expresses a will so surely and fully insphered in the Divine will that it not only can pass, like the splendid Grecian's, from Persian luxury to Spartan austerity, and be serene and unconquerable in both, but can breast continual severities and yet abide embosomed in peace-such a life, never dies. It may go on within the limits of an even obscure household; but the beautiful fragrance of it cannot be hidden. It may terminate, for the earth, at its very meridian; yet the virtue and the power of it shall survive its phenomena. It does, in its sphere, what He did in his, whose life though lowly and closed in gloom, has been the germ of civilizations and of worships. It is here that we recognize the real brotherhood among Workers; that we see how they all are forwarding Millennium. Their aim is to measure them; not their present accomplishment. This aim, in its unity, allies each one with every other; the humblest, with the mightiest. Even the present accomplishment of the humblest, too, may be greater than it seems. The golden thread gives brilliance to a tissue. The drooping branch springs up again in pillared stems. "Tis a little thing To give a cup of water; yet its draught, The maiden, or the matron, therefore, in her gentler sphere; the man who instructs the young in their duties; the man who distributes truth from the pulpit, and seeks to express to men the powers of the Invisible; the man who pleads causes, in the spirit of justice; the man who applies new mechanical powers to advance human welfare, and harnesses forces irresistible and unwearying to the car of man's progress, that God may be honored in it; the man who scatters his wealth for others' good, and makes it descend as light and as dew on the fainting and the darkened; the man who enlightens the sick-room with. his kindness, and makes the pain which he seeks to relieve a minister to goodness; the man who balances stars on his scales, and holds them pendulous on the grasp of his words, that he may reveal their lesson of Deity; the man who in statesmanship stands for humanity, and who will not yield duty though the world shake beneath him; the soul that interprets the harmonies of the universe, in the spirit of purity, through the mystery of a song that holds the world's hushed ear and throbbing heart at its command; and the soul that moves softly in the prosaic paths of a daily obedience to recognized duty;-ALL these are alike! In the vast church of God, which includes all the God-like, whose sacraments are self-devotions, whose liturgies are lives, whose offices are mighty and glad obediences, and whose sabbath is Eternity, all such are embraced. They are heirs of the Universe; for they succor the interests of which that is the theatre. In the record and publication of such actions and lives, history becomes illustrious. It gathers from them a distinction and an office, almost akin to those which were given to the ordinary Jewish supper when laden with the memory of the sublimest self-sacrifice. It is in the accumulation, and the constant reproduction of such lives among men, that the Future, as one of truth and of goodness, becomes secure. The voices are conspiring; from manifold and ever-increasing points, across oceans and hemispheres, the harps and viols are balancing their strings, that bye-and-bye shall strike into this anthem. The visions of Poetry, the hope of Philanthropy, the promises of Prophecy, shall thus be fulfilled, and a better than the age of Astrea return. When the knowledge and the benevolence which God calls wisdom' are made universal, the harmony of those orbs that now move serenely on their supernal round, and there seem ever choiring in praises unto God, will be but as the prelude to this far diviner hymn, encompassing the earth, and swelling in its peal through Heaven's great arches. The noblest office our nature can accomplish, is in realizing such a life. Then, it vindicates and justifies the Power that framed it. Then, it rises to alliance, and interior sympathy, with the noble of the Past; whose names have been written on pillories and in dungeons, but afterwards in letters of marble and of gold on the archways of Liberty. Then, it bears on its front the baptism of His spirit who made the earth a temple in his advent, and over whose ascent the skies were parted. Yea, then we come, when we realize such a life-either common in its incidents or conspicuous and imposing, either long in its progress or sharply closed, but ever determined to the ends of benevolence, and made to contribute to a wider well-beingthen we come to alliance with the Infinite himself; who formed these systems, who now upholds them, to make them the platform of the progress we assist! It is wonderful to see how the natural is pervaded and exalted by the supernatural, in all man's being, and in his works; how near he stands to spirits. and the Infinite; so that not as passive beings, physically imaging, but as free and intelligent beings, consciously expressing, we may show forth the qualities and powers of our Author, and labor for the interests that are dear to His mind. Therefore does he give us revelation, and his Son; and seek to exalt us to communion with himself. Not as finished works, but as the bases of such works, did he erect these visible systems; that Righteousness and Truth might be established upon them, and perfect happiness be secured in obedience to these! Whosoever labors, then, in the maintenance of these and their diffusion in the creation, is a co-worker with his Author. He is borne upon an influence from the throne which is our He moves in the line of creation and incarnation; and the energy of the first, the endurance yet also the victory of the last, are imaged in his experience. HE ULTIMATES, IN THE GOD-LIKE. centre. In this is realized the True Success of Human Life. The fact shines on us; starlike, self-demonstrating. No matter what the world has thought of such an one. No matter what fortunes have encompassed him on earth. No matter what annals have been careless of his fame. Though he have labored in comparative obscurity, like Granville Sharpe; though he have had to struggle against outward wasting and pain, and more severely against inward passion, like the noble Beccaria; though he have burned at the stake, like John of Huss, or been choked with the cord, like Savonarola; though he have died without the sight, like sorrowful prophets; have been fronted by hatred, and broken upon power, like great apostles; have died, like the Master, in the midst of his manhood;-his success has been realized. As a child of the Universe, he has filled his vocation. He can say " It is finished." A noble brotherhood takes the custody of his name. Long centuries of culture come to fruitage in his career. Yea, the influence of his maker, more than on rocked and gleaming summits, or waves that stood as marble beneath the tread, is shown in his experience. The true apotheosis, is this ascent of the soul, till it rests out of sight in perfected attainment. The apotheosis of man, and the incarnation of God-'the summits, respectively,' as Ackerman has said, 'of Heathen and of Christian faith,'-are both shadowed in the experience of him, who aspires toward his Author, till he finds Him within; who ascends, through endurance and labor, to his rest! The Temple is then built, to its noblest proportion; and the Temple is filled, with the service and the Shekinah. To train the youthful mind to this athletic and beneficent maturity, is the office of the Educator. It is an office of immeasurable grandeur. To train men for this, and to give them opportunity and occasion for its expression, is the office of all the permanent institutions which God in his benignant economy has provided for the world. The Family, is to nurture the open ing powers, and to teach them to unfold with freest progress, in the beauty of love. The Church, is to gather many families in one assembly, and to circulate among them its powers and truths, for their further advancement in all that is noblest. The State, with its founded and fortified walls, is to encircle and guard these primordial institutions, and in its province to help them in working out their results. The system is complete. So simple though it is, it is perfectly sufficient. It has vindicated its authority, and illustrated God's wisdom, wherever it has been even approximately realized. But let either of the three coöperating institutions be dropped from the circle, as in the aspiration and theory of Socialism, and the virtue of all is limited or eliminated. Let either of them cease to act for its true end, and its authority has departed. No blessing of God accepts and enshrines it. If a church, instead of training its families by the truth, and so developing a pure life in them, shall tickle them with shows, and degrade them into selfishness by assuring them of an outward and purchasable salvation; if a family shall be changed to a transient collection of persons whom caprice or lust have assembled, whose relation is not of marriage but of concubinage, whose children are the property of others and not subject to the parents, and where the whole group may be scattered in a day by insolvency or by death; if a state shall make its own greatness its end, and subordinate to this the wellbeing of its subjects, ceasing to shelter and seeking to use them, building up from the wrecks of their happiness and progress its own solid masonries;—then, in every such case, the authority of that institution has departed. No benison from our Author rests thereafter upon it. As a traitor and a spoiler it is ready for judgment. It cannot escape, in the assize of History! Artistic talent and accomplishment are likewise to be measured in their value, and assigned to their true place, from this point of view. Art has an office. It is not for amusement only, or for sensuous pleasure. The moral is its essence. The significance it reveals, as addressed to the inner faculty of man ; the relation it bears to his true and high culture; the force it contributes toward great and wise action;-these are the just criteria of its worth. They determine its Future. Herein is the ultimate law of criticism, which all its minor canons must express. One hand paints a picture, elaborate and ornate, where exquisite lines and sumptuous colors intoxicate the sense, but where only the faculty of taste is gratified; and another smites the canvas with almost frenzied and violent haste, yet wreaking a lesson in every line; and the latter shall reign, when the other has perished. It shall be free of the Ages. Civil ization shall adopt it, and carry forward its impulse. Herein resides the authority of the Masters; in their self-consecration, surpassing their talent. There are single heads by Angelo, or Murillo, which contain in their lines and inspiring expression the grandest discourses. These live, of course. No matter how taste changes, or fashions of costume. The World, which is inwardly conscious of a destiny, cannot lose such assistants. The Race in its unity is wiser than in its parts. The great and deep consent of humanity, in all countries and ages, attests the supremacy of virtue above enjoyment, of the moral over the esthetic. Whatever in Art, therefore, asserts the Ideal and moves men toward it, whatever imparts to them spiritual force, and helps them to accomplish more perfectly their mission, becomes immortal. So in Music. The strains that live and march through centuries, harmonizing races and different civilizations through their majestic spiritual power, are those which touch and arouse the soul, exalting it to new attainment and strength, or stringing it for sublime and beneficent endeavor. So, also, in Architecture; that incorporate music. So in literary labor. The words that are permanently impelling and memorable, outlasting occasions and winning wide audience, the treatises that survive and immortalize their authors, are those which sustain real relations to this culture; which make the man more man-like and divine. And the most brilliant rhetoric, which has not this virtue, flies like the shaft too lightly timbered, against the wind. Then does all attainment become of use, scholastic acquisition accomplishing its end and rising instantly to its mighty bloom, when it utters great truths, and impresses them on others; exalting them by this mastery. Yea, then is revealed the glory of Genius; in its power to arrest and transform human action, and to advance men toward a noble manhood. It is mitred and anointed by this, a priest for God. If it fails in its office, retribution will be upon it. The true University; it is venerable and august, in its relation to this manhood. The law of its structure is revealed as we here regard it. Its function is, and its grand prerogative, to advance its students effectually toward this. We mistake and underrate it, when we judge it from another and lower level. Its end is not reached in the imparting of knowledge. Its aim should be knowledge, in order to Development; and knowledge and development, in order to Action; to action with tongue, and pen, and life, for the permanent interests of goodness and truth. It is by reference to this that it becomes, to the State which endows it and the history which it moulds, a centre of dignity, of illumination and of progress. It is fitly inaugurated |
