A MONUMENT OF MERCY.

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A MONUMENT OF MERCY.

A TEMPLE voice was heard,

A voice of sweetness came;
Its music in our spirits stirred,
And breathed Messiah's name.

It spake of inbred sin,
Corruption's dark abode ;

The household enemies within,

Foes of the living God!

It told of aliens there,

Who shunned the Saviour's face,

Nor sought upon the wings of prayer,
His covenant of grace.

But much it spake of one,

The vilest of the vile,—

One whom the blood that can atone
Had power to reconcile.

In error's mazes lost

Throughout her trackless way, Borne on a tide, without a coast, Where circling eddies play,

With helm and compass gone,
By ocean tempests driven,
Urged in a giddy tumult on

Beneath an adverse heaven :

THE BOW IN THE CLOUD.

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Then let the nations own

The chastening of His rod,

And bend in worship at His throne,-
The omnipresent God!

"By the grace of God I am what I am."-1 Cor. xv. 10.

THE BOW IN THE CLOUD.

OH who may picture forth a soul like thine!
Which clothed in light,

To meet our sight,

Does in its rainbow hues, with fair transparence shine.

Thou wast not formed for earth, that cumbrous load
But vexed thee sore, upon thy heavenward road :-
Child of affliction's hour, and child of song!
Methinks thy essence pure,
But feebly could endure

Those subtle mysteries that to life belong,-
Yet thou wast veiled in clay,

And sin and death,

The elements in which we draw our breath,
Bore on thy gentle mould, their dark, disastrous sway.