Chapter IX: Front Matter (9)

"The two succeeding essays have never been printed; but were
read, it is believed, in a literary society at Trinity College,
or in one to which he afterwards belonged in London. That
entitled _Theodicaea Novissima_, is printed at the desire of
some of his intimate friends. A few expressions in it want his
usual precision; and there are ideas which he might have seen
cause, in the lapse of time, to modify, independently of what
his very acute mind would probably have perceived, that his
hypothesis, like that of Leibnitz, on the origin of evil,
resolves itself at last into an unproved assumption of its
necessity. It has however some advantages, which need not be
mentioned, over that of Leibnitz; and it is here printed, not as
a solution of the greatest mystery of the universe, but as most
characteristic of the author's mind, original and sublime,
uniting, what is very rare except in early youth, a fearless and
unblenching spirit of inquiry into the highest objects of
speculation, with the most humble and reverential piety. It is
probable that in many of his views on such topics he was
influenced by the writings of Jonathan Edwards, with whose
opinions on metaphysical and moral subjects, he seems generally
to have concurred.

"The extract from a review of Tennyson's poems in a publication
now extinct, the _Englishman's Magazine_, is also printed at the
suggestion of a friend. The pieces that follow are reprints, and
have been already mentioned in this Memoir."

We have given this Memoir almost entire, for the sake both of its subject and its manner--for what in it is the father's as well as for what is the son's. There is something very touching in the paternal composure, the judiciousness, the truthfulness, where truth is so difficult to reach through tears, the calm estimate and the subdued tenderness, the ever-rising but ever restrained emotion; the father's heart throbs throughout.

We wish we could have given in full the letters from Arthur's friends, which his father has incorporated in the Memoir. They all bring out in different but harmonious ways, his extraordinary moral and intellectual worth, his rare beauty of character, and their deep affection.

The following extract from one seems to us very interesting:--"Outwardly I do not think there was anything remarkable in his habits, except _an irregularity with regard to times and places of study_, which may seem surprising in one whose progress in so many directions was so eminently great and rapid. _He was commonly to be found in some friend's room, reading, or canvassing._ I dare say he lost something by this irregularity, _but less than perhaps one would at first imagine_. I never saw him idle. He might seem to be lounging, or only amusing himself, but his mind was always active, and active for good. In fact, his energy and quickness of apprehension did not stand in need of outward aid." There is much in this worthy of more extended notice. Such minds as his probably grow best in this way, are best left to themselves to glide on at their own sweet wills; the stream was too deep and clear, and perhaps too entirely bent on its own errand, to be dealt with or regulated by any art or device. The same friend sums up his character thus:--"I have met with no man his superior in metaphysical subtlety; no man his equal as a philosophical critic on works of taste; no man whose views on all subjects connected with the duties and dignities of humanity were more large, and generous, and enlightened." And all this said of a youth of twenty--_heu nimium brevis aevi decus et desiderium!_

We have given little of this verse; and what we do give is taken at random. We agree entirely in his father's estimate of his poetical gift and art, but his mind was too serious, too thoughtful, too intensely dedicated to truth and the God of truth, to linger long in the pursuit of beauty; he was on his way to God, and could rest in nothing short of Him, otherwise he might have been a poet of genuine excellence.

"Dark, dark, yea, 'irrecoverably dark,
Is the soul's eye; yet how it strives and battles
Thorough th' impenetrable gloom to fix
That master light, the secret truth of things,
Which is the body of the infinite God!"

"Sure, we are leaves of one harmonious bower,
Fed by a sap that never will be scant,
All-permeating, all-producing mind;
And in our several parcellings of doom
We but fulfil the beauty of the whole.
Oh, madness! if a leaf should dare complain
Of its dark verdure, and aspire to be
The gayer, brighter thing that wantons near."

"Oh, blessing and delight of my young heart,
Maiden, who wast so lovely, and so pure,
I know not in what region now thou art,
Or whom thy gentle eyes in joy assure.
Not the old hills on which we gazed together,
Not the old faces which we both did love,
Not the old books, whence knowledge we did gather,
Not these, but others now thy fancies move.
I would I knew thy present hopes and fears,
All thy companions with their pleasant talk,
And the clear aspect which thy dwelling wears:
So, though in body absent, I might walk
With thee in thought and feeling, till thy mood
Did sanctify mine own to peerless good."

"Alfred, I would that you beheld me now,
Sitting beneath a mossy ivied wall
On a quaint bench, which to that structure old
Winds an accordant curve. Above my head
_Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves,_
Seeming received into the blue expanse
That vaults this summer noon."

"Still here--thou bast not faded from my sight,
_Nor all the music round thee from mine ear;_
_Still grace flows from thee to the brightening year,_
_And all the birds laugh out in wealthier light._
Still am I free to close my happy eyes,
And paint upon the gloom thy mimic form,
That soft white neck, that cheek in beauty warm,
And brow half hidden where yon ringlet lies:
With, oh! the blissful knowledge all the while
That I can lift at will each curved lid,
And my fair dream most highly realize.
The time will come, 'tis ushered by my sighs,
When I may shape the dark, but vainly bid
True light restore that form, those looks, that smile."

"The garden trees _are busy with the shower_
That fell ere sunset: now methinks they talk,
Lowly and sweetly as befits the hour,
One to another down the grassy walk.
Hark the laburnum from his opening flower,
This cherry creeper greets in whisper light,
While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night,
Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore,[39]
What shall I deem their converse? would they hail
The wild gray light that fronts yon massive cloud,
Or the half bow, rising like pillar'd fire?
Or are they fighting faintly for desire
That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed,
And dews about their feet may never fail?"

[39] This will remind the reader of a fine passage in _Edwin the
Fair_, on the specific differences in the sounds made by the
ash, the elm, the fir, &c., when moved by the wind; and of
some lines by Landor on flowers speaking to each other; and
of something more exquisite than either, in _Consuelo_--the
description of the flowers in the old monastic garden, at
"the sweet hour of prime."

In the Essay, entitled _Theodicaea Novissima_, from which the following passages are taken to the great injury of its general effect, he sets himself to the task of doing his utmost to clear up the mystery of the existence of such things as sin and suffering in the universe of a being like God. He does it fearlessly, but like a child. It is in the spirit of his friend's words,--

"An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry."

"Then was I as a child that cries,
But, crying, knows his father near."

It is not a mere exercitation of the intellect, it is an endeavor to get nearer God--to assert his eternal Providence, and vindicate his ways to men. We know no performance more wonderful for such a boy. Pascal might have written it. As was to be expected, the tremendous subject remains where he found it--his glowing love and genius cast a gleam here and there across its gloom; but it is brief as the lightning in the collied night--the jaws of darkness do devour it up--this secret belongs to God. Across its deep and dazzling darkness, and from out its abyss of thick cloud, "all dark, dark, irrecoverably dark," no steady ray has ever, or will ever, come,--over its face its own darkness must brood, till He to whom alone the darkness and the light are both alike, to whom the night shineth as the day, says, "Let there be light!" There is, we all know, a certain awful attraction, a nameless charm for all thoughtful spirits, in this mystery, "the greatest in the universe," as Mr. Hallam truly says; and it is well for us at times, so that we have pure eyes and a clean heart, to turn aside and look into its gloom; but it is not good to busy ourselves in clever speculations about it, or briskly to criticize the speculations of others--it is a wise and pious saying of Augustin, _Verius cogitatur Deus, quam dicitur; et verius est quam cogitatur_.

"I wish to be understood as considering Christianity in the
present Essay rather in its relation to the intellect, as
constituting the higher philosophy, than in its far more
important bearing upon the hearts and destinies of us all. I
shall propose the question in this form, 'Is there ground for
believing that the existence of moral evil is absolutely
necessary to the fulfilment of God's essential love for Christ?'
(_i. e._, of the Father for Christ, or of {ho pater} for {ho
logos}).

"'Can man by searching find out God?' I believe not. I believe
that the unassisted efforts of man's reason have not established
the existence and attributes of Deity on so sure a basis as the
Deist imagines. However sublime may be the notion of a supreme
original mind, and however naturally human feelings adhered to
it, the reasons by which it was justified were not, in my
opinion, sufficient to clear it from considerable doubt and
confusion.... I hesitate not to say that I derive from
Revelation a conviction of Theism, which without that assistance
would have been but a dark and ambiguous hope. _I see that the
Bible fits into every fold of the human heart. I am a man, and I
believe it to be God's book because it is man's book._ It is
true that the Bible affords me no additional means of
demonstrating the falsity of Atheism; _if mind had nothing to do
with the formation of the Universe, doubtless whatever had was
competent also to make the Bible_; but I have gained this
advantage, that my feelings and thoughts can no longer refuse
their assent to _what is evidently framed to engage that assent;
and what is it to me that I cannot disprove the bare logical
possibility of my whole nature being fallacious? To seek for a
certainty above certainty, an evidence beyond necessary belief,
is the very lunacy of skepticism_: we must trust our own
faculties, or we can put no trust in anything, save that moment
we call the present, which escapes us while we articulate its
name. _I am determined therefore to receive the Bible as
Divinely authorized, and the scheme of human and Divine things
which it contains, as essentially true._"

"I may further observe, that however much we should rejoice to
discover that the eternal scheme of God--the necessary
completion, let us remember, of his Almighty Nature--did not
require the absolute perdition of any spirit called by Him into
existence, we are certainly not entitled to consider the
perpetual misery of many individuals as incompatible with
sovereign love."

"In the Supreme Nature those two capacities of Perfect Love and
Perfect Joy are indivisible. Holiness and Happiness, says an old
divine, are two several notions of one thing. Equally
inseparable are the notions of Opposition to Love and Opposition
to Bliss. _Unless therefore the heart of a created being is at
one with the heart of God, it cannot but be miserable._
Moreover, there is no possibility of continuing forever partly
with God and partly against him; we must either be capable by
our nature of entire accordance with His will, or we must be
incapable of anything but misery, further than He may for awhile
'not impute our trespasses to us,' that is, He may interpose
some temporary barrier between sin and its attendant pain. _For
in the Eternal Idea of God a created spirit is perhaps not seen,
as a series of successive states_, of which some that are evil
might be compensated by others that are good, _but as one
indivisible object of these almost infinitely divisible modes_,
and that either in accordance with His own nature, or in
opposition to it....

"Before the gospel was preached to man, how could a human soul
have this love, and this consequent life? I see no way; but now
that Christ has excited our love for him by showing unutterable
love for us; now that we know him as an Elder Brother, a being
of like thoughts, feelings, sensations, sufferings, with
ourselves, it has become possible to love as God loves, that is,
to love Christ, and thus to become united in heart to God.
Besides, Christ is the express image of God's person; in loving
him we are sure we are in a state of readiness to love the
Father, whom we see, he tells us, when we see him. Nor is this
all; the tendency of love is towards a union so intimate as
virtually to amount to identification; when then by affection
towards Christ we have become blended with his being, the beams
of eternal love, falling, as ever, on the one beloved object,
will include us in him, and their returning flashes of love out
of his personality will carry along with them some from our own,
since ours has become confused with his, and so shall we be one
with Christ and through Christ with God. Thus then we see the
great effect of the Incarnation, as far as our nature is
concerned, _was to render human love for the Most High a
possible thing_. The Law had said, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy
strength;' and could men have lived by law, 'which is the
strength of sin,' verily righteousness and life would have been
by that law. But it was not possible, and all were concluded
under sin, that in Christ might be the deliverance of all. I
believe that Redemption" (_i.e._, what Christ has done and
suffered for mankind) "is universal, in so far as it left no
obstacle between man and God, but man's own will: that indeed is
in the power of God's election, with whom alone rest the abysmal
secrets of personality; but as far as Christ is concerned, his
death was for all, since his intentions and affections were
equally directed to all, and 'none who come to him will he in
any wise cast out.'

"I deprecate any hasty rejection of these thoughts as novelties.
Christianity is indeed, as St. Augustin says, 'pulchritudo tam
antiqua;' but he adds, 'tam nova,' for it is capable of
presenting to every mind a new face of truth. The great
doctrine, which in my judgment these observations tend to
strengthen and illumine, _the doctrine of personal love for a
personal God_, is assuredly no novelty, but has in all times
been the vital principle of the Church. Many are the forms of
antichristian heresy, which for a season have depressed and
obscured that principle of life; but its nature is connective
and resurgent; and neither the Papal Hierarchy with its pomp of
systematized errors, not the worse apostasy of latitudinarian
Protestantism, have ever so far prevailed, but that many from
age to age have proclaimed and vindicated the eternal gospel of
love, believing, as I also firmly believe, that any opinion
which tends to keep out of sight the living and loving God,
whether it substitute for Him an idol, an occult agency, or a
formal creed, can be nothing better than a vain and portentous
shadow projected from the selfish darkness of unregenerate man."

The following is from the Review of Tennyson's Poems; we do not know that during the lapse of eighteen years anything better has been said:--

"Undoubtedly the true poet addresses himself, in all his
conceptions, to the common nature of us all. Art is a lofty
tree, and may shoot up far beyond our grasp, but its roots are
in daily life and experience. Every bosom contains the elements
of those complex emotions which the artist feels, and every head
can, to a certain extent, go over in itself the process of their
combination, so as to understand his expressions and sympathize
with his state. _But this requires exertion_; more or less,
indeed, according to the difference of occasion, but always some
degree of exertion. For since the emotions of the poet during
composition follow a regular law of association, it follows that
to accompany their progress up to the harmonious prospect of the
whole, and to perceive the proper dependence of every step on
that which preceded, it is absolutely necessary _to start from
the same point, i.e._, clearly to apprehend that leading
sentiment of the poet's mind, by their conformity to which the
host of suggestions are arranged. _Now this requisite exertion
is not willingly made by the large majority of readers. It is so
easy to judge capriciously, and according to indolent impulse!_"

"Those different powers of poetic disposition, the energies of
Sensitive, of Reflective, or Passionate Emotion, which in former
times were intermingled, and derived from mutual support an
extensive empire over the feelings of men, were now restrained
within separate spheres of agency. The whole system no longer
worked harmoniously, and by intrinsic harmony acquired external
freedom; but there arose a violent and unusual action in the
several component functions, each for itself, all striving to
reproduce the regular power which the whole had once enjoyed.
_Hence the melancholy which so evidently characterizes the
spirit of modern poetry_; hence that return of the mind upon
itself, and the habit of seeking relief in idiosyncrasies rather
than community of interest. _In the old times the poetic impulse
went along with the general impulse of the nation._

"One of the faithful Islam, a poet in the truest and highest
sense, we are anxious to present to our readers.... He sees all
the forms of Nature with the '_eruditus oculus_,' and his ear
has a fairy fineness. There is _a strange earnestness in his
worship of beauty_, which throws a charm over his impassioned
song, more easily felt than described, and not to be escaped by
those who have once felt it. We think that he has _more
definiteness and roundness of general conception_ than the late
Mr. Keats, and is much more free from blemishes of diction and
hasty capriccios of fancy.... The author imitates nobody; _we
recognize the spirit of his age, but not the individual form of
this or that writer_. His thoughts bear no more resemblance to
Byron or Scott, Shelley or Coleridge, than to Homer or Calderon,
Ferdusi or Calidasa. We have remarked five distinctive
excellencies of his own manner. First, his luxuriance of
imagination, and at the same time his control over it. Secondly,
his power of embodying himself in ideal characters, or rather
modes of character, with such extreme accuracy of adjustment,
that the circumstances of the narration seem to have a natural
correspondence with the predominant feeling, and, as it were, to
be evolved from it by assimilative force. Thirdly, his vivid,
picturesque delineation of objects, and the peculiar skill with
which he holds all of them _fused_, to borrow a metaphor from
science, in a medium of strong emotion. Fourthly, the variety of
his lyrical measures, and exquisite modulation of harmonious
words and cadences to the swell and fall of the feelings
expressed. Fifthly, the elevated habits of thought, implied in
these compositions, and imparting a mellow soberness of tone,
more impressive, to our minds, than if the author had drawn up a
set of opinions in verse, and sought to instruct the
understanding, _rather than to communicate the love of beauty to
the heart_."

What follows is justly thought and well said.

"And is it not a noble thing, that the English tongue is, as it
were, the common focus and point of union to which opposite
beauties converge? Is it a trifle that we temper energy with
softness, strength with flexibility, capaciousness of sound with
pliancy of idiom? Some, I know, insensible to these virtues, and
ambitious of I know not what unattainable decomposition, prefer
to utter funeral praises over the grave of departed Anglo-Saxon,
or, starting with convulsive shudder, are ready to leap from
surrounding Latinisms into the kindred, sympathetic arms of
modern German. For myself, I neither share their regret, nor
their terror. Willing at all times to pay filial homage to the
shades of Hengist and Horsa, and to admit they have laid the
base of our compound language; or, if you will, have prepared
the soil from which the chief nutriment of the goodly tree, our
British oak, must be derived, I am yet proud to confess that I
look with sentiments more exulting and more reverential to the
bonds by which the law of the universe has fastened me to my
distant brethren of the same Caucasian race; to the privileges
which I, an inhabitant of the gloomy North, share in common with
climates imparadised in perpetual summer, to the universality
and efficacy resulting from blended intelligence, which, while
it endears in our eyes the land of our fathers as a seat of
peculiar blessing, tends to elevate and expand our thoughts into
communion with humanity at large; and, in the 'sublimer spirit'
of the poet, to make us feel

"That God is everywhere--the God who framed
Mankind to be one mighty family,
Himself our Father, and the world our home."

What nice shading of thought do his remarks on Petrarch discover!

"But it is not so much to his direct adoptions that I refer, _as
to the general modulation of thought, that clear softness of his
images, that energetic self-possession of his conceptions, and
that melodious repose in which are held together all the
emotions he delineates_."

Every one who knows anything of himself, and of his fellow-men, will acknowledge the wisdom of what follows. It displays an intimate knowledge both of the constitution and history of man, and there is much in it suited to our present need:--

"_I do not hesitate to express my conviction, that the spirit of
the critical philosophy, as seen by its fruits in all the
ramifications of art, literature, and morality, is as much more
dangerous than the spirit of mechanical philosophy_, as it is
fairer in appearance, and more capable of alliance with our
natural feelings of enthusiasm and delight. Its dangerous
tendency is this, that it perverts those very minds, whose
office it was to resist the perverse impulses of society, and to
proclaim truth under the dominion of falsehood. However
precipitate may be at any time the current of public opinion,
bearing along the mass of men to the grosser agitations of life,
and to such schemes of belief as make these the prominent
object, _there will always be in reserve a force of antagonist
opinion, strengthened by opposition, and attesting the sanctity
of those higher principles, which are despised or forgotten by
the majority_. These men _are secured by natural temperament_
and peculiar circumstances from participating in the common
delusion; but if some other and deeper fallacy be invented; if
some more subtle beast of the field should speak to them in
wicked flattery; if a digest of intellectual aphorisms can be
substituted in their minds for a code of living truths, and the
lovely semblances of beauty, truth, affection, can be made first
to obscure the presence, and then to conceal the loss, of that
religious humility, without which, as their central life, all
these are but dreadful shadows; if so fatal a stratagem can be
successfully practised, I see not what hope remains for a people
against whom the gates of hell have so prevailed."

"But the number of pure artists is small: few souls are so
finely tempered as to preserve the delicacy of meditative
feeling, untainted by the allurements of accidental suggestion.
The voice of the critical conscience is still and small, like
that of the moral: it cannot entirely be stifled where it has
been heard, but it may be disobeyed. Temptations are never
wanting: some immediate and temporary effect can be produced at
less expense of inward exertion than the high and more ideal
effect which art demands: it is much easier to pander to the
ordinary and often recurring wish for excitement, than to
promote the rare and difficult intuition of beauty. _To raise
the many to his own real point of view, the artist must employ
his energies, and create energy in others: to descend to their
position is less noble, but practicable with ease._ If I may be
allowed the metaphor, one partakes of the nature of redemptive
power; the other of that self-abased and degenerate will, which
'flung from his splendors' the fairest star in heaven."

"_Revelation is a voluntary approximation of the Infinite Being
to the ways and thoughts of finite humanity._ But until this
step has been taken by Almighty Grace, how should man have a
warrant for loving with all his heart and mind and strength?...
Without the gospel, nature exhibits a want of harmony between
our intrinsic constitution, and the system in which it is
placed. But Christianity has made up the difference. It is
possible and natural to love the Father, who has made us his
children by the spirit of adoption: it is possible and natural
to love the Elder Brother, who was, in all things, like as we
are, except sin, and can succor those in temptation, having been
himself tempted. _Thus the Christian faith is the necessary
complement of a sound ethical system._"

There is something to us very striking in the words "Revelation is a _voluntary_ approximation of the Infinite Being." This states the case with an accuracy and a distinctness not at all common among either the opponents or the apologists of _revealed religion_ in the ordinary sense of the expression. In one sense God is forever revealing himself. His heavens are forever telling his glory, and the firmament showing his handiwork; day unto day is uttering speech, and night unto night is showing knowledge concerning him. But in the word of the truth of the gospel, God draws near to his creatures; he bows his heavens, and comes down:

"That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,"

he lays aside. The Word dwelt with men. "Come then, let _us_ reason together;"--"Waiting to be gracious;"--"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man open to me, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me." It is the father seeing his son while yet a great way off, and having compassion, and running to him and falling on his neck and kissing him; for "it was meet for us to rejoice, for this my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found." Let no man confound the voice of God in his Works with the voice of God in his Word; they are utterances of the same infinite heart and will; they are in absolute harmony; together they make up "that undisturbed song of pure concent;" one "perfect diapason;" but they are distinct; they are meant to be so. A poor traveller, "weary and waysore," is stumbling in unknown places through the darkness of a night of fear, with no light near him, the everlasting stars twinkling far off in their depths, and yet unrisen sun, or the waning moon, sending up their pale beams into the upper heavens, but all this is distant, and bewildering for his feet, doubtless better much than outer darkness, beautiful and full of God, if he could have the heart to look up, and the eyes to make use of its vague light; but he is miserable, and afraid, his next step is what he is thinking of; a lamp secured against all winds of doctrine is put into his hands, it may, in some respects, widen the circle of darkness, but it will cheer his feet, it will tell them what to do next. What a silly fool he would be to throw away that lantern, or draw down the shutters, and make it dark to him, while it sits "i' the centre and enjoys bright day," and all upon the philosophical ground that its light was of the same kind as the stars', and that it was beneath the dignity of human nature to do anything but struggle on and be lost in the attempt to get through the wilderness and the night by the guidance of those "natural" lights, which, though they are from heaven, have so often led the wanderer astray. The dignity of human nature indeed! Let him keep his lantern till the glad sun is up, with healing under his wings. Let him take good heed to the "sure" {logon} while in this {auchmero topo}--this dark, damp, unwholesome place, "till the day dawn and {phosphoros}--the day-star--arise." Nature and the Bible, the Works and the Word of God, are two distinct things. In the mind of their Supreme Author they dwell in perfect peace, in that unspeakable unity which is of his essence; and to us his children, every day their harmony, their mutual relations, are discovering themselves; but let us beware of saying all nature is a revelation as the Bible is, and all the Bible is natural as nature is: there is a perilous juggle here.

The following passage develops Arthur Hallam's views on religious feeling; this was the master-idea of his mind, and it would not be easy to overrate its importance. "My son, give me thine heart;"--"Thou shalt _love_ the Lord thy God;"--"The fool hath said in his _heart_, There is no God." He expresses the same general idea in these words, remarkable in themselves, still more so as being the thought of one so young. "The work of intellect is posterior to the work of feeling. _The latter lies at the foundation of the man_; it is his proper self--the peculiar thing that characterizes him as an individual. No two men are alike in feeling; but conceptions of the understanding, when distinct, are precisely similar in all--the ascertained relations of truths are the common property of the race."

Tennyson, we have no doubt, had this thought of his friend in his mind, in the following lines; it is an answer to the question, Can man by searching find out God?--

"I found Him not in world or sun,
Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye;
Nor thro' the questions men may try,
The petty cobwebs we have spun:

"If e'er when faith had fallen asleep,
I heard a voice 'believe no more,'
And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the godless deep;

"_A warmth within the breast would melt_
The freezing reason's colder part,
_And like a man in wrath, the heart_
_Stood up and answered, 'I have felt._'

"No, like a child in doubt and fear:
But that blind clamor made me wise;
Then was I as a child that cries,
But, crying, knows his father near;

"And what I seem beheld again
What is, and no man understands:
And out of darkness came the hands
That reach thro' nature, moulding men."

This is a subject of the deepest personal as well as speculative interest. In the works of Augustin, of Baxter, Howe, and Jonathan Edwards, and of Alexander Knox, our readers will find how large a place the religious affections held, in their view of Divine truth as well as of human duty. The last-mentioned writer expresses himself thus:--"Our sentimental faculties are far stronger than our cogitative; and the best impressions on the latter will be but the moonshine of the mind, if they are alone. Feeling will be best excited by sympathy; rather, it cannot be excited in any other way. Heart must act upon heart--the idea of a living person being essential to all intercourse of heart. You cannot by any possibility _cordialize_ with a mere _ens rationis_. 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,' otherwise we could not 'have beheld his glory,' much less 'received of his fulness.'"[40]

[40] _Remains_, vol. iii. p. 105.

Our young author thus goes on:--

"This opens upon us an ampler view in which the subject deserves
to be considered, and a relation still more direct and close
between the Christian religion and the passion of love. What is
the distinguishing character of Hebrew literature, which
separates it by so broad a line of demarcation from that of
every ancient people? Undoubtedly the sentiment of _erotic
devotion_ which pervades it. Their poets never represent the
Deity as an impassive principle, a mere organizing intellect,
removed at infinite distance from human hopes and fears. He is
for them a being of like passions with themselves,[41]
_requiring heart for heart, and capable of inspiring affection
because capable of feeling and returning it_. Awful indeed are
the thunders of his utterance and the clouds that surround his
dwelling-place; very terrible is the vengeance he executes on
the nations that forget him: but to his chosen people, and
especially to the men 'after his own heart,' whom he anoints
from the midst of them, his 'still, small voice' speaks in
sympathy and loving-kindness. Every Hebrew, while his breast
glowed with patriotic enthusiasm at those promises, which he
shared as one of the favored race, had a yet deeper source of
emotion, from which gushed perpetually the aspirations of prayer
and thanksgiving. He might consider himself alone in the
presence of his God; the single being to whom a great revelation
had been made, and over whose head an 'exceeding weight of
glory' was suspended. For him the rocks of Horeb had trembled,
and the waters of the Red Sea were parted in their course. The
word given on Sinai with such solemn pomp of ministration was
given to his own individual soul, and brought him into immediate
communion with his Creator. That awful Being could never be put
away from him. He was about his path, and about his bed, and
knew all his thoughts long before. _Yet this tremendous,
enclosing presence was a presence of love. It was a manifold,
everlasting manifestation of one deep feeling--a desire for
human affection._[42] Such a belief, while it enlisted even
pride and self-interest on the side of piety, had a direct
tendency to excite the best passions of our nature. Love is not
long asked in vain from generous dispositions. A Being, never
absent, but standing beside the life of each man with ever
watchful tenderness, and recognized, though invisible, in every
blessing that befell them from youth to age, became naturally
the object of their warmest affections. Their belief in him
could not exist without producing, as a necessary effect, that
profound impression _of passionate individual attachment_ which
in the Hebrew authors always mingles with and vivifies their
faith in the Invisible. All the books of the Old Testament are
breathed upon by this breath of life. Especially is it to be
found in that beautiful collection, entitled the Psalms of
David, which remains, after some thousand years, perhaps the
most perfect form in which the religious sentiment of man has
been embodied.

[41] "An unfortunate reference (Acts xiv. 15), for the apostle's
declaration is, that he and his brethren were of 'like
passions" (James v. 17);--liable to the same imperfections
and mutations of thought and feeling as other men, and as
the Lystrans supposed their gods to be; while the God
proclaimed by him to them is not so. And _that_ God is the
God of the Jews as well as of the Christians; for there is
but _one_ God. Hallam's thought is an important and just
one, but not developed with his usual nice accuracy."

For this note, as for much else, I am indebted to my father,
whose powers of compressed thought I wish I had inherited.

[42] Abraham "was called the friend of God;" "with him (Moses)
will I (Jehovah) speak mouth to mouth, even
apparently,"--"as a man to his friend;" David was "a man
after mine own heart."

"But what is true of Judaism is yet more true of Christianity:
'_matre pulchra filia pulchrior_.' In addition to all the
characters of Hebrew Monotheism, _there exists in the doctrine
of the Cross a peculiar and inexhaustible treasure for the
affectionate feelings_. The idea of the {Theanthropos}, the God
whose goings forth have been from everlasting, yet visible to
men for their redemption as an earthly, temporal creature,
living, acting, and suffering among themselves, then (which is
yet more important) transferring to the unseen place of his
spiritual agency the same humanity he wore on earth, so that the
lapse of generations can in no way affect the conception of his
identity; this is the most powerful thought that ever addressed
itself to a human imagination. It is the {pou sto}, which alone
was wanted to move the world. Here was solved at once the great
problem which so long had distressed the teachers of mankind,
how to make _virtue the object of passion_, and to secure at
once the warmest enthusiasm in the heart with the clearest
perception of right and wrong in the understanding. The
character of the blessed Founder of our faith became an abstract
of morality to determine the judgment, _while at the same time
it remained personal, and liable to love_. The written word and
established church prevented a degeneration into ungoverned
mysticism, but the predominant principle of vital religion
always remained that of self-sacrifice to the Saviour. Not only
the higher divisions of moral duties, but the simple, primary
impulses of benevolence, were subordinated to this new absorbing
passion. The world was loved 'in Christ alone.' The brethren
were members of his mystical body. All the other bonds that had
fastened down the spirit of the universe to our narrow round of
earth were as nothing in comparison to this golden chain of
suffering and self-sacrifice, which at once riveted the heart of
man to one who, like himself, was acquainted with grief. _Pain
is the deepest thing we have_ in our nature, and union through
pain has always seemed more real and more holy than any
other."[43]

[43] This is the passage referred to in Henry Taylor's delightful
_Notes from Life_ ("Essay on Wisdom"):--

"Fear, indeed, is the mother of foresight: spiritual fear,
of a foresight that reaches beyond the grave; temporal fear,
of a foresight that falls short; but without fear there is
neither the one foresight nor the other; and as pain has
been truly said to be 'the deepest thing in our nature,' so
is it fear that will bring the depths of our nature within
our knowledge. A great capacity of _suffering_ belongs to
genius; and it has been observed that an alternation of
joyfulness and dejection is quite as characteristic of the
man of genius as intensity in either kind." In his _Notes
from Books_, p. 216, he recurs to it:--"'Pain,' says a
writer whose early death will not prevent his being long
remembered, 'pain is the deepest thing that we have in our
nature, and union through pain has always seemed more real
and more holy than any other.'"

There is a sad pleasure,--_non ingrata amaritudo_, and a sort of meditative tenderness, in contemplating the little life of this "dear youth," and in letting the mind rest upon these his earnest thoughts; to watch his keen and fearless, but child-like spirit, moving itself aright--going straight onward "along the lines of limitless desires"--throwing himself into the very deepest of the ways of God, and striking out as a strong swimmer striketh out his hands to swim; to see him "mewing his mighty youth, and kindling his undazzled eye at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance:"

"Light intellectual, and full of love,
Love of true beauty, therefore full of joy,
Joy, every other sweetness far above."

It is good for every one to look upon such a sight, and as we look, to love. We should all be the better for it; and should desire to be thankful for, and to use aright a gift so good and perfect, coming down as it does from above, from the Father of lights, in whom alone there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Thus it is, that to each one of us the death of Arthur Hallam--his thoughts and affections--his views of God, of our relations to Him, of duty, of the meaning and worth of this world, and the next,--where he now is, have an individual significance. He is bound up in our bundle of life; we must be the better or the worse of having known what manner of man he was; and in a sense less peculiar, but not less true, each of us may say,

----"The tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me."

----"O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!"

"God gives us love! Something to love
He lends us; but when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off, and love is left alone:

"This is the curse of time. Alas!
In grief we are not all unlearned;
Once, through our own doors Death did pass;
One went, who never hath returned.

"This star
Rose with us, through a little arc
Of heaven, nor having wandered far,
Shot on the sudden into dark.

"Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace;
Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,
While the stars burn, the moons increase,
And the great ages onward roll.

"Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet,
Nothing comes to thee new or strange,
Sleep, full of rest from head to feet;
Lie still, dry dust, secure of change."

_Vattene in pace, alma beata e bella._--Go in peace, soul beautiful and blessed.

"O man greatly beloved, go thou thy way till the end, for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days."--DANIEL.

* * * * *

"Lord, I have viewed this world over, in which thou hast set me; I have tried how this and that thing will fit my spirit, and the design of my creation, and can find nothing on which to rest, for nothing here doth itself rest, but such things as please me for a while, in some degree, vanish and flee as shadows from before me. Lo! I come to Thee--the Eternal Being--the Spring of Life--the Centre of rest--the Stay of the Creation--the Fulness of all things. I join myself to Thee; with Thee I will lead my life, and spend my days, with whom I aim to dwell forever, expecting, when my little time is over, to be taken up ere long into thy eternity."--JOHN HOWE, _The Vanity of Man as Mortal_.

_Necesse est tanquam immaturam mortem ejus defleam: si tamen fas est aut flere, aut omnino mortem vocare, qua tanti juvenis mortalitas magis finita quam vita est. Vivit enim, vivetque semper, atque etiam latius in memoria hominum et sermone versabitur, postquam ab oculis recessit._

* * * * *

The above notice was published in 1851. On sending to Mr. Hallam a copy of the _Review_ in which it appeared, I expressed my hope that he would not be displeased by what I had done. I received the following kind and beautiful reply:--

"WILTON CRESCENT, _Feb. 1, 1851._

"DEAR SIR,--It would be ungrateful in me to feel any displeasure
at so glowing an eulogy on my dear eldest son Arthur, though
after such a length of time, so unusual, as you have written in
the _North British Review_. I thank you, on the contrary, for
the strong language of admiration you have employed, though it
may expose me to applications for copies of the _Remains_, which
I have it not in my power to comply with. I was very desirous to
have lent you a copy, at your request, but you have succeeded
elsewhere.

"You are probably aware that I was prevented from doing this by
a great calamity, very similar in its circumstances to that I
had to deplore in 1833--the loss of another son, equal in
virtues, hardly inferior in abilities, to him whom you have
commemorated. This has been an unspeakable affliction to me, and
at my advanced age, seventy-three years, I can have no resource
but the hope, in God's mercy, of a reunion with them both. The
resemblance in their characters was striking, and I had often
reflected how wonderfully my first loss had been repaired by the
substitution, as it might be called, of one so closely
representing his brother. I send you a brief Memoir, drawn up by
two friends, with very little alteration of my own.--I am, Dear
Sir, faithfully yours, HENRY HALLAM.

"DR. BROWN,
"Edinburgh."

* * * * *

The following extracts, from the _Memoir of Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam_ mentioned above, which has been appended to a reprint of his brother's _Remains_ (for private circulation), form a fitting close to this memorial of these two brothers, who were "lovely and pleasant in their lives," and are now by their deaths not divided:--

"But few months have elapsed since the pages of _In Memoriam_
recalled to the minds of many, and impressed on the hearts of
all who perused them, the melancholy circumstances attending the
sudden and early death of Arthur Henry Hallam, the eldest son of
Henry Hallam, Esq. Not many weeks ago the public journals
contained a short paragraph announcing the decease, under
circumstances equally distressing, and in some points remarkably
similar, of Henry Fitzmaurice, Mr. Hallam's younger and only
remaining son. No one of the very many who appreciate the
sterling value of Mr. Hallam's literary labors, and who feel a
consequent interest in the character of those who would have
sustained the eminence of an honorable name; no one who was
affected by the striking and tragic fatality of two such
successive bereavements, will deem an apology needed for this
short and imperfect Memoir.

"Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, the younger son of Henry Hallam,
Esq., was born on the 31st of August 1824; he took his second
name from his godfather, the Marquis of Lansdowne.... A habit of
reserve, which characterized him at all periods of life, but
which was compensated in the eyes of even his first companions
by a singular sweetness of temper, was produced and fostered by
the serious thoughtfulness ensuing upon early familiarity with
domestic sorrow.

"'He was gentle,' writes one of his earliest and closest
school-friends, 'retiring, thoughtful to pensiveness,
affectionate, without envy or jealousy, almost without
emulation, impressible, but not wanting in moral firmness. No
one was ever more formed for friendship. In all his words and
acts he was simple, straightforward, true. He was very
religious. Religion had a real effect upon his character, and
made him tranquil about great things, though he was so nervous
about little things.'

"He was called to the bar in Trinity Term, 1850, and became a
member of the Midland Circuit in the summer. Immediately
afterwards he joined his family in a tour on the Continent. They
had spent the early part of the autumn at Rome, and were
returning northwards, when he was attacked by a sudden and
severe illness, affecting the vital powers, and accompanied by
enfeebled circulation and general prostration of strength. He
was able, with difficulty, to reach Siena, where he sank rapidly
through exhaustion, and expired on Friday, October 25. It is to
be hoped that he did not experience any great or active
suffering. He was conscious nearly to the last, and met his
early death (of which his presentiments, for several years, had
been frequent and very singular) with calmness and fortitude.
There is reason to apprehend, from medical examination, that his
life would not have been of very long duration, even had this
unhappy illness not occurred. But for some years past his health
had been apparently much improved; and, secured as it seemed to
be by his unintermitted temperance, and by a carefulness in
regimen which his early feebleness of constitution had rendered
habitual, those to whom he was nearest and dearest had, in great
measure, ceased to regard him with anxiety. His remains were
brought to England, and he was interred, on December 23d, in
Clevedon Church, Somersetshire, by the side of his brother, his
sister, and his mother.

"For continuous and sustained thought he had an extraordinary
capacity, the bias of his mind being decidedly towards
analytical processes; a characteristic which was illustrated at
Cambridge by his uniform partiality for analysis, and
comparative distaste for the geometrical method, in his
mathematical studies. His early proneness to dwell upon the more
recondite departments of each science and branch of inquiry has
been alluded to above. It is not to be inferred that, as a
consequence of this tendency, he blinded himself, at any period
of his life, to the necessity and the duty of practical
exertion. He was always eager to act as well as speculate; and,
in this respect, his character preserved an unbroken consistency
and harmony from the epoch when, on commencing his residence at
Cambridge, he voluntarily became a teacher in a parish
Sunday-school, for the sake of applying his theories of
religious education, to the time when, on the point of setting
forth on his last fatal journey, he framed a plan of obtaining
access, in the ensuing winter, to a large commercial
establishment, in the view of familiarizing himself with the
actual course and minute detail of mercantile transactions.

"Insensibly and unconsciously he had made himself a large number
of friends in the last few years of his life: the painful
impression created by his death in the circle in which he
habitually moved, and even beyond it, was exceedingly
remarkable, both for its depth and extent. For those united with
him in a companionship more than ordinarily close, his
friendship had taken such a character as to have almost become a
necessity of existence. But it was upon his family that he
lavished all the wealth of his disposition--affection without
stint, gentleness never once at fault, considerateness reaching
to self-sacrifice:--

"Di cio si biasmi il debolo intelletto
E' l'parlar nostro, che non ha valore
Di ritrar tutto cio che dice amore.

H. S. M.
F. L."

_EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES._

{Proton chorton, eita stachyn, eita plere siton en to stachui}.

One of the chief sins of our time is hurry: it is helter-skelter, and devil take the hind-most. Off we go all too swift at starting, and we neither run so fast nor so far as we would have done, had we taken it _cannily_ at first. This is true of a boy as well as of a blood colt. Not only are boys and colts made to do the work and the running of full-grown men and horses, but they are hurried out of themselves and their _now_, and pushed into the middle of next week where nobody is wanting them, and beyond which they frequently never get.