Chapter IV: Miscellaneous (1)

POETRY, WITH REFERENCE TO ARISTOTLE'S POETICS

Poetry, according to Aristotle, is a
representation of the ideal. Biography and history
represent individual characters and actual facts;
poetry, on the contrary, generalizing from the
phenomenon of nature and life, supplies us with 5
pictures drawn, not after an existing pattern,
but after a creation of the mind. Fidelity is the
primary merit of biography and history; the
essence of poetry is fiction. "Poesis nihil aliud
est," says Bacon, "quam historiæ imitatio ad 10
placitum." It delineates that perfection which
the imagination suggests, and to which as a
limit the present system of Divine Providence
actually tends. Moreover, by confining the attention
to one series of events and scene of action, it 15
bounds and finishes off the confused luxuriance
of real nature; while, by a skillful adjustment of
circumstances, it brings into sight the connection
of cause and effect, completes the dependence of
the parts one on another, and harmonizes the 20
proportions of the whole. It is then but the type
and model of history or biography, if we may be
allowed the comparison, bearing some resemblance
to the abstract mathematical formulæ of physics,
before they are modified by the contingencies of
atmosphere and friction. Hence, while it recreates
the imagination by the superhuman loveliness of
its views, it provides a solace for the mind broken 5
by the disappointments and sufferings of actual
life; and becomes, moreover, the utterance of
the inward emotions of a right moral feeling,
seeking a purity and a truth which this world
will not give. 10

It follows that the poetical mind is one full of
the eternal forms of beauty and perfection; these
are its material of thought, its instrument and
medium of observation; these color each
object to which it directs its view. It is called 15
imaginative, or creative, from the originality and
independence of its modes of thinking, compared
with the commonplace and matter-of-fact
conceptions of ordinary minds which are fettered
down to the particular and individual. At the 20
same time it feels a natural sympathy with
everything great and splendid in the physical and
moral world; and selecting such from the mass
of common phenomena, incorporates them, as it
were, into the substance of its own creations. 25
From living thus in a world of its own, it speaks
the language of dignity, emotion, and refinement.
Figure is its necessary medium of communication
with man; for in the feebleness of ordinary words
to express its ideas, and in the absence of terms of 30
abstract perfection, the adoption of metaphorical
language is the only poor means allowed it for
imparting to others its intense feelings. A metrical
garb has, in all languages, been appropriated to
poetry--it is but the outward development of
the music and harmony within. The verse, far 5
from being a restraint on the true poet, is the
suitable index of his sense, and is adopted by his
free and deliberate choice. We shall presently
show the applicability of our doctrine to the
various departments of poetical composition; 10
first, however, it will be right to volunteer an
explanation which may save it from much
misconception and objection. Let not our notion
be thought arbitrarily to limit the number of
poets, generally considered such. It will be 15
found to lower particular works, or parts of
works, rather than the authors themselves;
sometimes to disparage only the vehicle in which
the poetry is conveyed. There is an ambiguity
in the word "poetry," which is taken to signify 20
both the gift itself, and the written composition
which is the result of it. Thus there is an
apparent, but no real, contradiction in saying a poem
may be but partially poetical; in some passages
more so than in others; and sometimes not 25
poetical at all. We only maintain, not that the
writers forfeit the name of poet who fail at times
to answer to our requisitions, but that they are
poets only so far forth, and inasmuch as they do
answer to them. We may grant, for instance, 30
that the vulgarities of old Phoenix in the ninth
_Iliad_, or of the nurse of Orestes in the _Choëphoræ_,
are in themselves unworthy of their respective
authors, and refer them to the wantonness of
exuberant genius; and yet maintain that the
scenes in question contain much incidental poetry. 5
Now and then the luster of the true metal catches
the eye, redeeming whatever is unseemly and
worthless in the rude ore; still the ore is not the
metal. Nay, sometimes, and not unfrequently in
Shakspeare, the introduction of unpoetical 10
matter may be necessary for the sake of relief, or as
a vivid expression of recondite conceptions, and,
as it were, to make friends with the reader's
imagination. This necessity, however, cannot
make the additions in themselves beautiful and 15
pleasing. Sometimes, on the other hand, while
we do not deny the incidental beauty of a poem,
we are ashamed and indignant on witnessing the
unworthy substance in which that beauty is
embedded. This remark applies strongly to the 20
immoral compositions to which Lord Byron
devoted his last years.

Now to proceed with our proposed investigation.

1. We will notice _descriptive poetry_ first. 25
Empedocles wrote his physics in verse, and
Oppian his history of animals. Neither were
poets--the one was an historian of nature, the
other a sort of biographer of brutes. Yet a poet
may make natural history or philosophy the 30
material of his composition. But under his hands
they are no longer a bare collection of facts or
principles, but are painted with a meaning,
beauty, and harmonious order not their own.
Thomson has sometimes been commended for
the novelty and minuteness of his remarks upon 5
nature. This is not the praise of a poet, whose
office rather is to represent known phenomena in
a new connection or medium. In _L'Allegro_ and
_Il Penseroso_ the poetical magician invests the
commonest scenes of a country life with the hues, 10
first of a cheerful, then of a pensive imagination.
It is the charm of the descriptive poetry of a
religious mind, that nature is viewed in a moral
connection. Ordinary writers, for instance,
compare aged men to trees in autumn--a gifted 15
poet will in the fading trees discern the fading
men.[43] Pastoral poetry is a description of
rustics, agriculture, and cattle, softened off and
corrected from the rude health of nature. Virgil,
and much more Pope and others, have run into 20
the fault of coloring too highly; instead of
drawing generalized and ideal forms of shepherds, they
have given us pictures of gentlemen and beaux.

Their composition may be poetry, but it is not
pastoral poetry. 25

[43] Thus:--

"How quiet shows the woodland scene!
Each flower and tree, its duty done,
Reposing in decay serene,
Like weary men when age is won," etc.

2. The difference between poetical and
historical _narrative_ may be illustrated by the Tales
Founded on Facts, generally of a religious
character, so common in the present day, which we
must not be thought to approve, because we use
them for our purpose. The author finds in the
circumstances of the case many particulars too 5
trivial for public notice, or irrelevant to the main
story, or partaking perhaps too much of the
peculiarity of individual minds: these he omits.
He finds connected events separated from each
other by time or place, or a course of action 10
distributed among a multitude of agents; he limits
the scene or duration of the tale, and dispenses
with his host of characters by condensing the
mass of incident and action in the history of a
few. He compresses long controversies into a 15
concise argument, and exhibits characters by
dialogue, and (if such be his object) brings
prominently forward the course of Divine
Providence by a fit disposition of his materials. Thus
he selects, combines, refines, colors--in fact, 20
poetizes. His facts are no longer actual, but
ideal; a tale founded on facts is a tale generalized
from facts. The authors of _Peveril of the Peak_,
and of _Brambletye House_, have given us their
respective descriptions of the profligate times of 25
Charles II. Both accounts are interesting, but
for different reasons. That of the latter writer
has the fidelity of history; Walter Scott's
picture is the hideous reality, unintentionally softened
and decorated by the poetry of his own mind. 30
Miss Edgeworth sometimes apologizes for certain
incident in her tales by stating they took place
"by one of those strange chances which occur in
life, but seem incredible when found in writing."
Such an excuse evinces a misconception of the
principle of fiction, which, being the perfection of 5
the actual, prohibits the introduction of any such
anomalies of experience. It is by a similar
impropriety that painters sometimes introduce
unusual sunsets, or other singular phenomena of
lights and forms. Yet some of Miss Edgeworth's 10
works contain much poetry of narrative.
Maneuvering is perfect in its way,--the plot and
characters are natural, without being too real to be
pleasing.

3. _Character_ is made poetical by a like process. 15
The writer draws indeed from experience; but
unnatural peculiarities are laid aside, and harsh
contrasts reconciled. If it be said the fidelity
of the imitation is often its greatest merit, we
have only to reply, that in such cases the pleasure 20
is not poetical, but consists in the mere
recognition. All novels and tales which introduce real
characters are in the same degree unpoetical.
Portrait painting, to be poetical, should furnish
an abstract representation of an individual; the 25
abstraction being more rigid, inasmuch as the
painting is confined to one point of time. The
artist should draw independently of the accidents
of attitude, dress, occasional feeling, and transient
action. He should depict the general spirit of 30
his subject--as if he were copying from memory,
not from a few particular sittings. An ordinary
painter will delineate with rigid fidelity, and will
make a caricature; but the learned artist
contrives so to temper his composition, as to sink all
offensive peculiarities and hardnesses of 5
individuality, without diminishing the striking effect of
the likeness, or acquainting the casual spectator
with the secret of his art. Miss Edgeworth's
representations of the Irish character are actual, and
not poetical--nor were they intended to be so. 10
They are interesting, because they are faithful.
If there is poetry about them, it exists in the
personages themselves, not in her representation
of them. She is only the accurate reporter in
word of what was poetical in fact. Hence, 15
moreover, when a deed or incident is striking in itself,
a judicious writer is led to describe it in the most
simple and colorless terms, his own being
unnecessary; for instance, if the greatness of the action
itself excites the imagination, or the depth of the 20
suffering interests the feelings. In the usual
phrase, the circumstances are left "to speak for
themselves."

Let it not be said that our doctrine is adverse
to that individuality in the delineation of 25
character, which is a principal charm of fiction. It is
not necessary for the ideality of a composition to
avoid those minuter shades of difference between
man and man, which give to poetry its
plausibility and life; but merely such violation of 30
general nature, such improbabilities, wanderings, or
coarseness, as interfere with the refined and
delicate enjoyment of the imagination; which would
have the elements of beauty extracted out of
the confused multitude of ordinary actions and
habits, and combined with consistency and ease. 5
Nor does it exclude the introduction of imperfect
or odious characters. The original conception of
a weak or guilty mind may have its intrinsic
beauty; and much more so, when it is connected
with a tale which finally adjusts whatever is 10
reprehensible in the personages themselves.
Richard and Iago are subservient to the plot.
Moral excellence in some characters may become
even a fault. The Clytemnestra of Euripides is
so interesting, that the Divine vengeance, which 15
is the main subject of the drama, seems almost
unjust. Lady Macbeth, on the contrary, is the
conception of one deeply learned in the poetical
art. She is polluted with the most heinous crimes,
and meets the fate she deserves. Yet there is 20
nothing in the picture to offend the taste, and
much to feed the imagination. Romeo and
Juliet are too good for the termination to which
the plot leads; so are Ophelia and the Bride of
Lammermoor. In these cases there is something 25
inconsistent with correct beauty, and therefore
unpoetical. We do not say the fault could be
avoided without sacrificing more than would be
gained; still it is a fault. It is scarcely possible
for a poet satisfactorily to connect innocence with 30
ultimate unhappiness, when the notion of a future
life is excluded. Honors paid to the memory of
the dead are some alleviation of the harshness.
In his use of the doctrine of a future life, Southey
is admirable. Other writers are content to
conduct their heroes to temporal happiness; 5
Southey refuses present comfort to his Ladurlad,
Thalaba, and Roderick, but carries them on
through suffering to another world. The death
of his hero is the termination of the action; yet
so little in two of them, at least, does this 10
catastrophe excite sorrowful feelings, that some
readers may be startled to be reminded of the
fact. If a melancholy is thrown over the
conclusion of the _Roderick_, it is from the peculiarities
of the hero's previous history. 15

4. Opinions, feelings, manners, and customs
are made poetical by the delicacy or splendor
with which they are expressed. This is seen in
the _ode_, _elegy_, _sonnet_, and _ballad_, in which a
single idea, perhaps, or familiar occurrence, is 20
invested by the poet with pathos or dignity. The
ballad of _Old Robin Gray_ will serve for an instance
out of a multitude; again, Lord Byron's _Hebrew
Melody_, beginning, "Were my bosom as false,"
etc.; or Cowper's _Lines on his Mother's Picture_; 25
or Milman's _Funeral Hymn_ in the Martyr of
Antioch; or Milton's _Sonnet on his Blindness_; or
Bernard Barton's _Dream_. As picturesque
specimens, we may name Campbell's _Battle of the
Baltic_; or Joanna Baillie's _Chough and Crow_; 30
and for the more exalted and splendid style,
Gray's _Bard_; or Milton's _Hymn on the Nativity_;
in which facts, with which every one is familiar,
are made new by the coloring of a poetical
imagination. It must all along be observed, that
we are not adducing instances for their own sake; 5
but in order to illustrate our general doctrine, and
to show its applicability to those compositions
which are, by universal consent, acknowledged to
be poetical.

The department of poetry we are now speaking 10
of is of much wider extent than might at first
sight appear. It will include such moralizing and
philosophical poems as Young's _Night Thoughts_,
and Byron's _Childe Harold_. There is much bad
taste, at present, in the judgment passed on 15
compositions of this kind. It is the fault of the day
to mistake mere eloquence for poetry; whereas,
in direct opposition to the conciseness and
simplicity of the poet, the talent of the orator consists
in making much of a single idea. "Sic dicet ille ut 20
verset sæpe multis modis eandem et unam rem,
ut hæreat in eâdem commoreturque sententiâ."
This is the great art of Cicero himself, who,
whether he is engaged in statement, argument, or
raillery, never ceases till he has exhausted the 25
subject; going round about it, and placing it in every
different light, yet without repetition to offend or
weary the reader. This faculty seems to consist
in the power of throwing off harmonious verses,
which, while they have a respectable portion of 30
meaning, yet are especially intended to charm the
ear. In popular poems, common ideas are
unfolded with copiousness, and set off in polished
verse--and this is called poetry. Such is the
character of Campbell's _Pleasures of Hope_; it is
in his minor poems that the author's poetical 5
genius rises to its natural elevation. In _Childe
Harold_, too, the writer is carried through his
Spenserian stanza with the unweariness and
equable fullness of accomplished eloquence;
opening, illustrating, and heightening one idea, before 10
he passes on to another. His composition is an
extended funeral sermon over buried joys and
pleasures. His laments over Greece, Rome, and
the fallen in various engagements, have quite the
character of panegyrical orations; while by the 15
very attempt to describe the celebrated buildings
and sculptures of antiquity, he seems to confess
that _they_ are the poetical text, his the rhetorical
comment. Still it is a work of splendid talent,
though, as a whole, not of the highest poetical 20
excellence. Juvenal is perhaps the only ancient
author who habitually substitutes declamation for
poetry.

5. The _philosophy of mind_ may equally be made
subservient to poetry, as the philosophy of nature. 25
It is a common fault to mistake a mere knowledge
of the heart for poetical talent. Our greatest
masters have known better--they have
subjected metaphysics to their art. In Hamlet,
Macbeth, Richard, and Othello, the philosophy of 30
mind is but the material of the poet. These personages
are ideal; they are effects of the contact
of a given internal character with given outward
circumstances, the results of combined conditions
determining (so to say) a moral curve of original
and inimitable properties. Philosophy is 5
exhibited in the same subserviency to poetry in
many parts of Crabbe's _Tales of the Hall_. In the
writings of this author there is much to offend a
refined taste; but, at least in the work in question,
there is much of a highly poetical cast. It is a 10
representation of the action and reaction of two
minds upon each other and upon the world around
them. Two brothers of different characters and
fortunes, and strangers to each other, meet. Their
habits of mind, the formation of those habits by 15
external circumstances, their respective media of
judgment, their points of mutual attraction and
repulsion, the mental position of each in relation
to a variety of trifling phenomena of everyday
nature and life, are beautifully developed in a 20
series of tales molded into a connected narrative.
We are tempted to single out the fourth book,
which gives an account of the childhood and
education of the younger brother, and which for
variety of thought as well as fidelity of 25
description is in our judgment beyond praise. The
Waverley Novels would afford us specimens of a
similar excellence. One striking peculiarity of
these tales is the author's practice of describing
a group of characters bearing the same general 30
features of mind, and placed in the same general
circumstances; yet so contrasted with each other
in minute differences of mental constitution, that
each diverges from the common starting point into
a path peculiar to himself. The brotherhood of
villains in _Kenilworth_, of knights in _Ivanhoe_, 5
and of enthusiasts in _Old Mortality_ are instances
of this. This bearing of character and plot on
each other is not often found in Byron's poems.
The Corsair is intended for a remarkable
personage. We pass by the inconsistencies of his 10
character, considered by itself. The grand fault is,
that whether it be natural or not, we are obliged
to accept the author's word for the fidelity of his
portrait. We are told, not shown, what the hero
was. There is nothing in the plot which results 15
from his peculiar formation of mind. An
everyday bravo might equally well have satisfied the
requirements of the action. Childe Harold, again,
if he is anything, is a being professedly isolated
from the world, and uninfluenced by it. One 20
might as well draw Tityrus's stags grazing in the
air, as a character of this kind; which yet, with
more or less alteration, passes through successive
editions in his other poems. Byron had very
little versatility or elasticity of genius; he did not 25
know how to make poetry out of existing materials.
He declaims in his own way, and has the
upper-hand as long as he is allowed to go on; but, if
interrogated on principles of nature and good
sense, he is at once put out and brought to a 30
stand.

Yet his conception of Sardanapalus and Myrrha
is fine and ideal, and in the style of excellence
which we have just been admiring in Shakspeare
and Scott.

These illustrations of Aristotle's doctrine may 5
suffice.

Now let us proceed to a fresh position; which,
as before, shall first be broadly stated, then
modified and explained. How does originality
differ from the poetical talent? Without 10
affecting the accuracy of a definition, we may call the
latter the originality of right moral feeling.

Originality may perhaps be defined the power
of abstracting for one's self, and is in thought
what strength of mind is in action. Our opinions 15
are commonly derived from education and society.
Common minds transmit as they receive, good and
bad, true and false; minds of original talent feel a
continual propensity to investigate subjects, and
strike out views for themselves, so that even old 20
and established truths do not escape
modification and accidental change when subjected to this
process of mental digestion. Even the style of
original writers is stamped with the peculiarities
of their minds. When originality is found apart 25
from good sense, which more or less is frequently
the case, it shows itself in paradox and rashness
of sentiment, and eccentricity of outward conduct.
Poetry, on the other hand, cannot be separated
from its good sense, or taste, as it is called, which 30
is one of its elements. It is originality energizing
in the world of beauty; the originality of grace,
purity, refinement, and good feeling. We do not
hesitate to say, that poetry is ultimately founded
on correct moral perception; that where there is
no sound principle in exercise there will be no 5
poetry; and that on the whole (originality being
granted) in proportion to the standard of a writer's
moral character will his compositions vary in
poetical excellence. This position, however,
requires some explanation. 10

Of course, then, we do not mean to imply that
a poet must necessarily display virtuous and
religious feeling; we are not speaking of the actual
material of poetry, but of its sources. A right
moral state of heart is the formal and scientific 15
condition of a poetical mind. Nor does it follow
from our position that every poet must in fact be
a man of consistent and practical principle;
except so far as good feeling commonly produces or
results from good practice. Burns was a man of 20
inconsistent life; still, it is known, of much really
sound principle at bottom. Thus his acknowledged
poetical talent is in no wise inconsistent with
the truth of our doctrine, which will refer the
beauty which exists in his compositions to the 25
remains of a virtuous and diviner nature within
him. Nay, further than this, our theory holds
good, even though it be shown that a depraved
man may write a poem. As motives short of the
purest lead to actions intrinsically good, so frames 30
of mind short of virtuous will produce a partial
and limited poetry. But even where this is
instanced, the poetry of a vicious mind will be
inconsistent and debased; that is, so far only poetry
as the traces and shadows of holy truth still
remain upon it. On the other hand, a right moral 5
feeling places the mind in the very center of that
circle from which all the rays have their origin
and range; whereas minds otherwise placed
command but a portion of the whole circuit of poetry.
Allowing for human infirmity and the varieties of 10
opinion, Milton, Spenser, Cowper, Wordsworth,
and Southey may be considered, as far as their
writings go, to approximate to this moral center.
The following are added as further illustrations of
our meaning. Walter Scott's center is chivalrous 15
honor; Shakspeare exhibits the characteristics of
an unlearned and undisciplined piety; Homer the
religion of nature and conscience, at times debased
by polytheism. All these poets are religious. The
occasional irreligion of Virgil's poetry is painful 20
to the admirers of his general taste and delicacy.
Dryden's _Alexander's Feast_ is a magnificent
composition, and has high poetical beauties; but to a
refined judgment there is something intrinsically
unpoetical in the end to which it is devoted, the 25
praises of revel and sensuality. It corresponds to
a process of clever reasoning erected on an untrue
foundation--the one is a fallacy, the other is out
of taste. Lord Byron's _Manfred_ is in parts
intensely poetical; yet the delicate mind naturally 30
shrinks from the spirit which here and there reveals
itself, and the basis on which the drama is
built. From a perusal of it we should infer,
according to the above theory, that there was right
and fine feeling in the poet's mind, but that the
central and consistent character was wanting. 5
From the history of his life we know this to be
the fact. The connection between want of the
religious principle and want of poetical feeling is
seen in the instances of Hume and Gibbon, who
had radically unpoetical minds. Rousseau, it 10
may be supposed, is an exception to our doctrine.
Lucretius, too, had great poetical genius; but his
work evinces that his miserable philosophy was
rather the result of a bewildered judgment than
a corrupt heart. 15

According to the above theory, Revealed
Religion should be especially poetical--and it is so
in fact. While its disclosures have an originality
in them to engage the intellect, they have a beauty
to satisfy the moral nature. It presents us with 20
those ideal forms of excellence in which a poetical
mind delights, and with which all grace and
harmony are associated. It brings us into a new
world--a world of overpowering interest, of the
sublimest views, and the tenderest and purest 25
feelings. The peculiar grace of mind of the New
Testament writers is as striking as the actual effect
produced upon the hearts of those who have
imbibed their spirit. At present we are not
concerned with the practical, but the poetical nature 30
of revealed truth. With Christians, a poetical
view of things is a duty--we are bid to color all
things with hues of faith, to see a Divine meaning
in every event, and a superhuman tendency. Even
our friends around are invested with unearthly
brightness--no longer imperfect men, but beings 5
taken into Divine favor, stamped with His seal,
and in training for future happiness. It may be
added, that the virtues peculiarly Christian are
especially poetical--meekness, gentleness,
compassion, contentment, modesty, not to mention 10
the devotional virtues; whereas the ruder and
more ordinary feelings are the instruments of
rhetoric more justly than of poetry--anger,
indignation, emulation, martial spirit, and love of
independence. 15

THE INFINITUDE OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES

The attributes of God, though intelligible to us
on their surface,--for from our own sense of
mercy and holiness and patience and consistency,
we have general notions of the All-merciful and
All-holy and All-patient, and of all that is proper 20
to His Essence,--yet, for the very reason that
they are infinite, transcend our comprehension,
when they are dwelt upon, when they are followed
out, and can only be received by faith. They are
dimly shadowed out, in this very respect, by the 25
great agents which He has created in the material
world. What is so ordinary and familiar to us
as the elements, what so simple and level to us
as their presence and operation? yet how their
character changes, and how they overmaster us,
and triumph over us, when they come upon us in
their fullness! The invisible air, how gentle is it,
and intimately ours! we breathe it momentarily, 5
nor could we live without it; it fans our cheek,
and flows around us, and we move through it
without effort, while it obediently recedes at every
step we take, and obsequiously pursues us as we
go forward. Yet let it come in its power, and 10
that same silent fluid, which was just now the
servant of our necessity or caprice, takes us up
on its wings with the invisible power of an Angel,
and carries us forth into the regions of space, and
flings us down headlong upon the earth. Or go 15
to the spring, and draw thence at your pleasure,
for your cup or your pitcher, in supply of your
wants; you have a ready servant, a domestic ever
at hand, in large quantity or in small, to satisfy
your thirst, or to purify you from the dust and 20
mire of the world. But go from home, reach the
coast; and you will see that same humble element
transformed before your eyes. You were equal to
it in its condescension, but who shall gaze
without astonishment at its vast expanse in the bosom 25
of the ocean? who shall hear without awe the
dashing of its mighty billows along the beach?
who shall without terror feel it heaving under him,
and swelling and mounting up, and yawning wide,
till he, its very sport and mockery, is thrown to 30
and fro, hither and thither, at the mere mercy of
a power which was just now his companion and
almost his slave? Or, again, approach the flame:
it warms you, and it enlightens you; yet approach
not too near, presume not, or it will change its
nature. That very element which is so beautiful 5
to look at, so brilliant in its character, so graceful
in its figure, so soft and lambent in its motion,
will be found in its essence to be of a keen,
resistless nature; it tortures, it consumes, it reduces to
ashes that of which it was just before the 10
illumination and the life. So it is with the attributes
of God; our knowledge of them serves us for our
daily welfare; they give us light and warmth and
food and guidance and succor; but go forth with
Moses upon the mount and let the Lord pass by, 15
or with Elias stand in the desert amid the wind,
the earthquake, and the fire, and all is mystery
and darkness; all is but a whirling of the reason,
and a dazzling of the imagination, and an
overwhelming of the feelings, reminding us that we 20
are but mortal men and He is God, and that the
outlines which Nature draws for us are not His
perfect image, nor to be pronounced inconsistent
with those further lights and depths with which it
is invested by Revelation. 25

Say not, my brethren, that these thoughts are
too austere for this season, when we contemplate
the self-sacrificing, self-consuming charity
wherewith God our Saviour has visited us. It is for that
very reason that I dwell on them; the higher He 30
is, and the more mysterious, so much the more
glorious and the more subduing is the history of
His humiliation. I own it, my brethren, I love
to dwell on Him as the Only-begotten Word; nor
is it any forgetfulness of His sacred humanity to
contemplate His Eternal Person. It is the very 5
idea, that He is God, which gives a meaning to
His sufferings; what is to me a man, and nothing
more, in agony, or scourged, or crucified? there
are many holy martyrs, and their torments were
terrible. But here I see One dropping blood, 10
gashed by the thong, and stretched upon the
Cross, and He is God. It is no tale of human woe
which I am reading here; it is the record of the
passion of the great Creator. The Word and
Wisdom of the Father, who dwelt in His bosom 15
in bliss ineffable from all eternity, whose very
smile has shed radiance and grace over the whole
creation, whose traces I see in the starry heavens
and on the green earth, this glorious living God,
it is He who looks at me so piteously, so tenderly 20
from the Cross. He seems to say,--I cannot
move, though I am omnipotent, for sin has bound
Me here. I had had it in mind to come on earth
among innocent creatures, more fair and lovely
than them all, with a face more radiant than the 25
Seraphim, and a form as royal as that of
Archangels, to be their equal yet their God, to fill
them with My grace, to receive their worship, to
enjoy their company, and to prepare them for the
heaven to which I destined them; but, before I 30
carried My purpose into effect, they sinned, and
lost their inheritance; and so I come indeed, but
come, not in that brightness in which I went forth
to create the morning stars and to fill the sons of
God with melody, but in deformity and in shame,
in sighs and tears, with blood upon My cheek, and 5
with My limbs laid bare and rent. Gaze on Me,
O My children, if you will, for I am helpless; gaze
on your Maker, whether in contempt, or in faith
and love. Here I wait, upon the Cross, the
appointed time, the time of grace and mercy; here 10
I wait till the end of the world, silent and
motionless, for the conversion of the sinful and the
consolation of the just; here I remain in weakness
and shame, though I am so great in heaven, till
the end, patiently expecting My full catalogue of 15
souls, who, when time is at length over, shall be
the reward of My passion and the triumph of My
grace to all eternity.

CHRIST UPON THE WATERS

The earth is full of the marvels of Divine power;
"Day to day uttereth speech, and night to night 20
showeth knowledge." The tokens of
Omnipotence are all around us, in the world of matter,
and the world of man; in the dispensation of
nature, and in the dispensation of grace. To do
impossibilities, I may say, is the prerogative of 25
Him who made all things out of nothing, who
foresees all events before they occur, and controls
all wills without compelling them. In emblem of
this His glorious attribute, He came to His
disciples in the passage I have read to you, walking
upon the sea,--the emblem or hieroglyphic
among the ancients of the impossible, to show
them that what is impossible with man is 5
possible with God. He who could walk the waters,
could also ride triumphantly upon what is still
more fickle, unstable, tumultuous,
treacherous--the billows of human wills, human purposes,
human hearts. The bark of Peter was struggling 10
with the waves, and made no progress; Christ
came to him walking upon them; He entered the
boat, and by entering it He sustained it. He did
not abandon Himself to it, but He brought it
near to Himself; He did not merely take refuge 15
in it, but He made Himself the strength of it,
and the pledge and cause of a successful passage.
"Presently," another gospel says, "the ship was
at the land, whither they were going."

Such was the power of the Son of God, the 20
Saviour of man, manifested by visible tokens in
the material world, when He came upon earth;
and such, too, it has ever since signally shown
itself to be, in the history of that mystical ark
which He then formed to float upon the ocean of 25
human opinion. He told His chosen servants to
form an ark for the salvation of souls: He gave
them directions how to construct it,--the length,
breadth, and height, its cabins and its windows;
and the world, as it gazed upon it, forthwith 30
began to criticise. It pronounced it framed quite
contrary to the scientific rules of shipbuilding; it
prophesied, as it still prophesies, that such a craft
was not sea-worthy; that it was not water-tight;
that it would not float; that it would go to pieces
and founder. And why it does not, who can say, 5
except that the Lord is in it? Who can say why
so old a framework, put together nineteen
hundred years ago, should have lasted, against all
human calculation, even to this day; always
going, and never gone; ever failing, yet ever 10
managing to explore new seas and foreign
coasts--except that He, who once said to the rowers,
"It is I, be not afraid," and to the waters,
"Peace," is still in His own ark which He has
made, to direct and to prosper her course? 15

Time was, my brethren, when the forefathers of
our race were a savage tribe, inhabiting a wild
district beyond the limits of this quarter of the
earth. Whatever brought them thither, they had
no local attachments there or political settlement; 20
they were a restless people, and whether urged
forward by enemies or by desire of plunder, they
left their place, and passing through the defiles of
the mountains on the frontiers of Asia, they
invaded Europe, setting out on a journey towards 25
the farther west. Generation after generation
passed away; and still this fierce and haughty
race moved forward. On, on they went; but
travel availed them not; the change of place
could bring them no truth, or peace, or hope, or 30
stability of heart; they could not flee from themselves.
They carried with them their superstitions
and their sins, their gods of iron and of clay,
their savage sacrifices, their lawless witchcrafts,
their hatred of their kind, and their ignorance
of their destiny. At length they buried themselves 5
in the deep forests of Germany, and gave
themselves up to indolent repose; but they had not
found their rest; they were still heathens, making
the fair trees, the primeval work of God, and the
innocent beasts of the chase, the objects and the 10
instruments of their idolatrous worship. And,
last of all, they crossed over the strait and made
themselves masters of this island, and gave their
very name to it; so that, whereas it had hitherto
been called Britain, the southern part, which was 15
their main seat, obtained the name of England.
And now they had proceeded forward nearly as
far as they could go, unless they were prepared
to look across the great ocean, and anticipate the
discovery of the world which lies beyond it. 20

What, then, was to happen to this restless race,
which had sought for happiness and peace across
the globe, and had not found it? Was it to grow
old in its place, and dwindle away, and consume
in the fever of its own heart, which admitted 25
no remedy? or was it to become great by being
overcome, and to enjoy the only real life of man,
and rise to his only true dignity, by being
subjected to a Master's yoke? Did its Maker and
Lord see any good thing in it, of which, under 30
His Divine nurture, profit might come to His elect,
and glory to His name? He looked upon it, and
He saw nothing there to claim any visitation of
His grace, or to merit any relaxation of the awful
penalty which its lawlessness and impiety had
incurred. It was a proud race, which feared 5
neither God nor man--a race ambitious,
self-willed, obstinate, and hard of belief, which would
dare everything, even the eternal pit, if it was
challenged to do so. I say, there was nothing
there of a nature to reverse the destiny which 10
His righteous decrees have assigned to those who
sin wilfully and despise Him. But the Almighty
Lover of souls looked once again; and He saw in
that poor, forlorn, and ruined nature, which He
had in the beginning filled with grace and light, 15
He saw in it, not what merited His favor, not
what would adequately respond to His influences,
not what was a necessary instrument of His
purposes, but what would illustrate and preach abroad
His grace, if He took pity on it. He saw in it, 20
a natural nobleness, a simplicity, a frankness of
character, a love of truth, a zeal for justice, an
indignation at wrong, an admiration of purity, a
reverence for law, a keen appreciation of the
beautifulness and majesty of order, nay, further, 25
a tenderness and an affectionateness of heart,
which He knew would become the glorious
instruments of His high will when illuminated and
vivified by His supernatural gifts. And so He
who, did it so please Him, could raise up children 30
to Abraham out of the very stones of the earth,
nevertheless determined in this instance in His
free mercy to unite what was beautiful in nature
with what was radiant in grace; and, as if those
poor Anglo-Saxons had been too fair to be heathen,
therefore did He rescue them from the devil's 5
service and the devil's doom, and bring them
into the house of His holiness and the mountain
of His rest.

It is an old story and a familiar, and I need not
go through it. I need not tell you, my Brethren, 10
how suddenly the word of truth came to our
ancestors in this island and subdued them to its
gentle rule; how the grace of God fell on them,
and, without compulsion, as the historian tells us,
the multitude became Christian; how, when all 15
was tempestuous, and hopeless, and dark, Christ
like a vision of glory came walking to them on
the waves of the sea. Then suddenly there was
a great calm; a change came over the pagan
people in that quarter of the country where the 20
gospel was first preached to them; and from
thence the blessed influence went forth, it was
poured out over the whole land, till one and all,
the Anglo-Saxon people, were converted by it. In
a hundred years the work was done; the idols, 25
the sacrifices, the mummeries of paganism flitted
away and were not, and the pure doctrine and
heavenly worship of the Cross were found in their
stead. The fair form of Christianity rose up and
grew and expanded like a beautiful pageant from 30
north to south; it was majestic, it was solemn, it
was bright, it was beautiful and pleasant, it was
soothing to the griefs, it was indulgent to the
hopes of man; it was at once a teaching and a
worship; it had a dogma, a mystery, a ritual of
its own; it had an hierarchical form. A brotherhood 5
of holy pastors, with miter and crosier and
uplifted hand, walked forth and blessed and ruled
a joyful people. The crucifix headed the
procession, and simple monks were there with hearts in
prayer, and sweet chants resounded, and the holy 10
Latin tongue was heard, and boys came forth in
white, swinging censers, and the fragrant cloud
arose, and mass was sung, and the Saints were
invoked; and day after day, and in the still night,
and over the woody hills and in the quiet plains, 15
as constantly as sun and moon and stars go forth
in heaven, so regular and solemn was the stately
march of blessed services on earth, high festival,
and gorgeous procession, and soothing dirge, and
passing bell, and the familiar evening call to 20
prayer; till he who recollected the old pagan
time, would think it all unreal that he beheld and
heard, and would conclude he did but see a vision,
so marvelously was heaven let down upon earth,
so triumphantly were chased away the fiends of 25
darkness to their prison below.

THE SECOND SPRING

CANT., _c._ ii. _v._ 10-12

Surge, propera, amica mea, columba mea, formosa
mea, et veni. Jam enim hiems transiit, imber abiit et
recessit. Flores apparuerunt in terrâ nostrâ.

Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful
one, and come. For the winter is now past, the rain is
over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land.

We have familiar experience of the order, the
constancy, the perpetual renovation of the material
world which surrounds us. Frail and transitory
as is every part of it, restless and migratory as
are its elements, never ceasing as are its changes, 5
still it abides. It is bound together by a law of
permanence, it is set up in unity; and, though it
is ever dying, it is ever coming to life again.
Dissolution does but give birth to fresh modes of
organization, and one death is the parent of a 10
thousand lives. Each hour, as it comes, is but
a testimony, how fleeting, yet how secure, how
certain, is the great whole. It is like an image
on the waters, which is ever the same, though
the waters ever flow. Change upon 15
change--yet one change cries out to another, like the
alternate Seraphim, in praise and in glory
of their Maker. The sun sinks to rise again;
the day is swallowed up in the gloom of the
night, to be born out of it, as fresh as if it 20
had never been quenched. Spring passes into
summer, and through summer and autumn into
winter, only the more surely, by its own ultimate
return, to triumph over that grave, towards which
it resolutely hastened from its first hour. We
mourn over the blossoms of May, because they 5
are to wither; but we know, withal, that May is
one day to have its revenge upon November, by
the revolution of that solemn circle which never
stops--which teaches us in our height of hope,
ever to be sober, and in our depth of desolation, 10
never to despair.

And forcibly as this comes home to every one
of us, not less forcible is the contrast which exists
between this material world, so vigorous, so
reproductive, amid all its changes, and the moral 15
world, so feeble, so downward, so resourceless,
amid all its aspirations. That which ought to
come to naught, endures; that which promises a
future, disappoints and is no more. The same
sun shines in heaven from first to last, and the 20
blue firmament, the everlasting mountains,
reflect his rays; but where is there upon earth
the champion, the hero, the law giver, the body
politic, the sovereign race, which was great three
hundred years ago, and is great now? Moralists 25
and poets, often do they descant upon this innate
vitality of matter, this innate perishableness of
mind. Man rises to fall: he tends to dissolution
from the moment he begins to be; he lives on,
indeed, in his children, he lives on in his name, 30
he lives not on in his own person. He is, as regards
the manifestations of his nature here below,
as a bubble that breaks, and as water poured out
upon the earth. He was young, he is old, he is
never young again. This is the lament over him,
poured forth in verse and in prose, by Christians 5
and by heathen. The greatest work of God's
hands under the sun, he, in all the manifestations
of his complex being, is born only to die.

His bodily frame first begins to feel the power
of this constraining law, though it is the last to 10
succumb to it. We look at the gloom of youth
with interest, yet with pity; and the more
graceful and sweet it is, with pity so much the more;
for, whatever be its excellence and its glory, soon
it begins to be deformed and dishonored by the 15
very force of its living on. It grows into
exhaustion and collapse, till at length it crumbles
into that dust out of which it was originally
taken.

So is it, too, with our moral being, a far higher 20
and diviner portion of our natural constitution;
it begins with life, it ends with what is worse
than the mere loss of life, with a living death.
How beautiful is the human heart, when it puts
forth its first leaves, and opens and rejoices in 25
its spring-tide! Fair as may be the bodily form,
fairer far, in its green foliage and bright blossoms,
is natural virtue. It blooms in the young, like
some rich flower, so delicate, so fragrant, and so
dazzling. Generosity and lightness of heart and 30
amiableness, the confiding spirit, the gentle temper,
the elastic cheerfulness, the open hand, the
pure affection, the noble aspiration, the heroic
resolve, the romantic pursuit, the love in which
self has no part,--are not these beautiful? and
are they not dressed up and set forth for 5
admiration in their best shapes, in tales and in poems?
and ah! what a prospect of good is there! who
could believe that it is to fade! and yet, as night
follows upon day, as decrepitude follows upon
health, so surely are failure, and overthrow, and 10
annihilation, the issue of this natural virtue, if
time only be allowed to it to run its course.
There are those who are cut off in the first
opening of this excellence, and then, if we may trust
their epitaphs, they have lived like angels; but 15
wait awhile, let them live on, let the course of
life proceed, let the bright soul go through the
fire and water of the world's temptations and
seductions and corruptions and transformations;
and, alas for the insufficiency of nature! alas for 20
its powerlessness to persevere, its waywardness
in disappointing its own promise! Wait till
youth has become age; and not more different
is the miniature which we have of him when a
boy, when every feature spoke of hope, put side 25
by side of the large portrait painted to his honor,
when he is old, when his limbs are shrunk, his
eye dim, his brow furrowed, and his hair gray,
than differs the moral grace of that boyhood from
the forbidding and repulsive aspect of his soul, 30
now that he has lived to the age of man. For
moroseness, and misanthropy, and selfishness, is
the ordinary winter of that spring.

Such is man in his own nature, and such, too,
is he in his works. The noblest efforts of his
genius, the conquests he has made, the doctrines 5
he has originated, the nations he has civilized,
the states he has created, they outlive himself,
they outlive him by many centuries, but they
tend to an end, and that end is dissolution.
Powers of the world, sovereignties, dynasties, 10
sooner or later come to nought; they have their
fatal hour. The Roman conqueror shed tears
over Carthage, for in the destruction of the rival
city he discerned too truly an augury of the fall
of Rome; and at length, with the weight and the 15
responsibilities, the crimes and the glories, of
centuries upon centuries, the Imperial City fell.

Thus man and all his works are mortal; they
die, and they have no power of renovation.

But what is it, my Fathers, my Brothers, what 20
is it that has happened in England just at this
time? Something strange is passing over this
land, by the very surprise, by the very commotion,
which it excites. Were we not near enough the
scene of action to be able to say what is going 25
on,--were we the inhabitants of some sister planet
possessed of a more perfect mechanism than this
earth has discovered for surveying the
transactions of another globe,--and did we turn our
eyes thence towards England just at this season, 30
we should be arrested by a political phenomenon
as wonderful as any which the astronomer notes
down from his physical field of view. It would
be the occurrence of a national commotion, almost
without parallel, more violent than has happened
here for centuries--at least in the judgments 5
and intentions of men, if not in act and deed.
We should note it down, that soon after St.
Michael's day, 1850, a storm arose in the moral
world, so furious as to demand some great
explanation, and to rouse in us an intense desire to 10
gain it. We should observe it increasing from
day to day, and spreading from place to place,
without remission, almost without lull, up to this
very hour, when perhaps it threatens worse still,
or at least gives no sure prospect of alleviation. 15
Every party in the body politic undergoes its
influence,--from the Queen upon her throne,
down to the little ones in the infant or day school.
The ten thousands of the constituency, the
sum-total of Protestant sects, the aggregate of 20
religious societies and associations, the great body
of established clergy in town and country, the bar,
even the medical profession, nay, even literary
and scientific circles, every class, every
interest, every fireside, gives tokens of this 25
ubiquitous storm. This would be our report of it, seeing
it from the distance, and we should speculate
on the cause. What is it all about? against what
is it directed? what wonder has happened upon
earth? what prodigious, what preternatural event 30
is adequate to the burden of so vast an effect?