Then horror of great darkness fell, While eyes flashed inward fire; And over all the roar and dash, Through that great blackness came a crash, A token sure and dire. The wave had burst upon the pier, The wreck was scattered wide; Another "Now" would never reach The corpse that lay upon the beach With the receding tide. God's "Now" is sounding in your ears, Oh, let it reach your heart! Not only from your sinfulness He bids you part; Your righteousness as filthy rags Must all relinquished be, And only Jesus' precious death Must be your plea. _Now_ trust the one provided rope, Now quit the broken mast, Before the hope of safety be Forever past. Fear not to trust His simple word, So sweet, so tried, so true, And you are safe for evermore, Yes,--even you! --_Frances Ridley Havergal._ OCEAN TEACHINGS. "This great and wide sea."--PSALM civ. 25. That rising storm! It has awakened me; My slumbering spirit starts to life anew; That blinding spray-drift, how it falls upon me, As on the weary flower the freshening dew. That rugged rock-fringe that girds in the ocean, And calls the foam from its translucent blue, It seems to pour strange strength into my spirit,-- Strength for endurance, strength for conflict too. And these bright ocean-birds, these billow-rangers, The snowy-breasted,--each a winged wave-- They tell me how to joy in storm and dangers, When surges whiten, or when whirlwinds rave. And these green-stretching fields, these peaceful hollows, That hear the tempest, but take no alarm, Has not their placid verdue sweetly taught me The peace within when all without is storm? And thou keen sun-flash, through the cloud-wreath bursting, Silvering the sea, the sward, the rock, the foam, What light within me has thy pure gleam kindled? 'Tis from the land of light that thou art come. And of the time how blithely art thou telling, When cloud and change and tempest shall take wing; Each beam of thine prophetic of the glory, Creation's daybreak, earth's long-promised spring. Even thus it is, my God me daily teacheth Sweet knowledge out of all I hear and see; Each object has a heavenly voice within it, Each scene, however troubled, speaks to me. For all upon this earth is broken beauty, Yet out of all what strange, deep lessons rise? Each hour is giving out its heaven-sent wisdom, A message from the sea, the shore, the skies. --_Horatius Bonar._ INCOMPLETENESS. Nothing resting in its own completeness Can have worth or beauty: but alone Because it leads and tends to further sweetness, Fuller, higher, deeper than its own. Spring's real glory dwells not in the meaning, Gracious though it be, of her blue hours; But is hidden in her tender leaning To the Summer's richer wealth of flowers.