When there is marvel in a doctrine, faith is joyful and adoreth; Tell me the sum of thy knowledge,—is it yet assured of any thing? Despise not what is wonderful, when all things are wonderful around thee. From the multitude of like effects, thou sayest, behold a law: And the matter thou art baffled in unmaking, is to thy mind an element. Then look abroad, I pray thee, for analogy holdeth everywhere, And the Maker hath stamped his name on every creature of his hand : I know not of a matter or a spirit, that is not three in one, And truly should account it for a marvel, a coin without the image of its Cæsar. Man talketh of himself as ignorant, but judgeth by himself as wise: His own guess counteth he truth, but the notions of another are his scorn. But bear thou yet with a brother, whose thought may be less subtle than thine own, And suffer the passing speculation suggested by analogies to faith. Like begetteth like, and the great sea of Existence In each of its uncounted waves holdeth up a mirror to its Maker : Like begetteth like, and the spreading tree of being With each of its trefoil leaves pointeth at the trinity of God. Let him whose eyes have been unfilmed, read this homily in all things, There be three grand principles; life, generation, and obedience; Three catholic divisors of the million sums of matter: Yea, though science hath not seen it, climbing the ladder of experiment, The pine, and the rock to which it clingeth, and the eagle sailing around it; Matter, and breath, and instinct, unite in all beasts of the field; The stem, the leaf, and the flower; beginning, middle, and end; Cause, circumstance, consequent; and every three is one. Yea, the very breath of man's life consisteth of a trinity of vapours, Shall all things else be in mystery, and God alone be understood? If God be nothing more than one, a child can compass the thought; One verily He is, for there can be but one who is all-mighty ; Helplessly craveth of its God, himself for three salvations : While this poor dying body leapeth into life. And if indeed for us all the costly ransom hath been paid, Bethink thee, could less than Deity have owned so vast a treasure? Could a man contend with God, and stand against the bosses of His buckler, Rendering the balance for guilt, atonement to the uttermost ? · Thou art subtle to thine own thinking, but wisdom judgeth thee a fool, Resolving thou wilt not bow the knee to a Being thou canst not compre hend: The mind that could compass perfection were itself perfection's equal; And reason refuseth its homage to a God who can be fully understood. Thou that despisest mystery, yet canst expound nothing, Wherefore rejectest thou the fact that solveth the enigma of all things? Yea, let the heathen be thy teacher, who adoreth many gods, For there is no wide-spread error that hath not truth for its beginning. There are now many marvels in thy creed, believing what thou seest, Then let not the conceit of intellect hinder thee from worshipping mystery. OF THINKING. REFLECTION is a flower of the mind, giving out wholesome fragrance, And if thou leanest on thyself, thou rejectest the guidance of thy betters, Foolish vanity hath blinded thee, and warped thy weak judgment; For, though new ideas flow from new springs, and enrich the treasury of knowledge, Yet listen often, ere thou think much; and look around thee ere thou judgest. Memory, the daugter of Attention, is the teeming mother of Wisdom, And safer is he that storeth knowledge, than he that would make it for himself. Imagination is not thought, neither is fancy reflection: Thought paceth like a hoary sage, but imagination hath wings as an eagle: Reflection sternly considereth, nor is sparing to condemn evil, But fancy lightly laugheth, in the sun-clad garden of amusement. For the shy game of the fowler the quickest shot is the surest; But with slow care and measured aim the gunner pointeth his cannon: So for all less occasions, the surface thought is best, But to be master of the great take thou heavier metal. It is a good thing, and a wholesome, to search out bosom sins, But to be the hero of selfish imaginings, is the subtle poison of pride: And let a watchful spirit mingle with the glance of recollection: Also, in examining thine heart, in sounding the fountain of thine actions, Be more careful of the evil than of the good; and humble thyself in thy sin. The root of all wholesome thought is knowledge of thyself, For thus only canst thou learn the character of God toward thee. Thou knowest the laws of matter to be emanations of his will, And thy best reason for aught is this,—thou, Lord, would have it so. Yea, what is any law but an absolute decree of God? Or the properties of matter and mind, but the arbitrary fiats of Jehovah ? He made and ordained necessity; he forged the chain of reason; And holdeth in his own right hand the first of the golden links. A fool regardeth mind as the spiritual essence of matter, And not rather matter as the gross accident of mind. Or the wisdom of God sit down at the feet of innate necessity? Canst thou measure Ornipotence, canst thou conceive Ubiquity, comet ? To Him all things are equal, for all things are necessary. The smith is weary at his forge, and weldeth the metal carelessly, And the anchor breaketh in its bed, and the vessel foundereth with her crew: A word of anger is muttered, engendering the midnight murder: The sun bursteth from a cloud, and maddeneth the toiling husbandman. Shall these things be, and God not know it? Shall he know, and not be in them? shall he see, and not be among them? And how can they be otherwise than as he knoweth ? Truly, the Lord is in all things; verily, he worketh in all. Think thus, and thy thoughts are firm, ascribing each circumstance to Him; Yet know surely, and believe the truth, that God willeth not evil : For adversities are blessings in disguise, and wickedness the Lord ab horreth: That he is in all things is an axiom, and that he is righteous in all; In works of art, think justly: what praise canst thou render unto man? And could he frame it so subtly as to give it a will and freedom, Otherwise, thou art senseless as the pagan, that adoreth his own handi work; Yea, while thou boastest of thy wisdom, thy mind is as the mind of the savage, For he boweth down to his idols, and thou art a worshipper of self, The keystone of thy mind, to give thy thoughts solidity, To bind them as in an arch, to fix them as a world in its sphere, Is to learn from the book of the Lord, to drink from the well of his wisdom. So that its ideas be gathered, and the harvest of its wisdom be brought in? To the humble disciple it is bread, but a stone to the proud and unbelieving : |