Spare Hours Part 17

"If e'er when faith had fallen asleep, I heard a voice 'believe no more,'

And heard an ever-breaking sh.o.r.e That tumbled in the G.o.dless deep;

"_A warmth within the breast would melt_ The freezing reason's colder part, _And like a man in wrath, the heart_ _Stood up and answered, 'I have felt._'

"No, like a child in doubt and fear: But that blind clamor made me wise; Then was I as a child that cries, But, crying, knows his father near;

"And what I seem beheld again What is, and no man understands: And out of darkness came the hands That reach thro' nature, moulding men."

This is a subject of the deepest personal as well as speculative interest. In the works of Augustin, of Baxter, Howe, and Jonathan Edwards, and of Alexander Knox, our readers will find how large a place the religious affections held, in their view of Divine truth as well as of human duty. The last-mentioned writer expresses himself thus:-"Our sentimental faculties are far stronger than our cogitative; and the best impressions on the latter will be but the moons.h.i.+ne of the mind, if they are alone. Feeling will be best excited by sympathy; rather, it cannot be excited in any other way. Heart must act upon heart-the idea of a living person being essential to all intercourse of heart. You cannot by any possibility _cordialize_ with a mere _ens rationis_. 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,' otherwise we could not 'have beheld his glory,' much less 'received of his fulness.'"[40]

[40] _Remains_, vol. iii. p. 105.

Our young author thus goes on:-

"This opens upon us an ampler view in which the subject deserves to be considered, and a relation still more direct and close between the Christian religion and the pa.s.sion of love. What is the distinguis.h.i.+ng character of Hebrew literature, which separates it by so broad a line of demarcation from that of every ancient people? Undoubtedly the sentiment of _erotic devotion_ which pervades it. Their poets never represent the Deity as an impa.s.sive principle, a mere organizing intellect, removed at infinite distance from human hopes and fears. He is for them a being of like pa.s.sions with themselves,[41]

_requiring heart for heart, and capable of inspiring affection because capable of feeling and returning it_. Awful indeed are the thunders of his utterance and the clouds that surround his dwelling-place; very terrible is the vengeance he executes on the nations that forget him: but to his chosen people, and especially to the men 'after his own heart,' whom he anoints from the midst of them, his 'still, small voice' speaks in sympathy and loving-kindness. Every Hebrew, while his breast glowed with patriotic enthusiasm at those promises, which he shared as one of the favored race, had a yet deeper source of emotion, from which gushed perpetually the aspirations of prayer and thanksgiving. He might consider himself alone in the presence of his G.o.d; the single being to whom a great revelation had been made, and over whose head an 'exceeding weight of glory' was suspended. For him the rocks of h.o.r.eb had trembled, and the waters of the Red Sea were parted in their course. The word given on Sinai with such solemn pomp of ministration was given to his own individual soul, and brought him into immediate communion with his Creator. That awful Being could never be put away from him. He was about his path, and about his bed, and knew all his thoughts long before. _Yet this tremendous, enclosing presence was a presence of love. It was a manifold, everlasting manifestation of one deep feeling-a desire for human affection._[42] Such a belief, while it enlisted even pride and self-interest on the side of piety, had a direct tendency to excite the best pa.s.sions of our nature. Love is not long asked in vain from generous dispositions. A Being, never absent, but standing beside the life of each man with ever watchful tenderness, and recognized, though invisible, in every blessing that befell them from youth to age, became naturally the object of their warmest affections. Their belief in him could not exist without producing, as a necessary effect, that profound impression _of pa.s.sionate individual attachment_ which in the Hebrew authors always mingles with and vivifies their faith in the Invisible. All the books of the Old Testament are breathed upon by this breath of life. Especially is it to be found in that beautiful collection, ent.i.tled the Psalms of David, which remains, after some thousand years, perhaps the most perfect form in which the religious sentiment of man has been embodied.

[41] "An unfortunate reference (Acts xiv. 15), for the apostle's declaration is, that he and his brethren were of 'like pa.s.sions" (James v. 17);-liable to the same imperfections and mutations of thought and feeling as other men, and as the Lystrans supposed their G.o.ds to be; while the G.o.d proclaimed by him to them is not so. And _that_ G.o.d is the G.o.d of the Jews as well as of the Christians; for there is but _one_ G.o.d. Hallam's thought is an important and just one, but not developed with his usual nice accuracy."

For this note, as for much else, I am indebted to my father, whose powers of compressed thought I wish I had inherited.

[42] Abraham "was called the friend of G.o.d;" "with him (Moses) will I (Jehovah) speak mouth to mouth, even apparently,"-"as a man to his friend;" David was "a man after mine own heart."

"But what is true of Judaism is yet more true of Christianity: '_matre pulchra filia pulchrior_.' In addition to all the characters of Hebrew Monotheism, _there exists in the doctrine of the Cross a peculiar and inexhaustible treasure for the affectionate feelings_. The idea of the Tea????p??, the G.o.d whose goings forth have been from everlasting, yet visible to men for their redemption as an earthly, temporal creature, living, acting, and suffering among themselves, then (which is yet more important) transferring to the unseen place of his spiritual agency the same humanity he wore on earth, so that the lapse of generations can in no way affect the conception of his ident.i.ty; this is the most powerful thought that ever addressed itself to a human imagination. It is the p?? st?, which alone was wanted to move the world. Here was solved at once the great problem which so long had distressed the teachers of mankind, how to make _virtue the object of pa.s.sion_, and to secure at once the warmest enthusiasm in the heart with the clearest perception of right and wrong in the understanding. The character of the blessed Founder of our faith became an abstract of morality to determine the judgment, _while at the same time it remained personal, and liable to love_. The written word and established church prevented a degeneration into ungoverned mysticism, but the predominant principle of vital religion always remained that of self-sacrifice to the Saviour. Not only the higher divisions of moral duties, but the simple, primary impulses of benevolence, were subordinated to this new absorbing pa.s.sion. The world was loved 'in Christ alone.' The brethren were members of his mystical body. All the other bonds that had fastened down the spirit of the universe to our narrow round of earth were as nothing in comparison to this golden chain of suffering and self-sacrifice, which at once riveted the heart of man to one who, like himself, was acquainted with grief. _Pain is the deepest thing we have_ in our nature, and union through pain has always seemed more real and more holy than any other."[43]

[43] This is the pa.s.sage referred to in Henry Taylor's delightful _Notes from Life_ ("Essay on Wisdom"):-

"Fear, indeed, is the mother of foresight: spiritual fear, of a foresight that reaches beyond the grave; temporal fear, of a foresight that falls short; but without fear there is neither the one foresight nor the other; and as pain has been truly said to be 'the deepest thing in our nature,' so is it fear that will bring the depths of our nature within our knowledge. A great capacity of _suffering_ belongs to genius; and it has been observed that an alternation of joyfulness and dejection is quite as characteristic of the man of genius as intensity in either kind." In his _Notes from Books_, p. 216, he recurs to it:-"'Pain,' says a writer whose early death will not prevent his being long remembered, 'pain is the deepest thing that we have in our nature, and union through pain has always seemed more real and more holy than any other.'"

There is a sad pleasure,-_non ingrata amaritudo_, and a sort of meditative tenderness, in contemplating the little life of this "dear youth," and in letting the mind rest upon these his earnest thoughts; to watch his keen and fearless, but child-like spirit, moving itself aright-going straight onward "along the lines of limitless desires"-throwing himself into the very deepest of the ways of G.o.d, and striking out as a strong swimmer striketh out his hands to swim; to see him "mewing his mighty youth, and kindling his undazzled eye at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance:"

"Light intellectual, and full of love, Love of true beauty, therefore full of joy, Joy, every other sweetness far above."

It is good for every one to look upon such a sight, and as we look, to love. We should all be the better for it; and should desire to be thankful for, and to use aright a gift so good and perfect, coming down as it does from above, from the Father of lights, in whom alone there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Thus it is, that to each one of us the death of Arthur Hallam-his thoughts and affections-his views of G.o.d, of our relations to Him, of duty, of the meaning and worth of this world, and the next,-where he now is, have an individual significance. He is bound up in our bundle of life; we must be the better or the worse of having known what manner of man he was; and in a sense less peculiar, but not less true, each of us may say,

--"The tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me."

--"O for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!"

"G.o.d gives us love! Something to love He lends us; but when love is grown To ripeness, that on which it throve Falls off, and love is left alone:

"This is the curse of time. Alas!

In grief we are not all unlearned; Once, through our own doors Death did pa.s.s; One went, who never hath returned.

"This star Rose with us, through a little arc Of heaven, nor having wandered far, Shot on the sudden into dark.

"Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace; Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, While the stars burn, the moons increase, And the great ages onward roll.

"Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet, Nothing comes to thee new or strange, Sleep, full of rest from head to feet; Lie still, dry dust, secure of change."

_Vattene in pace, alma beata e bella._-Go in peace, soul beautiful and blessed.

"O man greatly beloved, go thou thy way till the end, for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days."-DANIEL.

"Lord, I have viewed this world over, in which thou hast set me; I have tried how this and that thing will fit my spirit, and the design of my creation, and can find nothing on which to rest, for nothing here doth itself rest, but such things as please me for a while, in some degree, vanish and flee as shadows from before me. Lo! I come to Thee-the Eternal Being-the Spring of Life-the Centre of rest-the Stay of the Creation-the Fulness of all things. I join myself to Thee; with Thee I will lead my life, and spend my days, with whom I aim to dwell forever, expecting, when my little time is over, to be taken up ere long into thy eternity."-JOHN HOWE, _The Vanity of Man as Mortal_.

_Necesse est tanquam immaturam mortem ejus defleam: si tamen fas est aut flere, aut omnino mortem vocare, qua tanti juvenis mortalitas magis finita quam vita est. Vivit enim, vivetque semper, atque etiam latius in memoria hominum et sermone versabitur, postquam ab oculis recessit._

The above notice was published in 1851. On sending to Mr. Hallam a copy of the _Review_ in which it appeared, I expressed my hope that he would not be displeased by what I had done. I received the following kind and beautiful reply:-

"WILTON CRESCENT, _Feb. 1, 1851._

"DEAR SIR,-It would be ungrateful in me to feel any displeasure at so glowing an eulogy on my dear eldest son Arthur, though after such a length of time, so unusual, as you have written in the _North British Review_. I thank you, on the contrary, for the strong language of admiration you have employed, though it may expose me to applications for copies of the _Remains_, which I have it not in my power to comply with. I was very desirous to have lent you a copy, at your request, but you have succeeded elsewhere.

"You are probably aware that I was prevented from doing this by a great calamity, very similar in its circ.u.mstances to that I had to deplore in 1833-the loss of another son, equal in virtues, hardly inferior in abilities, to him whom you have commemorated. This has been an unspeakable affliction to me, and at my advanced age, seventy-three years, I can have no resource but the hope, in G.o.d's mercy, of a reunion with them both. The resemblance in their characters was striking, and I had often reflected how wonderfully my first loss had been repaired by the subst.i.tution, as it might be called, of one so closely representing his brother. I send you a brief Memoir, drawn up by two friends, with very little alteration of my own.-I am, Dear Sir, faithfully yours, HENRY HALLAM.

"DR. BROWN, "Edinburgh."

The following extracts, from the _Memoir of Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam_ mentioned above, which has been appended to a reprint of his brother's _Remains_ (for private circulation), form a fitting close to this memorial of these two brothers, who were "lovely and pleasant in their lives," and are now by their deaths not divided:-

"But few months have elapsed since the pages of _In Memoriam_ recalled to the minds of many, and impressed on the hearts of all who perused them, the melancholy circ.u.mstances attending the sudden and early death of Arthur Henry Hallam, the eldest son of Henry Hallam, Esq. Not many weeks ago the public journals contained a short paragraph announcing the decease, under circ.u.mstances equally distressing, and in some points remarkably similar, of Henry Fitzmaurice, Mr. Hallam's younger and only remaining son. No one of the very many who appreciate the sterling value of Mr. Hallam's literary labors, and who feel a consequent interest in the character of those who would have sustained the eminence of an honorable name; no one who was affected by the striking and tragic fatality of two such successive bereavements, will deem an apology needed for this short and imperfect Memoir.

"Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, the younger son of Henry Hallam, Esq., was born on the 31st of August 1824; he took his second name from his G.o.dfather, the Marquis of Lansdowne.... A habit of reserve, which characterized him at all periods of life, but which was compensated in the eyes of even his first companions by a singular sweetness of temper, was produced and fostered by the serious thoughtfulness ensuing upon early familiarity with domestic sorrow.

"'He was gentle,' writes one of his earliest and closest school-friends, 'retiring, thoughtful to pensiveness, affectionate, without envy or jealousy, almost without emulation, impressible, but not wanting in moral firmness. No one was ever more formed for friends.h.i.+p. In all his words and acts he was simple, straightforward, true. He was very religious. Religion had a real effect upon his character, and made him tranquil about great things, though he was so nervous about little things.'

"He was called to the bar in Trinity Term, 1850, and became a member of the Midland Circuit in the summer. Immediately afterwards he joined his family in a tour on the Continent. They had spent the early part of the autumn at Rome, and were returning northwards, when he was attacked by a sudden and severe illness, affecting the vital powers, and accompanied by enfeebled circulation and general prostration of strength. He was able, with difficulty, to reach Siena, where he sank rapidly through exhaustion, and expired on Friday, October 25. It is to be hoped that he did not experience any great or active suffering. He was conscious nearly to the last, and met his early death (of which his presentiments, for several years, had been frequent and very singular) with calmness and fort.i.tude.

There is reason to apprehend, from medical examination, that his life would not have been of very long duration, even had this unhappy illness not occurred. But for some years past his health had been apparently much improved; and, secured as it seemed to be by his unintermitted temperance, and by a carefulness in regimen which his early feebleness of const.i.tution had rendered habitual, those to whom he was nearest and dearest had, in great measure, ceased to regard him with anxiety. His remains were brought to England, and he was interred, on December 23d, in Clevedon Church, Somersets.h.i.+re, by the side of his brother, his sister, and his mother.

"For continuous and sustained thought he had an extraordinary capacity, the bias of his mind being decidedly towards a.n.a.lytical processes; a characteristic which was ill.u.s.trated at Cambridge by his uniform partiality for a.n.a.lysis, and comparative distaste for the geometrical method, in his mathematical studies. His early p.r.o.neness to dwell upon the more recondite departments of each science and branch of inquiry has been alluded to above. It is not to be inferred that, as a consequence of this tendency, he blinded himself, at any period of his life, to the necessity and the duty of practical exertion. He was always eager to act as well as speculate; and, in this respect, his character preserved an unbroken consistency and harmony from the epoch when, on commencing his residence at Cambridge, he voluntarily became a teacher in a parish Sunday-school, for the sake of applying his theories of religious education, to the time when, on the point of setting forth on his last fatal journey, he framed a plan of obtaining access, in the ensuing winter, to a large commercial establishment, in the view of familiarizing himself with the actual course and minute detail of mercantile transactions.

"Insensibly and unconsciously he had made himself a large number of friends in the last few years of his life: the painful impression created by his death in the circle in which he habitually moved, and even beyond it, was exceedingly remarkable, both for its depth and extent. For those united with him in a companions.h.i.+p more than ordinarily close, his friends.h.i.+p had taken such a character as to have almost become a necessity of existence. But it was upon his family that he lavished all the wealth of his disposition-affection without stint, gentleness never once at fault, considerateness reaching to self-sacrifice:-

"Di co si biasmi il debolo intelletto E' l'parlar nostro, che non ha valore Di ritrar tutto co che dice amore.

H. S. M.

F. L."