What health can bloom in a beautiful skin, when rottenness hath fed upon the bones?

And guilt is parcel of us all; not thou, sweet nursling of affection,

Art spotless, though so passing fair,-nor thou, mild patriarch of virtue.

Behold then the better Tree of Life, free unto us all for grafting,

Cut thee from the hollow root of self, to be budded on a richer Vine.

Be desperate, O man, as of evil, so of good; tear that tunic from thee;

The past can never be retrieved, be the present what it may.

Vain is the penance and the scourge, vain the fast

and vigil;

The fencer's cautious skill to-day, can this erase his scars?

It is Man's to famish as a faquir, it is Man's to die

a devotee,

Light is the torture and the toil, balanced with the wages of Eternity:

But, it is God's to yearn in love, on the humblest,

the poorest, and the worst,

For he giveth freely, as a King, asking only thanks

for mercy.

Look upon this noble-hearted Substitute; seeing thy woes, he pitied thee,

Bowed beneath the mountain of thy sin, and perished, but for Godhead;

There stood the Atlas in his power, and Prometheus in his love is there,

Emptying on wretched men the blessings earned from heaven :

Put them not away, hide them in thy heart, poor and penitent receiver,

Be gratitude thy counsellor to good, and wholesome fear unto obedience :

Remember, the pruning-knife is keen, cutting cankers even from the vine;

Remember, twelve were chosen, and one among them liveth-in perdition.

Yea, for standing unatoned, the soul is a bison on the prairie,

Hunted by those trooping wolves, the many sinful

yesterdays:

And it speedeth a terrified Deucalion, flinging back the pebble in his flight,

The pebble that must add one more to those pursuing ghosts. (4)

O man, there is a storm behind, should drive thy bark to haven;

The foe, the foe is on thy track, patient, certain, and

avenging;

Day by day, solemnly, and silently, followeth the fearful past,

His step is lame, but sure; for he catcheth the present in eternity:

And how to escape that foe, the present-past in

future?

How to avert that fate, living consequence of causes unexistent ?

Boldly we must overleap his birth, and date above his memories,

Grafted on the living Tree, that was before a yes

terday;

No refuge of a younger birth than one that saw

creation

Can hide the child of time from still condemning

yesterday.

There, is the Sanctuary-city, mocking at the wrath of thine Avenger,

Close at hand, with its wicket on the latch; haste for thy life, poor hunted one!

The gladiator, Guilt, fighteth as of old, armed with

net and dagger;

Snaring in the mesh of yesterdays, stabbing with the poignard of to-day:

Fly, thy sword is broken at the hilt; fly, thy shield is shivered;

Leap the barriers, and baffle him: the arena of the past is his.

The bounds of Guilt are the cycles of Time: thou must be safe within Eternity;

The arms of God alone shall rescue thee from Yes

terday.

Of To-day.

Now, is the constant syllable ticking from the clock

of time,

Now, is the watchword of the wise, Now, is on the banner of the prudent.

Cherish thy to-day and prize it well, or ever it be gulphed into the past,

Husband it, for who can promise, if it shall have a morrow?

Behold thou art,-it is enough; that present care be

thine;

Leave thou the past to thy Redeemer, entrust the future to thy Friend;

But for to-day, child of man, tend thou charily the

minutes,

The harvest of thy yesterday, the seed-corn of thy

morrow.