Then shall man's pride and dullness comprehend Then say not man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault; What matter, soon or late, or here or there? As who began a thousand years ago.† III. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, From brutes what men, from men what spirits know; The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason would he skip and play? Atoms of systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; The soul, uneasy, and confined from home, *We are told in the inspired Word that worldly wisdom is but foolishness with God. Those who would understand their natures, the relations which they bear to the world around them, must be willing to commence with the minutest objects about them; must bring a simple, humble mind yearning for information to the task, not the pride and willfulness of lordly assumption. They are most learned who in their appreciation of the infinitude of universal intelligence meekly acknowledge their ignorance. + The good man, the true man, finds a heaven here below, as well as in the future, but the perverted finds only torment. Let the desponding try to cultivate the sentiment of Hope, or at least the spirit of acquiescence in the will of God. Let him learn to say, and to feel, "Thy will be done," and his troubles will depart and his happiness begin. Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind Behind the cloud-topp'd hill an humbler heaven, Where slaves once more their native land behold, He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire, * IV. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense Say, here he gives too little, there too much; * Without "fire-water," and without the selfish interference of bad white men, the Indian is comparatively happy. But he will not readily adopt the manners and customs of civilization and conform. He has little Imitation, little Constructiveness or Invention, little Benevolence; but large Firmness, Self-Esteem, Combativeness, and Destructiveness, with large perceptive and moderate reflective faculties. Our North American Indians have been much wronged, and, except the few who become civilized and absorbed in the whites, are likely to soon pass away and become extinct. Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, And who but wishes to invert the laws Of order, sins against the eternal cause.† V. Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine? But errs not nature from this gracious end, "No," 'tis replied, "the first almighty cause Acts not by partial, but by general laws; The exceptions few; some change since all began; * Men of towering intellects and of the highest culture, unless they be softened by Christian grace, are apt to rush into excesses of rationalism. Certainly topics and subjects enough are furnished by the very nature of man's social and physical condition for the investigation of the most acute understanding; and in the investigation of these, true benefit may result to man. But those who ambitiously leave the sphere of material things and soar into the regions of speculation, are apt to lose themselves in the mazes of infinity, and but "wrestle to their own destruction," and the injury of those on whom their superior intelligence exerts a powerful influence. Faith begins where reason ends. As the reflective faculties, which are peculiar to man, are located above the perceptives-instincts-so the moral or spiritual faculties are located above the reflectives, or reasoning faculties. Man is not all instinct, all reason, nor all spiritual, but he combines them all, and each should be permitted to exert its due influ ence. + Has this any application to our political relations? 告 If the great end be human happiness, * As men forever temperate, calm, and wise. If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design, Who knows, but He whose hand the lightning forms, Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? Why charge we Heaven in those, in these acquit? In both, to reason right, is to submit. Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, Were there all harmony, all virtue here; That never air or ocean felt the wind, That never passion discompos'd the mind. The general order, since the whole began, Is kept in nature, and is kept in man. VI. What would this man? Now upward will he soar, And, little less than angel, would be more; Now looking downward, just as grieved appears To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears. Made for his use all creatures if he call, Shall he alone, whom rational we call, Be pleased with nothing, if not blest with all? The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) Is not to act or think BEYOND mankind; No powers of body or of soul to share, But what his nature and his state can bear. Why has not man a microscopic eye? Or quick effluvia darting through the brain, Die of a rose in aromatic pain? If nature thunder'd in his opening ears, And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres, How would he wish that Heaven had left him still The whispering zephyr and the purling rill ! VII. Far as creation's ample range extends, To that which warbles through the vernal wood! Remembrance and reflection, how allied; What thin partitions sense from thought divide! *The poet has been answering certain general questions adduced by the skeptic, and now takes the five senses in order, asking, first, "Why has not man a microscopic eye?" That is, why was not the eye of man formed to examine the minutest objects? The answer is, because "man is not a fly." A fly has a microscopic eye, but can only take in a small portion of space at a time, but that is sufficient for its small purpose. Man has an eye which can take in a large space, and distinguish objects within it sufficiently for his purpose. Were the sense of touch very acute, we would be startled by the slightest motion, and it would be a source of constant agitation and pain to us. Again, were the nerves which appreciate odors exceedingly sensitive, man would experience much suffering in consequence; and again, all other things being the same as now, were the sense of hearing increased indefinitely, he would be overwhelmed by sounds, |