EXERCISE CXXVII.

HYMN TO THE SETTING SUN.

G. P. R. JAMES.

1. (sl.) Slow, slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,
Thy course of beneficence done;

As glorious go down to the ocean's warm breast,
As when thy bright race was begun ;

For all thou hast done,

Since thy rising, O sun!

May thou and thy Maker be blest.

Thou hast scattered the night from thy broad golder way,

Thou hast given us thy light through a long happy day,
Thou hast roused up the birds, thou hast wakened the flowers,
To chant on thy path, and to perfume the hours.

2.

Then slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,
And rise again, beautiful, blessing and blest.

Slow, slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,
Yet pause but a moment, to shed

One warm look of love on the earth's dewy breast,
Ere the starred curtain fall round thy bed,

And to promise the time,

When, awaking sublime,

Thou shalt rush all refreshed from thy rest. Warm hopes drop, like dews, from thy life-giving hand, Teaching hearts, closed in darkness, like flowers, to expand; Dreams wake into joys when first touched by thy light, As glow the dim waves of the sea at thy sight.

3

Then slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,
And rise again, beautiful, blessing and blest.

Slow, slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,
Prolonging the sweet evening hour;
Then robe again soon in the morn's golden vest,
To go forth in thy beauty and power;

For thy rising and setting are blest.
When thou com'st after darkness to gladden our eyes,
Or departest in glory, in glory to rise,

May hope and may prayer still be woke by thy rays,
And thy going be marked with thanksgiving and praise.
Then slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,
And rise again, beautiful, blessing, and blest.

EXERCISE CXXVIII.

INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF GOD.

MISS ELIZABETH TOWNSEND.

"I go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I can

not perceive Him."

1. Where art Thou? Thou! Source and support of all
That is, or seen, or felt; Thyself unseen,
Unfelt, unknown,-alas! unknowable !

I look abroad among Thy works: the sky,
Vast, distant, glorious, with its world of suns,
Life-giving earth, and ever-moving main,

And speaking winds,—and ask, if these are Thee!

2. The stars that twinkle on, the eternal hills,
The restless tide's outgoing and return,
The omnipresent and deep-breathing air,-
Though hailed as gods of old, and only less,-
Are not the Power I seek; are Thine, not Thee!
I ask Thee from the Past; if, in the years.

Since first intelligence could reach its source,
Or in some former, unremembered being,

(If such, perchance, were mine,) did they behold Thée ?

3 And next interrogate Futurity,

4.

5.

So fondly tenanted with better things

Than e'er Experience owned, but both are mute
And Past and Future, vocal on all else,

So full of memories and phantasies,

Are deaf and speechless here!

Fatigued, I turn

From all vain parley with the elements,

And close mine eyes, and bid the thought turn inward From each material thing its anxious quest,

If, in the stillness of the waiting soul,

He may vouchsafe himself, Spirit to spirit!

O Thou, at once most dreaded and desired,
Pavilioned still in darkness, wilt Thou hide Thée ?
What though the rash request be fraught with fate,
Nor human eye may look on Thine and live!
Welcome the penalty! let that come now,

Which soon or late must come. For light, like this,
Who would not dare to die?

Peace, my proud aim,

And hush the wish that knows not what it asks;
Await His will, who hath appointed this,

With every other trial. Be that will
Done now, as ever. For thy curious search,
And unprepared solicitude, to gaze

On Him-the Unrevealed-learn hence, instead,
To temper highest hope with humbleness.

6. Pass thy novitiate in these outer courts,
Till rent the vail, no longer separating
The holiest of all; as erst, disclosing
A brighter dispensation; whose results
Ineffable, interminable, tend

E'en to the perfecting thyself, thy kind,
Till meet for that sublime beatitude,
By the firm promise of a voice from heaven,
Pledged to the pure in heart!

1. AB'-BÉ DE FLEU'-RY, a French historian and divine, born 1640. He was associated with Fenelon, in the task of educating the young Dakes of Burgundy, Anjou and Berri. He died in 1723.

2. FEN'-E-LON, the amiable and virtous archbishop of Cambray, was born in 1651. He was intrusted by Louis XIV. with the education of his grandsons, the Dukes of Burgundy, Anjou, and Berri. He wrote many excellent works, among which, the most celebrated, is the "Adventures of Telemachus." Died in January, 1715.

3. ROUS-SEAU', a most eloquent writer, though eccentric in the highest degree, was born at Geneva in 1712. He was the author of various works. He died 1778.

WOMAN,-HER POWER, AND HER PROGRESS.

L. AIMÉ MARTIN.

1. Whatever may be the customs and laws of a country, the women of it decide the morals. Free or subjugated, they reign, because they hold possession of our passions. But this influence is more or less salutary, according to the degree of esteem which is granted to them. Whether they are our idols, or companions, relatives, slaves, or beasts of burden, the reaction is complete, and they make us such as they are themselves. It seems as if nature connected our intelligence with their dignity, as we connect our happiness with their virtue.

2. This, therefore, is a law of eternal justice,-man can not degrade women without himself falling into degradation; he can not raise them without becoming better. Let us cast our eyes over the globe, and observe those two great divisions

of the human race, the East and the West. One half of the ancient world remains without progress, without thought, and under the load of a barbarous civilization; women there are slaves. The other half advances toward freedom and light; the women there are loved and honored.

3. That which has been done to lower women, and that which they have done toward our civilization, offer, perhaps, the most moral and dramatic part of our history. There was

a time when their beauty alone wrestled against barbarism. Shut up in castles like prisoners, they there civilized the warriors who despised their weakness, but who adored their charms. Accused of ignorance, and deprived of instruction, disgraced by prejudice, and deified by love,-feeble, timid,— seeing around them nothing but soldiers and the sword, they adopted the passions of their tyrants, but, in adopting, they ameliorated them.

4. They directed combatants toward the defense of the helpless. Chivalry became a protecting power; it repaired injuries, and paved the way for laws; and, at last, after having fought in order to conquer kingdoms, it was softened into fighting for the beauty of women, and civilization began by gallantry. A great revolution was accomplished in France, on the day, when a noble knight drew off his men, in consequence of hearing that the castle, of which he was just about to commence the siege, had become the asylum of the wife of his enemy, and that this wife was about to become a mother.

5. At a later period, some glimpses of science began to pierce through the shades which covered the world; all eyes were dazzled by it, and it was then, that the destiny of women was pitiable. While men only believed themselves to be su perior from the strength of their bodies, and the force of their courage, they had ceded to the power of feebleness and beauty; but scarcely had they acquired a smattering of science, when pride seized them, and women nearly lost their empire.

6. But the worst period for them was the age of scribes and doctors; for, at that time, all the impertinent questions concerning the pre-eminence of men, and the inferiority of women, were brought forward. Even the existence of their souls became a matter of doubt, and theologians themselves, amidst these agitating discussions, forgot, for a moment, that our Savior was made human by his mother. These disputes led to this deplorable result, that the ignorance of women became a moral system, as the ignorance of the lower classes had become a system of policy.