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How coldly even cordial subjects fall
From crude outpourings of untutored lips.
The lifeless page contains the word of God;
But power to call the holy influence forth
Within the human voice alone resides.
In sounds confused, and heartless utterance,
The Scriptures lose their character divine;
The heavenly rays reach not the darkened soul,
So thick the density of clouded speech;
Deaf is the cheated and offended ear,

And closed is every entrance to the soul:
The promises, the pains, the hopes, the fears,
Are lost in chaos of discordant noise.

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you who at God's holy altar tend,

Who are removed from the grovelling herd
Of wrangling, trafficking, and sordid men,
To preach good tidings to the meek in soul—
To heal the contrite and the broken heart—
To set at liberty the slaves of sin-

To ope the prison doors-to wipe the tears
From sorrow's face, and comfort all that mourn ;-
Know you, ye men of God, your sacred charge?
Your feeble ministrations answer this.

The public execution of this trust

Can reach the heart-if there it find the way-
But through the porches of the outward ear:
This is the minister of sound,
And trieth words as doth the mouth its food.

organ

The vulgar speech performeth not aright

The soul's commands. To give her dictates breath,
To set them in the happy form of words,
Requires the laggard vocal parts well trained,-
Each pliant organ working in accord;
That she to rich expression may attune
The wonderful, complex machine, and make
The voice delightful to the charmed sense.

Are, then, religion's cause, the hopes, the fears
The destiny of man, the call of heaven,
Not worthy of man's highest, noblest powers?
Are vulgar accents, uttered with grimace,
Or mumbling, stuttering, and ill-formed sounds,
Deemed good enough to do God's holy work?
Or are mankind so hungry for the truth,
So very thirsty after righteousness,

That, with the eagerness of appetite,
Though coarsely may be spread the sacred food,
Their famished souls will instantly devour?
Alas! their hunger craves forbidden fruit-
Their thirst indulges in unhallowed streams.

The man of God must knock at stony hearts,
And bend the stubborn will, and make the soul
Awe-struck with deep conviction of its guilt.
For this the thunder of his eloquence
Will roll its threatenings in the sinner's ear;
Till the reverberating peals arouse

:

The trembling fear which bends the feeble knees,
And melts the conscious rebel into prayer:-
"O thou who rul'st the tempest, hear and save!"
Then will the tones of sweetest melody
Allay the terrors of the startled mind;
And, mild as angels to the shepherds sung,
The messenger of God will whisper, peace!

LIX. THE LEPER.-Willis.

"Room for the leper! room!"-And, as he came
The cry passed on-"Room for the leper! room!"-
Sunrise was slanting on the city's gates,
Rosy and beautiful; and from the hills
The early-risen poor were coming in,
Duly and cheerfully to their toil; and up
Rose the sharp hammer's clink, and the far hum
Of moving wheels, and multitudes a-stir,
And all that in a city-murmur swells,-
Unheard but by the watcher's weary ear,
Aching with night's dull silence; or the sick,
Hailing the welcome light and sounds, that chase
The death-like images of the dark away.
"Room for the leper!" And aside they stood-
Matron, and child, and pitiless manhood,—all
Who met him on his way,-and let him pass.
And onward through the open gate he came,
A Leper with the ashes on his brow,
Sackcloth about his loins, and on his lip
A covering,-stepping painfully and slow;
And with a difficult utterance, like one
Whose heart is with an iron nerve put down,
Crying, "Unclean! Unclean!”

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'Twas now the first

Of the Judean autumn; and the leaves,
Whose shadows lay so still upon his path,
Had put their beauty forth beneath the eye
Of Judah's loftiest noble. He was young,
And eminently beautiful; and life
Mantled in elegant fulness on his lip,
And sparkled in his glance; and in his mien
There was a gracious pride that every eye
Followed with benisons;—and this was he!
And he went forth-alone! Not one of all
The many whom he loved, nor she whose name
Was woven in the fibres of his heart
Breaking within him now, to come and speak
Comfort unto him. Yea, he went his way,
Sick, and heart-broken, and alone,—to die!
For, God had cursed the leper!

It was noon,
And Helon knelt beside a stagnant pool
In the lone wilderness, and bathed his brow
Hot with the burning leprosy, and touched
The loathsome water to his fevered lips;
Praying that he might be so blest-to die!
-Footsteps approached; and, with no strength to flee,
He drew the covering closer on his lip,

Crying, "Unclean! Unclean!" and, in the folds
Of the coarse sackcloth shrouding up his face,
He fell upon the earth till they should pass.
Nearer the Stranger came, and, bending o'er
The leper's prostrate form, pronounced his name,
"Helon !"-The voice was like the master-tone
Of a rich instrument,-most strangely sweet;
And the dull pulses of disease awoke,
And, for a moment, beat beneath the hot
And leprous scales with a restoring thrill!—
"Helon! arise!"—and he forgot his curse,
And rose and stood before Him.

Love and awe
Mingled in the regard of Helon's eye,
As he beheld the Stranger.-He was not
In costly raiment clad, nor on his brow
The symbol of a princely lineage wore;
No followers at his back,-nor in his hand
Buckler, or sword, or spear;-yet, if he smiled,

A kingly condescension graced his lips,
A lion would have crouched-to in his lair.
His garb was simple, and his sandals worn;
His stature modeled with a perfect grace;
His countenance the impress of a God,
Touched with the opening innocence of a child;
His eye was blue and calm, as is the sky
In the serenest noon; his hair unshorn
Fell to his shoulders; and his curling beard
The fulness of perfected manhood bore.
-He looked on Helon earnestly awhile,
As if his heart were moved; and, stooping down,
He took a little water in his hand,

And laid it on his brow, and said, "Be clean!"
And lo! the scales fell from him; and his blood
Coursed with delicious coolness through his veins;
And his dry palms grew moist, and on his brow
The dewy softness of an infant's sole:
His leprosy was cleansed; and he fell down
Prostrate at Jesus' feet, and worshiped Him.

LX. THE BATTLE-FLAG OF SIGURD.-Motherwell.

THE eagle hearts of all the North have left their stormy strand; The warriors of the world are forth to choose another land! Again, their long keels sheer the wave, their broad sheets court the breeze;

Again, the reckless and the brave ride lords of weltering seas. Nor swifter from the well-bent bow can feathered shaft be

sped,

Than o'er the ocean's flood of snow their snoring galleys tread.Then lift the can to bearded lip, and smite each sounding shield;

Wassaile! to every dark-ribbed ship, to every battle-field! So proudly the Scalds raise their voices of triumph,

As the Northmen ride over the broad-bosomed billow. Aloft, Sigurdir's battle-flag streams onward to the land; Well may the taint of slaughter lag on yonder glorious strand. The waters of the mighty deep, the wild birds of the sky, Hear it, like vengeance, shoreward sweep, where moody men must die.

The waves wax wroth beneath our keel-the clouds above us lower;

They know the battle-sign, and feel all its resistless power!

"Who now uprears Sigurdir's flag, nor shuns an early tomb? Who shoreward, through the swelling surge, shall bear the scroll of doom?"

So shout the Scalds as the long ships are nearing
The low-lying shores of a beautiful land.

Silent the Self-devoted stood beside the massive tree;
His image mirrored in the flood was terrible to see!

As, leaning on his gleaming axe, and gazing on the wave,
His fearless soul was churning up the death-rune of the brave.
Upheaving then his giant form upon the brown bark's
prow,
And tossing back the yellow storm of hair from his broad
brow,

The lips of song burst open, and the words of fire rushed out, And thundering through that martial crew pealed Harald's battle shout;

(It is Harald the dauntless that lifteth his great voice, As the Northmen roll on with the Doom-written banner.) "I bear Sigurdir's battle-flag through sunshine or through gloom;

Through swelling surge on bloody strand I plant the scroll of doom!

On Scandia's lonest, bleakest waste, beneath a starless sky, The shadowy Three like meteors passed, and bade young Harald die ;

They sang the war-deeds of his sires, and pointed to their tomb:

They told him that this glory-flag was his by right of doom. Since then, where hath young Harald been, but where Jarl's son should be?

'Mid war and waves-the combat keen that raged on land or sea!"

So sings the fierce Harald, the thirster for glory,

As his hand bears aloft the dark death-laden banner. "Mine own death's in this clenched hand! I know the noble trust;

These limbs must rot on yonder strand-these lips must lick its dust:

But shall this dusky standard quail in the red slaughter day;
Or shall this heart its purpose fail-this arm forget to slay?
I trample down such idle doubt; Harald's high blood hath

sprung

From sires whose hands in martial bout have ne'er belied their tongue;

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