Of love itself! Then much of heaven is felt
By minds drawn thitherward and closely linked
In the celestial union: 'tis in this
Sweet element alone that we can live
To any purpose, or expect our minds
Clothed with that covering which alone prepares
For social worship. Therefore mourns my soul
In secret, and like one amidst the vast
And widely peopled earth, would seek to hide
Myself and sorrows from the motley crowd
Of human observation. But oh, Thou!
Whose bowels of compassion never fail
Towards the creatures fashioned by thy hands,
Reanimate the dead, and give to those
Who never felt thy presence in their souls,
Nor saw thy beauty, both to see and feel
That Thou art lovely, and thy presence life!
Restore the wanderer and support the weak
With thy sustaining arm, for strength is thine!
And oh! preserve this tempest-beaten bark
From sinking in the wave whose swelling surge
Threatens to overwhelm. Forsake her not,
But be her pilot, though no sun or star
Appear amid the gloom; for if a ray
From thy all-cheering presence light her course,
She rides the storm secure, and in due time
Will reach her destined port and be at peace.
REFLECTIONS UPON HEARING THAT E. B. HAD PUBLICLY RIDICULED THE MANNER OF "FRIENDS" ASSEMBLING
TO PERFORM SILENT WORSHIP TO GOD, SAYING, THAT THERE WAS NO SUCH THING.
HAS the man ere stood upon
The mountain's brow, and looked around him
On the face of nature, and not felt even in the
Inmost chambers of his soul, a deep communing
And a silence there: even as of a spirit
Wondering within itself, wondering at its own being?
The quick eye tracing with a fond delight
The hill, the woodland, and the flowing stream,
The humble domicile, the peasant's lot;
Its tiny garden, and its fruitful fields;
The lordly palace and its gay adjuncts;
The mountain's craggy steeps, its rocks,
Gray with the tempests of a thousand years,
Its fretted channels and its fissured walls,
Its bounding torrents and eternal springs.
Say, has he e'er communed with nature there
And never felt that strange mysterious tie
That hidden link deep seated in the soul
Connecting his frail being with a God?
And then silent and passive been before the Lord?
Him the Creator! God of the whole earth!
Ruler of spirits!-No silent worship?
This his declaration? Then has he never
Wrapt the Prophet's mantle round him.
Never has he sat like one of old within
The sheltering rock, when the wild war
Of elementary strife was rife around him.
When the Earthquake's shock, shook even
Such solid resting place, and the upheaving
Earth poured forth from out its centre
Fire and water, and the up-riven rocks,
Were scattered round, even as the shell
Tossed by the billowy main. Never has
He sat beneath the o'ershadowing rock
When the Tornado's might was round about.
When the tall pine, and lofty cedar boughs,
Were dashed to earth, and laid upon its bed,
The hoary monarchs of past centuries growth,
Cut down as the green grass, and fragile herb,
With the sharp scythe, by a strong mower's arm.
Never has he sat where the wild fire-light flashed
Upon his eye. When heard no more the thunder's
Groaning peal, no more its echoes heard among
The hills, no more the lightning's glare quick
Glancing round terrific. But one sheet-one
Broad, bold sheet of flame, ascending from
Earth to heaven, and consuming all left
From the Tornado's flight, and Earthquake's shock.
No silent worship? then never has he known
How the frail, finite powers of man, can
Lean on God his maker. How he can wrap
The mantle of a quiet spirit round him, and
Shut out from the dim vision of a mortal sense,
The strife of principles at war. Bowed to earth
Within the cave. Upon the rock of ages;
Resting there, the world shut out, the world
No more in view. Ah! what is worship? Shall
I come before the Lord, with the rich offering
Of a thousand lambs? Thousands of goats upon
The mountains roam; are they not his? Say,
Shall I offer these? Or rivers of pure oil?
What gifts of value shall I bring within thy
Courts? How shall I worship thee?
Be still! so spake the prophet-bard,
Be still before me earth and all ye islands
Hear!-hear, that ye may obey. Be still,
That ye may hear. And while attentive, listening
For the voice of God, know, that ye worship him.
And having first learned stillness, learned to hear,
Then know to act.-And he who knows not
Silent worship, ne'er will know to walk with
God and listen to his words. I envy not the man
However learned, or high, or rich, or great, who can deride,
The Prophet's lesson, and this august faith.
With me there have been moments
When ocean, with its everlasting tones, has
Called to solemn silence. Not when alone
The tempest on the wild wings of the wind,
Swept over its surface. When the rude
North, with his legions, lashed its proud
Billows into fury, giving the frail bark
To its mountain waves, not then not then.
Nor when seated upon its shores, dreaming
Of o'erwhelmed argosies of wealth:
Of buried gold, deep, in its dim unfathomable
World of hidden pearls, and gems of priceless
Worth; of untold millions in its coral caves;
Not then not then. Nor when upon
Imagination's wings borne far aloft,
Boldly to scan man's high imperial sway
On earth-in air-deemed that the waters too
Would yet be subject. The charmed sea
With all its bright inhabitants be his.
His the small minnow. of the running stream;
His the leviathan of the stormy deep.
Teach him, as the wild colt is taught, to know the rein,
And as the war-horse, curb him to the will.
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