1869. To-day is life in blossom: A spirit within us springing As doth the wayside pool, The gladsome Sunday school! Here learn we how to lighten The heaviest lot, and brighten The day most dark and dule, And lay up childhood's treasure, To reap immortal pleasure Even in a Sunday school. The summer earth rejoices, And heaven blends the whole. And when God's angels cover us, Drawing the darkness over us, They bless the Sunday school. GERALD MASSEY. A SUN-DAY HYMN. This was first used in a collection of hymns, by a committee of the Methodist Protestant Church, by permission of the author, in 1860. LORD of all being throned afar, Lord of all life, below, above, Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, Before thy ever-blazing throne We ask no lustre of our own. A SABBATH MORNING AT SEA. THE ship went on with solemn face : Had weighed mine eyelids downward. Thick sleep which shut all dreams from me, And kept my inner self apart And quiet from emotion, Then brake away and left me free, The new sight, the new wondrous sight! The skies impassive o'er me, Two pale thin clouds did stand upon I think they did foresee the sun, Then flushed to radiance where they stood, Like statues by the open tomb Of shining saints half risen. — The sun! he came up to be viewed; And sky and sea made mighty room To inaugurate the vision! I oft had seen the dawnlight run, As red wine, through the hills, and break Through many a mist's inurning: But, here, no earth profaned the sun! Heaven, ocean, did alone partake The sacrament of morning. Away with thoughts fantastical! I would be humble to my worth, Self-guarded as self-doubted. Though here no earthly shadows fall, I, joying, grieving without earth, May desecrate without it. God's Sabbath morning sweeps the waves: I, carried towards the sunless graves |