THE CHAPEL. OF THE HERMITS.
"In days when throne and altar heard
The wanton's wish, the bigot's word,
And pomp of state and ritual show
Scarce hid the loathsome death below,-
"Midst fawning priests and courtiers foul,
The losel swarm of crown and cowl,
White-robed walked Francois Fenelon,
Stainless as Uriel in the sun!
"Yet in his time the stake blazed red,
The poor were eaten up like bread;
Men knew him not: his garment's hem
No healing virtue had for them.
"Alas! no present saint we find;
The white cymar gleams far behind,
Revealed in outline vague, sublime,
Through telescopic mists of time!
“Trust not in man with passing breath,
But in the Lord, old Scripture saith;
The truth which saves thou may'st not blend
With false professor, faithless friend.
"Search thine own heart.
In others in thyself may be;
All dust is frail, all flesh is weak;
Be thou the true man thou dost seek!
"Where now with pain thou treadest, trod
The whitest of the saints of God!
To show thee where their feet were set,
The light which led them shineth yet.
"The foot-prints of the life divine,
Which marked their path, remain in thine;
And that great Life, transfused in theirs,
Awaits thy faith, thy love, thy prayers!"
A lesson which I well may heed,
A word of fitness to my need;
So from that twilight cool and gray
Still saith a voice, or seems to say.
We rose, and slowly homeward turned,
While down the west the sunset burned;
And, in its light, hill, wood, and tide,
And human forms, seemed glorified.
The village homes transfigured stood,
And purple bluffs, whose belting wood
Across the waters leaned to hold
The yellow leaves like lamps of gold.
Then spake my friend:-" Thy words are true Forever old, forever new,
These home-seen splendors are the same
Which over Eden's sunsets came.
"To these bowed heavens let wood and hill
Lift voiceless praise and anthems still;
Fall, warm with blessing, over them,
Light of the New Jerusalem!
"Flow on, sweet river, like the stream
Of John's Apocalyptic dream!
This mapled ridge shall Horeb be,
Yon green-banked lake our Galilee!
"Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more
For olden time and holier shore;
God's love and blessing, then and there,
Are now and here and everywhere."
AND the angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel, gave me an answer, and said,
"Thy heart hath gone too far in this world, and thinkest thou to comprehend the way of the Most High? "
Then said I, "Yea, my Lord."
Then said he unto me, "Go thy way, weigh me the weight of the fire, or measure me the blast of the wind, or call me again the day that is past "-2 Esdras, chap. iv.
A BENDING staff I would not break,
A feeble faith I would not shake,
Nor even rashly pluck away
The error which some truth may stay,
Whose loss might leave the soul without
A shield against the shafts of doubt.
And yet, at times, when over all
A darker mystery seems to fall,
(May God forgive the child of dust,
Who seeks to know, where Faith should trust
I raise the questions, old and dark,
Of Uzdom's tempted patriarch,
And, speech-confounded, build again
The baffled tower of Shinar's plain.
I am: how little more I know!
Whence came I? Whither do I go?
A centred self, which feels and is;
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