Nay, look again: the Saints are there;
Christ's ever-glowing Light

Through heavenly features grave and fair
Is gleaming; all the lonely air

Is thronged with shadows bright.

The Saints are there :-the Living Dead,

The Mourners glad and strong;

The sacred floor their quiet bed,

Their beams from every window shed,

Their voice in every song.

And haply where I kneel, some day,
From yonder gorgeous pane

The glory of some Saint will play :

Not lightly may it pass away,

But in my heart remain.

13

8.

RELICS AND MEMORIALS.

"As the shadow of a great Rock in a weary land."

THE Twelve holy men are gathered in prayer,
The Psalm mounts on high, the Spirit descends :

A keen silent thrilling is round them in air,

A Power from the Highest with thought and word blends,

They pass by the way, to sight poor and mean.

How glorious the train that streams to and fro!

The blind, dumb, halt, withered, by hundreds are

seen,

The prisoners of Satan lie chained where they go.

O lay them but where the shadow may fall
Of Christ's awful Saint, to prayer as he speeds:
The mighty love-token all fiends shall appal,
A gale breathe from Eden, assuaging all needs.

Or bring where they lie Paul's girdle or vest:
One touch and one word: the pain fleets away,
The dark hour of frenzy is charmed into rest :-
The hem of Christ's garment all creatures obey.

Christ is in His Saints: from Godhead made Man
The virtue goes out, the whole world to bless,
O'er lands parched and weary that shadow began
To spread from Saint Peter, and ne'er shall grow less.

See Acts, iv. and v.

9.

CARVED ANGELS.

"Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones: for in Heaven their angels do always behold the Face of My Father."

GREATEST art Thou in least, O Lord,
And even thy least are great in Thee:
A mote in air, a random word,

Shall save a soul if Thou decree :

Much more their presence sweet,

Whom with an oath Thou didst into thy Kingdom greet.

A little child's soft sleeping face

The murderer's knife ere now hath staid:

The adulterous eye, so foul and base,

Is of a little child afraid.

They cannot choose but fear,

Since in that sign they feel God and good Angels

near.

For by the Truth's sure oath we know,
There is no christened babe but owns
A Watcher mightier than his foe,

One of the everlasting Thrones,

Who in high Heaven His face

Beholding ever, best His likeness here may trace.

As in each tiny drop of dew,

Glistening at prime of morn, they mark

Of Heaven's great Sun an image true,

Hear their own chantings in the Lark,

So, sleeping or awake,

They love to tend their babes for holy Bethlehem's sake.

And so this whole fallen world of ours,

To us all care, and sin, and spite,

Is even as Eden's stainless bowers

To the pure spirits out of sight,—

To Angels from above,

And souls of infants, sealed by new-creating Love.