The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-11-21 00:00:00

tfteraturr.

POETRY

THE GOLDEN BOUGH

(From Willmott's Poems.)
The Dardan Wanderer, doom'd to flee

Over the ocean-desert wide,
Still pined his father's face to see;
Still for his father's arms he sigh'd.*

Long time he sigh'd, nor sigh'd in vain:
And hark! his anxious heart beats high;
Blest promise of the Sibyl strain--
The lonely wood at last is nigh.

In doubt and prayer be lingers—lo
He sees a little shadow pass;
Two doves in all their silver glow,
Softly alight upon the grass.

Dear messengers of hope from heaven t
Before his watchful eyes they glide;
And look ! the sacred Bough is given ;
And see! his father at his side !

Sweet tale in Fancy's colours drawn
And has Religion's band of light,
Fairer than rosy-finger'd dawn,
No moral in that song to write?

Have we no path of gloom to trace?
No cave of terrors to descend?
No brighter Bough death's cloud to chase ?
No holier Prophet for our friend?

Have we no vanish'd face to seek?
No hand that dried our childish tear ?
No lip that loved our infant cheek?
No voice that soothed our sickness here?

Long faded now is Eden's rose t
But ever in its flowering youth
The Tree of heavenly Wisdom grows,
In God's green Paradise of Truth.

Oh pluck this Bough of Gold ! and soon,
By Dove of whiter beauty led,
Thy prayer shall reap a richer boon,
A tend'rer Father crown thy head.

* The visit of Aneas to the Sibyl's cave, and the plucking of
.the Golden Bough, which conducted him to the abode of his
father, Anchises, are in the recollection of every reader.

_,•_.
NOTICES

The Spirit of the Gospel contrasted with the Spirit of
the Law; a Sermon by the Rev. W. Pollock. Liver-

pool: Newling.
This is the substance of a sermon delivered by the
respected incumbent of St. Mark's, in this town, on the
sth instant, to justify the reverend gentlemen's omission
of the form of prayer appointed to be read on that day.
The author denies that the service comes to us on the
authority of the Church at all," and asserts that it " rests
simply and entirely on an order in council." He objects
also to the service as a form of prayer, though he " de-
nies not that the deliverances which it commemorates are
worthy of being commemorated." He questions whether
several of the expressions in the service have any " ten-
dency to subdue our spirits, and chasten them for the
work of prayer; or whether they lead us in a suitable
and happy frame to the Holy Communion (for the cele-
bration of which the service provides), that feast of peace
and love ;" and whether it falls in with the gospel precept
of forgiveness of our enemies, and with the prayer in the
Litany for such forgiveness.
Whilst showing every deference to Mr. Pollock's scru-
ples, we do not think he has established his positions in
his usual unanswerable style.
The following extract from the sermon will, however,
show that he is not by any means influenced in the views
he has propounded to his numerous and attached flock by
the sinful indifference which guides so many in the pre-
sent day : .

" I object not to the service upon the grounds on which it is
frequently objected to. It is not that I have any sympathy
with the spurious liberalism of the day, which ' calling good
evil, and evil good,' does but libel while it usurps the sacred
name of charity. It is not that I will ever hesitate to bear wit-
ness, as God enables me, against the deadly corruptions of
Romanism. those blasphemons fables and dangerous deceits.'
It is not that I would draw a veil over the instructive story of
the past. No I I would have all men to read—yea, I would to
God they did read—intelligently, calmly, and sorrowfully
withal—the whole dark history of Papal enmity against the
truth, remembering still, as they go along, that it is Rome's
own loudest boast, that she is unchanged and unchangeable.
But while I would thus ever warn myself, my Church, and my
country ; while I would cut off my right hand before I offered
any sanction to anti-social, anti-Christian Popery; while in
public and private, wherever the fitting opportunity presents
itself, I will never shrink, I trust? at whatever sacrifice, from
lifting up my voice against it—still I must love the Romanist
as much as I hate his Romanism."

VARIETIES

It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked
bottles ; the less they have in them, the more noise they
make in pouring it out.
A CONTRAST.—The State Government of South Caro-
lina, where there are 34,000 slaves to 260,000 free people,
costs 5347,000, or SI 33c. per free head. Massachusetts
governs 800,000 free people for 57 cents per head.
Even in the drama, says Frederick Douglass (North
Star), when the poet presents the Moor of Venice as an
African, the refined sensibility of American taste can only
admit him to ba played white!
Louis Blanc has written to the London papers to com-
plain of his having been obliged to leave the Luxembourg
without a centime. Let him console himself. It is the
lot of great men to get " more kicks than halfpence."
CONSECUTIVE CONUNDRUMS.—What does the Ban of
Croatia most resemble ? The Pest(h) of Hungary.--
What does the Pest of Hung(a)ry most resemble ? Union
Relief.—And what is Union Relief most like ? A Divorce
Bill. _ _

EDITORIAL TROUBLES.—The Victoria (Texas) Advo-
cate, of July 27, apologises for a lack of matter, by say-
ing that the senior editor was shot and badly wounded,
the junior editor had the chills and fever, and there had
been no mails there for two weeks.