XVI.

BAPTISM.

BLEST be the Church, that, watching o'er the needs
Of Infancy, provides a timely shower

Whose virtue changes to a christian Flower

A Growth from sinful Nature's bed of weeds !-
Fitliest beneath the sacred roof proceeds
The ministration; while parental Love
Looks on, and Grace descendeth from above

As the high service pledges now, now pleads.
There, should vain thoughts outspread their wings and fly

To meet the coming hours of festal mirth,

The tombs-which hear and answer that brief cry

The Infant's notice of his second birth

Recal the wandering soul to sympathy

With what man hopes from Heaven, yet fears from Earth.

XVII.

SPONSORS.

FATHER! to God himself we cannot give
A holier name! Then lightly do not bear
Both names conjoined, but of thy spiritual care
Be duly mindful; still more sensitive
Do Thou, in truth a second Mother, strive
Against disheartening custom, that by Thee
Watched, and with love and pious industry
Tended at need, the adopted Plant may thrive
For everlasting bloom. Benign and pure
This Ordinance, whether loss it would supply,
Prevent omission, help deficiency,

Or seek to make assurance doubly sure.
Shame if the consecrated Vow be found

An idle form, the Word an empty sound!

XVIII.

CATECHISING.

FROM Little down to Least, in due degree,
Around the Pastor, each in new-wrought vest,
Each with a vernal posy at his breast,

We stood, a trembling, earnest Company!
With low soft murmur, like a distant bee,
Some spake, by thought-perplexing fears betrayed;
And some a bold unerring answer made:
How fluttered then thy anxious heart for me,
Beloved Mother! Thou whose happy hand
Had bound the flowers I wore, with faithful tie :
Sweet flowers! at whose inaudible command
Her countenance, phantom-like, doth re-appear:
O lost too early for the frequent tear,
And ill requited by this heartfelt sigh!

XIX.

CONFIRMATION.

THE Young-ones gathered in from hill and dale, With holiday delight on every brow:

'Tis passed away; far other thoughts prevail;
For they are taking the baptismal Vow

Upon their conscious selves; their own lips speak
The solemn promise. Strongest sinews fail,
And many a blooming, many a lovely, cheek
Under the holy fear of God turns pale;
While on each head his lawn-robed Servant lays
An apostolic hand, and with prayer seals
The Covenant. The Omnipotent will raise
Their feeble Souls; and bear with his regrets,
Who, looking round the fair assemblage, feels
That ere the Sun goes down their childhood sets.

xx.

CONFIRMATION CONTINUED.

I SAW a Mother's eye intensely bent
Upon a Maiden trembling as she knelt;
In and for whom the pious Mother felt
Things that we judge of by a light too faint:
Tell, if ye may, some star-crowned Muse, or Saint!
Tell what rushed in, from what she was relieved—
Then, when her Child the hallowing touch received,
And such vibration through the Mother went
That tears burst forth amain. Did gleams appear?
Opened a vision of that blissful place

Where dwells a Sister-child? And was power given
Part of her lost One's glory back to trace

Even to this Rite? For thus She knelt, and, ere

The summer-leaf had faded, passed to Heaven.