The wildest will that ever rose,

To scorn Thy cause, and aid Thy foes,
Is quelled, my God, by Thee!

Thy will, and not my will, be done;
I would be ever Thine,

Confessing Thee, the mighty Word,
My Saviour, Christ, my God, my Lord,
Thy Cross shall be my sign.

LXII. "WITHERING!-WITHERING!" WITHERING-withering, all are withering! All of hope's flowers, that youth hath nursed,

Flowers of love, too early blossoming;
Buds of ambition, too frail to burst!

Faintly-faintly, oh! how faintly,
I feel life's pulses ebb and flow,

Yet, sorrow, I know thou dealest daintily,
With one who would not wish to live moe.

Nay! why, young heart, thus timidly shrinking, Why doth thy upward wing thus tire? Why are thy pinions thus droopingly sinking, When they should only waft thee higher?

Upward-upward, let them be waving,

Lifting the soul towards her place of birth; There are guerdons there, more worth thy having,

Far more than any these lures of earth!

HOFFMAN.

LXIII.

I ASK you one question, not what your sins have been, or what your temptations and infirmities are, but, Are you coming to Christ? Could you go to Him if He were bodily present on earth? praying Him to make you whole, to relieve you from all sin, and from everything displeasing to Himself, to grant you the enjoyment of Himself? What would His gracious answer be?—for none

H

but a gracious answer could proceed out of those lips, into which all grace was poured: -perhaps this, "Go, bear all that I have appointed thee to bear; go, suffer sickness and pain; go, suffer fierce and fiery temptations; go, walk in darkness, and-trust Me. Trust Me with the meaning of all this; trust Me with the end of all this." Oh! my friend, trust Him! whom should a sinner trust! the tempter urge that you shall never be accepted, yet is it not better even to perish while attempting to honour Him by casting yourself at the foot of His Cross? and can you think that any one ever perished in so doing?

If

LXIV.

THERE was one whom I made my stay,
But Thou didst set him far away,

That I might courage take on Thee to lean;
And lest I hang on earthly love,

Thou didst, with sorrow, me reprove,

And badest me fix my love on Thee unseen.

I built my nest high up, and free,

Thou, with Thy wind, didst shake the tree, Telling me nought was safe beneath the stars : And when I set Thee all at nought,

I fell to caverns of dark thought,

When all around me seemed night's everlasting bars.

Now all alone on the wide sea

Sailing for dread eternity,

And from my guide and brother far away,
I fear to set or shift the sail,

I fear the sound of every passing gale,
Lest

my unstable bark the winds should make

their prey.

But, shame upon the faithless heart, Which in Thy promise hath a part! Thou by our side art present evermore: Thy palace-gates are opening wide, Thy light comes forth to be our guide, I, and my brother dear, may meet on that bright shore.

J. WILLIAMS.-Thoughts in Past Years.

LXV.—BREAK, BREAK, BREAK.

BREAK, break, break!

On thy cold, grey rocks, oh sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me!

Oh! well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts to his sister at play; Oh! well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But oh! for the touch of a vanished hand! And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break!

At the foot of thy crags, oh sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead,

Will never come back to me.

TENNYSON.