Part 23 (1/2)
Nature is kind, and G.o.d is kind; And, if she had not had a heart, Only that great discerning mind, She might have acted well her part.
But O this thirst, that nought can fill, Save those unfounden waters free!
The angel of my life must still And soothe me in eternity!
It marks the defect in the position of woman that one like Mariana should have found reason to write thus. To a man of equal power, equal sincerity, no more!--many resources would have presented themselves. He would not have needed to seek, he would have been called by life, and not permitted to be quite wrecked through the affections only. But such women as Mariana are often lost, unless they meet some man of sufficiently great soul to prize them.
Van Artevelde's Elena, though in her individual nature unlike my Mariana, is like her in a mind whose large impulses are disproportioned to the persons and occasions she meets, and which carry her beyond those reserves which mark the appointed lot of woman. But, when she met Van Artevelde, he was too great not to revere her rare nature, without regard to the stains and errors of its past history; great enough to receive her entirely, and make a new life for her; man enough to be a lover! But as such men come not so often as once an age, their presence should not be absolutely needed to sustain life.
SUNDAY MEDITATIONS ON VARIOUS TEXTS.
MEDITATION FIRST.
”And Jesus, answering, said unto them, Have faith in G.o.d.”--_Mark_ xi. 22.
O, direction most difficult to follow! O, counsel most mighty of import!
Beauteous harmony to the purified soul! Mysterious, confounding as an incantation to those yet groping and staggering amid the night, the fog, the chaos of their own inventions!
Yes, this is indeed the beginning and the end of all knowledge and virtue; the way and the goal; the enigma and its solution. The soul cannot prove to herself the existence of a G.o.d; she cannot prove her own immortality; she cannot prove the beauty of virtue, or the deformity of vice; her own consciousness, the first ground of this belief, cannot be compa.s.sed by the reason, that inferior faculty which the Deity gave for practical, temporal purposes only. This consciousness is divine; it is part of the Deity; through this alone we sympathize with the imperishable, the infinite, the nature of things. Were reason commensurate with this part of our intellectual life, what should we do with the things of time? The leaves and buds of earth would wither beneath the sun of our intelligence; its crags and precipices would be levelled before the mighty torrent of our will; all its dross would crumble to ashes under the fire of our philosophy.
G.o.d willed it otherwise; WHY, who can guess? Why this planet, with its tormenting limitations of s.p.a.ce and time, was ever created,--why the soul was cased in this clogging, stifling integument, (which, while it conveys to the soul, in a roundabout way, knowledge which she might obviously acquire much better without its aid, tempts constantly to vice and indolence, suggesting sordid wants, and hampering or hindering thought,)--I pretend not to say. Let others toil to stifle sad distrust a thousand ways. Let them satisfy themselves by reasonings on the nature of free agency; let them imagine it was impossible men should be purified to angels, except by resisting the temptations of guilt and crime; let them be _reasonably_ content to feel that
”Faith conquers in no easy war; By toil alone the prize is won; The grape dissolves not in the cup-- Wine from the crus.h.i.+ng press must run; And would a spirit heavenward go, A heart must break in death below.”
Why an _omnipotent_ Deity should permit evil, either as necessary to produce good, or incident to laws framed for its production, must remain a mystery to me. True, _we_ cannot conceive how the world could have been ordered differently, and because _we_,--beings half of clay; beings bred amid, and nurtured upon imperfection and decay; beings who must not only sleep and eat, but pa.s.s the greater part of their temporal day in procuring the means to do so,--because WE, creatures so limited and blind, so weak of thought and dull of hearing, cannot conceive how evil could have been dispensed with, those among us who are styled _wise_ and _learned_ have thought fit to a.s.sume that the Infinite, the Omnipotent, could not have found a way! ”Could not,” ”evil must be incident”--terms invented to express the thoughts or deeds of the children of dust. Shall they be applied to the Omnipotent? Is a confidence in the goodness of G.o.d more trying to faith, than the belief that a G.o.d exists, to whom these words, transcending our powers of conception, apply? O, no, no!
”_Have faith in G.o.d!_” Strive to expand thy soul to the feeling of wisdom, of beauty, of goodness; live, and act as if these were the necessary elements of things; ”live for thy faith, and thou shalt behold it living.” In another world G.o.d will repay thy trust, and ”reveal to thee the first causes of things which Leibnitz could not,” as the queen of Prussia said, when she was dying. Socrates has declared that the belief in the soul's immortality is so delightful, so elevating, so purifying, that even were it not the truth, ”we should daily strive to enchant ourselves with it.” And thus with faith in wisdom and goodness,--that is to say, in G.o.d,--the earthquake-defying, rock-foundation of our hopes is laid; the sun-greeting dome which crowns the most superb palace of our knowledge is builded. A n.o.ble and accomplished man, of a later day, has said, ”To credit ordinary and visible objects is not faith, but persuasion. I bless myself, and am thankful, that I lived not in the days of miracles, that I never saw Christ, nor his disciples; then had my faith been thrust upon me, nor could I enjoy that greater blessing p.r.o.nounced upon those who believe yet saw not.”
I cannot speak thus proudly and heartily. I find the world of sense strong enough against the intellectual and celestial world. It is easy to believe in our pa.s.sionless moments, or in those when earth would seem too dark without the guiding star of faith; but to _live_ in faith, not sometimes to feel, but always to have it, is difficult. Were faith ever with us, how steady would be our energy, how equal our ambition, how calmly bright our hopes! The darts of envy would be blunted, the cup of disappointment lose its bitterness, the impa.s.sioned eagerness of the heart be stilled, tears would fall like holy dew, and blossoms fragrant with celestial May ensue.
But the prayer of most of us must be, ”Lord, we believe--help thou our unbelief!” These are to me the most significant words of Holy Writ. I _will_ to believe; O, guide, support, strengthen, and soothe me to do so! Lord, grant me to believe firmly, and to act n.o.bly. Let me not be tempted to waste my time, and weaken my powers, by attempts to soar on feeble pinions ”where angels bashful look.” In _faith_ let me interpret the universe!
MEDITATION SECOND.
”Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom G.o.d hath hedged in?”--_Job_ iii. 23.
This pathetic inquiry rises from all parts of the globe, from millions of human souls, to that heaven from whence the light proceeds. From the young, full of eager aspirations after virtue and glory; with the glance of the falcon to descry the high-placed aim,--but ah! the wing of the wren to reach it! The young enthusiast must often weep. His heart glows, his eye sparkles as he reads of the youthful triumphs of a Pompey, the sublime devotion of an Agis;[34] he shuts the book, he looks around him for a theatre whereon to do likewise--petty pursuits, mean feelings, and trifling pleasures meet his eye; the cold breeze of selfishness has nipped every flower; the dull glow of prosaic life overpowers the beauties of the landscape. He plunges into the unloved pursuit, or some despised amus.e.m.e.nt, to soothe that day's impatience, and wakes on the morrow, crying, ”I have lost a day; and where, where shall I now turn my steps to find the destined path?” The gilded image of some petty victory holds forth a talisman which seems to promise him sure tokens. He rushes forward; the swords of foes and rivals bar the way; the ground trembles and gives way beneath his feet; rapid streams, unseen at a distance, roll between him and the object of his pursuit; faint, giddy and exhausted by the loss of his best blood, he reaches the goal, seizes the talisman; his eyes devour the inscription--alas! the characters are unknown to him. He looks back for some friend who might aid him,--his friends are whelmed beneath the torrent, or have turned back disheartened. He must struggle onward alone and ignorant as before; yet in his wishes there is light.
Another is attracted by a lovely phantom; with airy step she precedes him, holding, as he thinks, in her upward-pointing hand the faithful needle which might point him to the pole-star of his wishes. Unwearied he follows, imploring her in most moving terms to pause but a moment and let him take her hand. Heedless she flits onward to some hopeless desert, where she pauses only to turn to her unfortunate captive the malicious face of a very Morgana.
The old,--O their sighs are deeper still! They have wandered far, toiled much; the true light is now shown them. Ah, why was it reflected so falsely through ”life's many-colored dome of painted gla.s.s” upon their youthful, anxious gaze? And now the path they came by is hedged in by new circ.u.mstances against the feet of others, and its devious course vainly mapped in their memories; should the light of their example lead others into the same track, these unlucky followers will vainly seek an issue. They attempt to unroll their charts for the use of their children, and their children's children. They feed the dark lantern of wisdom with the oil of experience, and hold it aloft over the declivity up which these youth are blundering, in vain; some fall, misled by the flickering light; others seek by-paths, along which they hope to be guided by suns or moons of their own. All meet at last, only to bemoan or sneer together. How many strive with feverish zeal to paint on the clouds of outward life the hues of their own souls; what do not these suffer? What baffling,--what change in the atmosphere on which they depend,--yet _not_ in vain! Something they realize, something they grasp, something (O, how unlike the theme of their hope!) they have created. A transient glow, a deceitful thrill,--these be the blisses of mortals. Yet have these given birth to n.o.ble deeds, and thoughts worthy to be recorded by the pens of angels on the tablets of immortality.
And this, O man! is thy only solace in those paroxysms of despair which must result to the yet eager heart from the vast disproportion between our perceptions and our exhibition of those perceptions. Seize on all the twigs that may help thee in thine ascent, though the thorns upon them rend thee. Toil ceaselessly towards the Source of light, and remember that he who thus eloquently lamented found that, although far worse than his dark presentiments had pictured came upon him, though vainly he feared and trembled, and there was no safety for him, yet his sighings came before his meat, and, happy in their recollection, he found at last that danger and imprisonment are but for a season, and that G.o.d is _good_, as he is great.
APPEAL FOR AN ASYLUM FOR DISCHARGED FEMALE CONVICTS.