And likest him in look and tone,
The holy Stephen kneels,

With steadfast gaze, as when the sky
Flew open to his fainting eye,

Which like a fading lamp flashed high,
Seeing what death conceals.

Well might you guess what vision bright
Was present to his raptured sight,
Even as reflected streams of light
Their solar source betray,—

The glory which our God surrounds,
The Son of Man, the atoning wounds,
He sees them all; and earth's dull bounds
Are melting fast away.

He sees them all,

- no other view

Could stamp the Saviour's likeness true,
Or with his love so deep imbrue

Man's sullen heart and gross, "Jesu, do thou my soul receive;

Jesu, do thou my foes forgive":

He who would learn that prayer must live
Under the holy cross.

He, though he seem on earth to move,
Must glide in air like gentle dove,
From yon unclouded depths above
Must draw his purer breath;

Till men behold his angel face
All radiant with celestial grace,

Martyr all o'er, and meet to trace
The lines of Jesus' death.

John Keble.

FOUR

JERUSALEM.

OUR lamps were burning o'er two mighty graves, Godfrey's and Baldwin's, Salem's Christian king; And holy light glanced from Helena's naves,

Fed with the incense which the pilgrim brings, While through the panelled roof the cedar flings Its sainted arms o'er choir and roof and dome, And every porphyry-pillared cloister rings

To every kneeler there its "welcome home," As every lip breathes out, "O Lord, thy kingdom come."

A mosque was garnished with its crescent moons,
And a clear voice called Mussulmans to prayer.
There were the splendors of Judæa's thrones,
There were the trophies which its conquerors wear,
All but the truth, the holy truth, was there;
For there, with lip profane, the crier stood,
And him from the tall minaret you might hear,
Singing to all whose steps had thither trod,

Hark! did the pilgrim tremble as he kneeled?
And did the turbaned Turk his sins confess?
Those mighty hands the elements that wield,
That mighty Power that knows to curse or bless,
Is over all; and in whatever dress

His suppliants crowd around him, He can see
Their heart, in city or in wilderness,

And probe its core, and make its blindness flee,
Owning him very God, the only Deity.

There was an earthquake once that rent thy fane,
Proud Julian; when (against the prophecy
Of Him who lived and died and rose again,
"That one stone on another should not lie")
Thou wouldst rebuild that Jewish masonry
To mock the eternal Word. The earth below
Gushed out in fire; and from the brazen sky
And from the boiling seas such wrath did flow
As saw not Shinar's plain nor Babel's overthrow.

Another earthquake comes. Dome, roof, and wall
Tremble; and headlong to the grassy bank
And in the muddied stream the fragments fall,
While the rent chasm spread its jaws, and drank
At one huge draught the sediment, which sank
In Salem's drained goblet. Mighty Power!

Thou whom we all should worship, praise, and thank,

Where was thy mercy in that awful hour,

When hell moved from beneath, and thine own heaven did lower?

Say, Pilate's palaces, proud Herod's towers,

Say, gate of Bethlehem, did your arches quake? Thy pool, Bethesda, was it filled with showers? Calm Gihon, did the jar thy waters wake?

Tomb of thee, Mary — Virgin—did it shake? Glowed thy bought field, Aceldama, with blood?

Where were the shudderings Calvary might make? Did sainted Mount Moriah send a flood

To wash away the spot where once a God had stood.

Lost Salem of the Jews, great sepulchre

Of all profane and of all holy things, Where Jew and Turk and Gentile yet concur

To make thee what thou art, thy history brings Thoughts mixed of joy and woe. The whole earth rings

With the sad truth which He has prophesied,

Who would have sheltered with his holy wings Thee and thy children. You his power defied; You scourged him while he lived, and mocked him as he died!

There is a star in the untroubled sky,

That caught the first light which its Maker made, — It led the hymn of other orbs on high;

"T will shine when all the fires of heaven shall fade. Pilgrims at Salem's porch, be that your aid!

For it has kept its watch on Palestine!

Look to its holy light, nor be dismayed,

Though broken is each consecrated shrine,

Though crushed and ruined all which men have called

divine.

John Gardner Calkins Brainard.

T

JERUSALEM.

IS so; the hoary harper sings aright;
How beautiful is Zion! Like a queen,
Armed with a helm, in virgin loveliness,
Her heaving bosom in a bossy cuirass,
She sits aloft, begirt with battlements
And bulwarks swelling from the rock, to guard
The sacred courts, pavilions, palaces,

Soft gleaming through the umbrage of the woods
Which tuft her summit, and, like raven tresses,
Waved their dark beauty round the tower of David.
Resplendent with a thousand golden bucklers,
The embrasures of alabaster shine;

Hailed by the pilgrims of the desert, bound
To Judah's mart with orient merchandise.
But not for thou art fair and turret-crowned,
Wet with the choicest dew of heaven, and blessed
With golden fruits and gales of frankincense,
Dwell I beneath thine ample curtains. Here,

Where saints and prophets teach, where the stern law
Still speaks in thunder, where chief angels watch,
And where the glory hovers, here I war.

James Abraham Hillhouse,

THE FALL OF JERUSALEM.

TITUS, on the Mount of Olives; Evening.

And yet it moves me, Romans! It confounds

The counsels of my firm philosophy,