Sweet is the light of sabbath eve,

And soft the sunbeam lingering there; Those sacred hours this low earth leave, Wafted on wings of praise and prayer.

This time, how lovely and how still!

Peace shines, and smiles on all below ; The plain, the stream, the wood, the hill, All fair with evening's setting glow!

Season of rest! the tranquil soul

Feels thy sweet calm, and melts in love; And while these sacred moments roll, Faith sees a smiling heaven above.

How short the time, how soon the sun
Sets; and dark night resumes her reign!

And soon the hours of rest are done,

Then morrow brings the world again.

Yet will our journey not be long,

Our pilgrimage will soon be trod; And we shall join the ceaseless song, The endless Sabbath of our God.

NIGHT.

Montgomery.

NIGHT is the time for rest;

How sweet, when labours close,

To gather round an aching breast

The curtain of repose,

Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head

Down on our own delightful bed!

Night is the time for dreams;

The gay romance of life,

When truth that is, and truth that seems,

Mix in fantastic strife;

Ah! visions, less beguiling far

Than waking dreams by day-light are!

Night is the time for toil;

To plough the classic field,
Intent to find the buried spoil

Its wealthy furrows yield;
Till all is ours that sages taught,

That poets sang, and heroes wrought.

Night is the time to weep;

To wet with unseen tears

Those graves of Memory, where sleep
The joys of other years;

Hopes, that were angels at their birth,

But died when young like things of earth.

Night is the time to watch;
O'er ocean's dark expanse,

To hail the Pleiades, or catch
The full moon's earliest glance,
That brings into the home-sick mind,
All we have loved and left behind.

Night is the time for care;

Brooding on hours misspent,

To see the spectre of Despair,
Come to our lonely tent;

Like Brutus, 'midst his slumbering host,
Summon'd to die by Cæsar's ghost.

Night is the time to think;

When, from the eye, the soul

Takes flight, and, on the utmost brink
Of yonder starry pole,

Discerns beyond the abyss of night
The dawn of uncreated light.

Night is the time to pray ;

Our Saviour oft withdrew
To desert mountains far away ;

So will his followers do

Steal from the throng to haunts untrod,
And commune there alone with God.

Night is the time for death;

When all around is peace,

Calmly to yield the weary breath,
From sin and suffering cease,

Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign
To parting friends;-such death be mine.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.

Sir W. Scott.

THE day of wrath, that dreadful day,
When heaven and earth shall pass away!-
What power shall be the sinner's stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day?—

When, shrivelling like a parched scroll,
The flaming heavens together roll,

And louder yet, and yet more dread,

Swells the high trump that wakes the dead?

Oh! on that day, that wrathful day,
When man to judgment wakes from clay,
Be thou, O Christ! the sinner's stay,
Though heaven and earth shall pass away.

HYMN OF NATURE.

W. O. Peabody.

GOD of the earth's extended plains!
The dark green fields contented lie:
The mountains rise like holy towers,

Where man might commune with the sky : The tall cliff challenges the storm

That lours upon the vale below,

Where shaded fountains send their streams,
With joyous music in their flow.

God of the dark and heavy deep!

The waves lie sleeping on the sands,

Till the fierce trumpet of the storm

Hath summon'd up their thundering bands;