state,
And all earth owns, of good and great,
   Is gather’d in that choir.

One presses on, and welcomes death:
One calmly yields his willing breath,
Nor slow, nor hurrying, but in faith
   Content to die or live:
And some, the darlings of their Lord,
Play smiling with the flame and sword,
And, ere they speak, to His sure word
   Unconscious witness give.

Foremost and nearest to His throne,
By perfect robes of triumph known,
And likest Him in look and tone,
   The holy Stephen kneels,
With stedfast gaze, as when the sky
Flew open to his fainting eye,
Which, like a fading lamp, flash’d high,
   Seeing what death conceals.

Well might you guess what vision bright
Was present to his raptured sight,
E’en as reflected streams of light
   Their solar source betray—
The glory which our God surrounds,
The Son of Man, the atoning wounds—
He sees them all; and earth’s dull bounds
   Are melting fast away.

He sees them all—no other view
Could stamp the Saviour’s likeness true,
Or with His love so deep embrue
   Man’s sullen heart and gross—
“Jesus, do Thou my soul receive:
Jesu, do Thou my foes forgive;”
He who would learn that prayer must live
   Under the holy Cross.

He, though he seem on earth to move,
Must glide in air like gentle dove,
From yon unclouded depths above
   Must draw his purer breath;
Till men behold his angel face
All radiant with celestial grace,
Martyr all o’er, and meet to trace
   The lines of Jesus’ death.

St. John’s Day.

Peter seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?  Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou Me.  St. John xxi. 21, 22.

“Lord, and what shall this man do?”
   Ask’st thou, Christian, for thy friend?
If his love for Christ be true,
   Christ hath told thee of his end:
This is he whom God approves,
This is he whom Jesus loves.

Ask not of him more than this,
   Leave it in his Saviour’s breast,
Whether, early called to bliss,
   He in youth shall find his rest,
Or armèd in his station wait
Till his Lord be at the gate:

Whether in his lonely course
   (Lonely, not forlorn) he stay,
Or with Love’s supporting force
   Cheat the toil, and cheer the way:
Leave it all in His high hand,
Who doth hearts as streams command.

Gales from Heaven, if so He will,
   Sweeter melodies can wake
On the lonely mountain rill
   Than the meeting waters make.
Who hath the Father and the Son,
May be left, but not alone.

Sick or healthful, slave or free,
   Wealthy, or despised and poor—
What is that to him or thee,
   So his love to Christ endure?
When the shore is won at last,
Who will count the billows past?

Only, since our souls will shrink
   At the touch of natural grief,
When our earthly loved ones sink,
   Lend us, Lord, Thy sure relief;
Patient hearts, their pain to see,
And Thy grace, to follow Thee.

The Holy Innocents.

These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.  Rev. xiv. 4.

   Say, ye celestial guards, who wait
In Bethlehem, round the Saviour’s palace gate,
   Say, who are these on golden wings,
That hover o’er the new-born King of kings,
   Their palms and garlands telling plain
That they are of the glorious martyr-train,
   Next to yourselves ordained to praise
His Name, and brighten as on Him they gaze?

   But where their spoils and trophies? where
The glorious dint a martyr’s shield should bear?
   How chance no cheek among them wears
The deep-worn trace of penitential tears,
   But all is bright and smiling love,
As if, fresh-borne from Eden’s happy grove,
   They had flown here, their King to see,
Nor ever had been heirs of dark mortality?

   Ask, and some angel will reply,
“These, like yourselves, were born to sin and die,
   But ere the poison root was grown,
God set His seal, and marked them for His own.
   Baptised its blood for Jesus’ sake,
Now underneath the Cross their bed they make,
   Not to be scared from that sure rest
By frightened mother’s shriek, or warrior’s waving crest.”

   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.

First Sunday after Christmas.

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
   Paused at a mortal’s call, to aid
   The avenging storm of war, that laid
Seven guilty realms at once on earth’s defiled breast.

   But can it be, one suppliant tear
   Should stay the ever-moving sphere?
      A sick man’s lowly-breathèd sigh,
   When from the world he turns away,
   And hides his weary eyes to pray,
Should change your mystic dance, ye wanderers of the sky?

   We too, O Lord, would fain command,
   As then, Thy wonder-working hand,
      And backward force the waves of Time,
   That now so swift and silent bear
   Our restless bark from year to year;
Help us to pause and mourn to Thee our tale of crime.

   Bright hopes, that erst the bosom warmed,
   And vows, too pure to be performed,
      And prayers blown wide by gales of care;—
   These, and such faint