England's Antiphon, George MacDonald [ready to read books TXT] 📗

to stay;
If I am wrong, O teach my heart
To find that better way.

Save me alike from foolish pride
Or impious discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has denied,
Or aught thy goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see:
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

Mean though I am-not wholly so,
Since quickened by thy breath:-
O lead me wheresoe'er I go,
Through this day's life or death.

This day, be bread and peace my lot:
All else beneath the sun
Thou know'st if best bestowed or not,
And let thy will be done.

To thee, whose temple is all space,
Whose altar, earth, sea, skies,
One chorus let all being raise!
All Nature's incense rise!

And now we come upon a strange little well in the desert. Few flowers indeed shine upon its brink, and it flows with a somewhat unmusical ripple: it is a well of the water of life notwithstanding, for its song tells of the love and truth which are the grand power of God.

John Byrom, born in Manchester in the year 1691, a man whose strength of thought and perception of truth greatly surpassed his poetic gifts, yet delighted so entirely in the poetic form that he wrote much and chiefly in it. After leaving Cambridge, he gained his livelihood for some time by teaching a shorthand of his own invention, but was so distinguished as a man of learning generally that he was chosen an F.R.S. in 1723. Coming under the influence, probably through William Law, of the writings of Jacob Böhme, the marvellous shoemaker of Görlitz in Silesia, who lived in the time of our Shakspere, and heartily adopting many of his views, he has left us a number of religious poems, which are seldom so sweet in music as they are profound in the metaphysics of religion. Here we have yet again a mystical thread running radiant athwart both warp and woof of our poetic web: the mystical thinker will ever be found the reviver of religious poetry; and although some of the seed had come from afar both in time and space, Byrom's verse is of indigenous growth. Much of the thought of the present day will be found in his verses. Here is a specimen of his metrical argumentation. It is taken from a series of
Meditations for every Day in Passion Week .


WEDNESDAY.

Christ satisfieth the justice of God by fulfilling all
righteousness.

Justice demandeth satisfaction-yes;
And ought to have it where injustice is:
But there is none in God-it cannot mean
Demand of justice where it has full reign:
To dwell in man it rightfully demands,
Such as he came from his Creator's hands.

Man had departed from a righteous state,
Which he at first must have, if God create:
'Tis therefore called God's righteousness, and must
Be satisfied by man's becoming just;
Must exercise good vengeance upon men,
Till it regain its rights in them again.

This was the justice for which Christ became
A man to satisfy its righteous claim;
Became Redeemer of the human race,
That sin in them to justice might give place:
To satisfy a just and righteous will,
Is neither more nor less than to fulfil.

* * * * *

Here are two stanzas of one of more mystical reflection:


A PENITENTIAL SOLILOQUY.

What though no objects strike upon the sight!
Thy sacred presence is an inward light.
What though no sounds shall penetrate the ear!
To listening thought the voice of truth is clear.
Sincere devotion needs no outward shrine;
The centre of an humble soul is thine.
There may I worship! and there mayst thou place
Thy seat of mercy, and thy throne of grace!
Yea, fix, if Christ my advocate appear,
The dread tribunal of thy justice there!
Let each vain thought, let each impure desire
Meet in thy wrath with a consuming fire.

And here are two of more lyrical favour.


THE SOUL'S TENDENCY TOWARDS ITS TRUE CENTRE.

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

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

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

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

"Now, methinks, aloft I fly;
Now with angels bear a part:
Glory be to God on high!
Peace to every Christian heart!"


THE ANSWER TO THE DESPONDING SOUL.

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

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

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

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

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

Here are a few verses which I shall once more entitle


DIVINE EPIGRAMS.

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

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

An heated fancy or imagination
May be mistaken for an inspiration;
True; but is this conclusion fair to make-
That inspiration must be all mistake?
A pebble-stone is not a diamond: true;
But must a diamond be a pebble too?
To own a God who does not speak to men,
Is first to own, and then disown again;
Of all idolatry the total sum
Is having gods that are both deaf and dumb.

* * * * *

What is more tender than a mother's love
To the sweet infant fondling in her arms?
What arguments need her compassion move
To hear its cries, and help it in its harms?
Now, if the tenderest mother were possessed
Of all the love within her single breast
Of all the mothers since the world began,
'Tis nothing to the love of God to man.

* * * * *

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


CHAPTER XX.

THE ROOTS OF THE HILLS.


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

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

The Hymn holds