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Can his be joy, whose dim and doubtful sight
Courts for his sunshine fancy's wavering light?
Is there then rapture? No! whatever here
Allures the sense is circled by a snare ;

And false those poisoned sweets, those days of haste.
Lo! not what is is ours, but what is past!
Shall then such days, such pleasures, still engage
The mind of man from the eternal page?
O! if dissolved, if freed from mortal ties,
The spirit now could soar beyond the skies;
If, all our sins forgiven, to realms above,
Bright in the radiance of immortal love;
Or, lost beneath their weight, to worlds below,
The wailing regions of unending woe;

How would these things of present being seem
The idle phantoms of an empty dream!
Delusive forms, that flit before the

How less than nothing to reality!

eye,

Yet such is life, the breathing of an hour,
The brief wild tumult of imagined power;

To this our zeal, our cares, our griefs, are given,
And Hope's presumption only left for heaven.

E. B.

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IN

ENCOURAGEMENT TO PATIENCE.

In every hour, in every place,
Where runs our busy mortal race,

Though sad our state, though low our lot,
"Ne'er be thy mercies, Lord, forgot.

If trials mark the road to heaven,
And thorns amid our flowers be given,"
Remind us how thy blessed Son

Met deeper pangs than we have done;
A life of grief without a sigh,
A death of willing agony.

Yet in that hour of bitterer woe
Than man's severest fate can know,
Pitying he viewed his murderers there,
And "O forgive them!" was his prayer.
And we, shall thankless we, complain
At some brief throb, some transient pain;
Or deem it hard to taste the cup
Our God and Saviour Christ drank up
No! give us grace, whate'er thy will,
To bear it, Lord of mercy, still,

?

And love the hand that wounds in this,
To fit us for a world of bliss.

E. B.

PSALM II. 1, 5.

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure.

SHALL erring realms escape for evils done,
And vengeance visit private sins alone?

Is this thy faith? then, turn thy wondering eyes
Where prostrate Judah all-forsaken lies!

The Elect, the Chosen! But her rulers strove
Against the kingdom of their Lord above,

When earth and hell, in maddened tumult driven,
Swelled their dark ranks to burst the gates of heaven.
Saw we not then, how from the depths of light,
The mighty Conqueror marked their onward flight,
Checked the soft mercy they refused to share,
The pardon of a Saviour's dying prayer,
And bade destruction, on her ruins hurled,
Sweep the lost Sion from a startled world?
Still reigns the King, still on his glorious throne
Dwells the same Lord, the pure, the mighty One:
And still his justice, robed in wreaths of flame,
Looks down in awful majesty the same.
Oh then! if some apostate land explore
The path which fallen Judah trod before,
Or, lost in worldly policy or lust,

Forsake, what once she loved, her sacred trust,
And careless fling, to foreign hands a prey,
The faith and altars of her sires away,-
Who shall declare, herself her bitterest foe,

A nation's sin prove not a nation's woe?

Who see her yield to every changing breath,

The Church once purchased by her martyrs' death?
Then fearless turn to Asia, or to Rome,

Or Judah weeping still her desert home.

E. B.

ORGANO-HISTORICA;

Or the History of Cathedral and Parochial Organs.

NO. XVII.-THE ORGAN AT CROYDON CHURCH.

THE instrument at the above church was built by the celebrated artist, Avery, in 1794; and is in a better state of preservation than any of this builder's make now in London. (See our number for June last.) The organ we are now about to describe was a gift of one of the inhabitants, by trade a barber or hairdresser, who, at his decease, bequeathed what property he had to the parish, on condition of their erecting an organ in Croydon Church. There was some opposition to

its erection at first, on account of the Vestry refusing to make a rate for the payment of an organist. The difficulty was at last got over, by their agreeing to make a voluntary subscription for the organist, annually. Mr. Bartleman, the late celebrated bass singer, was their first organist. His successors are remunerated for their attendance by voluntary subscription.

The tone of this instrument is rich and powerful, and possesses two great qualities, brilliancy in the chorus, and quickness of speech,-the general characteristics of Avery's organs. The whole of the stops are good, and may be used either in solo or chorus. The diapasons throughout the organ are particularly clear and fine, and we cannot help pronouncing it as one of Avery's best finished instruments. The following are the stops it contains :

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The compass of the great and choir organs, is from G G to F in alt58 notes that of the swell, from F in the tenor to F in alt-37 notes. The last octave of one of the open diapasons speaks on the pedals only. The instrument underwent a repair and improvement by Mr. Elliott, in 1819, who added an octave of unison pedal pipes; the scale of which is not large enough, so that they fail to produce the effect intended. The great brilliancy in the upper, or acute part of the organ, requires a ponderous and weighty quality in the bass, or grave part of the instrument. It still wants a real double open diapason, as pedal pipes, to render the full organ what it should be-majestic. It stands in a church very favourable to sound.

COLLECTANEA.

A RETENTIVE MEMORY.-Bishop Jewel, who lived in the reigns of King Edward VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, had naturally a very strong memory, and he improved it by art to such a degree, that he could repeat, with the utmost exactness, whatever he wrote,

after having once read it. While the bell was ringing, he committed to his memory a repetition sermon, and pronounced it without hesitation. He was a constant preacher, and, in his own sermons, his method was to write down the heads only; upon the rest he meditated till the bell ringing to church ceased. So firm was his memory, that he used to say, if he were to deliver a premeditated speech before a thousand auditors, shouting or fighting all the while, they would not put him out. In order to try him, Dr. Parkhurst proposed many barbarous words out of a calendar, and Bishop Hooper forty Welsh, Irish, and foreign terms. After having twice read them, he repeated them all by heart, backwards and forwards. In the year 1563, Dr. Nicholas Bacon, lord keeper of the great seal, read to him one day, out of Erasmus's Paraphrase, the last clauses of ten lines, confused and imperfect on purpose when he had sat silent a little while, covering his face with his hand, he repeated all those broken pieces of sentences the right way, and the contrary, without hesitation. He professed to teach others this art, and actually taught it his tutor, Dr. Parkhurst, at Zurich.*

GOD SAVE THE KING.- -Much has been said of the origin of this sublime authem, and a foolish report has lately been revived of its French origin and importation. In the MS. memoirs of the Duchess of Perth, lately sold in London, Handel is accused of having procured both the air and the sentiments from the superior of St. Cyr, in France; for whose establishment, it is said, that they had been composed, and there performed on a visit from Louis XIV., accompanied by James II. and his Queen consort from England. Now the fact is, that both the words and the music of " God save the King," existed almost a century before the period alluded to; having been composed at the request of the Company of Merchant Tailors, about the year 1606-7, to commemorate the escape of James I. and his parliament from the gunpowderplot. The music may even be found in print in John Forbes's Cantus, or Songs and Fancies," 4to, published at Aberdeen in 1682, two years before Handel was born. The following additional stanza was prepared by R. B. Sheridan, when George III. was shot at by Hatfield, in the year 1800.

66

From every latent foe,
From the assassin's blow,
God save the King!

O'er him thine arm extend,

For Britain's sake defend,

Our Father, Prince, and Friend :
God save the King!

CONTENTMENT.-There was an Italian bishop who had struggled through great difficulties without repining, and who met with much opposition in the discharge of his episcopal function, without ever betraying the least impatience. An intimate friend of his, who highly

*See Life prefixed to Isaacson's translation of Jewell's Apology, p. lxxxvi. lxxxvii.

admired those virtues, which he thought it impossible to imitate, one day asked the prelate if he could communicate the secret of being always easy? "Yes," replied the old man, "I can teach you my secret, and with great facility: It consists in nothing more than in making a right use of my eyes." His friend begged him to explain himself. "Most willingly," returned the Bishop. "In whatsoever state I am, I first of all look up to heaven, and I remember that my principal business here is to get there. I then look down upon the earth, and call to mind how small a space I shall occupy in it, when I come to be interred. I then look abroad into the world, and observe what multitudes there are who are in all respects more unhappy than myself. Thus I learn where true happiness is placed, where all our cares must end, and how very little reason I have to repine or to complain."

ANCIENT EPITAPH.

Looke man before thee how thy death hasteth,
Looke man behind thee how thy life wasteth,
Looke on thy right side how death thee desireth,
Looke on thy left side how sinne thee beguileth,
Looke man above thee joyes that ever shall last,
Looke man beneath thee, the pains without rest.

ENGLISH VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE.-1. Coverdale's translation, first printed in 1535; 2. Matthew's, 1537; 3. Cranmer's, or the Great Bible, 1539; 4. the Genevan, 1560; 5. the Bishops', 1568; 6. the Douay-Rhenish (the Roman Catholic version), 1583-1609.

SELECT SENTENCES.-To fear God's justice, is the way not to feel it. Worldly riches and honours can never fully content the mind. The way to contentment is not by raising the estate higher, but by bringing the heart lower, and having God for a portion.

He who has on the breast-plate of God's fear may be shot at, but he can never be shot through.

Religion would have no enemies, if itself were not an enemy to vice. All means in the world, without the love and practice of the truth, will be insufficient to our preservation in the saving profession of it.

It is impossible that a Christian can keep the professions of his faith stedfast, unless he keep the exercise of his faith constant.

He that has a false end in his profession will soon come to an end of his profession.

It will cost something to be religious;—it will cost more not to be so, Prayer is the better half of a minister's whole work; and that which makes the other half lively and effectual.

Pride is the most dangerous of all sins: Other temptations are about evil; this is conversant about good.

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