EVENING.

A

NOTHER day is numbered with the past,

Another night is given us for rest, Father, my spirit at thy feet I cast,

O! gather it unto thy loving breast.

Look on its failures, efforts, and mistakes,

Look on its inward stubborn roots of fin, See how the law that it accepts, it breaks,

Lord! to thy secret presence take it in!

Nightly, Thou sendest rest to all the earth,

Sendest a time for silence and returning, O, Father! teach me all the holy worth

Of the still hours when thy clear stars are burning.

Thou givest me rest that with the day's beginning
I

may rise strong and fresh for the new day, So, purged and rested from its frequent sinning,

May my soul rise prepared for its strait way.

Bless those that love me, those that love me not,

Strengthen the feeble and uplift the grieving, Send to thy children, in whatever lot,

Riches, and peace, and strength in true believing.

So to thy arms my body I commit,

My weary body to thine arms outspread : Prepare me to accomplish what is fit,

And peace and pureness watch beside my bed.

UT

TO the glory of thy Holy Name,
Eternal God! whom I both love and fear,
Here bear I witness that I never came
Before thy throne and found thee loth to hear,

But, ever ready with an open ear.
And though sometimes thou seems't thy face to hide

As one that hath his love withdrawn from me, 'T is that my faith may to the full be tried,

And I thereby may only better see
How weak I am when not upheld by Thee.

Thomas Ellwood. 1669.

IMMANUEL.

How good a God have we! who for our sake,

God have we! who for our sake, To us Did change the order of creation :

At first He made

Man like Himself in his own image ; now
In the more blessed reparation,
The heavens bow,
Eternity took the measure of a span ;

And said,
« Let us make ourselves like man;
And not from man the woman take,
But from the woman, man.”
Hallelujah, we adore
His name, whose goodness hath no store.

Jeremy Taylor. 1667.

CHRIST.

CHRISTMAS HYMN.

CALOM

YALM on the listening ear of night

Come Heaven's melodious strains, Where wild Judea stretches far

Her silver-mantled plains !

Celestial choirs, from courts above,

Shed sacred glories there ; And angels, with their sparkling lyres,

Make music on the air.

The answering hills of Palestine

Send back the glad reply ; And greet, from all their holy heights,

The dayspring from on high.

On the blue depths of Galilee

There comes a holier calm, And Sharon waves, in solemn praise, Her filent groves of palm.

.

“Glory to God!” the sounding skies

Loud with their anthems ring ;
Peace to the earth, -good-will to men,

From heaven's Eternal King !

Light on thy hills, Jerusalem !

The Saviour now is born !
And bright on Bethlehem's joyous plains
Breaks the first Christmas morn.

Rev. E. H. Sears.

A HYMN OF THE NATIVITY, SUNG BY THE

SHEPHERDS.

LOOMY night embraced the place

Where the noble infant lay :
The babe look'd up, and show'd His face;

In spite of darkness it was day.
It was Thy day, sweet, and did rise,
Not from the East, but from thy eyes.

We saw thee in thy balmy nest,

Young dawn of our eternal day ;
We saw thine eyes break from the East,

And chase the trembling shades away :
We saw thee, and we bleft the night,
We saw thee by thine own sweet light.