Then, suppliant at God's altar,

Strike thy harp's sweetest chord,—
Give glory to the Father,

Confess that Christ is Lord.

THE HEART.

C. Swain.

THE Heart-the gifted heart—
Who may reveal its depths to human sight!

What eloquence impart

The softness of its love-the grandeur of its might!

It is the seat of bliss,

The blessed home of all affections sweet;

It smiles where friendship is,

It glows where social feelings meet.

'Tis virtue's hallow'd fane

'Tis freedom's first, and best, and noblest shield! A strength that will remain

When grosser powers and feebler spirits yield! It is religion's shrine,

From whence our holiest aspirations wing;

Where joys, which are divine,

And hopes, which are of heaven, alone may spring!

The fount of tenderness

Where every purer passion has its birth,
To cheer-to charm-to bless-

And sanctify our pilgrimage on earth.

O, heart! 'till life be o'er,

Shed round the light and warmth of thy dear flame,

And I will ask no more

Of earthly happiness-of earthly fame!

AN INFANT'S DEATH-BED.

Bethune.

WITH piety beyond her years,

In patient pain she lay,

And, as she mark'd her mother's tears,

Entreated her to pray;

For she, poor sufferer, had been taught,
E'en ere her tongue could tell

The language of her own sweet thought,
How our first parents fell.

And she had heard of Sin and Death,

Had heard of Hell and Heaven,

And knew that mortal guilt through faith Alone can be forgiven;

And therefore did her dying eye
Demand a mother's care,

And her dying lips imploringly
Prompt her sad soul to prayer.

"Pray for me, mother-mother, pray!" Was her last faint request,

Ere her young spirit burst away
To the land of joy and rest.

Why should that parent grieve in vain
To see her breathe her last,
Since her short pilgrimage of pain

So swiftly, sweetly pass'd?

She grieves-yet placid is the tear
That lifeless form which steeps ;
Her spirit broods o'er that lone bier,
Rejoicing as she weeps.

She weeps above her faded rose,

Untimely cropp'd by Death;

But the font that flows o'er its repose
Hath been refill'd by faith.

And she would rather linger there,
And weep with humbled pride,
Than with the gay their glory share,
Or smile o'er aught beside.

Of such as she whose eyes are closed
In deep and dreamless rest,
Redeeming mercy hath composed
The kingdom of the blest.

And she shall need no fostering hand,
Nor faithful mother's care,

To tend her in that holy land,

For all are happy there.

Such is the joyful hope which fills

That parent's eye with light,
Even through the tear which love distils
On her dear infant's flight.

THE SCOTTISH MARTYR'S GRAVE.

Brown.

I STOOD by the Martyr's lonely grave,

Where the flowers of the moorland bloom;

P

Where bright memorials of nature wave
Sweet perfume o'er the sleeping brave,

In his moss-clad mountain tomb!

I knelt by that wild and lonely spot,
Where moulders the heart of one

That bled and died, but that blenched not
At the tyrant's chain, or the soldier's shot,
Till life's last sands had run.

And the vision of other days came back,
When the dark and bloody band,
With the might of a living cataract,
Essay'd to sweep, in their fiery tract,
The godly from the land.

When Zion was far on the mountain height,
When the wild was the House of Prayer;
Where the eye of eternal hope grew bright,
O'er the saint, array'd in the warrior's might,
For his God and his country there!

When the barbarous hordes, as they onward rode By the wild and rocky glen,

Have heard, when away from man's abode, A voice that awed like the voice of God,— 'Twas the hymn of fearless men!