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A Cyclopædia of Sacred Poetical Quotations: Consisting of Choice Passages from the Sacred Poetry of All Ages and Countries, Classified and Arranged, for Facility of Reference, Under Subject Headings; Illustrated by Striking Passages from Scripture, and Forming Altogether a Complete Book of Devotional Poetry.

Religion

A Cyclopædia of Sacred Poetical Quotations: Consisting of Choice Passages from the Sacred Poetry of All Ages and Countries, Classified and Arranged, for Facility of Reference, Under Subject Headings; Illustrated by Striking Passages from Scripture, and Forming Altogether a Complete Book of Devotional Poetry.

Quotations; Religious poetry

Most wondrous book! bright candle of the Lord!
    Star of eternity! the only star
    By which the bark of man could navigate
    The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss
    Securely; only star which rose in time
    And on its dark and troubled billows, still
    As generation driving swiftly by,
    Succeeding generation, threw a ray
    Of heaven’s own light, and to the hills of God--
    The everlasting hills--pointed the sinner’s eye.
    By prophets, seers, and priests, and sacred bards,
    Evangelists, apostles, men inspired,
    And by the Holy Ghost anointed, set
    Apart and consecrated to declare
    On earth the counsels of the Eternal one,
    This book--this holiest, this sublimest book
    Was sent. Heaven’s will, Heaven’s code of laws entire
    To man, this book contained; defined the bounds
    Of vice and virtue, and of life and death;
    And what was shadow, what was substance taught.
    This book--this holy book, in every line
    Marked with the seal of high divinity,
    On every leaf bedewed with drops of love
    Divine, and with the eternal heraldry
    And signature of God Almighty stamped,
    From first to last; this ray of sacred light,
    This lamp from off the everlasting throne,
    Mercy brought down, and in the night of time
    Stands casting on the dark her gracious bow,
    And evermore beseeching men with tears
    And earnest sighs, to read, believe, and live.

                        Hast thou ever heard
    Of such a book? The author God Himself;
    The subject, God and man, salvation, life,
    And death--eternal life--eternal death.
                                                 _Pollok._


      The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
        How Abram was the friend of God on high;
      Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage
        With Amalek’s ungracious progeny;
      Or how the Royal Bard did groaning lie,
        Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire;
      Or Job’s pathetic plaint and wailing cry;
        Or wrapt Isaiah’s wild seraphic fire;
    Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

      Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
        How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
      How He who bore in Heaven the second name,
        Had not, on earth, whereon to lay His head;
      How His first followers and servants sped;
        The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
      How he who, lone in Patmos banished,
        Saw, in the sun, a mighty angel stand;
    And heard great Bab’lon’s doom pronounced by Heaven’s command.
                                                           _Burns._

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