THE SHADOW AND THE

LIGHT.

"And sought, whence is Evil: I set before the eye of my spirit the whole creation; whatsoever we see therein, - sea, earth, air, stars, trees, moral creatures, yea, whatsoever thereis we do not see,- angels and spiritual powers. Where is evil, and whence comes it, since God the Good hath created all things? Why made He anything at all of evil, and not rather by His Allmightiness cause it not to be? These thoughts I turned in my miserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing cares." "And, admonished to return to myself, I entered even into my inmost soul, Thou being my guide, and beheld even beyond my soul and mind the Light unchangeable. He who knows the Truth knows what that Light is, and he that knows it knows Eternity! O Truth, who art Eternity! Love, who art Truth! Eternity, who art Love! And I beheld that Thou madest all things good, and to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil. the angel to the worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its place, and everything is good in its kind. Woe is me!-how high art Thou in the highest, how deep in the deepest! and Thou never departest from us and we scarcely return to Thee."- Augustine's Soliloquies, Book VII.

From

The Sphinx sits at the gate of life, With the old question on her awful lips.

In paths unknown we hear the feet

Of fear before, and guilt behind; We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind.

From age to age descends unchecked

The sad bequest of sire to son, The body's taint, the mind's defect, Through every web of life the dark threads run.

O, why and whither?- God knows all;

I only know that he is good, And that whatever may befall Or here or there, must be the best that could.

Between the dreadful cherubim

A Father's face I still discern, As Moses looked of old on him, And saw his glory into goodness turn!

For he is merciful as just;

And so, by faith correcting sight, I bow before his will, and trust Howe'er they seem he doeth all things right.

And dare to hope that he will make The rugged smooth, the doubtful plain;

His mercy never quite forsake; His healing visit every realm of pain;

That suffering is not his revenge Upon his creatures weak and frail

Sent on a pathway new and strange With feet that wander and with eyes that fail;

That, o'er the crucible of pain,

Watches the tender eye of Love The slow transmuting of the chain Whose links are iron below to gold above!

Ah me! we doubt the shining skies,

Seen through our shadows of offence, And drown with our poor childish cries The cradle-hymn of kindly Providence.

And still we love the evil cause,

And of the just effect complain; We tread upon life's broken laws, And murmur at our self-inflicted pain;

We turn us from the light, and find Our spectral shapes before us thrown,

As they who leave the sun behind Walk in the shadows of themselves alone.

And scarce by will or strength of ours We set our faces to the day; Weak, wavering, blind, the Eternal Powers

Alone can turn us from ourselves away.

Our weakness is the strength of sin,

But love must needs be stronger far, Outreaching all and gathering in The erring spirit and the wandering

star.

A Voice grows with the growing years; Earth, hushing down her bitter cry, Looks upward from her graves, and hears, "The Resurrection and the Life am I."

O Love Divine ! - whose constant beam

Shines on the eyes that will not see, And waits to bless us, while we dream Thou leavest us because we turn from thee !

All souls that struggle and aspire,

All hearts of prayer by thee are lit ;

Thereat the Abbot paused; the chain whereby

His thoughts went upward broken by that cry;

And, looking from the casement, saw below

A wretched woman, with gray hair a-flow,

And withered hands held up to him, who cried

For alms as one who might not be denied.

She cried, "For the dear love of Him who gave

His life for ours, my child from bondage save,

My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with slaves

In the Moor's galley, where the sunsmit waves

Lap the white walls of Tunis!"— "What I can

I give," Tritemius said: "my prayers." -"O man

Of God!" she cried, for grief had made

her bold,

"Mock me not thus; I ask not prayers, but gold.

Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice;

Even while I speak perchance my firstborn dies."

"Woman!" Tritemius answered, "from our door

None go unfed; hence are we always poor:

A single soldo is our only store. Thou hast our prayers; - what can we give thee more?"

"Give me," she said, "the silver candlesticks

On either side of the great crucifix. God well may spare them on his errands sped,,

Or he can give you golden ones instead."

Then spake Tritemius, "Even as thy word,

Woman, so be it! (Our most gracious Lord,

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Breathe through these throngs
Your battle songs,

Your scaffold prayers, and dungeon psalms!

Look from the sky,

Like God's great eye,

Thou solemn moon, with searching beam;

Till in the sight

Of thy pure light

Our mean self-seekings meaner seem.

Shame from our hearts
Unworthy arts,

The fraud designed, the purpose dark;
And smite away
The hands we lay

Profanely on the sacred ark.

To party claims
And private aims,

Reveal that august face of Truth,
Whereto are given

The age of heaven,

The beauty of immortal youth.

So shall our voice
Of sovereign choice

Swell the deep bass of duty done,
And strike the key

Of time to be,

When God and man shall speak as one!

God is: and man in guilt and fear

The central fact of Nature owns ;Kneels, trembling, by his altar-stones, And darkly dreams the ghastly smear Of blood appeases and atones.

Guilt shapes the Terror: deep within
The human heart the secret lies
Of all the hideous deities;
And, painted on a ground of sin,

The fabled gods of torment rise!

And what is He?-The ripe grain nods, The sweet dews fall, the sweet flowers blow:

But darker signs his presence show: The earthquakeand the storm are God's, And good and evil interflow.

O hearts of love! O souls that turn
Like sunflowers to the pure and best!
To you the truth is manifest:
For they the mind of Christ discern
Who lean like John upon his breast!

I him of whom the sibyl told,
For whom the prophet's harp was
toned,

Whose need the sage and magian owned,

The loving heart of God behold,

The hope for which the ages groaned!

Fade, pomp of dreadful imagery

Wherewith mankind have deified Their hate, and selfishness, and pride! Let the scared dreamer wake to see

The Christ of Nazareth at his side!

What doth that holy Guide require?-
No rite of pain, nor gift of blood,
But man a kindly brotherhood,
Looking, where duty is desire,

To him, the beautiful and good.

Gone be the faithlessness of fear, And let the pitying heaven's sweet rain

Wash out the altar's bloody stain; The law of Hatred disappear,

The law of Love alone remain.

How fall the idols false and grim!

And lo! their hideous wreck above

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The emblems of the Lamb and Dove! Man turns from God, not God from him; And guilt, in suffering, whispers Love!

The world sits at the feet of Christ, Unknowing, blind, and unconsoled; It yet shall touch his garment's fold, And feel the heavenly Alchemist

Transform its very dust to gold.

The theme befitting angel tongues

Beyond a mortal's scope has grown. O heart of mine! with reverence own The fulness which to it belongs,

And trust the unknown for the known.

IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH STURGE.

IN the fair land o'erwatched by Ischia's mountains,

Across the charmed bay Whose blue waves keep with Capri's silver fountains Perpetual holiday,

A king lies dead, his wafer duly eaten, His gold-bought masses given; And Rome's great altar smokes with gums to sweeten

Her foulest gift to Heaven.

And while all Naples thrills with mute thanksgiving,

The court of England's queen For the dead monster so abhorred while living

In mourning garb is seen.

With a true sorrow God rebukes that feigning;

By lone Edgbaston's side Stands a great city in the sky's sad raining,

Bare-headed and wet-eyed!

Silent for once the restless hive of labor,
Save the low funeral tread,
Or voice of craftsman whispering to his
neighbor

The good deeds of the dead.