But 'tis of grace; if sickness, age and pain,
Are felt as throes when we are born again,
Timely they come to wean us from this earth,
As pangs that wait upon a second birth.

THE LOVE OF GOD.

I. IN CREATION.

THAT early love of creatures yet unmade,
To frame the world th' Almighty did persuade;
For love it was that, first, created light,
Moved on the waters, chased away the night
From the rude chaos, and bestowed new grace
On things disposed of to their proper place;
Some to rest here, and some to shine above;
Earth, sea, and heaven, were all the effects of love.
And love would be returned; but there was none
That to themselves or others yet were known ;
The world a palace was without a guest,
Till one appears that must excel the rest;
One like the Author, whose capacious mind
Might, by the glorious work, the Maker find;
Might measure heaven, and give each star a name ;
With art and courage the rough ocean tame;
Over the globe with swelling sails might go,
And that 'tis round by his experience know;
Make strongest beasts obedient to his will,
And serve his use, the fertile earth to till.
When, by His Word, God had accomplished all,
Man to create, He did a council call;
Employed His hand, to give the dust He took

A graceful figure, and majestic look;

With His own breath conveyed into his breast
Life, and a soul fit to command the rest,
Worthy alone to celebrate His name,

For such a gift, and tell from whence it came.
Birds sing His praises in a wilder note,

But not with lasting numbers, and with thought,
Man's great prerogative! but above all,
His grace abounds in His new favourite's fall.
If He create, it is a world He makes;

If He be angry, the creation shakes;
From His just wrath our guilty parents fled;

He cursed the earth, but bruised the serpent's head.
Amidst the storm His bounty did exceed

In the rich promise of the Virgin's seed;
Though Justice death, as satisfaction, craves,
Love finds a way to pluck us from our graves.

II. IN REDEMPTION.

NoT willing terror should His image move,
He gives a pattern of eternal love;

His Son descends, to treat a peace with those
Which were, and must have ever been, his foes.
Poor He became, and left His glorious seat,
To make us humble, and to make us great;
His business here was happiness to give

To those whose malice could not let Him live.
Legions of angels, which He might have used,
For us resolved to perish, He refused;
While they stood ready to prevent His loss,

Love took Him up and nailed Him to the cross.

Immortal Love! which in His bowels reigned,
That we might be by such high love constrained
To make return of love; upon this pole

Our duty does and our religion roll.

To love is to believe, to hope, to know;

'Tis an essay, a taste of heaven below.

He to proud potentates would not be known;

Of those that loved Him He was hid from none.

Till love appear, we live in anxious doubt;

But smoke will vanish when that flame breaks out.
This is the fire that would consume our dross,

Refine and make us richer by the loss.
Could we forbear dispute and practise love,
We should agree as angels do above.

Where Love presides, not vice alone does find
No entrance there, but virtues stay behind.
Both Faith and Hope, and all the meaner train
Of moral virtues, at the door remain ;
Love only enters as a native there,

For born in heaven, it does but sojourn here.
He that alone could wise and mighty be,
Commands that others love as well as He.
Love as He loved how can we soar so high?
He can add wings when He commands to fly.
Nor should we be with this command dismayed,
He that examples gives will give His aid;
For He took flesh, that, where His precepts fail,
His practice as a pattern may prevail;
His love at once, and dread, instruct our thought
As man He suffered, and as God He taught.
Will for the deed He takes; we may with ease
Obedient be, for if we love we please;
Weak though we are, to love is no hard task,

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And love for love is all that heaven does ask:
Love that would all men just and temperate make,
Kind to themselves and others, for His sake.
'Tis with our minds as with a fertile ground,
Wanting this love, they must with weeds abound;
Unruly passions, whose effects are worse
Than thorns and thistles springing from the curse.

'Divine Love,' Cantos II. III.

CONCLUSION OF THE "DIVINE

POEMS."

THE seas are quiet when the winds are o'er,
So calm are we when passions are no more;
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,

As they draw near to their eternal home:

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view

That stand upon the threshold of the new.

JOHN DRYDEN.

BORN A.D. 1631; DIED A. D. 1700.

DRYDEN has few claims to a place in a collection of sacred poetry. Living in an age of the utmost licence and impurity, his writings are stained with the vices of the times. He was, however, resolutely opposed to the infidelity then so rife, and in his Religio Laici he has asserted, in vigorous verse, the claims of revelation and the duty of faith. He was born of a good family, at Aldwinkle, in Northamptonshire, and received his education at Westminster and Trinity College, Cambridge. On the death of his father, in 1654, he came to London, and was received into the family of his relative, Sir Gilbert Pickering, who was a member of Cromwell's council. Though he had written a panegyric on the death of the Protector, he yet greeted the return of Charles by a poem entitled Astrea Redux. This, with many other laudatory pieces, gained for him the royal favour, and, in 1668, he was appointed Poet Laureate and Historiographer to the King. He retained these offices till the abdication of James, when he lost all his emoluments and fell into poverty. During the last ten years of his life, he was reduced to the necessity of writing for bread. On his death, in the year 1700, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, between Chaucer and Cowley.

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THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

WHENCE but from heaven could men, unskilled in arts,
In several ages born, in several parts,

Weave such agreeable truths? or how or why
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?
Unasked their pains, ungrateful their advice,
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price
If on the book itself we cast our view,
Concurrent heathens prove the story true;
The doctrine, miracles, which must convince,
For Heaven in them appeals to human sense ;