Prayer is the simplest form of speech Prayer the sublimest strains that reach Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, His watchword at the gates of death, Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice While angels in their songs rejoice, The saints in prayer appear as one, Nor prayer is made on earth alone; And Jesus, on the eternal throne, O Thou, by whom we come to God, HORACE SMITH. 1780-1849. (Manual, p. 432.) 316. ADDRESS TO A MUMMY. And thou hast walked about (how strange a story!) And time had not begun to overthrow Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dumby: Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures, But with thy bones, and flesh, and limbs, and features. Tell us for doubtless thou canst recollect To whom we should assign the Sphinx's fame? Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect Of either Pyramid that bears his name? Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer? Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer? Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played? Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat, Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass, I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed, Long after thy primeval race was run. Thou couldst develop, if that withered tongue Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen, Still silent, incommunicative elf! Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows; But prythee tell us something of thyself, Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house; Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered, What hast thou seen - what strange adventures numbered? Since first thy form was in this box extended, We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations; The Roman empire has begun and ended, New worlds have risen we have lost old nations, And countless kings have into dust been humbled, Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head, When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses, And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder, If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed, A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast, Statue of flesh — immortal of the dead! Imperishable type of evanescence! Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed, Why should this worthless tegument endure, If its undying guest be lost forever? O, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure In living virtue, that, when both must sever, Although corruption may our frame consume, The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom. GEORGE CANNING. 1770-1827. FROM "THE ANTIJACOBIN." 317. THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THhe Knife-GrinDER. Friend of Humanity. Needy Knife-grinder, whither are you going? Rough is your road, your wheel is out of order; your hat has got a hole in't Weary Knife-grinder, little think the proud ones, Scissors to grind, O!" Tell me, Knife-grinder, how came you to grind knives? Was it the squire or parson of the parish, Or the attorney? FROM "THE Friend." 306. TRUTH. Monsters and madmen canonized, and Galileo blind in a dungeon! It is not so in our times. Heaven be praised, that in this respect, at least, we are, if not better, yet better off than our forefathers. But to what and to whom (under Providence) do we owe the improvement? To any radical change in the moral affections of mankind in general? In order to answer this question in the affirmative, I must forget the infamous empirics whose advertisements pollute and disgrace all our newspapers, and almost paper the walls of our cities; and the vending of whose poisons and poisonous drams (with shame and anguish be it spoken) supports a shop in every market-town! I must forget that other opprobrium of the nation, that mother vice, the lottery! I must forget that a numerous class plead prudence for keeping their fellow-men ignorant and incapable of intellectual enjoyments, and the revenue for upholding such temptations as men so ignorant will not withstand - yes! that even senators and officers of state hold forth the revenue as a sufficient plea for upholding, at every fiftieth door throughout the kingdom, temptations to the most pernicious vices. No! let us not deceive ourselves. Like the man who used to pull off his hat with great demonstration of respect whenever he spoke of himself, we are fond of styling our own the enlightened age, though, as Jortin, I think, has wittily remarked, the golden age would be more appropriate. * * To whom, then, do we owe our ameliorated condition? To the successive few in every age (more, indeed, in one generation than in another, but relatively to the mass of mankind always few), who, by the intensity and permanence of their action, have compensated for the limited sphere within which it is at any one time intelligible, and whose good deeds posterity reverence in their results, though the mode in which we repair the inevitable waste of time, and the style of our additions, too generally furnish a sad proof how little we understand the principles. Still, however, there are truths so self-evident, or so immediately and palpably deduced from those that are, or are acknowledged for such, that they are at once intelligible to all men who possess the common advantages of the social state; although by sophistry, by evil habits, by the neglect, false persuasions, and impostures of an anti-Christian priesthood, joined in one conspiracy with the violence of tyrannical governors, the understandings of men may become so darkened, and their consciences so lethargic, that there may arise a necessity for the rèpublication of these truths, and this, too, with a voice of loud alarm and impassioned warning. Such were the doctrines proclaimed by the first Christians to the pagan world: such were the lightnings flashed by Wicklif, Huss, Luther, Calvin, Zuinglius, Latimer, and others, across the papal darkness; and such in our own times, the agitating truths with which Thomas Clarkson and his excellent confederates, the Quakers, fought and conquered the legalized banditti of men-stealers, the numerous and powerful perpetrators and advocates of rapine, murder, and (of blacker guilt than either) slavery. Truths of this kind being indispensable to man, considered as a moral being, are above all expedience, all accidental consequences: for, as sure as God is holy and man immortal, there can be no evil so great as the ignorance or disregard of them. It is the very madness of mock prudence to oppose the removal of a poisoned dish on account of the pleasant sauces or nutritious viands which would be lost with it! The dish contains destruction to that for which alone we ought to wish the palate to be gratified, or the body to be nourished. The prejudices of one age are condemned even by the prejudiced of the succeeding ages: for endless are the modes of folly, and the fool joins with the wise in passing sentence on all modes but his own. Who cried out with greater horror against the murderers of the prophets than those who likewise cried out, Crucify him! crucify him! The truth-haters of every future generation will call the truth-haters of the preceding ages by their true names, for even these the stream of time carries onward. In fine, truth, considered in itself, and in the effects natural to it, may be conceived as a gentle spring or watersource, warm from the genial earth, and breathing up into the snowdrift that is piled over and around its outlet. It turns the obstacle into its own form and character, and, as it makes its way, increases its stream. And should it be arrested in its course by a chilling season, it suffers delay, not loss, and awaits only for a change in the wind to awaken and again roll onward. 307. ADVANTAGE OF MEthod. What is that which first strikes us, and strikes us at once, in a man of education; and which, among educated men, so instantly distinguishes the man of superior mind, that (as was observed with eminent propriety of the late Edmund Burke) "we cannot stand under the same archway, during a shower of rain, without finding him out"? Not the weight or novelty of his remarks; not any unusual interest of facts communicated by him: for we may suppose both the one and the other precluded by the shortness of our intercourse, and the triviality of the subjects. The difference will be impressed and felt though the conversation should be confined to the state of the weather or the pavement. Still less will it arise from any peculiarity in his words and phrases; for if he be, as we now assume, a well-educated man, as well as a man of superior powers, he will not fail to follow the golden rule of Julius Cæsar, and, unless where new things necessitate new terms, he will avoid an unusual word as a rock. It must have been among the earliest lessons of his youth that the breach of this precept, |