This we repeat, from year to year,
And press upon our youth ;
Lord, give them an attentive ear,
Lord, save them by thy truth!
Blessings upon the rising race!
Make this a happy hour,
According to thy richest grace,
And thine almighty power.
We feel for your unhappy state,
(May you regard it too!)
And would awhile ourselves forget,
To pour out prayer for you.
We see, though you perceive it not,
The approaching awful doom;
O tremble at the solemn thought,
And flee the wrath to come!
Dear Saviour, let this new-born year
Spread an alarm abroad;
And cry in every careless ear,
[Prayer of pious parents for their children, first sung at an annual charity sermon. "This hymn,” observes Montgomery, "closes with one of the hardiest figures to be met with out of the Hebrew Scriptures. None but a poet of the highest order could have presented such a group as in the last verse, without bombast or burlesque." We incline to ascribe the peculiar force of this passage not so much to mere poetical beauty, as to a general cause of excellence in these compositions, -a pathetic, graceful, and masterly employment of Scriptural allusion.]
GRACIOUS Lord, our children see!
By thy mercy we are free,
But shall these, alas! remain
Subjects still of Satan's reign?
Israel's young ones, when of old
Pharaoh threaten'd to withhold, *
Then thy messenger said, “ No;
Let the children also go."
When the angel of the Lord,
Drawing forth his dreadful sword,
Slew, with an avenging hand,
All the first-born of the land ;†
Then thy people's door he pass'd,
Where the bloody sign was placed :
Hear us, now, upon our knees,
Plead the blood of Christ for these!
Lord, we tremble, for we know
How the fierce malicious foe,
Wheeling round his watchful flight,
Keeps them ever in his sight:
Spread thy pinions, King of kings!
Hide them safe beneath thy wings;
Lest the ravenous bird of prey
Stoop, and bear the brood away.
[Prayer for the presence of the Spirit, composed on the opening of a place of worship in the neighbourhood of Olney: a simple enunciation of the thoughts which naturally arise on such an occasion. The third and fourth verses possess peculiar energy and propriety.]
JESUS, where'er thy people meet,
There they behold thy mercy-seat;
Where'er they seek thee, thou art found,
And every place is hallow'd ground.
For thou, within no walls confined,
Inhabitest the humble mind;
Such ever bring thee where they come,
And going, take thee to their home.
Dear Shepherd of thy chosen few,
Thy former mercies here renew;
Here to our waiting hearts proclaim
The sweetness of thy saving name.
Here
may we prove the power of prayer,
To strengthen faith, and sweeten care;
To teach our faint desires to rise,
And bring all heaven before our eyes.
Behold, at thy commanding word,
We stretch the curtain and the cord;
Come thou, and fill this wider space,
And bless us with a large increase.
Lord, we are few, but thou art near,
Nor short thine arm, nor deaf thine ear;
Oh, rend the heavens, come quickly down,
And make a thousand hearts thine own!
[For a saving reception of Christ: an aspiration after heavenly love-ardent, but perhaps too familiar in some of the expressions.]
To those who know the Lord I speak,
Is my Beloved near?
The bridegroom of my soul I seek,
Oh! when will he appear?
Though once a man of grief and shame,
Yet now he fills a throne,
And bears the greatest, sweetest name,
That earth or heaven has known.
Grace flies before, and love attends
His steps where'er he goes;
Though none can see him but his friends,
And they were once his foes.
He speaks-obedient to his call
Our warm affections move;
Did he but shine alike on all,
Then all alike would love.
Then love in every heart would reign,
And war would cease to roar ;
And cruel and blood-thirsty men
Would thirst for blood no more.
Such Jesus is, and such his grace,
O may it shine on you!*
And tell him, when you see his face,
I long to see him too.
[Prayer in spiritual affliction a most affecting model of tender pleading persevering, earnest, reverential, gradually rising into the blessed confidence which springs alone from faith in the Saviour.]
GOD of my life, to thee I call,
Afflicted at thy feet I fall; †
When the great water-floods prevail,
Leave not my trembling heart to fail!
Friend of the friendless and the faint!
Where should I lodge my deep complaint?
Where but with thee, whose open door
Invites the helpless and the poor!
Did ever mourner plead with thee,
And thou refuse that mourner's plea?
Does not the word still fix'd remain,
That none shall seek thy face in vain ?
That were a grief I could not bear,
Didst thou not hear and answer prayer;
But a prayer-hearing, answering God
Supports me under every load.
Fair is the lot that's cast for me:
I have an Advocate with thee:
They whom the world caresses most
Have no such privilege to boast.
Poor though I am, despised, forgot,*
Yet God, my God, forgets me not;
And he is safe, and must succeed,
For whom the Lord vouchsafes to plead.
[Imploring aid against carnal thoughts: the personification of these and other spiritual enemies of the Christian, is in imitation of, but in elegance very superior to, a celebrated passage in Bunyan.] My soul is sad and much dismay'd;
See, Lord, what legions of my foes,
With fierce Apollyon at their head,
My heavenly pilgrimage oppose!
See from the ever-burning lake,
How like a smoky cloud they rise!
With horrid blasts my soul they shake,
With storms of blasphemies and lies.
Their fiery arrows reach the mark,†
My throbbing heart with anguish tear;
Each lights upon a kindred spark,
And finds abundant fuel there.
I hate the thought that wrongs the Lord;
Ah! I would drive it from my breast,
With thy own sharp two-edged sword,
Far as the east is from the west.
Come then, and chase the cruel host,
Heal the deep wounds I have received!
Nor let the powers of darkness boast,
That I am foil'd, and thou art grieved!
* Psalm xl. 17.
† Ephesians, vi. 16.
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