The God who hallow'd thee and blest,
Pronouncing thee all good-

Hath He not all thy wrongs redrest,
And all thy bliss renew'd?

Why mourn'st thou still as one bereft,
Now that th' eternal Son,
His blessed home in heaven hath left
To make thee all his own?"

Thou mourn'st because Sin lingers still
In Christ's new heaven and earth;
Because our rebel works and will
Stain our immortal birth:

Because, as Love and Prayer grow cold,
The Saviour hides his face,

And worldlings blot the temple's gold
With uses vile and base.

Hence all thy groans and travail pains, "Hence, till thy God return,

In wisdom's ear thy blithest strains,

Oh Nature, seem to mourn.

And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing; nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net: and when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes, and their net brake. St. Luke v. 5. [Gospel for the Day.]

[Grant, O Lord, we beseech thee, that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by thy governance, that thy church may joyfully serve thee in all godly quietness, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.]

"THE live-long night we've toiled in vain,
But at thy gracious word

I will let down the net again:

Do thou thy will, O Lord!"

So spake the weary fisher, spent
With bootless, darkling toil,
Yet on his Master's bidding bent
For love and not for spoil.

So day by day and week by week,.
In sad and weary thought,
They muse, whom God hath set to seek
The souls his Christ hath bought.

For not upon a tranquil lake

Our pleasant task we ply,

Where all along our glistening wake

The softest moonbeams lie;

Where rippling wave and dashing oar
Our midnight chant attend,

Or whispering palm-leaves from the shore
With midnight silence blend.

Sweet thoughts of peace, ye may not last:
Too soon some ruder sound
Calls us from where ye soar so fast
Back to our earthly round.

For wildest storms our ocean sweep:-
No anchor but the Cross
Might hold: and oft the thankless deep
Turns all our toil to loss.

Full many a dreary anxious hour
We watch our nets alone
In drenching spray, and driving shower,
And hear the night-bird's moan:

At morn we look, and nought is there;
Sad dawn of cheerless day!
Who then from pining and despair
The sickening heart can stay?

There is a stay-and we are strong;
Our Master is at hand,

To cheer our solitary song,

And guide us to the strand,

In his own time: but yet awhile
Our bark at sea must ride:
Cast after cast, by force or guile
All waters must be tried:

By blameless guile or gentle force,
As when he deign'd to teach

(The lode-star of our Christian course)
Upon this sacred beach.

Should e'er thy wonder-working grace
Triumph by our weak arm,

Let not our sinful fancy trace

Aught human in the charm:

To our own nets* ne'er bow we down,
Lest on the eternal shore

The angels, while our draught they own,t
Reject us evermore:

Or, if for our unworthiness

Toil, prayer, and watching fail,
In disappointment thou canst bless,
So love at heart prevail.

* Habakkuk i, 16. They sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag.

t St. Matthew xiii. 49.

SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

THE PSALMIST REPENTING.

David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord: and Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. 2 Samuel xii. 13. [First Morning Lesson, Church of England.]

[O God, who hast prepared for those who love thee, such good things as pass man's understanding; pour into our hearts such love towards thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.]

WHEN bitter thoughts, of conscience born,
With sinners wake at morn,

When from our restless couch we start,
With fever'd lips and wither'd heart,
Where is the spell to charm those mists away,
And make new morning in that darksome day?
One draught of spring's delicious air,
One steadfast thought, that God is there.

*

These are thy wonders, hourly wrought,*
Thou Lord of time and thought,

[How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean'

Are thy returns! even as the flowers in spring;
To which besides their own demean,

The late past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.
Grief melts away

Like snow in May,

As if there were no such cold thing.

Who would have thought my shrivelled heart
Could have recovered greenness? It was gone
Quite under ground, as flowers depart

To see their mother-root, when they have flown;