LOVE AND FAITH. BY LYDIA MARIA CHILD. I thank my heavenly Father for every manifestation of human love. I thank him for all experiences, be they sweet or bitter, which help me to forgive all things, and to enfold the whole world with blessing. What shall be our reward,' says Swedenborg, for loving our neighbour as ourselves in this life? That when we become angels, we shall be enabled to love him better than ourselves.' This is a reward pure and holy; the only one, which my heart has not rejected, whenever offered as an incitement to goodness. It is this chiefly which makes the happiness of lovers more nearly allied to heaven, than any other emotions experienced by the human heart. Each loves the other better than himself; each is willing to sacrifice all to the other-nay, finds joy load. He went, and returned in due time with empty cannisters; and this he continued to do for several days. The house bells in Madrid are usually so constructed that you pull downward to make them ring. The peasant afterward learned that his sagacious animal stopped before the door of every customer, and after waiting what he deemed a sufficient time, pulled the bell with his mouth. If affectionate treatment will thus idealize the jackass, what may it not do? Assuredly there is no limit to its power. It can banish crime, and make this earth an Eden. The best tamer of colts that was ever known in Massachusetts, never allowed whip or spur to be used; and the horses he trained never needed the whip. Their spirits were unbroken by severity, and they obeyed the slightest impulse of the voice or rein, with the most animated promptitude; but rendered obedient to affection, their vivacity was always restrained by graceful docility. He said it was with horses as with children; if accustomed to beating, they would not obey without it. But if therein. This it is that surrounds them with a golden atmosphere, and tinges the world with rosecolour. A mother's love has the same angelic cha-managed with untiring gentleness, united with conracter; more completely unselfish, but lacking the charm of perfect reciprocity. The cure for all the ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows, and the crimes of humanity, all lie in that one word, LOVE. It is the divine vitality that every where produces and restores life. To each and every one of us it gives the power of working miracles, if we will. sistent and very equable firmness, the victory once gained over them, was gained for ever. In the face of all these facts, the world goes on manufacturing whips, spurs, the gallows, and chains; while each one carries within his own soul a divine substitute for these devil's inventions, with which he might work miracles, inward and outward, if he would. Unto this end let us work with unfaltering faith. Great is the strength of an individual soul, Love is the story without an end, and angels throng to hear; true to its high trust ;-mighty is it even to the re The word, the king of words, carved on Jehovah's heart.' From the highest to the lowest, all feel its influence, all acknowledge its sway. Even the poor, despised donkey is changed by its magic influence. When coerced and beaten, he is vicious, obstinate, and stupid. With the peasantry of Spain, he is a petted favourite, almost an inmate of the household. The children bid him welcome home, and the wife feeds him from her hands. He knows them all, and he loves them all, for he feels in his inmost heart that they all love him. He will follow his master, and come and go at his bidding, like a faithful dog; and he delights to take the baby on his back, and walk him round, gently, on the greensward His intellect expands, too, in the sunshine of affection; and he that is called the stupidest of animals becomes sagacious. A Spanish peasant had for many years carried milk into Madrid to supply a set of customers. Every morning, he and his donkey, with loaded panniers, trudged the well-known round. At last, the peasant became very ill, and had no one to send to market. His wife proposed to send the faithful old animal by himself. The panniers were accordingly filled with cannisters of milk, an inscription, written by the priest, requested customers to measure their own milk, and return the vessels; and the donkey was instructed to set off with his demption of a world. A German, whose sense of sound was exceedingly acute, was passing by a church, a day or two after he had landed in this country, and the sound of music attracted him to enter, though he had no knowledge of our language. The music proved to be a piece of nasal psalmody, sung in most discordant fashion; and the sensitive German would fain have covered his ears. As this was scarcely civil, and might appear like insanity, his next impulse was to rush into the open air, and leave the hated sounds behind him. But this too I feared to do,' said he, lest offence might be given; so I resolved to endure the torture with the best fortitude I could assume; when lo! I distinguished amid the din, the soft clear voice of a woman singing in perfect tune. She made no effort to drown the voices of her companions, neither was she disturbed by their noisy discord; but patiently and sweetly she sang in full, rich tones: one after another yielded to the gentle influence; and before the tune was finished, all were in perfect harmony.' I have often thought of this story as conveying an instructive lesson for reformers. The spirit that can thus sing patiently and sweetly in a world of discord, must indeed be of the strongest, as well as the gentlest kind. One scarce can hear his own soft voice amid the braying of the multitude; and ever | Lo, I am tall and strong, well skilled to hunt, and anon comes the temptation to sing louder than Patient of toil and hunger, and not yet they, and drown the voices that cannot thus be forc- Have seen the danger which I dared not look ed into perfect tune. But this were a pitiful expe- Full in the face; what hinders me to be riment; the melodious tones, cracked into shrillness; A mighty Brave and Chief among my kin?" would only increase the tumult. So, taking up his arrows and his bow, As if to hunt, he journeyed swiftly on, Until he gained the wigwams of his tribe, Where, choosing out a bride, he soon forgot, Stronger, and more frequently, comes the temptation to stop singing, and let discord do its own wild work. But blessed are they that endure to the endsinging patiently and sweetly, till all join in with | In all the fret and bustle of new life, loving acquiescence, and universal harmony prevails, without forcing into submission the free discord of a single voice. This is the hardest and the bravest task, which a true soul has to perform amid the clashing elements of time. But once has it been done perfectly, unto the end; and that voice, so clear in its meekness, is heard above all the din of a tumultuous world; one after another chimes in with its patient sweetness, and, through infinite discords, the listening soul can perceive that the great tune is slowly coming into harmony. The happy hunting-grounds await me, green Alone, beside a lake, their wigwam stood, Why should I dwell here all alone, shut out The little Sheemah and his father's charge. Now when the sister found her brother gone, But Sheemah, left alone within the lodge, The dreadful void of silence silenter. Soon what small store his sister left was gone, And, through the Autumn, he made shift to live Till, by degrees, the wolf and he grew friends, Late in the Spring, when all the ice was gone, A child that seemed fast changing to a wolf, ·O, Sheemah! O, my brother, speak to me! Dost thou not know me, that I am thy brother? Come to me, little Sheemah, thou shalt dwell With me henceforth, and know no care or want!" Sheemah was silent for a space, as if 'T were hard to summon up a human voice, And, when he spake, the sound was of a wolf's: "I know thee not, nor art thou what thou say'st; I have none other brethren than the wolves, And, till thy heart be changed from what it is, Thou art not worthy to be called their kin." Then groaned the other, with a choking tongue, "Alas! my heart is changed right bitterly; 'T is shrunk and parched within me even now!" And, looking up fearfully, he saw Only a wolf that shrank away and ran, Ugly and fierce, to hide among the woods. This rude, wild legend hath an inward sense, Which it were well we all should lay to heart; For have not we our younger brothers, too, The poor, the outcast, and the trodden down, Left fatherless on earth to pine for bread? They are ahungered for our love and care, It is their spirits that are famishing, And our dear Father, in his Testament, Bequeathed them to us as our dearest trust, Wherefore we shall give up a straight account. Hear it, O England! thou who liest asleep I honour thee Thy tough endurance, and thy fearless heart: And thou, my country, who to me art dear Freedom's broad Ægis o'er three million slaves! Woe! woe! Even now I see thy star drop down, I see those outcast millions turned to wolves, Genius, even in its faintest scintillations, is the inpired gift of God--a solemn mandate to its owner to go forth and labour in his sphere, to keep alive the sacred fire among his brethren, which the heavy and polluted atmosphere of this world is forever threatning to extinguish. Woe to him, if he neglect this mandate-if he hear not its still small voice. Woe to him if he turn this inspired gift into the servant of his evil or ignoble passions; if he offer it at the shrine of vanity, or if he sell it for a piece of money. D'ISRELI. The influence of Coleridge, like that of Bentham, extends far beyond those who share in the peculiarities of his philosophical or religious creed. He has been the great awakener in this country of the spirit of philosophy, within the bounds of tradition Which would have made our earth smile back on al opinions. He has been, almost as truly as Ben heaven, A happy child upon a happy mother, From whose ripe breast it drew the milk of life. But no, my country! other thoughts than these Befit a son of thine: serener thoughts Befit the heart which can, unswerved, believe That wrong already feels itself o'ercome, If but one soul have strength to see the right, Or one free tongue dare speak it. All mankind Look, with an anxious flutter of the heart, To see thee working out thy glorious doom. Thou shalt not, with a lie upon thy lips, Forever prop up cunning despotisms, And help to strengthen every tyrant's plea, By striving to make man's deep soul content With a half-truth that feeds it with mere wind. God judgeth us by what we know of right, Rather than what we practise that is wrong, Unknowingly; and thou shalt yet be bold To stand before Him, with a heart made clean By doing that He taught thee how to preach. Thou yet shalt do thy holy errand; yet, That little Mayflower, convoyed by the winds And the rude waters to our rocky shore, Shall scatter Freedom's seed throughout the world, And all the nations of the earth shall come, Singing, to share the harvest-home of Truth. Have you traced the cause and consequence of that under current of opinion which is slowly, but surely sapping the foundations of empires? Have you heard the low booming of that mighty ocean which approaches, wave after wave, to break up the dykes and boundaries of ancient power? Mrs. Jameson's Visits and Sketches. tham, 66 the great questioner of things established:" By Bentham, beyond all others, men have been led to ask themselves, in regard to any ancient or received opinion, Is it true? And by Coleridge, what is the meaning of it? The one took his stand outside the received opinion, and surveyed it as an entire stranger to it: the other, looked at it from within, and endeavoured to see it with the eyes of a believer in it; to discover by what apparent facts it was at first suggested, and by what appearances it has ever since been rendered credible. Bentham judged a proposition true or false, as it accorded or not with the result of his inquiries; and did not search very curiously into what might be meant by the proposition, when it obviously did not mean what he thought true. With Coleridge on the contrary, the very fact that any doctrine had been believed by thoughtful men, and received by whole nations or generations of mankind, was a part of the problem to be solved, was one of the phenomena to be accounted for. And as Bentham's short and easy method of referring all to the selfish interests of aristocracies, or priests, or lawyers, or some other species of impostors, could not satisfy a man who saw so much farther into the complexities of human intellect and feelings-he considered the long or extensive prevalence of any opinion as a presumption that it was not altogether a fallacy; that, to its first authors, at least, it was the result of a struggle to express in words something which had a reality to them, though not perhaps to many of those who have since received the doctrine as mere tradition. The long duration of a belief, he thought, is at least proof positive of an adaptation in it to some portion or other of the human mind; and if on digging down to the root, we do not find, as is generally the case, some truth, we shall find some natural want or requirement of human nature which the doctrine in question is fitted to satisfy among which wants, the instincts of self ishness and of credulity have a place, but by no means an exclusive one. Thus, Bentham continually missed the truth which is in the traditional opinions, and Coleridge, that which is not of them. But each found much of what the other missed. Critique on Coleridge's writings. * lamp-light-and be wafted away in perfume and praise. As surely as the human thought has power to fly abroad over an expanse of a thousand years, it has need to rest on that far shore and meditate"where now are the flatteries and vanities, and cumpetitions which seemed so important in their duty? Where are the ephemeral reputations, the glow-worm ideas, the gossamer sentiments which the impertinent voice of Fashion, pronounced immortal and divine? The deluge of oblivion has swept over them all, while the minds which were really immortal and divine, are still there, forever singing as they shine' in the firmament of thought, and mirrored in the deep of ages out of which they rose." Literary Lionism. We talk of the world, of fate, of chance, and mischance, often in a very bad humour. But how much of this world have we seen?-how much have we not seen? How much can-will-we not see for sheer indolence and blindness? I have seen wonders The true scholar will feel that the richest romance, the noblest fiction that was ever woven, the heart and soul of beauty, lies enclosed in human life. Itself of surpassing value, it is also the richest material for his creations. He must bear his share of the common load. He must work with men in houses, and not with their names in books. His needs, appetites, talents, affections, accomplishments, are keys that open to him the beautiful museum of human life. Why should he read it as an Arabian tale, and not know in his own beating bosom its sweet and smart? Out of love and hatred, out of earnings and borrowings and lendings and losses, out of sickness and pain, out of wooing and worship-to-day in this most frivolous and godless of cities, ping, out of travelling and voting and watching and caring, out of disgrace and contempt, comes our tuition in the serene and beautiful laws. Let him not slur his lesson; let him learn it by heart. Let him endeavour exactly, bravely, and cheerfully, to solve the problem of that life which is set before him; and this by punctual action, and not by promises and dreams. Literary Lionism. Many are the thousands who have let the man die within them from cowardly care about meat and drink, and a warm corner in this great asylum of safety, whose gates have ever been thronged by the multitude who cannot appreciate the free air and open heaven. And many are the hundreds who have let the poet die within them, that their complacency may be fed, their vanity intoxicated, and themselves securely harboured in the praise of their immediate neighbours. Few, very few are there who, noble in reason," and conscious of being "infinite in faculties," have faith to look before and after; faith to go on, to reverence the dreams of their youth; faith to appeal to the god-like human mind yet unborn. Among the millions who are now thinking and feeling on our own soil, is it not likely that there is one who might take up the song of Homer, one who might talk the night away with Socrates, one who might be the Shakespeare of an age, when our volcanoes shall have become regions of green pasture and still waters, and new islands shall send forth human speech from the midst of the sea? What are such men about? If one is pining in want, rusting in ignorance, or turning from angel to devil under oppression, it is too probable that another may be undergoing extinction in drawing rooms-surrendering his divine faculties to wither in Berlin. What lives in women whom I found in the lowest, grass-grown, neglected, hovels! How different is every thing among the lower classes from what the wise in this world have published, printed, read, and believed! God alone knows how much real, simple-minded, sterling honesty and truth He has sent into the world. Blessed be his name that he has given me eyes to see it. RAHEL. |