And not unseen, though a spirit, dost look down upon us from the

stars,

That hast been to me for oil and for wine, to cheer and uphold my

soul,

When wearied, battling with the surge, the stunning surge of life; Of thee, for well have I loved thee,

Who among the glorious is she, that

Queen?

of thee may I ask in hope,

walketh a Goddess and a

And who that fair-haired herald, and who that weeping saint?
And who that mighty warrior, and who that solemn sage?

SON, happy art thou that Wisdom hath led thee hitherward;

For otherwise never hadst thou known the joy-giving name of our

Queen:

Behold her, the life of men, the anchor of their shipwrecked hopes; Behold her, the shepherdess of souls, who bringeth back the wanderers to God.

And for that modest herald, she is named on earth Humility.
And hast thou not known, my son, the tearful face of Repentance?
Faith is yon time-scarred hero, walking in the shade of his laurels ;
And Reason, the serious sage, who followeth the footsteps of Faith;

And we, all we, are but handmaids, ministers of minor bliss,
Who rejoice to be counted servants in the train of a Queen so
glorious.

But for her name, son of man, it is strange to the language of heaven,

For those who have never fallen need not and may not learn it;
Ligeance we sware to our God, and ligeance well have we kept;

It is only the band of the redeemed who can tell thee the fulness of

Yet will I comfort thee, my son, for the love wherewith thou hast

loved me,

And thou shalt touch for thyself the golden sceptre of Religion.

So that blessed train passed by me; but the vision was sealed upon my soul;

And its memory is shrined in fragrance, for the promise of the

Spirit was true:

I learn, from the silent poem of all creation round me,

How beautiful their feet who follow in that train.

OF A TRINITY. (19)

DESPISE not, shrewd reckoner, the God of a good man's worship,
Neither let thy calculating folly gainsay the unity of three;
Nor scorn another's creed, although he cannot solve thy doubts;
Reason is the follower of faith, where he may not be precursor;
It is written, and so we believe, waiting not for outward proof,
Inasmuch as mysteries inscrutable are the clear prerogatives of
Godhead.

Reason hath nothing positive, faith hath nothing doubtful;
And the height of unbelieving wisdom is to question all things.
When there is marvel in a doctrine, faith is joyful and adoreth;
But when all is clear, what place is left for faith?

Tell me the sum of thy knowledge, -is it yet assured of any thing? Despise not what is wonderful, when all things are wonderful around thee.

From the multitude of like effects, thou sayst, Behold a law;

And the matter thou art baffled in unmaking, is to thy mind an element.

Then look abroad, I pray thee, for analogy holdeth every where, And the Maker hath stamped his name on every creature of his

hand;

I know not of a matter or a spirit, that is not three in one,

And truly should account it for a marvel, a coin without the image of its Cæsar.

MAN talketh of himself as ignorant, but judgeth by himself as wise; His own guess counteth he truth, but the notions of another are his

scorn;

But bear thou yet with a brother, whose thought may be less subtle

than thine own,

And suffer the passing speculation suggested by analogies to faith. Like begetteth like, and the great sea of Existence,

In each of its uncounted waves, holdeth up a mirror to its Maker: Like begetteth like, and the spreading tree of being,

With each of its trefoil leaves, pointeth at the trinity of God.

Let him whose eyes have been unfilmed, read this homily in all things,

And thou, of duller sight, despise not him that readeth :

There be three grand principles, - life, generation, and obedience,Shadowing, in every creature, the Spirit, and the Father, and the Son.

There be three grand unities, variously mixed in trinities,

Three catholic divisors of the million sums of matter;

Yea, though science hath not seen it, climbing the ladder of experiment.

Let Faith, in the presence of her God, promulgate the mighty truth; Of three sole elements all nature's works consist:

The pine, and the rock to which it clingeth, and the eagle sailing around it;

The lion, and the northern whale, and the deeps wherein he sport

eth ;

The lizard sleeping in the sun; the lightning flashing from a cloud;
The rose, and the ruby, and the pearl; each one is made of three;
And the three be the like ingredients, mingled in diverse measures.
Thyself hast within thyself body, and life, and mind:

Matter, and breath, and instinct, unite in all beasts of the field;
Substance, coherence, and weight, fashion the fabrics of the earth;
The will, the doing, and the deed, combine to frame a fact:
The stem, the leaf, and the flower; beginning, middle, and end;
Cause, circumstance, consequent; and every three is one.

Yea, the very breath of man's life consisteth of a trinity of vapors,
And the noonday light is a compound, the triune shadow of Jeho-

vah. (20)

SHALL all things else be in mystery, and God alone be understood? Shall finite fathom infinity, though it sound not the shallows of

creation?

Shall a man comprehend his Maker, being yet a riddle to himself? Or time teach the lesson that eternity cannot master?

If God be nothing more than one, a child can compass the thought;
But seraphs fail to unravel the wondrous unity of three.

One verily He is, for there can be but one who is all mighty;
Yet the oracles of nature and religion proclaim Him three in one.
And where were the value to thy soul, O miserable denizen of earth,
Of the idle pageant of the cross, where hung no sacrifice for thee?
Where the worth to thine impotent heart, of that stirred Bethseda,

All numbed and palsied as it is, by the scorpion stings of sin?
No, thy trinity of nature, enchained by treble death,

Helplessly craveth of its God himself for three salvations:

The soul to be reconciled in love, the mind to be glorified in light, While this poor dying body leapeth into life.

And if indeed for us all the costly ransom hath been paid,

Bethink thee, could less than Deity have owned so vast a treasure? Could a man contend with God, and stand against the bosses of His buckler,

Rendering the balance for guilt, atonement to the uttermost?

Thou art subtle to thine own thinking, but wisdom judgeth thee a

fool,

Resolving thou wilt not bow the knee to a Being thou canst not comprehend:

The mind that could compass perfection were itself perfection's

equal;

And reason refuseth its homage to a God who can be fully understood.

THOU that despisest mystery, yet canst expound nothing,

Wherefore rejectest thou the fact that solveth the enigma of all things?

Wherefore veilest thou thine eyes, lest the light of revelation sun them,

And puttest aside the key that would open the casket of truth?
The mind and the nature of God is shadowed in all his works,
And none could have guessed of his essence, had He not uttered it
himself:

Therefore, thou child of folly, that scornest the record of his wisdom,

Learn from the consistencies of nature the needful miracle of God

head:

Yea, let the heathen be thy teacher, who adoreth many gods,

For there is no wide-spread error that hath not truth for its begin

ning.

Be content; thine eye cannot see all the sides of a cube at one view, Nor thy mind in the self-same moment follow two ideas: 2. There are now many marvels in thy creed, believing what thou seest. Then let not the conceit of intellect hinder thee from worshipping mystery.

OF THINKING.

REFLECTION is a flower of the mind, giving out wholesome fragrance,

But reverie is the same flower, when rank and running to seed. Better to read little with thought, than much with levity and quick

ness;

For mind is not as merchandise, which decreaseth in the using, But liker to the passions of man, which rejoice and expand in exertion :

Yet live not wholly on thine own ideas, lest they lead thee astray; For in spirit, as in substance, thou art a social creature;

And if thou leanest on thyself, thou rejectest the guidance of thy betters,

Yea, thou contemnest all men, Am I not wiser than they? Foolish vanity hath blinded thee, and warped thy weak judgment: For, though new ideas flow from new springs, and enrich the treas

ury of knowledge,

Yet listen often, ere thou think much; and look around thee ere thou judgest.

Memory, the daughter of Attention, is the teeming mother of Wis

dom;

And safer is he that storeth knowledge, than he that would make it for himself.

IMAGINATION is not thought, neither is fancy reflection :

Thought paceth like a hoary sage, but imagination hath wings as an eagle;

Reflection sternly considereth, nor is sparing to condemn evil,
But fancy lightly laugheth, in the sun-clad gardens of amusement.
For the shy game of the fowler the quickest shot is the surest;
But with slow care and measured aim the gunner pointeth his can-

non:

So for all less occasions, the surface-thought is best;

But to be master of the great take thou heavier metal.

It is a good thing, and a wholesome, to search out bosom sins,

But to be the hero of selfish imaginings, is the subtle poison of

pride;