PlflMf jtfl 'iwfuuiw TOH #iwf JHuUTjOl wmb 111111 ; . : ■ ■ . ". ■■. ■ ■■■■■'•■■ •■. ■ I ■'. :■.■•■■■ ■....■ HRHIHHil ■'•■'....■..,■. ooDnmramH sBBflfflOmflBS MpjMttlMfflffllPMBQWa ■iHSF BHH8IRHHB BBSS HHRHnHmsfflnBuraSffi ■'■■'■■■/''■■. '••■"■'•■•.• ■'■■■■■•■■ ■-- ■ •■■■ ■'■■■■■■■■•■'•.<'■■■•'' BBJMBBBMMlitWiilflliirayHTOBBW ':■■■■■'.:■■•■ ; --v- '•■ ; :' : :- : :■■■'. ■■..•■:'■■■.'.':.'■,,■■■. HHHfi : ■:'■■'■ BBSS 1 jonr mm WWft HAM US uw BBSS gfitn '-,':■•■■■'■■ WBfflSBfflft'lii III BB5Z mwrff SKBS ■■■■■;:-.•:;•:■•■. ESrvWWnWtHWw . I ■■■■■-' '■'•"'■■'■■ '■'■'.'•' : ..' :■:.:"•■'■"•■•■■■':■ Class Book M~ 'M THE ROSARY OF ILLUSTEATIONS OF THE BIBLE. EDITED BY REV. EDWARD E. HALE See, mother j — see Here are the very pearls God's ocean bears, Clear as the rain-drops falling from God's sky! Here are the very jewels from God's earth, Which through long cycles have been black and dull, Waiting till God's own light should bid them shine. Twine them around my neck, my mother dear, And each shall speak to me in turn of Him ! " BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY PHILLIPS & SAMPSON 1849. [A* \* {V* .* Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1848, by PHILLIPS & SAMPSON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. fif - CAMBRIDGE: METCALF AND COMPANY PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. INTRODUCTION The duties of the Editor of a volume of Selections are so simple as to need little explanation. It is my hope that most readers will find in this volume some passages of worth, at least, with which they are not wholly familiar. I have tried, also, to arrange the different selections in such an order, that the passage from author to author may not always seem sudden or vexatious. I have given the names of the different authors so far as they have been made known. Worcester, April 20, 1848. ILLUSTRATIONS, ENGRAVED ON STEEL. ELI AND SAMUEL, : HAGAR SENT OUT, : DAVID BEFORE SAUL, HOLY FAMILY, : : LORD OF THE VINEYARD, WOMEN AT THE TOMB, : PAINTERS. ENGRAVERS. PAGE J. S. COPLEY, R. A. : : A. H. RITCHIE, Vandyke, : : : : A. h. ritchle, 51 c. vanloo, : : : : a. h. ritchie, 99 podsine, : : : : : a. h. ritchie, 137 j. opie, r. a. : : : a. h. ritchie, 175 veit, :::::: a. h. ritchie, 206 CONTENTS PAGE A WIDE FIELD BEFORE US, ' . 13 THE GARDEN, 24 CREATION — THE REALM OF ORDER, : 25 MORNING, 41 GOD IN ALL THINGS, 42 ENOCH, 46 THE GAME OF LIFE, 47 HAGAR DEPARTED, 51 A mother's GRIEF, 52 SOLACE IN SORROW, 53 ELI, 59 ELI AND SAMUEL, 64 AS A LITTLE CHILD, 65 OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, 66 THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD, . 73 THE NEW BIRTH, 76 TRUTH ALMIGHTY, 77 THE DROP OF DEW, 78 REMEMBER THE THINGS OF OLD, 80 THE SPIRIT LAND, 98 THE HARP OF DAVID, 99 HEBREW POETRY, 100 THE DYING HEBREW'S PRAYER, 117 JEHOVAH LIVETH, 122 WORSHIP 123 ON EARTH, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN, ....... 124 THE GOSPEL HISTORY, 125 THE DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY AND ITS ORIGIN, . . . .131 1* VI CONTENTS. PAGE THE MADONNA AND CHILD, 137 THE FIRST MOMENT OF THE GOSPEL, 140 HYMN, 148 MIDNIGHT, 151 FOR THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING, 153 NIGHT, • 154 THE LIFE OF JESUS, 156 THE GOOD SAMARITAN, 162 THE LORD OF THE VINEYARD, 175 ALMS-GIVING, 176 CONSTANCY OF CHARACTER, . . . . . . . 178 DUTY AND IMMORTALITY, 179 AROUSE THEE, SOUL ! 185 WE ARE BRETHREN A' . 187 NOT ON A PRAYERLESS BED, . 189 CONSTANCY, 193 PAST FRIENDS, : 195 DEATH AND SLEEP, 196 THE SICK CHILD'S DREAM, 198 THE NEWLY DEAD, 202 EASTER DAY, . . . . . 206 PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGR1PPA, 209 HYMN FOR THE BUILDING OF A COTTAGE, 223 THE VILLAGE CHURCH, 230 SILENT WORSHIP, 233 HOLY PLACES AND THINGS, ........ 253 PREPARING FOR SUNDAY SERVICES, 255 WALK TO CHURCH, ........ 256 THE EMPTY CHURCH, 257 THE OFFERTORY, 258 A SABBATH IN BOSTON, ........ 263 PRAYER, 270 THE SACRAMENT, ....... 271 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, . 273 VIA CRUCIS, VIA LUCIS, ........ 286 A PRAYER, 289 THE HA' BIBLE, 291 A WIDE FIELD BEFORE US The engravings which illustrate this volume are all copies of paintings, the subjects of which are found in the Bible. The reader will see, however, that the various poems and essays, here collected, relate not only to such scenes as might have been studies for the works of Christian art, but, with a wider range, look to the doctrines conveyed in the Bible, — to the results of those lives, the details of which give subjects to the Christian artist, — or, in one word, to that life at which every Christian aims, and for which in the Scriptures he seeks his guide. It is in this sense that we may venture to call this volume a volume of Illustrations of the Bible ; as well in the essays and poems selected for it, as in these engravings of which we have spoken. Such a field is a wide one. And in the attempt which we make at such illustration in this single 2 14 A WIDE FIELD BEFORE US. volume, it may happen, in consequence, that these selections from different authors will seem col- lected at hazard, rather than grouped into a well- balanced whole. Besides the difference of style and temper, which is a matter of course in a com- pilation from so large a number of writers, there may appear a want of formal connection, arising from the wide range of the subjects brought under review. Leaving the book frankly to any fair criticism for such a defect, to which, undoubtedly, it lies open ; we may say that this want of con- gruity cannot, under the requisitions of our plan of illustration, be wholly avoided. We are study- ing not the Old Testament only, nor the details only of the life of Jesus, nor, in the abstract, the great lessons of God's spirit, or of the Christian gospel, only. But we are studying all of these. We are trying through all these lines of reflection to come to a clearer view of our religion and of its history. It must be that in such different lines there will be variety of treatment. The scenes which we draw from the Old Testa- ment, for instance, must have points of distinction, both in language and thought, from those which we draw from the New. It is in the comparison A WIDE FIELD BEFORE US. 15 of the one with the other that we have one great element of the value of each. " No manner of studying the sacred Scriptures/' says a French theologian, from whom we make large extracts elsewhere, " no manner of studying the sacred Scriptures is more instructive, perhaps, or more useful, than those wide and long comparisons, where we contrast the two covenants in their books, doctrines, and rites, and even in the character of the divine messengers to whom the world owes them, or of the just who have obeyed, or of the bad who have violated them. Thus we study the two revelations at once ; we can distinguish without separating them — can bring them together without confounding them ; each lends and borrows light, so to speak, and is the clearer for it. Each of them has the splendor which it should have, each its own character, spirit, beauty, and sacredness. Such profound differences were at once necessary and desirable. The periods were different ; — look at the sacred annals, and see if the age of Abraham, or that of Moses, or David, or Ezra, resembles that of Jesus. The designs were different; — the old covenant, which was to endure only through a certain time, and to fill a certain place, was fitted 16 A WIDE FIELD BEFORE US. only for the climate of Judea, her state of manners, of liberty, and civilization ; it is the porch, the ves- tibule, and not the building ; it is the court -yard, but not the sanctuary. In a word, the old coven- ant was addressed only to Jews, was made only for them and the few proselytes whom it almost regretted to receive ; the Gospel addresses itself to all men, its empire is the world, and it is so framed as to adapt itself wherever the sun shines, or men breathe the air." Such is a fair explanation, in one instance, of the contrasts which we know will be presented between the different papers in these volumes. Choosing from the wide range of theological com- position, we have made no effort to prevent these contrasts of manner, of treatment, or of subject. To apologize for apparent want of connection would be to apologize for the contrasts and variety which all Life shows ; and which religious thought must show if it fairly adapts itself to the phases and changes of Life. Thus, to speak only of the three main divisions of personal religious experience, religious thought is quite incomplete, unless it adapts itself to all of those three. This will appear by a glance at them. A WIDE FIELD BEFORE US. 17 No man would be satisfied, — as a man, — with simple, child-like, Eden innocence, for the whole of his religious inspiration. We enjoy it in children, but we do not want a world of children. We like to see flowers, but we should be sorry in autumn to find the trees white with flowers. We are glad to hear of Eden, but still it was in God's providence that the world was made to contain something beside set garden paths, and neat, trim parterres. Virtue is better than innocence : — virtue which resists temptation, better than inno- cence which has not been tried. Principle is better than impulse. And, as the boy grows to be a man, the dominant, in the crash of chord and discord which surrounds him, is in this question : — " Shall I do thus, and thus, only because it is pleasant to do it ? I have done it, I have studied, have obeyed, because it seemed agreeable ; there was no reason why I should not do so ; but is there no reason why I should? Why must I obey? Why labor ? Why live at all ? " Here is a stormy question, — a question of wild torture to him until he works his way through into the second stage of a religious life. Perhaps he never gets to that stage ! Perhaps he abandons 2* 18 A WIDE FIELD BEFORE US. all hope of seeing through the mist, and goes stumbling on, without guide, until he dies. Many men do so. Or perhaps he falls back on this good-natured, unbought, uncared-for impulse of childhood, and trusts to that only ; content to go on, through life, a " good-natured fellow ;" a person " who means well enough." Many men do so. Perhaps he works through the thicket, however, and comes out upon firm ground into the light, find- ing that God is, and that because God is, there are certain necessities in life which are right : things which must be, — ought to be : things which make up Duty. Then he begins to live by princi- ple, added to his impulse. And the two fuse together slowly, melt into each other slowly, until the chain shines with the true Corinthian lustre, a metal of more worth than either of the two which go to make it. He does right because it is right : he obeys God because he is God. But this is not the end. He does not stop satis- fied there. Bare allegiance, though it be to the Lord of heaven, — bare submission cannot satisfy the child of the Lord of heaven. This duty, which he reverences, is " the daughter of the voice of God" — but it is a stern daughter. "Because right A WIDE FIELD BEFORE US. 19 is right, to follow right is wisdom ;" but wisdom alone will not satisfy the spirit of man. If it did, we should never see, as we do, the most faithful and earnest men seeming yet miserably unhappy: such men as one would call most excellent men, if they did not commit high treason against virtue by making it disagreeable. The old puritans were such men. Every one knows such men. They obey, they serve, but it seems a gallant, forced obedience, wrung out of them by stern principle — the victory of the martyr whose whole frame is on the rack. These men are waiting for, are needing, the third, the highest religious influence, without which the two others cannot satisfy. In pure, kind im- pulse, in this law of right which they obey so sternly, they have not yet discerned the one cen- tral principle of God's unceasing love, that must enter their souls, and be a part of their motive, before they can truly live. As impulse paled before cold principle, so will the bonds of mere stern principle hang slack, though as strong as ever, when true love of men binds the aspiring man to his brethren. As his God loves him, so he loves them. He forgives them, as by God he 20 A WIDE FIELD BEFORE US. would be forgiven. The mere desire to obey God is no longer the immediate motive. He seeks God's spirit. He will be inspirited by God. He seeks to act with God ; to be a laborer together with God; to save God's children; to bind together; to live as a brother with his brethren. This motive is sometimes called the impulse of the affections. The name may be such, but it is an impulse as much higher than that blind impulse of the beginning, as is the heaven which it rules higher than the old paradise, where were fruit trees, and onyx stones, and gold-mines. The man who knows not temptation, in the fresh, simple inno- cence of childhood, enjoying this fruit and that of the world which is around him, enters a garden like that paradise. But the trained and disciplined man, who through pain is born again ; who, through effort, through trial, through danger, has refined out virtue from that simple ore, enters heaven itself in the kindly disposition, the love, the thought for others, which signalize his life. These three epochs mark all life. They are in the world's history. The first is in that untrained beginning of society, the paradise of the Bible, — the savage simplicity of the dreamy philosophy of A WIDE FIELD BEFORE US. 21 Rousseau. It shows man unperverted because untried. The second, the seizing on bare right, bare truth, all unclothed, is the habit with which the world has too often, has almost always, looked upon its religion, — as a hard, arbitrary code of law, to drag it along to a necessary obedience. We need not underrate this discipline, but we must see that it brings the world to the highest religious development, where every man shall love his God and love his brethren. Then the sword shall cease to strike, the chain shall cease to bind, the lash shall cease to fall, money shall cease to bribe, and power cease to threaten, be- cause each man shall see God's image in his brother, and shall willingly try to serve the cause of the child of a common father. The three different verses of Miss Bremer's hymn express these three different stages of reli- gious life : — " I thirst ! — O, grant the waters pure, Which flowed by Eden's rosy bower ; The glorious, fresh, and silver stream, The ever young, whose flashing gleam 22 A WIDE FIELD BEFORE US. Once before angel footsteps rolled ; Whose sands were wisdom's priceless gold. " I thirst ! — O bounteous source of Truth, Give coolness to my fevered youth ; Make the sick heart more strong and wise ; Take spectral visions from mine eyes ; O, let me quench my thirst in thee, And pure, and strong, and holy be ! " I thirst ! — O God, great Source of Love ! Infinite Life streams from above. O, give one drop, and let me live ! The barren world has nought to give ; No solace have its streams for me ; I thirst alone for heaven and thee." Eden, right, and heaven ; or purity, virtue, and love of God : these are different stages of every man's true religious experience. They must all be met ; must all be provided for ; must all be illus- trated. So wide are the general divisions of the subjects before us. If, besides this, we remind the reader that the volume in his hand is made up from writers of different times, different countries, and different A WIDE FIELD BEFORE US. 23 confessions ; that we have preferred to glean thus widely, and not limit our selections to any single field, we trust he will see more frequently, and with more curiosity, the one spirit in which all these pens agree, than the diversity, or the contrast even, of their methods or moods of uttering it. THE GARDEN. BY JONES VERY. I saw the spot where our first parents dwelt ; And yet it wore to me no face of change, For, while amid its fields and groves, I felt As if I had not sinned, nor thought it strange ; My eye seemed but a part of every sight, My ear heard music in each sound that rose, Each sense forever found a new delight, Such as the spirit's vision only knows ; Each act some new and ever-varying joy Did by my father's love for me prepare ; To dress the spot my ever fresh employ, And in the glorious whole with him to share ; No more without the flaming gate to stray, No more for sin's dark stain the debt of death to pay. CREATION. THE REALM OF ORDER. BY REV. JAMES MARTINEATJ. In the production and preservation of order, all men recognize something that is sacred. We have an intuitive conviction that it is not, at bottom, the earliest condition of things ; that whatever is, rose out of some dead ground-work of confusion and nothingness, and incessantly gravitates thither- wards again; and that, without a positive energy of God, no universe could have emerged from the void, or be suspended out of it for an hour. There is no task more indubitably divine than the creation of beauty out of chaos, the imposition of law upon the lawless, and the setting forth of times and seasons from the stagnant and eternal night. And so, the Bible opens with a work of arrangement, and closes with one of restoration ; looks round the ancient firmament at first, and sees that all is good, and surveys the new heavens at last, to make sure that evil is no more. Far back in the old eternity, it ushers us into God's presence : and he is engaged 3 26 THE REALM OF ORDER. in dividing the light from the darkness, and shaping the orbs that determine days and years ; turning the vapors of the abyss into the sweet breath of life, teaching the little grass to grow, and trusting the forest tree with the seed that is in itself, to be punctually dropped upon the earth ; filling the mountain slope, the sedgy plain, the open air, the hidden deep, with various creatures kept by happy instincts within the limits of his will ; and setting over all, in likeness of himself, the adapting intel- lect, the affectionate spirit, and mysterious con- science, of lordly and reflective man. The birth of order was the first act of God, who rested not till all was blessed and sanctified. And far for- ward in the eternity to come, we are brought before his face again for judgment. The spoiling of his works, the wild wandering from his will, he will bear no more : the disorder that has gathered together shall be rectified: he will again divide the darkness from the light ; and confusion and wrong — all that hurts and destroys — shall be thrust into unknown depths : while wisdom and holiness shall be as the brightness of the firma- ment and as the stars forever and ever. As it was when he was Alpha, so will it be when he is THE REALM OF ORDER. 27 Omega. He is one that " loveth pureness" still : and the stream of providence — the river that went out of Eden — however foul with the taint of evil while it takes its course through human history, shall become the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, that nurtures the secret root of all holy and immortal things. This divine regard for order proceeds from an attribute in which we also are made to participate, and which puts us into awful kindred with his perfections. Intelligent free-will, a self-determin- ing mind, is the only true originating cause of which we can conceive ; the sole power capable of giviflg law where there was none before, and of creating the necessity by which it is thenceforth obeyed. There was a will before there was a must. Nothing else, we feel assured, could avail, amid a boundless primeval unsettledness, to mark out a certain fixed method of existence, and no other, and make it to be ; could draw forth an actual, defined, and amenable universe from the sphere of infinite possibilities. The indeterminate, the chaotic, lies in our thought behind and around the determinate and constituted : and to sketch a positive system, and bid its vivid lines of order 28 THE REALM OF ORDER. shine on the dark canvass of negation, is the spe- cial office of the free self-moving spirit, whereby God lifts us up above nature into the image of himself. Hence we, too, in proportion as we approach him, shall put our hand to a light task ; shall organize the loose materials that, touched by a creative will, may cease to be without form, and void ; shall set our expanse of years into pqriods ruled by the lights of duty, and refreshed by the shades of prayer ; shall mould every shapeless impulse, subdue every rugged difficulty, fill every empty space of opportunity with good, and breathe a living soul into the very dust and clod of our existence. As " God is not the author of con- fusion, but of peace,' , so the service of God infuses a spirit of method and proportion into the outward life and the inward mind ; and pure religion is a principle of universal order. No two things, indeed, can be more at variance with each other than a devout and an unregulated life. Devotion is holy regulation, guiding hand and heart; a surrender of self-will, — that main source of uncertainty and caprice, — and a loving subordination to the only rule that cannot change. Devotion is the steady attraction of the soul THE REALM OF ORDER. 29 towards one luminous object, discerned across the passionate infinite, and drawing thoughts, deeds, affections, into an orbit, silent, seasonal, and accu- rately true. In a mind submitted to the touch of God, there is a certain rhythm of music, which, however it may swell into the thunder or sink into a sigh, has still a basis of clear, unbroken melody. The discordant starts of passion, the whimsical snatches of appetite, the inarticulate whinings of discontent, are never heard ; and the spirit is like an organ, delivered from the tumbling of chance pressures on its keys, and given over to the hand of a divine skill. Nay, so inexorable is the de- mand of religion for order, that it shrinks from any one allowed irregularity, as the musician from a constant mistake in the performance of some heavenly strain. Its perpetual effort is to prevail over all things loose and turbid ; to swallow up the elements of confusion in human life ; and banish chance from the soul, as God excludes it from the universe. It is quite impossible that an idle, floating spirit can ever look with clear eye to God : spreading its miserable anarchy before the symmetry of the creative mind : in the midst of a disorderly being, that has neither centre nor cir- 3* 30 THE REALM OF ORDER. cumference, kneeling beneath the glorious sky, that everywhere has both : and from a life that is all failure, turning to the Lord of the silent stars, of whose punctual thought it is, that " not one faileth." The heavens, with their everlasting faithfulness, look down on no sadder contradiction than the sluggard and the slattern in their prayers. To maintain the sacred governance of life is to recognize and preserve the due rank of all things within us and without. For there is a system of ranks extending through the spiritual world of which we form a part. The faculties and affec- tions of the single mind are no democracy of principles, each of which, in the determinations of the will, is to have equal suffrage with the rest ; but an orderly series, in which every member has a right divine over that below. The individuals composing the communities of men do not arrange themselves into a deal level of spirits, in which none are above and none beneath ; but there are centres of natural majesty that break up the mass into groups and proportions that you cannot change. And man himself, by the highest Will, is inserted between things of which he is lord, and obligations which he must serve. In short, the THE REALM OF ORDER. 31 hierarchy of nature is Episcopalian throughout : and in conforming to its order, the active part of our duty consists in this, — that we must rule and keep under our hand whatever is beneath us ; assigning to everything its due place. The whole scheme of our voluntary actions, all that we do from morning to night of every day, is beyond doubt intrusted to our control. No power, without our consent, can share the mon- archy of this realm, or constrain us to lift a hand or speak a word where resolution bids us be still and silent. And from our inmost consciousness we do know that, whenever we will, we can make ourselves execute whatever we approve, and strangle in its birth whatever we abhor. To-mor- row morning, if you choose to take up a spirit of such power, you may rise like a soul without a past ; fresh for the future as an Adam untempted yet ; disengaged from the manifold coil of willing usage, and with every link of guilty habit shaken off. I know, indeed, that you will not; that no man ever will ; but the hindrance is with yourself alone. The coming hours are open yet, — pure and spotless receptacles for whatever you may deposit there ; pledged to no evil, secure of 32 THE REALM OF ORDER. no good ; neither mortgaged to greedy passion, nor given to generous toil. There they lie in non-existence still ; ready to be organized by a creative spirit of beauty, or made foul with de- formity and waste. Perhaps it is this thought, this secret sense of moral contingency, that gives to so simple a thing as the beat of a pendulum, or the forward start of the finger on the dial, a so- lemnity beyond expression. The gliding heavens are less awful at midnight than the ticking clock. Their noiseless movement, undivided, serene, and everlasting, is as the flow of divine duration, that cannot affect the place of the eternal God. But these sharp strokes, with their inexorably steady intersections, so agree with our successive thoughts, that they seem like the punctual stops counting off our very souls into the past ; — the flitting messengers, that dip for a moment on our hearts, then bear the pure or sinful thing irrevo- cably away ; — light with mystic hopes as they arrive, charged with sad realities as they depart. So passes, and we cannot stay it, our only portion of opportunity ; the fragments of that blessed chance, which has been travelling to us from all eternity, are dropping quickly off. Let us start THE REALM OF ORDER. 33 up and live : here come the moments that cannot be had again ; some few may yet be filled with imperishable good. There is no conscious power like that which a wise and Christian heart asserts, when resolved to absorb the dead matter of its existence, and from the elements of former waste and decay to put forth a new and vernal life. The accurate econ- omy of instants, the proportionate distribution of duties, the faithful observance of law, as it is an exercise of strength, so gives a sense of strenu- ous liberty. Compared with this, how poor a delusion is the spurious freedom which is the idler's boast ! He says that he has his time at his disposal ; but in truth, he is at the disposal of his time. No novelty of the moment canvasses him in vain ; any chance suggestion may have him ; whiffed as he is hither and thither, like a stray feather on the wandering breeze. The true stamp of manhood is not on him, and therefore the image of godship has faded away: for he is lord of nothing, not even of himself; his will is ever wait- ing to be tempted, and conscience is thrust out among the mean rabble of candidates that court it. The wing of resolution, mighty to lift us nearer 34 THE REALM OF ORDER. God, is broken quite, and there is nothing to stay the downward gravitation of a nature passive and heavy too. And so, first a weak affection for persons supplants the sense of right : to be itself, in turn, destroyed by a baser appetite for things. This woful declension is the natural outgoing of those who presume to try an unregulated life. A systematic organization of the personal habits, devised in moments of devout and earnest reason, is a necessary means, amid the fluctuations of the spirit, of giving to the better mind its rightful authority over the worse. Those only will neglect it, who either do not know their weakness, or have lost all healthy reliance on their strength. It is a part, then, of the faithfulness and freedom of a holy mind, to keep the whole range of out- ward action under severe control ; to administer the hours in full view of the vigilant police of con- science ; and to introduce even into the lesser materials of life the precision and concinnity which are the natural symbols of a pure and constant spirit. And it belongs to the humility of a devout heart, not to trust itself to the uncertain ebb and flow of thought, and float opportunity away on the giddy waters of inconstancy ; but to arrange a THE REALM OF ORDER. 35 method of life in the hour of high purpose and clear insight, and then compel the meaner self to work out the prescription of the nobler. Yet this, after all, though an essential check to our insta- bility, is but the beginning of wisdom. The mere distribution of action in quantity, however well proportioned, does not fulfil the requisites of a Christian order. This surveyor's work, — this par- titioning out the superficies of life, and marking off the orchard and the field, the meadow and the grove, — will make no grass to grow, will open no blossom and mature no seed. The seasonal cul- ture of the soul requires all this ; yet may yield poor produce, when this is done. Without the deeper symmetry of the spirit, the harmonious working of living powers there, the boundaries of action, however neat, will be but a void frame- work, inclosing barrenness and sand. Despise not the ceremonial of the moral life ; it is our needful speech and articulation ; but oh ! mistake it not for the true and infinite worship that should breathe through it. Mere mechanism, however perfect, has this misfortune, that it cannot set fast its own loose screws, but rather shakes them into more frightful confusion ; till the power, late so 36 THE REALM OF ORDER. smooth, works only crash and ruin, and goes headlong back to chaos. And so is it where there is nothing profounder than the systematizing facul- ty in the organization of a man's life. Destitute of adaptive and restorative energy, with no per- ception of a spiritual order that may remain above disturbance and express itself through obstructions all the more, interruptions bewilder and upset him. Ill health in himself, or the afflictions of others, that stop his projects and give him pause by a touch on his affections, irritate and weary him ; he grows dizzy with the inroads on his schemes, gives up the count so hopefully begun, and runs down in rapid discords. The soul of Christian order has in it something quite different from this ; more like the blessed force of nature that con- sumes its withered leaves as punctually as they fall, and so makes the spread of decay a thing impossible ; that has so unwearied an appetite for the creation of beauty and productiveness, that it makes no complaint of rottenness and death, but draws from them the sap of life, and weaves again the foliage and the fruit. No less a vital spon- taneity than this is needed in the Christian soul ; for in human life, as in external nature, the ele- THE REALM OF ORDER. 37 ments of corruption and disorder are always ac- cumulating, and, unless they are to breed pesti- lence, must be kept down and effectually absorbed. As in science, so in practical existence, our theory or ideal must ever be framed upon assumptions only partially true. The conditions required for its fulfilment will never be present all at once and all alone ; so that the realization will be but ap- proximate ; and a constant tension of the soul is needed to press it nearer and nearer to the ulti- mate design. For want of a religious source, an exact apparent order in the life may coexist with an essential disorder secreted within. Are we not conscious that so it is, whenever the toil of our hands, though punctually visited, receives no con- sent of our hearts ; when the spirit flies, with heavy wing, from reach to reach of time ; and, like Noah's dove, seeing only wave after wave of a dreary flood, finds no rest for the sole of its foot, till it gets back to the ark of its narrow comforts ? Is it not a plain inversion of the true order of things, when we do our work for the sake of the following rest, instead of accepting our rest as the preparative for work ? And while this continues to be the case, there will be a hidden aching, a 4 38 THE REALM OF ORDER. dark corroding speck within the soul, which no outward method or proportion can ever charm away. Nor can the precision of the will be even sustained at all without the symmetry of the affec- tions. As well might you think to set your broken compass right by hand : if it be foul and stiff, swinging and trembling no more in obedience to its mysterious attraction, its blessed guidance is gone ; and after the first straight line of your direction, you sail upon the chances of destruction. To prevent this evil, of method just creeping up the lower part of life, and passing no further, no positive rule, from the very nature of the case, can well be given. We can only say that, besides subjecting whatever is beneath us, there is also this passive part of Christian order, that we must surrender ourselves entirely to what is above us ; and having put all lesser things into their place, we must then take and keep our own. Could, indeed, this proportion of the affections invariably remain, it would supersede all our mechanism, and take care of the outward harmony ; and we should have no need to apply the rules of a Franklin to the spirit of a Christ. But even short of this blessed emancipation, we should rise into a higher THE REALM OF ORDER. 39 atmosphere ; escaping the wretched thraldom of reluctant duties ; and yield a free consent, through love, to that which else were irksome ; quietly depositing ourselves on every work that brings its sacred claim, and moving in it, instead of writhing to get beyond it. They tell you that habit recon- ciles you in time to many unwelcome things. Let us not trust to this alone. Custom indeed sweet- ens the rugged lot when the cheerful soul is in it ; it does but embitter it the more, when the soul stays out of it. But when harshnesses are borne, and even spontaneously embraced, for the sake of God who hints them to our conscience, a perfect agreement ensues between the spirit and the letter of our life. We feel no weariness ; delivered now from the intolerable burthen of flagging affections. We are disturbed by no ambitions, conscious of no jealousies of other men ; for competition has no place in things divine : and even in lower matters, it is, to the thoughtful and devout, but a quiet in- terrogation of Providence ; and the true heart that prefers the question cannot be discontented with the answer. We cease to desire a change : we feel that life affords no time for restlessness ; that in persistency is our only hope : and a blessed 40 THE REALM OF ORDER. conservatism of spirit comes over us, that claims nothing but simple leave to go on serving and loving still. And so existence, to the devout, becomes, not confused, but peaceful, like a service in the churches of the saints. MORNING BY JONES VERY. The light will never open sightless eyes, It comes to those who willingly would see ; And every object, — hill, and stream, and skies, Rejoice within the encircling line to be ; 'Tis day, — the field is filled with busy hands, The shop resounds with noisy workmen's din, The traveller with his staff already stands, His yet unmeasured journey to begin ; The light breaks gently, too, within the breast, - Yet there no eye awaits the crimson morn, The forge and noisy anvil are at rest, Nor men nor oxen tread the fields of corn, Nor pilgrim lifts his staff, — it is no day To those who find on earth their place to stay. GOD IN ALL THINGS BY JOHN STERLING. O thou ! who strength and wisdom sheddest O'er all thy countless works below, And harmony and beauty spreadest On lands unmoved, and seas that flow ! From grains and motes to spheres uncounted, From deep beneath to suns above, My gaze, with awe and joy, has mounted, And found in all thy ordering love. The fly around me smoothly flitting, The lark that hymns the morning star, The swan on crystal water sitting, The eagle hung in skies afar — To all their cleaving wings thou givest, Like those that bear the seraph's flight ; In all, O perfect Will ! thou livest, For all hast oped thy world of light. GOD IN ALL THINGS. 43 The grass that springs beside the fountain, The silver waves that sparkle there, The trees that robe the shadowing mountain, And high o'er all the limpid air, Amid the vale, each lowly dwelling, Whose hearts with sweet religion shine, — In measure all things round are swelling With tranquil being's force divine. And deep and vast beyond our wonder, The links of power that bind the whole, While day and dusk, and breeze and thunder, And life and death, unceasing roll. While all is wheeled in endless motion, Thou changest not, upholding all ; And lifting man in pure devotion, On thee thou teachest him to call. To him, thy child, thyself revealing, He sees what all is meant to be ; From him thy secret not concealing, Thou bidd'st his will aspire to thee. And so we own in thy creation An image painting all thou art ; And, crowning all the revelation, Thy loftiest work, a human heart. 44 GOD IN ALL THINGS. The will, the love, the sunlike reason, Which thou hast made the strength of man, May ebb and flow through day and season, And oft may mar their seeming plan ; But thou art here to nerve and fashion With better hopes our world of care, To calm each base and lawless passion, And so the heavenly life repair. In all the track of earth-born ages, Each day displays thy guidance clear, And, best divined by holiest sages, Makes every child, in part, a seer. Thy laws are bright with purest glory, To us thou givest congenial eyes, And so, in earth's unfolding story, We read thy truth that fills the skies. But 'mid thy countless forms of being, One shines supreme o'er all beside, And man, in all thy wisdom seeing, In Him reveres a sinless guide. In Him alone, no longer shrouded By mist that dims all meaner things, Thou dwell' st, O God ! unveiled, unclouded, And fearless peace thy presence brings. GOD IN ALL THINGS. 45 Then teach my heart celestial brightness ! To know that thou art hid no more ! To sun my spirit's dear-bought whiteness Beneath thy rays, and upward soar ! In all that is, a law unchanging Of truth and love may I behold, And own, 'mid thought's unbounded ranging, The timeless One proclaimed of old ! ENOCH. BY JONES VERY. I looked to find a man who walked with God, Like the translated patriarch of old ; — Though gladdened millions on his footstool trod, Yet none with him did such sweet converse hold ; I heard the wind in low complaint go by, That none its melodies like him could hear ; Day unto day spoke wisdom from on high, Yet none like David turned a willing ear ; God walked alone unhonored through the earth ; For him no heart-built temple open stood ; The soul, forgetful of her nobler birth, Had hewn him lofty shrines of stone and wood, And left unfinished and in ruins still The only temple he delights to fill. THE GAME OF LIFE.* Unhappy Youth ! that thoughtful eye, That gaze of fixed intensity, That cloud upon thy open brow, Those firm closed lips, — become thee now. Bethink thee long ; bethink thee well ; For he, the dark, the terrible, Is busy every thought to scan, To watch each move, to thwart each plan. His fiendish eye is on thee glaring ; His brow a frown of hate is wearing ; And on his curling lip a smile Of scornful triumph plays the while, As if already sure to win That game thy all is ventured in. Oh ! lay the dark malignity Which flashes from that fearful eye ; And by that guardian angel's care, So mildly, yet so sadly fair, * Moritz Retzsch's drawing, with this name, represents Satan playing chess with a young man for his soul. They play upon a tomb, with the pieces named in the poem above. 48 THE GAME OF LIFE. With form half turned and half spread wing, But yet still fondly lingering, As if reluctant to forsake That game which has so much at stake ; O, think ! and rouse thee to resist Thy terrible antagonist ; 'T were death to lose, 't were life to win, The game thou now art busied in ! Though Pleasure, gay, alluring stand, And hold in her inviting hand The sparkling cup, which seems so fair, Though more than death is ambushed there ; Though Avarice, with his coffered gain ; Though Pride, with all his pageant train ; Though Indolence, with soft closed lid, And Falsehood, with his dagger hid ; Though Unbelief, in scornful mood, And Christ-contemning attitude ; Though Doubts, which seem so weak and small, Yet pressing furthest on of all ; — Yes ! though all these, — and though even he, Thy hating, hateful enemy, May, one and all, with hellish power, Oppose thee in this fearful hour ; — THE GAME OF LIFE. 49 Though, since the contest was begun, Thou much hast lost, and little won ; And though so doubtful seems to be Thy present chance of victory ; — Yet, by thy soul's eternal doom ; By the dark meaning of that tomb ; By all the joy that triumph brings ; By all the unutterable things Which wait thee if a loser there ; Shrink not, — despair not, — all things dare ! 'T is not too late, — 't will not be vain, For thine is still a powerful train, — Religion left thy guard to be, And Hope and Truth to castle thee. And Prayers, oh, press them boldly on ! They may win back the peace that 's gone, Humility and Love restore, And Innocence make thine once more. Yet no, not all! not even Prayer* Can all thy heavy loss repair ; Thou 'st played too long, too much hast lost, To be again what first thou wast, * But three prayers are left on the board. 5 50 THE GAME OF LIFE. When, heaven-defended for the strife, Thou entered' st on the Game of Life. Ah ! who the great result can see, If winner, — loser, — thou wilt be ? Oh, pause and think ! a few moves more, Then shall that doubtful game be o'er, And thy soul's destiny be known — We leave thee, trembling for thine own ! HAGAR DEPARTED. Genesis xxi. 9 — 21. A mother drives a mother from her home ! — With tears the patriarch sees that dawning day : With tears the child receives an outcast's doom : With tears his mother leads him far away ! The desert welcomes those by men outcast, The desert sees her want, and hears her cry, — " Beneath this parched shade, rest, child, thy last ! Let not thy mother see her darling die ! " Tears are but dew-drops at gray morning-tide, And God has beams of love to dry them all : Deserts are wide : — but His reign far more wide Who from the rock can bid the fountain fall. " Hagar, arise ! — and bid thy boy arise ! The orphan's God, the widow's helper, know ! Tears flow not vainly from a mother's eyes, See at thy feet the living waters flow ! The desert echoes not in vain his cries, God hears him in his agony of woe : God shall be with him wheresoe'er he go ! " A MOTHEK'S GBIEF. A maiden sat at eventide Beside a clear and placid stream, And smiled as in its depths she saw A trembling star's reflected beam. She smiled until that beam was lost, As cross the sky a cloud was driven, And then she wept, and then forgot The star was shining still in heaven. A mother sat beside life's stream, Watching a dying child at dawn, And smiled as in its eye she saw A hope that it might still live on. She smiled until that hope was lost, But watched for breath until the even, And then she wept, and then forgot The child was living still in heaven. SOLACE IN SORROW. " God Almighty! There is a soul of goodness in things evil Would men observingly distil it out." Shakspere. I. Count each affliction, whether light or grave, God's messenger sent down to thee. Do thou With courtesy receive him ; rise and bow, And ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave Permission first his heavenly feet to lave. Then lay before him all thou hast, allow No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow Or mar thy hospitality, no wave Of mortal tumult to obliterate The soul's marmoreal calmness. Grief should be Like joy ; majestic, equable, sedate, Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free ; Strong to consume small troubles, to commend Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end. Aubrey de Vere. 5* 54 SOLACE IN SORROW. II. There 's not a heath, however rude, But hath some little flower To brighten up its solitude, And scent the evening hour. There 's not a heart, however cast By grief and sorrow down, But hath some memory of the past To love and call its own. III. WALKING LESSONS. Even as a nurse, whose child's imperfect pace Can hardly lead his foot from place to place, Leaves her fond kissing, sets him down to go, Nor does uphold him for a step or two, — But when she finds that he begins to fall She holds him up, and kisses him withal, — So God from man sometimes withdraws his hand A while, to teach his infant faith to stand ; But when he sees his feeble strength begin To fail, he gently takes him up again. QUARLES. SOLACE IN SORROW. 55 IV. SONNET. Love to the tender ; peace to those who mourn ; Hope to the hopeless ; hope that does not fail, Whose symbol is the anchor, not the sail ; Glory that spreads to heaven's remotest bourn, And to its centre doth again return Like music ; health revisiting the frail ; Freedom to those who pine in dungeons pale ; Sorrows which God hath willed and Christ hath worn ! Omnipotence to be the poor man's shield ; Light, uncreated light, to cheer the blind ; Infinite mercy sent to heal and bind The wounds encountered in life's well-fought field ; All these are gifts of God ; nor these alone : Himself he gives to all who make those gifts their own. Aubrey de Vere. V. He, who for love has undergone The worst that can befall, Is happier, thousand fold, than one Who never loved at all ! 56 SOLACE IN SORROW. A grace within his soul has reigned Which nothing else can bring ; — Thank God for all that I have gained By that high suffering. R. M. MlLNES. VI. CHRISTIAN ENDURANCE. Mortal ! that standest on a point of time, With an eternity on either hand, Thou hast one duty above all sublime, Where thou art placed, serenely there to stand. To stand, undaunted by the threatening death, Or harder circumstance of living doom ; Nor less untempted by the odorous breath Of hope, that issues even from the tomb. For hope will never dull the present pain, Nor fear will ever keep thee safe from fall, Unless thou hast in thee a mind, to reign Over thyself, as God is over all. 'T is well in deeds of good, though small, to thrive ; 'T is well some part of ill, though small, to cure; 'T is well, with onward, upward hope, to strive ; Yet better and diviner to endure. SOLACE IN SORROW. 57 What but this virtue's solitary power, Through all the lusts and dreams of Greece and Rome, Bore the selected spirits of the hour Safe to a distant immaterial home ? But in that patience was the seed of scorn, — Scorn of the world, and brotherhood of man ; Not patience, such as in the manger born, Up to the cross endured its earthly span. Thou must endure, yet loving all the while ; Above, yet never separate from thy kind ; Meet every frailty with a tender smile ; Though to no possible depth of evil blind. This is the riddle, thou hast life to solve ; And in the task thou shalt not work alone ; For while the worlds about the sun revolve, God's heart and mind are ever with his own. R. M. MlLNES. 58 SOLACE IN SORROW. VII. THE LAW OF CHANGE. While under heaven's warm evening hues They felt their eyes and bosoms glow, They learned how fondly fancy views Fair sights the moment ere they go ; And then, while earth was darkening o'er, While stars began their tranquil day, Rejoiced that Nature gives us more Than all it ever takes away. In earliest autumn's fading woods, Remote from eyes, they roamed at morn, And saw how Time transmuting broods O'er all that into Time is born. The power which men would fain forget — The law of change and slow decay — Came to them with a mild regret, A brightness veiled in softening gray. John Steeling. ELI. BY M. ATHANASE COQUEREL.^ Eli was judge and priest in Israel, but he had not availed himself of his peculiar advantages to give a holy and religious education to his children. He had neglected that solemn duty. Would God discharge it for him ? Ought God repair his fault, teach these children what Eli had not taught them, and sanctify their hearts because Eli had left them to be corrupted ? What is the issue ? Hophni and Phinehas dis- honor the priesthood ; they make it their means for more audacious crime ; they carry their impu- rity and profanity to the highest point. As judge, and as priest, Eli may check them by a double authority. Perhaps it is not too'late ! A salutary firmness may call them back. May he not, if for once he will forget the father, forget his age, to be judge and high priest,- — to be avenger of the national religion, — may he not put an end to their sin, by putting an end to these displays of it ? * One of the preachers of the Reformed Church at Paris. 60 ELI No ! He does not attempt it. He satisfies him- self with slightly blaming them, and gives no check to their dissipation. Again, do you ask God to interfere ? shall his providence stoop now to this duty? War broke out between the Philistines and the Hebrews. The Hebrews were once defeated, and their chiefs then ventured to take with them, into the battle-field, the sacred ark, till now invio- lable at Shiloh, in the sanctuary where it had been placed by Joshua. Thus they hoped to force the Eternal, as it were, to protect them. According to all the institutions and laws of Moses, this was the greatest sacrilege. Idolatry was scarcely worse. The very religion of Israel was connect- ed with this mysterious ark, which none dared to look into, and which served as the symbol of the presence of God. It might not be carried by any but priests ; * — and Hophni and Phinehas, ready for any boldness of impiety, offered them- selves for this profanation. Eli, the weak Eli, who could not oppose them, sits sadly by the road- side waiting for news of the army. A messenger comes, and throws gloom over Shiloh ! He an- nounces that Israel is conquered ; that the ark is ELI. 61 captured ; that Hophni and Phinehas are slain. The old man, of almost a hundred, years, hears this disaster as he would receive a bolt of thunder ; his strength leaves him, he sinks into the dust ; " his neck broke, and he died." The same news, announced at once to his daughter-in-law, causes yet another misfortune. The wife of Phinehas gives birth to a child, and his life costs the life of his mother. In vain those around would console her with those words so dear to a woman's ear : " Rejoice, for thou hast borne a son." No ! she cannot rejoice on a day so fatal ! The disasters of her family and her nation are greater than her maternal joy; she sees only that the glory of Israel is lost wifh the ark of the Lord ; she has only time to say, " Call the child Ichabod, for our glory is departed," and gives her last sigh on the cradle of her son. # # # # # Thus have I opened to you a sad but a useful subject of meditation and study. I have shown you the misery of a child ; and it sprang from his father ! What more than this can I say ? What can be added to such an example ? Thus is it that our sins bring consequences to our kindred, our 6 62 ELI. friends, our neighbors ; — the bond which unites us all during life, and across death, is so close, that we cannot be sinners at our own cost alone, and that, to sin, we must wound even those whom we love the most. In that view how hideous does sin appear ! If by our faults and imprudences we only injured ourselves, if we only were lost, if our repose only were destroyed, only our fortune poisoned, every sinner might wrap himself in his selfishness and think only of his own future. But it is not so. He always wounds others ; strangers will suffer from his faults ; and tears will flow from other eyes than his, perhaps even before he weeps himself! What right, then, have we to give rein to our passions ; to expose the age oT our parents and the youth of our children to bitter grief, and sow misery all around us in our transgressions ? We are responsible to God for the happiness of those who surround us, from the . most intimate of our friends, to the most humble of our servants. Their lot is given to us to hold : a sacred trust, which is lost in the midst of our sins. I should not add to the solemnity of these thoughts by follow- ing them, from the disobedient child, whose mother weeps to see him, back to those persecutors ELI. 63 who were so prodigal of martyrs, — those tyrants whose crime rests upon a nation ; those conquer- ors from whom a whole generation claims, as from Pharaoh, its lost first-born ! Everywhere man's happiness depends on man. Everywhere, for one offender, be sure that there are thousands who suffer. But the sufferings which he causes will fall back upon him, and his most poignant remorse will be the sight of the misery which he has created. ELI AND SAMUEL. And the word of the Lord was precious in those days ; there was no open vision. And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see ; and ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep ; that the Lord called Samuel. — 1 Samuel iii. 1 — i. The open vision ceases from the land, God's word becomes more rare, and yet more rare ; Eli ! thine eyes wax dim ! — although thou stand In God's own house, thou dost not see Him there ! He speaks ! list, Eli, to the precious word ! Alas ! that word is not for such as thee ; Thy sealed ears no voice of God have heard — Thy sluggard eyes no open vision see. Wherefore should not the lamp of God burn out 1 The seer of God is blind, and nothing sees ! Who shall light Israel through her clouds of doubt? Whom shall God call upon in nights like these ? The priest dreams still of earth ! Lo ! God has smiled And called — on one like heaven ; — a ministering Child. "AS A LITTLE CHILD." "Thou must be born again !" O thou, whose voice In thunder tones would visit all the earth, In lightning words would preach this heavenly birth, So men may weep where most they shall rejoice, Go, go to Bethlehem ! and see the child New born, beneath its mother's beaming smile, — Look at thine own, and ponder there the while It laughs, for life alone exulting wild ! — That child, — it has no memory of wrong ; That child, — it fears not coming days of woe ; That child, — -it knows not that days come or go; That child knows not that hours are short or long ! Better than thou to careworn, anxious men, That careless child will preach the " to be born again." 6* OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN." BY REV. WILLIAM H. FURNESS. The resemblance which Christ points out be- tween the inhabitants of the heavenly kingdom, the everlasting world, and little children, is a mat- ter, not of fancy, but of fact. The theology which swathes man from his very birth in a total and hereditary corruption has hidden from us the un- earthly likeness which childhood wears. For my own part, receiving Christ as the teacher of eter- nal truth, I feel bound to look with reverence upon the young, if for no other reason than because I believe that he declared that " of such is the king- dom of heaven." Even though my dim eyes could trace no distinct resemblance between the dwellers in the kingdom of God and little children, I should believe, upon this great authority, that the resem- blance exists. But I can trace it distinctly enough to see, that, if we would learn what saints and angels are, we must study the young. Who is not ready to pardon the idolatry of the Roman " OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN." 67 Catholic Church, when he considers how, in bring- ing the warlike nations of Europe to bow before the image of the Virgin and her child, it breathed the holiest spirit of nature and of Christ, and taught those barbarous tribes to do homage to the purity of woman, to the divinity of parental love, and the angel innocence of infancy ? I would not make any indiscriminate claim for childhood. I do not deny that children do wrong, that they disregard and violate the plain convic- tions of their consciences, even as we do. But then their sins are manifestly the sins of healthy and most excellent natures ; and there is more of hope — there is less of guilt even — in their sins than there is in the artificial, boastful virtues of those who are their elders, and are falsely termed their betters. How artless is childhood even in its arts ! How transparent ! How easily seen through ! >When wisely dealt with, children shed the purest tears of penitence that are ever shed on earth. And how full of trust is early childhood ! The child lives and moves and has its being in eternity. It knows nothing of the beginning of life, or of its ending. 68 " OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN." " A simple child That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What can it know of death ? " " Over it immortality broods like the day." But, above all, how absolute and uncompromising and godlike is a child's sense of right ! He recognizes no limitations to the law of duty. He knows not policy, until he learns it from the evil practices of the world. Repeat to a child the immortal lessons of peace and love which Christ uttered, and he instantly recognizes the very commandments of God, and asks, " Why, then, do men go to war ? Why do they ill-treat and enslave one another ?" With a terrible fidelity of application, he turns your instructions directly upon you, and demands, since such is God's law, why you do thus and so. Children cannot understand, until the world teaches them, how any necessity should interfere to render entire obedience impossible. In all these respects we may distinguish in them the features of a " race of heaven," and learn the deep significance of the command which requires us all to become like little children. Soon, very " OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN." 69 soon, by our worldliness, by our cowardly com- promises, we drag them down from the lofty position which they occupy. Much as is said and done about the instruction, the moral and religious instruction, of the young, it seems to me some- times that the world is in nothing more busily engaged than in corrupting every child that comes into it. It compels the young to cast away as impracticable abstractions the plainest monitions of duty. It hides from them the wickedness of war by its vain talk about " famous victories.'.' It dazzles their eyes with the gaudy trappings of the soldier. It hardens them to the deadly wrong which man inflicts on man, by pleading the way of the world, and a system of things which not God, but man, has devised. And so their wings are clipped, and they are made creatures of earth like ourselves. If we reverenced childhood as we should, if we distinguished in it the lineaments of the higher life, we should sit like children low at its feet, and the established relation of teachers and children would be reversed, and with the religious poet of our age, the parent would ex- claim to his child : — 70 " OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN." " O dearest, dearest child, my heart For better lore would seldom yearn, Could I but teach the hundreth part Of what from thee I learn." As it is, amidst the thick steaming corruptions of the world, it is childhood that still keeps some sweetness in it. Though the young soon alight upon the earth, and become earthly like us, yet for a space they hover over us, like angelic minis- trants, fanning with white wings the fevered brain of many a sinning man and woman, and sending purifying beams of blessed light in upon our stained and hardened hearts. Even in their in- articulate helplessness, when they first make their appearance here, what springs of tenderness do they cause to break forth in human bosoms ! How mighty is their coming ! Like the angel at Bethesda, they stir the fountain of life, dark with the surrounding shadows of sin, and instantly it receives a healing efficacy. Whether they come or depart, their ministry is alike powerful. Their departure, like their coming, sheds a celestial influence through the whole household, like the broken box of precious perfume poured by Mary "- OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN." 71 upon the head of Jesus. Said not Christ truly, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven V Is not the resemblance here indicated existing in the reality of things 1 je. ^g. -*v- -»- T¥" *7v* TT TP Faith is the characteristic of childhood and youth. So congenial is it to a child's nature to cherish trust, to bestow confidence, so ready is he to listen to all sounds as to true voices, that, if we supposed he had come into this world from a pre- exist ent state, we should infer that he had lived in a world of perfect truth. " Heaven lies about us in our infancy. " The mind of the young child appears to live and move and have its being, all unconsciously, in those truths which the man is toiling almost hopelessly to find. They brood over it " like the day ;" and although the corrupting il- lusions of sense fast, very fast, close us round, and the heavy yoke of custom bows us down, and we daily travel further from the east, yet something of the child's heart stays with us to the end, amidst the thickening clouds of pride and sin. " O j°y ' ^at in our embers Is something that doth live, 72 " OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN." That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive ! " Had the deep articulate meaning of the immortal ode, from which I quote, reached our inner sense, were ii something more to us than the faint music of a distant angel, we should be prepared to re- ceive the full significance of the words of Jesus. THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD FROM HERDER. Among green pleasant meadows, All in a grove so wild, Was set a marble image Of the Virgin and her child ; There oft, on summer evenings, A lovely boy would rove, To play beside the image That sanctified the grove. Oft sat his mother by him, Among the shadows dim, And told how the Lord Jesus Was once a child like him ; "And now from highest heaven He doth look down each day, And sees whate'er thou doest, And hears what thou dost say." Thus spoke that tender mother ; And on an evening bright, When the red, round sun descended Mid clouds of crimson light, 7 74 THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD. Again the boy was playing, And earnestly said he, — " Oh, beautiful child-Jesus, Come down and play with me ! I will find thee flowers the fairest, And weave for thee a crown, I will cull thee red, ripe strawberries, If thou wilt but come down; Oh holy, holy mother ! Put him from off thy knee, For in these silent meadows There is none to play with me !" Thus spoke that boy so lovely, The while his mother heard, And on his prayer she pondered, But spoke to him no word. That very night she dreamed A lovely dream of joy, She thought she saw young Jesus There playing with her boy. — " And for the fruits and flowers Which thou hast brought to me, Rich blessings shall be given An hundred-fold to thee ; THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD. 75 For in the fields of heaven Thou shalt roam with me at will, And of bright flowers celestial Thou shalt have, dear child, thy fill." Thus tenderly and kindly The fair child Jesus spoke, And full of anxious musings The careful mother woke. And thus it was accomplished : — In a short month and a day, That lovely boy so gentle Upon his death-bed lay ; And thus he spoke in dying, — " Oh mother, dear ! I see The beautiful child-Jesus Descending unto me ; — And in his hand he beareth Bright flowers, white as snow, And red and dewy strawberries, Dear mother ! let me go !" He died, — but that fond mother Her sorrow did restrain, For she knew he was with Jesus, And she asked him not again. THE NEW BIRTH BY JONES VERY. 'T is a new life ; — thoughts move not as they did, With slow uncertain steps, across my mind ; In thronging haste fast pressing on, they bid The portals open to the viewless wind, That comes not save when in the dust is laid The crown of pride that gilds each mortal brow, And from before man's vision melting fade The heavens and earth ; — their walls are falling now. Fast crowding on, each thought asks utterance strong ; Storm-lifted waves swift rushing to the shore, On from the sea they send their shouts along, Back through the cave-worn rocks their thunders roar ; And I, a child of God by Christ made free, Start from death's slumbers to Eternity. TRUTH ALMIGHTY. To . BY AUBREY DE VERE. Range all the Virtues van-ward in your band ; To these the helm, the spear, the sword, be given ! True priests, true patriots, to the mountains driven, Fight not yourselves, and fear not for the land. He who hath touched a truth hath laid his hand On that which moves the poles of earth and heaven. Speak, then, and wait : too rash was Moses' wand That smote the rock his word alone had riven ! Truth without Love is worse than heresy: Therefore call no man heretic : beware : On Faith's high mountains raise your hands in prayer ; And sound God's trumpet. Know, if none reply, — If truth and wisdom access find to none, — Know this, and make it known, that ye your parts have done. 7# THE DROP OF DEW. BY ANDREW MARVELL. Seest thou the orient dew Shed from the bosom of the morn Into the blooming roses, Yet careless of its mansion new, For the clear region where 't was born Round in itself encloses ; And in its little globe's extent Frames as it can its native element. How it the purple flower doth plight, Scarce touching where it lies : But gazing back upon the skies, Shines with a mournful light, Like its own tear. Because so long divided from its sphere. Restless it rolls, and insecure, Trembling lest it grow impure, Till the warm sun pities its pain, And to the stars exhales it back again, THE DROP OF DEW. 79 So the soul, that drop, that ray From the clear fountain of eternal day, Could it within the human flower be seen, Remembering still its former height, Does in its pure and circling thoughts express The greater heaven in the heaven less. REMEMBER THE THINGS OF OLD. THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. BY REV. JAMES MARTINEAU. The fictions of popular piety are usually incon- stant and local. But there is a legend of the early Christianity, whose ready acceptance within a few years of its origin is not less remarkable than its wide diffusion through every country from the Ganges to the Thames; — a legend which has spread over West and East from the centres of Rome and Byzantium : which you may hear in Russia or in Abyssinia ; and which, having seized on the ardent fancy of Mohammed, is found in the Koran, and is as familiar to the Arab and the Moor as to the Spaniard and the Greek. In the middle of the fifth century, the resident proprietor of an estate near Ephesus was in want of building-stone to raise some cottages and gran- aries on his farm. His fields sloped up the side of a mountain, in which he directed his slaves to open a quarry. In obeying his orders they found a spacious cavern, whose mouth was blocked up THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. 81 with masses of rock artificially piled. On remov- ing these, they were startled by a dog, suddenly leaping up from the interior. Venturing further in, to a spot on which the sunshine, no longer ex- cluded, directly fell, they discovered, just turning as from sleep, and dazzled with the light, seven young men, of dress and aspect so strange, that the slaves were terrified, and fled. The slumber- ers, on rising, found themselves ready for a meal ; and, the cave being open, one of them set out for the city, to buy food. On his way through the familiar country, (for he was a native of Ephesus,) a thousand surprises struck him. The road over which yesterday's persecution had driven him was turned ; the landmarks seemed shifted, and gave a twisted pattern to the fields : on the green meadow of the Cayster had sprung up a circus and a mill. Two soldiers were seen approaching in the dis- tance : hiding himself till they were past, lest they should be emissaries of imperial intolerance, he observed that the accoutrements were fantastic, the emblems of Decius were not there, the words that dropped from their talk were in a strange dialect, and in their friendly company was a Christian presbyter. From a rising ground, he 82 THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. looked down the river to the base of Diana's hill ; and lo ! the great temple, — the world-wide won- der, — was nowhere to be seen. Arrived at the city, he found its grand gate surmounted by a cross. In the streets, rolling with new-shaped vehicles, filled with theatrical looking people, the very noises seemed to make a foreign hum. He could suppose himself in a city of dreams, only that here and there appeared a house, all whose rooms within he certainly knew ; with an aspect, however, among the rest, curiously dull and dwin- dled, as in a new window looks an old pane pre- served for some line scratched by poet or by sage. Before his errand is quite forgot, he enters a bread-shop to make his purchase ; offers the silver coin of Decius in payment ; when the baker, whose astonishment was already manifest enough, can restrain his suspicions no longer, but arrests his customer as the owner of unlawful treasure, and hurries him before the city court. There he tells his tale : that with his Christian companions he had taken refuge in the cave from the horrors of the Decian persecution ; had been pursued thither, and built in for a cruel death ; had fallen asleep till wakened by the returning sun, let in again by THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. 83 some friendly and unhoped-for hand; and crept back into the town to procure support for life in their retreat. And there, too, in reply, he hears a part of the history which he cannot tell : that De- cius had been dethroned by death nearly two centuries ago, and Paganism by the Truth full one : that, while heaven has wrapped him in mys- terious sleep, the earth's face, in its features, phy- sical and moral, had been changed ; that empire had shifted its seat from the Tiber to the Bos- phorus: that the Temple had yielded to the Church ; the demons of mythology to the saints and martyrs of Christendom ; and that he who had quitted the city in the third century, returned to it in the fifth, and stood under the Christian protec- tion of the second Theodosius. It is added, that the Ephesian clergy and their people were con- ducted by the confessor to the cave, exchanging wonders as they conversed by the way ; and that the seven sleepers, having attested in their per- sons the preserving hand of God, and re-told the story of their life, and heard snatches of the news of nearly two hundred years, gave their parting blessing to the multitude, and sank in the silence of natural death. 84 THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. For the purpose of mental experiment, fable is as good as fact. To reveal our nature to itself, it is often more effectual for the imagination to go out upon a fiction, than for the memory to absorb a chronicle. When the citizens and the sleepers met, each was awe-struck at the other ; yet no one had been conscious of anything awful in himself. The youths, startled by the police of Paganism, had risen up from dinner, leaving their wine un- tasted : and on arriving breathless at their retreat, laid themselves down, dusty, weary, ordinary crea- tures enough. They resume the thread of being where it hung suspended ; and are greeted every- where with the uplifted hands and shrinking touch of devout amazement. And the busy Ephesians had dressed themselves that morning, and swept their shops, and run down to the office and the dock, with no idea that they were not the most commonplace of mortals, pushing through a toil- some and sultry career. They are stopped mid-day to be assured, that their familiar life is an incred- ible romance ; that their city is steeped in vision- ary tints, and they themselves are as moving ap- paritions. And they are told this, when they can- not laugh at it, or brush it, like Sunday memories, THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. 85 away. For who are they that say such things, gazing into them with full deep eyes ? Counter parts in their looks of all the marvels they profess to see ; — proofs that the old, dead times were once alive, warm with young passions, noble with young faith ; astir with limbs that could be weary, and hiding sorrows whose sob and cry might be overheard. Would not the men, returning to their homes, be conscious of understanding life anew ? Would they not look down upon their children, and up at the portraits of their ancestors, with a perception from which a cloud had cleared away ? Would the fashion of the drawing-room, the con- vention of the club, the gossip of the exchange, retain all their absorbing interest ; and the wrest- lings of doubt and duty, the sighs of reason, the conflicts of affection, the nearness of God, spoken of by prophets in the trance of inspiration, and the Church in its prayer of faith, appear any more as idle words ? No ; the revelation of a reality in the past would produce the feeling of an unreal- ity in the present. Many invisible things would shape themselves forth, as with a solid surface, reflecting the heavenly light, and sleeping in the colors of pure truth : many visible things would 8 86 THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. melt in films away, and retreat like the escaping vista of a dream. When the people's anthem went up on the Sabbath morning, " Oh God of our fathers!" that grave, historic cry would not seem to set his spirit far, but to bring it overhang- ing through the very spaces of the dome above. When the holy martyrs were named with the glory of an affectionate praise, their silent forms would seem to group themselves meekly round. And when the upper life of saints and sages, — of suf- fering taken in its patience and goodness in its prime, of the faithful parent and the Christ-like child, — was mentioned with a modest hope, it would appear no fabled island, for which the eye might stretch across the sea in vain, but a visible range of everlasting hills, whose outline of awful beauty is already steadfast above the deep. Now, whence would spring an influence like this ? What source must we assign to the power which such an incident would have exerted over its witnesses ? The essence of it is simply this ; the Past stood up in the face of the Present, and spake with it, and they found each other out : and each learned, that he beheld the other with true eye, and himself with false. The lesson is not set THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. 87 beyond our reach. No miracle indeed is sent to teach it ; no grotesque extracts from bygone cen- turies walk about among us. But our ties with other days are not broken ; fragments of them stand around us ; notices of them lie before us. The recesses of time are not hopelessly dark ; opened by the hand of labor, and penetrated by the light of reason, their sleeping forms will rise and re-enter our living world, and in showing us what they have been, disclose to us what we are. The legendary youths are but the impersonations of history : and their visit to the Ephesians, but a parable of the relation between historical percep- tion and religious faith. The great end, yet the great difficulty, of reli- gion is, so to analyze our existence for us as to distinguish its essential spirit from its casual forms, the real from the apparent, the transient from the eternal. Experience mixes them all up together, and arranges nothing according to its worth. The dress that clothes the body, and the body that clothes the soul, appear in such invari- able conjunction, and become so much the signs of one another, that all run into one object, and tempt us to exaggerate the trivial and depreciate 88 THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. the great. That which a man has, and that which he is, move about together, and live in the same house ; till our fancy and our faith grow too indo- lent to separate them ; we fasten him to his pos- sessions, and when they are dropped in death, think that he is gone to nought. It is the business of faith to see all things in their intrinsic value : it is the work of experience to thrust them on us in accidental combinations : and hence the flattening, sceptical, blinding influence of a passive and un- resisted experience. Hence it is that time is apt to take away a truth for each one that he gives, and rather to change our wisdom than to increase it : and while foresight assuredly comes to the man, insight will often tarry with the child. When the eye first looks on life, it is not to study its successions, but to rest upon its picture : its love- liness is discerned before its order : its aspect is interpreted, while its policy is quite unknown. Our early years gaze on all things through the natural glass of beauty and affection, which in religion is the instrument of truth. But soon it gets dimmed by the breath of usage, which ad- heres to all except natures the most pure and fine: and a cold cloud darkens the whole universe THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. 89 before us. Day by day, the understanding sees more, the imagination less, in the scene around us ; till it seems all made up of soil to grow our bread, and clay to build our house : and we become impatient, if any one pretends to find in it the depth which its atmosphere has lost to us, and the grandeur which has faded from our view. We dwell in this world, like dull serfs in an Alpine land ; who are attached indeed to their home with the strong instincts of men cut off from much in- tercourse with their kind, and whose passions, wanting diffusion, acquire a local intensity ; who therefore sigh in absence for their mountains, as the Arab for his desert ; but in whom there is no sense of the glories amid which they live ; who wonder what the traveller comes to see ; who, in the valleys closed by the glacier, and echoing with the torrent, observe only the timber for their fuel, and the paddock for their kine. We are often the last to see how noble are our opportuni- ties, to feel how inspiring the voices that call us to high duties and productive sacrifice : and while we loiter on in the track of drowsy habit, esteem- ing our lot common and profane, better hearts are looking on, burning within them to stand on the 8* 90 THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. spot where we stand, to seize its hopes, and be true to all its sacredness. It is an abuse of the blessings of experience, when it thus stupefies us with its benumbing touch, and in teaching us a human lesson, persuades us to unlearn a divine. The great use of custom is to teach us what to expect, to familiarize us with the order of events from day to day, that we may compute our way aright, and know how to rule whatever lies be- neath our hand. This is the true school for the active, working will. But for the thoughtful, wondering affections, a higher discipline is need- ed ; an excursion beyond the limits where the senses stop, into regions where usage, breathless and exhausted, drops behind: where the beaten ways of expectation disappear, and we must find the sun-path of faith and reason, or else be lost. Only by baffled anticipation do we learn to re- vere what is above our hand: and custom must break in pieces before us, if we are to keep right the everlasting love within us, as well as the transient life without. Surrendering itself to habit alone, the mind takes step by step right on, intent on the narrow strip of its own time, and seeing nothing but its linear direction. But THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. 91 brought to the untrodden mountain-side, it is arrested by the open ground, and challenged by the very silence, and compelled to look abroad in space, and see the fresh, wide world of God ; where all roads have vanished, except the ele- mental highways of nature, — the sweep of storm- felled pines, and the waving line where melted waters flow. Now, in shaking off the heavy dreams of custom, and waking us up from the swoon so fatal to piety, religion receives the greatest aid from history : and though they seemed to be engaged in opposite offices, they only divide between them the very same. Religion strips the costume from the life that is : History restores the costume to the life that was : and by this double action we learn to feel sensibly, where the mere dress ends, and the true life begins ; how much thievish time may steal, and corroding age reduce to dross ; and what treasure there is which no thief approacheth or moth corrupteth. Those who are shut up in the present, either by involun- tary ignorance, or by voluntary devotion to its immediate interests, contract a certain slowness of imagination, most fatal both to wisdom and to faith. Restrained in every direction by aggluti- 92 THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. nation to the type of personal experience, their thought cannot pass beyond vulgar and material rules ; cannot believe in any aspect of existence much different from things as they are ; in any beings far removed from those that walk the streets to-day ; in any events that would look absurd in the newspaper, or affect sagacious poli- ticians with serious surprise. Their feeling can make nothing of the distinction between the mor- tal and the immortal, the spirit and the form of things. If they moralize on human affairs, it is only to say one of the two things which, since the days of Ecclesiastes, have always fallen from Epicurism in its sentimental mood : that all things continue as they were, and there can be nothing new under the sun ; or that nothing can continue as it is, and all that is sublunary passes as the shadow ; and as this dieth, so dieth that. A mind rich in the past is protected against these mean falsehoods ; can discriminate the mutable social forms from that permanent humanity, of whose affections, whose struggles, whose aspirations, whose Providential course, history is the impres- sive record ; and thus trained, finds it easy to cast an eye of faith upon the living world, and discern THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. 93 the soul of individuals and of communities beneath the visible disguise, so deceitful to the shallow, so suggestive to the wise. The habit of realizing the past is essential to that of idealizing the present. But, besides this general affinity between his- torical thought and the religious temper, a more direct influence of knowledge upon faith is not difficult to trace. The great objects of our belief and trust cannot be conceived of, except in the poorest and faintest way, where all is blank beyond mere personal experience. A man to whom the present is the only illuminated spot, closely pressed in upon by outlying darkness all around, will vainly strive to meditate, for example, on the eternity of God. What sort of helpless attempt even can he make towards such a thing ? He knows the measure of an hour, a day, a year : and these he may try to multiply without end, to stretch along the line of the infinite life. But this numerical operation carries no impression : it has no more religion in it than any other long sum. The mere vacant arithmetic of duration travels ineffectually on ; glides through without contact with the living God ; and gives only the chill of 94 THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. a void loneliness. Time, like space, cannot be appreciated by merely looking into it. As in the desert, stretching its dreary dust to the horizon, all dimensions are lost in the shadowless sun- shine ; so, over a mere waste of years, the fancy strains itself only to turn dizzy. As, in the one, we want objects to mark the retreating distance, the rising spire, the sheltered green, the swelling light on headland slope ; so in the other, we need visible events standing off from view to make us aware of the great perspective. And for the ends of faith, they must be moral vicissitudes, the deeply-colored incidents of human life : or, the vastness which we see we shall not love : we shall traverse the infinite, and never worship. Science, as well as history, has its past to show : — a past, indeed, much larger ; running, with huge strides, deep into the old eternity. But its immensity is dynamical, not divine : gigantesque, not holy : opening to us the monot- onous perseverance of physical forces, not the va- rious struggles and sorrows of free will. And though sometimes, on passing from the turmoil of the city, and the heats of restless life, into the open temple of the silent universe, we are THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. 95 temptecl to think, that there is the taint of earth, and here the purity of heaven ; yet sure it is, that God is seen by us through man, rather than through nature : and that without the eye of our brother, and the voices of our kind, the winds might sigh, and the stars look down on us in vain. Nor is the Christian conception of the second and higher existence of man heartily pos- sible to those who are shut out from all historic retrospect. At least, the idea of other nations and other times, the mental picture of memorable groups that have passed away ; the lingering voices of poets, heroes, saints, floating on the ear of thought ; are a great, if not an indispensable aid to that hope of the future, which can scarcely maintain itself without attendant images. That old, distant, venerable earth of ours, with its quaint people, lies silent in the remote places of our thought ; and is not so far from the scene of scarcely more mysterious life, where all now abide with God: the same perspective embraces them both ; it is but the glance of an eye from below to above : and as the past reality of the one does not prevent its being now ideal, so the present ideality of the other is no hindrance to its reality. The 96 THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. two states, — that in the picture of history, and that on the map of faith, — recede almost equally from our immediate experience : and the concep- tion of the one is a sensible help to the realization of the other. Indeed there is not a truth of religion in reference to the future and the unseen which the knowledge of the past does not bring nearer to our minds. And when we invoke this aid to faith, we give it an ally, not, as might seem, accessible to learning only, but singularly open to the resources of ordinary men. Happily, the very fountains and depositories of our religion are his- torical ; and records of human affairs, not theories of physical nature, are supplied in the sacred writings, from which we learn the lessons of Prov- idence. Apart from all questions of inspiration, there is no grander agent than the Bible in this world. It has opened the devout and fervid East to the wonder and affection of the severer West. It has made old Egypt and Assyria more familiar to Christendom than its own lands : and to our people at large, the Pharaohs are less strange than the Plantagenets, and Abraham is more dis- tinct than Alfred. The Hebrew prophet finds himself in the presence of the English tradesman, THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. 97 or domesticated in the Scotch village ; and is bet- ter understood when he speaks of Jordan, than the poet at home who celebrates the Greta or the Yarrow. Scenes of beauty, pictures of life, rise on the people's thought across the interval of cen- turies and continents. Pity and terror, sympathy and indignation, fly over vast reaches of time, and alight on many a spot else unclaimed by our hu- manity, and unconsecrated by the presence of our God. It is a discipline of priceless value ; secur- ing for the general mind materials of thought and faith most rich and varied ; and breaking that servile sleep of custom which is the worst foe of true belief and noble hope. From the exten- sion of such discipline, according to opportunity, whosoever is vigilant to keep a living faith, will draw ever fresh stores ; and, that he may better dwell in heart with Him " who declareth the end from the beginning," will " remember the former things of old." 9 THE SPIEIT LAND BY JONES VERY. Father ! thy wonders do not singly stand, Nor far removed where feet have seldom strayed Around us ever lies the enchanted land In marvels rich to thine own sons displayed ; In finding thee are all things round us found ; In losing thee are all things lost beside ; Ears have we but in vain strange voices sound, And to our eyes the vision is denied ; We wander in the country far remote, Mid tombs and ruined piles in death to dwell ; Or on the records of past greatness doat, And for a buried soul the living sell ; While on our path bewildered falls the night That ne'er returns us to the fields of light. THE HARP OF DAVID. BY LORD BYRON. The harp the monarch minstrel swept, — The king of men, the loved of heaven, Which Music hallowed, while she wept O'er tones her heart of hearts had given, — Redoubled be her tears, — its chords are riven ! It softened men of iron mould, It gave them virtues not their own ; No ear so dull, no soul so cold, That felt not, fired not, to the tone, Till David's lyre grew mightier than his throne ! It told the triumphs of our king, It wafted glory to our God : It made our gladdened valleys ring, The cedars bow, the mountains nod ; Its sound aspired to heaven, and there abode ! Since then, though heard on earth no more, Devotion and her daughter Love Still bid the bursting spirit soar To sounds that seem as from above, In dreams that day's broad light can not remove. HEBREW POETRY. BY REV. LEONARD WITHINGTON. " I love to breathe where Gilead sheds her balm ; I love to walk on Jordan's banks of palm ; I love to wet my foot in Hermon's dews ; I love the promptings of Isaiah's muse : In Carmel's holy grots I '11 court repose, And deck my mossy couch with Sharon's deathless rose." Pierpont's Airs of Palestine. " But those frequent songs throughout the law and prophets, beyond all these, not in their divine argument alone, but in the very critical art of composition, may be easily made to appear, over all the kinds of lyric poesy, to be incomparable." Milton. The Jews were a peculiar people ; and their poetry is as peculiar. It was made the vehicle of teaching them the most awful truths : because, when God speaks to men he uses the language of men. Truth itself may bear a majesty suita- ble to the mind from which it originated ; but its garb must be as humble as the minds to which it is addressed. In speaking, however, of the poetry of the Hebrews, we shall say nothing of that Supreme Mind from which it is believed to have origi- nated ; we shall not assume, as the ground of our remarks, the inspiration of the Scriptures. We HEBREW POETRY. 101 believe, with Lowth and others, that, however infallible the oracles which the Hebrew prophet delivered, and in whatever way we explain the di- vine superintendence which guided their thoughts, each author was left to the play of his own genius, and reflects the manners of his own nation and age. We leave to the divine the sublime themes of theology ; we shall consider Hebrew poetry as an effort of Hebrew genius ; and we shall endeav- or to compare its relative merits with the poetry of the west. The waters of the Hellespont, except a few Greeks on the shores of Asia Minor, have always divided a people very different in their tastes and manners. We allude not now to the enterprise, the liberty, the hardihood of the Greeks, and the tyranny and effeminacy of the Asiatic nations. These are the effects of the relative states of empires ; and the first Cyrus, who founded the Persian dynasty, was as great a warrior as Alex- ander, who Conquered the last of his degenerate successors ; he, perhaps, commanded an army of equal heroes. The permanent difference is, in their literary tastes. On the eastern side of the Hellespont, we find hereditary dogmas never dis- 9* 102 HEBREW POETRY. puted; a fixed philosophy; great authority, and great credulity; morality taught in apologues, sen- tences and aphorisms ; and in poetry, the wildest flights of enthusiasm, rapid transitions, bold per- sonifications ; the very language destitute of those particles (the last invention of acuteness) which mark the slender shades and turnings of a finer mind. On the western side we find all these things reversed. Whatever may have been the cause, whether it was, as Diodorus says, because their philosophers taught for reward, t* m™ xty SQyoXapiav y.igSss (Jioxatffievoi, OY, SUch Was the bent of nature, they questioned everything ; supported their discourses by proofs, and not by authority ; gave us their systems in connected discourses, and even in poetry taught us to reason, while they compelled us to feel. The European nations have inherited the taste of the Greeks ; their language is formed on the basis of the Greek tongue ; and had it not been that the Bible, by being translated, has preserved amohg us some elements of orientalism, we should this day scarcely be capable of holding intercourse with more than half our race. The most literal trans- lations would only throw darkness over the most beautiful page. HEBREW POETRY. 103 The Hebrew nation have for ages been remark- able for anything rather than delicacy or refine- ment. We cannot conceive of a race of bipeds, more coarse, more callous, more boobyish, more trifling, than the whole race of Jewish literati, into whose hands the Scriptures have fallen. The Bible, with its native commentators around it, is like one of its own islands in the Babylonian desert ; you pass over the blazing sand beneath the burning sun, before you reach the grateful shades, and the bubbling spring. But because this peculiar nation have shrivelled in captivity we must not suppose that they were destitute of genius when they flourished in their glory. We might as well take a degenerate Roman, as he was described by the Goths, as a semblance of Cicero, as to judge of an ancient Jew by one of the Masorites. The minds of most men sink to the level of the estimation in which they are held. The despised man becomes despicable ; the slave assumes a servile mind. Judea was once the seat of empire and glory. She had her city, her king, and her temple. She had all that expansive power which the mind feels when left to an open career. Her sons mounted up on 104 HEBREW POETRY. wings like eagles ; they ran and were not weary, they walked and were not faint. Then the archi- tect labored, the warrior triumphed, and the poet sung. If she rivalled not some other nations in refinement, one excellence no one can deny her bards ; and that is this — they are always idiom- atic; they have qualities and beauties pre-emin- ently their own. No man can have read the prophets with at- tention, without observing that one of their chief charms is — they are exquisitely oriental. They write with a mode of thought, and a mode of con- necting their thoughts, and with allusions, wholly impossible but to one placed on the spot. If a reader approaches the Hebrew poets with a stand- ard formed in modern times, he will be greatly disappointed. Much has been said of the beauties of the Bible ; nor are we aware that its beauties have been overrated. But, loosely declaiming on the beauties of the Bible, some fond critics have laid a snare for the reader's dissent. The Bible is beautiful, like most other primitive books, in its own peculiar style of beauty. It has those very beauties which a nascent age produces, and of which its sacred subjects are susceptible. It can- HEBREW POETRY. 105 not combine those artful images which are the invention of later ages ; it cannot sympathize with the voluptuary at his bowls, or the warrior on the field of battle ; it cannot introduce the lover, pour- ing out vows to his mistress ; nor surround the trifles of life with the mythology of gods or fairies. It cannot address our imagination on the inflam- mable side of passion, or lead us through descrip- tions which pamper the heart. All these ends, the awful severity of its subjects refuses. But its beauties are the fruits of its theme. They are flowers of its own soil. They are implements to impress its own lessons. They are pictures of the age, and the men, and the subject. Passing from such a writer as Thomas Moore, for example, to the Bible, there is an amazing contrast ; and the reader who has melted at the tawdry senti- mentalisms of the Irish bard (not without his beauties, we confess) would at first be shocked at the stern simplicity of Ezekiel or Isaiah. But has the Bible therefore no beauties ? Must every subject be ornamented alike? Must a colossal statue have the coloring of a miniature picture? It was no more to be expected that the Bible should have these modern manners, than that the 106 HEBREW POETRY. Jordan or the Euphrates should reflect the trees or the shrubbery on the banks of the Ohio or the Tweed. One of the pleasures of poetry is the skill and facility with which the author overcomes certain difficulties which the rules of the art impose upon him. It is not copying nature, or painting the passions solely, which gives us delight ; but it is the adroitness with which these things are done, though the work was hampered by certain laws. In certain kinds of verse, this is the chief pleas- ure. It is peculiarly so in the Spenserian stan- za, and in the sonnet ; and in those artful invo- lutions and balanced periods which some writers use. For example, in these lines, in Pope's Windsor Forest, which he has copied from Ovid : — " Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly, When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky ; Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves, When through the clouds he drives the trem- bling doves." In this case, we admire not only the smooth versification, and the beautiful image, but the art HEBREW POETRY. 107 with which the poet has involved his eagles and doves in the melodious illustration. The above is not, perhaps, the highest beauty ; it lacks sim- plicity, and is perfectly Ovidian. Nevertheless, in the simplest poetry of Cowper and Milton, there is a secret reference to the difficulties over- come ; and we never should admire nature or passion in poetry, (for these may exist in prose,) were there not a secret reference to the skill of the poet. In easy poetry, we admire that the bard can be so easy under so many restraints. At first view, it might be supposed that there was very little of this beauty among the Hebrew bards. Nothing can be more simple than the structure of their sentences ; they have neither measure nor rhyme. They have only to pour out their rhapsodies ; to communicate their feelings, and be admired. They have only to indulge in the rantings of Macpherson, who has passed for Ossian ; — " — per audaces nova dithyrambos Verba devolvit, numerisque fertur Lege solutis. They may have the praise of simplicity, but can- not aspire to the victories of art ; and yet, I hope 108 HEBREW POETRY. to show that a conquest over difficulties is one of the chief beauties of their admirable odes. The Hebrew is one of the most material lan- guages ever spoken. There is hardly an abstract term in its whole vocabulary. In its entire form- ation, it seems to be made by a people who were as far from spiritual ideas as we can pos- sibly conceive. It has no tenses, (those which have been called past and future are certainly aorists;) no scientific or scholastic terms ; no par- ticles to express the nicest transitions of thought ; very few adjectives, very few intellectual expres- sions of any kind. Almost all its words which express mental operations are material in their origin. Let us mention a few instances, without the formality of quoting the original. The word to judge comes from the word causative of to cut. I seem to see a tribe of primitive hunters, who, having run down and taken a deer, appoint one of the wisest of their number, to cause it to be cut up into equal portions ; and thus comes the idea of judging. The word to mourn, comes from the withering of a plant. The first man who hung down his head in sorrow was likened to a plant blasted by the sun, and failing for want HEBREW POETRY. 109 of water. These instances might be multiplied ; but they are sufficient to show that the language was formed in very early times ; it bears all the marks of the poverty and simplicity of a primitive age. It is well worthy of being studied as a beautiful specimen of the infant efforts of men at expression and thought. It completely transfers you to the ancient world, and associates you with the intellectual habits of these primitive beings. Its lexicon is a magazine of material forms, and you might look in vain for such terms as decorum, grace, legislation, magnanimity, or any other word that expresses the nicest shades of thought. Le Clerc, in relating the dogmas of the Phari- sees, shows that they could not believe in the fate of the Stoics, because there was no word in their language, even at that late age, which could ex- press that notion. Such was their speech — a tongue which seemed to be formed by beings immersed in the material world. Yet when we pass to their themes, we find them the most vast and intellectual that can possibly meet the human mind. When they en- gage in their subjects, they seem to leave sublu- nary nature behind them ; and soar into the 10 110 HEBREW POETRY. darkest regions of the closest thought. They describe not battles and cities, but the conflicts of mind ; the agonies of conscience ; the mysterious intercourse of man with his Maker. They paint the sorrows of repentance, the hopes of faith, and the windings and snares through which the errant soul returns to God. They are everywhere like painters with the pencil put into their hands, and compelled to draw only allegorical forms. They must not go to the landscape, and copy its lilies and lakes. They are not to dwell on the " Sweet interchange Of hill and valley, rivers, woods and plains, Now land, now sea, and shores with forest crowned, Rocks, dens and caves." They are to transcribe only the moral landscape — they speak to the inner man. They sometimes pass the flaming bounds of space and time, and deal with the mysterious essence of the Deity ; and all this with a language which seems at first view entirely inadequate to the object. It is im- possible to conceive of a greater contrast than HEBREW POETRY. Ill the materialism of the Hebrew language, and the unembodied and exalted nature of their favorite themes. This, then, was their difficulty ; and they have conquered it nobly. This contrast was a far greater obstacle to a Hebrew bard than the hex- ameter verse was to the heroic poets among the Greeks. The critics have been in raptures at the invention of Homer , and all must allow that he has rolled through every melodious note in his own beautiful language ; and laid a contribution on all the stores of nature, to enrich and adorn his theme. But every one must see that he had previous facilities prepared at hand. He collect- ed his flowers in a garden ; while the Hebrew poets collected them from a wilderness. What a rich language did he inherit ! What charming expressions ! Every word a picture ! He was indebted to those prior geniuses, who had invent- ed these expressions ; and thus prepared the field in which his mind was to play in its own un- bounded luxuriance. We must take something from the glory of Homer, and divide it with those perished names, which, like unseen roots, nour- ished the tree on which this Bird of the Muses sat 112 HEBREW POETRY. and sung. He could hang his apples of gold in a net-work of silver; while the Hebrew bards were obliged to provide not only the song, but the lyre and its strings. By the learned reader who appreciates their language, the strains must be read with perfect astonishment. Let us take an example. I have already re- marked that their language had very few abstract terms ; not even those which seem absolutely necessary to describe the character of the Deity. What would a modern theologian do, if he were compelled to discourse on God, without using the words omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipres- ence ? These seem to be absolutely necessary to communicate our simplest conceptions of the great Jehovah. Yet not one of these words can be translated into Hebrew. There is not a term in that restricted language which answers to these essential ideas. The truth is, an infant people never abstract ; and when they first ap- proach these mighty conceptions, they approach them by circumlocution. Let us see how com- pletely the royal poet manages to communicate the omnipresence of God. HEBREW POETRY. 113 " Whither shall I go from thy Spirit ? Whither shall I flee from thy face ? If I ascend into heaven, There Thou — If I make my bed in the nether world, Behold THOU. " I take the wings of the east, Or I dwell in the remotest west, There thy hand shall lead me ; Thy right hand shall hold me up." Ps. cxxxix. 7 — 10. Thus in the most beautiful and graphic poetry the omnipresence of God is brought out to the dullest conception. We must remember that the upper, the nether, and the middle world, was the whole universe to a Hebrew mind.* •It is true the sacred poets gather their contri- butions from all the stores which nature has spread out before them ; they make the exterior world an illustration of the operations of the mind; and thus they have all the beauties of description, without missing that moral dignity which mere description never can attain. I allow the powers of Thomson ; I admire that mighty # See Exodus xx. 4. 10 # 114 HEBREW POETRY. genius, which, like Antseus, gathers strength whenever it touches the earth ; and yet the reader of the Seasons feels something wanting. He feels as the spectator at the theatre would, in seeing the shifting scenes (most beautifully paint- ed) of one of Shakspeare's tragedies, and none of the moral sentiments or actions with which these scenes should be filled. Let a man take one of Thomson's best descriptions, and compare it with one equally good in Milton, but where the descrip- tion is made subservient to a higher result, and feel the difference. " As when from mountain tops the dusky clouds Ascending, while the north-wind sleeps, o'er- spread Heaven's cheerful face, the lowering element Scowls o'er the darkened landscape, snow or shower ; If chance the radiant sun with farewell sweet Extend his evening beam, the fields revive, The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds Attest their joy, that hill and valley ring." Never was there a more beautiful or complete scene brought to view. Had the author's object HEBREW POETRY. 115 been mere description, it could not have been more finished ; and yet it is only an incidental gem, which he picks up in his path, without going one step out of the way to find it. He has a higher object than mere poetry ; he wishes to illustrate the dawnings of transient hope on fallen minds. We have the same dignity in the writ- ings of the Hebrews. They make the material world play around the pedestals of those awful images with which their minds are filled. In the thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel, if it had been the sole object of the prophet to describe pastoral life, it could scarcely have been more beautiful. In this respect, his description might rival one of the best pastorals of Theocritus. But at the same time the deepest moral beauty is spread over the whole. God is the shepherd, and he is watching over his people. In a word, the beauties of biblical poetry, like all the severe beauties, must be acquired by study. They are so simple, so unlike modern sentiment- alism, that, when first seen, they strike the eye with disappointment. But look again, and your attention will be arrested — a third time, and you will admire ; and once let the model impress your 116 HEBREW POETRY. taste, and you will admire forever. It seems to me, for touching the deeper tones of the heart, the Hebrew poetry has an internal grandeur, com- pared with which, the songs of mythology are cold and unmeaning. THE DYING HEBREW'S PRAYER. BY WILLIAM HERBERT. A Hebrew knelt, in the dying light, — His eye was dim and cold, The hairs on his brow were silver-white, And his blood was thin and old ! He lifted his look to his latest sun, For he knew that his pilgrimage was done ! — And as he saw God's shadow* there, His spirit poured itself in prayer ! " I come unto death's second birth, Beneath a stranger-air, A pilgrim on a dull, cold earth, As all my fathers were ! And men have stamped me with a curse, — I feel it is not Thine, Thy mercy — like yon sun — was made On me — as them — to shine ; And, therefore, dare I lift mine eye, Through that, to Thee, — before I die ! * Plato calls Truth the body of God, and Light, his Shadow! — perhaps the sublimest of all conceptions having a merely mortal breast for their birth-place. 118 THE DYING HEBREW'S PRAYER, " In this great temple, built by Thee, Whose altars are divine, Beneath yon lamp, that, ceaselessly, Lights up Thine own true shrine, Oh ! take my latest sacrifice, — Look down, and make this sod Holy as that where, long ago, The Hebrew met his God ! " I have not caused the widow's tears, Nor dimmed the orphan's eye ; I have not stained the virgin's years, Nor mocked the mourner's cry : The songs of Zion, in mine ear, Have, ever, been most sweet, And, always, when I felt Thee near, My ' shoes' were ' off my feet'! " I have known Thee, in the whirlwind, I have known Thee, on the hill, I have loved Thee, in the voice of birds, Or the music of the rill ! I dreamt Thee, in the shadow, I saw Thee, in the light, I heard Thee, in the thunder-peal, And worshipped, in the night ! THE DYING HEBREW'S PRAYER. 119 All beauty, while it spoke of Thee, Still made my soul rejoice, And my spirit bowed within itself, To hear Thy ' still small voice V — I have not felt myself a thing Far from Thy presence driven, By flaming sword or waving wing, Shut out from Thee and heaven ! " Must I the whirlwind reap, because My father sowed the storm ? Or shrink — because another sinned — Beneath Thy red right arm 1 Oh ! much of this we dimly scan, And much is all unknown, — But I will not take my curse from man, I turn to Thee alone ! Oh ! bid my fainting spirit live, And what is dark reveal, And what is evil, oh ! forgive, And what is broken, heal ; And cleanse my nature, from above, In the deep Jordan of thy love. " I know not if the Christian's heaven Shall be the same as mine, 120 THE DYING HEBREW'S PRAYER. I only ask to be forgiven, And taken home to Thine ! I wander on a far, dim strand, Whose mansions are as tombs, And long to find the father-land, Where there are many homes ! — Oh ! grant, of all yon starry thrones, Some dim and distant star, Where Judah's lost and scattered sons May love Thee, from afar ! When all earth's myriad harps shall meet, In choral praise and prayer, Shall Zion's harp — of old so sweet, — Alone be wanting, there ? Yet, place me in thy lower seat, Though I — as now — be, there, The Christian's scorn, the Christian's jest ; But let me see and hear, From some dim mansion in the sky, Thy bright ones, and their melody !" The sun goes down, with sudden gleam ; And — beautiful as a lovely dream, And silently as air, — The vision of a dark-eyed girl, With long and raven hair, THE DYING HEBREW'S PRAYER. 121 Glides in — as guardian spirits glide, And lo ! is kneeling by his side ; As if her sudden presence, there, Were sent in answer to his prayer ! (O ! say they not that angels tread Around the good man's dying bed !) His child ! his sweet and sinless child ! — And as he gazed on her, He knew his God was reconciled, And this his messenger, — As sure as God had hung, on high, The promise bow before his eye ! — Earth's purest hope thus o'er him flung, To point his heavenward faith, And Life's most holy feeling strung To sing him unto death ! And on his daughter's stainless breast, The dying Hebrew sought his rest ! 11 JEHOVAH LIVETH. " And though they say, The Lord liveth ; surely they swear falsely." Jeremiah v. 2. Priests offer Sheba's incense and sweet cane, Responding, each to each, " Jehovah lives ! " His car through death the maddened warrior drives, Raising the cry "Jehovah lives! 71 again: The watchmen at the gate their guard maintain, "Jehovah lives!" the countersign each gives. "Jehovah lives!' 9 the monarch cries, and strives With such a spell his sceptre to sustain ! — Yet altar priests a hireling service give, And crimsoned warriors fight for fame or gold, The guards with tales of peace their lord deceive, Whose tyrant hands a blood-stained sceptre hold. Why with such lies the Lord of Nations grieve ? In your false hearts Jehovah does not live ! WORSHIP BY JONES VERY. There is no worship now, — the idol stands Within the spirit's holy resting place ! Millions before it bend with upraised hands, And with their gifts God's purer shrine disgrace ; The prophet walks unhonored mid the crowd That to the idol's temple daily throng ; His voice unheard above their voices loud, His strength too feeble 'gainst the torrent strong ; But there are bounds that ocean's rage can stay When wave on wave leaps madly to the shore : And soon the prophet's word shall men obey, And, hushed to peace, the billows cease to roar ; For he who spoke — and warring winds kept peace, Commands again — and man's wild passions cease. ON EARTH, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN BY AUBREY DE VERE. Not without witness, just and gracious Lord, Not without witness art Thou left. The sea, The mountains, and the forests, preach of Thee : Yea, for Thy ceaseless service well accord The World Thy temple, and its shrine Thy word. The birds, the insects, yield Thee praise! but we — ■ Our very worship is idolatry, While but from fear or custom stands adored That which remains unloved, almost unknown. O might our moral world Thy laws obey, As outward nature doth her course fulfil, Calm as the seasons, sure as night and day ! This were the granting of all prayer — Thy will Thus*, thus, on earth, even as in heaven, were done. THE GOSPEL HISTORY. BY REV. JAMES MARTINEAU. Near the eastern margin of the gigantic empire of Rome, lay a small strip of coast which had been added to its dominions by Pompey the Great. The accession had excited little notice, eclipsed and forgotten amid the crowd of greater acquisitions, and in itself too insignificant to excite even the ready vanity of conquest. The district had nothing in it to draw towards it the attention of a people dazzled by the magnitude and splendor of their own power. Remote from the existing centres of opulent and cultivated society, with a language unknown to educated men, destitute of any literature to excite curiosity, or any specimens of art to awaken wonder, it would have lain in exile from the great human community, had not the circulation of commerce embraced it, and self-interest secured for it a surly and contemptuous regard. It lay between the fallen kingdoms of Egypt and Assyria, but derived no distinction from its position ; it seemed 11* 126 THE GOSPEL HISTORY. covered with the dust, without sharing the glories, of their ruined magnificence. Its inhabitants were the most unpopular of nations ; — a people out of date, relics of a ruder period of the world, — having the prejudices of age without its wisdom, and the superstitions of the East without its lofti- ness : — they had long been deserted by the tide of civilization, now flowing on other shores, and were left without the refreshment of a sympathy. And as hatred stimulates ferocity, and contempt invites men to be mean, they retreated into the seclusion of all unsocial passions. They detested : they despised : they suspected : they writhed under authority : they professed submission only to ob- tain revenge : they had no heritage in the present ; content with nothing which it brought, they had no gratitude to express : their affections were for the past and the future ; and their worship was one of memory and of hope, not of love. Fair and fertile as were the fields of Palestine, it was held to be the blot of the nations, the scowl of the world. In a hamlet of this country, sequestered among the hills which enclose the Galilean lake, a peas- ant, eighteen centuries ago, began to fill up the THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 127 intervals of worldly occupation with works of mercy, and efforts of public instruction. Neglect- ed by his own villagers of Nazareth, he took up his residence in the neighboring town of Caper- naum ; and there, escaped from the prejudices of his first home, and left to the natural influence of his own character, he found friends, hearers, fol- lowers. He mixed in their societies, he wor- shipped in their synagogues, he visited their homes, he grew familiar with their neighborhood, he taught on the hill-side, he watched their traffic on the beach, and joined in their excursions on the lake. He clothed himself in their affections, and they admitted him to their sorrows, and his presence consecrated their joys. Their Hebrew feelings became human when he was near ; and their rude nationality of worship rose towards the filial devotion of a rational and responsible mind. Nor was it altogether a familiar and equal, though a profoundly confiding sympathy, which he awak- ened. For power more than human followed his steps ; and in many a home there dwelt living memorials of his miracles : and among his most grateful disciples there were those who remem- bered the bitterness of the leper's exile, or shud- 128 THE GOSPEL HISTORY, dered at the yet unforgotten horrors of madness. That the awe of Deity which was kindled by his acts, and the love of goodness which was excited by his life, might not be confined to one spot of his country, twelve associates were first drawn closely around him to observe and learn, and then dispersed to repeat his miracles, report and teach. They were with him when the recurring festivals summoned him, in common with his fellow- citizens, to leave a while Capernaum for Jeru- salem. They beheld how his dignity rose, when his sphere of action was thus enlarged, and the interest of his position deepened ; — when the rus- tic audience was replaced by the crowd of the metropolis, and village cavillers gave way to priests and rulers, and the handful of neighbors in the provincial synagogue was exchanged for the strange and gaudy multitudes that thronged the vast temple at the hour of prayer. In one of these expeditions, the fears of the established authorities, and the disappointment of a once favoring multitude, whose ambition he had re- fused to gratify, combined to crush him. It was soon done ; the Passover at Jerusalem was its assizes too : the betrayal and the trial over, the THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 129 execution was part of the annual celebration, a spectacle that furnished an hour's excitement to the populace. But there were eyes that looked on with no careless or savage gaze ; — of one who knew what he was in childhood ; — of many that had seen his recent life in Galilee. The twelve, too, lingered closely around the event ; and they say that he came back from death, spake to them oft for forty days, and was carried before their view beyond the precincts of this earth. Here is a series of events deeply interesting indeed to those who were immersed in them ; but of which, even on the spot where they occurred, it might have been expected, that within one generation their very rumor would have died away, lost in the stir and cares of life. A few months began and ended them ; an obscure recess of the world was acted upon by them. They concerned one of a social class which is beneath the proud level of history, and whose vicissitudes, after a few years, are added to that dark abyss of forgotten things, above which gigantic vices and ambitious virtues struggle to be seen. They are, moreover, the simple record of a private life, coming in almost at the death of ancient history, 130 THE GOSPEL HISTORY. and, overshadowed by its pageantry, the miracles themselves rendered insipid, except for their be- nevolence, by its prodigies. Yet this fragment of biography did not die ; it not only lived, but it gave life ; it recast society in Europe, and called into being a new world. THE DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY AND ITS ORIGIN. BY PRESIDENT HOPKINS. The fitness of Christianity to become universal arises as much from what it is not as from what it is, and can be fully appreciated only by looking at the relation of its object to all human insti- tutions. That object is a moral object, with no taint of anything earthly about it ; and in pursuing it, Christianity keeps itself entirely aloof from all political and local questions. It regards man solely as a moral and spiritual being, under the government of God ; and its object, distinctly announced from the first, is to save men from the consequences of transgression under that govern- ment. " His name shall be called Jesus," said the angel, " for he shall save his people from their sins." Not from the Roman yoke, not pri- marily from any earthly evil, but from their sins. Upon this one object Christianity steadily keeps its eye. The Son of Man came " to seek and to save that which was lost." It is simply a system 132 THE DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY of salvation from sin and its consequences, under the government of God ; and whatever may be his age, or language, or country, or the form of government under which he lives, it is equally adapted to every child of Adam who is led to ask the question, "What must I do to be saved?" It comes with pardon and hope to every one who feels the guilt of sin, or who is subject to bondage through fear of death. There are certain great moral interests which are common to the race, certain chords in the human heart which vibrate whenever they are struck ; and it is remarkable that Christianity concerns itself only with those interests, and strikes only those chords. It has to do with individuals as guilty under the govern- ment of God, without respect to their earthly re- lations ; and hence it has the power to enter in as a new element, and to pervade and enlighten every form of society, as the sunlight enters into and pervades the body of the atmosphere. Hence, in its original diffusion, regarding man simply as man, it swept as freely as the breeze of heaven past all territorial and national limits. All other religions are adapted to particular climates ; are upheld, like that of the Jews, by association with AND ITS ORIGIN. 133 particular places ; but, since Christ has entered into the true tabernacle above, incense and a pure offering may go up from every place. All other religions are connected with the government, and we have no evidence that, without such connec- tion, they could be sustained. But " Christianity, as a spiritual system, is always superior to every visible institution.'' Some systems and institu- tions may oppose greater obstacles to its progress than others ; but none can become Christianity, nor can they do anything for it except to give it free scope to do its own work upon individual character. It is not monarchy, it is not democra- cy, it is not Episcopacy, it is not Congregation- alism ; it is something which may pervade and bless society where any of these exist, and which may be withdrawn and leave either of these stand- ing as an organization through which human passion and corruption shall work out their own unmixed and unmitigated effects. Hence, too, Christianity attacks no visible institutions as such. It goes to the slave, and tells him he is the Lord's freeman ; it goes to the master, and tells him he is Christ's servant. It tells both mas- ter and slave that they are brethren. It goes to 12 134 THE DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY the king, and tells him he is the subject of a higher power; it goes to the subject, and tells him he may become a king and priest to God. It raises all men to the level of a common immortality ; it depresses them all to the level of a common sin- fulness and exposure ; it subjects all to a common accountability ; it offers to all a common salva- tion ; it proposes to all a law of perfect equity and a principle of universal love ; and then it leaves these principles and motives to work their own effect, — assured that, in proportion as they act, they must change the nature, if not the name, of all visible institutions opposed to its spirit. It is capable of taking human organizations, as culture took the peach when it was dwarfed and its fruit was poisonous, and of causing other juices and vital fluids to circulate through the pores of those same organizations, and far other fruit to hang upon their branches. It understands perfectly that no change of form is of any permanent value without a change of spirit ; and seeks (and oh that men would learn this lesson ! ) a change of form only through a change of spirit. Hence it works like leaven, that passes on from particle to par- ticle, and finds no limit till the w T hole lump is AND ITS ORIGIN. 135 leavened. Hence, too, I may remark here, Chris- tianity is the most formidable of all foes to tyrants, and to every form of oppression. No walls or fortifications, or armed legions, can keep it out, and no weapon can smite it. Working silently upon the consciences of men, it is impossible to say where it is, or to what extent, and the opposer knows not where to strike. The very execution- er chosen by persecution offers himself to die with the martyr ; and when it is supposed that the two witnesses are dead, and there is great re- joicing, they suddenly rise and stand upon their feet. ^e. 4£ «s£- ■ttf* -Y- «V- Thus we see a preparation made, in the adap- tation of Christianity to the condition and wants of man, for that final and universal triumph pre- dicted by the prophets and waited for by the church ; and through these, in connection with that divine aid which is promised and has never been withheld, we think it rational to expect, not only that it will be perpetuated to the end of time, but that " the mountain of the Lord's house will be established in the top of the mountains, and that all nations will flee unto it." 136 THE DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY. Having thus spoken of the continuance of Christianity till the end of time, I will close by observing that, in substance, if not in form, it has continued from its beginning. That it should have been always in the world, is mentioned by Pascal as the mark of a religion from God. It is a mark which we might expect would belong to the true religion, and this mark Christianity, and that alone, has. The Patriarchal, the Jew- ish, and the Christian dispensations, are evidently but the unfolding of one general plan. In the first we see the folded bud : in the second, the expanded leaf: in the third, the blossom and the fruit. And now, how sublime the idea of a religion thus commencing in the earliest dawn of time ; holding on its way through all the revolu- tions of kingdoms and the vicissitudes of the race ; receiving new forms, but always identical in spirit; and finally expanding and embracing in one great brotherhood the whole family of man ! Who can doubt that such a religion was from God ? THE MADONNA AND CHILD BY BERNARD BARTON. I may not change the simple faith, In which from childhood I was bred ; Nor could I, without scorn, or scathe, The living seek among the dead ; My soul has far too deeply fed On what no painting can express, To bend the knee, or bow the head, To aught of pictured loveliness. And yet, Madonna ! when I gaze On charms unearthly, such as thine ; Or glances yet more reverent raise Unto that infant, so divine ! I marvel not that many a shrine Hath been, and still is, reared to thee, Where mingled feelings might combine To bow the head and bend the knee. 12* 138 THE MADONNA AND CHILD. For who, that is of woman born, And hath that birthright understood, Mindful of being's early morn, Can e'er behold, with thoughtless mood, Most pure and perfect womanhood ? Woman, by angel once addressed ; And by the wise, the great, the good, Of every age, accounted blessed ! Or who that feels the spell which Heaven Casts round us in our infancy, But, more or less, hath homage given To childhood, half unconscious why ? A yet more touching mystery Is in that feeling comprehended, When thus is brought before the eye Godhead with childhood strangely blended ! And hence I marvel not at all, That spirits, needing outward aid, Should feel and own the magic thrall In your meek loveliness displayed : And if the objects thus portrayed Brought comfort, hope, or joy, to them, Their error, let who will upbraid, I rather pity, — than condemn. THE MADONNA AND CHILD. 139 For me, though not by hands of mine, May shrine or altar be upreared ; In you, the human and divine Have both so beautiful appeared, That each, in turn, hath been endeared, As in you feeling has explored Woman, — with holier love revered, And God, — more gratefully adored. THE FIRST MOMENT OE THE GOSPEL (FROM A SERMON ON THE TEMPTATION.) BY REV. W. J. FOX. What a moment of intense feeling to himself must that have been in which Christ began to preach ! It is only by the recollection of the strongest sensations in their own lives, and by that analogy, that faith in the universally similar con- stitution of man, however varied by circumstances, to which we must have recourse, that any concep- tion of it can be formed by others. How faint must the conception be, after all ! He who has entered in mature life on some public and impor- tant course of action, will never forget his emo- tions on the occasion ; he will look back to them, and analyze them, and revive them, and ponder on their complexity and their forces ; and though all sensations lose their freshness, and fade from their vividness, yet will they glimmer on his mind through the long vista of years, and be extin- guished but in the grave. So must it have been with Christ at that time, though after events would THE FIRST MOMENT OF THE GOSPEL. 141 agitate with yet deeper emotion, and thus displace in some degree the impression ; and the absolute peculiarity of his circumstances would have some corresponding peculiarity of feeling. But so, with these varieties, must it then have been with him. I cannot imagine even his exalted mind engaging in such a task without intense anxiety. What immense consequences were to result from the words he was about to utter, both to him- self, his hearers, and ultimately to the remotest nations and ages ! He was then committing him- solf to the awful trial. From that instant there was no shrinking back, no temporizing, no devi- ating a hair's breadth from the path which led to glory, but by the cross and the grave. It was a fearful plunge into a stormy ocean of prejudice, passion, and persecution. He saw the foaming billows which would be allowed to pass over his head and spend on him their fury. From the first syllable he uttered, he was at war with all that was powerful in his country, in its rulers or its populace. They were his enemies to the death, and beyond that, had it been possible for human malice to baffle Divine Providence, and blast him as an impostor. He was alone ; and not in his 142 THE FIRST MOMENT OF THE GOSPEL. native abode, not in the friendliness of neigh- borhood, the affection of relationship, was he to find support. For some time, at least, " his breth- ren believed not on him." The words he uttered would even sever him from them. And in what a character was he to speak ! How imposing its dignity, if recognized ; how detestable his sup- posed presumption, where it was not acknowl- edged ! How solicitous must he have been to be, in action, and in speech, all that it required ! How would the conviction, that now his lot was cast, and his destiny of anguish and of final glory decided ; the sensation of taking the first step, beyond which there was only to go on, through all events, to the end ; the thought that an awful responsibility, of temporal and more than tem- poral nature, hung over his hearers' heads ; the laceration of ties of kindred or country, to be soon torn by the rejection of his claims, and the visitations of heaven for that crime ; the melting pity which his heart felt for the wretchedness which he saw, and that of a wider circle which his mind depicted; the fervent benevolence that flowed so strongly and spread so widely in his generous bosom ; the humble piety that enabled THE FIRST MOMENT OF THE GOSPEL. 143 him to confide in God for everything, and, acting under His direction, merge all fears and hope in filial reliance on His omnipotence ; — how must all these emotions have then mingled and swelled within, too mighty even for his utterance, as they are for the grasp of our imagination ! What a moment was that for Judea ! Then came on the great trial of the seed of Abraham. Then was the nation tested, and obedience or disobedience to decide its fate for many a revolv- ing century. Then were they to fill up the measure of their fathers' iniquities, and the land be smitten with a curse ; or all past offences to be obliterated by one great act of submission to Heaven. Never was there, in any other people's history, so awful a crisis of their fate. The blessing and the curse were both before them, and they were rushing blindfold to the choice. The temper in which they heard was the com- mencement of a determination whether the temple should stand, or be annihilated ; whether Jeru- salem should flourish, or the fire devour its build- ings, and the plough pass over the soil on which it rested ; whether the nation should remain in the smile of heaven, or become the scorn and by- word 144 THE FIRST MOMENT OF THE GOSPEL. of the earth. They did decide. They are in their eighteenth century of rejection and degra- dation. What a moment was that for the world, little as the world then heeded it ! Monarchs were issuing their decrees ; and priests were officiating in their temples ; and philosophers were teaching in their schools ; and politicians were immersed in the fancied profundity of their schemes and farsightedness of their calculations ; and poets were singing their country's gods and their country's eternal glory ; and the ambitious were shaping and fixing the steps of the ladder that ascends to power ; and the Epicureans were rev- elling on their couches at their banquets ; and slaves were crouching in their dungeon, or howl- ing under the lash ; and the multitude of Rome was applauding the bloody sport of the amphi- theatre ; and that of Corinth was shaming the brute creation in the unbridled license of sensu- ality ; and that of Ephesus was glorifying Diana ; and that of Athens hearing or seeking some new thing : — and what peals of ridicule would have overwhelmed the impertinent absurdity, (as they would have deemed it,) had any uttered it, that in THE FIRST MOMENT OF THE GOSPEL. 145 the petty country of Judea, or in the little con- temptible province of Galilee, an obscure peasant, the son of a carpenter, was then beginning to preach, and, by that act, beginning the subversion of the Roman empire ; the revolution of its man- ners, philosophy, religion ; the completest change from what then was that could be conceived, and to which all other convulsions were comparatively unworthy the notice of history ! Yet so it was. They were in all their pride, and pomp, and fame, and luxury, and seeming durability ; and he ap- parently as little to be heeded as, by the powers that be, the meanest itinerant who in some remote village may gather, in street or field, a peasant auditory around him ; and now they are a pile of ruin, at the base of his cross, and their history is ransacked to afford illustrations for a sentence of the record of his sermons ! What a moment was that for us ! Here are we assembled in the name of Christ, and with that name blending the sense of what is most dear and pleasurable here, and the prospect of a life, an immortality, hereafter ; finding in his discourses materials for faith, and hope, and obedience ; placing him before us as a perfect model, to 13 146 THE FIRST MOMENT OF THE GOSPEL* shame our failings and stimulate our virtues ; with many a charity rising around us, and many a feeling glowing within us, which we can only call Christian; no day of our existence, — no action, no relation of life, — no retirement in solitude, nor mingling with society, — in which we are not aware, on reflection, that in some degree or other it springs from, or is modified by, Christianity ; — and that was the commencement of Christianity, the first link in the chain that enfolds us round and binds us with society, and draws us on into an interminable but blessed futurity ! What a moment was that for the human race ! Then began the seed of the woman to crush the serpent's head. Then arose the principle of good, in its brightness, to restrain, and subdue, and annihilate the principle of evil. By man had come death, and then by man was coming the resurrection of the dead. Sin had abounded, and then came grace to superabound. God had spoken by servants ; then spake he by his Son, commanding " all men, everywhere, to repent." Then flowed the words which are spirit and life, and which the Father spake by Christ. Then came plain instruction, and holy precepts, THE FIRST MOMENT OF THE GOSPEL. 147 and precious promises, and affectionate persua- sions, and solemn warnings, and heart-soothing consolations, and all the inspiring splendor of immortal hopes. Then began Jehovah to triumph gloriously over the false deities of long ages and mighty nations. Then commenced the procla- mation of pardon and remission of sins, on re- pentance, to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Then first was that voice publicly heard, which soon reached even the ear of death, and which will penetrate the whole dominion of the grave, and pronounce the sentence of a judged world, and call on the Father to receive and bless a restored universe. All, and forever, have the deepest interest in the results of that moment. Swiftly did it pass in the ever-flowing current of time ; firmly will those results abide on the rock of Eternity. HYMN. BY JOHN STERLING. O Thou! sole Sire! pervading Lord of all, Who spread' st thy fulness round this earthly ball ; You teach me still in every face to see An ampler mould than all the skies of Thee. By passion wrenched and darkened, torn by hate, By sin dethroned from all our heavenly state, Thy spirit stained, defaced, and scarred with shame, Still shows on each thy noblest creature's name. Though changed, how far ! from all thy will com- mands, And bruised and maimed by evil's rending hands ; While life, and thought, and soul, and sense, are ours, Still lasts the wreck of more than earthly powers. Renew, — thou only canst, O God! — the plan Of truth and love, so blurred and crushed in man,— That good, designed for all, to all unknown, Till set before our eyes in one alone. HYMN. 149 From Him, so full of Thee, the Father's mind, The Father's holy love to all our kind, Oh ! teach us Thou to draw whate'er of best Restores to Thee the self-bewildered breast ; — Amid our waste be He a living spring, Amid our lawless wars a peaceful king ; In our dark night be He a dawning star, In woe a friend, to aid us come from far. And thus, that we His help and hope may share, Our hearts, o'erthrown by sin, do Thou repair ; And so, in chambers purified by Thee, His peace may dwell, and there His spirit be. O Thou ! whose will has joined us each to all, And made the lonely heart itself appal, Who art the vital bond that knits in one Thy countless myriads born beneath the sun ; Thou aid us, Heavenly Sire ! that each for each May live, as He for all, in deed and speech ; And so do Thou for us, paternal Lord ! Make bright, like His, the face, and pure the word. 13* 150 HYMN. Like us a man, He trod on earthly soil, He bore each pang, and strove in weary toil ; He spake with human words, with pity sighed ; Like us He mourned, and feared, and wept, and died. Yet all thy fulness, Father, dwelt in Him, In whom no shadow made thy glory dim ; Such strength, O God ! from Him to us derive, And make, by life from Him, our death alive. MIDNIGHT BY AUBREY DE VERE. The stars shine bright while earth is dark ! While all the woods are dumb, How clear those far off silver chimes From tower and turret come ! Chilly but sweet the midnight air : And lo ! with every sound, Down from the ivy-leaf a drop Falls glittering to the ground. 'T was night when Christ was born on earth ; Night heard his faint first cry ; While angels carolled round the star Of the Epiphany. Alas ! and is our love too weak To meet him on his way ? To pray for nations in their sleep ? — For love then let us pray ! 152 MIDNIGHT. Pray for the millions slumbering now ; The sick, who cannot sleep : O may those sweet sounds waft them thoughts As peaceful and as deep ! Pray for the idle, and the vain : O may that pure-toned bell Disperse the Demon Powers of air, And evil dreams dispel ! Pray for the aged, and the poor ; The crown-encompassed head ; The friends of youth, now far away ; The dying, and the dead. And ever let us wing our prayer With praise : and ever say Glory to God, who makes the night Benignant as the day ! FOR THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING. BY AUBREY DE VERE. A low sweet voice from out the brake Provoked a loud reply : Now half the birds are half awake, — They feel the morning nigh. Now, fainting 'neath her load of dreams, The moon inclines her brows, Expectant, towards those mightier beams That grant her toils repose. Long streaks, the prophets of the sun, Illume the dusk, gray hill : But still the heart of Heaven is dun ; The day is virgin still ! O Christ ! ere yet beheld on earth, How oft, incarnate word, Thy prophets heraldeth thy birth ! Alas, how seldom heard ! NIGHT BY SIR. THOMAS BROWNE. The night is come, like to the day ; Depart not thou, great God, away ! Let not my sins, black as the night, Eclipse the lustre of thy light ; Keep still in my horizon ; for to me The sun makes not the day, but Thee. Thou, whose nature cannot sleep, On my temples sentry keep ; Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes, Whose eyes are open while mine close, Let no dreams my head infest, But such as Jacob's temples blest. While I do rest, my soul advance, Make my sleep a holy trance ; That I may, my rest being wrought, Awake into some holy thought ; And with as active vigor run My course, as doth the nimble sun. Sleep is a death ; O make me try, By sleeping, what it is to die ; NIGHT. 155 And as gently lay my head On my grave, as now my bed. Howe'er I rest, great God, 'let me Awake again at last with Thee : And thus assured, behold I lie Securely, or to wake or die. These are my drowsy days ; in vain I do now wake, to sleep again. O come that hour when I shall never Sleep again, but wake for ever. THE LIFE OE JESUS. FROM " MARGARET," BY REV. SYLVESTER JUDD. " Of the subject itself, Christ, what can I say?" said Mr. Evelyn. " It is almost too great for our comprehension, as it certainly rises above all petty disputes. How can I describe what I know not ? How can I embrace a nature that so ex- ceeds my own ? How can I tell of a love I never felt, or recount attainments I never reached? Can I give out what I have not ? — and I some- times fear I am not completely possessed of Christ. Can I, the Imperfect, appreciate the Per- fect one? Can I, the sinful, reveal the sinless soul? I have not Christ's spirit, his truth, his joy, so integrally, and plenarily, that I can set him forth in due proportion and entireness, His ex- perience and character, his spiritual strength and moral goodness, are so transcendent, I truly hesi- tate at the task you impose on me. That we may portray the poet or the artist, or any high excellence, we must square with it ; who, alas ! is equal to Christ !" THE LIFE OF JESUS. 157 " Yet," said Margaret, " all that is, lies secretly coiled within our own breasts ! All beauty, I am persuaded, is within us ; whatever comes to me I feel to have had a pre-existence. I sometimes indeed doubt whether I give or receive. A flower takes color from the sun, and gives off color. Air makes the fire burn, and the fire makes the air blow ; and the colder the weather the brisker the fire. — I think if you only begin, it will all come to you. As you drain off, it will flow in. The sinful may give out the sinless. I long to hear what you have to say." " What you observe is too true, and I thank you for making me recollect myself. Even the Almighty creates us, and then suffers himself to be revealed in us. We, motes, carry an immens- ity of susceptible responsive existence. But for this we should never love or know Christ. In his boyhood, we are told, Christ waxed strong in spirit, was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. His earliest developments must have been of a peculiarly beautiful and striking kind. When he was twelve years old, being in company of some learned people, his questions and replies were of such a nature as to 14 158 THE LIFE OF JESUS. excite astonishment in all present, at the extent of his understanding. We have no authentic ac- count of him from this until his thirtieth year, excepting that he resided with his father, and pursued the family avocation, that of a carpen- ter." " What ! do you know nothing about him when he was as old as I am, or as you are ? when he was fifteen, or twenty, or twenty-five ? In the dream I remember he said I must be like him, I must grow up with him. Had he no youth? Had he no inward, sorrowful feelings, as I have had ? " " There is one of the books of the New Testa- ment of a peculiar character, and it contains some intimations respecting Christ not found in the others. I will read a passage. 'In the days of his flesh he offered up or poured forth prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, to Him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared,' or, as it stands in the original, ' for his piety/ This, as I believe, points to a period in his life not recorded in the other histories, and should be assigned to that which you have mentioned — his youth." THE LIFE OF JESUS. 159 " I have no doubt of it," said Margaret. " It describes exactly what I have been through. Did he suffer all we do ?" " Yes, his life and sufferings were archetypal of those of all his followers. ' He suffered for us/ says St. Peter, ' leaving us an example that we should follow in his steps.' * Rejoice/ he says, * inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings.' " " How near this brings Christ to me ! It seems as if I had him now in my heart. He too suffered! How much there is in that word ! and in this earnest, soul-deep way ! I understand his sad, tender look. Apollo killed Hyacinth by accident, and was very sorry. But there was no deep, capable soul in Apollo, was there ? I shall not think so much of him. * I interrupt you, sir ; go on." " He suffered all that any being can suffer ; he was alone, unbefriended, unsympathized with, unaided ; books gave him no satisfaction, teachers afforded him no light. The current, swift and broad, of popular error and prejudice, he had to stem and turn, single-handed. He grew in knowledge, we read ; the problems of Man, God 160 THE LIFE OF JESUS. and the Universe, were given to him to resolve. But he was heard for his piety, for his goodness. He became perfect through suffering. Super- natural, divine assistance was afforded him, and he conquered at last. At the age of thirty, when he entered what is called his public ministry, which is the chief subject of history, he encoun- tered a severe temptation, such as all are liable to, and was enabled to vanquish it ; he was tempt- ed as we are. He was ever without sin, neither was guile found in his mouth ; he was holy, harm- less, undefiled. At times he was made indignant at the conduct of men; he was grieved at the hardness of their hearts, he groaned in sympathy with human distress, he wept over the follies of the race ; he was persecuted by the great, and despised by his own kindred ; his nearest friends deserted him, and one of his chosen disciples betrayed him ; the greatness of his views met only with bigotry, and the generosity of his heart was repelled by meanness ; he carried the heavy wood on which he was crucified, and when brought as a malefactor to the place of execution, he was scourged and spit upon ; once, prostrated by the weight of his anguish, and from very heat of THE LIFE OF JESUS. 161 internal agony, he entreated that the bitter cup might be removed ; and to add to all, in the ex- treme stage of dissolving life, for a moment his spiritual vision seemed to be dimmed, and he. cried out, 'O my God! why hast thou forsaken mef Such is a brief notice of his sufferings. Let me turn to other points " " Oh, Mr. Evelyn !" exclaimed Margaret, " how can you go on so ! How cold you are ! I cannot hear any more ;" and from the posture she had maintained, with her eyes fixed on the ground, she fell with her face into her hands, and followed the act with an audible profusion of tears. " Do forgive me," said Mr. Evelyn. " I have been so long familiar with this most affecting history, that I know it does not move me as it should." 14* THE GOOD SAMARITAN. BY M. ATHANASE COQUEREL. Christ, in giving his divine instructions, knew how to conform thern to the time, the place, the audience ; and we ought to take all these circum- stances into consideration. This conversation, in which he introduced the parable of the Good Samaritan, was probably held in a synagogue, in the midst of a curious and attentive assembly, after the usual reading of the Law. It was cus- tomary at that time for the ruler of the synagogue to allow any one who wished to instruct the people to speak ; and this doctor, apparently a Pharisee, joyfully seized this happy occasion to prove Jesus, and seek to put his new doctrine in contradiction with the teachings of Moses. With this view, he raises his voice, and, taking the tone of a disciple who asks for instruction, that he might the better conceal that of an adversary who is laying a snare, he says to Jesus, with a feigned humility : " Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life, that better life which you announce, which you promise ?" THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 163 Our Lord refers him to the book of Moses, and simply replies to him, "What is written in the Law, how readest thou?" The Pharisee immediately takes his part, and begins either to recite or read those two great precepts taken from Leviticus and Deuteronomy, which were considered, by universal consent, as the summary of the Law. These passages were read every day in the synagogues, another reason why they were quoted by the doctor ; and our Saviour, approving his answer, made use of it to finish showing him how far his doctrine agreed with that of Moses, and confirmed it by that sanc- tion so often repeated in the ancient covenant. " You have answered well,' , said he to him ; " do these things, and you shall Iive.' , "Do these things and you shall live!" What wisdom, and what simplicity ! The hypocrite sees himself beaten by his own weapons, and unmasked, so to speak, by his own hands. Far from attacking, he thinks only of defending him- self. Far from seeking still further to embar- rass the wisdom of Christ, he thinks of nothing more than saving his own reputation. He cannot refuse openly to " do these things," and to follow 164 THE GOOD SAMARITAN. these commandments ; and, taking refuge in a skilful doubt, which may have the semblance of springing from his great knowledge, he pretends ignorance, and asks, " But who is my neighbor ?" Here an example was necessary. Precepts, counsels, reproaches, would have been ineffectual. Charity must be placed before the eyes of those who did not feel it in their hearts ; they must see it at work ; the principle they would despise is offered to their minds with the power of a fact. Our divine master so judged, and the parable was preceded by no reflection. In the first word Jesus entered upon the narrative, and transported his hearers to the place chosen as the theatre of the event. This surprise must have fixed their attention in an astonishing manner. " Who is my neighbor?" asked the Pharisee, and Jesus im- mediately answers him — " A man went down from Jerusalem to Jeri- cho" At this preamble I think I see all faces lifted up, all eyes turned upon Jesus. A silence of interest and expectation must have reigned on every side. The name alone of the place of the scene must have struck those who heard him ; THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 165 this road, which passed through desert and moun- tainous countries, was the terror of travellers, and so many robberies and murders were committed there, that, in the popular language, it was called " the bloody way." " A man," said Jesus, " went down from Jeru- salem to Jericho, and he fell among thieves, who stripped him and wounded him, and went away, leaving him half dead." In this simple and touching narrative, where nothing is omitted, where nothing is exaggerated, Jesus (and I call all your attention to this point) Jesus tells neither the name, nor the age, nor the condition, nor the country, nor the religion, of the unfortunate traveller. Is he a young man, a hand- some man, an old man, poor or rich, humble or illustrious, simple or wise, clothed with public functions, or hidden in private life ; is he Greek or Roman, Scythian or Barbarian, Jew, Galilean, or Samaritan ; is he an Israelite in his religion, or a Pagan ; or, undeceived respecting idolatry, is he only what is called "a just man, fearing God?" The narrative does not say a single word about it. Nothing of all this, brethren ; he is a man. This is his name and his country, his title and his right. He is a man, — it is enough. 166 THE GOOD SAMARITAN. Now lend yourselves to the illusion that the story must produce. Represent to yourselves this unfortunate man, stripped of his clothing, torn by wounds, covered with bruises and with blood, and abandoned on the side of an unfrequented road, — with what emotion, what joy, what hope, he will listen to the first human steps which re- sound in the distance in the midst of the silence ; how he will turn his ear to hear if they are ap- proaching ; from moment to moment the sound increases ; one moment more, and help will be at hand. But suddenly the sound changes its direc- tion, — it turns away, it grows fainter, it flies, it expires, and the unfortunate man remains with his wounds and his sufferings. It was a priest, who was going down the same road ; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. You are astonished that a priest shows so little charity, and you vainly seek excuses which might, in his own eyes, justify his conduct. Excuses ! the hard heart never fails to find them. Excuses ! do you not see they are abundant ? A priest, a member of those twenty-four sacred families, who, each in turn, week by week, are on duty in the sacred place of the temple, can he stop thus THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 167 to assist a stranger, perhaps a Gentile, perhaps even a Samaritan ? Beside, this priest is coming from Jerusalem, where, doubtless, he* has finished his week's service, and he is returning to Jericho, a sacred city, where a great number of priests reside. He is eager to take his accustomed re- pose, to refresh himself after his labors ; to find himself again in the bosom of his family ; would you have him resist this natural impatience, and delay his return to his friends and his relatives, to lavish on a stranger, assistance which would undoubtedly prove useless ? Finally, according to the law, no one can touch a dead body, or even blood, without contracting a legal impurity. Would you have a priest run the risk of making himself unclean ? No, — and the better to avoid this peril, not to raise vain hopes in the unfortu- nate man, not to have his groans and his prayers fall harshly upon him — the priest, as soon as he perceived him, turned away, and passed by on the other side of the road. Sometime after, a Levite, who followed this road, drew near, and stopped by the unfortunate wounded man, and looked at him attentively, for so the story implies. Brethren, will the subaltern 168 THE GOOD SAMARITAN. be more charitable than his superior ? will the Levite be more benevolent than the priest 1 He stops, at least, and looks. But why should a simple priest do what a pontiff has not done ? Why should men grow better in the outer courts than in the holy places ? The Levite, too, may fear to make himself unclean. It is true he stops and looks at the traveller, but this first movement of pity furnishes him a new excuse, more strong and more just. He sees that the wounds are still open, the blood is still flowing ; it has not had time to stop; and the stupor, the weakness, of this un- fortunate man, all announces that the murder has just been committed, that the robbers could not be far off. It was no time for him to stop there, and attempt to save this poor man. Could the Levite expose himself, by pausing in such a dangerous spot ? No; he must, in the first place, provide for his own safety. The Levite passed by on the other side of the road. And, at this second aban- donment, all the hearers, uncertain, perhaps, while they were listening to this story, so marked by simplicity and truth, whether it was a parable or a real incident, are asking themselves whether the THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 169 unfortunate traveller was about to perish, without help, of exhaustion and suffering " But a Samaritan," continues our Saviour. "But a Samaritan!" Recollect that Jesus was speaking before the Jews, and that an hereditary hatred, at once national and religious, separated the two nations — recollect the astonishment of the woman of Sychar, that Jesus, a Jew, should ask of her a little water to drink, after the fatigues and the heat of a day's journey under an eastern sky. " But a Samaritan, who was journeying, came to him, and seeing him, was moved with compassion." Count one by one the cares of the good Samaritan, and you will be astonished at the number of his benefits : he looks ; he moves ; he descends quickly from his saddle; he seeks the remnant of life in this bleeding body, a lingering breath upon those frozen lips ; he binds up all those sad wounds with his own garments ; he pours out oil and wine, the usual provisions taken on a journey ; he places the stranger on his own beast, and conducts him into one of those little inns established especially for the use of the Samaritans, to whom the Jews refused to offer a hospitality which they lavished on each other ; 15 170 THE GOOD SAMARITAN. there he yields to no one the care of helping the wounded man ; he still " takes care of him," and the next day, on departing, he pays beforehand for the services which the state of the unhappy man requires. " Take care of him, and whatso- ever more thou shalt spend, I will repay when I come back." It did not enter into our Lord's design to deduce himself the consequences which resulted from this admirable lesson, and it would perhaps be as well to follow this divine example, and to leave you to the feelings it excites. Jesus wished to close this conversation in a fitting manner, by making the hypocrite himself, who had pretended ignorance of the most holy law, render homage to the act of charity ; and he says to the Pharisee who had questioned him : " Which of the three, thinkest thou, was the neighbor to him who fell among thieves?" "It was," replies the doctor, forced to instruct himself, (and here remark, that, doubtless from pride and obstinacy, he avoids pronouncing the odious name of Samaritan, and designates without naming him,) "it was he that showed mercy to him." Then Jesus, leaving his pride to be subdued THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 171 with the weight of this confession, which it was impossible to avoid or retain, Jesus said to him, " Go thou and do likewise." " Do likewise." This command of our Saviour is addressed to us all, as well as to this doctor of Israel. Take care, however, not to deceive yourselves on the bearing of this example, and the force of this commandment. Do not think you are only to imitate the good Samaritan of the parable, on a similar occasion, and bind up, as best you may, wounds that are still bleeding. Do not think that you are to learn merely how to uphold a fallen brother, to relieve a suffering brother, to save a perishing brother ; these are services which occa- sionally are rendered by the most insensible, the most vindictive, the most unkind men ; and this sublime parable is not reduced to such a barren lesson, such a common beneficence ; there are greater things here. Remember the question of the Pharisee, — "Who is my neighbor?" — aques- tion of which this whole story is the answer. Recollect that Jesus took care not to give the least information about the wounded traveller, and you will confess that the whole design of this 172 THE GOOD SAMARITAN. discourse of our Lord is only to teach us who is our neighbor ; you will confess that the sublime, the magnificent truth to which by force you must arrive is, that your neighbor is everybody ; and there does not breathe on the face of the earth a man, whoever he may be, to whom we can refuse this sacred title, this title which is his by divine right, this ineffaceable title with which God him- self has endowed him ; any charity which makes exceptions to this is not the true charity of the Gospel, and any exception is an error without foundation ; an iniquity without excuse, which violates, at the same time, the tender precepts of charity, and the severe laws of justice. Will you then claim the right to separate men at will, according to your caprices and your prejudices, your interests and your passions — to consider, as it suits you, some as your neighbors, and others as strangers ? They are all equal ; they all hold the same relation to you ; they are all the children of the same God; they are your brethren; in spite of yourself, this universal relationship cannot be denied. Differences there are, certainly; but ex- ceptions, very certainly, there are none. Jesus does not demand of you to love him whose exist- THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 173 ence is hardly known to you, and with whom you will have no intimate relation till you meet him in heaven ; he does not require you to love him in the same manner as you love him whose hand has pressed yours in close embrace a thousand times. Jesus does not require you to love the human race in the same manner you love your family, the world as you love your country, and Gentiles in the same manner as Christians ; but he requires you to love all men, each in his order : and the danger here is not of loving too much our fellow citizens, our friends, our relations ; when these holy and noble affections are purified and strengthened by faith, they strengthen in their turn, far from banishing from our souls, those more distant affections which bind us to our equals, and which will be drawn more closely together in heaven. Let us remember that the good Samaritan, when he saw his neighbor in the wounded travel- ler, knew nothing of him. Let us remember that it is impossible to love God without loving men, and that our love for each other is the sign by which our Lord has promised to acknowledge us for his disciples, united for a short time on 174 THE GOOD SAMARITAN. earth, to be forever united in his presence in the heavens ; and, meantime, moved with admiration at the sublime model which your divine master proposes to your charity, go ye then and do like- wise. THE LORD OF THE VINEYARD. Who came at the eleventh hour, And to their tasks were true, And labored, each as he had power, Received, — each man his due. Who came when day was breaking bright, And labored all day through, Till evening melted into night, Received, — each man his due. These looked at those, — those looked at these, As from their Lord they came, — The dues of those, — the dues of these, — They saw, were just the same. For those and these God's children are, Born for eternity ; Moments of time could not compare With lives which live for aye, And souls whose every hope is fixed above Have no less due from God — than all a Father's love. ALMS-GIVING. FROM MILNES' POETRY FOR THE PIMPLE. When Poverty, with mien of shame, The sense of Pity seeks to touch, — Or, bolder, makes the simple claim That I have nothing, you have much,- Believe not either man or book That bids you close the opening hand, And with reproving speech and look Your first and free intent withstand. It may be that the tale you hear Of pressing wants and losses borne Is heapt or colored for your ear, And tatters for the purpose worn ; But surely Poverty has not A sadder need than this, to wear A mask still meaner than her lot, Compassion's scanty food to share. It may be that you err to give What will but tempt to further spoil Those who in low content would live On theft of others' time and toil ; ALMS-GIVING. 177 Yet sickness may have broke or bent The active frame or vigorous will, — Or hard occasion may prevent Their exercise of humble skill. It may be that the suppliant's life Has lain on many an evil way Of fond delight and brutal strife, And lawless deeds that shun the day ; But how can any gauge of yours The depth of that temptation try ? — What man resists — what man endures — Is open to one only eye. Why not believe the homely letter That all you give will God restore ! The poor man may deserve it better, And surely, surely, wants it more ; Let but the rich man do his part, And, whatsoe'er the issue be To those who ask, his answering heart Will gain and grow in sympathy. CONSTANCY OF CHARACTER. BY AUBREY DE VERE. Man's mind should be of marble, not of clay ; A rock-hewn temple, large, majestic, bare ; Not decked with gew-gaws, but with life-long care, And toil heroic, shaped to stand for aye : Not like those plaster baubles of the day, In which the lightest breath of praise or prayer Crumbles the gauds wherewith they garnished are : In which we dare not think, and cannot pray ; In which God will not dwell. O Constancy ! Where thou art wanting, all our gifts are naught. Friend of the martyrs, — both of those who die, And those who live, — beneath that steadfast eye The breast-plates and the beaming helms were wrought Of all our far-famed Christian chivalry ! DUTY AND IMMORTALITY FROM J. G. FICHTE. Perfection has but one form ; it is equal to itself: could all men become perfect, could they attain their highest and ultimate end, they would all be equal to each other, — they would be only one — but one single subject. But in society each strives to make others perfect, at least according to his own standard of perfection, — to raise them to the ideal of humanity which he has formed. Thus the last, highest end of society is perfect unity and unanimity of all its possible members. But since the attainment of this end supposes the attainment of the destination of each individual man — the attainment of absolute perfection ; so it is quite as impossible as the latter — it is unat- tainable, unless man were to lay aside his human- ity, and become God. Perfect unity with all the individuals of his race is thus indeed the ultimate end, but not the vocation, of man in society. But to approach nearer this end, — constantly to approach nearer to it, — this he can and should 180 DUTY AND IMMORTALITY. do. This approximation towards perfect unity and unanimity with all men may be called co- operation. Thus co-operation, growing ever firmer at its centre, and ever wider at its circum- ference, is the true vocation of man in society ; — but such a co-operation is only possible by means of ever-growing improvement ; for it is only in relation to their ultimate destination that men are at one, or can become united. We may there- fore say, that mutual improvement — improve- ment of ourselves by the freely admitted action of others upon us, and improvement of others by our reaction upon them as upon free beings, — is our vocation in society. And in order to fulfil this vocation, and fulfil it always more thoroughly, we need a qualification which can only be acquired and improved by culture ; and indeed a qualification of a double nature ; an ability to give, or to act upon others as upon free beings ; — and an openness to re- ceive, or to derive the greatest advantage from the action of others upon us. Of both we shall speak particularly in the proper place. We must especially strive to acquire the latter when we possess the former in a high degree ; otherwise DUTY AND IMMORTALITY. 181 we cease to advance, and consequently retro- grade. Seldom is any man so perfect but he may be much improved through the agency of any other man, in some perhaps apparently un- important or neglected point of culture. I know few more sublime ideas than the idea of this universal inter-action of the whole human race on itself; this ceaseless life and activity, this eager emulation to give and to receive, — the noblest strife in which man can take a part ; this general indentation of countless wheels into each other, whose common motive power is freedom ; and the beautiful harmony which is the result of all. " Whoever thou art" may each of us say — "whoever thou art, if thou bear the form of man, thou too art a member of this great common- wealth ; through what countless media soever our mutual influence may be transmitted, still by that title I act upon thee, and thou on me; no one who bears the stamp of reason on his front, however rudely impressed, exists in vain for me. But I know thee not, — thou knowest not me! Oh ! so surely as we have a common calling to be good, — ever to become better, — so surely — though millions of ages may first pass away — 16 182 DUTY AND IMMORTALITY. (what is time ! ) — so surely shall a period at last arrive when I may receive thee too into my sphere of action, — when I may do good to thee, and receive good From thee in return ; when my heart may be united to thine also, by the fairest possible bond, — a mutual interchange of free and gener- ous love." # # * # # When we contemplate the idea now unfold- ed, even without reference to ourselves, we see around us a community in which no one can labor for himself without at the same time laboring for his fellow men, or can labor for others without at the same time laboring for himself; where the success of one member is the success of all, and the loss of one a loss to all ; a picture which, by the harmony it reveals in the manifold diversity of being, introduces a cordial feeling of satisfac- tion to the mind, and powerfully raises the soul above the things of time. But the interest is heightened when we turn our thoughts to ourselves, and contemplate our- selves as members of this great spiritual commu- nity. The feeling of our dignity and our power is increased when we say, — what each of us may DUTY AND IMMORTALITY. 183 say, — " My existence is not in vain and aimless ; I am a necessary link in the great chain of being which reaches from the awakening of the first man to perfect consciousness of his existence, onward through eternity ; all the great and wise and noble that have ever appeared among men, — those benefactors of the human race whose names I find recorded in the world's history, and the many others whose benefits have outlived their names, — all have labored for me ; I have entered into their labors ; on this earth, where they dwelt, I follow their footsteps, which scattered blessings as they went. I may, as soon as I will, assume the sublime task which they have resigned, of making our common brotherhood ever wiser and happier ; I may continue to build where they had to cease their labors ; I may bring nearer to its completion the glorious temple which they had to leave unfinished." " But," some one may say, " I, too, like them, must rest from my labors." Oh! this is the sublimest thought of all ! If I assume this noble task, I can never reach its end ; and so surely as it is my vocation to assume it, I can never cease to act, and hence can never cease to be. That 184 DUTY AND IMMORTALITY. which men call Death cannot interrupt my activ- ity ; for my work must go on to its completion, and it cannot be completed in Time ; — hence my existence is limited by no time, and I am Eternal; — with the assumption of this great task, I have also laid hold of Eternity. I raise my head boldly towards the threatening rock, the raging flood, or the fiery tempest, and say — " I am eter- nal and I defy your might ! Break all upon me ! and thou Earth, and thou Heaven, mingle in the wild tumult ! — and all the elements, foam and fret yourselves, and crush in your conflict the last atom of the body which I call mine ! My Will, secure in its own firm purpose, shall soar undis- turbed and bold over the wreck of the universe ; for I have entered upon my vocation, and it is more enduring than ye are ; it is eternal, and I am eternal, like it!" AROUSE THEE, SOUL BY ROBERT NICOLL. Arouse thee, Soul ! God made thee not to sleep Thy hour of earth in doing nought away ; He gave thee power to keep ; — Oh ! use it for His glory while you may ! Arouse thee, Soul ! Arouse thee, Soul ! Oh ! there is much to do For thee, if thou would' st work for human kind; — The misty future through, A greatness looms — 'tis mind, awakened mind ! Arouse thee, Soul ! Arouse thee, Soul ! Shake off thy sluggishness, As shakes the lark the dew-drop from his wing ; Make but one error less, — One truth thine offering to mind's altar bring ! Arouse thee, Soul ! 16 * 186 AROUSE THEE, SOUL ! Arouse thee, Soul ! Be what thou surely art, An emanation from the Deity, — A flutter of that heart Which fills all nature, sea, and earth, and sky ! Arouse thee, Soul ! Arouse thee, Soul ! And let the body do Some worthy deed for human happiness ; To join, when life is through, Unto thy name, that angels both may bless ! Arouse thee, Soul ! Arouse thee, Soul ! Leave nothings of the earth ; — And if the body be not strong, to dare To blessed thoughts give birth, High as yon heaven, pure as heaven's air, Arouse thee, Soul ! Arouse thee, Soul ! Or sleep for evermore, And be what all nonentities have been ; Crawl on till life is o'er : If to be aught but this thou e'er dost mean, Arouse thee, Soul ! WE ARE BRETHREN A' BY ROBERT NICOLL. A happy bit hame this auld world would be, If men when they 're here could make shift to agree, An' ilk said to his neighbor, in cottage an' ha', "Come, gi'e me your hand — we are brethren a\" I ken na why ane wi' anither should fight, When to 'gree would make a' body cosie an' right; When man meets wi' man, 't is the best way ava, To say " Gi'e me your hand — we are brethren a'." My coat is a coarse ane, an* yours may be fine ; And I maun drink water while you may drink wine ; But we baith ha'e a leal heart, unspotted, to shaw ; Sae gi'e me your hand — we are brethren a\ The knave ye would scorn, the unfaithfu' deride ; Ye would stand like a rock, wi' the truth on your side ; Sae would I, an' nought else would I value a straw; Then gi'e me your hand — we are brethren a'. 188 WE ARE BRETHREN A Ye would scorn to do fausely by woman or man ; I haud by the right, aye, as weel as I can ; We are ane in our joys, our affections, an' a'; Come, gi'e me your hand — we are brethren a'. Your mither has lo'ed you as mithers can lq'e, An' mine has done for me what mithers can do ; We are ane high an' laigh, an' we shouldna be twa! Sae gi'e me your hand — we are brethren a\ We love the same simmer day, sunny and fair ; Hame! — oh, how we love it, an' a' that are there ! Frae the pure air o' heaven the same life we draw ; Come, gi'e me your hand — we are brethren a'. Frail, shakin' Auld Age will soon come o'er us baith, An' creeping alang at his back will be Death ; Syne into the same mither-yird we will fa', Come, gi'e me your hand — we are brethren a'. NOT ON A PEAYERLESS BED. Not on a prayerless bed, not on a prayerless bed, Compose thy weary limbs to rest ; For they alone are blest With balmy sleep Whom angels keep. Not, though by care oppressed, Or thought of anxious sorrow, Or though in many a coil perplexed For coming morrow — Lay not thy head On prayerless bed ! For who can say, when sleep thine eyes shall close, That earthly cares and woes To thee may e'er return ? Rouse up, my soul ! Slumber control, And let thy lamps burn brightly ; So shall thine eyes discern Things pure and lightly ; 190 NOT ON A PRAYERLESS BED. Taught by the spirit beam Never on a prayerless bed To lay thine unblest head. Bethink thee, slumbering soul, of all that's promised To faith in holy prayer ! Lives there within the breast A worm that gives unrest ? Ask peace from Heaven — Peace will be given : Humble self-love and pride Before the Crucified, Who for thy sins has died ; Nor lay thy weary head Upon a prayerless bed ! Hast thou no pining want, no wish, nor care, That calls for holy prayer ? Has thy day been so bright, That, in its flight, There is no trace of sorrow ? And art thou sure to-morrow Will be like this and more Abundant ? Dost thou lay up in store, And still make place for more ? NOT ON A PRAYERLESS BED. 191 Thou fool ! this very night Thy soul may wing its flight. Hast thou no being than thyself more dear, Who tracks the ocean deep, And when storms sweep The wintry skies, For whom thou wak'st and sleepest? — Oh ! when thy pangs are deepest, Seek there the covenant ark of prayer, For He that slumbereth not, is there ! His ears are open to thy cries ; Oh ! then on prayerless bed Lay not thy thoughtless head ! Hast thou no loved one than thyself more dear, Who claims a prayer from thee ? Some who ne'er bend the knee, From infidelity ? Think, if by prayer they're brought — Thy prayer, to be forgiven, And making peace with Heaven, Unto the Cross they 're led ! Oh ! for their sakes, on prayerless bed Lay not thy unblest head ! 192 NOT ON A PRAYERLESS BED. Arouse thee, weary soul ! nor yield to slumber, Till in communion blest, With the Elect ye rest — Those souls of countless number ; And with them raise The note of praise Reaching from earth to heaven, Chosen, redeemed, forgiven : So lay thy happy head, Prayer-crowned, on blessed bed ! CONSTANCY. BY GEORGE HERBERT. Who is the honest man ? He that doth still and strongly good pursue, — To God, his neighbor, and himself most true ; Whom neither force nor fawning, can Unpin, or wrench from giving all their due. Whose honesty is not So loose or easy, that a ruffling wind Can blow away, or glittering look it blind ; Who rides his sure and even trot, While the world now rides by, now lags behind. Who, when great trials come, Nor seeks nor shuns them ; but doth calmly stay Till he the thing and the example weigh ; All being brought into a sum, What place or person calls for, he doth pay. 17 194 CONSTANCY. Whom none can work or woo To use in anything a trick or sleight ; For above all things he abhors deceit. His words and works and fashion too All of a piece, and all are clear and straight. Who never melts or thaws At close temptations ; when the day is done, His goodness sets not, but in dark can run ; The sun to others writeth laws, And is their virtue ; virtue is his sun. Who, when he is to treat With sick folks, women, those whom passions sway, Allows for that, and keeps his constant way ; Whom others' faults do not defeat ; But though men fail him, yet his part doth play. Whom nothing can procure, When the wide world runs bias, from his will, To writhe his limbs, and share, not mend the ill. This is the marksman, safe and sure, Who still is right, and prays to be so still. PAST FRIENDS. BY F. W. TABER. Are there such things as friends that pass away 'I When each fresh opening season of our life, Through the dim-struggling crowd and weary strife, Brings kindred spirits nigh, whom we would pray Might live with us, and by our death-bed stay,— Do these, our chosen ones, sink down at last Into the common grave of visions past ? Ah ! there are few men in the world can say They had a dream which they do not dream still ; Few fountains in the heart which cease to play, When those whose touch evoked them at their will Sit there no more : and I my dreams fulfil When to high Heaven my tongue still nightly bears Old names, like broken music, in my prayers. DEATH AND SLEEP FROM KRUMMACHER. The brother angels of Sleep and of Death wandered over the earth. It was evening. They rested on a little hill, not far from the habitation of man. A melancholy stillness reigned, and the evening clock in the distant valley was not heard. Silently, as they were wont, sat the two benev- olent genii of Humanity, in a tender embrace, and already night drew near. Then the angel of Sleep arose from his mossy couch, and scattered with a gentle hand the invisible seed of slumber. The evening wind wafted it to the silent dwelling of the wearied husbandman. Now sweet sleep embraced the inhabitants of the rural cottage, — the gray-haired man who leans upon his staff, and the infant in the cradle. The sick forgot their pain, the sad their sorrow, the poor their wants. Every eye was closed. After his labor was accomplished, the benevo- lent angel of Sleep again lay down with his seri- DEATH AND SLEEP. 197 ous brother. "When the dawn appears," said he, in a tone of cheerful innocence, " man will praise me as his friend and benefactor ! O, it is sweet to do good unseen and in secret ! How happy are we, the invisible messengers of the good Spirit ! How lovely is our silent work !" Thus spake the friendly angel of Sleep. The angel of Death regarded him with silent grief, and a tear, such as immortals weep, stood in his large dark eye. "Alas!" said he, "that I cannot, like you, rejoice in the gratitude of man ! The earth calls me her enemy, and the disturber of her joy." " O my brother," replied the angel of Sleep, " will not the good, on awaking, discover in you their friend and benefactor, and gratefully bless you ? Are we not brethren, and the messengers of one father ? " Thus he spake : and the eye of the angel of Death brightened, and they tenderly embraced each other. 17* THE SICK CHILD'S DREAM BY ROBERT NICOLL. ! mither, mither, my head was sair, And my een wi' tears were weet ; But the pain has gane for evermair, — Sae, mither, dinna greet ; And I ha'e had sic a bonnie dream, Since last asleep I fell, O' a' that is holy an' gude to name, That I 've wakened my dream to tell. 1 thought on the morn o' a simmer day That awa' through the clouds I flew, While my silken hair did wavin' play 'Mang breezes steeped in dew ; And the happy things o' life and light Were around my gowden way, As they stood in their parent Heaven's sight In the hames o' nightless day. An' sangs o' love that nae tongue may tell Frae their hearts cam' flowin' free, Till the stars stood still, while alang did swell The plaintive melodie ; THE SICK CHILD'S DREAM. 199 And ane o' them sang wi' my mither's voice, Till through my heart did gae That chanted hymn o' my bairnhood's choice, Sae dowie, saft, an' wae. Thae happy things o' the glorious sky Did lead me far away, Where the stream o' life rins never dry, Where naething kens decay ; And they laid me down in a mossy bed, Wi' curtains o' spring-leaves green; And the name o' God they praying said, And a light came o'er my een. And I saw the earth that I had left, And I saw my mither there ; And I saw her grieve that she was bereft O' the bairn she thought sae fair ; And I saw her pine till her spirit fled — Like a bird to its young one's nest — To that land of love ; and my head was laid Again on my mither's breast. And mither, ye took me by the hand, As ye were wont to do ; And your loof, sae saft and white, I faud Laid on my caller brow ; 200 THE SICK CHILD S DREAM. And my lips you kissed, and my curling hair You round your fingers wreathed ; And I kent that a happy mither's prayer Was o'er me silent breathed — And we wandered through that happy land, That was gladly glorious a'; The dwellers there were an angel-band, And their voices o' love did fa* On our ravished ears, like the deein' tones O' an anthem far away, In a star-lit hour when the woodland moans That its green is turned to gray. And, mither, amang the sorrowless there, We met my brithers three ; And your bonnie May, my sister fair, And a happy bairn was she ; And she led me awa' 'mang living flowers, As on earth she aft has done ; And thegither we sat in the holy bowers Where the blessed rest aboon. And she tauld me I was in Paradise, Where God in love doth dwell — Where the weary rest, and the mourner's voice Forgets its warld-wail ; THE SICK CHILD'S DREAM. 201 p And she tauld me they kent na dule nor care, And bade me be glad to dee, That yon sinless land, and the dwellers there, Might became and kin to me. Then sweetly a voice came on my ears, Ane it sounded sae holily, That my heart grew saft, and blabs o' tears Sprang up in my sleepin' e'e ; And my inmost soul was sairly moved Wi' its mair than mortal joy ; — 'T was the voice o' Him wha bairnies loved That waukened your dreamin' boy. THE NEWLY DEAD BY JOHN STERLING. Time more than earthly o'er this hour prevails, While thus I stand beside the newly dead ; My heart is raised in awe, in terror quails, Before these relics, whence the life is fled. That face, so well beloved, is senseless now, And lies a shrunken mass of common clay ; No more shall thought inspire the pulseless brow, Or laughter round the mouth keep holiday. In vain affection yearns to own as man This clod turned over by the plough of death ; The sharpened nose, the frozen eyes, we scan, And wondering think the heap had human breath. An hour ago its lightest looks or throbs Impelled in me the bosom's ample tide ; Its farewell words awakened sighs and sobs, To me more vivid seemed than all beside. THE NEWLY DEAD. 203 Now not a worm is crawling o'er the earth But shows than this an impulse more divine ; And wandering lost in stunned reflection's dearth, I only feel what total loss is mine. Cold hand, I touch thee ! Perished friend ! I know What years of mutual joy are gone with thee ; And yet from these benumbed remains there flow Calm thoughts that first with chastened hopes agree. How strange is death to life ! and yet how sure The law which dooms each living thing to die ! Whate'er is outward cannot long endure, And all that lasts eludes the subtlest eye. Because the eye is only made to spell The grosser garb and failing husk of things ; The vital strengths and streams that inlier dwell, Our faith divines amid their secret springs. The stars will sink as fade the lamps of earth, The earth be lost as vapor seen no more, And all around that seems of oldest birth Abides one destined day — and all is o'er. 204 THE NEWLY DEAD Himalah's piles, like heaps of autumn leaves, Will one day spread along the winds of space, And each strong stamp of man the world receives Will flit like steps in sand, without a trace. Yet something still will somewhere needs abide Of all whose being e'er has filled our thought ; In different shapes to other worlds may glide, But still must live as more than empty nought. The trees, decayed, their parent soil will feed, Whence trees may grow more fair than grew the first ; To worlds destroyed so worlds may still succeed, And still the earliest may have been the worst. Thus, never desperate, muse believing men: But what, O Power Divine ! shall men become ? This pale memorial meets my gaze again, And grief a moment bids my hopes be dumb. Not thus, O God ! desert us ! Rather I Should sink at once to unremembering clay, And close my sight on thy translucent sky, Than yield my soul to death a helpless prey ; THE NEWLY DEAD. 205 Oh ! rather bear beyond the date of stars All torments heaped that nerve and soul can feel, Than but one hour believe destruction mars Without a hope the life our breasts reveal. Bold is the life and deep and vast in man, A flood of being poured unchecked from Thee ; To Thee returned by Thine eternal plan, When tried and trained Thy will unveiled to see. The spirit leaves the body's wondrous frame, That frame itself a world of strength and skill ; The nobler inmate new abodes will claim, In every change to Thee aspiring still. Although from darkness born, to darkness fled, We know that light beyond surrounds the whole ; The man survives, though the weird-corpse be dead, And He who dooms the flesh redeems the soul. 18 EASTER DAY. BY REV. JOHN KEBLE. " And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead ? He is not here, but is risen." — St. Luke, xxiv. 5, 6. Oh day of days ! shall hearts set free No " minstrel rapture" find for thee ? Thou art the sun of other days, — They shine by giving back thy rays. Enthroned in thy sovereign sphere Thou shed'st thy light on all the year ; Sundays by thee more glorious break, An Easter Day in every week ; And week-days, following in their train, The fulness of thy blessing gain, Till all, both resting and employ, Be one Lord's day of holy joy. Then wake, my soul, to high desires, And earlier light thine altar fires ; The world some hours is on her way, Nor thinks on thee, thou blessed day ; EASTER DAY. Or if she think, it is in scorn ; The vernal light of Easter morn To her dark gaze no brighter seems Than Reason's or the Law's pale beams. " Where is your Lord ?" she scornful asks ; " Where is his hire ? We know his tasks. Sons of a King ye boast to be ; Let us your crowns and treasures see." We in the words of truth reply, (An angel brought them from the sky,) " Our crown, our treasure, is not here, — 'T is stored above the highest sphere ; " Methinks your wisdom guides amiss, To seek on earth a Christian's bliss ; We watch not now the lifeless stone ; Our only Lord is risen and gone." Yet even the lifeless stone is dear, For thoughts of him who late lay here ; And the base world, now Christ hath died, Ennobled is, and glorified. No more a charnel-house, to fence The relics of lost innocence. 208 EASTER DAY. A vault of ruin and decay ; — The imprisoning stone is rolled away ; 'T is now a cell, where angels use To come and go with heavenly news, And in the ears of mourners say, " Come, see the place where Jesus lay ;" 'T is now a fane, where Love can find Christ everywhere embalmed and shrined ; Aye gathering up memorials sweet, Where'er she sets her duteous feet. Oh ! joy to Mary first allowed, When roused from weeping o'er his shroud, By his own calm, soul-soothing tone, Breathing her name as still his own ! Joy to the faithful three renewed, As their glad errand they pursued ! Happy, who so Christ's word convey, That he may meet them on their way ! So is it still to holy tears, In lonely hours, Christ risen appears ; In social hours who Christ would see, Must turn all tasks to Charity. PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA. BY M. ATHANASE COQTJEREL. It is after so much trouble and danger, — at a time when St. Paul could hope to await in peace the moment of quitting Judea for Italy, — at such a time he is called upon to undergo a severe trial, — to appear before Festus, Agrippa and Berenice, together with the wordly crowd by which eastern kings are surrounded ; that idle crowd, who are always looking for scenes. How this unexpected call to appear before an assembly, so imposing to an ordinary man, would have troubled a criminal whose conscience had not been at rest, — a chief of a sect whose preaching had not been sincere ! If St. Paul, whose fellow-citizens seek to silence him or put him to death, is really a criminal who is to be punished, or an enthusiast who is to be repressed — thus brought before a tribunal pre- sided over by a Hebrew monarch, instructed in the laws of the Hebrews, one question, one error, may destroy him ; one word betray him ; and when he shall arrive before Csesar, the arbiter 18* 210 PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA. of his fate, letters from Festus, arriving before him, will denounce him as a criminal worthy of death, or a fanatic worthy of contempt. St. Paul is calm. Festus, Agrippa, Berenice, and those curious spectators who crowd around, are not judges or witnesses whom he dreads, but brothers whom he would lead to Jesus. Festus has given the order, and the prison is to be opened. On coming out of a prison, Paul is to find the most magnificent assembly to which he has ever preached Jesus Christ and him crucified. The hour has come — the crowd has assembled; and St. Paul is about to appear. I have seen in courts where human justice pro- nounces its decrees, — when the public voice, in advance of the judicial decree, absolved the un- fortunate man, unjustly suspected of a crime, — I have seen, in the midst of profound silence, the crowd separate with respect, and open a passage for him, all eyes fixed upon him, all hearts moved at sight of him ; soon have I heard a murmur of interest reach to the extreme ranks of the assembly ; and I have seen the judge on his seat shudder at having to absolve innocence, and the exasperated guards holding up the weight of PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA. 211 the chains of their captive. Oh ! if this court had been the court of Festus, if this accused had been the apostle of the Saviour, we should not have felt a vain pity for him who gloried in being found worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus ; — with what religious composure should we have been present at this solemn judgment ; with what attention should we have listened to his defence ; with what zeal should we have cried out : " Tell us what the Lord God has said to thee ; we will hear thee and obey it ! " This is not the answer prepared for him ; these are not the sentiments which his presence will excite. The crowd presses, it opens, and St. Paul appears ! I figure to myself the different impressions which his entrance into this assem- bly will produce. Here I see the insulting smile of disdain ; there, the greedy look of curiosity : here, the inattention of indifference ; there, the icy welcome of prejudice ; more than one Na- thanael ready to say, " Can any good thing come from the chief of a sect of Nazarenes 1 " more than one Pilate ready to interrupt him by de- manding "What is truth ?" and perhaps hidden in the crowd, a Gamaliel, who thinks within 212 PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA. himself, If this work be of man, it will come to nought ; but if it be of God, ye cannot over- throw it. Calm, without affecting security, hum- ble, without affecting modesty, throwing around him that tranquil and serene look which belongs to innocence, the servant of Jesus passes through the thick ranks of the audience. Some words of Festus open the assembly ; and, intrusted with the care of interrogating the apostle, " Thou art permitted," says the Jewish king to him, " to speak for thyself." What happier occasion could be offered to St. Paul to confound his cowardly accusers, to challenge them to prove their calumnies, and to make clear his innocence? Heard by so large an audience, his defence will fly from mouth to mouth through all Festus' kingdom, and even his enemies at Jerusalem will be forced to hear it. The opinion which this numerous assembly shall form of him will dictate to Festus the information which he is to give to Caesar. If the apostle does not make the best of this opportunity, it will never be repeated ; St. Paul will only find at Rome a prejudiced judge, and at Rome there are prisons and chains, as well as at Cesarea. PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA. 213 " Thou art permitted to speak for thyself," said Agrippa to him. But what does the apostle care for his prison and his chains? It is not the name of Paul which he wishes to defend ; — it is that of Jesus. He thinks less of justifying his conduct than his doctrine. He speaks no more of it than the interest of the Gospel demands. He dwells upon the resurrection of the dead — the dogma which finds least favor among his audience. He tells the tale, so shameful for himself, of that Saul who persecuted the church ; he draws the picture of himself on the road to Damascus, felled to the ground by a divine hand, before that celestial brightness from which comes the voice of his Master. In finishing this discourse, where we meet the orator of the Areopagus with all his sublimity, he represents his Saviour as the " first that should rise from the dead, showing light unto the people ;" and by one of • those beautiful turns of eloquence which the sacred books show us, the accused in chains, with that force of persuasion which emanates from the Holy Spirit, calling upon his judge upon the throne as a witness to the truth, cries out, " King Agrippa, belie vest thou the prophets ? I 214 PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA. know that thou believest ! " and causes him to answer " Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian!" Never has the Gospel gained a more noble vic- tory. Here is the decree which the King of Gali- lee utters ! Here are the instructions which Fes- tus can transmit to Csesar! The accused ends by interrupting the judge, and the judge humbles himself at the word of the accused. Let your imagination gather strength, and present to itself the effect which must have been produced upon the attentive crowd by the exclamation of Agrip- pa! Paint the surprise — the general emotion! Listen to the profound silence which succeeds ! See all faces turned from Agrippa to Paul, from Paul to Agrippa ! The Holy Spirit has spoken ; and the powers of earth have glorified it, and all hearts have been moved in holy wonder : — so Avere the apostles moved with wonder when they saw it descend in tongues of flame upon their bowed heads. But let us examine this picture nearer, and let us seek to discover what must have been the sen- timents excited in the soul of Paul, of Festus, and of Agrippa. PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA. 215 St. Paul is the same after his victory as before the battle. He alone raises his voice in the bosom of religious silence. St. Paul is a Christian ; Faith has triumphed ; Charity, in her turn, must triumph. " I would to God," cried the apostle, " that not only thou, O King Agrippa, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and alto- gether such as I am, except these bonds !" Here again, in the place of Paul, put the abettor of a lying system — a Theudas, a Judas of Galilee ; in the place of St. Paul, put an infidel of our own time, who is seeking to spread his despairing doctrines, and his improbable doubts ; — for one moment grant them a triumph like that of the apostle ; you will see with what self-complacency they will admire their own victory ; with what skill they will enhance the difficulties and the worth of it ; with what hypocritical humility they will render homage to the power of truth, while silently they render it to the power of their own eloquence ; with what a presumptuous smile they will extend a brotherly hand to the new convert, and say "I was sure I should convince you!" But in what did St. Paul pride himself, since there was nothing which he had not received ? 216 PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA. He knows the light which for a moment shone around King Agrippa is the same which shone upon the road to Damascus ; — he knows that the voice which for a moment is heard by Agrippa is the same which he heard when he was persecut- ing the church. He humbly gives to God the glory which has just been granted to him ; prays to Him to finish in the heart of the monarch the work which is begun ; prays Him to render him, and all who surround him, partakers in the house- hold of grace. But the eyes of the apostle fall upon his chains, and he asks of God to make them Christians, but not, like him, unfortunate and persecuted Christians. And Festus, — what is he to think at hearing the confession which Agrippa cannot restrain? Can his religion of lies and errors give him a memory which can compare with what has just passed under his eyes ? In the temples of his idols, at the foot of his altars, where everything speaks to the senses, and nothing to the heart, has he ever been present at a scene so impress- ive; and can the annals of paganism, in its most flourishing ages, point to any priest of its false gods, which, with all his partiality, he can PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA. 217 compare to this Paul, so calm in danger, so re- signed in misfortune, so eloquent in defence of himself, and so modest in victory? Ignorant both of the laws of Moses and of Christ, Festus saw here only some disputes concerning what was called the superstition of the Jews ; he knew, probably, that this Paul had been the disciple of the celebrated Gamaliel, and supposing that study had too much excited an ardent imagina- tion, he interrupted the apostle in his defence. " Paul," said he, " much learning doth make thee mad." But Paul appeals to the king, who sits by the side of Festus ; and Festus hears the monarch hold to Paul a different language from his own, and render him an involuntary homage before the astonished crowd. Who, then, is this accused, who thus confounds his judge ? Who is this, minister of a persecuted worship, who persuades with so much power the disciples of a hostile faith ? Who is this disciple of a crucified master, who speaks with so much courage and fidelity of the master whom he has chosen ? Never man spake like this man ! And what shall I say to the emperor of this remarkable captive ? Will it be the same at Rome as at Cesarea, — before 19 218 PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA. Caesar as before Agrippa 1 Behold the man whom I have allowed to languish in a prison ; behold the man whom I was about to deliver up to the hatred of his enemies ; and it is by my command that he is bound with these chains — the very chains which he did not wish to see upon his persecutors ! To finish the picture, after having gazed upon Paul and Festus, let us return to Agrippa. The study of the human heart teaches us, that when, by an emotion which he cannot repress, a man for a moment is drawn out of himself, he imme- diately falls back ; drawn out of his natural sphere, he returns to it ; raised above his accus- tomed sphere, he falls down into it, and then is besieged and tormented by a thousand different thoughts. Thus a wave, driven from its own bed, seeks its level, and is still agitated after having found it. What passes in the soul of Agrippa, cold as it now is after a momentary heat? He did not come to Cesarea to see St. Paul, but to perform the vain formality of a pompous congratulation to the new governor. Several days had passed by before Festus had pro- nounced before him the name of Paul. Agrippa PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA. 219 expresses a desire to see the man who has so many admirers, and so many enemies. It is easy to satisfy this desire ; Festus can gather new information from this novel interview. Be- sides, it will be a pretext for an assembly, an hour's amusement, one more resource to occu- py a few moments of the proud idleness of a sovereign on his travels. Agrippa has seen him, this man whom he wished to see as Herod wished to see Jesus ; he has seen the man whom he expected to meet merely with curious attention and answers of indifference. But this man ob- tained a different answer ; his irresistible voice penetrated to the bottom of Agrippa' s heart, and drew from him that confession which struck with astonishment Berenice and Festus, and the whole assembly, excepting the apostle, who knew that he was speaking in the name of his God. Un- doubtedly, after the strong and unexpected im- pression which the defence of St. Paul produced, after the cry of sympathy which he could not restrain, Agrippa will have this interesting dis- course repeated ; he will listen in deep reflection to this new doctrine; he will compare it with those prophets whose writings he knows and 220 PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA. believes, and to which St. Paul appeals ; he will meditate upon this religion, whose apostles are so eloquent, its martyrs so resigned, its confessors so bold ; soon the pious wish of St. Paul will be in part accomplished ; the church will number one more Christian, and Jesus one more servant. Who could have foretold it ? From all which he has just heard, Agrippa merely draws with Festus the conclusion, " This man might be set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar." This is all which remained in his heart ! Com- pare for a moment this strong exclamation, "Al- most thou persuadest me to be a Christian," with these cold words, " This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar." Inconceivable fickleness of the human heart ! With the same inconstancy as the rapid wave opens and closes again, is the human heart now open, now closed, to the sentiments of pity and of duty. Agrippa replying to Paul is a man in all the heat of a passionate emotion ; in all the ele- vation of sincere enthusiasm; capable at this short moment of the grandest things ; counting as nothing the futile considerations of interest and vanity ; without delay and timid restriction ; PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA. 221 full of strength and courage, because he is tempted to do good ; devoted to you for the moment, be- cause his heart understands your heart. Agrippa conferring with Festus is the same man, fallen from the height which he had ascended back to his accustomed apathy ; hemmed in by his every- day trifles ; bound in the narrow circle where he turns round and round ; never advancing ; knowing none but little views and little motives, and only finding in himself a strength in proportion to his limited projects; without energy, because he meas- ures his means instead of trying them ; beneath elevated sentiments, because he calculates instead of feeling ; a rebel to generous emotions, because he examines instead of admiring. Ah ! when the tenderest fibre of the heart has vibrated, when man finds himself for an instant animated with life and power, why should his weakness so soon return ? Before his short energy is exhausted, can he not profit by it to stifle a sin, to spring forward to virtue, to deliver himself up without reserve to the great ideas of religion, to fly from time and earth, to seek immortality and heaven, to raise himself at one leap to the throne of God, to find it? Agrippa! Agrippa! whence came this 19* 222 PAUL BEFORE FESTUS AND AGRIPPA. mortal inertia, after so healthy an emotion? Why did you not wholly open your soul to your God who addressed you? — sustain your spirit at the height which it had reached? — mount to the eter- nal throne? Your Saviour, your God, awaits you and is ready to receive you ; and you will say to him as St. Paul said, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" HYMN FOR THE BUILDING OF A COTTAGE. BY AUBREY DE VERE. I. Lay foundations deep and strong, On the rock, and not the sand ; — Morn her sacred beam has flung O'er our ancient land. And the children, through the heather, Beaming joy from frank bright eyes, Dance along, and sing together Their loud ecstasies. Children, hallowed song to-day ! Sing aloud ; but, singing, pray. Orphic measures, proudly swelling, Lifted cities in old time : Build we now an humbler dwelling With an humbler rhyme ! Unless God the work sustain, Our toils are vain ; and worse than vain. Better to roam for aye, than rest Under the impious shadow of a roof unblest. 224 HYMN FOR THE BUILDING OF A COTTAGE. II. Mix the mortar o'er and o'er, Holy music singing : Holy water o'er it pour, Flowers and tresses flinging ! Bless we now the earthen floor : — May good angels love it ! Bless we now the new-raised door, And that cell above it ! Holy cell, and holy shrine For the Maid and Child divine ! Remember thou that seest her bending O'er that babe upon her knee, All Heaven is ever thus extending Its arms of love round thee. Such thought thy step make light and gay As yon elastic linden spray On the smooth air nimbly dancing — Thy spirits like the dew, glittering thereon and glancing. in. Castles stern, in pride o'er-gazing Subject leagues of wolds and woods ; Palace fronts, their fretwork raising 'Mid luxurious solitudes ! HYMN FOR THE BUILDING OF A COTTAGE. 225 These, through clouds their heads uplifting, The lightning wrath of heaven invoke : His balance power is ever shifting — The reed outlasts the oak. Live, thou cottage ! live and flourish, Like a bank which mild dews nourish, Bright with field-flowers self-renewing, Annual violets, dateless clover — Eyes of flesh thy beauty viewing With a glance may pass it over ; But to eyes that wiser are Thou glitterest like the morning star ! O'er every heart thy beauty breathes Such sweets as morn shall waft from those new- planted wreaths ! IV. Our toils — not toils — are all but ended ; The day has wandered by ; Her silver gleams the moon hath blended With the azure of the sky : Yet still the sunset lights are ranging On from mossy stem to stem ; Low winds, their odors vague exchanging, Chaunt day's requiem. 226 HYMN FOR THE BUILDING OF A COTTAGE. Upon the diamonded panes The crimson falls with fainter stains. More high in heavenward aspiration The gables shoot their mystic lines ; While now, supreme in grace as station, The tower-like chimney shines. Beneath that tower an altar lies. Bring wood : — light up the sacrifice ! Now westward point the arched porch — Crown with a Cross the whole — our cot become a Church ! v. Strike, once more, a livelier measure, Circling those fair walls again : Songs of triumph, songs of pleasure, Well become you, gladsome train ! Mark that shadowy roof; each angle Angel heads and wings support : Those the woodbine soon must tangle, These the rose shall court ; And mingling closer, hour by hour, Enclose ere long a Sabbath bower — There shall the Father oft at even Entone some ancient hymn or story, Till earth once more grows bright as heaven, With days of long past glory, HYMN FOR THE BUILDING OF A COTTAGE. 227 When Truth and Honor ranged abroad, To cleanse the world from Force and Fraud : When Zeal was humbled ; Hope was strong ; And Virtue moved alone, the angelic scourge of Wrong ! VI. O happy days ! exhaustless dower Of gentle joys, and hours well spent, Renewed while moons their radiance shower Upon the Acacia's silver tent ; Or airs of balmiest mornings thrill, And swell with renovated play, The breasts of children, childish still, And innocent alway ! O'er them light flit our woes and jars, As shades o'er lilies, clouds o'er stars — » Even now my fancy hears the cooing Of doves from well-known perch or croft ; The bees even now the flowers are wooing With sleepy murmur soft. Glad home, from menial service pure ! Thee shall no foreign wants obscure : Here all the ties are sacred ties, And Love shines clear through all, and Truth asks no disguise. 228 HYMN FOR THE BUILDING OF A COTTAGE. VII. Kings of the earth ! too frail, too small, This humble tenement for you ? Then lo ! from heaven my song shall call A statelier retinue ! They come, the twilight ether cheering, (Not vain the suppliant song, not vain,) Our earth on golden platform nearing ; On us their crowns they rain ! Like Gods they stand ; the portal Lighting with looks immortal ! Faith, on her chalice gazing deep ; And Justice, with uplifted scale ; Meek Reverence ; pure, undreaming Sleep ; Valor, in diamond mail ! There Hope, with vernal wreath ; hard by, Indulgent Love ; keen Purity ; And Truth, with radiant forehead bare ; And Mirth, whose ringing laughter triumphs o'er Despair. VIII. Breathe low — stand mute in reverent trance! Those potentates their mighty eyes Have fixed : right well that piercing glance Roof, wall, and basement tries ! HYMN FOR THE BUILDING OF A COTTAGE. 229 Foundations few that gaze can meet — Therefore the Virtues stay with few : But where they once have fixed their seat, Her home Heaven fixes too ! They enter now, with awful grace, Their acceptable dwelling-place. In tones majestical, yet tender, They chaunt their consecration hymn ; From jewelled breasts a sacred splendor Heaving through shadows dim. The rite is done : the seed is sown : Leave, each his offering, and be gone ! Stay, ye for whom were raised these walls, — Possession God hath ta'en : and now his guests he calls. 20 THE VILLAGE CHURCH BY ROBERT NICOLL. God's lowly temple ! place of many prayers ! Gray is thy roof, and crumbling are thy walls ; And over old green graves thy shadow falls, To bless the spot where end all human cares ! The sight of thee brings gladness to my heart ; And while beneath thy humble roof I stand, I seem to grasp an old familiar hand, And hear a voice that bids my spirit start. Long years ago, in childhood's careless hour, Thou wast to me e'en like a grandsire's knee— From storms a shelter thou wast made to be — I bound my brow with ivy from thy tower. The humble-hearted, and the meek and pure, Have, by the holy worship of long years, Made thee a hallowed place ; and many tears Shed in repentance deep have blessed thy floor. THE VILLAGE CHURCH. 231 Like some all-loving good man's feeling heart, Thy portal hath been opened unto all. A treasure-house, where men, or great or small, May bring their purest, holiest thoughts, thou art ! Church of the village ! God doth not despise The torrent's voice in mountain valleys dim, Nor yet the blackbird's summer morning hymn; And He will hear the prayers from thee that rise. The father loves thee, — for his son is laid Among thy graves ; the mother loves thee too, For 'neath thy roof, by love time-tried and true, Her quiet heart long since was happy made. The wanderer in a far and foreign land, When death's last sickness o'er him revels free, Turns his heart homewards ever unto thee, And those who, weekly, 'neath thy roof-tree stand. Lowly thou art ; but yet, when time is set, Will He who loves what wicked men despise — Who hears the orphan's voice, that up doth rise In deep sincerity — not thee forget ! 232 THE VILLAGE CHURCH. Lone temple ! did men know it — unto thee Would pilgrims come, more than to battle plains ; For thou hast lightened human woes and pains, And taught men's souls the truth that makes them free ! The distant sound of thy sweet Sabbath bell O'er meadows green no more shall come to me, 4 Sitting beneath the lonely forest tree ; — Church of my native village ! fare thee well ! SILENT WORSHIP. A FRIENDS' MEETING. I had been to a Friends' meeting before. But that was when I knew that a distinguished Eng- lish Friend would be present. I went with a crowd of others, who went to hear him. We knew he would speak, or thought we knew it, because the streets were placarded with announce- ments that he would be there. And we heard him. But this day — my only Sunday in Philadelphia for a long time — I wanted to go to a real, usual Friends' meeting. And therefore we had gone without especial expectation to hear any one. I wish everybody could go to meeting, always, as free from that sort of association. Here, at least, the Friends have the better of the rest of us Protestants. It was a beautiful Sunday, — most beautiful in May; — and, in beautiful Philadelphia, "May" means May. Fortunately enough, we were very early at the meeting, so that the doors were not 20* 234 a friends' meeting. opened ; and we walked once and again, as we waited for the service, around Franklin-square ; the fountain in which was flashing in the sun, the grass and foliage green and fresh and bright as fairy land ; and the crowds of people, men, wo- men, and children, as cheerful, though as quiet, as Sunday. And thence we walked on, and arrived a second time at the meeting-house, together with others, so that the gradual gathering showed that this was the right hour. One after another the Friends came in, almost all stopping in the outer square, to bid each other good-day, and to drink a little of that sparkling water from the can which is chained there. As I sit I can see the little boys drag their fathers aside to the hydrant, if they pass it without this draught ; and then each sips a little, so that one would half fancy it were a pre- paratory rite ; — the boys whisper a little, while their fathers say " good-day" to each other, and then all walk into the house together. Is it fancy or not, that they come in with a more natural, unaffected air than worshippers into temples of more pretension ? Is there a sort of formal pace for our carpeted aisles, — as if the organ volun- a friends' meeting. 235 tary, like a military tune, demanded a movement of its own? I hardly know. Perhaps I never before looked thus at the different people scatter- ing into church. I cannot help watching them here. Inde'ed I do not care to help it. These people all come in, reverentially, indeed, — but not more reverentially than they walk the streets every day. At least, there is no sombre look on their faces. Every one is in. — No! there is one of the world's people creaking in at the end door. How can he make that noise in the midst of this silence ? Why could he not come in time ? But now he is seated, — and the silence No ! — there is another, and another. But they sit near- er the door ; I am glad of that. I hope nobody will come in now. This silence, — real silence, — while one has the perfect consciousness of com- munion, is refreshing, truly. I remember how utterly a lonely silence always impresses me. This is like it, — but I had rather be here than there. I sat in one of the long halls in the cave of Schoharie. C. and the rest of them had gone by, and I had only my lamp for company. They were quarter of a mile in advance, — and the 236 a friends' meeting. world quarter of a mile above me, and nothing but thick rock between. I remember the instant when I put out my lamp, that I might be quite alone. I was never less alone; — a familiar thing to say, — often said, — but how wonderfully felt when one feels God with him, in the fearless- ness, the trust, the excited enthusiasm, of one of those cave or mountain solitudes ! Great God ! whose lessons, whose hand-writing, whose voices, are like those of Thine ? What is that bird ? Oh ! I am in the Friends' meeting! How they sing, — those cheerful little fellows on those branches which will swing to and fro across the open door-way! One, two, — and then a third strikes in, to show that he can sing as well. They understand Sunday wonderfully well. Or, better, I suppose, they keep Sunday every day. There is no inconsistency between their Sunday and their week-day lives. Sing away, little fellows ; there are no better masses than those, to-day, all round the world ! As the world turns to-day, there is sounding something better than a perpetual morning drum-beat. To- day, as land after land flashes into the sun, there is a perpetual morning prayer going up to God, a friends' meeting. 237 from that church which he sees as one, though we subdivide it so. And every day, as the lands turn to meet the sun, there is poured upwards this chorus of praise, which does not know, per- haps, that it is praise, — and yet is perpetual — has been, ever since Adam was. An eternal hymn, of bird and beast, going up to the God of life ! Great God ! — how beautiful this world is ! Sound and sight always delighted, — never bewil- dered. Spring crowded with wonders, which we say we never felt before ; — nay, whifii we never did feel before. For, thank God! if one power of our nature does grow as we grow older, it is this with which we so enjoy nature. Was ever any- thing before so beautiful to me as the trees in Franklin-square to-day ! and that rich grass ! and the willows hanging over the basin — green foun- tains as they seemed! — and the bright sparkles of the other fountain, — that delicate spray ! — and the beautiful rainbow, when we walked round so as to catch the right light of the sun ! Certainly, I never enjoyed anything in the world more. Why, the very May-flower hunt, of last Tuesday, in Massachusetts, has made me enjoy Franklin- square to-day ! Thank God that we do gain so, 238 a friends' meeting. — that every spring, every walk, teaches Ster- ling's lesson of the night : — "As night - is darkening o'er, And stars resume their tranquil day, They show how nature gives us more Than all it ever takes away !" Why, there is the dancing shadow of the branch on the wall yonder ! Never, till this moment, have I noticed such easy gracefulness of move- ment in a shadow. It is on one side of the door- way. I do not see the branch itself. But here, of course, I must not move. I had forgotten I was in meeting. Nobody has spoken yet. I do not wonder. Why should they speak ? * * How simply arranged every- thing here is ! They carry their simplicity too far. Because they would be simple, their house need not be ugly. That window would have answered the same purpose if it had been of agreeable proportions. How the eye seeks for something graceful, — nay, must have it ! That is the reason that mine, so unconsciously, has been resting on that cord with which they pull up the curtain. They forgot to stretch that tight a friends' meeting. 239 when they arranged the room. And so, of itself, as we blasphemously say, it has fallen into that graceful curve. It is the only graceful thing on that side on which I am looking, inside the build- ing. It is the only thing which men have let alone. Curiously graceful that catenary curve in which it hangs ! You cannot draw one by your eye. Not the truest artist ! And yet, the world over, there is not a loose cord but is hanging in that delicately graceful way. Why, even those that they stretch the tightest — that they say are perfectly tight — really bend a little, a very little, and in this exquisite curve. The world over, they are obeying the same law. And because it is God's law, that form, in which they fall obedient, pleases my eye, — pleases every one who looks on it. The same here, there, and everywhere ; — the same arrangement that makes Leverrier's planet sweep around in an orbit of such consum- mate grace ; the same makes the trough of the waves of such sweep as it is ; the cordage of a ship so beautiful; — yes, and that law has been strong enough to defeat this mistake of my Friends, — (they are Friends, though I never saw one of them) — here in their meeting-house. 240 A friends' meeting. Strong enough for that ! Why, yes, I remem- ber, that men prove by the calculus, — by its highest flight and best, — which is, as always in the mathematics, the highest and best flight of poetry, — I remember, that by the most elaborate and recondite of calculation, they prove, that in fact no human power, no finite power, can strain a cord that it shall be absolutely straight ; that it shall not have something of this beautiful God- ordered curve. The highest power of man, his best calculation, shows, like his weakest and his poorest, that God has ruled all things in beauty, and that all man's twitchings and struggles are powerless, when they act against this eternal Law. God of order ! God of beauty ! how can we thank thee for such daily miracles ? How can we learn — grow — to prize as we ought life and its wonders ? Strengthen us, Father ! strengthen us ! that our free lives, also, may ac- cord better and more often with Thy Eternal Life : — that we may labor with Thy laws, with Thy power, — Thou in us, and we in Thee. Some one spoke ! No ; it was the moving door which startled me. I hope it will not swing to. A friends' meeting. 241 I must see still that shadow of the branch flitting to and fro on the outer wall there. What a hand- writing it is ! So graceful ! and with every new motion so different from that before ! beautiful, and infinite, like all the rest ! Must these inner walls around us be left so bare, and coldly white, and unornamented ? Surely we should not be made more worldly if the memory of God's love came to us from the inner as well as that outer wall of this house. And could it make us more worldly to see Him in the pure works of brave men, made strong by His strength, than it does to see Him in the shadow there, — or the leaf, or the bough? If that dead white wall which is opposite me, beneath the little windows, and above the elders' seats, bore some representation of one of the victories of God when He works in the soul of man ? Suppose it were of the very beginning of this gathering which is here to-day? The first day that William Penn, a gentlemanly, courtly, spirited young fellow, went with his college com- panions to hear Thomas Loe, the Quaker itiner- ant, as they called him, preach in Oxford — what a day that was for this Pennsylvania — for us here — nay, for the whole world ! I can figure them out 21 242 a friends' meeting. for myself on the large blank wall: — Loe preach- ing that which he remembered these college sprigs of nobility and gentility needed. Plainly dressed he, but nobly moved ; feeling that the spirit is on him. I can see his face, as it would lighten up, as he spoke to that crowd around him of wonder- ing citizens, growing more and more cordial to him, and to that group of students, who have gone there to laugh, to ridicule — or, in one word, to " see fun." Why, on the picture, even their faces should be growing grave, beneath his solemn Spirited, Gospel eloquence ! And what ought to be the face of Penn ? At this moment he is re- ceiving the influence which shall last through his life — the preacher is fanning into a flame the sparks which have always been in his heart ; and those words, that spirit of that man, is mastering him ; is compelling him to listen ; is compelling him to obey ; and, from this moment forward, he will be the true-hearted, God-seeking friend of man ! It is a moment to study expression. As he leans on John Locke's shoulder there, — as he listens with more ardor and more, — his face must lighten with the most intense light. It is fervent devotion, resting on grave thought. Penn, ardent a friends' meeting. 243 and moved, resting on Locke — thoughtful, but perhaps no less touched in his own way. What a pair these, — to stand among those flaunting laugh- ers, gay dressed and half listless, and those sober, undemonstrative citizens, in their simpler aspect, — to be listening to such a preacher as Thomas Loe ! What a triumph of the true sincere spirit of Loe, if he could have only known what should come from that moment ! Penn did stand by his death-bed, I remember, a few years after, and the dying saint knew then that here was a young man all ready to go forward in his own work. But he could not know that that young man should be the beginning of a nation ; the visible symbol to all time of the uselessness of war — whose name should be synonymous with peace ; and he did not know — who does know? — how far that day's preaching rested on Locke's conscience, and made him the true man he was. Unconscious genius ! how brave is this working in faith when there is no sight! — this preaching to those who seem scoffers, perhaps, — who are the regenera- tors of the world! It is God's work again. Faith, noble faith, — so much more noble than knowl- edge — like all things noble, it leads us up to Him 244 A FRIENDS MEETING, of whom it tells us ! Father ! let it do more ; as it brings us up to Thee, let it inspirit us also, and make us also alive, that, though we see nothing of the harvest, we may still forever sow the seed; — that, though the heaviest thunders are above us, and the blackest clouds and the darkest day, we may still scatter it on the field ; and do Thou, by the lightning itself, and by these very storms which overwhelm us, give it life and strength ; that, though long after we have left our work, it shall still spring up, and yield abundantly ! But there is no picture ! The wall is only white. I wish there were! I wish George Wall, the Quaker painter, would paint one there. I should be glad to be reminded oftener of these brave men, God's true children ; and, by their deeds, of their Father. What picture could we have on the other side — the woman's side? There is a blank wall also. It matches this : — there should be a woman's picture, too : one of woman's Christian victories. Such resolution as they have, in all their weakness ! Such wisdom as they have, coming straight from their unlogi- cal simplicity ! Such power as they have, from a friends' meeting. 245 their mere quiet truth, unconcealing, unconcealed ! Ready, if they think there is need — ready as the stoutest man — to go even to the scourge or to the stake ! Poor Jane of Arc ! Her only fault that she loved her country and her countrymen too well, and acted out her love in the crude lan- guage her time had; — in that brutal outer fighting, the only way she knew of; — as brave as the bravest of them ; — and stronger and more hopeful than the strongest of them, because she trusted in the Eternal Truth, in Eternal Righteousness — trusted in God ! You almost say that it never happened in fact ; — that the picture of her would be only a type of what is always true. Faith like hers should be mounted on the charger of victory ; yes, and it should be clothed with that helmet and breast-plate, that heavenly armor, of which Paul tells. How natural to represent that Spirit in her form, — and around her the group of soldiers, wondering, fearing I forget myself. Jane of Orleans must not be in a Friends' meeting-house. Some one else must be painted on that panel. Mrs. Fry, per- haps, in a prison? Or some duaker mother here among the Indians? Or some of the sufferers 21* 246 a friends' meeting. among the English, or New English ? — the mar- tyrdom of a later saint? No, not that; — we will not preserve the memory of the persecutions. That shall die, as other old forms die, and old lan- guages, when men have done with them. But the true spirit of all these, — that must be preserved. That spirit of perpetual confidence — unshrinking faith in the secret conscience call of God — that is immortal. The picture shall show that ! It was in all of them, just as it was in the young steel- armed French maiden. I can see her, I can almost hear her, with its supernatural eloquence, exciting starved and fearful soldiers. Or, in that little minute, when men's awe of death leaves even a convict wholly free, just before he dies, to speak all he will, — I can see her, as she stands chained at the stake ; her face alive with more than earthly life ; her eyes flashing with heavenly fire, and yet soft with heavenly love, as she speaks her last words to those dull persecutors ! But I forget myself again. A warrior, a wo- man of the sword, must not be in a Friends' meeting-house. No. But who shall be ? Not Judith, — not Deborah, — not the Queen of Sheba. She was coldly intellectual ; — no ! it shall be a a friends' meeting. 247 Christian woman, who gives life to the scene with Christian faith, with Christian endurance, and Christian power. It shall be one of the martyrs among women who have consecrated the church which has so often made saints of them ; who have carried forward, so often and so far, the gospel, which spoke to the first of them so truly, though they were in anguish, in a woman's tears, — and suffering with all a woman's sympathy, when he looked down upon them from the cross. They also have been apostles, though unnamed ; they also have been preachers, whether they spoke aloud or not ; they also have been Christian sol- diers, whether they have girt on armor or not. The heroine of France, in rallying the soldiers, is only an outward exhibition of what so many of them have been before. We see her do — what so many of them have done, unseen — lead on thou- sands by the word of faith. We hear her say — what so many of them have said, unheard — that the call of God makes the weakest powerful. We see her suffer — as so many of them have suf- fered, unheralded — a true, brave woman; — true to the last, and brave in the midst of torture. I will think of Jane of Arc ! I will draw out 248 a friends' meeting. her picture there on the wall, as I look at it. This is not a vague wandering of thought that brings me back to her ; and she and her suffer- ings are not unfit associates of the place. For one does not think of the fighting ; it is not of that sad bloodshed that I am reminded. Their mem- ory has gone ; it is lost to me as is the old dialect in which she spoke ; or the fashion, indeed, of any of the outward dresses which she wore ; of any of the outward seemings through which her spirit spoke. God be praised for that! God be praised that the bitter form of fighting and bloodshed does seem old, and gone ! that these Friends here have helped to push it away — to bury it in rust ! But the Spirit which spoke through it — the trust in God, the consciousness of God's inner voice, which enlivened it, — will never die. That is im- mortal ! And it is the one Spirit which enlivened all those other martyrs. God be praised for that! God indeed be praised ! I thank Thee, Father, for this also, — that in all the past which is gone, as in this present, Thou art unchanging, unchanged ; that as time passes by, God's spirit does not pass by, but is Right Eternal, Truth Immortal ! Do Thou, the Eternal God — the unchangeable I Am a friends' meeting. 249 — enter my heart with all the power of Thy pres- ence, that in me the right and the truth may not falter, may not yield ; — make me to be Thine for- ever ! Hark ! some one speaks. It is one of the elders beneath the narrow windows. " * They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength/ They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. I am glad, my friends, that there is still a company of those who are willing to wait upon the Lord, although in silence, knowing that He will renew their strength. I am glad, that in this time, when there are so many voices, and so many men who oppose Him and His people, there is still a company of those who are willing to meet, as their fathers did, and wait for the influence of His Spirit. When all philosophy tells us that even of dead matter there is no end, — that its atoms separate but to unite in other forms, and never perish, — how can it be that the spirit, which gives all its life to matter, shall end, or be of no worth or of no account 1 And how can we forget to seek the Eternal Spirit, the Spirit of Spirits 1 — to wait for it in prayer, and in communion, that it may inspirit our lives 1 " 250 A friends' meeting. How can we, indeed? — how can we ? I hope he will say nothing more ! No ! he has sat down. How can we go through the world as if it were a dead world, a giant corpse, and talk of dead philosophies as if we were dissecting it, and study- ing the anatomy of it, as it would be if there were no Spirit to give order and law 1 How can we do this, and talk of this, and think of this, for- ever ? And that God is so near us, — speaking to us, if we will only hear ; calling us, if we will only listen ; His spirit knocking, if we will only receive it ; every pulse, every fibre, of this corpse, as I called it, alive ; and alive because it is His will ! God of life ! now, at least, I do remember Thee ; now, at least, I do seek Thee ! Oh, seek me, Father, when I am dead, or sleeping ! seek me in the living voices of truth and love, that I may wake again, and live again, in Christ's life — in Thy life — in the life which Thy goodness has made eternal ! There is a woman speaking ! " They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall mount up with wings of eagles ; they shall run, and not be weary ; they shall walk, and not faint." She says nothing more. But what an A friends' meeting. 251 answer is here to prayer ! Before it is offered, before it has conceived itself, God has promised thus to hear it and to bless it. God finds us thus the moment that we seek Him. He is with us when we try to be with Him. O God ! direct my wandering thought To centre upon Thee ; Direct my eyes to look through aught, Till Thee, their God, they see ! In every leaf of every tree, In all the world around, My wandering eye has looked, — till Thee, The God of Love, it found. In every work where labors man, With true or selfish mood, My wandering thought finds God sustain, And crown each toil for good ; My wandering thought finds all in vain The toil which turns from God. Praise God, for wandering eyes his world of love to see ! Praise God, for thought which wanders always free ! 252 a friends' meeting. Praise God, for faith, which bends a willing knee, Draws me to Him, the while He smiles on me. Ah ! One of the elders is standing up ! See ! he shakes hands with another. And there, those others are shaking hands. They are beginning to go away. The meeting is done. HOLY PLACES AND THINGS. BY REV. JOHN KEBLE. I. PRAYER AT HOME AND IN CHURCH. " These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." Where are the homes of paschal mirth, The bowers where heavenly Joy may rest her wings on earth, And at her leisure gaze adoring Where out of sight the golden clouds are soaring Beneath the ascending Saviour's feet ? Where may rejoicing Love retreat To frame a melody for His returning meet ? Two homes we know of Love's resort, One in the upper room, one in the Temple court : In glorious Sion both, possessing Alike her presence whom the awful blessing Lifted above all Adam's race : — The royal Twelve are there in place ; Women and duteous friends, awaiting His high grace. 22 254 HOLY PLACES AND THINGS. Two Homes for us His Love hath found, One by our quiet couch, and one in holy ground. There in due season meekly kneeling, Learn we our lesson ere His last revealing. The Mother of our Lord is there, And Saints are breathing hallowed air, Living and dead, to waft on high our feeble prayer. And with His Mother and His Saints He watches by, who loves the prayer that never faints. Avaunt, ill thoughts, and thoughts of folly ! Where christened infants sport, that floor is holy: Holier the station where they bow, Adoring Him with daily vow, Till He with ampler grace their youthful hearts endow. HOLY PLACES AND THINGS. 255 II. PREPARING FOR SUNDAY SERVICES. " As they went to tell His disciples, Jesus met them, saying, ' All hail.' " Behold, athwart our woodland nest, And down our misty vale, From his own bright and quiet rest The Sunday sun looks out, and seems to say, "All hail." True token of that brighter Day, Which hailed, this matin hour, The holy women on their way. They sought His Church in love, He met them in His power. And dare we the transporting word To our own hearts apply ? Trembling we dare ; for He had heard Our lowly breathed vows, ere flamed yon morning- sky. We have been by His cross and grave ; His Angel bade us speed Where they resort, whom He will save, And hear and say as one, " The Lord is risen indeed. " 256 HOLY PLACES AND THINGS. Then speed we on our willing way, And He our way will bless. In fear and love thy heart array : Straight be thy churchway path, unsoiled thy Sabbath dress. III. WALK TO CHURCH. " The path of the Just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Now the holy hour is nigh, Seek we out the holy ground ; Overhead the breezy sky, Rustling woodlands all around : Fragrant steams from oak-leaves sere, Peat and moss, and whortles green, Dews that yet are glistening clear Through their brown or briary screen. Hie we through the autumnal wood, Pausing where the echoes dwell, Boys, or men of boyish mood, Trying how afar they swell. HOLY PLACES AND THINGS. 257 Haply down some opening glade Now the old gray tower we see, Underneath whose solemn shade Jesus risen hath sworn to be. He hath sworn, for there will meet Two or three in His great name, Waiting till their incense sweet Feel His heaven-descended flame. Day by day that old gray tower • Tells his tale, and week by week, In their tranquil, hoary bower, To the unlearned its shadows speak. IV. THE EMPTY CHURCH. " The blind and the lame came to Him in the temple." Why should we grudge the hour and house of prayer To Christ's own blind and lame, Who come to meet Him there ? Better, be sure, His altar-flame Should glow in one dim, wavering spark, Than quite die down, and leave His temple drear and dark. 22* 258 HOLY PLACES AND THINGS. " But in our Psalm their choral answers fail." — Nay, but the heart may speak, And to the holy tale Respond aright, in silence meek. And well we know, bright angel throngs Are by, to swell those whisperings into warbled songs. What if the world our two or three despise? They in His name are here, To whom, in suppliant guise, Of old the blind and lame drew near. Beside His royal courts they wait, And ask His healing hand : we dare not close the gate. V. THE OFFERTORY. " God loveth a cheerful giver." Christ before thy door is waiting ; Rouse thee, slave of earthly gold, Lo, He comes, thy pomp abating, Hungry, thirsty, homeless, cold:- Hungry, by whom Saints are fed With the Eternal Living Bread; HOLY PLACES AND THINGS. 259 Thirsty, from whose pierced side Healing waters spring and glide ; Cold and bare He comes, who never May put off His robe of light ; Homeless, who must dw T ell forever In the Father's Bosom bright. In kind ambush always lying, He besets thy bed and path, Fain would see thee hourly buying Prayers against the time of wrath, — Prayers of thankful mourners here, Prayers that in Love's might appear With the offering of the Blest, At the shrine of perfect rest. See, His undecaying treasure Lies like dew upon the grass, To be won and stored at pleasure : — But its hour will quickly pass. Christ before His altar standing, Priest of Priests, in His own day, Calls on thee, some fruit demanding Of the week's heaven-guarded way. See His arm stretched out to bless : Whoso nearest to Him press, 260 HOLY PLACES AND THINGS. Open-handed, eagle-eyed, They may best that arm abide, When, the last dread lightnings wielding, He shall lift it, and decree, "Go, ye churls, of soul unyielding, Where nor gift nor prayer shall be." Jesus in His babes abiding Shames our cold, ungentle ways, Silently the young heart guiding To unconscious love and praise. See out-reached the fingers small, Ever, at each playful call, Ready to dispense around Joys and treasures newly found. Fearless they of waste or spoiling, Nought enjoy but what they share ; Grudging thought and care and moiling Live not in their pure glad air. Strange the law of Love's combining ! — As with wild winds moaning round Tones from lute or harp entwining Make one thread of solemn sound ; — As calm eve's autumnal glow Answer to the woods below ; — HOLY PLACES AND THINGS* 261 As in landscape, leaf or stone, Cloud or flower, at random thrown, Helps the sadness or the glory; — So the gift of playful child May recall thy natal story, Church of Salem undefiled ! How the new-born Saints, assembling Daily 'neath the shower of fire, To their Lord, in hope and trembling, Brought the choice of earth's desire. Never incense-cloud so sweet As before the Apostles' feet Rose, majestic Seer, from thee, Type of royal hearts and free, Son of holiest consolation, When thou turn'dst thy land to gold, And thy gold to strong salvation, Leaving all, by Christ to hold: — Type of Priest and Monarch, casting All their crowns before the Throne, And the treasure everlasting Heaping in the world unknown. Now in gems their relics lie, And their names in blazonry, 262 HOLY PLACES AND THINGS. And their forms from storied panes Gleam athwart their own loved fanes, Each his several radiance flinging On the sacred altar floor, Whether great ones much are bringing, Or their mite the mean and poor. Bring thine all, thy choicest treasure, Heap it high and hide it deep : Thou shalt win o'erflowing measure, Thou shalt climb where skies are steep, For as Heaven's true only light Quickens all those forms so bright, So where Bounty never faints, There the Lord is with His Saints, Mercy's sweet contagion spreading Far and wide, from heart to heart, From His wounds atonement shedding On the blessed widow's part. A SABBATH IN BOSTON BY O. W. HOLMES. *w» az, 4& .AZ. <£. 4£* Tft* W W '7T TV 1 TT Come, seek the air ; some pictures we may gain, Whose passing shadows shall not be in vain ; Not from the scenes that crowd the stranger's soil, Not from our own amidst the stir of toil, But when the Sabbath brings its kind release, And care lies slumbering on the lap of peace. The air is hushed ; the street is holy ground ; Hark ! The sweet bells renew their welcome sound ; As one by one awakes each silent tongue, It tells the turret whence its voice is flung. The Chapel, last of sublunary things That shocks our echoes with the name of Kings, Whose bell, just glistening from the font and forge, Rolled its proud requiem for the second George, Solemn and swelling, as of old it rang, Flings to the wind its deep sonorous clang ; — The simpler pile, that, mindful of the hour When Howe's artillery shook its half-built tower, 264 A SABBATH IN BOSTON. Wears on its bosom, as a bride might do, The iron breastpin which the " Rebels" threw, Wakes the sharp echoes with the quivering thrill Of keen vibrations, tremulous and shrill ; — Aloft, suspended in the morning's fire, Crash the vast cymbals from the Southern spire ; — The Giant, standing by the elm-clad green, His white lance lifted o'er the silent scene, Whirling in air his brazen goblet round, Swings from its brim the swollen floods of sound; — While, sad with memories of the olden time, The Northern Minstrel pours her tender chime, Faint, single tones, that spell their ancient song, But tears still follow as they breathe along. Child of the soil, whom fortune sends to range Where man and nature, faith and customs, change, Borne in thy memory, each remembered tone Mourns on the winds that sigh in every zone. When Ceylon sweeps thee with her perfumed breeze Through the warm billows of the Indian seas ; When, — ship and shadow blended both in one, — Flames o'er thy mast the equatorial sun, From sparkling midnight to refulgent noon Thy canvass swelling with the still monsoon ; A SABBATH IN BOSTON. 265 When through thy shrouds the wild tornado sings, And thy poor sea-bird folds her tattered wings, Oft will delusion o'er thy senses steal, And airy echoes ring the Sabbath peal ! Then, dim with grateful tears, in long array Rise the fair town, the island-studded bay, Home, with its smiling board, its cheering fire, The half-choked welcome of the expecting sire, The mother's kiss, and, still if aught remain, Our whispering hearts shall aid the silent strain. — Ah, let the dreamer o'er the taffrail lean, To muse unheeded, and to weep unseen ; Fear not the tropic's dews, the evening's chills, His heart lies warm among his triple hills ! Turned from her path by this deceitful gleam, My wayward fancy half forgets her theme ; See through the streets that slumbered in repose The living current of devotion flows ; Its varied forms in one harmonious band, Age leading childhood by its dimpled hand, Want, in the robe whose faded edges fall To tell of rags beneath the tartan shawl, And wealth, in silks that, fluttering to appear, Lift the deep borders of the proud cashmere. 23 266 A SABBATH IN BOSTON. See, but glance briefly, sorrow-worn and pale, Those sunken cheeks beneath the widow's veil ; Alone she wanders where with him she trod, No arm to stay her, but she leans on God. While other doublets deviate here and there, What secret handcuff binds that pretty pair ? Compactest couple ! pressing side to side, — Ah, the white bonnet that reveals the bride ! By the white neckcloth, with its straitened tie, The sober hat, the Sabbath-speaking eye, Severe and smileless, he that runs may read The stern disciple of Geneva's creed ; Decent and slow, behold his solemn march ; Silent he enters through yon crowded arch. A livelier bearing of the outward man, The light-hued gloves, the undevout rattan, Now smartly raised, or half-profanely twirled, — A bright, fresh twinkle from the week-day world, — Tell their plain story ; — yes, thine eyes behold A cheerful Christian from the liberal fold. Down the chill street that curves in gloomiest shade, What marks betray yon solitary maid 1 The cheek's red rose, that speaks of balmier air ; The Celtic blackness of her braided hair ; A SABBATH IN BOSTON. 267 The gilded missal in her kerchief tied ; Poor Nora, exile from Killarney's side ! Sister in toil, though born of colder skies, That left their azure in her downcast eyes, See pallid Margaret, Labor's patient child, Scarce weaned from home, the nursling of the wild Where white Katahdin o'er the horizon shines, And broad Penobscot dashes through the pines ; Still, as she hastes, her careful fingers hold The unfailing hymn-book in its cambric fold. Six days at drudgery's heavy wheel she stands, The seventh sweet morning folds her weary hands ; Yes, child of suffering, thou may'st well be sure He who ordained the Sabbath loved the poor ! This weekly picture faithful memory draws, Nor claims the noisy tribute of applause ; Faint is the glow such barren hopes can lend, And frail the line that asks no loftier end. Trust me, kind listener, I will yet beguile Thy saddened features of the promised smile ; This magic mantle thou must well divide, It has its sable, and its ermine side ; Yet, ere the lining of the robe appears, Take thou in silence, what I give in tears. 268 A SABBATH IN BOSTON. Dear listening soul, this transitory scene Of murmuring stillness, busily serene ; This solemn pause, the breathing-space of man, The halt of toil's exhausted caravan, Comes sweet with music to thy wearied ear ; Rise with its anthems to a holier sphere ! Deal meekly, gently, with the hopes that guide The lowliest brother straying from thy side ; — If right, they bid thee tremble for thine own ; If wrong, the verdict is for God alone ! What though the champions of thy faith esteem The sprinkled fountain or baptismal stream ; Shall jealous passions in unseemly strife Cross their dark weapons o'er the waves of life? Let my free soul, expanding as it can, Leave to his scheme the thoughtful Puritan ; But Calvin's dogma shall my lips deride ? In that stern faith my angel Mary died ; — Or ask if mercy's milder creed can save, Sweet sister, risen from thy new-made grave ? True, the harsh founders of thy church reviled That ancient faith, the trust of Erin's child ; A SABBATH IN BOSTON. 269 Must thou be raking in the crumbled past For racks and fagots in her teeth to cast ? See from the ashes of Helvetia's pile The whitened skull of old Servetus smile ! Round her young heart thy " Romish Upas" threw Its firm, deep fibres, strengthening as she grew ; Thy sneering voice may call them " Popish tricks," — Her Latin prayers, her dangling crucifix, — But De Profundis blessed her father's grave ; That " idol" cross her dying mother gave ! What if some angel looks with equal eyes On her and thee, the simple and the wise, Writes each dark fault against thy brighter creed, And drops a tear with every foolish bead ! Grieve, as thou must, o'er history's reeking page; Blush for the wrongs that stain thy happier age ; Strive with the wanderer from the better path, Bearing thy message meekly, not in wrath ; Weep for the frail that err, the weak that fall, Have thine own faith, — but hope and pray for all ! 23* PRAYER BY R. M. MILNE S. In reverence will we speak of those that woo The ear Divine with clear and ready prayer ; And while their voices cleave the Sabbath air, Know their bright thoughts are winging heaven- ward too. Yet many a one, — " the latchet of whose shoe" These might not loose, — will often only dare Lay some poor words between him and despair, — " Father, forgive ! we know not what we do." For as Christ prayed, so echoes our weak heart, Yearning the ways of God to vindicate ; But worn and wildered by the shores of fate, Of good oppressed and beautiful defiled, Dim alien force, that draws or holds apart From its dear home that wandering spirit-child. THE SACRAMENT BY BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR.' We sometimes espy a bright cloud formed into an irregular figure ; when it is observed by unskil- ful and fantastic travellers, it looks like a Centaur to some, and as a castle to others ; some tell that they saw an army with banners, and it signifies war : but another, wiser than his fellow, says, it looks for all the world like a flock of sheep, and foretells plenty : and all the while it is nothing but a shining cloud, by its own mobility, and the activity of a wind, cast into a contingent and inartificial shape. So it is in this great mystery of our re- ligion, in which some espy strange things which God intended not, and others see not what God hath plainly told : some call that part of it a mys- tery which is none ; and others think all of it nothing but a mere ceremony, and a sign : some say it signifies, and some say it effects ; some say it is a sacrifice, and others call it a sacrament ; some schools of learning make it the instrument * From the Worthy Communicant. 272 THE SACRAMENT. in the hand of God : others say that it is God him- self in that instrument of grace. * * * * # Since all the societies of Christians pretend to the greatest extreme of this, above all the rites or external parts and ministeries of religion, it can- not be otherwise but that they will all speak honorable things of it, and suppose holy things to be in it, and great blessings one way or other to come by it; and it is contemptible only among the profane and the atheistical ; all the innumerable differences which are in the discourses, and con- sequent practices relating to it, proceed from some common truths, and universal notions, and mys- terious or inexplicable words, and tend all to reverential thoughts, and pious treatment of these rites and holy offices ; and therefore it will not be impossible to find honey or wholesome dews upon all this variety of plants. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. BY REV. W. H. FURNESS. " Now is the Son of Man glorified.' I consider this exclamation, taken in connec- tion with the circumstances, as one of the sublimest of the recorded sayings of Jesus. It was uttered on the night of his arrest, just as Judas quitted the room where the little company of the personal friends of Jesus were assembled. Jesus knew the character of that false disciple, knew the treacher- ous purpose which he had at heart, knew that he had now gone to put that purpose into execution, and he knew now, as he had never known before, that the end of his own career was close at hand, that in a few hours his life would be terminated by a miserable death. In the progress of events, he had now reached a point where the figure of the black and frightful cross, which had long hovered more or less distinctly before him, sud- denly emerges out of the dim future, and stands close before his eyes. And how does the grim phantom look to him ? That lonely and terrible 274 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. fate, — why does he not shrink from it with irre- pressible horror ? To all human appearance he had made no provision to define his purpose to the world, to complete his work and his life. He had not committed a syllable to writing. He had not initiated a single human being into his doc- trine. The persons about him were cherishing views very different from his. And no wisdom that the world had ever possessed, could surmise that his death, taking place at that juncture, and attended by such circumstances of deep disgrace and utter desolation, would prove anything but an absolute defeat, consigning his history and his name to eternal oblivion. And yet, notwithstand- ing all this, when the prospect of his near death breaks upon him, with a superhuman power of insight he penetrates all the disgraceful associa- tions connected with that death, all the agonies and the blood, and the cross is instantly all a-blaze with an uncreated glory. At the very first glance he beholds the awful catastrophe, not as it was fitted to strike and appal his shrinking mortal nature, but as it was in its essential reality, in the sight of the Unerring. And now, when the course of centuries has THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 275 revealed the power of that event, the crucifixion of Christ, showing how it inspired his immediate successors, how it helped to establish the Christian name in the world, redounding to the diffusion of truth and the glory of God, we too see that Jesus gave utterance to no raving of an imagination bewildered by fear, but to the profoundest wisdom, to the inspiration of Eternal Truth, when at that hour of darkness, in near view of the horrible cross, he exclaimed : " Now is the Son of Man glorified." He knew beforehand and by a divine intuition, what we are slowly learning from his death, and from many a death since his, that to die for the truth is the completest service that can be rendered to it, that the bloody grave of the servant of truth is an open gate, through which streams the light of eternal glory, and that, as the body drops back into its kindred dust, the spirit mounts into the invisible and everlasting heavens that encircle the world, and reigns forever in the world with God. All this Jesus knew. All this is implied in that brief declaration of his which is our present text. Thus this passage gives us a glimpse of the kingdom of Heaven, for it shows us, what indeed 276 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. is evident from the whole life of Christ, that he lived in a world very different from that in which other men live. When I say this, I do not mean that he was absent, forgetful of this visible scene of things ; for nothing escaped him. His whole manner of teaching, the readiness with which he fitted his words to circumstances, shows that he looked around him, not with a dreamy, abstracted eye, but with all his powers of attention wide awake, with the sharpest observation. He made everything that occurred answer his purpose as exactly as if it were there only for his use. He spoke, and the ravens and the lilies waited on him to authenticate his instructions. The grain of mustard-seed, the falling sparrow, the homely leaven, bread and wine, all things became imple- ments in his hands to fulfil his ends, to signify his truths. No moment found him lost in idle reverie, unprepared for its exigencies. There was no absence, but a presence of mind, entire, complete. When I say, therefore, that he lived in a world altogether different from that in which other men lived, my meaning becomes clear by reference to the fact, that, although the same unchanging heavens are stretched out over all our heads, THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 277 although we walk upon the same earth, and breathe the same air, and see by the light of one and the same sun, yet there are no two of us that live in precisely the same world. The world is to every man as it appears to him, and its appear- ance to him depends upon his habits of thought, his favorite aims. Influenced, blinded, or enlight- ened by these, seeing things through the medium which is thus formed for him, or which he forms for himself, he sees everything under a peculiar aspect. Now the differences among men in re- spect of habits of mind are so great, that they may be said to live each in a world of his own, a world which, while in some respects it is identical with the world in which we all dwell, yet differs in others from the common world, as if spaces as vast as those that separate the planets intervened between them. One man's heart is in his trade. Whatever re- lates to that, he sees. Whatever does not relate, or appear to relate to it, he does not see, however distinctly it may be painted on his retina. He looks up to the sky, and the mysterious stars are only so many points of light, stirring no emotion, stimulating no thought. While another, capti- 24 278 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. vated with the sublime science of Nature, beholds a magnificent mechanism stretching out through an immeasurable expanse, a universe of life and beauty, and heaven itself boasts not so gorgeous a ceiling. Others, again, are the willing slaves of their appetites, filled with dreams of sensual pleasure, seeking their own gratification at all hazards, heedless of the evil they are doing, the ruin which they spread. To all such the world in which they live is a den. Fine clothes may adorn their per- sons, fine sentiments may come flowingly from their lips, they may sparkle never so brightly in the sun ; but still, I say, their world is a perfect den, a den of wild beasts, strewed with the whiten- ing bones and bleeding hearts which they trample down into the filth and mire ; a world, which dif- fers from the world of the pure-hearted, as dark- ness differs from light, or hell from heaven. And again, that great company, living only for ease and amusement, thinking only, day after day, about what they shall eat and drink and wear, studying to avoid whatever is likely to annoy them, whatever puts them out of their way, or requires exertion or self-restraint of any sort, — in THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 279 what a world of their own do people of this de scription live, a world of appearance and show, whose atmosphere is the breath of dying men, and into which truth never comes, and where the dis- tant voice of truth, though sweeter than an angel's, sounds harsh and unmeaning, and all things are in a ceaseless whirl of change, and all its dwellers are slowly wasting away, subdued to the shadowy quality of all things around them, parting with all manliness and reality, and sinking into a state of deplorable imbecility ; a land more visionary than the regions of the dead, a realm of perpetual death, a mansion glittering to the eye, and hung all over, outside and in, with flowers, but built over graves, nay, itself a grave, a mausoleum, in which lights shine and shadows dance, and the sound of music is heard, and the worm of vanity and sin and remorse is eating out all heart, and leaving nothing in the yet beating bosom of man but dust ! How wide, once more, the difference between the world in which the child lives and that in which the aged dwell ! " Heaven lies about us in our infancy." Time then to us is grand and interminable. Years are eternities. All things rejoice in hope, and the path of life is lined with 280 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. fountains, and the eyes of the young beam with delighted expectation. But as we grow old, how often do the smiles and the gladness vanish ! The world of our youth rolls away from under our feet into the dim abysses of the past, and is visible to the sad eye of memory as a receding star ; and we sink down, and our feet stumble on the dark mountains, and we behold only the memorials of friends long departed and hopes long ago withered, and it is night around us. Enough, I suppose, has been said to make very plain what I mean, when I say that Jesus dwelt in a world very different from that in which we live. You misunderstand me entirely, if you take the impression that his thoughts were away from this world, — that he was not here, body and soul here. He saw all that we see, and infinitely more; not only the external shape, but the inner life of things. Our eyes rest only on surfaces, and dis- tinguish superficial relations. He looked with clear, unimpeded vision at things and into things. He did not overlook the world as it is, but he looked through it, through and through, and be- hind changing forms he discerned the unchanging substance. He looked around and before him THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 281 not through the eye of man, dimmed as that is by prejudice and evil passions, and hasty judgments and mere appearances, but he saw through the eye of God, which nothing deceives and nothing escapes. And this text, I say, shows this. In his coming crucifixion he saw what no one else saw. To all other eyes, that fact, his miserable death on the cross, what was it but a bloody mass of torture and shame, a horrible ending, the final overthrow of his cause, the utter extinction of him, and of whatever purposes he had labored to realize. But to him it looked not so. He saw all the agony and blackness of that event, but he saw more. His steady eye pierced to the very centre and soul of the fact, and the shame and the torture, which covered the cross like a heavy cloud, rolled away, and there flashed upon him an unearthly glory, — the glory of a mighty martyr- dom, a God-given testimony to the truth ; and the eternal things of power and wisdom were un- veiled, the power and wisdom which Paul after- wards caught a vision of, and before which the world-renowned wisdom of Greece became folly. And did Christ see anything that was not real ? Has not the subsequent history of the world at- 24* 282 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. tested that he saw his death as it actually was ? Did it not lie in the very nature of things, that his friends' should be moved, as those devoted men were moved, by his death, to assert his claims and publish his truth 1 In a few years, the name of him who perished miserably on the cross is sound- ing from Jerusalem, through all the cities of Greece, to the palaces of imperial Rome, and the eternal glory of God shines with an unclouded beam from the cross of Christ. Every associa- tion of shame has dropped off from that instru- ment of death, and now it surmounts the temples of Christendom. And thus it is shown, that he saw only what was and is. He gave utterance to no delusion of enthusiasm. He spoke only the simple truth, when he pronounced that bitter death divinely glorious. Thus it was with him always. He spoke, he lived in a very different world from ours, but still a present world, a world near to us as it was to him, and nearer than the world of the senses. Different as was his world from ours, still oc- casionally, in our best moments, we all catch glimpses of the world of Christ. When we feel sorrow at our wrong-doings, when we blush and THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 283 feel degraded before the meanness of our thoughts, the selfishness of our motives, the depravity of our desires, when we long for the inward security which this world does not give us, or when the contemplation of some heroic deed or man sets our hearts in a glow and causes our eyes to fill with tears, then the veil is raised a little, and the sensations we experience at these times are the realities of that other world coming in contact with us, pressing upon our inmost hearts. Then do we receive significant hints, too significant to be neglected or mistaken, that there are things not dreamed of even, while we slumber in the lap of the world; interests which cannot be estimated, and in comparison with which our temporal con- cerns, passionately as we cling to them, are things foreign and strange to us. Then we may see, if we will, that we are in a majestic invisible world, a world which God animates by his eternal recti- tude and love, even as the outward frame of things is supported by his power. Then do we catch sight of those awful and irreversible laws, which convert the man who obeys them into a god, by which whosoever falls on them is broken, and on whomsoever they fall, they will grind him to pow- 284 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. der. This is the new world, — old things pass away, all things become new ; the world of moral truth, and spiritual light, and religious principles, whose inhabitants look at things not in their acci- dental relations, nor as they appear to human pride and passion, not as they are connected with personal prejudices and temporary interests, but exactly as they are, in nature and truth. Christ, I say, lived and moved and had his being in that world. And of course he regarded not the person of any man, but the inner nature of all men. The poor, the outcast, from whose bare touch the sanc- timonious Pharisee shrank with abhorrence, com- manded his divinest sympathy. For the lowest he was ready to sacrifice himself to the uttermost, counting it all joy and honor. For in the lowest he saw a spiritual nature mysteriously and most intimately related to the Almighty Spirit, and waiting to be clothed upon with an uncreated glo- ry. Dwelling among spiritual realities, he looked up to those spiritual heights, the everlasting moun- tains which man is fashioned to ascend, and down into the depths of spiritual loss in which he may fall ; and these things it was, that caused him to stand all unmoved and triumphant before the ter- THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 285 rible cross. Bodily suffering and death, these huge evils as they look to us, dwindled, in his view, back to their native littleness, in comparison with the degradation and death of the divine soul. And all that the world offers to bless us with was but dust to the priceless pearl of a pure spirit, a commanding conscience, a lowly and loving heart. Not in ease and plenty, but in a holy mind, in a spiritual condition, here was life. This gained, all was gained. This was wealth, this was suc- cess, this was victory, this was power, in his world. Having this, though poor and persecuted, he as- cended up high over all the earth, and gave gifts unto men with a most royal bounty. Such was the world in which Christ lived. Thus did things look to him. In a word, this was the kingdom of heaven, which he preached, in view of which he called upon men to amend their lives, for it was at hand. It was in him and around him. He carried it with him, and was himself a radiant centre of that invisible sphere, that eternal world, into which he came to lead men ; not a far off state of being, beyond the grave and the sky, but com- prehending the grave and the sky and all things visible and invisible within it, a celestial condition here and now within the reach of every one of us. VIA CRUCIS, VIA LUCIS FROM KOSEGARTEH. Through night to light! — And though to mortal eyes Creation's face a pall of horror wear, Good cheer ! good cheer ! The gloom of midnight flies ; Then shall a sunrise follow, mild and fair. Through storm to calm ! — And though his thun- der-car The rumbling tempest drive through earth and sky, Good cheer ! good cheer ! The elemental war Tells that a blessed healing hour is nigh. Through frost to spring ! — And though the bitter blast Of Eurus stiffen nature's juicy veins, Good cheer ! good cheer ! When winter's wrath is past, Soft murmuring spring breathes sweetly o'er the plains. VIA CRUCIS, VIA LUCIS. 287 Through strife to peace! — And though with brist- ling front, A thousand frightful deaths encompass thee, Good cheer ! good cheer ! Brave thou the battle's front For the peace-march and song of victory. Through sweat to sleep ! — And though the sultry noon, With heavy, drooping wing, oppress thee now, Good cheer! good cheer! The cool of evening soon Shall lull to sweet repose thy weary brow. Through cross to crown! And though thy spirit's life Trials untold assail with giant strength, Good cheer ! good cheer ! Soon ends the bitter strife And thou shalt reign in peace with Christ at length. Through woe to joy ! — And though at morn thou weep, And though the midnight find thee weeping still, 288 VIA CRUCIS, VIA LUCIS. Good cheer ! good cheer ! The Shepherd loves his sheep ; Resign thee to the watchful Father's will. Through death to life! — And through this vale of tears, And through this thistle-field of life, ascend To the great supper in that world whose years Of bliss unfading, cloudless, know no end. A PRAYER. BY R. M. MILNES. Evil, every living hour, Holds us in its wilful hand, Save as thou, essential Power, Mays't be gracious to withstand : Pain within the subtle flesh, Heavy lids that cannot close, Hearts that Hope will not refresh, — Hand of healing ! interpose. Tyranny's strong breath is tainting Nature's sweet and vivid air, Nations silently are fainting Or up-gather in despair : Not to those distracted wills Trust the judgment of their woes While the cup of anguish fills, — Arm of justice ! interpose. Pleasures night and day are hovering Round their prey of weary hours, Weakness and unrest discovering In the best of human powers : 25 290 A PRAYER. Ere the fond delusions tire, Ere envenomed passion grows From the root of vain desire, — Mind of Wisdom ! interpose. Now no more in tuneful motion Life with love and duty glides ; Reason's meteor-lighted ocean Bears us down its mighty tides ; Head is clear and hand is strong, But our heart no haven knows ; Sun of Truth ! the night is long, — Let thy radiance interpose ! THE HA' BIBLE BY ROBERT NICOLL. Chief of the household gods Which hallow Scotland's lowly cottage-homes! While looking on thy signs, That speak, though dumb, deep thought upon me comes ; With glad yet solemn dreams my heart is stirred, Like childhood's, when it hears the carol of a bird! The Mountains old and hoar, The chainless Winds, the Streams so pure and free, The GoD-enamelled Flowers, The waving Forest, the eternal Sea, The Eagle floating o'er the mountain's brow, — Are teachers all ; but, O ! they are not such as Thou! O ! I could worship thee ! Thou art a gift a God of Love might give ; For Love and Hope and Joy, In thy Almighty-written pages live ; — 292 THE ha' bible. The slave who reads shall never crouch again ; For, mind-inspired by thee, he bursts his feeble chain ! God ! unto Thee I kneel, And thank Thee! Thou unto my native land — Yea, to the outspread earth — Hast stretched in love Thy everlasting hand, And Thou hast given earth, and sea and air — Yea, all that heart can ask of good, and pure, and fair ! And, Father, Thou hast spread Before Man's eyes this charter of the free, That all thy Book might read, And Justice love, and Truth, and Liberty. The gift was unto men — the giver God ! Thou Slave ! it stamps thee Man — go, spurn thy weary load ! Thou doubly-precious Book ! Unto thy light what doth not Scotland owe ? — Thou teachest Age to die, And Youth in truth unsullied up to grow ! In lowly homes a comforter art thou — A sunbeam sent from God — an everlasting bow ! THE ha' bible. 293 O'er thy broad, ample page, How many dim and aged eyes have pored ! How many hearts o'er thee, In silence deep and holy, have adored! How many mothers, by their infants' bed, Thy holy, blessed, pure, child-loving words have read ! And o'er thee soft young hands Have oft in truthful-plighted love been joined ; And thou to wedded hearts Hast been a bond — an altar of the mind ! — Above all kingly power or kingly law May Scotland reverence aye The Bible of the Ha'! ,':'V'-:^::: .':'''.•'•■''''■•••■•....' finfi/WSifta ■»-»«..« -ivfJI' • : ■■■■•■■''■'■•■■■■■■:•::■:■'. ■.■•■■"■' BR ■:.■'- ■- ■ ■ ....■.■■■■'■■■■■.■•■...■ JPH BHH- : fiWOrafflO fflfl&DfijG DBS fflHjKBfl JBflj ttBHBrai v^wfrofi^gQj^j^^^SS ll»lrali H mo^MHHBI WmlHIIMI ■ : •..■::■.' : v ■■■ : - ■ ■■■ : : : :- : : ; ■■llll