Not always so. Lift up your heads, ye poor; your redemption shall come, your hour is at hand. Jesus was poor; God's glad message is through him to your stricken hearts. Priest and King, Bishop and Noble, Mighty and Rich, are nothing to him. He knows nought but man, whom he shall restore to himself. Blessing on thee, man ! Sacred, venerable, thy name! Thou shalt live, the divine germ of thy nature shall yet expand and grow, and bear celestial fruit, God's own Freedom and Truth and Love. Deeper woe, surer hope, sang the second;

Nor freedom, nor truth, nor love, groweth of redemption from these outward bonds. Broken be those bonds! God speed the rescue! But the holy fountain of life wells. out from within. Oh! when shall that fountain be open. and flow?

Through heaven, earth, ocean, moon, stars, one inward spirit lives, breathes, nourishes all. Through soul of man that spirit lives most vitally, breathes mightiest, as itself. Finds spirit but spirit to welcome and interpret its mysterious presence, there is holiest communion. God is in us; we in God; divinest life! fountain of freedom, of manhood, of a Godlike age!

Woe, woe, woe to the sons of men! they have belied their nature, belied God. Man a beast, so have they said; God mechanic power. In the universal spirit they behold but might and skill. Infinite love, once in God, in all spirit, whither is thy flight? Men see thee not. Thy light-life was in all, thy dove-wings hovered over all; where dwellest thou now?

Where thou art, there God is, in God, freedom, truth, blessedness. Where thou art not, in rich or poor, mighty or feeble, lord or vassal, God is not, nor aught divine. Deepest of laws, mightiest of powers! eternal fountain, whence true law, right power, hath flowed evermore! Men, ancient, modern, dream of some outward laws and powers, in nature, in their ages, and obey them. They have obeyed the soulless voice, and gained soulless wealth. See! These splendid palaces, these rich store-houses, these hunting-grounds, these fruitful plantations, these horses and coaches and gay dresses! All are of obedience to law; but what law? Sure, other than the deepest, the everlasting. Nothing here of divinity: Law there is, in

which God dwelleth evermore; law of spirit, prolific of spiritual fruit; divine, wherein God goeth forth to bless the soul, and in soul the universe; life of the Father, Love.

Proud things cannot raise thee without it. Low things cannot debase thee with it. Neither proud nor mean, neither high nor low, where this law dwells. All are one in God. Out of Him through all, one boundless blessed harmony. The ages themselves of men, it swayeth at will; woe to him who severs his age from its eternal oneness !

Law to winds, waves, heaving seas, of our time; in all through all; first, midst, last of all. Whoso walketh in it, is in freedom and joy. Whoso walketh out of it, is in slavery and wretchedness. Man fell, when he ceased to love; his rise is in the birth of love. Man! thou art wretched, for thou hast shut thy heart to God; open thy soul unto Him, be thyself again, thou in God, God in thee; then shalt thou be the life of new ages, central orb of boundless radiance. Evolve of thy purer self, let grow from thy reborn spirit, the epoch of a true manhood; so shalt thou be free, blessed within, without. So shalt thou meet anew thine inmost life reflected in the calmness and infinitude which surrounds thee. So shalt thou greet unceasingly the divine light, going forth of thy soul to re-appear in all outward things, in this fair earth, in the serene moon, in stars and sun, in air and sky. So shall thy free soul dwell in the infinite of freedom; so thy being live and unfold itself in the communion of purest spirit. So, wherever man is, there shall the word of a highest inspiration be fulfilled. We have known and believed the love that God hath to us; God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

S.

AFTERNOON.

I LE upon the earth and feed upon the sky,
Drink in the soft, deep blue, falling from on high.
Walnut boughs, all steeped in gold, quiver to and fro;
Winds, like spirits, murmur, as through the air they go,
My soul is filled with joy and holy faith and love,
For noble friends on earth and angels pure above.
37

VOL. I.

NO. III.

Be thou matter, be thou mind,
In thee alone myself I find,
And through thee alone, for me,
Hath this world reality.
Therefore, in thee will I live,
To thee all myself will give,
Losing still, that I may find,

This bounded self in boundless Mind.

ENDYMION.

YES, it is the queenly Moon,
Gliding through her starred saloon,
Silvering all she looks upon;
I am her Endymion,

For by night she comes to me;
O, I love her wondrously!

She, into my window looks,

As I sit with lamp and books,

When the night-breeze stirs the leaves,

And the dew drops down the eaves;

O'er my shoulder peepeth she;

O, she loves me royally!

Then she tells me many a tale,

With her smile so sheeny pale,

Till my soul is overcast

With such dream-light of the past,

That I saddened needs must be,

And I love her mournfully.

Oft I gaze up in her eyes,
Raying light through winter skies;
Far away she saileth on;
I am no Endymion,
For she is too high for me,
And I love her hopelessly.

Now she comes to me again,
And we mingle joy and pain;
Now she walks no more afar,
Regal with train-bearing star,
But she bends and kisses me;
O we love now mutually!

C.

HYMN AND PRAYER.

INFINITE Spirit! who art round us ever,
In whom we float, as motes in summer sky,
May neither life nor death the sweet bond sever,
Which joins us to our unseen Friend on high.

Unseen - yet not unfelt — if any thought
Has raised our mind from earth, or pure desire,
A generous act, or noble purpose brought,

It is thy breath, O Lord, which fans the fire.

To me, the meanest of thy creatures, kneeling,
Conscious of weakness, ignorance, sin, and shame,
Give such a force of holy thought and feeling,
That I may live to glorify thy name;

That I may conquer base desire and passion,
That I may rise o'er selfish thought and will,
O'ercome the world's allurement, threat, and fashion,
Walk humbly, softly, leaning on thee still.

I ask, whose roots planted in me are found, For precious vines are propped by rudest stake, And heavenly roses fed in darkest ground.

Beneath my leaves, though early fallen and faded,

Young plants are warmed, they drink my branches' dew,

Let them not, Lord, by me be Upas-shaded,

Make me for their sake firm, and pure, and true,

For their sake too, the faithful, wise, and bold,
Whose generous love has been my pride and stay,
Those, who have found in me some trace of gold,
For their sake purify my lead and clay.

And let not all the pains and toil be wasted,
Spent on my youth by saints now gone to rest,
Nor that deep sorrow my Redeemer tasted,

When on his soul the guilt of man was prest.

Tender and sensitive he braved the storm,
That we might fly a well deserved fate,
Poured out his soul in supplication warm,
Looked with his eyes of love on eyes of hate.

Let all this goodness by my mind be seen,
Let all this mercy on my heart be sealed,
Lord, if thou wilt, thy power can make me clean,
O speak the word, thy servant shall be healed.