There is an easy scheme, to solve all riddles by the sensual,

And thus, despising mysteries, to feel the more sufficient: For it comforteth the foul hard heart, to reject the pure

unseen,

And relieveth the dull soft head, to hinder one from gazing upon vacancy.

True wisdom, laboring to expound, heareth others readily;

False wisdom, sturdy to deny, closeth up her mind to argument.

The sum of certainties is found so small, their field so wide an universe,

That many things may truly be, which man hath not conceived:

The characters revealed of God are a strong mind's sole assurance

That any strangeness may not stand a sober theme for faith.

Ignorance being light denied, this ought to show the stronger in its view,

But ignorance is commonly a double negative, both of light and morals:

So, adding vanity to blindness, for ease, it taketh refuge in a doubt,

And aching soon with ceaseless doubt, it finisheth the strife by misbelieving.

Faith, by its very nature, shall embrace both credence and obedience:

Yea, the word for both is one, and cannot be divided. For, work void of faith, wherein can it be counted for a duty,

And faith not seen in work, whereby can the doctrine be discovered?

Faith in religion is an instrument; a handle, and the hand to turn it :

Less a condition than a mean, and more an operation than a virtue.

A moral sickness, like to sin, must have a moral cure;
And faith alone can heal the mind, whose malady is

sense.

Ye are told of God's deep love: they that believe will love him:

They that love him, will obey: and obedience hath its

blessing.

Ye are taught of the soul's great price; they that believe will prize it,

And, prizing soul, will cherish well the hopes that make it happy.

Effects spring from feelings; and feelings grow of faith : If a man conceive himself insulted, will not his anger smite?

Thus, let a soul believe his state, his danger, destiny, redemption,

Will he not feel eager to be safe, like him that kept the
prison at Philippi ?

A mother had an only son, and sent him out to sea:
She was a widow, and in penury; and he must seek his

fortunes.

How often in the wintry nights, when waves and winds were howling,

Her heart was torn with sickening dread, and bled to see her boy.

And on one sunny morn, when all around was comfort, News came, that weeks agone, the vessel had been wrecked;

Yea, wrecked, and he was dead! they had seen him perish in his agony:

Oh then, what agony was like to her's,- for she believed

the tale.

She was bowed and broken down with sorrow,

comforted in prayer;

and un

Many nights she mourned, and pined, and had no hope

but death.

But on a day, while sorely she was weeping, a stranger broke upon her loneliness,

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He had news to tell, that weather-beaten man, and must not be denied:

And what were the wonder-working words that made this mourner joyous,

That swept her heaviness away, and filled her worldwith praise?

Her son was saved,- is alive,—is near!-O did she stopto question?

No, rushing in the force of faith, she met him at the door!

Of Bonesty.

All is vanity which is not honesty;

on the tomb :

And there is no wisdom but in piety;

man preacheth:

thus is it graven

- so the dead

For, in a simple village church, among those classic

shades.

Which sylvan Evelyn loved to rear, (his praise, and my delight,)

These, the words of truth, are writ upon his sepulchre Who learnt much lore, and knew all trees, from the cedar to the hyssop on the wall.

A just conjunction, goodliness and honesty, ministering to both worlds,

Well wed, and ill to be divided, a pair that God hath joined together.

I touch not now the vulgar thought, as of tricks and cheateries in trade;

I speak of honest purpose, character, speech, and action: For an honest man hath special need of charity, and prudence,

Of a deep and humbling self-acquaintance, and of blessed commerce with his God,

So that the keennesses of truth may be freed from asperities of censure,

And the just but vacillating mind be not made the pendulum of arguments:

For a false reason, shrewdly put, can often not be answered on the instant,

And prudence looketh unto faith, content to wait solutions;

Yea, it looketh, yea, it waiteth, still holding honesty in

leash,

Lest, as a hot young hound, it track not game, but vermin.

Many a man of honest heart, but ignorant of self and God,

Hath followed the marsh-firbes of pestilence, esteeming them the lights of truth;

He heard a cause, which he had not skill to solve, — and so received it gladly,

And that cause brought its consequence, of harm to an . unstable soul.

Prudence, for a man's own sake, never, should be separate from honesty ;

And charity, for other's good, and his, must still be joined therewith;

For the harshly chiding tongue hath neither pleasuring nor profit,

And the cold unsympathizing heart never gained a good. Sin is a sore, and folly is a fever; touch them tenderly for healing;

The bad chirurgeon's awkward knife harmeth, spite of honesty.

Still, a rough diamond is better than the polished paste, That courteous flattering fool, who spake of vice as virtue: And honesty, even by itself, though making many ad

versaries

Whom prudence might have set aside, or charity have softened,

Evermore will prosper at the last, and gain a man great

honor

By giving others many goods, to his own cost and hindrance.

Freedom is father of the honest, and sturdy Independence is his brother;

These three, with heart and hand, dwell together in unity. The blunt yeoman, stout and true, will speak unto princes unabashed :

His mind is loyal, just and free, a crystal in its plain integrity;

What should make such an 'one ashamed? where courtiers kneel, he standeth;

I will indeed bow before the king, but knees were knit for God.

And many such there be, of a high and noble conscience, Honorable, generous, and kind, though blest with little light:

What should he barter for his Freedom? some petty gain of gold?

Free of speech, and free in act, magnates honor him for boldness:

Long may he flourish in his peace, and a stalwarth race around him,

Rooted in the soil like oaks, and hardy as the pine upon the mountains!

Yet, there be others, that will truckle to a lie, selling honesty for interest:

And do they gain ?—they gain but loss; a little cash, with scorn.

Behold, the sorrowful change wrought upon a fallen

nature:

He hath lost his own esteem, and other men's respect; For the buoyancy of upright faith, he is clothed in the heaviness of cringing;

For plain truth where none could err, he bath chosen tortuous paths;

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