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CHAPTER VIII.

PROSE AND VERSE.

"The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

Church bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,
The land of spices, something understood."

GEO. HERBERT.

I WILL here give two or three specimens of his literary style at this period, both in prose and verse; they reveal his mind very clearly, both its strength and weakness— the rare beauty, fervency and originality of his thoughts, and the over-elaboration and quaintness of diction that obscure the lucidity of the thought, and divert instead of concentrating attention. The first is a mystical discourse on a verse of Scripture, written on St Cyprian's Day (26th Sep.) 1869, apparently at the end of the Summer Holidays, and addressed to three of the Miss Wordsworths. It has never been published. Its quaint mediaeval title is

"Concio

habita in spiritu
ad

Tres Sorores de Prato Resurrectionis (Riseholme)
Die Dom.

Natali autem S. Cypriani

A.D. 1869.

Habuit Macarophylax Albius Benedicti F."

[A speech made in the Spirit to the three sisters of Riseholme, on the Lord's Day, also the birthday of St Cyprian, A.D. 1869. Edward White Benson made it.]

And especially worthy of note is the passage which deals with the death of saints, which seems to foreshadow in a way that is almost prophetic, the manner of his own death, and the holy influences thus withdrawn from the Church.

S. Marc. vi. 31.

Venite seorsum in desertum locum et requiescite pusillum. "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place and rest awhile." Proem.

Dilectissimae sorores-we are met together to-day in spirit not in flesh, being absent in body not in heart, and therein I preach to you, even while you, in this my heart, do make music sweeter than organs to the glory and praise of GOD.

And my pulpit hath twelve sides, being none other than the garden table whereat I write on the lawn; and the sun westering, doth smite the right cheek of my face. Whereby I find that I must work while it is called to-day, because of the evening of night wherein no man can write or work-also the twelve-sided table mindeth me that this sermon must be truly apostolic, writ on the very figure of the Holy College.

Dearly beloved sisters-It was "Venite seorsum " that Christ said. After a while he said, "Exite foras." But this time, "Venite seorsum." Another time he sent them through all the cities of Israel, but this time it was "Requiescite pusillum."

Yet surely one would have said that God's work was already standing still too much, when John Baptist was laid in his grave. His disciples came and told Jesus, and would not a man have thought that now was the time for one greater than John Baptist to step into his place, and from his place into a higher, until he had revealed Himself? Or if in the secret counsel of God that hour was not yet come, will He not send one of the Twelve, a Peter or a John, to take up the work-to "penetrate the masses yet more with the call to Penance; to lift them by one or two simple ideas well-grasped and made their own to higher ways, whence they might lift their eyes again above their fallen estate, and seek a better peace with GOD than had of late been theirs.

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"Venite in desertum locum”—the teaching of nature-GOD'S

speech read in the beauty of the wilderness-this is to be their immediate teaching and their abiding strength. Not Nature alone, but nature in the presence of Jesus Christ. Nature alone is oft too weak to heal us, too weak to teach-too oft in her glorious beauty she is even our temptress. But nature in the presence of Jesus is strong indeed; and we too ourselves have wondered, and have spoken of our wonder, that the purple of the moors and twilight on the river while the northern sea lay all gold, and the living beauty of stately trees and waving branches, should have such power to make us forget the world's trouble or labour, and send us home stronger at evening than when we arose in the morning. It was because Jesus Himself drew near and went with us, and talked with us by the way, for His speech has power to penetrate not the ear only but every organ which He hath made: He made the channels and He sends out the streams that fill them.

He that walked in the heat of the day in the garden which He had made for the man to love, He Himself, beloved sisters, hath wished that we should spiritually discern things which the holy birds, and the innocent things that dwell among them, know not.

For as well as the teaching of Nature under His presence, they had too the conversation of friends. The companionship (dearest of all things that God gives on earth) of those who loved the great past, who hoped for a greater future-who amid the immediate wreck had eyes yet to see that the great fragments were not to perish for ever; that the bare gable and the stately buttress might be framed into yet statelier homes than of old, so as for the spirit of man to be hallowed and grow great again, and for the suffering of the world to be healed, and for the outcast poor to have the Gospel preached to them.

Here was their healing-and under so great a calamity--here was their education as their thoughts grew peaceful again and turned once more from the past to the future.

Venite seorsum-the bidding, while all obeyed it-woke different feelings in different hearts. Some perhaps understood it as He meant it-other some would be only too willing to hide their sorrows-yes, and perhaps their despair of an age which unconcerned saw so much go down that was true and good; and of a society whose regenerators were thus marked for early doombut some perhaps in their sense of strength unused, and courage

unbroken, thought-(or would have thought but that they trusted Him) that they were wasting time, that they needed none of this teaching of Nature—that they had learnt all that intercourse with friends could teach them-that, even as to their association with Christ Himself, the times pointed them rather onward to use what they had learnt already, than still to linger even in His sacred presence.

However, the choice was not theirs but His-He bade them "requiescite pusillum "—and they rested.

And so again do they lie down to Rest, just when it seems as if the world's need and the Church's is the sorest, who after long lives of keen experience enter on silent years of incapacity', and pass away from the hearts of men more than if they died—and they too who, touched more gently, actually pass away to sleep in the dust when their knowledge is fullest, their spirit clearest,-yes, and their hearts gentlest and the spell of their presence and their words most potent.

The later age of some of God's servants seems to attain to such fulness of wisdom and sagacity; the impetuousness of youth gone, yet its courage and its fire remaining, its intellectual brightness as fiery keen as ever, its loves more true, more tender, the inexperience to which conquests once seemed easy has been succeeded by an experience which sees in multiplying difficulties only multiplying hopes, yet knows that each difficulty is a fort impregnably held for the enemy unless the one access to the citadel is found: once they were overburdened with grief at the failure of attempts which they knew to be in a holy cause, and even yet can scarce think ill-directed; now they are upheld by a faith which knows that the science of attack on Satan's fortresses is in advance-be it ever so little of the skill with which they are defended their ancient eagerness is all there, yet it is an eagerness entrenched in quietude. And now the moment is come for some decisive movement-who is so fit as those venerable saints to head it? Yet in that very hour-to the baffling of our intelligence-the wisdom of GOD sees the moment for withdrawing them. "Venite seorsum" is breathed in their ears; "et Requiescite

1 Henry Philpotts, Bp of Exeter from 1831 to 1869. He last addressed the House of Lords in July, 1863, but was compelled from feebleness to speak sitting. His last act was on Sep. 9, 1869, to execute the resignation of his See. which did not take effect as he died on Sep. 18.

2 Bp Hamilton of Salisbury, d. Aug. 1, 1869.

pusillum": the osculum Dei kisses their spirit from their lips. The battle goes on while the heroes are parted from it, and while their guiding hand is wanted most they are already on their way "in desertum locum"-to a fair lone place where they find Christ and the Apostles sitting still, as once beside the Galilean Lake, pausing "awhile" till the hour of their recommencing work comes round again.

And bethink you of the Apostles' Rest-was not the Feeding of the Five Thousand their next day's work? Christ's own widest miracle their own most blessed ministry to the poor and faint and weary. In all other miracles they were but devout reflective watchers in this they were happy partakers as full of activity as the day before they were full of rest.

And bethink you again of the Rest and Repose of the Faithful Departed. Who can tell the calm glory of that Rest? The joy of the contemplation of the Face and Word of Christ, who is the unsetting Sun of Paradise-but, beloved, if it pass our utmost thought to conceive of the perfectness of the Rest, what shall we look for as the Work that shall flow out of that same Rest? When once the Lord riseth, and calls men about him and goes forth, what think ye will be the infinite work for which that rest is now preparing them?

If the sleep of the Dead be so blessed in vision and in knowledge, what shall Life from the Dead be?

Let us beware lest we misname or misapprehend any appointed Rest. Let us no more yearn for present employment when God's providence bids us "be still" than we would think it good to yearn after cessation while God bids work. Shall we not miss a blessing if we call Rest a weariness and a discontent, no less than if we called God's work a thankless labour? If we would be holy in body and spirit shall we not keep smooth brow, light heart, whether he bids us serve his table, or wait our summons? To turn a new page in Nature's Book is a worthy pastime, say rather it is a new way of hallowing the Revealed Name of God: to intercede for those who have no time, or who have hearts too anxious and too pressed to pray effectually; to learn the great ways whereby old states of society were wrought into the substance of God's kingdom: to weigh well if there be remedies yet unfound which shall meet the strain of our society to-day: to know the principles, to scan the aims, the means, the steps of the saints; to lay aside all that can hinder us from union, that can weaken

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