Another Chapel Thought. The Growth of Christianity.
"The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof."St. Matt. xiii. 31, 32.
WHAT, when glad tidings were by Angels brought
To watchful shepherds, was the Christian creed?
What, when with gifts of joy and faithful speed
Westward, the star-conducted Magi sought
The manger? What when miracles were wrought,
And on the cross Christ had vouchsaf'd to bleed?-
A lamp just lighted, one small grain of seed
Sown deeply, but scarce germinate; a thought
Ponder'd in some few faithful hearts; soon bright
It glowed; it grew: it scoff'd the wrath of kings :—
So shines the Southern Cross; at earliest night
Weak, scarcely mark'd, yet rising, till it springs
To its meridian height, from whence it flings
O'er Heaven and Earth its pure and holy light.
Another Chapel Thought— Alms.
"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth that thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly."-St. Matt. vi. 1-4.
"The dews come down unseen at even-tide,
And silently their bounties shed, to teach
Mankind unostentatious charity.”—POLLOK.
ALMS are the golden wings whereon we fly,
Though men should never gaze upon our flight,
From Earth's inhospitable realms of Night,
Up to the many mansions of the sky.
Then bathe thy vans in dews of Charity,
So that they gleam with love and mercy bright,
Reflecting opened Heaven's eternal light,
As they spread, cleaving upward, silently.
But ah! be sure thy spirit doth not prune,
Proud in hypocrisy, the tender quills
With the fat oil which love of praise distils;
Lest vaunting in the market-place at noon
Thy pinion's rainbow beauty, they be worn
The lur'd World's wonder, but the Angels' scorn.
A Chapel Thought.-The Human Heart.
"My God, what is a heart?
Silver, or gold, or precious stone,
Or starre, or rainbowe, or a part
Of all these things, or all of them in one ? "
Χρύσιον καὶ ἀργύρεον θείον παρὰ θεῶν αἴει ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ Exovri.-PLATO, De Rep. b. iv.
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”— Jeremiah xvii. 9.
ALL rich and precious things the Poet brought
Together for the fashion of a heart.
Silver and gold; gems from Earth's farthest part;
Bright particles from stars and rainbows sought-
And just his question, for he only thought
Of God's love to the creature of his art-
Still at the glorious fancy did I start,
That it of such materials could be wrought;
For if we dwell on Man's ingratitude
For all that God hath done for, given our race,
Hearts would seem form'd of stuff most vile in sooth,
And worthless as the stockish stone or wood,
Senseless as nether millstone; hard and base
As iron; thankless as a serpent's tooth.*
*"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!"-SHAKSPEARE.
"I envy not such graves as take up room
Merely with jet and porphyry; since a tomb
Adds no desert. Wisdom, thou thing divine,
Convert my humble soul into thy shrine;
And then this body, though it want a stone,
Shall dignify all places where 'tis thrown."-OSBORNE.
LAY bare the floor; the monumental brass
Unto the musing stranger's eyes disclose.
There lies the Warden in his grim repose !
Doth it tell who, or rather what he was?
If the sands golden ran through his life's glass,
Or sorrow's clouds wept on his grey head woes?
What his creed, knowledge; what his outward
shows?
Faith! this is Time's hard reading, which doth pass
Our learning to expound, or guess, or gloss;
A book that brazen binding could not save
From dull Oblivion's old death-headed moth !
Fold me, when I shall die, in pure white cloth,
And lay me nameless in some quiet grave,
Where dews fall lightly on the springing moss.
Another Chapel Thought.— The Painted
"Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass."-SHELLEY.
O CHEQUER'D page of life, whereon appear
Pleasure and pain inextricably blending;
Shadow and sunshine like two foes contending,
Success and disappointment; hope and fear;
Love and its opposite; the smile and tear;
Each to the other strongest contrast lending ;-
So on yon fair white altar cloth descending
Down through the deep stain'd Gothic window near,
Glimmers the painted light; here purple-dyed,
Almost to blackness; there with ruby flush
Bright gleaming; orange-tinted, emerald-green;-
So on the brook that loves through woods to glide,
Lies golden network, wrought by cloud and bush,
The meshes, shade; with sunny light between.
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