way of thinking of it, and in every question which can be asked regarding it, this world is mystery; so as to shut us up on the only truth which can be answered about it, the will of God. But O the wondrousness of that answer! for in the earnest making of it we ourselves are made godare made to feel ourselves children of the like, Highest. MARHAM. You have said the very thing, Oliver, which often and often I have wanted to know; though I do not know that I ought to have been in want of it; and indeed I have tried not to think of some things which have come into my mind. AUBIN. I can so easily bewilder myself about the Deity, if I think of him as the God of the hosts of heaven, every host a myriad times, ten myriad times, more numerous than the inhabitants of this world; also if I think of him as the Creator of angels and archangels, and so the God of many a million worlds besides this of ours, and as a Being from everlasting to everlasting, and as almighty, yet allowing of death in this world of his. this is true, and I know it to be true: but such thoughts are too high for me; for I can gaze at them, and strain my eyes after where they lead, till I feel blind, and could grow so. In every way God is infinite, and so I never could have All learned him of myself. But he has shown himself as the sun of our firmament. MARHAM. As the Father of our Lord Jesus. Stars, and ages, and infinities, these are not the way to think of God. AUBIN. They can awe a spirit, but enlighten it they cannot. At least they cannot be the beginning of light in the soul; but Christian belief, when it has begun, draws into itself light from almost every thing. To understand at all what life means, one must begin with Christian belief. And I think knowledge may be sorrow with a man, unless he loves. It is my right, and there is some duty in it, too, to learn all that is to be known of what the ages and the great men of this world have been, and of the worlds beyond worlds which are round us every way. But the look of the firmament itself hints wisdom to us; for bounded by the horizon, all the world round me is only a few miles. From which I may feel, that for me the world is specially meant to be what is just about me, what I can see and talk with men in, and be kind in, and do duty in. Let me be right with the world about me, and the whole world beyond will then look right towards me. MARHAM. Thank you, Oliver; for you have instructed and you have delighted me very much this afternoon. And your imagination is not lawless, as I have sometimes feared it might perhaps be, a little, a very, very little but it is not. : It is religiously chastened; it is hither and thither, but it is to do Christian work it is lowly service at the door of the church; and it is a noble hymn in the choir; and it is a voice from the pulpit like a clarion; and in quieter moments it is a vision of heaven and hell, and unearthly things. AUBIN. You are yourself imaginative, uncle. MARHAM. I! not I! No, Oliver, no! AUBIN. Yes, you are, my dear uncle; and now and then very beautifully so; but more so in talking with me than with any one else, I think. MARHAM. What time is it, Oliver ? AUBIN. Ten minutes to five. Which time of the twenty-ninth of May, of the year eighteen hundred and forty-seven, will never be again, never, not ever. Every day the world is ripening against that harvest which is to be at the end of it; slowly, perhaps; and yet not so very slowly considering what the fruits of it are to be, for they will be eternal; they will be souls, everlasting souls. MARHAM. A very beautiful afternoon! And so sweet the air is; is not it, Oliver? AUBIN. O that lark! He is up, singing his thanks after yonder cloud, for having dropped a few big raindrops on the field; for his nest is in it; and so the grass smells more sweetly to his mate. MARHAM. It must have been on an afternoon like this that holy George Herbert first sung his four verses on virtue; playing the while on the theorbo. AUBIN. I should like to hear them, uncle. Will you repeat them? MARHAM. Now you must like them, Oliver; for I do very much. Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must die. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like seasoned timber, never gives; But though the whole world turn to coal, As George Herbert! Holy George Herbert! It is more than two hundred years since he was living. Since he was living, did I say? though he had been any thing else but living! Between him and me there have dawned and darkened nearly eighty thousand days; and yet he is to me as though he lived yesterday. And if he is this to me, then, very certainly, he is more than this to God. It is long, long, - a space of two revolutions and many wars, since George Herbert lived at Bemerton. And yet through eighty millions of English people who have lived between him and me do I feel him, feel his feelings, feel his having been in the earth. I am only one of so many brothers of his, but his spirit has not died to me; and if to me his spirit has not died, then how it must be living on to God! O Lord, thou lover of souls! You look at me, Oliver, as though you thought those words were my own; but no, they are not. They are from the Wisdom of Solomon, and very beautiful they are. I like repeating them, -O Lord, thou lover of souls! |