England's Antiphon Part 36

Thy sacred presence is an inward light.

What though no sounds shall penetrate the ear!

To listening thought the voice of truth is clear.

Sincere devotion needs no outward shrine; The centre of an humble soul is thine.

There may I wors.h.i.+p! and there mayst thou place Thy seat of mercy, and thy throne of grace!

Yea, fix, if Christ my advocate appear, The dread tribunal of thy justice there!

Let each vain thought, let each impure desire Meet in thy wrath with a consuming fire.

And here are two of more lyrical favour.

THE SOUL'S TENDENCY TOWARDS ITS TRUE CENTRE.

Stones towards the earth descend; Rivers to the ocean roll; Every motion has some end: What is thine, beloved soul?

"Mine is, where my Saviour is; There with him I hope to dwell: Jesu is the central bliss; Love the force that doth impel."

Truly thou hast answered right: Now may heaven's attractive grace Towards the source of thy delight Speed along thy quickening pace!

"Thank thee for thy generous care: Heaven, that did the wish inspire, Through thy instrumental prayer, Plumes the wings of my desire.

"Now, methinks, aloft I fly; Now with angels bear a part: Glory be to G.o.d on high!

Peace to every Christian heart!"

THE ANSWER TO THE DESPONDING SOUL.

Cheer up, desponding soul; Thy longing pleased I see: 'Tis part of that great whole Wherewith I longed for thee.

Wherewith I longed for thee, And left my Father's throne, From death to set thee free, To claim thee for my own.

To claim thee for my own, I suffered on the cross: O! were my love but known, No soul could fear its loss.

No soul could fear its loss, But, filled with love divine, Would die on its own cross, And rise for ever mine.

Surely there is poetry as well as truth in this. But, certainly in general, his thought is far in excess of his poetry.

Here are a few verses which I shall once more ent.i.tle

DIVINE EPIGRAMS.

With peaceful mind thy race of duty run G.o.d nothing does, or suffers to be done, But what thou wouldst thyself, if thou couldst see Through all events of things as well as he.

Think, and be careful what thou art within, For there is sin in the desire of sin: Think and be thankful, in a different case, For there is grace in the desire of grace.

An heated fancy or imagination May be mistaken for an inspiration; True; but is this conclusion fair to make-- That inspiration must be all mistake?

A pebble-stone is not a diamond: true; But must a diamond be a pebble too?

To own a G.o.d who does not speak to men, Is first to own, and then disown again; Of all idolatry the total sum Is having G.o.ds that are both deaf and dumb.

What is more tender than a mother's love To the sweet infant fondling in her arms?

What arguments need her compa.s.sion move To hear its cries, and help it in its harms?

Now, if the tenderest mother were possessed Of all the love within her single breast Of all the mothers since the world began, 'Tis nothing to the love of G.o.d to man.

Faith, Hope, and Love were questioned what they thought Of future glory which Religion taught: Now Faith believed it firmly to be true, And Hope expected so to find it too: Love answered, smiling with a conscious glow, "Believe? Expect? I _know_ it to be so."

CHAPTER XX.

THE ROOTS OF THE HILLS.

In the poems of James Thomson, we find two hymns to the G.o.d of Creation--one in blank verse, the other in stanzas. They are of the kind which from him we should look for. The one in blank verse, which is as an epilogue to his great poem, _The Seasons_, I prefer.

We owe much to Thomson. Born (in Scotland) in the year 1700, he is the leading priest in a solemn procession to find G.o.d--not in the laws by which he has ordered his creation, but in the beauty which is the outcome of those laws. I do not say there is much of the relation of man to nature in his writing; but thitherward it tends. He is true about the outsides of G.o.d; and in Thomson we begin to feel that the revelation of G.o.d as _meaning_ and therefore _being_ the loveliness of nature, is about to be recognized. I do not say--to change my simile--that he is the first visible root in our literature whence we can follow the outburst of the flowers and foliage of our delight in nature: I could show a hundred fibres leading from the depths of our old literature up to the great root. Nor is it surprising that, with his age about him, he too should be found tending to magnify, not G.o.d's Word, but his works, above all his name: we have beauty for loveliness; beneficence for tenderness. I have wondered whether one great part of Napoleon's mission was not to wake people from this idolatry of the power of G.o.d to the adoration of his love.

The _Hymn_ holds a kind of middle place between the _Morning Hymn_ in the 5th Book of the _Paradise Lost_ and the _Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni_.

It would be interesting and instructive to compare the three; but we have not time. Thomson has been influenced by Milton, and Coleridge by both.

We have delight in Milton; art in Thomson; heart, including both, in Coleridge.

HYMN.

These, as they change, Almighty Father, these Are but the varied G.o.d. The rolling year Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.

Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm; Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; And every sense and every heart is joy.

Then comes thy glory in the Summer months, With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun Shoots full perfection through the swelling year And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks, And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.[159]

A yellow-floating pomp, thy bounty s.h.i.+nes In Autumn unconfined. Thrown from thy lap, Profuse o'er nature, falls the lucid shower Of beamy fruits; and, in a radiant stream, Into the stores of sterile Winter pours.

In winter awful thou! with clouds and storms Around thee thrown--tempest o'er tempest rolled.

Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore,[160]

And humblest nature with thy northern blast.

Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train, Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art, Such beauty and beneficence combined!

Shade unperceived so softening into shade!

And all so forming an harmonious whole, That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.

Nature attend! Join, every living soul, Beneath the s.p.a.cious temple of the sky-- In adoration join; and, ardent, raise One general song! To him, ye vocal gales, Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes; Oh! talk of him in solitary glooms, Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine Fills the brown shade with a religious awe; And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.

His praise, ye brooks, attune,--ye trembling rills, And let me catch it as I muse along.

Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound; Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Along the vale; and thou, majestic main, A secret world of wonders in thyself, Sound his stupendous praise, whose greater voice Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.