The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume VII, Complete / The Conflict with Slavery, Politics and Reform, the Inner Life, and Criticism

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving;

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphus leaving."

Dimmer and dimmer, as the generations pass away, this tremendous terror, this all-pervading espionage of evil, this active incarnation of motiveless malignity, presents itself to the imagination. The once imposing and solemn rite of exorcism has become obsolete in the Church. Men are no longer, in any quarter of the world, racked or pressed under planks to extort a confession of diabolical alliance. The heretic now laughs to scorn the solemn farce of the Church which, in the name of the All-Merciful, formally delivers him over to Satan. And for the sake of abused and long-cheated humanity let us rejoice that it is so, when we consider how for long, weary centuries the millions of professed Christendom stooped, awestricken, under the yoke of spiritual and temporal despotism, grinding on from generation to generation in a despair which had passed complaining, because superstition, in alliance with tyranny, had filled their upward pathway to freedom with shapes of terror,—the spectres of God's wrath to the uttermost, the fiend, and that torment the smoke of which rises forever. Through fear of a Satan of the future,—a sort of ban-dog of priestcraft, held in its leash and ready to be let loose upon the disputers of its authority,—our toiling brothers of past ages have permitted their human taskmasters to convert God's beautiful world, so adorned and fitted for the peace and happiness of all, into a great prison-house of suffering, filled with the actual terrors which the imagination of the old poets gave to the realm of Rhadamanthus. And hence, while I would not weaken in the slightest degree the influence of that doctrine of future retribution,—the accountability of the spirit for the deeds done in the body,—the truth of which reason, revelation, and conscience unite in attesting as the necessary result of the preservation in another state of existence of the soul's individuality and identity, I must, nevertheless, rejoice that the many are no longer willing to permit the few, for their especial benefit, to convert our common Father's heritage into a present hell, where, in return for undeserved suffering and toil uncompensated, they can have gracious and comfortable assurance of release from a future one. Better is the fear of the Lord than the fear of the Devil; holier and more acceptable the obedience of love and reverence than the submission of slavish terror. The heart which has felt the "beauty of holiness," which has been in some measure attuned to the divine harmony which now, as of old in the angel-hymn of the Advent, breathes of "glory to God, peace on earth, and good-will to men," in the serene atmosphere of that "perfect love which casteth out fear," smiles at the terrors which throng the sick dreams of the sensual, which draw aside the nightcurtains of guilt, and startle with whispers of revenge the oppressor of the poor.

There is a beautiful moral in one of Fouque's miniature romances,—Die Kohlerfamilie. The fierce spectre, which rose giant-like, in its bloodred mantle, before the selfish and mercenary merchant, ever increasing in size and, terror with the growth of evil and impure thought in the mind of the latter, subdued by prayer, and penitence, and patient watchfulness over the heart's purity, became a loving and gentle visitation of soft light and meekest melody; "a beautiful radiance, at times hovering and flowing on before the traveller, illuminating the bushes and foliage of the mountain-forest; a lustre strange and lovely, such as the soul may conceive, but no words express. He felt its power in the depths of his being,—felt it like the mystic breathing of the Spirit of God."

The excellent Baxter and other pious men of his day deprecated in all sincerity and earnestness the growing disbelief in witchcraft and diabolical agency, fearing that mankind, losing faith in a visible Satan and in the supernatural powers of certain paralytic old women, would diverge into universal skepticism. It is one of the saddest of sights to see these good men standing sentry at the horn gate of dreams; attempting against the most discouraging odds to defend their poor fallacies from profane and irreverent investigation; painfully pleading doubtful Scripture and still more doubtful tradition in behalf of detected and convicted superstitions tossed on the sharp horns of ridicule, stretched on the rack of philosophy, or perishing under the exhausted receiver of science. A clearer knowledge of the aspirations, capacities, and necessities of the human soul, and of the revelations which the infinite Spirit makes to it, not only through the senses by the phenomena of outward nature, but by that inward and direct communion which, under different names, has been recognized by the devout and thoughtful of every religious sect and school of philosophy, would have saved them much anxious labor and a good deal of reproach withal in their hopeless championship of error. The witches of Baxter and "the black man" of Mather have vanished; belief in them is no longer possible on the part of sane men. But this mysterious universe, through which, half veiled in its own shadow, our dim little planet is wheeling, with its star worlds and thought-wearying spaces, remains. Nature's mighty miracle is still over and around us; and hence awe, wonder, and reverence remain to be the inheritance of humanity; still are there beautiful repentances and holy deathbeds; and still over the soul's darkness and confusion rises, starlike, the great idea of duty. By higher and better influences than the poor spectres of superstition, man must henceforth be taught to reverence the Invisible, and, in the consciousness of his own weakness, and sin, and sorrow, to lean with childlike trust on the wisdom and mercy of an overruling Providence,—walking by faith through the shadow and mystery, and cheered by the remembrance that, whatever may be his apparent allotment,—

It is a sad spectacle to find the glad tidings of the Christian faith and its "reasonable service" of devotion transformed by fanaticism and credulity into superstitious terror and wild extravagance; but, if possible, there is one still sadder. It is that of men in our own time regarding with satisfaction such evidences of human weakness, and professing to find in them new proofs of their miserable theory of a godless universe, and new occasion for sneering at sincere devotion as cant, and humble reverence as fanaticism. Alas! in comparison with such, the religious enthusiast, who in the midst of his delusion still feels that he is indeed a living soul and an heir of immortality, to whom God speaks from the immensities of His universe, is a sane man. Better is it, in a life like ours, to be even a howling dervis or a dancing Shaker, confronting imaginary demons with Thalaba's talisman of faith, than to lose the consciousness of our own spiritual nature, and look upon ourselves as mere brute masses of animal organization,—barnacles on a dead universe; looking into the dull grave with no hope beyond it; earth gazing into earth, and saying to corruption, "Thou art my father," and to the worm, "Thou art my sister."

HAMLET AMONG THE GRAVES. (1844.)

AN amiable enthusiast, immortal in his beautiful little romance of Paul and Virginia, has given us in his Miscellanies a chapter on the Pleasures of Tombs,—a title singular enough, yet not inappropriate; for the meek- spirited and sentimental author has given, in his own flowing and eloquent language, its vindication. "There is," says he, "a voluptuous melancholy arising from the contemplation of tombs; the result, like every other attractive sensation, of the harmony of two opposite principles,—from the sentiment of our fleeting life and that of our immortality, which unite in view of the last habitation of mankind. A tomb is a monument erected on the confines of two worlds. It first presents to us the end of the vain disquietudes of life and the image of everlasting repose; it afterwards awakens in us the confused sentiment of a blessed immortality, the probabilities of which grow stronger and stronger in proportion as the person whose memory is recalled was a virtuous character.

"It is from this intellectual instinct, therefore, in favor of virtue, that the tombs of great men inspire us with a veneration so affecting. From the same sentiment, too, it is that those which contain objects that have been lovely excite so much pleasing regret; for the attractions of love arise entirely out of the appearances of virtue. Hence it is that we are moved at the sight of the small hillock which covers the ashes of an infant, from the recollection of its innocence; hence it is that we are melted into tenderness on contemplating the tomb in which is laid to repose a young female, the delight and the hope of her family by reason of her virtues. In order to give interest to such monuments, there is no need of bronzes, marbles, and gildings. The more simple they are, the more energy they communicate to the sentiment of melancholy. They produce a more powerful effect when poor rather than rich, antique rather than modern, with details of misfortune rather than titles of honor, with the attributes of virtue rather than with those of power. It is in the country principally that their impression makes itself felt in a very lively manner. A simple, unornamented grave there causes more tears to flow than the gaudy splendor of a cathedral interment. There it is that grief assumes sublimity; it ascends with the aged yews in the churchyard; it extends with the surrounding hills and plains; it allies itself with all the effects of Nature,—with the dawning of the morning, with the murmuring of wind, with the setting of the sun, and with the darkness of the night."

Not long since I took occasion to visit the cemetery near this city. It is a beautiful location for a "city of the dead,"—a tract of some forty or fifty acres on the eastern bank of the Concord, gently undulating, and covered with a heavy growth of forest-trees, among which the white oak is conspicuous. The ground beneath has been cleared of undergrowth, and is marked here and there with monuments and railings enclosing "family lots." It is a quiet, peaceful spot; the city, with its crowded mills, its busy streets and teeming life, is hidden from view; not even a solitary farm-house attracts the eye. All is still and solemn, as befits the place where man and nature lie down together; where leaves of the great lifetree, shaken down by death, mingle and moulder with the frosted foliage of the autumnal forest.

Yet the contrast of busy life is not wanting. The Lowell and Boston Railroad crosses the river within view of the cemetery; and, standing there in the silence and shadow, one can see the long trains rushing along their iron pathway, thronged with living, breathing humanity,—the young, the beautiful, the gay,—busy, wealth-seeking manhood of middle years, the child at its mother's knee, the old man with whitened hairs, hurrying on, on,—car after car,—like the generations of man sweeping over the track of time to their last 'still resting-place.

It is not the aged and the sad of heart who make this a place of favorite resort. The young, the buoyant, the light-hearted, come and linger among these flower-sown graves, watching the sunshine falling in broken light upon these cold, white marbles, and listening to the song of birds in these leafy recesses. Beautiful and sweet to the young heart is the gentle shadow of melancholy which here falls upon it, soothing, yet sad, —a sentiment midway between joy and sorrow. How true is it, that, in the language of Wordsworth,—

The Chinese, from the remotest antiquity, have adorned and decorated their grave-grounds with shrubs and sweet flowers, as places of popular resort. The Turks have their graveyards planted with trees, through which the sun looks in upon the turban stones of the faithful, and beneath which the relatives of the dead sit in cheerful converse through the long days of summer, in all the luxurious quiet and happy indifference of the indolent East. Most of the visitors whom I met at the Lowell cemetery wore cheerful faces; some sauntered laughingly along, apparently unaffected by the associations of the place; too full, perhaps, of life, and energy, and high hope to apply to themselves the stern and solemn lesson which is taught even by these flower-garlanded mounds. But, for myself, I confess that I am always awed by the presence of the dead. I cannot jest above the gravestone. My spirit is silenced and rebuked before the tremendous mystery of which the grave reminds me, and involuntarily pays:

Even Nature's cheerful air, and sun, and birdvoices only serve to remind me that there are those beneath who have looked on the same green leaves and sunshine, felt the same soft breeze upon their cheeks, and listened to the same wild music of the woods for the last time. Then, too, comes the saddening reflection, to which so many have given expression, that these trees will put forth their leaves, the slant sunshine still fall upon green meadows and banks of flowers, and the song of the birds and the ripple of waters still be heard after our eyes and ears have closed forever. It is hard for us to realize this. We are so accustomed to look upon these things as a part of our life environment that it seems strange that they should survive us. Tennyson, in his exquisite metaphysical poem of the Two Voices, has given utterance to this sentiment:—

"The pleasures of the tombs!" Undoubtedly, in the language of the Idumean, seer, there are many who "rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave;" who long for it "as the servant earnestly desireth the shadow." Rest, rest to the sick heart and the weary brain, to the long afflicted and the hopeless,—rest on the calm bosom of our common mother. Welcome to the tired ear, stunned and confused with life's jarring discords, the everlasting silence; grateful to the weary eyes which "have seen evil, and not good," the everlasting shadow.

Yet over all hangs the curtain of a deep mystery,—a curtain lifted only on one side by the hands of those who are passing under its solemn shadow. No voice speaks to us from beyond it, telling of the unknown state; no hand from within puts aside the dark drapery to reveal the mysteries towards which we are all moving. "Man giveth up the ghost; and where is he?"

Thanks to our Heavenly Father, He has not left us altogether without an answer to this momentous question. Over the blackness of darkness a light is shining. The valley of the shadow of death is no longer "a land of darkness and where the light is as darkness." The presence of a serene and holy life pervades it. Above its pale tombs and crowded burial-places, above the wail of despairing humanity, the voice of Him who awakened life and beauty beneath the grave-clothes of the tomb at Bethany is heard proclaiming, "I am the Resurrection and the Life." We know not, it is true, the conditions of our future life; we know not what it is to pass fromm this state of being to another; but before us in that dark passage has gone the Man of Nazareth, and the light of His footsteps lingers in the path. Where He, our Brother in His humanity, our Redeemer in His divine nature, has gone, let us not fear to follow. He who ordereth all aright will uphold with His own great arm the frail spirit when its incarnation is ended; and it may be, that, in language which I have elsewhere used,

SWEDENBORG (1844.)

THERE are times when, looking only on the surface of things, one is almost ready to regard Lowell as a sort of sacred city of Mammon,—the Benares of gain: its huge mills, temples; its crowded dwellings, lodging- places of disciples and "proselytes within the gate;" its warehouses, stalls for the sale of relics. A very mean idol-worship, too, unrelieved by awe and reverence,—a selfish, earthward-looking devotion to the "least-erected spirit that fell from paradise." I grow weary of seeing man and mechanism reduced to a common level, moved by the same impulse, answering to the same bell-call. A nightmare of materialism broods over all. I long at times to hear a voice crying through the streets like that of one of the old prophets proclaiming the great first truth,—that the Lord alone is God.

Yet is there not another side to the picture? High over sounding workshops spires glisten in the sun,—silent fingers pointing heavenward. The workshops themselves are instinct with other and subtler processes than cotton-spinning or carpet-weaving. Each human being who watches beside jack or power loom feels more or less intensely that it is a solemn thing to live. Here are sin and sorrow, yearnings for lost peace, outgushing gratitude of forgiven spirits, hopes and fears, which stretch beyond the horizon of time into eternity. Death is here. The graveyard utters its warning. Over all bends the eternal heaven in its silence and mystery. Nature, even here, is mightier than Art, and God is above all. Underneath the din of labor and the sounds of traffic, a voice, felt rather than beard, reaches the heart, prompting the same fearful questions which stirred the soul of the world's oldest poet,—"If a man die, shall he live again?" "Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?" Out of the depths of burdened and weary hearts comes up the agonizing inquiry, "What shall I do to be saved?" "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

As a matter of course, in a city like this, composed of all classes of our many-sided population, a great variety of religious sects have their representatives in Lowell. The young city is dotted over with "steeple houses," most of them of the Yankee order of architecture. The Episcopalians have a house of worship on Merrimac Street,—a pile of dark stone, with low Gothic doors and arched windows. A plat of grass lies between it and the dusty street; and near it stands the dwelling-house intended for the minister, built of the same material as the church and surrounded by trees and shrubbery. The attention of the stranger is also attracted by another consecrated building on the hill slope of Belvidere,—one of Irving's a "shingle palaces," painted in imitation of stone,—a great wooden sham, "whelked and horned" with pine spires and turrets, a sort of whittled representation of the many-beaded beast of the Apocalypse.

In addition to the established sects which have reared their visible altars in the City of Spindles, there are many who have not yet marked the boundaries or set up the pillars and stretched out the curtains of their sectarian tabernacles; who, in halls and "upper chambers" and in the solitude of their own homes, keep alive the spirit of devotion, and, wrapping closely around them the mantles of their order, maintain the integrity of its peculiarities in the midst of an unbelieving generation.

Not long since, in company with a friend who is a regular attendant, I visited the little meeting of the disciples of Emanuel Swedenborg. Passing over Chapel Hill and leaving the city behind us, we reached the stream which winds through the beautiful woodlands at the Powder Mills and mingles its waters with the Concord. The hall in which the followers of the Gothland seer meet is small and plain, with unpainted seats, like those of "the people called Quakers," and looks out upon the still woods and that "willowy stream which turns a mill." An organ of small size, yet, as it seemed to me, vastly out of proportion with the room, filled the place usually occupied by the pulpit, which was here only a plain desk, placed modestly by the side of it. The congregation have no regular preacher, but the exercises of reading the Scriptures, prayers, and selections from the Book of Worship were conducted by one of the lay members. A manuscript sermon, by a clergyman of the order in Boston, was read, and apparently listened to with much interest. It was well written and deeply imbued with the doctrines of the church. I was impressed by the gravity and serious earnestness of the little audience. There were here no circumstances calculated to excite enthusiasm, nothing of the pomp of religious rites and ceremonies; only a settled conviction of the truth of the doctrines of their faith could have thus brought them together. I could scarcely make the fact a reality, as I sat among them, that here, in the midst of our bare and hard utilities, in the very centre and heart of our mechanical civilization, were devoted and undoubting believers in the mysterious and wonderful revelations of the Swedish prophet,—revelations which look through all external and outward manifestations to inward realities; which regard all objects in the world of sense only as the types and symbols of the world of spirit; literally unmasking the universe and laying bare the profoundest mysteries of life.

The character and writings of Emanuel Swedenborg constitute one of the puzzles and marvels of metaphysics and psychology. A man remarkable for his practical activities, an ardent scholar of the exact sciences, versed in all the arcana of physics, a skilful and inventive mechanician, he has evolved from the hard and gross materialism of his studies a system of transcendent spiritualism. From his aggregation of cold and apparently lifeless practical facts beautiful and wonderful abstractions start forth like blossoms on the rod of the Levite. A politician and a courtier, a man of the world, a mathematician engaged in the soberest details of the science, he has given to the world, in the simplest and most natural language, a series of speculations upon the great mystery of being: detailed, matter-of-fact narratives of revelations from the spiritual world, which at once appall us by their boldness, and excite our wonder at their extraordinary method, logical accuracy, and perfect consistency. These remarkable speculations—the workings of a mind in which a powerful imagination allied itself with superior reasoning faculties, the marvellous current of whose thought ran only in the diked and guarded channels of mathematical demonstration—he uniformly speaks of as "facts." His perceptions of abstractions were so intense that they seem to have reached that point where thought became sensible to sight as well as feeling. What he thought, that he saw.

He relates his visions of the spiritual world as he would the incidents of a walk round his own city of Stockholm. One can almost see him in his "brown coat and velvet breeches," lifting his "cocked hat" to an angel, or keeping an unsavory spirit at arm's length with that "gold-headed cane" which his London host describes as his inseparable companion in walking. His graphic descriptions have always an air of naturalness and probability; yet there is a minuteness of detail at times almost bordering on the ludicrous. In his Memorable Relations he manifests nothing of the imagination of Milton, overlooking the closed gates of paradise, or following the "pained fiend" in his flight through chaos; nothing of Dante's terrible imagery appalls us; we are led on from heaven to heaven very much as Defoe leads us after his shipwrecked Crusoe. We can scarcely credit the fact that we are not traversing our lower planet; and the angels seem vastly like our common acquaintances. We seem to recognize the "John Smiths," and "Mr. Browns," and "the old familiar faces" of our mundane habitation. The evil principle in Swedenborg's picture is, not the colossal and massive horror of the Inferno, nor that stern wrestler with fate who darkens the canvas of Paradise Lost, but an aggregation of poor, confused spirits, seeking rest and finding none save in the unsavory atmosphere of the "falses." These small fry of devils remind us only of certain unfortunate fellows whom we have known, who seem incapable of living in good and wholesome society, and who are manifestly given over to believe a lie. Thus it is that the very "heavens" and "hells" of the Swedish mystic seem to be "of the earth, earthy." He brings the spiritual world into close analogy with the material one.

In this hurried paper I have neither space nor leisure to attempt an analysis of the great doctrines which underlie the "revelations" of Swedenborg. His remarkably suggestive books are becoming familiar to the reading and reflecting portion of the community. They are not unworthy of study; but, in the language of another, I would say, "Emulate Swedenborg in his exemplary life, his learning, his virtues, his independent thought, his desire for wisdom, his love of the good and true; aim to be his equal, his superior, in these things; but call no man your master."

THE BETTER LAND. (1844.)

"THE shapings of our heavens are the modifications of our constitution," said Charles Lamb, in his reply to Southey's attack upon him in the Quarterly Review.

He who is infinite in love as well as wisdom has revealed to us the fact of a future life, and the fearfully important relation in which the present stands to it. The actual nature and conditions of that life He has hidden from us,—no chart of the ocean of eternity is given us,—no celestial guidebook or geography defines, localizes, and prepares us for the wonders of the spiritual world. Hence imagination has a wide field for its speculations, which, so long as they do not positively contradict the revelation of the Scriptures, cannot be disproved.

We naturally enough transfer to our idea of heaven whatever we love and reverence on earth. Thither the Catholic carries in his fancy the imposing rites and time-honored solemnities of his worship. There the Methodist sees his love-feasts and camp-meetings in the groves and by the still waters and green pastures of the blessed abodes. The Quaker, in the stillness of his self-communing, remembers that there was "silence in heaven."

The Churchman, listening to the solemn chant of weal music or the deep tones of the organ, thinks of the song of the elders and the golden harps of the New Jerusalem.

The heaven of the northern nations of Europe was a gross and sensual reflection of the earthly life of a barbarous and brutal people.

The Indians of North America had a vague notion of a sunset land, a beautiful paradise far in the west, mountains and forests filled with deer and buffalo, lakes and streams swarming with fishes,—the happy hunting-ground of souls. In a late letter from a devoted missionary among the Western Indians (Paul Blohm, a converted Jew) we have noticed a beautiful illustration of this belief. Near the Omaha mission-house, on a high luff, was a solitary Indian grave. "One evening," says the missionary, "having come home with some cattle which I had been seeking, I heard some one wailing; and, looking in the direction from whence I proceeded, I found it to be from the grave near our house. In a moment after a mourner rose up from a kneeling or lying posture, and, turning to the setting sun, stretched forth his arms in prayer and supplication with an intensity and earnestness as though he would detain the splendid luminary from running his course. With his body leaning forward and his arms stretched towards the sun, he presented a most striking figure of sorrow and petition. It was solemnly awful. He seemed to me to be one of the ancients come forth to teach me how to pray."

A venerable and worthy New England clergyman, on his death-bed, just before the close of his life, declared that he was only conscious of an awfully solemn and intense curiosity to know the great secret of death and eternity.

The excellent Dr. Nelson, of Missouri, was one who, while on earth, seemed to live another and higher life in the contemplation of infinite purity and happiness. A friend once related an incident concerning him which made a deep impression upon my mind. They had been travelling through a summer's forenoon in the prairie, and had lain down to rest beneath a solitary tree. The Doctor lay for a long time, silently looking upwards through the openings of the boughs into the still heavens, when he repeated the following lines, in a low tone, as if communing with himself in view of the wonders he described:—

The brief hints afforded us by the sacred writings concerning the better land are inspiring and beautiful. Eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive of the good in store for the righteous. Heaven is described as a quiet habitation,—a rest remaining for the people of God. Tears shall be wiped away from all eyes; there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. To how many death-beds have these words spoken peace! How many failing hearts have gathered strength from them to pass through the dark valley of shadows!

Yet we should not forget that "the kingdom of heaven is within;" that it is the state and affections of the soul, the answer of a good conscience, the sense of harmony with God, a condition of time as well as of eternity. What is really momentous and all-important with us is the present, by which the future is shaped and colored. A mere change of locality cannot alter the actual and intrinsic qualities of the soul. Guilt and remorse would make the golden streets of Paradise intolerable as the burning marl of the infernal abodes; while purity and innocence would transform hell itself into heaven.

DORA GREEN WELL.

First published as an introduction to an American edition of that author's The Patience of Hope.

THERE are men who, irrespective of the names by which they are called in the Babel confusion of sects, are endeared to the common heart of Christendom. Our doors open of their own accord to receive them. For in them we feel that in some faint degree, and with many limitations, the Divine is again manifested: something of the Infinite Love shines out of them; their very garments have healing and fragrance borrowed from the bloom of Paradise. So of books. There are volumes which perhaps contain many things, in the matter of doctrine and illustration, to which our reason does not assent, but which nevertheless seem permeated with a certain sweetness and savor of life. They have the Divine seal and imprimatur; they are fragrant with heart's-ease and asphodel; tonic with the leaves which are for the healing of the nations. The meditations of the devout monk of Kempen are the common heritage of Catholic and Protestant; our hearts burn within us as we walk with Augustine under Numidian fig-trees in the gardens of Verecundus; Feuelon from his bishop's palace and John Woolman from his tailor's shop speak to us in the same language. The unknown author of that book which Luther loved next to his Bible, the Theologia Germanica, is just as truly at home in this present age, and in the ultra Protestantism of New England, as in the heart of Catholic Europe, and in the fourteenth century. For such books know no limitations of time or place; they have the perpetual freshness and fitness of truth; they speak out of profound experience heart answers to heart as we read them; the spirit that is in man, and the inspiration that giveth understanding, bear witness to them. The bent and stress of their testimony are the same, whether written in this or a past century, by Catholic or Quaker: self-renunciation,— reconcilement to the Divine will through simple faith in the Divine goodness, and the love of it which must needs follow its recognition, the life of Christ made our own by self-denial and sacrifice, and the fellowship of His suffering for the good of others, the indwelling Spirit, leading into all truth, the Divine Word nigh us, even in our hearts. They have little to do with creeds, or schemes of doctrine, or the partial and inadequate plans of salvation invented by human speculation and ascribed to Him who, it is sufficient to know, is able to save unto the uttermost all who trust in Him. They insist upon simple faith and holiness of life, rather than rituals or modes of worship; they leave the merely formal, ceremonial, and temporal part of religion to take care of itself, and earnestly seek for the substantial, the necessary, and the permanent.

With these legacies of devout souls, it seems to me, the little volume herewith presented is not wholly unworthy of a place. It assumes the life and power of the gospel as a matter of actual experience; it bears unmistakable evidence of a realization, on the part of its author, of the truth, that Christianity is not simply historical and traditional, but present and permanent, with its roots in the infinite past and its branches in the infinite future, the eternal spring and growth of Divine love; not the dying echo of words uttered centuries ago, never to be repeated, but God's good tidings spoken afresh in every soul,—the perennial fountain and unstinted outflow of wisdom and goodness, forever old and forever new. It is a lofty plea for patience, trust, hope, and holy confidence, under the shadow, as well as in the light, of Christian experience, whether the cloud seems to rest on the tabernacle, or moves guidingly forward. It is perhaps too exclusively addressed to those who minister in the inner sanctuary, to be entirely intelligible to the vaster number who wait in the outer courts; it overlooks, perhaps, too much the solidarity and oneness of humanity;' but all who read it will feel its earnestness, and confess to the singular beauty of its style, the strong, steady march of its argument, and the wide and varied learning which illustrates it.

To use the language of one of its reviewers in the Scottish press:—

"Beauty there is in the book; exquisite glimpses into the loveliness of nature here and there shine out from its lines,—a charm wanting which meditative writing always seems to have a defect; beautiful gleams, too, there are of the choicest things of art, and frequent allusions by the way to legend or picture of the religious past; so that, while you read, you wander by a clear brook of thought, coining far from the beautiful hills, and winding away from beneath the sunshine of gladness and beauty into the dense, mysterious forest of human existence, that loves to sing, amid the shadow of human darkness and anguish, its music of heavenborn consolation; bringing, too, its pure waters of cleansing and healing, yet evermore making its praise of holy affection and gladness; while it is still haunted by the spirits of prophet, saint, and poet, repeating snatches of their strains, and is led on, as by a spirit from above, to join the great river of God's truth. . . .

"This is a book for Christian men, for the quiet hour of holy solitude, when the heart longs and waits for access to the presence of the Master. The weary heart that thirsts amidst its conflicts and its toils for refreshing water will drink eagerly of these sweet and refreshing words. To thoughtful men and women, especially such as have learnt any of the patience of hope in the experiences of sorrow and trial, we commend this little volume most heartily and earnestly."

The Patience of Hope fell into my hands soon after its publication in Edinburgh, some two years ago. I was at once impressed by its extraordinary richness of language and imagery,—its deep and solemn tone of meditation in rare combination with an eminently practical tendency,— philosophy warm and glowing with love. It will, perhaps, be less the fault of the writer than of her readers, if they are not always able to eliminate from her highly poetical and imaginative language the subtle metaphysical verity or phase of religious experience which she seeks to express, or that they are compelled to pass over, without appropriation, many things which are nevertheless profoundly suggestive as vague possibilities of the highest life. All may not be able to find in some of her Scriptural citations the exact weight and significance so apparent to her own mind. She startles us, at times, by her novel applications of familiar texts, by meanings reflected upon them from her own spiritual intuitions, making the barren Baca of the letter a well. If the rendering be questionable, the beauty and quaint felicity of illustration and comparison are unmistakable; and we call to mind Augustine's saying, that two or more widely varying interpretations of Scripture may be alike true in themselves considered. "When one saith, Moses meant as I do,' and another saith, 'Nay, but as I do,' I ask, more reverently, 'Why not rather as both, if both be true?"

Some minds, for instance, will hesitate to assent to the use of certain Scriptural passages as evidence that He who is the Light of men, the Way and the Truth, in the mystery of His economy, designedly "delays, withdraws, and even hides Himself from those who love and follow Him." They will prefer to impute spiritual dearth and darkness to human weakness, to the selfishness which seeks a sign for itself, to evil imaginations indulged, to the taint and burden of some secret sin, or to some disease and exaggeration of the conscience, growing out of bodily infirmity, rather than to any purpose on the part of our Heavenly Father to perplex and mislead His children. The sun does not shine the less because one side of our planet is in darkness. To borrow the words of Augustine "Thou, Lord, forsakest nothing thou hast made. Thou alone art near to those even who remove far from thee. Let them turn and seek thee, for not as they have forsaken their Creator hast thou forsaken thy creation." It is only by holding fast the thought of Infinite Goodness, and interpreting doubtful Scripture and inward spiritual experience by the light of that central idea, that we can altogether escape the dreadful conclusion of Pascal, that revelation has been given us in dubious cipher, contradictory and mystical, in order that some, through miraculous aid, may understand it to their salvation, and others be mystified by it to their eternal loss.

I might mention other points of probable divergence between reader and writer, and indicate more particularly my own doubtful parse and hesitancy over some of these pages. But it is impossible for me to make one to whom I am so deeply indebted an offender for a word or a Scriptural rendering. On the grave and awful themes which she discusses, I have little to say in the way of controversy. I would listen, rather than criticise. The utterances of pious souls, in all ages, are to me often like fountains in a thirsty land, strengthening and refreshing, yet not without an after-taste of human frailty and inadequateness, a slight bitterness of disappointment and unsatisfied quest. Who has not felt at times that the letter killeth, that prophecies fail, and tongues cease to edify, and been ready to say, with the author of the Imitation of Christ: "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. Let not Moses nor the prophets speak to me, but speak thou rather, who art the Inspirer and Enlightener of all. I am weary with reading and hearing many things; let all teachers hold their peace; let all creatures keep silence: speak thou alone to me."

The writer of The Patience of Hope had, previous to its publication, announced herself to a fit, if small, audience of earnest and thoughtful Christians, in a little volume entitled, A Present Heaven. She has recently published a collection of poems, of which so competent a judge as Dr. Brown, the author of Horae Subsecivae and Rab and his Friends, thus speaks, in the North British Review:—

"Such of our readers—a fast increasing number—as have read and enjoyed The Patience of Hope, listening to the gifted nature which, through such deep and subtile thought, and through affection and godliness still deeper and more quick, has charmed and soothed them, will not be surprised to learn that she is not only poetical, but, what is more, a poet, and one as true as George Herbert and Henry Vaughan, or our own Cowper; for, with all our admiration of the searching, fearless speculation, the wonderful power of speaking clearly upon dark and all but unspeakable subjects, the rich outcome of 'thoughts that wander through eternity,' which increases every time we take up that wonderful little book, we confess we were surprised at the kind and the amount of true poetic vis in these poems, from the same fine and strong hand. There is a personality and immediateness, a sort of sacredness and privacy, as if they were overheard rather than read, which gives to these remarkable productions a charm and a flavor all their own. With no effort, no consciousness of any end but that of uttering the inmost thoughts and desires of the heart, they flow out as clear, as living, as gladdening as the wayside well, coming from out the darkness of the central depths, filtered into purity by time and travel. The waters are copious, sometimes to overflowing; but they are always limpid and unforced, singing their own quiet tune, not saddening, though sometimes sad, and their darkness not that of obscurity, but of depth, like that of the deep sea.

"This is not a book to criticise or speak about, and we give no extracts from the longer, and in this case, we think, the better poems. In reading this Cardiphonia set to music, we have been often reminded, not only of Herbert and Vaughan, but of Keble,—a likeness of the spirit, not of the letter; for if there is any one poet who has given a bent to her mind, it is Wordsworth,—the greatest of all our century's poets, both in himself and in his power of making poets."

In the belief that whoever peruses the following pages will be sufficiently interested in their author to be induced to turn back and read over again, with renewed pleasure, extracts from her metrical writings, I copy from the volume so warmly commended a few brief pieces and extracts from the longer poems.

Here are three sonnets, each a sermon in itself:—