MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS. 401 Hail, hebrew psalmist king ! hail happy hour! I see, I hear, I feel the sovereign pow'r Of language so devout. Th' immortal sound Thrills thro my vitals with a pleasing wound, And mortal passions die. Devotion reigns, Earth disappears, her mountains and her plains; I soar, t pray, I praise in David's heavenly strains. Here thoughts divine in living words exprest, Pour'd out and copy'd glowing from the breast; o'er the sacred page; what eye, what heart, Can read the rapture, and not bear its part In holy elevation ? Where love and joy exult, the glorious line Gives the same passions, spreads the fire divine, And kindles all the reader. See him rise On wings of extasy, shoot thro' the skies, And mix with angels : Hail, ye choirs above, Where all is holy joy, where all is heav'aly love. If sins review'd in trickling sorrows flow ; The page conveys the penitential woe, And strikes the inmost spirit. Conscience hears The words of anguish; and dissolves in tears. Ev'n iron souls relent, and hearts of stone Burst at these mournings, and repeat the groan God and his power are there. Formistes and Libero were present while Bohemus was car- ried away in this surprising rapture. The last had been educated in too great an aversion to forms of prayer, and the first never thought of addressing God without them ; but both were deeply struck with conviction at this speech of Bohemus : They con - fessed that they had lived all their days in extremes, and begun to confess their mistake. Surely, says Libero, written prayers are not such formidable things as I once imagined them, especially since we are not pin- ned down to every sentence, but maintain a just liberty to alter as we please. And yet further, now I think of it, christians of every party find it no hindrance to the devout melody and praise which they offer to God, that they have the words of a sacred song provided for them before -hand; and it is as certain that composed forms of prayer are evidently useful, if not necessary, for the assistance of children, to train them up to this part of worship, and lead them in the way to private devotion in their younger years ; and why should they not be happy expedients to relieve the weakness of the bulk of christians ? Certainly they are so, replied. Bohemus; for if we consider mankind in the various ranks, conditions and circumstances of life, and take a just survey of the many infirmities that surround human nature, and the numerous weights that hang upon the soul; if we ob- serve the perpetual diversion from the things of God, to which the mind is exposed by constant business in the world; if we think of the low capacity, scanty furniture and poor invention of
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