Hymn for Christmas Day.

"Kind Heaven will oft a lesson give         If mortals are inclined to learn;      To shew how simplest things that live,         To kindness m"

"Where may zeal due succour find,     Man, for thy unguarded mind?     To shield thee, when temptations reign,     From folly's snare, and vice'"

"I.     Parent to those, whose infant days     No human parent know;     To thee, O Charity! the praise     Of filial love shall flow.     B"

"Say, nature, on whose wond'rous reign         Delighted fancy dwells,      Of all thy numerous brutal train         What animal excells?"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"