MINISTRY.
Ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord: men shall call you the ministers of our God.—Isaiah, lxi. 6.
We will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.—Acts, vi. 4.
If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ.—I. Timothy, iv. 6.
Their ministry performed, and race well run,
Their doctrine and their story written left,
They die.
Milton.
From essences unseen, celestial names,
Enlight’ning spirits and ministerial flames,
Lift we our reason to that Sovereign Cause,
Who blessed the whole with life.
Prior.
God gives us ministers of love,
Which we regard not, being near;
Death takes them from us, then we feel
That angels have been with us here!
As mother, sister, friend, or wife,
They guide us, cheer us, soothe our pain;
And when the grave has closed between
Our heart and theirs, we love—in vain.
Aldrich.
Oh, thou who once on earth, beneath the weight
Of our mortality did’st live and move,
The incarnation of profoundest love;
Who, on the Cross, that love didst consumate,—
Whose deep and ample fulness could embrace
The poorest, meanest of our fallen race!
How shall we e’er that boundless debt repay?—
By long, loud prayers in gorgeous temples said?
By rich oblations on thine altars laid?—
Ah no! not thus thou didst appoint the way.
When thou wast bowed our human woe beneath,
Then as a legacy thou didst bequeath
Earth’s sorrowing children to our ministry;
And as we do to them, we do to thee.
Anne C. Lynch.