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SIMPLE TRUST.

STILL, still, without ceasing,
I feel it increasing,
This fervour of holy desire;

And often exclaim,

Let me die in the flame

Of a love that can never expire!

Had I words to explain

What she must sustain

Who dies to the world and its ways;

How joy and affright,

Distress and delight,

Alternately chequer her days:

Thou, sweetly severe !

I would make thee appear,
In all thou art pleased to award,
Not more in the sweet

Than the bitter I meet,

My tender and merciful Lord.

This faith, in the dark,
Pursuing its mark,

Through many sharp trials of love,

Je the sorrowful waste

That is to be pass'd

in the way to the Canaan above.

THE NECESSITY OF SELF-ABASEMENT.

SOURCE of love, my brighter sun,
Thou alone my comfort art;

See, my race is almost run;

Hast thou left this trembling heart?

In my youth thy charming eyes

Drew me from the ways

of men;

Then I drank unmingled joys;

Frown of thine saw never then.

Spouse of Christ was then my name;
And, devoted all to thee,
Strangely jealous I became,
Jealous of this self in me.

Thee to love, and none beside,
Was my darling, sole employ;
While alternately I died,
Now of grief, and now of joy.

Through the dark and silent night
On thy radiant smiles I dwelt;
And to see the dawning light
Was the keenest pain I felt.

Thou my gracious teacher wert;
And thine eye, so close applied,
While it watch'd thy pupil's heart,
Seem'd to look at none beside.

Conscious of no evil drift,
This, I cried, is love indeed-
'Tis the giver, not the gift,
Whence the joys I feel proceed.

But, soon humbled and laid low,
Stript of all thou hast conferr'd,
Nothing left but sin and woe,
I perceived how I had err'd.

Oh, the vain conceit of man,
Dreaming of a good his own,
Arrogating all he can,

Though the Lord is good alone!

He the graces thou hast wrought
Makes subservient to his pride;
Ignorant that one such thought
Passes all his sin beside.

Such his folly-proved, at last,
By the loss of that repose,
Self-complacence cannot taste,
Only love divine bestows.

'Tis by this reproof severe,
And by this reproof alone,
His defects at last appear,
Man is to himself made known.

Learn, all earth! that feeble man,
Sprung from this terrestrial clod,
Nothing is, and nothing can;
Life and power are all in God.

LOVE INCREASED BY SUFFERING.

"I LOVE the Lord," is still the strain This heart delights to sing;

But I reply your thoughts are vain,
Perhaps 'tis no such thing.

Before the power of love divine
Creation fades away;
Till only God is seen to shine
In all that we survey.

In gulfs of awful night we find
The God of our desires;

'Tis there he stamps the yielding mind, And doubles all its fires.

Flames of encircling love invest,

And pierce it sweetly through; 'Tis fill'd with sacred joy, yet press'd With sacred sorrow too.

Ah love! my heart is in the right—
Amidst a thousand woes,

To thee, its ever new delight,

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Nor exile I nor prison fear;
Love makes my courage great;
I find a Saviour every where,
His grace in every state.

Nor castle walls, nor dungeons deep,
Exclude his quickening beams;
There I can sit, and sing, and weep.
And dwell on heavenly themes.

There sorrow, for his sake, is found
A joy beyond compare;
There no presumptuous thoughts abound,
No pride can enter there.

A Saviour doubles all my joys,
And sweetens all my pains,

His strength in my defence employs,

Consoles me and sustains.

I fear no ill, resent no wrong;

Nor feel a passion move,

When malice whets her slanderous tongue;
Such patience is in love.

SCENES FAVOURABLE TO MEDITATION.

WILDS horrid and dark with o'ershadowing trees, Rocks that ivy and briers infold,

Scenes nature with dread and astonishment sees, But I with a pleasure untold;

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