Chapter VI: Part 6

Wayward and spoiled she knows ye: the keen blast,
That braced her youth, is past:
The rod of discipline, the robe of shame—
She bears them in your name:
Only return and love. But ye perchance
Are deeper plunged in sorrow’s trance:
Your God forgives, but ye no comfort take
Till ye have scourged the sins that in your conscience ache.

Oh, heavy laden soul! kneel down and hear
Thy penance in calm fear:
With thine own lips to sentence all thy sin;
Then, by the judge within
Absolved, in thankful sacrifice to part
For ever with thy sullen heart,
Nor on remorseful thoughts to brood, and stain
This glory of the Cross, forgiven and cheereth in vain.

Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea.

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee. _Isaiah_
xliii. 2.

THE shower of moonlight falls as still and clear
Upon this desert main
As where sweet flowers some pastoral garden cheer
With fragrance after rain:
The wild winds rustle in piping shrouds,
As in the quivering trees:
Like summer fields, beneath the shadowy clouds
The yielding waters darken in the breeze.

Thou too art here with thy soft inland tones,
Mother of our new birth;
The lonely ocean learns thy orisons,
And loves thy sacred mirth:
When storms are high, or when the fires of war
Come lightening round our course,
Thou breath’st a note like music from afar,
Tempering rude hearts with calm angelic force.

Far, far away, the homesick seaman’s hoard,
Thy fragrant tokens live,
Like flower-leaves in a previous volume stored,
To solace and relieve
Some heart too weary of the restless world;
Or like thy Sabbath Cross,
That o’er this brightening billow streams unfurled,
Whatever gale the labouring vessel toss.

Oh, kindly soothing in high Victory’s hour,
Or when a comrade dies,
In whose sweet presence Sorrow dares not lower,
Nor Expectation rise
Too high for earth; what mother’s heart could spare
To the cold cheerless deep
Her flower and hope? but Thou art with him there,
Pledge of the untired arm and eye that cannot sleep:

The eye that watches o’er wild Ocean’s dead,
Each in his coral cave,
Fondly as if the green turf wrapt his head
Fast by his father’s grave,—
One moment, and the seeds of life shall spring
Out of the waste abyss,
And happy warriors triumph with their King
In worlds without a sea, unchanging orbs of bliss.

Gunpowder Treason.

A thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness
also at Rome. _Acts_ xxiii. 11.

BENEATH the burning eastern sky
The Cross was raised at morn:
The widowed Church to weep stood by,
The world, to hate and scorn.

Now, journeying westward, evermore
We know the lonely Spouse
By the dear mark her Saviour bore
Traced on her patient brows.

At Rome she wears it, as of old
Upon th’ accursèd hill:
By monarchs clad in gems and gold,
She goes a mourner still.

She mourns that tender hearts should bend
Before a meaner shrine,
And upon Saint or Angel spend
The love that should be thine.

By day and night her sorrows fall
Where miscreant hands and rude
Have stained her pure ethereal pall
With many a martyr’s blood.

And yearns not her parental heart,
To hear _their_ secret sighs,
Upon whose doubting way apart
Bewildering shadows rise?

Who to her side in peace would cling,
But fear to wake, and find
What they had deemed her genial wing
Was Error’s soothing blind.

She treasures up each throbbing prayer:
Come, trembler, come and pour
Into her bosom all thy care,
For she has balm in store.

Her gentle teaching sweetly blends
With this clear light of Truth
The aërial gleam that Fancy lends
To solemn thoughts in youth.—

If thou hast loved, in hours of gloom,
To dream the dead are near,
And people all the lonely room
With guardian spirits dear,

Dream on the soothing dream at will:
The lurid mist is o’er,
That showed the righteous suffering still
Upon th’ eternal shore.

If with thy heart the strains accord,
That on His altar-throne
Highest exalt thy glorious Lord,
Yet leave Him most thine own;

Oh, come to our Communion Feast:
There present, in the heart
As in the hands, th’ eternal Priest
Will His true self impart.—

Thus, should thy soul misgiving turn
Back to the enchanted air,
Solace and warning thou mayst learn
From all that tempts thee there.

And, oh! by all the pangs and fears
Fraternal spirits know,
When for an elder’s shame the tears
Of wakeful anguish flow,

Speak gently of our sister’s fall:
Who knows but gentle love
May win her at our patient call
The surer way to prove?

King Charles the Martyr.

This is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief,
suffering wrongfully. 1 _St. Peter_ ii. 19.

PRAISE to our pardoning God! though silent now
The thunders of the deep prophetic sky,
Though in our sight no powers of darkness bow
Before th’ Apostles’ glorious company;

The Martyrs’ noble army still is ours,
Far in the North our fallen days have seen
How in her woe this tenderest spirit towers
For Jesus’ sake in agony serene.

Praise to our God! not cottage hearths alone,
And shades impervious to the proud world’s glare,
Such witness yield; a monarch from his throne
Springs to his Cross and finds his glory there.

Yes: whereso’er one trace of thee is found,
As in the Sacred Land, the shadows fall:
With beating hearts we roam the haunted ground,
Lone battle-field, or crumbling prison hall.

And there are aching solitary breasts,
Whose widowed walk with thought of thee is cheered
Our own, our royal Saint: thy memory rests
On many a prayer, the more for thee endeared.

True son of our dear Mother, early taught
With her to worship and for her to die,
Nursed in her aisles to more than kingly thought,
Oft in her solemn hours we dream thee nigh.

For thou didst love to trace her daily lore,
And where we look for comfort or for calm,
Over the self-same lines to bend, and pour
Thy heart with hers in some victorious psalm.

And well did she thy loyal love repay;
When all forsook, her Angels still were nigh,
Chained and bereft, and on thy funeral way,
Straight to the Cross she turned thy dying eye

And yearly now, before the Martyrs’ King,
For thee she offers her maternal tears,
Calls us, like thee, to His dear feet to cling,
And bury in His wounds our earthly fears.

The Angels hear, and there is mirth in Heaven,
Fit prelude of the joy, when spirits won
Like those to patient Faith, shall rise forgiven,
And at their Saviour’s knees thy bright example own.

The Restoration of the Royal Family.

And Barzillai said unto the King, How long have I to live, that I
should go up with the King unto Jerusalem? 2 _Samuel_ xix. 34.

AS when the Paschal week is o’er,
Sleeps in the silent aisles no more
The breath of sacred song,
But by the rising Saviour’s light
Awakened soars in airy flight,
Or deepening rolls along;

The while round altar, niche, and shrine,
The funeral evergreens entwine,
And a dark brilliance cast,
The brighter for their hues of gloom,
Tokens of Him, who through the tomb
Into high glory passed:

Such were the lights and such the strains.
When proudly streamed o’er ocean plains
Our own returning Cross;
For with that triumph seemed to float
Far on the breeze one dirge-like note
Of orphanhood and loss.

Father and King, oh where art thou?
A greener wreath adorns thy brow,
And clearer rays surround;
O, for one hour of prayer like thine,
To plead before th’ all-ruling shrine
For Britain lost and found!

And he, whose mild persuasive voice
Taught us in trials to rejoice,
Most like a faithful dove,
That by some ruined homestead builds,
And pours to the forsaken fields
His wonted lay of love:

Why comes he not to bear his part,
To lift and guide th’ exulting heart?—
A hand that cannot spars
Lies heavy on his gentle breast:
We wish him health; he sighs for rest,
And Heaven accepts the prayer.

Yes, go in peace, dear placid spright,
Ill spared; but would we store aright
Thy serious sweet farewell,
We need not grudge thee to the skies,
Sure after thee in time to rise,
With thee for ever dwell.

Till then, whene’er with duteous hand,
Year after year, my native Land
Her royal offering brings,
Upon the Altar lays the Crown,
And spreads her robes of old renown
Before the King of kings.

Be some kind spirit, likest thine,
Ever at hand, with airs divine
The wandering heart to seize;
Whispering, “How long hast thou to live,
That thou should’st Hope or Fancy gave
To flowers or crowns like these?”

The Accession.

As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee; I will not fail thee,
nor forsake thee. _Joshua_ i. 5.

THE voice that from the glory came
To tell how Moses died unseen,
And waken Joshua’s spear of flame
To victory on the mountains green,
Its trumpet tones are sounding still,
When Kings or Parents pass away,
They greet us with a cheering thrill
Of power and comfort in decay.

Behind thus soft bright summer cloud
That makes such haste to melt and die,
Our wistful gaze is oft allowed
A glimpse of the unchanging sky:
Let storm and darkness do their worst;
For the lost dream the heart may ache,
The heart may ache, but may not burst;
Heaven will not leave thee nor forsake.

One rock amid the weltering floods,
One torch in a tempestuous night,
One changeless pine in fading woods:—
Such is the thought of Love and Might,
True Might and ever-present Love,
When death is busy near the throne,
Auth Sorrow her keen sting would prove
On Monarchs orphaned and alone.

In that lorn hour and desolate,
Who could endure a crown? but He,
Who singly bore the world’s sad weight,
Is near, to whisper, “Lean on Me:
Thy days of toil, thy nights of care,
Sad lonely dreams in crowded hall,
Darkness within, while pageants glare
Around—the Cross supports them all.”

Oh, Promise of undying Love!
While Monarchs seek thee for repose,
Far in the nameless mountain cove
Each pastoral heart thy bounty knows.
Ye, who in place of shepherds true
Come trembling to their awful trust,
Lo here the fountain to imbue
With strength and hope your feeble dust.

Not upon Kings or Priests alone
The power of that dear word is spent;
It chants to all in softest tone
The lowly lesson of Content:
Heaven’s light is poured on high and low;
To high and low Heaven’s Angel spake;
“Resign thee to thy weal or woe,
I ne’er will leave thee nor forsake.”

Ordination.

After this, the congregation shall be desired, secretly in their
prayers, to make their humble supplications to God for all these
things: for the which prayers there shall be silence kept for a
space.

After which shall be sung or said by the Bishop (the persons to be
ordained Priests all kneeling), “Veni, Creator Spiritus.” _Rubric in
the Office for Ordering of Priests_.

’TWAS silence in Thy temple, Lord,
When slowly through the hallowed air
The spreading cloud of incense soared,
Charged with the breath of Israel’s prayer.

’Twas silence round Thy throne on high,
When the last wondrous seal unclosed,
And in this portals of the sky
Thine armies awfully reposed.

And this deep pause, that o’er us now
Is hovering—comes it not of Thee?
Is it not like a mother’s vow
When, with her darling on her knee,

She weighs and numbers o’er and o’er
Love’s treasure hid in her fond breast,
To cull from that exhaustless store
The dearest blessing and the best?

And where shall mother’s bosom find,
With all its deep love-learnèd skill,
A prayer so sweetly to her mind,
As, in this sacred hour and still,

Is wafted from the white-robed choir,
Ere yet the pure high-breathèd lay,
“Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,”
Rise floating on its dove-like way.

And when it comes, so deep and clear
The strain, so soft the melting fall,
It seems not to th’ entrancèd ear
Less than Thine own heart-cheering call.

Spirit of Christ—Thine earnest given
That these our prayers are heard, and they,
Who grasp, this hour, the sword of Heaven,
Shall feel Thee on their weary way.

Oft as at morn or soothing eve
Over the Holy Fount they lean,
Their fading garland freshly weave,
Or fan them with Thine airs serene.

Spirit of Light and Truth! to Thee
We trust them in that musing hour,
Till they, with open heart and free.
Teach all Thy word in all its power.

When foemen watch their tents by night,
And mists hang wide o’er moor and fell,
Spirit of Counsel and of Might,
Their pastoral warfare guide Thou well.

And, oh! when worn and tired they sigh
With that more fearful war within,
When Passion’s storms are loud and high,
And brooding o’er remembered sin

The heart dies down—oh, mightiest then,
Come ever true, come ever near,
And wake their slumbering love again,
Spirit of God’s most holy Fear!