JOHN WHITE CHADWICK.

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I WOULD I WERE AN EXCELLENT DIVINE.

  I would I were an excellent divine. 
    That had the Bible at my fingers’ ends;
  That men might hear out of this mouth of mine
    How God doth make his enemies his friends;
  Rather than with a thundering and long prayer
  Be led into presumption, or despair.

  This would I be, and would none other be,
    But a religious servant of my God;
  And know there is none other God but he. 
    And willingly to suffer mercy’s rod,—­
  Joy in his grace, and live but in his love,
  And seek my bliss but in the world above.

  And I would frame a kind of faithful prayer,
    For all estates within the state of grace,
  That careful love might never know despair. 
    Nor servile fear might faithful love deface;
  And this would I both day and night devise
  To make my humble spirit’s exercise.

  And I would read the rules of sacred life;
    Persuade the troubled soul to patience;
  The husband care, and comfort to the wife,
    To child and servant due obedience;
  Faith to the friend, and to the neighbor peace,
  That love might live, and quarrels all might cease.

  Prayer for the health of all that are diseased,
    Confession unto all that are convicted,
  And patience unto all that are displeased,
    And comfort unto all that are afflicted,
  And mercy unto all that have offended,
  And grace to all, that all may be amended.

NICHOLAS BRETON.

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THE PASTOR’S REVERIE.

  The pastor sits in his easy-chair,
    With the Bible upon his knee. 
  From gold to purple the clouds in the west
    Are changing momently;
  The shadows lie in the valleys below,
    And hide in the curtain’s fold;
  And the page grows dim whereon he reads,
    “I remember the days of old.”

  “Not clear nor dark,” as the Scripture saith,
    The pastor’s memories are;
  No day that is gone was shadowless,
    No night was without its star;
  But mingled bitter and sweet hath been
    The portion of his cup: 
  “The hand that in love hath smitten,” he saith,
    “In love hath bound us up.”

  Fleet flies his thoughts over many a field
    Of stubble and snow and bloom,
  And now it trips through a festival,
    And now it halts at a tomb;
  Young faces smile in his reverie,
    Of those that are young no more,
  And voices are heard that only come
    With the winds from a far-off shore.

  He thinks of the day when first, with fear
    And faltering lips, he stood
  To speak in the sacred place the Word
    To the waiting multitude;
  He walks again to the house of God
    With the voice of joy and praise,
  With many whose feet long time have pressed
    Heaven’s safe and blessed ways.