There is that spot, so singly blest, Like that the Patriarch found of yore, Where Heaven's all-radiant staircase prest, And files of climbing angels bore. Thence launch'd upon the bosom's wing, Prayers to the gate of Heaven spring, And ever as they rise, Encounter blessings in descent, And Faith, and Hope, Joy, Peace, Content, No dreamer's bliss, O home, is thine, The day with pure communion fraught, Frames worlds, founds empires, all its own, But purg'd from every earthly stain, From shame and sorrow, guilt and pain, Arrays concentered there : Joys on its inward stores to gaze, And revels in the boundless blaze. Suns without scorching rouse the lark, Seas without tempest waft the bark, Man without slaughter meets with man. Youth flies, yet age is distant far; The past is seen without a pang, No clouds upon the future hang, O blessed home! the bliss man lost Still strews in wrecks thy favour'd coast. My soul, ascending as I think, Then hastes to disembodied bliss, And pois'd on matter's ridgy brink, Pores upon spirit's wide abyss, And tiptoe standing, vaults to free The last hold of mortality; Thence, twinkling far behind, Leaves sluggish matter's last faint star, Such visions home presents to view, Thus to that sphere my spirit's flight Mounts upward, where beginning, end, Past, present, future, all unite, All one harmonious vision blend. Man's reckless hate, God's anxious love, His cross below, his throne above, Sins utter'd, sins forgiven; Man's plaintive dirge, heaven's trumpet-cry, Our grave on earth, our home on high, Lost Paradise, gain'd Heaven; All in one moment press'd I see, My home is in eternity. O thou great fount of thought and light, Up to thy crystal vault to spring; And ever towards thy sapphire throne, Come with thy fiery pillar, come, O guide my wandering spirit home. CHAPTER III. THE FAMILY LITURGY. ON calling one morning upon my friend at the Manor-house, he received me in a room which I had not seen before. It had all the appearance of having been a library; its fine bow window still retained in its upper part some panes of stained glass, and a few ancient-looking books still lingered upon the shelves, which, surrounding the room, left but space enough over the chimney-piece for a cuckoo-clock. On one side of the fire stood a high-backed arm chair, corresponding with which, in massiveness and size, was a table, at which my friend was sitting. The whole scene, not excepting the inhabitant himself, carried the mind half a century back. He appeared deeply engaged in a reverie over some papers, and beside him lay what appeared to be a family-bible. I was on the point of withdrawing when I caught his eye, and he cried, " Nay; come in, my friend: so far from interrupting my business, you promote it. You are one who like to hear my tales of old times, and this is one of my retrospective days. On such I always sit in this room, which beyond any other, is associated with the past. It was the cradle as it were, of my mind; for it was my father's study, where he used to teach us, and served, moreover, as the family chapel. Yonder clock sounded the hour of morning and evening prayer; that arm-chair was his seat, or, if you will, his throne, on which he presided amid his little church; and these MSS. consisting, as you perceive, partly of loose leaves, partly of fixed, contain our family liturgy, as drawn up in my father's hand. The fixed leaves include the more general prayers, which were therefore of daily use; the loose the more particular, which therefore varied with the occasion. The preservation of these last is owing to a custom of my father's, who always had the prayer written out, and shewn among the family, before he offered it up; that by this means all hearts may be prepared to follow in unison. I have just arranged it as it must have stood |