Faith. 'STRONG SON OF GOD.' TRONG Son of God, immortal Love, STRO Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove; Thine are these orbs of light and shade; Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: Thou madest man, he knows not why; He thinks he was not made to die; And Thou hast made him: Thou art just. Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood Thou: Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours to make them thine. Our little systems have their day; We have but faith: we cannot know; Let knowledge grow from more to more, But vaster. We are fools and slight; We mock Thee when we do not fear; But help thy foolish ones to bear; Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. ALFRED TENNYSON. 'WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS.' T fortifies my soul to know IT That, though I perish, Truth is so; That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall. ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. THE WILL OF GOD. WORSHIP thee, sweet will of God! And every day I live I seem Thou wert the end, the blessed rule And He hath breathed into A special love of thee, my soul I love to kiss each print where thou When obstacles and trials seem I do the little I can do, I have no cares, O blessed Will! Man's weakness waiting upon God For men on earth no work can do Ride on, ride on, triumphantly, He always wins who sides with God, Ill that He blesses is our good, And all is right that seems most wrong, If it be his sweet will. FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER. THE FLOWER. HOW fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns! even as the flowers in spring; To which, besides their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Like snow in May, As if there were no such cold thing. Who would have thought my shrivelled heart Could have recovered greenness? It was gone Quite underground, as flowers depart To see their mother-root, when they have blown ; Where they together All the hard weather, Dead to the world, keep house unknown. These are thy wonders, Lord of power, This or that is: Thy word is all, if we could spell. O that I once past changing were, Fast in thy Paradise where no flower can wither! Many a spring I shoot up fair, Off'ring at heaven, growing and groaning thither; Nor doth my flower Want a spring-shower, My sins and I joining together. But while I grow in a straight line, Still upwards bent as if heaven were mine own, What frost to that? what pole is not the zone When Thou dost turn, And the least frown of thine is shown. |