In sympathy and in truth we may say of these unsuccessful efforts with the poet : "O! wasted strength! O! light and calm Like rain upon the herbless sea, Poured down by too benignant heaven- But man's large soul, the star supreme, * Sterling. X. Is there a Wath. "Is there no refuge but the tomb For all this timeless spirit bloom? Does earth no other prospect yield But one broad, barren, battle-field?" MILNES. ERE all these high hopes but idle fancies and splendid insufficiencies? Were all these holy aspirations but illusions and deceptive dreams? Were these heroic sacrifices but evidences of minds deluded? mockery, and true it is that, Then is life a Whose soul seeks the perfect, Which his eyes seek in vain.”* For, to give to man capacities and those the highest and noblest of his soul, to give to him wants the deepest and most sacred of his heart, to condemn him to seek for their realization, to hold over his head their proper objects like the apple of Tantalus, and destine him never to reach them; this is not the work of a loving Deity, but cruelty the most refined of a fiend. If such be life, it is a curse; and he tells the truth of man who says, 66 Thy curse it was to see and hear And dearly thou dost rue it."† And it is not to be wondered at, that all our modern and youthful poets sing of Death, not as an "unknown form of a higher life," but invoke his shaft, as an escape from the mockery and wearisomeness of this-saying with Schiller, "Would this weary life were spent, Would this fruitless search were o'er!" And if such be life and such its promises, who would not say from the depths of his soul in tones of earnestness, "And rather than such visions, bless The gloomiest depths of nothingness." * But Mr. Emerson is wrong, not in saying that man loves the best and sees the perfect; no, to this every heart and head consents, but that he seeks in vain a realization of what he loves and sees. This is the error of Mr. Emerson and the whole school of this class of men. Our curse is not that we see into a life more clear and true, this is the loftiest attribute of man, but that man has lost or not yet discovered the way that leads to the possession of such a life. This is the fiend, here lies the curse, did these men but know it. There is a way. Has it been lost? or has it not yet been found? That, indeed, would be a sad plight for humanity, and no less a libel upon * Sterling. God's goodness and wisdom, to imagine that man has wandered up and down upon this earth for these thousand years, and that none has found the path which leads to his true home and country. On the contrary, God, in creating man a free agent, was bound to make known to him the law and path to his destiny; leaving man to choose, to obey, and to follow it if he pleased, or not; otherwise, man would have no room to exercise the noble faculty of will. He must know this too, in order to direct and employ his faculties and powers aright, to be what he should be; and until this is discovered, he is unable to act as a rational creature, as man. There is, then, a path that leads us to our final aim; who is the one that has discovered it, and standing out as a guide, can say to human ity, ""Tis I; I am the way that leads to truth and life,--follow me!" Does the past give us such an answer? What says the past? |