These are accidents which may happen in a single instant of time, and against which nothing known in the present system of things provides us with any security. They might not annihilate the earth, but they would unpeople it; and we, who tread its surface with such firm and assured footsteps, are at the mercy of devouring elements, which, if let loose upon us by the hand of the Almighty, would spread solitude, and silence, and death over the dominions of the world. Now, it is this littleness and this insecurity which make the protection of the Almighty so dear to us, and bring with such emphasis to every pious bosom the holy lessons of humility and gratitude. The God who sitteth above, and presides in high authority over all worlds, is mindful of man; and, though at this moment his energy is felt in the remotest provinces of creation, we may feel the same security in his providence as if we were the objects of his undivided care. It is not for us to bring our minds up to this mysterious agency. But such is the incomprehensible fact, that the same Being, whose eye is abroad over the whole universe, gives vegetation to every blade of grass, and motion to every particle of blood which circulates through the veins of the minutest animal; that, though his mind takes into its comprehensive grasp immensity and all its wonders, I am as much known to him as if I were the single object of his attention; that he marks all my thoughts; that he gives birth to every feeling and every movement within me; and that, with an exercise of power which I can neither describe nor comprehend, the same God who sits in the highest heaven, and reigns over the glories of the firmament, is at my right hand, to give me every breath which I draw and every comfort which I enjoy. THE TELESCOPE AND THe microscope. About the time of the invention of the telescope, another instrument was formed, which laid open a scene no less wonderful, nor less rewarding the inquisitive spirit of man. This was the microscope. The one led me to see a system in every star; the other leads me to see a world in every atom. The one taught me that this mighty globe, with the whole burden of its people and of its countries, is but a grain of sand on the high field of immensity; the other teaches me that every grain of sand may harbor within it the tribes and the families of a busy population. The one told me of the insignificance of the world I tread upon; the other redeems it from all its insignificance, for it tells me that in the leaves of every forest, and in the flowers of every garden, and in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless as are the glories of the firmament. The one has suggested to me that, beyond and above all that is visible to man, there may lie fields of creation which sweep immeasurably along, and carry the impress of the Almighty's hand to the remotest scenes of the universe; the other suggests to me that, within and beneath all that minuteness which the aided eye of man has been able to explore, there may lie a region of invisibles, and that, could we draw aside the mysterious curtain which shrouds it from our senses, we might there see a theatre of as many wonders as astronomy has unfolded, a universe within the compass of a point so small as to elude all the powers of the microscope, but where the wonder-working God finds room for the exercise of all his attributes, where he can raise another mechanism of worlds, and fill and animate them all with the evidences of his glory. THE BARBARITIES OF WAR. The first great obstacle to the extinction of war is the way in which the heart of man is carried off from its barbarities and its horrors by the splendor of its deceitful accompaniments. There is a feeling of the sublime in contemplating the shock of armies, just as there is in contemplating the devouring energy of a tempest; and this so elevates and engrosses the whole man that his eye is blind to the tears of bereaved parents, and his ear is deaf to the piteous moan of the dying and the shriek of their desolated families. There is a gracefulness in the picture of a youthful warrior, burning for distinction on the field, and lured by this generous aspiration to the deepest of the animated throng, where, in the fell work of death, the opposing sons of valor struggle for a remembrance and a name; and this side of the picture is so much the exclusive object of our regard as to disguise from our view the mangled carcases of the fallen, and the writhing agonies of the hundreds and the hundreds more who have been laid on the cold ground, where they are left to languish and to die. There no eye pities them. No sister is there to weep over them. There no gentle hand is present to ease the dying posture, or bind up the wounds which, in the maddening fury of the combat, have been given and received by the children of one common Father. There death spreads its pale ensigns over every countenance, and when night comes on, and darkness around them, how many a despairing wretch must take up with the bloody field as the untended bed of his last sufferings, without one friend to bear the message of tenderness to his distant home, without one companion to close his eyes! go I avow it. On every side of me I see causes at work which to spread a most delusive coloring over war, and to remove its shocking barbarities to the background of our contemplations altogether. I see it in the history, which tells me of the superb appearance of the troops, and the brilliancy of their successive charges. I see it in the poetry, which lends the magic of its numbers to the narrative of blood, and transports its many admirers, as by its images, and its figures, and its nodding plumes of chivalry, it throws its treacherous embellishments over a scene of legalized slaughter. I see it in the music, which represents the progress of the battle; and where, after being inspired by the trumpet-notes of preparation, the whole beauty and tenderness of a drawing-room are seen to bend over the sentimental entertainment; nor do I hear the utterance of a single sigh to interrupt the death-tones of the thickening contest, and the moans of the wounded men as they fade away upon the ear and sink into lifeless silence. All, all goes to prove what strange and half-sighted creatures we are. Were it not so, war could never have been seen in any other aspect than that of unmingled hatefulness; and I can look to nothing but to the progress of Christian sentiment upon earth to arrest the strong current of its popular and prevailing partiality for war. Then only will an imperious sense of duty lay the check of severe principle on all the subordinate tastes and faculties of our nature. Then will glory be reduced to its right estimate, and the wakeful benevolence of the gospel, chasing away every spell, will be turned by the treachery of no delusion whatever from its sublime enterprises for the good of the species. Then the reign of truth and quietness will be ushered into the world, and war, cruel, atrocious, unrelenting war, will be stripped of its many and its bewildering fascinations. THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. It was not a temporary character which the Lord Jesus assumed. The human kindness, and the human expression which makes it intelligible to us, remained with him till his latest hour; they survived his resurrection, and he has carried them along with him to the mysterious place which he now occupies. How do I know all this? I know it from his history; I hear it in the parting words to his mother from the cross; I see it in his unaltered form when he rose triumphant from the grave; I perceive it in his tenderness for the scruples of the unbelieving Thomas; and I am given to understand that as his body retained the impression of his own sufferings, so his mind retains a sympathy for ours, as warm and gracious and endearing as ever. We have a Priest on high, who is touched with a fellow-feeling of our infirmities. My soul, unable to support itself in its aërial flight among the spirits of the invisible, now reposes on Christ, who stands revealed to my conceptions in the figure, the countenance, the heart, the sympathies, of a man. He has entered within that veil which hung over the glories of the Eternal, and the mysterious inaccessible throne of God is divested of all its terrors, when I think that a Friend who bears the form of the species, and knows its infirmities, is there to plead for me. AFFLICTION. There is a certain mellowness which affliction sheds upon the character; a softening that it effects of all the rougher and more repulsive asperities of our nature; a delicacy of temperament into which it often melts and refines the most ungainly spirit. It is not the pride of aspiring talent that we carry to heaven with us; it is not the lustre of a superiority which dazzles and commands, that we bear with us there. It is not the eminence of any public distinction, or the fame of lofty and successful enterprises; and should these give undue confidence to man, or throw an aspect of conscious and complacent energy over him, he wears not yet the complexion of paradise; and should God select him as His own, He will send some special affliction that may chasten him out of all which is uncongenial with the place of blessedness, and at length reduce him to its unmingled love and its adoring humility. * * * The character is purified by the simple process of passing through the fire. "And when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold." HARTLEY COLERIDGE, 1796-1849. HARTLEY COLERIDGE, the eldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was born at Clevedon, a small village near Bristol, in 1796. Though he grew up to be an engaging child, his personal appearance, independent of his shortness of stature, was quite singular; and while at school he seldom played with his school-fellows. Hence he was much alone, passing his time in reading, walking, dreaming to himself, or talking his dreams to others. Such were his peculiarities, that he was educated not so much by a regular course of study as by desultory reading, and by the living voice of his father, Southey, Wordsworth, Lloyd, Wilson, and De Quincey. He, however, entered Oriel College, Oxford, and passed through the usual course of studies there with credit, though not with high academic distinction, and received his degree in 1821. He then went to London, where he spent about two years with some of his father's personal friends, writing, from time to time, sonnets and small pieces for the London Magazine. In 1823 he went to Ambleside, near Lake Windermere, and opened a school for boys. But for the educational profession-a profession that requires, to insure success in it, the union of so many high qualifications both of head and heart, as well as of personal habits and manners-he was not at all suited. One by one his scholars left him, and in four or five years he abandoned his school, and removed to Grasmere. Here he supported himself mostly by his pen, writing for Blackwood's Magazine,-his contributions to this periodical forming a part of the general collection of his essays. He had now acquired a considerable literary reputation, and he entered into an engagement to furnish matter for a biographical work, to be published at Leeds, on the Worthies of Yorkshire and Lancashire. The Worthies consisted of thirteen lives, as published in a collected form, under the title of Biographia Borealis, and immediately obtained, and continues to enjoy, considerable reputation. In the year 1834 he lost his father, and three years after, his kind hostess, Mrs. Fleming, with whom he had boarded at Grasmere for a long period. Some anxiety was now entertained about his future residence,- -so ill calculated was he to make his own way in this busy, selfish world. But he had not to change his abode; the house was taken by a young farmer and his wife, William and Eleanor Richardson, with whom he spent the remainder of his days. For twelve years this worthy couple watched over him with respectful solicitude, and attended him with affectionate devotion during his last sickness. On the 26th of December, 1848, he was seized with a severe attack of bronchitis, and on Saturday, the 6th of January, 1849, he was at rest. As a poet, Hartley Coleridge holds a more than respectable rank. Some of his pieces are exquisitely beautiful, and there are not many sonnets in the language more highly finished than his: in these, indeed, his chief strength lies. His prose works are full of pleasing and instructive suggestions, communicated in a pure English style, frequently commended by lustre of imagery and beauty of thought. NIGHT. The crackling embers on the hearth are dead; A VISION. I saw thee in the beauty of thy spring, And then I thought how blest the man shall be 1 Read Poems by Hartley Coleridge, with a Memoir of his Life, by his Brother, two volumes; and Essays and Marginalia, in two volumes. By "Marginalia" is meant, remarks made upon the margin, or in a note-book, upon books read. |