The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1888-03-24

Written Tor the DelhocfaVc -AuNocute ny
J. W. sLAUGESuAuP.
Time in his course has winged his steady fight;
Ages have piled their monuments sublime;
The stars have shone with all their lucid light,
Sending their beauteous beams to every cline,
Creation Ginning in harmonious rhyme:
But now fair Nature seemed to feel pans,
As if some dread event or fearful crime
Mere pending-and there seemed to hang
sable mist DER all while winds their dirgcs rang.
There is the offering, the Mediator-there
The Son of God is captive with the thieves;
And hands accustomed to such deeds prepare
The victim for the cross that now receives
The body of Messiah and he grieyes
Not for himself but for his cruel foes,
Who in their blindness do a deed that leaves
An impress and the stream of time that flows
Not vet has washed away that memory Of woes
His arms extended were upon the beam.
Ills hands and feet upon the wood were nailed'
The Roman soldiers, stern and hardened, deem
Their task a dreadful one and shrinking quaiied
When they the Saviour like a thief impaled
Upon the cross 'He surely is God
In human form" they say, 'by hate assaiied
The angry mob on Calvary's summit trod,
Asserting to the act, their wagging heads they NOD
And then they lifted him, his place between
The malefactors Jesus, King OF Jews
Is the inscription that above is seen;
Though he by other sight than human views
Legions of angels, yet he meier endues
Their brands with power the raging mob to smite'
No flaming cherub yengefully pursues
Those hooking missions with blasting blight
As fell TIL Assyrian host before the angels might
In sky, in air, in cavern depths below
Are tokens seen and heard. portentous things;
All nature shares the universal woe;
There's not q bird in leafy shelter sings;
The ivy closer to the oak tree clngs
The timid hare to rocky covert HES
The bee no store of sweetness homeward brings;
The eagle screaming to his eyrie flies;
In notes of terror strange are heard the wild birds
cries.
o Sun! who rulest in thy majesty
The day. thy kingdom, what dost thou behold?
Thy beams have shoue on scenes of misery
ON battlefield and agonies untold,
As in the ages past thine orb has rolled
In its appointed sphere, grandly sublime;
Why dost thou shrink thy glorics to unfold?
Such sight as this in all the course of time
Was never seen before in any earthly cline.
The sacrifice of ages! see Him there
Submissive, patient, showing in his mien
Divinity and manhood-being fair
Whose hands and feet are pierced what q scene
For mortal contemplation. scraphs lean
Der heavens battlements and mutely gaze
Through the ethereal mists that intervene
Upon the place where Swallowed by haze,
There are astounding acts that distant worlds
amaze
Time most momentous that the world has known
Is in the compass of these leeting hours
This-this is what the prophets word has SHOWN
when heayen-inspired were his foreknowinG
powers;
We angels standing on celestial towers,
Inyeil your eyes that would be dim'd with tears,
But that unlike mortality, no showers
orgrief are there The great fulfllment nears.
The notable eyent-the climax of the years.
And He uplifted to the sight ofmen.
spake not a word of anger or complaint;
And ne'er recoiled nor covered, even when.
With pain intense mortality grew faint.
Oh never can the mind of thoughtful saint
Begin to realize what He did bear;
His mortal enemies place no restraint
Upon the scoru that looks and words declare;
Though all defiant now, yet they themseive
insnare.
His look was one of pity and oflove
nen ne MS own ulsClIlIcS lllelc bchSiu'
His heart did yearn for them, for this will prove
The temper of their faith. Will it be quelled9
Or rise superior to the tide that swelled
like ocean-waves aud wildly DER them swept?
yHeir dearest hopes have persisted as If knelled
ie bells of adverse fate and tolling Kept
Their dreary echoes wierd while they in angnisl
wept.
Whe1e-where are expectations they had borne
of Israel's liberty and shiloh's throne?
Their hopes that frightened like the blush of morn
Are darkened now when the day is gone;
And now they think there never shall be known
The Joy of fraedom in, lNez. abs reign;
Tiey-builf an earthly c8sile-it is blown
Like an unstable structure when amain
The whirlng blast comes on and sweeps across thu
plain.
How often did his lips to them express
Words that with rapture and with awe the!
heard!
How often they rejoiced to see him bless
The blind the deaf, the palzied that referred
Inirmities to him! Nor e'er occurred
To them the thought that he should thus have die
BY crucifxioD; whom they so reyered,
With confidence entre they had relied
Implicitly on him that now is erucifled.
woman with the throng beholding stands,
And language cannot speak what she doth feel.
Ills Mary--she who fonded with her hands
The infant when the Wise Men came to kneel
Before the child their offerings to reveal
What thoughts are hers! what bodings press lie
heart!
Such time as this might crush heart like steel
Who can imagine memories that dart
Across her vision then-emotions they impart?
A mothers careful vigils she had kept
When in his childhood he bad lisped her name;
Her soul had glowed with pleasure when he stepp'
From childhood's years to manhood's rising FAINT
When wondering thousands seeing, hearing can't
Astonished that such wisdom could be known
BY any being with human frame
But now her joys like down by tenpests blown
Have all been swept away, her hopes 50 fair ar
gone,
Is heart of women able to endure
trial such as this, nor breaking sink,
AND cease its throbbing in her breast mature
When such a cup Of sorrow she must drink
What tyne of womans mind that cen can think
or such a grief and yield not 10 despair,
And dazed despond like Niobe, and shrink
In speeches agony, appearing there
An image desoate of hopeless. endless care.
But she doth seem as one who is sustained
And comforted by some relief unseen;
Some guardian spirit with her there remained
Her strength maintained and kept her mint
serene
Perhaps she learned in deep distress TO lean
Upon the arm divine and trusting still
Believe the Lord Of all will stand between
Christ and destroyer, and from seeming i'll
Bring good and reconcile fine world to his own VIII
The moments pass, oppressive is the air,
And almost breathless, men are looking on
The spectacle; and wondrous signs declare
The consummation is approaching SOON
The sun above hos marked the hour of noon,
When all his radiant light is turned away;
The land is wrapped in darkness. In swoon
Some sink in terror mid the crowds that sway
Appalled,, and knowing not the cause OF thei
dismay.
Though darkness wells the earth, yet will arise
light refulgent from the present gloom.
Whose spIendor, brighter than the sunlit skies
The people of all nations will Hume;
And Nature viii farer assume
Whom this dark shadow passes from her face;