BEHOLD I COME QUICKLY."-Rev. xxii, 12. Wilt thou return Thou great, thou distant One! Triumphant lighting down? Shall I see thee Thou loved now unseen! Thy manhood clothed In deity serene? See thee, my God, And be with thee Or here, or there- Be it at thy decree- If I e'er try To think what heaven is- Its pearly gates, Nor form, nor mould To fancy's search is given, And answer none But "Jesus is thy heaven." Blessed Saviour! Thou art my heaven now- Fountain of joy Whence all its currents flow. Musing thy word I hear thy voice the while- On nature's front Upon my knees I seem to know thee near Thy table spread, I feel that thou art there: And when I share Its hallowed mystery, My spirit feeds on thee. So known, so seen, In sweet communion near, In sympathy So holy and so dear; Jesus, I think, Thus, communing with thee, Yes, I can think What heaven perhaps may be. My bosom swells To give thy presence room— O quickly, quickly come! CONTEMPLATION OF THE ELEMENTS. GO AND PREPARE US THE PASSOVER, THAT WE MAY EAT." Emblems of ill Blest harbingers of weal, In these mysterious treasures of thy board Eternal Lord! Thyself reveal. Thyself, as on the eve Of that last fearful leave Thou wert to take, thou sat'st the saddest guest The most unwelcomed and the most unblest; But not in earth beneath or heaven above, To echo thee thy solitary plaint. Would that my faith could reach thee, blessed One! Not as thou art upon thy throne, God incomprehensible, Invisible, Beyond the stretch, Beyond the longing reach Of mortal imbecility, To share thy nature, or to dwell with thee:- Of man's affections-something That I can bring, As like to like, within the little sphere Let the dark heathen serve his unknown God, Be thankless for the mystery of thy birth, A child of earth I love-O how I love to gaze on thee, Thou soften'd beam of light's intensity!— Upon the darkness of this globe terrene The morning sun obtrudes himself, not hastily, But with a mellowed flame Seen first unfelt-the same, And yet how different, that presently Will drive his blazing chariot through the sky, O'er each averted eye Now walking forth so harmlessly, So seeming nigh, Fancy could almost think to clasp his zone And scatheless take him for her own. Ride on, thou risen God, and on the head Of these thy creatures, from thy zenith shed, The fructifying day-beams of thy grace, Meridian treasures of thy heavenly place. The time will be when I shall love thee so, But now Used to night, I love to gaze on the attempered light Of thy pale rising o'er the slumbering earth, Blessed Immanuel, Without that wide infinitude between, Who felt as I feel, loved as I have loved; Was moved To prayers, to tears, to sighs, even as I, The brother, husband, friend, whate'er On earth is dear All that I ever loved-and Oh, how far above All I have had to love, Seemest thou thus to me, and still my Lord, My Saviour and my God. And here, O Jesus, in thy holy place, Attent upon thy grace, I come to gaze Upon the mystery That tells me thou couldst dief And with a dying one On heaven's high throne Canst share The earth-wak'd sorrow, and the earth-shed tear, PRAYER. LORD Jesus, Son of God and Son of man, as by the taking of my nature into thine, thou art become partaker of all my susceptibilities and infirmities, and by my spiritual union with thee hast made me capable of participating in all thy glories, and perfections, grant, I beseech thee, that I may no more have or desire to have any separate existence, any thought or feeling or faculty independent of thee; any possessions but in use for thee, any loves but what thou lovest, or grief or pleasure such as thou wilt share with me-or cares, but such as I may cast upon thee. Grant, Lord, that as I now take into my corporeal frame these emblems of thy humanity, to nurture, and sustain, and become incorporate in it, so may I imbibe and take into my soul, the light, and life, and holiness of thy divine nature and grow upon it day by day into thy more per |