SABBATH HYMN.

HAIL, holy Sabbath! sacred day!
Coeval with creation's birth,
When heavenly hosts in bright array,
Behold with joy this beauteous earth
With all its train of wonders rise,
Complete before their ravished eyes.

Hail, welcome day of holy peace!
When all the weary sons of care,
From daily task and labour cease,
And lift the heart in praise and prayer,
To Him who sanctified and blest
This grateful interval of rest.

Hail, joyful day! when from the grave, The Lord of life and glory rose, Mighty to conquer and to save,

Triumphant o'er our deadliest foes. And opened wide the gates of heaven, To man, now ransom'd and forgiven!

Hail, sacred day! when heavenly love
Fulfill'd the gracious promise made,
And the blest Spirit from above,
His wonder working power display'd.
Pouring the riches of his grace,
On Adam's fallen guilty race.

THE PLOUGHING OF THE SWORD,

THE ploughing of the sword

Breaks up the greensward deep,
And stirs the old foundations,
Where the baleful passions sleep:
And then they madly sow

The seeds of bitter strife,
Ambition, wrath, revenge,
And stern contempt of life.

They reap with murderous sickles,
'Mid the shrill trumpet's cry,
Till the mightiest and the lowest,
In equal ruin lie.

The widow's pang, the orphan's tear,
The exulting tyrant's might,
And the cry of souls for ever lost,
Accompany their flight.

Oh! mourning mother earth,

Lift up thy heart and pray
That the ploughing of the sword
Be for ever done away:

Pray for the day when promised peace,
Shall reign from shore to shore,
The sword into a ploughsbare heat,
And warfare known no more.

MRS. SIGOURNEY

R

NOVEMBER.

THE autumn wind is moaning low, the requiem of the year;

The days are growing short again, the fields forlorn appear;

The sunny sky is waxing dim, and chill the hazy

air;

And waving trees before the breeze are turning brown and bare.

No more 'tis sweet to walk abroad among the ev'ning dews;

The flow'rs have fled from ev'ry path, with all their scents and hues;

The joyous bird no more is heard, save where his slender song

The robin drops, as meek he hops the wither'd leaves among.

Those wither'd leaves, that slender song, a solemn truth convey,

In wisdom's ear they speak aloud of frailty and decay:

They say that man's apportion'd year shall have its winter too,

Shall rise and shine, and then decline, as all around him do.

They tell him, all he has on earth, his brightest, dearest things,

His loves and friendships, joys and hopes, have all their falls and springs:

A wave upon a moon-lit sea, a leaf before the blast,

A summer flow'r, an April show'r, that gleams and hurries past.

And be it so; I know it well: myself, and all that's mine,

Must, with the fleeting year advance, and ripen to decline.

I do not shun the solemn truth; to him it is not

drear,

Whose hopes can rise above the skies and see a Saviour near.

It only makes him feel with joy this earth is not his home;

It sends him on from present ills to brighter hours

to come;

It bids him take with thankful heart whate'er his God may send,

Content to go through weal or woe to glory in the end.

Then murmur on, ye wintry winds! remind me of my doom;

Ye lengthen'd nights, still image forth the darkness of the tomb:

Eternal summer lights the heart, where Jesus deigns to shine,

I mourn no loss, I shun no cross, so thou, O Lord,

art mine!

H. T. LYTE

THE DIVINE OMNIPRESENCE.

OH, look up to the soft blue sky,
Arching above thee bright and fair;
Cold is the heart, and dull the eye,
Which feels not, sees not God is there.

Look round thee on this spacious earth,
With every varied beauty rife-
Starts not an instant thought to birth
Of Him whose presence gives it life ?

Survey the billowy, boundless deep;
Is there no voice salutes thine ear,
Whispering, when tempests o'er it sweep,
In still small accents God is here ?

Glance upward, in night's silent hour,
To countless orbs in glory bright;
These speak, unheard, their Maker's power,
Whose presence is their source of light.

Hark to the winds, which come and go
O'er seas unfathomed, wastes untrod;
Are they not heralds, to and fro,
Of Him, the omnipresent God ?

All forms of sentient being trace,-
Proclaim they not his power and love,
Vocal, in harmony and grace,

Of Him in whom they live and move?