Relics, rosaries, and miracles in act, quicken the Papist in his worship:
Things breed thoughts; therefore the lovers at their parting,
Interchanged with tearful smiles the dear reminding tokens ;

Things breed thoughts; therefore, when the clansman met his foe,
The blood-stained claymore in his hand revived the memories of vengeance.

Things teach with double force; through the anima eye, and througn the mind,

And the eye catcheth in an instant, what the ear shall not learn within an

hour.

Thence is the potency of travel, the precious might of its advantages
To compensate its dissipative harm, its toil and cost and danger.
Ulysses, wandering to many shores, lived in many cities,

And thereby learnt the minds of men, and stored his own more richly :
Herodotus, the accurate and kindly, spake of that he saw,

And reaped his knowledge on the spot, in fertile fields of Egypt:
Lycurgus culled from every clime the golden fruits of justice;
And Plato roamed through foreign lands, to feed on truth in all.

For travel, conversant with Things, bringeth them in contact with the mind;
We breathe the wholesome atmosphere about ungarbled truth:

Pictures of fact are painted on the eye, to decorate the house of intellect,
Rather than visions of fancy, filling all the chambers with a vapour.
For, in ideas, the great mind will exaggerate, and the lesser extenuate truth:
But in Things the one is chastened, and the other quickened, to equality.
And in Names,—though a property be told, rather than an arbitrary

accident,

Still shall the thought be vague or false, if none hath seen the Thing;
For in Things the property with accident standeth in a mass concrete,
These cannot cheat the sense, nor elude the vigilance of spirit.
Travel is a ceaseless fount of surface education,

But its wisdom will be simply superficial, if thou add not thoughts to things:
Yet, aided by the varnish of society, things may serve for thoughts,

Till many dullards that have seen the world shall pass for scholars :
Because one single glance will conquer all descriptions,

Though graphic, these left some unsaid, though true, these tended to some

error,

And the most witless eye that saw, had a juster notion of its object

Than the shrewdest mind that heard and shaped its gathered thoughts of

Things.

OF FAITH.

CONFIDENCE was bearer of the palm; for it looked like conviction of desert:
And where the strong is well assured, the weaker soon allow it.

Majesty and beauty are commingled, in moving with immutable decision,
And well may charm the coward hearts that turn and hide for fear.
Faith, firmness, confidence, consistency,—these are well allied;
Yea, let a man press on in aught, he shall not lack of honour:

For such an one seemeth as superior to the native instability of creatures:
That he doeth, he doeth as a god, and men will marvel at his courage.
Even in crimes a partial praise cannot be denied to daring,

And many fearless chiefs have won the friendship of a foe.

Confidence is conqueror of men; victorious both over them and in them;
The iron will of one stout heart shall make a thousand quail :

A feeble dwarf, dauntlessly resolved, will turn the tide of battle,
And rally to a nobler strife the giants that had fled :

The tenderest child, unconscious of a fear, will shame the man to danger,
And when he dared it, danger died, and faith had vanquished fear.
Boldness is akin to power: yea, because ignorance is weakness,
Knowledge with unshrinking might will nerve the vigorous hand:
Boldness hath a startling strength; the mouse may fright a lion,
And oftentimes the horned herd is scared by some brave cur.
Courage hath analogy with faith, for it standeth both in animal and moral;
The true is mindful of a God, the false is stout in self:

But true or false, the twain are faith; and faith worketh wonders:
Never was a marvel done upon the earth, but it had sprung of faith:
Nothing noble, generous, or great, but faith was the root of the achieve-

ment;

Nothing comely, nothing famous, but its praise is faith.

Leonidas fought in human faith, as Joshua in divine :

Xenophon trusted to his skill, and the sons of Mattathias to their cause: (21)
In faith Columbus found a path across those untried waters:
The heroines of Arc and Saragossa fought in earthly faith:
Tell was strong, and Alfred great, and Luther wise, by faith;

Margaret by faith was valiant for her son, and Wallace mighty for his people:

Faith in his reason made Socrates sublime, as faith in his science, Galileo:
Ambassadors in faith are bold, and unreproved for boldness:

Faith urged Fabius to delays, and sent forth Hannibal to Cannæ :
Cæsar at the Rubicon, Miltiades at Marathon: both were sped by faith.
I set not all in equal spheres: I number not the martyr with the patriot;
I class not the hero with his horse, because the twain have courage:
But only for ensample and instruction, that all things stand by faith;
Albeit faith of divers kinds, and varying in degrees.

There is faith towards men, and there is faith towards God;

The latter is the gold, and the former is the brass; but both are sturdy metal :

And the brass mingled with the gold floweth into rich Corinthian ;
A substance bright and hard and keen, to point Achilles' spear:
So shalt thou stop the way against the foes that hem thee;
Trust in God, to strengthen man ;-be bold, for He doth help.

Yet more for confidence in man, even to the worst and meanest,
Hath power to overcome his ill, by charitable good.

Fling thine unreserving trust, even on the conscience of a culprit,
Soon wilt thou shame him by thy faith, and he will melt and mend:
The nest of thieves will harm thee not, if thou dost bear thee boldly:
Boldly, yea and kindly, as relying on their honour:

For the hand so stout against agression, is quite disarmed by charity;
And that warm sun will thaw the heart case-hardened by long frost.
Treat men gently, trust them strongly, if thou wish their weal;

Or cautious doubts and bitter thoughts will tempt the best to foil thee;
Believe the well in sanguine hope, and thou shalt reap the better;
But if thou deal with men so ill, thy dealings make them worse.
Despair not of some gleams of good still lingering in the darkest,
And among veterans in crime, plead thou as with their children:
So astonied at humanities, the bad heart long estranged,
Shall even weep to feel himself so little worth thy love;

In wholesome sorrow will he bless thee; yea, and in that spirit may

repent;

Thus, wilt thou gain a soul, in mercy given to thy faith.

Look aside to lack of faith, the mass of ills it bringeth;

All things treacherous, base, and vile, dissolving the brotherhood of men. Bonds break; the cement hath lost its hold, and each is separate from

other;

That which should be neighbourly and good, is cankered into bitterness

and evil.

O thou serpent, fell Suspicion, coiling coldly round the heart,—
O thou asp of subtle Jealousy, stinging hotly to the soul,—
O distrust, reserve, and doubt,—what reptile shapes are here,
Poisoning the garden of a world with death among its flowers!
No need of many words, the tale is easy to be told:

A point will touch the truth, a line suggest the picture.

For if, in thine own home, a cautious man and captious,

Thou hintest at suspicion of a servant, thou soon wilt make a thief;
Or if, too keen in care, thou dost evidently disbelieve thy child,

Thou hast injured the texture of his honour, and smoothed to him the way of lying:

Or if thou observest upon friends, as seeking thee selfishly for interest
Thou hast hurt their kindliness to thee, and shalt be paid with scorn:
Or if, O silly ones of marriage, your foul and foolish thoughts,
Hashly misinterpreting in each the levity of innocence for sin,
Shall pour upon the lap of home pain where once was pleasure,
And mix contentions in the cup, that mantled once with comforts,
Bitterly and justly shall ye rue the punishment due to unbelief;
Ye trust not each the other, nor the mutual vows of God;

Take heed, for the pit may now be near, a pit of your own digging,-
Faith abused tempteth unto crime, and doubt may make its monster.

Man verily is vile, but more in capability than action;

His sinfulness is deep, but his transgressions may be few, even from the

absence of temptation :

He is hanging in a gulf midway, but the air is breathable about him : Thrust him not from that slight hold, to perish in the vapours underneath,

For, God pleadeth with the deaf, as having ears to hear,

Christ speaketh to the dead, as those that are capable of living;

And an evil teacher is that man, a tempter to much sin,

Who looketh on his hearers with distrust, and hath no confidence in brethren.

All may mend; and sympathies are healing; and reason hath its influence with the worst;

And in those worst is ample hope, if only thou have charity, and faith.

Somewhiles have I watched a man exchanging the sobriety of faith,

Old lamps for new, even for fanatical excitements.

He gained surface, but lost solidity; heat, in lieu of health;

And still with swelling words and thoughts he scorned his ancient coldness:

But his strength was shorn as Samson's; he walked he knew not whither;
Doubt was on his daily path; and duties showed not certain.
Until, in an hour of enthusiasm, stung with secret fears,
He pinned the safety of his soul on some false prophet's sleeve.
And then, that sure word failed; and with it failed his faith;
It failed, and fell; O deep and dreadful was his fall in faith.
He could not stop, with reason's rein, his coursers on the slope,
And so they dashed him down the cliff of hardened unbelief.
With overreaching grasp he had strained for visionary treasures,
But a fiend had cheated his presumption, and hurled him to despair;
So he lay in his blood, the victim of a credulous false faith,
And many nights, and night-like days, he dwelt in outer darkness,
But, within a while, his variable mind caught a new impression,

A new impression of the good old stamp, that sealed him when a child:
He was softened, and abjured his infidelity; he was wiser, and despised
his credulity:

And turned again to simple faith more simply than before.
Experience had declared too well his mind was built of water,
And so renouncing strength in self, he fixed his faith in God.

It is not for me to stipulate for creeds; Bible, Church, and Reason,
These three shall lead the mind, if any can, to truth.

But I must stipulate for faith; both God and man demand it :
Trust is great in either world, if any would be well.

Verily, the skeptical propensity is an universal foe;

Sneering Pyrrho never found, nor cared to find, a friend:

How could he trust another? and himself, whom would he not deceive? His proper gains were all his aim, and interests clash with kindness.

So, the Bedouin goeth armed, an enemy to all,

The spear is stuck beside his couch, the dagger hid beneath his pillow.
For society, void of mutual trust, of credit, and of faith,
Would fall asunder as a waterspout, snapped from the cloud's attraction.

Faith may rise into miracles of might, as some few wise have shown: Faith may sink into credulities of weakness, as the mass of fools have witnessed.