Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-09-30
0Nureester Daily Spg.
From the Independent.
ON A PRAYFR-R0oK


ON A PRAYER-BOOK,
With its frontspiece, AIRY Scheiers .Christus Con-
solatOr," AmericaDized by the omission of the
black man.
Oh! AIRY SchefIer! when beneath thine eve,
Touched with the light that cometh from above
Grew the sweet picture OF the dear Lords love
NO dream hadst thou that Christian hands would
tear
Therelrom the equal token of His equal care,
And make thy symbol OF his truth lie!
Inc poor, dumb slave, whose shackles fall away
In Ills compassionate gaze grubbed smoothly out,
10 mar no more the exercise devout
Cf sleek oppression kneeling down to pray
Where the great oriel stains the Sabbath-day!
Let whose can before such praying-books
hneel on his velvet cushions, l, Tor one.
Would sooner bow, Parsee, to the sun,
Or tend prayer-wheel in Thibetan brooks,
Or beat drum Yedos temple floor.
No falser idol man has bowed before
In Indian groves islands fthe sea,
Than that which, through the quaint carved, Goth
lc door,
Looks forth, Church without humanity!
Patron OF pride and prejudice and wrong,
The rich mans charm and fetish of the strong,
The Eternal fullness meted clipped, and shorn,
4 he seamless robe OF equal mercy torn,
The dear Christ hidden from His kindred flesh
And, in Ills poor ones erucied afresh,
Better the simple Lama scattering wide,
w here sweeps thy storm Alechans steppes along.
Ills paper horses for the lost to ride,
And wearying Buddha with his prayers to make
1he figures living Tor the travellers sake,
Than he who hopes with cheap praise to beguile
Inc IN, ear OF God, dishonoring man the whilej
Who dreams the pearl gates hinges, rusty grown
Are moved by hattery's oil of tongue alone;
hat IN the scale Eternal Justice bears
The generous deed weighs less than selfish PRAYERS
And words intOned with graceful unction move
The Eternal Goodness more than lives of truth and
love.
Alas, the Church! The reverend head of JAY
Enhaloed with its sanity silvered hair,
Adorns no more the places of her prayer,
And brave young Tyng too early called away,
Troubles the Haman of her courts no more
Like the just Hebrew at the Assyrian's door;
And her sweet ritual, beautiful, but dead
AS the dry husk from which the grain is shed,
And holy hymns, from which the life devout
Of saints and martyrs has well nigh gone out
Like candles dying in the exhausted air,
For Sabbath use IN measured griss ground;
And ever, while the spiritual mill goes round,
Between the upper and the neither stones,
Unseen, unheard, the wretched bondman groans
And urges his vain plea, prayer-smothered, anthem
drowned
As from the Mount of Vision, behold
Iure, just, and free the Church of Christ on earth
The martyrs dream, the golden age foretold
And, found, at last the mystic Graal l see,
Bnmmed with his blessing, pass from lip to lip
In sacred pledge OF human fellowship;
And over all, the songs of angels hear
Songs OF the love that casteth out all fear
Songs OF the Gospel OF humanity!
Lo! III the midst, with the same look he wore
Healing and blessing ON Genesaret's shore,
Folding together with the all-tender might
OF his great love, the dark hands and the white
Stands the Consider, soothing every pain,
Making all burdens light and breaking every chain!
The iadependent.