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The annual course of God's great mystery, "The word made flesh." On that with piercing eye The angels gaze. On that the Church invites

Her sons to linger. As thereon we muse,

On each strange scene, or all together wove,

A wondrous tissue like the braided hues

Which blessed the Patriarch's sight, with eye above Uplifted, faith the dear memorials views,

Signs of past mercy and enduring love.

BISHOP MANT.

Entroduction

BY

THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

THE Editor's first acquaintance with the "Christian Year" was accidental. In a little volume of Conversations on the Sacraments and Services of the Church of England, written by a lady, those beautiful lines, at the opening of the piece entitled "Holy Baptism".

"Where is it, mothers learn their love?

In every Church a fountain springs
O'er which the eternal Dove

Hovers on softest wings:"

attracted his attention, and led him to order it through his bookseller. This was in 1828, the year after its publication. The book, when received, was read with unmingled delight; and no volume of uninspired poetry has ever given him such rich and continued satisfaction. It has seemed to him, as Charles

the Emperor thought of Florence, a book too pleasant to be read "but only on holydays;"* and he has thought of nothing more expressive of its delightful, tranquillizing spirit, than those lines of holy George Herbert,

"Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky."

From the time of its first reading, the Editor has never ceased to recommend it to his personal friends; and in the "Banner of the Church," and in other ways, to call the public attention to its merits. Many copies have been imported; and there is now an increasing circle of admiring and delighted readers," realizing for our Christian poet, what the greatest of that name desired for himself,

"Fit audience, though few;"

the "magnanimi pochi," to whom Petrarch, kindred in more respects than one with Milton, made his sublime appeal.

"When I sat last on this primrose bank, and looked down these meadows, I thought of them as Charles the Emperor did of the city of Florence; that they were too pleasant to be looked on, but only on holydays."

Isaac Walton, Complete Angler.

Strangely enough, though the "Christian Year" has passed through more than twentyfive editions in England,* it found no avenue to the American press, until brought, last summer, to the notice of the intelligent and liberal publishers under whose auspices it now appears. In contemplating an American edition, it was an obvious consideration, that, to a large portion of the admirers of religious poetry, much of the charm of Keble's volume would be lost, by their want of familiarity with the arrangement of the "Christian" or Ecclesiastical" Year," which forms its ground work, the string on which his pearls are hung. The Editor undertook to supply this deficiency; and in doing so, he has aimed to perform a service far beyond the additional interest which may thus be given to these "Thoughts in verse."

He frankly avows the purpose of render

*"The almost unexampled popularity of the Christian Year,' and the Rectory of Valehead,' both unquestionably breathing the pure spirit of the olden time, is no unfavourable prognostic of better times to come." Bishop Jebb.

A late bookseller's list enumerates, in 8vo. six editions, in 18mo. ten, and in 32mo. nine.

ing the present enterprise subservient to the higher object of extending the knowledge and the influence of religion, as it is exhibited in the order, institutions and services of the Church. The arrangement of the Ecclesiastical Year, he has always regarded as one of the happiest of possible contrivances for arresting the attention, and maintaining the interest of men, in regard to the great facts of Christianity, while it appeals most powerfully to the purest and strongest sympathies of the human heart in their behalf. It is an acknowledged principle of philosophy, that whatever is to make the strongest impression on men must be made visible, either to the bodily, or to the "mind's eye." How extensively this principle is applied in practice to the promotion of secular interests, by pictures, statues, processions, pageants, every one has seen. The blessed Saviour recognised its value in the institution of his few simple beautiful, visible sacraments. In the reasonable, scriptural and most becoming appoint

"Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,
Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quæ
Ipse sibi tradit spectator."

Horace.

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