The hope that e'en may lighten These be our Christmas wishes The hearts that feel our sorrow As once they shared our mirth. S. P. MEDIEVAL SEQUENCES AND HYMNS. No. I.-FOR THE CIRCUMCISION. (In Sapientia disponens omnia Eterna Deitas.) IN His Wisdom ordering all things well, the Eternal Deity Upon the shepherds Light hath shined, Not on the proud ones of mankind. Within a manger He is found Whom neither earth nor heaven can bound. The Star its brilliancy doth shed, For Jesse's Rod hath blossomed. The Royal Sages from afar Bring gold and frankincense and myrrh. Circumcision suffered He Who was born to set us free. He the Jordan's flowing tide To our cleansing sanctified. Him the Virgin offereth, SOME of the readers of The Monthly Packet are probably acquainted with the above lines,* and know something respecting the character of the good and beneficent woman who wrote them. * See The Monthly Packet, July, 1867. My own particular object in recurring to them at this season is partly because the thoughts they suggest seem to me suitable to a New Year, and partly because I have been led to know, in consequence of an enlarged circulation which has been given to the lines in question, that there are considerable differences in the degree of assent given to Lady Nairn's summary decision in the first two of them: and these differences interest me, and may interest our readers. There is great unanimity in the feeling of admiration for the little poem itself, and the spirit of its writer-its elevated, yet evidently natural tone; but it has been said to me more than once, 'I am afraid I do wish "to be young again!"—said with a feeling of humility, but with manifest sincerity-said, as if the speaker was fully conscious of an opposition to the decrees of Heaven, (if such a wish were allowed to triumph over better thoughts,) but still as one penetrated by the sense of past short-comings, and willing even to encounter much bygone trouble, for the sake of correcting errors, and acquiring a more elevated present standing-point. This case (and there have been several such) has, I confess, excited in my mind much of sympathy and tenderness. I dare not say the feeling is wrong; though it may, no doubt, if indulged in, pass on to what is wrong. I cannot think that the past should be excluded from bearing its present fruit, even in sad wishes and regretful longings. We have done wrong.-We have lost an opportunity of doing good.-Who says we are not to be sorry for it, though the offence happened long ago? Who says it is not part of our discipline to wish (though vainly) we could redress the wrong, and recall misspent time? surely the dissatisfaction is salutary, and from it we may advance to better things-the higher future may grow out of an unsatisfying past. Yet I think it is clear that we must not yield readily to dreamy contemplation of these things, when they excite wishes which are doubtless formed in ignorance-perhaps with presumption, only a little disguised. We 'know not what we ask,'-know not, when we flatter ourselves that we should SOAR, how an earthward force might drag us down lower than in our past beginnings. The clearest, the only clear duty, indeed, presented to us in such retrospects, is to pray that our bygone days may bear their legitimate natural fruits in lowly thoughts of ourselves, and a more earnest perpetual application to the Holy Spirit of our God for newness of purpose and deed. Step by step we may thus advance to a higher state, where we may forget 'the things that are behind.' It may be said, however, that our good Lady Nairn was not looking Mrs. Barbauld. Ode to Remorse. |