Peace, perfect peace, death shadowing us and ours?

Jesus has vanquish'd death and all its powers.
It is enough: earth's struggles soon shall cease,
And Jesus call us to Heav'n's perfect peace.

TUNE "PAX TECUM."

XIII. - Morning and Evening.

108-AWAKE, MY SOUL, AND WITH THE SUN.

AWAKE, my soul, and with the sun

Thy daily stage of duty run:

Shake off dull sloth, and joyful rise
To pay thy morning sacrifice.

Thy precious time, misspent, redeem;
Each present day, thy last esteem;
Improve thy talent with due care;
For the Great Day thyself prepare.

In conversation be sincere ;

Keep conscience as the noontide clear.
Think how All-seeing God thy ways,
Thy every secret thought surveys.
Wake, and lift up thyself, my heart,
And with the angels bear thy part,
Who, all night long, unwearied sing
High praise to the Eternal King.

All praise to Thee, who safe has kept,
And hast refreshed me while I slept.

Grant, Lord, when I from death shall wake,
may of endless life partake.

I

Lord, I my vows to Thee renew:
Scatter my sins as morning dew:

Guard my first springs of thought and will,
And with Thyself my spirit fill.

Direct, control, suggest, this day,
All I design, or do, or say;

That all my powers, with all their might,
In Thy sole glory may unite.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow:
Praise Him all creatures here below:
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host:
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

TUNE "MORNING HYMN."

Bishop Ken, the author of this hymn, led a rather troubled and eventful life. He bore stern testimony against the immorality of the Restoration, refusing to admit Nell Gwynne to his house; but he was called in to attend the death-bed of Charles the Second when that merry monarch was "such an unconscionable time in dying." He was sent to the Tower by James along with the other bishops who would not publish the Declaration of Indulgence. But when William came he refused to swear allegiance, and died a non-juror in 1711. He used to sing this morning hymn to his own accompaniment on the lute, and when he died he was buried under the east window of the chancel of Frome Church, just at sunrising, as his mourning friends sang, in the first light of the dawning day, "Awake, my soul, and with the sun." Macaulay says of him that his character approached as near as human infirmity permits to the ideal perfection of Christian virtue. Monckton Milnes wrote a hymn upon his grave, styling him

"A braver Becket- - who could hope

To conquer unresisting."

If it was for nothing else, this hymn is famous as a help because its last verse has become the universal doxology of the English-speaking world, -a kind of pious pemmican of devotion not unworthy to be sung wherever the Lord's Prayer is prayed. Mr. Thomas Hardy, author of "Tess" and other novels, places this among the three hymns he loves most.

109.-CARLYLE'S MORNING HYMN.

VERY different from Bishop Ken's, but, nevertheless, not without helpfulness of its own, is Thomas Carlyle's charming little hymn for the dawning of the morning.

So here hath been dawning

Another blue day;

Think, wilt thou let it

Slip useless away?

Out of eternity

This new day is born;
Into eternity

At night will return.

Behold it aforetime

No eye ever did;
So soon it for ever
From all eyes is hid.

Here hath been dawning
Another blue day;
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?

110-O TIMELY HAPPY, TIMELY WISE.

"THIS morning hymn of Keble's from the Christian Year has been to me," says a correspondent in Brisbane, more helpful than anything else I ever read." The sixth verse is the kernel of the hymn.

66

TIMELY happy, timely wise,

Eyes that the beam celestial view,

arise;

Which evermore makes all things new.
New every morning is the love

Our wakening and uprising prove;.
Through sleep and darkness safely brought,
Restored to life and power and thought.

New mercies, each returning day,
Hover around us while we pray;
New perils past, new sins forgiven,

New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.

If on our daily course our mind

Be set to hallow all we find,

New treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be,
As more of heaven in each we see;
Some softening gleam of love and prayer
Shall dawn on every cross and care.
The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all we ought to ask:
Room to deny ourselves; a road
To bring us daily nearer God.

Only, O Lord, in Thy dear love,
Fit us for perfect rest above;
And help us, this and every day,
To live more nearly as we pray.

Another correspondent sends me this hymn as one which she has never called to mind without its proving

of great help in assisting her to build up more than one Christian virtue. In the United States the hymn begins, in most churches, with the second stanza.

111-SUN OF MY SOUL.

KEBLE'S evening hymn has far outstripped in general use his morning hymn. Although the Christian Year has gone through one hundred editions, the last of which placed the bulk of it before one hundred thousand readers, this hymn is known not to thousands, but to millions, and the music of its verse is familiar in every nook and corner of the English-speaking world.

UN of my soul, Thou Saviour dear!

SUN

is not night, if Thou be near;

O may no earth-born cloud arise,

To hide Thee from Thy servant's eyes!

When with dear friends sweet talk I hold,
And all the flowers of life unfold,
Let not my heart within me burn
Except in all I Thee discern.

When the soft dews of kindly sleep
My weary eyelids gently steep,
Be my last thought, how sweet to rest
For ever on my Saviour's breast!

Abide with me from morn till eve,
For without Thee I cannot live:
Abide with me when night is nigh,
For without Thee I dare not die.

Thou Framer of the light and dark,
Steer through the tempest Thine own ark:
Amid the howling wintry sea,

We are in port if we have Thee.