As though a star should open out, all sides,

Grow the world on you, as it is my world.

"For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,

And hope and fear, — believe the aged friend,

Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,

How love might be, hath been indeed, and is;

And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermost

Such prize despite the envy of the world,

And, having gained truth, keep truth: that is all.

But see the double way wherein we are led.

How the soul learns diversely from the flesh!

With flesh, that hath so little time to stay,

And yields mere basement for the soul's emprize,

Expect prompt teaching. Helpful was the light,

And warmth was cherishing and food was choice

To every man's flesh, thousand years ago,

As now to yours and mine; the body sprang

At once to the height, and staid: but the soul, no!

Since sages who, this noontide, medi

tate

In Rome or Athens, may descry some point

Of the eternal power, hid yestereve : And, as thereby the power's whole mass extends,

So much extends the ether floating o'er

The love that tops the might, the Christ in God.

Then, as new lessons shall be learned in these

Till earth's work stop and useless time run out,

So duly, daily, needs provision be For keeping the soul's prowess possible,

Building new barriers as the old decay,

Saving us from evasion of life's proof,

give up fire

For gold or purple once he knows its worth?

Could he give Christ up were His worth as plain?

Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs shift,

Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact,

And straightway in his life acknowledge it,

As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire. Sigh ye, It had been easier once than now?'

To give you answer I am left alive; Look at me who was present from the first!

Ye know what things I saw; then came a test,

BE

My first, befitting me who so had

seen:

'Forsake the Christ thou sawest transfigured, Him

Who trod the sea and brought the dead to life?

What should wring this from thee?' -ye laugh and ask. What wrung it? Even a torchlight and a noise,

The sudden Roman faces, violent hands,

And fear of what the Jews might do ! Just that,

And it is written, 'I forsook and fled :'

There was my trial, and it ended thus.

Ay, but my soul had gained its truth, could grow:

Another year or two,- what little child,

What tender woman that had seen no least

Of all my sights, but barely heard them told,

Who did not clasp the cross with a

Such work done, as it will be, what comes next?

What do I hear say, or conceive men say,

Was John at all, and did he say he saw?

Assure us, ere we ask what he might

66

see!'

"Is this indeed a burthen for late days,

And may I help to bear it with you all,

Using my weakness which becomes your strength?

For if a babe were born inside this grot,

Grew to a boy here, heard us praise the sun,

Yet had but yon sole glimmer in light's place,

One loving him and wishful he should learn,

Would much rejoice himself was blinded first

Month by month here, so made to understand

How eyes, born darkling, apprehend amiss:

I think I could explain to such a child

There was more glow outside than gleams he caught,

Ay, nor need urge I saw it, so believe!'

It is a heavy burthen you shall bear In latter days, new lands, or old

Was He revealed in any of His lives,

As Power, as Love, as Influencing Soul?'

"Quick, for time presses, tell the whole mind out,

And let us ask and answer and be saved!

My book speaks on, because it cannot pass;

One listens quietly, nor scoffs but pleads

Here is a tale of things done ages since:

What truth was ever told the second day?

Wonders, that would prove doctrine, go for naught.

Remains the doctrine, love; well, we must love.

And what we love most, power and love in one,

Let us acknowledge on the record here,

Accepting these in Christ: must Christ then be?

Has He been? Did not we ourselves make Him?

Our mind receives but what it holds,

Brought the sun up the east and down the west,

Which only of itself now rises, sets, As if a hand impelled it and a will, Thus they long thought, they who had will and hands: But the new question's whisper is distinct,

Wherefore must all force needs be like ourselves?

We have the hands, the will; what made and drives

The sun is force, is law, is named, not known,

While will and love we do know; marks of these,

Eye-witnesses attest, so books declare

As that, to punish or reward our race, The sun at undue times arose or set Or else stood still: what do not men affirm?

But earth requires as urgently reward Or punishment to-day as years ago, And none expects the sun will inter

pose:

Therefore it was mere passion and mistake,

Or erring zeal for right, which changed the truth.

Go back, far, farther, to the birth of things;

Ever the will, the intelligence, the love,

Man's! which he gives, supposing he but finds,

As late he gave head, body, hands, and feet,

To help these in what forms he called his gods.

First, Jove's brow, Juno's eyes were swept away,

But Jove's wrath, Juno's pride continued long;

As last, will, power, and love dis carded these,

So law in turn discards power, love, and will.

What proveth God is otherwise at least?

All else, projection from the mind of man!

Nay, do not give me wine, for I am strong,

But place my gospel where I put my hands.

"I say that man was made to grow, not stop;

That help, he needed once, and needs

no more,

Having grown but an inch by, is withdrawn:

For he hath new needs, and new helps to these.

This imports solely, man should mount on each

New height in view; the help whereby he mounts,

The ladder-rung his foot has left, may fall,

Since all things suffer change save God the Truth.

Man apprehends Him newly at each stage

Whereat earth's ladder drops, its service done;

And nothing shall prove twice what once was proved.

You stick a garden-plot with ordered twigs

To show inside lie germs of herbs unborn.

And check the careless step would

twigs may go,

Since should ye doubt of virtues, question kinds,

It is no longer for old twigs ye look, Which proved once underneath lay store of seed,

But to the herb's self, by what light ye boast,

For what fruit's signs are. This book's fruit is plain,

Nor miracles need prove it any more. Doth the fruit show? Then miracles bade 'ware

At first of root and stem, saved both till now

From trampling ox, rough boar, and wanton goat.

What? Was man made a wheelwork to wind up,

And be discharged, and straight wound up anew? No!-grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets: May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.

This might be pagan teaching: now hear mine.

"I say, that as the babe, you feed a while,

Becomes a boy and fit to feed himself,

Round us?) I know not; such was the effect,

So

faith grew, making void more miracles

Because too much they would compel, not help.

I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ

Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee

All questions in the earth and out of it,

And has so far advanced thee to be wise.

Wouldst thou unprove this to reprove the proved? In life's mere minute, with power to use that proof,

Leave knowledge and revert to how it sprung?

Thou hast it; use it and forthwith, or die!

For I say, this is death and the sole death,

When a man's loss comes to him from his gain,

Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance,

And lack of love from love made manifest:

A lamp's death when, replete with oil, it chokes ;

A stomach's when, surcharged with food, it starves. With ignorance was surety of a cure. When man, appalled at nature, questioned first

'What if there lurk a might behind this might?'

He needed satisfaction God could give,

And did give, as ye have the written word:

But when he finds might still redouble might,

Yet asks, Since all is might, what use of will?'

- Will, the one source of might, - he being man

With a man's will and a man's might, to teach

In little how the two combine in large,

That man has turned round on himself and stands :

Which in the course of nature is, to die.

"And when man questioned, 'What if there be love

Behind the will and might, as real as they?'.

He needed satisfaction God could give,

And did give, as ye have the written word:

But when, beholding that love everywhere,

He reasons,Since such love is everywhere,

And since ourselves can love and would be loved,

We ourselves make the love, and Christ was not,'

How shall ye help this man who knows himself,

That he must love and would be loved again,

Yet, owning his own love that proveth Christ,

Rejecteth Christ through very need of Him?

The lamp o'erswims with oil, the stomach flags

Loaded with nurture, and that man's soul dies.

And evermore, plain truth from man to man.

Is John's procedure just the heathen bard's?

Put question of his famous play again How for the ephemerals' sake, Jove's fire was filched,

And carried in a cane and brought to earth:

The fact is in the fable, cry the wise, Mortals obtained the boon, so much is fact,

Though fire be spirit and produced on earth.

As with the Titan's, so now with thy tale :

Why breed in us perplexity, mistake, Nor tell the whole truth in the proper words?'

"I answer, Have ye yet to argue out The very primal thesis, plainest law, - Man is not God but hath God's end

to serve,

A master to obey, a course to take, Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become?

Grant this, then man must pass from old to new,