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Together we have now

Begun another year;

But how much time Thou wilt allow

Thou mak'st it not appear. We, therefore, do implore

That live and love we may, Still so as if but one day more Together we should stay.

Let each of other's wealth

Preserve a faithful care,

And of each other's joy and health
As if one soul we were.
Such conscience let us make,
Each other not to grieve,
As if we daily were to take

Our everlasting leave.

The frowardness that springs

From our corrupted kind,

Or from those troublous outward things

Which may distract the mind,

Permit Thou not, O Lord,

Our constant love to shake

Or to disturb our true accord,

Or make our hearts to ache.

But let these frailties prove

Affection's exercise;

And that discretion teach our love Which wins the noblest prize.

So time, which wears away,

And ruins all things else, Shall fix our love on Thee for aye, In whom perfection dwells.

GEORGE WITHER.

DEDICATION OF A CHURCH.

JERUSALEM, that place divine,
The vision of sweet peace is named;
In heaven her glorious turrets shine-
Her walls of living stones are framed;
While angels guard her on each side-
Fit company for such a bride.

She, decked in new attire from heaven,
Her wedding chamber now descends,
Prepared in marriage to be given
To Christ, on whom her joy depends.

Her walls, wherewith she is inclosed,
And streets, are of pure gold composed.

The gates, adorned with pearls most bright,
The way to hidden glory show;
And thither, by the blessed might
Of faith in Jesus' merits, go

All those who are on earth distressed
Because they have Christ's name pro-

fessed.

These stones the workmen dress and beat Before they throughly polished are; Then each is in his proper seat Established by the Builder's care

In this fair frame to stand for ever,

So joined that them no force can sever.

To God, who sits in highest seat,
Glory and power given be!

To Father, Son, and Paraclete,
Who reign in equal dignity-

Whose boundless power we still adore,
And sing Their praise for evermore!
WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

THE PRIEST.

I WOULD I were an excellent divine
That had the Bible at my fingers' ends;
That men might hear out of this mouth of
mine,

How God doth make His enemies His
friends;

Rather than with a thundering and long prayer

Be led into presumption, or despair.

This would I be, and would none other be—
But a religious servant of my God;
And know there is none other God but He,

And willingly to suffer mercy's rodJoy in His grace, and live but in His love, And seek my bliss but in the world above.

And I would frame a kind of faithful prayer, For all estates within the state of grace, That careful love might never know despair

Nor servile fear might faithful love deface And this would I both day and night devise To make my humble spirit's exercise.

And I would read the rules of sacred life;
Persuade the troubled soul to patience;
The husband care, and comfort to the wife,
To child and servant due obedience;
Faith to the friend, and to the neighbor
peace,

Hold but this book before your heartLet prayer alone to play his part.

But O! the heart

That studies this high art Must be a sure house-keeper,

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Delicious deaths, soft exhalations

Of soul, dear and divine annihilations

A thousand unknown rites

Of joys, and rarified delights-
An hundred thousand loves and graces,
And many a mystic thing

Which the divine embraces

Of the dear Spouse of spirits with them will bring,

For which it is no shame

That dull mortality must not know a name.
Of all this hidden store

Of blessings, and ten thousand more,
If, when He come,

He find the heart from home,

Doubtless He will unload

Himself some otherwhere,

And pour abroad

His precious sweets

On the fair soul whom first He meets.

O fair! O fortunate! O rich! O dear!
O happy and thrice happy she-
Dear silver-breasted dove,

Whoe'er she be

Whose early love

With winged vows

Makes haste to meet her Morning Spouse,
And close with His immortal kisses-

Happy soul! who never misses
To improve that precious hour,
And every day

Seize her sweet prey

All fresh and fragrant as He rises,
Dropping with a balmy shower,
A delicious dew of spices!

O! let that happy soul hold fast
Her heavenly armful; she shall taste
At once ten thousand paradises-

She shall have power

To rifle and deflower

The rich and roseal spring of those rare sweets Which, with a swelling bosom, there she meets

Boundless and infinite, bottomless treasures Of pure inebriating pleasures:

Happy soul! she shall discover

What joy, what bliss,
How many heavens at once, it is
To have a God become her lover.

RICHARD CRASHAW.

THE TRUE USE OF MUSIC.

LISTED into the cause of sin,

Why should a good be evil? Music, alas! too long has been Pressed to obey the devil-Drunken, or lewd, or light, the lay

Flowed to the soul's undoing

Widened, and strewed with flowers, the way

Down to eternal ruin.

Who on the part of God will rise,
Innocent sound recover-

Fly on the prey, and take the prize,
Plunder the carnal lover-
Strip him of every moving strain,
Every melting measure-
Music in virtue's cause retain,

Rescue the holy pleasure?

Come let us try if Jesus' love
Will not as well inspire us;
This is the theme of those above-
This upon earth shall fire us.
Say, if your hearts are tuned to sing,
Is there a subject greater?
Harmony all its strains may bring;

Jesus' name is sweeter.

Jesus the soul of music is

His is the noblest passion; Jesus's name is joy and peace,

Happiness and salvation; Jesus's name the dead can raise

Show us our sins forgivenFill us with all the life of graceCarry us up to heaven.

Who hath a right like us to sing

Us whom His mercy raises? Merry our hearts, for Christ is King; Cheerful are all our faces;

Who of His love doth once partake

He evermore rejoices;
Melody in our hearts we make-
Melody with our voices.

He that a sprinkled conscience hath-
He that in God is merry-

Let him sing psalms, the Spirit saith, Joyful and never weary;