TO THE REFORMERS OF ENGLAND. GOD bless ye, brothers! - in the fight Ye're waging now, ye cannot fail, For better is your sense of right Than tyrant's law, or bigot's ban More mighty is your simplest word; The free heart of an honest man Go-let your bloated Church rehearse It moves not with its prayer or curse Let the State scaffold rise again Did Freedom die when Russel died? Forget ye how the blood of Vane From earth's green bosom cried? The great hearts of your olden time All holy memories and sublime And glorious round ye throng. *It can scarcely be necessary to say that the author refers to those who are seeking the reform of political evils in Great Britain, by peaceful and Christian means. The bluff, bold men of Runnymede The truths ye urge are borne abroad The weapons which your hands have found Are those which Heaven itself has wrought, Light, Truth, and Love ;-your battle ground The free, broad field of Thought. No partial, selfish purpose breaks The languid pulse of England starts And bounds beneath your words of power; The beating of her million hearts Is with you at this hour! Oh, ye who, with undoubting eyes, Through present cloud and gathering storm, Behold the span of Freedom's skies, And sunshine soft and warm, Press bravely onward! - not in vain Press on the triumph shall be won Blessing the cotter and the crown, Press on! - and we who may not share The toil or glory of your fight, THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME. THE Quaker of the olden time ! - He walked the dark earth through! With that deep insight which detects And knows how each man's life affects The spiritual life of all, He walked by faith and not by sight, By love and not by law; The presence of the wrong or right He felt that wrong with wrong partakes, That whoso gives the motive, makes His brother's sin his own. And, pausing not for doubtful choice He listened to that inward voice Oh! Spirit of that early day, THE REFORMER. ALL grim and soiled and brown with tan, The Church beneath her trembling dome Fraud from his secret chambers fled "Spare," Art implored, "yon holy pile; That grand, old, time-worn turret spare; Meek Reverence, kneeling in the aisle, Cried out," Forbear!" Grey-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind, Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes, " |