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Relics and Memorials.

THE twelve holy men are gathered in prayer,

The psalm mounts on high, the Spirit descends; A keen silent thrilling is round them in air,

A power from The Highest in thought and word blends.

They pass by the way, to sight poor and mean;

How glorious the train that streams to and fro'

The blind, dumb, halt, withered by hundreds are seen ; The prisoners of Satan lie chained where they go.

O lay them but where the shadow may fall

Of Christ's awful saint, to prayer as he speeds; The mighty love-token all fiends shall appal;

A gale breathe from Eden assuaging all needs.

Or bring where they lie, Paul's girdle or vest:

One touch and one word; the pain fleets away, The dark hour of frenzy is charmed into rest :—

The hem of Christ's garment all creatures obey.

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RELICS AND MEMORIALS.

Christ is in his saints: from Godhead made man,

The virtue goes out, the whole world to bless; O'er lands parched and weary that shadow began

To spread from Saint Peter, and ne'er shall grow less.

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Judas.

FOR him a waking blood-hound, yelling loud,
That in his bosom long had sleeping laid,
A guilty conscience, barking after blood,
Pursued eagerly, nor ever stayed

Till the betrayer's self it had betrayed.

Oft changed the place; in hope away to wind;
But change of place could never change his mind:
Himself he flies to lose, and follows for to find.

With that, a flaming brand a Fury catched

And shook and tossed it round in his wild thought; So from his heart all joy, all comfort snatched With every star of hope; and as he sought (With present fear, and future grief distraught)

To fly from his own heart, and aid implore

Of Him, the more he gives, that hath the more,

Whose storehouse is the heavens, too little for his store:

And when wild Pentheus, grown mad with fear,
Whole troops of hellish hags about him spies;

Two bloody suns stalking the dusky sphere,
And twofold Thebes runs rolling in his eyes;
Or through the scene staring Orestes flies,

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With eyes flung back upon his mother's ghost,

That with infernal serpents all emboss'd

And torches quenched in blood, doth her stern son accost.

Such horrid gorgons, and misformed forms

Of damned fiends, flew dancing in his heart, That now unable to endure their storms,

"Fly, fly, (he cries,) thyself whate'er thou art, Hell, hell, already burns in every part."

So down into his torturer's arms he fell

Yet oft he snatched and started as he hung:-
So, when the senses half enslumbered lie,

The headlong body ready to be flung

By the deluding fancy from some high
And craggy rock, recovers greedily,

And clasps the yielding pillow, half asleep,
And, as from heaven it tumbled to the deep,
Feels a cold sweat through every member creep.

Giles Fletcher.

The Mission of the Word.

All nations shall come and worship before thee.-REV. xv. 4.

AND thou, the Light of God's eternal Word,
Record and Spirit of the living Lord,

Hid and unknown from half the world, at length,
Rise like the sun, and go forth in thy strength!
Already towering o'er old Ganges' stream,
The dark pagoda brightens in thy beam;
And the dim eagles on the topmost height
Of Juggernaut, shine as in morning light!
Beyond the snows of savage Labrador

The ray pervades pale Greenland's wintry shore—
Proceed, auspicious and eventful day!
Banner of Christ, thy ample folds display!
Let Atlas shout with Andes, and proclaim
To earth, and sea, and skies, a Saviour's name,
Till angel voices in the sound shall blend,
And one HOSANNA! from all worlds ascend!

William Lisle Bowles.

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