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7.

IRREVERENCE IN CHURCH.

"The Lord is in His holy Temple: let all the earth keep silence before Him."

O GRIEF for Angels to behold

Within Christ's awful home!

A child regenerate here of old, And here for lowliest adoration come,

Forgetting love and fear,

And with bold eye and tone bringing the rude world here!

Where is the Cross upon thy brow,

Seal of His Love and Might,

Whose life-blood earn'd thee power, thy vow To keep, and serve Him in His courts aright?

Thou know'st, His ire brake out for His own holy

place.

Thrice in those seven dread days, we read,

He to His temple came,

If haply from the wrath decreed

He might redeem th' abode of His great Name;
With silent warning Eye,

With scourge in Hand, with doom of thrilling Pro-
phecy.

On Sunday eve with many a palm,
With many a chant divine,

It came, that Eye so keen and calm,

Like a still lamp, far searching aisle and shrine.
Happy the few, that hour,

Who with adoring hearts kneel'd to that gaze of

power.

Nor they unblest, the morrow morn,

Who low before Him lay

In penitential guise forlorn,

And for His sounding scourge made duteous way :
Who at His word their store

Of earthly goods remov'd, nor ever brought them more.

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But ah! no blessing left He then,

When the third evening fell,

And o'er the olive-shaded glen

Came wafted to His Mount His stern farewell. “We meet not, till ye own

The Crucified and scorn'd before the Judgment Throne."

No blessing left the Lord of bliss,

Save on that widow poor,

Who only offer'd not amiss,

Whose praise for aye shall in His Book endure.
What if the place were doom'd?

Love will abide the fire: her gift is unconsum'd.

Thrice warn'd the dread departing word

The city of His choice;

And threefold are Thy lessons, Lord,

Even now to reckless eye and heart and voice.
Why is there silence here ?

Why hush the prattling babe? "An unseen Eye we fear."

What are these frowns, and penal ways
With rebel hand and tongue ?

True tokens of the heart's amaze,

Where waits beside the door the scared throng,
By sentence heard in Heaven,

Of sin-retaining power, out of the Presence driven :

Driven for a while and O! if yet
The scornful brow they bend,

The saintly Thrones are duly set,

The doom prepar'd, that without hope or end

The Temple Roof will draw

Down on the irreverent head, there lingering without

awe.

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8.

DISRESPECT TO ELDERS.

"And he went up from thence unto Beth-el and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald-head; go up, thou bald-head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord and there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. And he went from thence to Mount

Carmel."

THE Powers of Ill have mysteries of their own,
Their sacramental signs and prayers,

Their choral chants in many a winning tone,

Their watchwords, seals, processions, known Far off to friend and foe: their lights and perfum'd airs.

And even as men, where warring hosts abide,

By faint and silent tokens learn

At distance whom to trust, from whom to hide,
So round us set on every side

Th' aerial sentinels our good and ill discern.