"To my loving Brother, Colonel Valentine Walton: These.July, 1644."Dear Sir: It's our duty to sympathize in all mercies; and to praise the Lord together in chastisements or trials, so that we may sorrow together."Truly England and the church of God hath had a great favor from the Lord, in this great victory given unto us, such as the like never was since this war began. It had all the evidences of an absolute victory obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the godly party principally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. The left wing, which I commanded, being our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, beat all the prince's horse. God make them as stubble to our swords. We charged their regiments of foot with our horse, and routed all we charged. The particulars I cannot relate now; but I believe, of twenty thousand, the prince hath not four thousand left. Give glory, all the glory, to God."Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon-shot. It brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he died."Sir, you know my own trials this way;[24]but the Lord supported me with this, that the Lord took him into the happiness we all pant for and live for. There is your precious child, full of glory, never to know sin or sorrow any more. He was a gallant young man, exceedingly gracious. God give you his comfort. Before his death he was so full ofcomfort, that to Frank Russel and myself he could not express it, 'it was so great above his pain.' This he said to us. Indeed it was admirable. A little after, he said one thing lay upon his spirit. I asked him what that was. He told me it was, that God had not suffered him to be any more the executioner of his enemies. At his fall, his horse being killed with the bullet, and, as I am informed, three horses more, I am told he bid them open to the right and left, that he might see the rogues run. Truly he was exceedingly beloved in the army, of all that knew him. But few knew him; for he was a precious young man, fit for God. You have cause to bless the Lord. He is a glorious saint in heaven; wherein you ought exceedingly to rejoice. Let this drink up your sorrow: seeing these are not feigned words to comfort you, but the thing is so real and undoubted a truth. You may do all things by the strength of Christ. Seek that, and you shall easily bear your trial. Let this public mercy to the church of God make you to forget your private sorrow. The Lord be your strength; so prays"Your truly faithful and loving brother,"OLIVERCROMWELL."
"To my loving Brother, Colonel Valentine Walton: These.
July, 1644.
"Dear Sir: It's our duty to sympathize in all mercies; and to praise the Lord together in chastisements or trials, so that we may sorrow together.
"Truly England and the church of God hath had a great favor from the Lord, in this great victory given unto us, such as the like never was since this war began. It had all the evidences of an absolute victory obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the godly party principally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. The left wing, which I commanded, being our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, beat all the prince's horse. God make them as stubble to our swords. We charged their regiments of foot with our horse, and routed all we charged. The particulars I cannot relate now; but I believe, of twenty thousand, the prince hath not four thousand left. Give glory, all the glory, to God.
"Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon-shot. It brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he died.
"Sir, you know my own trials this way;[24]but the Lord supported me with this, that the Lord took him into the happiness we all pant for and live for. There is your precious child, full of glory, never to know sin or sorrow any more. He was a gallant young man, exceedingly gracious. God give you his comfort. Before his death he was so full ofcomfort, that to Frank Russel and myself he could not express it, 'it was so great above his pain.' This he said to us. Indeed it was admirable. A little after, he said one thing lay upon his spirit. I asked him what that was. He told me it was, that God had not suffered him to be any more the executioner of his enemies. At his fall, his horse being killed with the bullet, and, as I am informed, three horses more, I am told he bid them open to the right and left, that he might see the rogues run. Truly he was exceedingly beloved in the army, of all that knew him. But few knew him; for he was a precious young man, fit for God. You have cause to bless the Lord. He is a glorious saint in heaven; wherein you ought exceedingly to rejoice. Let this drink up your sorrow: seeing these are not feigned words to comfort you, but the thing is so real and undoubted a truth. You may do all things by the strength of Christ. Seek that, and you shall easily bear your trial. Let this public mercy to the church of God make you to forget your private sorrow. The Lord be your strength; so prays
"Your truly faithful and loving brother,"OLIVERCROMWELL."
And add this noble passage, in which Carlyle speaks of the morbid affection of Cromwell's mind:—
"In those years it must be that Dr. Simcott, physician in Huntingdon, had to do with Oliver's hypochondriac maladies. He told Sir Philip Warwick, unluckily specifying no date, or none that has survived, 'he had often been sent for at midnight;' Mr. Cromwell for many years was very 'splenetic,' (spleen-struck,) often thought he was just about to die, and also 'had fancies about the Town Cross.'[25]Brief intimation, of which the reflective reader may make a great deal. Samuel Johnson too had hypochondrias; all great souls are apt tohave; and to be in thick darkness generally, till the eternal ways and the celestial guiding stars disclose themselves, and the vague abyss of life knit itself up into firmaments for them. The temptations in the wilderness, choices of Hercules, and the like, in succinct or loose form, are appointed for every man that will assert a soul in himself and be a man. Let Oliver take comfort in his dark sorrows and melancholies. The quantity of sorrow he has, does it not mean withal the quantity ofsympathyhe has, the quantity of faculty and victory he shall yet have? 'Our sorrow is the inverted image of our nobleness.' The depth of our despair measures what capability, and height of claim, we have to hope. Black smoke as of Tophet filling all your universe, it can yet by true heart-energy becomeflame, and brilliancy of heaven. Courage!"
Were the flame but a pure as well as a bright flame! Sometimes we know the black phantoms change to white angel forms; the vulture is metamorphosed into a dove. Was it so in this instance? Unlike Mr. Carlyle, we are willing to let each reader judge for himself; but perhaps we should not be so generous if we had studied ourselves sick in wading through all that mass of papers, and had nothing to defend us against the bitterness of biliousness, except a growing enthusiasm about our hero.
ATthe distance of three years this volume follows the first series of Essays, which have already made to themselves a circle of readers, attentive, thoughtful, more and more intelligent; and this circle is a large one if we consider the circumstances of this country, and of England also, at this time.
In England it would seem there are a larger number of persons waiting for an invitation to calm thought and sincere intercourse than among ourselves. Copies of Mr. Emerson's first published little volume called "Nature," have there been sold by thousands in a short time, while one edition has needed seven years to get circulated here. Several of his orations and essays from the "Dial" have also been republished there, and met with a reverent and earnest response.
We suppose that while in England the want of such a voice is as great as here, a larger number are at leisure to recognize that want; a far larger number have set foot in the speculative region, and have ears refined to appreciate these melodious accents.
Our people, heated by a partisan spirit, necessarily occupied in these first stages by bringing out the material resources of the land, not generally prepared by early training for the enjoyment of books that require attention and reflection, are still more injured by a large majority of writers and speakers, who lend all their efforts to flatter corrupt tastes and mental indolence, instead of feeling it their prerogative and their duty to admonish the community of the danger andarouse it to nobler energy. The plan of the popular writer or lecturer is not to say the best he knows in as few and well-chosen words as he can, making it his first aim to do justice to the subject. Rather he seeks to beat out a thought as thin as possible, and to consider what the audience will be most willing to receive.
The result of such a course is inevitable. Literature and art must become daily more degraded; philosophy cannot exist. A man who feels within his mind some spark of genius, or a capacity for the exercises of talent, should consider himself as endowed with a sacred commission. He is the natural priest, the shepherd of the people. He must raise his mind as high as he can towards the heaven of truth, and try to draw up with him those less gifted by nature with ethereal lightness. If he does not so, but rather employs his powers to flatter them in their poverty, and to hinder aspiration by useless words, and a mere seeming of activity, his sin is great; he is false to God, and false to man.
Much of this sin indeed is done ignorantly. The idea that literature calls men to the genuine hierarchy is almost forgotten. One, who finds himself able, uses his pen, as he might a trowel, solely to procure himself bread, without having reflected on the position in which he thereby places himself.
Apart from the troop of mercenaries, there is one, still larger, of those who use their powers merely for local and temporary ends, aiming at no excellence other than may conduce to these. Among these rank persons of honor and the best intentions; but they neglect the lasting for the transient, as a man neglects to furnish his mind that he may provide the better for the house in which his body is to dwell for a few years.
At a period when these sins and errors are prevalent, and threaten to become more so, how can we sufficiently prize and honor a mind which is quite pure from such? When, as in thepresent case, we find a man whose only aim is the discernment and interpretation of the spiritual laws by which we live, and move, and have our being, all whose objects are permanent, and whose every word stands for a fact.
If only as a representative of the claims of individual culture in a nation which is prone to lay such stress on artificial organization and external results, Mr. Emerson would be invaluable here. History will inscribe his name as a father of his country, for he is one who pleads her cause against herself.
If New England may be regarded as a chief mental focus to the New World,—and many symptoms seem to give her this place,—as to other centres belong the characteristics of heart and lungs to the body politic; if we may believe, as we do believe, that what is to be acted out, in the country at large, is, most frequently, first indicated there, as all the phenomena of the nervous system are in the fantasies of the brain, we may hail as an auspicious omen the influence Mr. Emerson has there obtained, which is deep-rooted, increasing, and, over the younger portion of the community, far greater than that of any other person.
His books are received there with a more ready intelligence than elsewhere, partly because his range of personal experience and illustration applies to that region; partly because he has prepared the way for his books to be read by his great powers as a speaker.
The audience that waited for years upon the lectures, a part of which is incorporated into these volumes of Essays, was never large, but it was select, and it was constant. Among the hearers were some, who, though, attracted by the beauty of character and manner, they were willing to hear the speaker through, yet always went away discontented. They were accustomed to an artificial method, whose scaffolding could easily be retraced, and desired an obvious sequence of logical inferences. They insisted there was nothing in what they had heard, because they could not give a clear account of itscourse and purport. They did not see that Pindar's odes might be very well arranged for their own purpose, and yet not bear translating into the methods of Mr. Locke.
Others were content to be benefited by a good influence, without a strict analysis of its means. "My wife says it is about the elevation of human nature, and so it seems to me," was a fit reply to some of the critics. Many were satisfied to find themselves excited to congenial thought and nobler life, without an exact catalogue of the thoughts of the speaker.
Those who believed no truth could exist, unless encased by the burrs of opinion, went away utterly baffled. Sometimes they thought he was on their side; then presently would come something on the other. He really seemed to believe there were two sides to every subject, and even to intimate higher ground, from which each might be seen to have an infinite number of sides or bearings, an impertinence not to be endured! The partisan heard but once, and returned no more.
But some there were,—simple souls,—whose life had been, perhaps, without clear light, yet still a-search after truth for its own sake, who were able to receive what followed on the suggestion of a subject in a natural manner, as a stream of thought. These recognized, beneath the veil of words, the still small voice of conscience, the vestal fires of lone religious hours, and the mild teachings of the summer woods.
The charm of the elocution, too, was great. His general manner was that of the reader, occasionally rising into direct address or invocation in passages where tenderness or majesty demanded more energy. At such times both eye and voice called on a remote future to give a worthy reply,—a future which shall manifest more largely the universal soul as it was then manifest to this soul. The tone of the voice was a grave body tone, full and sweet rather than sonorous, yet flexible, and haunted by many modulations, as even instruments of wood and brass seem to become after they have been long played on with skill and taste; how much more so the humanvoice! In the more expressive passages it uttered notes of silvery clearness, winning, yet still more commanding. The words uttered in those tones floated a while above us, then took root in the memory like winged seed.
In the union of an even rustic plainness with lyric inspirations, religious dignity with philosophic calmness, keen sagacity in details with boldness of view, we saw what brought to mind the early poets and legislators of Greece—men who taught their fellows to plough and avoid moral evil, sing hymns to the gods, and watch the metamorphoses of nature. Here in civic Boston was such a man—one who could see man in his original grandeur and his original childishness, rooted in simple nature, raising to the heavens the brow and eyes of a poet.
And these lectures seemed not so much lectures as grave didactic poems, theogonies, perhaps, adorned by odes when some power was in question whom the poet had best learned to serve, and with eclogues wisely portraying in familiar tongue the duties of man to man and "harmless animals."
Such was the attitude in which the speaker appeared to that portion of the audience who have remained permanently attached to him. They value his words as the signets of reality; receive his influence as a help and incentive to a nobler discipline than the age, in its general aspect, appears to require; and do not fear to anticipate the verdict of posterity in claiming for him the honors of greatness, and, in some respects, of a master.
In New England Mr. Emerson thus formed for himself a class of readers who rejoice to study in his books what they already know by heart. For, though the thought has become familiar, its beautiful garb is always fresh and bright in hue.
A similar circle of "like-minded" persons the books must and do form for themselves, though with a movement less directly powerful, as more distant from its source.
The Essays have also been obnoxious to many charges;to that of obscurity, or want of perfect articulation; of "euphuism," as an excess of fancy in proportion to imagination; and an inclination, at times, to subtlety at the expense of strength, have been styled. The human heart complains of inadequacy, either in the nature or experience of the writer, to represent its full vocation and its deeper needs. Sometimes it speaks of this want as "under development," or a want of expansion which may yet be remedied; sometimes doubts whether "in this mansion there be either hall or portal to receive the loftier of the passions." Sometimes the soul is deified at the expense of nature, then again nature at that of man; and we are not quite sure that we can make a true harmony by balance of the statements. This writer has never written one good work, if such a work be one where the whole commands more attention than the parts, or if such a one be produced only where, after an accumulation of materials, fire enough be applied to fuse the whole into one new substance. This second series is superior in this respect to the former; yet in no one essay is the main stress so obvious as to produce on the mind the harmonious effect of a noble river or a tree in full leaf. Single passages and sentences engage our attention too much in proportion. These Essays, it has been justly said, tire like a string of mosaics or a house built of medals. We miss what we expect in the work of the great poet, or the great philosopher—the liberal air of all the zones; the glow, uniform yet various in tint, which is given to a body by free circulation of the heart's blood from the hour of birth. Here is, undoubtedly, the man of ideas; but we want the ideal man also—want the heart and genius of human life to interpret it; and here our satisfaction is not so perfect. We doubt this friend raised himself too early to the perpendicular, and did not lie along the ground long enough to hear the secret whispers of our parent life. We could wish he might be thrown by conflicts on the lap of mother earth, to see if he would not rise again with added powers.
All this we may say, but it cannot excuse us from benefiting by the great gifts that have been given, and assigning them their due place.
Some painters paint on a red ground. And this color may be supposed to represent the groundwork most immediately congenial to most men, as it is the color of blood, and represents human vitality. The figures traced upon it are instinct with life in its fulness and depth.
But other painters paint on a gold ground. And a very different, but no less natural, because also a celestial beauty, is given to their works who choose for their foundation the color of the sunbeam, which Nature has preferred for her most precious product, and that which will best bear the test of purification—gold.
If another simile may be allowed, another no less apt is at hand. Wine is the most brilliant and intense expression of the powers of earth. It is her potable fire, her answer to the sun. It exhilarates, it inspires, but then it is liable to fever and intoxicate, too, the careless partaker.
Mead was the chosen drink of the northern gods. And this essence of the honey of the mountain bee was not thought unworthy to revive the souls of the valiant who had left their bodies on the fields of strife below.
Nectar should combine the virtues of the ruby wine, the golden mead, without their defects or dangers.
Two high claims on the attention of his contemporaries our writer can vindicate. One from his sincerity. You have his thought just as it found place in the life of his own soul. Thus, however near or relatively distant its approximation to absolute truth, its action on you cannot fail to be healthful. It is a part of the free air.
Emerson belongs to that band of whom there may be found a few in every age, and who now in known human history may be counted by hundreds, who worship the one God only, theGod of Truth. They worship, not saints, nor creeds, nor churches, nor reliques, nor idols in any form. The mind is kept open to truth, and life only valued as a tendency towards it. This must be illustrated by acts and words of love, purity and intelligence. Such are the salt of the earth; let the minutest crystal of that salt be willingly by us held in solution.
The other claim is derived from that part of his life, which, if sometimes obstructed or chilled by the critical intellect, is yet the prevalent and the main source of his power. It is that by which he imprisons his hearer only to free him again as a "liberating God," (to use his own words.) But, indeed, let us use them altogether, for none other, ancient or modern, can more worthily express how, making present to us the courses and destinies of nature, he invests himself with her serenity and animates us with her joy.
"Poetry was all written before time was; and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word or a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem. The men of more delicate ear write down these cadences more faithfully, and these transcripts, though imperfect, become the songs of the nations."
Thus have we, in a brief and unworthy manner, indicated some views of these books. The only true criticism of these or any good books may be gained by making them the companions of our lives. Does every accession of knowledge or a juster sense of beauty make us prize them more? Then they are good, indeed, and more immortal than mortal. Let that test be applied to these Essays which will lead to great and complete poems—somewhere.
WEhave had this book before us for several weeks, but the task of reading it has been so repulsive that we have been obliged to get through it by short stages, with long intervals of rest and refreshment between, and have only just reached the end. We believe, however, we are now possessed of its substance, so far as it is possible to admit into any mind matter wholly uncongenial with its structure, its faith, and its hope.
Meanwhile others have shown themselves more energetic in the task, and notices have appeared that express, in part, our own views. Among others an able critic has thus summed up his impressions:—
"Of the whole we will say briefly, that its premises are monstrous, its reasoning sophistical, its conclusions absurd, and its spirit diabolic."
We know not that we can find a better scheme of arrangement for what we have to say than by dividing it into sections under these four heads:—
1st. The premises are monstrous. Here we must add the qualification, they are monstrousto us. The God of these writers is not the God we recognize; the views they have of human nature are antipodal to ours. We believe in a Creative Spirit, the essense of whose being is Love. He has created men in the spirit of love, intending to develop them toperfect harmony with himself. He has permitted the temporary existence of evil as a condition necessary to bring out in them free agency and individuality of character. Punishment is the necessary result of a bad choice in them; it is not meant by him as vengeance, but as an admonition to choose better. Man is not born totally evil; he is born capable both of good and evil, and the Holy Spirit in working on him only quickens the soul already there to know its Father. To one who takes such views the address of Jesus becomes intelligible—"Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." "For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again."
Those who take these views of the relation between God and man must naturally tend to have punishment consist as much as possible in the inward spiritual results of faults, rather than a violent outward enforcement of penalty. They must, so far as possible, seek to revere God by showing themselves brotherly to man; and if they wish to obey Christ, will not forget that he came especially to callsinnersto repentance.
The views of these writers are the opposite of all this. We need not state them; they are sufficiently indicated in each page of their own. Their conclusions are the natural result of such premises. We could say nothing about either, except to express dissent from beginning to end. Yet would it be sweet and noble, and worthy of this late period of human progress, if their position had been stated in a spirit of religious, of manly courtesy; if they had had the soul to say, "We differ from you, but we know that so wide and full a stream of thought and emotion as you are moved by could not, under the providential rule in which we believe, have arisen in vain. The object of every such manifestation of life must be to bring out truth; come, let us seek it together. Let us show you our view, compare it with yours, and let us see which is the better. If, as we think, the truth lie with us,what joy will it be for us to cast the clear light on the object of your aspirations!"
Of this degree of liberality we have known some, even, who served the same creed as these writers to be capable. There is, indeed, a higher spirit, which, believing all forms of opinion which we hold in the present stage of our growth can be but approximations to truth, and that God has permitted to the multitude of men a multitude of ways by which they may approach one common goal, looks with reverence on all modes of faith sincerely held and acted upon, and while it rejoices in those souls which have reached the higher stages of spiritual growth, has no despair as to those which still grope in a narrow path and by a glimmering light. Such liberality is, of course, out of the question with such writers as the present. Their faith binds them to believe that they have absolute truth, and that all who do not believe as they do are wretched heretics. Those whose creed is of narrower scope are to them hateful bigots; but also those with whom it is of wider are latitudinarians or infidels. The spot of earth on which they stand is the only one safe from the conflagration, and only through spectacles and spyglasses such as are used by them can the sun and stars be seen. Yet, as we said before, some such, though incapacitated for an intellectual, are not so for a spiritual tolerance. With them the heart, more Christ-like than the creed, urges to a spirit of love and reverence even towards convictions opposed to their own. The sincere man is always respectable in their eyes, and they cannot help feeling that, wherever there is a desire for truth, there is the spirit of God, and his true priests will approach with gentleness, and do their ministry with holy care. Unhappily, it is very different with the persons before us.
We let go the first two counts of the indictment. Their premises are, as we have said, such as we totally dissent from, and their conclusions such as naturally flow from those premises. Yet they are those of a large body of men, and theremust, no doubt, be temporary good in this state of things, or it would not be permitted. When these writers say, that to them moral and penal are coincident terms, they display a state of mind which prefers basing virtue on the fear of punishment, rather than the love of right. If this be sincerely their state, if the idea of morality is with them entirely dependent on the retributions upon vice, rather than the loveliness and joys of goodness, it is impossible for those who are in a different state of mind to say what theydoneed. It may seem to us, indeed, that, if the strait jacket was taken off, they might recover the natural energy of their frames, and do far better without it; or that, if no longer hurried along the road by the impending lash behind, they might uplift their eyes, and find sufficient cause for speed in the glory visible before, though at a distance; however, it is not for us to say what their wants are. Let them choose their own principles of action, and if they lead to purity of life, and benevolence, and humanity of heart, we will not say a word against them.
But in the instance before us, they do not produce these good fruits, but the contrary; and therefore we have something to say on the other part of the criticism, to wit: that "the reasoning is sophistical, and the spirit diabolic;" for, indeed, in the sense of pride by which the angels fell, arrogance of judgment, malice, and all uncharitableness, we have never looked on printed pages more deeply sinful. We love an honest lover; but next best, we, with Dr. Johnson, know how to respect an honest hater. But even he would scarce endure so bitter and ardent haters as these, and with so many and inconsistent objects of hatred—who hate Catholics and thorough Protestants, hate materialists, and hate spiritualists. Their list is really too large forhumansympathy.
We wish, however, to make all due allowance for incapacity in these writers to do better; and their disqualifications for their task, apart from a form of belief which inclines themrather to cling to the past, than to seek progress for the future, seem to be many.
The "reasoning is sophistical," and it would need the patience of a Socrates to unravel the weary web, and convince these sophists, against their will, that they are exactly in the opposite region to what they suppose. For the task we have not space, skill, or patience; but we can give some hints by which readers may be led to examine whether it is so or not.
These writers profess to occupy the position of defence; surely never was one sustained so in the spirit of offence.
1st. They appeal either to the natural or regenerate man, as suits their purpose. Sometimes all traditions and their literal interpretations are right; sometimes it is impossible to interpret them aright, unless according to some peculiar doctrine, and the natural inference of the common mind would be an error.
2d. They strain, but vainly, to show the New Testament no improvement on the Old, and themselves in harmonious relations to both. On this subject we would confidently leave the arbitration to a mind—could such a one be found—sufficiently disciplined to examine the subject, and new both to the New Testament and this volume, as that of Rammohun Roy might have been, whether its views are not of the same strain that Jesus sought to correct and enlighten among the Jews, and whether the writers do not treat the teachings of the new dispensation most unfairly, in their desire to wrest them into the service of the old.
3d. Wherever there is a weak place in the argument, it is filled up by abuse of the opposite party. The words "absurd," "infidel," "blasphemous," "shallow philosophy," "sickly sentimentalism," and the like, are among the favorite missiles of thesedefendersof the truth. They are of a sort whose frequent use is generally supposed to argue the want of a shield of reason and a heart of faith.
And this brings us to a more close consideration of the spirit of this book, characterized by our contemporary as "diabolic." And we, also, cannot excuse ourselves from marking it as, in this respect, one of the worst books we have ever seen.
It is not merely bitter intolerance, arrogance, and want of spiritual perception, which we have to condemn in these writers. It is a want of fairness and honor, of which we think they must be conscious. We fear they are of those who hold the opinion that the end sanctifies the means, and who, by pretending to serve the God of truth by other means than strict truth, have drawn upon the "ministers of religion" the frequent obloquy of "priestcraft." How else are we to construe the artful use of the words "dishonest" and "infidel," wherever they are likely to awaken the fears and prejudices of the ignorant?
Of as bad a stamp as any is the part of this book headed "Spurious Public Opinion." Here, as in the insinuations against Charles Burleigh, we are unable to believe the writers to be sincere. Where we think they are, however poor and narrow we may esteem their statement, we can respect it, but here we cannot.
Who can believe that such passages as the following stand for any thing real in the mind of the writer?
"Indeed, there is nothing that can possibly check the spirit of murder, but the fear of death. That was all that Cain feared; he did not say, People will put me in prison, but, They will put me to death;and how many other murders he may have committed, when released from that fear, the sacred writer does not tell us!"
Why does not the writer of this passage draw the inference, and accuse God of mistake, as he says his opponents accuse Him, whenever they attempt to get beyond the Jewish ideas of vengeance. He plainly thinks death was the only safe penalty in this case of Cain.
"The reasoning from these drivellings of depravity in malefactors is to the last degree wretched and absurd. Hard pushed indeed must he be in argument who can consent to dive down into the polluted heart of a Newgate criminal, in order to fish up, from the confessions of his monstrous, unnatural obduracy, an argument in that very obduracy against the fit punishment of his own crimes."
We can only wish for such a man, that the vicissitudes of life may break through the crust of theological arrogance and Phariseeism, and force him to "dive down" into the depths of his own nature. We should see afterwards whether he would be so forward to throw stones at malefactors, so eager to hurry souls to what he regards as a final account.
But we have said enough as to the spirit and tendency of this book. We shall only add a few words as to the unworthy use of the word "infidel," in the attempt to fix a stigma upon opponents. We feel still more contempt than indignation at the desire to work in this way on the unthinking and ignorant.
We ourselves are of the number stigmatized by these persons as sharing an infidel tendency, as are all not enlisted under their own sectarian banner. They, on their side, seem to us unbelievers in all that is most pure and holy, and in the saving grace of love. They do not believe in God, as we believe; they seem to us utterly deficient in the spirit of Christ, and to be of the number of those who are always calling, "Lord, Lord," yet never have known him. We find throughout these pages the temper of "Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men are"—hatred of those whom they deem Gentiles, and a merciless spirit towards the sinner; yet we do not take upon ourselves to give them the name of infidels, and we solemnly call them to trial before the bar of the Only Wise and Pure, the Searcher of hearts, to render an account of this daring assumption. We ask them in that presence, if they are not of the class threatened with "retribution"for saying to their brother, "Thou fool;" and that not merely in the heat of anger, but coolly, pertinaciously, and in a thousand ways.
We call to sit in council the spirits of our Puritan fathers, and ask if such was the right of individual judgment, of private conscience, they came here to vindicate. And we solicit the verdict of posterity as to whether the spirit of mercy or of vengeance be the more divine, and whether the denunciatory and personal mode chosen by these writers for carrying on this inquiry be the true one.
We wish most sincerely this book had been a wise and noble one. To ascertain just principles, it is necessary that the discussion should be full and fair, and both sides ably argued. After this has been done, the sense of the world can decide. It would be a happiness for which it might seem that man at this time of day is ripe, that the opposing parties should meet in open lists as brothers, believing each that the other desired only that the truth should triumph, and able to clasp hands as men of different structure and ways of thinking, but fellow-students of the divine will. O, had we but found such an adversary, above the use of artful abuse, or the feints of sophistry, able to believe in the noble intention, of a foe as of a friend, how cheerily would the trumpets ring out while the assembled world echoed the signal words, "God speed the Right!" The tide of progress rolls onward, swelling more and more with the lives of those who would fain see all men called to repentance. It must be a strong arm, indeed, that can build a dam to stay it even for a moment. None such do we see yet; but we should rejoice in a noble and strong opponent, putting forth all his power for conscience's sake. God speed the Right!
FIRST OF JANUARY
THEnew year dawns, and its appearance is hailed by a flutter of festivity. Men and women run from house to house, scattering gifts, smiles, and congratulations. It is a custom that seems borrowed from a better day, unless indeed it be a prophecy that such must come.
For why so much congratulation? A year has passed; we are nearer by a twelvemonth to the term of this earthly probation. It is a solemn thought; and though the consciousness of having hallowed the days by our best endeavor, and of having much occasion to look to the Ruling Power of all with grateful benediction, must, in cases where such feelings are unalloyed, bring joy, one would think it must even then be a grave joy, and one that would disincline to this loud gayety in welcoming a new year; another year—in which we may, indeed, strive forward in a good spirit, and find our strivings blest, but must surely expect trials, temptations, and disappointments from without; frailty, short-coming, or convulsion in ourselves.
If it be appropriate to a reflective habit of mind to ask witheach night-fall the Pythagorean questions, how much more so at the close of the year!
The intellectual man will also ask, What new truths have been opened to me, or what facts presented that will lead to the discovery of truths? The poet and the lover,—What new forms of beauty have been presented for my delight, and as memorable illustrations of the divine presence—unceasing, but oftentimes unfelt by our sluggish natures.
Are there many men who fail sometimes to ask themselves questions to this depth? who do not care to know whether they have done right, or forborne to do wrong; whether their spirits have been enlightened by truth, or kindled by beauty?
Yes, strange to say, there are many who, despite the natural aspirations of the soul and the revelations showered upon the world, think only whether they have made money; whether the world thinks more highly of them than it did in bygone years; whether wife and children have been in good bodily health, and what those who call to pay their respects and drink the new year's coffee, will think of their carpets, new also.
How often is it that the rich man thinks even of that proposed by Dickens as the noblest employment of the season, making the poor happy in the way he likes best for himself, by distribution of turkey and plum-pudding! Some, indeed, adorn the day with this much grace, though we doubt whether it be oftenest those who could each, with ease, make that one day a glimpse of comfort to a thousand who pass the other winter days in shivering poverty. But some such there arewho go about to the dark and frosty dwellings, giving the "mite" where and when it is most needed. We knew a lady, all whose riches consisted in her good head and two hands. Widow of an eminent lawyer, but keeping boarders for a livelihood; engaged in that hardest of occupations, with her house full and her hands full, she yet found time to make and bake for new year's day a hundred pies—and not the pie from which, being cut, issued the famous four-and-twenty blackbirds, gave more cause for merriment, or was a fitter "dish to set before the king."
God bless his majesty, thegoodking, who on such a day cares for the least as much as the greatest; and like Henry IV., proposes it as a worthy aim of his endeavor that "every poor man shall have his chicken in the pot." This does not seem, on superficial survey, such a wonderful boon to crave for creatures made in God's own likeness, yet is it one that no king could ever yet bestow on his subjects, if we except the king of Cockaigne. Our maker of the hundred pies is the best prophet we have seen, as yet, of such a blissful state.
But mostly to him who hath is given in material as well as in spiritual things, and we fear the pleasures of this day are arranged almost wholly in reference to the beautiful, the healthy, the wealthy, the witty, and that but few banquets are prepared for the halt, the blind, and the sorrowful. But where they are, of a surety water turns to wine by inevitable Christ-power; no aid of miracle need be invoked. As for thoughts which should make an epoch of the period, we suppose the number of these to be in about the same proportion to the number of minds capable of thought, that the pearls now existent bear to the oysters still subsistent.
Can we make pearls from our oyster-bed? At least, let us open some of the shells and try.
Dear public and friends! we wish you a happy new year. We trust that the year past has given earnest of such a onein so far as having taught you somewhat how to deserve and to appreciate it.
For ourselves, the months have brought much, though, perhaps, superficial instruction. Its scope has been chiefly love and hope for all human beings, and among others for thyself.
We have seen many fair poesies of human life, in which, however, the tragic thread has not been wanting. We have beheld the exquisite developments of childhood, and sunned the heart in its smiles. But also have we discerned the evil star looming up that threatened cloud and wreck to its future years. We have seen beings of some precious gifts lost irrecoverably, as regards this present life, from inheritance of a bad organization and unfortunate circumstances of early years. The victims of vice we have observed lying in the gutter, companied by vermin, trampled upon by sensuality and ignorance, and saw those who wished not to rise, and those who strove so to do, but fell back through weakness. Sadder and more ominous still, we have seen the good man—in many impulses and acts of most pure, most liberal, and undoubted goodness—yet have we noted a spot of base indulgence, a fibre of brutality canker in a vital part this fine plant, and, while we could not withdraw love and esteem for the good we could not doubt, have wept secretly in the heart for the ill we could not deny. We have observed two deaths; one of the sinner, early cut down; one of the just, full of years and honor—bothwere calm; both professed their reliance on the wisdom of a heavenly Father. We have looked upon the beauteous shows of nature in undisturbed succession, holy moonlight on the snows, loving moonlight on the summer fields, the stars which disappoint never and bless ever, the flowing waters which soothe and stimulate, a garden of roses calling for queens among women, poets and heroes among men. We have marked a desire to answer to this call, and genius brought rich wine, but spilt it on the way, from hercareless, fickle gait; and virtue tainted with a touch of the peacock; and philosophy, never enjoying, always seeking, had got together all the materials for the crowning experiment, but there was no love to kindle the fire under the furnace, and the precious secret is not precipitated yet, for the pot will not boil to make the gold through your
if love do not fan the fire.
We have seen the decay of friendships unable to endure the light of an ideal hope—have seen, too, their resurrection in a faith and hope beyond the tomb, where the form lies we once so fondly cherished. It is not dead, but sleepeth; and we watch, but must weep, too, sometimes, for the night is cold and lonely in the place of tombs.
Nature has appeared dressed in her veil of snowy flowers for the bridal. We have seen her brooding over her joys, a young mother in the pride and fulness of beauty, and then bearing her offspring to their richly ornamented sepulchre, and lately observed her as if kneeling with folded hands in the stillness of prayer, while the bare trees and frozen streams bore witness to her patience.
O, much, much have we seen, and a little learned. Such is the record of the private mind; and yet, as the bright snake-skin is cast, many sigh and cry,—
But for ourselves, we find there is kernel in the nut, though its ripening be deferred till the late frosty weather, and it prove a hard nut to crack even then. Looking at the individual, we see a degree of growth, or the promise of such. In the child there is a force which will outlast the wreck, andreach at last the promised shore. The good man, once roused from his moral lethargy, shall make atonement for his fault, and endure a penance that will deepen and purify his whole nature. The poor lost ones claim a new trial in a new life, and will there, we trust, seize firmer hold on the good for the experience they have had of the bad.
The seeming losses are, in truth, but as pruning of the vine to make the grapes swell more richly.
But how is it with those larger individuals, the nations, and that congress of such, the world? We must take a broad and superficial view of these, as we have of private life; and in neither case can more be done. The secrets of the confessional, or rather of the shrine, do not come on paper, unless in poetic form.
So we will not try to search and mine, but only to look over the world from an ideal point of view.
Here we find the same phenomena repeated; the good nation is yet somehow so sick at heart that you are not sure its goodness will ever produce a harmony of life; over the young nation, (our own,) rich in energy and full of glee, brood terrible omens; others, as Poland and Italy, seem irrecoverably lost. They may revive, but we feel as if it must be under new forms.
Forms come and go, but principles are developed and displayed more and more. The caldron simmers, and so great is the fire that we expect it soon to boil over, and new fates appear for Europe.
Spain is dying by inches; England shows symptoms of having passed her meridian; Austria has taken opium, but she must awake ere long; France is in an uneasy dream—she knows she has been very sick, has had terrible remedies administered, and ought to be getting thoroughly well, whichshe is not. Louis Philippe watches by her pillow, doses and bleeds her, so that she cannot fairly try her strength, and find whether something or nothing has been done. But Louis Philippe and Metternich must soon, in the course of nature, leave this scene; and then there will be none to keep out air and light from the chamber, and the patients will be roused and ascertain their true condition.
No power is in the ascending course except the Russian; and that has such a condensation of brute force, animated by despotic will, that it seems sometimes as if it might by and by stride over Europe and face us across the water. Then would be opposed to one another the two extremes of Autocracy and Democracy, and a trial of strength would ensue between the two principles more grand and full than any ever seen on this planet, and of which the result must be to bind mankind by one chain of convictions. Should, indeed, Despotism and Democracy meet as the two slaveholding powers of the world, the result can hardly be predicted. But there is room in the intervening age for many changes, and the czars profess to wish to free their serfs, as our planters do to free their slaves, and we suppose with equal sincerity; but the need of sometimes professing such desires is a deference to the progress of principles which bid fair to have their era yet.
We hope such an era steadfastly, notwithstanding the deeds of darkness that have made this year forever memorable in our annals. Our nation has indeed shown that the lust of gain is at present her ruling passion. She is not only resolute, but shameless, about it, and has no doubt or scruple as to laying aside the glorious office, assigned her by fate, of herald of freedom, light, and peace to the civilized world.
Yet we must not despair. Even so the Jewish king, crowned with all gifts that Heaven could bestow, was intoxicated by their plenitude, and went astray after the most worthless idols. But he was not permitted to forfeit finally the position designed for him: he was drawn or dragged backto it; and so shall it be with this nation. There are trials in store which shall amend us.
We must believe that the pure blood shown in the time of our revolution still glows in the heart; but the body of our nation is full of foreign elements. A large proportion of our citizens, or their parents, came here for worldly advantage, and have never raised their minds to any idea of destiny or duty. More money—more land! are all the watchwords they know. They have received the inheritance earned by the fathers of the revolution, without their wisdom and virtue to use it. But this cannot last. The vision of those prophetic souls must be realized, else the nation could not exist; every body must at least "have soul enough to save the expense of salt," or it cannot be preserved alive.
What a year it has been with us! Texas annexed, and more annexations in store; slavery perpetuated, as the most striking new feature of these movements. Such are the fruits of American love of liberty! Mormons murdered and driven out, as an expression of American freedom of conscience; Cassius Clay's paper expelled from Kentucky; that is American freedom of the press. And all these deeds defended on the true Russian grounds, "We (the stronger) know what you (the weaker) ought to do and be, and itshallbe so."
Thus the principles which it was supposed, some ten years back, had begun to regenerate the world, are left without a trophy for this past year, except in the spread of Rongé's movement in Germany, and that of associative and communist principles both here and in Europe, which, let the worldling deem as he will about their practicability, he cannot deny to be animated by faith in God and a desire for the good of man. We must add to these the important symptoms of the spread of peace principles.
Meanwhile, if the more valuable springs of action seem to lie dormant for a time, there is a constant invention and perfection of the means of action and communication which seemsto say, "Do but wait patiently; there is something of universal importance to be done by and by, and all is preparing for it to be universally known and used at once." Else what avail magnetic telegraphs, steamers, and rail-cars traversing every rood of land and ocean, phonography and the mingling of all literatures, till North embraces South and Denmark lays her head upon the lap of Italy? Surely there would not be all this pomp of preparation as to the means of communion, unless there were like to be something worthy to be communicated.
Amid the signs of the breaking down of barriers, we may mention the Emperor Nicholas letting his daughter pass from the Greek to the Roman church, for the sake of marrying her to the Austrian prince. Again, similarity between him and us: he, too, is shameless; for while he signs this marriage contract with one hand, he holds the knout in the other to drive the Roman Catholic Poles into the Greek church. But it is a fatal sign for his empire. 'Tis but the first step that costs, and the Russians may look back to the marriage of the Grand Duchess Olga, as the Chinese will to the cannonading of the English, as the first sign of dissolution in the present form of national life.
A similar token is given by the violation of etiquette of which Mr. Polk is accused in his message. He, at the head of a government, speaks of governments and their doings straightforward, as he would of persons, and the tower, stronghold of the idea of a former age, now propped up by etiquettes and civilities only, trembles to its foundation.
Another sign of the times is the general panic which the decay of the potato causes. We believe this is not without a providential meaning, and will call attention still more to the wants of the people at large. New and more provident regulations must be brought out, that they may not again be left with only a potato between them and starvation. By another of these whimsical coincidences between the histories of Aristocracyand Democracy, the supply oftrufflesis also failing. The land is losing the "nice things" that the queen (truly a young queen) thought might be eaten in place of bread. Does not this indicate a period in which it will be felt that there must be provision for all—the rich shall not have their truffles if the poor are driven to eat nettles, as the French and Irish have in bygone ages?
The poem of which we here give a prose translation lately appeared in Germany. It is written by Moritz Hartmann, and contains thegistof the matter.
MISTRESSPOTATO.
There was a great stately house full of people, who have been running in and out of its lofty gates ever since the gray times of Olympus. There they wept, laughed, shouted, mourned, and, like day and night, came the usual changes of joys with plagues and sorrows. Haunting that great house up and down, making, baking, and roasting, covering and waiting on the table, has there lived a vast number of years a loyal serving maid of the olden time—her name was Mrs. Potato. She was a still, little, old mother, who wore no bawbles or laces, but always had to be satisfied with her plain, every-day clothes; and unheeded, unhonored, oftentimes jeered at and forgotten, she served all day at the kitchen fire, and slept at night in the worst room. When she brought the dishes to table she got rarely a thankful glance; only at times some very poor man would in secret shake kindly her hand.
Generation after generation passed by, as the trees blossom, bear fruit, and wither; but faithful remained the old housemaid, always the servant of the last heir.
But one morning—hear what happened. All the people came to table, and lo! there was nothing to eat, for our good old Mistress Potato had not been able to rise from her bed. She felt sharp pains creeping through her poor old bones. No wonder she was worn out at last! She had not in all her life dared take a day's rest, lest so the poor should starve.Indeed, it is wonderful that her good will should have kept her up so long. She must have had a great constitution to begin with.
The guests had to go away without breakfast. They were a little troubled, but hoped to make up for it at dinner time. But dinner time came, and the table was empty; and then, indeed, they began to inquire about the welfare of Cookmaid Potato. And up into her dark chamber, where she lay on her poor bed, came great and little, young and old, to ask after the good creature. "What can be done for her?" "Bring warm clothes, medicine, a better bed." "Lay aside your work to help her." "If she dies we shall never again be able to fill the table;" and now, indeed, they sang her praises.
O, what a fuss about the sick bed in that moist and mouldy chamber! and out doors it was just the same—priests with their masses, processions, and prayers, and all the world ready to walk to penance, if Mistress Potato could but be saved. And the doctors in their wigs, and counsellors in masks of gravity, sat there to devise some remedy to avert this terrible ill.
As when a most illustrious dame is recovering from birth of a son, so now bulletins inform the world of the health of Mistress Potato, and, not content with what they thus learn, couriers and lackeys besiege the door; nay, the king's coach is stopping there. Yes! yes! the humble poor maid, 'tis about her they are all so frightened! Who would ever have believed it in days when the table was nicely covered?
The gentlemen of pens and books, priests, kings, lords, and ministers, all have senses to scent our famine. Natheless Mistress Potato gets no better. May God help her for the sake, not of such people, but of the poor. For the great it is a token they should note, that all must crumble and fall to ruin, if they will work and weary to death the poor maid who cooks in the kitchen.
She lived for you in the dirt and ashes, provided daily for poor and rich; you ought to humble yourselves for her sake. Ah, could we hope that you would take a hint, andnext timepay some heed to the housemaid before she is worn and wearied to death!
So sighs, rather than hopes, Moritz Hartmann. The wise ministers of England, indeed, seem much more composed than he supposes them. They are like the old man who, when he saw the avalanche coming down upon his village, said, "It is coming, but I shall have time to fill my pipe once more."Hewent in to do so, and was buried beneath the ruins. But Sir Robert Peel, who is so deliberate, has, doubtless, manna in store for those who have lost their customary food.
Another sign of the times is, that there are left on the earth none of the last dynasty of geniuses, rich in so many imperial heads. The world is full of talent, but it flows downward to water the plain. There are no towering heights, no Mont Blancs now. We cannot recall one great genius at this day living. The time of prophets is over, and the era they prophesied must be at hand; in its couduct a larger proportion of the human race shall take part than ever before. As prime ministers have succeeded kings in the substantiate of monarchy, so now shall a house of representatives succeed prime ministers.
Altogether, it looks as if a great time was coming, and that time one of democracy. Our country will play a ruling part. Her eagle will lead the van; but whether to soar upward to the sun or to stoop for helpless prey, who now dares promise? At present she has scarce achieved a Roman nobleness, a Roman liberty; and whether her eagle is less like the vulture, and more like the Phœix, than was the fierce Roman bird, we dare not say. May the new year give hopes of the latter, even if the bird need first to be purified by fire.
Jan. 1, 1846.
ITwas a beautiful custom among some of the Indian tribes, once a year, to extinguish all the fires, and, by a day of fasting and profound devotion, to propitiate the Great Spirit for the coming year. They then produced sparks by friction, and lighted up afresh the altar and the hearth with the new fire.
And this fire was considered as the most precious and sacred gift from one person to another, binding them in bonds of inviolate friendship for that year, certainly; with a hope that the same might endure through life. From the young to the old, it was a token of the highest respect; from the old to the young, of a great expectation.
To us would that it might be granted to solemnize the new year by the mental renovation of which this ceremony was the eloquent symbol. Would that we might extinguish, if only for a day, those fires where an uninformed religious ardor has led to human sacrifices; which have warmed the household, but, also, prepared pernicious, more than wholesome, viands for their use.
The Indian produced the new spark by friction. It would be a still more beautiful emblem, and expressive of the more extended powers of civilized men, if we should draw the spark from the centre of our system and the source of light, by means of the burning glass.
Where, then, is to be found the new knowledge, the new thought, the new hope, that shall begin a new year in a spirit not discordant with "the acceptable year of the Lord"? Surely there must be such existing, if latent—some sparks of new fire, pure from ashes and from smoke, worthy to beoffered as a new year's gift. Let us look at the signs of the times, to see in what spot this fire shall be sought—on what fuel it may be fed. The ancients poured out libations of the choicest juices of earth, to express their gratitude to the Power that had enabled them to be sustained from her bosom. They enfranchised slaves, to show that devotion to the gods induced a sympathy with men.
Let us look about us to see with what rites, what acts of devotion, this modern Christian nation greets the approach of the new year; by what signs she denotes the clear morning of a better day, such as may be expected when the eagle has entered into covenant with the dove.
This last week brings tidings that a portion of the inhabitants of Illinois, the rich and blooming region on which every gift of nature has been lavished, to encourage the industry and brighten the hopes of man, not only refuses a libation to the Power that has so blessed their fields, but declares that the dew is theirs, and the sunlight is theirs—that they live from and for themselves, acknowledging no obligation and no duty to God or to man.[28]
One man has freed a slave; but a great part of the nation is now busy in contriving measures that may best rivet the fetters on those now chained, and forge them strongest for millions yet unborn.
Selfishness and tyranny no longer wear the mask; they walk haughtily abroad, affronting with their hard-hearted boasts and brazen resolves the patience of the sweet heavens. National honor is trodden under foot for a national bribe, and neither sex nor age defends the redresser of injuries from the rage of the injurer.
Yet, amid these reports which come flying on the paperwings of every day, the scornful laugh of the gnomes, whobegin to believe they can buy all souls with their gold, was checked a moment when the aged knight[29]of the better cause answered the challenge—truly in keeping with the "chivalry" of the time—"You are in the wrong, and I will kick you," by holding the hands of the chevalier till those around secured him. We think the man of old must have held him with his eye, as physicians of moral power can insane patients. Great as are his exploits for his age, he cannot have much bodily strength, unless by miracle.
The treatment of Mr. Adams and Mr. Hoar seems to show that we are not fitted to emulate the savages in preparation for the new fire. The Indians knew how to reverence the old and the wise.
Among the manifestos of the day, it is impossible not to respect that of the Mexican minister for the manly indignation with which he has uttered truths, however deep our mortification at hearing them. It has been observed for the last fifty years, that the tone of diplomatic correspondence was much improved, as to simplicity and directness. Once, diplomacy was another name for intrigue, and a paper of this sort was expected to be a mesh of artful phrases, through which the true meaning might be detected, but never actually grasped. Now, here is one where an occasion being afforded by the unutterable folly of the corresponding party, a minister speaks the truth as it lies in his mind, directly and plainly, as man speaks to man. His statement will command the sympathy of the civilized world.
As to the state papers that have followed, they are of a nature to make the Austrian despot sneer, as he counts in his oratory the woollen stockings he has got knit by imprisoning all the free geniuses in his dominions. He, at least, only appeals to the legitimacy of blood; these dare appeal to legitimacy, as seen from a moral point of view. History will classsuch claims with the brags of sharpers, who bully their victims about their honor, while they stretch forth their hands for the gold they have won with loaded dice. "Do you dare to say the dice are loaded? Prove it;andI will shoot you for injuring my honor."
The Mexican makes his gloss on the page of American honor;[30]the girl[31]in the Kentucky prison on that of her freedom; the delegate of Massachusetts,[32]on that of her union. Ye stars, whose image America has placed upon her banner, answer us! Are not your unions of a different sort? Do they not work to other results?
Yet we cannot lightly be discouraged, or alarmed, as to the destiny of our country. The whole history of its discovery and early progress indicates too clearly the purposes of Heaven with regard to it. Could we relinquish the thought that it was destined for the scene of a new and illustrious act in the great drama, the past would be inexplicable, no less than the future without hope.
Last week, which brought us so many unpleasant notices of home affairs, brought also an account of the magnificent telescope lately perfected by the Earl of Rosse. With means of observation now almost divine, we perceive that some of the brightest stars, of which Sirius is one, have dark companions, whose presence is, by earthly spectators, only to be detected from the inequalities they cause in the motions of their radiant companions. It was a new and most imposing illustration how, in carrying out the divine scheme, of which we have as yet only spelled out the few first lines, the dark is made to wait upon, and, in the full result, harmonize with, the bright. The sense of such pervasive analogies should enlarge patience and animate hope.
Yet, if offences must come, woe be to those by whom they come; and that of men, who sin against a heritage like ours, is as that of the backsliders among the chosen people of the elder day. We, too, have been chosen, and plain indications been given, by a wonderful conjunction of auspicious influences, that the ark of human hopes has been placed for the present in our charge. Woe be to those who betray this trust! On their heads are to be heaped the curses of unnumbered ages!
Can he sleep, who in this past year has wickedly or lightly committed acts calculated to injure the few or many; who has poisoned the ears and the hearts he might have rightly informed; who has steeped in tears the cup of thousands; who has put back, as far as in him lay, the accomplishment of general good and happiness for the sake of his selfish aggrandizement or selfish luxury; who has sold to a party what was meant for mankind? If such sleep, dreadful shall be the waking.
"Deliver us from evil." In public or in private, it is easy to give pain—hard to give pure pleasure; easy to do evil—hard to do good. God does his good in the whole, despite of bad men; but only from a very pure mind will he permit original good to proceed in the day. Happy those who can feel that during the past year, they have, to the best of their knowledge, refrained from evil. Happy those who determine to proceed in this by the light of conscience. It is but a spark; yet from that spark may be drawn fire-light enough for worlds and systems of worlds—and that light is ever new.
And with this thought rises again the memory of the fair lines that light has brought to view in the histories of some men. If the nation tends to wrong, there are yet present the ten just men. The hands and lips of this great form may be impure, but pure blood flows yet within her veins—the blood of the noble bands who first sought these shores from theBritish isles and France, for conscience sake. Too many have come since, for bread alone. We cannot blame—we must not reject them; but let us teach them, in giving them bread, to prize that salt, too, without which all on earth must lose its savor. Yes! let us teach them, not rail at their inevitable ignorance and unenlightened action, but teach them and their children as our own; if we do so, their children and ours may yet act as one body obedient to one soul; and if we act rightly now, that soul a pure soul.
And ye, sable bands, forced hither against your will, kept down here now by a force hateful to nature, a will alien from God! It does sometimes seem as if the avenging angel wore your hue, and would place in your hands the sword to punish the cruel injustice of our fathers, the selfish perversity of the sons. Yet are there no means of atonement? Must the innocent suffer with the guilty? Teach us, O All-Wise, the clew out of this labyrinth; and if we faithfully encounter its darkness and dread, and emerge into clear light, wilt thou not bid us "go and sin no more"?
Meanwhile, let us proceed as we can,picking our stepsalong the slippery road. If we keep the right direction, what matters it that we must pass through so much mud? The promise is sure:—
Angels shall free the feet from stain, to their own hue of snow,If, undismayed, we reach the hills where the true olives grow.The olive groves, which we must seek in cold and damp,Alone can yield us oil for a perpetual lamp.Then sound again the golden horn with promise ever new;The princely deer will ne'er be caught by those that slack pursue;Let the "White Doe" of angel hopes be always kept in view.Yes! sound again the horn—of hope the golden horn!Answer it, flutes and pipes, from valleys still and lorn;Warders, from your high towers, with trumps of silver scorn,And harps in maidens' bowers, with strings from deep hearts torn,—All answer to the horn—of hope the golden horn!
There is still hope, there is still an America, while private lives are ruled by the Puritan, by the Huguenot conscientiousness, and while there are some who can repudiate, not their debts, but the supposition that they will not strive to pay their debts to their age, and to Heaven, who gave them a share in its great promise.