This impious heart of mine
Could once defy the Lord,
Could rush with violence on to sin,
In presence of thy sword.

How often have I stood
A rebel to the skies,

The calls, the tenders of a God,
And mercy's loudest cries!

He offers all his grace,

And all his heaven to me; Offers! but 'tis to senseless brass,

That cannot feel nor see.

Jesus, the Saviour stands

To court me from above,

And looks and spreads his wounded hands,

And shows the prints of love.

But I, a stupid fool,

How long have I withstood

The blessings purchas'd with his soul,

And paid for all in blood!

The heavenly Dove came down,

And tender'd me his wings

To mount me upward to a crown,
And bright immortal things.

Lord, I'm asham'd to say
That I refus'd thy Dove,

And sent thy Spirit griev'd away,
To his own realms of love.

Not all thine heavenly charms,
Nor terrors of thy hand,

Could force me to lay down my arms,

And bow to thy command.

Lord, 'tis against thy face

My sins like arrows rise,

And yet, and yet (O matchless grace!)

Thy thunder silent lies.

O shall I never feel

The meltings of thy love?
Am I of such hell-harden'd steel

That mercy cannot move?

Now for one powerful glance, Dear Saviour, from thy face! This rebel heart no more withstands, But sinks beneath thy grace.

O'ercome by dying love I fall,
Here at thy cross I lie ;

And throw my soul, my flesh, my all,
And weep, and love, and die.

"Rise," says the Prince of mercy, "rise!" With joy and pity in his eyes:

"Rise, and behold my wounded veins,

"Here flows the blood to wash thy stains.

He said and lo, the Father smil'd;
The joyful cherubs clapp'd their wings,
And sounded grace on all their strings.

YOUNG MEN AND MAIDENS, OLD MEN AND BABES, PRAISE YE THE LORD.

PSALM CXLVIII. 12.

SONS of Adam, bold and young,

In the wild mazes of whose veins

A flood of fiery vigour reigns,

And wields your active limbs, with hardy sinews strung;

Fall prostrate at the eternal throne,

Whence your precarious powers depend; Nor swell as if your lives were all your own, But choose your Maker for your friend;

His favour is your life, his arm is your support, His hand can stretch your days, or cut your minutes

short.

Virgins, who roll your artful eyes,
And shoot delicious danger thence;
Swift the lovely lightning flies,
And melts our reason down to sense;

Boast not of those withering charms That must yield their youthful grace To age and wrinkles, earth and worms; But love the Author of your smiling face; That heavenly Bridegroom claims your blooming hours:

O make it your perpetual care

To please that Everlasting Fair ;

His beauties are the sun, and but the shade is

Infants whose different destinies

yours.

Are wove with threads of different size;
But from the same spring-tide of tears,
Commence your hopes, and joys, and fears,
(A tedious train !) and date your following years:
Break your first silence in his praise

Who wrought your wondrous frame :
With sounds of tenderest accent raise
Your honours to his name;
And consecrate your early days
To know the Power Supreme.

Ye heads of venerable age,
Just marching off the mortal stage,
Fathers, whose vital threads are spun

As long as e'er the glass of life would run,

Adore the hand that led your way

Through flowery fields, a fair long summer's day; Gasp out your soul in praises to the sovereign power

That set your west so distant from your dawning hour.

FLYING FOWL, AND CREEPING THINGS PRAISE YE THE LORD.

PSALM CXLVIII. 10.

SWEET flocks, whose soft enamell'd wing
Swift and gently cleaves the sky;
Whose charming notes address the spring
With an artless harmony.

Lovely minstrels of the field,

Who in leafy shadows sit,

And your wondrous structures build, Awake your tuneful voices with the dawning light: To Nature's God your first devotions pay,

Ere you salute the rising day,

"Tis he calls up the sun, and gives him every ray.

Serpents, who o'er the meadows slide,

And wear upon your shining back