The lion, and the gnat,—yea, the mushroom, and the crystal,--have all these a soul? Thy fancies tend to prove too much, and overshoot the mark: If I die not with brutes, then brutes must live with me?— I dare not tell thee that they will, for the word is not in my commission: The multitude of flies, and the multitude of herbs, the world with all its be ings: Is Infinity too narrow, Omnipotence too weak, and Love so anxious to des troy? Doth Wisdom change its plan, and a Maker cancel his created? God's will may compass all things, to fashion and to nullify at pleasure: And void of capability for God, there would seem small cause for an infinity. Therefore, caviller, my poor thoughts dare not grant they live; But is it not a great thing to assume their annihilation—and thine own? Would it be much if a speck on space, this globe with all its millions, Verily, after its pollution, were suffered to exist in purity? Or much, if guiltless creatures, that were cruelly entreated upon earth, Found some commensurate reward in lower joys hereafter ? Or much, if a Creator, prodigal of life, and filled with the profundity of love, Rejoice in all creatures of his skill, and lead them to perfection in their kind? O man, there are many marvels; yet life is more a mystery than death: For death may be some stagnant life, but life is present God! Many are the lurking holes of evil; who shall search them out? Who so skilled to cut away the cancer with its fibres ? Quickeneth animate anew beneath the midnight moon : Once and again, once and again, hath reason answered wisely; It were but unprofitable toil, a stand-up fight with unbelief: When was there candour in a caviller, and who can satisfy the faithless? Too long, treacherous deserter, fought thee as a noble foeman : Hath failed to pierce thine iron coat, and reach thy stricken soul: Haply, the fervour of my speech, and too patient sifting of thy fancies, Go, and a word go with thee,-Man, thou ART Immortal! Child of light, and student in the truth, too long have I forgotten thee: Fear hath been slaughtered on the portal, and Doubt driven back to darkness: For Christ hath died, and we in Him; by faith His all is ours,— To learn all things is privilege of reason, and that with a growing capability, But in this age of toil and time we scarce attain to alphabets: With barely hours, and barely powers, to fill up daily duties, Yea, and human knowledge, meagre though the harvest, Hath its roots, both deep and strong; but the plants are exotic to the climate ; All we seem to know demand a longer learning, History, and science, and prophecy, and art, are workings all of God: And there are galaxies of globes, millions of unimagined beings, Other senses, wondrous sounds, and thoughts of thrilling fire, Powers of strange might, quickening unknown elements, Not in vain, O brother, hath soul the spurs of enterprise, Nor aimlessly panteth for adventure, waiting at the cave of mystery: Is ruby to the sight, and ambrosia to the taste, and redolent with all fragrance: Thou shalt ink, and deeply, filling the mind with marvels; Thou shalt wa h no more, lingering, disappointed of thy hope: Count, count your hopes, heirs of immortality and love; For lo, my trust is strong to dwell in many worlds, And cull of many brethren there, sweet knowledge ever new: I yearn for realms where fancy shall be filled, and the ecstasies of freedom shall be felt, And the soul reign gloriously, risen to its royal destinies : I look to recognize again, through the beautiful mask of their perfection, The dear familiar faces I have somewhile loved on earth: I long to talk with grateful tongue of storms and perils past, And praise the mighty Pilot that hath steered us through the rapids: He shall be the focus of it all, the very heart of gladness, My soul is athirst for God, the God who dwelt in Man! Prophet, priest, and king, the sacrifice, the substitute, the Saviour, Rapture of the blessed in the hunted one of earth, the pardoner in the victim: How many centuries of joy concentrate in that theme; How often a Methuselah might count his thousand years, and leave it unexhausted. And lo, the heavenly Jerusalem, with all its gates one pearl, That pearl of countless price, the door by which we entered, Come, tread the golden streets, and join that glorious throng, The happy ones of heaven and earth, ten thousand times ten thousand: Doth he not speak parables?—each one goeth on his way: Ye that hear, and I that counsel, go on our ways forgetful. For the terrible realities whereto we tend, are hidden from our eyes,- Slow to dread those coming fears, the thunder and the trumpet; Motes streaming on the sight, dim our purblind eyes, Dark to see the ponderous orb of nearing Immortality : Hemmed in by hostile foes, the trifler is busied on an epigram ; (1) A pleasant voice, and nothing more,—doth he not speak parables ? Look to thy soul, O man, for none can be surety for his brother: OF IDEAS. MIND is like a volatile essence, flitting hither and thither, A solitary sentinel of the fortress body, to show himself every where by turns: Mind is indivisible and instant, with neither parts nor organs, That it doeth, it doth quickly, but the whole mind doth it: An active. versatile agent, untiring in the principle of energy, Nor space, nor time, nor rest, nor toil, can affect the tenant of the brain; His dwelling may verily be shattered, and the furniture thereof be dis arranged, But the particle of Deity in man slumbereth not, neither can be wearied. It taketh in but one idea at once, moulded for the moment to its likeness As, by night, thine irritable eyes may have seen strange changing figures, A maze ever altering, as the dance of gnats upon a sunbeam, Swift, intricate, neither to be prophesied, nor to be remembered in succession, So, the mind of a man, single, and perpetually moving, Flickering about from thought to thought, changed with each idea, For the passing second metamorphosed to the image of that within its ken, Wherefore, it is wise and well to guide the mind aright, That its aptness may be sensitive to good, and shrink with antipathy from evil: For use will mould and mark it, or non-usage dull and blunt it ;— So to talk of spirit by analogy with substance; And analogy is a truer guide, than many teachers tell of: Similitudes are scattered round, to help us, not to hurt us; Moses, in his every type, and the Greater than a Moses, in his parables. |