CHAPTER XXII.

THE FERVOUR OF THE IMPLICIT. INSIGHT OF THE HEART.

THE late Dean Milman, born in 1791, best known by his very valuable labours in history, may be taken as representing a class of writers in whom the poetic fire is ever on the point, and only on the point, of breaking into a flame. His composition is admirable refined, scholarly, sometimes rich and even gorgeous in expression-yet lacking that radiance of the unutterable to which the loftiest words owe

-

their grandest power. Perhaps the best representative of his style is the hymn on the Incarnation, in his dramatic poem, The Fall of Ferusulem. But as an extract it is tolerably known. I prefer giving one from his few Hymns for Church Service.

EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

When God came down from heaven-the living God-
What signs and wonders marked his stately way?

Brake out the winds in music where he trod?
Shone o'er the heavens a brighter, softer day?

The dumb began to speak, the blind to see,

And the lame leaped, and pain and paleness fled;
The mourner's sunken eye grew bright with glee,
And from the tomb awoke the wondering dead.

DEAN MILMAN: DR. KEBLE.

When God went back to heaven-the living God-
Rode he the heavens upon a fiery car?
Waved seraph-wings along his glorious road?

Stood still to wonder each bright wandering star?

Upon the cross he hung, and bowed his head,

And prayed for them that smote, and them that curst;
And, drop by drop, his slow life-blood was shed,

And his last hour of suffering was his worst.

313

The Christian Year of the Rev. John Keble (born in 1800) is perhaps better known in England than any other work of similar church character. I must confess I have never been able to enter into the enthusiasm of its admirers. Excellent, both in regard of their literary and religious merits, true in feeling and thorough in finish, the poems always remind me of Berlin work in iron-hard and delicate. Here is a portion of one of the best of them.

ST. MATTHEW.

Ye hermits blest, ye holy maids,
The nearest heaven on earth,
Who talk with God in shadowy glades,
Free from rude care and mirth;
To whom some viewless teacher brings
The secret lore of rural things,

The moral of each fleeting cloud and gale,

The whispers from above, that haunt the twilight vale:

Say, when in pity ye have gazed

On the wreath'd smoke afar,

That o'er some town, like mist upraised,

Hung hiding sun and star;

Then as ye turned your weary eye

To the green earth and open sky,

Were ye not fain to doubt how Faith could dwell

Amid that dreary glare, in this world's citadel?

But Love's a flower that will not die
For lack of leafy screen,

And Christian Hope can cheer the eye
That ne'er saw vernal green :

Then be ye sure that Love can bless
Even in this crowded loneliness,
Where ever-moving myriads seem to say,
Go-thou art nought to us, nor we to thee-away!
There are in this loud stunning tide

Of human care and crime,
With whom the melodies abide

Of the everlasting chime;
Who carry music in their heart

Through dusky lane and wrangling mart,

Plying their daily task with busier feet,

Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.

There are here some indications of that strong reaction of the present century towards ancient forms of church life. This reaction seems to me a further consequence of that admiration of power of which I have spoken. For, finding the progress of discovery in the laws of nature constantly bring an assurance most satisfactory to the intellect, men began to demand a similar assurance in other matters; and whatever department of human thought could not be subjected to experiment or did not admit of logical proof began to be regarded with suspicion. The highest realms of human thought - where indeed only grand conviction, and that the result not of research, but of obedience to the voice within, can be had-came to be by such regarded as regions where, no scientific assurance being procurable, it was only to his loss that a man should go wandering the whole affair was unworthy of him. And

THE SEARCH OF THE SEEKERS.

315

if there be no guide of humanity but the intellect, and nothing worthy of its regard but what that intellect can isolate and describe in the forms peculiar to its operations,—that is, if a man has relations to nothing beyond his definition, is not a creature of the immeasurable,-then these men are right. But there have appeared along with them other thinkers who could not thus be satisfied-men who had in their souls a hunger which the neatest laws of nature could not content, who could not live on chemistry, or mathematics, or even on geology, without the primal law of their many dim-dawning wondersthat is, the Being, if such there might be, who thought their laws first and then embodied them in a world of æonian growth. These indeed seek law likewise, but a perfect law-a law they can believe perfect beyond the comprehension of powers of whose imperfection they are too painfully conscious. They feel in their highest moments a helplessness that drives them to search after some Power with a heart deeper than his power, who cares for the troubled creatures he has made. But still under the influence of that faithless hunger for intellectual certainty, they look about and divide into two parties: both would gladly receive the reported revelation in Jesus, the one if they could have evidence enough from without, the other if they could only get rid of the difficulties it raises within. I am aware that I distinguish in the mass, and that both sides would be found more or less influenced by the same difficulties —but more and less, and therefore thus classified by

the driving predominance. Those of the one party, then, finding no proof to be had but that in testimony, and anxious to have all they can-delighting too in a certain holy wilfulness of intellectual self-immolation, accept the testimony in the mass, and become Roman Catholics. Nor is it difficult to see how they then find rest. It is not the dogma, but the contact with Christ the truth, with Christ the man, which the dogma, in pacifying the troubles of the intellectif only by a soporific, has aided them in reaching, that gives them peace: it is the truth itself that makes them free.

The worshippers of science will themselves allow, that when they cannot gain observations enough to satisfy them upon any point in which a law of nature is involved, they must, if possible, institute experiments. I say therefore to those whose observation has not satisfied them concerning the phenomenon Christianity," Where is your experiment? Why do you not thus try the utterance claiming to be the law of life? Call it a hypothesis, and experiment upon it. Carry into practice, well justified of your conscience, the words which the Man spoke, for therein he says himself lies the possibility of your acceptance of his mission; and if, after reasonable time thus spent, you are not yet convinced enough to give testimony-I will not annoy you by saying to facts, but—to conviction, I think neither will you be ready to abandon the continuous experiment." These Roman Catholics have thus met with Jesus, come into personal contact with him: by the doing