The ancient Sabbath was an end,—a pause,—
A stillness of the world; the work was done!
But ours commemorates a work begun.
Why, then, subject the new to antique laws?
The ancient Sabbath closed the week, because
The world was finish'd. Ours proclaims the sun,
Its glorious saint, alert its course to run.
Vanguard of days! escaped the baffled jaws
Of slumberous dark and death,—so fitly first
Is Sunday placed before the secular days;
Unmeetly clad in weeds, with arms reversed,
To trail in sullen thought by silent ways.
Like the fresh dawn, or rose-bud newly burst,
So let our Sabbath wear the face of praise!
Is not the body more than meat? The soul
Is something greater than the food it needs.
Prayers, sacraments, and charitable deeds,
They realise the hours that onward roll
Their endless way "to kindle or control.'
Our acts and words are but the pregnant needs
Of future being, when the flowers and weeds,
Local and temporal, in the vast whole
Shall live eternal. Nothing ever dies!
The shortest smile that flits across a face,
Which lovely grief hath made her dwelling-place,
Lasts longer than the earth or visible skies!
It is an act of God, whose acts are truth,
And vernal still in everlasting youth.
BE not afraid to pray-to pray is right.
Pray, if thou canst, with hope; but ever pray,
Though hope be weak, or sick with long delay;
Pray in the darkness, if there be no light.
Far is the time, remote from human sight,
When war and discord on the earth shall cease;
Yet every prayer for universal peace
Avails the blessed time to expedite.
Whate'er is good to wish, ask that of Heaven,
Though it be what thou canst not hope to see:
Pray to be perfect, though material leaven
Forbid the Spirit so on earth to be;
But if for any wish thou darest not pray,
Then pray to God to cast that wish away.
GOOD is it to be born in Christian land,
Within the hearing of sweet Sabbath bells,
To con our letters in the book that tells
How God vouchsafed His creatures to command.
How once He led His chosen by the hand,
Presenting to their young and opening sense
Such pictures of His dread Omnipotence,
We all could see, though none might understand.
Oh! good it is to dwell with Christian folk,
Where even the blind may see, the deaf may
The words that Paul hath wrote, that Jesus spoke,
By book or preacher shown to eye or ear,
Where Gospel truth is rife as song of birds-
"Familiar in our ears as household words."
YES, thou dost well, to arm thy tender mind
With all that learning, and stern common sense
Living hath spoke, or dying left behind;
To blank the frowardness of pert pretence
With long experience of a mighty mind,
That, daring to explore the truth immense,
Subsided in a faithful reverence
Of the best Catholic hope of human kind.
Yes, thou dost well to build a fence about
Thine inward faith, and mount a stalwart guard
Of answers, to oppose invading doubt.
All aids are needful, for the strife is hard;
But still be sure the truth within to cherish,—
Truths long besieged too oft of hunger perish.
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