Error's enemy, and acolyte of science, firm in sober argument,

The calm philosopher marshalleth his facts, noting on his page their principles.

These pour mercies upon men; and others, little less in honour,
By cheerful wit and graphic tale refreshening the harassed spirit.
But, there be other some beside, buyers and sellers in the temple,
Who shame their high vocation, greedy of inglorious gain;
There be, who, fabricating books, heed of them meanly as of merchandise
And seek nor use, nor truth, nor fame, but sell their minds for lucre:
O false brethren! ye wot indeed the labour, but are witless of the love;
Olying prophets, chilled in soul, unquickened by the life of inspiration !—
And there be, who, frivolous and vain, seek to make others foolish,
Sharing Youth by loose sweet song, and Age by selfish maxim;
Cieverly heartless, and wittily profane, they swell the river of corruption
Brilliant satellites of sin,-my soul, be not found among their company.
And there be, who, haters of religion, toil to prove it priestcraft,
Owning none other aim nor hope, but to confound the good:

Woe unto thein! for their works shall live; yea, to their utter con demnation :

Woe! for their own handwriting shall testify against them for ever.

Pure is the happiness of Authorship: I glorify mine office;

Albeit lightly having sipped the cup of its lower pleasures.

For it is to feel with a father's heart, when he yearneth on the child of his affections;

To rejoice in a man's own miniature world, gladdened by its rare arrange

ment.

The poem, is it not a fabric of mind? we love what we create:

That choice and musical order,—how pleasant is the toil of composition! Yea, when the volume of the universe was blazoned out in beauty by its Author,

God was glad, and blessed his work; for it was very good.

And she not the image of his Maker be happy in his own mind's doing, Looking on the structure he hath reared, gratefully, with sweet complacence ?

Shall not the Miverva of his brain, panoplied and perfect in proportions, Gladden the soul and give light unto the eyes of him the travailing parent? Go to the sculptor, and ask him of his dreams,-wherefore are his nights so moonlit ?

Angel faces, and beautiful shapes, fascinate the pale Pygmalion :

Go to the painter, and trace his reveries,—wherefore are his days so sunny?
Choice design and skilful colouring charm the flitting hours of Parrhasius :
Even so, walking in his buoyancy, intoxicate with fairy fancies,
The young enthusiast of authorship goeth on his way rejoicing:
Behold, he is gallantly attended; legions of thrilling thoughts
Throng about the standard of his mind, and call his Will their captain;
Behold,―his court is as a monarch's; ideas, and grand imaginations
Swell, with gorgeous cavalcade, the splendour of his Spiritual State;
Behold, he is delicately served; for oftentimes, in solitary calmness,
Some mental fair Egeria smileth on her Numa's worship;

Behold, he is happy; there is gladness in his eye, and his heart is : sealed fountain,

Bounding secretly with joys unseen, and keeping down its ecstasy of pleasure!

Yea; how dignified, and worthy, full of privilege and happiness,

Standeth in majestic independence the self-ennobled Author!

For God hath blessed him with a mind, and cherished it in tenderness and purity,

Hath taught it in the whisperings of wisdom, and added all the riches of

content:

Therefore, leaning on his God, a pensioner for soul and body,
His spirit is the subject of none other, calling no man Master.
His hopes are mighty and eternal, scorning small ambitions:

He hideth from the pettiness of praise, and pitieth the feebleness of envy.
If he meet honours, well; it may be his humility to take them:

If he be rebuked, better; his veriest enemy shall teach him.

For the master-mind hath a birthright of eminence; his cradle is an eagle's

eyrie :

Need but to wait till his wings are grown, and genius soareth to the sun :
To creeping things upon the mountain leaveth he the gradual ascent,
Resting his swiftness on the summit only for a higher flight.
Glad in clear good-conscience, lightly doth he look for commendation;
What, if the prophet lacketh honour? for he can spare that praise:
The honest giant careth not to be patted on the back by pigmies:
Flatter greatness, he brooketh it good-humouredly: blame him,-thoa
tiltest at a pyramid :

Yet, just censure of the good never can he hear without contrition;

Neither would he miss one wise man's praise, for scarce is that jewel and

costly.

Only for the herd of common minds, and the vulgar trumpetings of fame, If aught he heedeth in the matter, his honour is sought in their neglect. Slender is the marvel, and little is the glory, when round his luscious fruits

The worm and the wasp and the multitude of flies are gathered as to banquet;

Fashion's freak, and the critical sting, and the flood of flatteries, he scorneth; Cheerfully asking of the crowd the favour to forget him :

The while his blooming fruits ripen in richer fragrance,

A feast for the few,—and the many yet unborn,—who still shall love their

savour.

So then, humbly with his God, and proudly independent of his fellows,
Walketh, in pleasures multitudinous, the man ennobled by his pen :
He hath built up, glorious architect, a monument more durable than brass;
His children's children shall talk of him in love, and teach their sons his

honour:

His dignity hath set him among princes, the universe is debtor to his worth, His privilege is blessing for ever, his happiness shineth now,

For he standeth of that grand Election, each man one among a thousand, Whose sound is gone out into all lands, and their words to the end of the world!

OF MYSTERY.

ALL things being are in mystery; we expound mysteries by mysteries; And yet the secret of them all is one in simple grandeur:

All intricate, yet each path plain, to those who know the way;

All unapproachable, yet easy of access, to them that hold the key:

We walk among labyrinths of wonder, but thread the mazes with a clue; We sail in chartless seas, but behold! the pole-star is above us.

For, counting down from God's good-will, thou meltest every riddle into

him,

The axiom of reason is an undiscovered God, and all things live in his

ubiquity;

There is only one great secret; but that one hideth every where;
How should the infinite be understood in Time, when it stretcheth on un

grasped for ever;

Can a halting Edipus of earth guess that enigma of the universe?
Not one: the sword of faith must cut the Gordian knot of nature.

God, pervading all, is in all things the mystery of each;

The wherefore of its character and essence, the fountain of its virtues and

its beauties.

The child asketh of its mother,-Wherefore is the violet so sweet?
The mother answereth her babe,—Darling, God hath willed it.
And sages, diving into science, have but a profundity of words,
They track, for some few links, the circling chain of consequence,
And then, after doubts and disputations, are left where they began.
At the bald conclusion of a clown, things are because they are.
Wherefore are the meadows green, is it not to gratify the eye?
But why should greenness charm the eye? such is God's good will.
Wherefore is the ear attuned to a pleasure in musical sounds,
And who set a number to those sounds, and fixed the laws of harmony?
Who taught the bird to build its nest, or lent the shrub its life,
Or poised in the balances of order the power to attract and to repel ?
Who continueth the worlds, and the sea, and the heart in motion?
Who commanded gravitation to tie down all upon its sphere ?—
For even as a limestone cliff is an aggregate of countless shells,
One riddle concrete of many, a mystery compact of mysteries,
So God, cloudcapped in immensity, standeth the cohesion of all things
And secrets, sublimely indistinct, permeate that Universe, Himself:
As is the whole, so are the parts, whether they be mighty or minute:
The sun is not more unexplained than the tissue of an emmet's wing

Thus, then, omnipresent Deity worketh his unbiassed mind,
A mind, one in moral, but infinitely multiplied in means:
And the uniform prudence of his will cometh to be counted law,
Till mutable man fancieth volition, stirring in the potter's clay:
God, a wise father, showeth not his reasons to his babes;
But willeth in secrecy and goodness; for causes generate dispute:
Then we, his darkling children, watch that invariable purpose,
And invest the passive creature with its Maker's energy and skill.
Therefore, they of old time stopped short of God in idols ;

Therefore, in these latter days, we heed not the Jehovah in his works. Mystery is God's great name; He is the mystery of goodness:

Some other, from the hierarchs of heaven, usurped the mystery of sin. God is the King, yea, even of himself; he crowned himself with holiness; The burning circlet of iniquity another found and wore.

God is separate, even from his attributes; but he willed eternally the good;

Therefore freely, though unchangeably, is wise, righteous, and loving:
But ambition, open unto angels, saw the evil, flung aside from everlasting:
It was Lucifer that saw, and nothing loathed those black unclaimed
regalia,

So he coveted and stole, to be counted for a king, antagonist of God:
But when he touched the leprous robes, behold, a cheated traitor.

For self-existence, charactered with love, with power, wisdom, and ubiquity,

Could not dwell alone, but willed and worked creation.

Thus in continual exhalation, darkening the void with matter,

Sprang from prolific Deity the creatures of his skill;

And beings, living on his breath, were needfully less perfect than himself,
Therefore less capable of bliss, whereat his benevolence was bounded;
So to make the capability expand, intensely progressive to eternity,
He suffered darkness to illustrate the light, and pain to heighten pleasure,
To heap up happiness on souls he loved, allowed he sin and sorrow,
And then to guilt and grief and shame, he brought unbidden amnesty:
Sinless, none had been redeemed, nor wrapt again in God:

Sorrowless, no conflict had been known, and heaven had been mulcted of its comfort:

Yea, with evil unexhibited, probationary toils unfelt,

Men had not appreciated good, nor angels valued their security.
Herein, to reason's eye, is revealed the mystery of goodness,
Blessing through permitted woe, and teaching by the mystery of sin.

O Chhristian, whose chastened curiosity loveth things mysterious,
Accounting them shadows and eclipses of Him the one great light,
Look now, satisfied with faith, on minds that judge by sense,
And dull from contemplating matter, take small heed of spirit.
Toiling feebly upward, their argument tracketh from below,
They catch the latest consequent, and prove the nearest cause: