Page images
PDF
EPUB

2. Who will not joyfully labor, and court sacrifices, and suffer reproach, if he may hasten, by even so much as a day, its blessed coming? Who will not take courage from a contemplation of what the last century has seen accomplished, if not in absolute results, yet in preparing the approaches, in removing impediments, in correcting and expanding the popular comprehension of the work to be done, and the feasibility of doing it?

3. Whatever of evil and of suffering the future may have in store for us-though the earth be destined yet to be plowed by the sword, and fertilized by human gore, until rank growths of the deadliest weeds shall overshadow it, stifling into premature decay every plant most conducive to health or fragrance - -the time will surely come when universal and true education shall dispel the dense night of ignorance and perverseness that now enshrouds the vast majority of the human race; shall banish evil and wretchedness almost wholly from earth, by removing or unmasking the multiform temptations to wrong-doing; shall put an end to robbery, hatred, op pression, and war, by diffusing widely and thoroughly a living consciousness of the brotherhood of mankind, and the sure blessedness, as well as righteousness, of doing ever as we would have others do to us.

4. "Train up a child in the way he should he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Such is the promise which enables us to see to the end of the dizzy whirl of wrong and misery in which our race has long sinned and suffered. On wise and systematic training, based on the widest knowledge, the truest morality, and tending ever to universal good, as the only assurance of special or personal well-being, rests the great hope of the terrestrial renovation and elevation of man.

5. Not the warrior, then, nor the statesman, nor yet the master-worker, as such, but the Teacher, in our day,

leads the vanguard of humanity; whether in the semiprinted nary or by the wayside by uttered word or page. Our true king is not he who best directs the siege, or sets his squadrons in the field, or heads the charge, but he who can and will instruct and enlighten his fellows, so that at least some few of the generation of which he is a member shall be wiser, purer, nobler, for his living among them, and prepared to carry forward the work, of which he was a humble instrument, to its far grander and loftier consummation.

6. Far above the conqueror of kingdoms, the destroyer of hosts by the sword and the bayonet, is he whose tearless victories redden no river and whiten no plain, but who leads the understanding a willing captive, and builds his empire, not of the wrenched and bleeding fragments of subjugated nations, but on the realms of intellect which he has discovered, and planted, and peopled with beneficent activity and enduring joy!

7. The mathematician who, in his humble study, undisturbed as yet by the footsteps of monarchs and their ministers, demonstrates the existence of a planet before unsuspected by astronomy, unobserved by the telescope; the author who, from his dim garret, sends forth the scroll which shall constrain thousands on thousands to laugh or weep at his will-who topples down a venerable fraud by an allegory, or crushes a dynasty by an epigram -shall live and reign over a still expanding dominion, when the pasteboard kings, whose steps are counted in court circulars, and timed by stupid huzzas, shall have long since moldered and been forgotten.

8. To build out into chaos and drear vacuity to render some corner of the primal darkness radiant with the presence of an idea-to supplant ignorance by knowledge, and sin by virtue-such is the mission of our age, worthy to enkindle the ambition of the loftiest, yet proffering opportunity and reward to the most lowly.

9. To the work of universal enlightenment be our lives henceforth consecrated, until the black clouds of impending evil are irradiated and dispersed by the full effulgence of the divinely-predicted day when "all shali know the Lord, from the least unto the greatest," and when wrong and woe shall vanish forever from the presence of UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE, PURITY and BLISS ! HORACE GREELEY.

CXXXVII.-GOD'S FIRST TEMPLES.

1. The groves were God's first temples. Ere men learned

2.

3.

To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,

And spread the roof above them,— ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back

The sound of anthems, in the darkling wood,
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplications.

For his simple heart

Might not resist the sacred influences

That, from the stilly twilight of the place,
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once
All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
His spirit with the thought of boundless Power
And inaccessible Majesty.

Ah! why

Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect
God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore

Only among the crowd, and under roofs

5.

That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least,
Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,
Offer one hymn, thrice happy if it find
Acceptance in His ear.

Father, Thy hand

Hath reared these venerable columns: Thou

Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down
Upon the naked earth, and forthwith rose

All these fair ranks of trees. They, in Thy sun,
Budded, and shook their green leaves in Thy breeze,
And shot toward heaven. The century-living crow
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died
Among their branches; till at last they stood,
As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark
Fit shrine for humble worshiper to hold
Communion with his Maker.

Here are seen

No traces of man's pomp or pride; no silks
Rustle, no jewels shine, nor envious eyes
Encounter; no fantastic carvings show

-

The boast of our vain race to change the form
Of Thy fair works. But Thou art here; Thou fill'st
The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds

That run along the summits of these trees
In music; Thou art in the cooler breath,
That from the inmost darkness of the place
Comes scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground,
The fresh, moist ground, are all instinct with Thee.

6. Here is continual worship; nature, here,
In the tranquillity that Thou dost love,
Enjoys Thy presence. Noiselessly around,
From perch to perch, the solitary bird

Passes; and yon clear spring, that midst its herbs
Wells softly forth, and visits the strong roots

7.

8.

Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale
Of all the good it does.

Thou hast not left

Thyself without a witness, in these shades,

Of Thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace,
Are here to speak of Thee. This mighty oak-

By whose immovable stem I stand, and seem
Almost annihilated - not a prince,

In all the proud old world beyond the deep,
E'er wore his crown as loftily as he

Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
Thy hand has graced him.

Nestled at his root

Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower,
With scented breath, and look so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mold,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide universe.

9. My heart is awed within me when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on
In silence round me- the perpetual work
Of Thy creation, finished, yet renewed
Forever. Written on Thy works, I read
The lesson of Thy own eternity.

10.

Lo! all grow old and die: but see, again,
How, on the faltering footsteps of decay,
Youth presses-ever gay and beautiful youth
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly that their ancestors
Molder beneath them.

O, there is not lost
One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet,

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »