Jesus, Thou Friend divine, Our Saviour, and our King, Thy hand from every snare and foe, Shall great deliverance bring. Sure as Thy truth shall last, The brightest glories earth can yield, And brighter bliss of heaven. DWIGHT. CHRIST'S LEGACY. HO deems that Holy Church has lost The priceless gift the Saviour gave? Or,as an idle bauble, tost Beneath the curst world's hungry wave, Her keys that, all this wide world o'er, Oped to man's want God's spirit-store? That now the Kingdom is but earth alone Where man's poor sight and wisdom seek their own? Who deems that hidden Paradise, Its sweet cool shades, its living streams, Its lustrous air, from seraph's eyes Radiant with interwoven beams, And the eternal Light divine Filling up all with changeless shine,— That these, and converse with the dwellers there, To men in spirit are not free as air? That His blest Kingdom-which, Christ said, Should ever stand while earth doth stand, And, when the last flames, fierce and red, Should meet and burn up sea and land, Transfigured through these fires should glow Thenceforth no earthiness to know, That this hath not one, only, changeless frame, One as the Lord: on earth, in heaven, the same? Or that the Body of the Lord, The Godhead dwelling in the flesh,— Is not, to us, as when that Word In human nature dwelt afresh? Or that God's fulness, now, as then, A fulness that in each of us hath place Oh! is not God the selfsame now It is the same where'er Faith is: Christ manifests himself in His: Where Faith is not, to them is Christ no more Indwelling, in the Spirit, as of yore. This glorious Kingdom-rich within, Hath his own measure of the Holy Ghost: And in the Spirit, oh, what height The feet of faithful men do mount! There glossy slopes flow all with light, And vales are rich with stream and fount. side; The pure see God on every Them spirits gently serve and guide; While earth, to them, is sorrow, shame, and ill, The Church is heaven on earth, about them still. Sweet mysteries to them that love, Do lead to that eye hath not seen; |