good and kind.* Many men ceasing to think where reflection properly begins, and failing to recognize in nature that unconscious activity of reason out of which our intelligence has sprung, never attain the real height of argument. No working is by blind force:† nature, viewed in inmost and uttermost significance, is a system thoroughly worked out; and the gleams of inward and outward splendour focus in our self-consciousness. No thoughtful man takes a pig-sty view; we all prefer that of the artist, well-nigh absorbed in beauty, who, not losing unity and self-control, finds an exceeding broad commandment. We love the poet-passionate, sensuous too-who delights in fragrance and beauty more æthereal than the scent and colour of the lily. The amplitude of sky, the faces of children, those breathings and sweet sacred influences which are like the breath of angels, have more reason in their nature, and more history in their work, than the unpoetic think. "Twas a lovely thought to mark the hours, By the opening and the folding flowers, Yet is not life, in its real flight, Mark'd thus-even thus-on earth, * Lucan,'i. 65: “Quæ caput a cœlo regionibus ostendebat Horribili Super aspectu mortalibus instans." On the other hand, S. Francis of Assisi: "Laudent eum gloriosum cœli et terra; et superexaltent et lauder.t eum in sœcula. Tu, Dominus Deus, es magna dulcedo nostra, tu es bonitas," etc. Sir E. Beckett, "Origin of Natural Laws," p. 8: "The idea of chance is mathematically inconsistent with any uniform laws of nature." Oh! let us live so that flower by flower, A lingering still for the sunset hour, A charm for the shaded eve." MRS. HEMANS. Those who deny the existence of anything in ourselves and in nature which exceeds both, who think that the world is without spirit, endeavour to explain the sense of mystery, the longing for true holiness, the persuasion of a future life, as vague influences and aspirations which possess no reality. If these men are right we do wrong in following the steps of the noblest and purest of our race. The strength that filled the saints and martyrs of the Church, the Divinity that breathed in the life of Christ, was a false strength derived from delusion, a misconception as to the essence of things. Will any man of common sense present the theory that the Holiness which arises in us as we endeavour to be like God, that the Faith which grows in us as we become more intimate with Christ, that the Hope which cheers us more and more as we are persuaded of the Life to Come, are mere hallucinations? We are sure that hunger after an ideal moral excellence is not a shadow out of dreamland. The poet says "Tell me not in mournful numbers LONGFELLOW. To many it is the great reality, the life of life. Those who live in doubts, self-reproaches, struggles, prayers, if they have that one thought-"the finest thing in the world is to be truly good and to make others good "will soon know of a divine and wonderful order, linking earth to heaven; be conscious of a perfect polity in which they, as children of God, will be arrayed around the throne of Him who died for men. Do we not reasonably maintain that there is something to be learned outside the laboratory and dissectingroom, that there are other alphabets and grammars than those of physical science? If so, as nothing can exceed its own nature—whether material, intellectual, or emotional; as no man can put himself on the top shelf by tugging at his own waistband; that which enables us to look beyond nature to the Supernatural, from matter to Spirit, from mortality to Immortality, must be a something within ourselves and in nature which excels both. This thought represents a fact-credible, reasonable, probable—it is a miracle; and the miracle is one of the most beautiful and natural things in the world. Take Shakespeare's words and give them highest fulfilment, as to meaning, by application to Jesus Christ, and to ourselves "The idea of His Life shall sweetly creep Into our study of imagination, And every lovely organ of His Life Shall come apparelled in more precious habit, More moving-delicate, and full of life, Into the eye and prospect of our souls Than when He lived indeed." In connection with the fact that by Sacred Experimental Studies on the Life of Christ-we erect a spiritual statue of the Supreme in our heart, take a great physical truth. The whole multitude of human beings who have lived on earth since the origin of mankind, are, if the doctrine of heredity be true, partially existing in this person and in that person at the present time: in the sagacious statesman, the sublime philosopher, the poetic genius, the heroic soldier. Every particle of the ancient substance becomes new in other forms, and past experience moulds every present human being ere he be refashioned. The thought is good, the fact wonderful, though pantheists abuse it. We behold a marvellous simultaneous existence in the world. It is perfectly natural, but who, without a miracle, can trace the line that separates our personality, individuality, identity, from other existences? and do it in conformity with the verity, that not one of us is self-made, but every one is as a microscopic atom in a wonderful universe which neither in whole nor in part was by self-origination; and of which the invisible, the pre-existent, enter the visible and present; so that all the past possesses a future, and all the present a past? On the physical truth erect a spiritual reality. The spirit, the thought, the soul, the genius, the mind, the true man, of all that multitude passed not away any more than the bodily substance. In that pugnacious sceptical spirit which is bred, not as twaddlers fancy, by too extended knowledge, but by the sense of ignorance and narrow sphere of thought, the existence of an immortal soul within us is denied; and it is said, "all which is required to cast out Satan is a smattering of the ologies.'" What folly! Will men educate themselves for high things, if they know not whither they go? or live as those who possess a great future, if annihilation may befall them to-night? Their own "ologies" should teach them better. If we track matter to the edge of an incomprehensible truth, no less can be done with regard to intelligence, that most excellent thing which confers highest value on matter. The system of matter exists in a region of space; that which we call the spirit, dwelling in matter, takes possession of space by means of matter; but the intensity and true life of it cannot be expressed in terms of space. We are in the infancy of thought and language: we can only say—that which we call spirit is not to be defined by locality—as a part of space; but, rather, by inwardness of a different extension-a finite similitude of the Deity. This fact-duly blended with the diversity of nature in locality as to Infinitude, and in time as to Eternity-will serve to take off the edge of unbelief as to immortality of the spirit. Thus rightly using our reason, by endeavouring to raise it into high exercise, we find that nature borders everywhere on the Supernatural. Instead of belief in miracles being unreasonable, it is that by which we see, it reveals the one rock on which our feet find standing place. The belief seems intuitive, due not so much to inquiry, as to our conception of organic unity, purpose, coherence, in the world; by which the commonest things contain germs of the wonderful. Every moment of our life, every particle of our body, every vibration of our substance, enters the transcendental. Space extends to Infinitude, time has some alliance with Eternity— "Eternitas una dies, et multi dies, et multi anni" (S. Augustine)—the human spirit is conscious of the Divine Spirit. Reason has shown its strength, become its own critic, found design and process in nature-beautiful and subtle, powerful and grand. Design on a grander scale than that of an artificer constructing a machine; process more wonderful than the growth of a universal tree; |