HOLY BAPTISM. WHERE is it, mothers learn their love ?— Hovers on softest wings. What sparkles in that lucid flood Out of a dear friend's side. A few calm words of faith and prayer, Earth's charmers never knew. O happy arms, where cradled lies, That precious sacrifice, The darling of his grace! Blest eyes, that see the smiling gleam Touches the tender brow! Or when the holy cross is sign'd, To serve the Virgin-born. But happiest ye, who seal'd and blest To nurse for Jesus' sake: To whom as if in hallow'd air Ye knelt before some awful shrine His innocent gestures wear A meaning half divine : By whom Love's daily touch is seen In strengthening form and freshening hue, In the fix'd brow serene, The deep yet eager view. Who taught thy pure and even breath To come and with such sweet grace? go Whence thy reposing Faith, Though in our frail embrace? O tender gem, and full of Heaven! Sweet See we our God so nigh. one, make haste and know Him too, Thine own adopting Father love, That like thine earliest dew Thy dying sweets may prove. CATECHISM. Он say not, dream not, heavenly notes To childish ears are vain, That the young mind at random floats, And cannot reach the strain. Dim or unheard, the words may fall, May learn the sacred air, and all Was not our Lord a little child, And lov'd He not of Heaven to talk With children in His sight, To meet them in His daily walk, And to His arms invite? What though around His throne of fire The everlasting chant Be wafted from the seraph choir Yet stoops He, ever pleas'd to mark Yet is He near us, to survey These bright and order'd files, Like spring-flowers in their best array, All silence and all smiles, Save that each little voice in turn Some glorious truth proclaims, What sages would have died to learn, And if some tones be false or low, What are all prayers beneath But cries of babes, that cannot know Half the deep thought they breathe? |