IV.
SABBATH: WORSHIP: CREED.
SUNDAY MORNING BELLS.
From the near city comes the clang of bells:
Their hundred jarring diverse tones combine
In one faint misty harmony, as fine
As the soft note yon winter robin swells.
What if to Thee in thine infinity
These multiform and many-colored creeds
Seem but the robe man wraps as masquers' weeds
Round the one living truth them givest him—Thee?
What if these varied forms that worship prove,
Being heart-worship, reach thy perfect ear
But as a monotone, complete and clear,
Of which the music is, through Christ's name, love?
Forever rising in sublime increase
To "Glory in the highest,—on earth peace"?
DINAH M. MULOCK CRAIK.
*
SABBATH HYMN ON THE MOUNTAINS.
Praise ye the Lord!
Not in the temple of shapeliest mould,
Polished with marble and gleaming with gold,
Piled upon pillars of slenderest grace,
But here in the blue sky's luminous face,
Praise ye the Lord!
Praise ye the Lord!
Not where the organ's melodious wave
Dies 'neath the rafters that narrow the nave,
But here with the free wind's wandering sweep,
Here with the billow that booms from the deep,
Praise ye the Lord!