Excerpt: ...now is not, - By Niger thy bright home, thy Paradise, Unscathed of flame, and foe, and hostile spears. THE MARVELLOUS WORK. "Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me"-Whitman Not yet, for all their quest of it, have men Cast wholly by the ignoble dread of truth! Each of God's laws, if but so late discerned Their faiths upgrew unsuckled in it, fills Their hearts with angry fears, perchance lest God Be dwarfed behind his own decrees, or made Superfluous through his perfectness of deed! But large increase of ...
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Excerpt: ...now is not, - By Niger thy bright home, thy Paradise, Unscathed of flame, and foe, and hostile spears. THE MARVELLOUS WORK. "Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me"-Whitman Not yet, for all their quest of it, have men Cast wholly by the ignoble dread of truth! Each of God's laws, if but so late discerned Their faiths upgrew unsuckled in it, fills Their hearts with angry fears, perchance lest God Be dwarfed behind his own decrees, or made Superfluous through his perfectness of deed! But large increase of knowledge in these days Is come about us, fraught with ill for them Whose creeds are cut too straight to hold new growth, Whose faiths are clamped against access of wisdom; Fraught with some sadness, too, for those just souls Who, clothed in rigid teachings found too scant, Are fain to piece the dear accustomed garb, Till here a liberal, there a literal fragment, Here new, there old, here bright, there dark, disclose Their vestiture a strange discordant motley. But O rare motley, -starred with thirst of truth, Patched with desire of wisdom, zoned about With passion for fresh knowledge, and the quest Of right! Such motley may be made at last, Through grave sincerity, a dawn-clear garment! But, for the enfranchised spirit, this expanse Immeasurable of broad-horizoned view, - What rapt, considerate awe it summons forth, What adoration of the Eternal Cause! His days unmeasured ages, His designs Unfold through age-long silences, through surge Of world upheaval, coming to their aim As swerveless in fit time as tho' His finger But yesterday ordained, and wrought to-day. How the Eternal's unconcern of time, - Omnipotence that hath not dreamed of haste, - Is graven in granite-moulding aeons' gloom; Is told in stony record of the roar Of long Silurian storms, and tempests huge Scourging the circuit of Devonian seas; Is whispered in the noiseless mists, the gray Soft drip of clouds about rank fern-forests, Through dateless terms that...
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