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AN INTROIT TO BE SUNG BETWEEN THE LITANY AND COMMUNION

SERVICE.

O most merciful!

O most bountiful!

God the Father Almighty!

By the Redeemer's

Sweet intercession

Hear us, help us when we cry.

BEFORE THE SACRAMENT.

BREAD of the world, in mercy broken;
Wine of the soul, in mercy shed;

By whom the words of life were spoken,
And in whose death our sins are dead;

Look on the heart by sorrow broken,
Look on the tears by sinners shed,
And be thy feast to us the token

That by thy grace our souls are fed.

AT A FUNERAL.

BENEATH our feet and o'er our head
Is equal warning given;

Beneath us lie the countless dead,

Above us is the heaven.

Their names are graven on the stone,
Their bones are in the clay;

And ere another day is done,
Ourselves may be as they.

Death rides on every passing breeze,

He lurks in every flower;

Each season has its own disease,
Its peril every hour.

Our eyes have seen the rosy light
Of youth's soft cheek decay,
And Fate descend in sudden night
On manhood's middle day.

Our eyes have seen the steps of age
Halt feebly towards the tomb,
And yet shall earth our hearts engage,
And dreams of days to come?

Turn, mortal, turn! thy danger know;
Where'er thy foot can tread
The earth rings hollow from below,
And warns thee of her dead.

Turn, Christian, turn! thy soul apply
To truths divinely given ;

The bones that underneath thee lie
Shall live for hell or heaven.

STANZAS

ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND.

THOU art gone to the grave; but we will not deplore thee,

Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb:

Thy Saviour has passed through its portal before thee,

And the lamp of his love is thy guide through the gloom.

Thou art gone to the grave; we no longer behold thee,

Nor tread the rough paths of the world by thy

side;

'But the wide arms of mercy are spread to enfold thee,

And sinners may die, for the SINLESS has died.

Thou art gone to the grave; and, its mansion forsaking,

Perchance thy weak spirit in fear lingered long; But the mild rays of paradise beamed on thy waking,

And the sound which thou heard'st was the seraphim's song.

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