Page:The Christian Year 1887.djvu/69




 * Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not. Isaiah lxiii. 16.

"Father to me thou art and mother dear,  And brother too, kind husband of my heart - So speaks Andromache in boding fear,   Ere from her last embrace her hero part - So evermore, by Faith's undying glow, We own the Crucified in weal or woe.

Strange to our ears the church-bells of our home, This fragrance of our old paternal fields May be forgotten; and the time may come When the babe's kiss no sense of pleasure yields E'en to the doting mother: but Thine own Thou never canst forget, nor leave alone.

There are who sigh that no fond heart is theirs, None loves them best—O vain and selfish sigh! Out of the bosom of His love He spares - The Father spares the Son, for thee to die: For thee He died—for thee He lives again: O'er thee He watches in His boundless reign.

Thou art as much His care, as if beside Nor man nor angel lived in Heaven or earth: Thus sunbeams pour alike their glorious tide To light up worlds, or wake an insect's mirth: They shine and shine with unexhausted store - Thou art thy Saviour's darling—seek no more.

On thee and thine, thy warfare and thine end, E'en in His hour of agony He thought, When, ere the final pang His soul should rend, The ransomed spirits one by one were brought To His mind's eye—two silent nights and days In calmness for His far-seen hour He stays.

Ye vaulted cells, where martyred seers of old Far in the rocky walls of Sion sleep, Green terraces and arched fountains cold, Where lies the cypress shade so still and deep, Dear sacred haunts of glory and of woe, Help us, one hour, to trace His musings high and low: