HARK through the lonely waste

By foot of man unpaced,

Prepare the way," a warning voice resounds!

"Level the opposing hill,

The hollow valley fill,

Make straight the crooked, smooth the rugged grounds; Prepare a passage, form it plain and broad, And through the desert make a highway for our God!"

Thine, BAPTIST, was the cry,

In ages long gone by

Heard in clear accents by the prophet's ear:

As if 'twere thine to wait,

And with imperial state

Herald some eastern monarch's proud career:
Who thus might march his host in full array,
And speed through trackless wilds his unresisted way.

But other task hadst thou

Than lofty hills to bow,

Make straight the crooked, the rough places plain.

Thine was the harder part

To smooth the human heart,

The wilderness where sin had fix'd his reign;

To make deceit his mazy wiles forego,

Bring down high-vaulting pride, and lay ambition low.

Such, BAPTIST, was thy care,

That no obstruction there

Might check the progress of the King of Kings;
But that a clear high way

Might welcome the array

Of heavenly graces which his presence brings; And where Repentance had prepar'd the road, There Faith might enter in, and Love to man and God.

ST. PETER.

The first, Simon who is called Peter. MATT. x. 2.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF ST. PETER.

THE birth-place and parentage of Peter, the Saint commemorated by the Church this day; his occupation and way of life; his first introduction to our Lord; his intermediate mode of living, and opportunities of learning our Lord's character; his subsequent call to be, first a disciple, and then an apostle, of Christ; have been mentioned on a former occasion, in our biographical notice of " Andrew, Simon Peter's brother." On that occasion also allusion was made to the name of Cephas, which was bestowed upon him: a name, signifying in its Hebrew or Syro-Chaldaick form a rock or stone; and thence translated into the Greek form of Petros, rendered familiar to us by its vernacular form of Peter, and indicating that he, to whom it was given, should be a chief and

powerful instrument in establishing the Gospel of Christ.

Peter was married when called by our Lord to be a disciple, and

appears to have been setThither at least our Lord and there he entered into

tled at Capernaum. retired after the call; Peter's house, and graciously exercised his miraculous power by healing Peter's wife's mother of a fevera. And he appears to have made the same house his usual residence, whenever he took up his abode in that city; being probably well pleased with the disposition and manners of all the members of the family, as well as of the two brethren, Peter and Andrew, who are mentioned as living there together".

In the narratives of the gospel history St. Peter is a prominent character. He received from our Lord several marks of distinction. And he further rendered himself conspicuous, sometimes by the energy of his disposition, and his natural warmth and sincerity of heart, and sometimes by a timidity and want of constancy of mind, to which he appears to have been constitutionally subject, until strengthened by the divine grace.

By our Lord he was admitted to several marks of distinguished favour. He was one of

Mark i. 30.

Mark i. 29. Dr. Lardner.

the three Apostles, to whom our Lord gave an appropriate and significant appellation: and he was one of the same three, whom our Lord took with him to witness the raising of Jairus's daughter; in whose presence he was transfigured on mount Tabors; and with whom he retired to pray in the garden of Gethsemane the night before he suffered. This has been already mentioned more fully in our notice of St. John, who and his brother James were the other two. He was one of the four, St. Andrew and the last named were the others, to whom our Lord delivered his prophecy concerning the destruction of Jerusalem: and he was one of the two, whom our Lord sent before him to prepare his last passover. As was observed concerning St. John, his companion on this occasion, so also concerning this Apostle it may be observed, that in some cases he was distinguished by a token of singular honour. In the catalogues of the Apostles he is placed first, being evidently the order determined by our Lord himself; an order however, as will hereafter be noticed, not of supremacy, but of