ZEAL.
For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.—Romans, x. 2.
It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing.—Galatians, iv. 18.
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous, therefore, and repent.—Revelation, iii. 19.
Farewell to earth; my life of sense is o’er;
My heart is changed, I feel my bonds untied;
And casting every thought impure aside,
My guilty course abandon and deplore.
Fallacious leaders I obey no more;
I follow thee, refuse all other guide;
And ne’er did shipwrecked bark with broken side
Loose from the shelves more anxious for a shore.
And since I spent with risk of mortal harm,
My life and dearest hours, nor gathered thence
Profit or fruit, I crowd my sail to thee.
Lord, I am turned! now let thy gracious arm
Sustain me: and my future service be
With zeal proportioned to my past offence.
From the Italian of Gabriel Fiamma.
Zeal is that pure and heavenly flame
The fire of love supplies;
While that which often bears the name,
Is self in a disguise.
True zeal is merciful and mild,
Can pity and forbear;
The false is headstrong, fierce, and wild;
And breathes revenge and war.
While zeal for truth the Christian warms,
He knows the worth of peace;
But self contends for names and forms,
Its party to increase.
Zeal has attained its highest aim,
Its end is satisfied,
If sinners love the Saviour’s name,
Nor seeks it ought beside.
Newton.
If, gracious God, in life’s green, ardent year,
A thousand times thy patient love I tried;
With reckless heart, with conscience hard and sere,
Thy gifts perverted, and thy power defied:
O grant me, now that wintry snows appear
Around my brow, and youth’s bright promise hide.
Grant me with reverential awe to hear
Thy holy voice, and in thy word confide!
Blot from my book of life its early stain!
Since days misspent will never more return,
My future path do thou in mercy trace;
So cause my soul with pious zeal to burn,
That all the trust which in thy name I place,
Frail as I am, may not prove wholly vain.
From the Italian of Pietro Bembo.
With zeal we watch,
And weigh the doctrine, while the spirit ’scapes;
And in the carving of our cummin-seeds,
Our metaphysical hair-splitting, fail
To note the orbit of that star of love
Which never sets.
Mrs. Sigourney.
It is well to be zealous for the truth,
God loveth not those who are lukewarm;
Fear not the reproach of the world;
Hide not thy light under a bushel;
Tell thy neighbour, or those in high places,
Of the sin which thou see’st them committing,
Yet not roughly, nor rudely, though firmly,
But temper thy zeal with discretion.
It is well to be zealous, for so were
Of old those who bore God’s commission;
Their hearts burned like coals from the altar,
And they pressed towards the mark of their calling.
So do thou, in thy sphere and station,
Spread the truth as it dwelleth in Jesus;
In season and out be thou instant;
Let thy zeal be according to knowledge.
Egone.