# LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I # # #|;W foprialti |fo. -£& fc€?^ N6ok | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, j RECOGNITION THE CEEATOE IE" DAILY LIFE. BY THE COMPILER OF " IXSTAURATIO." "Ps p^ple hnbt forgotten xtxt bans foitbout tromfor." HARTFORD: A PRESS OF CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRALXARD. 1873. 714- Entered according to Act of* Congress, in the year 1873, by CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRAINARD, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. THE KEW TEAR 1. Now they began on the first day of the first month to sanctify. ' It is a merciful provision that the Stream of Time does not run in one continuous flow, but it is taken up and separated into portions which are for ' signs and for seasons, and for days and years.' These changes and vicissitudes present us success- ively with renewed occasions and encouragements to amend our lives, and to set out as it were on a new course/ 1 Pure and bright it lies before us, Like the snowy moor untrod • — The future hides in it And solemn before us Gladness and sorrow ; Veiled the dark Portal, We press still thorow ; Goal of all mortal ; — Nought that abides in it Stars silent rest o'er us — Daunting us — Onward ! Graves under us silent. — Goethe. 1 We see the end — but not the path. O'er mountain tops with fainting hearts and weary, We yet must climb ; Then in the valleys, desolate and dreary, Abide our time.' (3) 4 THE INFINITE PERSONAL REASON. * The undeveloped flower-cup Will persevere, And rear its scented chalice up, Enbahning all its heart cells through With sweetness. — Another year/ For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, I will help thee. — And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her 9 Thou Grod seest me. 2. To stretch toward the Infinite is the first effort. The second, is to connect the Infinite with our per- sonal sphere, our movements, interests, and destinies. The mind of man, gazing up to the Infinite Nature with mingled reverence and trust, opens and utters itself to Omniscience. His awful presence is un- utterably near to us. The open Infinite Eye gazes upon us every moment. When this faith is once reached, life becomes invested with wondrous sanc- tity. — Young. - All complete knowledge involves the taking of manifold elements, separating and sorting them, and finally comprehending them in Unity. So the indi- vidual finite reason, if at all, must know the univer- sal reason ; and the finite may so know the universal as to see in it that the universal must be personal. — Hickok. 3o Lf I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea : even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. OMNIPRESENCE, & If we consider him in his omnipresence ; his being passes through, actuates, and supports the whole frame of nature. His creation and every part of it is full of him. There is nothing he has made, that is either so distant, so little, or so inconsiderable, which he ■ does not essentially inhabit. His sub- stance is within the substance of every being, whether material or immaterial, and as intimately present to it, as that being is to itself. It would be an imper- fection in him, were he able to remove out of one place into another, or to withdraw himself from any- thing he has created, or from any part of that space which is so diffused and spread abroad to infinity. In short, to speak ol him in the language of an old philosopher : — He is a being whose centre is every- where, and his circumference nowhere. — Spectator. We must believe him great without quantity, om- nipresent without place, everlasting without time, and containing all things without extent ; and when our thoughts are come to the highest, let us stop, wonder, and adore ! — Hall. For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabit- eth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high a) id holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit. * I have felt A presence that disturbs ine with the joy Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime, Of something far more deeply interfused — Well pleased to recognize 6 OMNIPRESENCE. In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being. — Wordsworth. I meditate on thee in the night watches. 'In the still silence of the voiceless night, When, chased by airy dreams, the slumbers flee, Whom in the darkness doth my spirit seek, O God, but thee ? ' And if there be a weight upon my breast, Some vague impression of the day foregone, Scarce knowing what it is, I fly to thee And lay it down. ' Or if it be the heaviness that comes In token of anticipated ill, My bosom takes no heed of what it is, Since 'tis thy will. ' More tranquil than the stillness of the night, More peaceful than the silence of that hour, More blest than anything, my spirit lies Beneath thy power.' 4. At a certain time in the course of my inward personal history, I found myself in a state of inward desolation. God seemed to be hidden from my view ; Christ as a distinct object of conception was with- drawn. I found nothing .of that familiar and de- lightful access to the great Source of life, whether denominated God or Christ, to which I had been ac- customed. The beautiful ministry of angelic and spiritual experiences had departed. And, in addi- THE ETERNAL NOW. 7 tion to this, there was a weakening and disruption of the ties which bound me to many of my earthly friends. Both inwardly and outwardly was one of vacuity and deprivation which apparently wanted nothing to its completeness. It reminded me of what I had once known in the deserts of Sinai, where standing on the tops of the highest mountains, I be- held around me nothing but the rugged cliffs. Finding myself in this arid and painful condition of things, which, perhaps for the sake of convenience may be denominated in the language of the old mystics, the ' spiritual wilderness,' I remained for a time in a sort of amazement, unable to understand its nature, or its meaning. At last aroused from the inactivity and confusion of spirit which naturally attended it, I ventured in my supplications to ask the Lord what was the cause of these unlooked-for ex- periences, and what instruction lie wished me to de- rive from them ? For I knew, though he was hidden in great and unprecedented mystery, He must be somewhere, where He could listen to the sound of my voice. For a time no responsive utterance came, neither to the outward ear where I did not look for it ; nor to the interior of the soul where I had often heard it in suggestions and intimations which left no doubt of the divinity of their origin. After such a time as seemed necessary to impress me fully with the fact of this great desolation, and also train my heart to the unwavering acceptance of it as a condi- 8 THE ETERNAL NOW. tion of things which had its significancy and its re- sults, and to dwell quietly amid its clouds and dark- ness, I received from time to time, and through those interior sources which the Holy Spirit knows how to open and employ, such intimations and teach- ings as became afterwards of great value. With a heart devoted to God no longer seek him in the heavens above, or the earth beneath, nor in any locality which will have the effect to limit his exist- ence, but r.ecognize Him as the great fact of the uni- verse, separate from no place or part, but revealed in all places, and in all things and events, moment by moment. . . It is moreover, one of those things which in any true philosophy of the universe will be found to lie at the foundation of the greatest problem of what constitutes the highest amount of human happiness. Meeting God in the present moment we shall meet Him always the same but always new : always unchanged in his essence, but changing al- ways in his incidents. The divine moment, lifting as it emerges into being, the veil that rests upon forms and places, and actions and events, opens that little eyelid of eternity and reveals God ; not in a perpetual identity of manifestation which would tire our perception and annul our growth, but in all possi- ble varieties. He stands before us sometimes in the storm, and sometimes in the sunshine ; sometimes in the waste howling wilderness, and sometimes in the field of flowers ; in the palace and the prison, in RELIANCE. 9 friendship and enmity, in joy and. sorrow. And thus He is always revealing, step by step, in harmony with the nature and extent of our own capacity the infinitudes of existence ; and always affording new elements of knowledge, new tests of strength, and new foundations and appliances of growth and happi- ness. Those who live in the divine moment are re- lieved in a great degree from the perplexities of conjectures and calculations, and cannot be said in the usual sense of the terms to have any plans of action. Being in harmony with the facts of the present moment, it is the law of their condition, that they shall do the work which it is given them to do, — so that it can justly be said, that the mind of the Infinite is substituted for his own, and that God plans for him. And hence it is, that the one great sign of the practical recognition of the divine moment is constant calmness and peace of mind. Events and tilings come with the moment, but God with them too, written all over with the divinity of wisdom and the glory of the promises. — Upham. 5. The person who has a firm trust in the Su- preme Being is powerful in his power, wise by his wisdom, happy by his happiness. He reaps the benefit of every divine attribute, and loses his own insufficiency in the fullness of infinite perfection. To make our lives more easy to us, we are com- manded to put our trust in him, who is thus able to relieve and succor us ; the divine goodness having (10 PROGRESSION. made such a reliance a duty, notwithstanding we should have been miserable had it been forbidden us. — Addison. - Jonah cried « They that observe lying vanities for- sake their own mercy. I ivill that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting. "Why wilt thou now give place to fear? How cans't thou want if he provide ? Or lose thy way with such a guide ? Slowly, alas ! the mind receives The comfort that our Maker gives. 6 When trial comes, all the consolation that abounds with it, is the result of a practiced faith.' 6. In two several ways I am wont to visit mine elect, namely with temptation and consolation. And I daily read two lessons to them ; one in reproving their vices ; another in exhorting them to the in- crease of their virtues. — Kempis. Not in one golden year Shall thy soul ripen to its glorious prime, And the rich fruitage mark the harvest time : But slowly, day by day, In the full sunshine and the midnight gloom, Shall grow the fruit that crowns its wondrous bloom. — Emily Miller. The blade — the ear — the full corn in the ear. Nature rightly understood is a slow worker. Not suddenly, not by a single stroke does she accomplish PROGRESSION. II, her changes, little by little is her rule, and patiently? watchfully she awaits the result. — l. a. o. For so the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest) and I will consider in my dwelling place , like a clear heat upon herbs, like a cloud of dew in the heat_qf harvest. It intimates that the great God has a perfect un- disturbed enjoyment of himself in the midst of all the tosses and changes of this world ; sits even upon the floods undisturbed. The Eternal Mind is always easy. He will consider over it what is best to be done, and will be sure to do all for the best. — Henry. ' The Great Soul that sits on the throne of the uni- verse is not, never was, and never will be in a hurry. In the realm of nature everything has been wrought out in the august consciousness of infinite leisure. There is no well-doing, no godlike doing, that is not patient doing. There is no great achievement that is not the result of patient working and waiting. There is no royal road to anything. One thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows fast withers as rapidly. That which grows slowly, slowly endures. Think how patiently he bears with ycur impatience. Listen ! there comes no outcry from the heavens to still all this wild unrest, but gently, patiently, the ministry of nature and Provi- dence proceeds from day to day.' This mixed divine and human weaving we call Life: — wherein the fabric seems so often faulty, 12 PRAYER. where much seems lost, left out, or wrongly joined, where correspondence is delayed, and full-matched beauty missed ; where colors are confused, where the pattern being vast may never quite unroll to earthly vision ; where Patience keeps her foot upon the treadle and Faith must stand with fervent eyes be- side the springing shuttle. — Mrs. Whitney. Be not sudden, take God's work together, and do not judge of it by parcels or pieces. It is indeed all wisdom and righteousness ; but we shall best discern the beauty of it, when we look on it in the frame, and when it shall be fully completed and finished, and our eyes enlightened to take a fuller and com- pleter view of it than we can have here. — Leighton. In the woefui waste of famine, And the scourge of pestilence ; In all woes and wrongs around us, •In all strife of man with man ; In all discords that confound us, Runs his great harmonious plan. — Burleigh. 7. What profit shall we have if we pray unto BTim? * Prayer makes the darkened cloud withdraw, Brings every blessing from above. Be straining prayer — we cease to fight/ 6 Telegraphic communication with heaven closed.' All our hopes lie in this higher sphere of thought PRAYER. 13 and emotion. To this region, the only key is prayer. — Phelps. Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth. In thy faith- fulness answer me and in thy righteousness. Make me sensible of real answers to actual re- quests, as evidences of an interchange between my- self on earth and my Saviour in heaven. — Chalmers. ' A goodly man, the master of an American ship, during one of his voyages, found his ship surrounded by fog for days, and became very anxious respecting her safety. He went down to the cabin and prayed. The thought struck him, if he had with confidence committed his soul to God, he might certainly com- mit his ship to him ; and so accordingly he gave all into the hands of God. and felt at perfect peace ; but still he prayed that if he would be pleased to give a cloudless sky at twelve o'clock, he should like to take an observation, to ascertain their real position, and whether they were on the right course. He came on deck with the quadrant under his coat. As it was thick and drizzling, the men looked at him with amazement. He went down again to his cabin, prayed and came up. There still seemed no hope. Again he went down and prayed, and again he ap- peared on deck with his quadrant in his hand. It was now ten minutes to twelve o'clock, and still there was no appearance of a change ; but he stood on deck waiting on the Lord, when, in a few minutes, the mist seemed folded up and rolled away by an 14 PRAYER. omnipotent and invisible hand ; the sun shone clearly from the blue vault of heaven, and there stood the man of prayer, with the quadrant in his hand ; but so awe-struck did he feel, and so • dreadful ' was that place, that he could scarcely take advantage of the answer of his prayer. He however succeeded, though with trembling hands, and found to his com. fort that all was well. But no sooner had he finished taking his observation than the mist rolled back over the heavens.' I have sometimes tried to conceive a panorama of the history of one prayer. I have endeavored to follow it from its inception in a human mind through its utterance by human lips, and in its flight up to the ear of Him who is its Hearer because He has been also its Inspirer, and on its journey around to the unnumbered points in the organism of His decrees which this feeble human voice reaches, and from which it entices a responsive vibration, because this is also a decree of as venerable antiquity as theirs : and in its return from those altitudes with its golden train of blessings to which eternal coun- sels have paid tribute at His bidding. I have endeavored to form some conception thus of the methods by which this omnipotence of poor human speech gains its end without a shock to the system ot the universe, with not so much as a whit of change to a course of a leaf falling in the air. A holy prayer is the spirit of God speaking through PRAYER. 15 the infirmities oi the human soul ; God's breath in man returning to his birth. We scarcely utter hyperbole in saying, that prayer is the Divine Mind communing with itself through finite wants, through the woes ot helplessness, through the clinging instincts oi weakness. On this side the judgment, no other conception of the presence of God is so profound as that which is realized in our souls every time we offer a genuine prayer. God is not only with us but within us. — Phelps. Moses wist not that the shin of his face shone while he talked with them. ' Much communion with God will communicate a glory to his character which the good man himself -will be the last to discover. The man who has walked in the garden ot the Lord can not keep the secret. His very raiment exhales spice and odor ! ' When one that holds communion -with the skies, Has filled his urn where those pure waters rise, And once more mingles with us meaner things, 'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings. Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, That tells us when his treasures are supplied. — COWPER. 8. I am the Almighty God, icalk before me, and be thou perfect. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of'thine heart. God's providences depend upon men's inter preta- 16 THE PROMISES. tions. When what a man wants is put within his reach he always thinks it is a providence. That part of you that hears God speaking determines what it is that He says. The only time that it is safe to give a man the desires of his heart is when his heart is fixed on God. It is conceded by all that if a man seeks his own highest culture and makes manhood the real aim of his being, it is true that by seeking God and His righteousness first, he shall best attain to the desires of his life. — Beecher. No man knows what divine power or what divine peace is, until he is in sympathy with God, so that he can feel that all things are his because all things are renounced by him.— Robertson. 9. Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? Behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp. The holy men of old who had revelations from God, had outward signs besides the internal light of assurance in their own minds to testify to them that it was from God. Where the truth embraced is consonant to the revelation in the written word of God, or the action conformable to the dictates of right reason or holy writ, we may be assured that we run no risk in entertaining it as such. But it is not the strength of our private persuasion within ourselves that can warrant it to be a light or notion from heaven. How distinguish between delusions and the inspi- ASSURANCE. 17 rations of the Holy Ghost. Satan can transform himself into an angel of light. There is no error to be named which has not had its professors: and a man shall never want crooked paths to walk in it he thinks that he is in the right way whenever he has the footsteps of others to follow. — Locke. We are not warranted under the Christian dis- pensation to require any miraculous intimation of the Divine Will : for the word of God alone is our guide and warrant. Remember thy word unto thy servant upon which thou hast caused me to hope. 6 Remember, Lord, that Thou hast given this promise and encouraged my hope in it : and what- ever appearances may be, I must wait and pray for the accomplishment of it, for Thou wilt never disap- point the expectation which Thy own word hath excited.' 'Without Thy counsel and providence, and with- out cause nothing cometh to pass in the earth.' 10. I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in His word do I hope. 6 A strange sweet sorrow about this deep trust — a repose born of sorrow and pain. I never felt it in a joyful mood : happiness never goes down so deep into the soul or raises the spirit up into such a calm solemn nearness to the eternal.' Blessed are all they that wait for Him. 18 WAITING. ' Little can we by the beginning of any action or event guess at God's intention in the conclusion. God sometimes disappoints us, exceeding our expectations, as well as at others falling short of them. Saul went to seek his father's asses, but found a kingdom and a crown.' It is doing a right thing and waiting to-day and weeks and months for a reward : so long that when it comes you cannot identify it with the action per- formed. It is living and working for truth and righteousness, and let the results come and mingle with the course of affairs. It is having faith in rectitude and in God, though you do not have visible results on which to base that faith. It is this that is the difficult thing. Here is the ground of super- lative training. God knows that you are going to live after to-day and to-morrow. He sees a road of exaltation in which you are to walk. He remem- bers that he is to lift you up. and crown you with eternal honors in heaven. — Beecher. ' If need be, one must learn to wait his whole life, and expect the time of opportunity in another world. Crimes of every character, diseases of every name, infamy and shame, are the fit ills of him who will not learn to wait.' ' Patience, what is long sought comes when unsought.' And blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord. FAITH. 19 ' All they that make his laws their choice shall in his promises rejoice.' For he performeth the thing that is apvointed for me. 11. According to your faith he it unto you. He follows the Ruler with a full knowledge of the case, with warmest sympathy, but no flush of haste is on his cheek, nor does a line of impatience ruffle his placid brow. He will satisfy the Ruler's longing, but not till he has taught him a high lesson of patience and faith. . . ' She is dead, trouble not the master.' Faith reels under the blow. But Jesus will not permit it to fail. Everything depends on that mustard seed of faith in the Ruler's soul. Such is the decree of heaven — why, we need not ask too curiously, — that faith must wait for the gifts of grace. Faith must pluck the ripened fruit which can fall only into the believer's hand. Through all the previous suspense and tension of faith in the Ruler's soul, Christ has been preparing him to receive the answer of his prayer. This preparation was painful indeed. It consisted in taking down the supports of nature, that the sustaining power of grace might have room. While he rested in his own methods, fixed his own limits of time, and shut up the Holy One within the barrier of his own short sightedness, faith was but feebly at work. He had no adequate perception of the power he addressed. "We know not what our faith may cost : but if we 20 DISTRUST. will boldly ask, if we have faith to hope, and patience to wait we shall, like the Rnler, rejoice at last in the power and grace of Jesus Christ. — Beecher. Trust and distrust are the day and night of the human soul. Out of the one issue light and courage, life and strength, liberty and joy : out of the other darkness and apprehension, weakness, bondage, and unhappiness. When Jesus said, According to your faith be it unto you, He uttered an infinite truth, that like the century plant presents its mysterious and patient leaves to the gaze of successive genera- tions, and only opens its wondrous blossoms to later eyes. — Helmer. It is impossible to calculate the effects which may be produced by distrust and suspense. They make the heart collapse, and wither the character. I believe that universal distrust would ruin any character. — Robertson. Mistrust of good success hath done this deed. O hateful error, melancholy's child ! Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men The things that are not ? Alas ! thou hast misconstrued everything, Didst thou not hear their shouts ? — Julius Caesar. The steward of my house is this Eliezur of Da- mascus. i He must yet live upon assurances and promises DISTRUST. 21 without any earthly prospect. This works within him in a way of secret anguish.' Let us trust the time will come when the present moment shall be no longer irksome ; when we shall not borrow all our happiness from hope which is at last to end in disappointment. — Johnson. Lord, thou hast deceived me and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I and hast prevailed. ' In a strict sense the Supreme Being can neither change His mind, nor falsify His word ; but He can make those changes in the course of His providence that have that appearance.' ' God may command what He has not decreed, as in slaying Isaac ; and decrees what He does not command, as in the death of His Son. Essential to prove the moral character and afford an opportunity for man to show his allegi- ance to God.' ' Trutli i^ truth to the end of the reckoning.' Establish thy word to thy servant who is devoted to thy fear. Is not thy grace as mighty now As when Elijah felt its power? — When glory beamed from Moses' brow, Or Job endured the trying hour ? arm of the Lord ; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Has not the Lord denied his aid "When earth and hell against me rose ? It is not so, but so it looks, 22 DISTRUST. And we lose courage then, And doubts will come if God hath kept His promises to men. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? God's justice is a bed, Where we our weary heads may lay, And weary with ourselves may sleep Our discontent away. 6 The language of some implies that the God of the universe had let go the helm or ceased to rule righteously. ' The enemy is sometimes gratified by an arrange- ment of outward dispensations exactly suited to favor his assaults ; so that the believer's path seems wholly obstructed. The Lord himself appears to for- sake him, or even to fight against him, and his ap- pointments are thought contrary to his promises. This gives Satan an opportunity of suggesting hard thoughts of God and his ways ; doubts about the truths of the Scriptures, and desponding fears of a fatal event. Many such fiery darts may be repelled or quenched by the shield of faith ; but there are seasons when they are poured in so incessantly, and receive such plausibility from facts, that the enemy wounds him in his faith, understanding and conver- sation. < Bitter anguish have I borne, Keen regret my heart hath torn, Satan blinded me with lies ' — SORROW. 23 He hath also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. Not for any injustice in mine hands. I have learned also to dread thy unsearchable judgments, who afflictest the just with the wicked, though not without equity and justice. — Kempis. ' The Lord in His favor hath fixed the believer's safety firm as the deep-rooted mountains: but in everything else he may expect to be shaken.' 6 Life has such hard conditions, that every dear and precious gift, every rare virtue, every pleasant faculty, every genial endowment, love, hope, joy, wit, sprightliness, must sometimes be cast into the cruci- ble to distill the one elixir — patience.' 13. He hath made me desolate and faint all the day. * With weary steps I loiter on, Though always under altered skies, The purple from the distance dies, My prospect and horizon gone. * When the star of the evening shines out, Large and fair in the west, You will gather no hope from its rays, No promise of rest/ Remove thy stroke away from me. 1 am consumed by the blow of thine hand. At that time I was suffering under one of those heaven-sent blows, under which the strongest and most philosophic succumb for a time — many forever. As I was neither strong nor philosophic, the greatest 24 THE heart's unknown, affliction man can suffer passed over me, and left me walking, eating, sleeping, but in the manner of those animals to which we anatomists attribute little or no self-consciousness in their actions, and no pleasure- in the fulfilment of them. We may be wrong ; the hungry looking arms of the anemone may obey a more than mere unconscious stimulus when they touch and secure their prey, but at all events, man who possesses all the nervous organization for being, doing and suffering is in as doubtful a case when in such circumstances as those to which I allude. — Harper's Weekly. 15. The heart knoweth his own bitterness. Deep down within the labyrinth of the breast, Close veiled in shadows black as midnight air, A temple stands ; by human art ne'er dressed, For God's own mighty hand has reared it there* An altar high those temple walls contain, On which life's sacrifices oft are made ; Its surface streaked with many a bloody stain, That marked the cruel, sacrificial blade Within that gloomy, shadow-drap'd abode, The inmost soul unseen and unknown dwells, And bears about in solitude its load Of secret joys and griefs it never tells. — G. W. S. Who does not know that all the sternest conflicts of life can never be recorded ? Every human soul must walk alone through the darkest and most dan- gerous paths of its spiritual pilgrimage ; absolutely EXCISION. 25 alone with God ! Much from which we suffer most acutely could never be revealed to others ; still more, could never be understood if it were revealed ; and still more, ought never to be repeated if it could be understood.— Mrs. Child. 16. They shall put you out of the synagogues. What is a little scourge of the tongue ? What is a thrusting out of the synagogue ? The time of temptation will be when we are thrust into an inner prison and feel the iron entering into our souls. God's people may be permitted to forsake us for a while, but the Lord Jesus can stand by us. And if thou, dearest Redeemer, wilt strengthen me in my inner man, let enemies plunge me into a fiery furnace, or throw me into a den of lions ! Let us suffer for Jesus with a cheerful he-art. His love will sweeten every cup though never so bitter. — White- field. 17. I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name. 1 A steady, wise design through all their sufferings. ' In this life sorrows are crowned kings. Their crowns are iron. Midnight is in their eye. Awful sternness soems to be in their hearts. Men lie as victims in dungeons under the dominion of sorrow, and know not that in this strange way, God prepares men for coronation, and that these stern-browed kings of misery are after all but angels of mercy and of love. — Beecher. • 2 26 ENCOURAGEMENT. Christian life ir not visible success ; very often the apparent opposite of success. It is -the resurrection of Christ working itself out in us ; but it very often is the cross of Christ imprinting itself on us very sharply. The highest prize God has to give us here is martyrdonio The highest style of life is heroic, enduring, manly love. The noblest coronet any son of man can wear, is a crown of thorns. — Robertson. * * the chastening rod Grows cool beneath his blessed feet, Whose form is as the son of God.' 18. But he hnoweth the way that I take ; when he hath tried me I shall come forth as gold. Rejoice, our Marah's bitter springs Are sweetened; on our ground of grief Rise day by day, in strong relief, The prophecies of better things. — Whittier. May we be divinely strengthened to bear, and made wise to improve whatever dispensation is in store for us ; may we be enlightened to see in what- ever good or ill fortune, shall ensue, the loving kind- ness of a Father whose ver>y chastenings are more beneficent than the fullest gratification of our de- sires. — Greeley. Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. ENCOURAGEMENT. 27 Be thou of such good courage, and so patient in hope, that when inward comfort is withdrawn, thou mayest prepare thy heart to suffer greater things, and do not justify thyself as though thou oughtest not to suffer these afflictions, or any so great ; hut justify me in whatsoever I appoint, and still praise my holy name. Stand to my good- will and thou shalt suffer no detriment at all. — Kempis. Faith loves to let him have his own way — extracts the honey of joy out of every daisy by the wayside — presses the wine of contentment out of every cluster of God's promises. — Beecher. 1 With cheerful feet the path of duty run, God nothing does nor sutlers tc be done, But what thou would'st thyself, could' st thou but see Through all events of things as well as he/ 19. All her persecutors overtook her in the midst of the straits. Frail and changeable in virtue, you might perhaps have been good under a series of auspicious circum- stances, but the glory had been to be victoriously good against malignant ones. — Foster. * * thou shalt know ere long, Know how sublime a thing it is To suffer and be strong o Longfellow. Because thou shalt forget thy misery and remember it as waters t-hat pass away. For he shall not much 28 MYSTERY. * remember the days of his life because Grod answereth him in the joy of his heart. < I look to find thee in thy word Or at thy table meet.' I wait till from my veiled brows shall fall This baffling cloud, this wearying thrall Which holds me now from knowing all. — M. C. A. 1 Hid in the everla sting deeps, The silent God His secret keeps.' If this invisible Being would only break that mysterious silence in which he has wrapt himself, we fed that a single word from his mouth would be worth a world of darkling speculations. — Chalmers. 6 In the great mirror of eternity all the events of this checkered scene will be reflected. Pry not, then, curiously ; pronounce not censoriously on God's dealings with thee. Wait with patience till the grand day of disclosures.' In the latter days ye shall consider it perfectly,, ' But in this life though there might be growth, it was the growth that comes from the pain endured with patience, through self-control maintained in the suspense and the anguish oi death ! 6 In thee I trust, to thee sign, And lift my heavy soul on high ; For thee sit waiting all the day, And wear the tiresome hours away.' * MYSTERY. 29 What does anxiety about future contingencies bring thee but sorrow upon sorrow, and consuming cares and disappointments, — anxieties from various attrition ? This mental condition robs life of its honey. — Beecher. Instead of learning the designs and character of the Almighty from his • own mouth, we sit in judg ment on them, and make cur conjecture of what they should be, take the precedency of his revelation of what they are. We do him the same injustice that we do to an acquaintance whose proceedings and intentions we venture to pronounce upon, while we refuse him a hearing, or turn away from the letter in which he explains himself. — Chalmers. Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us > Ee thwarts you in the gaining of some object ; hard, but good. He is far better to you than if he had helped you to it.. — Shepard. I am the Lord thy Grod which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the wag that thou shoiddest go. I have called him; I have brought him and he shall make his way prosperous. ' Brought him step by step, quite beyond his own intentions.' 20. I will allure her and bring her into the wilder- ness and give her her vineyards from thence. The promises designed to allure till their higher significatioi is reached. 30 THE PROMISES. • The letter is but the body of the spirit in which it dwells, or the scaffolding which surrounds the building while the walls are going up, or the form which the living substance puts on to manifest itself and to perform its functions. — D. L. L. And this is what God does. His promises are true, though illusive; truer than we at first take them to be. We work for a mean, low, sensual happiness, all the while he is leading us on to a spiritual blessedness unfathomably deep. This is the life of faith. We do not preach that all is dis- appointment, the dreary creed of sentimentalism : but we preach that nothing here is disappointment, if rightly understood. He in whom God-like char- acter dwells, has all the universe for his own. — Robertson. Behold the days come that I ivill perform that good thing 1 have promised. 22. In thine own dull and dreary state, To work and patiently to wait. Little thou think'st in thy despair, How soon the o'ershadowed sun may shine, And e'en the dulling clouds combine To bless with lights and hues divine, That region dark and bare — Those sad and sinful thoughts of thine. They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If thou wouldst be faithful to do the work that God hath appointed thee to do in this world for His HARD WORK. 31 name, then beware thou do not stop and stick when hard work comes before thee. The word and spirit of God come sometimes like chain-shot to us, as if they would cut down all — as when Abraham was to offer up Isaac. Oh how willingly would our flesh and blood escape the cross for Christ ! With Epliraim, we like to tread out the corn, and to hear those pleasant songs and music that gospel sermons make, where only grace is preached, and nothing of our own duty as to works of self-denial. — Bunyax. 23. Lord, I mil follow Thee, but let me go bid farewell. — If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. merciful Jesus, grant me but a small portion of Thy hearty affectionate love, that my faith may become more strong. How can I bear up myself in this miserable life, unless Thou strengthen me with Thy mercy and grace ? — Kempis. As for me is my complaint to man, and if it were so why should not my spirit be troubled? Lord, all my desire is before Thee. And the Lord said unto me, Let it suffice thee, speak no more unto me of this matter. That prayer which does not succeed in moderating our wish, in changing the passionate desire into still submission; the anxious, tumultuous expecta- 32 SELF-DENIAL. 4 tion into silent surrender, is no true prayer, and proves that we have not the spirit of prayer. — Phelps- 24. « Thankful I take the cup from Thee, Prepared and mingled by Thy skill, Though bitter to the taste it be.' Blessed and true is the comfort which is received inwardly from the truth. Let this be my consola- tion, to be cheerfully willing to do without all human comfort. — Kempis. When our energies demand sustenance they can- not get, when our will strains after a path it may not follow, we need neither starve from inanition, •nor stand still in despair. We have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to taste, and perhaps purer, and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it. — Charlotte Brokte. We talked about the different courses through which life ran. She (Miss Bronte) said in her own composed manner, as if she had accepted the theory as a fact, that she believed some were appointed beforehand to sorrow and much disappointment. That it did not fall to the lot of all, as Scripture told us, to havo their lines fall in plcnsant places: that it was well for those who had rougher paths to perceive that such was God's will concerning them, SELF-DENIAL. 33 and try to moderate their expectations, leaving hope to those of a different doom, and seeking patience and resignation as the virtues they were to cultivate. She was trying to school herself against ever antici- pating any pleasure : that it was better to be brave and submit faithfully : there was some good reason which we should know in time why sorrow and dis- appointment were to be the lot of some on earth. It was better to acknowledge this, and face out the truth in a religious life. — Mrs. Gaskell. Every passion not merely kept in abeyance oy asceticism, but subdued by a higher impulse, is so much character strengthened — Beecher. ' Self-indulgence has turned our love into selfish- ness, and now we shall return to love only through self-denial.' You would make a law for God prescribing the kind of death by which he shall destroy your self- love, and then, too, on the condition that self-love shall not die. — Fexelon. Give up anything, bear anything ; do anything, wait and suffer, work and pray. This is to be my heaven to see Him who fainted under the cross for me. — Kempis. 25. I stand and knock. What then is this knock- ing ? It consists of every influence that addresses man's nobler nature and tends to bring him into right relations to God. — Beechee A o 34 CHRIST. Come in, come in, thou waiting One, Thou man of kingly mien ! I open now this door of stone : How patient thou hast been ! X heard thee knocking long ago, But there were guests within. To turn them out I was too slow, I loved each bosom sin. But now come in ! the table spread ! Come in, I'll sup with thee ; Pcur out the wine Jiy soul hath bled, And break the bread for me. I charge you, tempters, never more Invade this sacred place ; Since Jesus has passed through the door, And 1 have aeen his face. Joy makes me humbler than my sin, That I should see his glory ! That I should say Christ # enter in, And know thee, and adore thee ! As my Father loved me so I also love you, said I unto my beloved disciples, whom certainly I sent not out to temporal joys, but to great conflicts ; not to honors, but to contempts ; not to idleness, but to labors ; not to rest, but to bring forth much fruit with patience. Go forward — the crown is before thee — a short labor and a great reward. — Kempis. When the will of God is known, wish it not changed. Cherish no wish to do otherwise than as HIS WORK. 35 God allows. We must not only acknowledge, but acquiesce in the hand of God appointing us our lot. — Henry. 26. He shall choose our inheritance for us. ' He sets us in our appointed place ; gives us His Holy Spirit, His word, the examples of His saints, bright promises, awful warnings ; and then He ex- pects us to do cur part earnestly and seriously, with- out wavering or trifling.' Working in you that ivhich is icell-pleasing in His sight. ' He leaves His servants each to work out some side of Christian truth, dividing to every man sever- ally as He will, according to the power of each mind and the needs of each situation.' ' How slow we are to learn this simple truth, that we are safer and happier just where God would have us be, and doing just what He would have us do.' Blessed art thou — -fur flesh and blood hath not re- vealed it unto thee. — See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. — And look that thou make them after the pattern that was showed thee in the mount. Sir Isaac Newton completed in his own person the character of the true philosopher. He not only saw the general principle, but he obeyed it. He both be- took himself to the drudgery of observation, and he endured the pain which every mind must suffer in the act of renouncing its old habits of conception. Have manhood and philosophy enough to make a 36 HIS WORK. similar sacrifice. It is not enough that the Bible be acknowledged as the only authentic source of infor- mation respecting the details of that moral economy which the Supreme Being has instituted for the gov- ernment of the intelligent beings who occupy this globe.— Chalmers. "What portion then, of so high and sacred a mys- tery shall an unworthy sinner, dust and ashes, be able to search out and comprehend ? It is thy work and no human power. — Kempis. Do ye not understand, neither remember the jive loaves of the -five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up ? Deal courageously and the Lord will be with you. There is a real appearance of somewhat of great weight in this matter, though he is not able to satisfy himself thoroughly about it. Evidence which keeps the mind in doubt. — Butler. If this counsel or this ivork be of men, it will come to nought. But if it be of God ye cannot over- throw it. 4 Time overthrows the illusions of opinion, but es- tablishes the decisions of nature.' ' So far as a man is true to virtue, to veracity and justice, to equity and charity and the right of the case in whatever he is concerned, so far, he is on the side of the divine administration and co-operates with it.' ^ PREPARATION. 37 27. Henceforth to heller purposes I devote my- self. — F. P. I prepare myself with cheerful willingness to be despised ana forsaken ot ail creatures, and to be esteemed quite entirely nothing. I cannot obtain inward peace and stability, nor be spiritually en- lightened, nor be fully united unto thee. — Kempis. * Dark, till in me thine image shine, And lost I am till thou art mine.' If thine eye offend thee pluck it out. Through desire a man having separated himself seekzth and intermeddleth with all wisdom. * separate from the world, His breast might duly take and strongly keep The print of heaven.' 1 From nature's every path retreat.* And the Lord shut him in. Draw nigh to the Lord and he will draw nigh to you. If too, thou stand steadfast in all circumstances and do not weigh the things which thou seest and hearest by the outward appearance nor with a carnal eye, but presently m every affair dost enter with Moses into the tabernacle to ask counsel of the Lord, thou shall sometime* near the Divine Oracle, and shait return instructed concerning many things, both present and to come. — Kempis. Samuex could distinguish between the impulse, 3o INSTRUCTION. quite a human one, which would have made him select Eliab out of Jesse's sons 9 and the deeper judgment by which the Lord said. Look not on his countenance or on the height of his stature ; because I have re- fused him ; for the Lord seeth not as man seeth ; for man.looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. i)eep truth of character is required ; the whispering voices get mixed to- gether ; we dare not abide by our own thoughts. Only given to the habitually true to know the differ- ence. God is near you. Throw yourself fearlessly upon him, trembling mortal ! There is an unknown might within your soul which will wake when you command it. — Robertson. 1 Energies that lono; have slumbered In its trackless depths unnumbered ; Speak the word ; the power divinest "Will awake, if thou inclinest.' Hearken* daughter ? and consider and incline thine ear, forget also thine own people and thy father's house, so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty, for he is thy Lord and worship thou Him. Whoso withdraweth himself from his acquaintance and friends, God will draw near to him with His holy angels. Withdraw thyself from gadding idly, and speaking vainly. — Kempis. 6 A wise and pious man before all other knowledge prefers that ot God and his own soul.' BLESSEDNESS. 39 4 He who does not know himself cannot know others. If you analyze one drop of water from a spring you know what every drop contains. If you know one man — -yourseli, you know them all in out- line and in elementary principles. Learning your own heart, you learn the hearts of others ; studying tfrc secret springs and motives and impulses that govern you, and making due allowance for the pecu- liarities oi constitution and training and surround- ings, you may draw . cry good conclusions concerning the characters ot chose around you and the considera- tions which will naturally impress their minds.' * We knov that these were felt by him, For these aru felt by all.' 29. Blessed is the man whom thou choosest mvA causest to approach unto thee. i My soul invited by thy word stands watching at thy gate.' Since therefore it is thy pleasure and thou hast commanded that it should be so, this thy con- descension is also dearly pleasing unto me, and 0, that my iniquity maybe no hindrance. — Kempis. 30. Cease ye from man ivhose breath is in his nostrils * for wherein is he to be accounted of? I ivih counsel thee, mine eye shall be upon thee. And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying, This is the way, ivalk ye in it. ' An incomparable distance between the things which the imperfect imagine in their conceits and 40 THE CREATOR. those which the illuminated are enabled to behold through revelation from above.' 6 The former stagger in their counsels, are unstable and unsteady, and stumble at everything that lies in their way.' Enoch walked with Grod. Powerfully holding thee up, lest by thine own weight thou fall down to the things of earth. Lord, I stand in need of much greater grace, if I ought to reach that pitch where neither man nor any creature shall be a hindrance unto me. A man ought therefore to mount over all creatures, and perfectly to go out of himself and stand in ecstasy of mind and see that Thou, the Creator of all things, hast nothing amongst creatures like unto Thyself. — Kempis. But the soul* that ascends to the worship of the great God is plain and true : has no rose color, no fine friends, no chivalry, no adventures : does not want admiration, dwells in the hour that now is; in the earnest experience of the common day, by reason of the present moment and the mere trifle, having become porous to thought and bibulous of the sea of light. — Emerson. Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. 1 So might we bouse a gentle guest, The Comforter in our lone breast, And feel e'en here the perfect rest THE CREATOR. 41 tYhich follows when our will is past Into our Father's will at last — A heaven whose calm is ne'er o'ercast.' But none saith where is my Maker ivho giveth songs in the night ? How insupportable would be the days, if the night, with its dews and darkness, did not come to restore the drooping world ! As the shades begin to gather around us, our primeval instincts are aroused, and we steal forth from our lairs, like the inhabitants of the jungle, in search of those silent and brooding thoughts which are the natural prey of the intellect. — Thobeau. In thy lone and long night-watches, sky above and wave below, Thon didst learn a higher wisdom than the babbling schoolmen know, God's stars and silence taught thee, as His angels only can, That the one, sole, sacred thing beneath the cope of heaven is man. — Whitteek. Attentive, and with more delighted ear, Divine Instructor, I have heard, that when Cherubic songs by night from neighboring hills Aerial music send. — Miltox. Oh, sirs, there are moments in the history of men and of nations, when they stand so near the vail that separates mortals from immortals, men from their God, that they can almost hear the beating and feel the pulsations of the heart of the Infinite. — Gabfield. 42 PEIDE. 31. Of such an one ivill I glory : yet of myself will I not glory, but in mine infirmities. The intent of prophecy. But as for Me, this secret is not revealed for wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sokes. And no man taketh this honor to himself, but he that is called of God. ' Trust not in thine own knowledge, nor in the subtlety of any living creature, but rather in the grace of God, who helpeth the humble and humbleth those that be self-presuming.' For ivho maketh thee to differ, and what hast thou that thou didst not receive ? Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God — which things ive speak, not in the tvords tvhich man's wisdom teacheth, but tvhich the Holy Ghost teacheth. That I may discern between good and bad. God left Ilezekiah to try him, that He might know all that ivas within his heart in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land. Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit, for his heart was lifted up. 4 O Pride ! the primal cause of all our woe.' Cowper to 31rs. Cowper in London. Though my friend, you may suppose, before I was admitted an inmate here, was satisfied that I was not a mere vagabond, and has since that time received more MIXED MOTIVES. 43 convincing proof of my sponsibility , yet I could not resist the opportunity of furnishing him with ocular demonstration of it, by introducing him to one of my most splendid connexions ; that when he hears me called that fellow Cowper, which has happened heretofore, he may be able, upon unquestionable evidence, to assert my gentlemanhood, and relieve me of the weight of that opprobrious appellation. Oh pride ! pride ! it deceives with the subtlety of a serpent, and seems to walk erect, though it crawls upon the earth. How will it twist and twine itself about, to get from under the cross, which it is the glory of our Christian calling to be able to bear with patience and good-will. 1. Behold my family is poor in JIanasseh, and I am the least in my father s how Oh mountain climbers, ye will fail The starry stairs to sec ! For heaven lies nearest that sweet vale — A child's humility.' 2. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. He must keep the sacred treasure a distinct thing from the earthen vessel in which God has placed it, and whL: ie .r;;.iii;_"" presents the treasure, let him leave it submissive 60 his Master whether men shall honor or dash the vessel that contains it. — Hickok. Cursed be he that doeth the zvorlc of the Lord deceitfully. 44 SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS. The happiness of the world is the concern of Him who is the Lord and Proprietor of it, nor do we know what we are about, when we endeavor to pro- mote the good of mankind in any ways but those which he has directed, that is, in all ways not con- trary to veracity and justice. I speak thus upon supposition of persons really endeavoring, in some sort, to do good without regard to these. But the truth seems to be, that such supposed endeavors proceed almost always from ambition, the spirit of party, or some indirect principle, concealed perhaps in great measure from persons themselves. — Butler. ' We are willing to pay a price cbined out of our hearts for the coronation of our hearts, but seldom are we willing to suffer for others.' 3. Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing, go ye out of the midst of her, be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord,. Pre- pare thine heart and stretch out thine hands toward Him. 6 The best obedience of our hands Dares not appear before His throne.' Thou neither seest thy original nor actual infirm- ities : but hast such an opinion of thyself, and of what thou doest, as plainly renders thee to be one that did never see a necessity of Christ's personal righteousness to justify thee before God. Ignorance. — What ! you are a man for revelations ! I believe that what you and the rest of you say about that matter is but the fruit of distracted brains. FALSE PHILOSOPHY. 45 Hopeful. — Why, man, Christ is so hid in God from the natural apprehensions of all flesh, that He cannot by any man be savingly known, unless God the Father reveals Him to them first. Also, when vre think that all our righteousness stinks in His nostrils, and that therefore He cannot abide to see us stand before Him in any confidence even of all our best performances. — Bunyan. 4. Follow on to know the Lord. Venture with courage and faith on untried ex- plorations, like Columbus in search of a new con- tinent.— J. L. T. And yet I show unto you a more excellent way. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Thrice unhappy world, that takes Dryasdust's reading of the ways of God. — Carlyle. Henceforth ccdl ice no man master. Loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, captive daughter of Zion. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. Henceforward I am the truths. I will have no covenants but proximities. I appeal from your customs. I will not hide my tastes or aversions, I will so trust what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon, whatever may rejoice me and the heart appoints. — Emerson. 46 god's truth. 5. For the Lord Grod spake thus to me with strong hand and instructed me, that 1 should not walk in the way of this people — neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. Sanctify the Lord of hosts Himself, and He shall be for a sanctuary. ' Endeavor to know God's will by studying His word, observing His providence, and considering the promptings ol His spirit within you when asking counsel at the throne ot grace, and having ascer- tained His will with reierence to His service, do it at all hazards and at any sacrifice.' A hand ! A cloud tormed hand ! The hand God's chosen find, Always revealed to point before, When God is close behind. Sound appreciation and just decision as to all the objects that come round about you ; and the habit of behaving with justice and wisdom. Rarely should a man speak at all unless it is to say that thing that is to be done, and let him go and do his part in it and say no more about it. — Carlyle. 6. Timothy, keep that ivhich is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings and oppo- sitions of science falsely so called. ' It must gird itself to the sublimest task that the intellect has ever yet proposed: — to organize the comprehensive results of the world's thinking and co-ordinate the varied and fragmentary truths of re- search into one grand organon of principles, that THE SHEPHERD BOY. 47 shall be a faithlul reflex of the verity of things ; that shall combine the authenticity of science with the full breadth of nature, and become a guiding and trusting light to man through the vicissitudes of his earthly experience. In the din and chaos of sects and parties, in the confusion of doctrines and con- flict of opinions, amid the gropings of despondency and the exaltations of hope, we yearn for the voice of nature, for the consolations and encouragements of a philosophy which has the divine warrant of accordance with the realities of the universe.' 7. They brought him to the startling brink, But he in fear recoiled : And none was found to try the depth — The day's high sport was spoiled. At length, a thought broke on his mind, His face lit up with hope ; I'll venture down the rocks, he cried, If father holds the rope. Down, down, that awful depth of rock The father held his boy, "While he his bosom tilled with flowers, 'Mid rapturous shouts of joy. Down clouds and mists our Father lets His chain of promises ; And from His holy height He draws His children to the skies. O child of earth ! with fear appalled, When oft thy path is cleft ; 48 FRESH OIL. Though hanging on the abyss of doom, Be not of hope bereft. Whate'er His voice commands thee do Nor count the sacrifice ; Go where the many dare not go, — Pluck nowrets for the skies. Our Father holds the rope, Amen ! The rocks are deep below : But fearless we will swing and work, Till heaven our trophies show. 8. 1 shall be anointed with fresh oil. The interpreter answered, the fire is the work of grace that is wrought in the heart; he that casts water upon it, is the devil ; but in that thou seest the fire notwithstanding, burn higher and hotter, thou shalt also see the reason of that. So he had him about to the back of the wall where he saw a man with a vessel of oil in his hand, of the which he did continually cast, but secretly into the fire. — BUNYAN. Thou, therefore, my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Confide in His love, avail yourself of His power > and demean yourself worthy of so precious a rela- tion. — Winslow. 9. Ahvays delivered unto death for Jesus' sake. While we look not at the things which are seen. Moses germinated in the solitude of the wilderness when he lay in the grave of selfishness for forty long TRANSITION. 49 weary years. Here in the garb of a vagrant Arab, away from all the royal luxuries in which he had been brought up, he obtained his glorious idea, ' I shall redeem this people at last.' And, by virtue of the inspiration thereof, he showed himself at the court of Egypt again, as the veritable ambassador*of God come to emancipate a nation of slaves, and ulti- mately 'led his people' out of the land of 'the op- pressor just as miraculously as. Luther delivered the Germans from papal power. . . Hence Moses must have passed from the outward to the inward. Where else could he have obtained this omnipotent wand ? Not certainly in dominions of sense. . . Can we not say that conscience and reason always point a moni- tory finger to the right place for us to fall into the ground and die ; to the place where, how great soever the outward adversity, true happiness flows into our being, as new life and joy flow into the bulb that lies buried in the cold but creative earth ? But this, people wight, Hamlin, and Everett. Thev are whole-souled men and rejoice in their work with exceeding great joy. — Stoddard. The best educated people and best bred people, other things being equal, are best qualified for use- fulness in this enterprise (at Hilton Head). One of Gen. Mitchell's first efforts was to build them houses to live in: and the new, clean tene- ments at nilton Head, looming up like a young, western village, are a monument to-day of his 72 MITCHELL. promptness and energy : — trivial monuments to the naked eye, bright and enduring to the thinking heart. They are but the shadowy forerunners of days to come, even as the first log huts of the pioneer shrine the possibilities of great states that lie waiting but to spring into life and grandeur. Science loses a bright star from its zenith — society a brilliant member from its circles — humanity a warm and tried friend; while Philanthropy may w^ell veil her face and weep, as for a son dutiful and loyal. Mr. Beecher said : — A few had fallen, and among them Mitchell, who died at his post with his armor on : and fortunate, thrice fortunate was it that the door of heaven opened to him, not among the stars where he loved to wander, but among Christ's poor and helpless disciples, whom he was beginning to teach, inspire, instruct, defend. It might kindle the imagination more if he had departed while keeping nightly watch upon those glorious orbs, passing as from glory to glory. But nobler, more sublime was his going, who all the way from the sepulchre to the throne of God, heard airy voices saying, — < Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one ol the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' Rest ! Thy sun arose, but forgot to set : it went not down, but from very noon arose higher into the unhorizoned heaven. 12. Secretary Stanton asked the Savannah blacks LIBERTY. 73 in the name of the Repuoiic — f What do you want for your people ? ' What shall one then ansicer the messengers of the nation? That the Lord hath founded Zion and the poor of his people shall trust in it. ' The nation has, during the past year, made palpable progress toward a recognition of the great truth, that a wrong done to the humblest and most despised, is an injury and grievance to all : and that Liberty can be perfect for none, until there are Liberty and Justice for all.' • Our government is a sun in the firmament of political freedom, which is destined to be the centre of an extended and glorious system. Whatever threatens to make that sun go out in darkness, threatens the myriads that are to live in its light, with the gloom of a night whose succeeding morning no man can foretell. — New Exglander. 15. Moreover all the chief of the priests and the p>eop)le transgressed very much after all the abomina- tions of the heathen, and polluted the House of the Lord, which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And you shall see young people at the Lord's table on the Sabbath* day, and, before the week is out, whirling in these indecent dances as freely as any worldling of them all. Is it right ? Can it be right ? < But they like it.' Like it, do they ? I have no doubt the children of Israel liked the Golden Calf, but Moses ground it to powder. Mis- 74 A HEATHENISH CUSTOM. chiefs come in insidiously ; they may need to be thrust out at the point of the bayonet. . ' . ' But then/ say some, ' we may as well give up society/ It may be. There are various forms of self-denial, and precious little of it among some disciples in these days. Perhaps our Lord meant them when he talked ot self-denial. Also when He said, ' He that forsaketh not all that he hath, cannot be disciple. 5 We in the west are beginning to think that some- thing must be done to save the country. Something definite and positive. Once, long ago, they went and searched for the ' accursed thing.' We do not pretend that we have found the accursed thing. But all reforms must enter into particulars, and take up one thing at a time. Mere general exhortation does not touch anybody or anything. Is there any line between the church and the world ? — Oxest. Thus have ye said, house of Israel, for I knou) the things that come into your minds every one of them. And that ivhich cometh into your mind shall not be at all that ye say. We ivill be as the Heathen. Sanctify noiv yourselves, and sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place. Your true life lies in the realm of noble thought, of divine purposes, of holy perseverance ; in generous self-denial, and self-abnegation. — Beecher. Lord Byron writes : — I date my first impressions BROKEN COVENANTS. 75 against religion from having witnessed how little its votaries yyere actuated by true Christian charity. ' 21. The Provencal historian affirms that the final truce between Richard and Saladin was concluded in a fair, flowery meadow .near Mouirt Tabor, when Richard was so much charmed with the gallant bearing of the Prince of Miscreants — as Saladin is civilly termed in the crusading treaties — that he declared he would rather be the friend of that brave and honest pagan than the ally of the crafty Philip or the brutal Leopold. — Miss Strickland. 6 Jesus, are these Thy Christians ? ' cried the Mahometan prince, when the Christians broke their league with him ? Wherefore, thus saith the Lord, As I live, surely mine oath which he has despised, and my covenant that he hath broken, even it will I recompense upon his own head. * The sacrifices I require, Are hearts which love and zeal inspire, And vows with strictest care made good/ Within ye are full of hypocrisy. ' Christ did not adroitly wind through the various forms of evil, meeting it with expedient silence. The forces of righteousness must upheave the im- moral elements before it can settle them on its own sure foundations.' 80. Travel in Europe shows an American droll things, and some of the drollest among his own country people. I never could understand why 76 PRETTY THINGS. many men from the other side of the sea came abroad, since they bring only their bodies with them, leaving their minds in their absorbing business at home. Many women, I have recently discovered, visit Europe mainly for the purpose of extending their shopping expeditions. . . I have heard hus- bands and fathers groaning over their tribulations. In their excess of agony, knowing that I was yet spared, as they put it, they confided to me how, since they had set foot on European soil, they had been nothing more than express agents, forwarding parcels and boxes filled with their wives and daughters' purchases Anxious to defend woman from all aspersions, whether just or unjust, I have intimated to the complainers that perhaps their conversation was not agreeable, and that the fair shoppers were willing to appear more devoted to J ~ t form of feminine rights than they really were. The men stoutly denied this, and they were ngnt in their denial. In the cars and on boats I have heard women who talked of nothing but the best places to buy things. Italy was not the region of natural beauty and the home of art. It was the land where cameos, corals, and mosaics could be purchased to advantage. Holland had no associations, but it had beautiful linens. Switzerland was Alpless, but the wood carvings were very pretty. Belgium had no PRETTY THINGS. 77 history, no school of art, no Rembrants, no Gerard Dows, no Paul Potters ; but it wove laces in whose fine meshes a woman's soul might well be lost. — Browne. I heard, and they spake not aright. Women rule over them. — Women love pretty things, and make men waste life in getting pretty things. — Felix Holt. The Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments, chains and bracelets. Women of intellect take to the belles lettres rather than to science, and the most of reading women delight their emotional nature with sensational novels. — Patterson. There is no real criticisnl in Mrs. Montagu's essay on Shakspeare ; none showing the beauty of thought as founded on the workings of the human heart. — Johnson. 4 Women whose chief concern it is to dress accord- ing to fashion are not likely to interfere with the graver concerns of life. Health and decorum are sacrificed in modern drawing-rooms — Heaven only knows why — to the Moloch, Fashion.' The vail is upon their heart,— when it shall turn to the Lord the vail shall be taken away. Seeing then that we have such hope we use great plainness of speech. 1. A perfect woman — nobly planDed To warn, to comfort, and command. 78 THE TRUE WOMAN. * She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness. What does cookery mean ? It means the know- ledge of Medea, and of Circe, and of Calypso, and of Helen, and of Rebekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge of all fruits, and herbs, anl balms, and a knowledge of all that is healing, and sweet in fields, and groves, and savory in meats ; it means carefulness, and inventiveness, and watchfulness, and willingness, and readiness of appliance. It means the economy of your great grandmothers, and the science of modern chemists ; it means much tasting, and no wasting; it means English thoroughness and French art, and Arabian hospitality, and it means in fine that you are to be perfectly and always ' ladies, loaf givers.' — Tribune. ' Would that you ladies would say, Is not every child on earth in a real, in a spiritual sense, my own child, for it is my sister's child ? She may not do her duty to it. Shall I not do it for her ? Be a lady, and do such things as these. Let no lady neglect to do so.' 2. Love of Nature. ' A heart open to the whole noon of nature, and through all its brightness drinking in the smile ot a present God.' ELIZABETH. 79 Eugenie De Gruerin's Journal. — In its pages the sacredness of the inner life is preserved in all its fragile beauty. She had learned to distinguish what fed the deep springs of her being from the storms and cloud-shadows that touched but the surface, hence the book is almost destitute of those outward e very-day events which merely occupy or perplex, and is filled with thoughts of God, the wants and destiny of our natures, sentiments of friendship, and raptures over the beauty which, to her watch- ful, reverent eye existed even in the solitudes of i La Cayla.' ' Every page of the book is hallowed and individualized by the light of faith. It was this that gave vitality to every moment, earnestness to every action. It was faith which extracted from prayer that rapture whose utterance trembles in golden silence. To this celestial eye nature was transparent, and literature glowed beneath it with a light that not only informed but exalted.' 3. AVe had intended to say something of that illus- trious group of which Elizabeth is the central figure — the dextrous Walsingham, the impetuous Oxford, the elegant Sackville, the all-accomplished Sidney; concerning Essex, the ornament of the court and of the camp, the model of chivalry, the munificent patron of genius, whose great virtues, great courage, great talents, the favor of his sovereign, the love of his countrymen — all that seemed to insure a happy and glorious life — led to 80 THE HUMAN MOULD. an early and ignominious death ; concerning Raleigh, the soldier, the sailor, the scholar, the courtier, the orator, the poet, the historian, the philosopher. . . We had intended also to say something concerning the literature of that splendid period,' and especially concerning those two incomparable men, the Prince of Poets and the Prince of Philosophers, who have made the Elizabethan age a more glorious and important era in the history of the human mind than the age of Pericles, of Augustus, or of Leo. — Macaulay. * * On such occasions the littleness 'of Elizabeth's character entirely disappeared, and the imperial majesty of her noble nature possessed her wholly. — Fhoude. Alas ! the human mould's at fault ■ And still by turns it claims A nobleness that can exalt, A littleness that shames. — Swain. O Eve, in evil hour thou dids't give ear To that false worm ! — Milton. 10. ' Minds made giddy by a reckless pursuit of pleasure, or repressed into the narrow routine of mere money-getting for money's sake, need to be roused and educated to higher views and desires. It would be a slow work to bring all ranks from the very lowest up to the highest of philosophic culture, where familiar with what great men in all ages have taught they shall really pause, and reflect, and search out wisdom. Perhaps the- best that can be THE HUMAN MOtJLD. 81 hoped in this way is, that as the years go on a larger and larger number shall reach this lofty stand-point, so as gradually to raise the tone of popular belief and conduct.' It may be easy to prove to the simplest mind that virtue is the best policy, but it is not as easy to secure that clear judgment "which reaches right decisions, and makes one strong against the plausible gloss of evil influence. But while bad men, or weak, blind women are liable to gain the ascendancy, they can give in a single month all the improvements that the wisdom of ages has accumulated to the destroying hand of an uneducated rabble. The world of progress has been wiped out again and again by the bubbling over of the waters of a reck- less mob from the ditches and sewers which no one had cared to cleanse. And the world will always be in danger of such a deluge as long as we do not look more closely to the springs of human action. — Mrs. Arey. ^Ye owe it to posterity not to suffer their dearest inheritance to be destroyed. But, if it were possible for us to be insensible of these sacred claims, there is yet an obligation binding upon ourselves from which nothing can acquit us : a personal interest which we cannot surrender. To alienate even our own rights would be a crime as much more enor- mous than suicide, as a life of civil security and freedom is superior to a bare existence : and if life 82 LINCOLN. be the bounty of Heaven we scornfully reject the noblest part of the gift if we consent to surrender that certain rule of living, without which the condi- tion of human nature is not only miserable but contemptible.— Junius' Letters. Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants, the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck : they did worse than their fathers. 4 Human nature is so blinded by her own inde- pendence and self-confidence that when she is interested it is impossible for the mind to disarm her of her predilections.' None of the lepers but Naaman the Syrian cleansed. Man is born like a wild ass' colt, and it is only by a long training in trials and afflictions that he is brought to submission or obedience. — Beecher. 14. How mean a thing were man if there were not that within him which is higher than himself — if he could not master the illusions of sense and discern the connections of events by a superior light which comes from God ! He so shares the divine impulses, that he has power to subject interested passions to love of country, and personal ambition to' the en- noblement of man. Not in vain has Lincoln lived, for he has helped to make this Republic an example president Lincoln's last reception. 83 of justice with no caste but the caste of humanity. The last day of his life beamed with sunshine, as he sent his friendly greeting to the men of the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific slope ; as he contempla- ted the return of hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fruitful industry ; as he welcomed in advance hun- dreds of thousands of emigrants from Europe, as his eye kindled with enthusiasm at the coming wealth of the nations. And so with these thoughts for his country, he was removed from the toils and tempta- tions of his life and was at peace. — Bancroft. —At first the strange, cold, ashen look disap- pointed me. But gradually much of the old expres- sion came back to that marked head, to those features, so individual, so powerful, and so manly. You missed the dark, soft, benignant eyes ; but God's peace, not man's violence, seemed to have ^pressed down the weary lids into welcome rest. There was a cloak of patient serenity and forgivingness about the face most touching and peculiar. The hands seemed to have dropped into just such a tired posi- tion that I had seen them fall into in brief intervals of weary hand-shaking. Yet he seemed to be graciously receiving us all, though so mutely, and with no token of welcome. As I gazed around on that old Hall (Philadelphia) consecrated to freedom by one of the grandest events in our national history, I felt that the scene had other witnesses than we, than those armed watchers, than the passing multitude — the im- 84 LINCOLN. mortal shades of heroes and patriots — the great, tried souls of the young Republic, in whose ways he had fearlessly walked, into whose fellowship he had been received. — Grace Greenwood. In common with most people I had concluded that the presidential honor came to Mr. Lincoln without paving. When the Douglas and Lincoln contest was ended, the defeated man said to his partner : ' Billy I knew that I should miss the place when I competed for it. This defeat will make me President. He re- fused, in the interim, any proposition looking to the acceptance of any lesser office, and with the concur- rence of his friends and family. At the same time he took no pains to precipitate his opportunity ; rather like a man destined, sat more closely to study and vigilance. Read all the issues as they developed, and waited for his call. It came at last in a special invitation to speak at Cooper Institute. He felt in- tuitively that this was the Rubicon, and with a human thrill, paused and hesitated. The best lawyer in his state, the hero of a debate equivalent to a senator- ship, with a mind too broad and grave for a mere gubernatorial place, and already by four years destiny and ' prepraation President of the United States, he went up to the post with a dignity and ease that made men stare, because they had not seen the steps he took upon the road. — Speaking thus among the associations of his working life, the years of Abra- ham Lincoln began to return in the vividness of their LINCOLN. 85 monotony bleak and unreinunerated, hard and prac- tical, full of patient walk down a road without a turning; brightened by dutifulness alone, pointed, but not cheered by wayside anecdote, and successful, not so much because he was sanguine himself, as because he rated not eminence and honor too high, or too difficult. When he found himself competing for the senatorship with the quickest, the least scrupu- lous, and the most flattered orator in the Union, he saw nothing odd or dramatic about it. His presiden- tial opportunity, surprised everybody but himself ; not that he had self-conceit, but that he thought the office possible. — He never made a bid for the favor or forgiveness of history, but ruled the nation as if it were practicing law, and practiced law as if it were ruling the nation. This real greatness of mind, ob- liviousness of circumstances, ascending from a prac- tice of $3,000 a year to 825,000 as if there were no contrast between them, giving Billy the permission to use the firm style as before, without a conscious poetic trait, yet even in absent moments looking very long away, pondering the distance of rewards, promi- ses, vindications with a longing that was poetry. — Townshend. He is an able man. Through all his. plain and homely simplicity appears a sagacity that grapples on equal terms with the mightiest intellects, and moves on undismayed to the consummation of the most momentous events ot any age. Leather needs a 86 GREATNESS. polish. Baubles require a setting. But the true dia- mond needs none. If Mr. Lincoln were polished, we might doubt whether his polish had not imposed him upon us for more than he is really worth. If he were an aristocrat, we had not mistaken his assump- tion for ability. — Tribune cor. / have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways : he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward. ' God takes time, seldom begins and finishes a work by the same agent, or in the same generation. One sows and another reaps. He employs a succession till it draws near its consummation, then he raises up some controlling spirit who finishes the work.' We don't know who our angels are ; we know not what has been ours till we weep for what we have lost. While he lived nobody suspected Mr. Lincoln of being a great man. We did not even know how we loved l}im, till he died and crape floated from every door. Where now in high places can we find a man so simply grand ? Where one who could be trusted to use limitless power as he did, without thought of himself? ' If I am God's instrument, He will never forsake the thing that he uses, but it must accomplish his purpose,' I once heard him say in the hey-day of his power, with a humility and sadness never to be forgotten. What is greatness ? It is not intellect alone. It is not moral and emotional quality only. It is a THE SABBATH. 87 character compounded of both. It is wisdom, it is high thought; it is wide vision. It is magnanimity, it is mercy ; it is love ; it is gentleness and child- heartedness ; it is supremacy to all littleness. — M. c. a. To sit in courts 01 high debate, And found the statutes of the state Upon the testament of God. Then, after Love controls the lands — At last — to enter worlds unseen, For earth beneath in order stands : Ages will keep his memory green. — YVlLLARD. 18. Speak ye also unto the children of Israel, say- ing, Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep : for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations ; that ye may knoiv that I am the Lord that doth sane- tify you. Two inestimable advantages Christianity lias given us: first, the Sabbath, the jubilee of the whole world ! whose light dawns welcome alike into the closet of the philosopher, into the garret of toil, and into prison cells ; and everywhere suggests even to the vile, the dignity of spiritual being. And secondly, the institution of preaching. — the speech of man to men. . . What hinders that now every- where, in pulpits, in lecture-rooms, in houses, in fields, wherever the invitation of men, or your own occasions lead you, you speak the very truth as your life and conscience reach it, and cheer the waiting, 88 THE SABBATH. fainting hearts of men with new hope and new reve- lation? Yourself a new-born bard of the Holy Ghost. Cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint men at first hand with Deity. Look to it, first and only, that fashion, custom, authority, pleasure and money are nothing to you, — are not bandages over your eyes, that you cannot see — but live with the privilege of the immeasurable mind. — Emerson. Not as pleasing men, but Grod. The subjects of the pulpit have never been varied from the day the Holy Spirit visibly descended on the first advocates of the Gospel in tongues of fire. They have immediate relation to that eternity, the idea of which is the living soul of all poetry and art. It is the province of the preacher of Christianity to develop the connection between this world an 1 the next, to watch over the beginning of a course that will endure forever, and to trace the broad shadows cast from imperishable realities on the shifting scenery of earth. — Talfourd. It is constantly to remind mankind of what man- kind is constantly forgetting; not to supply the de- fects of human intelligence, but to fortify the feeble- ness of human resolutions ; to recall mankind from the by-paths where they turn, into the path of salva- tion which all know, but few tread. — Sydney Smith. ' It should be warm, a living altar-coal to melt the icy heart and charm the soul.' ' It is in the sacred vessels of the temple that the PREDESTINATION. 89 oil of joy is kept, which God's people are to have for mourning.' 24. Being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of His awn will. Regarded from a human point ol view, the possi- bility of apostasy remains still for every regenerate man, upon every grade of development, even the highest ; that is, the new man may be thrust aside by the old ; but just as decidedly we must say, that regarded from the Divine point of view, it is impossible for the elect of God to be overpowered by sin. Were it possible with one, it would be so with all, and then God's plans would be dependent on man's fidelity. — Olshausex. That He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy. As the eyes of the company wandered from one piece to another of this rare assemblage, they ob- served in one corner of the apartment, the broken fragments of a vase, of which enough remained to discover that it had been intended to excel every other vessel in the room, being embellished with an uncommon profusion of ornaments, and emblazoned with the richest purple, scarlet and gold, besides many softer tints of violet, azure and rose color. After gazing sometime on the ruins of this splendid vessel, the whole company turned a look of inquiry upon the person who attended them, and who was 90 PREDESTINATION. also the conductor of the works ; when he informed them that the vase had once promised fair to adorn the palace of the king. ' We lately undertook,' said he, fc to make two vases of that description, upon which it was determined that our utmost skill should be exerted, in order to give them the highest possi- ble perfection of form, coloring and design . and in- deed,' added he, ' this manufactory never produced more exquisite specimens of our art. The royal vessels had passed much to our satisfaction, through every other part of the necessary process, but upon being submitted to the trying operation of the last fire, one of them only came forth with increased beauty, while the other, probably from some flaw in its original constitution, was reduced to the fragments now before you.' . . Known unto God are all His works from the beginning ; so that what He once destines to honor can by no means fall short of its appointed end. And to prevent all distressing doubts on this subject, our Omnipotent Former and Fash- ioner hath been graciously pleased to assure us that He will be with us in the furnace, upholding, strength- ening and carrying us through every refining pro- cess, until He has placed us in a state of everlasting security. Hence it is said of the great God that His work is perfect. But the work of the human potter must needs partake of the fallibility of the hand that formed it. — Mrs. Sherwood. Thy builders have perfected thy beauty. A FALL. 91 Man, when he reaches the bioom of his glorified life, will unspeakably excel the angels in glory. His superiority lies in his capability of development. When the diamond is once disturbed by the ray of a burning reflector it is irrecoverably gone ; so are the angels once fallen, forever lost, according to the doctrine of Scripture. The rose can with difficulty be hurt, and even from its root it will send forth new life ; so was man rendered capable of entering into full spiritual life-fellowship with God through the help of his Saviour. — Olshausex. Saved: Yet so as by fire. To conclude this wretched story, the poor Doctor of Divinity, having been robbed of all his money in this little airing beyond the limits of propriety, was easily persuaded to give up the intended tour, and return to his bereaved flock, who, very probably, were thereafter conscious of an increased unction in his soul-stirring eloquence, without suspecting the awful depths into which their pastor had dived in quest of it. His voice is now silent. I leave it to members of his own profession to decide whether it was better for him thus to sin outright, and so be let into the miserable secret of what manner of man he was, or to have gone through life outwardly unspotted, making the first discovery of his latent evil at the judgment seat. It has occurred to me that his dire calamity, as both he and I regarded it, might have been the only method by which precisely 92 ERRORS. such a man as himself, and so situated, could be redeemed. He has learned, ere now, how that matter stood.— Hawthorne. Out, damned spot ! Being unprepared, Our will became the servant to defect. — Macbeth. Men fall often from a want of moral richness and moral culture into vices which are to the heart what vermin are to the soil. — Beecher. Men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things. — Tennyson. Whatever I have seen of the world, or known of the history of mankind, teaches me to look on the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history of but one poor heart that has sinned and suffered ; when I represent to myself the struggles and temptations through which it has passed, the vicissitudes of hope and fear, the pressure of want, the desertion of friends, the scorn of a world that hath little charity, the desolation of the mind's sanctuary, the threatening voices within it, health gone, happiness gone, perhaps even hope, that remains the longest, gone — I would fain lay the soul of my fellow-being in His hand from whom it came. — Chalmers. 1 The miserable have no other medicine, But only hope.' DIVINE PITY. 93 25. Yet many a year didst Thou forbear them, and testifiedst against them by Thy spirit in Thy prophets; yet they would not give ear. Nevertheless, for Thy great mercies' sake. Thou didst not utterly consume them, for Thou art a gracious and merciful God. 6 All souls are Thine ; the wings of morning bear None from that Presence which is everywhere ; Nor hell itself can hide, for Thou art there. Through sins, perversities of will, Through doubt and pain, through guilt, and shame, and ill, Thy pitying eye is on Thy creature still, And Thou canst make eternal Source and Goa* In Thy long years, life's broken circle whole ; And change to praise the cry of the lost soul. , Who can hear the terrors of the Lord of Hosts without being awed into a veneration ? Or who can hear the kind and endearing accents of a merciful Father and not be softened into love toward Him ? — Spectator. 28. Thou hast made the earth to tremble. The pillars of heaven's starry roof, Tremble and start at His reproof. But, if Thy saints deserve rebuke, Thou hast a gentler rod. Israel hath cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him. vine of Sibmah! I will weep for thee ivith the weeping of Jozer. Thus tenderly does God deal with Moabites, much more with His own people. — Henry. 94 • REPROOF. ' Yea, though his sins should dim each spark of love, I measure not my love by his returns ; And though the stripes I send to bring him home Should serve to drive him farther from my arms, Still he is mine, I lured him trom the world ; • He has no home, no right but in my love. Though earth and hell combined against him rise, j I'm bound to rescue him, for we are one/ ' Here everlasting love displays The choicest of her stores.' The saddest symptom of degeneracy I find in my nature is that base ingratitude of heart which renders me so unaffected by Thine astonishing compassion. — Mason. Want of tenderness, Dr. Johnson always alleged, was want of parts, and no less a proof of stupidity than depravity. Which things the angels desire to look into. We bow down to the earth, and study and grovel in it, and content ourselves with the outside of the unsearchable riches of Christ, and look not within it : but they having no desire but for the glory of God, being pure flames of fire, burning only with love to Him, are no less delighted than amazed with the bottomless wonders of His wisdom and goodness, shining in the work of our redemption. It is our shame and folly that we lose ourselves and our thoughts in poor childish things, and trifle away our days we know not how, and let these rich mysteries lie unregarded. — Leighton. MAY DAY. 95 0, the love of Christ ! the love of Christ ! he (Dr. Judson) would suddenly exclaim, while his eye kindled, and the tears chased each other down his cheeks : we cannot understand it now, but what a beautiful theme for eternity ! 11. The wood I walk in on this mild May day, with the yellow brown foliage of the oa&s between me and the blue sky, the white star-flowers, and the blue-eyed speedwell, and the ground ivy at my feet — what grove of tropic palms, what strange ferns, or splendid broad-petaled blossoms could ever thrill such deep and delicate fibres within me as this home scene? These familiar flowers, these well- remembered bird notes; this sky, with its fitful brightness, these furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort ot personality given to it by the capri- cious hedge rows. Such things as these are the mother tongue ot our imagination, the language that is laden with all the Subtle, inexplicable asso- ciations the fleeting hours of our childhood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the deep-bladed grass to-day might be no more than the faint perception of wearied souls if it were not for the sunshine and the grass of far-off years which still live in us, and transform our perception into love. — Mill on the Floss. Oft hae I rov'd by bonny Doon, To see the rose and woodbine twine, And ilka bird sang o' its luve, And fondly sae did I o' mine. — Burns. 96 FORESTS. What a noble gift to man are the forests ! The winds of heaven seem to linger amid these balmy branches, and the sunshine falls like a blessing upon the green leaves ; the wild breath of the forest, fragrant with bark and berry, fans the brow with grateful freshness, and the beautiful wood-light, neither garish nor gloomy, full of calm and peaceful influences, sheds repose over the spirit. Every object here has a deeper merit than our wonder can fathom ; each has a beauty beyond our full per- ception. — Miss Cooper. As to the town itself, I do not know whether I told you how much I nauseate it, but no length of time will ever cure my loathing of it. But sweet Nature ! I have conversed with her with inexpres- sible luxury. A flower, a bird, a tree, a fly, has been enough to kindle a delightful train of ideas and emotions, and sometimes to elevate the mind to sublime conceptions. — Foster. A little last year's nest Hangs gray and bare on yonder tree : No play of wind-tossed branches, drest In blossom, hides the sight from me. Where are its hopes insphered in pearl — Its downy life, so frail and fair ? Love's welcome note — the hasty swirl Of mother-pinions through the air ? toor nest ! deserted, desolate, The minister of deeds out grown : ANALOGIES. 97 Some subtle kinship with thy fate, The weary human heart may own ! Yet, stay ! with short and sudden flight, Swift sidelong glance and any rest, A bird, amid the blossoms white, Alights beside the empty nest. Her heart on building cares intent, With bright, quick-eyed and dextrous bill, She gathers from the hoard unspent Materials for her loving skill. In some far nook, concealed from view, Leaf-Guarded from the noon-dav glare, The old nest, woven witn the new, Shall serve life's purpose, fresh and fair. I take the lesson to my heart, Sweet symbol of a truth divine : Labor and love have larger part Than present use in man's design. Each fearless word, each lifted cross ' Shall be the future's heritage ; Transition is not rest or loss : True deeds pass on from age to age. — Miss Humphrey. i The crickets sing a song of hope fulfilled, and though in that glad music there be neither speech nor language which we can recognize as such, there is yet a voice to be heard among them by all who love to listen with reverent delight to the sweet harmonies and deep analogies of nature.' - 5 98 BERLIN. The providence that's in a watchful state Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold, Finds bottom in th' uncomprehensive deeps, Keeps pace with thought, and almost like the gods, ' Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. — Shaks. And made him friends of mountains ; with the stars And the quick spirit of the Universe He held his dialogues ; and they did teach To him the magic of their mysteries : To him the book of night was opened wide. And voices from the deep abyss revealed A marvel and a secret.— Byron. 22. This is a dreadful state of things that is de- clared by Dr. Schwabe, president of the statistical board at Berlin, to exist in that intelligent city. Children, he says, though much improved by public instruction, ' are strangely deficient in the knowledge of Nature and natural- phenomena. From about 1,000 children examined before being admitted into school, 777 never saw any rainbow, 633 a field of potatoes, 602 a butterfly, 583 the sunset, 462 the rising of the sun, 460 a meadow, 406 a corn field, 387 a flock of sheep,- 364 a forest, 264 an oak tree, and, lastly, 167 had never heard the song of the lark.' No wonder this statement made, as is reported, ' a great sensation.' What prospect of a happy or use- ful life to children brought up amid all the advantages of a great city, and yet ignorant of so simple things NATURE. 99 as ' corn fields,' and ( flocks of sheep,' and ' the song of the lark,' and all the rest. — Independent. The whole force of education, until very lately, has been directed in every possible way to the destruction of the love of nature. The only knowledge which has been considered essential among us, is that of words, and the next after it, of the abstract sciences ; while every liking shown by children for simple, natural history, has been either violently checked (if it took an inconvenient form for the house maid), or else scrupulously limited to hours of play ; so that those who can thus use their eyes and fingers are for the most part neglected or rebellious lads, while your well-behaved and amiable scholars are disci- plined into blindness and palsy ot half their faculties. Herein there is a notable ground ot difterence be- tween the lovers of nature and its despisers. We shall find that the love of nature has been a faithful and sacred element of human feeling — that is to say, supposing all circumstances otherwise the same with respect to two individuals ; the one who loves nature most, will be ahvai/siound to have more faith in Grod than the other. It is intensely difficult, owing to the confusing and counter influences which always mingle in the data of the problem to make this ab- straction fairly ; but so far as we can do it, so far, I boldly assert, the result is constantly the same ; the nature-worship will be found to bring with it such a sense of the presence and power of a Great Spirit as IOC NATURE. no mere reasoning can either induce or controvert ; and where that nature- worship is innocently pursued — L in our favored land, and they should never forget tc be thankful for it. — Swift. The Jew. — Necessity has made him the mastei alike of finance and commerce, and the nation that has beaten him by hard blows into inaction or thrust him out by persecution, has invariably come to grief from the lack of those elements of prosperity which he by gift and education knew how to create and control. The history of Europe since the fourth century is cumulative evidence of this fact. For more than one thousand years the Jew was the scorn THE JEW. 123 of every civilized people and the spoil of every ruler. He was tortured upon the slightest pretense, and put to death on the slightest provocation. Laws gave him no protection. To be the owner of houses and lands, to freight his own ships, and pasture his own herds, only exposed his liberty and life to greater jeopardy. Money, or the equivalent of money that could be concealed till time of need and then used to bribe his oppressor, was his only power. Hence the knowledge of the value of coins, bullion, plate, and precious stones, gained by the terrible discipline of ages, and at the present day apparently, almost intui- tive. The gold piece, no matter of what coinage ; the'diamond, no matter of what setting ; the pearl and ruby and topaz and amethyst and emerald, whether prepared for the market or rough from the mine, are known to him instantly in their true value. In every nation the leading capitalist is a Jew. In every un- steady market, in every speculative monetary ven- ture, in every critical occasion where tact and caution united to boldness and common sense are required on the instant, you find the Jew present. As remarkable as the Rothschilds for wealth is their kinsman, Sir Moses Montefiore, for philanthro- py. Taking into the account all his advantages of person, gifts, education, wealth, rank, and an age of eighty-seven years, by the unanimous voice of the European public, irrespective of race or religion, there is not the man living, not since John Howard 124 JEWISH BRETHREN. died has the man lived, who has quietly and unos- tentatiously achieved so great results in the relief of suffering and righting of wrong as this noble English Jew. In the matter of education the Jews in every country and every age have been careful and liberal. Intelligence is the marked feature of the race. In whatever class of society the Jew moves, he is never below its level. — Dodge. Jewish Brethren. — If any one desires to revive his detestation of caste, the oppression of class by class, of color by color, of race by race, let him mark in the history of this people how uniformly they rise and expand and ennoble when the stigma is removed and the repressive laws are abolished. Always com- plying with the fundamental conditions of prosperous existence, that is, being always as a people chaste, temperate, industrious, and frugal, they have only needed a fair chance to develop more shining quali- ties. America can boast no better citizens, nor more refined circles than the good Jewish families of New York, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Philadelphia. . . Our Israelitish brethren in the United States have their own battle to fight. It is substantially the same as ours. They, too, have to deal with overwhelming masses of ignorance and poverty, just able to get across the ocean, and arriving helpless at Castle Garden., They too, have to save morality, decency, civilization, while the old bondage of doctrine and EVIL COUNTER-CURRENTS. 125 habit is gradually loosened. In this struggle Jews and Christians should be allies. — Parton. Evils. — In the speech of Mr. Gladstone in London, at the Lord Mayor's inauguration, the significant confession is made that : ' Whatever the tendencies of modern civilization — whatever its triumphs, they have not had, nor are they likely to have in our day or in our children's the effect of lightening the respon- sibilities of the Government.' The United States affords evidence, in many por- tions of it, that our republican system is afflicted with such deep corruption as to produce the apprehensions which draw from the English premier his guarded but ominous admissions. The times call for wisdom, virtue, and prudence, there and here, or wide-spread confusion may follow. — Curtis. In thee have they set light by father and mother : in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow. Tliey have despised mine holy things and hast pro- faned my Sabbaths. Who is there even among you that woidd shut the doors for nought*! neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. ■' Individuals will exist and be judged and recom- pensed in a future world : but bodies politic will have no future existence, and are therefore recom- pensed in this world.' 126 PUNISHMENT DELAYED. Seventy years of Babylonish Captivity. — To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths : for so long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath. ' The penalty of Adam's stain hath descended upon all mankind. The small power that remaineth, is as it T^ere a spark lying hid in the ashes. This is natural reason itself, encompassed about with great darkness, yet still retaining power to discern between true and false, good and evil, although it be unable to fulfil all that it approveth and enjoyeth no longer the full light of the truth nor soundness of the affec- tions.' ' my brother ! lose not thy confidence of making progress in godliness : there is yet time : the hour is not yet past.' The good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek Grod, though he be not cleansed accord- big to the purification of the sanctuary. 17. Sin has changed the customs and habits of men, corrupted their maxims, monopolized the use of their property, absorbed their minds in vanity, blinded their eyes, and corrupted their hearts. It is the design of Christianity to eradicate all these evils, and to restore to human nature its pristine beauty and dignity. If once rightly applied it will purify the heart of all its vileness, in spite of long establish- ed custom, or caste, or superstition, or an enthralling system of priestcraft. Where then is the nation so A PAGAN NATION. 127 vile, that she may not be benefited by the gospel? Is India that nation ? — Read. India. — ' Young Wilson had applied himself so closely to study during his whole college course, that the approach of the - final examination — an occasion of so much alarm to the dissipated and idle — gave him no particular uneasiness. He passed the trying or- deal with great credit to himself and carried off the prize for an English essay on Common Sense. It is an interesting fact that when he descended the rostrum Reginald Heber arose to recite his poem of Palestine. There is something in the history of these two young aspirants who were afterwards called to bear ' the heat and burden of the day,' in the same distant field ; something also in the scrolls they held, characteristic of the men— the one throwing over India the charm of poetry, piety, and a loving spirit ; the other stamp- ing upon it the impress of Scriptural supremacy and evangelical truth : something of adaptation also in the ordering of those quiet spots where they rest in their graves — the chancel of St. John's Trichino- poly, and the chancel of St. Paul's Calcutta.' Judson — ' A laborer with moral virtue girt.' — ' The laborer has reached his field. It stretched out, a wretched, sterile, neglected scene. . . To perform the whole work of a pioneer missionary, in his pecu- liar sphere of labor, he must become an author in the language, a popular preacher, a metaphysical rea- soner, a translator of the Scriptures. But for feelijig 128 JUDSON. his way into the heart of a language, and following out its innate principles ot development, till the whole structure stood in characteristic form before his eye, — in this he has had few equals and probably no superiors. It was not so much quickness as method : the action of a mind naturally clear and vigorous, but indebted, for its unerring precision and force of movement, to his long course of severe in- tellectual training. Had he allowed himself, while at school and college, to contract habits of superficial study, or had he cut short the term of preparation that he might hasten two or three years sooner to the field of labor, how different would have been the result ! That familiarity with the general laws of language, and with the genius of various languages which he had derived from a critical study of the classical and Hebrew tongues, were, in his case, what Belzoni's researches among the labyrinths of Thebes were to him, when he sat down before the blank wall of the pyramid of Cephrenes, and reasoned out the passage to its interior treasures. No time, after arriving on missionary ground, was wasted in blundering guesswork ; every step he advanced was taken once for all. Within three years after entering Burmah, the man who had acquired his first little stock of words by pointing to the com- mon objects about him, and catching their* names from the lips of the natives, prepared a grammar of the language, which must be reckoned among the JUDSON. 129 most remarkable productions in the field of philo- logy. • He denied himself all English reading, except a singlo newspaper and a few books of devotion ; re- linquished so far as possible English society and cor- respondence ; and sought by exclusive intercourse with the natives, and with the literature of the country, the power not merely of using the words of the language with facility, but of thinking and feel- ing, of living wholly in it. The result was, a style of composition in which his own strong mental characteristics spontaneously expressed themselves with all the freshness and force of one ' to the manor born.' His Burman Bible has been pronounced * per- fect as a literary work.' Bat its highest praise is in the fact, that it is free from all obscurity to the Bur- man mind. It must ever be, like Wickliffe's in the English, the basis and model of all others for the use of the people. — Mr*. Coxant. Lying here on my bed I have had such views of the loving condescension of Christ and the glories of heaven, as I believe are seldom granted to mortal man. It is not because I shrink from death that I wish to live, but -a few years would not be missed from my eternity of bliss. — Judsox. From Olive's third visit to India dates the purity of the administration of our Eastern empire. He first made- dauntless and unsparing war on that gigantic system of oppression, extortion, and corrup- 6* 130 CLIVE. tion. In that war he manfully put to hazard his ease, his fame, and his splendid fortune. The same sense of justice which forbade us to conceal or ex- tenuate the faults of his earlier days, compels us to admit that those faults were nobly repaired. If the reproach of the Company and of its servants has been taken away — if in India the yoke of foreign masters, elsewhere the heaviest of all yokes, has been found lighter than that of any native dynasty — if to that gang of public robbers which once spread ter- ror through the whole plain of Bengal, has succeeded a body of functionaries not more highly distinguished by ability and diligence than by integrity, disinterest- edness and public spirit — if we now see men like Munro, Elphinstone, and Metcalfe, after leading vic- torious armies, after making and deposing kings, return, proud of their honorable poverty, from a land which once held out to every greedy factor the hope of boundless wealth — the praise is in no small degree due to Clive. His name stands high on the roll ot conquerors. But it is found on a better list — in the list of those who have done and suffered much for the happiness of mankind. — Macaulay. If difficulties try the powers of superior minds, Hastings, on assuming the government had a bound- less field for the exercise of his talents in Bengal. Popular sufferings, disease and dilapidation, the re- sult of a tremendous* pestilence which had swept away a third of the people, suppressed all those energies HASTINGS. 131 which the cessation of war and the protecting spirit of a British government might have renewed. The treasury was almost empty— the revenues were sink- ing year by year ; the farmer, the traveller, and the merchant were rapidly disappearing, and in their place had come the robber and the tiger. Hastings applied himself vigorously to check this flood of evil, and he soon showed the value of practised experi- ence and intellectual vigor in encountering the se- verest public privations. His first work was, to put down the lawlessness which had exposed life and property to constant violence ; and the bands of rob- bers, almost legalized by long impunity, found them-, selves, to their astonishment, suddenly made the ob- jects of a vigorous police. The revenue system next came under his unhesitating hand. He rapidly puri- fied its details and at once increased the amount of the public receipts, and diminished the expense of their collection. He next established District Courts, and so far, in principle, showed that justice might be brought to the doors of the population. Then, as- cending to the higher machinery of the system, he divided the supreme council into committees, and by appointing intelligent and active superintendents in place of inefficient boards, gave the force of respon- sibility to office, and brought the whole apparatus of government into a condition to meet any emergency. And all this was the work of two years. — Black- wood's MAGAZINE. 132 MAXIMILIAN. 30. Mexico. — c Maximilian alighted from the car- riage as they reached the spot, and with careless grace brushing the dust from his garments, advanced toward the line of soldiers, arid inquired who were to fire upon him. The^ platoon being pointed out, he gave to each of them a piece of gold, and requested them to aim well at his heart. He then approached M. and M., and embracing them three times with much fervor said : ' In a few moments we shall meet in another world.' — Advancing with admirable cool- ness, he said : ' Mexicans ! men of my class and my origin who are animated with my sentiments are destined by providence to make the happiness of people, or be their martyrs. When I came among you I did not bring with me illegitimate ideas. . . Before descending into the grave, I will add that I take with me the consolation of having done all the good in my power. . . May my blood be the last spilled, and may it regenerate Mexico, my unfortun- ate adopted country.' A man of some real nobleness, this Albert, though not with wisdom enough, or good fortune enough could he have continued to rule the situation, to march the fanatical papistries and Kaiser Karl clear out of it and home to Spain and San Justo a little earlier, to wave the coming Jesuistries away as with a flaming sword, to forbid beforelfland the Thirty Years' War, and the still dolefuler spiritual atrophy which has followed therefrom. He might have been ALBERT. 133 a German Cromwell beckoning his people to fly eagle- like straight toward the sun, instead of screwing about in that sad, uncertain, and far too spiral a manner. — Carlyle. 7. Total Eclipse of the Sun. — The mighty pall of darkness hung over us for almost three minutes! At two minutes after five as we stood gazing at the black orb, with its magnificent corona, a sudden flash of golden light burst forth from the northern limb. It was the most thrilling instant I ever knew, and the most splendid spectacle I ever witnessed. As if God said : ' Let there be light,' a sheaf of dazzling rays burst forth in a twinkling and came flying to- ward us through the air. The whole sky lightened instantaneously. — Cuyler. From Portsmouth to Or an to see the Eclipse. — The clouds and blue spaces fought for a time with varying success. The sun was hidden and revealed at inter- vals, hope oscillating in synchronism with the changes of the sky. At the moment of first contact a dense cloud intervened, but a minute or two after- wards the cloud had passed and the encroachment of the black body of the moon was evident upon the solar disc. The moon marched onward and I saw it at frequent intervals : a large group of spots were approached and swallowed up. Subsequently I caught sight of the lunar limb as it cut through the middle of a large spot. The spot was not to be dis- tinguished from the moon, but rose like a mountain 134 THE ECLIPSE. above it. The clouds, when thin, could be seen as grey scud drifting across the black surface of the moon : but they thickened more and more and made the intervals of clearness scantier. During these moments, I watched with an interest bordering upon fascination the march of the silver sickle of the sun across the field of the telescope. It was so sharp and so beautiful. No trace of the lunar limb could be observed beyond the sun's boundary. Here, in- deed, it could only be relieved by the corona which was utterly cut off by the dark glass. The blackness of the moon beyond the sun was, in fact, confounded with the blackness of space. Beside me was Elliot with the watch and lantern, while Lieutenant Archer, of the royal engineers, had the kindness to take charge of my note-book. I mentioned, and lie wrote rapidly down, such things as seemed worthy of re- membrance. Thus my hands and mind were entire- ly free ; but it was all to no purpose. A patch of sunlight fell and rested upon the landscape some miles away. It was the only illuminated spot within view. But to the northwest there was still a . space of blue which might reach us in time. Within seven minutes of totality, another small space toward the zenith became very dark. The atmosphere was, as it were, on the brink of a precipice ; it was charged with humidity, which required but a slight chill to bring it down in clouds. This was furnished by the withdrawal of the solar beams ; the clouds did come THE ECLIPSE. 135 down, covering up the space of blue on which our hopes had so long rested. I abandoned the telescope and walked to and fro like a leopard in its cage. As the moment of totality approached, the descent toward darkness was as obvious as a falling stone. I looked toward a distant ridge where I knew the darkness would first appear. At the moment a fan of beams issuing from the hidden sun, was spread out over the southern heavens. These beams are bars of alternate light and shade, produced in illum- inated haze by the shadows of floating cloudlets of varying density. The beams are really parallel, but by an effect of perspective they appear divergent, like a fan, having the sun, in fact, for their point of inter- section. The darkness took possession of the ridge to which I have referred, lowered upon M. Janssen's observatory, passed over the southern heavens, blot- ting out the beams as if a sponge had been drawn across them. It then took successive possession of three spaces of blue sky in the south-eastern atmos- phere. I again looked toward the ridge. A glim- mer as of clay-dawn was behind it ; and immediately afterwards the fan of beams which had been for two minutes absent revived in all its strength and splendor. The eclipse had ended, and as far as the corona was concerned we had been defeated. — Tyn- dall. 12. With clouds he covereth the light; and com- mandeth it not to shine by the cloud that cometh be- 136 A PINT OF WATER. ttvizt. For he malceth small the drops of water ; they pour down rain according to the vapor thereof ; Which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly. Let us trace the progress of a single pint of the water thus elaborated from where it first alights on the spongy soil in a wintry shower, till where it spark- les in a glass in the pump room at Cheltenham. It falls among the flat hills that sweep around the an- cient city of Worcester, and straightway buries itself, all fresh and soft in the folds of the Upper New Red Sandstone where they incline gently to the east. It percolates in its downward progress along one of the unworkable seams of rock-salt that occur in the su- perior marls in the formation ; and as it pursues fur- long after furlong its subterranean journey, savors more and more strongly of the company it keeps ; be- comes in succession hard, brackish, saline, briny ; and then many fathoms below the level at which it had entered escapes from the saliferous stratum through -a transverse fissure, into an inferior Liasic bed. And here it trickles for many hundred yards through a pyritiferous shale, on which its biting salts act so powerfully that it becomes strongly tinctured by the iron oxide and acidulated by the sulphur. And now it forces its upward way through the minute crevices of a dolomitic limestone, which its salts and acids serve partially to decompose, so that to its salt, iron and sulphur, it now adds its lime and its magnesia. And now it flows through beds of organic remains, A PINT OF WATER. 137 animal and vegetable — now through a stratum of bel- emnites, and now a layer of fish — now besidea seam of lignite, and now along a vein of bitumen. Here it carries along with it a dilute infusion of what had been once the muscular tissue of a crocodile, and here the strainings of an ichthyosaurus. And now it comes gushing to the light in an upper Liasic stratum, considerably higher in the geologic scale, than the saiiferous sandstones into which it had at first sunk, but considerably lower with reference to the existing levels. And now take it and drink it off at once, without pause or breathing space. It is not palat- able, and it smells villianously, but never did apothe- cary mix up a more curiously compounded draught ; and if it be not as salutary as it is elaborate, the faculty are sadly in error. The art of deciphering the ancient hieroglyphics sculptured on the rocks of our country, is gradually extending from the few to the many. "When the hard names of the science shall become familiar enough no longer to obscure its poetry, it will be found that what I have attempted to do, will be done proportionately to their measure of ability by travellers generally. — Hugh Miller. The earth trembles, and the waters are vexed, with the application of all those forces which science has presented for the perfection of man's dominion and power over the material world. The victory of Ful- ton and Pitch and Watt and Arkwright and Stephen- 138 THE SCIENTIFIC PERIOD. son is complete. And should science advance into that great region of thought and speculation, where faith is to be confirmed and unerring dogmas of pub- lic economy are to be proclaimed, I am sure the last step would then have been taken toward making this great and diverse municipality as perfect in its reli- gion and politics as it now is in all the practical affairs of active and vigorous life. Everywhere in cultivated and civilized society may be found an intense and serious effort to infuse the accuracy of scientific investigation into all practical affairs, and into the broad foundations of the Church and the State. The scientific period has arrived. The prediction made by Dr. Young in the latter part of the last century — has been more than fulfilled. Remembering as he did, that the last two hundred years have done much more for the promotion of knowledge than the two thousand years which pre- ceded them, he says : 4 We have, therefore, the satisfaction of viewing the knowledge of nature not only in a state of advancement, but even advancing with increasing rapidity : and the universal diffusion of a taste for science appears to promise that, as the numbers of its cultivators increases, new facts will be continually discovered, and those which are al- ready known will be better understood and more beneficially applied.' The history of American industry teaches that la- bor is not only wealth and national prosperity, but LAND AND LABOR. 139 social dignity as well. Our great imperishable treas- ures are land and labor. Unite the two and you have the foundation upon which all the more im- posing and fleeting fabrics may rest, and for the strength of which the mind of man may exhaust it- self in devising means and methods. Intelligent labor, owning a well cultivated soil — this is the foun- dation. And around this may gather all the arts of life, in which toil shall receive a competent subsist- ence, and the hardships of labor maybe ameliorated by that mutual understanding which should belong to an intelligent and well-educated community. — Loring. 13. Certainty. Mr. Gladstone at Liverpool Col- lege. — But in preparing yourselves for the combat of life, I beg you to take this also into your account, that the spirit of denial is abroad, and has challenged all religion, but especially the religion we profess, to a combat of life and death. I venture to offer you a few suggestions, in the hope that they may not be without their use. You will hear in your aftcr- . life much of the duty and delight of following free thought ; and in truth the man who does not value the freedom of his thoughts deserves to be described as Homer described the slave : he is but half a man. St. Paul, I suppose, was a teacher of free thought, when he bade his converts to prove all things ; but it seems he went terribly astray when he proceeded to bid them ' hold fast that which is good.' But the free thought of which we now hear so much 140 THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. seems too often to mean, thought roving and vagrant more than free, like Delos drifting on the seas of Greece without a route, a direction, or a home. Again you will hear incessantly of the advancement of the present age, and of the backwardness of those which have gone before it. And truly, it has been a wonderful age ; but let us not exaggerate. It has been, and it is an age of immense mental as well as material activity : it is by no means an age abound- ing in minds of the first order, who become great, immortal teachers of mankind. It has tapped, as it were, and made disposable for man, vast natural forces ; but the mental power employed, is not to be measured by the mere size of the results. To per- fect that marvel of traffic, the locomotive, has per- haps not required the expenditure of more mental strength and application and devotion than to per- fect that marvel of music, the violin. In the ma- terial sphere, the achievements of the age are plenti- ful and unmixed. In the social sphere they are great and noble, but seem ever to be confronted by. a succession of new problems, which almost defy solution. In the sphere of pure intellect, I doubt whether posterity will rate us as highly as we rate ourselves. In the goods of this world we may ad- vance by strides, but it is by steps only, and not strides, and by slow, and not always steady steps, that all desirable improvement of man in the higher ranges of his being is effected. Again, my friends, THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 141 you will hear much to the effect that the divisions among Christians render it impossible to say what Christianity is, and so destroy the certainty of reli- gion. But if the divisions among Christians are re- markable, not less so is their unity in the greatest doctrines that they hold. Well nigh fifteen hundred years have passed away since the great controversies concerning the Deity and the person of the Redeemer were, after a long agony, determined. Ever since that time, amid all chance and change, more — aye, many more — than ninety-nine in every hundred Christians have with one will confessed the deity and incarnation of our Lord as the cardinal and central truths of our religion. Surely there is some comfort here — some sense of brotherhood— some glory in the past — some hope for the times that are to come. 14. Superstition. A false divination in their sight. — The minds of the people of England in general were, at this momentous crisis, laboring under a painful depression occasioned by the appearance of the splendid three-tailed comet, which became visible in their horizon at the commencement of the memor- able year 1066, a few days before the death of King Edward. The unsettled state of the succession, and the superstitious spirit of the age, inclined all classes of Dersons to regard with ominous feelings of dismay and phenomenon which could be construed into a portent of evil : moreover the astrologers who fore- told the approach of this comet had thought proper 142 SUPERSTITION. to announce their prediction in an oracular distich, of which the following rude couplet is a literal trans- lation : — ' In the year one thousand and sixty-six, Comets to England's sons an end shall fix/ The Norrnan Conquest in 1066. — The knights and archers landed first. After the soldiers came the carpenters, armorers and masons. Last of all came the duke, who stumbling as he leaped to shore, meas- ured his majestic height upon the beach. Forthwith all raised a cry of distress. ' An evil sign is here ! ' exclaimed the superstitious Normans : but the duke who, in recovering himseif, had filled his hands with sand cried out in a loud and cheerful voice : ' See seigneurs ! I have seized England with my two hands. Without challenge ;io prize can be made, and that which I have grasped I will by your good help maintain. ' When William was arming for the encounter in his haste and agitation, he unwittingly put on his hawberk the hind part before. He quickly changed it, but perceiving from the looks of consternation among the by-standers, that his mistake had been ob- served and construed into an omen of ill, he smiling- ly observed : ' I have seen many a man, who, if such a thing had happened to him, would not have entered the battlefield. But I never believed in omens, nor have I ever put my faith in fortune-tellers, nor divinations of any kind, for my trust is in God. ASTROLOGY. 143 Let not this mischance discourage you, for if this change import aught, it is that the power of my dukedom shall be turned into a kingdom.' — Miss Strickland. The king of Babylon stood at the head of the two ways, to use divination; he made his arrows bright, he consulted with images. Astrology. — One of the most remarkable believers in that forgotten and despised science, was a late professor in the art of legerdemain. One would have thought that a person of his description ought, from his knowledge of the thousand ways in which human eyes could be deceived, to have been less than others subject to the fantasies of superstition. Perhaps the habitual use of those abstruse calculations by which in a manner surprising to the artist himself, many tricks upon cards etc., are performed, induced this gentleman to study the combination of the stars and planets with the expectation of obtaining prophetic communications. He constructed a scheme of his own nativity, calculated according to such rules of art as he could collect from the best astrological authors. The result of the past he found to be agreeable to what had hitherto befallen him, but in the important prospect of the future, a singular difficulty occurred. There were two years during the course of which he could by no means obtain any exact knowledge whether the subject of the scheme would be dead or ali^e. Anxious concerning so remarkable a circum- 144 ASTROLOGY. stance, lie gave the scheme to a brother astrologer, who was also baffled in the same manner. At one period he found the native or subject was certainly alive ; at another that he was unquestionably dead; but a space of two years extended between these two terms, during which he could find no certainty as to his death or existence. The astrologer continued his exhibitions in various parts of the empire, until the period was about to expire during which his exist- ence had been warranted as actually ascertained. At last, while he was exhibiting to a numerous audience his usual tricks of legerdemain, the hands whose activ- ity had so often baffled the closest observer, suddenly lost their power, the cards dropped from them, and he sank down a disabled paralytic. In this state the artist languished for two years, when he was at length removed by death. The fact, if truly reported, is one of those singular coincidences which occasionally ap- pear differing so widely from ordinary calculation, yet without which irregularities, human life would not present to mortals looking into futurity the abyss of impenetrable darkness which it is the pleasure of the Creatpr it should offer to them. Were everything to happen in the ordinary train of events, the future would be subject to the rules of Arithmetic, like the chances of gaming. But extraordinary events, and wonderful runs of luck defy the calculations of man- kind, and throw impenetrable darkness on future contingencies. — Walter Scott. ERSKINE. 145 ' According to our human observation it is not well for man to know the destiny of his being in all its details, until the trials and victories of life have taught him, to turn such knowledge to elevating use.' Erskine left his native land with the disheartening prospect of dying a half-pay lieutenant : — but when he next revisited it, he was an Ex-Chancellor, a Peer and a Knight of the Thistle — ^what was far more valuable, he had achieved for himself the repu- tation of the greatest forensic orator that Britain ever produced. . . Riding over a blasted heath be- tween Lewes and Guilford with his friend William Adam, afterwards Lord Chief-Commissioner of the Jury Court in Scotland, (whether from some super- natural communication, or the workings of his own fancy I know not,) he exclaimed after a long silence : ' Willie, the time will come when I shall be invested with the robes of the Lord Chancellor, and Star of the Thistle will blaze on my bosom ! ' — Campbell's Chancellors. Why seeing times are not hidden from the Al- mighty, do they that know him not see his days? For man also hwiveth not his time ; as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when itfalleth suddenly upon them. 15. Men of excellent repute for wisdom, common sense, and especially for fervid piety, have frequently net merely entertained but courageousiv avowed q, 7 146 DEEAMS. lively faith in the providential and prophetic char- acter of dreams. How far this, with the well edu- cated, has ever deserved the respectable name of positive belief, it would require a nice and extensive investigation to determine. — Tribune. Undoubted proof has been afforded that the energy of the intellect is sometimes greater during sleep than at other times, and many a problem, it is as- serted, has been solved in sleep which has puzzled the waking sense. Cabanis tells us that Franklin on several occasions mentioned to him that he had been assisted in dreams in the conduct of many affairs in which he was engaged. Condilla states that while writing his Course of Studies he was frequently oblig- ed to leave the chapter incomplete and. retire to bed, and that on awakening he found it, on more than one occasion, finished in his head. In like manner Con- dorcet would sometimes leave his complicated specu- lations unfinished, and after retiring to rest would find their results unfolded to him in his dreams. — Har- per's Weekly. But though our dreams are often wild, Like clouds before the driving storm, Yet some important may be styled, Sent to admonish or inform. — Newton. The same God who most expressly warns against false dreams, not unfrequently directs his people by true ones. For the sincere, who were really con- TRUE AND FALSE DREAMS. 147 cerned for the truth — he discloses infallible criteria by which to distinguish genuine visions from false ones. Yet as these are modified by individual dis- position they can be reduced to no objective rules. — Olshausen. Hoivhast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is. Fonvarned. — Some very sensible persons will ac- knowledge that in old times God spoke by dreams, but affirm with much boldness that he has since ceased to do so. If you ask them why ? They answer, be- cause he has now revealed his will in the Scripture, and there is no longer any need that he should instruct and admonish us by dreams. I grant that with respect to doctrines and precepts he has left us in want of nothing ; but has he thereby precluded himself in any of the operations of his providence ? Surely not. It is perfectly a different consideration ; and the same need that there was of his interference in this way, there is still and ever must be, while man continues blind and fallible, and a creature beset with dangers which lie can neither foresee nor obviate. His opera- tions of this kind are, I allow, very rare. — Cowper. The misery of man is great upon him. For he knoweth not that which shall be : for who can tell him ivhen it shall be ? Lord Littleton's vision — predicting his death. The exact fulfilment. — Dr. Johnson said : 'It is the most extraordinary thing that has happened in my day. I heard it with my own ears from his uncle, Lord 148 PREDICTIONS. Westcote. I am so glad to have every evidence of the spiritual world that I am willing to believe it.' There is a thing that has made considerable im- pression on me. A week before the war at Morpeth, I dreamed distinctly many of the circumstances of our late battle off the enemy's port, and I believe I told you of it at the time ; but I never dreamed that I was to be made a peer of the realm. — Lord Col- lingwood. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind? Nebuchad- nezzar's dream. Noiv thou, Belteshazzar, declare the interpretation. All the wise men of my kingdom are not able ; — but thou art able ; for the spirit of the holy gods is in thee. Then Daniel was astonied for one hour and his thoughts troubled him. It is thou, king, that art grown and become strong. They shall drive thee from men — and shall make thee to eat grass as oxen. — Wherefore, king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by right- eousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquility. 17. A certain fearful looking for of judgment. . Henry I. — In the year 1130, the king complained to Grimbald, his Saxon physician, that he was sore disquieted of nights, and that he seemed to see a great number of husbandmen, with their rustical tools stand about him, threatening him with wrongs done against them. Sometimes he appeared to see THE HAND OF GOD. 149 his knights and soldiers threatening him ; which sight so feared him in his sleep that oftimes he rose un- drest out of his bed, took weapon in hand and sought to kill them he could not find. Grimbald, being a notable wise man, expounded his dreams by true conjecture, and willed him to reform himself by alms and prayers. . . When Henry had embarked for England, in June 1131, he was so dismayed by the bursting of a water-spout over the vessel and the fury of the wind and waves, that believing that his last hour was at hand he made a penitent acknow- ledgment of his sins, promising to lead a new life, if it should please God to preserve him from the peril of death, and above all, he vowed to repeal the oppressive impost of danegelt for seven years. After Edward had marched through France with- out resistance, and, (if the truth must be spoken) desolating as he went a bleeding and suffering coun- try in a most ungenerous manner, his career was stopped as he was hastening to lay seige to Paris by the hand of God itself. One of those dreadful thunder-storms which at distant cycles pass over the continent of France, literally attacked the invading army within two leagues of Chartres and wreaked its utmost fury on the proud chivalry of England. Six thousand of Edward's finest horses, and one thousand of his bravest cavaliers, among whom were the heirs of Warwick and Morlev, were struck dead before him. The guilty ambition of Edward 150 FIRE FROM HEAYEN. smote his conscience ; he knelt down on the spot, and spreading his hands toward the Church of our Lady of Chartres vowed to stop the effusion of blood and make peace on the spot with Prance. His queen who wished well to the noble-minded king of France held him to his resolution. — Miss Strickland. And Elijah ansivered. If I be a man of Cod, then let fire come down from heaven and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. And ye shall know that I am the Lord for ye have not walked in my statutes. Charles IX. — The king thrown out into the hideous torrent of blood, became drunk with frenzy, and let slaughter have its way, till even Guise himself af- fected to be shocked, and interposed to put an end to it. Some twenty months later, Charles IX. lay dy- ing of hemorrhage — he was haunted with hideous dreams ; the darkness was peopled with ghosts which were mocking and mowing at him, and he would start out of his sleep to find himself in a pool of blood — blood — ever blood. The night before his end, the nurse — a Huguenot, heard him sob and sigh. Ah ! he muttered, but I was ill-advised. God have mercy on me and on my country ; what will become of that ? What will become of me ? I am lost — I know it but too well. The nurse told him that the blood would be on the heads of those who had mis- CONSCIENCE. 151 led him, on them and on their accursed # counsels. He sighed again and blessed God that he had left no son to inherit his crown and his infamy. — Froude. There is no future pang:, Can deal that justice on the self-condemned, He deals on his own soul. — Byrox. 19. Conscience. — Beyond measure I persecuted the Church of Cod, and toasted it. — I verily thought ivith myself \ that I sought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus, Who sees not that our judgments of virtue and vice, right and wrong, are not always formed from an enlightened and dispassionate use of our reason in . the investigation of truth ? They are more gen- erally formed from the nature of the religion we profess; from the quality of the civil government under which we live ; from the general manners of the age, or the particular manners of the persons with whom we associate ; from the books we have read at a more advanced period ; and from other accidental causes. — Watson. Xow one of the most curious, entertaining, and instructive things on earth is the observation of the various lights in which a pictorial work that touches the springs of social action is regarded by the differ- ent thinkers, writers, and talkers, who represent classes.' In seriously answering the inquiry: 'What does all this amount to ? ' how queerly opposed to each other are the summings up which express the 152 CHURCH POWER AND GOOD MEN. main lesson oi ideal or of practical value. — Art Cri- tic. And when they saw him they worshipped him, but some doubted. And vjhen they heard of the resurrection from the dead, some mocked and others said : We will hear thee again of this matter. The confiscation of Church property was an en- ormous loss of Church power. It held two-thirds of this city in possession. It held mortgages in as large a portion of the country. Letting its money at a low figure and on liberal and long terms, it gradually became an enormous savings bank, and controlled the whole landed interest of the country. Its con- vents covered hundreds of acres in the heart of the city, and were adorned in the highest degree that art and wealth could devise. Gardens, lakes, marble cloisters, elegantly wrought in polished marble, churches of splendor in construction and ornamenta- tion, were the unseen luxurious abodes of the world- denying friars and nuns. Corruption of the most startling sort abounded ; and money, the sinews of the state, was in the hands exclusively of the cor- rupted and corrupters. Good men may have been involved in this arrangement, may have presided over it. Good men have been connected with every con- trolling evil the world has ever seen. An orthodox Congregational minister called his burning satire against New England's demoralization under rum THE TRUE OPINION. 153 ' Deacon Giles' Distillery,' and the slaveholding sys- tem of English West Indies was supported by rectors of the Episcopal Church, and of our own land by bishops of the Methodist Church, South. So we are all in condemnation and none can throw stones at the former growth of the Roman- Church in Mexico. — G. Haven. 20. What is truth?— What a loud roaring loose and empty matter is this tornado of vociferation men call ' Public Opin- ion,' tragically howling round a man who has to stand silent the while ; and scan wisely under pain of death, the altogether inarticulate, dumb, and inex- orable matter which the gods call Fact. — Carlyle. Have faith in truth, never in numbers. The great surge of numbers rolls up noisily and imposingly, but flats out on the shore, and slides back into the muds of oblivion. But the true opinion is the ocean itself, calm in its rest, eternal in its power. Its life is in moral ideas, which is the life of God. — Beech^r, Th*. 7 ~w of truth is in his mouth. — Think truly and thy thoughts Shall the world's famine feed ; Speak truly, and each word of thine Shall be a fruitful seed. Live truly, and thy life shall be A £reat and noble creed. — Boxar. 154 LAWS. Prove thou the rejected stone, True to the Eternal Square ; And the mighty Builder may In the wondrous scheme of man Set thy life some glorious day, The grand Key-Stone of his plan. — E. A. Browne, A soul at one with what is just, And balanced like a poised lance- A will to quit the narrow lea, Whose stilly bounds the winds forsake. — WlLLARD. The one great effort of such a mind is to divest itself of all prejudice, of all desire that may operate in the secret chambers of* the mind and derange the logical processes and vitiate the results to be obtain- ed. The mind having adopted this method, pursues its inductive and deductive processes with a supreme desire for the truth, whether the truth be agreeable or disagreeable. This quality of mind is not simply an intellectual virtue ; it is a moral one as well. "We may look with confidence to such a mind for the supreme desire of justice, not only to truth for its own sake, but for justice to individuals for truth's sake. Blind, contagious, intellectual impulse finds no lodg- ment in such a mind. — Patterson. Of literary merit Johnson, as we all know, was a sagacious, but a most severe judge. Such was his A KIXGLY APPEARANCE. 155 discernment that he pierced into the most secret springs of human actions : and such was his integrity that he always weighed the moral characters of his fellow-creatures in the ' balance of the sanctuary.' He was too courageous to propitiate a rival, and too proud to truckle to a superior. By the testimony of such a man, impertinence must be abashed and malignity itself softened. — Macaulay. 21. Israel's choice. 'Griue us a Jciny. Samuel pray- ed. TJie Lord said hearken to their voice yet protest solemnly. They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me that I should not reiyn over the . A poor prophet in a mantle, though conversant with the visions of the Almighty, looked mean in their eyes who judged by outward appearance ; but a king in a purple robe, with his guard and officers of state would look great. When God chose a king after his own heart, he pitched upon one who was not at all remarkable for the height of his stature, or anything in his countenance, but the innocency and sweetness that appeared there. But when he chose a king after the people's heart, who aimed at nothing so much as stateliness and grandeur, he pitched upon this huge, tall man, who if he had no other good qualities would look great. — Henry. Countess — . ... Is this the scourge of France, Is this the Talbot so much feared abroad, That with his name, the mothers still their babes ? I see, report is fabulous and false : 156 talbot's composition. I thought I should have seen some Hercules, A second Hector for his grim aspect And large proportion of his strong-knit limbs. Alas ! this is a child, a silly dwarf: It cannot be, this weak and writhled shrimp Should strike such terror to his enemies. Tal. — Madam, I have been bold to trouble you But, since your ladyship is not at leisure, I'll sort some other time to visit you. (The gates being forced, enter soldiers.) Countess — Victorious Talbot ! pardon my abuse : I find thou art no less than fame hath bruited, And more than may be gathered by thy shape. Let my presumption not provoke thy wrath ; For I am sorry that with reference I did not entertain thee as thou art. Tal. — Be not dismay'd, fair lady ; nor misconstrue The mind of Talbot, as you did mistake The outward composition of his body. What you have done hath not offended me. — King Henry IV. The bee that gathers treasures from every flower has not the finest coating. The eagle that soars on majestic wing to the birth of the morning has not the most glittering plumage. It is the butterfly that idly floats on the passing breeze that the fopling emulates. — Dehon. Irregularity of feature is the rule. They are often even distorted : and yet I must say that I have seen some magnificent countenances and figures among the German peasantry. Here for instance is one — aa old woman — she must be at least sixty. NATIVE DIGNITY. 157 She stops for a moment, and leans upon her spade, while the youngster who drops potatoes for her, likely enough her grandchild, runs off to get her basket filled from a supply that a girl had just brought up. And as the old dame, I was going to say, though she is a poor, old peasant woman, turns about and looks up for a minute, the old rag that she has bound around her head falls back, revealing a profile, a forehead that would have graced a court. The gray locks that float in the light breeze were surely thick and flowing two-score of years ago. The cheeks, the bare neck, and thinly covered shoulders, wrinkled and sunken with years of toil and care, have lost their charms : but traces of lines of delicate beauty and stately grace linger even yet. And now, as she turns toward me, she meets my gaze with an un- abashed, courteous, and even dignified look ; and then there is a slight play of the features, a glance at the spade, at the toil worn hands, and back to me again, with her rich, black eyes looking straight in mine, and I think : ' Fortunate is it for your peace of mind, young man, that that old woman isn't forty years younger.' There is, to the glory of the human soul be it said, a germ of pride therein, that the mean- est poverty cannot root out, and often one is met even in the lowest walks of liie by those whose very air and mien proclaim : ' Even in my rags and misery I am your equal.' — Tribune Cor. 158 beaut r. , . . He has, I know not what, Of greatness in his looks, and of high fate, That almost awes me. — Drydex. 6 The glare of outward beauty is soon darkened, but there is a beauty foreshadowing itself in the grace of action and feeling which the more the mind is used to, the more it chooses to rest on it.' ' It is said the spirit's beauty cannot be shut within as you would shut the diamond in its casket, hiding all its light ; but that the radiance illuminating the inner temple will spread itself over the face proclaim- ing to all who come near ' here dwells an angel.' A wicked heart — covered toith silver dross. . . . Your thief looks in the crowd, Exactly like the rest, or rather better ; 'Tis only at the bar, or in the dungeon, That wise men know your felon by his features. — Byron. 22. Types. — She to higher hopes Was destined, in a finer mould was wrought, And tempered with a purer, brighter flame. — Akenside. The dove is universally allowed to be one of the most beautiful objects in nature. The brilliancy of her plumage, the splendor of her eye, the innocence of her look, the excellence of her disposition, and the purity of her manners have been the theme of admiration in every age. To the snowy whiteness of her wings, and the rich golden hues that adorn her neck, the inspired Psalmist alludes in most elegant strains. She is the chosen emblem of simplicity, TYPES. 159 gentleness, chastity, and feminine timidity, and for this reason, as well as for their abounding in the East, they were chosen as offerings to Jehovah.' . . . the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold. The Rose. — ' In native white and red, The rose and lily stand, And* free from pride their beauties spread, To show thy skillful hand.' True, you were not made to be a great, coarse sun- flower, nor a full Provence-rose, but to be a beautiful, little Scotch rose — to show the world that God could plant such beautiful flowers on the bleak mountains and in the misty valleys of Scotland — a great rose condensed into a miniature one— as if to show how much that is beautiful can be put into a very small space. Again, you complain of the heat of noon, — the very time when the strong light is falling on you, and painting your face with colors which nothing but the noon-day sun could possibly bestow. If you want your glorious colors, you must have the hot pencil of the sun paint them. — Todd. Thy emblem, gracious queen, the British rose, Type of sweet rule and gentle majesty. — Pkioe. Hannah More. — There was an air of graceful, un- affected ease : an instinctive regard to the most deli- cate proprieties of social intercourse ; a readiness to communicate ; and yet a desire to lessen the dignity 160 THE IDEAL UNION. of conscious merit, united with the humility of the devoted Christian : in short there was such an assem- blage of intellectual and moral excellences beaming forth in every expresssion, and look, and attitude, that I could scarcely conceive of a more perfect ex- hibition of human character. 23. Everywhere womanhood is standing up our equal. We are finding out by slow degrees the old law of God ; we are getting back to the old truths of childhood. As of old in Eden manhood and woman- hood are being wed anew — wed in dignified equality as high help-meets in the work of the world. — Ec- lectic. He fashioneth their hearts alike. — Look to God for 'that divine, celestial welding that shall make you goldenly one. The perfect ideal love and heart union, is that which takes place, when two minds are bound together that have respectively the capacity to give to the whole of each other's mind appropriate stimulus and gratification. — Beecher. ' The attraction which is the basis of this union is of a compound character, connecting with it some of the highest and most ennobling virtues of w/iich human nature is capable.' Mrs. U. Judson. — His discerning eye saw the slum- bering traits of noble missionary character, while her delicate and beautiful genius ran through a larger compass of correspondences to his versatile and many-sided nature, than that of either of her prede- THE JUDSOXS. 161 cessors. Ann Hasseltine more than met all the de- mand of his earlier years of youthful and heroic ac- tion. Sarah Boerdman shed the light of one of the most exquisite of womanly natures over the calmer scenes of his manhood. Emily, with a heroism not less devoted, with a womanliness not less pure and gentle, met his ripe culture, his keen intellectuality, his imaginative and poetic temperament, with a rich- ness and variety of endowments which belonged to neither of these admirable women. — Kexdrick. The fervid, burning eloquence, the deep pathos, the touching tenderness, the elevation of thought, the intense beauty of expression which characterized these private teachings were not only beyond what I had ever heard before, but such as I feel sure sur- prized himself. — E. Judson. The Old. — The higher the civilization, the more nearly is companionship of the sexes reached. The highest civilization is yet to come, and with it such companionship in its completeness we may first look for it here ; for though we are the newest of nations, we have done more than any other to discard old and pernicious traditions. The land of chivalry, in a truer and better sense than the knights-errant were capable of understanding, has long been in this re- public, though our future is doomed to shame our present, and excite emulation elsewhere. The German, who is our remote ancestor, has no pleasures from which women are shut out, and he is 162 WOMEN AS COMPANIONS. one of the most domestic, honest, and composed of mortals. Lineage moves in cycles ; we are going back by degrees to the customs of our progenitors. We see the influence of Teutonic habits upon our own people already, and we take kindly to the exam- ples of our own race. We Americans require the social element in our diversions, which are very melancholy in the main. We need enjoyment, instead of excitement, solace instead of selfishness, comfort instead of intensity. We want quiet talk (or pleasant silence), careless repose, the assurance of sympathy, gentle stimulants : not boisterous speech, impertinent egotism, restless repression, coarse stories, vulgar profanity, and fiery potations. Before the present century has passed, our dissi- pations will be restored, I predict, to the significance of recreations. Women will be our partners in them, and they will bring new tastes, new desires, new at- mospheres, and by their wholesome presence and ex- quisite tact will transform us into finer creatures than have been reflected even from the mirror of our vanity. Companionship will have rendered the sexes just, conscientious, truthful to each other ; will have taken flippant flattery from the lip and put cordial appreciation in the mind ; will have substituted voices for echoes, purposes for words, aspirations for assumptions. Companionship will have served as instruction, reason, and intuition. — Browne. WOMAN AT HES BEST. 163 Buckle. — The influence of his mother led him to value the mental sympathy and companionship of women. He had a keen appreciation of what their peculiar intellectual quality should do for society. His extreme gentleness combined with power made him a favorite. — Tribune. Womanly women are very kindly critics, except to themselves, and now and then to their own sex. The less there is of sex about a woman the more she is to be dreaded. But take a real woman at her best mo- ment — well dressed enough to be pleased with herself, not so resplendent as to be a show and a sensation, with the varied outside influences that set vibrating the harmonic notes of her nature stirring in the air about her — and what has social life to compare with one of those vital interchanges of thought and feeling with her that makes an hour memorable ? What can equal her tact, her delicacy, her subtlety of apprehen- sion-, her quickness to feel the changes of temperature as the warm and cool currents of thought blow by turns ? At one moment she is microscopically intel- lectual, critical, scrupulous in judgment as an ana- lyst's balance : and in the next as sympathetic as the open rose, that sweetens the wind from whatever quarter it finds its way to her bosom. It is in the hospitable soul of a woman that a man forgets he is a stranger, and so becomes natural and truthful, at the same time that he is mesmerized by all those divine differences which make her a mystery and bewilder- ment. — Hol:^ 164 SUPERIOR BEINGS. 1 Her fair soul like scent of flowers unseen Sweetens the turmoil of long centuries.' The truly great are always good. You used to say that talents were always formidable. I think not so. Superior beings are necessarily benignant ; they guide us and guard us, not like the jostling of a mob, but by a guiding, invisible influence. I never fear a great man, I only fear and hate what the slang of the world calls a clever man ; that is, generally, a pert, half-wise man. In the other sex the women who bear sway over the generality of minds, are called accomplished and beautiful women ; they are like those half-wise men, generally thought formid- able : they are to me very great objects of terror, just as self-conceit and bad dispositions are terrible ! But let me see the woman who is truly admirable, and I fancy the most shy and ungainly admirer of female excellence, like myself, will be very much at his ease and destitute of all fear and diffidence in her pre- sence. The truly beautiful, the truly wise, the truly good do not abash the most retiring. The friend- ship of wise men — the sentiments with which I have regarded my real heroines convince me of this. — Thomas Cambpell. She comprehended for the first time, how sweet a thing it is to develop, reveal, express one's self in the presence of a great soul that measures with an appreciating, admiring and loving eye, every utter- ance and every power. — Holland. APPRECIATION. 165 6 Great natures are never injured by appreciation and preference : even when frankly and openly ex- pressed. On the contrary, they are encouraged by it and grow nobler : nor do they ever misunderstand it. It is only the petty, inferior mind which puts a wrong construction on such regard, and wounds us by its vanity and self-conceit.' . . . Modest doubt is called The beacon of the wise. — Shakespeare. 26. That renowned champion, Sir Bertrand Du Guesclin, was one of the prisoners at Poictiers. One day, when Queen Philippa was entertaining at her court a number of the noble French prisoners, the prince of Wales proposed that Du Guesclin should name his own ransom, according to the etiquette of the times, adding that whatever sum he mentioned, be it small or great, should set him free. The valiant Breton valued himself at one hundred thousand crowns ; the prince of Wales started at the immense sum and asked Sir Bertrand how he could ever ex- pect to raise such an enormous rans