Against this sea-swept rock,

Ten thousand storms their will
Of foam and rage have wildly spent;
It lifts its calm face still.

It standeth and will stand,
Without or change or age,
The word of majesty and light,

The church's heritage.

HORATIUS BONAR.

The Old Book

BOOK of books, and friend of friends alone,
How deep the debt of gratitude to thee!

For every human ill thou hast a charm,
With fragrance fresh as in Judæan days.
How clear the message that thy pages bring
To rich and poor, to old and young the same,
Forever sounding 'mid the centuries:-
That God's our father, tender, just and true,
And we His children all, both bond and free
Though clouds and darkness meet us on the way,
Thy radiant light is ever shining there.

ABRAM S. ISAACS.

Israel and His Book

AN age-worn wanderer, pale with thought and tears,

With heart heroic and prophetic look,

Comes clasping to his breast the Sacred BookThe amulet of Israel through the years!

"Behold!" he says, "through ages dark with fears, Through travail and through miseries that shook The soul of Judah, this he ne'er forsook.

It is his Book!-Therein his God appears!"

His Book! more glorious with supernal light
Than all the beacons reared by mortal hands
Since time first lisped its anguish in the night.

His Book! That gave a God to all the lands;
Whose pages shall through us again reveal
The wondrous promise grief could not conceal!
FELIX N. GERSON.

The Ha' Bible

AH, I could worship thee!

Thou art a gift a God of love might give;

For love and hope and joy

In thy Almighty-written pages live;

The slave who reads shall never crouch again;
For, mind-inspired by thee, he bursts his feeble chain!

God! unto thee I kneel,

And thank thee! Thou unto my native land— Yea, to the outspread earth

Hast stretched in love thy everlasting hand,

And thou hast given earth, and sea, and air—
Yea, all that heart can ask of good and pure and fair!

And, Father, thou hast spread

Before men's eyes this charter of the free,

That all thy book might read,

And justice, love, and truth, and liberty.

The gift was unto men,—the giver, God!

Thou slave! it stamps thee man,-go spurn thy weary load!

Thou doubly precious book!

Unto thy light what does not Scotland owe:

Thou teachest age to die,

And youth in truth unsullied up to grow!

In lowly homes a comforter art thou,

A sunbeam sent from God,--an everlasting bow!

ROBERT NICOLL.

Fullness of the Bible

THERE

'HERE is a lamp whose steady light
Guides the poor traveller in the night:
'Tis God's own word! Its beaming ray
Can turn a midnight into day.

There is a storehouse of rich fare,
Supplied with plenty and to spare:-
'Tis God's own word! it spreads a feast
For every hungering, thirsting guest.

There is a chart whose tracings show
The onward course when tempests blow:-
'Tis God's own word! There, there is found
Direction for the homeward bound.

There is a tree whose leaves impart
Health to the burdened, contrite heart:-
'Tis God's own word! It cures of sin,
And makes the guilty conscience clean.

Give me this lamp to light my road;
This storehouse for my daily food;
Give me this chart for life's rough sea;
These healing leaves, this heavenly tree.

H. J BETTS.

Inspiration of the Bible

WHENCE, but from Heaven, could men unskill'd

in arts,

In several ages born, in several parts,

Weave such agreeing truths? or how, or why,
Should all conspire to treat us with a lie?
Unask'd their pains, ungrateful their advice,
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price.

If on the book itself we cast our view,
Concurrent heathens prove the story true:

The doctrine, miracles; which must convince,
For Heaven in them appeals to human sense;
And though they prove not they confirm the cause,
When what is taught agrees with nature's laws.

Therefore the style, majestic and divine,

It speaks no less than God in every line:
Commanding words; whose force is still the same
As the first fiat that produc'd our frame.
All faiths beside, or did by arms ascend;
Or sense indulg'd has made mankind their friend:

This only doctrine does our lusts oppose:
Unfed by nature's soil, in which it grows;
Cross to our interests, curbing sense and sin;
Oppress'd without, and undermin'd within,
It thrives through pain; its own tormentors tires,
And with a stubborn patience still aspires.

JOHN DRYDEN.

Contents of the Bible

F thou art merry, here are airs;

IF

If melancholy, here are prayers;
If studious, here are those things writ
Which may deserve thy ablest wit;
If hungry, here is food divine;
If thirsty, nectar, heavenly wine.

Read, then; but, first, thyself prepare
To read with zeal and mark with care;
And when thou read'st what here is writ,
Let thy best practice second it;

So twice each precept read shall be-
First in the book, and next in thee.

PETER HEYLYN.

Esteeming the Bible

THIS holy book I'd rather own,
Than all the gold and gems

That e'er in monarchs' coffers shone,
Than all their diadems.

Nay, were the seas one chrysolite,
The earth one golden ball,
And diadems all the stars of night,
This book outweighs them all.

Ah, no, the soul ne'er found relief
In glittering hoards of wealth;
Gems dazzle not the eye of grief,
Gold cannot purchase health.

But here a blessed balm appears

To heal the deepest woe,

And those who read this book in tears,
Their tears shall cease to flow.

HORATIUS BONAR.

Judah's Hallowed Bards

LET those who will hang rapturously o'er
The flowing eloquence of Plato's page;
Repeat, with flashing eyes, the sounds that pour
From Homer's verse as with a torrent's rage;

Let those who list ask Sully to assuage

Wild hearts with high-wrought periods, and restore The reign of rhetoric; or maxims sage

Winnow from Seneca's sententious lore,

Not these, but Judah's hallowed bards, to me
Are dear: Isaiah's noble energy;

The temperate grief of Job; the artless strain
Of Ruth and pastoral Amos; the high songs
Of David; and the tale of Joseph's wrongs.
Simply, pathetic, eloquently plain.

AUBREY DE VERE.