Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-02-28
SELECTED FOR THE SPY.
ReIi giOus adm

THE ANCIENT OF DAYS.
He reigns above, He reigns alone;
Systems burn out and leave His throne;
Fair miss of seraphs melt and fall
Around Him, changeless amid all
Ancient OF Days, whose days go
He reigns below, He reigns alone,
And, having life in love foregOne
Beneath the crown of sovran thOrns,
IL e Ieigns the Jealous God Who mourns
Or rules with Him, while days go on?
BY anguish which made pale the sun,
hear Him charge His saints that none
Among his creatures anywhere
Blaspheme against Him with despair,
However darkly days go on.
Take from my head tie thorn-wreath brown!
No mortal grief deserves that crown.
o supreme Love, chief Misery.
The sharp regalia. are for THEE
w hose days eternally 20 ON!
Mrs. Br0iCnng.
HUMAN CHARACTER.-I now see more good
and more evil in all men than heretofore did.
| see that good men are not so good as | once
thought they were, but have more imperfec-
tions; and that nearer approach and fuller
trial doth make the best appear more weak
and faulty than their admirers at distance
think. And find that few are so badas either
malicious enemies or censorous separatrix
professors do imagine. In some, indeed,
find that human nature is corrupted into great.
er likeness to devils than | once thought any
on earth had been. But even in the wicked,
usually there is more for grace to make ad-
vantage of, and more to testify for God and
holiness, than once believed there had been.
-BdTfer.
a GUILTY CONSCIENCE runs most
furlously when a guilty conscience drives it.
One that owed much money and had many
creditors, as he walked London streets in the
evening" tenter-hook catched his cloak.
cat whose suit?" said he, conceving some
bailiH had arrested him. Thus, guilty con-
sciences are afraid where no fear is, and count
every creature they meet sergeant sent
from God to punish. them.-ThOmaS Fuller.
PRAYER.-It is by prayer we hold commu-
Mon with God. 1t is by this we unlock all
his treasures. He that knows how to pray,
has the secret of safety in prosperity, and of
support in trouble. He has the art of over
ruling every enemy, and of turning every loss
into a gain. He has the power of soothing
every care, of subduing every passion, and of
adding Il relish to every enjoyment. ''rhe
merchandise of it is better than the merchan-
disc of silver, and the gain thereof than fine
gold-' Many things are good for me, but
none so good as to draw nigh to God.
SIN AND HoLINEss.-.A state of sin and
holiness are not like two ways that are just
parted by line, so as a man may step out of
two ways that lead to very distant places, and
consequently are at good distance from one
another, and the farther man hath travelled
in the one, the farther he is from the other;
SO that it requires time and pains to pass from
one to the other.-John I1liotSon.
A REASON FOR HIS HoPE.-The following
conversation took place with a slave, an old
man, on one of the southern plantations;
''You are an old man; will you not die
soon?"
eyes, l know | must.
''Where do you expect to go?'
81 think shall go to the good land.'
'Why do you think you will go there?"
81 cannot tell; but the nearer | come to
death, somehow Jesus and get nearer to-
gether."
The ONE FRIEND.-When the great theo-
Logan, president Edwards, was diving, having
taken leave OF his family, he looked about,
and said, ''Now, where is Jesus of Nazareth,
my true and never-failing friend?" And so
he fell asleep, and went to the Lord he loved.
How uniailing is the instinct which leads
the pious heart to cry out for Jesus in the last
hour!
Three hundred clergymen met at Islington,
Eng, Jan. 18th, to consider ''the skeptical
tendencies Of the present day" Rev. j. 3.
Marsden made the following statements
''He feared there was a falling off of men
tai power in the candidates for the church.
Taking the first class men at Oxford, in lit
eriS HumanioribuS, he found that, in the ten
years from 1881 to 1910, there were 1870 first
class men. OF these 92 took orders, and 80
remained laymen, the difference in favor of
the clergy being 81. In the ten years from
1901 to 1860 the number of first class men
was 10 as against 1870 in the previous ten
years. But of the 1l9 only AZ took orders,
ana the rest continued laymen; so that,
acf'ereas before there paS difference of ftfy-
to@1 IN facor Of the clergy, There was nor a
d!BeFente Of thirty fire on the side of the laity
1t was, therefore, not altogether without rea-
son that the public complained that there was
not so many young men of first rate talent en-
tering the ministry now as there were in
former times. There was, it seemed, dete-
rloratlon quietly going on, which, though not
much perceived atpresent, would tell serious
ly by-and-by."
The reasons assigned for this falling off