Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come!
Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

Psalm xcviii.

Joy to the world! The Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King:
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the earth! The Saviour reigns!

Let men their songs employ,

While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains,
Repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground:
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love.

Psalm c.

Sing to the Lord with joyful voice;
Let every land His name adore;
The British isles shall send the noise
Across the ocean to the shore.

Nations attend before His throne

With solemn fear, with sacred joy,
Know that the Lord is God alone;
He can create, and He destroy.

His sovereign power, without our aid,
Made us of clay, and formed us men;
And when like wandering sheep we strayed,
He brought us to His fold again.

[Besides the sacred poetry contained in his Psalms, his Hymns, and his Lyrics, Dr Watts appended a hymn to many of his sermons; and some beautiful verses are contained in his "Miscellaneous Thoughts.". Of these there are perhaps none more exquisite than the following:

Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb;

Take this new treasure to thy trust,

And give these sacred relics room

To seek a slumber in the dust.

Nor pain, nor grief, nor anxious fear,
Invade thy bounds. No mortal woes
Can reach the lovely sleeper here;
And angels watch her soft repose.

So Jesus slept: God's dying Son

Pass'd through the grave, and bless'd the bed.
Rest here, fair saint, till from His throne

The morning break, and pierce the shade.

Break from His throne, illustrious morn!
Attend, O earth, His sovereign word!
Restore thy trust, O glorious form!
She must ascend to meet her Lord.

Musings in a Grove.

[To combine the Christian and the classical was a habitual aspiration of Dr Watts's devout and highly-cultivated mind. With this view he went so far as to give religious imitations of the Odes of Horace; and his "Lyric Poems," his "Miscel laneous Thoughts," and his "Remnants of Time Employed," are all efforts in the same direction. It will be allowed that he was not always and entirely successful; but his aim was a right one; and we should not like to be so fastidious as to perceive no charm in such numbers as the following :]

Sweet muse, descend, and bless the shade,

And bless the evening grove;

Business, and noise, and day are fled,

And every care but love.

But hence, ye wanton, young, and fair:

Mine is a purer flame;

No Phillis shall infect the air

With her unhallowed name.

Jesus has all my powers possess'd,
My hopes, my fears, my joys:
He, the dear Sovereign of my breast,
Shall still command my voice.

What astonishing variety of artifices, what innumerable millions of exquisite works, is the God of Nature engaged in every moment! How gloriously are His all-pervading wisdom and power employed in this useful season of the year, this Spring of Nature! What infinite myriads of vegetable beings is He forming this very moment, in their roots and branches, in their leaves and blossoms, their seeds and fruit! Some, indeed, begun to discover their bloom amidst the snows of January, or under the rough cold blasts of March: those flowers are withered and vanished in April, and their seeds are now ripening to perfection. Others are shewing themselves this day in all their blooming pride and beauty; and while they adorn the gardens and meadows with gay and glowing colours, they promise their fruits in the day of harvest. The whole nation of vegetables is under the Divine care and culture; His hand

forms them day and night with admirable skill and unceasing operation, according to the natures He first gave them, and produces their buds and foliage, their flowery blossoms, and rich fruits, in their appointed months. Their progress in life is exceeding swift at this season of the year; and their successive appearances, and sweet changes of raiment, are visible almost hourly.

But these creatures are of lower life, and give but feebler displays of the Maker's wisdom. Let us raise our contemplations another storey, and survey a nobler theatre of Divine wonders. What endless armies of animals is the hand of God moulding and figuring, this very moment, throughout His brutal dominions! What immense flights of little birds are now fermenting in the egg, heaving and growing towards shape and life! What vast flocks of four-footed creatures, what droves of large cattle, are now framed in their early embrios, imprisoned in the dark cells of nature! And others, perhaps, are moving towards liberty, and just preparing to see the light. What unknown myriads of insects, in their various cradles and nesting-places, are now working toward vitality and motion ! And thousands of them with their painted wings just beginning to unfurl, expand themselves into fluttering and daylight; while other families of them have forsaken their husky beds, and exult and glitter in the warm sunbeams!

An exquisite world of wonders is complicated even in the body of every little insect-an ant, a gnat, a mite-that is scarce visible to the naked eye. Admirable engines! which a whole academy of philosophers could never contrive-which the nation of poets hath neither art nor colours to describenor has a world of mechanics skill enough to frame the plainest or coarsest of them. Their nerves, their muscles, and the minute atoms which compose the fluids fit to run in the little channels of their veins, escape the notice of the most sagacious mathematician, with all his aid of glasses. The active powers