565 James Freeman blacke sur ---- THE DIAL: MAGAZINE FOR LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION. VOLUME 1. BOSTON: WEEKS, JORDAN, AND COMPANY, 121 WASHINGTON STREET. LONDON: WILEY AND PUTNAM, 67 PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCC XLI. CAMBRIDGE PRESS: METCALF, TORRY. AND BALLOU. ERBNO ANDOVER - HARVARD THEOLOGICAL LITARY CAMBRIDGE MASS. Tend. 526,1 7./ 1840-1841 CONTENTS . . 1 5 . . . He List farewell . . . . · . No. I. The Editors to the Reader . . . A Short Essay on Critics . . To the Aurora Borealis Notes from the Journal of a Scholar The Religion of Beauty Brownson's Writings . . The Last Farewell . Ernest the Seeker (Chapter First) .. The Divine Presence in Nature and in the Soul Sympathy · · · · · Lines . . . . . . Allston Exhibition Song - To * * * Orphic Sayings . Stanzas Channing's Translation of Jouffroy Aulus Persius Flaccus . . The Shield . . . . The Problem . Come Morir? . . . . The Concerts of the past Winter A Dialogue . . Richter — The Morning Breeze Dante — Sketches . . . . : : 98 99 117 • . . 122 123 . . 124 134 135 136 wh . . No. II. Thoughts on Modern Literature Silence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 158 , CONTENTS. . · . · · · . . 9.5.6. · . · . · . . · · . · · · · . · · . · . .. · · . · · . · · · . · . · · · . · . · · · . · · . · · · · · · · · . · · · · · · · · · · · · . · · · . · · · . · · · 4.7.6. First Crossing the Alleghanies . . . . . . 159 A Sign from the West 161 Angelica Sleeps . . . 172 Nature and Art, or the Three Landscapes 173 The Art of Life, — The Scholar's Calling 175 Letter to a Theological Student 183 “ The Poor Rich Man". 187 Musings of a Recluse . . 188 Ellen The Wood-Fire . . 193 The Day Breaks . . 193 The Poet · · · 194 · Life . . .. 195 Evening 195 A Lesson for the Day 196 Wayfarers . . 216 From Goethe . 216 Pæan . . . . . . . . . . 217 Lyric . . . . . . . . 217 Truth against the World 218 Waves . . . New Poetry . . 220 Art and Artist . 222 Ernest the Seeker (Chapter Second) 233 Woodnotes . . . . . . . . . Life and Death . . . . . . . . . 245 RECORD OF THE MONTHS. The Works of William E. Channing, D. D. Four Volumes. Third Edition. Glasgow. 1840 . . . . 246 Two Sermons on the Kind Treatment and on the Emancipation of Slaves. Preached at Mobile. With a Prefatory Statement. By George F. SIMMONS . . . . . . . 248 A Letter to those who think. By EDWARD PALMER . : 251 Professor Walker's Vindication of Philosophy . . . 256 The Atheneum Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture . . 260 Select List of Recent Publications . . . . . 264 · · · · · · . · · · · · · · · · . · · · · · · · · . · · · · . · · . 242 · · ... Man in the Ages Afternoon . . . . . . No. III. . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 289 CONTENTS. 290 · · . . . · · . . · . . · · . . · · . . ... 291 292 293 298 299 305 305 306 · . . · . . · . · · . .... 307 · · . . · · · . . · 312 314 314 · · Questionings . . . Endymion . . . 7.6. Hymn and Prayer. . Klopstock and Meta . The True in Dreams . The Magnolia of Lake Pontchartrain Love and Insight . . . . Sunset . . . . . . Give us an Interpreter . Ideals of Every-Day Life. No. I. To Nydia The Violet . . . Stanzas . . . . . . . . . German Literature. . The Snow Storm . . Menzel's View of Goethe Suum Cuique . . . The Sphinx . . . Orphic Sayings · Woman . . . . . . . . . Sonnet . . . . . . . . . Thoughts on Art . . Glimmerings . . . . . . . . Letters from Italy on the Representatives of Italy. Eller To the Ideal . . . . . . . . . . ......................... · · · . . 315 · · · . · · · . . 339 340 347 · · · . . ... · · . . . 348 · · . i 351 · · . . ...... · · . 366 . · · . ...... . · · . . .. . 379 386 400 RECORD OF THE MONTHS. Michael Angelo considered as a Philosophic Poet, with Transla- tions. By John EDWARD TAYLOR . . . . . Select List of Recent Publications . . . . . . 401 402 No. IV. The Unitarian Movement in New England . . 409 7. 6. Dream . . v ** i i Idents of Tom Dor Lice. N . 446 . . . . . . Listen to the Wind The Wind again Leila . . . . . . . . 461 461 462 . . . . . . CONTENTS. . . . . . 468 469 469 . . . • . 1094.6. Poems on Art . Hermitage The Angel and the Artist Shelley . A Dialogue . . Thoughts on Labor Elen The Out-Bid Theme for a World-Drama Man the Reformer . Music of the Winter .. Ellen. Farewell . . • 470 494 497 519 520 523 539 544 . . . . . . THE DIAL. Vol. I. JULY, 1840. No. I. THE EDITORS TO THE READER. We invite the attention of our countrymen to a new design. Probably not quite unexpected or unannounced will our Journal appear, though small pains have been taken to secure its welcome. Those, who have immediately acted in editing the present Number, cannot accuse them. selves of any unbecoming forwardness in their undertak- ing, but rather of a backwardness, when they remember how often in many private circles the work was projected, how eagerly desired, and only postponed because no indi. vidual volunteered to combine and concentrate the free- will offerings of many coöperators. With some reluctance the present conductors of this work have yielded them- selves to the wishes of their friends, finding something sacred and not to be withstood in the importunity which urged the production of a Journal in a new spirit. As they have not proposed themselves to the work, neither can they lay any the least claim to an option or determination of the spirit in which it is conceived, or to what is peculiar in the design. In that respect, they have obeyed, though with great joy, the strong current of thought and feeling, which, for a few years past, has led many sincere persons in New England to make new de- mands on literature, and to reprobate that rigor of our conventions of religion and education which is turning us to stone, which renounces hope, which looks only back- ward, which asks only such a future as the past, which VOL. I. NO. I. 1 The Editors to the Reader. [July, suspects improvement, and holds nothing so much in horror as new views and the dreams of youth. With these terrors the conductors of the present Jour- nal have nothing to do, - not even so much as a word of reproach to waste. They know that there is a portion of the youth and of the adult population of this country, who have not shared them ; who have in secret or in public paid their vows to truth and freedom ; who love reality too well to care for names, and who live by a Faith too earnest and profound to suffer them to doubt the eternity of its object, or to shake themselves free from its authority. Under the fictions and customs which occupied others, these have explored the Necessary, the Plain, the True, the Human, — and so gained a vantage ground, which commands the history of the past and the present. No one can converse much with different classes of so- ciety in New England, without remarking the progress of a revolution. Those who share in it have no external organization, no badge, no creed, no name. They do not vote, or print, or even meet together. They do not know each other's faces or names. They are united only in a common love of truth, and love of its work. They are of all conditions and constitutions. Of these acolytes, if some are happily born and well bred, many are no doubt ill dressed, ill placed, ill made — with as many scars of here- ditary vice as other men. Without pomp, without trum- pet, in lonely and obscure places, in solitude, in servitude, in compunctions and privations, trudging beside the team in the dusty road, or drudging a hireling in other men's cornfields, schoolmasters, who teach a few children rudi- ments for a pittance, ministers of small parishes of the obscurer sects, lone women in dependent condition, ma- trons and young maidens, rich and poor, beautiful and hard-favored, without concert or proclamation of any kind, they have silently given in their several adherence to a new hope, and in all companies do signify a greater trust in the nature and resources of man, than the laws or the popular opinions will well allow. This spirit of the time is felt by every individual with some difference, — to each one casting its light upon the objects nearest to his temper and habits of thought ; – to one, coming in the shape of special reforms in the state ; 1840.] 3 The Editors to the Reader. to another, in modifications of the various callings of men, and the customs of business ; to a third, opening a new scope for literature and art; to a fourth, in philosophical insight; to a fifth, in the vast solitudes of prayer. It is in every form a protest against usage, and a search for principles. In all its movements, it is peaceable, and in the very lowest marked with a triumphant success. Of course, it rouses the opposition of all which it judges and condemns, but it is too confident in its tone to comprehend an objection, and so builds no outworks for possible de- fence against contingent enemies. It has the step of Fate, and goes on existing like an oak or a river, because it must.. In literature, this influence appears not yet in new books so much as in the higher tone of criticism. The antidote to all narrowness is the comparison of the record with nature, which at once shames the record and stimulates to new attempts. Whilst we look at this, we wonder how any book has been thought worthy to be preserved. There is somewhat in all life untranslatable into language. He who keeps his eye on that will write better than others, and think less of his writing, and of all writing. Every thought has a certain imprisoning as well as uplifting quality, and, in proportion to its energy on the will, refuses to become an object of intellectual contemplation. Thus what is great usually slips through our fingers, and it seems won- derful how a lifelike word ever comes to be written. If our Journal share the impulses of the time, it cannot now prescribe its own course. It cannot foretell in orderly propositions what it shall attempt. All criticism should be poetic ; unpredictable ; superseding, as every new thought does, all foregone thoughts, and making a new light on the whole world. Its brow is not wrinkled with circumspec- tion, but serene, cheerful, adoring. It has all things to say, and no less than all the world for its final audience. Our plan embraces much more than criticism ; were it not so, our criticism would be naught. Everything noble is directed on life, and this is. We do not wish to say pretty or curious things, or to reiterate a few propositions in varied forms, but, if we can, to give expression to that spirit which lifts men to a higher platform, restores to them the religious sentiment, brings them worthy aims and pure Tne Editors to the Reader. (July, away its melanchising man to the less life less desultory. pleasures, purges the inward eye, makes life less desultory, and, through raising man to the level of nature, takes away its melancholy from the landscape, and reconciles the practical with the speculative powers. But perhaps we are telling our little story too gravely. There are always great arguments at hand for a true action, even for the writing of a few pages. There is nothing but seems near it and prompts it, -the sphere in the ecliptic, the sap in the apple tree, - every fact, every appearance seem to persuade to it. Our means correspond with the ends we have indicated. As we wish not to multiply books, but to report life, our resources are therefore not so much the pens of practised writers, as the discourse of the living, and the portfolios which friendship has opened to us. From the beautiful recesses of private thought; from the experience and hope of spirits which are withdrawing from all old forms, and seeking in all that is new somewhat to meet their inap- peasable longings; from the secret confession of genius afraid to trust itself to aught but sympathy; from the conversation of fervid and mystical pietists; from tear- stained diaries of sorrow and passion ; from the manu- scripts of young poets; and from the records of youthful taste commenting on old works of art; we hope to draw thoughts and feelings, which being alive can impart life. And so with diligent hands and good intent we set down our Dial on the earth. We wish it may resemble that instrument in its celebrated happiness, that of measur- ing no hours but those of sunshine. Let it be one cheerful rational voice amidst the din of mourners and polemics. Or to abide by our chosen image, let it be such a Dial, not as the dead face of a clock, hardly even such as the Gnomon in a garden, but rather such a Dial as is the Gar- den itself, in whose leaves and flowers and fruits the sud- denly awakened sleeper is instantly apprised not what part of dead time, but what state of life and growth is now arrived and arriving. 1840.] Essay on Critics. A SHORT ESSAY ON CRITICS. An essay on Criticism were a serious matter ; for, though this age be emphatically critical, the writer would still find it necessary to investigate the laws of criticism as a science, to settle its conditions as an art. Essays entitled critical are epistles addressed to the public through which the mind of the recluse relieves itself of its impressions. Of these the only law is,“ Speak the best word that is in thee.” Or they are regular articles, got up to order by the literary hack writer, for the literary mart, and the only law is to make them plausible. There is not yet deliberate recog- nition of a standard of criticism, though we hope the always strengthening league of the republic of letters must ere long settle laws on which its Amphictyonic coun- cil may act. Meanwhile let us not venture to write on criticism, but by classifying the critics imply our hopes, and thereby our thoughts. First, there are the subjective class, (to make use of a convenient-term, introduced by our German benefactors.) These are persons to whom writing is no sacred, no reve- rend employment. They are not driven to consider, not forced upon investigation by the fact, that they are delibe- rately giving their thoughts an independent existence, and that it may live to others when dead to them. They know no agonies of conscientious research, no timidities of self- respect. They see no Ideal beyond the present hour, which makes its mood an uncertain tenure. How things affect them now they know ; let the future, let the whole take care of itself. They state their impressions as they rise, of other men's spoken, written, or acted thoughts. They never dream of going out of themselves to seek the motive, to trace the law of another nature. They never dream that there are statures which cannot be measured from their point of view. They love, they like, or they hate; the book is detestable, immoral, absurd, or admira- ble, noble, of a most approved scope ; - these statements they make with authority, as those who bear the evangel of pure taste and accurate judgment, and need be tried before no human synod. To them it seems that their pres- ent position commands the universe. Essay on Critics. (July, Thus the essays on the works of others, which are called criticisms, are often, in fact, mere records of impressions. To judge of their value you must know where the man was brought up, under what influences , — his nation, his church, his family even. He himself has never attempted to estimate the value of these circumstances, and find a law or raise a standard above all circumstances, permanent against all influence. He is content to be the creature of his place, and to represent it by his spoken and written word. He takes the same ground with the savage, who does not hesitate to say of the product of a civilization on which he could not stand, “ It is bad,” or “ It is good.” The value of such comments is merely reflex. They eharacterize the critic. They give an idea of certain in- fluences on a certain act of men in a certain time or place. Their absolute, essential value is nothing. The long review, the eloquent article by the man of the nine- teenth century are of no value by themselves considered, but only as samples of their kind. The writers were con- tent to tell what they felt, to praise or to denounce without needing to convince us or themselves. They sought not the divine truths of philosophy, and she proffers them not, if unsought. Then there are the apprehensive. These can go out of themselves and enter fully into a foreign existence. They breathe its life; they live in its law; they tell what it meant, and why it so expressed its meaning. They reproduce the work of which they speak, and make it better known to us in so far as two statements are better than one. There are beautiful specimens in this kind. They are pleasing to us as bearing witness of the genial sympathies of nature. They have the ready grace of love with somewhat of the dignity of disinterested friendship. They sometimes give more pleasure than the original production of which they treat, as melodies will sometimes ring sweetlier in the echo. Besides there is a peculiar pleasure in a true response ; it is the assurance of equipoise in the universe. These, if not true critics, come nearer the standard than the subjective class, and the value of their work is ideal as well as historical. Then there are the comprehensive, who must also be ap- prehensive. They enter into the nature of another being 1840.) Essay on Critics. and judge his work by its own law. But having done so, having ascertained his design and the degree of his success in fulfilling it, thus measuring his judgment, his energy, and skill, they do also know how to put that aim in its place, and how to estimate its relations. And this the critic can only do who perceives the analogies of the universe, and how they are regulated by an absolute, invariable principle. He can see how far that work expresses this principle as well as how far it is excellent in its details. Sustained by a principle, such as can be girt within no rule, no formula, he can walk around the work, he can stand above it, he can uplift it, and try its weight. Finally he is worthy to judge it. Critics are poets cut down, says some one by way of jeer ; but, in truth, they are men with the poetical tempera- ment to apprehend, with the philosophical tendency to in- vestigate. The maker is divine ; the critic sees this divine, but brings it down to humanity by the analytic process. The critic is the historian who records the order of crea- tion. In vain for the maker, who knows without learning it, but not in vain for the mind of his race. The critic is beneath the maker, but is his needed friend. What tongue could speak but to an intelligent ear, and every noble work demands its critic. The richer the work, the more severe would be its critic; the larger its scope, the more comprehensive must be his power of scrutiny. The critic is not a base caviller, but the younger brother of genius. Next to invention is the power of interpreting invention ; next to beauty the power of appreciating beauty. And of making others appreciate it; for the universe is a scale of infinite gradation, and below the very highest, every step is explanation down to the lowest. Religion, in the two modulations of poetry and music, descends through an infinity of waves to the lowest abysses of human nature. Nature is the literature and art of the divine mind; hu- man literature and art the criticism on that; and they, too, find their criticism within their own sphere. The critic, then, should be not merely a poet, not mere- ly a philosopher, not merely an observer, but tempered of all three. If he criticize the poem, he must want nothing of what constitutes the poet, except the power of creating forms and speaking in music. He must have as good an eye and as fine a sense; but if he had as fine an organ for Essay on Critics. [July, expression also, he would make the poem instead of judg- ing it. He must be inspired by the philosopher's spirit of inquiry and need of generalization, but he must not be constrained by the hard cemented masonry of method to which philosophers are prone. And he must have the or- ganic acuteness of the observer, with a love of ideal per- fection, which forbids him to be content with mere beauty of details in the work or the comment upon the work. There are persons who maintain, that there is no legiti- mate criticism, except the reproductive; that we have only to say what the work is or is to us, never what it is not. But the moment we look for a principle, we feel the need of a criterion, of a standard ; and then we say what the work is not, as well as what it is; and this is as healthy though not as grateful and gracious an operation of the mind as the other. We do not seek to degrade but to classify an object by stating what it is not. We detach the part from the whole, lest it stand between us and the whole. When we have ascertained in what degree it manifests the whole, we may safely restore it to its place, and love or admire it there ever after. The use of criticism in periodical writing is to sift, not to stamp a work. Yet should they not be “sieves and drainers for the use of luxurious readers,” but for the use of earnest inquirers, giving voice and being to their objec- tions, as well as stimulus to their sympathies. But the critic must not be an infallible adviser to his reader. He must not tell him what books are not worth reading, or what must be thought of them when read, but what he read in them. Wo to that coterie where some critic sits despotic, intrenched behind the infallible “ We.” Wo to that oracle who has infused such soft sleepiness, such a gentle dulness into his atmosphere, that when he opes his lips no dog will bark. It is this attempt at dictatorship in the reviewers, and the indolent acquiescence of their read- ers, that has brought them into disrepute. With such fair- ness did they make out their statements, with such dignity did they utter their verdicts, that the poor reader grew all too submissive. He learned his lesson with such docility, that the greater part of what will be said at any public or private meeting can be foretold by any one who has read the leading periodical works for twenty years back. Schol- 1840.] Essay on Critics. ars sneer at and would fain dispense with them altogether; and the public, grown lazy and helpless by this constant use of props and stays, can now scarce brace itself even to get through a magazine article, but reads in the daily paper laid beside the breakfast plate a short notice of the last number of the long established and popular review, and thereupon passes its judgment and is content. Then the partisan spirit of many of these journals has made it unsafe to rely upon them as guide-books and ex- purgatory indexes. They could not be content merely to stimulate and suggest thought, they have at last become powerless to supersede it. From these causes and causes like these, the journals have lost much of their influence. There is a languid feeling about them, an inclination to suspect the justice of their verdicts, the value of their criticisms. But their golden age cannot be quite past. They afford too convenient a vehicle for the transmission of knowledge; they are too natural a feature of our time to have done all their work yet. Surely they may be redeemed from their abuses, they may be turned to their true uses. But how ? It were easy to say what they should not do. They should not have an object to carry or a cause to advocate, which obliges them either to reject all writings which wear the distinctive traits of individual life, or to file away what does not suit them, till the essay, made true to their design, is made false to the mind of the writer. An ex- ternal consistency is thus produced, at the expense of all salient thought, all genuine emotion of life, in short, and living influences. Their purpose may be of value, but by such means was no valuable purpose ever furthered long. There are those, who have with the best intention pursued this system of trimming and adaptation, and thought it well and best to “ Deceive their country for their country's good.” But their country cannot long be so governed. It misses the pure, the full tone of truth; it perceives that the voice is modulated to coax, to persuade, and it turns from the judicious man of the world, calculating the effect to be produced by each of his smooth sentences to some earnest voice which is uttering thoughts, crude, rash, ill-arranged VOL. I. — NO. 1. 10 (July, Essay on Critics. it may be, but true to one human breast, and uttered in full faith, that the God of Truth will guide them aright. And here, it seems to me, has been the greatest mis- take in the conduct of these journals. A smooth monotony has been attained, an uniformity of tone, so that from the title of a journal you can infer the tenor of all its chapters. But nature is ever various, ever new, and so should be her daughters, art and literature. We do not want merely a polite response to what we thought before, but by the freshness of thought in other minds to have new thought awakened in our own. We do not want stores of information only, but to be roused to digest these into knowledge. Able and experienced men write for us, and we would know what they think, as they think it not for us but for themselves. We would live with them, rather than be taught by them how to live; we would catch the contagion of their mental activity, rather than have them direct us how to regulate our own. In books, in reviews, in the senate, in the pulpit, we wish to meet thinking men, not schoolmasters or pleaders. We wish that they should do full justice to their own view, but also that they should be frank with us, and, if now our supe- riors, treat us as as if we might some time rise to be their equals. It is this true manliness, this firmness in his own position, and this power of appreciating the position of others, that alone can make the critic our companion and friend. We would converse with him, secure that he will tell us all his thought, and speak as man to man. But if he adapts his work to us, if he stifles what is distinctively his, if he shows himself either arrogant or mean, or, above all, if he wants faith in the healthy action of free thought, and the safety of pure motive, we will not talk with him, for we cannot confide in him. We will go to the critic who trusts Genius and trusts us, who knows that all good writing must be spontaneous, and who will write out the bill of fare for the public as he read it for himself, - “ Forgetting vulgar rules, with spirit free To judge each author by his own intent, Nor think one standard for all minds is meant.” Such an one will not disturb us with personalities, with sectarian prejudices, or an undue vehemence in favor of 1840.) To the Aurora Borealis. petty plans or temporary objects. Neither will he disgust us by smooth obsequious flatteries and an inexpressive, life- less gentleness. He will be free and make free from the mechanical and distorting influences we hear complained of on every side. He will teach us to love wisely what we before loved well, for he knows the difference between censoriousness and discernment, infatuation and reverence; and, while delighting in the genial melodies of Pan, can perceive, should Apollo bring his lyre into audience, that there may be strains more divine than those of his native groves. TO THE AURORA BOREALIS. Arctic fount of holiest light Springing through the winter night, Spreading far beyond yon hill When the earth is dark and still, Rippling o'er the stars, as streams Ripple o'er their pebble-gleams - Oh, for names, thou vision fair, To express thy splendors rare ! Blush upon the cheek of night, Posthumous, unearthly light, Dream of the deep-sunken sun, Beautiful, sleep-walking one, Sister of the moonlight pale, Star-obscuring, meteor-veil, Spread by heaven's watching vestals, Sender of the gleamy crystals, Darting on their arrowy course From their glittering, polar source, Upward where the air doth freeze, Round the sister Pleiades - Beautiful and rare Aurora, In the heavens thou art their Flora, Night-blowing Cereus of the sky, Rose of amaranthine dye, Hyacinth of purple light, Or their Lily clad in white! Who can name thy wondrous essence, Thou electric Phosphorescence ? To the Aurora Borealis. [July, Lonely apparition fire! Seeker of the starry quire! Restless roamer of the sky, Who hath' won thy mystery? Mortal science hath not ran With thee through the Empyrean, Where the constellations cluster Flower-like on thy branchy lustre! After all the glare and toil, And the daylight's fretful coil, Thou dost come so mild and still, Hearts with love and peace to fill; As when after revelry With a talking company, Where the blaze of many lights Fell on fools and parasites, One by one the guests have gone, And we find ourselves alone, Only one sweet maiden near, With a sweet voice low and clear Murmuring music in our ear - So thou talkest to the earth, After daylight's weary mirth. Is not human fantasy, Wild Aurora, likest thee, Blossoming in nightly dreams Like thy shifting meteor-gleams? But a better type thou art Of the strivings of the heart, Reaching upwards from the earth To the Soul that gave it birth. When the noiseless beck of night Summons out the inner light, That hath hid its purer ray Through the lapses of the day- Then like thee, thou northern Morn, Instincts which we deemed unborn, Gushing from their hidden source, Mount upon their heavenward course, And the spirit seeks to be Filled with God's Eternity. 1840.] Notes from the Journal of a Scholar. NOTES FROM THE JOURNAL OF A SCHOLAR. Nunc non e manibus illis, Nunc non e tumulo, fortunataque favilla Nascuntur viola? PERSIUS, HOMER. Homer I read with continually new pleasure. Criticism of Homer is like criticism upon natural scenery. You may say what is, and what is wanting, but you do not pretend to find fault. The Iliad is before us as a pile of mountains, - so blue and distant, so simple and real,- even so much an image of majesty and power. He is as prolific as the earth, and produces his changing scenery with the ease and the finish and the inexhaustible variety of nature. Homer never mistakes. You might as well say, there was untruth in the song of the wind. I notice Homer's mention of an interview with a great man. It is with him always among the memorabilia to have seen a great man. An embassy of Ulysses, a breakfast with Tydeus, any meeting with any heroic person, which barely gave time to note him, is text for memory and com- parison. Homer is pious. Homer, says Goethe, describes that which exists, not its effect on the beholder. He paints agreeable things, not their agreeableness. Homer writes from no theory as a point of vision. He tells us what he sees, not what he thinks. Homer is an achromatic glass. He is even less humor- some than Shakspeare. Two or three disinterested witnesses have been in the world, who have stated the facts as they are, and whose testimony stands unimpeached from age to age. Such was Homer, Socrates, Chaucer, Shakspeare ; perhaps Goethe. A larger class state things as they believe them to be ; Plato, Epicurus, Cicero, Luther, Montaigne, George Fox. A still larger class take a side, and defend it the best they can ; Aristotle, Lucretius, Milton, Burke. Notes from the Journal of a Scholar. (July, SHAKSPEARE. O my friend ! shall thou and I always be two persons ? Any strong emotion makes the surrounding parts of life fall away as if struck with death. One sometimes ques- tions his own reality, - it so blenches and shrivels in the flame of a thought, a relation, that swallows him up. If that lives, he lives. “There either he must live or have no life.” This afternoon we read Shakspeare. The verse so sunk into me, that as I toiled my way home under the cloud of night, with the gusty music of the storm around and over- head, I doubted that it was all a remembered scene; that Humanity was indeed one, a spirit continually reproduced, accomplishing a vast orbit, whilst individual men are but the points through which it passes. We each of us furnish to the angel who stands in the sun a single observation. The reason, why Homer is to me like dewy morning, is because I too lived while Troy was, and sailed in the hollow ships of the Grecians to sack the devoted town. The rosy-fingered dawn as it crimsoned the top of Ida, the broad sea shore dotted with tents, the Trojan hosts in their painted armor, and the rushing chariots of Diomed and Idomeneus, — all these I too saw; my ghost animated the frame of some nameless Argive. And Shakspeare in King John does but recal to me my- self in the dress of another age, the sport of new acci- dents. I, who am Charles, was sometime Romeo. In Hamlet, I pondered and doubted. We forget what we have been, drugged with the sleepy bowl of the Present. But when a lively chord in the soul is struck, when the windows for a moment are unbarred, the long and varied past is recovered. We recognise it all. We are no more brief, ignoble creatures; we seize our immortality, and bind together the related parts of our secular being. Shakspeare was a proper Pagan. He understood the height and depth of humanity in all its tossings on the sea of circumstance, - now breasting the waves, mounting even to heaven on their steep sides, and now drifting be- fore the wrath of the tempest. In himself he embraced this whole sphere, the whole of man struggling with the 1840.] 15 Notes from the Journal of a Scholar. whole of fortune. But of religion, as it appears in the new dispensation of Christianity, as an element in the soul controlling all the rest, and exhibiting new phenomena of action and passion, he had no experience; almost I had said, he had no conception. The beauty of holiness, the magnanimity of faith, he never saw. Probably he was an unbeliever in the creed of his time, and looked on the New Testament as a code that hampered the freedom of the mind which was a law unto itself, and as intruding on the sublime mystery of our fate. Hence, he delighted to get out of the way of Christianity, and not to need to calculate any of its influences. “What's brave, what's noble, Let's do it after the high Roman fashion." This was as he felt, and in Cleopatra it is just senti- ment; but his men and women in the English plays often talk in the same ante-Christian style as Cæsar or Corio- lanus. Now, our sign boards tell of Titian; and society everywhere attests in one mode or other the effects of Christianity. Certain fundamental truths sink and sow themselves in every soil, and the most irreligious man un- consciously supposes them in all his life and conversation. Shakspeare had in its perfection the poetic inspiration ; applied himself without effort to the whole world, — the sensible, the intelligent. Into all beauty, into all suffering, into all action, into all affection, he threw himself, - and yet not himself, for he seems never committed in his plays ;- but his genius. His genius was thus omnific and all-sympathizing. He seems to have sat above this hun- dred-handed play of his imagination, pensive and con- scious. He read the world off into sweetest verse as one reads a book. He in no way mixed himself the individu- al with the scenes he drew, and so his poetry was the very coinage of nature and life. The pregnant cloud disbur- dened itself and meaning became expression. In propor- tion as the prophet sees things from a personal point of view, and speaks under the influence of any temperament, interest, or prepossession, his eye is not clear, his voice is husky, — the oracle philippizes. The perfect inspiration is that which utters the beauty and truth, seen pure and unconfused as they lie in the lap of the Divine Order. 16 [July, . Notes from the Journal of a Scholar. Shakspeare was the inspired tongue of humanity. He was priest at the altar not of the Celestials, but of Mor- tals. His kingdom was of this world, and the message he was sent to do he delivered unembarrassed, unimplicated. He gave voice to the finest, curiousest, boldest philosoph- ical speculations; he chanted the eternal laws of morals; but it was as they were facts in the consciousness, and so a part of humanity. He gives no pledge, breathes no prayer, — and religion is mirrored no otherwise than de- bauchery. In his sonnets we behold him appropriating his gifts to his own use, but never in the plays. Hamlet and Othello, — as he counted them not his creatures, but self- subsistent, too highborn to be propertied, - so he tam- pers not with their individuality, nor obtrudes himself on us as their prompter. If they lived, he lived. BURKE. It is not true what Goldsmith says of Burke ; he did not give up to party any more than Shakspeare gave up to conspiracy, madness, or lust. His was not the nature of the partisan, but of the poet, who is quite other than the partisan. With the faculty proper to genius, he threw himself into the cause he espoused; and the Reflections on the French Revolution and the Impeachment of War- ren Hastings were his Othello and Julius Cæsar, wherein himself was lost and the truth of things only observed. The poet, it is said, has in him all the arts and letters of his time. The Iliad is a panorama of Greek civili- zation in the Homeric age. So Burke in his speeches comprises his era. Hence he could no more be a Radical than a Courtier. The spirit by which he was wedded to what was venerable was one with the spirit in which he welcomed the new births of reformation and liberty. He was consistent with himself. He had no sympathy with those who, like George Fox, would clothe themselves in a suit of leather, and nakedly renounce the riches to- gether with the restraints of social life. He did not chafe under the splendid harness of old institutions. Herein appeared not the servility but the greatness of the man ; and his homage to the English Constitution was like the chivalrous courtesy which man pays to woman, as beau- tiful in him to yield, as in her to accept. 1840.] 17 The Religion of Beauty. THE RELIGION OF BEAUTY. The devout mind is a lover of nature. Where there is beauty it feels at home. It has not then to shut the windows of the senses, and take refuge from the world within its own thoughts, to find eternal life. Beauty never limits us, never degrades us. We are free spirits when with nature. The outward scenery of our life, when we feel it to be beautiful, is always commensurate with the gran- deur of our inward ideal aspiration ; it reflects encourag- ingly the heart's highest, brightest dreams ; it does not contradict the soul's convictions of a higher life; it tells us that we are safe in believing the thought, which to us seems noblest. If we have no sense of beauty, the world is nothing more than a place to keep us in. But when the skies and woods reveal their loveliness, then nature seems a glorious picture, of which our own inmost soul is the painter, and our own loves and longings the subject. It is the apt accompaniment to the silent song of the beholder's heart. The greatest blessing, which could be bestowed on the weary multitude, would be to give them the sense of beauty; to open their eyes for them, and let them see how richly we are here surrounded, what a glorious temple we inbabit, how every part of it is eloquent of God. The love of nature grows with the growth of the soul. Religion makes man sensible to beauty; and beauty in its turn disposes to religion. Beauty is the revelation of the soul to the senses. In all this outward beauty, — these soft swells and curves of the landscape, which seem to be the earth's smile; - this inexhaustible variety of form and colors and motion, not promiscuous, but woven together in as natural a har- mony as the thoughts in a poem; this mysterious hiero- glyphic of the flowers ; this running alphabet of tangled vine and bending grass studded with golden paints ; this all-embracing perspective of distance rounding altogeth- er into one rainbow-colored sphere, so perfect that the senses and the soul roam abroad over it unsated, feeling the presence and perfection of the whole in each part; this perfect accord of sights, sounds, motions, and fra- VOL. 1. — NO. I. 18 [July, The Religion of Beauty. grance, all tuned to one harmony, out of which run melo- dies inexhaustible of every mood and measure;- in all this, man first feels that God is without him, as well as within him, that nature too is holy; and can he bear to find himself the sole exception ? Does not the season, then, does not nature, does not the spontaneous impulse of an open heart, which has held such sublime worship through its senses, more than justify an attempt to show how the religious sentiments may be nourished by a cultivation of the sense of duty ? This should be a part of our religious education. The heart pines and sickens, or grows hard and contracted and unbelieving, when it cannot have beauty. The love of nature ends in the love of God. It is impossible to feel beauty, and not feel that there is a spirit there. The sen- sualist, the materialist, the worshipper of chance, is cheated of his doubts, the moment this mystery overtakes him in his walks. This surrounding presence of beautiful nature keeps the soul buoyed up forever into its element of freedom, where its action is cheerful, healthful, and un- wearied; where duty becomes lovely, and the call to worship, either by prayer or by self-sacrifice, is music to it. He, in whom this sense is open, is put, as it were, in a magnetic communication with a life like his own, which flows in around him, go where he may. In nature we for. get our loneliness. In nature we feel the same Spirit, who made it and pervades it, holding us up also. Through the open sense of beauty, all we see preaches and prophesies to us. Without it, when no such sensibility exists, how hard a task is faith! how hard to feel that God is here ! how unlovely looks religion! As without the air, the body could not breathe ; so without beauty, the heart and re- ligious nature seem to want an element to live in. Beauty is the moral atmosphere. The close, unseemly school- house, in which our infancy was cramped, - of how much natural faith did it not rob us! In how unlovely a garb did we first see Knowledge and Virtue! How uninteresting seemed Truth, how unfriendly looked Instruction ; with what mean associations were the names of God and Wis- dom connected in our memory! What a violation of nature's peace seemed Duty! what an intrusion upon the mind's rights! What rebellion has been nurtured within 1840.] - The Religion of Beauty. 19 us by the ugly confinements to which artificial life and education have accustomed us! How insensible and cold it has made us to the expressive features of God's works, always around us, always inviting us to high refreshing converse! I hold, then, that without a cultivation of the sense of beauty, chiefly to be drunken from the open fountains of nature, there can be no healthy and sound moral develop- ment. The man so educated lacks something most essen- tial. He is one-sided, not of a piece with nature ; and however correct, however much master of himself, he will be uninteresting, unencouraging, and uninviting. To the student of ancient history, the warm-hearted, graceful Greek, all alive to nature, who made beauty almost his religion, is a more refreshing object, than the cold, formal Jew. And here around us, resist it as we may, our hearts are always drawn towards the open, graceful children of impulse, in preference to the stiff, insensible patterns of virtue. The latter may be very unexceptionable, but at the same time very unreal. The former, though purpose- less and careless they play through life, yet have trusted themselves to nature, and been ravished by her beauty, and nature will not let them become very bad. Consider a few of the practical effects upon the whole character of a growing love of beauty in the young mind. It disposes to order. It gives birth in the mind to an instinct of propriety. It suggests imperceptibly, it inclines gently, but irresistibly, to the fit action, to the word in season. The beau- ty which we see and feel plants its seeds in us. Gazing with delight on nature, our will imperceptibly becomes attuned to the same harmony. The sense of beauty is attended with a certain reverence; we dare not mar what looks so perfect. This sense, too, has a something like conscience contained in it; we feel bound to do and be ourselves something worthy of the beauty we are permitted to ad- mire. This feeling, while it makes alive and quickens, yet is eminently conservative, in the best sense. He, who has it, is always interested on the side of order, and of all dear and hallowed associations. He, who wants it, is as destruc- tive as a Goth. The presence of beauty, like that of na- ture, as soon as we feel it at all, overcomes us with respect, and a certain sensitive dread of all violence, mischief, or 20 (July, The Religion of Beauty. gives thet of loose beauty there him the es not see can see discord. The beautiful ideal piece of architecture bears no mark of wanton pen-knife. The handsome school-room makes the children neat. The instinct of obedience, of conciliation, of decorum, reverence, and harmony, flows into the soul with beauty. The calm spirit of the land- scape takes possession of the humble, yet soul-exalted ad- mirer. Its harmony compels the jangling chords within himself into smoother undulations. Therefore “ walk out," like Isaac, “at even-tide to meditate," and let nature, with her divine stillness, take possession of thee. She shall give thee back to thyself better, more spiritual, more sen- sible of thy relationship with all things, and that in wrong- ing any, thou but woundest thyself. Another grace of character, which the sense of beauty gives the mind, is freedom - the freedom of fond obedi- ence, not of loose desire. The man, whose eyes and soul are open to the beauty there is around him, sees every- where encouragement. To him the touch of nature's hand is warm and genial. The air does not seem to pinch him, as it does most narrow-minded ones, who can see no good in anything but gain; to whose utilitarian vision most that is natural looks hostile. He is not contracted into himself by cautious fear and suspicion, afraid to let his words flow freely, or his face relax in confidence, or his limbs move gracefully, or his actions come out whole and hearty. He trusts nature; for he has kissed her loveliness; he knows that she smiles encouragement to him. Now think what it is that makes virtue so much shunned. Part- ly, our depravity, if you please. But partly, also, her numerous ungraceful specimens. For it is the instinctive expectation of all minds, that what is excellent shall also be beautiful, lovely, natural, and free. Most of the piety, we see about us, is more or less the product of restraint and fear. It stands there in spectral contrast with nature. Approve it we may; but we cannot love it. It does not bear the divine stamp; it chills, not converts. The love of nature makes in us an ideal of moral beauty, of an elevation of character which shall look free and lovely, something that shall take its place naturally and as matter of course in the centre of nature, as the life of Jesus did. Again, the love of beauty awakens higher aspirations 1840.] 21 The Religion of Beauty. in us. He, who has felt the beauty of a summer like this, has drunk in an infinite restlessness, a yearning to be per- fect, and by obedience free. He can never more rest con- tented with what he is. And here is the place, to attempt some account of the true significance of beauty, and of what is its office to the soul. Beauty always suggests the thought of the perfect. The smallest beautiful object is as infinite as the whole world of stars above us. So we feel it. Everything beau- tiful is emblematic of something spiritual. Itself limited, its meanings and suggestions are infinite. In it we seem to see all in one. Each beautiful thing, each dew-drop, each leaf, each true work of painter's, poet's, or musician's art, seems an epitome of the creation. Is it not God revealed through the senses ? Is not every beautiful thing a divine hint thrown out to us? Does not the soul begin to dream of its own boundless capacities, when it has felt beauty ? Does not immortality then, for the first time, cease to be a name, a doctrine, and become a present experience ? When the leaves fall in autumn, they turn golden as they drop. The cold winds tell us of coming winter and death; but they tell it in music. All is significant of decay ; but the deep, still, harmonious beauty surpasses all felt in sum- mer or spring before. We look on it, and feel that it cannot die. The Eternal speaks to us from the midst of decay. We feel a melancholy; but it is a sweet, religious melancholy, lifting us in imagination above death — since above the grave of the summer so much real beauty lin- gers. The beautiful, then, is the spiritual aspect of nature. By cherishing a delicate sensibility to it, we make nature preach us a constant lesson of faith ; we find all around an illustration of the life of the spirit. We surround our- selves with a constant cheerful exhortation to duty. We render duty lovely and inviting. We find the soul's deep inexpressible thoughts written around us in the skies, the far blue hills, and swelling waters. But then to this desirable result one stern condition must be observed. If the sense of beauty disposes to purity of heart ; so equally purity of heart is all that can keep the sense of beauty open. All influences work mutually. "One hand must wash the other," said the poet. The 22 The Religion of Beauty. [July, world is loveliest to him, who looks out on it through pure eyes. Sweet is the pleasure, Itself cannot spoil ! Is not true leisure One with true toil ? Thou that wouldst taste it, Still do thy best; Use it, not waste it, Else 't is no rest. Wouldst behold beauty Near thee? all round? Only hath duty Such a sight found. Rest is not quitting The busy career; Rest is the fitting Of self to its sphere. 'T is the brook's motion, Clear without strife, Fleeing to ocean After its life. Deeper devotion Nowhere hath knelt; Fuller emotion Heart never felt. 'Tis loving and serving The Highest and Best ! "T is ONWARDS! unswerving, And that is true rest. BROWNSON'S WRITINGS.* This work is the production of a writer, whose native force of mind, combined with rare philosophical attain- ments, has elevated him to a prominent rank among the * Charles Elwood; or the Infidel Converted. By O. A. BROWNSON. Boston : Charles C. Little and James Brown. 1840. 1840.) 23 Brownson's Writings. living authors of this country. His history, so far as it is known to us, presents a cheering example of the influ- ence of our institutions to bring forward the man rather than the scholar, to do justice to the sincere expression of a human voice, while the foppery of learning meets with nothing but contempt. Mr. Brownson, we understand, is under no obligations to the culture of the schools ; his early life was passed in scenes foreign to the pursuits of literature ; he was not led to authorship by the desire of professional reputation; but the various writings, which he has given to the public, are the fruit of a mind filled with earnest convictions that must needs be spoken out. The great mass of scholars are impelled by no passion for truth; they are content to clothe the current thoughts of the day in elegant forms; they value ideas, as the materials for composition, rather than as the springs of the most real life; their lonely vigils are for the acquisition of knowledge, or the establishment of fame ; while the intense desire to pierce into the mysteries of the universe, to com- prehend the purposes of God and the destiny of man, is a stranger to their souls. They will never “ outwatch the Bear to unsphere the spirit of Plato;" nor wrestle till day- break to obtain a benediction from the angel of truth. Hence their productions, though polished and classical, do not satisfy the common mind; the true secret of vitality is wanting; and though they may gratify our taste, they do not aid our aspirations. There is a small class of scholars whose aims and pursuits are of a different character. They value literature not as an end, but as an instrument to help the solution of prob- lems, that haunt and agitate the soul. They wish to look into the truth of things., The Universe, in its mysterious and terrible grandeur, has acted on them. Life is not re- garded by them as a pageant or a dream; it passes before their eye in dread and solemn beauty; thought is stirred up from its lowest depths; they become students of God unconsciously; and secret communion with the divine presence is their preparation for a knowledge of books, and the expression of their own convictions. Their writ- ings, accordingly, whenever they appear, will be alive. They will probably offend or grieve many, who make the state of their own minds the criterion of truth; but, at lowers and someone or a roben." 24 [July, Brownson's Writings. the same time, they will be welcomed by others, who find in them the word which they were waiting to hear spoken. The author of this volume belongs to the latter class. It is evident from all that we have read of his writings, that he is impelled to the work of composition, by the pressure of an inward necessity. He has studied, as is apparent from the rich and varied knowledge which he brings to the illustration of the subjects he treats of, more extensively and profoundly than most persons; but there are no traces of study, for the sake of study; no marks of a cumbersome eru- dition; he seems to have read what other men have written on questions which had exercised his mind, and to have appropriated to himself whatever was congenial; and hence, though we may observe the influence of eminent foreign writers on his cast of thought and expression, every- thing has the freshness and fervor of originality. Mr. Brownson, we believe, was first introduced to the notice of our community by his contributions to the “ Chris- tian Examiner,” the leading organ of the Unitarians in this city. These form a connected series of very striking arti- cles; distinguished for the fearless energy with which they grasp some of the most difficult problems; for the anima- tion and beauty of their style ; for the rare power of philosophical analysis which they display; for their fervid love of humanity; and for the precision and clearness with which the systems of other thinkers are interpreted to the comprehension of the general reader. The subjects with which they are concerned are all connected with the higher sphere of thought. They are pervaded by the presence of a common aim. We find in them the elements and germs of most of the productions which the author has since given to the public. The purposes, in this stage of his progress, which Mr. Brownson has in view, are the vindication of the reality of the religious principle in the nature of man; the existence of an order of sentiments higher than the calculations of the understanding and the deductions of logic; the founda- tion of morals on the absolute idea of right in opposition to the popular doctrine of expediency; the exposition of a spiritual philosophy; and the connexion of Christianity with the progress of society. These topics are handled with masterly skill; their discussion in the “Examiner” 1840.] 25 Brownson's Writings. formed a new era in the history of that able Journal; and has exerted a strong influence in producing and cherishing the interest which is now so widely felt in the higher questions of philosophy. Mr. Brownson's next work, entitled “ New Views of Christianity, Society, and the Church," is one of the most remarkable that has issued from the American press, al- though it attracted less attention at the time of its publi- cation than it has since received. We are gratified to learn that many readers have been led to its perusal by their interest in the subsequent writings of its author. It is not difficult to account for the small impression which this book at first made upon the public, compared with its genuine merits. The questions which it considers have been more warmly agitated in Europe than in this country. The ideas which it combats have no general prevalence among us; and their refutation could accordingly call forth no very general attention. It is, in fact, an answer to the objections which have been brought against the Christian religion by Henry Heine, and some of the disciples of the St. Simonian school, on account of its being, as they sup- pose, a system of exclusive and extravagant spiritualism. Christianity, they say, neglects all temporal interests; its kingdom is not of this world; it aims at the supremacy of the spirit, and the crucifixion of the flesh; it is, therefore, not adapted to the interests of man; in the progress of modern civilization it has become obsolete, and must pass away. Mr. Brownson undertakes to meet these views, by pointing out the true character of Christianity, as it existed in the idea of Jesus; the corruptions which it has expe. rienced in the course of ages; and the symptoms of the return of the Church to the conception of its founder. The Christianity of the Church, according to this book, is a different thing from the Christianity of Christ. The idea of Jesus was the type of the most perfect religious institution to which the human race will probably ever at- tain. This idea announces, in opposition to the contending Spiritualism and Materialism, which at that time had their exclusive representatives, that there is no original and essential antithesis between God and man; that neither spirit nor matter is unholy in its nature; that all things, spirit and matter, God and man, soul and body, heaven and VOL. I. - NO. I. Brownson's Writings." [July, earth, time and eternity, with all their duties and interests, are in themselves holy. It writes holiness to the Lord upon everything, and sums up its sublime teaching in that grand synthesis, “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and mind and soul and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself.” But the Church failed to embody this idea ; it misappre- hended the conditions on which it was to be realized. In- stead of understanding Jesus to assert the holiness of both spirit and matter, it understood him to admit that matter was rightfully cursed, and to predicate holiness of spirit alone. It took its stand with spiritualism, and condemned itself to the evils of being exclusive. This fact explains the doctrines, the ceremonies, and the assumptions, ex- hibited by the Church, in opposition to Christ. It abused and degraded matter, but could not annihilate it. It existed in spite of the Church. It increased in power, and at length rose against spiritualism and demanded the restoration of its rights. This rebellion is Protestantism. But, properly speak- ing, Protestantism finished its work, and expired in the French Revolution at the close of the last century. Since then there has been a reaction in favor of Spiritualism. This reaction was favored by the disastrous catastrophe of the movement in France. In consequence of this, men again despaired of the earth ; and when they despair of the earth, they always take refuge in heaven. They had trusted materialism too far; they would now not trust it at all. They turned back and sighed for the serene past, the quiet and order of old times, for the mystic land of India, where the soul may dissolve in ecstasy and dream of no change. When the sigh had just escaped, that mystic land reappeared. The old literature and philosophy of India were brought to light. The influence of the ancient Braminical or spiritual word is visible everywhere. It is remarkable in our poets. It moulds the form in Byron, penetrates to the ground in Wordsworth, and entirely pre- dominates in the Schlegels. It acts with equal power on philosophy, religion, society. What, then, is the mission of the present? The East has reappeared, and spiritualism revives; will it again be- come supreme? This, according to our author, is out of the question. We of the present century must either dis- 1840.] 27 Brownson's Writings. x pense with all religious instructions, reproduce spiritualism or materialism, or we must build a new church, organize a new institution, free from the imperfections of those which have been. The first is impossible. Men cannot live in perpetual anarchy. They must and will embody their ideas of the true, the beautiful, the good, the holy, in some institution. Neither can an exclusive spiritualism or ma- terialism be reproduced. This were an anomaly in the history of humanity; for humanity does not traverse an eternal circle; it advances, in one endless career of progress towards the Infinite, the Perfect. But spiritualism and materialism both have their foundation in our nature, and both will exist and exert their influence. Shall they exist as antagonist principles ? Is the bosom of Humanity to be eternally torn by these two contending factions ? This cannot be. The war must end. Peace must made. Here then is the mission of the present. We are to reconcile spirit and matter; that is, we must realize the atonement. Nothing else remains for us to do. Stand still we cannot. To go back is equally impossible. We must go forward; but we can take not a step forward, but on the condition of uniting these two hitherto hostile prin- ciples. Progress is our law, and our first step is union. The union of spirit and matter was the result contem- plated by the mision of Jesus. The Church attempted it, but only partially succeeded, and has therefore died. The time had not come for the complete union. Jesus saw this. He knew that the age in which he lived would not be able to realize his conception. Hence he spoke of his second coming. This will take place, when the idea which he represents shall be fully realized. That idea will be realized by a combination of the two terms, which have received thus far from the Church only a separate develop- ment. The doctrine which shall realize the idea of the atonement is, that all things are essentially holy, that everything is cleansed, and that we must call nothing common or unclean. Neither spiritualism nor materialism was aware of this truth. Spiritualism saw good only in pure spirit. God was pure spirit, and therefore good. Our good consisted in resemblance to God, that is, in being as Jike pure spirit as possible. Our duty was to get rid of matter. All the interests of the material order were sinful. 28 [July, Brownson's Writings. Materialism, on the other hand, had no recognition oi spirit. It considered all time and thought and labor bestow- ed on that which transcends this world as worse than thrown way. It had no conception of inward communion with God. It counted fears of punishment or hopes of reward in a world to come mere idle fancies, fit only to amuse or control the vulgar. It laughed at spiritual joys and griefs, and treated as serious affairs only the pleasures and pains of sense. The doctrine of the Atonement reconciles these two warring systems. This doctrine teaches us that spirit is real and holy, that matter is real and holy, that God is holy, and that man is holy, that spiritual joys and griefs, and the pleasures and pains of sense, are alike real joys and griefs, real pleasures and pains, and in their places are alike sacred. Spirit and matter, then, are sacred. The influence of this doctrine cannot fail to be very great. It will correct our estimate of man, of the world, of religion, and of God, and remodel all our institutions. It must, in fact, create a new civilization as much in advance of ours, as ours is in advance of that which obtained in the Roman Empire in the time of Jesus. We shall cease to regard man as the antithesis of good. The slave will become a son. Human nature will be clothed with a high and com- manding worth. It will be seen to be a lofty and death- less nature. It will be felt to be divine, and infinite will be found traced in living characters on all its faculties. Man will reverence man. Slavery will cease. Wars will fail. Education will destroy the empire of ignorance. Civil freedom will become universal. It will be everywhere felt that one man has no right over another, which that other has not over him. All will be seen to be brothers and equals in the sight of their common Father. Religion will not stop with the command to obey the laws, but it will bid us make just laws, such laws as befit a being di- vinely endowed like man. Industry will be holy. The cultivation of the earth will be the worship of God. Working men will be priests, and as priests they will be reverenced, and as priests they will reverence them- selves, and feel that they must maintain themselves un- defiled. The earth itself and the animals which inhabit it will be counted sacred. We shall study in them the 1840.] 29 Brownson's Writings. manifestation of God's wisdom, goodness, and power, and be careful that we make of them none but a holy use. Man's body will be deemed holy. It will be called the temple of the Living God. As a temple, it must not be desecrated. Men will beware of defiling it by sin, by any excessive or improper indulgence, as they would of defil- ing the temple or the altar consecrated to the service of God. Every duty, every act necessary to be done, every implement of industry, or thing contributing to human use or convenience, will be treated as holy. Religious worship will not be the mere service of the sanctuary. The universe will be God's temple, and its service will be the doing of good to mankind, relieving suffering, and promoting joy, virtue, and well-being. When all this takes place, the glory of the Lord will be manifested unto the ends of the earth, and all flesh will see it and rejoice together. The time is yet distant before this will be fully realized. But we assert the doctrine as an idea ; and ideas, if true, are omnipotent. As soon as humanity fully possesses this idea, it will lose no time in reducing it to practice. Men will conform their practice to it. They will become personally holy. Holiness will be written on all their thoughts, emotions, and actions, on their whole lives. And then will Christ really be formed within, the hope of glory. He will be truly incarnated in universal humanity, and God and man will be one. The tones of a sincere voice are heard in the conclusion of the volume, a part of which we copy. 6 Here I must close. I have. uttered the words UNION and PRO- GRESS as the authentic creed of the New Church, as designating the whole duty of man. Would they had been spoken in a clearer, a louder, and a sweeter voice, that a response might be heard from the universal heart of Humanity. But I have spoken as I could, and from a motive which I shall not blush to own either to myself or to Him to whom all must render an account of all their thoughts, words, and deeds. I once had no faith in Him, and I was to myself a child without a sire. I was alone in the world, my heart found no com- panionship, and my affections withered and died. But I have found Him, and he is my Father, and mankind are my brothers, and I can love and reverence. “Mankind are my brothers, — they are brothers to one another. I would see them no longer mutually estranged. I labor to bring them together, and to make them feel and own that they are all made of one blood. Let them feel and own this, and they will love one ano- ther; they will be kindly affectioned one to another, and the groans of this nether world will cease;' the spectacle of wrongs and outrages 30 [July, Brownson's Writings. oppress our sight no more ; tears be wiped from all eyes, and Human- ity pass from death to life, to life immortal, to the life of God, for God is love. “And this result, for which the wise and the good everywhere yearn and labor, will be obtained. I do not misread the age. I have not looked upon the world only out from the window of my closet; I have mingled in its busy scenes; I have rejoiced and wept with it; I have hoped and feared, and believed and doubted with it, and I am but what it has made me. I cannot misread it. It craves union. The heart of man is crying out for the heart of man. One and the same spirit is abroad, uttering the same voice in all languages. From all parts of the world voice answers to voice, and man responds to man. There is a universal language already in use. Men are beginning to understand one another, and their mutual understanding will beget mutual sympathy, and mutual sympathy will bind them together and to God.” — pp. 113-115. Such is a very slight sketch of a work which we have called one of the most remarkable that has appeared in the literature of this country. It labors under the defect, however, of an excessive brevity; some of its most impor- tant statements are hints rather than details; and the con- densed, aphoristic style of its composition may blind many readers to the fulness of thought which it presents, and the true logical sequence in which it is arranged. In spite of this obstacle to popular success, this work cannot fail to act with great power on all minds of true insight. Its profound significance will be apprehended by many, who find here the expression of their own convictions, the re- sult of their own strivings, which they have never before seen embodied in words. And it has already formed a conspicuous era in the mental history of more than one, who is seeking for the truth of things, in the midst of painted, conventional forms. Since the publication of this work, Mr. Brownson has gained a more numerous audience and a wider reputation by the establishment of the “ Boston Quarterly Review." This Journal stands alone in the history of periodical works. It was undertaken by a single individual, without the coöperation of friends, with no external patronage, supported by no sectarian interests, and called for by no motive but the inward promptings of the author's own soul. A large proportion of its pages, — and it has now reached the middle of its third year, - is from the pen of Mr. Brownson himself. The variety of subjects which it discusses is no less striking, than the vigor and boldness 1840.] 31 Brownson's Writings. with which they are treated. The best indication of the culture of philosophy in this country, and the application of its speculative results to the theory of religion, the criti- cism of literary productions, and the institutions of so- ciety, we presume no one will dispute, is to be found in the discussions of this Journal. Nor is it to be regarded as a work of merely ephemeral interest. It is conspicuous among the significant products which are now everywhere called forth by the struggle between the old and the new, between prescription and principle, between the assertions of authority and the suggestions of reason. The vigorous tone of argument which it sustains, its freedom from con- ventional usage, its fearless vindication of the rights of hu- manity, the singular charms and force with which it exhibits the results of philosophical research, and the depth and fer- vor of its religious spirit, are adapted to give it a permanent influence, even among those who dissent widely from many of its conclusions, and to redeem it from the oblivion to which so large a part of our current literature is destined. The work, which we have made the occasion of the present notice, “ Charles Elwood; or the Infidel Convert- ed,” is, we think, on the whole, in point of literary finish, superior to any of Mr. Brownson's former writings. It is suited to be more generally popular. It presents the most profound ideas in a simple and attractive form. The dis- cussion of first principles, which in their primitive abstrac- tion are so repulsive to most minds, is carried on through the medium of a slight fiction, with considerable dramatic effect. We become interested in the final opinions of the subjects of the tale, as we do in the catastrophe of a ro- mance. A slender thread of narrative is made to sustain the most weighty arguments on the philosophy of religion ; but the conduct both of the story and of the discussion is managed with so much skill, that they serve to relieve and forward each other. Charles Elwood, who tells his own story, is introduced to us as a young man who has attained the reputation of an infidel in his native village. This subjected him to the usual fate of those who call in question received opinions. His good name suffered on account of his dissent from the prevailing belief; his company was shunned; and though his character was spotless, his sympathies with his kind 32 (July, Brownson's Writings. deep and sensitive, and his love of truth sincere, he became the object of general aversion and terror. He is surprised one morning by a visit from Mr. Smith, a young and zealous clergyman, fresh from the theological school, and burning with all the ardor to make proselytes that could be inspired by a creed, which denied the possi- bility of salvation to any who doubted it. He had heard that Elwood was an atheist; he had stepped in to convert him to Christianity. As he had never measured himself with an intelligent unbeliever, he counted on a speedy victory; but his confidence was greater than his discretion. « I have called on you, Mr. Elwood,' said Mr. Smith, after a few common-place remarks, with a message from God.' “. Indeed !' said I: And when, sir, did you receive it?' 6 • Last night. When you left the meeting without taking your place on the anxious seats, God told me to come and deliver you a message.' “ • Are you certain it was God?'. “ I am.' 666 And how will you make me certain?' "Do you think I would tell you a falsehood ?' 6. Perhaps not, intentionally; but what evidence have I that you are not yourself deceived ? ' 64 • I feel certain, and do I not know what I feel ? ' 6. Doubtless, what you feel; but how do you know that your feel- ing is worthy of trust?'. ** Could not God give me, when he spoke to me, sufficient evidence that it was really He who spoke to me? “Of that you are probably the best judge. But admit that he could give it, and has actually given it; still you alone have it, not I. If then you come to me with the authority of God to vouch for the trustworthiness of your feeling, you must be aware that I have not that authority ; I have only your word, the word of a man, who, for aught I know, is as fallible as myself. You come to me as an ambassador from God; produce your credentials, and I will listen to your despatches.' “My credentials are the Bible, “ But, pray, sir, how can a book written niany ages ago, by nobody knows whom, be a proof to me that God told you last night to come and deliver me a message this morning?' “ I bring you just such a message as the Bible dictates.' 6. And what then?'. “ • The Bible is the Word of God.'” — pp. 12, 13. But Elwood was not quite so ready to admit this on the authority of the minister. He brings certain objections to the supposition, pursues his spiritual adviser with incon- venient questions, and at last compels him to take refuge in the evidence of miracles. This gives rise to an interest- ing discussion. 1840.) Brownson's Writings. " " But you forget,' replied Mr. Smith, after a short pause, 'that the communications received by the sacred writers bore the impress of God's seal. God gave them all needed assurance that it was he him- self who spoke to them. If then they were honest men, we ought to believe them. That they were honest men, worthy of all credit as speaking by Divine authority, I infer from the fact that they could work miracles. ** All that is easily said. Whether God keeps a seal or not is more than I know; but supposing he does, are mortals well enough ac- quainted with it to recognise it the moment it is presented ? How do they know its impress? Has God lodged with them a fac-simile of it?' "God told then that it was his seal.' 6 " But how did they know it was God who said so ? Had they had any previous acquaintance with him? Who introduced him to them, assured them it was verily the Almighty? But this leads us back to where we were a moment ago. I suppose you hold a supernatural revelation from God to be necessary ?' "Certainly.' And without a supernatural revelation we can know nothing of God?! “ Nothing.' * * Deprive us of the Bible and we should be in total ignorance of God?' " • Assuredly.' 4 • It is necessary to prove that the revelation said to be from God is actually from him?' “ * Undoubtedly. 6. The revelation is proved to be from God by the miracles per- formed by the men who professed to speak by Divine authority ? 5. Yes.' * * Miracles prove this, because they are performed by the power of God, and because God will not confer the power of working mira- cles on wicked men, or men who will tell lies?! " So I believe. 6. It requires some knowledge of God to be able to say of any given act that it is performed by God. We say of what you term a miracle, that it is wrought by the Almighty, because we seem to ourselves to detect his presence in it. Now if we were totally unacquainted with his presence, should we be able to detect it? It therefore requires some knowledge of God to be able to assert that what is termed a miracle is actually effected by Divine power. Also it requires some knowledge of God to be able to affirm that he will give the power of working miracles to good men only. You start at the idea that he would give this power to wicked men, because to do so would be in- consistent with the character you believe him to possess. In saying that he will not do it, you assume to be acquainted with his character; and from your assumed acquaintance with his character, you infer what he will or will not do. In both of these instances, no inconsider- able knowledge of God is presupposed. Whence do we obtain this knowledge?? ** Every body knows enough of God to know when a miracle is performed that it is God who performs it, and to know that God will not give the power of working miracles to bad men.' VOL. I. —NO. I. 34 (July, Brownson's Writings. "Perhaps so. You at least may know enough to know this. But suppose you were deprived of all the light of revelation, would you know enough of God to know this? Did I not understand you to say that were it not for revelation we should be totally ignorant of God?' 66. I said so, and say so still.' “I presume, sir, that there is a point here which has in part es- caped your attention. I have observed that you religious people, in defending miracles, assume to be in possession of all the knowledge of God communicated by the supernatural revelation miracles are brought forward to authenticate. You assume the truth of the revelation, and by that verify your miracles ; and then adduce your miracles to authen- ticate the revelation. But I need not say to you that before you have authenticated your revelation you have no right to use it; and before you can authenticate it, on your own showing, you must verify your miracles - a thing you cannot do without that knowledge of God which you say is to be obtained from the revelation only.' "I do no such thing.' "Not intentionally, consciously, I admit. You have not a doubt of the truth of revelation. Your whole intellectual being is penetrated in all directions with its teachings, and you never make in your own mind an abstraction of what you have received from the Bible, and thus ascertain what would be your precise condition were you left to the light of nature. You fall therefore unconsciously into the practice of reasoning in support of your faith from premises which that faith itself supplies, and which would be of no validity if that faith were proved to be false ; and are of no validity when reasoning with one who questions it. But, sir, this whole matter of miracles may be cut short. What is a miracle ? You must know as much of God and the universe to be able to define a miracle, as a miracle on any supposition can teach you. Therefore miracles are at best useless. Then the evi- dence of the extraordinary feats you term miracles is not altogether satisfactory. All ancient history, profane as well as sacred, is full of marvellous stories, which no sound mind can for one moment entertain. They serve to discredit history. The ancient historian who should fill his history with marvels would by no means be held in so high respect, even by yourself, as one who confined his faith to the simple, the ordinary, the natural. His faith in marvels, omens, oracles, prodi- gies, you would regard as an impeachment of his judgment. Why not do the same in regard to the Bible historians ? You allege mira- cles as a proof of revelation, when in fact nothing about your revela- tion, or in it, is more in need of proof than your miracles themselves. Then again, miracles can prove nothing but our ignorance. No event that can be traced to a known cause is ever termed a miracle. A mira- cle is merely an event which can be traced to no known law of nature. To say an event is miraculous is merely saying that it is an anomaly in our experience, and not provided for in our systems of science. The miraculous events recorded in the Bible may have occurred, for aught I know, but they are of no value as evidences of Christianity.' 666 Why not? “I supposed I had already shown why not. You cannot know enough of God and the universe to know, in the first place, that what you term miracles are actually wrought by God. For aught you know 1840.] 35 Brownson's Writings. to the contrary, there may be thousands of beings superior to man ca- pable of performing them. And in the second place, you can never infer from the fact, that a man opens the eyes of the blind, or restores a deadbody to life, that he cannot tell a lie. The fact, that the miracle is performed, does not necessarily involve the truth of the doctrine taught, nor the veracity of the miracle-worker. So far as you or I know, a man may perform what is termed a miracle, and yet be a teacher of false doctrines.' ** But if you should see a man raise a dead body to life, in attes- tation of his Divine commission, would you not believe him?' **If your history be correct, there were men who actually saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, and yet neither recognised his claims as the Son of God, nor as a teacher of truth, but went away and took counsel how they might put him to death. Before the raising of a man from the dead could be a sufficient warrant for me to receive any doctrine, I must know positively that no being, not commissioned by God, can raise a dead body to life, or that no being, capable of raising a dead body to life, can possibly tell a falsehood. Now this knowledge I have not, and cannot have.' “Mr Smith made no reply. He remarked that he had overstaid his time, that an imperious engagement required him to leave me ; but he would call upon me again, and continue the discussion — a promise, by-the-by, which he forgot to keep, or which circumstances prevented him from fulfilling.” — pp. 20-26. We must not omit the comment of the author on this conversation. “Many years have elapsed since this conversation took place. I have reviewed it often in various and diverse moods of mind, but I have not been able to detect any fallacy in my reasoning. It is true that reasoning, if admitted, goes to show that a revelation from God to man is imposible. If the premises from which both Mr. Smith and I started be correct, all supernatural revelation must be given up. “ They who deny to man all inherent capacity to know God, all immedi- ale perception of spiritual truth, place man out of the condition of ever knowing anything of God. Man can know only what he has a capaci- ty to know. God, may speak to him, and utter truths which he could not himself have found out, but unless there be in him something which recognises the voice of God, and bears witness for God, it is all in vain. If there be not this something in man, then can man receive no revelation from God. There must be a God within to recognise and vouch for the God who speaks to us from without. “Now this inherent capacity to recognise God, this power to detect his presence wherever he is, and of course everywhere, I did not ad- mit, and not admitting this my conclusions followed legitimately from my premises. ""Mr. Smith admitted it no more than I did, and therefore could not refute me. Denying this capacity, he admitted nothing by which a supernatural revelation could be authenticated, for it required this capacity to detect the presence of God in the miracles, not less than to detect it in the revelation itself. Not having this capacity, man could have no standard by which to try the revelation alleged to be 36 (July, Brownson's Writings. from God. This was what I labored to make Mr. Smith comprehend; I demanded of him this standard, the criterion of spiritual truth, the fac-simile of God's seal with which to compare the impress on the despatches sent us in his name; but he could not answer my de- mand. “ Many able apologists of Christianity fail to perceive the point they must establish in the very outset of this controversy with unbelievers. This point is, that man is endowed with an intelligence that knows God immediately, by intuition. They who deny this may be religi- ous, but only at the expense of their logic. We can rationally and scientifically sustain religion only by recognising the mystic element of human nature, an element, which, though in man, is yet in relation with God, and serves as the mediator between God and man. If we cannot establish the reality of this element, which is sometimes termed the Divine in man, and which though in nature is supernatural, it is in vain to seek for any scientific basis for theology, and unbelief in God is the only conclusion to which we can legitimately coine." — pp. 26, 27. The force of argument, it seems, was not the only power that was brought to bear on the convictions of young El- wood. He is led to talk of his religious views with a beautiful devotee to whom he was engaged to be married in a few weeks. She, of course, is shocked at his unbe- lief, but is utterly unable to comprehend its character, or to penetrate to its cause. Meantime, she is told by Smith, the clerical fanatic, that her duty to God calls for the sacri- fice of her lover. “ The agony which Elizabeth suffered during this whole conversa- tion may be more easily imagined than described. She had lavished upon me all the wealth of her heart. She had loved me with a sincer- ity and depth of affection, enhanced by the apparently unfriendliness of my condition. Like a true woman she had clung to me the closer for the reason that all else seemed to have abandoned me. It is not woman that leaves us when most we need her presence. I have had my share of adversity, I have suffered from the world more than I care to tell; but I have ever found in woman a kind and succoring spirit. Her love has ever shed a hallowed light along my pathway, cheered me in my darkest hours, and given me ever the courage and the strength to battle with my enemies, and regain the mastery of myself. There are those who speak lightly of woman; I have learned to reverence her as the brightest earthly manifestation of the Divinity. “ Elizabeth had loved me, and in all her visions of the future I of course held a prominent place, and it were a foolish affectation to doubt that I constituted their principal charm. To banish me now, to strike my image from her heart, to break with me the faith she had plighted, — the thought of it was not to be endured. And yet what a mysterious nature is this of ours! The very intensity of her love for me alarmed her conscience. She had been but recently converted, and was still laboring under strong excitement. She had just dedi- 1840.] . Brownson's Writings. 37 cated herself to God. She must be his and his only. Did she not owe everything to God ? Should she not love him with her whole heart, and ought she not to sacrifice everything to him? Was not religion, in its very nature, a sacrifice? Would she not be violating its most solemn injunctions, if she retained anything which she loved more than God? Did she not in fact love me more than him ? I was dearer to her than all the world besides; but then would not the sacri- fice of me to God be so much the more meritorious ? If she retained me would it not be a proof, that she counted one treasure too precious to be surrendered ? Was she not commanded to forsake father, mother, sister, brother, for God, to give up everything for God, which should come between her and him, though it should be like plucking out a right eye or cutting off a right hand ? Must she not now choose be- tween God and man, between religion and love? She must. “I mean not to say that this was sound reasoning; but I apprehend that it requires no deep insight into human nature, to be made aware that, in many individuals, religion is a much stronger passion than love, and that in certain states of mind, and if the religious affection takes that turn, the more costly the sacrifice, the more resolute are we to make it. In her calm and rational moments, I do not believe Eliza- beth would have come to the conclusion she did ; but as she was wrought up to a state of pious exaltation, the idea of being able to achieve so great a victory over herself, as that of sacrificing her love on the altar of religion, operated as a powerful spell on her whole na- ture, and blinded her to everything else. It almost instantly became as it were a fixed idea, to which everything must henceforth be sub- ordinated. Religion therefore triumphed, and with a martyr-like spirit, she resolved to give me up. Blame her not. If she had not possessed a noble nature, such a sacrifice she had never resolved to make.” — pp. 67 - 70. The timid girl yields to the command of her priestly adviser, though in discarding Elwood, it is plain, that her own heart is broken. His state of mind, subsequent to this passage, is best described by himself. “I pass over several months in which nothing, I can bring myself to relate, of much importance occurred. Elizabeth and I met a few times after the interview I have mentioned. She was ever the same pure-minded, affectionate girl; but the view which she had taken of her duty to God, and the struggle which thence ensued between re- ligion and love, surrounded as she was by pious friends, whose zea] for the soul hereafter far outran their knowledge of what would con- stitute its real well-being here, preyed upon her health, and threatened the worst results. From those results I raise not the veil. “One tie alone was left me, one alone bound me to my race, and to virtue. My mother, bowed with years and afflictions, still lived, though in a distant part of the country. A letter from a distant rela- tive with whom she resided, informed me that she was very ill, and demanded my presence, as she could not survive many days. I need not say this letter afflicted me. I had not seen my mother for several years; not because I wanted filial affection, but I had rarely been able Brownson's Writings. (July, to do as I would. Poverty is a stern master, and when combined with talent and ambition, often compels us to seem wanting in most of the better and more amiable affections of our nature. I had always loved and reverenced my mother ; but her image rose before me now as it never had before. It looked mournfully upon me, and in the elo- quence of mute sorrow seemed to upbraid me with neglect, and to tell me that I had failed to prove myself a good son. “I lost no time in complying with my mother's request. I found her still living, but evidently near her last. She recognised me, brightened up a moment, thanked me for coming to see her, thanked her God that he had permitted her to look ouce more upon the face of her son, her only child, and to God, the God in whom she believed, who had protected her through life, and in whom she had found solace and support under all her trials and sorrows, she commended me, with all the fervor of undoubting piety, and the warmth of maternal love, for time and eternity. The effort exhausted her; she sunk into a sort of lethargy, which in a few hours proved to be the sleep of death. “I watched by the lifeless body; I followed it to its resting place in the earth; went at twilight and stood by the grave which had closed over it. Do you ask what were my thoughts and feelings? "I was a disbeliever, but I was a man, and had a heart; and not the less a heart because few shared its affections. But the feelings with which professed believers and unbelievers meet death, either for themselves or for others, are very nearly similar. When death comes into the circle of our friends and sunders the cords of affection, it is backward we look, not forward, and we are with the departed as he lives in our memories, not as he may be in our hopes. The hopes nur- tured by religion are very consoling when grief exists only in anticipa- tion, or after time has hallowed it; but they have little power in the mo- ment when it actually breaks in upon the soul, and pierces the heart. Besides, there are few people who know how to use their immortality. Death to the great mass of believers as well as of unbelievers comes as the king of terrors, in the shape of a Total Extinction of being. The immortality of the soul is assented to rather than believed,- be- lieved rather than lived. And withal it is something so far in the distant future, that till long after the spirit has left the body, we think and speak of the loved ones as no more. Rarely does the believer find that relief in the doctrine of immortality, which he insists on with so much eloquence in his controversy with unbelivers. He might find it, he ought to find it, and one day will; but not till he learns that man is immortal, and not merely is to be immortal. “I lingered several weeks around the grave of my mother, and in the neighborhood where she had lived. It was the place where I had passed my own childhood and youth. It was the scene of those early associations which become the dearer to us as we leave them the farther behind. I stood where I had sported in the freedom of early childhood ; but I stood alone, for no one was there with whom I could speak of its frolics. One feels singularly desolate when he sees only strange faces, and hears only strange voices in what was the home of his early life. “I returned to the village where I resided when I first introduced myself to my readers. But what was that spot to me now? Nature had done much for it, but nature herself is very much what we make 1840.] 39 Brownson's Writings. her. There must be beauty in our souls, or we shall see no loveli- ness in her face; and beauty had died out of my soul. She who might have recalled it to life, and thrown its hues over all the world was - but of that I will not speak. - It was now that I really needed the hope of immortality. The world was to me one vast desert, and life was without end or aim. The hope of immortality is not needed to enable us to bear grief, to meet great calamities. These can be, as they have been, met by the atheist with a serene brow and a tranquil pulse. We need not the hope of immortality in order to meet death with composure. The manner in which we meet death depends altogether more on the state of our nerves than the nature of our hopes. But we want it when earth has lost its gloss of novelty, when our hopes have been blasted, our affections withered, and the shortness of life and the vanity of all human pursuits have come home to us, and made us exclaim, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity ;' we want then the hope of immortality to give to life an end, an aim. "We all of us at times feel this want. The infidel feels it early in life. He learns all too soon, what to him is a withering fact, that man does not complete his destiny on earth. Man never completes any- thing here. What then shall he do if there be no hereafter? With what courage can I betake myself to my task? I may begin - but the grave lies between me and the completion. Death will come to interrupt my work, and compel me to leave it unfinished. This is more terrible to me than the thought of ceasing to be. I could almost, - at least, I think I could — consent to be no more, after I have fin- ished my work, achieved my destiny; but to die before my work is completed, while that destiny is but begun, - this is the death which comes to me indeed as a 'King of Terrors. “The hope of another life, to be the complement of this, steps in to save us from this death, to give us the courage and the hope to begin. The rough sketch shall hereafter become the finished picture, the artist shall give it the last touch at his ease; the science we had just begun shall be completed, and the incipient destiny shall be achiev- ed. Fear not to begin, thou hast eternity before thee in which to end. “I wanted, at the time of which I speak, this hope. I had no fu- ture. I was shut up in this narrow life as in a cage. All for whom I could have lived, labored, and died, were gone, or worse than gone. I had no end, no aim. My affections were driven back to stagnate and becoine putrid in my own breast. I had no one to care for. The world was to me as if it were not; and yet a strange restlessness came over me. I could be still nowhere. I roved listlessly from object to object, my body was carried from place to place, I knew not why, and asked not myself wherefore. And, yet change of object, change of scene, wrought no change within me. I existed, but did not live. He who has no future, has no life." — pp. 88-93. Elwood, at length, began to find composure of mind; time shed its soothing influences over his wounded spirit; and the first symptom of a better life was a vivid perception of the imperfections of the present social state. He brooded 40 (July, Brownson's Writings. over these, however, till his philanthropy became sour. In this state he made the acquaintance of a true man, whose influence gave a new direction to his whole character. This person was Mr. Howard, an elderly gentleman, of a wide and varied experience, a warm heart, a clear and dis- criminating mind, familiar with the general literature of the day, and cherishing elevated and comprehensive views of religion. The conversations of Elwood with this origi- nal and independent thinker are described with graphic clearness; they contain a system of theology ; but any attempt to abridge them would do injustice to the momen- tous subjects of which they treat. Mr. Howard introduces Elwood to his minister, from whom he derives those views of religion, which finally serve as a foundation of faith. The portrait of Mr. Morton, for that was his name, is thus given. “The day following the conversation I have just related, was Sun- day, and Mr. Howard for the first time invited me to accompany him to his meeting. He remarked that his minister, though pretty ortho- dox in the main, was a little peculiar, and perhaps I should find my- self interested, if not edified. Years had elapsed since I had entered a place of religious worship, and though I felt no great desire on my part to hear a sermon, yet as I thought I might please Mr. Howard by going, I accepted his invitation. "The place of meeting was a public hall capable of holding some eight or nine hundred persons, and I found it well filled with a plain, sensible-looking congregation, whose earnest countenances indicated that they were there not because it was a place of fashionable resort, but because they were serious worshippers and honest inquirers after truth. A single glance told you that they were bold, earnest minds, who could look truth steadily in the face, let her assume what shape she might. “ The preacher, a Mr. Morton, was a tall, well-proportioned man, with something a little rustic in his appearance, indicating that his life had not been spent in the circles of the gay and the fashionable. Though far from being handsome, his features were striking and im- pressed themselves indelibly upon the memory. His dark complexion, and small, restless black eye bespoke an active and also an irritable disposition, and assured you that he might say some bitter things. His head was large, and his brow elevated and expanded. His face bore the marks of past struggle, whether with passion, the world, or sorrow, it was not easy to say. He was apparently under forty years of age, but you felt that he was a man who could speak from experi- ence, that he was in fact no ordinary man, but one who had a biogra- phy, if you could only get at it. There was something almost repulsive about him, and yet you were drawn insensibly towards him. "On commencing his discourse he seemed not exactly at his ease, 1840.] 41 Brownson's Writings. and his address was hurried, and ungraceful. His voice, too, though deep-toned, grated harshly on the ear, and produced a most unfavorable impression. But there was an air of earnestness about him, an evi- dence of intellectual vigor, and of moral honesty, which arrested your attention; while the novelty of his views and the boldness of his lan- guage served to enchain it till he closed. His discourse was to me a most singular production. I had never heard such a sermon before; and, I confess, I listened to it with the deepest interest.” — pp. 146 – 148. The philosophical basis of religion, which, in the main, coincides with the theory of M. Cousin, is exhibited in several conversations between Elwood and this ancient minister. We have room only for the following statement on the doctrine of creation. “You will bear in mind, that we have found God as a cause, not a potential cause, occasionally a cause, accidentally a cause, but abso- lute cause, cause in itself, always a cause, and everywhere a cause. Now a cause that causes nothing is no cause at all. If then God be a cause, he must cause something, that is, create. Creation then is necessary. "Do you mean to say that God lies under a necessity of creat- ing?' God lies under nothing, for he is over all, and independent of all. The necessity of which I speak is not a foreign necessity, but a neces- sity of his own nature. What I mean is, he cannot be what he is without creating. It would be a contradiction in terms to call him a cause, and to say that he causes nothing.' *. But out of what does God create the world ? Out of nothing, as our old catechisms have it ?' 4. Not out of nothing certainly, but out of himself, out of his own fulness. You may form an idea of creation by noting what passes in the bosom of your own consciousness. I will to raise my arm. My arm may be palsied, or a stronger than mine may hold it down, so that I cannot raise it. Nevertheless I have created something; to wit, the will or intention to raise it. In like manner as I by an effort of my will, or an act of my causality, create a will or intention, does God create the world. The world is God's will or intention, existing in the bosom of his consciousness, as my will or intention exists in the bosom of mine. 6. Now, independent of me, my will or intention has no existence. It exists, is a reality no further than I enter into it; and it ceases to exist, vanishes into nothing, the moment I relax the causative effort which gave it birth. So of the world. Independent of God it has no existence. All the life and reality it has are of God. It exists no further than he enters into it, and it ceases to exist, becomes a nonen- tity, the moment he withdraws or relaxes the creative effort which calls it into being. “This, if I mistake not, strikingly illustrates the dependence of the universe, of all worlds and beings on God. They exist but by his will. He willed, and they were ; commanded, and they stood fast. He has but to will, and they are not; to command, and the heavens roll to- VOL. I. — NO. 1. 42 (July, Brownson's Writings. gether as a scroll, or disappear as the morning mist before the rising sun. This is easily seen to be true, because he is their life, their be- ing; - in him, says an apostle, “ we live and move and have our being." 6. The question is sometimes asked, where is the universe? Where is your resolution, intention? In the bosom of your consciousness. So the universe, being God's will or intention, exists in the concious- ness of the Deity. The bosom of the infinite Consciousness is its place, its residence, its home. God then is all round and within it, as you are all round and within your intention. Here is the omnipres- ence of the Deity. You cannot go where God is not, unless you cease to exist. Not because God fills all space, as we sometimes say, thus giving him as it were extension, but because he embosoins all space, as we embosom our thoughts in our own consciousness. "This view of creation, also, shows us the value of the universe, and teaches us to respect it. It is God's will, God's intention, and is divine, so far forth as it really exists, and therefore is holy, and should be reverenced. Get at a man's intentions, and you get at his real character. A man's intentions are the revelations of himself; they show you what the man is. The universe is the revelation of the Deity. So far as we read and understand it, do we read and under- stand God. When I am penetrating the heavens and tracing the revolutions of the stars, I am learning the will of God; when I pene- trate the earth and explore its strata, study the minuter particles of matter and their various combinations, I am mastering the science of theology; when I listen to the music of the morning songsters, I am listening to the voice of God; and it is his beauty I see when my eye runs over the varied landscape or “the flower-enamelled mead." 6. You see here the sacred character which attaches to all science, shadowed forth through all antiquity, by the right to cultivate it being claimed for the priests alone. But every man should be a priest; and the man of science, who does not perceive that he is also a priest, but half understands his calling. In ascertaining these laws of nature, as you call them, you are learning the ways of God. Put off your shoes then when you enter the temple of science, for you enter the sanctua- ry of the Most High. ""But man is a still fuller manifestation of the Deity. He is superi- or to all outward nature. Sun and stars pale before a human soul. The powers of nature, whirlwinds, tornados, cataracts, lightnings, earthquakes, are weak before the power of thought, and lose all their terrific grandeur in presence of the struggles of passion. Man with a silken thread turns aside the lightning and chains up the harmless bolt. Into man enters more of the fulness of the Divinity, for in his own likeness God made inan. The study of man then is still more the study of the Divinity, and the science of man becomes a still nearer approach to the science of God. 6. This is not all. Viewed in this light what new worth and sacred- ness attaches to this creature man, on whom kings, priests and no- bles have for so many ages trampled with sacrilegious feet. Whoso wrongs a man defaces the image of God, desecrates a temple of the living God, and is guilty not merely of a crime but of a sin. Indeed, all crimes become sins, all offences against man, offences against God. Hear this, ye wrong-doers, and know that it is not from your 1840.] Brownson's Writings. feeble brother only, that ye have to look for vengeance. Hear this, ye wronged and down-trodden; and know that God is wronged in that ye are wronged, and his omnipotent arm shall redress you, and punish your oppressors. Man is precious in the sight of God, and God will vindicate him. * * All this is very fine, but it strikes me that you identify the Deity with his works. You indeed call him a cause, but he causes or creates, if I understand you, only by putting himself forth. Independent of him, his works have no reality. He is their life, being, substance. Is not this Pantheism ?' Not at all. God is indeed the life, being, substance of all his works, yet is he independent of his works. I am in my intention, and my intention is nothing any further than I enter into it; but neverthe- less my intention is not me; I have the complete control over it. It does not exhaust me. It leaves me with all my creative energy, free to create anew as I please. So of God. Creation does not exhaust him. His works are not necessary to his being, they make up no part of his life. He retains all his creative energy, and may put it forth anew as seems to him good. Grant he stands in the closest relation to his works; he stands to them in the relation of a cause to an effect, not in the relation of identity, as pantheism sup- poses. “ . But waiving the charge of pantheism, it would seem from what you have said that creation must be as old as the Creator. What then will you do with the Mosaic cosmogony, which supposes creation took place about six thousand years ago ?? “I leave the Mosaic cosmogony where I find it. As to the in- ference that creation must be as old as the Creator, I would remark, that a being cannot be a creator till he creates, and as God was always a creator, always then must there have been a creation ; but it does not follow from this that creation must have always assumed its pre- sent form, much less that this globe in its present state must have ex- isted from all eternity. It may have been, for aught we know, sub- jected to a thousand revolutions and transformations, and the date of its habitation by man may indeed have been no longer ago than He- brew chronology asserts. “ “But much of this difficulty about the date of creation arises from supposing that creation must have taken place in time. But the crea- tions of God are not in time but in eternity. Time begins with crea- tion, and belongs to created nature. With God there is no time, as there is no space. He transcends time and space. He inhabiteth eternity, and is both time and space. When we speak of beginning in relation to the origin of the universe, we should refer to the source whence it comes, not to the time when it came. Its beginning is not in time but in God, and is now as much as it ever was. ** You should think of the universe as something which is, not as something which was. God did not, strictly speaking, make the world, finish it, and then leave it. He makes it, he constitutes it now. Re- gard him therefore not, if I may borrow the language of Spinoza, as its “temporary and transient cause, but as its permanent and in-dwell- ing cause;" that is, not as a cause which effects, and then passes off from his works, to remain henceforth in idleness, or to create new worlds ; but as a cause which remains in his works, ever producing them, and 44 (July, Brownson's Writings. constituting them by being present in them, their life, being, and sub- stance. Take this view, and you will never trouble yourself with the question whether the world was created, six thousand, or six million of years ago.'”— pp. 198 - 204. The result of Elwood's inquiries is expressed in the conclusion of the volume, and with it we will close the copious extracts which we have been unable to avoid. « In looking back upon the long struggle I have had, I must thank God for it. I have been reproached by my Christian brethren; they have tried to make me believe that I was very wicked in being an un- believer ; but I have never reproached myself for having been one, nor have I ever regretted it. I would consent to go through the whole again, rather than not have the spiritual experience I have thus ac- quired. I have sinned, but never in having doubted. I have much to answer for, but not for having been an unbeliever. I have no apolo- gies to make to the Christian world. I have no forgiveness to ask of it. I have done it no disservice, and it will one day see that I have not been an unprofitable servant. It has never fairly owned me, but I care not for that. Even to this day it calls me an infidel, but that is nothing. It will one day be astonished at its own blindness; and when freed from the flesh, in that world where I shall not be disturbed by the darkness of this, I shall see it doing even more than justice to my memory. I have not lived in vain, nor in vain have I doubted, inquired, and finally been convinced. When the scales fell from my eyes, and I beheld the true light, I followed it; and I have done what was in my power to direct others to it. My task is now well nigh done, and I am ready to give in my last account. I say not this in a spirit of vain boasting, but in humble confidence. I say it to express my strong faith in God, and in his care for all who attempt to do his will. “I doubt not that many good Christians may be shocked at first sight at what I have here recorded. They will see no coincidence between the views here set forth and their own cherished convictions ; but I will assure them, that as they read on, and fairly comprehend them, they will find the coincidence all but perfect. The christianity here set forth is the christianity of the universal church, though presented perhaps in an uncommon light. I cannot persuade myself that a new christianity is here presented, but the old christianity which all the world has believed, under a new aspect, perhaps, and an aspect more peculiarly adapted to the wants of the present age. It cannot have escaped general observation, that religion, for some time, has failed to exert that influence over the mind and heart that it should. There is not much open skepticism, not much avowed infidelity, but there is a vast amount of concealed doubt, and untold difficulty. Few, very few among us but ask for more certain evidence of the Christian faith than they possess. Many, many are the confessions to this effect, which I have received from men and women, whose religious charac- ter stands fair in the eyes of the church. I have been told by men of unquestionable piety, that the only means they have to maintain their belief even in God, is never to suffer themselves to inquire into 1840.) 45 Brownson's Writings. the grounds of that belief. The moment they ask for proofs, they say, they begin to doubt. "Our churches are but partially filled, and the majority of those who attend them complain that they are not fed. Our clergy are in- dustrious, and in most cases do all that men can do, and yet not many mighty works do they, because of the people's unbelief. Everywhere we hear complaint. Even amongst the clergy themselves doubt finds its way. Learned professors proclaim publicly and emphatically, even while denouncing infidelity, that we can have no certainty, that our evidence of christianity is at best but a high degree of probability. Surely, then, it is time to turn christianity over and see if it have not a side which we have not hitherto observed. Perhaps when we come to see it on another side, in a new light, it will appear unto us more beautiful and have greater power to attract our love and reverence, “ The views here presented have won the love and reverence of one man who was once as obstinate an unbeliever as can be found. I know not why they should not have the same effect on others.” — pp. 259-262. We have a few words only to add with regard to the manner in which Mr. Brownson deals with the objections of the skeptic. This we consider a leading merit of the work before us. The author speaks from personal expe- rience, for he too has been through the conflict between received opinions and the light of truth ; he has seen the impressions of childhood fade from the mind ; with an earnest and susceptible religious nature, he has felt the difficulties of speculation; but he has never shrunk from the freest thought; he has trod the wine press for himself; and established the instinctive decisions of the heart on the basis of the universal reason. An experience similar to this is requisite in all, who would fairly meet the mind of the sincere skeptic. The want of such experience is the reason why so many of our standard writers on the foundation of faith are more ingenious than satisfactory, and usually fail to remove the difficulty that was deeply felt. They have no sympathy with doubt; their minds are of a different stamp from those that love to examine first principles; they are well satisfied with the traditions of ages; of the stern agony of thought, by which a rational faith is produced in a state of society that questions every- thing, they have no suspicion; they may become powerful advocates of the opinions which the multitude cling to; but they know not how to touch the spot where doubt rests in the heart which other causes than any vice or lie have 46 [July, Brownson's Writings. led to distrust its ancient faith ; when they enter that sphere, let them hush. The author of this work admits the full force of skep- tical arguments, whenever they are founded in truth. He seems so sure of his cause, that he does not wish to rely on aught which does not bear the severest test. Accord- ingly, he betrays no alarm when certain statements that have long been relied on are shown to be defective ; he clearly makes use of no reasons, adapted to the presumed weakness of his opponent, which are without force to his own mind; he will not “ bring to the God of truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie;" and, in this manner, he gives a peculiar weight and authority to the conclusions which he adopts; so that their force is most speedily felt by the strongest minds. Neither does he ever seek to evade the precise point on which the subject turns. More distinctly than most writers on theological questions does he perceive the true issue ; and when he once states what it is, he does not leave it, without doing his best to despatch it entirely. It is small praise to say, that he refrains from regarding as a crime the unbelief which he would remove. On this account, the present work will be favorably listened to by many, whom no persuasion can induce to enter the walls of a church, and who look with suspicion on the teachings of most of the professed advocates of religion. And they who are not converted by the reasonings here exhibited, with Elwood, will at least meet with much to stimulate them to further inquiry; they may find an aspect of re- ligion, which they had not considered before ; and new thought may at length give birth to new faith. R. 1840. The Last Farewell. THE LAST FAREWELL. Lines written while sailing out of Boston Harbor for the West Indies. FAREWELL, ye lofty spires, That cheered the holy light! Farewell domestic fires That broke the gloom of night! Too soon those spires are lost, . Too fast we leave the bay, Too soon by ocean tost From hearth and home away, Far away, far away. Farewell the busy town, The wealthy and the wise, Kind smile and honest frown From bright familiar eyes. All these are fading now; Our brig hastes on her way; Her unremembering prow Is leaping o'er the sea, Far away, far away. Farewell, my mother fond, Too kind, too good to me, Nor pearl nor diamond Would pay my debt to thee; But even thy kiss denies Upon my cheek to stay, The winged vessel flies, And billows round her play, Far away, far away. Farewell, my brothers true, My betters yet my peers, How desert without you My few and evil years! But though aye one in heart, Together sad or gay, Rude ocean doth us part, We separate to-day, Far away, far away. Farewell I breathe again To dim New England's shore; My heart shall beat not when I pant for thee no more. In yon green palmy isle Beneath the tropic ray, I murmur never while For thee and thine I pray; Far away, far away. Edward Bliss Emerson 1832 48 (July, Ernest the Seeker. ERNEST THE SEEKER. CHAPTER FIRST. 1 Truth's lovely form, that once was a perfect shape most glorious to look upon, was hewed into a thousand pieces, and scattered to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down, gathering limb by limb still as they could find them.” - MILTON. “ Constant's journal from Rome, mother,” said Ernest, as he broke the seals of a package, “now shall you know this friend of mine, His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate, His tears pure messengers sent from his heart, His heart as far from fraud, as heaven from earth."" " Ah! Ernest! This mania of tolerance and many- sidedness, as you call it, will keep your mind in such a chaos, I fear, that the Spirit of God will never move on the face of the waters, and say, “Let there be light.' What can interest you so much in this young priest ? He always seemed to me to have his mother's enthusiasm, and gentle as she was, I certainly thought her crazed, as she glided about in her dark robes, like a devotee or sister of charity." “ Constant made me his friend by a well timed rebuke, mother," said Ernest, as he took a letter from his desk, and read as follows:- “MY DEAR SIR, 6. The heart knoweth its own bitterness,' and may heaven preserve you from ever feeling the pain, which an expression of yours to-day occasioned me. I complain of no purposed unkindness, for probably you are ignorant that I am a Catholic ; but I pray you, never say again that our priests are knaves or fools,' till you have proved the justice of your charge. It is my dearest hope to be ad- mitted to the holy office. I vowed to consecrate my life to it, as I knelt by my mother's death-bed. I was bred up in the Episcopal church, of which both my parents were members, till I was fourteen years of age. At this time cirin .;. 1840.] Ernest the Seeker. 49 my poor father became so ill, that he was advised to win- ter in Palermo. My mother of course accompanied him. I need not dwell upon the sad history. He rapidly de- clined; and it was in these dark hours, that my mother's mind was called, as she saw him on whom she had rested passing in weakness away, to turn for support to the friend who never withdraws, and to hope for reunion in heavenly homes with the beloved one whom affection could not re- tain on earth. She sought relief in the services of the nearest church. The touching symbols of these holy rites deeply affected her; and in her loneliness she appealed to the sympathy of the Confessor. He visited them; and before the last change came, my mother had the divine joy of receiving together with my father the sacrament of the Eucharist; of seeing the extreme unction administered to him in his agony; and after his spirit had departed, of having the body buried in consecrated ground, and of join- ing in sublime and consoling masses for his eternal peace. You will believe me when I say she returned home sancti- fied by her sorrows. I was her only child, and we became inseparable companions. She directed my studies, she guided my prayers, she made me her helper in her works of benevolence; and heaven forgive me! if as I looked up in her sweet face, becoming ever more spiritual as it day by day grew thinner and paler, and into those eyes so calmly bright, as if the light of another life beamed through them, and listened to her tones so musical and mild, that my heart melted, — heaven forgive me! if I worshipped her. My mother must ever be to me a saint. She, as her dying legacy, prayed that I might become an honored minister of God. In a few years, heaven willing, I shall be a Priest; alas ! how unworthy a one, in contrast with the blessed thousands who through centuries have offered the perfect sacrifice. Constant Seymour.” “ There speaks at least a good son. You will hear the journal now, will you not? The words of one so fervent, even if deluded, *Enforce attention like sweet harmony.'” VOL. I. - NO. I. 50 Ernest the Seeker. (July, “ Rome, Dec. 10. “ Laus Deo! Arrived this morning, and am now quietly established at the college. The huge building, with its massive stones, projecting cornices, and heavy carved win- dows, looked gloomy as I entered ; and as our footsteps echoed through the silent court and long passages, the thought saddened me, that so many years were to be pass- ed beneath these solemn shades. But the paternal wel- come of Father B., and the courteous demeanor of my fellow students, quite cheered my spirits; and now that I have once joined in worship in our beautiful little chapel, and have arranged my apartment, I feel at home. I like this high ceiling, this deep window, with its diamond shaped panes, and these oaken pannels dark with age. In the sacred recess I have placed my Corregio's Agony in the Garden; Fenelon's placid face smiles over my table; my mother's copy of a Kempis is lying by my side; and more than all, dearest mother, thy gentle look blesses me from this miniature. Well may I feel happy, in striving to fulfil your dying wish! Ad te levavi oculos meos. come of Faithese solemhat so ma “ After Vespers walked with a friend to the Pincian. The sun was setting, as we climbed the long ascent of steps; and we reached the summit just in time to see the golden rim disappear behind the ridge on the west of the city, where umbrella pines stood strongly marked against the sky. A haze of glory, such as Claude so often dipped his brush in, hung for a moment like a brilliant veil over the wilderness of roofs beneath us; but as the shadows spread, the scene grew clearer, and I took my first survey of the Holy City. In front, at the distance of a mile, swelled sublime the dark dome of St. Peter's, flanked by the far stretching wings of the Vatican. Nearer rose the round tower of St. Angelo, and, winding at its foot, the Tiber was revealed by its reflection of the still bright heaven; while to the left stood the columns of Trajan and of Anto- nine with the bronze apostle on its top, and the eye rested on the low arched roof of the Pantheon. It was no dream! I, a child from a far land, was really taken home to the bosom of the mighty mother, who has fed the world with her holiness, and learning, and art. Beneath that soaring dome, so gracefully light, yet so firm, were at this moment 1840.] 51 Ernest the Seeker. burning the golden lamps around the tomb of St. Peter. Within those very walls had been held for centuries the sacred conclaves, whose councils the Holy Spirit conde- scends to guide. Under these very roofs, which I now looked upon, had been trained the hosts of martyr mission- aries, who have carried the cross over burning deserts, and polar snows, and the farthest ocean. Around me on every side was a vast multitude, who had forsaken the world and its vanities for the purity and charities of a religious life. Lights on a thousand altars, clouds of incense from swing- ing censers, chaunts of countless choristers, and murmured prayers of crowds of priests sanctified the very air. I was in Rome! not imperial Rome, – that blood-stained desert, - but Christian Rome, blossoming with truth. The Eagle has fallen before the cross; the palaces of voluptuous nobles have crumbled; the dust of centuries has buried the pavements over which rolled the triumphal cars of cruel armies; nature's kind ministries have carpeted the deep- dyed sands of the arenas; from the ruins of barbarous pomp have sprung these graceful temples, and halls of science, and galleries filled with images of beauty, which a divine faith inspired; and in place of chained captives, driven to the shambles to gratify the bloody thirst of a populace, come joyful troops seeking the light of peace and love to carry with self-sacrificing toil to the whole world. Domini est Terra. “Dec. 13. “ Walking to-day through a narrow street, with high walls enclosing gardens on each side, I came to a niche, where pious hands keep ever burning a light before an image of the Virgin ; and there witnessed a sight, which, in all its picturesque simplicity, is peculiar to Catholic lands. Two peasant boys were kneeling before it, one playing on a pipe, the other, who held by a string a pet goat, repeating an Ave Maria. The father stood behind wrapped in his dark brown cloak, his conical hat with its slouched brim in his hand. I waited till their offering was over, that I might give them alms. They formed, indeed, a singular yet graceful group. The boys, in place of cloak, had dressed sheep skins hanging on their shoulders ; their leggins were blue; and the sandals were laced with 52 (July, Ernest the Seeker. pink and orange ribbons crossing the leg to the knee. In their hats they each wore a short feather, and their black bead-like eyes looked brightly out over cheeks, where ruddy health blushed through a brown, tanned skin. Long clus- tering locks fell over their shoulders. The father was dark and stern enough; and it required no great imagination to see him, with a carbine on his shoulder, watching behind a rock on the hill side for the traveller winding up the road. Rough and wild creatures truly! Yet the Catholic church has a hold even on them. How admirably wise has she been in adapting herself to all classes of minds and char- acters. What would these semi-barbarians care for a homily or a tract? But the picture of the Holy Mother can soften their rude hearts. “I have just withdrawn from my window, to which I was attracted by the sound of tramping feet and the glare of moving lights upon the wall. It was a procession of Carmelites. Each held in his hand a torch, whose flicker- ing blaze made the darkness in the street seem almost tangible, and falling down on their white sweeping robes, transfigured them with a bright glory. Silently with even step and two by two they passed down the deserted street, probably to a funeral. How can Protestants speak with such rude suspicions of these holy brotherhoods, devoted as they are to all-sacrificing charity? What other system provides, as our venerable Church does, for the wants of the needy? Not a poor beggar dies in this city, whose pains are not solaced by the gentle cares of some sister of charity, and whose remains are not followed to the grave by solemn and respectful attendants. May I but imbibe this spirit of devoted benevolence of which I see such manifestations every hour ! “ Dec. 15. « Attended mass to-day at the church of the Jesuits. How can I speak adequately of the music? It came from a gallery raised near to the arching roof, and the sound there echoed and softened seemed to fall from heaven. It realized, oh yes, far more than realized, my highest con- ception of devotional sentiment. Language cannot utter our swelling emotions. Precise terms confine their flow. 1840.] Ernest the Seeker. 53 But music, — where each note suggests without naming a thought, and where the blending sounds are a symbol of a thousand interwoven feelings, - music is indeed the vehicle of devout expression. First came a deep distant swell of the solemn bass of the organ, like a flood lifting up its voice, like the breaking of many waters, fuller and fuller, louder and louder in peal, new chords ever mingling as the stream of harmony rolled on, till the whole soul seemed borne aloft upon the waves of sound; — and then gently, softly it sank into a calm, the higher notes prevailing, till there broke forth the flute-toned voices of young choristers, like the greeting of cherubs from happier worlds. I was deeply moved myself, and could not but notice the effect of the services upon a young man kneeling at my side. By his long, light brown hair, fair complexion, and blue eye, I knew him to be a German, probably from his dress an artist. Repeatedly he kissed his crucifix, while tears gath- ered and rolled down, till seemingly overcome, he bowed his head even to the marble floor and sobbed audibly. How many recollections of distant dear ones and home, how many hopes of success, how many thronging images of beauty were mingling at that moment with this gushing tide of devotion. Oh! barren indeed are other forms of worship in comparison with these, appealing to the soul as they do through our most heavenly faculty, — the imagina- tion. On this young artist's mind, who can estimate the effect of the grand architecture, and the pictured forms of the richly apparelled priests, and the white-robed acolyte, of the graceful curling incense, the tinkling bell, the solemn pause, the burst of song? Poor reason, men clip your sky-cleaving pinions, and then chide you for lagging in the dust of this work-day earth. “I was much struck by seeing a lady in splendid figured silk kneeling near to a peasant, who by his soiled dress had probably but just come in from the muddy roads of the country. In rising, he accidentally planted his iron studded and miry shoe on the rich skirt, which spread itself over the marble. Not a sign showed that such a trifle could distract the wearer's mind from the sublime exercises in which she was engaging, or give even momentary offence. Where in Protestant lands can you see this true spirit of Christian equality, - levelling in the temple of the King of 54 (July, Ernest the Seeker. kings all the poor barriers of caste, reared by men's self- ishness in the social world ? No pews encumber the floors of these cathedrals, no poor divisions wall off the privileged few from brethren who come to worship a common Father. “Dec. 17. “ Went to the English college to hear a lecture from the learned and eloquent Dr. W. on the sacred use of classic learning. The rooms were crowded with the chief digni- taries of the church, the leading literary men of the city, artists, distinguished foreigners, and ladies. The lecture was nearly two hours in length, and took a wide range. It was filled with the nicest criticisms, with descriptions of authors, as marked and accurate as are the heads on an- cient seals, with exquisite selections from the old historians and poets, and illustrated with large engravings of the finest specimens of art. And yet the Church is said to discourage learning, and to base itself upon popular igno- rance. Oh! sad, sad is this spirit of schism! Can it come from any one but the father of lies ? Look at these mile-long libraries, stored with the choicest literature of all ages, and thrown liberally open for the world of scholars to consult; look at these colleges, where multitudes under ablest pro- fessors are trained up in the best scientific, philosophic, historical, and literary knowledge of every time! How little do Protestants know the rock on which the Church is built! Preserver of light in a world of gloom, restorer of ancient truth, nurse of thoughtful monks, intent their God to please For Christ's dear sake, by human sympathies Poured from the bosom of the Church, - how have ungrateful children, ignorant of thy wide inter- ests and liberal wisdom, defamed thee, Mother Church! • Visited in my walk the Pantheon. How wise to con- secrate the beautiful works of ancient art, thus signifying, that as God has made this outward creation, with its count- less glories, to minister in unceasing worship, In that cathedral, boundless as our wonder, Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply; Its choir the winds and waves, — its organ thunder, Its dome the sky,' 1840.) 55 Ernest the Seeker. so man should use his highest conception of grandeur and loveliness for his Maker's praise. How sublime too the change which this graceful dome, these noble columns, these marble pavements have witnessed. The gods of ancient times were indeed the loftiest ideal of mere natural manhood; but these pictures on the altars beam with a light of heavenly, redeemed, glorified humanity. “As I stood examining an altar piece, I was much inter- ested in observing the various worshippers who knelt before it. One was an old man with streaming white locks and beard, who leaning heavily on his staff, as he bent his stiffened form, might have answered as a study for a Saint Jerome. Next was a mother, with a rosy-faced, chubby boy of six years, who, sportive and full of life, seemed restless in kneeling so long on the cold, hard stones, while the sallow face, deep marks about the mouth, and sunken eye told a tale of suffering in her whose arm embraced him. Not far from them was a contadina, with her snowy starched cap standing out from her head, her large gilded earrings, gay ribbons, green boddice, and scarlet skirt; and last a young girl, of perhaps thirteen, her coal-black hair, in long braided plaits, hanging down her shoulders, and a covered basket on her arm. Graciously do our church doors stand open at all hours for those whose homes afford no privacy. The passing emotion of devoutness is not deadened as where religious service is confined to the Sabbath; sorrow may pour out its tears, — penitence may confess its burdened heart, — tempted nature may purify itself, — and the perplexed find peace at any hour. “ Returning this evening about dusk, I was struck with a manifestation of the care, with which the Church goes out to seek its scattered sheep. Turning suddenly a cor- ner, I found myself in the midst of a singular company. A cook, with his glowing brazier, was dealing out frittered messes to those who had a baioccho to pay for them. Women with their matted locks and bare necks, and men in scanty cloaks and slouched hats, moved to and fro, vociferating and gesticulating, their features strongly marked by the ruddy light of the fiery coals; while just opposite, a Franciscan, — his brown robe girt round him 56 [July, Ernest the Seeker. by a rope, his cowl thrown back, his arm bare and raised on high, holding a crucifix, was pouring forth to a knot of listeners an impassioned appeal. Thus, in the midst of noisy crowds, where hasty words bring rash deeds, and the bantering jest is followed by the gleaming knife, the sud- den stroke, and the laugh is choked in blood, — there in the very haunts of levity and crime do the ministers of the word of life appear. half ople are two listening fixed attentione a 66 Dec. 19. “ To-day at the Vatican! Will Protestants explain, why their faith does not nurture such giant minds, as have written the history of their thoughts in prodigal richness all over the walls of this palace? When will Protestantism produce its Buonarotti, its Leonardo, its Dante? Out of the crowd of sublime images, which have this day enlarged my conception of power and beauty, two alone rise promi- nent, so eloquent are they of the deep reverence and the imprisoned strength of Michael Angelo. They are the Sibilla Persica and the Prophet Joel. One may well be diffident in thinking to interpret these magnificent visions ; but I fancied I saw a purposed contrast between the dark- ened Sybil and the enlightened Seer. The withered dame, with painfully contorted frame, is poring intently over the half open volume on which only a partial light falls; and behind are two young boys, cloaked to the neck, and mute, still, as if listening through long ages for the voice which should loose their fixed attention. In the compart- ments below are sleeping figures; one a mother pressing her infant to her bosom, as if overcome in the midst of her vigil she was still haunted by the foreboding of ills; the other, a vigorous and muscular man, utterly spent with fatigue, and lost in profoundest rest. The perfect aban- donment to heavy sleep is wonderfully given by the body bent forward till the chest leans upon the limbs, and by the arm hanging lifelessly down. All speaks the midnight of ignorance as to human destiny. A silence as of the secret chamber of a pyramid broods oppressively over it. What intense action, on the contrary, in the Joel! The mother is wakened, the child looks brightly out as upon the sunny morning; and the prophet, — his grand forehead and curling hair full in the light, the two inspirited boys 1840.] 57 Ernest the Seeker. with lively gestures looking over him as he reads, — seems to be chanting with a triumphant hope that thrills every muscle, “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.' The devoutness of such a man as Michael Angelo, the all- absorbing trust that knows not a doubt, and which in the midst of evil times rises indomitable, where can it be seen beyond the pale of that One Holy Church, founded on the martyred bodies of apostles, built up by the con- senting traditions of eighteen centuries, and cemented by the prayers and tears of countless saints ? The Unity of the Faith, this was the sublime inspiration, which gave such full vigor to believers' minds, in times before the so called Reformation made a chaos. “But it was not merely with the awe, which the genius of Michael Angelo awakened, that I regarded the Capella Sistina. Here were the very seats, here was the very altar, where week by week the Holy Father and the Cardinals unite in worship. What! do Protestants dare to think, that the good old man, who humble and lowly bends here in prayer, is the opposer of that Master, whose keys he bears? And these venerable, long experienced counsellors, whose days are spent in laborious correspondences, and earnest consultation for the good of the Faithful, the world over; — can any one, who sees them exchanging that beautiful sign of the kiss of peace at the close of their religious rites, suppose them earthly minded and ambitious ? Protestants must surely be ignorant of the poverty, the disinterestedness, the severe industry -". - There ! my dear Ernest — that will do for me;" said Mrs. Hope, rising -- " Constant is as wild as his mother ; infatuated, perfectly infatuated! And yet he has sweet sensibilities, I grant. But that he should have been so long in that city of moral death, surrounded by sights of poverty, wretchedness, vice, and idleness in the people, and of luxury, ostentation, and proud affluence in the priesthood, witness- ing parade and mummery in place of true worship, without having his eyes opened, shows that he is a thorough enthu- siast. If he had been bred up in such customs, one could more easily pardon him! Do not, I beseech you, let his taste and pretty words mislead you. He but whitens a VOL. 1. — NO. 1. 58. [July, The Divine Presence in Nature sepulchre. I do fear for you, my son," seeing a smile struggling with respect on Ernest's face; "and I fear the more, because I see that this tolerant sympathy looks gen- erous; and thus you may mistake vacillating indecision for a large wisdom. Will you forever be run away with by each new notion and caprice of other minds?” “Dear mother," answered Ernest, playfully, “you must plead guilty for some part of my vagaries. You bade me be a Seeker. Dread not the spirit that rose at your bid- ding. You have not forgotten the lines you early taught me, • Yet some seeke knowledge merely to be knowne, And idle curiosity that is; Some but to sell, not freely to bestow; These gaine and spend both time and wealth amisse, Embasing arts, by basely deeming so; Some to build others, which is charitie, But these to build themselves, who wise men be."" klantenser THE DIVINE PRESENCE IN NATURE AND IN THE SOUL. The doctrine of divine inspiration is one of no small importance; for as it is received in one form or another, it will bless a man or curse him ; will make him a slave to the letter which killeth, or a freeman made free by the “ Law of the spirit of life.” The doctrine of Inspi- ration is admitted by the Christian Church. It is com- monly believed there have been inspired men, though “open vision” is no longer continued. The Bible, oftener than any other book perhaps, speaks of men inspired by God. Most of its truths, to take its own statement, came directly from Him. Since Christians believe the Bible, they must believe in the power and fact of inspiration, however they may limit its extent. Inspiration is the direct and immediate action of God upon man. But to understand this the better,.we may consider his analogous action upon matter, since in both cases the action is direct and immediate, though in obedi- 1840.] 59 and in the Soul. ence to fixed and determinate laws. The kind of action • on God's part is perhaps the same in both cases ; and the effect differs with the powers and nature of the recipient. God is everywhere present, and at all times. Let us take the fact of his Omnipresence as the point of departure. What results follow from this perpetual and universal pres- ence ? He is not idly present in any place, or at any time. The divine energy never slumbers nor sleeps: it flows forth an eternal stream, endless and without beginning, which doth encompass and embrace the all of things. From itself proceeds, and to itself returns this “River of God.” The material world is perpetual growth, renewal which never ceases, because God, who flows into it, is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. He fills the world of outward nature with his presence. The fulness of the divine energy flows inexhaustibly into the crystal of the rock, the juices of the plant, the splen- dor of the stars, the life of the Bee and Behemoth. Here it is not idle, but has an active influence on the world of matter, plants, and animals. The material, vegetable, and animal world, therefore, receive this influence according to their several capacities, and from it derive their life and growth; their order and beauty, — the very laws of their being, and their being itself. Since He is everywhere, no part of nature is devoid of his influence. All depends on him for existence. Hence Nature ever grows, and changes, and becomes something new, as God's all pervad- ing energy flows into it without ceasing. Hence in nature there is constant change, but no ultimate death. The quantity of life is never diminished. The leaves fall, but they furnish food for new leaves yet to appear, whose swelling germs crowd off the old foliage. The Dog and the Oyster having done their work cease to be seen by our eyes ; but there seems no reason for fancying the spark of life once kindled in them is extinguished, or vanished into soft air. Since God is essentially and vitally present in each atom of space, there can be no such thing as sheer and absolute extinction of being. Well says the poet, “When will the river be weary of flowing Under my eye? When will the winds be aweary of blowing Over the sky? The Divine Presence in Nature (July, . be said of pricious chan When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting? When will the heart be aweary of beating? Never, oh never, nothing will die!" Since God is unalterably the same, and yet with ever active energy possesses the Heavens and the Earth, the law on which they rest must needs be fixed beyond a change, while the face of nature each day assumes new forms. Thus the law of nature is the same at the Pole and the Line, on the day of Adam and at this day; and yet there is unending variety on the surface of things, where the divine spirit never repeats itself. Now the obedience, which all the inanimate objects in nature pay to this law, is perfect. There is never any violation of it; not even the smallest. The stones and the trees, the sun and the waves, yield perfect obedience thereunto. No provision is made in nature against a vio- lation of this law. Thus, for example, we never see the water and the air change place with each other, nor could the earth exist under such capricious changes. The same may be said of the animal world, with the single exception of man, who is related to it by the body's side. Here also the obedience is perfect. Caprice has no place, as a principle or a motive. All the works of the elephant or the ape were forecast in its structure and in- stincts. If this were not so — if this obedience of the elements and animals were not thus perfect, there could be no safety for the human race; no continued existence even to the universe; for its existence continues only on the sup- position that its laws are obeyed; and no provision has been made for the evil that would ensue, if any part of the Creation, save man alone, should violate the fundamental law of its nature and act against the will of God. The imposition of a law, then, perfect in itself, and perfectly though blindly obeyed, is the entire extent of God's influence upon the outward world of nature. In these bodies it would seem there is no individual will ; they seem not integers but only fractions of a whole. If they have any individual will it is subordinate to irresistible instinct. Now since there is no partial will, there is no power to oppose the universal will and influence of God, even in the slightest degree. Therefore all the action of the unconscious world is mechanical, or at the highest in- side. ciception 1840.] and in the Soul. 61 stinctive and in perfect harmony with God's will. It is an important fact that all parts of nature are in perfect har- mony with God's will, and therefore reveal all of God that can be made manifest to the eye, the ear, and other senses of man. In the universe of matter, nothing ever rebels, or revolts from God's authority. All is order, and all beau- tiful. His laws seem to conflict, but they never clash; growth and decay perpetually intersect, but do not disturb each other ; so the rays of light, as reflected from the flow- ers of a meadow to a thousand eyes, cross and recross, but one never jostles the other. From this obedience it comes that nothing in nature is really deformed when seen from its true point of view. “He hath made nothing imper- fect" considered in its two-fold relation of use and mean- ing. In this manner the world is filled by God's energy and substance. He is equally present in all parts of the ma- terial world; equally active in the formation of a dew-drop and an ocean. Now men of all ages, the rudest and the most refined, have noticed this striking fact; their slumber- ing spirit has been awakened, and they have gained hints from it. Religious men see an higher proof of God's presence and influence in outward nature, than in the mass of their fellow men. If we would be possessed with devout and sublime emotions, we go to the mountain “ visited all night by troops of stars," and not to the crowd of men, that on a public day flow in full tide through the glittering streets of a great city. We say “the Heavens declare the glory of God ; " not that the assembly of men bears the same testimony to his goodness or loveliness. Hence do we conclude that the undisturbed presence and unob- structed influence of God, amid the hills and flower-enam- elled meadows of the country, are more congenial to the growth of morality and religion, than the close contact of self-conscious men in crowded towns. The reason is plain; the divine energy acts without resistance in Nature, and therefore perfectly realizes its idea; while in man's will it encounters a resisting medium, and does not, in all cases, display itself so clear and so perſect. But yet God is present in man as well as out of him. The divine energy and substance possess the human soul, no less than they constitute the law and life of outward 62 [July, The Divine Presence in Nature dobily hailed from possib nature. God is present in man as well as in matter, and not idly present in him. The presence of God in the soul is what we call Inspiration; it is a breathing in of God. His action on the outer world is an influence; on self-conscious souls it is an inspiration. By this he imparts Truth directly and immediately, without the intervention of second causes. It has sometimes been denied that such inspiration was possible; or that man ever received Truth at first hand from God. But the great mass of the human family has always believed the fact; only a few have doubted it. It was the faith of the ancient Greek, and of the Jew still older. Both had their prophets and sages, men who professed to enjoy a closer intimacy with the Most High, to see higher visions from him, and receive truths not commonly imparted to mankind. These men were held sacred. In times of trouble they ruled the nation by their council; for the people fled unto them, when clouds deep- fraught with ruin hung threatening round the horizon of their time. There was always some seer or man of God, in every primitive nation ; some Orpheus or Moses; some Minos or Samuel; some Amos or Tiresias, to offer advice and reveal the will of God made known to him. The Christian church believes the inspiration of certain men that have appeared in history: — that God “of old oracu- lously spoke" by Moses, the Hebrew Psalmists, and Proph- ets; that Paul and his fellow-apostles were likewise inspired; that Jesus of Nazareth possessed a sublime degree of inspiration, never before nor since imparted unto mortal man. This doctrine represents a truth; for these sublime persons were doubtless inspired; they ran as they were sent; they spake as the spirit gave them utterance. But were these few men the only recipients of God's Spirit? Has the Soul of all souls seen fit to shed his light only on some score of men ? Has he, who fills all time and all space, and possesses eternity and immensity, spoken only in the earlier ages of the world, to but a single race, and merely in the Hebrew tongue? This is consistent neither with logic nor history. In all ages, from the dawn of time to this moment; in all families of inan, the spirit of God, his energy, and substance have flowed into the soul, as the rain falls in all lands. As day by day, year out, year in, the dew descends, so the divine spirit enters each soul of 1840.] and in the Soul. 63 man ; over the head alike of the beggar and the king the unmeasured Heavens are spread; for all eyes the waters on a stilly night are beautiful and fair ;” for all the moon walks in loveliness, the stars shine, the sun from his golden urn pours down the day, and so for all the great Fountain of Life and Truth sends forth the streams of his inspiration. Since every atom of matter is penetrated and saturated with God, it cannot be that a few Hebrew sages, prophets, or apostles —though never so noble — have alone received visitations from the Soul of all souls, and wholly absorbed the energy and substance of God, so that all others must wander forlorn, or catch some faint echo of Inspiration reflected in a Hebrew word. The bards and sages of our own fathers, in centuries long since forgot; the wise men of other lands, the Socrates, Confucius, Zoroaster, whose influence is writ all the world over; the saints and the sages of every clime; the poor peasant, needy and ignorant, who with faithful breast put up a holy prayer to God — by whatever name invoked; every true and lonely heart has felt the same inspiration; not similar inspiration alone, but the same inspiration, as all bodies fall by the same gravity and all violets blos- som in the same sun. The spirit descended like a dove, not only on Jesus of Nazareth ; not on the banks of the Jordan alone; but on every shore of the wide world, and on each pure and faithful soul; for so far as a man sees with his own soul religious or moral truth, for example, and feels them with his own heart, so far is he inspired and possessed of the energy and spirit of God. Now to men there can be but one kind of Inspiration ; it is the intuition, or direct and immediate perception of Truth, in some important mode, for example, religious or moral truth. There can be but one mode of Inspiration ; it is the felt and acknowledged presence of the Highest in the soul imparting this Truth, the conscious presence of Him as truth, charity, justice, holiness or love, infu- sing himself into the soul and giving it new life. There can be but one test or criterion of Inspiration, the truth of the thought, feeling, or doctrine. There may be various signs of Inspiration — more or less imperfect though but a single proof. A man may have a deep conviction that he is inspired; he may accurately foretell future events 64 The Divine Presence in Nature (July, or do wonderful works; all these are perhaps signs, but not a proof, test, or criterion of inspiration. Now in respect to the kind, mode, and test of inspiration all men stand on the same level. But there is a great dif- ference in respect to the degree of inspiration. This de- pends on the quantity of being, so to say, and the amount of fidelity in each recipient of inspiration. All men by nature are not capable of the same degree of inspiration, and by character and culture they are still less capable of receiv- ing the same measure thereof. A man of deep, noble intel- lect and heart can receive more than one of smaller gifts. Still farther, the degree of inspiration depends no less upon faithful compliance with the conditions on which inspiration can alone be obtained. A man may perfectly observe these conditions, and he will then receive all the inspiration his nature can contain at that stage of its growth, or he may observe them imperfectly, and will receive less. There- fore it depends in some measure on a man's self, whether or not, and to what extent, he will be inspired. He may keep his birthright, or may lose it by his folly and sin. We see in all ages men of humbler gifts obtaining an higher degree of inspiration than others of endowments that were superior by nature. In the end they who are thus faithful become superior in quantity of being, as it were; for obeying God's law, they continually tend to improve- ment; thus a snail in the right may well beat a racer in the wrong. The truth of this statement appears in the history of some of the prophets in the old Testament, and in that of Christ's disciples, who were evidently men of small powers at the first, but through their faithful obedi- ence became Jameses and Johns at the end. It was so with Bunyan and George Fox, not to mention many others. Now Jesus Christ was beyond all doubt the noblest soul ever born into the world of time. He realized the idea of human holiness. He did likewise, the most perfectly of all men, obey the conditions and laws of his being. He therefore possessed the highest degree and greatest measure of Inspiration ever possessed by man. Hence he is called an incarnation of God. If his obedience was perfect, then his reason — certain and infallible as the promptings of instinct or the law of gravitation — was the power of God acting through him without let or hindrance. His reve- 1840.] 65 and in the Soul. lation, therefore was the highest and deepest ever made to man. Because he had in him so much that is common to all, and so little that was personal and peculiar, his doc- trines go round the world, and possess the noblest hearts. He will continue to hold his present place in the scale of the human race, until God shall create a soul yet larger and nobler than Jesus, which shall observe the law of the spirit of life” with the same faithfulness. Then, but not till then, can a more perfect religion be proclaimed to men. Whether this will ever be done — whether there are future Christs, in the infinite distance, but nobler than he, now on their way to the earth, is known only to him who possesses the riddle of destiny, and humble disciples of the Truth can answer neither aye nor no. Yet may this be said ; his Revelation is perfect so far as it goes, and this can be said of no other sage or seer. It was said above, that in nature we see God perfectly realizing his idea, and everywhere realizing it, in the form- ation of a worm or a world, for there is no opposition to God's will, but perfect obedience and infinite harmony. Therefore the outer world is all of God which can be revealed or manifested to the senses. Now in Jesus we see the same obedience; his will was perfectly in harmony with God's will, and at all times in harmony therewith. His inspiration therefore was perfect. He was one with God, the Father in him and he in the Father, and his whole life a manifestation of the Father. All the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him, and relatively to us he was God, so far as his power extended; that is he was all of Divine Holiness which can be revealed in the human form. Here then is the difference between the inspiration of Jesus and that of Moses, Zoroaster, Socrates, or other sages; not a difference in kind, in mode, or in the test by which it approves itself to mankind, but a difference in degree ; a difference which resulted from his superior nat- ural endowments, and his more perfect conformity to God's will. He — so fully possessed by the divine — has more in common with other men than they have with one another, and less that is peculiar and limited to himself. In him the race after four thousand years of painful effort has reached its highest perfection. All former sages and saints, VOL. I. — NO. I. 9 66 [July, The Divine Presence in Nature what were they to him? So the aloe tree, while it puts forth leaves each summer day, and bears in its bosom a precious though unseen germ, doth spread into a flower and ma- ture into a fruit, but once in a hundred years. Inspiration cannot be infallible and absolute, except the man's intellect, conscience, affection, and religion are perfectly developed. Infallible and creative inspiration is the result of the whole character, not of its partial action; and is not therefore to be expected of mortals; for inspiration does not constrain a man and take away his free- dom. It is moulded by his own character, and produces various results. In one it appears in the iron hardness of reasoning, which in another is subdued and molten by the flame of affection, and becomes a stream of persuasion that sparkles as it runs. The prophet has power over the spirit that is given him; he may obey it partially, or entirely, or repel it entirely. Thus disobedient Jonah fled from the Lord; Simon Peter dissembled and told an untruth; and Paul the chiefest apostle cursed Alexander the copper- smith. These facts show plainly that their inspiration was not infallible, and that they were free. God's influence constrains nature, so that it can do no otherwise than as it does ; but his inspiration leaves human will fetterless and free. This necessity of nature and this freedom of man are the ground of different manifestations of God in the fields and the city. His presence revealed in all that is magnificently great, or elegantly little, renders the world of nature solemn and beautiful. The shapely trees, the leaves which shroud them in loveliness ; the corn and the cattle; the clear deep sky that folds the world in its soft embrace; the light which rides on swift pinions, enchanting all it touches, and reposing harmless on an infant's eye-lid, after its long journey from the other side of the universe; all these are noble and beautiful. They admonish while they delight us, those silent counsellors, and sovereign allies. But yet the spirit of God as displayed in a good man is nobler and more beautiful. It is not the mere pas- sive elegance of unconscious things, which we see resulting from man's voluntary obedience. That might well charm us in nature. But here the beauty is intellectual; the beau- ty of thought, which comprehends the world and under- stands its laws. It is moral, the beauty of virtue; which does : This nece of different presence ile, rend 1840.] and in the Soul. overcomes the world and lives by its own laws. It is relig- ious; the beauty of holiness, which rises above the world, and lives by the law of the spirit of life. Here the Divine takes a form still more divine. What is a tree, or the whole green wood, when matched against a man that is lovely and true? What is the loveliness of this wide world, with its sunny glens, or “long dun wolds all ribbed with snow ;” its rivers chiming as they run ; its canopy of stars, shining like a city of God, the New Jerusalem in the heavens; what are all these, compared with a man who is faithful to the infinite Spirit, whose open heart receives him as the violets the sun; who loves man as himself and God above all? It is as nothing; for these outward things are transient and fleeting; they know not of their exceed- ing loveliness. But immortal man knows himself; moves at his own will, and is not in bondage to the elements. Measure the whole sum of lifeless things by the spotless soul of Jesus, and they vanish, and are not seen. “For the world,” says a great writer, “ I count it ... but as an hospital and place to die in. The world that I regard is myself. It is the microcosm of mine own frame that I cast mine eye on; for the other, I use it, but like my globe, and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look on my outside, perusing only my condition and fortunes, do err in my altitude, for I am above Atlas his shoulders. The earth is not only a point in respect to the heavens above us, but of that heavenly and celestial part within us. That mass of flesh which circumscribes me, limits not my mind. That surface that tells the heavens they have an end, cannot persuade me I have any. I take my circle to be above three hundred and sixty. Though the number of the arc do measure my body, it comprehendeth not my mind. Whilst I study to find out how I am a little world, I find myself something more than the great. There is surely a piece of divinity to us, something that was before the elements, and owing no homage unto the sun. He that understands not this much, hath not his introduction or first lesson, and is yet to begin the alphabet of man." Now all men are capable of this inspiration, though in different degrees. It is not God's gift to the learned alone, or to the great ; but to all mankind. The clear sky is over each man, little or great ; let him uncover his head, 68 (July, The Divine Presence in Nature and there is nothing between him and infinite space. So doth the infinity of God encompass all men. Uncover the soul of its sensuality, selfishness, and sin, and there is noth- ing between it and God, who, then, will fill the soul. Each then may obtain his measure of this inspiration by complying with its proper conditions. « The pure in heart shall see God.” He, who obeys conscience is, simple in character, true to his mind and affections, open-hearted and loving before God, receives divine inspiration as cer- tainly as he that opens his eyes by day receives the light. He that is simple, tranquil, faithful, and obedient to the law of his being, is certain of divine aid. This inspiration must not be confounded with the man's own soul, on the one hand ; nor, on the other, must man be merged in the Divinity. The eye is not light; nor the ear sound; nor conscience duty; nor the affections friendship; nor the soul God; these come from without upon the man. This doctrine, that all men may be inspired on condition of purity and faithfulness, is the doctrine of the Bible. “ The spirit of man is — the candle of the Lord.” “ If we love one another, God dwelleth in us.” “If a man love me he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we [both Son and Father] will come unto him and make our abode with him.” This is equally the doc- trine of common sense and daily experience. No man thinks the truth of Conscience, the axioms of Reason, or Religion are his. He claims no property in them. They have been shot down into us without our asking, and now stand unmanageable in our minds; irrefragable facts, which we may neglect, but cannot alter or annul. We all of us border close upon God. He shines through, into each pure soul, as the sun through the circumambient air. All the wisest of men have declared the word they spoke was not their own. They were the self-conscious and voluntary organ of the Infinite, as the lily of the valley is the uncon- scious and involuntary organ thereof. “My doctrine is not mine," said the highest teacher, who claimed no per- sonal authority. Men in distress turn instinctively to this source for aid, and all the religions of the world profess to come from this fountain. Moses and Mahomet could only speak what they found given them to utter, for no man ever devised a religion, as human reason cannot create in 1840.] 69 and in the Soul. this department; it can only examine and conclude, per- ceive, embrace, and repeat what it learns. “Where there is no vision (revelation] the people perish.” It is through this that we gain knowledge of God, whom no man can find out by searching, but who is revealed without search to babes and sucklings. Every man who has ever prayed with the mind, prayed with the heart, knows by experience the truth of this doc- trine. There are hours, and they come to all men, when the hand of destiny seems heavy upon us; when the thought of time misspent; the pang of affection misplaced and ill-requited; the experience of man's worse nature, and the sense of degradation come upon us; the soul faints, and is ready to perish. Then in the deep silence of the heart, when the man turns inwards to God, light, comfort, and peace dawn on him, like the day-spring from on high He feels the Divinity. In that high hour of visitation, thought is entranced in feeling. We forget ourselves, yielding passive to the tide of soul that flows into us. Then man's troubles are but a dew-drop on his sandals ; his en- mities or jealousies, his wealth or his poverty, his honors, disgraces, the sad mishaps of life are all lost to the view, diminished, and then hid in the misty deeps of the valley we have left. It is no vulgar superstition to say man is in- spired in such moments. They are the seed-time of life. Then we live whole years, though in a few moments, and afterward as we journey on through life, cold and dusty and travel-worn and faint, we look back to that moment as the source of light, and like Elisha, go long days in the strength thereof: the remembrance of the truth and love which then dawned on us, goes like a great wakening light, a pillar of fire in the heavens, to guide us in our lonely pilgrimage. The same thing happens to mankind. Light of old time sprang up as the nations sat weeping and in darkness. Now all may turn to the truths which then burst through the night of sin and wo, and which are still preserved in Holy Books as lights are shut in lanterns, though once kindled at heaven's own fire. These hours of inspiration are the opening of the flower; the celestial bloom of man; the result of the past; the prophecy of the future. They are not numerous to any man; happy is he who can number one hundred such 70 The Divine Presence in Nature, &c. [July, in the year, or even in a life. To many men who have once in their lives felt this, it seems shadowy, dream-like, and unreal, when they look back upon it. Hence they count it a dream of their inexperience; a vision of a sick- ly fancy, and cease to believe in inspiration. They will say that long ago there were inspired men, but there are none now; that we must bow our faces to the dust, not turn our eyes to the broad free heaven; that we cannot walk by the great central light " which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world," but only by the hand- lamp of tradition. Can this be true? Has the Infinite laid aside his omnipresence and retreated to some little corner of space ? Does he now stretch forth no aid, but leave his erring child, wandering in the “ palpable obscure," fatherless, without a guide, “ feeling after God, if haply he may find him," who is now only a God afar off? ; This cannot be ; for the grass grows green as ever; the birds chirp as gaily; the sun shines as warm ; the moon and the stars are pure as before ; morning and evening have lost none of their former loveliness. God still is there, ever present in nature. Can it be that yet present in nature, he has forsaken man; retreated from the Shekinah in the Holy of Holies, to the court of the Gentiles ? No more can this be true. Conscience is still God with us. A prayer is deep as ever of old, and faith remains “the substance of things hoped for ; the evidence of things not seen.” Love is still mighty to cast out fear. The soul yet searches the deeps of God, and the pure in heart see him, or else religion were but a mockery ; morality a hollow form, and love an hideous lie. The substance of God is not yet exhausted; nor the well of life run dry. Now, as in the day of Moses, or Jesus, he who is faithful to Reason, and Conscience, Affection and Faith, will, through these, receive an inspiration to guide him all his journey through. P. 1840.) 21 Sympathy. SYMPATHY. LATELY alas I knew a gentle boy, Whose features all were cast in Virtue's mould, As one she had designed for Beauty's toy, But after manned him for her own stronghold. On every side he open was as day, That you might sce no lack of strength within, For walls and posts do only serve alway For a pretence to feebleness and sin. Say not that Cæsar was victorious, With toil and strife who stormed the House of Fame; In other sense this youth was glorious, Himself a kingdom wheresoe'er he came. No strength went out to get him victory, When all was income of its own accord; For where he went none other was to see, But all were parcel of their noble lord. He forayed like the subtle breeze of summer, That stilly shows fresh landscapes to the eyes, And revolutions worked without a murmur, Or rustling of a leaf beneath the skies. So was I taken unawares by this, I quite forgot my homage to confess; Yet now am forced to know, though hard it is, I might have loved him, had I loved him less. Each moment, as we nearer drew to each, A stern respect withheld us farther yet, So that we seemed beyond each other's reach, And less acquainted than when first we met. We two were one while we did sympathize, So could we not the simplest bargain drive; And what avails it now that we are wise, If absence doth this doubleness contrive ? Eternity may not the chance repeat, But I must tread my single way alone, In sad remembrance that we once did meet, And know that bliss irrevocably gone. The spheres henceforth my elegy shall sing, For elegy has other subject none; Each strain of music in my ears shall ring Knell of departure from that other one. 72 (July, Lines. Make haste and celebrate my tragedy; With fitting strain resound ye woods and fields; Sorrow is dearer in such case to me Than all the joys other occasion yields. Is 't then too late the damage to repair ? Distance, forsooth, from my weak grasp hath reft The empty husk, and clutched the useless tare, But in my hands the wheat and kernel left. If I but love that virtue which he is, Though it be scented in the morning air, Still shall we be dearest acquaintances, Nor mortals know a sympathy more rare. T. LINES. Love scatters oil On Life's dark sea, Sweetens its toil, – Our helmsman he. Around him hover Odorous clouds, Under this cover His arrows he shrouds. The cloud was around me, I knew not why Such sweetness crowned me, While Time shot by. No pain was within, But calm delight, Like a world without sin, Or a day without night. The shafts of the god Were tipped with down, For they drew no blood, And they knit no frown. I knew of them not Until Cupid laughed loud, And saying “you're caught," Flew off in the cloud. O then I awoke And I lived but to sigh, Till a clear voice spoke, - And my tears are dry. 1840.) Allston Exhibition. A RECORD OF IMPRESSIONS PRODUCED BY THE EXHIBITION OF MR. ALLSTON'S PICTURES IN THE SUMMER OF 1839. This is a record of impressions. It does not aspire to the dignity of criticism. The writer is conscious of an eye and taste, not sufficiently exercised by study of the best works of art, to take the measure of one who has a claim to be surveyed from the same platform. But, surprised at finding that an exhibition, intended to promote thought and form the tastes of our public, has called forth no ex- pression * of what it was to so many, who almost daily visited it; and believing that comparison and discussion of the impressions of individuals is the best means to ascer- tain the sum of the whole, and raise the standard of taste, I venture to offer what, if not true in itself, is at least true to the mind of one observer, and may lead others to reveal more valuable experiences. Whether the arts can ever be at home among us; whe- ther the desire now manifested to cultivate them be not merely one of our modes of imitating older nations ; or whether it springs from a need of balancing the bustle and care of daily life by the unfolding of our calmer and higher nature, it is at present difficult to decide. If the latter, it is not by unthinking repetition of the technics of foreign connoisseurs, or by a servile reliance on the judgment of those, who assume to have been formed by a few hasty visits to the galleries of Europe, that we shall effect an object so desirable, but by a faithful recognition of the feelings naturally excited by works of art, not indeed flippant, as if our raw, uncultivated nature was at once competent to appreciate those finer manifestations of na- ture, which slow growths of ages and peculiar aspects of society have occasionally brought out, to testify to us what we may and should be. We know it is not so; we know that if such works are to be assimilated at all by those who are not under the influences that produced them, it must be by gradually educating us to their own level. * Since the above was written, we see an article on the Exhibition in the North American Review for April, 1840. VOL. 1. —NO. I. 10 74 (July, Allston Exchibition. But it is not blind faith that will educate us, that will open the depths and clear the eye of the mind, but an examina- tion which cannot be too close, if made in the spirit of reverence and love. It was as an essay in this kind that the following pages were written. They are pages of a journal, and their form has not been altered, lest any attempt at a more fair and full statement should destroy that freshness and truth of feeling, which is the chief merit of such. July, 1839. On the closing of the Allston exhibition, where I have spent so many hours, I find myself less a gainer than I had expected, and feel that it is time to look into the matter a little, with such a torch or penny rush candle as I can command. I have seen most of these pictures often before ; the Beatrice and Valentine when only sixteen. The effect they produced upon me was so great, that I suppose it was not possible for me to avoid expecting too large a benefit from the artist. The calm and meditative cast of these pictures, the ideal beauty that shone through rather than in them, and the harmony of coloring were as unlike anything else I saw, as the Vicar of Wakefield to Cooper's novels. I seemed to recognise in painting that self-possessed elegance, that transparent depth, which I most admired in literature ; I thought with delight that such a man as this had been able to grow up in our bustling, reasonable community, that he had kept his foot upon the ground, yet never lost sight of the rose-clouds of beauty floating above him. I saw, too, that he had not been troubled, but possessed his own soul with the blandest patience; and I hoped, I scarce know what, probably the mot d'enigme for which we are all looking. How the poetical mind can live and work in peace and good faith! how it may unfold to its due per- fection in an unpoetical society ! From time to time I have seen other of these pictures, and they have always been to me sweet silvery music, rising by its clear tone to be heard above the din of life ; long forest glades glimmering with golden light, longingly eyed from the window of some crowded drawing room. 1840.] 75 Allston Exhibition. But now, seeing so many of them together, I can no longer be content merely to feel, but must judge these works. I must try to find the centre, to measure the cir- cumference; and I fare somewhat as I have done, when I have seen in periodicals detached thoughts by some writer, which seemed so full of meaning and suggestion, that I would treasure them up in my memory, and think about them, till I had made a picture of the author's mind, which his works when I found them collected would not justify. Yet the great writer would go beyond my hope and abash my fancy; should not the great painter do the same ? Yet, probably, I am too little aware of the difficulties the artist encounters, before he can produce anything ex- cellent, fully to appreciate the greatness he has shown. Here, as elsewhere, I suppose the first question should be, What ought we to expect under the circumstances ? There is no poetical ground-work ready for the artist in our country and time. Good deeds appeal to the under- standing. Our religion is that of the understanding. We have no old established faith, no hereditary romance, no such stuff as Catholicism, Chivalry afforded. What is most dignified in the Puritanic modes of thought is not favorable to beauty. The habits of an industrial commu- nity are not propitious to delicacy of sentiment. He, who would paint human nature, must content him- self with selecting fine situations here and there ; and he must address himself, not to a public which is not educated to prize him, but to the small circle within the circle of men of taste. If, like Wilkie or Newton, he paints direct from nature, only selecting and condensing, or choosing lights and dra- peries, I suppose he is as well situated now as he could ever have been; but if, like Mr. Allston, he aims at the Ideal, it is by no means the same. He is in danger of being sentimental and picturesque, rather than spiritual and noble. Mr. Allston has not fallen into these faults ; and if we can complain, it is never of blemish or falsity, but of inadequacy. Always he has a high purpose in what he does, never swerves from his aim, but sometimes fails to reach it. The Bible, familiar to the artist's youth, has naturally furnished subjects for his most earnest efforts. I will speak 76 (July, Allston Exhibition. of four pictures on biblical subjects, which were in this exhibition. Restoring the dead man by the touch of the Prophet's Bones. I should say there was a want of artist's judgment in the very choice of the subject. In all the miracles where Christ and the Apostles act a part, and which have been favorite subjects with the great painters, poetical beauty is at once given to the scene by the moral dignity, the sublime exertion of faith on divine power in the person of the main actor. He is the natural centre of the picture, and the emotions of all present grade from and cluster round him. So in a martyrdom, however revolting or oppressive the circumstances, there is room in the person of the sufferer for a similar expression, a central light which shall illuminate and dignify all round it. But a miracle effected by means of a relique, or dry bones, has the disagreeable effect of mummery. In this picture the foreground is occupied by the body of the patient in that state of deadly rigidity and pallor so offen- sive to the sensual eye. The mind must reason the eye out of an instinctive aversion, and force it to its work, – always an undesirable circumstance. In such a picture as that of the Massacre of the Inno- cents, painful as the subject is, the beauty of forms in childhood, and the sentiment of maternal love, so beautiful even in anguish, charm so much as to counterpoise the painful emotions. But here, not only is the main figure offensive to the sensual eye, thus violating one principal condition of art; it is incapable of any expression at such a time beyond that of physical anguish during the struggle of life suddenly found to re-demand its dominion. Neither can the assistants exhibit any emotions higher than those of surprise, terror, or, as in the case of the wife, an over- whelming anxiety of suspense. The grouping and coloring of this picture are very good, and the individual figures managed with grace and dis- crimination, though without much force. The subjects of the other three pictures are among the finest possible, grand no less than beautiful, and of the highest poetical interest. They present no impediment to the manifestation of genius. Let us look first at Jeremiah in prison dictating to Baruch. 1840.) Allston Exhibition. The strength and dignity of the Jew physique, and the appropriateness of the dress, allowed fair play to the painter's desire to portray inspiration manifesting itself by a suitable organ. As far as the accessories and grouping of the figures nothing can be better. The form of the prophet is brought out in such noble relief, is in such fine contrast to the pale and feminine sweetness of the scribe at his feet, that for a time you are satisfied. But by and by you begin to doubt, whether this picture is not rather imposing than majestic. The dignity of the prophet's appearance seems to lie rather in the fine lines of the form and drapery, than in the expression of the face. It was well observed by one who looked on him, that, if the eyes were cast down, he would become an ordinary man. This is true, and the expression of the bard must not depend on a look or gesture, but beam with mild electricity from every feature. Allston's Jeremiah is not the mournfully indignant bard, but the robust and stately Jew, angry that men will not mark his word and go his way. But Baruch is admirable! His overwhelmed yet willing submission, the docile faith which turns him pale, and trembles almost tearful in his eye, are given with infinite force and beauty. The coup d'ail of this picture is excellent, and it has great merit, but not the highest. Miriam. There is hardly a subject which, for the com- bination of the sublime with the beautiful, could present greater advantages than this. Yet this picture also, with all its great merits, fails to satisfy our highest requisitions. I could wish the picture had been larger, and that the angry clouds and swelling sea did not need to be looked for as they do. For the whole attention remains so long fixed on the figure of Miriam, that you cannot for some time realize who she is. You merely see this bounding figure, and the accessories are so kept under, that it is difficult to have the situation full in your mind, and feel that you see not merely a Jewish girl dancing, but the representative of Jewry rescued and triumphant! What a figure this might be! The character of Jewish beauty is so noble and profound! This maiden had been nurtured in a fair and highly civilized country, in the midst of wrong and scorn indeed, but beneath the shadow of sublime in- stitutions. In a state of abject bondage, in a catacomb as 78 (July, Allston Exhibition. to this life, she had embalmed her soul in the memory of those days, when God walked with her fathers, and did for their sakes such mighty works. Amid all the pains and penances of slavery, the memory of Joseph, the presence of Moses, exalt her soul to the highest pitch of national pride. The chords had of late been strung to their great- est tension, by the series of prodigies wrought in behalf of the nation of which her family is now the head. Of these the last and grandest had just taken place before her eyes. Imagine the stately and solemn beauty with which such nurture and such a position might invest the Jewish Miriam. Imagine her at the moment when her soul would burst at last the shackles in which it had learned to move freely and proudly, when her lips were unsealed, and she was permitted before her brother, deputy of the Most High, and chief of their assembled nation, to sing the song of deliverance. Realize this situation, and oh, how far will this beautiful picture fall short of your demands ! The most unimaginative observers complain of a want of depth in the eye of Miriam. For myself, I make the same complaint, as much as I admire the whole figure. How truly is she upborne, what swelling joy and pride in every line of her form! And the face, though inadequate, is not false to the ideal. Its beauty is mournful, and only wants the heroic depth, the cavernous flame of eye, which should belong to such a face in such a place. The Witch of Endor is still more unsatisfactory. What a tragedy was that of the stately Saul, ruined by his per- versity of will, despairing, half mad, refusing to give up the sceptre which he feels must in a short time be wrench- ed from his hands, degrading himself to the use of means he himself had forbid as unlawful and devilish, seeking the friend and teacher of his youth by means he would most of all men disapprove. The mournful significance of the crisis, the stately aspect of Saul as celebrated in the history, and the supernatural events which had filled his days, gave authority for investing him with that sort of beauty and majesty proper to archangels ruined. What have we here? I don't know what is generally thought about the introduction of a ghost on canvass, but it is to me as ludicrous as the introduction on the stage of the ghost in Hamlet (in his nightgown) as the old play book 1840.] 79 Allston Exhibition. Dression of detailmore I had that len In fine, ve been satiscope mosbyis are cominion direction was. The effect of such a representation seems to me unattainable in a picture. There cannot be due distance and shadowy softness. Then what does the picture mean to say ? In the chronicle, the witch, surprised and affrighted at the appari- tion, reproaches the king, “ Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul.” But here the witch (a really fine figure, fierce and prononcé as that of a Norna should be) seems threatening the king, who is in an attitude of theatrical as well as de- grading dismay. To me this picture has no distinct ex- pression, and is wholly unsatisfactory, maugre all its excel- lences of detail. In fine, the more I have looked at these pictures, the more I have been satisfied that the grand historical style did not afford the scope most proper to Mr. Allston's genius. The Prophets and Sibyls are for the Michael Angelos. The Beautiful is Mr. Allston's dominion. There he rules as a Genius, but in attempts such as I have been considering, can only show his appreciation of the stern and sublime thoughts he wants force to reproduce. But on his own ground we can meet the painter with almost our first delight. A certain bland delicacy enfolds all these creations as an atmosphere. Here is no effort, they have floated across the painter's heaven on the golden clouds of phantasy. These pictures (I speak here only of figures, of the landscapes a few words anon) are almost all in repose. The most beautiful are Beatrice, The Lady reading a Val- entine, The Evening Hymn, Rosalie, The Italian Shep- herd Boy, Edwin, Lorenzo and Jessica. The excellence of these pictures is subjective and even feminine. They tell us the painter's ideal of character. A graceful repose, with a fitness for moderate action. A capacity of emotion, with a habit of reverie. Not one of these beings is in a state of epanchement, not one is, or perhaps could be, thrown off its equipoise. They are, even the softest, char- acterized by entire though unconscious self-possession. While looking at them would be always coming up in my mind the line, “The genius loci, feminine and fair.” Grace, grace always. 80 [July, Allston Exhibition. Mr. Allston seems to have an exquisite sensibility to color, and a great love for drapery. The last sometimes leads him to direct our attention too much to it, and some- times the accessories are made too prominent; we look too much at shawls, curtains, rings, feathers, and carca- nets. I will specify two of these pictures, which seem to me to indicate Mr. Allston's excellences as well as any. The Italian Shepherd boy is seated in a wood. The form is almost nude, and the green glimmer of the wood gives the flesh the polished whiteness of marble. He is very beautiful, this boy; and the beauty, as Mr. Allston loves it best, has not yet unfolded all its leaves. The heart of the flower is still a perfumed secret. He sits as if he could sit there forever, gracefully lost in reverie, steeped, if we may judge from his mellow brown eye, in the present loveliness of nature, in the dimly anticipated ecstasies of love. Every part of nature has its peculiar influence. On the hill top one is roused, in the valley soothed, beside the waterfall absorbed. And in the wood, who has not, like this boy, walked as far as the excitement of exercise would carry him, and then, with “ blood listening in his frame,” and heart brightly awake, seated himself on such a bank. At first he notices everything, the clouds doubly soft, the sky deeper blue, as seen shimmering through the leaves, the fyttes of golden light seen through the long glades, the skimming of a butterfly ready to light on some starry wood-flower, the nimble squirrel peeping archly at him, the flutter and wild notes of the birds, the whispers and sighs of the trees, — gradually he ceases to mark any of these things, and becomes lapt in the Elysian harmony they combine to form. Who has ever felt this mood under- stands why the observant Greek placed his departed great ones in groves. While during this trance he hears the harmonies of Nature, he seems to become her and she him; it is truly the mother in the child, and the Hamadry- ads look out with eyes of tender twilight approbation from their beloved and loving trees. Such an hour lives for us again in this picture. Mr. Allston has been very fortunate in catching the shimmer and glimmer of the woods, and tempering his greens and browns to their peculiar light. 1840.] 81 Allston Exhibition. Beatrice. This is spoken of as Dante's Beatrice, but I should think can scarcely have been suggested by the Di- vine Comedy. The painter merely having in mind how the great Dante loved a certain lady called Beatrice, em- bodied here his own ideal of a poet's love. The Beatrice of Dante was, no doubt, as pure, as gentle, as high-bred, but also possessed of much higher attributes than this fair being. How fair, indeed, and not unmeet for a poet's love. But there lies in her no germ of the celestial destiny of Dante's saint. What she is, what she can be, it needs no Dante to discover. She is not a lustrous, bewitching beauty, neither is she a high and poetic one. She is not a concentrated per- fume, nor a flower, nor a star; yet somewhat has she of every creature's best. She has the golden mean, without any touch of the mediocre. She can venerate the higher, and compassionate the lower, and do to all honor due with most grateful courtesy and nice tact. She is velvet-soft, her mild and modest eyes have tempered all things round her, till no rude sound invades her sphere; yet, if need were, she could resist with as graceful composure as she can favor or bestow. No vehement emotion shall heave that bosom, and the lears shall fall on those cheeks more like dew than rain. Yet are her feelings delicate, profound, her love constant and tender, her resentment calm but firm. Fair as a maid, fairer as a wife, fairest as a lady mother and ruler of a household, she were better suited to a prince than a poet. Even if no prince could be found worthy of her, I would not wed her to a poet, if he lived in a cot- tage. For her best graces demand a splendid setting to give them their due lustre, and she should rather enhance than cause her environment. There are three pictures in the comic kind, which are good. It is genteel comedy, not rich, easily taken in and left, but having the lights and shades well marked. They show a gentlemanlike playfulness. In Catharine and Petruchio, the Gremio is particularly good, and the tear- distained Catharine, whose head, shoulder, knee, and foot seem to unite to spell the word Pout, is next best. The Sisters —a picture quite unlike those I have named VOL. 1. NO. 1. - 11 82 (July, Allston Exhibition. - does not please me much, though I should suppose the execution remarkably good. It is not in repose nor in harmony, nor is it rich in suggestion, like the others. It aims to speak, but says little, and is not beautiful enough to fill the heart with its present moment. To me it makes a break in the chain of thought the other pictures had woven. Scene from Gil Blas — also unlike the other in being perfectly objective, and telling all its thought at once. It is a fine painting. Mother and Child. A lovely little picture. But there is to my taste an air of got up naiveté and delicacy in it. It seems selected, arranged by “an intellectual effort.” It did not flow into the artist's mind like the others. But persons of better taste than I like it better than I do! Jews — full of character. Isaac is too dignified and sad; gold never rusted the soul of the man that owned that face. The Landscapes. At these I look with such unalloyed delight, that I have been at moments tempted to wish that the artist had concentrated his powers on this department of art, in so high a degree does he exhibit the attributes of the master. A power of sympathy, which gives each land- scape a perfectly individual character. Here the painter is merged in his theme, and these pictures affect us as parts of nature, so absorbed are we in contemplating them, so difficult is it to remember them as pictures. How the clouds float! how the trees live and breathe out their mys- terious souls in the peculiar attitude of every leaf. Dear companions of my life, whom yearly I know better, yet into whose heart I can no more penetrate than see your roots, while you live and grow. I feel what you have said to this painter; I can in some degree appreciate the power he has shown in repeating here the gentle oracle. The soul of the painter is in these landscapes, but not his character. Is not that the highest art? Nature and the soul combined; the former freed from slight crudities or blemishes, the latter from its merely human aspect. These landscapes are too truly works of art, their lan- guage is too direct, too lyrically perfect to be translated into this of words, without doing them an injury. To those, who confound praise with indiscriminate eulo- 1840.] 83 Allston Exhibition. gium, and who cannot understand the mind of one, whose highest expression of admiration is a close scrutiny, per- haps the following lines will convey a truer impression, than the foregoing remarks, of the feelings of the writer. They were suggested by a picture painted by Mr. Allston for a gentleman of Boston, which has never yet been publicly exhibited. It is of the same class with his Rosalie and Evening Hymn, pictures which were not particularized in the above record, because they inspired no thought except of their excelling beauty, which draws the heart into it- self. These two sonnets may be interesting, as showing how similar trains of thought were opened in the minds of two observers. " To-day I have been to see Mr. Allston's new picture of The Bride, and am more convinced than ever of the depth and value of his genius, and of how much food for thought his works contain. The face disappointed me at first by its want of beauty. Then I observed the peculiar expression of the eyes, and that of the lids, which tell such a tale, as well as the strange complexion, all heightened by the color of the background, till the impression became very strong. It is the story of the lamp of love, lighted, even burning with full force in a being that cannot yet comprehend it. The character is domestic, far more so than that of the ideal and suffering Rosalie, of which, nevertheless, it reminds you. “TO W. ALLSTON, ON SEEING HIS · BRIDE.' “ Weary and slow and faint with heavy toil, The fainting traveller pursues his way, O'er dry Arabian sands the long, long day, Where at each step floats up the dusty soil ; And when he finds a green and gladsome isle, And flowing water in that plain of care, And in the midst a marble fountain fair, To tell that others suffered too erewhile, And then appeased their thirst, and made this fount To them a sad remembrance, but a joy To all who follow — his tired spirits mount At such dim-visioned company - so I Drink of thy marble source, and do not count Weary the way in which thou hast gone by.” 84 [July, Song. : " TO ALLSTON'S PICTURE, «THE BRIDE.' Not long enough we gaze upon that face, Not pure enough the life with which we live, To be full tranced by that softest grace, To win all pearls those lucid depths can give; Here Phantasy has borrowed wings of Even, And stolen Twilight's latest, sacred hues, A Soul has visited the woman's heaven, Where palest lights a silver sheen diffuse, To see aright the vision which he saw, We must ascend as high upon the stair, Which leads the human thought to heavenly law, And see the flower bloom in its natal air; Thus might we read aright the lip and brow, Where Thought and Love beam too subduing for our senses now. SONG. I sing of lovesick maidens, Of men that for love were shent, I sing, and still in unison The wind moans like an instrument, So that I e'en must think The sighing wind did once love, Perchance some graceful bending tree, Perchance the sky above. Perchance the wind a mayden was, That lost her lover dear, And the gods in pity changed her To the breeze that searcheth everywhere, But I doubt she found not her lover dear; For when leaves are green, and leaves are sere, She seeketh her lover everywhere. TO * * * * O fair and stately maid, whose eye Was kindled in the upper sky At the same torch that lighted mine; For so I must interpret still Thy sweet dominion o'er my will A sympathy divine. Ah! let me blameless gaze upon Features that seem in heart my own, Nor fear those watchful sentinels- Which charm the more their glance forbids, Chaste-glowing underneath their lids With fire that draws while it repels. 1840.) 85 Orphic Sayings. ORPHIC SAYINGS. BY A. BRONSON ALCOTT. Thou art, my heart, a soul-flower, facing ever and fol- lowing the motions of thy sun, opening thyself to her vivifying ray, and pleading thy affinity with the celestial orbs. Thou dost the livelong day Dial on time thine own eternity. II. ENTHUSIASM. Believe, youth, that your heart is an oracle ; trust her instinctive auguries, obey her divine leadings ; nor listen too fondly to the uncertain echoes of your head. The heart is the prophet of your soul, and ever fulfils her pro- phecies ; reason is her historian; but for the prophecy the history would not be. Great is the heart: cherish her; she is big with the future, she forebodes renovations. Let the flame of enthusiasm fire alway your bosom. Enthu- siasm is the glory and hope of the world. It is the life of sanctity and genius ; it has wrought all miracles since the beginning of time. 111. HOPE. Hope deifies man; it is the apotheosis of the soul; the prophecy and fulfilment of her destinies. The nobler her aspirations, the sublimer her conceptions of the Godhead. As the man, so his God: God is his idea of excellence; the complement of his own being. IV. IMMORTALITY. The grander my conception of being, the nobler my future. There can be no sublimity of life without faith in the soul's eternity. Let me live superior to sense and custom, vigilant alway, and I shall experience my divinity; my hope will be infinite, nor shall the universe contain, or content me. But if I creep daily from the haunts of an 86 (July, Orphic Sayings. ignoble past, like a beast from his burrow, neither earth nor sky, man nor God, shall appear desirable or glorious ; my life shall be loathsome to me, my future reflect my fears. He alone, who lives nobly, oversees his own being, believes all things, and partakes of the eternity of God. v. VOCATION. Engage in nothing that cripples or degrades you. Your first duty is self-culture, self-exaltation : you may not vio- late this high trust. Your self is sacred, profane it not. Forge no chains wherewith to shackle your own members. Either subordinate your vocation to your life, or quit it for- ever: it is not for you ; it is condemnation of your own soul. Your influence on others is commensurate with the strength that you have found in yourself. First cast the demons from your own bosom, and then shall your word exorcise them from the hearts of others. You have on others is co vi. SENSUALISM. He who marvels at nothing, who feels nothing to be mysterious, but must needs bare all things to sense, lacks both wisdom and piety. Miracle is the mantle in which these venerable natures wrap themselves, and he, who seeks curiously to rend this asunder, profanes their sacred coun- tenance to enter by stealth into the Divine presence. Sanc- tity, like God, is ever mysterious, and all devout souls reverence her. A wonderless age is godless : an age of reverence, an age of piety and wisdom. VII. SPIRITUALISM. Piety is not scientific ; yet embosoms the facts that . reason develops in scientific order to the understanding. Religion, being a sentiment, is science yet in synthetic relations; truth yet undetached from love; thought not yet severed from action. For every fact that eludes the analysis of reason, conscience affirms its root in the super- natural. Every synthetic fact is supernatural and miracu- lous. Analysis by detecting its law resolves it into science, and renders it a fact of the understanding. Divinely seen, natural facts are symbols of spiritual laws. Miracles are. of the heart; not of the head : indigenous to the soul ; not freaks of nature, not growths of history. God, man, nature, are miracles. 1840.] Orphic Sayings. VIII. MYSTICISM. Because the soul is herself mysterious, the saint is a mystic to the worldling. He lives to the soul; he partakes of her properties, he dwells in her atmosphere of light and hope. But the worldling, living to sense, is identified with the flesh; he dwells amidst the dust and vapors of his own lusts, which dim his vision, and obscure the heav- ens wherein the saint beholds the face of God. IX. ASPIRATION. The insatiableness of her desires is an augury of the soul's eternity. Yearning for satisfaction, yet ever balked of it from temporal things, she still prosecutes her search for it, and her faith remains unshaken amidst constant dis- appointments. She would breathe life, organize light; her hope is eternal; a never-ending, still-beginning quest of the Godhead in her own bosom; a perpetual effort to actualize her divinity in time. Intact, aspirant, she feels the appulses of both spiritual and material things; she would appropriate the realm she inherits by virtue of her incarnation : infinite appetencies direct all her members on finite things; her vague strivings, and Cyclopean mo- tions, confess an aim beyond the confines of transitory natures; she is quivered with heavenly desires : her quarry is above the stars : her arrows are snatched from the ar- mory of heaven. X. APOTHEOSIS. Every soul feels at times her own possibility of becoming a God; she cannot rest in the human, she aspires after the Godlike. This instinctive tendency is an authentic augury of its own fulfilment. Men shall become Gods. Every act of admiration, prayer, praise, worship, desire, hope, implies and predicts the future apotheosis of the soul. XI. DISCONTENT. All life is eternal; there is none other; and all unrest is but the struggle of the soul to reassure herself of her in- born immortality ; to recover her lost intuition of the same, by reason of her descent amidst the lusts and worship of the idols of flesh and sense. Her discomfort reveals her lapse from innocence; her loss of the divine presence and 88 (July, Orphic Sayings. favor. Fidelity alone shall instaurate the Godhead in her bosom. XII. TEMPTATION. Greater is he, who is above temptation, than he, who, being tempted, overcomes. The latter but regains the state from which