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Is this all?

The storm pass'd on, long years are gone,
The engineer sleeps well,

And still around that lighthouse towers,

The eddying billows swell;

And many a tar, from many a land,
Through many a stormy night,

Still breathes a prayer for him that rear'd
That heaven-protected light.

115

SOM

Is this all?

REV. HORATIUS BONAR, D.D.

OMETIMES I catch sweet glimpses of His face,
But that is all.

Sometimes He looks on me, and seems to smile,
But that is all.

Sometimes He speaks a passing word of peace,
But that is all.

Sometimes I think I hear His loving voice
Upon me call.

And is this all He meant when thus He spoke-
"Come unto me?"

Is there no deeper, more enduring rest,
In Him for thee?"

Is there no steadier light for thee in Him?
Oh, come and see!

Oh, come and see! oh, look, and look again;
All shall be right;

Oh, taste His love, and see that it is good,
Thou child of night.

Oh, trust Him, trust Him in His grace and power,
Then all is bright.

Nay, do not wrong Him by thy heavy thoughts,
But love His love.

Do thou full justice to His tenderness,
His mercy prove ;

Take Him for what He is ; oh, take Him all,
And look above!

Then shall thy tossing soul find anchorage,
And stedfast peace;

Thy love shall rest on His; thy weary doubts
For ever cease.

Thy heart shall find in Him, and in His grace,
Its rest and bliss.

Christ and His love shall be thy blessed all
For evermore !

Christ and His light shall shine on all thy ways
For evermore !

Christ and His peace shall keep thy troubled soul For evermore !

The Vision of Belshazzar.

LORD BYRON.

Music by J. Nathan.

THE

'HE king was on his throne,
The satraps throng'd the hall;

A thousand bright lamps shone
O'er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold-

In Judah deem'd divine,
Jehovah's vessels-hold

The godless heathen's wine.

The Vision of Belshazzar.

117

In that same hour and hall,

The finger of a hand

Came forth against the wall
And wrote as if on sand:
The finger of a man ;
A solitary hand

Along the letters ran,

And traced them like a wand.

The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless wax'd his look,
And tremulous his voice.
"Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear
Which mar our royal mirth."

Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they had no skill; And the unknown letters stood Untold and awful still.

And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore;

But now they were not sage,
They saw-but knew no more.

A captive in the land,

A stranger and a youth,
He heard the king's command,
He saw the writing's truth.
The lamps around were bright,
The prophecy in view;
He read it on that night,-

The morrow proved it true.

"Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom pass'd away,
He, in the balance weigh'd,
Is light and worthless clay.
The shroud his robe of state,
His canopy the stone:
The Mede is at his gate!

The Persian on his throne!"

Hymn of the Hebrew Maid.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

HEN Israel, of the Lord beloved,

WHEN

Out of the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful guide in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonish'd lands
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia's crimson'd sands
Return'd the fiery column's glow.

There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answer'd keen;
And Zion's daughters pour'd their lays,
With priest and warrior's voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze,

Forsaken Israel wanders lone;

Our fathers would not know Thy ways,
And Thou hast left them to their own.

But present still, though now unseen!
When brightly shines the prosp'rous day,
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen
To temper the deceitful ray.

Mountain Prayer.

And oh, when stoops on Judah's paths,
In shade and storm, the frequent night,
Be Thou long-suff'ring, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light.

Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn ;
No censer round our altar beams,

And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn;
But Thou hast said,-" The blood of goat,
The flesh of rams I will not prize;
A contrite heart, a humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice."

119

A

Mountain Prayer.

J. E. CARPENTER.-Music by S. Nelson.

"He went up into a mountain apart, to pray."

MIDST the ancient mountains, where the eagle made

his nest,

An aged man went up to pray, to bare his wearied breast;
For the spirit of the solitude reign'd solemnly on high,
And there, unmark'd, his soul could hold communion with
the sky.

Apart from all of human kind, where stillness ever dwells, The pure and holy fount of prayer sheds forth its holy spells ; 'Twas there HE went, the blessed one, in the vast and silent day

Oh, shun ye not the mountain path, but seek it-there to pray!

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