Were it not better to lie still, Let Him strike home and bless the rod, Never so safe as when our will Yields undiscerned by all but God? Thy precious things, whate’er they be, That haunt and vex thee, heart and brain, Look to the Cross and thou shalt see How thou mayst turn them all to gain. Lovest thou praise? the Cross is shame: Or ease? the Cross is bitter grief: More pangs than tongue or heart can frame Were suffered there without relief. We of that Altar would partake, But cannot quit the cost—no throne Is ours, to leave for Thy dear sake— We cannot do as Thou hast done. We cannot part with Heaven for Thee— Yet guide us in Thy track of love: Let us gaze on where light should be, Though not a beam the clouds remove. So wanderers ever fond and true Look homeward through the evening sky, Without a streak of heaven’s soft blue To aid Affection’s dreaming eye. The wanderer seeks his native bower, And we will look and long for Thee, And thank Thee for each trying hour, Wishing, not struggling, to be free. Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity. Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling-block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols. _Ezekiel_ xiv. 4. STATELY thy walls, and holy are the prayers Which day and night before thine altars rise: Not statelier, towering o’er her marble stairs, Flashed Sion’s gilded dome to summer skies, Not holier, while around him angels bowed, From Aaron’s censer steamed the spicy cloud, Before the mercy-seat. O Mother dear, Wilt thou forgive thy son one boding sigh? Forgive, if round thy towers he walk in fear, And tell thy jewels o’er with jealous eye? Mindful of that sad vision, which in thought From Chebar’s plains the captive prophet brought. To see lost Sion’s shame. ’Twas morning prime, And like a Queen new seated on her throne, GOD’S crownèd mountain, as in happier time, Seemed to rejoice in sunshine all her own: So bright, while all in shade around her lay, Her northern pinnacles had caught th’ emerging ray. The dazzling lines of her majestic roof Crossed with as free a span the vault of heaven, As when twelve tribes knelt silently aloof Ere GOD His answer to their king had given, Ere yet upon the new-built altar fell The glory of the LORD, the Lord of Israel. All seems the same: but enter in and see What idol shapes are on the wall portrayed: And watch their shameless and unholy glee, Who worship there in Aaron’s robes arrayed: Hear Judah’s maids the dirge to Thammuz pour, And mark her chiefs yon orient sun adore.