The Press.
London, England, 1855-09-01 00:00:00

OUR FATHER.

Mrs. Mackenzie in a tragic manner dashed aside the
hand which poor Clive held out to her, and disappeared
from the scene of this dismal dinner. Boy presently fell a
crying: in spite of all the battle and fury, there was sleep
in his eyes.
" Maria is too busy, I suppose, to put him to bed," said
Clive, with a sad smile ;" " shall we do it father ? Come
Tommy, my son !" and be folded his arms round the child,
and walked with him to the upper regions. The old man's
eyes lighted up ; his scared thoughts returned to him ; he
followed his two children up the stairs, and saw his grand-
son in his little bed ; and, as we walked home with him, he
told me how sweetly Boy said Our Father, and prayed God
bless all those who loved him, as they laid him to rest.
So thesa three generations had joined in that supplica-
tion : the strong man, humbled by trial and grief, whose
loyal heart was yet full of love ;—the child, of the sweet age
of those little ones whom the Blessed speaker of the prayer
first bade to come unto Him ;—and the old man, whose
heart was well nigh as tender and as innocent ; and whose
day was approaching, when he should be drawn to the
bosom of the Eternal Pity.

SHE COLONEL ANSWERS "ADSUM" TO HIS NAME.

The days went on, and our hopes, raised sometimes, began
to flicker and fail. One evening the Colonel left his chair for
his bed in pretty good spirits, but passed a disturbed night,
and the next morning was too weak to rise. Then he re-
mained in his bed, and his friends visited him there. One
afternoon he asked for his little gown-boy, and the child was
brought to him, and sate by the bed with a very awestricken
face ; and then gathered courage, and tried to amuse him
by telling him how it was a half-holiday, and they were
having a cricket match with the St. Peter's boys in the green,
and Grey Friars was in and winning. The Colonel quite
understood about it ; he would like to see the game ; he
had played many a game on that green when he was a boy.
He grew excited ; Clive dismissed his father's little friend,
and put a sovereign into his hand ; and away ho ran to say
that Codd Colonel had come into a fortune, and to buy
tarts, and to see the match out. I, curre, little white-haired
gown-boy ! Heaven speed you, little friend.
After the child had gone, Thomas Newcome began to
wander more and more. He talked louder; he gave the
word of command, spoke Hindostanee as if to his men.
Then he spoke words in French rapidly, seizing a hand
that was near him, and crying, " Toujours, toujours!" But
it was Ethel's hand which he took. Ethel and Clive and
the nurse were in the room with him ; the latter came to
us who were sitting in the adjoining apartment ; Madame
de Florae was there, with my wife and Bayham.
At the look in the women's countenance Madame de
Florae started up. "He is very bad, he wanders a great
deal," the nurse whispered. The French lady fell instantly
on her knees, and remained rigid in prayer.
Some time afterwards Ethel came in with a scared face
to our pale group. "He is calling for you again, dear lady,"
she said, going up to Madame de Florae, who was still
kneeling; " and just now he said he wanted P-ndennis to
take care of his boy. He will not know you." She hid her
tears as she spoke.
She went into the room, where Clive was at the bed's
foot ; the old man within it talked on rapidly for awhile :
then again he would sigh and be still: once more I heard
him say hurriedly, " Take care of him when I'm in India!"
and then with a heart-rending voice he called out " Leo-
nore, Leonore !" She was kneeling by his side now. The
patient's voice sank into faint murmers; only a moan now
and then announced that he has not asleep.
At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll,
and Thomas Newcome'a hands outside the bed feebly best
a time. And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet
smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a
little, and quickly said " Adsum !" and fell back. It
was the word we used at school, when names were
called ; and 10, he, whose heart was as that of a little child,
had answered to his name, and stood iu the presence of
The Master.

Against one inconsistency in the Colonel's
career we must enter our protest. That
so simpla and kindhearted a man, so genuine
a lover of his kind, should have adopted
political views rather poetical than practical,
more Utopian than feasible, is quite in keep-
ing; but that so truehearted a gentleman and
so good a man should, under any circum-
stances, express sympathy with the Whigs, or
allow himself to be put forward as the cham-
pion of the most selfish and intolerant of all
factions, we think our readers will agree with
us is so improbable, not to say impossible,
that not all Colonel Newcome's ignorance of
politics or hatred of his nephew will make
us believe that he could have adopted a
course from which his instinct as a gentleman
and a generous-hearted man must have made
him shrink.

Lyra Germanica: Hymns for the Sundays and
Chief Festivals of the Christian Year. Trans-
lated from the German by Catherine Wink-
worth. London : Longman's.
Tunas are two distinct spades of religious
pstg or rather there ars two principles under

SATURDAY,

one or other of which what we most admire in
it may be ranged. One is common to all
kinds of poetry, depending for its excellence
on the force of its ideas and expression, the
variety and beauty of its images, and generally
on those qualities which move the imagination.
This kind of religious poetry may be composed
by profane writers, and we find numerous
specimens of it in their works, from Lucretius
to Byron. One common form of it consists in
describing the wonders of creation and refer-
ing them to Deity, or in accumulating fanciful
images as emblems of His Nature and of its
workings. The other species is more special.
Its excellence lies in the fervour with which
it expresses purely devotional feelings, as love
and gratitude, representing the soul as in
earnest communion with God, imploring his
favour or deprecating his wrath. The one kind
is the poetry of natural religion (if there be
such a thing), the other of revelation. The
lines of Byron to the ocean,
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty form,
and even the magnificent hymn of Addison,
describing the glories of the heavens, are
but the expression of that sentiment of
awful reverence which the view of the wonders
of creation irresistibly forces on an imagina-
tive mind But this vague sentiment has very
little in common with that approach of the
soul to God, arising from firm belief in His
Fatherhood, and in His nearness to us, which
we require in devotional poetry. This element
is only to be comprehended and appreciated
by believing Christian people. The poet, as a
poet merely, either does not perceive it, or
is inclined to condemn it as faulty in
taste. When the Psalmist exclaims, "As
" the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so
" panteth my soul after thee, 0 God," every
one can recognise a certain degree of beauty
in the imagery ; but it is those only who know
from actual experience what this longing is,
how ardent is the passion and with what in-
tensity it seizes on the soul, that can make the
verse their own, and feel in it a living truth far
more precious to them than the poetical image.
The best kind of devotional poetry is not
that the significance of which can he instantly
perceived and generally appreciated, but that
which requires some sympathetic feeling for its
comprehension, and which grows on the mind,
and becomes more prized as it is more medi-
tated. That fervour, however, which is its best
characteristic, is apt to ran into vulgar and
even irreverent extravagance, unless it be
under the guidance of a truly poetic imagina-
tion. Most of our Methodist hymns show this
tendency, while the collections commonly
used in our churches are, as a whole, deficient
in the requisites both of spiritual aspiration
and poetic beauty. That collection most ex-
tensively in use, and which is printed with
the recommendation of the Bishop of London,
is far from satisfactory. One hymn commences
with the emphatic line,