The captive prophet, whom Jehovah gave The future years, described it best, when he Beheld it rise in vision of the night:

A dreadful beast, and terrible, and strong Exceedingly, with mighty iron teeth; And, lo, it brake in pieces, and devoured, And stamped the residue beneath its feet!

True liberty was Christian, sanctified, Baptized, and found in Christian hearts alone; First-born of Virtue, daughter of the skies, Nursling of truth divine, sister of all The graces, meekness, holiness, and love; Giving to God, and man, and all below, That symptom showed of sensible existence, Their due, unasked; fear to whom fear was due; To all, respect, benevolence, and love: Companion of religion, where she came,

There freedom came; where dwelt, there freedom dwelt;

Of moral being most anomalous,
Inexplicable most, and wonderful.
I'll introduce thee to a single heart,
A human heart. We enter not the worst,
But one by God's renewing spirit touched,
A Christian heart, awaked from sleep of sin.
What seest thou here? what markst? Observe it
well.

Will, passion, reason, hopes, fears, joy, distress,
Peace, turbulence, simplicity, deceit,
Good, ill, corruption, immortality;

A temple of the Holy Ghost, and yet
Oft lodging fiends; the dwelling-place of all
The heavenly virtues, charity and truth,
Humility, and holiness, and love;

And yet the common haunt of anger, pride,
Hatred, revenge, and passions foul with lust;
Allied to heaven, yet parleying oft with hell;
A soldier listed in Messiah's band,

With seraphs drinking from the well of life,

free,"

Who, first of all, the bands of Satan broke;
Who broke the bands of sin; and for his soul,
In spite of fools, consulted seriously;
In spite of fashion, persevered in good;
In spite of wealth or poverty, upright;
Who did as reason, not as fancy, bade;
Who heard temptation sing, and yet turned not
Aside; saw Sin bedeck her flowery bed,
And yet would not go up; felt at his heart
The sword unsheathed, yet would not sell the truth;
Who, having power, had not the will to hurt;
Who blushed alike to be, or have a slave;

Who blushed at naught but sin, feared naught but
God;

Who, finally, in strong integrity

Of soul, 'midst want, or riches, or disgrace,
Uplifted, calmly sat, and heard the waves

Of stormy folly breaking at his feet,

An heir of heaven, and walking thitherward,
Yet casting back a covetous eye on earth;
Emblem of strength, and weakness; loving now,
And now abhorring sin; indulging now,
And now repenting sore; rejoicing now,
With joy unspeakable, and full of glory;
Now weeping bitterly, and clothed in dust;
A man willing to do, and doing not;
Doing, and willing not; embracing what
He hates, what most he loves abandoning;
Half saint, and sinner half; half life, half death;
Commixture strange of heaven, and earth, and hell.
What seest thou here? what markst? A battle-
field;

Two banners spread, two dreadful fronts of war
In shock of opposition fierce, engaged.
God, angels, saw whole empires rise in arms,
Saw kings exalted, heard them tumble down,
And others raised,—and heeded not; but here

And both despised sincerely; seeking this
Alone, The approbation of his God,

Which still with conscience witnessed to his peace.

This, this is freedom, such as angels use, And kindred to the liberty of God. First-born of Virtue, daughter of the skies! The man, the state, in whom she ruled was free; All else were slaves of Satan, Sin, and Death. Already thou hast something heard of good And ill, of vice and virtue, perfect cach; Of those redeemed, or else abandoned quite; And more shalt hear, when, at the judgment-day, The characters of mankind we review. Seems aught which thou hast heard astonishing? A greater wonder now thy audience asks; Phenomena in all the universe,

With all his legions, fought: here, error fought
With truth, with darkness light, and life with death;
And here, not kingdoms, reputation, worlds,
Were won; the strife was for eternity,
The victory was never-ending bliss,
The badge, a chaplet from the tree of life.

While thus, within, contending armies strove, Without, the Christian had his troubles too. For, as by God's unalterable laws,

And ceremonial of the Heaven of Heavens,
Virtue takes place of all, and worthiest deeds
Sit highest at the feast of bliss; on earth,
The opposite was fashion's rule polite.
Virtue the lowest place at table took,
Or served, or was shut out; the Christian still
Was mocked, derided, persecuted, slain;
And Slander, worse than mockery, or sword,

Remark, and old, diseased, putrid thought, And, miserable incident, at war

With nature, with itself and truth at war;
Yet charming still the greedy reader on,
Till done, he tried to recollect his thoughts,
And nothing found, but dreaming emptiness.
These, like ephemera, sprung, in a day,
From lean and shallow-soiled brains of sand,
And in a day expired; yet, while they lived,
Tremendous oft-times was the popular roar;
And cries of-Live for ever! struck the skies.
One kind alone remained, seen through the gloom
And sullen shadow of the past: as lights
At intervals they shone, and brought the eye,
That backward travelled, upward, till arrived
At him, who, on the hills of Midian, sang
The patient man of Uz; and from the lyre
Of angels, learned the early dawn of Time.
Not light and momentary labour these,
But discipline and self-denial long,
And purpose stanch, and perseverance, asked,
And energy that inspiration seemed.
Composed of many thoughts, possessing each
Innate and underived vitality;

Which, having fitly shaped, and well arranged
In brotherly accord, they builded up;

A stately superstructure, that, nor wind,

Not weak and foolish only, but the wise,
Patient, courageous, stout, sound headed man,
Of proper discipline, of excellent wind,
And strong of intellectual limb, toiled hard;
And oft above the reach of common eye
Ascended far, and seemed well nigh the top;
But only seemed; for still another top
Above them rose, till, giddy grown and mad,
With gazing at these dangerous heights of God,
They tumbled down, and in their raving said,
They o'er the summit saw. And some believed,
Believed a lie; for never man on earth,
That mountain crossed, or saw its farther side.
Around it lay the wreck of many a Sage,
Divine, Philosopher; and many more
Fell daily, undeterred by millions fallen;
Each wondering why he failed to comprehend
God, and with finite measure infinite.
To pass it, was no doubt desirable;
And few of any intellectual size,
That did not, some time in their day, attempt;
But all in vain; for as the distant hill,
Which on the right or left, the traveller's eye
Bounds, seems advancing as he walks, and oft
He looks, and looks, and thinks to pass; but still
It forward moves, and mocks his baffled sight,
Till night descends, and wraps the scene in gloom,

As ranks of veteran warriors in the field,
Each by himself alone and singly seen,

A tower of strength; in massy phalanx knit,
And in embattled squadron rushing on,
A sea of valour, dread, invincible.

Books of this sort, or sacred, or profane,
Which virtue helped, were titled, not amiss,
'The medicine of the mind:" who read them, read
Wisdom, and was refreshed; and on his path
Of pilgrimage, with healthier step advanced.
In mind, in matter, much was difficult
To understand. But, what in deepest night
Retired, inscrutable, mysterious, dark,—
Was evil, God's decrees, and deeds decreed,
Responsible: why God, the just and good,
Omnipotent and wise, should suffer sin
To rise: why man was free, accountable;
Yet God foreseeing, overruling all.
Where'er the eye could turn, whatever tract
Of moral thought it took, by reason's torch,
Or Scripture's led, before it still this mount
Sprung up, impervious, insurmountable,
Above the human stature rising far;
Horizon of the mind, surrounding still
The vision of the soul with clouds and gloom.
Yet did they oft attempt to scale its sides,
And gain its top. Philosophy, to climb,
With all her vigour, toiled from age to age;
From age to age, Theology, with all

Her vigour, toiled; and vagrant Fancy toiled.

So lifted up its dark and cloudy head,
Before the eye, and met it evermore,

And some, provoked, accused the righteous God.
Accused of what? hear human boldness now!
Hear guilt, hear folly, madness, all extreme!
Accused of what? the God of truth accused
Of cruelty, injustice, wickedness.
Abundant sin! because a mortal man,
A worm, at best, of small capacity,
With scarce an atom of Jehovah's works
Before him, and with scarce an hour to look
Upon them, should presume to censure God,
The infinite and uncreated God!

To sit, in judgment, on Himself, his works,
His providence! and try, accuse, condemn!
If there is aught, thought or to think, absurd,
Irrational and wicked, this is more,

This most; the sin of devils, or of those
To devils growing fast. Wise men and good
Accused themselves, not God; and put their hands
Upon their mouths, and in the dust adored.

The Christian's faith had many mysteries too;
The uncreated holy Three in One,
Divine incarnate, human in divine;
The inward call; the Sanctifying Dew
Coming unseen, unseen departing thence;
Anew creating all, and yet not heard;
Compelling, yet not felt. Mysterious these,
Not that Jehovah to conceal them wished,
Not that religion wished. The Christian faith,
Unlike the timorous creeds of pagan priests,

And hasted to be gone; and delicate And tender women took another path.

This great disparity of outward things
Taught many lessons; but this taught in chief,
Though learned by few: That God no value set,
That man should none, on goods of worldly kind!
On transitory, frail, external things,
Of migratory, ever-changing sort:

And further taught, that in the soul alone,
The thinking, reasonable, willing soul,
God placed the total excellence of man ;
And meant him evermore to seek it there.

But stranger still the distribution seemed
Of intellect, though fewer here complained;
Each with his share, upon the whole content.
One man there was, and many such you might
Have met, who never had a dozen thoughts
In all his life, and never changed their course;
But told them o'er, each in its customed place,
From morn till night, from youth to hoary age.
Little above the ox that grazed the field,
His reason rose; so weak his memory,
The name his mother called him by, he scarce
Remembered; and his judgment so untaught,
That what at evening played along the swamp,
Fantastic, clad in robe of fiery hue,

He thought the devil in disguise, and fled
With quivering heart and winged footsteps home.
The word philosophy he never heard,
Or science; never heard of liberty,
Necessity, or laws of gravitation;
And never had an unbelieving doubt.
Beyond his native vale he never looked;

But thought the visual line, that girt him round,
The world's extreme; and thought the silver
Moon,

That nightly o'er him led her virgin host,

No broader than his father's shield. He lived,-
Lived where his father lived, died where he died,
Lived happy, and died happy, and was saved.
Be not surprised. He loved and served his God.
There was another, large of understanding,
Of memory infinite, of judgment deep,
Who knew all learning, and all science knew;
And all phenomena, in heaven and earth,
Traced to their causes; traced to the labyrinths
Of thought, association, passion, will;
And all the subtle, nice affinities

Of matter traced, its virtues, motions, laws;
And most familiarly and deeply talked
Of mental, moral, natural, divine.
Leaving the earth at will, he soared to heaven,
And read the glorious visions of the skies;
And to the music of the rolling spheres
Intelligently listened; and gazed far back
Into the awful depths of Deity;

Did all that mind assisted most could do;
And yet in misery lived, in misery died,
Because he wanted holiness of heart.

A deeper lesson this to mortals taught, And nearer cut the branches of their pride That not in mental, but in moral worth, God excellence placed; and only to the good, To virtue, granted happiness, alone.

Admire the goodness of Almighty God! He riches gave, he intellectual strength, To few, and therefore none commands to be Or rich, or learned; nor promises reward Of peace to these. On all, He moral worth Bestowed, and moral tribute asked from all. And who that could not pay? who born so poor, Of intellect so mean, as not to know What seemed the best; and, knowing, might not do? As not to know what God and conscience bade, And what they bade not able to obey? And he, who acted thus, fulfilled the law Eternal, and its promise reaped of peace; Found peace this way alone: who sought it else, Sought mellow grapes beneath the icy Pole, Sought blooming roses on the cheek of death, Sought substance in a world of fleeting shades.

Take one example, to our purpose quite,
A man of rank, and of capacious soul,
Who riches had and fame, beyond desire,
An heir of flattery, to titles born,
And reputation, and luxurious life:
Yet, not content with ancestorial name,
Or to be known because his fathers were,
He on this height hereditary stood,
And, gazing higher, purposed in his heart
To take another step. Above him seemed,
Alone, the mount of song, the lofty seat
Of canonized bards; and thitherward,
By nature taught, and inward melody,
In prime of youth, he bent his eagle eye.
No cost was spared. What books he wished, he
read;

What sage to hear, he heard; what scenes to see,
He saw. And first in rambling school-boy days
Britannia's mountain-walks, and heath-girt lakes,
And story telling glens, and founts, and brooks,
And maids, as dew-drops pure and fair, his soul
With grandeur filled, and melody, and love.
Then travel came, and took him where he wished.
He cities saw, and courts, and princely pomp;
And mused alone on ancient mountain-brows;
And mused on battle-fields, where valour fought
In other days; and mused on ruins gray
With years; and drank from old and fabulous
wells,

And plucked the vine that first-born prophets plucked,

And mused on famous tombs, and on the wave
Of ocean mused, and on the desert waste;
The heavens and earth of every country saw.
Where'er the old inspiring Genii dwelt,
Aught that could rouse, expand, refine the soul,
Thither he went, and meditated there.