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Rustle, no jewels shine, nor envious eyes
Encounter; no fantastic carvings shew
The boast of our vain race to change the form
Of thy fair works. But thou art here-thou fill'st
The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds
That run along the summits of these trees,
In music;-thou art in the cooler breath,
That, from the inmost darkness of the place,
Comes, scarcely felt ;-the barky trunks, the ground,
The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee.
Here is continual worship;-nature, here,

In the tranquillity that thou dost love,
Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly around,
From perch to perch, the solitary bird

Passes; and yon clear spring, that, 'midst its herbs,
Wells softly forth and visits the strong roots
Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale

Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left
Thyself without a witness, in these shades,
Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength and grace
Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak-
By whose immoveable stem I stand and seem
Almost annihilated-not a prince,

In all the proud old world beyond the deep,
E'er wore his crown as loftily as he
Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root
Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower,
With scented breath, and look so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide universe.

My heart is awed within me, when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on,
In silence, round me-the perpetual work
Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed
For ever. Written on thy works I read
The lesson of thy own eternity.

Lo! all grow old and die-but see, again,
How on the faltering footsteps of decay
Youth presses-every gay and beautiful youth

In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly that their ancestors
Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost
One of earth's charins; upon her bosom yet,
After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies,
And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate
Of his arch enemy Death-yea, seats himself
Upon the sepulchre, and blooms and smiles,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe
Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.

There have been holy men who hid themselves
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave
Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived
The generation born with them, nor seemed
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks
Around them;-and there have been holy men
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus.
But let me often to these solitudes

Retire, and in thy presence treasure
My feeble virtue. Here its enemies,

The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink
And tremble and are still. Oh God! when thou
Dost scare the world with tempests, sett'st on fire
The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill'st
With all the waters of the firmament

The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods
And drowns the villages; when, at thy call,
Uprises the great deep and throws himself
Upon the continent and overwhelms
Its cities-who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?
Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad unchained elements to teach
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate
In these calm shades thy milder majesty,
And, to the beautiful order of thy works,
Learn to conform the order of our lives.

Bryant:

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The Question "What think ye of Christ?" answered by a Unitarian. A Discourse delivered in Devonport, on Sunday Evening, February 12, 1826.

SIR, Devonport, February 13, 1826.. THE following discourse was delivered last evening in the lecture room of the late Literary and Philosophical Society in this town, (which is now used on Sundays for Unitarian Christian worship,) in consequence of a pamphlet recently published by the Rev. Doctor Hawker, of Plymouth, bearing the following title: "What think ye of Christ? The great Question of the Gospel, as proposed to his Disciples by Christ himself, Matt. xxii. 42; and when opened and explained by the Lord to the spiritual Understanding of the Lord's People, an infallible Security against all the Heresies of the present CHRIST-DESPISING GeneraTION. The subject humbly contemplated, in a Salutation to the Spiritual Church of our MOST GLORIOUS CHRIST; on the Entrance of the New Year of OUR LORD GOD, 1826." If the discourse be admissible into the Christian Reformer, its early insertion will oblige the friends of Unitarianism who were present at the delivery.

I confess I am unable to comprehend the worthy Doctor's meaning in some parts of his work; and he seems to have anticipated as much in regard to many of his readers, for he thus concludes: 66 Through grace I never suffer myself to lose sight of his oneness, in all that constitutes GoDHEAD, With JEHOVAH in his Trinity of Persons. And in all my approaches to the mercy-seat, I approach to the one undivided JEHOVAH, through the mediation of CHRIST, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the GODHEAD bodily. And as the GODHEAD of the HOLY THREE in ONE, is alike inaccessible, the mediation of CHRIST as CHRIST (that is, GoD and man in one person) is as necessary to the approach of the divine nature of the Son, as that of the FATHER, or of the HOLY GHOST. This may be considered a solecism in the world's vocabulary; but the word loseth its meaning when applied to the glorious truths of God: there are no solecisms in scripture. The LORD enableth his scripture church to receive the LORD's manifestations spiritually. And then, while carrying about with us this charter of grace, the precious question of our most glorious LORD, put by himself, and opened by himself, in all its beauty and fulness, will be like an anchor to the soul, in the darkest night of heresy, silencing all the blasts of a

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CHRIST-despising generation.-What think ye of CHRIST?" This is a fair specimen of the gifted author's style; but I question Mr. Editor, whether you can understand his meaning much better than

SILVANUS GIBBS.

Matt. xxii. 42: "What think ye of Christ ?"

THIS, my friends, is an important question; but it has been variously answered by different persons. Some have said that Christ was an angelic or super-angelic spirit who descended from the celestial regions, and, uniting with the man Jesus, enabled him to perform all his wonderful works;, others, that he was created by God out of nothing for the purpose of being used by him as an instrument in the formation of the material universe; that he afterwards animated the body of Jesus, and enabled it to effect, by its sufferings and death, the recovery of man from the effects of the fall, and that by his energy the universe is now sustained ;others, that he was produced by the Father from eternity, deriving his existence in a manner different from and superior to all other beings, and that he is equal to the Father in all things, except necessary existence;-others, that he is one of the three co-equal persons who compose the Godhead ;-and others, that he is himself the One Eternal Jehovah !

These opinions, you will readily admit, cannot be all true. To my apprehension they are all false, and some of them grossly absurd. Let me, therefore, solicit your candid and serious attention this evening, while, as a Unitarian Christian, I briefly state my own views of the person of Christ; and however different they may be from those entertained by others, I trust they will be found, on careful examination, to be supported by the dictates of common sense and the testimony of the sacred Scriptures.

To the question, then,. "What think ye of Christ ?” I reply, in the first place, That he was the long-predicted Messiah.

Every one who carefully studies the New Testament, must perceive that Jesus Christ was the very person whose advent was foretold by the ancient Jewish Prophets. To the prophecies he and his apostles continually appealed in proof of his divine mission." Search the Scriptures," said he, for they testify of me." "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me." After

his resurrection, it is related of him, that when conversing with two of his disciples, on the road to Eminaus, he "explained to them from Moses and all the Prophets, in all the Scriptures, the things concerning himself." Paul reasoned with the Jews at Thessalonica out of the Scriptures, plaining them, and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered, and have risen again from the dead;" and that this Jesus whom he preached" is the Christ."

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In the 18th chap. of Deuteronomy we read, " And the Lord said unto me, (i. e. to Moses,) I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I command him: and it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken to my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him." This prophecy is expressly applied to Jesus Christ by the apostle Peter, in the 3rd chap. of Acts. But the most remarkable prophecy is that contained in the 52nd and 53rd chapters of Isaiah, which Philip, when he went to preach the gospel to the Ethiopian nobleman, found him reading in his chariot; and from which he preached to him the glad tidings of Jesus.

That Jesus Christ was a divinely-commissioned teacher, is also evident from the miracles which he wrought. The declaration of Nicodemus is perfectly correct: "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.” The miracles of Jesus, my friends, were "not done in a corner," they were subject to the closest examination, and were acknowledged even by his most bitter enemies. They, however, instead of allowing, with Nicodemus, that his miracles were produced by divine power, absurdly and ignorantly charged our Lord with being a messenger acting under the dominion of Beelzebub, the supposed prince of demons. But we are satisfied that this personage never had an existence, and that the whole system of demonology is entirely fabulous; the miracles of Jesus, therefore, afford decisive evidence that his mission was divine; and not only that he acted, but that he also taught by the power of God, his heavenly Father. My doctrine," said Jesus, "is not mine, but His that sent me.' "The FATHER who sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak." "The works which MY FATHER hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me,

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