White through the night rides in the spectral surf And all the air vibrates, as if from harps Bright in the moon the red pomegranate-flowers While with her chrism of dew sad Midnight fills Watching all night-as I have done before- Each writing on my soul some memory deep Till, wild with heartbreak, toward the east I turn, And chanting sea, and asphodel, and star, Only within my trembling, trembling hands- I clasp these beautiful and fragile things, Fair bloom the flowers beneath these northern skies, And grandly sing the grand Atlantic waves Yet, as the sea-shell in her chambers keeps So the deep echoing memories of my home Prone on the page they lie, these gentle things, As I have seen them cast Like a drowned woman's hair along the sands Prone, like mine own affections, cast ashore Would they could die, like sea-weed! Bear with me, Thomas Starr King. BORN in New York, N. Y., 1824. DIED in San Francisco, Cal., 1864. THE BUSINESS AND GLORY OF ETERNITY. [Sermon on the Future Life. 1854.—Christianity and Humanity. 1877.] OUR UR views of the future life are thin and unpractical and impotent because we do keep off from all speculation about it. How poor, almost barren, has the Christian imagination been in its conceptions, I will not say of the details, but of the principles and the objects of that future world! The imagery of the judgment-seat of Christ, which the New Testament in one or two instances suggests, has been expanded and verified by the rhetoric and poetry of the Church, so that it has filled up all the space into which the eye of the spirit can pierce beyond the grave, so that a solemn gloom rests over the world to come. Or when the timid fancy has ventured at all into pictures or conjectures of the occupations of that sphere, it has not strayed beyond the hints of the Apocalypse, of the songs of the hundred and forty-four thousand elders, and the harps and the golden phials full of odors, and the white robes, and the palms in their hands. The conception of heaven as an immeasurable singing-school, and its business a never-ending and monotonous chant directly in the blaze of God's holiness, has little to attract the hearty thought of strong men towards it; and I seriously believe that it is the poverty of imagination in the Church as to the conditions, the duties, and the joys of the future world, which accounts in a large measure for the little care there is about it,-for the undertone of feeling which I know exists in many breasts, that an eternal life, according to the modes of presentation in the Church, is not worth having and would be insufferably tedious. Now as to the external details, it may do no good, and therefore we may have no right to speculate-I mean as to where the spiritual world is, whether we shall have visible organizations or not, and what sized beings we shall be. But as to the essential conditions and occupations of that world, I hold that we have a right to think about it, and that we ought to, and that very much of the practical power of the future life over us consists in the kind of speculation we entertain, the quality of the musings we indulge. If we think of it only now and then as a state where final retribution shall be executed upon souls for their good or evil in this life, it will simply affect us now and then with a spasm of fear, but our inmost reverence will not be stimulated and fed. If we conceive of it as a vast stretching kingdom of haze off beyond our horizon, where ghosts live, it will have an influence upon our lives about as great as such an expanse of mist would have upon the orbit of the solid earth. We must make it in our imagination what the spirit of Christianity would have us make it,-a world for the exercise of the great powers of our humanity, and therefore a world more real, more intense, more vital and moral, than this plane of existence. We must think of its occupations and business as appealing to and attesting the distinguishing faculties of our manhood and womanhood; then it will be a reality, a glorious, solemn, and practical reality to us. I have spoken of the great faculties of our nature as passing into the future to be educated, but I have not ranked them. Of course the highest is love, and the order of the future seems most clear and most impressive to my mind when I think that we shall go to our places there according to our love rather than our wisdom. It will be part of our business to become acquainted with God outwardly by the intellect; but the great law of life will be more fully manifest there than even here, that our joy shall consist in the quality of our affections, in our sympathy and our charity. Though we have the gift of prophecy and understand all mystery and all knowledge, and though we have all faith so that we could remove mountains, and have not charity, we shall be nothing. Glorious will it be, no doubt, in that world of substance to be surrounded with the splendors of God's thought, to have the privilege of free range whithersoever taste may lead through the domains of infinite art, to enjoy the possibilities of reception from the highest created intellects; but our bliss, the nectar of the soul, will flow from our consecration, our openness to the love of God, and our desire of service to his most needy ones. For, brethren, let us associate also with the future the business and the glory of practical service. All degrees of spirits float into that realm of silence. Ripe and unripe, mildewed, cankered, stunted, as well as stately and strong and sound, they are garnered for the eternal state by death. Is Christ, whose life was sympathy and charity upon the earth, busy in no ministries of instruction and redemption there? Has Paul no missionary zeal and no heart of pity for the Antiochs and the Corinths that darken and pollute the eternal spaces? Has Loyola lost his ambition to bring the heathen hearts to the knowledge of Jesus? Will not the thousands of the merciful who have found it their joy here to collect the outcasts under healthier influence, to kindle the darkened mind, to clothe the shivering forms of destitution, to carry comfort to sick-beds, and cheer into desolate homes,-will not the divine brothers and sisters of charity, who are the glory of this life, find some call and some exercise for their Christlike sympathy in that world; in that world which is colonized by millions of the heathen and the unfortunate, the sin-sick, the polluted, and the ignorant, every year? Oh, doubt not, brethren, that the highest in Heaven are the helpers, the spirits of charity, the glorified Samaritans who penetrate into all the abysses of evil with their aid and their hope. Doubt not that there will be ample opportunities for the exercise of our divinest faculties, and that we are prepared for its joys just as we are furnished with sympathies, educated on the earth by the blessings and the cheer they have scattered among the wastes. George William Curtis. BORN in Providence, R. I., 1824. THE NEW LIVERY. [The Potiphar Papers. 1853.] HE Gnus, and Croesuses, and Silkes, and the Settum Downes, have THE their coats of arms, and crests, and liveries, and I am not going to be behind, I tell you. Mr. P. ought to remember that a great many of these families were famous before they came to this country, and there is a kind of interest in having on your ring, for instance, the same crest that your ancestor two or three centuries ago had upon her ring. One day I was quite wrought up about the matter, and I said as much to him. "Certainly," said he, "certainly; you are quite right. If I had Sir Philip Sidney to my ancestor, I should wear his crest upon my ring, and glory in my relationship, and I hope I should be a better man for it. I wouldn't put his arms upon my carriage, however, because that would mean nothing but ostentation. It would be merely a flourish of trumpets to say that I was his descendant, and nobody would know that, either, if my name chanced to be Boggs. In my library I might hang a copy of the family escutcheon as a matter of interest and curiosity to myself, for I'm sure I shouldn't understand it. Do you suppose Mrs. Gnu knows what gules argent are? A man may be as proud of his family as he chooses, and, if he have noble ancestors, with good reason. But there is no sense in parading that pride. It is an affectation, the more foolish that it achieves nothing-no more credit at Stewart's-no more real respect in society. Besides, Polly, who were Mrs. Gnu's ancestors, or Mrs. Croesus's, or Mrs. Settum Downe's? Good, quiet, honest, and humble people, who did their work, and rest from their labor. Centuries ago, in England, some drops of blood from noble' veins may have mingled with the blood of their forefathers; or even, the founder of the family name may be historically famous. What then? Is Mrs. Gnu's family ostentation less absurd? Do you understand the meaning of her crest, and coats of arms, and liveries? Do you suppose she does herself? But in forty-nine cases out of fifty, there is nothing but a similarity of name upon which to found all this flourish of aristocracy." My dear old Pot is getting rather prosy, Carrie. So, when he had finished that long speech, during which I was looking at the lovely fashion-plates in Harper, I said: "What colors do you think I'd better have?" He looked at me with that singular expression, and went out suddenly, as if he were afraid he might say something. He had scarcely gone before I heard: "My dear Mrs. Potiphar, the sight of you is refreshing as Hermon's dew." I colored a little; Mr. Cheese says such things so softly. But I said good morning, and then asked him about liveries, etc. He raised his hand to his cravat (it was the most snowy lawn, Carrie, and tied in a splendid bow). "Is not this a livery, dear Mrs. Potiphar?" And then he went off into one of those pretty talks, in what Mr. P. calls "the language of artificial flowers," and wound up by quoting Scripture Servants, obey your masters." 66 That was enough for me. So I told Mr. Cheese that, as he had already assisted me in colors once, I should be most glad to have him do so again. What a time we had, to be sure, talking of colors, and cloths, and gaiters, and buttons, and knee-breeches, and waistcoats, and plush, and coats, and lace, and hatbands, and gloves, and cravats, and cords, and tassels, and hats. Oh! it was delightful. You can't fancy how heartily the Rev. Cream entered into the matter. He was quite enthusiastic, and at last he said, with so much expression: "Dear Mrs. Potiphar, why not have a chasseur?" I thought it was some kind of French dish for lunch, so I said: "I am so sorry, but we haven't any in the house." "Oh," said he, "but you could hire one, you know." |