Chapter XII (2)

Dr. Ewer, notwithstanding his vigorous onslaught upon Protestantism, remains still under the influence of his Protestant training, and has not as yet attained to any real conception either of unity or of catholicity. Unity is indivisible; catholicity is illimitable, or all that is contained in the unity; and both are independent of space and time. The unity of the church is her original and central organic principle, or principle of life; the catholicity of the church is inseparable from her unity, and consists in the completeness of this organic principle, and in its being always and everywhere the complete and only principle of church life. The unity of the faith is in the fact that it, like the church, has its central principle out of which all in it grows or germinates, and on which all in it depends; the catholicity of the faith is in the fact that this faith is complete, the whole faith, and is always and everywhere believed and taught by the One Catholic Church, is always and everywhere one and the same faith, always and everywhere the truth of God. The catholicity of the church depends in no sense on diffusion in space or the number of her members. {512} The church is catholic, not because she is universally diffused in space, but because she is the one only church, and includes in her organism all that is essential to the church as the church, or the mystic body of Christ, to the entire church life for all men and for all times. _Catholic_ means _all_, rather than _universal_, or universal only because it means all; and hence the church was as truly catholic on the day of Pentecost as she is now, or would be were all nations and all men included in her communion, as the human race, in the order of generation, was as complete and entire when there was no individual but Adam, as it will be when the last child is born. Time has no effect on either the unity or catholicity of the church; for she is always living in her unity and catholicity, an ever-present church, in herself the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. She is in time and space, but not of them, nor, in her internal organism, affected by the accidents of either. The primitive church, the mediaeval church, and the church of to-day are identically the same, and the distinctions these terms imply are distinctions only in things externally related to her, not in herself. Such must be the church if one and catholic, holy and apostolic.

The central life of the church, the source of all the vitality, force, and authority of the organism, of which--to use the figure we have already so many times used--the central cell is the organ, and which gives it all its generative force and governing power, is Jesus Christ himself, who is the _forma_ of the church, as the soul is the _forma_ of the body, or its organic principle; for the church is the _body_ of Christ, and is nothing without him, and if separated from him would instantly die, as does the body when separated from the soul. But we are treating of the church, in which the unity of Christ is made manifest in her visible unity, and therefore of the visible, not of the invisible church. That the invisible unity might be manifested, St. Cyprian argues, in his _De Unitate Ecclesiae_, Christ established a central chair, the Chair of Peter, whence all might be seen to take its rise from one. This chair, the visible centre of unity, is to the church organism, as we have seen, what the central or organic cell is to every organism or living body in the natural order; but Jesus Christ, whom it manifests or represents in the visible order, is the living force and generative power of the central chair, as the soul is of the organic cell of the human organism. So much we must affirm of the _Christian_ church, if we call it, as Dr. Ewer does, "an organism."

This organic central cell generates or produces not many organisms, but one only. So the Chair of Peter, the central cell of the church organism, can generate only one organism. Christ has one body and no more. That only can be the Catholic Church in which is, as its centre, the Chair of Peter, or, as we have before said, the organic central see, which may justly be called the Holy See, the Apostolic See, "the mother and mistress of all the churches," as in the living body the original central organic cell is the mother and mistress of all the secondary or inferior cells generated in the evolution of the organism. Here, again, theology and physiology coincide in principle.

We may now ask, Does the Greek schismatic church, as we call it, contain this central organic see? Certainly not; for she admits no such see, or, if she does, she confesses that she contains it not, and the Roman Church does. {513} The Greek schismatic, as we call him, recognizes no church unity in the sense we have explained. He recognizes only diocesan, metropolitan, or patriarchal unity. Does the Greek Church, then, commune with this central see? No. For it communes with no see or church outside of itself. How is it with the Anglican Church? It does not any more than the Greek Church claim to possess it. It does not pretend to find it in the see of Canterbury, York, Dublin, or Armagh, and indeed denies both the necessity and existence of such see. She denounces the Roman see because she claims to be it; and Dr. Ewer tells us, in his reply to Mr. Adams, that the Protestant Reformation rendered noble service to the Anglican Church by delivering it from papal tyranny and oppression. Well, then, does the Anglican Church commune with the central or organic see, or Chair of Peter? No. For she communes with no see beyond herself. Then she is not the, or even a, catholic church. There remains, then, only the Roman Church, which is and must be the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, if such church there is; for it can be no other. The reverend doctor's attempt, then, to find a catholic church which is not the Roman Church, or a catholicity which is "broader and deeper" than what he, as well as other Protestants, calls "Romanism," seems, like Protestantism itself, to have failed.

Dr. Ewer would evade the force of this conclusion, which the common sense of mankind unhesitatingly accepts, by resorting to what is known as "the branch theory." The Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican churches are not one or another of them exclusively the Catholic Church, but they are catholic churches, because branches of the One Catholic Church. But branches suppose a trunk. Where there is no trunk there are and can be no branches; for the trunk produces the branches, not the branches the trunk. Where, then, is the trunk of which the three churches named are branches, especially since the author says we are not to look beyond them for the Catholic Church? We let him answer in his own words:

"Permit me to close this part of my discourse by an
illustration of the Catholic Church. We will take, for the sake
of simplicity, a tree. For eight feet above the soil its trunk
stands one and entire. Somewhere along the ninth foot the trunk
branches into two main limbs. We will call the eastern the
Greek limb, and the western we will call the Latin. Six feet
further out on the Latin limb, that is to say, fifteen feet
from ground, that western limb subdivides into two vast
branches. The outmost of the two we will call the Anglican
branch, the other we will call the Roman. These two branches
and the Greek limb run up to a height of nineteen and a half
feet from the ground. There they are, the three great boughs,
each with its foliage, Anglican at the west, Roman in the
centre, Greek at the east. If now you shield your vision from
all but the top of the tree, there will appear to you to be
three disconnected tufts of vegetation; but lo! the foliage and
the flowers are the same. But remove now the shield from before
your eyes, and behold in the whole tree a symbol of the
Catholic Church--one organism from root to summit."

This assumes that the trunk is the primitive undivided church, or the church prior to the separation of the Eastern churches from the jurisdiction of the Roman see. But does that undivided church, the trunk church, still exist in its integrity? No. For if it did, there would be no difficulty. It ceased to exist in the ninth century, and now there is no undivided church. Then that has fallen into the past. Then there is no present living trunk, but branches only. Branches of a trunk that has ceased to live can be only dead branches. The alleged branches communicate with no living root, and have no intercommunion; they therefore are not and cannot be one living organism. The author himself half concedes it, for he continues:

{514}

"A church that is one like the trunk of that tree for the first
nine centuries--that the Western subdividing at the fifteenth
century into Anglican and Roman. As a fact, the unity of the
organism is not broken; intercommunion between its three parts
is simply suspended for a time--suspended until that
differentiation shall take place in God's one church which, as
Herbert Spencer so admirably shows, is the law of all growth; a
differentiation which means, in its last issue, not a complete
sundering, but the eventual unity of multiplexity, the harmony
of co-ordinate parts. Did it not mix the metaphor somewhat, I
would go on and complete the illustration by supposing sundry
branches of this tree to be cut off from time to time and
inserted into vases of water standing round about the great
tree. Being without root, those cut longest ago are all dead;
while only the most recently cut are green with a deceptive
life, themselves soon to wither and die. These cut branches,
standing trunkless and rootless about the living tree, would be
apt symbols of the Protestant sects.

"We have found, then, what the Catholic Church is."

There can be no suspension of intercommunion of the branches so long as their communion with the root, or organic cell, through the trunk, is not suspended; for through communion with that they intercommune. But any interruption of that communion is not only the suspension, but the extinction of intercommunion. The restoration of intercommunion once extinct cannot be affected except by a living reunion of each with the root or organic cell of the organism. Probably, then, the author has been too hasty in exclaiming, "We have found what the Catholic Church is." He seems to us to have found neither unity nor catholicity.

Dr. Ewer seems to forget that the church never has been and never can be divided. Has not he himself said that she is one, and does he need to be told that one is indivisible, or that its division would be its death? The tree with successive branches which he adduces in illustration is, no doubt, a living organism; but it can illustrate only the unity and catholicity of the central and ruling see, and the particular churches holding from it. Branch churches are admissible only as particular churches produced by and dependent on the organic centre, or apostolic see, mother and mistress of all the churches of the organism. But we have already shown that the Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican churches are not particular churches, for they are independent bodies, subordinate to or dependent on no organic centre which each has not in itself. As the Catholic Church is one, not three, and as we have shown that it is neither the separated Greek Church nor the Anglican, it must be the Roman See and its dependent churches, in which is the primitive, original, productive, and creative life of the church, since, as we have seen, it can be no other. We have refuted the "branch theory" in refuting the author's assumption that the Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican churches hold from and are subordinate to the one universal church, which, as independent of them, has no existence.

The failure of the author to find the Catholic Church is due to the fact that, from first to last, though he calls the church one, he really recognizes no church unity, since he recognizes no visible centre of unity whence emanates all her life, activity, and authority. Till the ninth century the East and West were united, and the church was one; but it had no centre of unity at Rome any more than at Antioch, at Alexandria, or Constantinople, in the successor of St. Peter in the See of Rome any more than in any other patriarch or bishop. {515} Hence no church could be convicted of schism, unless its bishop refused to commune with another, or another refused to commune with him; but which was the schismatic was indeterminable, unless the whole church should come together in General Council and settle the question by vote. This is the author's theory of unity, a unity which has no visible centre. It is the common Anglican theory, and appears to some extent to be that of the schismatical Greeks. But this theory makes the unity of the church a mere collective federative unity, or an aggregation of parts, which is simply no unity at all, and at best only a union. The unity of the church implies that all in the church proceeds from unity, and is generated, upheld, and controlled by it. The unity is the origin of the whole organism, and what does not proceed from it or grow out of it is abnormal--a tumor, or an excrescence to be exscinded. Hence the impossibility of arriving at the unity of the church by aggregating the parts which have lost it or have it not. It is impossible to assert the unity of the church without asserting a central see, and its bishop as its visible manifestation. There is, we repeat, no organism without the central cell, and no visible organism without a visible centre of unity. The author would do well to study anew the treatise _De Unitate Ecclesiae_ of St. Cyprian, to which we have already referred.

There is and can be no visible unity of the church without a central see, the centre and origin of unity, life, and authority; and when you have found that see, you have found the Catholic Church, but not till then. Every see, or particular or local church in communion with that see; and dependent on it, is in the unity of the church and catholic; and every one not in communion with it is out of unity and not catholic, nor any part of the Catholic body. Admitting that there is the Catholic Church, the only question to be settled is, Which is that See? Reduced to this point, the controversy is virtually ended. There is and never has been but one claimant. Rome has always claimed it, and nobody in the world has ever pretended or pretends that it is any other. Constantinople and Canterbury have disputed the supremacy over the whole church of its pontiff; but neither claims nor ever has claimed to be itself the central organic see, the visible centre of the church organism, and organ of its life and authority.

With no recognized central and ruling see with which all, in order to be in unity, must commune, and with only particular, or rather independent and isolated, churches in existence, without any intercommunion one with another, and all of which, as separate and independent churches, have failed, how can those several branches, which are only trunkless, be restored, "unity evolved from multiplexity," and intercommunion re-established? If there is an organic see, the centre of unity, mother and mistress of all the churches, particular churches that have failed can easily be restored if they wish. They have only to abjure their schism or heresy, be reconciled with that see, submit to its authority, and receive its teaching. They are thus reincorporated by the mercy of God into the church organism, and participate in its unity and the life that flows from it. But on the author's church theory, we can see no possible way in which the separate bodies can be restored to the unity of the church. {516} Unity cannot be constructed or reconstructed from multiplicity; for there can be no multiplicity where there is no unity. Multiplicity depends on unity, which creates or generates and sustains it. Suppose we grant for the moment the Catholic Church is no one of the three churches, yet is not separable from or independent of them, and, in fact, underlies them, but inorganic, or having only these for its organs. How shall they be brought into organic unity? By a General Council? Where is the authority to convoke it, to determine who may or who may not sit in it, and to confirm its acts? You say, Summon all the bishops of the Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican bodies. But who has authority to summon them, and why summon these and no others? Who shall say? It is the same question we have had up before. Why extend or why confine the Catholic Church to the three churches named? Where there is no recognized centre of authority, that is to say, no recognized authority, there is authority to admit or to exclude. It is necessary that authority define which is the Catholic Church, before you can say what organizations it includes or excludes, or what prelates or ministers have the right to be summoned as Catholic prelates or ministers, and what not.

A nation disorganized, as the author assumes the church now is, though he trusts only temporarily, can reorganize itself; for the political sovereignty resides always in the nation, or, as we say, in modern times, in the people. The people, as the nation, possess, under God, or rather from him, the sovereign power to govern themselves, which they can neither alienate nor be deprived of so long as they exist as an independent nation or sovereign political community. When the old government which, as legal, held from them, is broken up or dissolved, they have the inherent right to come together in such way as they choose or can, and reconstitute government or power in such manner and vest it in such hands as they judge best. But the church disorganized cannot reorganize itself; for the organic power does not vest in the church as the faithful or the Christian people. Authority in the church is not created, constituted, or delegated by the Christian people, nor does it in any sense hold from them. Church power or authority comes immediately from God to the central see, and from that see radiates through the whole body; for the author agrees with us that the church is an organism. Hence we recognize the Council of Constance as a General Council only after it was convoked by Gregory XII., who was, in our judgment, the true Bishop of the Apostolic See, and hold legal only the acts confirmed by Martin V. The disorganization of the church is, then, its dissolution or death. It has no power to raise itself from the dead. If the central see could really fail, the whole organism would fail. The church is indefectible through the indefectibility of the Holy See, and that is indefectible because it is Peter's See, and our Lord promised Peter that, however Satan might try him, his faith should not fail: "Satan has desired to sift thee as wheat; but I have prayed the Father that thy faith fail not." The prayer of Christ cannot be unanswered, and is a promise. The attacks on the Holy See have been violent and continual, but they have never been successful. Our Lord's prayer has been effective, and Peter's faith has never failed. No doubt there is the full authority to teach and to govern in the church; but this authority is not derived from the faithful nor distributed equally among them, but resides primarily and in its plenitude in the Holy See, and therefore in the bishop of that see, or the pope, Peter's successor, in whom Peter lives and continues to teach and govern the whole church. {517} All Catholic bishops depend on him, and receive from him their jurisdiction, and by authority from God through him govern their respective dioceses. The church is papal in its essential constitution, not simply episcopal; for we have seen that it is an organism, and can be an organism only as proceeding from an organic centre, or central see, on which its unity and catholicity depend. The Apostolic See cannot be separated from the _Sedens_; for without him it is empty, incapable of thinking, speaking, or acting. It is, then, it seems to us, as utterly impossible to assert the church as really one and catholic, without asserting the pope, or supreme pastor, as it would be to assert an organism without asserting a central organic cell. The failure of the pope would be the failure of the whole church organism, with no power of reorganization or reconstruction left--an important point in which the church and the nation differ. The overlooking of this point of difference is the reason why our catholicizing Anglicans suppose that the church, though disorganized, is able to reorganize herself. The reorganized church, if effected, would be a human organization, not a divine organism as created by our Lord himself. But the church, as we have seen, has never been disorganized, and could not be without ceasing to exist, and cease to exist it cannot, if catholic. The organic centre from which the whole organism is evolved and directed has remained at Rome ever since Peter transferred thither his chair from Antioch, and the particular churches holding from it and continuing subject to it are integral elements of the catholic organism, which is as perfect, as complete, and as entire as it was when the Oriental churches acknowledged and submitted to the supremacy of the successor of Peter, or when the church in England was in full communion with the Apostolic See of Rome. The separation of these from the Roman communion, though it destroyed their unity and catholicity, did not break the unity and catholicity of the organism; it only placed them outside of that organism, and cut them off from the central see, the source of all organic church life. The revolt of the Anglo-American Colonies from Great Britain, in 1776, and the Declaration of their Independence of the mother-country, did not break her unity or authority as a nation, and indeed did not even deprive her of any of her rights over them, though it enfeebled her power to govern them, till she herself acknowledged them to be independent states.

The author seems to suppose that the Greeks and Anglicans, in separating from Rome, broke the unity of the church, and carried away with them each a portion of her catholicity, so that there now can be no One Catholic Church existing in organic unity and catholicity, save in reminiscence and _in potentia_, unless these two bodies are reunited with Rome in one and the same communion. But the Greeks and Anglicans had both for centuries recognized the authority of the Apostolic See, as the centre of unity and source of jurisdiction. When the Greeks separated from that see and refused to obey it, they took from it neither its organic unity nor its catholicity; they only cut themselves off and deprived themselves of both. The same may be said of Anglicans in separating from Rome and declaring themselves independent. {518} They deprived themselves of unity and catholicity, but left the original church organism in all its integrity, and only placed themselves outside of it. The separation in both cases deprived the church of a portion of her population, and diminished her external power and grandeur, but took away none of her rights and prerogatives, and in no respect impaired, as we have already said, the unity or catholicity of her internal organism. All that can be said is that the separated Oriental churches and Anglicans, not the church, have lost unity and catholicity, and have ceased to be Catholics, even when agreeing with the church in her dogmas and her external rites and ceremonies.

There is, then, on the side of the church, no broken unity to be healed, or lost catholicity to be restored. If the Oriental churches wish to regain unity and catholicity, all they have to do is to submit to the jurisdiction of the Apostolic See, and renew their communion with the mother and mistress of all the churches. Not having lost their church organization, and having retained valid orders or the priesthood and the august sacrifice, they can return in their corporate capacity. There is in their case only a schism to be healed. The Anglicans and Episcopalians stand on a different footing; for they have not even so much as a schismatic church, since the Episcopalians hold from the Anglicans, and the Anglicans from the state. They have no orders, no priesthood, no sacrifice, no sacraments--except baptism, and even pagans can administer that--no church character at all, if we look at the facts in the case, and therefore, like all Protestants, can be admitted to the unity of the church only on individual profession and submission. There is much for those out of unity to do to recover it and to effect the union in the Catholic communion of all who profess to be Christians, but nothing to render the church herself one and catholic. Her unity and catholicity are already established and unalterable, and so are the terms of communion and the conditions of church life. No grand combination, then, is needed to restore a divided and disorganized church.

But if the church were disorganized and a restoration needed, no possible combination of the several disorganized parts would or could effect it. The disorganization could not take place without the loss by the whole organism of the organic centre, and that, once lost, can be recovered only by an original creation, by our Lord, of a new church organism, which, even if it were done, would not restore us the Catholic Church; for it would not be a church existing uninterruptedly from the beginning, and there would be a time since the Incarnation when it did not subsist, and when there was no church. The author assumes that unity may be evolved from "multiplexity," which is Protestant, not Catholic philosophy; without unity there can be, as we have said, no multiplicity, as without the universal there can be no particulars. The universal precedes the particulars and generates them, and when it goes they go with it. Unity precedes multiplicity, and produces, sustains, and directs it. This is implied in every argument used, or that can be used, by philosophers and theologians, to prove the existence of God and his providence. Atheism results from the assumption that multiplicity may exist by itself, independently of unity; pantheism, from the assumption that unity is a dead, abstract unity, like that of the old Eleatics, not a concrete, living, and effective unity, and the denial that unity creates multiplicity. {519} Physiology is refuting both by its discoveries, confirming what has always been affirmed in principle by traditional science, the fact that there is no organism or living body, in either the animal or vegetable world, without the original central cell, born of ancestors, which creates or generates and directs all the vital phenomena, normal or abnormal, of the organism, as has already been stated, thus placing science and the teaching of the church in harmony.

Dr. Ewer probably does not in his own mind absolutely deny the present unity on which depends the catholicity of the church; but he supposes it is in some way involved in multiplicity, so that it needs not to be created, but to be evoked from the existing "multiplexity" which now obscures it and prevents its effectiveness. But this we have shown is not and cannot be the case, because the unity not only produces, but _directs_ or _governs_ the manifold phenomena of the church, and must therefore be always distinct from and independent of them. Also, because so long as unity and catholicity remain, no disorganization or confusion requiring their evolution can take place, except in the parts exuded or thrown off by the organism, severed or exscinded from it, that is, only in what is outside of the One Catholic Church, and forming no part of the catholic body. That schismatics and heretics lack unity and catholicity, is, of course, true; but they cannot obtain either by an evolution from such organization as they may have retained when the separation took place, or may have subsequently formed for themselves, but must do it, if at all, by a return to the organic centre, where both are and have never ceased to be, on the terms and conditions the Holy See prescribes.

Dr. Ewer maintains that the Catholic Church is restricted to the Roman, Greek, and Anglican Churches, and consists in what these have in common or agree in holding. These, he maintains, have all failed, have taught and still teach grievous errors, set up false claims, and one or more of them at least have fallen into superstitious practices; yet he contends that the universal church has not failed. But as the universal church has no organic existence independent of these, has no organs of speech or action, no personality but in them, how, if he is right in his theory, can he maintain that the whole church has not failed? If he held that the unity and catholicity of the church were in the central or organic see, he might hold that particular churches have failed, and that the One Catholic Church has not failed. Then he could assert, as we do, that the organism remains, acts, teaches, and governs through its own infallible organs, in its own individuality, or the supreme pontiff who is its personality or person. But on his theory, the failure of each of the three parts which comprise the whole church, it seems to us, must carry with it the failure of the whole.

Dr. Ewer's difficulty would seem to grow out of his wish to be a Catholic and remain in the Anglican or Episcopalian communion in which he is a minister, or to return from Protestantism to Catholicity without any change of position. This would be possible, if holding, on private judgment, Catholic dogmas, and observing, on no authority, Catholic forms of worship, constituted one a member of the Catholic Church. But he should understand that what he wishes is impracticable, and that all his efforts are labor lost. {520} So long as a man is in a communion separated from the present actual living unity of the church, he can become a Catholic only by leaving it, or by its corporate return to the Holy See and submission to the supreme pontiff.

A corporate return is practicable in the case of the Eastern churches; but even in them the individual who is personally aware of the schismatic character of his church should abandon it for unity at once without waiting for its corporate return; but in the case of Anglicans and Episcopalians, as in the case of all Protestant communions, the return must be individual and personal.

We are surprised at Dr. Ewer's statement that the Greek Church has no cultus of St. Mary ever-Virgin, as we are that many Anglicans, like Dr. Pusey, who object to the Roman Church on account of that cultus, should seek communion with the schismatic Greeks, with whom that cultus is pushed to an extreme far beyond anything in the Latin Church. The truth is, that all that offends Protestants in the Church of Rome, except the papacy, exists in even a more offensive form in the Greek schismatic Church. The schismatic Greek bishops exercise over their flocks a tyranny which is impracticable in the Roman Church, where the papal authority restricts that of bishops and tempers their administration of their dioceses.

But it is time to bring our remarks to a close. We are unable to recognize the Catholicity we profess in that proposed by Dr. Ewer. The one holy catholic apostolic church he sets forth does not appear to us to be the church of the fathers, nor the one of which we are an affectionate if an unworthy son. In our judgment, Dr. Ewer is still in the Protestant family, and following private judgment as his rule, though denouncing it. He has not grasped the central, or, as Dr. Channing would say, the "seminal" principle of the Catholic Church. Yet he seems to be well disposed, and to be seeking it, and has made large strides toward it. We think his discourses are not only brilliant, bold, and energetic, but fitted to have great influence in turning the public mind toward the Catholic Church. We have given our reasons why we do not admit that he has as yet found that church; but still we think his discourses will help many to find it, though he himself may not find it. He has, as yet, strong prejudices against the Church of Rome, and is undeniably anti-papal. But still there can be no doubt that he would like to feel himself a Catholic, and have done once for all with Protestantism. Dr. Ewer stands not alone. There are large numbers in his communion, and other Protestant communions, who think and feel as he does, who, from the top of Mount Pisgah, have obtained--if not the clear vision Moses had--at least some glimpses, more or less confused, of the promised land, and are attracted and charmed by what they see of it. We have a feeling of respectful tenderness toward these men, and of great sympathy with their trials and struggles. While we must tell them the truth in firm and manly tones, treat them as men, not as children, we would, on no account, say or do anything to wound their susceptibilities, or to create an impression that we do not take a deep and lively interest in their efforts to arrive at Catholicity. The spirit is working in them to bring them to light and life. They are not against us, and to some extent are with us. We would, for their sakes, they were wholly with us, and we never cease to pray God that they may find the haven of security and rest it has pleased him that we should find for ourselves. {521} We once were one of their number, thought and felt with them, struggled with them, and we can have for them only words of encouragement and hope. In what we have said we have had only the desire to assist them to find and understand the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church.

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The Evening Primrose.

Of twilight and fresh dews,
Most odorous flower, thou art the child;
Adorning evening's pensive hues
With splendors mild.

A vesper acolyte,
Born, but for this one night,
To swing thy golden censer of perfume,
While stars the tranquil firmament illume,
For heaven's delight.

Thy term of service, fleet,
Creative wish doth meet;
A swift existence; but which this rare grace
Of ceaseless worship, filling life's brief space,
Crowns as complete.

Thy blissful vigil keep,
Rapt flower, while others sleep:
Adoring angels claim thee from above
A dear companion in their task of love;
And I would fain present,
With worshipful intent,
Thy dewy blossoms on my evening shrine;
A contrite homage; sighing to repair,
With the accepted incense of thy prayer,
For sloth like mine.

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{522}

Heremore-Brandon; Or,
The Fortunes Of A Newsboy.

"Howe'er it be, it seems to me
'Tis only noble to be good;
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood."