wall,
Or a bank that is undermined
By a river's ceaseless flow,
And leave no trace behind!
The world itself is old;
The portals of Time unfold
On hinges of iron, that grate

And groan with the rust and the weight,
Like the hinges of a gate

That hath fallen to decay;
But the evil doth not cease;
There is war instead of peace,
Instead of love there is hate;
And still I must wander and wait,
Still I must watch and pray,
Not forgetting in whose sight,
A thousand years in their flight
Are as a single day.

The life of man is a gleam

Of light, that comes and goes
Like the course of the Holy Stream.
The cityless river, that flows
From fountains no one knows,
Through the Lake of Galilee,

Through forests and level lands,

Over rocks, and shallows, and sands
Of a wilderness wild and vast,
Till it findeth its rest at last
In the desolate Dead Sea !
But alas alas for me,
Not yet this rest shall be !

What, then! doth Charity fail? Is Faith of no avail?

Is Hope blown out like a light
By a gust of wind in the night?
The clashing of creeds, and the strife
Of the many beliefs, that in vain
Perplex man's heart and brain,
Are nought but the rustle of leaves,
When the breath of God upheaves
The boughs of the Tree of Life,
And they subside again!
And I remember still

The words, and from whom they came,
Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will!

And Him evermore I behold
Walking in Galilee,

Through the cornfield's waving gold,
In hamlet, in wood, and in wold,
By the shores of the Beautiful Sea.
He toucheth the sightless eyes;
Before him the demons flee;
To the dead he sayeth: Arise!
To the living: Follow me!
And that voice still soundeth on
From the centuries that are gone,
To the centuries that shall be!

From all vain pomps and shows,
From the pride that overflows,
And the false conceits of men ;
From all the narrow rules
And subtleties of Schools,
And the craft of tongue and pen;
Bewildered in its search,
Bewildered wi
the cry:
Lo, here! lo, there, the Church!
Poor, sad Humanity
Through all the dust and heat
Turns back with bleeding feet,
By the weary road it came,
Unto the simple thought
By the Great Master taught,
And that remaineth still:
Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will!

1872.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

ST. JOHN.

"Verbum Dei, Deo natum."

From one of the loftiest Latin poems of the Middle Ages, by an unknown poet, probably trained in the school of Adam of St. Victor.

THE Word of God, the Eternal Son, With God, the Uncreated, One,

Came down to earth from heaven; To see him, handle him, and show His heavenly life to men below,

To holy John was given.

Among those four primeval streams Whose living fount in Eden gleams,

John's record true is known; To all the world he poureth forth The nectar pure of priceless worth

That flows from out the throne.

Beyond the heavens he soared, nor failed,
With all the spirit's gaze unveiled,

To see our true Sun's grace;
Not as through mists and visions dim,
Beneath the wings of Seraphim

He looked and saw God's face.

He heard where songs and harps resound, And four and twenty elders round

Sing hymns of praise and joy ; The impress of the One in Three, With print so clear that all may see, He stamped on earth's alloy. As eagle winging loftiest flight Where never seer's or prophet's sight Had pierced the ethereal vast, Pure beyond human purity, He scanned, with still undazzled eye, The future and the past.

The Bridegroom, clad in garments red,
Seen, yet with might unfathomed,

Home to his palace hies;
Ezekiel's eagle to his bride
He sends, and will no longer hide
Heaven's deepest mysteries.

O loved one, bear, if thou canst tell
Of him whom thou didst love so well,
Glad tidings to the Bride;

Tell of the angel's food they taste,
Who with the Bridegroom's presence graced,
Are resting at his side.

Tell of the soul's true bread unpriced,
Christ's supper, on the breast of Christ
In wondrous rapture ta’en ;
That we may sing before the throne
His praises, whom as Lord we own,
The Lamb we worship slain.

Translated by EDWARD H. PLUMPTRE