the approval of friends. We are sufficiently sensible of our position and influence not to attempt to make more secure the one or more effective the other by any than the independent but unostentious means hitherto employed.
A Lament (contributed to the Gazette)
Unlucky flock, unlucky church
just now, as ever, in the lurch
Tossed by an unresisted fate.
From Surrogate to surrogate!
We plot, we labour and contrive
In vain to make the parish thrive
For some good reason or another,
Each new misfortune has a brother
Till the poor fold beneath the rock
With all its unregarded flock.
Is filled with bleatings wild and strange
At shepherds that for ever change.
Meantime the sects and parties all
Thrive by this unseemly brawl
our enemies look up and smile
Or shed the tears of crocodile,
Delusive over our hapless state
That seemed so flourishing of late
The Papists love to point at us
With all our scandal, feuds and fuss,
And show how peace and work are found
united on their special ground.
Though all our workmen cant be named,
A, those who nee not be ashamed,
According to St. Paul, tis strange
No labourer even had the range
of this, our fair St. Leonards field,
But soon or late he had to yield,
And own, that whether rough or tame
Savage or mild, twas all the same!
Those sheep within the sandy nook
are difficult for pastor's crook.
and twill be long eve they can find
The sort of man that suits their mind
letting them think they have their way
(yet bearing undisputed sway.
Tharp and yet easy, - close, yet free,
All things to all men quick to be;
And also harder far to do
Be all things to old women too.
The mediaeval Bethels use,
Souring aloft Cathedral- wise
and flout the paltry gap we spare
Of space from dingy house of prayer.
Carpenter gothic dark and dank.
Cooped up beneath the sandstone bank
Inside and out, a mere disgrace!
It shows its dirty crumbling face,
Fit only for the pick and crown
Blest be the hand that lays it low!
St. Leonards, June 6th, 1864
It should be stated that since the above lines were contributed the church has been in every way greatly improved.
The Church Again
How matters stood at the end of three months after the first article on the church difficulty appeared may be learnt from the following extract from the St. Leonards Gazette, of August 6th.
Next, to reverential thought of the great God we worship should be our veneration of the place in which we worship Him, nor should a conception so deeply tinged with holiness be permitted to dwarf into mere sentiment. For sanctuary should be jealously guarded within and without from -
