Rejoice, ye faithful,ye
     That watch and wait;
     And eager to divine
     Each slow unfolding sign,
     Press forth to meet the Bridegroom at the gate.
     Ye bearers of His Cross,
     That, cheerful, take,
     For His loved sake,
     Despite and shame, and pain and loss;
     Ye workers that, from earliest morn,
     The burden and the heat have borne,
     Ye that have mourn'd your evil day,
     Ye blessèd children of the blest, rejoice!
     Lift up your voice,
     And one long glorious anthem raise
     In your great Master's praise.

     Rejoice, O happy earth,
        Beneath His sway benign.
     He is the peerless One,
        The priceless, the Divine!
     He is the King of kings,
        O earth, and He is thine!

     The Holy One, the Just;
        Start, sinner, from your lair!
     Wake, dreamer, from your dream,
        And meet Him as ye dare!

   Quail, ye who never fear'd till now!
   Blanch, boastful lip and brazen brow!
      Blasphemers and profane,
      Voluptuous, dyed
     With leprous stain—
     Defamers of the good,
     Betrayers in cold blood,
     Incarnate fiends that wear
     The saintly garb, beware!
     And meet Him as ye dare!

    O much-abused earth,
        For all so fair and green,
    Against thee hath gone forth
       The cry, "Unclean! unclean!"

    How wilt thou bear to see
       Thy history's page unrolled?
    Reveal'd the shameful mystery,
       The horrid secret told?

    Fear much, but trust Him more;
     For He will purge His floor,
    And with a mighty whirlwind clear
    The tainted atmosphere.
    All things renew
    In form and hue,
    Till earth resume
    Her pristine bloom,
    And Eden re-appear.

    He cometh, the great King
        In glory to reclaim
    The lost inheritance, blood-bought
       Upon the tree of shame.

   And we shall look on Him, whom we have pierced!
               That patient brow
               Once laid so low,
   With light divine resplendent now!

       Be comforted, O earth,
       Be comforted for ever!
   It is the glorious harvest time
   For every race, in every clime.

     Along the wastes of death
        Reviving wares flow,
     And on the desert heath
        Sweet Sharon's roses blow!

     He cometh, the great King,
        The bounteous, the benign!
     Rejoice, redeemèd earth,
         At last to call Him thine.

     Receive the gift of gifts,
          Himself—the glorious
  And great thy children's peace shall be
          For ever and for ever!

         OLD STORIES RE-TOLD.

         THE SPAFIELDS RIOTS.

A MODERN historian calls Lord Sidmouth "a
rat-catcher," so celebrated did that suspicious
statesman become for training spies, drilling
informers, ripening, bringing to a head, and
quashing, small conspiracies. He was no
Nestor, but he acted according to his lights;
and his ideal was, not the correction of abuses
in the constitution, but the suppression of their
more dangerous enemies.

Some years after the Spafields riots, when the
oppressive Six Acts had been passed, and Orator
Hunt and Bamford the Radical author stood
before the privy council, they were surprised to
find the cruel Castlereagh a handsome elegant
person in a plum-coloured coat, and "the
ferocious rat-catcher," Lord Sidmouth, an affable
tall bony old man, with thin greyish hair, broad
forehead, and mild intelligent eyes looking out
blandly from "cavernous orbits."

Starvation is the mother of sedition. In 1816,
Castle, Oliver, and other government spies, had
informed the great government rat-catcher that
the Radicals were growing dangerous, and, in
fact, rapidly organising for an armed outbreak.
At many of the Hampden clubs, particularly
in the manufacturing districts of Lancashire,
Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire,
revolution had become an object openly
avowed. The more moderate men were
agitating for universal suffrage and annual
parliaments. There is no concealing the fact now
that in 1816 the general distress and discontent
had led the rasher and more ignorant of the
reformers into dangerous schemes. It is on
record that at the trial of two men at the Edinburgh
Court of Justiciary, in 1817, it was proved
that the oath administered at their reform club
in 1816 had ended with the following clause,
worthy of a German secret tribunal:

"I will support the same to the utmost of
my power, either by moral or physical strength,
as the cause may require; and I do further swear
that neither hopes, fears, rewards, nor punishments
shall induce me to inform on, or give evidence
against, any member or members, collectively
or individually, for any act or expression
done or made in or out of this or similar
societies, under the punishment of death to be
inflicted on me by any member or members of such
societies."