46 THE SABBATH. 



uncomplying melancholy, it must needs be innocent 

 and commendable.' I do not know whether you ever 

 read Thomas Hood's 'Ode to Eae Wilson, 1 with an 

 extract from which I will close this address. Hood 

 was a humourist, and to some of our graver theologians 

 might appear a mere feather-head. But those who 

 have read his more serious works will have discerned in 

 him a vein of deep poetic pathos. I hardly know any- 

 thing finer than the apostrophe with which he turns 

 from those 



That bid you baulk 

 A Sunday walk, 

 And shun God's work as you should shun your own ; 



Calling all sermons contrabands, 



In that great Temple that's not made with hands, 



to the description of what Sunday might be, and is, to 

 him who is competent to enjoy it aright. 



Thrice blessed, rather, is the man, with whom 

 The gracious prodigality of nature, 

 The balm, the bliss, the beauty, and the bloom, 

 The bounteous providence in ev'ry feature, 

 Recall the good Creator to his creature, 

 Making all earth a fane, all heav'n its dome 1 

 To his tuned spirit the wild heather-bells 



Ring Sabbath knells ; 

 The jubilate of the soaring lark 



Is chant of clerk ; 



For choir, the thrush and the gregarious linnet ; 

 The sod's a cushion for his pious want ; t 



And, consecrated by the heav'n within it, 



The sky-blue pool, a font. 

 Each cloud-capp'd mountain is a holy altar ; 



An organ breathes in every grove ; 



And the full heart's a Psalter, 

 Kich in deep hymns of gratitude and love I 



