Your silent lessons, undescried By all but lowly eyes: For ye could draw th' admiring gaze Ye felt your Maker's smile that hour, Ye felt it all renew'd. What care ye now, if winter's storm Alas! of thousand bosoms kind, How few the happy secret find SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 1 desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. Ephesians iii. 13. WISH not, dear friends, my pain away— With GOD, in all my griefs, to stay, Nor from His lov'd correction start. The dearest offering He can crave But we, like vex'd unquiet sprights, Nor sweetly take a sinner's doom. In Life's long sickness evermore Our thoughts are tossing to and fro : We change our posture o'er and o'er, But cannot rest, nor cheat our woe. Were it not better to lie still, Let Him strike home and bless the rod, Never so safe as when our will Yields undiscern'd by all but God? Thy precious things, whate'er they be Look to the Cross, and thou shalt see How thou may'st turn them all to gain. Lovest thou praise? the Cross is shame : More pangs than tongue or heart can frame Were suffer'd there without relief. We of that altar would partake, But cannot quit the cost-no throne Is ours, to leave for Thy dear sake We cannot do as Thou hast done. We cannot part with Heaven for Thee- So wanderers ever fond and true Look homeward through the evening sky, Without a streak of heaven's soft blue To aid Affection's dreaming eye. The wanderer seeks his native bower, And we will look and long for Thee, And thank thee for each trying hour, Wishing, not struggling, to be free. SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling-block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the Prophet, I the Lord will answer him according to the multitude of his idols. Ezekiel xiv. 4. STATELY thy walls, and holy are the prayers, Before the mercy-seat. O Mother dear, And tell thy jewels o'er with jealous eye? |