Chapter XL: Appendix: A (2)

_April 5, 1838._--I have been thinking about myself--what a strange, wayward, incomprehensible being I am, and how completely misunderstood by almost everybody. Uniting excessive pride with excessive sensitiveness, the greatest ardor and passionateness of emotion with an irresolute will, a disposition to _distrust_, in so far only as the affection of others for me is concerned, with the extreme of confidence and credulity in everything else--an incapability of expressing, except occasionally as it were in gushes, any strong feeling--a tendency to melancholy, yet with a susceptibility of enjoyment almost transporting--subject to the most sudden, unaccountable and irresistible changes of mood--capable of being melted and moulded to anything by kindness, but as cold and unyielding as a rock against harshness and compulsion--such are some of the peculiarities which excellently prepare me for un-happiness. It is true that sometimes I am conscious of none of them--when for days together I pursue my regular routine of studies and employments, half mechanically--or when completely under the influence of the outward, I live for a time in what is around me. But this never lasts long. One of the most painful feelings I ever know is the sense of an unappeasable craving for sympathy and appreciation--the desire to be understood and loved, united with the conviction that this desire can never be gratified. I feel _alone_, different from all others and of course misunderstood by them. The only other feeling I have more miserable than this is the sense of being _worse_ than all others, and utterly destitute of anything excellent or beautiful. Oh! what mysteries are wrapped up in the mind and heart of man! What a development will be made when the light of another world shall be let in upon these impenetrable recesses!

BOSTON, _Jan. 7, 1839._--I came here on the last day of the last year, and have since then been very much occupied in different ways. Yesterday, I heard President Hopkins all day, and in the evening, a lecture from Dr. Follen on Pantheism. The most abstract of all pantheistic systems he described to be that of the Brahmans, as taught in the Vedas and Vedashta, and also at _first_ by Schelling, viz., that the _absolute_ is the first principle of all things; and this absolute is not to be conceived of as possessing any attribute at all--not even that of existence. A system a little less abstract is that of the Eleatics, who believed in the absolute as existing. Then that of Giordano Bruno, who made _soul_ and _matter_ the formative principle and the principal recipient of forces--to be the ground of the universe. Then Spinoza, who postulated _thought_ as the representative of the spiritual, and _extension_ as that of the material principle; and these together are his _originaux_. From thence sprang the spiritual pantheists--such as Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel--and the material pantheists.

_Wednesday, April 10th._--To-morrow I go to Andover. Have been indescribably hurried of late. Have finished Claudius--am reading Prometheus and Kant's Critique. _April 19th_.--Am reading Seneca's Medea and Southey's Life of Cowper.

ANDOVER, _May 13th._--Dr. Woods was remarking to-day at dinner on the influence of _hope_ in sustaining under the severest sufferings. It recalled a thought which occurred to me the other day in reading Prometheus; that, regarded as an example of unyielding determination and unconquerable fortitude he is not equal to Milton's Satan. For he has before him not only the _hope_, but the _certainty_ of ultimate deliverance, whereas Satan bears himself up, by the mere force of his will, unsustained by hope, "which comes to all," but not to him. _15th_.--It has just occurred to me that the doctrine of the soul's mortality seems to have _no_ point of contact with humanity. It surely can not have been entertained as being agreeable to man's _wishes_. And what is there in the system of things, or in the nature of the mind, to suggest it? On the contrary, everything looks in an opposite direction. How is it _possible_ to help seeing that the soul is not here in its proper element, in its native air? How is it possible to escape the conviction that all its unsatisfied yearnings, its baffled aims, its restless, agonizing aspirings after a _something_, clearly perceived to exist, but to be here unattainable--that all these things point to _another_ life, the _only_ true life of the soul? There is such a manifest disproportion between all objects of earthly attainment and the capacities of the spirit, that, unless man is immortal, he is vastly more to be pitied than the meanest reptile that crawls upon the earth. So I thought as I was walking this morning and saw a frog swimming in a puddle of water. I could hardly help envying him when I considered that _his_ condition was suited to his nature, and that he has no wants which are not supplied.

_June 17th._--I am reading Goethe's Conversations with Eckermann. One thing I remark is this--he does not, as most men do, make the degree of sympathy he finds in others the measure of his interest in them and attention to them. Goethe looked at all as specimens of human nature, and, therefore, all worthy of study. But, after all, this way of looking at others seems to be more suited to the _artist_ than to the man; and I can not conceive of any but a very passionless and immobile person who could do it.... Does all nature furnish one type of the soul? If so, it might be the ocean; the rough, swelling, fluctuating, unsounded ocean. Shall it ever _rest? Rest?_ What an infinite, mournful sweetness in the word! How perfectly sure I feel that my soul can never rest in _itself_, nor in anything of earth; if I find peace, it must be in the bosom of God.

_July 2d._--The vulgar proverb, "It never rains but it pours," is fully illustrated in my case. Last week I would have given half the world for a new book; yesterday and today have overflooded me. Mr. Hubbard has sent me Prof. Park's "German Selections," Pliny, Heeren's Ancient Greece, two volumes of the Biblical Repository, and two of his own magazines; Mr. Judd has sent me two volumes of Carlyle, and Mr. Ripley four of Lessing--all of these must be despatched _à la hâte. July 5th._--Last evening we spent upon the Common witnessing a beautiful exhibition of fireworks. This morning I have been to Union wharf to see the departure of some missionaries. For a few minutes, time seemed a speck and eternity near--but how transient with me are such impressions! I am indulging myself too much of late in a sort of sentimental reverie. Life and its changes, the depths of the soul, the fluctuations of passion and feeling--these are the subjects which attract my thoughts perpetually.... We spent last evening at Richard H. Dana's. _He_ does not separate his intellectual and sentimental tastes from his moral convictions as I do--I mean that neither in books nor men does he find pleasure unless they are such as his conscience approves. _Tuesday, 9th._--Have visited the Allston gallery and seen Rosalie for the last time before going home. I could not have believed that I should feel such a pang at parting from a picture. I did not succeed in getting to the gallery before others--but, no matter. I forgot the presence of everybody else and sat for an hour before Rosalie without moving. I took leave of the other pictures mentally, for I could not look. Farewell, sweet Beatrice, lovely Inez, beautiful Ursulina--dear, dear Rosalie, farewell!

_Monday, 15th._--Yesterday I was happy; to-day I am not exactly unhappy, but morbid and anxious. I feel continually the pressure of obligation to write something, in order to contribute toward the support of the family--and yet, I can not write. Mother wants me to write children's books; Lizzy wants me to write a book of Natural Philosophy for schools. I wish I had a "vocation." _Sabbath._--Stayed at home on account of the rain and read one of Tholuck's sermons to Julia. Wrote in my other journal some account of my thoughts and feelings. Burned up part of an old diary.

_Thursday, July 25th._--"My soul is dark." What with the sin I find within me, and the darkness and error, disputes and perplexities around me, I well-nigh despair. Whether I seek to _discover_ truth or to _live_ it, I am _equally_ unsuccessful. "I grope at noon-day as in the night." But there is a God, holy and changeless. He _is_. From eternity to eternity, He IS. On this Rock will I rest----. I stopped a moment and my eye was caught by the waving trees. What do they say to me? How silent they are! and yet how _eloquent!_ And here I sit--to myself the centre of the world, wondering and speculating about this same little self. Do the trees so? No; they wave and bend and bloom for _others._ I am ready to join with Herbert in wishing that I were a tree; then

"At least some bird would trust
Her household to me, and I should be just."

_Evening._--I read to-day another of Lessing's tragedies--"Miss Sarah Sampson,"--which I do not like nearly as well as Mina von Barnhelm. We were engaged to take tea with "the Mayor," and went with many tremblings and hesitations on account of the rain. Very few there, and a most uncommonly stupid time.

_Saturday Evening._--I have been alone for a little while, and, as usual, this time brings with it thronging remembrances of absent friends. Their forms flit before me; their spirits are around me; I feel their presence--almost; dear friends, almost I clasp you in my arms. My soul yearns for love and sympathy. I do bless and praise my God for all His goodness to me in this respect, for my _many_ tender and faithful and devoted friends. Part of the day I spent in arranging shells in my cabinet of drawers. This afternoon I went to Mr. Prentiss' library and obtained Schlegel's Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature.

_Monday Morning._--Have been trying to rouse myself to write Lessing, but can not. It looks so little. When it is all done, what will it amount to? Why, I shall get a few dollars for mother, which will go to buy bread and butter--and that's the end of it.

_Evening._--S. W. and M. W. made a call on us and the former played and sang. Then we sat up till after eleven naming each of our acquaintances after some flower. _Aug. 8th_,--Oh, what a happy half hour I had last evening, looking at the sky after sunset! We went down to the water--it was smooth as a crystal lake. The horizon was all in a glow--the softest, mellowest, warmest glow, and above dark, heavy clouds of every variety of form--the clouds and the glow alike reflected in the answering heaven below--I was almost _too_ happy; but--it _faded_. _Evening_.--I had something to wake me up this afternoon, viz., the arrival of the July No. of the New York Review, containing "Claudius." This led to some conversation about writing, its pecuniary profitableness, subjects for it, etc. Julia wished I would take some other topics besides German authors, but when I told her the alternative would be metaphysics, she laughed and retracted the wish. We then laughed over several schemes such as these--that one of us should write a review and another make the book for it afterward; that I should review some book which did not exist and give professed extracts from it, etc. Soon after Mrs. D. came in and began to talk about "Undine," which she and her husband have just been reading--the new translation. I was amused at their opinion of it. The most absurd, ridiculous story, she said--with no _rationality_, nothing that one can _understand_ in it--and so on, showing that she had not the slightest idea of a work of fancy merely. I have been wishing, as I often do, for some records of my past life. What could I not give for a daily journal as minute as this, beginning from my childhood! My past life is mostly a blank to me. _Aug. 15th_.--I am beginning to see dimly some new truths--such I believe them to be--in theology. I am inclined to think, but do not feel sure, that Redemption, instead of being merely a necessary _remedy_ for a great evil, is in itself the highest positive good, and that the state into which it brings man, of union with God, is a far nobler and better condition than that of primitive innocence, and at the same time a condition attainable in no other way than through redemption, and, of course, through sin. In this case the plan of redemption, instead of being an _afterthought_ of the divine mind (speaking anthropomorphically), is that in reference to which the whole world-system was contrived. These thoughts were partly suggested by reading Schleiermacher, who, if I understand him, has some such notions. If there is any truth in them, do they not throw light on the much-vexed question why God permitted the introduction of moral evil? Another point which I feel confident is misunderstood by our theologians is the nature of the redemptive act. The work of Christ in redemption is generally explained to be His incarnation, sufferings, and death, by which He made _atonement_ to justice for the sins of the world. This, it is true, is a part of what He did; it is that part which He performed in reference to God and His law, but it is not what Coleridge calls the "spiritual and transcendent act" by which He made us one with Himself, and thus secured the possibility of our restoration to spiritual life. _Aug. 17th_.--Have devoted almost the whole day to Coleridge's Literary Remains, which Mr. Davenport brought me. My admiration, even veneration, for his almost unequalled power is greater than ever, but I can not help thinking that his studies--some of them--exerted an unfavorable influence upon him, especially, perhaps, Spinoza. _Aug. 22d_--Mr. Park sent me the Life of Mackintosh by his son. I rejoiced much too soon over it, for it proves very uninteresting. This is partly to be accounted for from my want of interest in politics, etc. In great measure, however, it is the fault of the biographer, who has shown us the man at a distance, on stilts, or at best only in his most outward circumstances, never letting us know, as Carlyle says, what sort of stockings he wore, and what he ate for dinner. I don't think Sir James himself has much _inwardness_ to him, but certainly his son has shown us only the outermost shell. Have read the Iliad and Schleiermacher to-day. _Aug. 24th_.--A queer circumstance happened this evening. Col. Kinsman and Mr. C. S. Davies called. I was considering what unusual occurrence could have brought Mr. D. here, when he increased my wonder still more by disclosing his errand. He had received, he said, a letter from Prof. Woods, requesting that I, or a "lady whose taste was as correct in dress as in literature," would decide upon the fashion of a gown to be worn by him at his inauguration as President of Bowdoin College, and forthwith procure such a gown to be made. _Aug. 25th_.--I have been reading the second volume of Mackintosh, which is much better than the first, and gives a higher opinion of him. He is certainly well described by Coleridge as the "king of men of talent." It is curious, by the way, to compare what M. says of C.: "It is impossible to give a stronger example of a man, whose talents are beneath his understanding, and who trusts to his ingenuity to atone for his ignorance.... Shakespeare and Burke are, if I may venture on the expression, above talent; but Coleridge is not!" Ah, well--_de gustibus_, etc.

I have been as busy as a bee all day; wrote notes, prepared for leaving home, read Schleiermacher, and Philip von Artevelde, which delighted me; walked after tea with Lizzy, then examined my papers to see what is to be burned. I wish I knew what I was made for--I mean, in _particular_--what I _can_ do, and what I _ought_ to do. I can not bear to live a life of literary self-indulgence, which is no better than another self-indulgence. I _do want_ to be of some use in the world, but I am infinitely perplexed as to the _how_ and the _what_. _Aug. 26th_.--Hurried through the last 200 pages of Mackintosh today. On the whole, there is much to _like_ as well as to admire in him. One thing puzzles me in his case as in others: How men who give no signs through a long life of anything more than the most cold and distant _respect_ for religion--the most unfrequent and uninterested remembrance, if any at all--of the Saviour, all at once become so devout--I mean it not disrespectfully--on their death-beds. What strange doubts this and other like mysteries suggest!

After tea I carried a bouquet to Mrs. French. Saw all the way a sky so magnificent that words can do no justice to it--splendors piled on splendors, till my soul was fairly sick with admiration. Mrs. French asked me if life ever looked sad and wearisome to me. _Ever!_

BOSTON, _Saturday morning, Sept. 8th_--The rain keeps me home from church, but I still have the more time for reading and reflection. At every change in my outward situation I find myself forming new purposes and plans for the future.... I _will_ trust that, by the grace of God, the ensuing winter shall be a period of more vigorous effort and more persevering self-culture than any previous season of my life. Above all, let me remember that intellectual culture is worthless when dissociated from moral progress; that true spiritual growth embraces both; and the latter as the basis and mould of the former. Let me remember, too, that in the universe _everything_ may be had for a price, but nothing can be had without price. The price of successful self-culture is unremitted toil, labor, and self-denial; am I willing to pay it? I feel that I need light and strength and life; may I find them in _Christ!_ As to studies, I mean to study the Bible _much;_ also dogmatic theology--which of late has an increasing interest for me--and ecclesiastical history. To the Spirit of all Truth I surrender my mind.

_Monday._--I have fallen in with Swedenborg's writings. Wonder whether the destiny which seems to bring to us just what we chance to be interested in is a real ordinance of fate or only a seeming one--because interest in a subject makes us observant. Am reading Greek with Julia. We began the sixth book of the Iliad. _Tuesday_.--Fifty lines in Homer; Companion proofs; Schleiermacher; the prologue and first scene of Terence's comedy of Andria; two Nos. of N. Nickleby, and walked round the Common with Julia twice. _Wednesday_.--Studies the same as yesterday, except that I read less of Schleiermacher and spent an hour or so upon Lessing. Read "Much Ado about Nothing," and disliked Beatrice less than ever before. But I am not satisfied with Claudio; he is not _half_ sorry and remorseful enough for the supposed death of Hero--and then to think of his being willing to marry another right off! Oh, it is abominable! Walked over _four miles_ in the morning, and out again before tea.

_Tuesday, Sept. 17th_--Well. The family are off--Mr. and Mrs. Willis, and Julia too--and the Recorder and Companion [10] are left for a fortnight in my charge. I have been much interested in what I have read to-day in Schleiermacher. It is his evolution of the idea of God--if I may so say--from holy, human consciousness. It recalls some thoughts which I had on this subject once before, and which I began to write about. My notion was this--that an absolutely perfect idea of man implies, contains an idea of God. I have a great mind to try and make something out of it, only I am so hurried just now. They keep sending me papers to make selections for the Recorder, and I have just been writing an article for the Companion. I spend half my time looking over newspapers. Double, double toil and trouble; most wearisome and profitless. Would not edit a paper for the world.

No truth can be said to be seen _as it is_ until it is seen in its relation to all other truths. In this relation only is it true.... No _error_ is understood till we have seen all the truth there is in it, and, therefore, as Coleridge says, you must "understand an author's ignorance, or conclude yourself ignorant of his understanding."

_Monday, 30th._--I have been very happy this afternoon--writing all the time with a genial flow of thought and without effort. How I love to feel that for this I am indebted to God. He is my intellectual source, the Father of my spirit, as well as the author of everything morally good in me.

_Friday, Oct. 4th._--I have been too busy reading and writing for the last few days to find time for my journal. I go on with Schleiermacher and have resumed Lessing. I am reading the Memoir of Mrs. S. L. Smith and Tappan's "Review of Edwards on the Will." Fifty lines in the Iliad with Julia. Finished the Andria and to-day began the Adelphi. I am amused at comparing the comedy of that day with the modern French school. Davus in Andria is but a rough sketch of Moliere's valet, and the whole plot is so bungling in comparison. Have had very few attacks of melancholy lately; because, I suppose, my health is good and I am constantly employed.

_Evening_.--I never came nearer losing my wits with delight than this afternoon. Went to call on Mr. and Mrs. Ripley, and saw his fine library of German books. The sight was enough to excite me to the utmost, but to be told that they were all at my service put me into such an ecstasy that I could hardly behave with decency. I selected several immediately and promised myself fuller examination of the library very soon.... Mr. R. proposed to me to translate something for his series. Shall I? [11]

_Sabbath Evening, Oct. 13th_.--I have just been writing to my dear brother G., for whom as well as for my other brothers, I feel the greatest solicitude. I have separate sources of anxiety for each of them, and hope that the intenseness of this anxiety will make me more earnest in commending them to God. _Oct. 14th_.--Gave up the time usually devoted to Lessing to writing two articles for the Mother's Magazine. Read Homer, and the 149th and 150th Psalms and the first chapter of Genesis in Hebrew. Read or rather _studied_ Schleiermacher. Corrected proof. Read several articles in the Biblical Repository--one by Prof. Park--aloud to Julia. On the whole, I have been pretty industrious. Oh, how many reasons I have for gratitude! Health, friends, books--nothing is wanting but the heart to enjoy God in all. Wrote to mother.

_Oct. 17th._--This morning dear Lizzy came; of course the day has been given up to _miscellanies_.

_Oct. 21st._--Mr. Albro [12] called and stayed till dinner-time. After dinner read Greek with Julia and then wrote a notice of Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, and then set off for Lucy's, where the others were already gone. Mr. Albro has concluded to read Schleiermacher with me--that is, to keep along at the same rate, that we may talk about it. Letter from mother, and notes from Mr. Condit and Mr. Hamlin, with a copy of "Payson's Thoughts" in Armenian. Have just finished reading Mr. Ripley's Reply to Mr. Norton. Mr. Willis is forming a Bible-class for me to teach on the Sabbath--am very glad.

_Nov. 14th._--Finished Lessing yesterday, and hope for a little rest from hurry. Shall resume Schleiermacher and take up Fichte on the Destination of Man.

_Nov. 22nd._--I am afraid that I may have to be resigned to a very great misfortune; namely, to the partial loss of eyesight--for a time at least; so yesterday I resolved to give them a holiday, though sorely against my will, by not opening a book the whole day. Whether I should have succeeded in observing such a desperate resolution without the aid of circumstances is quite problematical, but Mr. Gray opportunely came with a request that I should take a ride with him to Cambridge, and visit the libraries there. This occupied four or five hours, and a lyceum lecture provided for the evening. I have always congratulated myself on being so little dependent on _others_ for entertainment--but never considered how entirely I am dependent on _books_. If I should be deprived of the use of my eyes, I should be a most miserable creature.

_Thanksgiving, Nov. 29th._--A very pleasant and delightful day--our hearts full of gladness and, I hope, of gratitude. I hope dear mother and all at home are as happy.

_Dec. 25th._--How plain that all the creations of the ancient mythology are but representations of something in the heart of man!... What is the end of man? Infinite contradictions--all opposites blended into one--a mass of confused, broken parts, of disjointed fragments--such _is_ he. The circumstances that surround him--the events that happen unto him, are no less strange. What shall be the end? Oh then, abyss of futurity, declare it! unfold thy dark depths--let a voice come up from thy cloudy infinite--let a ray penetrate thy unfathomable profound. If we could but _rest_ till the question is decided! if we could but float softly on the current of time till we reach the haven! But no, we must _act_. We must _do_ something. _I_ must do something _now_--WHAT?

_Evening._ But as the morning. In the afternoon I was talking with L. W. [13] with as much eagerness and vivacity as if I had never known a cloud. This evening I was going to a _dance_ at the _Insane_ Hospital. For me truly it has been a day of opposites--all the elements of life have met and mingled in it.

_Wednesday, 26th._--The end of man, says Carlyle, is an action, not a thought. This is partly true, though all noble action has its root in thought. Thought, indeed, in its true and highest sense, _is_ action. It is never lost. If uttered, it may breathe inspiration into a thousand minds and become the impulse to ten thousand good actions. If unuttered, and terminating in no single outward act, it yet has an emanative influence; it impregnates the man and makes itself felt in his life. A man can not do so noble and godlike a thing as to think, without being the better for it. Indeed, the distinction between thought and action is not always an accurate one. Many thoughts deserve the name of activities much better than certain movements of the muscles and changes of the outward organization which we denominate actions. In this sense, it is better of the two to think without acting than to act without thinking.

Mrs. Hopkins was the author of the following works, intended mostly for the young. Some of them have had a wide circulation. They are written in an attractive style and breathe the purest spirit of Christian love and wisdom: 1. The Pastor's Daughter. 2. Lessons on the Book of Proverbs. 3. The Young Christian Encouraged. 4. Henry Langdon; or, What Was I Made For? 5. The Guiding Star; or, The Bible God's Message; a Sequel to Henry Langdon. 6. The Silent Comforter; a Companion for the Sick-room. A Compilation.

* * * * *

E.

The following is the rhapsody referred to by Mr. Butler: (The words to be used were _Mosquito, Brigadier, Moon, Cathedral, Locomotive, Piano, Mountain, Candle, Lemon, Worsted, Charity_, and _Success_).

A wounded soldier on the ground in helpless languor lay,
Unheeding in his weariness the tumult of the day;
In vain a pert _mosquito_ buzzed madly in his ear,
His thoughts were far away from earth--its sounds he could not hear;
Nor noted he the kindly glance with which his _brigadier_
Looked down upon his manly form when chance had brought him near.
It was a glorious autumn night on which the _moon_ looked down,
Calmly she looked and her fair face had neither grief nor frown.
Just as she gazed in other lands on some _cathedral_ dim,
Whose aisles resounded to the strains of dirges or of hymn.
But now with _locomotive_ speed the soldier's thoughts took wing:
Back to his home they bore him, and he heard his sisters sing--
Heard the softest-toned _piano_ touched by hands he used to love.
Was it home or was it heaven? Was that music from above?
Oh, for one place or the other! In his mountain air to die,
Once more upon his mother's breast, as in infancy, to lie!

The scene has changed. Where is he now? Not on the cold, damp ground.
Whence came this couch? and who are they who smiling stand around?
What friendly hands have borne him to his own free _mountain_ air?
And father, mother, sisters--every one of them is there.
Now gentle ministries of love may soothe him in his pain;
Water to cool his fevered lips he need not ask in vain.
His mother shades the _candle_ when she steals across the room;
A face like hers would radiant make a very desert's gloom.
The fragrant _lemon_ cools his thirst, pressed by his sister's hand--
Not one can do enough for him, the hero of their band.

Oh, happy, convalescing days! How full of pleasant pain!
How pleasant to take up the old, the dear old life again!
Now, sitting on the wooden bench before the cottage door,
How many times they make him tell the same old story o'er!
How he fought and how he fell; how he longed again to fight;
And how he would die fighting yet for the triumph of the right.
His good old mother sits all day so fondly by his side;
How can she give him up again--her first-born son, her pride?
His sisters with their _worsted_ his stockings fashion too,
In patriotic colors--the red, the white, the blue.
If he should never wear them, a _charity_ 'twill be
To give them to some soldier-lad as brave and good as he.
They're dreadful homely stockings; one can not well say less,
But whosoever wears 'em--why, may he have _success_!

Here are samples of the charades referred to by Miss Morse:

ON RETURNING A LOST GLOVE TO A FRIEND.

MARCH, 1873.

A hand I am not, yet have fingers five;
Alive I am not, yet was once alive.
Am found in every house and by the dozen,
And am of flesh and blood a sort of cousin.
Now cut my head off. See what I become!
No longer am I lifeless, dead, and dumb.
I am the very sweetest thing on earth;
Royal in power and of royal birth.
I in the palace reign and in the cot--
There is no place where man is and I'm not.
I am too costly to be bought and sold;
I can not be enticed by piles of gold.
And yet I am so lowly that a smile
Can woo and win me--and so free from guile,
That I look forth from many a gentle face
In tenderness and truthfulness and grace.
Say, do you know me? Have you known my reign?
My joy, my rapture, and my silent pain?
Beneath your pillow have I roses placed--
Your heart's glad festival have I not graced?
Ah me! To mother, lover, husband, wife
I am the oil and I the wine of life.
With you, my dear, I have been hand and _glove_.
Shall I return the first and keep the _Love_?

CHARADE.

My _first_ was born to rule; before him stand
The potentates and nobles of the land.
He loves his grandeur--hopes to be more grand.

My second you will find in every lass--
Both in the highest and the lowest class,
And even in a simple blade of grass.

But add it to my _first_, and straightway he
Becomes my _whole_--loses identity;
Parts with his manhood and becomes a _She_.

(Prince, _ss.,_ Princess).

* * * * *

F.

Here is another extract from the same letter:

J'ai peine à me mettre à l'oraison, et quelquefois quand j'y suis il me tarde d'en sortir. Je n'y fais, ce me semble, presque rien. Je me trouve même dans une certaine tiédeur et une tâcheté pour toutes sortes de biens. Je n'ai aucune peine considérable ni dans mon intérieur, ni dans mon extérieur, ainsi je ne saurois dire que je passe par aucune épreuve. Il me semble que c'est un songe, ou que je me moque quand je cherche mon état tant je me trouve hors de tout état spirituel, dans la voie commune des gens tiedes qui vivent à leur aise. Cependant cette languor universelle jointe à l'abandon qui me fait acceptes tout et qui m'empêche de rien rechercher, ne laisse pas de m'abattre, et je sens que j'ai quelquefois besoin de donner à mes sens quelque amusement pour m'égayer. Aussi le fais--je simplement, mais bien mieux quand je suis seul que quand je suis avec mes meilleurs amis. Quand je suis seul, je joue quelquefois comme un petit enfant, etc., etc.

The letter may be found in Vol. V., pp. 411-12, of Madame Guyon's LETTRES CHRÉTIENNES ET SPIRITUELLES _sur divers Sujets qui regardent La Vie Intérieure, ou L'esprit du vrai Christianisme_--enrichie de la Correspondance secrette de MR. DE FENELON avec l'Auteur. London, 1768. The whole work is extremely interesting.

* * * * *

G.

[From The Evangelist of May 27, 1875.]

IN MEMORIAM.

Died in Paris, France, May 8, 1875, VIRGINIA S. OSBORN, only daughter of William H. and Virginia S. Osborn, of this city, and granddaughter of the late Jonathan Sturges.

The sudden death of this gifted young girl has overwhelmed with grief a large social and domestic circle. Last February, in perfect health and full of the brightest anticipations, she set out, in company with her parents and a young friend, on a brief foreign tour. After passing several weeks at Rome and visiting other famous cities of Italy, she had just reached Paris on the way home when a violent fever seized upon her brain, and, in defiance of the tenderest parental care and the best medical skill, hurried her into the unseen world.

And yet it is hardly possible to realise that this brilliant young life has forever vanished away from earth, for she seemed formed alike by nature and Providence for length of days. Already her character gave the fairest promise of a perfect woman. It possessed a strength and maturity beyond her years. Although not yet twenty-one, her varied mental culture and her knowledge of almost every branch of English literature, history, poetry, fiction, even physical science, were quite remarkable; nor was she ignorant of some of the best French and German, not to speak of Latin, authors. We have never known one of her age whose intellectual tastes were of a higher order. She seemed to feel equally at home in reading Shakespeare and Goethe; Prescott, Motley, and Froude; Mrs. Austin, Scott, and Dickens; Taine, Huxley, and Tyndall; or the popular biographies and fictions of the day. And yet her studious habits and devotion to books did not render her any the less the unaffected, attractive, and whole-hearted girl. Her friends, both old and young, greatly admired her, but they loved her still more. As was natural in one of so much character, she was very decided in her ways; but she was also perfectly frank, truthful, and conscientious--resembling in this respect, as she did in some other excellent traits, her honored grandfather, Mr. Sturges.

Several years before her death she was enrolled among the disciples of Jesus. How vividly the writer recalls her earnest look and tones of voice when she declared to him her desire publicly to confess her Saviour and to remember Him at His table! When from beneath the deep sea the news that she was dangerously ill and then soon after that she was dead stole upon her friends here like a thief in the night, almost stunning them with grief; their first feeling was one of tender sympathy for the desolate, sorely-smitten parents, and of prayer that God would be pleased to comfort and uphold them in their affliction.

From many hearts, we are sure, that prayer has been offered up oftentimes since. If it were not for the relief which comes of faith and prayer, what a cloud of hopeless gloom would enshroud such an event! Blessed be God for this exceeding great and precious relief. The dark cloud is not indeed dispersed even by faith and prayer, but with what a silver lining they are able to invest it! If we really believed that such tragical events are solely the effects of chance or mere natural law--if we did not believe that the hand of infinite wisdom and love is also in them, surely the grass would turn black beneath our feet. _The Lord gave; the Lord hath taken away; and blessed be the name of the Lord._

G. L. P.

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H.

_Extracts front Dr. Vincent's Memorial Discourse._

The men and women who know how to comfort human sorrow, and to teach their fellows to turn it to its highest uses, are among God's best gifts to the world. The office and the name of Comforter have the highest and purest associations. It is the Holy Spirit of God who calls Himself by that name, and to be a true comforter is to be indeed a co-worker with God. But even as the _word_ "comfort" goes deeper than those pitying commonplaces which even nature teaches us to utter to those who are in any trouble, so the _office_ of a true comforter requires other qualifications than mere natural tenderness of heart, or even the experience of suffering. One must know how to _interpret_ as well as how to _feel_ sorrow; must know its _lessons_ as well as its _smart_. Hence it is that God makes His comforters by processes of His own; by hard masters ofttimes, and by lessons not to be found in books.

It is in illustration of this truth that I bring to you to-day some memorials of the experience, character, and life-work of one widely known, deeply beloved, and greatly honored by God as an instrument of Christian instruction and of Christian comfort. It would, indeed, be possible to strike some other keynote. A character presenting so many points of interest might be studied from more than one of those points with both pleasure and profit; but, on the whole, it seems to me that the thought of a _Christian comforter_ best concentrates the lessons of her life, and best represents her mission to society; so that we might aptly choose for our motto those beautiful words of the Apostle: "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."

In endeavoring to depict a life which was largely shaped by sorrow, I am not going to open the record of a sorrowful life, but rather of a joyful one; not of a starved and meager life, but of a very rich one, both in itself and in its fruits; yet it may be profitable for us to see through what kind of discipline that life became so rich, and to strike some of the springs where arose the waters which refreshed so many of the children of pain and care.

The daughter of Edward Payson might justly have appropriated her father's words: "Thanks to the fervent, effectual prayers of my righteous parents, and the tender mercies of my God upon me, I have reason to hope that the pious wishes breathed over my infant head are in some measure fulfilled." She might have said with Cowper:

"My boast is not that I deduce my birth
From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise;
The child of parents passed into the skies."

The life and work of that devoted minister of Jesus Christ have passed into the religious history of New England--not to say of our whole country--and no student of that history is unfamiliar with that character so tried, yet so exalted by suffering; with that ministry so faithful, so unselfish, marked by such yearning for souls, and with such persistence, tact, and success in leading them to Christ; with that intellect so richly endowed and so well trained; that devotional spirit so rapt, that conscience so acutely sensitive; with that life so fruitful and that death so triumphant....

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In the summer of 1869 she found a lovely and peaceful retreat among the hills of Vermont. There arose that tasteful home with which, perhaps more than any other spot, memory loves to associate her. There, for ten happy summers, she enjoyed the communion with Nature's "visible forms," and heard her "various language," and felt her healing touch on the wearied brain and overstrung nerves; there, as I think she would have wished, she took leave of earth amid the pomp and flush of the late summer, and gladly ascended to the eternal sunshine of heaven; and there, in the shadow of the giant hills which "brought peace" to her, and the changing moods of which she so loved to study, her ashes await the morning of the Resurrection.

In reviewing this life of nearly sixty years, we find its keynote, as was said at the outset, in the thought of the Christian comforter. We see in her one whom God commissioned, so far as we can judge, to bring light and comfort to multitudes, and whom He prepared for that blessed work by peculiar and severe discipline.

There is nothing in which ordinary minds are more commonly mistaken than in their estimate of _suffering._ They seem often unable to conceive it except in its association with appreciable tragedies, in those grosser forms in which it waits upon visible calamity. Such do not know that the heart is often the scene of tragedies which can not be written, and that there are sufferings more subtle and more acute than any which torture the nerve or wring the brow. Take a character like this with which we are dealing; combine the nature to which love was a necessity of being with those high and pure ideals of character which culled cautiously the objects of affection; add the intense sensitiveness without the self- esteem which so often serves as a rock of refuge to the most sensitive; add the sharply-cut individuality which could only see and do and express in its own way, and which, therefore, so frequently exposed its subject to the misunderstanding of strangers or of unappreciative souls; crown all with the stern conscientiousness which would not compromise the truth even for love's sake, and the exquisite selfreverence, if you will allow the expression, which held the region of religious emotion as holy ground, and which regarded the attempt to open or to penetrate the inner shrines of Christian feeling as something akin to sacrilege--and blend all these in a delicate, highly-strung, nervous organization, and you have the elements of a fearful capacity for suffering.

Besides this _capacity_ for suffering, Mrs. Prentiss had a very clear cognition of the sacred _office_ of suffering, and of its relation to perfection of character. There were two ideas which pervaded her whole theory of religious experience. The one was that whenever God has special work for His children to do, He always fits them for it by suffering. She had the most intense conviction of any one I ever knew of the necessity of suffering to perfection of character or of work. Doubtless there have been others who have learned as well as she its value as a purifying and exalting power, but very few, I think, who have so early and so uncompromisingly taken that truth into their theory of Christian education. She quoted with approval the words of Madame Guyon, that "God rarely, if ever, makes the educating process a painless one when He wants remarkable results." Such must drink of Christ's cup and be baptized with His baptism. Along with this went another and a complementary thought, viz., that as God prepares His workmen for great work by suffering, so there is another class of His children whom He does not find competent to this preparation; who escape much of the conflict and suffering, but never attain the highest enjoyments or fight the decisive battles of time.... In a volume of Fenelon's Christian Counsel, which was one of her favorite closet companions, this passage is scored: God "attacks all the subtle resources of self-love within, especially in those souls who have generously and without reserve delivered themselves up to the operations of His grace. The more He would purify them, the more He exercises them interiorly." And she has added a special note at the foot of the page: "He never forces Himself on ungenerous souls for this work."

Along with this went the thought that God's discipline was intended to make not only _models_, but _ministers_; that one who had passed through the furnace with Christ was to emerge from the fiery baptism not merely to be _gazed_ at, but to go down to his brethren telling with power the story of the "form of the Fourth." This is the sentiment of some lines addressed by her to an afflicted friend:

"O that this heart with grief so well acquainted
Might be a fountain, rich and sweet and full,
For all the weary that have fallen and fainted
In life's parched desert--thirsty, sorrowful.

"Thou Man of Sorrows, teach my lips that often
Have told the sacred story of my woe,
To speak of Thee till stony griefs I soften--
Till those that know Thee not, learn Thee to know."

At a comparatively early period of her Christian experience, the theme of her prayer was: "I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory"; for in the answer to that prayer there seemed, as she said, to be summed up everything that she needed or could desire. In a paper in which she recorded some of her aspirations, she wrote: "Let my life be an all-day looking to Jesus. Let my love to God be so deep, earnest, and all-pervading, that I can not have even the passing emotion of rebellion to suppress. There is such a thing as an implicit faith in, and consequent submission to, Christ. Let me never rest till they are fully mine."

I do not know the precise date, but I think it could not have been very late when she received a mighty answer to the prayer to behold God's glory. New views of Christian privilege and of the relation of Christ to believing souls came with prayerful searching of the Scriptures. She entered, to use her own words, upon "a life of incessant peace and serenity--notwithstanding it became, by degrees, one of perpetual self- denial and effort." The consciousness of God never left her. The whole world seemed holy ground. Prayer became a perpetual delight. The pride and turbulence of nature grew quiet under these gentle influences, and anything from God's hand seemed just right and quite good.

The secret of her peace and of her usefulness lay very largely in the prayerfulness of her life. From her early years, prayer was her delight. In describing the comforts of her chamber in the school at Richmond, she noted as its crowning charm the daily presence of the Eternal King, who condescended to make it His dwelling-place. With the deeper experiences of which we have spoken came a fresh delight in prayer. "It was very delightful," she says, "to pray all the time; all day long; not only for myself, but for the whole world--particularly for all those who loved Christ." Her views of prayer were Scriptural, and, therefore, discriminating. She fully accepted Paul's statement that "we know not what we should pray for as we ought" without the help of the Spirit; and, therefore, she always spoke of prayer as something to be _learned_. If she believed that a Christian "learns to pray when first he lives," she believed also that the prayer of the infant Christian life was like the feeble breath of infancy. She understood by prayer something far more and higher than the mere preferring of petitions. It was _communion_; God's Spirit responding harmoniously to our own. With Coleridge she held, that the act of praying with the total concentration of the faculties is the very highest energy of which the human heart is capable. Hence she was accustomed to speak of _learning_ the mysterious art of prayer by an apprenticeship at the throne of grace. She somewhere wrote: "I think many of the difficulties attending the subject of prayer would disappear if it could be regarded in early life as an art that must be acquired through daily, persistent habits with which nothing shall be allowed to interfere." She saw that prayer is not to be made dependent on the various emotive states in which one comes to God. "The question," she said, "is not one of mere delight." The Roman Catholic poet accurately expressed her thought on this point:

"Prayer was not meant for luxury,
Nor selfish pastime sweet;
It is the prostrate creature's place
At the Creator's feet."

She illustrated in her own quaint way the truth that moods have nothing to do with the duty of prayer. When one of your little brothers asks you to lend him your knife, do you inquire first what is the state of his mind? If you do, what reply can he make but this: "The state of my mind is, I want your knife."

With her natural temperament and inherited tendencies she might, perhaps, under other influences have been drawn too far over to the emotional, or at least to the contemplative side of religious life. But she saw and avoided the danger. She discerned the harmony and just balance between the contemplative and the active Christian life, and felt that they ought to co-exist in every genuine experience. She attached as little meaning to a life of mere raptures as to one of bare, loveless duty. "Christian life," she wrote, "is not all contemplation and prayer; it is not all muscle and sinew. It is a perfect, practicable union of the two. I believe in your joyful emotions if they result in self-denying, patient work for Christ--I believe in your work if it is winged by faith and prayer." She had scored this passage in her copy of Fenelon: "To be constantly in a state of enjoyment that takes away the feeling of the cross, and to live in a fervor of devotion that continually keeps Paradise open--this is not dying upon the cross and becoming nothing."

Such experience and such views were behind the active side of her life, as represented by her personal ministries and by the work of her pen. The one book in which she endeavored to embody _formally_ her views of Christian doctrine and experience did not, as might have been expected, find the same reception or the same response which were accorded to other productions. It was a book which appealed to a smaller and higher class of readers. But, when she wrought these same truths into pictures of living men and women--when she illustrated them at the points where they touched the drudgery and commonplace of thousands of lives--when she opened outlooks for hundreds of discouraged souls upon the roads where hundreds more were bearing the very same burdens, and yet stepping heavenward under their pressure--when she, who had walked in the fire herself, went to her sisters in the same old furnace and told them of her vision of the form of the Fourth--when she went down to the many who were sadly working out the mistakes of ill-judged alliances, and lifted the veil from sorrows which separate their subject from human sympathy because they must be borne in silence--when she told such how heaven might come even into their life--when she, with her hands yet bleeding from the grasp of her own cross, came to other sufferers, not to mock them by the show of an unattainable beauty and an impossible peace, but to _offer_ them _divine_ peace and the beauty of the Lord in the name of her Saviour--then she spoke with a power which multitudes felt and confessed.

I am sure that hers is, in an eminent degree, the blessing of them that were ready to perish. Weary, overtaxed mothers; misunderstood and unappreciated wives, servants, pale seamstresses, delicate women forced to live in an atmosphere of drunkenness and coarse brutality, widows and orphans in the bitterness of their bereavement, mothers with their tears dropping over empty cradles--to thousands of such she was a messenger from heaven.