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48

"Let not your Heart be Troubled."

And hope with drooping pinion,
Seem yielding to despair.
There is a soothing whisper

The saddest hour to cheer;
"Let not your heart be troubled,"
The Comforter is near.

The past has left its sorrows,
The future bodeth fears;
In doubtful scales the present
Weighs out our smiles and tears.
One voice has power to silence
The heart's tempestuous sea;
"Let not your heart be troubled,"
Believe in God and Me.

When weary of commotion,
And all life's battle-dust,
Where lust turns peace to striving
And beauty to disgust;

Yet, though the earth be shaking,
This trust thy spirit fill:

"Let not your heart be troubled,"

Ye know that Heaven is still.

"Good Tidings of Great Joy."

The wrong that is not righted

Shall fret the soul no more,

Weak prayers and vain complainings
Shall not be murmured o'er,

When full upon the spirit

Falls like a blessed psalm,

"Let not your heart be troubled,"

Be trustful and be calm.

C. E. P.

49

"GOOD TIDINGS OF GREAT JOY."

Luke ii. 10.

(Extracted from a small volume of hymns called "Thoughtful Hours," by H. H. L., author (in part) of " Hymns from the Land of Luther.'

We asked an Indian brother,* a warrior of old,

How first among his people the Glad Tidings had been told?

How first the Morning Star arose on their long heathen night,

Till souls who "sat in darkness" were rejoicing in the light?

*John Tschop, one of the first converts of the Moravian Missionaries among the North American Indians. See Crantz' History.

E

50

"Good Tidings of Great Joy."

And he answered, "Many a summer has come and gone since then,

Yet well I can remember-I can see it all again.

A teacher came among us from the country of your birth,

And told us of the living God, who made the heavens and earth;

But we asked if he had been a fool, or thought that we were so,

For who among our sons did not the One Great Spirit know?

"So he left us :- and another told us much of sin and

shame,

And how for sinners was prepared a lake of quenchless

flame ;

But we bade him teach these things at home, among the pale-faced men,

And if they learned the lesson right, we too would listen then.

"At last another stranger came, of calm and gentle mien,

"And eyes whose light seemed borrowed from yon blue the clouds between:

Still in my dreams I hear his voice, his smile I still

can see,

"Good Tidings of Great Joy."

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Though many a summer he has slept beneath the cedar tree!

"He told us of the Mighty One, the Lord of earth and sky,

Who left His glory in the heavens for men to bleed and die ;

Who loved poor Indian sinners still, and longed to gain their love,

And be their Saviour here, and in His Father's house above.

"And when his tale was ended, 'my friends,' he gently said,

'I am weary with my journey, and would fain lay down my head,'

So beside our spears and arrows, he laid him down to rest,

And slept as sweetly as the babe upon its mother's breast.

"Then we looked upon each other, and I whispered, This is new,—

Yes, we have heard glad tidings, and that sleeper knows them true;

He knows he has a Friend above, or would he slumber here,

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"Good Tidings of Great Joy."

With men of war around him, and the war-whoop in his ear?

"So we told him on the morrow, that he need not journey on,

But stay and tell us further of that loving dying One. And thus we heard of Jesus first, and felt the wondrous

power,

Which makes His people willing in His own accepted

hour."

Thus spoke our Indian brother; and deeply while we heard,

One cheering lesson seemed impressed, and taught by every word

How hearts, whose echoes, silent long, no words of terror move,

May answer from their inmost depths to the soft call of love.

O, mighty love of Jesus! what wonders thou hast wrought!

What victories thou yet shalt gain, surpassing human thought!

Let Faith and Hope speed forward unto earth's remotest bound,

Till every tribe and nation shall have heard the joyful

sound.

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