Page:The Christian Year 1887.djvu/33



Mindful of these, the firstfruits sweet Borne by this suffering Church her Lord to greet; Blessed Jesus ever loved to trace The "innocent brightness" of an infant's face. He raised them in His holy arms, He blessed them from the world and all its harms: Heirs though they were of sin and shame, He blessed them in his own and in his Father's Name.

Then, as each fond unconscious child On the everlasting Parent sweetly smiled (Like infants sporting on the shore, That tremble not at Ocean's boundless roar), Were they not present to Thy thought, All souls, that in their cradles Thou hast bought? But chiefly these, who died for Thee, That Thou might'st live for them a sadder death to see.

And next to these, Thy gracious word Was as a pledge of benediction stored For Christian mothers, while they moan Their treasured hopes, just born, baptised, and gone. Oh, joy for Rachel's broken heart! She and her babes shall meet no more to part; So dear to Christ her pious haste To trust them in His arms for ever safe embraced.

She dares not grudge to leave them there, Where to behold them was her heart's first prayer; She dares not grieve—but she must weep, As her pale placid martyr sinks to sleep, Teaching so well and silently How at the shepherd's call the lamb should die: How happier far than life the end Of souls that infant-like beneath their burthen bend.


 * So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down. Isaiah xxxviii. 8; compare Josh. x. 13.

'Tis true, of old the unchanging sun His daily course refused to run, The pale moon hurrying to the west