The pity of the Lord

To those that fear his name Is such as tender parents feel; He knows our feeble frame.

Our days are as the grass,

Or like the morning flower;

If one sharp blast sweeps o'er the field,
It withers in an hour.

But thy compaffions, Lord,

To endless years endure;

And children's children ever find

Thy word of promise sure.

Isaac Watts. 1674-1748.

SEED-TIME AND HARVEST.

OME, ye thankful people, come,

Raise the song of Harvest-Home!
All is safely gathered in,

Ere the winter-storms begin;
God, our Maker, doth provide

For our wants to be supplied;
Come to God's own temple, come,
Raise the song of Harveft-Home!

We ourselves are God's own field,
Fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown,
Unto joy or sorrow grown:
First the blade, and then the ear,
Then the full corn fhall appear:
Grant, O Harvest-Lord, that we
Wholesome grain and pure may be!

For the Lord our God fhall come,
And fhall take His harvest home!
From His field fhall purge away
All that doth offend, that day;
Give His angels charge at last
In the fires the tares to cast,
But the fruitful ears to store
In His

garner evermore.

Then, thou Church triumphant, come,
Raise the song of Harvest-Home!

All are safely gathered in,

Free from sorrow, free from fin,

There forever, purified,

In God's garner to abide:

Come, ten thousand angels, come,

Raise the glorious Harvest-Home!

BEFO

PRAISE TO OUR CREATOR.

EFORE Jehovah's awful throne,
Ye nations bow with sacred joy ;
Know that the Lord is God alone;
He can create and He destroy.

His sovereign power, without our aid,
Made us of clay, and formed us men;
And when, like wandering fheep, we ftrayed,
He brought us to His fold again.

We are His people, we His care;

Our souls, and all our mortal frame: What lafting honors fhall we rear, Almighty Maker, to Thy name?

We'll crowd Thy gates, with thankful songs,
High as the heaven our voices raise ;
And earth, with her ten thousand tongues,
Shall fill Thy courts with sounding praise.

Wide as the world is Thy command;
Vaft as eternity Thy love;

Firm as a rock Thy truth shall stand,
When rolling years fhall cease to move.

Isaac Watts. 1674-1748.

SELF-EXAMINATION.

SELF-CONDEMNATION.

"If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." I JOHN iii. 20.

LORD, many times I am a-weary quite

Of my own self, my fin and vanity; Yet be not Thou, or I am loft outright, Weary of me.

And hate against myself I often bear,

And enter with myself in fierce debate; Take Thou my part against myself, nor fhare In that juft hate.

Best friends might loathe us, if what things perverse We know of our own selves they also knew; Lord, Holy One! if Thou, who knowest worse,

Shouldft loathe us too!
R. C. Trench.

O

FOR a closer walk with God,
A calm and heavenly frame,
A light to fhine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb!

What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
How sweet their memory ftill!

But now I find an aching void
The world can never fill.

Return, O holy Dove, return,
Sweet meffenger of reft;

I hate the fins that made thee mourn,
And drove thee from my breast.

The dearest idol I have known,
Whate'er that idol be,

Help me to tear it from thy throne,
And worship only thee.

So fhall my walk be close with God,
Calm and serene my frame;
So purer light fhall mark the road

That leads me to the Lamb.

Wm. Cowper. 1779.