THE

COURSE OF TIME.

BOOK VIII.

ARGUMENT.

Countless myriads of the human race cover earth, air, and sea. -All in the last pause of expectation. The scene and the aspects of men described. No parallel to this assembly in the annals of Time.-Men in this congregation stripped of all human distinctions. Men discover the folly of their favourite pursuits. The Antiquarian-the Monk-the Controversialist→→→ the Bigot.-Denunciation of Bigotry :-The cruel nature of Persecution :-The Inquisition her favourite retreat :- Her day of retribution arrived.-The Man of Sin:-Falsehood of his absolutions and passports to Paradise.-Miserable state of those who trusted to priests, and prayed by proxy.The Day of Resurrection terminates all the pleasures of Sin.-The Epicure: -The Sceptic. The Tyrant.-The Man of Fashion-His pursuits in Time:The fine lady contrasted with the virtuous matron. The Lunatic :-Causes of madness.-Story of a seduced girl. The corrupt Judge :-The lawyer who employed falsehood and sophistry.-The unfair trader-Custom will not excuse sin. The indolent man finds no neutral ground.-The lying quack-and the dealer in fiction.-The Duellist and Suicide. Erroneous notions of honour and duty that prevailed among men.—The Hypocrite :-Value of a good name.—Virtue often robbed by Vice of her good name.-Rumour :-The infamous tales she spread in Time.-Slander :-Character of the Slanderer.The false Priest :-His snares for souls :-His life worse than his doctrines.-All the ordinary temptations of Time now removed. Envy still finds food.-The envious man: -Critics.-Envy as seen in the place of darkness.-How men believing in wrath to come persisted in the way that led to perdition.-Faith:-Its nature :-The faith that was to salvation. -False and wicked reasonings on man's moral powers and capacities and on faith.-The entire freedom of the human will asserted.

THE

COURSE OF TIME.

BOOK VIII.

REANIMATED, now, and dressed in robes
Of everlasting wear, in the last pause
Of expectation, stood the human race,
Buoyant in air, or covering shore and sea,
From east to west, thick as the eared grain,
In golden autumn waved, from field to field,
Profuse, by Nilus' fertile wave, while yet
Earth was, and men were in her valleys seen.

Still, all was calm in heaven. Nor yet appeared The Judge, nor aught appeared, save here and there, On wing of golden plumage borne at will, A curious angel, that from out the skies Now glanced a look on man, and then retired. As calm was all on earth. The ministers

Of God's unsparing vengeance, waited, still
Unbid. No sun, no moon, no star gave light.
A blest and holy radiance, travelled far
From day original, fell on the face

Of men, and every countenance revealed;
Unpleasant to the bad, whose visages
Had lost all guise of seeming happiness,
With which on earth such pains they took to hide
Their misery in. On their grim features, now
The plain unvisored index of the soul,
The true, untampered witness of the heart,
No smile of hope, no look of vanity
Beseeching for applause, was seen; no scowl
Of self-important, all-despising pride,
That once upon the poor and needy fell,
Like winter on the unprotected flower,
Withering their very being to decay.
No jesting mirth, no wanton leer, was seen,
No sullen lower of braggart fortitude

Defying pain, nor anger, nor revenge ;
But fear instead, and terror, and remorse :
And chief, one passion, to its answering, shaped.
The features of the damned, and in itself
Summed all the rest,-unutterable despair.

What on the righteous shone of foreign light, Was all redundant day they needed not.

For as, by nature, Sin is dark, and loves
The dark, still hiding from itself in gloom,
And in the darkest hell is still itself

The darkest hell, and the severest wo,
Where all is wo; so Virtue, ever fair !
Doth by a sympathy as strong as binds
Two equal hearts, well pleased in wedded love,
For ever seek the light, for ever seek

All fair and lovely things, all beauteous forms,
All images of excellence and truth;

And from her own essential being, pure

As flows the fount of life that spirits drink,
Doth to herself give light; nor from her beams,
As native to her as her own existence,
Can be divorced, nor of her glory shorn,-
Which now from every feature of the just,
Divinely rayed, yet not from all alike:
In measure, equal to the soul's advance
In virtue, was the lustre of the face.

It was a strange assembly: none of all That congregation vast, could recollect Aught like it in the history of man.