Hail! highly favored, even in this deep passion; Hail! in this bitter anguish thou art blest,-- Blest in the holy power with Him to suffer Those deep death-pangs that lead to higher rest. All now is darkness; and in that deep stillness The God-man wrestles with that mighty woe; Hark to that cry, the rock of ages rending,-- "'Tis finished!" Mother, all is glory now! By sufferings mighty as his mighty soul Hath the Redeemer risen forever blest; And through all ages must his heart-beloved Through the same baptism enter the same rest. THE INNER VOICE. "Come ye yourselves into a desert place and rest awhile; for there were many coming and going, so that they had no time so much as to eat." 'MID the mad whirl of life, its dim confusion, Its jarring discords and poor vanity, Breathing like music over troubled waters, What gentle voice, O Christian, speaks to thee? It is a stranger,--not of earth or earthly; By the serene, deep fulness of that eye,-- By the calm, pitying smile, the gesture lowly,-- It is thy Saviour as he passeth by. "Come, come," he saith, "O soul oppressed and weary, Come to the shadows of my desert rest, Come walk with me far from life's babbling discords, And peace shall breathe like music in thy breast. "Art thou bewildered by contesting voices,-- Sick to thy soul of party noise and strife? Come, leave it all, and seek that solitude Where thou shalt learn of me a purer life. "When far behind the world's great tumult dieth, Thou shalt look back and wonder at its roar; But its far voice shall seem to thee a dream, Its power to vex thy holier life be o'er. "There shalt thou learn the secret of a power, Mine to bestow, which heals the ills of living; To overcome by love, to live by prayer, To conquer man's worst evils by forgiving." ABIDE IN ME, AND I IN YOU. THE SOUL'S ANSWER. THAT mystic word of thine, O sovereign Lord, Is all too pure, too high, too deep for me; Weary of striving, and with longing faint, I breathe it back again in _prayer_ to thee. Abide in me, I pray, and I in thee; From this good hour, O, leave me nevermore; Then shall the discord cease, the wound be healed, The lifelong bleeding of the soul be o'er. Abide in me; o'ershadow by thy love Each half-formed purpose and dark thought of sin; Quench, e'er it rise, each selfish, low desire, And keep my soul as thine, calm and divine. As some rare perfume in a vase of clay Pervades it with a fragrance not its own, So, when thou dwellest in a mortal soul, All heaven's own sweetness seems around it thrown.