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REFORMATION.

"The darkness is passing and the true light now shineth."

Hail! second Reformation, come at last,

To terminate the quarrels of the past,

To reconcile conflicting sects and schools,

And make them cast aside their senseless rules--
Those traps and stumbling-blocks by which so well
They have served the purpose of the prince of Hell—
Decrees of Councils, Canons, Statutes, Laws,
Hair-splitting definitions without cause,
Tests, Articles, and Bulls, and such like stuff,
As if the Gospel-truths were not enough:
Christ dead and risen, righteousness and love,
Affections set on Christ and things above,
These things sufficed the Apostles for a creed,
These things sustained them in their hours of need,

For these the holy martyrs lived and died,
With these all good men have been satisfied;
Strong in the faith, they fought the battle well,
And overthrew the mighty hosts of Hell,
And yet no steepled churches were there then,
No vast endowments had those holy men,
They leaned not on the prop of any State,
Nor looked to Parliaments to make them great;
Poor and despised, but filled with God's own leaven,
With mighty power they led the way to Heaven,
Won souls to Christ, to heathen lands were sent;
This was their gain, this their emolument.

ON THE DEATH OF SIR CHARLES CLARKE.

"Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in his season."

Say, Colet, say, for whom has rung
The minstrel's harp that silent hung?
For whom essays he to prolong
His sweet but melancholy song?

What name to rescue from the gloom
That settles round the silent tomb?
O thou whose well-known healing power
Blessed thousands in affliction's hour,
Condemned alas! thyself to endure
The ills, for others thou could'st cure:
I bring this tribute to thy grave,
'Tis little, but 'tis all I have;

For oft thy judgment would excuse
The trifling of my fitful Muse:
No more thy genial smile shall cheer
Our social feasts from year to year-
A constant guest, until at last
Thy manly frame was sinking fast;
Absent in body, not in will,
Thy spirit hovered round us still.
Well did we know thy fost'ring care,
Well, too, thy love of talent rare,
With thee took part in classic lore,
With thee in play when school was o'er:
The noble Roman, who of old

With Lælius did sweet converse hold,

Yet sought some respite from his toil
Amid the Ocean's outcast spoil,
Collecting pebbles on the sand,

Where stretches Baia's pleasant strand:
So thou, too, on life's sunny shore
Didst sportive play, till day was o'er,
Till the dark billow, flowing fast,
O'ertook thee with its tide at last:
Alas! dear friend, to sooth our pain
Where shall we find thy like again?

If medicine failed to do its part,
Yet never failed thy merry heart,
Never thy look, thy word, of love,
Never thy prayer to God above :
If naught availed, the pillow thou
Would'st turn to cool the fevered brow.
All, all must die; then blest are they
Who calmly meet the dreaded day :
The bad a stubborn front oppose

To ruthless Fate's redoubled blows;
Not so the good; life's thread is spent,
The struggle's short, they die content:
Thou, like the full ripe corn which stands
Ready to fill the reaper's hands,
Didst to the sickle bow thy head,

And meekly join the holy dead.

This translation, from some Latin verses of the Rev. Dr. Kynaston, was made at the request of the late Mrs. Chilver, daughter of Sir Charles Clarke, a most kind and benevolent lady, who met her death a few years ago by a frightful accident on the South Eastern Railway, while her husband, an eminent medical man and philanthropist, who was sitting by her side, providentially escaped uninjured.

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