ON A PAINTING OF THE CRUCIFIXION

BY THE REV. T. J. JUDKIN.

EDMUND PEEL.

IMMORTAL picture! Night and woe and pain, Haunting the rack of unredeemed despair, Have caught the bold blasphemer by the hair, Delivered over to their dire domain !

Star of the Cross, dispel the darkness! rain

Light on the brow of deep maternal care,
Light on the dying sinner saved by prayer;
For never rose the prayer of faith in vain!
That all had faith! that all might understand
The vision! feel that agony sublime!
And inly moved, with yonder Hebrew band

Smite on the breast, and own the mortal crime ! Lord, on each human heart deign to command

Light from the centre flowing through all time!

THE CHRISTIAN VIRGIN TO HER APOSTATE

LOVER.

REV. T. DALE.

OH! lost to faith, to peace, to Heaven!

Canst thou a recreant be

To Him whose life for thine was given,
Whose Cross endured for thee?
Canst thou for earthly joys resign
A love immortal, pure, divine,

Yet link thy plighted truth to mine,
And cleave unchanged to me?

Thou canst not-and 'tis breathed in vain-
Thy sophistry of love-

Though not in pride or cold disdain

Thy falsehood I reprove!

Inly my heart may bleed-but yet

Mine is no weak-no vain regret;

Thy wrongs to me I might forget,

But not to Him above!

Cease, then, thy fond impassioned vow

In happier hours so dear;

No virgin pride restrains me now,

I must not turn to hear;

For still my erring heart might prove
Too weak to spurn thy proffer'd love,

And tears-though feigned and false-might move,
And prayers, though insincere.

But no! the tie so firmly bound,

Is torn asunder now;

How deep that sudden wrench may wound,

It recks not to avow;

Go thou to fortune and to fame;

I sink to sorrow-suffering-shame!

Yet think, when glory gilds thy name,

I would not be as thou!

Thou canst not light or wavering deem
The bosom all thine own;

Thou know'st in Joy's enlivening beam,
Or Fortune's adverse frown,

My pride-my bliss had been to share
Thy hopes-to soothe thine hours of care,
With thee the Martyr's cross to bear,
Or win the Martyr's crown.

'Tis o'er, but never from my heart
Shall time thine image blot;
The dreams of other days depart,
Thou shalt not be forgot ;

And never in the suppliant sigh

Poured forth to Him who sways the sky,

Shall mine own name be breathed on high,

And thine remembered not!

Farewell! and oh! may He whose love
Endures, though man rebel,

In mercy yet thy guilt remove,
Thy darkening clouds dispel :
Where'er thy wandering steps decline,
My fondest prayers-nor only mine,
The aid of Israel's God be thine,

And in His name-Farewell!

ON MEMORY.

THE REV. THOMAS E. HANKINSON.

WHEN the young heart, with passionate regret,
Dwells upon joys too beautiful to last,
And o'er the fond remembrance lingers yet,
As if its dreaming could recall the past;
When fades the present from the 'wildered sight,
As musing Memory shifts the fancied scene,
Till we can almost grasp the lost delight,
Feel as we felt, and be as we have been ;
Feel-yes, a livelier, tenderer beauty springs
O'er the loved features of each happy day;
For memory's touch, in bright profusion, brings
All, all the joy, but steals the gloom away;
When that we fondly loved, and now deplore,
Glides o'er the soul like moonlight o'er the sea,
And wears a smile, perchance, it never wore,

And seems a being it could never be.
And when, at length, those rainbow-colours fade,
Which Fancy's sunbeam on the past could throw,
When clouds and tears come hurrying on instead,
And we are left to certainty and woe;
Left-but to find our rose-twined garland dead,
To see the future darken on our view,
To mourn those joyous days for ever fled,
And vainly madden o'er the long adieu ;