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GOD'S SYMBOLS IN CREATION.

"The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made."-ROM. i. 20.

THY golden silence, Nature! speaks how wise
The wisdom of th' Omniscient One to man;
How He, Creator, to the creature lends

The spirit of research through things of earth-
The types and shadows of the spirit world—
To states of love and wisdom, unto which
They are the eternal stepping-stones and guides.
Nought in this vast domain of outer space
But is His thought embodied. Nought that serves
As part and counterpart to shape the whole,
But is, like it, the effigy of God,

The graven image of His mind. Who asks,
"Hath God Himself a graven image made
Of things in heav'n, yet willeth not that man
Should imitate Him thus ?" Be not deceived:
A prototype, to be called prototype,

Must have an image in its image made.
So the FIRST CAUSE, the ESSE uncreate,
Hath form in its EXISTERE deriv'd-
This likeness throughout all Creation runs.
Mankind abus'd the perfect gift of God
Of contemplating Him through Nature's dome,
And fell from worship of the Symbolized
To that of symbols. Why? Man's pride of self
Lost heights his orb-like knowledges had climb'd:
This the forbidden fruit, to live the thought
That he hath in himself the germ of Life-
All loves and wisdoms underiv'd of God.

So, as he saw in self the total sum,
The all-in-all of his existence here,
Man, microcosm in himself, confin'd
His gaze to Nature in like light. 'Tis thus
God's images and likenesses were made
Mute idols in the temple of this world.

God's revelation is the secret truth

"Hid from the wise, unto the babes made known."
Its harmony is its own shield, its rock
Is Nature, in whose bosom rise and fall
Emotions-seen effect of cause unseen.
This cause revealed, man traces its effect,
Sees God's proceeding thought appear a world,
True pattern of His mind in matter stamp'd-
The type eternal as its Archetype.

Here let an oracle1 of old be heard,
Whose voice awaken'd fell on Pagan ears.
"There is in God a fire, bright, measureless,
Heat incorruptible, creative source,
Celestial fount of sun and moon and stars,

The principle of all things made, a flame
Not held in space, encompassing the heav'ns.
Man's heart need never dread its quick'ning touch:
'Tis gentle life-conjunction, and imparts

Peace, harmony, duration to the world.

Nothing created is, nothing subsists,

But by this fire, this Sun of Life, our God,
Whose name is e'er ineffable, of Whom
We are but particles the most minute."

Wisdom, in lighter garment than our light,
Hath shewn us how this earth the image is

Of heaven's Grand Man; how its stout ribs-the rocks-
And its rich mold his flesh and bones appear;

His blood the running river; and his head

The mountains; snow capp'd woods his silver locks—

Ancient of Days set in material type.

The rock which changes not from age to age

Is likeness of the Truth immutable;

The earth the symbol is of active Love

From which by wisdom His creation springs.
We see a world within a world. A sphere
Of inly life an outer sphere sustains,
Like soul the body, and whereof each part

Answers specifically to each part,

1 There is a great similarity between these oracles, mentioned by Porphyrius, and the didactic teachings of Swedenborg. It is interesting to compare them.

Jersey.

In lesser and in greater things the same.
God's spirit-worlds all worlds do permeate:

Through them He breathes His own infinite life—
Progress eternal onward, upward flows

From lowest forms to higher unto man's.
Behold the uses of created things

Ascending thus through man unto his God:

In ultimates-the soil—we find the end
And with it the beginning of all use:
The end is the endeavour to produce,
Beginning is the active pow'r thereof.1
These have a higher kingdom to subserve-
That of the field-whose produce, grass and herb,
Are uses in their turn to man and beast.
How all created things man represent,
And he in turn his Maker, is here seen.
The beast affections hath, and connate sense
Responding thereunto, like man's, whose type
Is likewise in the vegetative world:

For mark the seed, whose life-germ stages hath,
And passes through them to perfection's goal,—
Sol smiles, the bud expands, the flow'r appears:
It ripens unto seed. So when our souls
Gladly the Sun of Righteousness receive,
We bear rich fruit by its creative ray ;
And, as the bird, cage-fetter'd, sits to trim
Its silken wings for flight beyond the seas,
We, for a life-change waiting, watching stand.
HENRY W. ROBILLIARD.

THE CARES OF THE WORLD.2

"Post Equitem sedet atra cura."

"Behind the horseman sits black care."-HORACE.

"Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye."-SHAKESPEARE.

A GENERATION has passed away since last we wrote of "Cares," and Shakespeare rather than Horace now describes us; for the days of hard 1 See "Divine Love and Wisdom," n. 65.

2 Some papers under this title were prepared long ago and mislaid. There is therefore an hiatus, though the modern reader may not perceive it.

riding in the race of life are passed, when a strong will bid the world give way to the energy of youth in full pursuit of some visionary prelude to contentment; for everything in youth is a prelude. Something is going to be done. What we are now doing is only a preparation; but the world will some day see us at our best, when the overture of early sensibilities, and ardent passions, and vigorous study has been played, and we stand upon the stage before a critical audience of competition and assert our places in the grand opera of life. Light of heart and vigorous of purpose-vigorous every way-we feel able to distance the sordid littleness of the vulgar who are consumed with cares about things plainly contemptible, and to give some specimen of the free air and power of public virtue to men who are polite indeed, and well pursed, but who seem more intent upon bowing themselves out of the grave duties of their manifest stewardship, than conscious that they will some day be held accountable for betraying

its trust.

Just wait for us, poor world! Endure a little longer until fortune's wheel-our wheel in fact, for we feel able to drive it brings us to the top, and then you shall see a true man, a man who will take your wrongs in hand, and in spite of the files of dusty impossibilities which the red tape of selfish ambition opposes to every measure intended simply for the general good, will assert your right to be heard, and your claim to a common humanity with those who wrong you. You have done no public wrong that you should be so ill treated (perhaps those whom we address never had the opportunity), and as for us, we may have been a little wrong in secretly despising the patient endurance of our mother, and the fond admiration of our father, and their dull comprehension of the great issues to which we mean to dedicate our lives; but, in fact, our virtues are public virtues. With them alone you have to do, and if you do not know you ought to know, that they are of the order of the night-blowing Cereus, and will find their only congenial sphere among the gaslights of the House of Commons, whither we do not doubt you will send us.

This is, in fact, a "free translation" into words of the full and throbbing heart of many a manly ingenuous youth; for the imperial vein runs through every strong character. Cæsar, indeed, alone spoke the words to the scared boatman who trembled to put to sea with him in a storm:

"Cæsarem ejusque fortunam vehis;"

but the spirit of them is in every highly endowed mind, though the

stern fatalism of Napoleon might fill them with a gigantic power unknown to any but men like him-if there ever was one like him.

Even while I write I have a vivid picture before me. We were members of a debating club in which we discussed, not the recondite merits of Wordsworth, nor the right or wrong of the execution of Charles I., nor whether Cromwell were a hypocrite, nor whether William Pitt compensated for the national debt by dying poor himself. Nothing of that kind. Our topics were British law and equity; our club-room one of the actual courts in a noble building; and our president one of the judges of the Queen's Bench. Nor was our club itself all unworthy of its arena. One member of it, however, is the unique example I need quote, or indeed can properly quote in illustration of my present course of reflection; because whatever I might think about others, he alone made his confession to me.

After a tough season of discussion on "points" of law, and principles of equity, in all sorts of actions and suits involving the interests and rights of Smith v. Brown, and Jones v. Robinson, a fellow-student took me aside, and told me his story. He was rather older than the rest of "the boys," and, therefore, no doubt, felt that it was time with him to put an end to mere aspirations. Year after year he had profited by our mimic warfare, and picked up principles and distinctions which others had laid down, and which he himself might have been slow to find out; but the crown of his ambition, the all but divine art of clear, strong speech, seemed as far off as ever. Every night, after the leader of the debate had sustained the affirmative proposition, or appeared for the plaintiff, and replied upon the whole cases with more or less power, my poor friend determined what course he would take at the next meeting; for after every argument he saw that greater and better things might have been done by the best of our men than had been done, and he, just then, felt that he was the man to do it. He burned for a renewed contention, and longed to shorten the time which must elapse before he could again confront the forum, set himself right with his club-mates, and make his mark among them by a splendid "break" from his usual silence. Not that he never spoke. Sometimes for two or three minutes he would shew that he was a reader and a plodder, and seemed to be feeling his way to an argument; but the "break" never came, "and this," said he, " has been going on ever since I joined the club." He was a curious study, and a ridicule to himself. Perhaps he would not have told anybody else. I think he would not; for I was even older than he, and so his con