III. CONCLUDED. — AMERICAN EPISCOPACY.
hors informed with Apostolic light
ee they, who, when their Country had been freed, b. ng with reverence to the ancient creed,
has on the frame of England's Church their sight, strove in filial love to reunite
PASTORAL CHARACTER.
A GENIAL hearth, a hospitable board, And a refined rusticity, belong
To the neat mansion, where his flock among, The learned Pastor dwells, their watchful Lord. Though meek and patient as a sheathed sword;
farce had severed. Thence they fetched the seed Though pride's least lurking thought appear a wrong
▸ Christian unity, and won a meed
ree from Heaven. To thee, O saintly WHITE, Aarch of a wide-spreading family,
test lands and unborn times shall turn ser they would restore or build — to thee, se who rightly taught how zeal should burn, ne who drew from out Faith's holiest urn he purest stream of patient Energy.
To human kind; though peace be on his tongue, Gentleness in his heart-can earth afford Such genuine state, pre-eminence so free, As when, arrayed in Christ's authority, He from the pulpit lifts his awful hand; Conjures, implores, and labours all he can For re-subjecting to divine command The stubborn spirit of rebellious man?
and Priests, blessed are ye, if deep Asturs above all offices is high) bea your hearts the sense of duty lie; ared as ye are by Christ to feed and keep wolves your portion of his chosen sheep: aring as ever in your Master's sight, Ving your hardest task your best delight,
rfect glory ye in Heaven shall reap! 3o, a the solemn Office which ye sought
dertook premonished, if unsound practice prove, faithless though but in thought, and Priests, think what a gulf profound Is you then, if they were rightly taught My traced the Ordinance by your lives disowned!
YES, if the intensities of hope and fear Attract us still, and passionate exercise Of lofty thoughts, the way before us lies Distinct with signs, through which in set career, As through a zodiac, moves the ritual year Of England's Church; stupendous mysteries! Which whoso travels in her bosom eyes, As he approaches them with solemn cheer. Upon that circle traced from sacred story We only dare to cast a transient glance, Trusting in hope that others may advance With mind intent upon the King of Glory, From his mild advent till his countenance Shall dissipate the seas and mountains hoary.
FATHER! to God himself we cannot give A holier name! then lightly do not bear Both names conjoined, but of thy spiritual care Be duly mindful: still more sensitive Do thou, in truth a second Mother, strive Against disheartening custom, that by thee Watched, and with love and pious industry Tended at need, the adopted Plant may thrive For everlasting bloom. Benign and pure This ordinance, whether loss it would supply, Prevent omission, help deficiency, Or seek to make assurance doubly sure. Shame if the consecrated vow be found An idle form, the word an empty sound!
CONFIRMATION-CONTINUED.
I SAW a Mother's eye intensely bent Upon a Maiden trembling as she knelt; In and for whom the pious Mother felt Things that we judge of by a light too faint: Tell, if ye may, some star-crowned Muse, or Saint Tell what rushed in, from what she was relieved- Then, when her child the hallowing touch received And such vibration through the Mother went That tears burst forth amain. Did gleams appear! Opened a vision of that blissful place Where dwells a Sister-child? And was power gr Part of her lost one's glory back to trace Even to this rite? For thus She knelt, and, ere The summer-leaf had faded, passed to Heaven.
FROM Little down to Least, in due degree, Around the Pastor, each in new-wrought vest, Each with a vernal posy at his breast, We stood, a trembling, earnest company! With low soft murmur, like a distant bee, Some spake, by thought-perplexing fears betrayed And some a bold unerring answer made: How fluttered then thy anxious heart for me, Beloved Mother! Thou whose happy hand Had bound the flowers I wore, with faithful tie: Sweet flowers! at whose inaudible command Her countenance, phantom-like, doth re-appear: O lost too early for the frequent tear, And ill requited by this heartfelt sigh!
By chain yet stronger must the Soul be tied: One duty more, last stage of this ascent, Brings to thy food, mysterious Sacrament! The offspring, haply at the parent's side; But not till they, with all that do abide In Heaven, have lifted up their hearts to laud And magnify the glorious name of God, Fountain of Grace, whose Son for sinners died. Ye, who have duly weighed the summons, pause No longer; ye, whom to the saving rite The Altar calls; come early under laws That can secure for you a path of light Through gloomiest shade; put on (nor drea weight)
Armour divine, and conquer in your cause!
THE Young-ones gathered in from hill and dale, With holiday delight on every brow: "T is passed away; far other thoughts prevail; For they are taking the baptismal vow Upon their conscious selves; their own lips speak The solemn promise. Strongest sinews fail, And many a blooming, many a lovely, cheek Under the holy fear of God turns pale; While on each head his lawn-robed Servant lays An apostolic hand, and with prayer seals The covenant. The Omnipotent will raise Their feeble souls; and bear with his regrets, Who, looking round the fair assemblage, feels That ere the sun goes down their childhood sets.
THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY. THE vested priest before the Altar stands; Approach, come gladly, ye prepared, in sight Of God and chosen friends, your troth to plight With the symbolic ring, and willing hands Solemnly joined. Now sanctify the bands O Father!-to the espoused thy blessing give, That mutually assisted they may live Obedient, as here taught, to thy commands. So prays the Church, to consecrate a vow "The which would endless matrimony make;" Union that shadows forth and doth partake A mystery potent human love to endow With heavenly, each more prized for the t sake;
Weep not, meek Bride! uplift thy timid brow
FORMS OF PRAYER AT SEA.
To kneeling worshippers no earthly floor Gives holier invitation than the deck
Of a storm-shattered vessel saved from wreck (When all that Man could do avail'd no more) By him who raised the tempest and restrains; Happy the crew who this have felt, and pour Forth for his mercy, as the Church ordains, Solemn thanksgiving. Nor will they implore In vain who, for a rightful cause, give breath To words the Church prescribes aiding the lip For the heart's sake, ere ship with hostile ship Encounters, armed for work of pain and death. Suppliants! the God to whom your cause ye trust Will listen, and ye know that He is just.
THE COMMINATION SERVICE. Fees tot this rite, neglected, yea abhorred, B. me of unreflecting mind, as calling
FROM the Baptismal hour, thro' weal and woe, The Church extends her care to thought and deed; Nor quits the body when the soul is freed, The mortal weight cast off to be laid low. Blest rite for him who hears in faith, "I know That my Redeemer liveth," - hears each word That follows-striking on some kindred chord
Deep in the thankful heart; —yet tears will flow. Man is as grass that springeth up at morn, Grows green, and is cut down and withereth Ere nightfall-truth that well may claim a sigh, Its natural echo; but hope comes reborn
At Jesu's bidding. We rejoice, "O Death Where is thy Sting-O Grave where is thy Victory?
RURAL CEREMONY.*
CLOSING the sacred Book which long has fed Our meditations, give we to a day
Of annual joy one tributary lay;
This day, when forth by rustic music led,
The village children, while the sky is red
With evening lights, advance in long array Through the still church-yard, each with garland gay,
to curse man, (thought monstrous and appalling.) That carried sceptre-like, o'ertops the head
and hear the threatenings of the Lord; ng within his Temple see his sword ted in wrath to strike the offender's head, , if sorrow for thy sin be dead, unrepented, pardon unimplored.
1 Aspects bears Truth needful for salvation;
only on the Gospel's brighter page:
yet would this delicate age
eight and dark duly our thoughts employ; all the fearful words of Commination d timely fruit of peace and love and joy.
Of the proud bearer. To the wide church-door, Charged with these offerings which their fathers bore For decoration in the papal time,
The innocent procession softly moves: —
The spirit of Laud is pleased in heaven's pure clime, And Hooker's voice the spectacle approves!
WOULD that our scrupulous Sires had dared to leave
Less scanty measure of those graceful rites And usages, whose due return invites
A stir of mind too natural to deceive;
Giving to Memory help when she would weave A crown for Hope! - I dread the boasted lights That all too often are but fiery blights, Killing the bud o'er which in vain we grieve. Go, seek, when Christmas snows discomfort bring, The counter Spirit found in some gay church Green with fresh holly, every pew a perch In which the linnet or the thrush might sing, Merry and loud and safe from prying search, Strains offered only to the genial Spring.
EMIGRANT FRENCH CLERGY.
EVEN while I speak, the sacred roofs of France Are shattered into dust; and self-exiled From altars threatened, levelled, or defiled, Wander the Ministers of God, as chance Opens a way for life, or consonance Of faith invites. More welcome to no land The fugitives than to the British strand, Where priest and layman with the vigilance Of true compassion greet them. Creed and test Vanish before the unreserved embrace
Of catholic humanity: - distrest
They came, — and, while the moral tempest roars Throughout the Country they have left, our shores Give to their Faith a fearless resting-place.
FROM low to high doth dissolution climb, And sink from high to low, along a scale Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail; A musical but melancholy chime,
Which they can hear who meddle not with crime, Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care. Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear The longest date do melt like frosty rime, That in the morning whitened hill and plain And is no more; drop like the tower sublime Of yesterday, which royally did wear
His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain Some casual shout that broke the silent air, Or the unimaginable touch of Time.
CONGRATULATION.
THUS all things lead to Charity, secured By THEM who blessed the soft and happy gale That landward urged the great Deliverer's sail, Till in the sunny bay his fleet was moored! Propitious hour! had we, like them, endured Sore stress of apprehension,† with a mind Sickened by injuries, dreading worse designed. From month to month trembling and unassured, How had we then rejoiced! But we have felt As a loved substance their futurity:
Good, which they dared not hope for, we have seen; A State whose generous will through earth is deat A State which, balancing herself between License and slavish order, dares be free.
MONASTIC Domes! following my downward way, Untouched by due regret I marked your fall! Now, ruin, beauty, ancient stillness, all Dispose to judgments temperate as we lay On our past selves in life's declining day: For as, by discipline of Time made wise, We learn to tolerate the infirmities
And faults of others- gently as he may, So with our own the mild Instructor deals, Teaching us to forget them or forgive.* Perversely curious, then, for hidden ill Why should we break Time's charitable seals? Once ye were holy, ye are holy still;
Your spirit freely let me drink, and live?
BUT liberty, and triumphs on the Main, And laurelled armies, not to be withstood- What serve they? if, on transitory good Intent, and sedulous of abject gain, The State (ah, surely not preserved in vain!) Forbear to shape due channels which the Flood Of sacred truth may enter till it brood O'er the wide realm, as o'er the Egyptian plain The all-sustaining Nile. No more - the time Is conscious of her want; through England's bounds, In rival haste, the wished-for Temples rise!
I hear their sabbath bells' harmonious chime Float on the breeze- the heavenliest of all sounds That vale or hill prolongs or multiplies!
+ See Burnet, who is unusually animated on this subje called the "Protestant wind."
*This is borrowed from an affecting passage in Mr. the east wind so anxiously expected and prayed for, w George Dyer's history of Cambridge.
CHURCH TO BE ERECTED.
this the chosen site; the virgin sod, Matened from age to age by dewy eve, Sappear, and grateful earth receive The comer-stone from hands that build to God. You reverend hawthorns, hardened to the rod Of winter storms, yet budding cheerfully; "Those forest oaks of Druid memory, Scall long survive, to shelter the Abode
genuine Faith. Where, haply, 'mid this band daisies, shepherds sate of yore and wove May-garlands, there let the holy altar stand For kneeling adoration; -while-above, Broods, visibly portrayed, the mystic Dove What shall protect from blasphemy the Land.
MINE ear has rung, my spirit sunk subdued, aring the strong emotion of the crowd, When each pale brow to dread hosannas bowed While clouds of incense mounting veiled the rood, That glimmered like a pine-tree dimly viewed rough Alpine vapours. Such appalling rite r church prepares not, trusting to the might sple truth with grace divine imbued; Yet will we not conceal the precious Cross,* Le men ashamed: the Sun with his first smile Sitali greet that symbol crowning the low Pile: And the fresh air of incense-breathing morn Sall wooingly embrace it; and green moss Creep round its arms through centuries unborn.
NEW CHURCH-YARD.
4 encircling ground, in native turf arrayed, la now by solemn consecration given
To social interests, and to favouring Heaven, And where the rugged colts their gambols played, And wild deer bounded through the forest glade, checked as when by merry outlaw driven, Shymns of praise resound at morn and even; And soon, full soon, the lonely Sexton's spade Sall wound the tender sod. Encincture small,
finite its grasp of weal and woe! He fears, in never-ending ebb and flow;Tousal trembling, and the "dust to dust," The prayers, the contrite struggle, and the trust Tat to the Almighty Father looks through all.
WHAT awful perspective! while from our sight With gradual stealth the lateral windows hide Their Portraitures, their stone-work glimmers, dyed In the soft chequerings of a sleepy light. Martyr, or King, or sainted Eremite, Whoe'er ye be, that thus yourselves unseen, Imbue your prison-bars with solemn sheen, Shine on, until ye fade with coming Night!— But from the arms of silence-list! O list! The music bursteth into second life;
The notes luxuriate, every stone is kissed
ear: it is to be regretted that we have not done the Heart-thrilling strains, that cast, before the eye The Lutherans have retained the Cross within their By sound, or ghost of sound, in mazy strife;
Of the devout, a veil of ecstasy!
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