Can give thee from its hidden bed
Stones of memorial for a sign
That souls redeem'd, by Jesus led,
May trust in power and love divine.

QUIETUDE AND SAFETY.

"They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord."-Judges, v. 11.

How blest the quietude of those

Deliver'd, Lord! by thee;
How safely do their souls repose
By love divine set free,
Deliver'd from the pow'r of sin,
Freed from its galling yoke within.

These drink of that immortal spring
Which every thirst supplies,
Waiting beside its brink to sing

When its blest waters rise,

Whose gentle echoes round prolong
Its music, and their grateful song.

And never noise of archers' bows
Is by those waters heard,
Nor by the winged shafts of foes
The balmy air is stirr'd;

No sound of tumult, or of strife,
Is heard beside the spring of life.

But there the ransom'd speak thy praise,
Thy righteous acts record,

And souls redeem'd glad anthems raise
To their redeeming Lord;

And far beyond bard's sweetest verse
The grateful song their lips rehearse.

RUTH'S LOVE.

"And they lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother in law; but Ruth clave to her."— Ruth, i. 14.

THOUGH prouder names than thine may live
In history's richly blazon'd page,
Adorn'd with all that fame can give
To win the eye from age to age:

Yet by no sweeter, purer fame

Hath joy been gladden'd, grief beguil❜d, Than that which brightly wreaths thy name, And speaks thy worth, Naomi's child!

Thy story, 'mid the stormier deeds
The annals of thy time make known,
For humble truth and nature pleads
With grace peculiarly their own.

And deep instruction yet is taught
By thy delightful simple tale,
Disclosing to attentive thought

The love which can and cannot fail.

There is a love, sincere, but weak,

Which has no high, or heaven-ward stay; Thus Orpah kiss'd her mother's cheek, Kiss'd her-and wept-yet turn'd away!

Thy own, heroic and sublime,

Still to thy earthly parent clave,
And lives, triumphant over time,
For Heaven its holier courage gave.

And richly God vouchsaf'd to bless
A love devoted, pure as thine,
By making thee the ancestress
Of kingly David's royal line.

VOICELESS PRAYER.

་་

Now Hannah, she spake in her heart, only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken."-1 Samuel, i. 13.

BEHOLD how few brief words set forth
Of voiceless prayer the happy lot;
God who inspires it owns its worth,
Though mortal man discern it not:
That prayer which reach'd not Eli's ear,
The Lord stoop'd down from heaven to hear.

And many a prayer from lips that move
In silence now, ascends on high;

By Him who dwells and reigns above

Beheld with no averted

eye,

Aye, plum'd with wings, endow'd with sense
Beyond all verbal eloquence.

Then fear not thou, whose faultering tongue
Seems powerless still, when bent the knee,
Though songs of praise by angels sung

In heaven for ever vocal be, ̧

True prayer, though pour'd in sigh and groan, Soars not unnotic'd, nor unknown.

If

grace divine the heart prepare, A sigh, a groan in Jesu's name May prove a more availing prayer

Than art's elaborate power can frame;
Nor need our silence be deplored
While hearts are vocal to the Lord.

HIDDEN, BUT HOPED FOR.

"And the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision."-1 Samuel, iii. 1.

NOT only in the spring-tide hour,
Or summer's bright and fervid power,
Does nature live:-her hidden life
Lives on through winter's stormy strife.

Though perish'd bud, and flower, and fruit,
If deep below survive the root,
When spring shall re-assume her reign,
The sap shall re-ascend again.

Nor had the Lord his people left,
Though Eli's age of strength was reft;
Although his sons their God forgot,
And he their sire restrain'd them not.