presence shrined,
Doth the dread idea rest
Hushed and holy dwells it there,
Prompter of the silent prayer,
Lifting up my spirit's eye
And its faint, but earnest cry,
From its dark and cold abode,
Unto Thee, my Guide and God!

1837

THE FAMILIST'S HYMN.

The Puritans of New England, even in their wilderness home, were not
exempted from the sectarian contentions which agitated the mother
country after the downfall of Charles the First, and of the established
Episcopacy. The Quakers, Baptists, and Catholics were banished, on pain
of death, from the Massachusetts Colony. One Samuel Gorton, a bold and
eloquent declaimer, after preaching for a time in Boston against the
doctrines of the Puritans, and declaring that their churches were mere
human devices, and their sacrament and baptism an abomination, was
driven out of the jurisdiction of the colony, and compelled to seek a
residence among the savages. He gathered round him a considerable number
of converts, who, like the primitive Christians, shared all things in
common. His opinions, however, were so troublesome to the leading clergy
of the colony, that they instigated an attack upon his "Family" by an
armed force, which seized upon the principal men in it, and brought them
into Massachusetts, where they were sentenced to be kept at hard labor
in several towns (one only in each town), during the pleasure of the
General Court, they being forbidden, under severe penalties, to utter
any of their religious sentiments, except to such ministers as might
labor for their conversion. They were unquestionably sincere in their
opinions, and, whatever may have been their errors, deserve to be ranked
among those who have in all ages suffered for the freedom of conscience.

Father! to Thy suffering poor
Strength and grace and faith impart,
And with Thy own love restore
Comfort to the broken heart!
Oh, the failing ones confirm
With a holier strength of zeal!
Give Thou not the feeble worm
Helpless to the spoiler's heel!

Father! for Thy holy sake
We are spoiled and hunted thus;
Joyful, for Thy truth we take
Bonds and burthens unto us
Poor, and weak, and robbed of all,
Weary with our daily task,
That Thy truth may never fall
Through our weakness, Lord, we ask.

Round our fired and wasted homes
Flits the forest-bird unscared,