How will the products of my tongue, or pen,
My words, my purposes, impress me then?
Whate'er by others done I should condemn,
Let me not think to do the same by them;
Let me perform, with purpose large and free,
Whatever I approve when done to me.
If duty you regard, the fountain free
From which it flows is God's first love to thee;
And the same feeling in thy heart should spring
To thy Creator, Governor, and King.
Another precept must our minds imbue,
That loving God, we love our neighbor too.
Let not thy heart by anger e'er be riven;
Forgive thy foe, and be by God forgiven.
A change of will our God can never know,
And yet he wills a change in things below.
His purposes as fixed as fate appear,
And yet for prayer he has an open ear.
Events he changes with a boundless range,
Because his inmost counsels never change.
The Bible is the oldest book - 'tis true;
And yet the oldest book is always new.
Repentance and remorse are not the same;
That is a heavenly, this an earthly flame:
One springs from love, and is a welcome guest,
And one an iron tyrant o'er the breast.
Repentance weeps before the Crucified;
Remorse is nothing more than wounded pride.
Remorse through horror into hell is driven,
While true repentance always goes to heaven.
Prayer makes us leave off sin; and sin, though fair It seems to promise, makes us leave off prayer.
The wisest sorrow our experience wins,
Is sorrowing for our trespasses and sins.
Meekness of wisdom! What a phrase divine!
O God of meekness, make the blessing mine.
When o'er our faults and miseries we groan,
The present moment never acts alone.
By the same effort are our faults revealed,
Which most men take to make them more concealed.
Our grossest deeds concealed from man may be,
But thought itself, O God, is known to thee.
When Peter from his master's presence stept,
Pondering his crimes as bitterly he wept,
Though gloom and sorrow all his soul enclosed,
Had he the wretchedness that he supposed?
His lonely weeping seems, to me at least,
Above the laughter of Belshazzar's feast.
When in obedience to your Saviour-king,
To the baptismal font your babe you bring;
Who knows what benefits may there ensue?
Each sprinkled drop may prove celestial dew;
And the wet forehead to your prayers impart
A future saint a pure and contrite heart.
When the swift day through swifter hours has run,
And the red cloud o'erhangs the setting sun,
Let not thy conscience be compelled to see
That beauteous nature blushes then for thee;
Or, when the dews descend in drops divine,
That pitying planets weep o'er sins of thine ;
Or, when the morn exalts her saffron head,
She sheds her radiance round a sluggard's bed,
And bids the world this lesson from thee reap,
That all thy innocence is in thy sleep.
The sum of gospel teaching should be this:
The woe of true repentance leads to bliss;
That sin imparts its sickness to the soul,
And Christ, our great physician, makes us whole.
In bondage? Yes; but then, I feel no pain,
For I am fettered by a red-rose chain.
Old age, advancing on through slow decay
Is somewhat like the setting orb of day:
It has, though losing its meridian height,
A larger circle and a softer light.
Self-knowledge (by some lofty minds pursued),
Without religion does them little good.
Rousseau, to whom all winding hearts were known,
And who so skilfully portrayed his own,
In conduct and in life reversed each rule,
And sunk from wisdom to be more a fool.
The same conclusion every reader learns
From Goldsmith, Cicero, and Robert Burns.
Their knowledge was a light-house through the spray,
It shed faint light and led not to the way.
FOR THE GATE OF A GRAVE-YARD.
Remember, ye that hither come to weep,
The wicked die; the pious only sleep.
Why is a terror so peculiar shed
O'er human hearts conversing with the dead?
How can these mouldered hands such tumults weave? Why do the disbelieving here believe?
And why, as if by heaven's judicial doom,
Is no man atheist, leaning on a tomb?
Life must present a most contrasted page,
Foreseen in youth and when reviewed in
As some bright window ere the day is done,
Shines deeply crimsoned in the setting sun;
The mansion seems involved in streams of fire
All faces brighten and all eyes admire;
But as the sun withdraws his final ray,
The visionary splendors fade away;
And naught remains, these transient glories past,
But the cold night-fog or the whistling blast.
In this condition where afflictions roll,
Religion is an impulse of the soul,
'Tis closely grafted on chastised desire;
Our wants impress it, even our sins inspire,
And sceptic reasoning is a vain employ,
Like reasoning down our agony or joy.
The best impressions, since we know in part,
Are made by forms proceeding from the heart.
The brightest ray that is to man allowed,
Is but a pencil quivering through a cloud.
The light is partial, but enough to guide,
In spite of worldly prudence, pelf, or pride.
When guilt depresses, when with ills we cope,
Without supreme conviction man may hope.
Religion then, that calmer of our woes,
On two eternal pillars must repose;
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