this earth;-books for refinement and instruction are lying useless in libraries and on booksellers' shelves, while my soul is wanting them for her good; the world about me is full of knowledge, and I, in my innermost self, am perishing for lack of it; I am made for wisdom, I am anxious for it, I am called upon to get it, both by God and Christ, and yet I am unable to be learning;O, the end of my life, and the great purpose of the world, is spiritual good! and I cannot get any; and I am as though I were made in vain. So I thought at times; and sometimes my grief was great, very bitter, too great to be wept. I said to myself, that the world was not right, some persons being far too rich for their good, and others too poor for it. And then I thought, if it was ill with me, it was worse with some others, for that they did not even wish for knowledge. Well, now, I said, there is opportunity for my being useful, and for my learning something myself. So I persuaded some rude and ignorant persons to let me teach them; and my books were what they read to me; and their minds were books, out of which I read to myself. And in this way I learned what is not to be learned any other way. And in my teaching, what knowledge I made use of was improved for me, as iron is when it is made into steel. And from experience I know, that, if a man is loving and

earnest, what feeling he has of beauty is to be kept alive in him, and even strengthened, by every soul he knows of, and in the most unlikely places; just as the beautiful rose blossoms and lives out of black earth.

MARHAM.

Tell me, dear Oliver, was not that sermon of yours written about the time which you have been speaking of?

Yes, uncle.

AUBIN.

MARHAM.

I thought it was very likely to have been. Oliver, you have been a very noble

AUBIN.

Sometimes, and sometimes very unworthy, possessor of what light God has given me to live by. For sometimes I have bitterly wanted to have things as other men have them; and I have not always been contented with that Christian ownership through which all things are mine, whether things present or things to come. And uncle.

MARHAM.

Nay, but Oliver, speak about the feeling of beauty; say what you were going to say when I asked you about the sermon.

AUBIN.

No, uncle, I have nothing more to say. Only I believe, that, for the enjoyment of heavenly

beauty, a Christian spirit is better readiness than a well-educated eye. There are acts of forgiveness that will hereafter prove to have refined a man's soul more than the ownership of a gallery of paintings by Correggio and Raphael.

CHAPTER XXIII.

So works the man of just renown
On men, when centuries have flown:
For what a good man would attain,

The narrow bounds of life restrain;

And this the balm that Genius gives, —

Man dies, but after death he lives. - GOETHE.

MARHAM.

WELL, Oliver, what books have you been reading while I have been away?

AUBIN.

The Song of the Soul, and a portion of the Ennead of Plotinus.

MARHAM.

Henry More was a Platonist, as well as Plotinus; but More was a Christian, which Plotinus

was not.

AUBIN.

This edition of the Ennead was printed in 1580; and on the title-page Plotinus is described as being easily the Coryphæus of all Platonists. His style is wonderful; it is almost magical in its effects; for it is so very clear. The book is as though it had been written with a diamond; it is like cut-glass, like a very rich vessel of it, so very rich, and beauti

ful, and labored, that you doubt your senses, and you agree with yourself that it cannot be only a drop of water that is held in so costly a vessel, but some elixir.

MARHAM.

What is the character of his argument, Oliver?

AUBIN.

This edition of the Ennead was edited by Marsilius Ficinus, and is dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici. At the end of the chapter on the immortality of the soul, the editor asks Lorenzo whether he would not like to have a summary of the long argument; and then he gives it, and says the soul is immortal; first, because she is mistress of her perishing circumstances, and is able to resist bodily impulses; secondly, because she often thinks of many things which are distinct from bodies of all kinds, either because they are separate naturally, or because she herself distinguishes them in that way; thirdly, because by nature she desires eternal things, and indeed often foregoes things temporal in her confidence of those which are eternal; and fourthly, because she worships the Everlasting God in the persuasion of an unending life.

MARHAM.

And how do you like the Song of the Soul?