FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

Lo the lilies of the field,

How their leaves instruction yield!

Hark to Nature's lesson given
By the blessed birds of Heaven!
Every bush and tufted tree
Warbles sweet philosophy:

Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow;
God provideth for the morrow!

Say, with richer crimson glows
The kingly mantle than the rose?
Say, have kings more wholesome fare
Than we, poor citizens of air?
Barns nor hoarded grain have we,

Yet we carol merrily.

Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow!
God provideth for the morrow!

"One there lives whose guardian eye
Guides our humble destiny;
One there lives who, Lord of all,
Keeps our feathers lest they fall:
Pass we blithely then the time,
Fearless of the snare and lime,
Free from doubt and faithless sorrow:

God provideth for the morrow!"

SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

WAKE! not, oh mother! sounds of lamentation !
Weep not, oh widow! weep not hopelessly!
Strong is His arm, the Bringer of Salvation,
Strong is the Word of God to succour thee!

Bear forth the cold corpse, slowly, slowly bear him :
Hide his pale features with the sable pall:
Chide not the sad one wildly weeping near him:
Widow'd and childless, she has lost her all!

Why pause the mourners? Who forbids our weeping?
Who the dark pomp of sorrow has delay'd?
"Set down the bier,—he is not dead but sleeping!
Young man, arise;"-He spake, and was obey'd!

Change then, oh sad one! grief to exultation:
Worship and fall before Messiah's knee.
Strong was His arm, the Bringer of Salvation!
Strong was the Word of God to succour thee!

NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

OH blest were the accents of early creation,
When the Word of Jehovah came down from above;
In the clods of the earth to infuse animation,
And wake their cold atoms to life and to love!

And mighty the tones which the firmament rended,
When on wheels of the thunder, and wings of the wind,
By lightning, and hail, and thick darkness attended,
He utter'd on Sinai His laws to mankind.

And sweet was the voice of the First-born of Heaven, (Though poor His apparel, though earthly His form,) Who said to the mourner, "Thy sins are forgiven !”

"Be whole!" to the sick,- and "Be still !" to the storm.

Oh Judge of the world! when, arrayed in Thy glory,
Thy summons again shall be heard from on high,
While nature stands trembling and naked before Thee,
And waits on Thy sentence to live or to die ;

When the Heaven shall fly fast from the sound of Thy thunder,

And the sun, in Thy lightnings, grow languid and pale, And the sea yield her dead, and the Tomb cleave asunder, In the hour of Thy terrors, let mercy prevail !

TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

THE Sound of war! In earth and air
The volleying thunders roll :
Their fiery darts the fiends prepare,
And dig the pit, and spread the snare,
Against the Christian's soul.

The tyrant's sword, the rack, the flame,
The scorner's serpent tone,

Of bitter doubt the barbed aim,

All, all conspire his heart to tame :
Force, fraud, and hellish fires assail
The rivets of his heavenly mail,
Amidst his foes alone.

Gods of the world! ye warrior host
Of darkness and of air,

In vain is all your impious boast,
In vain each missile lightning tost,
In vain the tempter's snare!
Though fast and far your arrows fly,
Though mortal nerve and bone
Shrink in convulsive agony,
The Christian can your rage defy :
Towers o'er his head Salvation's crest,
Faith like a buckler guards his breast,
Undaunted, though alone.

'Tis past! 'tis o'er! in foul defeat
The Demon host are fled!
Before the Saviour's mercy-seat,

(His live-long work of faith complete, Their conqueror bends his head. "The spoils Thyself hast gained, Lord! I lay before Thy throne:

Thou wert my rock, my shield, my sword; My trust was in Thy name and word :

'Twas in Thy strength my heart was strong; Thy spirit went with mine along ;

How was I then alone ?"

TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

OH GOD! my sins are manifold, against my life they cry, And all my guilty deeds foregone, up to Thy temple fly; Wilt thou release my trembling soul that to despair is driven? "Forgive!" a blessed voice replied, "and thou shalt be forgiven!"

Myfoemen, Lord! are fierce and fell, they spurn me in their pride, They render evil for my good, my patience they deride Arise, oh King, and be the proud to righteous ruin driven ! "Forgive!" an awful answer came, "as thou wouldst be forgiven !"

Seven times, O Lord! I pardon'd them, seven times they sinn'd again :

They practise still to work me woe, they triumph in my pain: But let them dread my vengeance now, to just resentment

driven !

"Forgive!" the voice of thunder spake, "or never be forgiven!"

TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

FROM foes that would the land devour;
From guilty pride, and lust of power;

From wild sedition's lawless hour;

From yoke of slavery:

From blinded zeal by faction led;
From giddy change by fancy bred;
From poisonous error's serpent head,
Good Lord, preserve us free!