that it may soar steadily heavenward, a beacon unto men and a sacrifice acceptable to God,-instead of stooping to lick up the offal at the altar's foot! How to raise and purify it? Consider only what is its nature, think of it as a vision of the Eternal Beauty, as a spark of the Flame of Life. So keep it pure as the virgin fire of Vesta; dignify it with the adoration of the Magi. Is gold, or gluttony, or sloth, eternal? Is vision needed to light us to dishonour? Is there life-the spirit which perpetuates- in a mere selfish gratification? Is Faith the bride of Self? Faith is the bride of Virtue; and Virtue is God's harvestman,— not self-seeking, but self-sacrificing. Yet self-gaining: for how beautiful is the well-ripened life, beautiful in itself, though not for itself. The sheaves are not garnered here. Be faithful -unto God. Faith is Reverence. When we say a man is reverend, we have given him the holiest title. When we call him an infidel or faithless, we have said our worst. That the titles are misapplied does not alter the force of their significance, does not hide the truth which the whole world struggles to utter,—that he who can best reverence is the world's true priest, the real commander of the faithful, and that he, who, in the common phrase 'believes neither God nor man,' is accurst. Our word but echoes the anathema of God's Universe. Woe to him who to him who can not aspire! Faith is Aspiration: the Angel that lifts the Ark above the flood of the world's sorrows. And Faith is Cheerfulness. Hope sings only in the sun. Faith smiles under the winter storm. Hope may die. Faith broods not over the grave, where the form of Hope is laid, but looks upward unto heaven, whence the Arisen—no longer Hope, but Certainty-shall come bursting the clouds with glory. Trust thyself! believe Endeavour! Try again, though Hope should fail! Trust thy fellows! work together! Trust in God-in the Eternal! Let thy will but fix its root: J. Watson, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster-Row, London.-No. 40, Sep. 30. SELF-POSSESSION. In your patience possess ye your souls.' OVER thine own thou hast power; and a slave may not be sovereign. Thou canst not use the sword which is in another's hand. Wouldst thou have and hold thy life, to wield it as a true soldier in the tumult and fierce hand-to-hand battle of Good and Ill? To have and hold is to possess. If another does possess thy life, if thy soul-however well-tempered-hangeth in some foeman's scabbard, is chained to any side but thine own,-how mayest thou, poor weaponless thing! be God's champion? Truly, many virtuous and noble desires and thoughts may build up a man: but these avail not without self-possession. A sword, and a manacled hand! Nay, even with unfettered limbs, well-weaponed, and in armour of proof, stands not the knight as old true fairy tales inform us-sometimes on enchanted ground, to all appearance a challenger to the utmost, possessing himself,-alas! not so, but spell-bound, possessed by the devil. We may say, he is no true man who is not self-centred, who does not under all circumstances possess himself. To what purpose heap we up wealth, whether of heart and mind and muscular ability, or mere gold and precious furniture, if we may not spend it as we list? Why learn we all the mastery of divinest music, if we are prohibited the practice? Though we can discourse most eloquent poetry, what avails it, when our lips are sealed? Thou art an honest man, noble-minded, gentle, and so valiant. But if thou art not thine own master? If another sway thee, if man or woman can influence thee, or sudden circumstance catch thee off thy guard, to what end are thy virtues ? When some tyrant disallows thy honesty, or with subtle flattery--no less tyranuous-cajoles thee; when he sets thy noble-mindedness to base uses, chafes and frets thy gentleness, and bullies thy great valour to most impotent submission? Believe, there are many such tyrants, men and circumstances, striding in our high places, walking daily in our streets, about our path, and about our bed, seeking whom they may devour, what noble spirit they may enthral and ruin. And of circumstances there are many. Their name is Legion. Interest, self-love, pleasure, desire of praise or fame, indolence, temper, fear: these are some of them, despotic circumstances which enslave man. Or if thy excellent qualities are put to good service, the wise tyrant using thee as an accomplished instrument, what then? Call you this virtue? Not to the tool, but to the tool-user; not to the sword, but to the sword-wielder, is honour due. Men praise the musician, not the instrument. Woe to thee! thy very virtues, if only acting by another's leave, in another's hand, are no longer virtues, but slavish counterfeits, thefiend's last mock.' If the Grand Turk lend thee one of his wives, wilt thou call her ordered fondness love? Be sure that a slave can not be virtuous: the ape is not human. But thou wilt still doubt the existence of these tyrannies, bragging of thy freedom, poor Puppet! not seeing the wires that move thee. The showman Circumstance is underneath, and all thy play, so excellent in the world's eyes, is the work of his hid fingers. Be no more a puppet, but a man! Look well at these would-be governors; and know in what consists thy slavery, thy puppetship! 'Tis to be a slave in soul, ' And to hold no strong controul C All that others make of thee.' Thou art of a virtuous disposition; thou hast gifts of intellectual worth and power of eloquent expression; thou art as a god among thy poor fellow-men; and godlike, thou girdest thyself to render them glorious service. But thou lovest to be well thought of, to be well spoken of: and so the Tempter stands before thee, under guise of that loving desire for others' lovingness and appreciation of beauty. And thou, pleasantly beguiled, pourest out no more of the overflowing of thy heart, the sweet and bitter wine which God gave thee to bear unto thy fellows; but thou considerest how not to offend, in what vessels and with what gestures and adapted looks thou shalt serve, and in over-carefulness of manner forgettest the need of thy serving. This is not self-mastery. This is not self-possession. This is to be a slave in soul, to be possessed by the fiend, the fallen angel. Or thou art a lover of pleasure; thou relishest the good things of nature and of art; thou savourest the ripe fruit and the ruddy wine, thou hast delight in the sunny landscape, in the almost living picture, the exquisitely chiseled marble. Thou knowest the pride of the eye and the pride of life: and thy nature is so much the more beautiful, the completer. We meditate no panegyric upon abstinence. Earth is full of beauty, of various beauties wooing us to enjoy and he is best-natured who has greatest capacity of enjoyment, whose taste is most perfect. But what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul? Shall a man give his soul for a picture? or exchange the gushing harmonies that well out from a consistent life, in order that he may fill his skin with claret ? To enjoy is good: but man has a higher mission-TO DO. It is not good to defer God's work to enjoyment. The soul has a task to perform, a goal to reach; happy if enjoyments may be its traveling-companions and keep pace with the stern march of duty. The soul must not halt for them. When we sce a noble heart deferring the truth of its life to the maintenance of a certain station, of certain enjoyments, of certain tastes and pleasures, we see one; like Rinaldo in the lap of Armida, who does not possess himself. Certain station has become a need: it is his master. Certain tastes have become habits without the gratification of which he can not live: those habits are his tyrants; he is not a true man. Neither are thy affections other than tyrants, and thou their slave, if they can (we do not say, if they do, but if they can) hale thee out of the steep heavenward path of duty, the path to which thy conscience points. Whoso loveth father or mother, brother or sister, husband or wife or child, more than Truth, is not of Truth's anointing. Neither a man's tastes nor his distastes, neither his fears nor his affections, nor world-interest, nor world-approval, no, nor most imperious Law or Custom, have right to rule the life of man. Let a man rule himself! The soul must be its own arbiter. Thou dost rule thyself-sayest thou. What! when world-bewilderments have bound thine eyes; when the yoke of the world's morality-whose ground and reasons thou knowest not-is on thy neck; when legal sophistries and trade quibbles and shufflings have hampered thee; when codes of 'honour' goad thee on; when men's smiles and frowns, and friendly approbation, and indifferent judgements, and pointed fingers of the keen-eyed foe, beckon or deter thee; when children cling about thy knees, and love looks beseechingly in thy undetermined eyes; when Custom charms thee with her unseen spells :-canst thou then rule thine own soul, and walk with steady step and eye unmoved toward the Ideal which thy soul did once set up, as God's image, for thy life's worship; toward the far goal which that image shall point out, even to the throne of God? Wilt thou even endeavour this? God's blessing on thec! God's strength in thine hour of need, thy little hour of life-long toil! For Calumny shall point at thee; Trade and Law and World-piety shall follow at the heels of Custom to harass thy long march through the enemies' country; wife and babes and household gods thou hast left behind thee :--reckon not upon the camp-followers! Even the one tried friend, who has fought beside thee from thy youth up, thy shield and strife-fellow from thy first enlisting: he in this last march has slackened pace, never so little; thou hast left him behind thee-but a few steps-and henceforth thou art alone. All things that were most dear to thee (and who can love as thou, who lovest and wouldst fain be lovely and beloved, cherishing thy own soul as a part of the Universal Beauty, keeping it in its integrity for Truth's sake), all things that thou didst doat upon, are estranged from thee. For thou wouldst possess thyself; and the world envies thee that possession. Has not the Son of Truth stood ever alone? for the world understood him not. Yet fear not! Though all this come upon thee, though the world's curse be thy companion, so thou possess thyself, the Devil shall not harm thee. Thou in thy lone majesty, on thy Promethean rock, shalt be free from the one worst curse the curse of self-contempt, that unseen vulture which preyeth upon those who possess not their own souls. The unjudging curse of others--a curse thou shalt outlive-a curse which thy own heart reverses, as sweet natures change and disarm poisons-is the worst that can befall thee. And even that not sure: for the dull world grows wiser daily. Beauty-be men never so slow-heartedis ever attractive. Iphigenia has still her Cymon: and the true heart is not barren. Grow on, thou noble forester! Pierce with thy deep roots into the firm earth! no storm shall shake thy enduring foundations. Spread wide thy foliaged arms; the tired have shelter under thee,-they shall bless thee; the lark from heaven's orient gate shall bring thee echoing of God's words; the evening star smile on tby shadowed life. Thou man who growest like the forest monarch, putting forth thy branching virtues from the strong heart within thee, thy proud head soaring skyward!-in thy very existence is an enjoyment, in thy self-possession a wealth which the worldling knoweth not,-a wealth and an enjoyment too deeply rooted in the eternal nature of Good, for time to change, or storm to overthrow. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: 'Its loveliness increases; it will never 'A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 'Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing.' There is no beauty like a beautiful life. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. WHEN kings are forgotten and priests are no more, When city and village no longer contend, When Valour is noble, when Toil is secure, When honour means duty, when duty is known, When Love liketh wisdom and worshipeth Right, Ween Peace kisseth him who hath fought the good fight, The kingdom of heaven will come on the earth. When Freedom looks Godward and life grows divine, When the voices of all in one chorus combine, SPARTACUS. J. Watson, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster-Row, London.-No. 41, Oct. 7. |