Nor slight the warning sound:

"Put off thy shoes from off thy feet

"The place where man his God shall meet, "Be sure, is holy ground."

PALM SUNDAY.

And He answered and said unto them, I tell you, that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. St. Luke xix. 40.

YE whose hearts are beating high

With the pulse of Poesy,

Heirs of more than royal race,

Fram'd by Heaven's peculiar grace,

God's own work to do on earth,

(If the word be not too bold,)

Giving virtue a new birth,

And a life that ne'er grows old

Sovereign masters of all hearts!
Know ye, who hath set your parts?

He who gave you breath to sing,

By whose strength ye sweep the string, He hath chosen you, to lead

His Hosannas here below ;

Mount, and claim your glorious meed; Linger not with sin and woe.

But if ye should hold your peace,
Deem not that the song would cease-
Angels round His glory-throne,
Stars, His guiding hand that own,
Flowers, that grow beneath our feet,

Stones in earth's dark womb that rest,

High and low in choir shall meet,

Ere His Name shall be unblest.

Lord, by every minstrel tongue
Be thy praise so duly sung,

That thine angels' harps may ne'er

Fail to find fit echoing here:

We the while, of meaner birth,

Who in that divinest spell Dare not hope to join on earth,

Give us grace to listen well.

But should thankless silence seal

Lips, that might half Heaven reveal,
Should bards in idol-hymns profane
The sacred soul-enthralling strain,
(As in this bad world below

Noblest things find vilest using,)
Then, thy power and mercy shew,

In vile things noble breath infusing;

Then waken into sound divine

The very pavement of thy shrine,
Till we, like Heaven's star-sprinkled floor,
Faintly give back what we adore.
Childlike though the voices be,
And untunable the parts,
Thou wilt own the minstrelsy,

If it flow from childlike hearts.

MONDAY BEFORE EASTER.

Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not. Isaiah lxiii. 16.

66

FATHER to me Thou art and Mother dear, "And Brother too, kind husband of my heart"So speaks Andromache in boding fear,

Ere from her last embrace her hero part

So evermore, by Faith's undying glow,

We own the Crucified in weal or woe.

Strange to our ears the church-bells of our home,
The fragrance of our old paternal fields
May be forgotten; and the time may come

When the babe's kiss no sense of pleasure yields

Even to the doting mother: but thine own
Thou never canst forget, nor leave alone.

c Iliad. vi. 429.

There are who sigh that no fond heart is theirs,
None loves them best—O vain and selfish sigh!
Out of the bosom of His love He spares-

The Father spares the Son, for thee to die :
For thee He died-for thee He lives again :
O'er thee He watches in His boundless reign.

Thou art as much His care, as if beside

Nor man nor angel liv'd in heaven or earth: Thus sunbeams pour alike their glorious tide

To light up worlds, or wake an insect's mirth: They shine and shine with unexhausted store— Thou art thy Saviour's darling-seek no more.

On thee and thine, thy warfare and thine end,
Even in His hour of agony He thought,
When, ere the final pang His soul should rend,

The ransom'd spirits one by one were brought
To his mind's eye-two silent nights and days"
In calmness for His far-seen hour He stays.

dIn Passion week, from Tuesday evening to Thursday evening: during which time Scripture seems to be nearly silent concerning our Saviour's proceedings.