From out thy mighty bosom
Rise hymns sublime, and melodies
Like to the Heavens singing
Praises to their Creator;
While at the sound, an ecstasy,
A trance, fills all my being
With terror and with awe-
I feel my proud heart thrilling
With throbs of holy pride.
Oh! come, Thou high, beneficent
Heritage of my fathers,
Our country, altar, prophet!
Thou art our all, Thou only.
Through doubt, through pain, through outrage,
Through pangs of dissolution
Wringing our tortured hearts;
Come, open the rosy portals
Of hope to us once more!
In Thee, eternal, limitless,
The Earth is bound to Heaven;
The ages in immensity
Are one in Thine infinity;
Rapt by Thy power, the Spirit
Springs ever high and higher
Through care and grief and love,
Groans in mysterious ecstasy,
Exults in bitter pain.
Idylls of love and tenderness,
Home joys and pure affections,
Voices of Hope unconquered
By torture or by agony,
Austere and fruitful suffering,
Terror and doubt and faith,
Oh! for the whole Creation
A voice is found in Thee.
Like an inspired Sibyl
Thou thunderest in anger,
Tyre, Babylon, demolished,
Vanish with throne and altar;
Thou singest, Heaven lets open,
Mankind awakes to harmony
And holy truth and peace;
Like blessed springs descending,
Thou fillest all the world.
Ah me! what countless miseries,
What tears all unregarded
Hast Thou consoled and softened
With gentle voice and holy!
How many hearts that struggle
With doubt, remorse, anxiety,
With all the woes of ages,
Dost Thou, on ample pinions,
Lift purified to Heaven!
The Light and Glory of the World
HE Spirit breathes upon the word,
And brings the truth to sight;
Precepts and promises afford
A sanctifying light.
A glory gilds the sacred page,
Majestic like the sun;
It gives a light to every age,-
It gives, but borrows none.
The hand that gave it still supplies
The gracious light and heat;
His truths upon the nations rise,-
They rise, but never set.
Let everlasting thanks be thine,
For such a bright display,
As makes a world of darkness shine
With beams of heavenly day.
BLESSED Bible! how I love it!
How it doth my bosom cheer!
What hath earth like this to covet?
O, what stores of wealth are here!
Man was lost and doomed to sorrow;
Not one ray of light or bliss
Could he from earth's treasures borrow,
'Till his way was cheered by this?
Yes, I'll to my bosom press thee,
Precious Word, I'll hide thee here;
Sure my very heart will bless thee,
For thou ever sayest "good cheer":
Speak, my heart, and tell thy ponderings,
Tell how far thy rovings led,
When This Book brought back thy wanderings,
Speaking life as from the dead.
Yes, sweet Bible! I will hide thee
Deep, yes, deeper in this heart;
Thou, through all my life will guide me,
And in death we will not part.
Part in death? No! never! never!
Through death's vale I'll lean on thee;
Then, in worlds above, for ever,
Sweeter still thy truths shall be!
The Written Word
THE starry firmament on high,
And all the glories of the sky,
Yet shine not to Thy praise, O Lord,
So brightly as Thy written word.
The hopes that holy word supplies,
Its truths divine and precepts wise,
In each a heavenly beam I see,
And every beam conducts to Thee.
When, taught by painful proof to know
That all is vanity below,
The sinner roams from comfort far,
And looks in vain for sun or star;
Soft gleaming then those lights divine,
Through all the cheerless darkness shine,
And sweetly to the ravished eye
Disclose the dayspring from on high.
Almighty Lord, the sun shall fail,
The moon forget her nightly tale,
And deepest silence hush on high,
The radiant chorus of the sky;
But, fixed for everlasting years,
Unmoved amid the wreck of spheres,
Thy word shall shine in cloudless day,
When heaven and earth have passed away.
The Book of God
THY thoughts are here, my God,
Expressed in words divine,
The utterance of heavenly lips
In every sacred line.
Across the ages they
Have reached us from afar,
Than the bright gold more golden they,
Purer than purest star.
More durable they stand
Than the eternal hills;
Far sweeter and more musical
Than music of earth's rills.
Fairer in their fair hues,
Than the fresh flowers of earth, More fragrant than the fragrant climes Where odors have their birth.
Each word of thine a gem
From the celestial mines,
A sunbeam from that holy heaven
Where holy sunlight shines.
Thine, Thine, this book, though given In man's poor human speech, Telling of things unseen, unheard, Beyond all human reach.
No strength it craves or needs,
From this world's wisdom vain;
No filling up from human wells,
Or sublunary rain.
No light from sons of time,
Nor brilliance from its gold;
It sparkles with its own glad light,
As in the ages old.
A thousand hammers keen,
With fiery force and strain,
Brought down on it in rage and hate, Have struck this gem in vain.
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