POETRY.
ONE FAITH, IN MANY FORMS.
r" What is the Being that is ever near, sometimes felt, never seen ; that which has haunted us from childhood with a dream of something surpassingly fair which has never yet been realised ; that which sweeps through the soul at times as a desolation, like a blast from the wings of the Angel of Death, leaving us stricken and silent in our loneliness; that which has touched us in our tenderest point, and the flesh has quivered with agony, and our mortal affections have shrivelled ap with pain; that which comes to us in aspirations of nobleness and .conceptions of superhuman excellence ? Shall we say It,' or 'He P' What is It? Who is He ?"—F. W. ROBERTSON.
"Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity."—SRELLEY.]
WHAT is His Name ? What name will all express Him,—
The mighty Whole, of whom we are but part,— So that all differing tongues may join a worship Echoing in every heart ?
Then answers one,—" God is an endless sequence, Incapable of either break or flaw, Which we discern but dimly, and in fragments ; God is unchanging Law."
4' Nay," saith another, "Law is but His method. Look back, behind the sequence, to its source ! Behind all phases and all changes seek Him ! God is the primal Force."
"Yea, these are great, but God himself is greater ; A living harmony, no dead-cold rule," Saith one who in sweet sounds and forms of beauty Hath found his soul's best school.
4' Law, force, and beauty are but vague abstractions, Too unconnected with the life of Man,"
One answers ; "Man hath neither time nor power Such mighty thoughts to scan.
"But here upon the earth we find him living, And though in little time he fail and pass, And all his faiths, and hopes, and thoughts die with him, Surely, as ripened grass ; "Yet Man the race,—man as he may be,—will be, Once he has reached unto his fall-grown height, Calm, wise, large-hearted, and large-gourd, will triumph In self-renouncing might.
"Who will not own, even now, with sight prophetic, Life is divinest in its human dress, And bend before it with a yearning reverence, And strong desire to bless ?"
Yea ! Worship chiefly Love, but also beauty, Wisdom and force; for they are all divine ! But God includes them, as some great cathedral Includes each. separate shrine. So, Brothers, howsoe'er we apprehend Him,
Surely 'tis God himself we all adore,—
Life of all life, Soul of all souls, the Highest, Heart of all hearts, and more. M. A. Jgvoss.
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