But, present still, though now unseen! 
    When brightly shines the prosperous day,
  Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen
    To temper the deceitful ray. 
  And O, when stoops on Judah’s path
    In shade and storm the frequent night,
  Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
    A burning and a shining light!

  Our harps we left by Babel’s streams,
    The tyrant’s jest, the Gentile’s scorn;
  No censer round our altar beams,
    And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn. 
  But Thou hast said, “The blood of goat,
    The flesh of rams, I will not prize;
  A contrite heart, a humble thought,
    Are mine accepted sacrifice.”

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

* * * * *

THE BOOK OF GOD.

  Thy thoughts are here, my God,
    Expressed in words divine,
  The utterance of heavenly lips
    In every sacred line.

  Across the ages they
    Have reached us from afar,
  Than the bright gold more golden they,
    Purer than purest star.

  More durable they stand
    Than the eternal hills;
  Far sweeter and more musical
    Than music of earth’s rills.

  Fairer in their fair hues
    Than the fresh flowers of earth,
  More fragrant than the fragrant climes
    Where odors have their birth.

  Each word of thine a gem
    From the celestial mines,
  A sunbeam from that holy heaven
    Where holy sunlight shines.

  Thine, thine, this book, though given
    In man’s poor human speech,
  Telling of things unseen, unheard,
    Beyond all human reach.

  No strength it craves or needs
    From this world’s wisdom vain;
  No filling up from human wells,
    Or sublunary rain.

  No light from sons of time,
    Nor brilliance from its gold;
  It sparkles with its own glad light,
    As in the ages old.

  A thousand hammers keen,
    With fiery force and strain,
  Brought down on it in rage and hate,
    Have struck this gem in vain.

  Against this sea-swept rock
    Ten thousand storms their will
  Of foam and rage have wildly spent;
    It lifts its calm face still.

  It standeth and will stand,
    Without or change or age,
  The word of majesty and light,
    The church’s heritage.

HORATIUS BONAR.

* * * * *

THE MEETING.

  The elder folk shook hands at last,
  Down seat by seat the signal passed. 
  To simple ways like ours unused,
  Half solemnized and half amused,
  With long-drawn breath and shrug, my guest
  His sense of glad relief expressed. 
  Outside, the hills lay warm in sun;
  The cattle in the meadow-run
  Stood half-leg deep; a single bird
  The green repose above us stirred.