OF HATRED AND ANGER. BLUNTED unto goodness is the heart which anger never stirretli, Anger is a noble infirmity, the generous failing of the just, The one degree that riseth above zeal, asserting the prerogatives of virtue: But hatred is a slow continuing crime, a fire in the bad man's breast, A dull and hungry flame, for ever craving insatiate. Hatred would harm another; anger would indulge itself: Hatred is a simmering poison; anger, the opening of a valve: Is there not a righteous wrath, an anger just and holy, When goodness is sitting in the dust, and wickedness enthroned on Babel ? Appealing to the line and to the plummet, incognizant of moral sense? Beware of the angry in his passion; but fear not to approach him after ward; For if thou acknowledge thine error, he himself will be sorry for his wrath The one lieth secret, as a serpent; the other chaseth, as a leopard. Passion is as palsy to his arm, while it yelleth on the coursers to the speed: Patience keepeth counsel, and standeth in solid self-possession, But the weakness of sudden passion layeth bare the secrets of the soul. The sentiment of anger is not ill, when thou lookest on the impudence of vice, Or savourest the breath of calumny, or hast earned the hard wages of in justice, But see thou that thou curb it in expression, rendering the mildness of rebuke, So shalt thou stand without reproach, mailed in all the dignity of virtue. OF GOOD IN THINGS EVIL. I HEARD the man of sin reproaching the goodness of Jehovah, Wherefore, O holy One and just, is the horn of thy foul foe so high exalted? And, alas! for this our groaning world, for that grief and guilt are here; Alas! for that Earth is the battle-field, where good must combat with evil : Angels look on and hold their breath, burning to mingle in the conflict, But the troops of the Captain of Salvation may be none but the soldiers of the cross: And that slender band must fight alone, and yet shall triumph gloriously, Enough shall they be for conquest, and the motto of their standard is ENOUGH. Thou art sad, O denizen of earth, for pains and diseases and death, But remember, thy hand hath earned them; grudge not at the wages of thy doings: Thy guilt, and thy fathers' guilt, must bring many sorrows in their company, thee: Therefore lay thy hand upon thy mouth, O man much to be forgiven, Yet hear, for my speech shall comfort thee; reverently, but with boldness, The weapons of evil are turned against itself, fighting under better banners: The leech delighteth in stinging, and the wicked loveth to do harm, An enemy, humbled by his sorrows, cannot be far from thy forgiveness, A friend who hath tasted of calamity, shall fan the dying incense of thy love: And for thyself, is it a small thing, so to learn thy frailty, That from an aching bone thou savest the whole body? The furnace of affliction may be fierce, but if it refineth thy soul, The good of one meek thought shall outweigh years of torment. Nevertheless, wretched man, if thy bad heart be hardened in the flame, Judge not the hand that smiteth, as if thou wert visited in wrath ; Cease, fond caviller at wisdom, to be satisfied that every thing is wrong: Hath winter's frost no welcome, contrasting sturdily with summer? means? What were power without an enemy? or mercy without an object? Or truth, where the false were impossible? or love, where love were a debt? The characters of God were but idle, if all things around him were perfection, And virtues might slumber on like death, if they lacked the opportunities of evil. There is one all-perfect, and but one; man dare not reason of His Essence. But there must be deficiencies in heaven, to leave room for progression in bliss: A realm of unqualified BEST were a stagnant pool of being, And the circle of absolute perfection, the abstract cipher of indolence. Sin is the traitor that hath dragged the majesty of mercy into action; Sin is the whelming argument, to justify the attribute of vengeance. It is a deep dark thought, and needeth to be diligently studied, But perchance evil was essential, that God should be seen of his creatures: For where perfection is not, there lacketh possible good, And the absence of better that might be, taketh from the praise of it is well: And creatures must be finite, and finite cannot be perfect; Therefore, though in small degree, creation involveth evil, He chargeth his angels with folly, and the heavens are not clean in His sight: For every existence in the universe hath either imperfection or Godhead : And the light that blazeth but in One, must be softened with shadow for the many. There is then good in evil; or none could have known his Maker; No spiritual intellect or essence could have gazed on his high perfections, No angel harps could have tuned the wonders of his wisdom, No ransomed souls have praised the glories of his mercy, No howling fiends have shown the terrors of his justice, But God would have dwelt alone in the fearful solitude of holiness. Nevertheless, O sinner, harden not thine heart in evil; Nor plume thee in imaginary triumph, because thou art not valueless as vile; Because thy dark abominations add lustre to the charity of Light; Because to the full demonstration of the qualities and accidents of good, A blot on the glory of creation, which justice must wipe out. Sin is a loathsome leprosy, fretting the white robe of innocence; A rottenness, eating out the heart of the royal cedars of Lebanon; A pestilential blast, the terror of that holy pilgrimage; A rent in the sacred veil, whereby God left his temple. Therefore, consider thyself, thou that dost not sorrow for thy guilt: Yea, saith the Spirit: and their works do follow them; Habits, and thoughts, and deeds, are shadows and satellites of self. Nay, man! the train wherewith thou comest attend whither thou shalt go; For a man's works do follow him: bodily, standing in the judgment, Behold the false accuser, behold the slandered saint; The slave, and his bloody driver; the poor, and his generous friend; The talents unto which a man is born, be they few or many, Are dropped into the balance of account, working unlooked-for changes, And perchance the convict from the galleys may stand above the hermit from his cell, For that the obstacles in one outweigh the propensions in the other. There be, who have made themselves friends, yea, by unrighteous mammon, Friends, ready waiting as an escort to those everlasting habitations; Foes, whose plaint must have its answer, before the bright portal is unbarred: Pride, and selfishness, and sloth, apathy, wrath, and falsehood, naked; But wrapping closer to their skin the poisoned tunic of their works, |