Chapter VI: The Skipper's Story (26)

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

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

"In youth we love the darkling lawn,
Brushed by the owlet's wing;
Then evening is preferred to dawn,
And autumn to the spring.
Sad fancies do we then affect,
In luxury of disrespect
To our own prodigal excess
Of too familiar happiness."

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

"The deep reverence taught of old,
The homage of man's heart to death."

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

"Alas! though I should die, I know
That all about the thorn will blow
In tufts of rosy-tinted snow.

"Not less the bee will range her cells,
The furzy prickle fire the dells,
The foxglove cluster dappled bells."

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

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

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

--when Time's veil shall fall asunder,
The soul may know
No fearful change nor sudden wonder,
Nor sink the weight of mystery under,
But with the upward rise and with the vastness grow.

And all we shrink from now may seem
No new revealing;
Familiar as our childhood's stream,
Or pleasant memory of a dream,
The loved and cherished past upon the new life stealing.

Serene and mild the untried light
May have its dawning;
As meet in summer's northern night
The evening gray and dawning white,
The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's new morning.

SWEDENBORG (1844.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE BETTER LAND. (1844.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"O the joys that are there mortal eye bath not seen!
O the songs they sing there, with hosannas between!
O the thrice-blessed song of the Lamb and of Moses!
O brightness on brightness! the pearl gate uncloses!
O white wings of angels! O fields white with roses!
O white tents of peace, where the rapt soul reposes
O the waters so still, and the pastures so green!"

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

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

DORA GREEN WELL.

First published as an introduction to an American edition of that author's _The Patience of Hope_.

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

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

("The good are not so good as I once thought, nor the bad so evil,
and in all there is more for grace to make advantage of, and more to
testify for God and holiness, than I once believed."--Baxter.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

The writer of The Patience of Hope had, previous to its publication, announced herself to a fit, if small, audience of earnest and thoughtful Christians, in a little volume entitled, A Present Heaven. She has recently published a collection of poems, of which so competent a judge as Dr. Brown, the author of _Horae Subsecivae_ and _Rab and his Friends_, thus speaks, in the _North British Review_:--

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

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

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

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

ASCENDING.

They who from mountain-peaks have gazed upon
The wide, illimitable heavens have said,
That, still receding as they climbed, outspread,
The blue vault deepens over them, and, one
By one drawn further back, each starry sun
Shoots down a feebler splendor overhead
So, Saviour, as our mounting spirits, led
Along Faith's living way to Thee, have won
A nearer access, up the difficult track
Still pressing, on that rarer atmosphere,
When low beneath us flits the cloudy rack,
We see Thee drawn within a widening sphere
Of glory, from us further, further back,--
Yet is it then because we are more near.

LIFE TAPESTRY.

Top long have I, methought, with tearful eye
Pored o'er this tangled work of mine, and mused
Above each stitch awry and thread confused;
Now will I think on what in years gone by
I heard of them that weave rare tapestry
At royal looms, and hew they constant use
To work on the rough side, and still peruse
The pictured pattern set above them high;
So will I set my copy high above,
And gaze and gaze till on my spirit grows
Its gracious impress; till some line of love,
Transferred upon my canvas, faintly glows;
Nor look too much on warp or woof, provide
He whom I work for sees their fairer side!

HOPE.

When I do think on thee, sweet Hope, and how
Thou followest on our steps, a coaxing child
Oft chidden hence, yet quickly reconciled,
Still turning on us a glad, beaming brow,
And red, ripe lips for kisses: even now
Thou mindest me of him, the Ruler mild,
Who led God's chosen people through the wild,
And bore with wayward murmurers, meek as thou
That bringest waters from the Rock, with bread
Of angels strewing Earth for us! like him
Thy force abates not, nor thine eye grows dim;
But still with milk and honey-droppings fed,
Thou leadest to the Promised Country fair,
Though thou, like Moses, may'st not enter there

There is something very weird and striking in the following lines:--

GONE.

Alone, at midnight as he knelt, his spirit was aware
Of Somewhat falling in between the silence and the prayer;

A bell's dull clangor that hath sped so far, it faints and dies
So soon as it hath reached the ear whereto its errand lies;

And as he rose up from his knees, his spirit was aware
Of Somewhat, forceful and unseen, that sought to hold him there;

As of a Form that stood behind, and on his shoulders prest
Both hands to stay his rising up, and Somewhat in his breast,

In accents clearer far than words, spake, "Pray yet longer, pray,
For one that ever prayed for thee this night hath passed away;

"A soul, that climbing hour by hour the silver-shining stair
That leads to God's great treasure-house, grew covetous; and there

"Was stored no blessing and no boon, for thee she did not claim,
(So lowly, yet importunate!) and ever with thy name

"She link'd--that none in earth or heaven might hinder it or stay--
One Other Name, so strong, that thine hath never missed its way.

"This very night within my arms this gracious soul I bore Within the
Gate, where many a prayer of hers had gone before;

"And where she resteth, evermore one constant song they raise Of 'Holy,
holy,' so that now I know not if she prays;

"But for the voice of praise in Heaven, a voice of Prayer hath gone
From Earth; thy name upriseth now no more; pray on, pray on!"

The following may serve as a specimen of the writer's lighter, half- playful strain of moralizing:--

SEEKING.

"And where, and among what pleasant places,
Have ye been, that ye come again
With your laps so full of flowers, and your faces
Like buds blown fresh after rain?"

"We have been," said the children, speaking
In their gladness, as the birds chime,
All together,--"we have been seeking
For the Fairies of olden time;
For we thought, they are only hidden,--
They would never surely go
From this green earth all unbidden,
And the children that love them so.
Though they come not around us leaping,
As they did when they and the world
Were young, we shall find them sleeping
Within some broad leaf curled;
For the lily its white doors closes
But only over the bee,
And we looked through the summer roses,
Leaf by leaf, so carefully.

But we thought, rolled up we shall find them
Among mosses old and dry;
From gossamer threads that bind them,
They will start like the butterfly,
All winged: so we went forth seeking,
Yet still they have kept unseen;
Though we think our feet have been keeping
The track where they have been,
For we saw where their dance went flying
O'er the pastures,--snowy white."

Their seats and their tables lying,
O'erthrown in their sudden flight.
And they, too, have had their losses,
For we found the goblets white
And red in the old spiked mosses,
That they drank from over-night;
And in the pale horn of the woodbine
Was some wine left, clear and bright;
"But we found," said the children, speaking
More quickly, "so many things,
That we soon forgot we were seeking,--
Forgot all the Fairy rings,
Forgot all the stories olden
That we hear round the fire at night,
Of their gifts and their favors golden,--
The sunshine was so bright;
And the flowers,--we found so many
That it almost made us grieve
To think there were some, sweet as any,
That we were forced to leave;
As we left, by the brook-side lying,
The balls of drifted foam,
And brought (after all our trying)
These Guelder-roses home."

"Then, oh!" I heard one speaking
Beside me soft and low,
"I have been, like the blessed children, seeking,
Still seeking, to and fro;
Yet not, like them, for the Fairies,--
They might pass unmourned away
For me, that had looked on angels,--
On angels that would not stay;
No! not though in haste before them
I spread all my heart's best cheer,
And made love my banner o'er them,
If it might but keep them here;
They stayed but a while to rest them;
Long, long before its close,
From my feast, though I mourned and prest them
The radiant guests arose;
And their flitting wings struck sadness
And silence; never more
Hath my soul won back the gladness,
That was its own before.
No; I mourned not for the Fairies
When I had seen hopes decay,
That were sweet unto my spirit
So long; I said, 'If they,
That through shade and sunny weather
Have twined about my heart,
Should fade, we must go together,
For we can never part!'
But my care was not availing;
I found their sweetness gone;
I saw their bright tints paling;--
They died; yet I lived on.

"Yet seeking, ever seeking,
Like the children, I have won
A guerdon all undreamt of

When first my quest begun,
And my thoughts come back like wanderers,
Out-wearied, to my breast;
What they sought for long they found not,
Yet was the Unsought best.
For I sought not out for crosses,
I did not seek for pain;
Yet I find the heart's sore losses
Were the spirit's surest gain."

In _A Meditation_, the writer ventures, not without awe and reverence, upon that dim, unsounded ocean of mystery, the life beyond:--

"But is there prayer
Within your quiet homes, and is there care
For those ye leave behind? I would address
My spirit to this theme in humbleness
No tongue nor pen hath uttered or made known
This mystery, and thus I do but guess
At clearer types through lowlier patterns shown;
Yet when did Love on earth forsake its own?
Ye may not quit your sweetness; in the Vine
More firmly rooted than of old, your wine
Hath freer flow! ye have not changed, but grown
To fuller stature; though the shock was keen
That severed you from us, how oft below
Hath sorest parting smitten but to show
True hearts their hidden wealth that quickly grow
The closer for that anguish,--friend to friend
Revealed more clear,--and what is Death to rend
The ties of life and love, when He must fade
In light of very Life, when He must bend
To love, that, loving, loveth to the end?

"I do not deem ye look
Upon us now, for be it that your eyes
Are sealed or clear, a burden on them lies
Too deep and blissful for their gaze to brook
Our troubled strife; enough that once ye dwelt
Where now we dwell, enough that once ye felt
As now we feel, to bid you recognize
Our claim of kindred cherished though unseen;
And Love that is to you for eye and ear
Hath ways unknown to us to bring you near,--
To keep you near for all that comes between;
As pious souls that move in sleep to prayer,
As distant friends, that see not, and yet share
(I speak of what I know) each other's care,
So may your spirits blend with ours!
Above Ye know not haply of our state, yet
Love Acquaints you with our need, and through a way
More sure than that of knowledge--so ye pray!

"And even thus we meet,
And even thus we commune! spirits freed
And spirits fettered mingle, nor have need
To seek a common atmosphere, the air
Is meet for either in this olden, sweet,
Primeval breathing of Man's spirit,--Prayer!"

I give, in conclusion, a portion of one of her most characteristic poems, _The Reconciler_:--

"Our dreams are reconciled,
Since Thou didst come to turn them all to Truth;
The World, the Heart, are dreamers in their youth
Of visions beautiful, and strange and wild;
And Thou, our Life's Interpreter, dost still
At once make clear these visions and fulfil;

Each dim sweet Orphic rhyme,
Each mythic tale sublime
Of strength to save, of sweetness to subdue,
Each morning dream the few,
Wisdom's first lovers told, if read in Thee comes true.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Thou, O Friend
From heaven, that madest this our heart Thine own,
Dost pierce the broken language of its moan--
Thou dost not scorn our needs, but satisfy!
Each yearning deep and wide,
Each claim, is justified;
Our young illusions fail not, though they die
Within the brightness of Thy Rising, kissed
To happy death, like early clouds that lie
About the gates of Dawn,--a golden mist
Paling to blissful white, through rose and amethyst.

"The World that puts Thee by,
That opens not to greet Thee with Thy train,
That sendeth after Thee the sullen cry,
'We will not have Thee over us to reign,'
Itself Both testify through searchings vain
Of Thee and of its need, and for the good
It will not, of some base similitude
Takes up a taunting witness, till its mood,
Grown fierce o'er failing hopes, doth rend and tear
Its own illusions grown too thin and bare
To wrap it longer; for within the gate
Where all must pass, a veiled and hooded Fate,
A dark Chimera, coiled and tangled lies,
And he who answers not its questions dies,--
Still changing form and speech, but with the same
Vexed riddles, Gordian-twisted, bringing shame
Upon the nations that with eager cry
Hail each new solver of the mystery;
Yet he, of these the best,
Bold guesser, hath but prest
Most nigh to Thee, our noisy plaudits wrong;
True Champion, that hast wrought
Our help of old, and brought
Meat from this eater, sweetness from this strong.

"O Bearer of the key
That shuts and opens with a sound so sweet
Its turning in the wards is melody,
All things we move among are incomplete
And vain until we fashion them in Thee!
We labor in the fire,
Thick smoke is round about us; through the din
Of words that darken counsel clamors dire
Ring from thought's beaten anvil, where within
Two Giants toil, that even from their birth
With travail-pangs have torn their mother Earth,
And wearied out her children with their keen
Upbraidings of the other, till between
Thou tamest, saying, 'Wherefore do ye wrong
Each other?--ye are Brethren.' Then these twain
Will own their kindred, and in Thee retain
Their claims in peace, because Thy land is wide
As it is goodly! here they pasture free,
This lion and this leopard, side by side,
A little child doth lead them with a song;
Now, Ephraim's envy ceaseth, and no more
Doth Judah anger Ephraim chiding sore,
For one did ask a Brother, one a King,
So dost Thou gather them in one, and bring--
Thou, King forevermore, forever Priest,
Thou, Brother of our own from bonds released
A Law of Liberty,
A Service making free,
A Commonweal where each has all in Thee.

"And not alone these wide,
Deep-planted yearnings, seeking with a cry
Their meat from God, in Thee are satisfied;
But all our instincts waking suddenly
Within the soul, like infants from their sleep
That stretch their arms into the dark and weep,
Thy voice can still. The stricken heart bereft
Of all its brood of singing hopes, and left
'Mid leafless boughs, a cold, forsaken nest
With snow-flakes in it, folded in Thy breast
Doth lose its deadly chill; and grief that creeps
Unto Thy side for shelter, finding there
The wound's deep cleft, forgets its moan, and weeps
Calm, quiet tears, and on Thy forehead Care
Hath looked until its thorns, no longer bare,
Put forth pale roses. Pain on Thee doth press
Its quivering cheek, and all the weariness,
The want that keep their silence, till from Thee
They hear the gracious summons, none beside
Hath spoken to the world-worn, 'Come to me,'
Tell forth their heavy secrets.

"Thou dost hide
These in Thy bosom, and not these alone,
But all our heart's fond treasure that had grown
A burden else: O Saviour, tears were weighed
To Thee in plenteous measure! none hath shown
That Thou didst smile! yet hast Thou surely made
All joy of ours Thine own.

"Thou madest us for Thine;
We seek amiss, we wander to and fro;
Yet are we ever on the track Divine;
The soul confesseth Thee, but sense is slow
To lean on aught but that which it may see;
So hath it crowded up these Courts below
With dark and broken images of Thee;
Lead Thou us forth upon Thy Mount, and show
Thy goodly patterns, whence these things of old
By Thee were fashioned; One though manifold.
Glass Thou Thy perfect likeness in the soul,
Show us Thy countenance, and we are whole!"

No one, I am quite certain, will regret that I have made these liberal quotations. Apart from their literary merit, they have a special interest for the readers of The Patience of Hope, as more fully illustrating the writer's personal experience and aspirations.

It has been suggested by a friend that it is barely possible that an objection may be urged against the following treatise, as against all books of a like character, that its tendency is to isolate the individual from his race, and to nourish an exclusive and purely selfish personal solicitude; that its piety is self-absorbent, and that it does not take sufficiently into account active duties and charities, and the love of the neighbor so strikingly illustrated by the Divine Master in His life and teachings. This objection, if valid, would be a fatal one. For, of a truth, there can be no meaner type of human selfishness than that afforded by him who, unmindful of the world of sin and suffering about him, occupies himself in the pitiful business of saving his own soul, in the very spirit of the miser, watching over his private hoard while his neighbors starve for lack of bread. But surely the benevolent unrest, the far-reaching sympathies and keen sensitiveness to the suffering of others, which so nobly distinguish our present age, can have nothing to fear from a plea for personal holiness, patience, hope, and resignation to the Divine will. "The more piety, the more compassion," says Isaac Taylor; and this is true, if we understand by piety, not self-concentred asceticism, but the pure religion and undefiled which visits the widow and the fatherless, and yet keeps itself unspotted from the world,--which deals justly, loves mercy, and yet walks humbly before God. Self- scrutiny in the light of truth can do no harm to any one, least of all to the reformer and philanthropist. The spiritual warrior, like the young candidate for knighthood, may be none the worse for his preparatory ordeal of watching all night by his armor.

Tauler in mediaeval times and Woolman in the last century are among the most earnest teachers of the inward life and spiritual nature of Christianity, yet both were distinguished for practical benevolence. They did not separate the two great commandments. Tauler strove with equal intensity of zeal to promote the temporal and the spiritual welfare of men. In the dark and evil time in which he lived, amidst the untold horrors of the "Black Plague," he illustrated by deeds of charity and mercy his doctrine of disinterested benevolence. Woolman's whole life was a nobler Imitation of Christ than that fervid rhapsody of monastic piety which bears the name.

How faithful, yet, withal, how full of kindness, were his rebukes of those who refused labor its just reward, and ground the faces of the poor? How deep and entire was his sympathy with overtasked and ill-paid laborers; with wet and illprovided sailors; with poor wretches blaspheming in the mines, because oppression had made them mad; with the dyers plying their unhealthful trade to minister to luxury and pride; with the tenant wearing out his life in the service of a hard landlord; and with the slave sighing over his unrequited toil! What a significance there was in his vision of the "dull, gloomy mass" which appeared before him, darkening half the heavens, and which he was told was "human beings in as great misery as they could be and live; and he was mixed with them, and henceforth he might not consider himself a distinct and separate being"! His saintliness was wholly unconscious; he seems never to have thought himself any nearer to the tender heart of God than the most miserable sinner to whom his compassion extended. As he did not live, so neither did he die to himself. His prayer upon his death-bed was for others rather than himself; its beautiful humility and simple trust were marred by no sensual imagery of crowns and harps and golden streets, and personal beatific exaltations; but tender and touching concern for suffering humanity, relieved only by the thought of the paternity of God, and of His love and omnipotence, alone found utterance in ever-memorable words.