and thy name is Love.
I know thee, Saviour, who thou art,
Jesus, the feeble sinner's friend;
Nor wilt thou with the night depart,
But stay and love me to the end;
Thy mercies never shall remove;
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
The Sun of Righteousness on me
Hath risen, with healing in his wings;
Withered my nature's strength; from thee
My soul its life and succor brings;
My help is all laid up above;
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
Contented now upon my thigh
I halt till life's short journey end;
All helplessness, all weakness, I
On thee alone for strength depend;
Nor have I power from thee to move;
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
Lame as I am, I take the prey;
Hell, earth, and sin with ease o'ercome;
I leap for joy, pursue my way,
And, as a bounding hart, fly home;
Through all eternity to prove
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
CHARLES WESLEY.
* * * * *
THE CONVERSION OF SAINT PAUL.
The midday sun, with fiercest glare,
Broods over the hazy, twinkling air;
Along the level sand
The palm-tree's shade unwavering lies,
Just as thy towers, Damascus, rise
To greet yon wearied band.
The leader of that martial crew
Seems bent some mighty deed to do,
So steadily he speeds,
With lips firm closed and fixed eye,
Like warrior when the fight is nigh,
Nor talk nor landscape heeds.
What sudden blaze is round him poured,
As though all Heaven's refulgent hoard
In one rich glory shone?
One moment,--and to earth he falls:
What voice his inmost heart appalls?--
Voice heard by him alone.
For to the rest both words and form
Seem lost in lightning and in storm,
While Saul, in wakeful trance,
Sees deep within that dazzling field
His persecuted Lord revealed
With keen yet pitying glance:
And hears the meek upbraiding call
As gently on his spirit fall,
As if the Almighty Son
Were prisoner yet in this dark earth,
Nor had proclaimed his royal birth,
Nor his great power begun.
"Ah! wherefore persecut'st thou me?"
He heard and saw, and sought to free
His strained eye from the sight:
But Heaven's high magic bound it there,
Still gazing, though untaught to bear
The insufferable light.
"Who art thou, Lord?" he falters forth:--
So shall Sin ask of heaven and earth
At the last awful day
"When di
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