d murmur to contend so long!
I rise superior to my pain:
When I am weak, then I am strong;
And when my all of strength shall fail,
I shall with the God-man prevail.

My strength is gone; my nature dies;
I sink beneath thy weighty hand:
Faint to revive, and fall to rise;
I fall, and yet by faith I stand--
I stand, and will not let thee go
Till I thy name, thy nature know.

Yield to me now, for I am weak,
But confident in self-despair;
Speak to my heart, in blessings speak;
Be conquered by my instant[161] prayer.
Speak, or thou never hence shalt move,
And tell me if thy name is Love.

'Tis Love! 'tis Love! Thou diedst for me!
I hear thy whisper in my heart!
The morning breaks; the shadows flee:
Pure universal Love thou art!
To me, to all, thy bowels move:
Thy nature and thy name is Love!

My prayer hath power with God; the grace
Unspeakable I now receive;
Through faith I see thee face to face--
I see thee face to face, and live:
In vain I have not wept and strove;
Thy nature 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!

* * * * *

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.

It seems to me that the art with which his very difficult end in the
management of the allegory is reached, is admirable. I have omitted three
stanzas.

I cannot give much from William Cowper. His poems--graceful always, and
often devout even when playful--have few amongst them that are expressly
religious, while the best of his hymns are known to every reader of such.
Born in 1731, he was greatly influenced by the narrow theology that
prevailed in his circle; and most of his hymns are marred by the
exclusiveness which belonged to the system and not to the man. There is
little of it in the following:--

Far from the world, O Lord,