He bears their buffeting and scorn,
Mock-homage of the lip and knee,
The purple robe, the crown of thorn,
The scourge, the nail, th' accursed tree.

No guile within his mouth is found,
He neither threatens nor complains ;
Meek as a Lamb for slaughter bound,
Damb 'midst his murderers He remains.

RELIGION ! thou the soul of happiness,
And, groaning Calvary, of thee! There shine
The noblest truths ; there strongest motives

sting :
There sacred violence assaults the soul;
There nothing but compulsion is for borne.
Can love allure us? or can terror awe?
He weeps !--the falling drop puts out the

son.
He sighs !--the sigh earth's deep fuundation

shakes.
If in his love so terrible, what then
His wrath inflam'd? His tenderness on fire,
Like soft smooth oil, outblazing other fires ?
Can pray'r, can praise avert it? Thou, my

But Hark! He prays,-'lis for his foes;
He speaks,-'tis comfort to his friends ;
Answers and Paradise bestows;
He bows his head; the conflict ends.

Truly this was the Son of God!
---Though in a servants' mean disguise,
And bruised beneath the Father's rod,
Not for Himself,for Man He dies.

CALVARY.

My theme! my inspiration! and my crown!
My strength in age! my rise in low estate!
My soul's ambition, pleasure, wealth! my

world!
My light in darkness! and my life in death!
My boast in time! bliss through eternity!
Eternity, too short to speak thy praise,
Or fathom thy profound of love to man !
To man of men the meanest, ev'n to me;
My sacrifice! my God what things are

these!

CUNNINGHAM.

From Calvary a cry was heard,

A long reiterated cry:
My Saviour! every mournful word

Bespeaks thy soul's deep agony.

A horror of deep darkness fell

On thee, the Immaculate, the Just; The congregated hosts of hell

Combined to shake thy flial trust.

THE DEATH OF JESUS.

GRAHAME.

The scourge, the thorns, the deep disgrace, l 'Tis finished : he spake the words, and

These thou could'st bear, and not repine; bowed But when JEHOVAH veiled his face, His head, and died.--Beholding him far off, Unutterable pangs were thine.

They who had ministered unto him hope

'Tis his last agony: The Temple's veil 1 Yet the Creator for his creature gave
Is rent; revealing the most holy place, | Himself, and yet the creatore bastes to run
Wherein the cherubim their wings extend, From his Creator, and self-good doth shun:
O'ershadowing the mercy-seat of God:

And yet the Prince, and God himself doth
Appalled, the leaning soldier feels the spear cry
Shake in his grasp; the planted standard To man, his traitor, pardon not to fly;
falls

Yet man his God, and traitor doth his Prince Upon the heaving gronnd; the sun is defy..

dimmed, And darkness shrouds the body of the Lord. A tree was first the instrument of strife,

Where Eve to sin her soul did prostitute;
A tree is now the instrument of life,

Though all that trunk, and this fair body LOVE OF CHRIST IN HIS

suit: SUFFERINGS.

Ah cursed tree, and yet O blessed froit!

That death to him, this life to us doth give: G. FLETCHER.

Strange is the cure, when things past cure When I remember Christ onr burden bears, revive, I look for glory, but find misery;

And the Physician dies, to make his patient I look for joy, but find a sea of tears;

live. I look that we should live, and find him die; I look for angels' songs, and hear his cry: Sweet Eden was the arbour of delight,

Thus what I look, I cannot find so well; Yet in his honey fiuw'rs our poison blew; Or father, what I find I cannot tell, Sad Gethseman the bow'r of baleful night, These banks so narrow are, those streams Where Christ a bealth of poison for us so highly swell.

drew,

| Yet all our honey in that poison grew: Christ suffers, and in this his tears begin, 1 So we from sweetest flowers could sack Suffers for us, and our joy springs in this ; our bane, Suffers to death, here is his manhood seen : 1 And Christ from bitter venom could again Suffers to rise, and here his Godhead is, Extract life out of death, and pleasure out For man, that could not by himself have rise, of pain. Out of the grave doth by the Godhead rise,

A man was first-the author of var fall, And God, tbat could not die, in manhood A man is now the author of our rise; dies,

A garden was the place we perish'd all, That we in both might live by that sweet | A garden is the place he pays our price: sacrifice.

And the old serpent with a new device,

Hath found a way himself for to beguile: What better friendship than to cover shame? So he that all men tangled in his wile, What greater love, than for a friend to die? Is now by one man caught, beguild with Yet this is better to asself the blame,

his own guile. And this is greater for an enemy : Bat more than this, to die, not suddenly, The dewy night had with her frosty sbade Not with some common death, or easy Immantled all the world, and the stiff pain,

ground But slowly, and with torments to be slain : Sparkled in ice, only the Lord, that made O depth without a depth, far better seen All for himself, himself dissolved found, than say'n!

Sweat without heat, and bled without a

wound: And yet the Son is humbled for the slave, Of heav'n, and earth, and God, and man And yet the slave is proud before the Son: 1 forlore,

Thrice begging help of those, whose sins | Yet him, the meek, the merciful, the just, he bore,

Upon the cross his rebel people hung, And thrice denied of those, not to deny had | And mock'd his dying anguish.

swore.

SUFFERINGS AND DEATH OF

CHRIST
THE CRUCIFIXION.

MILMAN.
MONTGOMERY.

For thou didst die for me, oh Son of God! I ask'd the heavens ;-" What foe to God

' | By thee the throbbing flesh of man was had done

worn; This unexampled deed ?''_The heavens

Thy naked feet the thorns of sorrow trod, exclaim

And tempests beat thy houseless head forlorn. " Twas Man and we in horror snatch'd

Thou, that wert wont to stand tbe sun

Alone, on God's right hand, From such a spectacle of guilt and shame.”

Before the Ages were, the Eternal, eldest I ask'd the sea ;-the sea in fury boild,

born. And answer'd with his voice of storms;“'Twas Man,

Thy birthright in the world was pain and My waves in panic at bis crime recoild,

grief, Disclos'd the abyss,--and from the centre

Thy love's return ingratitude and hate; ran."

The limbs thou healedst brought thee no I ask'd the earth ;-the earth replied, agbast,

relief, “'Twas Man ;-and such strange pangs The eyes thou openedst calmly view'd thy my bosom rent,

fate : That still I groan and shudder at the past." |

Thou, that wert wont to dwell -To Man, gay smiling, thoughtless Man I

In peace, tongue cannot tell, went,

Nor heart conceive the bliss of thy celestial And ask'd him next:-He turn'd a scornful

state. eye, Shook his proud head, and deign'd me no

They dragg’d thee to the Roman's solemn reply.

Hall,
Where the proud Judge in purple splendour

sat;

Thou stoodst a meek and patient criminal, INCARNATION, MIRACLES, AND | Thy doom of death from human lips to wait; DEATH OF CHRIST.

Whose throne shall be the world

In final ruin hurl'd,
MILMAN

With all mankind to hear their everlasting
The Lord of Hosts hath walked

fate. This world of Man; the one Almighty sent His everlasting Son to wear the flesh, Thou wert alone in that fierce multitude, And glorify this mortal human shape : | When “ Crucify him!” yell'd the general And the blind eyes unclosed to see the Lord; }

shout; And the dumb tongues brake out in songs of No hand to guard thee mid those insults rude, praise;

Nor lip to bless in all that frantic rout; And the deep grave cast forth its wondering Whose lightest whisper'd word dead;

They bound thy temples with the twisted | Slow struggled from thy breast the parting thorn,

breath, Thy bruised feet went languid on with pain ; | And every limb was wrung with agony. The blood, from all thy flesh with scourges That head, whose veilless blaze torn,

Fill’d angels with amaze, Deepend thy robe of mockery's crimson | When at that voice sprang forth the rolling grain ;

suns on high. Whose native vesture bright Was the unapproached light,

And thou wert laid within the narrow tomb, The sandal of whose foot the rapid hurri. Thy clay-cold limbs with shrouding gravecane.

clothes bound;

The sealed stone confirm'd thy mortal doom, They smote thy cheek with many a ruthless Lone watchmen walk'd thy desert burialpalm,

ground, With the cold spear thy shudd'ring side they Whom heaven could not contain, pierced ;

Nor th' immeasurable plain The draught of bitterest gall was all the balm Of vast Infinity inclose or circle round. They gave, t' enhance thy unslaked, burning thirst:

For us, for us, thou didst endure the pain, Thou whose words of peace

And thy meek spirit bow'd itself to shame, Did pain and anguish cease,

To wash our souls from sin's infecting stain, And the long buried dead their bonds of Tavert the Father's wrathful vengeanceslumber burst.

flame:

Thou, that couldst nothing win Low bow'd thy head convulsed, and droop'd | By saving worlds from sin, in death,

| Nor aught of glory add to thy all-glorious Thy voice sent forth a sad and wailing cry; name.

MARY AT THE SEPULCHRE.

CUNNINGHAM.

How sweet, in the musing of faith, to repair

To the garden where Mary delighted to rove;
To sit by the tomb where she breath'd her fond prayer,

And paid her sad tribute of sorrow and love;
To see the bright beam which disperses her fear,

As the Lord of her soul breaks the bars of his prison,
And the voice of the angel salutes her glad ear,-

The Lord is a captive no more_“He is risen !"

O Saviour ! as oft as our footsteps we bend

In penitent sadness to weep at thy grave,
On the wings of thy greatness in pity descend,

Be ready to comfort and “ mighty to save.”
We shrink not from scenes of desertion and wo, .

If there we may meet with the Lord of our love;
Contented, with Mary, to sorrow below,

If, with her, we may drink of thy fountains above.