Who can expound beauty? or explain the character of na tions? Who will furnish a cause for the epidemic force of fashion? Is there a moral magnetism living in the light of example? Is practice electricity ?-Yet all these are but names. Doth normal Art imprison, in its works, spirit translated into substance, So that the statue, the picture, or the poem, are crystals of the mind? And doth Philosophy with sublimating skill shred away the matter, Till rarified intelligence exudeth even out of stocks and stones? O MYSTERIES, ye all are one, the mind of an inexplicable Architect Dwelleth alike in each, quickening and moving in them all. Fields, and forests, and cities of men, their woes and wealth and works, And customs, and contrivances of life, with all we see and know, For a little way, a little while, ye hang dependent on each other, But all are held in one right hand, and by His will ye are. Here is answer unto mystery, an unintelligible God, This is the end and the beginning, it is reason that He be not understood. Therefore it were probable and just, even to a man's weak thinking, To have one for God who always may be learnt, yet never fully known, That He, from whom all mysteries spring, in whom they all converge, Throned in his sublimity beyond the grovellings of lower intellect, Should claim to be truer than man's truest, the boasted cer tainty of numbers, Should baffle his arithmetic, confound his demonstrations, and paralyse the might of his necessity, Standing supreme as the mystery of mysteries, everywhere, yet impersonate, Essential one in three, essential three in one! OF GIFTS. 1 HAD a seeming friend:-I gave him gifts and he was gone; I had an open enemy:-I gave him gifts and won him : Common friendship standeth on equalities and cannot bear a debt; But the very heart of hate melteth at a good man's love: The covetous spirit may rejoice, revelling in thy largess, But the same idolatry of self abhorreth thoughts of thanking. NEVERTHELESS, give; for it shall be a discriminative test, Separating honesty from falsehood, weeding insincerity from friendship. Give, it is like God; thou weariest the bad with benefits: Give, it is like God; thou gladdenest the good by gratitude. Give to thy near of kin, for Providence hath stationed thee his helper: Yet see that he claim not as his right, thy freewill offering of duty. Give to the young, they love it; neither hath the poison of suspicion Spoilt the flavor of their thanks, to look for latent motives. Give to merit, largely give; his conscious heart will bless thee: It is not flattery, but love,-the sympathy of men his breth ren. Give, for encouragement in good; the weak desponding mind Moreover, heed thou this; give to thine equal charily, Hath he been prosperous and blest? a flower may show thy gladness; Is he in need? with liberal love tender him the well-filled purse; Disease shall welcome friendly care in grapes and precious unguents; And where a darling child hath died, give praise, and hope, and sympathy: Yet once more, heed thou this; give to the poor discreetly, The timely loan hath added nerve, where easy liberality would palsy ; Work and wages make a light heart: but the mendicant asked with a heavy spirit. A man's own self-respect is worth unto him more than money, And evil is the charity that humbleth, and maketh man less happy. THERE are who sow liberalities, to reap the like again: Fool,-to think His wea.th is money, and not mind: And haply after thine alms, thy calculated givings, The hurricane shall blast thy crops, and sink the homeward ship; Then shall thy worldly soul murmur that the balances were false, Thy trader's-mind shall think of God,-He stood not to his bargain. GIVE, saith the preacher, be large in liberality, yield to the holy impulse, Tarry not for cold consideration, but cheerfully and freely scatter. So, for complacency of conscience, in a gush of counterfeited charity, He that hath not wherewith to be just, selfishly presumeth to be generous. The debtor, and the rich by wrong, are known among the band of the benevolent; And men extol the noble hearts, who rob that they may give. Receivers are but little prone to challenge rights of giving, Nor stop to test, for conscience-sake, the righteousness of mammon: And the zealot in a cause is a receiver, at the hand which bettereth his cause; And thus an unsuspected bribe shall blind the good man's judgment: It is easy to excuse greatness, and the rich are readily forgiven: What, if his gains were evil, sanctified by using them aright? O shallow flatterer, self-interest is thy thought, Hopeless of partaking in the like, thou too wouldest scorn the giver. MONEY hath its value; and the scatterer thereof his thanks; Few men, drinking at a rivulet, stop to consider its source. The hand that closeth on an alm, be it for necessities or zeal, Hath small scruple whence it came: Vespasian rejoiceth in his tribute; Therefore have colleges and hospitals risen upon orphans' wrongs, Chapels and cathedrals have thriven on the welcome wages of iniquity, And fraud, in evil compensation, hath salved his guilty conscience, Not by restoring to the cheated, but by ostentatious giving to the grateful. So, those who reap rejoice; and reaping, bless the sower: No one is eager to discover, where discovery tendeth unto loss: Yet, if knowledge of a theft make gainers thereby guilty, Can he be altogether innocent who never asked the honesty of gain? Therefore, O preacher, zealous for charity, temper thy warm appeal, Warning the debtor and unjustly rich, they may not dare to give: To do good is a privilege and guerdon, how shouldest thou rejoice? If ill-got gifts of presumptuous fraud be offered on the altar? The question is not of degrees; unhallowed alms are evil: Discourage and reject alike the obolus, or talent of iniquity. |