When Bethlehem's shepherds through the night Watch'd o'er their flocks by starry light:

Hark! from the midnight hills around,

A voice of more than mortal sound,
In distant hallelujahs stole

Wild murmuring o'er the raptured soul.

Then, swift to every startled eye

New streams of glory light the sky;
Heaven bursts her azure gates, to pour
Her spirits to the midnight hour.

On wheels of light, on wings of flame,
The glorious hosts of Zion came ;

High heaven with songs of triumph rung,
While thus they struck their harps, and sung:-

"O Zion! lift thy raptured eye,

The long-expected hour is nigh;

The joys of Nature rise again,

The Prince of Salem comes to reign.

See, Mercy from her golden urn

Pours a rich stream to them that mourn;
Behold, she binds, with tender care,

The bleeding bosom of despair!

He comes to cheer the trembling heart,
Bids Satan and his host depart;

Again the Day-star gilds the gloom,
Again the bowers of Eden bloom!

O Zion! lift thy raptured eye,
The long-expected hour is nigh ;
The joys of Nature rise again,

The Prince of Salem comes to reign."

SPEED THE PROW.

Montgomery.

Nor the ship that swiftest saileth,
But which longest holds her way
Onward, onward, never faileth,

Storm and calm, to win the day;
Earliest she the haven gains,
Which the hardest stress sustains.

O'er life's ocean, wide and pathless,
Thus would I with patience steer;
No vain hope of journeying scathless,
No proud boast to face down fear;

Time there was, 'tis so no longer,-
When I crowded every sail,

Battled with the waves, and stronger
Grew, as stronger grew the gale;
But my strength sunk with the wind,
And the sea lay dead behind.

There my bark had founder'd surely,
But a power invisible

Breathed upon me ;-then securely,
Borne along the gradual swell,

Helm, and shrouds, and heart renew'd,
humbler course pursued.

I

my

Now, though evening shadows blacken, And no star comes through the gloom, On I move, nor will I slacken

Sail, though verging tow'rds the tomb : Bright beyond, on heaven's high strand, Lo, the lighthouse !-land, land, land!

Cloud and sunshine, wind and weather,
Sense and sight are fleeing fast;
Time and tide must fail together,

Life and death will soon be past;

But where day's last spark declines,
Glory everlasting shines.

REASON AND RELIGION.

Bryden.

DIM as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wandering travellers,
Is Reason to the soul; and as on high,
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light us here; so Reason's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as those nightly tapers disappear

When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere;
So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight;
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.

HUMAN FRAILTY.

WEAK and irresolute is man ;

The purpose of to-day,

Woven with pain into his plan,
To-morrow rends away.

The bow well bent, and smart the spring,
Vice seems already slain :

But Passion rudely snaps the string,

And it revives again.

Some foe to his upright intent
Finds out his weaker part;

Virtue engages his assent,

But Pleasure wins his heart.

Tis here the folly of the wise

Through all his heart we view;

And, while his tongue the charge denies,
His conscience owns it true.

Bound on a voyage of awful length

And dangers little known,

A stranger to superior strength,

Man vainly trusts his own.

But oars alone can ne'er prevail,

To reach the distant coast;

The breath of heaven must swell the sail,

Or all the toil is lost.

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