SAINT PETER'S DAY.

JUNE 29.

COLLECT. O Almighty God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst give to thy Apostle Saint Peter many excellent gifts, and commandedst him earnestly to feed thy flock; make, we beseech thee, all pastors diligently to preach thy holy word, and the people obediently to follow the same, that they may receive the crown of everlasting glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

HYMN.

LORD! when thy PETER, weak in faith,
By terror too severely tried,

Failed in thine hour of threatened death,
And thee forsook, and thee denied ;-

When thrice his ear the challenge heard,
And thrice his tongue renounced thy name,
And each sad time the recreant word

More loud and more impassioned came;

One look from thee his fault reproved,

And made his slumbering conscience start;
One look from thee, so dearly loved,
Spoke daggers to his bleeding heart;

And sent him forth a prey to grief,
Unheeded all his former fears,
To seek in solitude relief
From bitter and repentant tears.

Lord! when by human frailty led,

We pass thy gracious warning by,
Prone as we are awry to tread,

And thee forsake, and thee deny;

Grant us to feel the keen rebuke,
By conscience, faithful guardian, sent,
As if we saw thy pitying look,
When on thy frail Apostle bent.

That pitying look! O may it melt

Our hearts in penitential showers!
May Peter's grief by us be felt,
And O, be his forgiveness ours!

BP. MANT.

ANOTHER.

"When Herod would have brought him out, the same night Peter was sleeping." Acts xii. 6.

THOU thrice denied, yet thrice beloved,
Watch by thine own forgiven friend;
In sharpest perils faithful proved,

Let his soul love thee to the end.

The prayer is heard, — else why so deep
His slumber on the eve of death?
And wherefore smiles he in his sleep
As one who drew celestial breath?

He dearly loves and not alone:

For his winged thoughts are soaring high Where never yet frail heart was known To breathe in vain affection's sigh.

He loves and weeps, but more than tears Have sealed thy welcome and his love,One look lives in him, and endears

Crosses and wrongs where'er he rove:

When to the bosom of his friend,

The Shepherd, he whose name is Good, Did his dear lambs and sheep commend,

Both bought and nourished with his blood:

Then laid on him the inverted tree,
Which, firm embraced with heart and arm,
Might cast o'er hope and memory,
O'er life and death, its awful charm.

With brightening heart he bears it on,
His passport through the eternal gates,
To his sweet home, so nearly won,
He seems, as by the door he waits,

The unexpressive notes to hear

Of angel song and angel motion, Rising and falling on the ear

Like waves in Joy's unbounded ocean.

His dream is changed,

Calls to that last of glorious deeds, — But as he rises to rejoice,

Not Herod but an Angel leads.

the Tyrant's voice

He dreams he sees a lamp flash bright,
Glancing around his prison room, —
But 't is a gleam of heavenly light

That fills up all the ample gloom.

The flame that in a few short years

Deep through the chambers of the dead
Shall pierce, and dry the fount of tears,
Is waving o'er his dungeon-bed.

Touched he upstarts, — his chains unbind, Through darksome vault, up massy stair, His dizzy, doubting footsteps wind

To freedom and cool moonlight air.

Then all himself, all joy and calm,
Though for a while his hand forego,
Just as it touched, the martyr's palm,
He turns him to his task below;

The pastoral staff, the keys of heaven,

To wield awhile in gray-haired might, Then from his cross to spring forgiven, And follow JESUS out of sight.

KEBLE.