Ex Libris \ C. K. OGDEN ; - 0. - S/ulf. 0. Books on. Shelf. /- on Shelf. THE SABBATH, WITH SABBATH WALKS, AND OTHER POEMS. BY JAMES GRAHAME. MX day* thoa ihalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shall test; that thine ox and thine u* mayreit, and the ton of thy handmaid, and the tttanger may he refrethed. appears in its most striking light, when we consider the days of rest in any given period, as accumulated into one sum. He who has seen threescore and ten years, has lived ten years of Sabbaths. 2G0044O VI PREFACE. It is this beneficent institution that forms the grand bulwark of poverty against the en- croachments of capital. The labouring classes sell their time. The rich are the buyers, at least they are the chief buyers ; for it is ob- vious, that more than the half of the waking hours of those who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, is consumed in the ma- nufacture of articles, that cannot be deemed either necessaries or comforts. Six days of the week are thus disposed of already : if the seventh were in the market, it woulfl find purchasers too. The abolition of the Sab- bath would, in truth, be equivalent to a sen- tence, adjudging to the rich the services of the poor for life. In The Biblical Pictures, I have attempt- ed to delineate some of those scenes which painters have so successfully presented to the eye. I need hardly say, however, that, by PREFACE. VH the adoption of this title, I meant not to subject myself to the principles of the art of painting. I have not confined myself to the objects of sight, nor adhered to one point of time. 1 have often represented a series of incidents ; and, in pourtraying characters, I have made them speak, as well as act. If some of the Miscellaneous Poems which conclude this volume should draw on me the imputation of egotism, I must even plead guilty to the charge ; trusting that the in- dulgent reader, and good-natured critic, will not be disposed to rank my transgressions in this respect among the more aggravated spe- cies of the crime. CONTENTS. PAGE. The SABBATH, 1 SABBATH WALKS. A Spring Sabbath Walk, 61 A Summer Sabbath Walk, 64 An Autumn Sabbath Walk, 69 A Winter Sabbath Walk, 72 BIBLICAL PICTURES. The First Sabbath, 77 The finding of Moses, 81 Jacob and Pharaoh, 82 Jepbtha's Vow, 81 Saul and David, 86 Elijah fed by Ravens, 88 The Birth of Jesus announced, 00 Behold my Mother and my Brethren, 93 Bartimeus restored to Sight, 94 Little Children brought to Jesus 96 Xll CONTENTS. FACE. Jesus calms the Tempest, 97 Jesus walks on the Sea, and calms the Storm, 99 The Dumb Cured, 101 The Death of Jesus, 102 The Resurrection, 103 Jesus appears to the Disciples, 105 Paul accused before the Tribunal of the Areopagus, 106 Paul accused before the Roman Governor of Judea, 108 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. Paraphrase on Psalm ciii. 3, 4 113 On visiting Melrose, after an absence of sixteen years, 116 The Wild Duck and her Brood, 118 To a Redbreast, 120 Epitaph on a Blackbird killed by a Hawk, 123 The Poor Man's Funeral, 124 The Thanksgiving off Cape Trafalgar, 1ST To my Son, 129 Notes, , . 133 ARGUMENT. DESCRIPTION of a Sabbath morning in the country. The labourer at home. The town mechanic's morning walk ; his meditation. The sound of bells. Crowd proceed- ing to church. Interval before the service begins. Scottish service. English service : Scriptures read : The organ, with the voices of the people. The sound borne to the sick man's couch. His wish. The worship of God in the solitude of the woods. The shepherd boy among the hills. People seen on the heights returning from church. Contrast of the present times with those immediately preceding the Revolution. The persecu- tion of the Covenanters : A Sabbath conventicle : Ca- meron : Renwick: Psalms: Night conventicles during storms.A funeral according to the rites of the church Xll ARGUMENT. of England. A female character. The suicide. Ex- postulation. The incurable of an hospital. A prison scene : Debtors : Divine service in the prison-hall : Persons under sentence of death. The public guilt of inflicting capital punishments on persons who have been left destitute of religious and moral instruction. Chil- dren proceeding to a Sunday school. The father. The impress. Appeal on the indiscriminate severity of cri- minal law. Comparative mildness of the Jewish law : The year of jubilee : Description of the commencement of the jubilee : The sound of the trumpets through the land : The bondman and his family returning from their servitude to take possession of their inheritance. Emi- grants to the wilds of America : Their Sabbath worship. The whole inhabitants of Highland districts who have emigrated together, still regret their country : Even the blind man regrets the objects with which he had been con- versant. An emigrant's contrast between the tropical cli- mates and Scotland. The boy who had been born on the voyage. Description of a person on a desert island : His Sabbath : His release : Missionary ship. The Pacific Ocean : Defence of Missionaries : Effects of the conver- sion of the primitive Christians. Transition to the slave trade : The Sabbath in a slave ship : Appeal to Eng- land on the subject of her encouragement to this horri- AliGUMENT. Xlll ble complication of crimes. Transition to war. Unfor- tunate issue of the late war in Francein Switzerland. . Apostrophe to TELL : The attempt to resist too late : The treacherous foes already in possession of the passes : Their devastating progress : Desolation.- Address to Scotland. Happiness of seclusion from the world. De- scription of a Sabbath evening in Scotland : Psalmody : An aged man. Description of an industrious female reduced to poverty by old age and disease. Disinterest- ed virtuous conduct to be found chiefly in the lower walks of life. Test of charity in the opulent. Recommenda- tion to the rich to devote a portion of the Sabbath to the duty of visiting the sick. Invocation to health to mu- sic. The Beguine nuns. Lazarus. The Resurrection. -^Dawnings of faith Its progress Consummation. THE SABBATH A POEM. Liice sacra requiescat humus, requiescat arator, Et grate, suspensn vomere, cesset opus. THE SABBATH. Uovv still the morning of the hallowed day! Mute is the voice of rural labour, hushed The ploughboy's whistle, and the milkmaid's song. The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath Of tedded grass, mingled with fading flowers, That yester-morn bloomed waving in the breeze. Sounds the most faint attract the ear, the hum Of early bee, the trickling of the dew, The distant bleating, mid-way up the hill* 11 4 THE SABBATH. Calmness sits throned on yon unmoving cloud. To him who wanders o'er the upland leas, The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale ; And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark Warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook Murmurs more gently down the deep-worn glen ; While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke O'ermouuts the mist, is heard, at intervals, The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise. With dove-like wings, Peace o'eryon village broods : The dizzying mill-wheel rests ; the anvil's din Hath ceased ; all, all around is quietness. Less fearful on this day, the limping hare Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks on man, Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set free, Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large; And, as his stiff unwieldy bulk he rolls, His iron-armed hoofs gleam in the morning ray. THE SABBATH. 5 But chiefly Man the day of rest enjoys. Hail, SABBATH ! thee I hail, the poor man's day. On other days, the man of toil is doomed To eat his joyless bread, lonely ; the ground Both seat and board ; screened from the winter's cold., And summer's heat, by neighbouring hedge or tree j But on this day, embosomed in his home, He shares the frugal meal with those he loves; With those he loves he shares the heartfelt joy Of giving thanks to God, not thanks of form, A word and a grimace, but reverently, With covered face, and upward earnest eye. Hail, SABBATH ! thee I hail, the poor man's day : The pale mechanic now has leave to breathe The morning air, pure from the city's smoke j While, vrandering slowly up the river side, He meditates on HIM, whose power he marks ID each green tree that proudly spreads the bough, 6 THE SABBATH. As in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom Around its root; and while he thus surveys, With elevated joy, each rural charm, He hopes, yet fears presumption in the hope. That Heaven may be one SABBATH without end. But now his steps a welcome sound recals : Solemn the knell, from yonder ancient pile, Fills all the air, inspiring joyful awe : Slowly the throng moves o'er the tomb-paved ground ; The aged man, the bowed down, the blind Led by the thoughtless boy, and he who breathes With pain, and eyes the new-made grave, well pleased : These, mingled with the young, the gay, approach The house of God ; these, spite of all their ills, A glow of gladness feel ; with silent praise They enter in. A placid stillness reigns, Until the mau of God, worthy the name, Arise, and read the anointed shepherd's lays. THE SABBATH. His locks of snow, his brow serene, his look Of love, it speaks, " Ye are my children all, The gray-haired man, stooping upon his start) As well as he, the giddy child, whose eye Pursues the swallow flitting thwart the dome." Loud swells the song : O, how that simple song, Though rudely chaunted, how it melts the heart, Commingling soul with soul in one full tide Of praise, of thankfulness, of humble trust ! Next comes the unpremeditated prayer, Breathed from the inmost heart, in accents low, But earnest. Altered is the tone; to man Are now addressed the sacred speaker's words. Instruction, admonition, comfort, peace, Flow from his tongue : O chief let comfort flow ! It is most wanted in this vale of tears : Yes, make the widow's heart to sing for joy ; The stranger to discern the Almighty's shield Held o'er his friendless head ; the orphan child 8 THE SABBATH. Feel, mid his tears, I have a father still ! 'Tis done. But hark that infant querulous voice ! Plaint not discordant to a parent's ear : And see the father raise the white-robed babe In solemn dedication to the Lord : The holy man sprinkles with forth-stretched hand The face of innocence ; then earnest turns, And prays a blessing in the name of Him, Who said, Let little children come to me ; Forbid them not :* The infant is replaced Among the happy band : they, smilingly, In gay attire, hie to the house of mirth, * " And they brought young children to him, that he'should touch them; and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it he was much displeased, and said unto them, suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not ; for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them." MARK, x. !.', ii, 15, U>. THE SABBATH. The poor man's festival, a jubilee day, Remembered long. Nor would I leave unsung The lofty ritual of our sister land : In vestment white, the minister of God Opens the book, and reverentially The stated portion reads. A pause ensues. The organ breathes its distant thunder-notes, Then swells into a diapason full : The people rising, sing, With harp, with harp, And voice of psalms ; harmoniously attuned The various voices blend ; the long-drawn ai At every close, the lingering strain prolong. And now the tubes a mellowed stop controuls, In softer harmony the people join, While liquid whispers from yon orphan baud Recal the soul from adoration's trance, And fill the eye with pity's gentle tears. Again the organ-peal, loud-rolling, meets The halleluiahs of the choir : Sublime, lt> THE SABBATH. A thousand notes symphoniously ascend, As if the whole were one, suspended high In air, soaring heavenward : afar they float, Wafting glad tidings to the sick man's couch : Raised on his arm, he lists the cadence close, Yet thinks he hears it still : his heart is cheered ; He smiles on death ; but, ah ! a wish will rise, " Would I were now beneath that echoing roof! No lukewarm accents from my lips should flow; My heart would sing ; and many a Sabbath-day My steps should thither turn ; or, wandering far In solitary paths, where wild flowers blow, There would I bless His name who led me forth From death's dark vale, to walk amid those sweets ; Who gives the bloom of health once more to glow Upon this cheek, and lights this languid eye." It is not only in the sacred fane That homage should be paid to the Most High; THE SABBATH. II There is a temple, one not made with hands, The vaulted firmament: Far in the woods, Almost beyond the sound of city chime, At intervals heard through the breezeless air; When not the limberest leaf is seen to move, Save where the linnet lights upon the spray; When not a floweret bends its little stalk, Save where the bee alights upon the bloom; There, rapt in gratitude, in joy, and love, The man of God will pass the Sabbath-noon; Silence his praise : his disembodied thoughts, Loosed from the load of words, will high ascend Beyond the empyrean. Nor yet less pleasing at the heavenly throne, The Sabbath-service of the shepherd boy. In some lone glen, whf re every sound is lulled To slumber, save the tinkling of the rill, Or bleat of lamb, or hovering falcon's cry, Stretched on the sward he reads of Jesse's son; 18 THE SABBATH. Or sheds a tear o'er him to Egypt sold, And wonders why he weeps ; the volume closed, With thyme-sprig laid between the leaves, he sings The sacred lays, his weekly lesson, conned With meikle care beneath the lowly roof, Where humble lore is learnt, where humble worth Pines unrewarded by a thankless state. Thus reading, hymning, all alone, unseen, The shepherd-boy the Sabbath holy keeps, Till on the heights he marks the straggling bands Returning homeward from the house of prayer. In peace they home resort. O blissful day ! When all men worship God as conscience wills. Far other times our fathers' grandsires knew, A virtuous race, to godliness devote. What though the sceptic's scorn hath dared to soil The record of their fame ! What though the men Of worldly minds have dared to stigmatize The sister-cause, Religion and the Law, THE SABCATII. 43 With Superstition's name ! yet, yet their deeds, Their constancy in torture, and in death, These on tradition's tongue still live, these shall On history's honest page be pictured bright To latest times. Perhaps some bard, whose muse Disdains the servile strain of Fashion's quire, May celebrate their unambitious names. With them each day was holy, every hour They stood prepared to die, a people doomed To death : old men, and youths, and simple maids. With them each day was holy ; but that mom On which the angel said, See where the Lord Was laid, joyous arose ; to die that day Was bliss. Long crc the dawn, by devious ways, O'er hills, thro' woods, o'er dreary wastes, they sought The upland moors, where rivers, there but brooks, Dispart to different seas : Fast by such brooks, A little glen is sometimes scooped, a plat With green sward gay, and flowers that strangers seem 14 THE SABBATH. Amid the heathery wild, that all around Fatigues the eye : in solitudes like these Thy persecuted children, SCOTIA, foiled A tyrant's and a bigot's bloody laws : There, leaning on his spear, (one of the array, Whose gleam, in former days, had scathed the rose On England's banner, and had powerless struck The infatuate monarch and his wavering host,) The lyart veteran heard the word of God. By Cameron thundered, or by Renwick poured In gentle stream : then rose the song, the loud Acclaim of praise ; the wheeling plover ceased Her plaint ; the solitary place was glad, And on the distant cairns, the watcher's ear * Caught doubtfully at times the breeze-borne note. But jears more gloomy followed; and no more Sentinels were placed on the surrounding hills, to give warning of the approach of the military. THE SABBATH. 13 The assembled people dared, in face of day, To worship God, or even at the dead Of night, save when the wintry storm raved fierce, And thunder-peals compelled the men of blood To couch within their dens; then dauntlessly The scattered few would meet in some deep dell By rocks o'er-canopied, to hear the voice, Their faithful pastor's voice : He by the gleam Of sheeted lightning oped the sacred book, And words of comfort spake : Over their souls His accents soothing came, as to her young The heathfowl's plumes, when, at the close of eve, She gathers in, mournful, her brood dispersed By murderous sport, and o'er the remnant spreads Fondly her wings; close nestling 'neath her breast, They, cherished, cower amid the purple blooms. But wood and wild, the mountain and the dale, The house of prayer itself, no place inspires; 16 THE SABBATH. Emotions more accordant with the day, Thau does the field of graves, the land of rest : . Oft at the close of evening-prayer, the toll, The solemn funeral-toll, pausing, proclaims The service of the tomb ; the homeward crowds Divide on either hand; the pomp draws near; The choir to meet the dead go forth, and sing, I am ike resurrection and the life. Ah me ! these youthful bearers robed in white, They tell a mournful tale ; some blooming friend Is gone, dead iu her prime of years : 'twas she, The poor man's friend, who, when she could not give , With angel tongue pleaded to those who could; With angel tongue and mild beseeching eye, That ne'er besought in vain, save when she prayed For longer life, with heart resigned to die, Rejoiced to die ; for happy visions blessed Her voyage's last days,* and, hovering round, * Towards the end of Columbus's voyage to the new world, when he was already near, but not in sight of land, the droop- THE SABBATH. 17 Alighted on her soul, giving presage That heaven was nigh : O what a burst Of rapture from her lips ! what tears of joy Her heavenward eyes suffused ! Those eyes are closed ! But all her loveliness is not yet flown : She smiled in death, and still her cold pale face Retains that smile; as when a waveless lake, In which the wintry stars all bright appear, Is sheeted by a nightly frost with ice, Still it reflects the face of heaven unchanged, Unruffled by the breeze or sweeping blast. Again that knell ! The slow procession stops : The pall withdrawn, Death's altar, thick-embossed With melancholy ornaments, (the name, The record of her blossoming age) appears ing hopes of his mariners (for his own confidence seems to have remained unmoved) were revived by the appearance of birds, at first hovering round the ship, and then lighting on the rig- ging. 18 THE SABBATH. Unveiled, and on it dust to dust is thrown, The final rite. Oh ! hdrk that sullen sound ! Upon the lowered bier the shovelled clay Falls fast, and fills the void. But who is he, That stands aloof, with haggard wistful eye, As if he coveted the closing grave ? And he does covet it, his wish is death : The dread resolve is fixed ; his own right-hand Is sworn to do the deed : The day of rest No peace, no comfort, brings his woe-worn spirit : Self-cursed, the hallowed dome he dreads to enter; He dares not pray ; he dares not sigh a hope ; Annihilation is his only heaven. Loathsome the converse of his friends ! he shuns The human face ; in every careless eye Suspicion of his purpose seems to lurk. Deep piny shades he loves, where no sweet note Is warbled, where the rook unceasing caws : 10 THE SABBATH. 19 Or far in moors, remote from house or hut, Where animated nature seems extinct, Where even the hum of wandering bee ne'er breaks The quiet slumber of the level waste ; Where vegetation's traces almost fail, Save where the leafless cannachs wave their tufts Of silky white, or massy oaken trunks Half-buried lie, and tell where greenwoods grew, There, on the heathless moss outstretched, he broods O'er all his ever-changing plans of death : The time, place, means, sweep like a stormy ruck, In fleet succession, o'er his clouded soul, The poignard, and the opium draught, that brings Death by degrees, but leaves an awful chasm Between the act and consequence, the flash Sulphureous, fraught with instantaneous death ; The ruined tower perched on some jutting rock, So high that, 'tween the leap and dash below, The breath might take its flight in midway air, 20 THE SABBATH. This pleases for a time ; but on the brink, Back from the toppling edge his fancy shrinks In horror; sleep at last his breast becalms, He dreams 'tis done ; but starting wild awakes, Resigning to despair his dream of joy. Then hope, faint hope, revives hope, that Despair May to his aid let loose the demon Frenzy, To lead scared conscience blindfold o'er the brink Of self-destruction's cataract of blood. Most miserable, most incongruous wretch ! Dar'st thou to spurn thy life, the boon of God, Yet dreadest to approach his holy place ! O dare to enter in ! may be some word, Or sweetly chaunted strain, will in thy heart Awake a chord in unison with life, What are thy fancied woes to his, whose fate Is (sentence dire !) incurable disease, The outcast of a lazar-house, homeless, Or with a home where eyes do scowl on him ! THE SABBATH. 21 Yet he, even he, with feeble step draws near, With trembling voice joins in the song of praise. Patient he waits the hour of his release ; He knows he has a home beyond the grave. Or turn thee to that house with studded doors, And iron-visor'd windows ; even there The Sabbath sheds a beam of bliss, though faint; The debtor's friends (for still he has some friends) Have time to visit him ; the blossoming pea, That climbs the rust- worn bars, seems fresher tinged; And on the little turf, this day renewed, The lark, his prison mate, quivers the wing With more than wonted joy. See, through the bars, That pallid face retreating from the view, That glittering eye following, with hopeless look, The friends of former years, now passing by In peaceful fellowship to worship God ; With them, in days of youthful years, he roamed 22 THE SABBATH. O'er hill and dale, o'er broomy knowe; and wist As little as the blythest of the band Of this his lot; condemned, condemned unheard, The party for his judge : among the throng, The Pharisaical hard-hearted man He sees pass on, to join the heaven-taught prayer, Forgive our debts, as we forgive our debtors : From unforgiving lips most impious prayer O happier far the victim, than the hand That deals the legal stab ! The injured man Enjoys internal, settled calm ; to him The Sabbath bell sounds peace; he loves to meet His fellow-sufferers, to pray and praise : And many a prayer, as pure as e'er was breathed In holy fanes, is sighed in prison halls. Ah me ! that clank of chains, as kneel and rise The death-doomed row. But see, a smile illumes The face of some ; perhaps they're guiltless : Oh ! And must high-minded honesty endure THE SABBATH. 23 The ignominy of a felon's fate ! No, 'tis not ignominious to be wronged ; No ; conscious exultation swells their hearts, To think the day draws nigh, when in the view Of angels, and of just men perfect made, The mark which rashness branded on their names Shall be effaced ; when, wafted on life's storm, Their souls shall reach the Sabbath of the skies j As birds, from bleak Norwegia's wintry coast Blown out to sea, strive to regain the shore, But, vainly striving, yield them to the blast, Swept o'er the deep to ALBION'S genial isle, Amazed they light amid the bloomy sprays Of some green vale, there to enjoy new loves, And join in harmony unheard before. The land is groaning 'neath the guilt of blood Spilt wantonly : for every death-doomed man, Who, in his boyhood, has been left untaught 24 THE SABBATH. That Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her paths are peace, unjustly dies. But ah ! how many are thus left untaught, How many would be left, but for the band United to keep holy to the Lord A portion of His day, by teaching those Whom Jesus loved with forth-stretched hand to bless. Behold you motley train, by two and two, Each with a bible 'neath its little arm, Approach, well-pleased as if they went to play, The dome where simple lore is learnt unbought : And mark the father 'mid the sideway throng ;-^ Well do I know him by his glistening eye, That follows stedfastly one of the line. A dark sea- faring man he looks to be; And much it glads his boding heart to think, That when once more he sails the vallied deep, His child shall still receive Instruction's boon. But hark, ra noise, a cry, a gleam of swords ! THE SABBATH. Resistance is in vain, he's borne away, Nor is allowed to clasp his weeping child. My innocent, so helpless, yet so gay ! How could I bear to be thus rudely torn From thee; to see thee lift thy little arm. And impotently strike the ruffian man, To hear thee bid him chidingly, begone ! O ye, who live at home, and kiss each eve Your sleeping infants ere ye go to rest, And, 'wakened by their call, lift up your eyes Upon their morning smile, think, think of those Who, torn away without one farewell word To wife, or children, sigh the day of life In banishment from all that's dear to man, O raise your voices, in one general peal Remonstrant, for the opprest. And ye, who sit * Month after month devising impost-laws, 26 THE SABBATH. Give some small portion of your midnight vigils, To mitigate, if not remove the wrong. Relentless Justice ! with fate-furrowed brow ! Wherefore to various crimes of various guilt, One penalty, the most severe, allot ! Why, palled in state, and mitred with a wreath Of nightshade, dost thou sit portentously, Beneath a cloudy canopy of sighs, Of fears, of trembling hopes, of boding doubts ! Death's dart thy mace ! Why are the laws of God, Statutes promulged in characters of fire,* Despised in deep concerns, where heavenly guidance Is most required ! The murderer, let him die, * " And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, tbat there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud up- on the Mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud ; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled." EXOD. six. 1C. THE SABBATH. 27 And him who lifts his arm against his parent, His country, or his voice against his God. Let crimes less heinous, dooms less dreadful meet, Than loss of life ! so said the law divine, That law beneficent, which mildly stretched To men forgotten and forlorn, the hand Of restitution : Yes, the trumpet's voice The Sabbath of the jubilee* announced : The freedom-freighted blast, through all the land At once, in every city, echoing rings, From Lebanon to Carmel's woody cliffs, * " And thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years ; and the space of the seven Sab- baths of years shall be unto thce forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty through- out all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you ; and ye shall return every man unto his pos- icssion, and ye shall return every man unto his family.'' LEY. xxv. 8, 9, 19. *8 THE SABBATH. So loud, that far within the desart's verge The couching lion starts, and glares around. Free is the bondman now, each one returns To his inheritance : The man, grown old In servitude far from his native fields, Hastes joyous on his way; no hills are steep, Smooth is each rugged path ; his little ones Sport as they go, while oft the mother chides The lingering step, lured by the way-side flowers : At length the hill, from which a farewell look, And still another parting look, he cast On his paternal vale, appears in view : The summit gained, throbs hard his heart with joy And sorrow blent, to see that vale once more : Instant his eager eye darts to the roof Where first he saw the light : his youngest born He lifts, and, pointing to the much-loved spot, Says, "There thy fathers lived, and there they sleep." Onward he wends ; near and more near he draws : THE SABBATH. How sweet the tinkle of the palm-bovvered brook ! The sun-beam slanting through the cedar grove How lovely, and how mild ! but lovelier still The welcome in the eye of ancient friends, Scarce known at first ! and dear the fig-tree shade, 'Neath which on Sabbath eve his father told * Of Israel from the house of bondage freed, Led through the desart to the promised land ; With eager arms the aged stem he clasps, And with his tears the furrowed bark bedews : And still, at midnight-hour, he thinks he hears The blissful sound that brake the bondman's chains, The glorious peal of freedom and of joy ! * " And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart : And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Thou shalt say unto thy on, AVe were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt 5 and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty haud." DEUT. vi, 6. 7.21. 30 THE SABBATH. Did ever law of man a power like this Display ? power marvellous as merciful, Which, though in other ordinances still Most plainly seen, is yet but little marked For what it truly is, a miracle ! Stupendous, ever new, performed at once In every region, yea, on every sea Which Europe's navies plow ; yes, in all lands, From pole to pole, or civilized or rude, People there are, to whom the Sabbath morn Dawns, shedding dews into their drooping hearts : Yes, far beyond the high-heaved western wave, Amid COLUMBIA'S wildernesses vast, The words which God in thunder from the mount Of Sinai spake, are heard, and are obeyed. Thy children, Scotia, in the desart land, Driven from their homes by fell Monopoly, Keep holy to the Lord the seventh day. Assembled under loftiest canopy THE SABBATH. 51 Of trees primeval, soon to be laid low, They sing, By Babel's streams we sat and wept. What strong mysterious links enchain the heart To regions where the morn of life was spent ! In foreign lands, though happier be the clime, Though round our board smile all the friends we love, The face of nature wears a stranger's look. Yea, though the valley which we loved be swept Of its inhabitants, none left behind, Not even the poor blind man who sought his bread From door to door, still, still there is a want; Yes, even he, round whom" a night that knows No dawn is ever spread, whose native vale Presented to his closed eyes a blank, Deplores its distance now. There well he knew Each object, though unseen ; there could he wend His way, guideless, through wilds and mazy woods; Each aged tree, spared when the forest fell, Was his familiar friend, from the smooth birch, 88 THE SABBATH. With rind of silken touch, to the rough elm : The three gray stones, that marked where heroes lay, Mourned by the harp, mourned by the melting voice Of Cona, oft his resting-place had been ; Oft had they told him that his home was near ; The tinkle of the rill, the murmuring So gentle of the brook, the torrent's rush, The cataract's din, the ocean's distant roar, The echo's answer to his foot or voice; All spoke a language which he understood, All warned him of his way. But most he feels, Upon the hallowed morn, the saddening change : No more he hears the gladsome village bell Ring the blest summons to the house of God : And, for the voice of psalms, loud, solemn, grand, That cheered his darkling path, as with slow step And feeble, he toiled up the spire-topt hill, A few faint notes ascend among the trees. THE SABBATH. 33 What though the clustered vine there hardly tempts The traveller's hand ; though birds of dazzling plume Perch on the loaded houghs : " Give me thy woods, (Exclaims the banished man,) thy barren woods, Poor SCOTLAND ! sweeter there the reddening haw, The sloe, or rowan's* bitter bunch, than here The purple grape ; dearer the red-breast's note, That mourns the fading year in SCOTIA'S vales, Than Philomel's, where spring is ever new ; More dear to me the redbreast's sober suit, So like a withered leaflet, than the glare Ofgaudy wings, that make the Iris dim." Nor is regret exclusive to the old : The boy, whose birth was midway o'er the main, A ship his cradle, by the billows rocked, " The nursling of the storm," although he claims * .Mouiituin-asli. c 34 THE SABBATH. No native land, yet does he wistful hear Of some far distant country, still called home, Where lambs of whitest fleece sport on the hills; Where gold-specked fishes wanton in the streams ; Where little birds, when snow-flakes dim the air, Light on the floor, and peck the table-crumbs, And with their singing cheer the winter day. But what the loss of country to the woes Of banishment and solitude combined ! Oh ! my heart bleeds to think there now may liv One hapless man, the remnant of a wreck, Cast on some desart island of that main Immense, which stretches from the Cochin shore To Acapulco. Motionless he sits, As is the rock his seat, gazing whole days, With wandering eye, o'er all the watery waste j Now striving to believe the albatross A sail appearing on the horizon's verge ; 11 THE SABBATH. 35 Now vowing ne'er to cherish other hope Than hape of death. Thus pass his weary hours, Till welcome evening warn him that 'tis time Upon the shell-notched calendar to mark Another day, another dreary day, Changeless, for in these regions of the sun, The wholesome law that dooms mankind to toil, Bestowing grateful interchange of rest And labour, is annulled ; for there the trees, Adorned at once with bud, and flower, and fruit, Drop, as the breezes blow, a shower of bread And blossoms on the ground : But yet by him, The Hermit of the Deep, not unobserved The Sabbath passes. 'Tis his great delight. Each seventh eve he marks the farewell ray, And loves, and sighs to think, that setting sun Is now empurpling SCOTLAND'S mountain-tops, Or, higher risen, slants athwart her vales, Tinting with yellow light the quivering throat 36 THE SABBATH. Of day-spring lark, while woodland birds below Chaunt in the dewy shades, Thus all night long" He watches, while the rising moon describes The progress of the day in happier lands. And now he almost fancies that he hears The chiming from his native village church : And now he sings, and fondly hopes the strain May be the same, that sweet ascends at home In congregation full, where, not without a tear, They are remembered who in ships behold The wonders of the deep : * he sees the hand, The widowed hand, that veils the eye suffused ; He sees his orphan *d boy look up, and strive The widowed heart to sooth. His spirit leans On God. Nor does he leave his weekly vigil, Though tempests ride o'er welkin-lashing waves * " They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep." PSAL. cvii . THE SABBATH. ST On winds of cloudless wing ; f though lightnings burst So vivid, that the stars are hid and seen In awful alternation : Calm he views The far-exploding firmament, and dares To hope one bolt in mercy is reserved For his release; and yet he is resigned To live ; because full well he is assured, Thy hand does lead him, thy right hand upholds, t And thy right hand does lead him. Lo ! at last, One sacred eve, he hears, faint from the deep, Music remote, swelling at intervals, As if the embodied spirit of sweet sounds Came slowly floating on the shoreward wave : The cadence well he knows, a hymn of old, t In the tropical regions, the sky during storms is often without a cloud. J " If I take the wing:; of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead roe, and thy right hand shall hold me." P<\i.. cxxxix. 38 THE SABBATH. Where sweetly is rehearsed the lowly state Of Jesus, when his birth was first announced In midnight music, by an angel choir, To Bethlehem's shepherds, as* they watch'd their flocks. Breathless, the man forlorn listens, and thinks It is a dream. Fuller the voices swell. He looks, and starts to see, moving along, A fiery wave, f (so seems it,) crescent formed, * " And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And, lo ! the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for, behold ! I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you, Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multi- tude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." LUKE, ii. 8 14. -r " In some seas, as particularly about the coast of Mala- bar, as a ship floats along, it seems during the night to be sur- rounded with fire, and to leave a long tract of light behind it. THE SABBATH. 89 Approaching to the land ; straightway he sees A towering whiteness ; 'tis the heaven-filled sails That waft the missioned men, who have renounced Their homes, their country, nay, almost the world, Bearing glad tidings to the farthest isles Of ocean, that the dead shall rise again. Forward the gleam-girt castle coastwise glides. It seems as it would pass away. To cry The wretched man in vain attempts, in vain, Powerless his voice as in a fearful dream : Not so his hand : he strikes the flint, a blaze Mounts from the ready heap of withered leaves : The mqsic ceases ; accents harsh succeed, Harsh, but most grateful : downward drop the sails ; Ingulphed the anchor sinks ; the boat is launched ; But cautious lies aloof till morning dawn : W henever the sea is gently agitated, it seems converted into little stars; every drop as it breaks emits light, like bodies electrified in the dark." DARWIN. 40 THE SABBATH. O then the transport of the man, unused To other human voice beside his own, His native tongue to hear! he breathes at home, Though earth's diameter is interposed. Of perils of the sea he has no dread, Full well assured the missioned bark is safe, Held in the hollow of the Almighty's hand. (And signal thy deliverances have been Of these thy messengers of peace and joy.) From storms that loudly threaten to unfix Islands rock-rooted in the ocean's bed, Thou dost deliver them, and from the calm, More dreadful than the storm, when motionless Upon the purple deep the vessel lies For days, for nights, illumed by phosphor lamps; When sea-birds seem in nests of flame to float; When backward starts the boldest mariner To see, while o'er the side he leans, his face As if deep-tinged with blood. THE SABBVHl. , 41 Let worldly men The cause and combatants contemptuous scorn, And call fanatics them, who hazard health And life, in testifying of the truth ; Who joy and glory in the cross of Christ ! What were the Galilean fishermen But messengers, commissioned to announce The resurrection, and the life to come ! They too, though clothed with power of mighty works Miraculous, were oft received with scorn; Oft did their words fall powerless, though enforced By deeds that marked Omnipotence their friend : But, when their efforts failed, unweariedly They onward went, rejoicing in their course. Like helianthus,* borne on downy wings To distant realms, they frequent fell on soils * Sun flower. " The seeds of many plants of this kind arc furnished with a plume, by which admirable mechanism they are disseminated far from their parent stem.'' DARWIV. 4* THE SABBATH. Barren and thankless ; yet oft-times they saw Their labours crowned with fruit an hundred fold, Saw the new converts testify their faith By works of love, the slave set free, the sick Attended, prisoners visited, the poor Received as brothers at the rich man's board. Alas ! how different now the deeds of men Nursed in the faith of Christ ! the free, made slaves ! Stolen from their country, borne across the deep, Enchained, endungeoned, forced by stripes to live, Doomed to behold their wives, their little ones, Tremble beneath the white man's fiend-like frown ! Yet even to scenes like these, the SABBATH brings Alleviation of the enormous woe : The oft-reiterated stroke is still ; The clotted scourge hangs hardening in the shrouds. But see, the demon man, whose trade is blood, With dauntless front, convene his ruffian crew, To hear the sacred service read. Accursed, TUB SABBATH. 4 The wretch's bile-tinged lips profane the word Of God : Accursed, he ventures to pronounce The decalogue, aor faulters at that law, Wherein 'tis written, Thou shalt do no murder : Perhaps, while yet the words are on his lips, He hears a dying mother's parting groan ; He hears her orphan'd child, with lisping plaint, Attempt to rouse her from the sleep of death. O England ! England ! wash thy purpled hands Of this foul sin, and never dip them more In guilt so damnable ! then lift them up In supplication to that God, whose name Is Mercy ; then thou may'st, without the risk Of drawing vengeance from the surcharged clouds, Implore protection to thy menaced shores ; Then, God will blast the tyrant's arm that grasps The thunderbolt of ruin o'er thy head j Then, will he turn the wolvish race to prey 44 THE SABBATH. Upon each other ; then, will he arrest The lava torrent, causing it regorge Back to its source with fiery desolation. Of all the murderous trades by mortals plied, 3 Tis War alone that never violates The hallowed day by simulate respect, By hypocritic rest : No, no, the work proceeds. From sacred pinnacles are hung the flags, * That give the sign to slip the leash from slaughter. The bells, whose knoll a holy calmness poured Into the good man's breast, whose sound solaced The sick, the poor, the old'-perversion dire Pealing with sulphurous tongue, speak death-fraught words : From morn to eve Destruction revels frenzied, Till at the hour when peaceful vesper-chimes * Church steeples are frequently used as signal-posts. THE SABBATH. 45 Were wont to sooth the ear, the trumpet sounds Pursuit and flight altern ; and for the song Of larks, descending to their grass-bowered homes, The croak of flesh-gorged ravens, as they slake Their thirst in hoof-prints filled with gore, disturbs The stupor of the dying man : while Death Triumphantly sails down the ensanguined stream, On corses throned, and crowned with shivered boughs. That erst hung imaged in the crystal tide. * And what the harvest of these bloody fields ? A double weight of fetters to the slave, And chains on arms that wielded Freedom's sword. Spirit of TELL ! and art thou doomed to see Thy mountains, that confessed no other chains Than what the wintry elements had forged, * After a heavy cannonade, the shivered branches of trees, and the corpses of the killed, are seen floating together down the rivers. 46 THE SABBATH. Thy vales, where Freedom, and her stem compeer, Proud virtuous Poverty, their noble state Maintained, amid surrounding threats of wealth, Of superstition, and tyrannic sway Spirit of TELL ! and art thou doomed to see That land subdued by slavery's basest slaves; By men, whose lips pronounce the sacred name Of Liberty, then kiss the despot's foot ? HELVETIA ! hadst thou to thyself been true, Thy dying sons had triumphed as they fell : But 'twas a glorious effort, though in vain. Aloft thy Genius, 'mid the sweeping clouds, The flag of Freedom spread ; bright in the storm The streaming meteor waved, and far it gleamed; But, ah ! 'twas transient as the Iris' arch, Glanced from Leviathan's ascending shower, When mid the mountain waves heaving his head. Already had the friendly-seeming foe Possessed the snow-piled ramparts of the land : THE SABBATH. Down like an avalanche they rolled, they crushed The temple, palace, cottage, every work Of art and nature, in one common ruin. The dreadful crush is o'er, and peace ensues, The peace of desolation, gloomy, still : Each day is hushed as Sabbath ; but, alas ! No Sabbath- service glads the seventh day ! No more the happy villagers are seen, Winding adovvn the rock-hewn paths, that wont To lead their footsteps to the house of prayer; But, far apart, assembled in the depth Of solitudes, perhaps a little groupe Of aged men, and orphan boys, and maids Bereft, list to the breathings of the holy man. Who spurns an oath of fealty to the power Of rulers chosen by a tyrant's nod. No more, as dies the rustling of the breeze, Is heard the distant vesper-hymn ; no more At gloamin hour, the plaintive strain, that links 48 THE SABBATH. His country to the SWITZER'S heart, delights The loosening team ; or if some shepherd boy Attempt the strain, his voice soon faultering stops ; He feels his country now a foreign land. O, Scotland ! canst thou for a moment brook The mere imagination, that a fate Like this should e'er be thine ! that o'er these hills And dear-bought vales, whence WALLACE, DOUGLAS, BRUCE, Repelled proud EDWARD'S multitudinous hordes j A Gallic foe, that abject race, should rule ! No, no ! let never hostile standard touch Thy shore : rush, rush into the dashing brine, And crest each wave with steel; and should the stamp Of Slavery's footstep violate the strand, Let not the tardy tide efface the mark ; Sweep off the stigma with a sea of blood ! THE SABBATH. 49 Thrice happy he who, far in Scottish glen Retired (yet ready at his country's call,) Has left the restless emmet-hill of man ! He never longs to read the saddening tale Of endless wars : and seldom does he hear The tale of woe ; and ere it reaches him, Rumour, so loud when new, has died away Into a whisper, on the memory borne Of casual traveller : As on the deep, Far from the sight of land, when all around Is waveless calm, the sudden tremulous swell, That gently heaves the ship, tells, as it rolls, Of earthquakes dread, and cities overthrown. O Scotland ! much I love thy tranquil dales ; But most on Sabbath eve, when low the sun Slants through the upland copse, 'tis my delight, Wandering, and stopping oft, to hear the song Of kindred praise arise from humble roofs ; D 50 THE SABBATH. Or, when the simple service ends, to hear The lifted latch, and mark the grey-haired man, The father and the priest, walk forth alone Into his garden-plat, or little field, To commune with his God in secret prayer, To bless the Lord, that in his downward years His children are about him : Sweet, meantime, The thrush, that sings upon the aged thorn, Brings to his view the days of youthful years, When that same aged thorn was but a bush. Nor is the contrast between youth and age To him a painful thought ; he joys to think His journey near a close, heaven is his home. More happy far that man, though bowed down, Though feeble be his gait, and dim his eye, Than they, the favourites of youth and health, Of riches, and of fame, who have renounced The glorious promise of the life to come, Clinging to death. 2 THE SABBATH. 51 Or mark that female face, The faded picture of its former self, The garments coarse, but clean ; frequent at church I've noted such a one, feeble and pale, Yet standing, with a look of mild content, Till beckoned by some kindly hand to sit. She has seen better days ; there was a time, Her hands could earn her bread, and freely give To those who were in want ; but now old age, And lingering disease, have made her helpless. Yet is she happy, aye, and she is wise, (Philosophers may sneer, and pedants frown,) Although her Bible is her only book ; And she is rich, although her only wealth Is recollection of a well spent life Is expectation of the life to come. Examine here, explore the narrow path In which she walks ; look not for virtuous deeds In history's arena, where the prize ** THE SABBATH. Of fame, or power, prompts to heroic acts. Peruse the lives themselves of men obscure : There charity, that robs itself to give ; There fortitude in sickness, nursed by want ; There courage, that expects no tongue to praise ; There virtue lurks, like purest gold deep hid, With no alloy of selfish motive mixed. The poor man's boon, that stints him of his bread, Is prized more highly in the sight of Him, Who sees the heart, than golden gifts from hands That scarce can know their countless treasures less : * Yea, the deep sigh that heaves the poor man's breast * " And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury ; and many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor wi- dow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast more in than all they which have cast into the treasury : For all they did cast in of their abundance, but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living." MARK, xii. 4144. THE SABBATH. 55 To see distress, and feel his willing arm Palsied by penury, ascends to heaven; While ponderous bequests of lands and goods Ne'er rise above their earthly origin. And should all bounty, that is clothed with power, Be deemed unworthy ? Far be such a thought ! Even when the rich bestow, there are sure tests Of genuine charity : Yes, yes, let wealth Give other alms than silver or than gold, Time, trouble, toil, attendance, watchfulness, Exposure to disease ; yes, let the rich Be often seen beneath the sick man's roof : Or cheering, with inquiries from the heart, And hopes of health, the melancholy range Of couches in the public wards of woe : There let them often bless the sick man's bed, With kind assurances that all is well At home ; that plenty smiles upon the board,- 54 THE SABBATH. The while the hand, that earned the frugal meal, Can hardly raise itself in sign of thanks. Above all duties, let the rich man search Into the cause he knoweth not, nor spurn The suppliant wretch as guilty of a crime. Ye blessed with wealth ! (another name for power Of doing good) O would ye but devote A little portion of each seventh day, To acts of justice to your fellow men ! The house of mourning silently invites : Shun not the crowded alley; prompt descend Into the half-sunk cell, darksome and damp ; Nor seem impatient to begone : Inquire, Console, instruct, encourage, sooth, assist; Read, pray, and sing a new song to the Lord ; Make tears of joy down grief-worn furrows flow. O Health ! thou sun of life, without whose beam THE SABBATH. 55 The fairest scenes of nature seem involved In darkness, shine upon my dreary path Once more ; or, with thy faintest dawn, give hope, That I may yet enjoy thy vital ray ! Though transient be the hope, 'twill be most sweet, Like midnight music, stealing on the ear, Then gliding past, and dying slow away. Music ! thou soothing power, thy charm is proved Most vividly when clouds o'ercast the soul ; So light its loveliest effect displays In lowering skies, when through the murky rack A slanting sun-beam shoots, and instant limns The ethereal curve of seven harmonious dyes, Eliciting a splendour from the gloom : O Music ! still vouchsafe to tranquillize This breast perturbed ; thy voice, though mournful soothes ; And mournful ay are thy most beauteous lays, Like fall of blossoms from the orchard boughs, S6 THE SABBATH. The autumn of the spring. Enchanting power ! Who, by thy airy spell, canst whirl the mind Far from the busy haunts of men, to vales Where TWEED or YARROW flows; or, spurning time, Recal red FLODDEN field ; or suddenly Transport, with altered strain, the deafened ear To LINDEN'S plain ! But what the pastoral lay, The melting dirge, the battle's trumpet-peal, Compared to notes with sacred numbers linked In union, solemn, grand ! O then the spirit, Upborne on pinions of celestial sound, Soars to the throne of God, and ravished hears Ten thousand times ten thousand voices rise In halleluias, voices, that erewhile Were feebly tuned perhaps to low-breathed hymns Of solace in the chambers of the poor, The Sabbath worship of the friendless sick. Blest be the female votaries, whose days THE SABBATH. T No Sabbath of their pious labours prove, Whose lives are consecrated to the toil Of ministering around the uncurtained couch Of pain and poverty ! Blest be the hands, The lovely hands, (for beauty, youth, and grace, Are oft concealed by Pity's closest veil,) That mix the cup medicinal, that bind The wounds, which ruthless warfare and disease Have to the loathsome lazar-house consigned. Fierce Superstition of the mitred king ! Almost I could forget thy torch and stake, When I this blessed sisterhood survey, Compassion's priestesses, disciples true Of Him, whose touch was health, whose single word Electrified with life the palsied arm, Of him, who said, Take up thy bed, and "walk, Of him, who cried to Lazarus, Come forth. And he who cried to Lazarus, Come forth, 68 THE SABBATH. Will, when the Sabbath of the tomb is past, Call forth the dead, and re-unite the dust (Transformed and purified) to angel souls. Extatic hope ! belief ! conviction firm ! How grateful 'tis to recollect the time When hope arose to faith ! Faintly at first, The heavenly voice is heard : Then, by degrees, Its music sounds perpetual in the heart. Thus he, who all the gloomy winter long Has dwelt in city-crowds, wandering afield Betimes on Sabbath morn, ere yet the spring Unfold the daisy's bud, delighted hears The first lark's note, faint yet, and short the song, Checked by the chill ungenial northern breeze ; But, as the sun ascends, another springs, And still another soars on loftier wing, Till all o'erhead, the joyous choir unseen, Poised welkin high, harmonious fills the air, As if it were a link 'tween earth and heaven. SABBATH WALKS. SPRING SABBATH WALK. JMosT earnest was his voice ! most mild his look, As with raised hands he blessed his parting flock. He is a faithful pastor of the poor ; He thinks not of himself; his Master's words, Feed, feed my sheep,* are ever at his heart, The cross of CHRIST is ay before his eyes. * " So when he had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Si- mon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these ? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me ? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me ? Peter was grieved, because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him,*Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep." JOHN, ixi, 1517. 62 A SPRING SABBATH WALK. O, how I love, with melted soul, to leave The house of prayer, and wander in the fields Alone ! What though the opening spring be chill f Although the lark, checked in his airy path, Eke out his song, perched on the fallow clod, That still o'ertops the blade ! Although no branch Have spread its foliage, save the willow wand, That dips its pale leaves in the swollen stream ! What though the clouds oft lower ! Their threats but end In sunny showers, that scarcely fill the folds Of moss-couched violet, or interrupt The merle's dulcet pipe, melodious bird ! He, hid behind the milk-white sloe-thorn spray, (Whose early flowers anticipate the leaf,) Welcomes the time of buds, the infant year. Sweet is the sunny nook, to which my steps Have brought me, hardly conscious where I roamed, Unheeding where, so lovely all around, The works of GOD, arrayed in vernal smile ! A SPRING SABBATH WALK. 63 Oft at this season, musing, I prolong My devious range, till, sunk from view, the sun Emblaze, with upward-slanting ray, the breast, And wing unquivering of the wheeling lark, Descending, vocal, from her latest flight ; While, disregardful of yon lonely star, The harbinger of chill night's glittering host, Sweet Redbreast, SCOTIA'S Philomela, chaunts, In desultory strains, his evening hymn. SUMMER SABBATH WALK. DELIGHTFUL is this loneliness ; it calms My heart : pleasant the cool beneath these elms, That throw across the stream a moveless shade. Here nature in her mid noon whisper speaks : How peaceful every sound ! the ring-dove's plaint, Moaned from the twilight centre of the grove, While every other woodland lay is mute, Save when the wren flits from her down-coved nest, And from the root-sprigs trills her ditty clear, The grashopper's oft-pausing chirp, the buzz, Angrily shrill, of moss-entangled bee, A SUMMER SABBATH WALK. That, soon as loosed, booms with full twang away, The sudden rushing of the minnow shoal, Scared from the shallows by my passing tread. Dimpling the water glides, with here and there A glossy fly, skimming in circlets gay The treacherous surface, while the quick-eyed trout Watches his time to spring; or, from above, Some feathered dam, purveying midst the boughs, Darts from her perch, and to her plume-less brood Bears off the prize : Sad emblem of man's lot ! He, giddy insect, from his native leaf, (Where safe and happily he might have lurked) Elate upon ambition's gaudy wings, Forgetful of his origin, and, worse, Unthinking of his end, flies to the stream; And if from hostile vigilance he 'scape, Buoyant he flutters but a little while, Mistakes the inverted image of the sky For heaven itself, and, sinking, meets his fate, E 66 A SUMMER SABBATH WALK. Now, let me trace the stream up to its source Among the hills; its runnel by degrees Diminishing, the murmur turns a tinkle. Closer and closer still the banks approach, Tangled so thick with pleaching bramble-shoots, With brier, and hazel branch, and hawthorn spray, That, fain to quit the dingle, glad I mount Into the open air : Grateful the breeze That fans my throbbing temples! smiles the plain Spread wide below : how sweet the placid view ! But, O ! more sweet the thought, heart-soothingthought, That thousands, and ten thousands of the sons Of toil, partake this day the common joy Of rest, of peace, of viewing hill and dale, Of breathing in the silence of the woods, And blessing Him, who gave the Sabbath day. Yes, my heart flutters with a freer throb, To think that now the townsman wanders forth Among the fields and meadows, to enjoy 11 A SUMMER SABBATH WALK. T The coolness of the day's decline; to see His children sport around, and simply pull The flower and weed promiscuous, as a boon, Which proudly in his breast they smiling fix. Again I turn me to the hill, and trace The wizard stream, now scarce to be discerned; Woodless its banks, but green with ferny leaves, And thinly strewed with heath-bells up and down. Now, when the downward sun has left the glens, Each mountain's rugged lineaments are traced Upon the adverse slope, where stalks gigantic The shepherd's shadow thrown athwart the chasm, As on the topmost ridge he homeward hies. How deep the hush ! the torrent's channel, dry, Presents a stony steep, the echo's haunt. But hark, a plaintive sound floating along ! 'Tis from yon heath-roofed shielin ; now it dies 68 A SUMMER SABBATH WALK. Away, now rises full ; it is the song Which He, who listens to the halleluiahs Of choiring Seraphim delights to hear; It is the music of the heart, the voice Of venerable age, of guileless youth, In kindly circle seated on the ground Before their wicker door : Behold the man ! The grandsire and the saint ; his silvery locks Beam in the parting ray; before him lies, Upon the smooth-cropt sward, the open book, His comfort, stay, and ever new-delight; While, heedless, at his side, the lisping boy Fondles the lamb that nightly shares his couch. [ 69 ] AN AUTUMN SABBATH WALK. WHEN homeward bands their several ways disperse, I love to linger in the narrow field Of rest ; to wander round from tomb to tombj And think of some who silent sleep below. Sad sighs the wind, that from those ancient elms Shakes showers of leaves upon the withered grass : The sere and yellow wreaths, with eddying sweep, Fill up the furrows 'tween the hillocked graves. But list that moan ! 'tis the poor blind man's dog, His guide for many a day, now come to mourn The master and the friend conjunction rare ! 70 AN AUTUMN SABBATH WALK. A man indeed he was of gentle soul, Though bred to brave the deep : the lightning's flash Had dimmed, not closed, his mild, but sightless eyes. He was a welcome guest through all his range; (It was not wide :) no clog would bay at him : Children would run to meet him on his way, And lead him to a sunny seat, and climb His knee, and wonder at his oft-told tales. Then would he teach the elfins how to plait The rushy cap and crown, or sedgy ship : And I have seen him lay his tremulous hand Upon their heads, while silent moved his lips. Peace to thy spirit ! that now looks on me, Perhaps with greater pity than I felt To see thee wandering darkling on thy way. But let me quit this melancholy spot, And roam where nature gives a parting smile. As yet the blue-bells linger on the sod AN AUTUMN SABBATH WALK. 71 That copes the sheepfold ring; and in the woods A second blow of many flowers appears ; Flowers faintly tinged, and breathing no perfume. But fruits, not blossoms, form the woodland wreath, That circles Autumn's brow: The ruddy haws Now clothe the half-leaved thorn; the bramble bends Beneath its jetty load ; the hazel hangs With auburn bunches, dipping in the stream That sweeps along, and threatens to o'erflow The leaf-strewn banks: Oft, statue-like, I gaze, In vacancy of thought, upon that stream, And chace, with dreaming eye, the eddying foam ; Or rowans clustered branch, or harvest sheaf, Borne rapidly adown the dizzying flood. WINTER SABBATH WALK. -How dazzling white the snowy scene ! deep, deep, The stillness of the winter Sabbath day, Not even a foot-fall heard. Smooth are the fields, Each hollow pathway level with the plain : Hid are the bushes, save that, here and there, Are seen the topmost shoots of brier or broom. High-ridged, the whirled drift has almost reached The powdered key-stone of the church-yard porch. Mute hangs the hooded-bell ; the tombs lie buried j No step approaches to the house of prayer. A WINTI:K SABBATH WALK. 73 The flickering fall is o'er : the clouds disperse, And shew the sun, hung o'er the welkin's verge, Shooting a bright but ineffectual beam On all the sparkling waste. Now is the time To visit nature in her grand attire; Though perilous the mountainous ascent, A noble recompense the danger brings. How beautiful the plain stretched far below ! Unvaried though it be, save by yon stream With azure windings, or the leafless wood. But what the beauty of the plain, compared To that sublimity which reigns enthroned, Holding joint rule with solitude divine, Among you rocky fells, that bid defiance To steps the most adventurously bold ! There silence dwells profound ; or if the cry Of high-poised eagle break at times the calm, The mantled echoes no response return. 74 A WINTER SABBATH WALK. But let me now explore the deep sunk dell. No foot-print, save the covey's or the flock's, Is seen along the rill, where marshy springs Still rear the grassy blade of vivid green. Bevrare, ye shepherds, of these treacherous haunts, Nor linger there too long : the wintry day Soon closes ; and full oft a heavier fall, Heaped by the blast, fills up the sheltered glen, While, gurgling deep below, the buried rill Mines for itself a snow-coved way. O, then, Your helpless charge drive from the tempting spot, And keep them on the bleak hill's stormy side, Where nightwinds sweep the gathering drift away : So the great Shepherd leads the heavenly flock From faithless pleasures, full into the storms Of life, where long they bear the bitter blast, Until at length the vernal sun looks forth, Bedimmed with showers : Then to the pastures green He brings them, where the quiet waters glide, The streams of life, the Siloah of the soul. BIBLICAL PICTURES. THE FIRST SABBATH. Six days the heavenly host, in circle vast; Like that untouching cincture which enzones The globe of Saturn, compassed wide this orb, And with the forming mass floated along, In rapid course, through yet untravelled space, Beholding God's stupendous power, a world Bursting from Chaos at the omnific will, And perfect ere the sixth day's evening star On Paradise arose. Blessed that eve ! The Sabbath's harbinger, when, all complete, In freshest beauty from Jehovah's hand, Creation bloomed ; when Eden's twilight face 78 THK FIRST SABBATH. Smiled like a sleeping babe : The voice divine A holy calm breathed o'er the goodly work : Mildly the sun, upon the loftiest trees, Shed mellowly a sloping beam. Peace reigned, And love, and gratitude ; The human pair Their orisons poured forth, love, concord, reigned. The falcon, perched upon the blooming bough With Philomela, listened to her lay ; Among the antlered herd, the tyger couched Harmless; the lion's mane no terror spread Among the careless ruminating flock. Silence was o'er the deep ; the noiseless surge, The last subsiding wave, of that dread tumult Which raged, when Ocean, at the mute command, Rushed furiously into his new- cleft bed, Was gently rippling on the pebbled shore ; While, on the swell, the sea-bird with her head Wing-veiled, slept tranquilly. The host of heaven, Entranced in new delight, speechless adored ; THE FIRST SABBATH. 70 Nor stopped their fleet career, nor changed their form Encircular, till on that hemisphere, In which the blissful garden sweet exhaled Its incense, odorous clouds, the Sabbath dawn Arose ; then wide the flying circle oped, And soared, in semblance of a mighty rainbow. Silent ascend the choirs of Seraphim ; No harp resounds, mute is each voice ; the burst Of joy and praise, reluctant they repress, For love and concord all things so attuned To harmony, that Earth must have received The grand vibration, and to the centre shook : But soon as to the starry altitudes They reached, then what a storm of sound, tremendous, Swelled through the realms of space ! The morning stars Together sang, and all the sons of God Shouted for joy ! Loud was the peal ; so loud, As would have quite o'erwhelmed the human sense; But to the Earth it came a gentle strain. 80 THE FIRST SABBATH. Like softest fall breathed from ^Eolian lute, When 'mid the chords the evening gale expires. Day of the Lord ! creation's hallowed close ! Day of the Lord ! (prophetical they sang) Benignant mitigation of that doom, Which must, ere long, consign the fallen race, Dwellers in yonder star, to toil and woe ! t 81 ] THE FINDING OF MOSES. glides the Nile : amid the margin flags. Closed in a bulrush ark, the babe is left, Left by a mother's hand. His sister waits Far off; and pale, 'tween hope and fear, beholds The royal maid, surrounded by her train, Approach the river bank ; approach the spot Where sleeps the innocent : She sees them stoop With meeting plumes; the rushy lid is oped, And wakes the infant, smiling in his tears, As when along a little mountain lake, The summer south-wind breathes with gentle sigh, And parts the reeds, unveiling, as they bend, A water-lily floating on the wave. F 82 ] JACOB AND PHARAOH. PHARAOH, upon a gorgeous throne of state Was seated; while around him stood submiss His servants, watchful of his lofty looks. The Patriarch enters, leaning on the arm Of Benjamin. Unmoved by all the glare Of royalty, he scarcely throws a glance Upon the pageant show ; for from his youth A shepherd's life he led, and viewed each night The starry host ; and still where'er he went, He felt himself in presence of the Lord. Hi? eye is bent on Joseph, him pursues. Sudden the king descends; and, bending, kneels 11 JACOB AND PHARAOH. 83 Before the aged man, and supplicates A blessing from his lips : the aged man Lays on the ground his staffj and, stretching forth His tremulous hand o'er Pharaoh's uncrowned head, Prays that the Lord would bless him and his land. JEPHTHA'S VOW. conquest JEPHTHA came, with faultering step, i And troubled eye : His home appears in view ; He trembles at the sight. Sad he forbodes, His vow will meet a victim in his child : For well he knows, that, from her earliest years, She still was first to meet his homeward steps : Well he remembers, how, with tottering gait, She ran, and clasped his knees, and lisped, and looked Her joy ; and how, when garlanding with flowers His helm, fearful, her infant hand would shrink Back from the lion couched beneath the crest. What sound is that, which, from the palm-tree grove, JEFHTHA'S VOW. g5 Floats now with choral swell, now fainter falls Upon the ear? It is, it is the song He loved to hear, a song of thanks and praise, Sung by the patriarch for his ransomed son. Hope from the omen springs : O, blessed hope ! It may not be her voice ! Fain would he think 'Twas not his daughter's voice, that still approached, Blent with the timbrel's note. Forth from the grove She foremost glides of all the minstrel band : Moveless he stands ; then grasps his hilt, still red With hostile gore, but, shuddering, quits the hold; And clasps, in agony, his hands, and cries, " Alas, my daughter ! thou hast brought me low."- The timbrel at her rooted feet resounds. C 86 SAUL AND DAVID. DEEP was the furrow in the royal brow, When DAVID'S hand, lightly as vernal gales Rippling the brook of Kedron, skimmed the lyre : He sung of JACOB'S youngest born, the child Of his old age, sold to the Ishmaelite; His exaltation to the second power In PHARAOH'S realm; bis brethren thither sent; Suppliant they stood before his face, well known, Unknowing, till Joseph fell upon the neck Of BENJAMIN, his mother's son, and wept Unconsciously the warlike shepherd paused ; But when he saw, down the vet-quivering string, SAUL AND DAVID. 87 The tear-drop trembling glide, abashed, he checked, Indignant at himself, the bursting flood, And, with a sweep impetuous, struck the chords : From side to side his hands transversely glance, Like lightning thwart a stormy sea; his voice Arises 'mid the clang, and straightway calms The harmonious tempest, to a solemn swell Majestical, triumphant ; for he sings Of Arad's mighty host by Israel's arm Subdued ; of Israel through the desart led, He sings ; of him who was their leader, called, By God himself, from keeping JETHRO'S flock, To be a ruler o'er the chosen race. Kindles the eye of SAUL; his arm is poised; Harmless the javelin quivers in'the wall. ELIJAH FED BY RAVENS. OORE was the famine throughout all the bounds, Of Israel, when ELIJAH, by command Of GOD, journeyed to Cherith's failing brook. No rain-drops fall, no dew-fraught cloud, at morn, Or closing eve, creeps slowly up the vale ; The withering herbage dies ; among the palms, The shrivelled leaves send to the summer gale An autumn rustle ; no sweet songster's lay Is warbled from the branches ; scarce is heard The rill's faint brawl. The prophet looks around, And trusts in GOD, and lays his silvered head Upon the flowerless bank ; serene he sleeps, KLIJAH FED BY RAVENS. 89 Nor wakes till dawning : Then, with hands enclasped, And heavenward face, and eyelids closed, he prays To Him who manna on the desart showered, To Him who from the rock made fountains gush : Entranced the man of God remains ; till roused By sound of wheeling wings, with grateful heart, He sees the ravens fearless by his side Alight, and leave the heaven-provided food. C 90 3 THE BIRTH OF JESUS ANNOUNCED. L)EEP was the midnight silence in the fields Of Bethlehem ; hushed the folds ; save that at times Was heard the lamb's faint bleat : the shepherds, stretched On the green sward, surveyed the starry vault : The heavens declare the glory of the Lord, The firmament shews forth thy handy work ; Thus they, their hearts attuned to the Most High ; When suddenly, a splendid cloud appeared, As if a portion of the milky way THE BIRTH OF JESUS. 91 Descended slowly in a spiral course. Near, and more near it draws ; then, hovering, floats. High as the soar of eagle, shedding bright, Upon the folded flocks, a heavenly radiance, From whence was uttered loud, yet sweet, a voice/ Fear not, I bring good tidings of great joy ; For unto you is born this day a Saviour ! And this shall be a sign to you, the babe, Laid lowly in a manger, ye shall jind. The angel spake ; when, lo ! upon the cloud, A multitude of Seraphim, enthroned, Sang praises, saying, Glory to the Lord On high ; on earth be peace, good will to men. With sweet response harmoniously they choired, And while, with heavenly harmony, the song Arose to God, more bright the buoyant throne Illumed the land : The prowling lion stops, Awe-struck, with mane upreared, and flattened head ; And, without turning, backward on his steps 0* THE BIRTH OF JESUS. Recoils, aghast, into the desart gloom. A trembling joy the astonished shepherds prove, As heavenward re-ascends the vocal blaze Triumphantly ; while, by degrees, the strain Dies on the ear, that self-deluded listens, As if a sound so sweet could never die. BEHOLD MY MOTHER AND MY BRETHREN. Who is my mother, or my brethren ? He spake, and looked on them who sat around, With a meek smile, of pity blent with love, More melting than e'er gleamed from human face, As when a sun-beam, through a summer shower, Shines mildly on a little hill-side flock ; And with that look of love, he said, Behold My mother, and my brethren : for I say, That whosoe'er shall do the will of God, He is my brother, sister, mother, all. 94 RESTORED TO SIGHT. BLIND, poor, and helpless, BA.RTIMEUS sate, Listening the foot of the wayfaring man, Still hoping that the next, and still the next, Would put an alms into his trembling hand. He thinks he hears the coming breeze faint rustic Among the sycamores; it is the tread Of thousand steps ; it is the hum of tongues Innumerable : But when the sightless man Heard that the Nazarene was passing by, He cried, and said, " JESUS, thou son of Darid, BART1MEUS RESTORED TO SIGHT. 95 Have mercy upon me ! and, when rebuked, He cried the more, " Have mercy upon me." Thy faith hath made thee w/tole; so JESUS spake, And straight the blind BEHELD THE FACE OF GOD. C 96 1 LITTLE CHILDREN BROUGHT TO JESUS. Suffer that little children come to me, Forbid them not. Emboldened by his words, The mothers onward press; but, finding vain The attempt to reach the Lord, they trust their babes To strangers' hands : The innocents, alarmed Amid the throng of faces all unknown, Shrink, trembling, till their wandering eyes discern The countenance of JESUS, beaming love And pity; eager then they stretch their arms, And, cowring, lay their heads upon his breast. r 97 JESUS CALMS THE TEMPEST. THE roaring tumult of the billowed sea Awakes him not : high on the crested surge, Now heaved, his locks flow streaming in the blast; And, now descending, 'tween the sheltering waves, The falling tresses veil the face divine : Meek through that veil, a momentary gleam, Benignant, shines; he dreams that he beholds The opening eyes, that long hopeless had rolled, In darkness, look around bedimmed with tears Of joy ; but, suddenly, the voice of fear Dispelled the happy vision : Awful he rose, 98 JESUS CALMS THE TEMPEST. Rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be thou still! and straight there was a calm. With terror-mingled gladness in their looks, The mariners exclaim, What man iy this, That even the wind and sea obey his voice I 10 C i>9 3 JESUS WALKS ON THE SEA, AND CALMS THE STORM. LOUD blew the storm of night; the thwarting surge Dashed, boiling on the labouring bark: Dismay, From face to face reflected, spread around : When, lo ! upon a towering wave is seen The semblance of a foamy wreath, upright, Move onward to the ship : The helmsman starts, And quits his hold; the voyagers, appalled. Shrink from the fancied Spirit of the Flood : But when the voice of JESUS, with the storm 100 JESUS WALKS ON THE SEA. Soft mingled, It is I, be not afraid, Fear fled, and joy lightened from eye to eye. Up he ascends, and, from the rolling side, Surveys the tumult of the sea and sky With transient look severe : The tempest, awed, Sinks to a sudden calm ; the clouds disperse; The moon-beam trembles on the face divine, Reflected mildly in the unruffled deep. C 101 ] THE DUMB CURED. His eyes uplifted, and his hands close clasped, The dumb man, with a supplicating look, Turned, as the Lord passed by : JESUS beheld, And on him bent a pitying look, and spake : His moving lips are by the suppliant seen, And the last accents of the healing sentence Ring in that ear which never heard before. Prostrate the man restored falls to the earth, And uses first the gift, the gift sublime Of speech, in giving thanks to him, whose voice Was never uttered but in doing good. t 102 3 THE DEATH OF JESUS. 1 is finished : he spake the words, and bowed His head, and died Beholding him far off, They, who had ministered unto him, hope Tis his last agony : The Temple's vail Is rent ; revealing the most holy place, Wherein the cherubims their wings extend, Overshadowing the mercy-seat of God. Appalled, the leaning soldier feels the spear Shake in his grasp ; the planted standard falls Upon the heaving ground : The sun is dimmed, And darkness shrouds the body of the Lord. [ ios ] THE RESURRECTION. THE setting orb of night her level ray Shed o'er the land, and, on the dewy sward, The lengthened shadows of the triple cross Were laid far stretched, when in the east arose, Last of the stars, day's harbinger : No sound Was heard, save of the watching soldier's foot : Within the rock-barred sepulchre, the gloom Of deepest midnight brooded o'er the dead, The holy one : but, lo ! a radiance faint Began to dawn around his sacred brow : The linen vesture seemed a snowy wreath, Drifted by storms into a mountain cave : 104 THE RESURRECTION. Bright, and more bright, the circling halo beamed Upon that face, clothed in a smile benign, Though yet exanimate. Nor long the reign Of death ; the eyes that wept for human griefs, Unclose, and look around with conscious joy. Yes; with returning life, the first emotion That glowed in JESUS' breast of love, was joy At man's redemption, now complete ; at death Disarmed ; the grave transformed into the couch Of faith ; the resurrection and the life. Majestical he rose ; trembled the earth ; The ponderous gate of stone was rolled away; The keepers fell ; the angel, awe-struck, shrunk Into invisibility, while forth The Saviour of the World walked, and stood Before the sepulchre, and viewed the clouds Empurpled glorious by the rising sun. C 105 J JESUS APPEARS TO THE DISCIPLES. I HE evening of that day, which saw the Lord Rise from the chambers of the dead, was come. His faithful followers, assembled, sang A hymn, low-breathed; a hymn of sorrow, blent With hope ; when, in the midst, sudden he stood. The awe-struck circle backward shrink ; he looks Around with a benignant smile of love, And says, Peace be unto you : faith and joy Spread o'er each face, amazed : as when the moon Pavilioned in dark clouds, mildly comes forth, Silvering a circlet in the fleecy rank. [ 106 ] PAUL ACCUSED BEFORE THE TRIBUNAL OF THE AREOPAGUS. LISTEN that voice ! upon the hill of Mars, Rolling in bolder thunders, than e'er pealed From lips that shook the Macedonian throne ; Behold his dauntless outstretched arm, his face Illumed of heaven : he knoweth not the fear Of man, of principalities, of powers. The Stoic's moveless frown ; the vacant stare Of Epicurus' herd; the scowl and gnash malign Of Superstition, stopping both her ears j The Areopagite tribunal dread, PAUL ACCUSED. 107 From whence the doom of SOCRATES was uttered ; This hostile throng dismays him not; he seems, As if no worldly object could inspire A terror in his soul ; as if the vision, Which, when he journeyed to Damascus, shone From heaven, still swam before his eyes, Out-dazzling all things earthly; as if the voice, That spake from out the effulgence, ever rang Within his ear, inspiring him with words, Burning, majestic, lofty, as his theme, The resurrection, and the life to come. C 108 3 BEFOHE THE ROMAN GOVERNOR OF J IDE A. _l HE Judge ascended to the judgment seat; Amid a gleam of spears the Apostle stood. Dauntless, he forward came ; and looked around, And raised his voice, at first, in accents low, Yet clear ; a whisper spread among the throng :- So when the thunder mutters, still the breeze Is heard, at times, to sigh ; but when the peal, Tremendous, louder rolls, a silence dead Succeeds each pause, moveless the aspen leaf. PAUL ACCUSED. 109 Thus fixed, and motionless, the listening band Of soldiers forward leaned, as from the man, Inspired of God, truth's awful thunders rolled. No more he feels, upon his high raised arm, The ponderous chain, than does the playful child The bracelet, formed of many a flowery link. Heedless of self, forgetful that his life Is now to be defended by his words, He only thinks of doing good to them Who seek his life ; and while he reasons high Of justice, temperance, and the life to come, The Judge shrinks trembling at the prisoner's voice, MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. i us 3 PARAPHRASE. Who healeth all thy diseases ; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneih thee with loving kindness and tender mercies.- PSALM cm. 3, 4. HESE eyes, that were half-closed in death, Now dare the noontide blaze ; My voice, that scarce could speak my wants, Now hymns Jehovah's praise. How pleasant to my feet unused To tread the daisied ground ! How sweet to my unwonted ear The streamlet's lulling sound ! How soft the first breath of the breeze That on my temples played ! How sweet the woodland evening song, Full floating down the glade . r But sweeter far the lark that soars Through morning's blushing ray; For then unseen, unheard, I join His lonely heavenward lay. And sweeter still that infant voice With all its artless charms; 'Twas such as he that Jesus took And cherished in his arms. O Lord my God, all these delights I to thy mercy owe ; For thou hast raised me from the couch Of sickness, pain, and woe. A PARAPHRASE. 115 Twas thou that from the whelming wave My sinking soul redeemed ; Twas thou that o'er destruction's storm A calming radiance beamed. C H6 3 ON VISITING MELROSE, AFTER AN ABSENCE OF SIXTEEN YEARS. YON setting sun, that slowly disappears, Gleams a memento of departed years : Aye, many a year is gone, and many a friend, Since here I saw the autumn sun descend. Ah ! one is gone, whose hand was locked in mine, In this, that traces now the sorrowing line ; And now alone I scan the mouldering tombs, Alone I wander through the vaulted glooms, ON VISITING MELROSE. 117 And list, as if the echoes might retain One lingering cadence of her varied strain. Alas ! I heard that melting voice decay, Heard seraph tones in whispers die away ; I marked the tear presageful fill her eye, And quivering speak, I am resigned to die. Ye stars, that through the fretted windows shed A glimmering beam athwart the mighty dead, Say to what sphere her sainted spirit flew, That thither I may turn my longing view, And wish, and hope, some tedious seasons o'er, To join a long lost friend, and part no more. [ 118 3 How calm that little lake ! no breath of wind Sighs through the reeds ; a clear abyss it seems Held in the concave of the inverted sky, In which is seen the rook's dull flagging wing Move o'er the silvery clouds. How peaceful sails Yon little fleet, the wild duck and her brood ! Fearless of harm, they row their easy way ; THE WILD DUCK AND HER BROOD. 119 The water-lily, 'neath the plumy prows, Dips, re-appearing in their dimpled track. Yet, even amid that scene of peace, the noise Of war, unequal, dastard war, intrudes. Yon revel rout of men, and- boys, and dogs, Boisterous approach ; the spaniel dashes in ; Quick he descries the prey, and faster swims, And eager barks : the harmless flock, dismayed. Hasten to gain the thickest grove of reeds, All but the parent pair; they, floating, wait To lure the foe, and lead him from their young; But soon themselves are forced to seek the shore. Vniii then the buoyant wing; the leaden storm Arrests their flight ; they, fluttering, bleeding fall, And tinge the troubled bosom of the lake. C 120 3 TO 'A REDBREAST, THAT FLEW IN AT MY WINDOW. JROM snowy plains, and icy sprays, From moonless nights, and sunless days, Welcome, poor bird ! I'll cherish thee ; I love thee, for thou trustest me. Thrice welcome, helpless, panting guest ! Fondly I'll warm thee in my breast : How quick thy little heart is beating ! As if its brother flutterer greeting. TO A REDBREAST. 121 Thou need'st not dread a captive's doom ; No ! freely flutter round my room ; Perch on my lute's remaining string, And sweetly of sweet summer sing. That note, that summer note, I know ; It wakes, at once, and soothes my woe, I see those woods, I see that stream, I see, ah, still prolong the dream ! Still, with thy song, those scenes renevr, Though through my tears they reach my view. No more now, at my lonely meal. While thou art by, alone I'll feel; For soon, devoid of all distrust, Thou'lt, nibbling, share my humble crust ; Or on my finger, pert and spruce, Thoul't learn to sip the sparkling juice; And when (our short collation o'er) Some favourite volume I explore, M TO A REDBREAST. Be't work of poet or of sage, Safe thou shalt hop across the page ; Unchecked, shall flit o'er VIRGIL'S groves, Or flutter mid TIBULLUS' loves. Thus, heedless of the raving blast, Thou'lt dwell with me till winter's past ; And when the primrose tells 'tis spring, And when the thrush begins to sing, Soon as I hear the woodland song, Freed, thou shalt join the vocal throng. EPITAPH ON A BLACKBIRD, KILLED BY A HAWK. \V INTER was o'er, and spring-flowers decked the glade; The Blackbird's note among the wild woods rung: Ah, short-lived note ! the songster now is laid Beneath the bush, on which so sweet he sung. Thy jetty plumes, by ruthless falcon rent, Are now all soiled among the mouldering clay; A primrosed turf is all thy monument, And, for thy dirge, the Redbreast lends his lay. C 12* 3 THE POOR MAN'S FUNERAL. 1 ON motley, sable-suited throng, that wait Around the poor man's door, announce a tale Of woe; the husband, parent, is no more. Contending with disease, he laboured long, By penury compelled ; yielding at last, He 4aid him down to die ; but, lingering on From day to day, he, from his sickbed, saw, Heart-broken quite, his children's looks of want THE POOR MAN'S FUNERAL. ISS Veiled in a clouded smile ; alas ! he heard The elder, lispingly, attempt to still The younger's plaint, languid he raised his head. And thought he yet could toil, but sunk Into the arms of death, the poor man's friend. The coffin is borne out; the humble pomp Moves slowly on ; the orphan mourner's baud (Poor helpless child !) just reaches to the pall. And now they pass into the field of graves, And now around the narrow house they stand, And view the plain black board sink from the sight Hollow the mansion of the dead resounds, As falls each spadeful of the bone-mixed mould. The turf is spread ; uncovered is each head, A last farewell : all turn their several ways. Woes me ! those tear-dimmed eyes, that sobbing breast ! Poor child ! thou thinkcst of the kindly hand 186 THE POOR MAN'S FUNERAL. That wont to lead thee home : no more that hand Shall aid thy feeble gait, or gently stroke Thy sun-bleached head, and downy cheek. But go, a mother waits thy homeward steps; In vain her eyes dwell on the sacred page, Her thoughts are in the grave ; 'tis thou alone, Her first-born child, canst rouse that statue gaze Of woe profound. Haste to the widowed arms ; Look with thy father's look, speak with his voice, And melt a heart that else will break with grief. THE THANKSGIVING OFF CAPE TRAFALGAR. U PON the high, yet gently rolling wave, The floating tomb that heaves above the brave, Soft sighs the gale, that late tremendous roared, Whelming the wretched remnants ofthe sword. And now the cannon's peaceful thunder calls The victor bands, to mount their wooden walls, And from the ramparts, where their comrades fell, The mingled strain of joy and grief to swell: Fast they ascend, from stem to stern they spread, Aud crowd the engines whence the lightnings sped ; 188 TRAFALGAR. The white-robed Priest his upraised hands extends j Hushed is each voice, attention leaning bends ; Then from each prow the grand hosannas rise, Float o'er the deep, and hover to the skies. Heaven fills each heart ; yet Home will oft intrude, And tears of love celestial joys exclude. The wounded man, who hears the soaring strain, Lifts his pale visage, and forgets his pain; While parting spirits, mingling with the lay, On halleluiahs wing their heavenward way. t 129 TO MY SON. TWICE has the sun commenced his annual round, Since first thy footsteps tottered o'er the ground, Since first thy tongue was tuned to bless mine ear, By faultering out the name to fathers dear. O ! nature's language, with her looks combined, More precious far than periods thrice refined ! ! sportive looks of love, devoid of guile, 1 prize you more than beauty's magic smile ; Yes, in that face, unconscious of its charm, I gaze with bliss, unmuigled with alarm. i 130 TO MY SON. Ah, no ! full oft a boding horror flies Athwart my fancy, uttering fateful cries. Almighty Power ! his harmless life defend, And if we part, 'gainst me the mandate send. And yet a wish will rise, would I might live, Till added years his memory firmness give ! For O ! it would a joy in death impart, To think, I still survived within his heart; To think, he'll cast, midway the vale of years, A retrospective look, bedimmed with tears; And tell, regretful, how I looked and spoke; What walks I loved ; where grew my favourite oak How gently I would lead him by the hand ; How gently use the accent of command; What lore I taught him, roaming wood and wild, And how the man descended to the child ; How well I loved with him, on Sabbath morn, To hear the anthem of the vocal thorn ; To teach religion, unallied to strife, And trace to him, the way, the truth, the life. 11 TO MY SON. 131 But, far and farther still my view I bend, And now I see a child thy steps attend ; To yonder churchyard-wall thou tak'st thy way, While round thee, pleased, thou see'st the infant play; Then lifting him, while tears suffuse thine eyes, Pointing, thou tell'st him, there thy grandsirc lies ! NOTES. C 135 ] NOTES, THAT the religious observance of one day in seven was a point of main importance under the Jewish and Chris- tian dispensations, is evident, from the very strong terms in which the law commanding its observance is couched; from the anxious repetitions of that law, the judgments which the prophets denounced against its violation, the fulfilment of those denunciations, the strict observance of the Sabbath during the best times of the Jewish poli- ty; and its observance by Christ, the apostles, and the primitive Christians. What is more material, that the Sabbath was instituted, not as a mere ritual observance, but as an essential article of moral duly, is proved by this consideration, that one of the objects of the institution was the amelioration of the lot of the laborious part of 136 NOTES. the creation, animals as well as men. But the spirit of this admirable institution will be best illustrated, by bring- ing into one view some of those passages of scripture, whe- ther preceptive, prophetic, or historical, in which the SA IUJATH is mentioned. " Keep the Sabbath day, to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days shalt thou la- bour, and do all thy work. Tint the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-ser- vant may rest as tcell as thou. And remember that thon wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm : therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." DEUT- v. 1215. " Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanc- tuary : I am the Lord." LEV. xix. 30. " Six days shall work be done ; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation : ye shall do no work therein ; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all jour dwellings." LEV. xxiii. 3. NOTES. . 137 " Six days shalt thou do thy work, and on the seventh, day thou shalt rest, that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid and the stranger may be re- freshed." EXOD. xxii- 12. " Also the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant ; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer : their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar ; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all peo- ple." ISA. Ivi. 6, 7. " And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Lsaias; and when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken- hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recover- ing of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are brui- sed; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." LUKS, iv. 16 1J. 138 NOTES. " And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on. And the women also which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments, and rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment." LUKE, xxiii. 5456. " But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and sat down. And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. Then Paul stood up, and, beckoning with his hand, said, " Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience." " For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him."" And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles be- sought them that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath." ACTS, xiii. 14, 15, 16, 87, 42. " Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, When will the new raoon be gone, that we may sell corn ? and the Sab" NOTES. 139 balfi, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit .' That ye may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes ; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat." AMOS, viii. 4, 5, 6. " If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sab- bath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable, and shall honour htm, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasures, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father ; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." ISA. Ivii. 13, 14. " And on the Sabbath, he went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made." ACTS, xvi. 12. " And upon the first day of the week, when the disci- ples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow, and continued his ipeech until midnight." ACTS, xx. 7. The toil-worn horse set free. P. 4. 1. 15. " A Sabbath day's journey," says an able and faithful labourer in the vineyard of the Lord, " wa?, among the 140 NOTES. Jews, a proverbial expression for a very short tine. Among us it can have no such meaning affixed to it. That day seems to be considered by too many, as set apart, by divine and human authority, for the purpose, not of rest, but of its direct opposite, the labour of tra- velling; thus adding one day more of torment to those generous, but wretched animals, whose services they hire; and who, being generally strained beyond their strength the other six. days of the week, have, of all creatures under heaven, the best and most equitable claim to suspension of labour on the seventh. Consider- ations such as these may perhaps appear to some below the dignity of this place, and the solemnity of a Chris- tian assembly. But benevolence, even to the brute cre- ation, is, in its degree, a duty, no less than to our own species ; and it is mentioned by Solomon as a striking feature in the character of a righteous man, that ' he is merciful even to his beast.' HE, without whose permis- sion ' not a sparrow falls to the ground, and who feedeth the young ravens that call upon him,' will not suffer even the meanest work of his hands to be treated cruelly with impunity. He is the common Father of the whole cre- ation. He takes every part of it under his protection. He has, in various passages of scripture, expressed his concern even for irrational creatures, and has declared NOTES. 141 more especially, in the roost explicit terms, that the rest of the Sabbath was meant for our cattle and our servants, as well as for ourselves." BISHOP PORTEUS. Their constancy in torture and in death. P. 13. 1. 2. The following passage from Bishop Burnet's History of hi- Own Time, will give some notion of the kind, though not of the extent, of that hideous persecution, from which the people of Scotland were delivered by the Revolution. " When any are to be struck in the boots, it is done in the presence of the council ; and upon that occasion almost all offer to run away. The sight is so dreadful, that, without an order restraining luch a number to stay, the board would be forsaken. But the duke, while he had been in Scotland, was so far from withdrawing, that he looked on all the while with an unmoved indifference, and with an attention, as if he had been to look on some curious experiment. This gave a terrible idea of him to all that observed it, as of a man that had no bowels nor humanity in him. Lord Perth observing this, resolved to let him see how well qualified he was to be an inquisitor-general. The rule about the boots in Scotland was, that upon one witness, and pre- sumptions, both together, the question might be given: But it was never known to be twice given, or that anj 142 NOTES. other species of torture, besides the boots, might be used at pleasure. In the courts of inquisition, they do, upon suspicion, or if a man refuses to answer upon oath as he is required, give him the torture ; and repeat it, or vary it, as often as they think fit; and do not give over, till they have got out of their mangled prisoners all that they have a mind to know from them. " This Lord Perth resolved now to make his pattern ; and was a little too early in letting the world see what a government we were to expect under the influence of a prince of that religion. So, upon his going to Scot- land, one Spence, who was a servant of Lord Argyle's, and was taken up at London, only upon suspicion, and sent down to Scotland, was required to take an oath to answer all the questions that should be put to him. This was done in a direct contradiction to an express law against obliging men to swear, that they will answer mtprr inquirendis. Spence likewise said, that he himself might be concerned in what he might know ; and it was against a very universal law , that excused all men from swearing against themselves, to force him to take such an oath. So he was struck in the boots, aud continued firm in his refusal. Then- a new species of torture wafl invented : he was kept from sleep eight or nine nights. They grew weary of managing this ; so a third species NOTES. 143 was invented : Little screws of steel were made use of, that screwed the thumbs with so exquisite a torment, that he sunk under this; for l.-ord Perth told him, they would screw every joint of his whole body, one after an- other, till he took the oath. Yet such was the firmness and fidelity of this poor man, that even in that extre- mity, he capitulated, that no new questions should be put to him, but those already agreed on ; and that he should not be a witness against any person, and that he himself should be pardoned : so all he could tell them was, who were Lord Argyle's correspondents. The chief of them was Holmes,, at London, to whom Lord Argvle writ in a cypher, that had a particular curiosity in it. A double key was necessary : the one was, to show the way of placing the words, or cypher, in an order very different from that in which they lay on the paper ; the other was, the key of the cyphers themselves, which was found among Jlolmes's. papers when he ab- sconded. Spence knew only the first of these ; but he putting all in its true order, then by the other key they were deciphered. In these, it appeared what Argyle had demanded, and what he undertook to do upon the granting his demands : but none of his letters spoke any- thing of any agreement then made. " When the torture had this effect OD Spence, they 144 NOTES. offered the same oath to Carstairs : And, upon his refu- ting to take it, they put his thumbs in the screws, and drew them so hard, that as they put him to extreme tor- ture, so they could not unscrew them, till the smith that made them was brought with his tools to take them off." BUR NET. July 28. 1668. Anna Ker, relict of Mr James Dun- can, was brought before the council. " The lords caused bring in the boots before her, and gave her to five of the clock to think upon it, apprizing her, if she would not give her oath in the premises, she was to be tortured. In the afternoon Mrs Duncan continued firm to her pur- pose, and had certainly been put to torture, had not Rothes interposed, and told the council, It teas not pro- per for gentlewomen to wear boots." WODROW, Vol. I. p. 994. " Some time after Both well, George Forbes, a trooper in Captain Stewart's troop, then lying in Glasgow, came out one morning with a party of soldiers to the village of Langside, in the parish of Cathcart, not two miles from that city, and by force broke open the doors of John Mitchell, tenant there, his house, who, they alleged, had been at Bothwell. John was, that morning, happily out of the way, whereupon they seized Anna Park, his wife, a singularly religious and sensible countrywoman, whose NOTES. 145 memory is yet savoury in that place, and pressed her to tell where her husband was. The good woman peremp- torily refusing, they bound her, and put kindled matches between her fingers, to extort a discovery from her. Her torment was great ; but her God strengthened her, and she endured, for some few hours, all they could do, with admirable patience, and both her hands were dis- abled for some time." WODROW, Vol. II. p. 17. A people doomed, $c.P. 13. 1. 9. By the tyrannous and sanguinary laws that were passed between the year 1661, and the ever-memorable year of the Revolution, the whole inhabitants of extensive dis- tricts in the Lowlands of Scotland might be said to have lived under sentence of death. Old men, and youths, and simple maids. P. 13. I. 10. " One morning, between five and six hours, John Brown, having performed the worship of God in his fa- mily, was going, with a spade in his hand, to make ready some peat-ground. The mist being very dark, he knew not until cruel and bloody Clavcrhouse compassed him with three troops of horse, brought him to his house, and there examined him ; who, though he was a man of stammering speech, yet answered him distinctly and so- x 146 NOTES. lidly ; which made Claverhouse to examine those whom he had taken to be his guide through the muirs, if they had heard him preach ? They answered, ' No, no, he was never a preacher.' He said, ' If he has never preached, meikle he has prayed in his time.' He said to John, ' Go to your prayers, for you shall immediately die.' When he was praying, Claverhouse interrupted him three times : one time that he stopped him, he was pleading that the Lord would spare a remnant, and not make a full end in the day of his anger. Claverhouse said, ' I gave you time to pray, and you are begun to preach ;' he turned about upon his knees, and said, ' Sir, you know neither the nature of praying nor preaching, that calls this preaching ;' then continued, without confusion. When ended, Claverhouse said, { Take goodnight of your wife and children.' His wife standing by with her child in her arms that she had brought forth to him, and an- other child of his first wife's, he came to her, and said, ' Now, Marion, the day is come that I told you would come, when I spake first to you of marrying me.' She said, ' Indeed, John, I can willingly part with you.' Then he said, * This is all I desire, I have no more to do but die.' He kissed his wife and bairns, and wished purchased and promised blessings to be multiplied upon them, and his blessing. Claverhouse ordered six men to 3 NOTES. 147 shoot him : the most part of the bullets caine upon his head, which scattered his brains upon the ground. Cla- verhouse said to his wife, ' What thinkest thou of thy husband now, woman?' She said, ' I thought ever much of him, and now as much as ever.' He said, ' It were justice to lay thee beside him.' She said, ' If ye were permitted, I doubt not but your cruelty would go that length ; but how will you make answer for this morning's work ?' He said, ' To man I can be answerable ; and for God, Twill take him in mine own hand.' Claverhouse mounted his horse, and marched and left her, with the corpse of her dead husband lying there. She set the bairn on the ground, and tied up his head, and straighted his body, and covered him in her plaid, and sat down, and wept over him. It being a very desart place, where ne- ver victual grew, and far from neighbours, it was some time before any friends came to her : the first that came was a very fit hand, that old singular Christian woman in the Cummerhead, named Klizabeth Menzics, three miles distant, who had been tried with the violent death of her husband at Pentland, afterwards of two worthy sons, Thomas Weir, who was killed at Drumclog, and David Steel, who was suddenly shot afterwards when taken. The said Marion Weir, sitting upon her hus- band's grave, told me, that, before that, she could sec H8 NOTES. no blood but she was in danger to faint, and yet she was helped to be a witness to all this, without either fainting or confusion ; except when the shots were let off, her eyes dazzled. His corpse was buried at the end of his house, where he was slain." PEDEN'S Life. Claverhouse was rewarded by his master, James, with the title of Viscount Dundee, and with the confiscated lands and goods of the sufferers. A late memoir-writer, the slanderer of Sydney and Russell, apostrophises this dastardly murderer of the unarmed peasantry, as a gene- rous and heroic character. James Stewart, a boy, " came in from the west coun- try to see a relation of his in prison at Edinburgh. By what means I know not, the other got out, and he was found in the room whence the other escaped ; where- upon he was brought before a committee of the council, and soon ensnared by their questions. When he was si- lent on some heads, and would not answer, some papers before me bear, that Sir George M'Kenzie threatened to take out his tongue with a pair of pincers. Precisely on his answers, he Was condemned, and in a few days after he was taken with the rest (six others,) and exe- cuted at the Gallow-lee." WODROW, B. III. c. 5, 4. year 1681. NOTES. 149 " Marion Harvie, a young woman, not twenty years of age, on her way to the place of execution, was inter- rupted in her devotions ; on which she turned to he fellow-prisoner, Isabel Alison, and said, ' Come, Isabel let us sing the 23d psalm ;' which accordingly they did, Marion repeating the psalm, line by line, without book. Being come to the scaffold, after singing the 84th psalm, and reading the 3d of Malachi, she said, ' I am come here to-day for avowing Christ to be the Head of his church, and King in Zioii. They say I would murder; but I declare, I am free of all matters of fact : I could never take the life of a chicken but my heart shrinked. But it is only for my judgment of things that I am brought here. I leave my blood on the council and the Duke of York.' At this, the soldiers interrupted her, and would not allow her to speak any." Cloud of WH- But that morn.' P. IS. 1. 11 . The resurrection happened on the morning of the first day of the week, which is now observed as the Christian Sabbath. By Cameron thundered. P. 14. 1. 10 " The last night of his life, he was in the house of 150 NOTES. William Mitchell in Meadowbead, at the water of Ayr, where about twenty-three horse and forty foot had con- tinued with him that week. That morning, a woman gave him water to wash his face and hands ; and having washed, and dried them with a towel, he looked to his hands, and laid them on his face, saying, ' This is their last washing ; I have need to make them clean, for there are many to see them.' At this the woman's mother wept. He said, ' Weep not for me, but for yourself and your's, and for the sins of a sinful land, for ye have me- lancholy, sorrowful, and weary days before yon.' " The people who remained with him were in some hesitation whether they should abide together for their own defence, or disperse, and shift for themselves. But that day, being the 2'2d of July, they were surprised by Bruce of Earlshall ; who, having got the command of Airly's troop and Strahan's dragoons, upon notice given him by Sir John Cochran of Ochiltree, came furiousiy upon them, about four o'clock in the afternoon, when lying on the east end of Airs-moss. When they saw the enemy approaching, and no possibility of escaping, they all gathered round about him, while he prayed a short word ; wherein he repeated this expression thrice over, ' Lord spare the green, and take the ripe.' When end- ed, he said to his brother, with great intrepidity, Come, NOTES. 151 let us fight it out to the last ; for this is the day that I have longed for, and the day that I have prayed for, to die fighting against our Lord's avowed enemies : this is the day that we will get the crown. And to the rest, he said, * Be encouraged, all of you, to fight it out valiant- ly ; for all of you that shall fall this day, I see heaven's gates open to receive you.' " But the enemy approaching, they immediately drew up eight horse with him on the right, the rest, with va- liant Hack-ton, on the left, and the foot in the middle; where they all behaved with much bravery, until over- powered by a superior number. At last Hackston was taken prisoner, and Mr Cameron was killed on the spot, and his head and hands cut off by one Murray, and ta- ken to Edinburgh. His father being in prison for the same cause, they carried them to him, to add grief unto his former sorrow, and inquired at him, if he knew them. He took his son's hands and head, which were very fair, being a man of a fair complexion, with his own hair, and kissed them, and said, ' I know, I know them; they are my son's, my own dear son's ; it is the Lord, good is the will of the Lord, who cannot wrong me nor mine, but has made goodness and mercy to follow us all our days.' After which, by order of the council, his head 152 NOTES. was fixed upon the Nether-bow Port, and his hands beside it, with the fingers upward."' Cloud of Witnesses. The assembled people dared, in face of day. P. 15. 1. 1. " The father durst not receive his son, nor the wife her husband ; the country was prohibited to harbour the fugitives, and the ports were shut against their escape by sea. When expelled from their homes, they resided in aves, among morasses and mountains, or met by stealth, or by night, for worship; but whenever the mountain- men, as they were styled, were discovered, the hue-and- cry was ordered to be raised. They were pursued, and frequently shot by the military, or sought with more in- sidious diligence by the spies, informers, and officers of justice ; and on some occasions, it appears, that the sa- gacity of dogs was employed to track their footsteps, and explore their lurking retreats. " LAING'S History, Vol. II. The mark which rashness branded on their names. P. 23. 1. 6. I am convinced, that in England, and especially in London, (such is the dispatch used in criminal proceed- ings,) unwarranted verdicts are sometimes pronounced. The mechanical notion of neighing evidence, seems to NOTES. 15? Lave got an unfortunate hold of the minds of jurymen ; and it thus happens, that if there be something like evi- dence on the one side, and no evidence on the other, the one scale (as it is called) of the judicial balance sinks, and the proof is estimated, not by what it is in itself, but by what it is in comparison of something else. The law of I.ngland recognizes the evidence of one witness, as suf- ficient to warrant a capital conviction. The law of God was different : " Whoso killeth any person, the murder- er shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses; but one witness shall not testify against any person, to cause him to die." NUMB. xxxv. 30. " At the mouth of ttco or three witnesses shall he, that is worthy of death, be put to death ; but at the mouth of one witness he ahull not be put to death." DEUT. xvii. 6. Each one returns to his inheritance. P. 28. 1. 3. Lycurgus's contrivance of iron money, as a preventive of the corruption arising from the commercial system, was clumsy and inefficient, compared with that part of the Mosaic institution here alluded to. Driven from their homes by fell monopoly, P. 30. I. 17. The utility of all such agricultural improvements, as 154 NOTES. diminish the quantum of human labour employed in the cultivation of the soil, is very questionable. In the Highlands of Scotland, black cattle were the produce which in former times was cultivated. Afterwards it was discovered, that the rearing of sheep was a mode of farming which required a much smaller proportion of hands than the rearing of black cattle did : In other words, the Highland proprietors discovered, that by the substi- tution of sheep for black cattle, nine-tenths of that fund, which formerly was consumed in the maintenance of a numerous tenantry, might be added to the amount of their rent-rolls. The consequence has been, that large districts of the Highlands have been nearly depopulated. Make the supposition, that an improvement, similar in its effects, should be made on the agricultural system of the low country ; suppose, for instance, that a new kind of grain, or root, should be discovered, the cultivation of which should require no more than one-tenth part of the manual labour necessary for the cultivation of our pre- sent crops ; or suppose, that there should be invented a machine for turning up the soil, as much superior to the plough as the plough is to the spade; and that the other implements of husbandry should be improved on a pro- portional scale ; the consequence undoubtedly would be, NOTES. 16 that the peasantry of this country would be nearly ex- tirpated. It is true, that the supposed improvements would not only increase the revenue of the landlord, but would add to the quantity of agricultural produce, and that an increase of produce would tend to an increase of population. I, however, doubt very much, whether the increase of agricultural produce is always attended with a proportional increase of population. At any rate, the population that is in this way acquired, must be added to the already overgrown mass of manufacturing towns. >'o doubt the apparent strength of the nation would be thus increased. But a healthy and n virtuous populace constitute the real power of a state ; and it will not be said, that crowded towns are favourable either to health or to morals. The country and the village inhabitants are, in truth, the source of the national population; and, if it be drained, the towns themselves must of course de- cay ; since the demand for live-supplies, consequent on the consumpt of human life in towns, could no longer be answered. But how are the evils arising from the abridgment of agricultural labour to be counteracted ? They may be partially counteracted by a limitation of the extent of farms. If the arable districts were par- celled out into possessions not exceeding a hundred and fifty acres ; and if every landlord and tenant were bound, 158 NOTES. either to keep up a certain number of inhabited cottages, in the proportion, let it be said, of one to each thirty acres, or else, to pay triple land-tax and poor rate, our crops would, perhaps, not be quite so abundant as in pro- cess of time they may come to be, under the present sys- tem of weeding out the small farmers and cottagers ; but the nation would be richer in a more important kind of produce, a numerous peasantry ; and even the landlords themselves would find more real comfort and enjoyment in contemplating a populous and happy neighbourhood, than in surveying large deserted domains, teeming with all the means of virtuous and happy existence, but bar- ren of inhabitants to reap the benefits so liberally spread out by the Father of mercies. Perhaps another expe- dient to check rural depopulation might be suggested, an equalization of the right of succession. Commercial accumulation has, during the last half century, gone far in re-uniting those enormous estates which at one time commerce had disjoined. Every great merchant and money-dealer wishes to be the founder of what is called a family. Now, I would indulge this vanity, by allow- ing such persons to found, not one family, but a number of families, in proportion to the number of their chil- dren. To the peerage, and perhaps to families that have been long established in their possessions, the law ought NOTES. 157 to be left as it now stands. But if it be expedient to keep things as they now are, to check the rapid progress of a hideous Oligarchy, the old law of inheritance, as it ex- isted in England prior to the Norman conquest, and as it now exists in the county of Kent, ought to be made the general law of the land. O, England! England! nosh thy purpled hands. P. 43. 1. 9. The slave-trade has been attempted to be defended by appeals to the authority of the Old Testament. The ex- istence of slavery appears, indeed, to have been tolerated among the Jews ; but where is the authority for any thing like the slave-trade 9 Is it in the following express law ? " And he that stealcth a. man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." 1!.\ i) i). xxi. 16. Down like an avalanche. P. 47. 1. 1. " After having descended about three hours, from the time of our quitting Meysingen, we refreshed ourselves and our horses in a delightful vale, strewed with ham- lets ; a sloping hill, adorned with variegated verdure and wood, on one side ; on the other, the Rosenlavi and Schartzwald glaciers, stretching between impending rocks ; and before us the highest point of the Wetter- 158 NOTES. horn lifting its pyramid ical top, capped with eternal snow. As we were taking our repast, we were suddenly startled by a noise like the sound of thunder, occasion- ed by a large body of snow falling from the top of the mountain, which, in its precipitate descent, had the ap- pearance of a torrent of water reduced almost into spray. These avalanches (as they are called) are sometimes at- tended with the most fatal consequences ; for when they consist of enormous masses, they destroy every thing in their course, and not unfrequently overwhelm even a whole village." COXE. The plaintive strain that links, 8fc. P. 47. 1. 19. " After dinner, some musicians of the country per- formed the Renz de Vaches, that famous air which was forbid to be played among the Swiss troops in the French armies ; as it created in the soldiers such a longing re- collection of their native country, that it produced in them a settled melancholy, and occasioned fiequent de- sertion. The French call this sort of patriotic regret maladie du pays. There is nothing peculiarly striking in the tune ; but, as it is composed of the most simple notes, the powerful effect of its melody upon the Swiss soldiers in a foreign land is the less remarkable. No- thing, indeed, renews so lively a remembrance of former NOTES. 159 scenes, as a piece of favourite music which we were ac- customed to hear among our earliest and dearest con- nect ions." Co x E. Till beckoned by some kindly hand to sit. P. 51. 1. 6. It i most melancholy to see old respectable persons standing in the passages of a church. In former times, the area of churches was common to all. The appro- priation was certainly an encroachment. To bring mat- ters back to their primitive state, would now be imprac- ticable. But surely a very large portion of the house of prayer ought to be allotted to the Lord's poor. Or why should not free churches be established in all the considerable towns ? There are several in England. To the hardship of exclusion from divine service, or of pre- carious and mendicant admission, may be traced the dis- sipated and idle habits of many originally well-disposed persons. Her hands could earn her bread, and freely give. P. 51.1. 8. The character, here described, is well pourtrayed in the following passage of Neietons Letter* : " We have lost another of the people here; a person of much ex- ICO NOTES. perience, eminent grace, wisdom, and usefulness. She walked with God forty years. She was one of the Lord's poor; but her poverty was decent, sanctified, and honourable. She lived respected, and her death is considered a public loss. It is a great loss to me : I sball miss her advice and example, by which I have been of- ten edified and animated. Almost the last words she ut- tered, were, ' The Lord is my portion, saith my soul." I have known many instances of such persons. The character is, indeed, most highly respectable? but it does not obtain that respect and support which it so weH me- rits. In truth, wealth is so devoutly worshipped, that virtuous poverty must, of necessity, be neglected, if not despised. Every man is aspiring to the imaginary digni- ty of the person who happens to be a little richer than himself. The distinction of wealth is gradually absorb- ing every other. I would prefer the aristocracy of pe- digree to that of riches. There courage, that expects no tongue to praise. P. 52. 1. 5. To private soldiers and sailors the voice of praise very seldom reaches; yet is their courage not less conspi- cuous than that which their superiors in rank display. Our military establishment, both at sea and on shore. NOTES. 10! is, indeed, penurious in reward, while it is liberal in pu- nishment. By extending the one, and restricting the other, the regular army would be more expeditiously recruited than by increase of bounties. Let the experi- ment of less severe punishments be tried. The imme- diate consequence would be, (to speak in mercantile phrase,) a fall in the price of the article. But there is still another, and a more effectual way of recruiting the army. Follow the advice of that man, who, through good report and through bad report, stood the stedfast friend of justice and of freedom, to whose intuitive ken the most complicated subjects were simple, the most opaque transparent. His advice (but alas ! his prescient advice has been seldom regarded until the event ve- rified the prediction) was, to restrict the term of service to a moderate period, to five, six, or seven years. If a man, engaging himself for half a year as a common servant, were asked, for what higher rate of wages he would bind himself during life ? his answer would pro- bably be, that no reward would tempt him to bind him- self for life. Or, if he were to be so allured, would he not ask an enormous hire? To indent one's person for life, is a tremendous engagement. But a limitation of the term of service would be highly expedient in another view. Reckoning the regular troops of Britain at L 102 NOTES. 200,000, if each man were to be discharged at the end of seven years from the time of his enlistment, is it not obvious, that we should have a yearly addition of about 27,000 thorough-bred soldiers, ready to fall into the ranks of the strictly defensive department of our nation- al armament? Say that the addition were to be only 20,OUO, what an accession of real strength, of discipline, of experience, of confidence, would be the result ! In five years there would be nearly 100,000 veterans (for a soldier, who has served seven years, I would call a ve- teran) added to our home force. No one can form a probable guess at the duration of the present war ; nor is it likely, that many of the present generation will seethe day, when they may, with safety, turn their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks. We must continue in the attitude of an armed nation. We must labour with the one hand, and wield our weapons with the other. + + The above note was inserted in the first edition of the Sabbath. The just, the humane, the wise proposal of enlistment for a limited time, was afterwards enacted into a law; but its efficacy is likely to be completely counteracted by the recently introduced power of enlist- ment for life. NOTES. 163 Or cheering vith inquiries from the heart. P. 58. 1. 13. In some hospitals, the patients are supposed to be treated with all due justice, if the bolus and the knife be liberally administered. Nothing is done to amase or t" console. Blest be the female votaries. P. 56. 1. 18. The nuns, called Beguines, devote the whole of their time to attendance on the sick, whether in hospitals or in private houses. They are habited in black, and, when going abroad, they wear deep black veils. Call forth the dead, and re-unite the dust (Transformed and purified) to angel souls. P. 58. 1. 2, 3. Every one has experienced how much contrast enhan- ces pleasure, and aggravates pain. Perhaps in created beings, perfect happiness is impossible, without the con- trast of recollected misery. This consideration affords an answer to those persons, who censure the resurrection of th" body as a provision unnecessary and unwise, who say, that the joys of a blessed spirit cannot be in- creased by a union with a material body, however ex- cellent in form, structure, and powers. I would ask, what other provision could possibly furnish the pleasure 16* NOTES. derived from contrast, so vividly, so constantly ? A ce- lestial form, the habitation of that being, who formerly dwelt in a body, frail, diseased, mortal ! To the man who had been blind in his earthly abode, what a change! His sightless orbs transformed into eyes of telescopic ken ! To the palsied ! That body which could not move itself, endowed, perhaps, with electric velocity ! that once feeble, faultering voice attuned to the harmonies of the heavenly choirs, " who sing the song of Moses, the ser- vant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are all thy works, Lord God Almighty ; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints : Alle luia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth !" To think that note the totcnsman wanders forth. P. 66. 1. 18. There cannot be a more pleasing or a more consola- tory idea presented to the human mind, than that of one universal pause of labour throughout the whole Christian world at the same moment of time; diffusing rest, com- fort, and peace, through a large part of the habitable globe, and affording ease and refreshment, not only to the lowest part of our own species, but to their fellow- labourers of the brute creation. Even these are enabled to join in this silent act of adoration, this mute kind of NOTES. 165 homage to the great Lord of all : and, although they are incapable of any sentiments of religion, yet, by this means, they become sharers in the blessings of it. Every man, of the least sensibility, must see, must feel, the beauty and utility of such an institution as this; and must see, at the same time, the cruelty of invading this most valuable privilege of the inferior class of mankind, and breaking in upon that sacred repose, which God himself has, in pity to their sufferings, given to those that stand most in need of it. It was a point in which it highly became the majesty and the goodness of heaven itself to interpose. And happy was it for the world that it did so. For, had man, unfeeling man, been left to himself, with no other spur to compassion than natu- ral instinct, or unassisted reason, there is but too much ground to apprehend, he would have been deaf to the cries of his labouring brethren, would have harassed and worn them out with incessant toil ; and when they implored, by looks and signs of distress, some link- in- termission, would perhaps have answered them in the language of Pharaoh's task-masters, " Ye are idle, ye are idle. There shall not aught of your daily tasks be diminished ; let more work be laid upon them, that they may labour therein." Exon. v. 9, 11, 17. " That this is no uucandid representation of the natu- 166 NOTES. ral hardness of the human heart, till it is subdued and softened by the influences of divine grace, we have but too many unanswerable proofs, in the savage treatment which the slaves of the ancients, even of the most civi- lized and polished ancients, met with from their unre- lenting masters. To them, alas ! there was no Sabbath, no seventh day of rest ! The whole week, the whole year, was, in general, with but few exceptions, one un- interrupted round of labour, tyranny, and oppression." BISHOP PORTEUS. Four helpless charge drive from the tempting spot. P. 74. 1. 11. During the winter season, there are many shepherds lost in the snow. I have heard of ten being lost in one parish. When life-boats, for the preservation of ship- wrecked mariners, and institutions for the recovery of drowned persons, obtain so much of the public atten- tion and patronage, it is strange that no means are ever thought of, for the preservation of the lives of shepherds during snow-storms. I believe, that in nine instances out of ten, the death of the unhappy persons who perish in the snow, is owing to their losing their way. A proof of this is, that very few are lost in the day-time. The re- medy, then, is both easy and obvious. Let means be NOTES. 167 used for enabling the shepherd, in the darkest night, to know precisely the spot at which he is, and the bearings of the surrounding grounds. Snow-storms are almost al- ways accompanied with wind. Suppose a pole, fifteen feet high, well fixed in the ground, with two cross span placed near the bottom, to denote the airts, or points of the compass; a bell hung at the top of this pole, with a piece of Hat wood attached to it, projecting upward, would ring with the slightest breeze. For a few hun- dred pounds, every square mile of the southern district of Scotland might be supplied with such bells. As they would be purposely made to have different tones, the shepherd would soon be able to distinguish one from another. lie could never be more than a mile distant from one or other of them. On coining to the spot, he would at once know the points of the compass, and of course the direction in which his home lay. And. with the forming mass floated along. P. 11. \. 4. May we not suppose, that the mass of the earth, while yet forming, received its progressive and rotatory mo- tions ': The dumb cured. P. 101. This miracle, the reality of which the Pliari&ees could 168 IS'OTF.S. not deny, (Matth. c. ix. v. 34.) is one of a higher order than those which consisted in healing diseases. Dumb- ness implies, in general, not only a defect in the organs of speech, or of hearing, or of both, but ignorance of language. Here, then, was a miracle performed on the mind. The Judge ascended to the judgment-seat. P. 108. 1. 1. This representation of Paul I have not founded on the circumstances of any one of his appearances before the Roman governors. I have alluded to facts, which hap- pened at his apprehension, as well as at his arraignments before Felix, Festus, and Agrippa. THE END. EDINBURGH: Printed by James Ballantyne & Co. 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