:6 CONSIDER THE LILIES."

(Oss Christna bör tro och besinna.)

We, Christians, should steadfastly ponder
What Christ hath so graciously taught;
For He, who would have us His freemen,
Would see us retain in our thought
How little things earthly are worth,
Lest those who heap treasures on earth
The heavenly prize leave unsought.

All nature a sermon may preach thee;
The birds sing thy murmurs away,—
The birds which, nor sowing nor reaping,
God fails not to feed day by day;
And He, who these creatures doth cherish,
Will He fail thee and leave thee to perish?
Or art thou not better than they?

The lilies, nor toiling nor spinning,
Their clothing how gorgeous and fair!
What tints in their tiny robes woven,

What wondrous devices are there!
All Solomon's stores could not render
One festival robe of such splendour

As the flowers have for everyday wear.

God gives to each flower its rich raiment,

And o'er them His treasures flings free, Which to-day finds so fragrant in beauty, And to-morrow all faded shall see. Thus the lilies smile shame on thy care, And the happy birds sing it to air:

Will their God be forgetful of thee?

The last of these three specimens of Swedish sacred song is from Franzén, Bishop of Hernösand, who died A.D. 1818, at the age of thirty-six.

LOOKING UNTO JESUS.

FRANZEN.

(Jesum haf i ständigt minne.)

Jesus in thy memory keep,

Wouldst thou be God's child and friend;

Jesus in thy heart shrined deep,

Still thy gaze on Jesus bend.
In thy toiling, in thy resting,
Look to Him with every breath,
Look to Jesus' life and death.

Look to Jesus, till, reviving,

Faith and love thy life-springs swell;
Strength for all things good deriving
From Him who did all things well;
Work, as He did, in thy season,
Works which shall not fade away,
Work while it is called to-day.

Look to Jesus, prayerful, waking,
When thy feet on roses tread;

Follow, worldly pomp forsaking,
With thy cross, where He hath led.
Look to Jesus in temptation;
Baffled shall the Tempter flee,

And God's angels come to thee.

Look to Jesus, when dark lowering
Perils thy horizon dim,

By that band in terror cowering,

Calm 'midst tempests, look on Him.
Trust in Him who still rebuketh
Wind and billow, fire and flood;
Forward! brave by trusting God.

Look to Jesus when distressed,
See what He, the Holy, bore ;
Is thy heart with conflict pressed;
Is thy soul still harass'd sore?
See His sweat of blood, His conflict,
Watch His agony increase,

Hear His prayer, and feel His peace

By want's fretting thorns surrounded,
Does long pain press forth thy sighs?
By ingratitude deep wounded,

Does a scornful world despise?
Friends forsake thee, or deny thee?
See what Jesus must endure,
He who as the light was pure !

Look to Jesus still to shield thee
When no longer thou mayest live;
In that last need He will yield thee
Peace the world can never give.
Look to Him, thy head low bending;
He who finish'd all for thee,

Takes thee, then, with Him to be.

Were it within the scope of this volume to give selec

tions from living hymn-writers, many might be chosen from Sweden, where a fresh glow of Christian life is, in these days, awakening many a fresh stream of song in a language which combines the homely strength of the German with the liquid music of the Italian.

CHAPTER XII.

ENGLISH HYMNS.

THE Reformed Churches of France and French

Switzerland seem to have had no literature

corresponding to the hymns of Protestant Germany. The names connected with mediaval hymn literature, on the other hand, are, as has been observed, chiefly French. Did the peculiar form which the Reformation took in France, then, tend to quench the spirit of sacred poetry, or what other causes brought about this result?

To judge rightly on this subject, we must, in the first place, be clear what we mean by France, since, although the French monarchy is the oldest in Europe, the same antiquity can scarcely be assigned to the French nation as it now exists. The distracted aggregation of duchies and counties, Brittany, Burgundy, Aquitaine, Provence, Languedoc, out of which the unity of modern France was gradually compressed, was scarcely more one with the France of to-day than the Greece of Marathon was with the Byzantine Empire. The southern regions were