To God your praises pay;
The morning sun is clear and bright;
With joy we hail his cheerful light.
In songs of love
Praise God above—
It is the Sabbath day!"
The last words were repeated and prolonged most vehemently by a voice that I knew for Master William's.
"Now, Willie, I like the other one best," said the soft voice of little Susan; and immediately she began:—
When, leaving our play,
The Saviour we seek!
The fair morning glows
When Jesus arose—
The best in the week."
Master William helped along with great spirit in the singing of this tune, though I heard him observing, at the end of the first verse, that he liked the other one better, because "it seemed to step off so kind o' lively;" and his accommodating sister followed him as he began singing it again with redoubled animation.
It was a beautiful summer morning, and the voices of the children within accorded well with the notes of birds and bleating flocks without—a cheerful, yet Sabbath-like and quieting sound.
"Blessed be children's music!" said I to myself; "how much better this is than the solitary tick, tick, of old Uncle Fletcher's tall mahogany clock!"
The family bell summoned us to the breakfast room just as the children had finished their hymn. The little breakfast parlor had been swept and garnished expressly for the day, and a vase of beautiful flowers, which the children had the day before collected from their gardens, adorned the centre-table. The door of one of the bookcases by the fireplace was thrown open, presenting to view a collection of prettily bound books, over the top of which appeared in gilt letters the inscription, "Sabbath Library." The windows were thrown open to let in the invigorating breath of the early morning, and the birds that flitted among the rose-bushes without seemed scarcely lighter and more buoyant than did the children as they entered the room. It was legibly written on every face in the house, that the happiest day in the week had arrived, and each one seemed to enter into its duties with a whole soul. It was still early when the breakfast and the season of family devotion were over, and the children eagerly gathered round the table to get a sight of the pictures in the new books which their father had purchased in New York the week before, and which had been reserved as a Sunday's treat. They were a beautiful edition of Calmet's Dictionary, in several large volumes, with very superior engravings.
"It seems to me that this work must be very expensive," I remarked to my friend, as we were turning the leaves.
"Indeed it is so," he replied; "but here is one place where I am less withheld by considerations of expense than in any other. In all that concerns making a show in the world, I am perfectly ready to economize. I can do very well without expensive clothing or fashionable furniture, and am willing that we should be looked on as very plain sort of people in all such matters; but in all that relates to the cultivation of the mind, and the improvement of the hearts of my children, I am willing to go to the extent of my ability. Whatever will give my children a better knowledge of, or deeper interest in, the Bible, or enable them to spend a Sabbath profitably and without weariness, stands first on my list among things to be purchased. I have spent in this way one third as much as the furnishing of my house costs me." On looking over the shelves of the Sabbath Library, I perceived that my friend had been at no small pains in the selection. It comprised all the popular standard works for the illustration of the Bible, together with the best of the modern religious publications adapted to the capacity of young children. Two large drawers below were filled with maps and Scriptural engravings, some of them of a very superior character.
"We have been collecting these things gradually ever since we have been at housekeeping," said my friend; "the children take an interest in this library, as something more particularly belonging to them, and some of the books are donations from their little earnings."
"Yes," said Willie, "I bought Helon's 'Pilgrimage' with my egg money, and Susan bought the 'Life of David,' and little Robert is going to buy one, too, next New Year."
"But," said I, "would not the Sunday-school library answer all the purpose of this?"
"The Sabbath-school library is an admirable thing," said my friend; "but this does more fully and perfectly what that was intended to do. It makes a sort of central attraction at home on the Sabbath, and makes the acquisition of religious knowledge and the proper observance of the Sabbath a sort of family enterprise. You know," he added, smiling, "that people always feel interested for an object in which they have invested money."
The sound of the first Sabbath-school bell put an end to this conversation. The children promptly made themselves ready, and as their father was the superintendent of the school, and their mother one of the teachers, it was quite a family party.
One part of every Sabbath at my friend's was spent by one or both parents with the children in a sort of review of the week. The attention of the little ones was directed to their own characters, the various defects or improvements of the past week were pointed out, and they were stimulated to be on their guard in the time to come, and the whole was closed by earnest prayer for such heavenly aid as the temptations and faults of each particular one might need. After church in the evening, while the children were thus withdrawn to their mother's apartment, I could not forbear reminding my friend of old times, and of the rather anti-sabbatical turn of his mind in our boyish days.
"Now, William," said I, "do you know that you were the last boy of whom such an enterprise in Sabbath-keeping as this was to have been expected? I suppose you remember Sunday at 'the old place'?"
"Nay, now, I think I was the very one," said he, smiling, "for I had sense enough to see, as I grew up, that the day must be kept thoroughly or not at all, and I had enough blood and motion in my composition to see that something must be done to enliven and make it interesting; so I set myself about it. It was one of the first of our housekeeping resolutions, that the Sabbath should be made a pleasant day, and yet be as inviolably kept as in the strictest times of our good father; and we have brought things to run in that channel so long that it seems to be the natural order."
"I have always supposed," said I, "that it required a peculiar talent, and more than common information in a parent, to accomplish this to any extent."
"It requires nothing," replied my friend, "but common sense, and a strong determination to do it. Parents who make a definite object of the religious instruction of their children, if they have common sense, can very soon see what is necessary in order to interest them; and, if they find themselves wanting in the requisite information, they can, in these days, very readily acquire it. The sources of religious knowledge are so numerous, and so popular in their form, that all can avail themselves of them. The only difficulty after all is, that the keeping of the Sabbath and the imparting of religious instruction are not made enough of a home object. Parents pass off the responsibility on to the Sunday-school teacher, and suppose, of course, if they send their children to Sunday-school, they do the best they can for them. Now, I am satisfied, from my experience as a Sabbath-school teacher, that the best religious instruction imparted abroad still stands in need of the coöperation of a systematic plan of religious discipline and instruction at home; for, after all, God gives a power to the efforts of a parent that can never be transferred to other hands."
"But do you suppose," said I, "that the common class of minds, with ordinary advantages, can do what you have done?"
"I think in most cases they could, if they begin right. But when both parents and children have formed habits, it is more difficult to change than to begin right at first. However, I think all might accomplish a great deal if they would give time, money, and effort towards it. It is because the object is regarded of so little value, compared with other things of a worldly nature, that so little is done."
My friend was here interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Fletcher with the children. Mrs. Fletcher sat down to the piano, and the Sabbath was closed with the happy songs of the little ones; nor could I notice a single anxious eye turning to the window to see if the sun was not almost down. The tender and softened expression of each countenance bore witness to the subduing power of those instructions which had hallowed the last hour, and their sweet, birdlike voices harmonized well with the beautiful words:—
How soft the sunbeam lingering there!
Those holy hours this low earth leave,
And rise on wings of faith and prayer."
RELIGIOUS POEMS
ST. CATHERINE BORNE BY ANGELS[6]
Borne by mysterious angels, strong and fair,
She sleeps at last, blest dreams her eyelids veiling,
Above this weary world of strife and care.
Scarce wave those broad, white wings, so silvery bright;
Those cloudy robes, in star-emblazoned folding,
Sweep mistily athwart the evening light.
The foes that threaten, or the friends that weep;
Past, like a dream, the torture and the pain:
For so He giveth his beloved sleep.
Gives back the image as the cloud floats o'er,
Hushing in glassy awe his troubled motion;
For one blest moment he complains no more.
His charmèd waters lie as in a dream,
And glistening wings, and starry robes unfolding,
And serious angel eyes far downward gleam.
By that sweet vision of celestial rest;
Where are the winds and tides thy peace that haunted,—
So still thou seemest, so glorified and blest!
Dark tides and tempests shall thy bosom rear;
And thy complaining waves, with restless motion,
Shall toss their hands in their old wild despair.
Of suffering saints, borne homeward crowned and blest,
Shines down in stillness with a tender glory,
And makes a mirror there of breathless rest.
Are Christ's beloved ones tried by cross and chain;
In many a house are his elect ones hidden,
His martyrs suffering in their patient pain.
The world sees not, as slow, from day to day,
In calm, unspoken patience, sadly still,
The loving spirit bleeds itself away.
Come down the angels with the glad release;
And we look upward, to behold in glory
Our suffering loved ones borne away to peace.
Rises again when the bright cloud sweeps by,
And our unrestful souls reflect no longer
That tender vision of the upper sky.
To whom all faithful souls affianced are,
Breathe down thy peace into our restless spirits,
And make a lasting, heavenly vision there.
No more the cloud of angels fade away;
And we shall walk, amid life's weary strife,
In the calm light of thine eternal day.
THE CHARMER
"Socrates. However, you and Simmias appear to me as if you wished to sift this subject more thoroughly, and to be afraid, like children, lest, on the soul's departure from the body, winds should blow it away.
"Upon this Cebes said, 'Endeavor to teach us better, Socrates. Perhaps there is a childish spirit in our breast that has such a dread. Let us endeavor to persuade him not to be afraid of death, as of hobgoblins.'
"'But you must charm him every day,' said Socrates, 'until you have quieted his fears.'
"'But whence, O Socrates,' he said, 'can we procure a skillful charmer for such a case, now you are about to leave us?'
"'Greece is wide, Cebes,' he said, 'and in it surely there are skillful men; and there are many barbarous nations, all of which you should search, seeking such a charmer, sparing neither money nor toil.'"—Last words of Socrates, as narrated by Plato in the Phœdo.
With longings for the things that may not be,
Faint for the friends that shall return no more,
Dark with distrust, or wrung with agony.
Whence came we? whither go? and where are those
Who, in a moment stricken from our side,
Passed to that land of shadow and repose?
Or are they living in some unknown clime?
Shall we regain them in that far-off home,
And live anew beyond the waves of time?
Thou wert our teacher in these questions high;
But ah! this day divides thee from our side,
And veils in dust thy kindly guiding eye.
On what far shores may his sweet voice be heard?
When shall these questions of our yearning souls
Be answered by the bright Eternal Word?"
When Socrates lay calmly down to die;
So spake the sage, prophetic of the hour
When earth's fair morning star should rise on high.
Long seeking, wandering, watching on life's shore;
Reasoning, aspiring, yearning for the light,
Death came and found them—doubting as before.
Pure, simple, sweet, as comes the silver dew,
And the world knew him not,—he walked alone
Encircled only by his trusting few.
Betrayed, condemned, his day of doom drew nigh;
He drew his faithful few more closely round,
And told them that his hour was come—to die.
"My Father's house hath mansions large and fair;
I go before you to prepare your place,
I will return to take you with me there."
And life and death are glorified and fair;
Whither He went we know, the way we know,
And with firm step press on to meet him there.
KNOCKING
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock."
Who is there?
'Tis a pilgrim, strange and kingly,
Never such was seen before;—
Ah, sweet soul, for such a wonder
Undo the door.
Hinges rusty, latch is broken;
Bid Him go.
Wherefore, with that knocking dreary
Scare the sleep from one so weary?
Say Him,—no.
What! Still there?
O sweet soul, but once behold Him,
With the glory-crownèd hair;
And those eyes, so strange and tender,
Waiting there;
Open! Open! Once behold Him,—
Him, so fair.
Coming ever to perplex me?
For the key is stiffly rusty,
And the bolt is clogged and dusty;
Many-fingered ivy-vine
Seals it fast with twist and twine;
Weeds of years and years before
Choke the passage of that door.
He still there?
What's the hour? The night is waning,—
In my heart a drear complaining,
And a chilly, sad unrest!
Ah, this knocking! It disturbs me,
Scares my sleep with dreams unblest!
Give me rest,
Rest,—ah, rest!
Thou hast only dreamed of pleasure,
Dreamed of gifts and golden treasure,
Dreamed of jewels in thy keeping,
Waked to weariness of weeping;—
Open to thy soul's one Lover,
And thy night of dreams is over,—
The true gifts He brings have seeming
More than all thy faded dreaming!
So, as wondering we behold,
Grows the picture to a sign,
Pressed upon your soul and mine;
For in every breast that liveth
Is that strange, mysterious door;—
Though forsaken and betangled,
Ivy-gnarled and weed-bejangled,
Dusty, rusty, and forgotten;—
There the piercèd hand still knocketh,
And with ever-patient watching,
With the sad eyes true and tender,
With the glory-crownèd hair,—
Still a God is waiting there.
THE OLD PSALM TUNE
Why still my charmèd ear
Rejoiceth in uncultured tone
That old psalm tune to hear?
The grand orchestral strain,
Where music's ancient masters live,
Revealed on earth again,—
In swaying clouds of sound,
Bore up the yearning, trancèd soul,
Like silver wings around;—
Where clouds of incense rise,
Most ravishing the choral swell
Mount upwards to the skies.
When skilled and cultured art
Its cunning webs of sweetness weaves
Around the captured heart.
That old psalm tune hath still
A pulse of power beyond them all
My inmost soul to thrill.
Are not the tones I hear;
But voices of the loved and lost
There meet my longing ear.
Those were the words she sung;
I hear my brother's ringing tones,
As once on earth they rung;
Come round me like a cloud,
And far above those earthly notes
Their singing sounds aloud.
Those voices poorly ring;
But there's no discord in the strain
Those upper spirits sing.
The calm and glorified,
Whose hours are one eternal rest
On heaven's sweet floating tide.
Their souls and hearts keep time
In one sweet concert with the Lord,—
One concert vast, sublime.
Sometimes a sweetness falls
On those they loved and left below,
And softly homeward calls,—
Borne trembling o'er the sea,—
The narrow sea that they have crossed,
The shores where we shall be.
Sing cares and griefs to rest;
Sing, till entrancèd we arise
To join you 'mong the blest
THE OTHER WORLD
A world we do not see;
Yet the sweet closing of an eye
May bring us there to be.
Amid our worldly cares,
Its gentle voices whisper love,
And mingle with our prayers.
Sweet helping hands are stirred,
And palpitates the veil between
With breathings almost heard.
They have no power to break;
For mortal words are not for them
To utter or partake.
So near to press they seem,
They lull us gently to our rest,
They melt into our dream.
'Tis easy now to see
How lovely and how sweet a pass
The hour of death may be;—
Wrapped in a trance of bliss,
And, gently drawn in loving arms,
To swoon to that—from this,—
Scarce asking where we are,
To feel all evil sink away,
All sorrow and all care.
Press nearer to our side;
Into our thoughts, into our prayers,
With gentle helpings glide.
A dried and vanished stream;
Your joy be the reality,
Our suffering life the dream.
MARY AT THE CROSS
"Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother."
Was ever love, was ever grief, like thine?
O highly favored in thy joy's deep flow,
And favored, even in this, thy bitterest woe!
Where, fairly growing, like some silent flower,
Last of a kingly race, unknown and lowly,
O desert lily, passed thy childhood's hour.
Who through deep loving years so silent grew,
Full of high thought and holy aspiration,
Which the o'ershadowing God alone might view.
Such as to woman ne'er before descended,
The almighty wings thy prayerful soul o'erspread,
And with thy life the Life of worlds was blended.
The chosen mother of that King unknown,
Mother fulfiller of all prophecy
Which, through dim ages, wondering seers had shown!
Rise into billows, and thy heart rejoice;
Then woke the poet's fire, the prophet's song,
Tuned with strange burning words thy timid voice.
The outcast shed, the tramp of brutal feet;
Again behold earth's learnèd and her lowly,
Sages and shepherds, prostrate at thy feet.
What strange conflicting tones of prophecy
Breathe o'er the child foreshadowing words of joy,
High triumph blent with bitter agony!
Spent in lone musings with thy wondrous Son,
When thou didst gaze into that glorious eye,
And hold that mighty hand within thine own.
He lived a God disguised with unknown power;
And thou his sole adorer, his best love,
Trusting, revering, waited for his hour.
With cloud and voice, and the baptizing flame,
Up from the Jordan walked th' acknowledged stranger,
And awe-struck crowds grew silent as He came.
He from both hands almighty favors poured,
And, though He had not where to lay his head,
Brought to his feet alike the slave and lord.
Fast beat thy heart. Now, now the hour draws nigh:
Behold the crown, the throne, the nations bend!
Ah, no! fond mother, no! behold Him die!
And shar'st the last dark trial of thy Son;
Not with weak tears or woman's lamentation,
But with high, silent anguish, like his own.
Hail! in this bitter anguish thou art blest,—
Blest in the holy power with Him to suffer
Those deep death-pangs that lead to higher rest.
The God-man wrestles with that mighty woe;
Hark to that cry, the rock of ages rending,—
"'Tis finished!" Mother, all is glory now!
Hath the Redeemer risen forever blest;
And through all ages must his heart-belovèd
Through the same baptism enter the same rest.
THE INNER VOICE
"Come ye yourselves into a desert place and rest awhile; for there were many coming and going, so that they had no time so much as to eat."
Its jarring discords and poor vanity,
Breathing like music over troubled waters,
What gentle voice, O Christian, speaks to thee?
By the serene, deep fullness of that eye,—
By the calm, pitying smile, the gesture lowly,—
It is thy Saviour as He passeth by.
Come to the shadows of my desert rest,
Come walk with me far from life's babbling discords,
And peace shall breathe like music in thy breast.
Sick to thy soul of party noise and strife?
Come, leave it all, and seek that solitude
Where thou shalt learn of me a purer life.
Thou shalt look back and wonder at its roar;
But its far voice shall seem to thee a dream,
Its power to vex thy holier life be o'er.
Mine to bestow, which heals the ills of living;
To overcome by love, to live by prayer,
To conquer man's worst evils by forgiving."
ABIDE IN ME, AND I IN YOU
THE SOUL'S ANSWER
Is all too pure, too high, too deep for me;
Weary of striving, and with longing faint,
I breathe it back again in prayer to thee.
From this good hour, O leave me nevermore;
Then shall the discord cease, the wound be healed,
The lifelong bleeding of the soul be o'er.
Each half-formed purpose and dark thought of sin;
Quench, e'er it rise, each selfish, low desire,
And keep my soul as thine, calm and divine.
Pervades it with a fragrance not its own,
So, when thou dwellest in a mortal soul,
All heaven's own sweetness seems around it thrown.
When I have heard thy voice and felt thy power;
Then evil lost its grasp, and passion, hushed,
Owned the divine enchantment of the hour.
Abide in me, and they shall ever be.
Fulfill at once thy precept and my prayer,—
Come, and abide in me, and I in thee.
THE SECRET
"Thou shalt keep them in the secret of thy presence from the strife of tongues."
And billows wild contend with angry roar,
'Tis said, far down beneath the wild commotion,
That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore.
And silver waves chime ever peacefully;
And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er he flieth,
Disturbs the sabbath of that deeper sea.
There is a temple peaceful evermore!
And all the babble of life's angry voices
Die in hushed stillness at its sacred door.
And loving thoughts rise ever peacefully;
And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er he flieth,
Disturbs that deeper rest, O Lord, in thee.
Thou ever livest and thou changest never;
And in the secret of thy presence dwelleth
Fullness of joy, forever and forever.
THINK NOT ALL IS OVER
Drive the shivering leaflets from the tree,—
Think not all is over: spring returneth,
Buds and leaves and blossoms thou shalt see.
And the weary birds above her mourn,—
Think not all is over: God still liveth,
Songs and sunshine shall again return.
When thy cherished hopes lie chill and sere,—
Think not all is over: God still loveth,
He will wipe away thy every tear.
God at last shall bring a morning hour;
In the frozen buds of every winter
Sleep the blossoms of a future flower.
LINES
TO THE MEMORY OF "ANNIE," WHO DIED AT MILAN, JUNE 6, 1860
"Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him."—John xx. 15.
Walketh a Gardener in meekness clad;
Fair are the flowers that wreathe his dewy locks,
And his mysterious eyes are sweet and sad.
Falling with saintly calmness to his feet;
And when he walks, each floweret to his will
With living pulse of sweet accord doth beat.
In the mild summer radiance of his eye;
No fear of storm, or cold, or bitter frost,
Shadows the flowerets when their sun is nigh.
Are nurseries to those gardens of the air;
And his far-darting eye, with starry beam,
Watcheth the growing of his treasures there.
O'erwatched with restless longings night and day;
Forgetful of the high, mysterious right
He holds to bear our cherished plants away.
Needs the fair presence of an added flower,
Down sweeps a starry angel in the night:
At morn, the rose has vanished from our bower.
Blank, silent, vacant, but in worlds above,
Like a new star outblossomed in the skies,
The angels hail an added flower of love.
Strewed with the red and yellow autumn leaf,
Drop thou the tear, but raise the fainting eye
Beyond the autumn mists of earthly grief.
Those mysteries of color, warm and bright,
That the bleak climate of this lower sphere
Could never waken into form and light.
Nor must thou ask to take her thence away;
Thou shalt behold her in some coming hour,
Full-blossomed in his fields of cloudless day.