from the land of bondage came,
Her fathers' God before her moved,
An awful guide, in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonished lands,
The cloudy pillar glided slow:
By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands
Returned the fiery column's glow.

There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answered keen,
And Zion's daughters poured their lays,
With priest's and warrior's voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze,
Forsaken Israel wanders lone:
Our fathers would not know Thy ways,
And Thou hast left them to their own.

But, present still, though now unseen!
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen
To temper the deceitful ray.
And O, when stoops on Judah's path
In shade and storm the frequent night,
Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!

Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,
And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn.
But Thou hast said, "The blood of goat,
The flesh of rams, I will not prize;
A contrite heart, a humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice."

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

* * * * *

THE BOOK OF GOD.

Thy thoughts are here, my God,
Expressed in words divine,
The utterance of heavenly lips
In every sacred line.

Across the ages they
Have reached us from afar,
Than the bright gold more golden they,
Purer than purest star.

More durable they stand
Than the eternal hills;
Far sweeter and more musical
Than music of earth's rills.

Fairer in their fair hues
Than the fresh flowers of earth,
More fragrant than the fragrant climes
Where odors have their birth.

Each word of thine a gem
From the celestial mines,
A sunbeam from that holy heaven
Where holy sunlight shines.

Thine, thine, this book, though given
In man's poor human speech,
Telling of things unseen, unheard,
Beyond all human reach.

No strength it craves or needs
From this world's wisdom vain;
No filling up from human wells,
Or sublunary rain.

No light from sons of time,
Nor brilliance from its gold;
It sparkles with its own glad light,
As in the ages old.

A thousand hammers keen,
With fiery force and strain,
Brought down on it in rage and hate,