With sapience of right and wrong endowed,
And charged, however fallen, debased, destroyed;
However lost, forlorn, and miserable;

In guilt's dark shrouding wrapped, however thick;
However drunk, delirious, and mad,

With sin's full cup; and with whatever damned,
Unnatural diligence it work and toil,

Can banish Virtue from its sight, or once
Forget that she is fair. Hides it in night,
In central night; takes it the lightnings wing,
And flies forever on, beyond the bounds
Of all; drinks it the maddest cup of sin;
Dives it beneath the ocean of despair;
It dives, it drinks, it flies, it hides in vain.
For still the eternal beauty, image fair,
Once stamped upon the soul, before the eye
All lovely stands, nor will depart; so God
Ordains; and lovely to the worst she seems,
And ever seems; and as they look, and still
Must ever look, upon her loveliness,

Remembrance dire of what they were, of what
They might have been, and bitter sense of what
They are, polluted, ruined, hopeless, lost,
With most repenting torment rend their hearts.
So God ordains, their punishment severe,
Eternally inflicted by themselves.

"Tis this, this Virtue hovering evermore
Before the vision of the damned, and in
Upon their monstrous moral nakedness
Casting unwelcome light, that makes their wo,
That makes the essence of the endless flame.
Where this is, there is hell; darker than aught
That he, the bard, three-visioned, darkest saw."

Such

We are glad to find such views as these becoming more and more prominent; not so much for the sake of the humble believer, who, having once felt assured that the Bible is the word of God, receives, without questioning, whatever that word reveals-though it must be a help to him to catch glimpses of the reasons for all that God has ordained-but because it serves to counteract the influence of those who set aside the authority of the Bible, where convenience requires it; or professedly admitting it, torture its meaning, or render it unmeaning, that it may not speak contrary to their notions of what God should do, and God should be. treat the denunciations of eternal woe as if they must necessarily be the mere arbitrary threatenings of a severe judge; and therefore, with them, eternal woe cannot mean eternal woe, and God still be merciful. They have never asked themselves, whether, taking our views of the Bible, God may not have presented the strongest possible motives to man here, and whether any thing beyond these, instead of alluring man from vice, would not drive him madly into deeper sin. They have but superficially considered the effects of purity presented to an impure, or holiness to an unholy mind. "Horrible doctrine," they cry, "that God should condemn man to eternal misery for the sins of time." Just as if through all eternity God would not suffer man to be happy.

There is a vague impression that men would not go on forever and ever enduring unmixed misery, if the agonized soul could by any effort free itself and find joy. But God, in his benevolence, has ordained that the joys of eternity shall spring from holiness alone; and who is prepared to say that measureless suffering will drive man to pray for that with all the heart? And if the evil passions are never to be satisfied in the other world, will man therefore turn away from them? How is it in the present world? Are not unsated lust, and ungratified envy, and hate, causes of misery? Needs he that lusts, and envies, and hates, be informed that they are? Is not his spirit stretched hourly upon the rack; and needs he be told who bind him there? If hate cannot avenge itself, nor envy rejoice over the fall of the envied, nor lust satiate its beastly longing, will telling the man this, cut his cords, and set him free from the torture? Does not the very despair give a blind and wild energy to his passions? Does he not cling closer and closer to his torment? Though it sounds of paradox, does not his very torture make his delight? If those, who, to rid themselves of hard thoughts of God, are ready to give up the plain meaning of the Bible, would but substitute the terms holiness, and unholiness, for happiness, and misery, there is a possibility that in good time they might be able to reconcile God's goodness, and the truth of his book. Let them take along with them the principle that in the future world, mixed character, and mixed happiness and suffering will be at an end; that man, assimilated either to his God, or to evil spirits, will be conscious of happiness only as an effluence of holiness, or of misery only as an effluence of sin; and then they may come to the conclusion that all the incongruity had been in their own brains; and each one of them, be at last ready to say, with sincerity, in the language of one who scarcely acted up to his profession, "I have no ambition to be a philosopher in opposition to Paul, or to postpone Christ to Aristotle."

In expressing our approbation of the passages which have given rise to these suggestions, we cannot but regret that the principle held in them does not discover itself more in the tenth book. We would not have had it the sole pervading principle; for we read in the Bible of God's anger against the wicked, and his direct punishment of them hereafter; and though we may not be able fully to comprehend the natures or modes or reasons of these, we will not fall into the very errors to which we have been objecting, and to rid ourselves of difficulties, resolve the whole into mere self-torture. We believe the terms to have a distinct meaning from that, and a fearful one too; and suppose it the part of justice that punishment should follow on the heels of crime; and that if a being will go on forever making war, though a vain one, against an all-holy, and happy state, it is right that he should suffer evil from without for his rebel pride, and hate of goodness.

VOL. I.

67

The principle of benevolence may be here acting along with that of justice; and it may be one of the means of maintaining beings of freewill steadfast in virtue, that where crime is obdurate they should not only witness self-paining sin, but behold also the direct displeasure of God turned against it. The fact that he who dies in his sins will voluntarily persevere in them forever under all their evil consequences, may likewise be used to the same end; and thus sin, which had set itself in array against God's scheme of mingled holiness and happiness, be brought to thwart its own evil intent, and made to give stability to that government which it would fain overthrow. Let the bright angel now standing by God's throne, see the evil spirits restored, as some dream they will be, and who can tell that pride would not arm him against his Maker, and the standard of sin be again lifted in the heavens, and uproar, and shoutings of revolt be heard ringing through the joyous and glittering hosts that are now sending up the cry, Glory to God in the highest? Then would the firm state of heaven be shaken, revolt crowd upon revolt, and pardon on revolt, and then revolt, and the shoreless universe be left heaving through eternity, a restless, eversurging sea. Would this be benevolence? And yet we fear it would be thus, or must be as God has declared it shall be.

We have neither time nor inclination to pursue these speculations further at present, though they might be presented in a variety of lights, and be multiplied an hundred fold. If our faith took hold upon nothing more in eternity than that of which we could explain the shape, and purposes, we would cut loose at once, and let the current of time drift us whither it would.

It is time that we gave our readers a few more extracts from the work before us. As the passage upon Byron has been so often quoted, instead of it, we will extract one nearest to it in spirit. If the reader should be reminded by it of that nobleman, his lordship in return may recall to him the wild and imaginative "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," of Coleridge.

"Great Ocean! too, that morning, thou the call
Of restitution heardst, and reverently

To the last trumpet's voice, in silence, listened.
Great Ocean! strongest of creation's sons,

Unconquerable, unreposed, untired,

That rolled the wild, profound, eternal bass,

In Nature's anthem, and made music, such

As pleased the ear of God! original,
Unmarred, unfaded'work of Deity,
And unburlesqued by mortal's puny skill,

From age to age enduring and unchanged,
Majestical, inimitable, vast,

Loud uttering satire, day and night, on each

Succeeding race, and little pompous work

Of man!-unfallen, religious, holy Sea!

Thou bowedst thy glorious head to none, fearedst none,

Heardst none, to none didst honor, but to God

Thy Maker, only worthy to receive

Thy great obeisance! Undiscovered Sea!

Into thy dark, unknown, mysterious caves,
And secret haunts, unfathomably deep,
Beneath all visible retired, none went,
And came again, to tell the wonders there.
Tremendous Sea! what time thou lifted up

Thy waves on high, and with thy winds and storms
Strange pastime took, and shook thy mighty sides
Indignantly, the pride of navies fell;

Beyond the arm of help, unheard, unseen,

Sunk friend and foe, with all their wealth and war;
And on thy shores, men of a thousand tribes,
Polite and barbarous, trembling stood, amazed,
Confounded, terrified, and thought vast thoughts
Of ruin, boundlessness, omnipotence,

Infinitude, eternity; and thought

And wondered still, and grasped, and grasped, and grasped
Again; beyond her reach, exerting all

The soul, to take thy great idea in,

To comprehend incomprehensible;

And wondered more, and felt their littleness.
Self-purifying, unpolluted Sea!

Lover unchangeable, thy faithful breast
For ever heaving to the lovely Moon,
That, like a shy and holy virgin, robed

In saintly white walked nightly in the heavens,
And to the everlasting serenade

Gave gracious audience; nor was wooed in vain.
That morning, thou, that slumbered not before,
Nor slept, great Ocean! laid thy waves to rest,
And hushed thy mighty minstrelsy. No breath
Thy deep composure stirred, no fin, no oar;
Like beauty newly dead, so calm, so still,
So lovely, thou, beneath the light that fell
From angel-chariots, sentinelled on high,
Reposed, and listened, and saw thy living change,
Thy dead arise

The vain endeavors of man to escape death and the thoughts of death are thus described:

"He turned aside, he drowned himself in sleep,

In wine, in pleasure; travelled, voyaged, sought
Receipts for health from all he met; betook
To business, speculate, retired; returned

Again to active life, again retired;

Returned, retired again; prepared to die;

Talked of thy nothingness, conversed of life

To come, laughed at his fears, filled up the cup,

Drank deep, refrained; filled up, refrained again;

Planned, built him round with splendor, won applause,

Made large alliances with men and things,

Read deep in science and philosophy,

To fortify his soul; heard lectures prove

The present ill and future good; observed

His pulse beat regular, extended hope;

Thought, dissipated thought, and thought again;
Indulged, abstained, and tried a thousand schemes,
To ward thy blow, or hide thee from his eye;
But still thy gloomy terrors, dipped in sin,
Before him frowned, and withered all his joy.
Still feared and hated thing! thy ghostly shape
Stood in his avenues of fairest hope;
Unmannerly and uninvited, crept
Into his haunts of most select delight.
Still, on his halls of mirth, and banqueting,

And revelry, thy shadowy hand was seen
Writing thy name of Death."

The following is the gentle call of nature to man :

"The Seasons came and went, and went and came,
To teach men gratitude; and as they passed,
Gave warning of the lapse of Time, that else
Had stolen unheeded by. The gentle Flowers
Retired, and, stooping o'er the wilderness,
Talked of humility, and peace, and love.
The Dews came down unseen at evening-tide,
And silently their bounties shed, to teach
Mankind unostentatious charity.

With arm in arm the forest rose on high,
And lesson gave of brotherly regard."

As an accompaniment, we give part of the lament over the general decay of nature.

"Ye flowers of beauty, penciled by the hand
Of God, who annually renewed your birth,
To gem the virgin robes of Nature chaste,
Ye smiling-featured daughters of the Sun!
Fairer than queenly bride, by Jordan's stream
Leading your gentle lives, retired, unseen;
Or on the sainted cliffs on Zion hill

Wandering, and holding with the heavenly dews,
In holy revelry, your nightly loves,

Watched by the stars, and offering, every morn,
Your incense grateful both to God and man ;-
Ye lovely gentle things, alas! no spring
Shall ever wake you now! ye withered all,
All in a moment drooped, and on your roots
The grasp of everlasting winter seized!
Children of song, ye birds that dwelt in air,
And stole your notes from angels' lyres, and first
In levee of the morn, with eulogy

Ascending, hailed the advent of the dawn;
Or, roosted on the pensive evening bough,

In melancholy numbers, sung the day

To rest;-your little wings, failing, dissolved,

In middle air, and on your harmony

Perpetual silence fell!"

Pride is thus set forth as the great cause of man's fall:

"Pride, self-adoring pride, was primal cause

Of all sin passed, all pain, all wo to come.
Unconquerable pride! first, eldest sin,

Great fountain-head of evil! highest source,
Whence flowed rebellion 'gainst the Omnipotent,
Whence hate of man to man, and all else ill.
Pride at the bottom of the human heart
Lay, and gave root and nourishment to all
That grew above. Great ancestor of vice!
Hate, unbelief, and blasphemy of God;
Envy and slander, malice and revenge;
And murder, and deceit, and every birth
Of damned sort, was progeny of pride.
It was the ever-moving, acting force,
The constant aim, and the most thirsty wish
Of every sinner unrenewed, to be
A god; in purple or in rags to have