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The human soul is guided by two horses. One 
 white, with a flowing mane, earnest eyes, and wings 
 like a swan, whereby he seeks to fly. The other is 
 black, heavy and sleepy-eyed, ever prone to lie down 
 upon the earth. Plato. 
 
THE ALLEGORY OF PLATO 
 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS IN 
 PROSE AND VERSE 
 
 / 
 
 By N. RUSSELL MIDDLETON, L.L. D. 
 
 EDITED BY HIS SON, 
 
 N. R: MIDDLETON, Jr. 
 
 CHARLESTON, S. C. 
 Walker, Evans & Cogswell Company, Publishers, 
 3 and 5 Broad and 117 East Bay Streets. 
 1891. 
 
 %>i» 
 
 \ 
 
75 2.3^0 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY N. R. MIDDLETON. 
 
THE ALLEGORY OF PLATO. 
 
 Noriiiara em rrjv ^ojrjv. 
 
 N his thesis of Life the great thinker of old, 
 Adopted a metaphor striking and bold ; 
 And in view of that two-fold phenomenon 
 man 
 It is thus that his mental philosophy ran. 
 The moral probationer ruling on earth, 
 In two opposite courses is drawn from his birth. 
 On the one hand he strives like a steed all on fire, 
 To spurn his gross nature and upward aspire ; 
 The other a dull and inanimate clod. 
 Contented with labor and bound to the sod. 
 For the term of probation, the brief span of life. 
 These horses are yoked in perpetual strife ; 
 And the steed we select as our emblem below, 
 Shall rule us forever for weal or for woe. 
 
4 The Allegory of Plato. 
 
 Far back in the morning of time as he wrote, 
 
 The vision of Plato, prophetic of thought, 
 
 Appealed to the versatile mind of the Greek, 
 
 Accustomed in fanciful figure to speak; 
 
 But the truth he enclosed in that mystical shell 
 
 Touched more than the ear of the Greek as it fell ; 
 
 And the salient thought of each secular age 
 
 Responds to the thought of the Attican sage ; 
 
 For vice stalks abroad in the eye of the day, 
 
 And the autumn winds whisper of death and decay, 
 
 And there comes to the soul in its moments of bliss 
 
 A vision of life that is nobler than this. 
 
 When, spurning this region of doubt and dispute 
 
 We rest in the infinite — awe-struck and mute. 
 
 There is power in sense, there is beauty on earth, 
 And the universe teems with a wonderful birth; 
 From the plains to the mountains, o'er valley and hill 
 Love glows in the sunshine and laughs in the rill. 
 And the mind which has yielded to reason's control, 
 Finds God in creation and light in his soul : 
 But sense is a traitor and panders to vice, 
 Now heated to phrensy, now colder than ice ; 
 
The Allegory of Plato, 5 
 
 All smiles to the world, but a tyrant within, 
 
 Tt mocks at the fool it has led into sin ; 
 
 And the madman who trusts it still finds to his cost 
 
 His happiness wrecked and his nobleness lost ; 
 
 The black horse of Plato, his eye downward cast, 
 
 To earth and to earthliness riveted fast, 
 
 Thd blue ether above, the pure mirror of hope 
 
 Forever revealing and giving it scope, 
 
 The stars and the sunset, the rainbow on high, 
 
 Never gild the horizon of that loveless eye, 
 
 For dead to all beauty, concentered in self. 
 
 Overpowered by lust or hoodwinked by pelf, 
 
 The probationer charged with a heaven-bound soul, 
 
 Learns to browse with the ox or to grope with the 
 
 mole ; 
 And when the great Landlord who lent him his 
 
 powers, 
 Comes to reckon and weigh those parturient hours, 
 And naught but the mouse of the fable is born. 
 What is left to the hapless pretender but scorn ? 
 
 There is joy in Ambition, a glorified sense, 
 
 More pure than the palate, more potent than pence, 
 
6 The Allegory of Plato. 
 
 To expand in the sunshine and conscious of power, 
 To feel that we govern the thought of the hour, 
 To scale Matterhorn the majestic and view 
 Creation beneath us a moment or two; 
 It may be a folly, but folly sublime 
 And the heart will exult in that soul-stirring time, 
 And forgetting the shortness, delusion and pain 
 Will nurse the wild hope that its joy will remain. 
 It is true we are warned by the laboring breath 
 And the blast of the storm in that region of death, 
 But fame is a recompense dearer than life. 
 And the blare of her trumpet inspirits the strife. 
 And the shouts of the thousands who see us ascend 
 Shall waken an echo that never shall end ; 
 Though the bones of precursors are bleaching 
 
 around, 
 Or lie buried beneath in the crevasse profound, 
 Though the avalanche thunder its warning afar. 
 And the mist of the mountain obscure every star, 
 Though the company falter and faint one by one 
 And the guide, now discouraged, is with us alone, 
 On the pinnacled peak human feet never pressed, 
 We will plant our flag and to fate leave the rest ; 
 
The Allegory of Plato. 7 
 
 And the world of to-day and the thousands unborn, 
 
 Shall hail us the victors of proud Matterhorn. 
 
 But victor and triumph, phenomenal both, 
 
 Only live to fulfil that primordial oath 
 
 That Time and its contents, unreal alike, 
 
 Shall cease when the watchman his tocsin shall strike. 
 
 Like the mist of the mountain shall vanish away 
 
 With all that we cling to as real to-day. 
 
 It is charged by the thoughtless, denied by the few, 
 
 That what the great Berkley affirmed was untrue ; 
 
 His science was folly, philosophy blind 
 
 And to prove it the skeptic appealed to mankind. 
 
 Shall the earth, such a solid material ball, 
 
 Its mountains and vallies, its forests and all, 
 
 Shall the Earth melt away like a dream that is past 
 
 Or a garment outworn and discarded at last ? 
 
 Is not matter eternal ? Can aught lose its place 
 
 In the organized forms of unlimited space? 
 
 But what are those forms ? And what is that space ? 
 
 And what the distinctions of genus and race ? 
 
 And what the strong arm, the contemplative brow 
 
 And the eye which compels all creation to bow ? 
 
8 The Allegory of Plato. 
 
 Phenomenal all, but the breath of the Lord, 
 
 The outspoken birth of his creative word. 
 
 Creative forever, creative perforce, 
 
 No beginning, no end to that infinite course; 
 
 We may talk of the atoms in which it began, 
 
 Or reduce to its monads the infinite plan, 
 
 But atoms or monads, or molecules or cells 
 
 'Tis the Lord of Creation within them that dwells, 
 
 And when force in the mind of the dwelling attain 
 
 The force of the Architect once to explain 
 
 Let Existence work out in its thought if it can 
 
 The Essence of power in which it began. 
 
 Oh ! impotent man, doomed forever to kick 
 
 'Gainst the pricks and without needed straw to miake 
 
 brick, 
 Oh ! man, deign for once thy true lot to accept 
 Nor, created a tyro, still ape the adept. 
 
 Ambition ! Oh yes, when it bids us arise 
 And on wings of humility soar to the skies, 
 Ambition ! when duty unflinching and stern 
 A pure vestal fil-e unceasing shall burn, 
 
The Allegory of Plato. 9 
 
 But when like the poet whose marvellous lyre 
 Was nursed by a genius a God might inspire, 
 It visits the earth but to scorch and to blight 
 And dazzle the nations with wildfire light, 
 The soul of the man all concentered within 
 Though gifted and great has no safeguard from sin, 
 And that comet like genius portentous and rare, 
 To the spirit of wisdom suggestive of fear, 
 Its mission soon ended, world-worshiped no more, 
 Its place in the sky shall be void as before. 
 
 And so, when that idol of national pride 
 Who swept like a meteor over the tide 
 Whose watchword was djity, whose war cry advance 
 Whose trophies the blockaded navies of France ; 
 From his cenotaph rest 'neath the dome of St. Paul, 
 On the world for its envied approval shall call, 
 Let the voice of the injured be heard in reply, 
 And the protest of Virtue ascend to the sky. 
 Shall the poor honest sailor who hung on his word 
 Whose soul by the watchword oi duty was stirred 
 Be reminded by him of the motto engraved 
 On the flag of his country wherever it waved ? 
 
10 The Allegory of Plato. 
 
 Shall he prate of Duty who, living for fame, 
 Spurned the first of all duties, to home and to name ? 
 Shall he talk oi Honor ^ her foe and her bane 
 Who living has taken her great name in vain ? 
 Shall he challenge Glory whose dying bequest 
 Consigned to his country a shameful request ? 
 The defender of England from external foe, 
 Who dealt her at home a far deadlier blow 
 Than if Europe combined in invidious might 
 Against her renown had assembled in fight. 
 When the sacredest ties have been brought to an end, 
 Oh ! tell, if thou canst, what is left to defend? 
 When the homes of old England no longer are pure, 
 And her tender relations no longer secure, 
 Let the joy-loving Celt his gay system advance, 
 And Britain learn morals from Rousseau and France. 
 
 Ambition ! oh yes, when the good of the State 
 And millions shall look to one man for their fate. 
 Who, leaving the bliss of domestic repose, 
 Assumes the control with its pilloried woes. 
 Like Vasa, of old, his conditions demand. 
 And acting the despot, enfranchise the land. 
 
The Allegory of Plato. 11 
 
 No country need dread such ambition as this, 
 No statesman look higher for national bliss ; 
 Ambition that plunders, ambition that raves, 
 Whose way-marks are ruins, whose trophies are 
 
 graves, 
 The aim of whose being is selfish renown, 
 Who rises alone because others are down, 
 Who still with the relative rises or sinks. 
 Dares only to think as the multitude thinks ; 
 Such a soul may survive for an hour or so 
 But the touch of the Real will hurl it below, 
 Below where the agents of Tyranny dwell. 
 And if it must reign, reign sublimely in Hell. 
 
 Society claims from each member her rights 
 
 And offers to each her unchallenged delights ; 
 
 In the fair social circle mind offers to mind 
 
 A stimulus healty, robust and refined; 
 
 There is room for the brilliant encounter of wits. 
 
 To catch the aroma of life as it flits. 
 
 To receive and return, when deprived of its barb, 
 
 The arrow concealed under ridicule's garb. 
 
12 The Allegory of Plato. 
 
 To encourage, invite and call into play 
 
 The thoughts which inform and embellish the day, 
 
 To raise the desponding and comfort the sad, 
 
 To nourish with oil and with wine to make glad. 
 
 The Power that made us and placed us on earth 
 
 Ever values the soul by its fair social worth ; 
 
 And this is the question that seals every lot, 
 
 Is his role in society noble or not ? 
 
 But society shares the defects of the race, 
 
 And its members alas ! never know their own 
 
 place ; 
 The adroit and unscrupulous oft' fill the seat 
 From which modest merit is forced to retreat, 
 And fools in their folly attempt without dread 
 To enter where angels with diffidence tread, 
 A world of confusion, a world out of gear. 
 Now goaded to madness, now crouching in fear, 
 All drunk with the blood of her martyrs to-day. 
 And chanting to-morrow a soft roundelay ; 
 Her honor degraded, her standard debased, 
 Her temple in ruins, her altars displaced. 
 When her morals are based on the Code of Sin-john^ 
 And the type which she models her manners upon 
 
The Allegory of Plato. 13 
 
 Is the mask of a Chesterfield, hollow and false, 
 And her maidens surrender their charms to the valse, 
 And the harvest which springs from the desolate land 
 Is polluted with tares from Duke Rochefoucauld's 
 
 hand, 
 Her dignity, purity, honor forgot, 
 The dark horse of Plato prefigures her lot. 
 
 But high on the mountains behold him advance. 
 The Knight of the Red Cross, with shield and with 
 
 lance. 
 His loins girt with " truth " and bright o'er his head, 
 Her banner in stainless allegiance outspread ; 
 His breastplate of '"''Righteousness " shielded by ^'faith " 
 As the law of his holy knight-errantry saith, 
 His Sandals conformed to the same potent word 
 Which bound to his thigh his keen two-edged sword. 
 The knight of the Red-Cross rides on in his might 
 In armor resplendent, equipped for the fight, 
 His feet with the blood of his enemies red 
 And Salvation inscribed on his helmeted head. 
 The Knight of the Red-Cross ! Ye ages declare 
 How his effigies still in succession appear ; 
 
14 The Allegory of Plato. 
 
 In the mirror of time how they pass m review 
 
 From Enoch the holy to Stonewall the true ; 
 
 How, released from the trammels of sense and of 
 
 greed, 
 In lordly procession they answer earth's need, 
 And waving the sword of protection on high, 
 In humanity's cause swear to conquer or die ; 
 And in dying they conquer, for each leaves a name, 
 To rise like the Phoenix from ashes and flame : 
 And when on the field he surrenders his trust 
 His fellow succeeds ere it fall to the dust ; 
 And though in the thick of the fight as we stand, 
 And look vainly around for the rescuing hand, 
 Never doubt that his presence is still on the earth 
 Awaiting, in hope, a miraculous birth : 
 Never doubt that the man and the martyr will rise 
 To drag to the sunlight each refuge of lies : 
 To expose the deceiver and awe the profane 
 And snatch from the lawless usurper his gain. 
 
 Trace backward the ages, in fancy unroll 
 The records which live in the world's sacred 
 scroll; 
 
The Allegory of Plato. 15 
 
 On the Syrian plains see the fair Hebrew boy 
 
 Of his gray-headed sire the comfort and joy. 
 
 When the black cloud of envy unbound and enlarged 
 
 By the demon of hate was at length overcharged ; 
 
 An exile from home, a stranger and slave, 
 
 Where the gray reeds of Nile in monotony wave. 
 
 The victim of lust, in his innocent youth 
 
 A prey to the passion that knoweth no ruth, 
 
 Still firm in his virtue though fiercely assailed 
 
 By the temptress that wooed and the tyrant that 
 
 railed ; 
 And thrust into prison midst felons and slaves. 
 Where villany rules and debauchery raves ; 
 Ever true to the star that had guided his path, 
 Neither conquered by fear, nor excited by wrath, 
 Upheld by his conscience and cheered by his trust 
 In the final success of a cause that was just ; 
 Never seeking distinction, nor dreaming of power, 
 Fulfilling in calmness the claims of the hour; 
 Exerting the gift of that mystical lore 
 Which on Syrian plains he had gathered of yore ; 
 And bringing the stores of his wisdom to bear 
 On the sorrows and pains which abound everywhere 
 
16 The Allegory of Plato. 
 
 Unmoved by the sadness which fell to his lot 
 
 When ungrateful offenders their promise forgot; 
 
 Brought, at length, in the fulness of time, to the light, 
 
 With recompense, freedom and honor in sight, 
 
 Still nobly refused, by a tacit assent, 
 
 To appropriate power which only was lent; 
 
 And urged to display his miraculous art, 
 
 Thus bravely declined to assume a false part, 
 
 " The thing is not in me, my wisdom must cease, 
 
 God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." 
 
 But look once again upon history's page, 
 From the courage of youth to the wisdom of age. 
 See, armed with his rod on the sea-beaten strand. 
 The Hebrew law-giver in majesty stand ; 
 No sword on his thigh, no crown on his brow. 
 The true man was simple and meek then as now ; 
 While millions still trustingly bowed to his nod. 
 The leader himself humbly bowed to his God, 
 And while bearding the despot alone in his den, 
 The title he loved was " the meekest of men." 
 And thus, ever thus, in the record of life, 
 Though foremost in duty and bravest in strife, 
 
The Allegory of Plato. 17 
 
 The heart of the Hero expands to his Race, 
 And freely enlarges, the world to embrace ; 
 And poising a scepter or wielding a sword, 
 Overflows with the patience and love of his Lord. 
 
 But dwell not too long on the Mosaic page, 
 
 From the Prophet and Leader contemplate the sage ; 
 
 From thunder-scarped Sinai and Pisgah's proud head, 
 
 Descend to the prison where honesty bled. 
 
 From scenes that delight us and visions that please, 
 
 Let us gather in awe round the doomed Socrates ; 
 
 The healer of Athens diseased and in pain, 
 
 Who sought to restore her to virtue again, 
 
 Who lived for his country and, dying, refused 
 
 To question her laws though unjust and abused. 
 
 The foe of her tyrants, the friend of her youth, 
 
 Detector of fallacy, Lover of truth ; 
 
 Who greeted the death-laden cup with a smile 
 
 And yielded to envy a soul without guile. 
 
 In life's compensation 'twas fitting indeed. 
 
 That the man who alone his pure spirit could read, 
 
 Should give to the world his immaculate thought 
 
 And tell of the sorrow by which it was bought; 
 
18 The Allegory of Plato. 
 
 'Twas meet that a Plato should rise to record 
 
 In diction superb, his oracular word ; 
 
 And Greece and the world understandinc^ too late, 
 
 The secret significance wrapt in his fate, 
 
 Should hasten the deified martyr to greet 
 
 And in impotent shame cast their crowns at his feet. 
 
 Oh ! Athens, Oh Earth ever must it be so? 
 
 That the great and the good must be scorned here 
 
 below ? 
 That the soul which is linked with the white-winged 
 
 steed 
 In its struggle for freedom must suffer and bleed ? 
 And the crown which on high the pure spirit adorns 
 Prove ever below a sharp crown of thorns? 
 Even so, ye far-seeing, self-conquering band 
 On the verge of two worlds who have taken your 
 
 stand. 
 And turning away from the transient, which fills 
 The eye of the world, to the infinite hills. 
 Count the Earth and its estimates lighter than straw 
 When compared with the vision that Socrates saw ; 
 That hint of the real, that glimpse of true life, 
 That kindles the soul and ennobles its strife ; 
 
The Allegory of Plato. 19 
 
 That from dust and delusion the neophite brings, ^ 
 And bears him aloft on its tireless wings, 
 From tyrannous passion and sensuous love 
 To the freedom that reigneth and blesseth above. 
 Oh ! Earth and Oh ! Athens ! awakened too late, 
 Ye bend, all in vain, o'er the tomb of the Great. 
 All in vain ye have come, in remorse, on your knees, 
 To honor the shade of divine Socrates. 
 
 But think not in deserts and dungeons alone 
 There is purity found, it was found on a Throne ; 
 On the throne of the Caesars, where gluttony raged. 
 And the war with mankind was so brutally waged; 
 In the Palace where mortals assumed to be God, 
 And legalized villains audaciously trod ; 
 Whose denizens gloated o'er agonized throes, 
 Or complacently smiled at humanity's woes ; 
 Where tyrants were sacred and demons divine, 
 Hail the advent at length of beloved Antonine, 
 Imperial sage and philosopher saint, 
 A self-governed anchorite scorning restraint, 
 A law to himself, though raised above law, 
 A Father though hedged by traditional awe, 
 
20 The Allegory of Plato. 
 
 In virginal purity guarding his life 
 
 Where adultery raged and corruption was rife. 
 
 Let the misanthrope Dean who dishonored his race, 
 
 Who scoffed at their virtue and proved their disgrace, 
 
 Who took for his target an ideal man. 
 
 Constructed to suit his malevolent plan, 
 
 And raised on its pinnacled pedestal high, 
 
 To the foul-visaged image invited each eye ; 
 
 Let him bhjsh when he reads in the records of time 
 
 The thoughts which have rendered the thinker sub. 
 
 lime, 
 And veiling from sight his base caricature, 
 Make Marcus Aurelius his true cynosure. 
 
 In the morning of life when the earth was still young, 
 
 From lives of simplicity nobleness sprung ; 
 
 And men became great from a childlike repose 
 
 In the faith out of which all true greatness arose. 
 
 But time in its flight changed the thoughts of the hour, 
 
 And discord arose and the struggle for power, 
 
 And the Lords of the Earth and vicegerents of 
 
 Heaven 
 Ceased to furnish mankind their appropriate leaven. 
 
The Allegory of Plato. 21 
 
 Thus power abused aroused protest and blame, 
 
 And close upon protest invective and sliame ; 
 
 And the men of the world and the servants of God 
 
 Alike upon Honor and decency trod : 
 
 But while partisan oassion must ever increase. 
 
 The spirit of truth is a spirit of peace ; 
 
 And while Luther upbraided and Leo cajoled, 
 
 One intelligent mind kept his faith as of old, 
 
 Whose wisdom the limits of liberty knew, 
 
 And left something still for his Maker to do. 
 
 In modesty shrinking from martyrdom's crown 
 
 He proved a true martyr without the renown ; 
 
 And standing alone on the fair neutral ground, 
 
 Kept his eye on the goal unto which he was bound. 
 
 Erasmus the learned, Erasmus the true, 
 
 Disowned by the powerful, loved by the few. 
 
 Who saw that his part was to scatter the seed, 
 
 To open the soil and root out the weed ; 
 
 The weed in man's nature, the passion and pride 
 
 Which tortured the soul of the friend at his side. 
 
 And that when his own work had been honestly 
 
 done 
 The rest must be left to the rain and the sun, 
 
22 The Allegory of Plato, 
 
 Nor vainly and childishly look for in time 
 
 The fruit which matures in a healthier clime. 
 
 But vain was his modesty, firmness and sense, 
 
 The cry was for violence, power and pence, 
 
 And calmness and wisdom were far out of place 
 
 In the turmoil and strife of a partisan race, 
 
 And the glory of Christendom, type of true worth 
 
 On history's page made a subject of mirth, 
 
 On earth finds alone in some truth-loving breast 
 
 Intelligent sympathy, shelter and rest. 
 
 No comment is needed, his record will tell 
 
 If the verdict was just which from enemies fell, 
 
 And vindicate him whose integrity bore 
 
 The hatred of Henry and friendship of More. 
 
 Creation is order^ each grade in its place 
 
 Gives assurance of harmony, beauty and grace; 
 
 But the petty distinctions we organize here, 
 
 Are unknown in the range of the heavenly sphere ; 
 
 We lavish applause on the whims of the hour, 
 
 We glory in wealth and we idolize power ; 
 
 And the statue that breathe?, and tiie portrait that glows, 
 
 Soothe the heroes of Earth in their earthly repose ; 
 
The Allegory of Plato. 23 
 
 But all are not heroes, her motherly breast 
 Earth opens to gather each child to his rest, 
 And each lies as tenderly watched over there, 
 As the saint in his tomb, or the King on his bier; 
 For the Father who loves — not the sinless alone — 
 Who yearns o'er his erring and prodigal son, 
 Hath a place in his heart and a seat at his board 
 For the child of his love whether peasant or lord ; 
 And the pariah barred from the touch of his race, 
 Is welcomed by him to a filial embrace. 
 
 The heroes of Earth who monopolise fame, 
 Who lavish life's treasure to purchase a name ; 
 Wiio live, all unconscious, on flattery's breath, 
 And shrink from desertion no less than from death : 
 The heroes of Earth have their day and are gone, 
 What they lived for has perished, or died for has flown ; 
 Here a dynasty totters, a throne topples o'er 
 And rights, that men died for, are valued no more. 
 To escape from the doom that o'ershadowed their 
 
 birth 
 Men make in their madness a Hell upon Earth; 
 
24 The Allegory of Plato. 
 
 And each earns a place in the Kingdom of Love 
 By hating below what is cherished above. 
 " Audax omnia perpcti " sang the poet of yore, 
 And *' ruit per nefas " he sings evermore . 
 To do justly, love mercy, is childish control, 
 To walk humbly degrades an aspiring soul, 
 And he that wades deepest in blood of his race 
 Upon history's role holds the loftliest place. 
 
 Shall we linger in shadows that flit o'er the road ? 
 Shall we seek in the transient our chosen abode? 
 Shall we claim as oar kindred the brutes that we rule 
 And descend to the level of tiger and mule ? 
 While conscience within and the heavens above 
 Proclaim us the heirs of an infinite Love? 
 Can immortal desires be fed with the fare 
 Which perishing natures contentedly share ? 
 And the life we inspire as our natural breath 
 Be quenched in the vapors mephitic of death 
 While we cherish a nature whose goal is the tomb 
 And bury the future in measureless gloom? 
 No, the gentle and modest, the loving and true 
 Who live not for glory and claim not their due. 
 
The Allegory of Plato. 25 
 
 Who stand in their lot be it easy or hard, 
 
 Nor weakly betray what their honor should guard, 
 
 Who seek not to rest in an ignoble fame, 
 
 Nor tamper with conscience to purchase a name ; 
 
 Who build not on wealth the repose of the mind, 
 
 Nor measure their worth in the scales of mankind, 
 
 Who shun not the path which the martyis have trod, 
 
 Nor ask recognition accept from their God ; 
 
 Who rejoice in the peace which obscurity brings, 
 
 And estimate lightly phenomenal things ; 
 
 These nurslings of Truth, who rest in her arms 
 
 And hide in her breast from all earthly alarms. 
 
 Cast pitying eyes from their sacred retreat 
 
 On the turmoil and strife of the world at their feet. 
 
 And soften the horrors of Timers lurid light 
 
 By the labors of love and the songs of the night. 
 
 On conditions we hold our tenure of life, 
 Conditions of agony, question and strife, 
 The good and the evil, the right and the wrong, 
 Are the tests of our manhood our journey along ; 
 But the weak and the timid, the selfish and vain 
 Shrink aghast from a struggle embittered by pain, 
 
26 The Allegory of Plato. 
 
 And the guerdon which conscience awards to the brave 
 Has no charms for a soul which is quenched in the 
 
 grave. 
 The creatures of God as they came from his hand 
 Came each with a nature by Deity planned ; 
 And the welfare of each must be guaged by a law 
 Which meets the deinands its Creator foresaw. 
 The Immortal demands an immortal supply — 
 The spirit seeks ever its guerdon on high ; 
 And the Prodigal, starved on the husks of the swine, 
 Yearns, thirstingly yearns for a banquet divine ; 
 A banquet which Reason and Truth shall provide 
 Where Honor shall rule and Love shall preside. 
 Whose servants shall call each appropriate guest 
 From the highways and hedges, the east and the west ; 
 A glorious band, the elect of the Earth, 
 Undistinguished by fame and unnoted by birth, 
 Whose heraldry boasts evangelical lore. 
 And whose lineage springs from the ranks of the poor ; 
 ^' Ich dien " their motto, a cross for their crest, 
 And their order, the flock that by Jesus was blest. 
 The Earth by their presence replenished, subdued, 
 Its beauty restored and its vigor renewed, 
 
The Allegory of Plato, 27 
 
 Its homesteads rejoicing in music and mirth, 
 
 No emigrant forced from the land of his birth, 
 
 Its valleys o'erflowing with corn and with wine, 
 
 Or greeting the ear with the lowing of kine, 
 
 Its "verdurous slopes " in fair contrast combine 
 
 The shade of the fig-tree and grace of the vine, 
 
 Where the infant shall play on the hole of the asp. 
 
 Or fondle the beast with innocuous clasp, 
 
 Where the wolf shall lie down in the fold with the 
 
 lamb, 
 And the kid wander fearless unwatched by its dam ; 
 Where the Lion shall loathe his carnivorous prey. 
 And share with the ox his pure diet of hay ; 
 Where men shall unite, not to buttress the wrong, 
 Overawe the defenceless and bow to the strong, 
 But justice shall sit on the throne of the world, 
 And the ensigns of battle forever be furled ; 
 Where on God's holy mount none shall hurt or de- 
 stroy, 
 But the welfare of all shall each member employ. 
 Where greed shall be outlawed and discord shall cease 
 And nature attain her Ionian peace. 
 
RESPONSIBILITY, 
 
 N the effort to analyse existence, I find that I 
 reach my ultimatum in consciousness, and 
 when I interrogate that, the answer, coming 
 as it were with oracular power, seems to be on this wise, 
 The whole of your existence is expressed in one word, 
 Responsibility; For your creation and its attendant 
 circumstances the responsibility rests with your Mak- 
 er ; as far as that is concerned you are both ignorant 
 and impotent and therefore irresponsible, but for the 
 preservation and development of your being the case 
 is different, for these you have been furnished with ade- 
 quate faculties and for these therefore you are respon- 
 sible. It is in the due exercise of reason or the bal- 
 ancing power, that we learn to dispose aright of this 
 question of responsibility, and keep the balance 
 properly adjusted. If we assume responsibilities 
 which do not belong to us we shall overtask ourselves 
 and sink under the pressure ; if we fail to meet our 
 
Responsibility, 29 
 
 responsibilities our faculties will deteriorate for want 
 of exercise and we shall lose our status in the order 
 of creation. It is important, then, to a rational agent, 
 first to establish a correct category of responsibilities 
 and then to dispose of the items in an orderly man- 
 ner. And first, I did not create myself Conscious- 
 ness testifies to this by affirming a state of perfectly 
 passive existence preceding any effort of either men- 
 tal or physical power. My will was the consequent, 
 not the antecedent, of my existence. Nor is this all, 
 I not only did not create myself, but I was not per- 
 mitted to choose whether I would exist or not, and 
 the history of human life furnishes many a case in 
 which it has been shaken off" as a burden too heavy to 
 be borne. 
 
 Aerain, I am not responsible for the circumstances 
 which attend me. That I am in a material world, 
 that my connection with this world involves action 
 and reaction, appropriation and rejection, identity and 
 antipathy, personality and community, individuality 
 and universality; that in one sense I am inseparably 
 united with my nature and in another wholly discon- 
 nected from her, and that out of this universal anti- 
 
30 Responsibility. 
 
 thetic duality grows apparent confusion, discordance 
 and incompatibility; for all this and the innumerable 
 resulting difficulties I am not in the smallest degree 
 responsible. If I had been left to myself I certainly 
 would not have introduced myself into a world 
 where my existence would necessarily involve strug- 
 gle and my experience suffering ; and as I was placed 
 in such circumstances without the concurrence of my 
 will, I unhesitatingly reject them from the category of 
 my responsibilities. 
 
 Neither am I responsible for my moral status, the 
 burden of morality with its attendant disabilities I 
 could never have voluntarily assumed, the paradoxes, 
 inconsistencies and impossibilities, which it seems to 
 imply, would have compelled me to decline an under- 
 taking manifestly beyond my strength. To be ush- 
 ered into a garden of delights and warned that each 
 flower is a snare and each fruit a poison, that the 
 ground is charged with exhalations and the air laden 
 with death, that in this resplendent temple sits Circe 
 with her enchanted cup, and in yonder inviting garden 
 dwell the hesperides with their dragon-guarded 
 fruit; that in this bosky dell lurks the naiad to be- 
 
Responsibility, 81 
 
 guile me into the water, and on that sandy beach 
 roams the siren to lure me to the land ; that west- 
 ward there are Scylla and Charybdis, and eastward 
 the clashing rocks ; that in the north there is Medea 
 with her fiery enchantments, and in the south Medusa 
 with her basilisk glance ; that there are moenadesand 
 giants and harpies threatening me at every step of my 
 doubtful path ; this is no ver}^ inviting programme to 
 the traveller, conscious, as yet, of nothing but his own 
 ignorance and imbecility. It is well for us, my 
 friends, that you and I were not consulted when we 
 were sent into existence to meet such an ordeal as 
 this ; it is well for us that there has never been set 
 before us, in one appalling coup-d'oeil, the incidents of 
 our unwonted journey ; it is well that the appoint- 
 ment was in another mind and the arrangement in 
 other hands. 
 
 Again, we are not responsible for the conduct of 
 others ; this is a very important item to be deducted 
 from the list of our mental burdens, which we are 
 constantly tempted to assume but which we have 
 neither the right nor the power to bear. We are ail 
 conscious of secret uncontrollable misgivings as to 
 
32 Responsibility, 
 
 what may be said or done to our injury by enemies 
 and detractors; perhaps there is not one of our bur- 
 dens which weighs upon us more heavily than this, 
 because it is limitless and undefined. In moments of 
 depression all nature seems against us, danger lurks 
 at every corner, disgrace is hovering over every path, 
 and the whole human race — our friends and brothers 
 — seem united in solid phalanx to obstruct our pro- 
 gress to honor and happiness. It is no trifling relief 
 to our overburdened nature to be assured that this is 
 all a delusion, that the wills we suspect are only free 
 subjectively, and the agents we dread are the instru- 
 ments of a benignant power. A relief, and yet how 
 hard to realize ! The assassins' dagger is a relentless 
 reality, the slanderer's venom is a poignant fact, no arm 
 of power intervenes, no voice of authority interposes 
 to avert the deadly blow ; other lives and other charac- 
 ters have been at the mercy of the malignant and re- 
 vengeful, why not my own ? Are not sensible facts 
 worth more than fanciful theories or metaphysical 
 myths ? So reason the thoughtless multitude, so 
 reasoned the Ptolemaic astronomers. The revolution 
 of the sun is a sensible fact, the revolution of the 
 
Responsibility. 33 
 
 earth is a figment of the imagination ; he is a fool or 
 a madman who would persuade us against the evi- 
 dence of our senses. Yet science has verified the 
 material paradox. When will a reasonable confidence 
 in the integrity of our Maker convince us of the 
 other? 
 
 Again, we are not responsible for the quality or 
 the relative power of our faculties. One would think 
 that it would be hardly necessary to enunciate such a 
 proposition as this to beings endowed with common 
 intelligence and a moral sense, and perhaps this may 
 be true as far as the abstract statement is concerned, 
 but our daily practice and our social experience sadly 
 contradict the suggestions of reason in this, as in 
 many other departments of human intercourse. We 
 have been sent into the world with faculties, both 
 mental and bodily, not only varying in every possible 
 degree, but maturing with equal irregularity; this ar- 
 rangement is final and beyond dispute, and would 
 seem to administer a severe rebuke to the struggles 
 of human vanity and ambition, as well asa clear indi- 
 cation of the order of the universe as organized in 
 the counsels of its divine originator ; according to 
 
 O 
 
84 Responsibility. 
 
 that organizah'on, the value of the agent is estabh'shed, 
 not by any arbitrary standard involving private con- 
 tests and personal rivalries, but by an absolute princi- 
 ple of adaptedness and an honest exercise of industry 
 in the department for which the agetit is especially 
 provided; according to that absolute standard indi- 
 vidual merit is dependent, as it should be, not 
 upon accident or caprice, but upon circumstances 
 wholly within the control of the agent himself; and, 
 if he fail, there can be no question upon whom the 
 blame should rest. Our Creator has not left us in a 
 matter of such infinite moment at the disposal of 
 any arbitrary or accidental influences, he has put our 
 true dignity and our true honor wholly in our own 
 hands. 
 
 Again, we are not responsible for temporal success. 
 I do not mean to deny or even to question the tem- 
 poral rewards of virtue, I do not mean to insinuate a 
 doubt as to the inherent and universal and uncom- 
 promising distinction between good and evil, in 
 every department of moral existence ; but we must 
 never forget that good and evil are relative distinc- 
 tions and can have no possible place in the absolute 
 
Responsibility. 35 
 
 appointments of a benevolent Creator; all those ap- 
 pointments must, from the necessity of the case, have 
 reference to ultimate and eternal good, and to bring 
 that about, evil which is temporary and relative, be- 
 comes as available and necessary an instrument in 
 the divine hands as that more specious and acceptable 
 form of mundane existence, which we, in our narrow 
 and sensual estimates, pronounce to be good; poverty 
 is an evil, disease is an evil, sorrow is an evil, sin is 
 an evil, but it may be necessary for us to experience 
 every one of these to ensure our attainment of ulti- 
 mate and infinite good. 
 
 But enough of this, I am not attempting an ex- 
 haustive catalogue, wholly unnecessary in an address 
 merely intended to be suggestive ; let us leave the 
 negative and take up the positive antithesis. I said 
 that we were riot responsible for the fact of existence. 
 Is there not, nevertheless, an aspect in which our ex- 
 istence does involve responsibility? If we did not 
 make ourselves are we not shut up to the conclusion 
 that some one did make us? And are we not bound, 
 as far as possible, as far at least as our attitude to- 
 wards Him is concerned, to understand the being 
 
36 Responsibility , 
 
 who holds towards us this fundamental relationship, 
 constituted as we are a congeries of powers^ Are 
 we not bound, in justice to ourselves, to discover the 
 nature and will of the being who organized those 
 powers and gave them unity and purpose ? I do not 
 mean to trench upon the province of theology, I do 
 not mean to urge upon you any special views upon a 
 subject, which, if it be handled at all, should only be 
 touched with reverence and humility ; I simply ask, 
 in reason and in common sense, if we are not bound 
 to know what can be known of the author of our 
 consciously responsible existence ; and without any 
 reference to a higher claim, which has been made a 
 matter of infinite doubt and discussion, do we not 
 at least owe it to ourselves to settle a question upon 
 which our well being seems undeniably to rest ? I 
 simply suggest the obligation because if you assent 
 to it sincerely there will be no difficulty in finding out 
 the way to meet it. A great thinker has maintained 
 that *' the tap-root of every man's character is his 
 estimate of God " and it would not, I should think, 
 require much reflection to perceive that it is a matter 
 of infinite moment to us whether we regard our 
 
Responsibility. 37 
 
 Maker as a demon to be propitiated or a Father to be 
 loved. What becomes of my human doubts and 
 fears ? What becomes of my fear of secret enmity or 
 open violence if I am authorized to appropriate a divine 
 paternity ? ^' He need not dread created might who 
 loves God the Creator." What becomes of my fear 
 of deavh, my reluctance to meet visibly and face to 
 face him whose companionship I have invoked, 
 whose counsel I have sought, whose correction I 
 have invited during this transitory obscuration of his 
 presence? He is still the same unchangeable being 
 whatever may be the vicissitudes of my probationary 
 experience ; let me only be assured that I have a 
 filial claim upon his favor, and I cease to regard with 
 personal anxiety the acts of any or all of his depend- 
 ent creatures; and how is it possible for me to doubt 
 the existence of such a claim when it stands avouched 
 in the life and death of that divine man by whose 
 earthly mission it was so clearly vindicated and pro- 
 claimed. But again, as we are responsible for a 
 proper acquaintance with the Author of our being, so 
 are we for our estimate of his work. The facts are 
 all before us, the material creation enfolds us in its 
 
38 Responsibility, 
 
 universal embrace, we He upon its bosom and it gives 
 us form and phenomenality ; we act through it and 
 upon it and it constitutes, as far as we can judge, an 
 indispensable element of our individuality ; it will 
 not do then to despise it, and the position of the 
 ascetic, the cynic and the stoic are all alike unnatural 
 and untenable. Grant that the body is but an instru- 
 ment or manifestation of the mind ; in either case we 
 are bound to secure its utmost availability and we are 
 plainly responsible for any failure, either personal or 
 relative, which may result from the neglect of its un- 
 deniable claims : but of course those claims are only 
 secondary ; important as the instrument may be, it 
 cannot be placed upon the same level with the agent, 
 and every man who has the aspirations of a man, who 
 is conscious within himself of powers which raise 
 him above the brute, must exhibit that consciousness 
 and gratify those aspirations by recognizing the 
 superior claims of the mind in which they germinate. 
 *' Self-knowledge, self-reverence, self-control, these 
 three alone lead life to sovereign power." We are 
 responsible then for our minds, not for their bril- 
 liancy, not for their power, not for their availability 
 
Responsibility^ 39 
 
 as instruments of display and personal aggrandize- 
 ment, but for their use as the gifts of a divine Creator 
 and the representatives of a divine influence in crea- 
 tion and I urge this view the more emphatically on 
 account of the terrible consequences of its neglect. 
 It is strange that men should seem so little aware of 
 the injustice charged against their Maker in their 
 mode of estimating his gifts. Except among a few 
 conscientious thinkers these gifts are claimed and ap- 
 propriated without hesitation and without acknowl- 
 edgment, and all the merit and all the glory that can 
 be extracted from their most selfish and despotic use 
 are assumed as the rightful property of the fortunate 
 possessor. But shall we be content with such a view 
 of the being whom in theory, at least, we worship as 
 perfect truth and perfect justice? Is this teeming 
 world, this vast humanity, ushered into existence 
 merely that it may furnish a background for the dis- 
 play of a few lordly intellects or subside into the 
 thraldom of a few despotic wills ? Have none but 
 intellectual giants, or those who pass for such, a right 
 to the possession of a thought or the expression of 
 an opinion or the indulgence of a hope ? Is it really 
 
40 Responsibility. 
 
 so that the great majority of the human race are re- 
 quired to approach their Maker through the interven- 
 tion of other minds and to receive the grand but sim- 
 ple truths of existence as they come to them diluted 
 and disengaged in the crucible of human analysis and 
 labeled by the endorsement of human authority? 
 Yet such is and ever has been the human view of the 
 case. One conspicuous thinker boldly avows the 
 opinion that the history of human progress resolves 
 itself into the biography of a few resolute and over- 
 mastering intellects which have expounded the faith 
 and controlled the destinies of the age in which they 
 lived. Here we have, recognized and established, in 
 the nineteenth century, a systern of intellectual des- 
 potism for whose political counterpart we must look, 
 among the darkest ages of feudal tyranny. Politi- 
 cally, we profess to have emancipated ourselves from 
 these puerilities, but spiritually and intellectually 
 we still glory in a hero worship only worthy of a bar- 
 barous apotheosis. I believe that a reaction is inevi- 
 table, and that it will exhibit itself in the same disas- 
 trous results in the world of letters and the world of 
 thought as have attended the social and political 
 
Responsibility^ 41 
 
 crises which have convulsed the nations. Much that 
 is noble and beautiful will go down before it, but not 
 to be lost forever, for the plain common sense, the 
 calm second thought of mankind will not forever 
 consent to be sacrificed on the altars of personal am- 
 bition. Man will yet learn his true dignity and his 
 true power as " the offspring of God," and will take 
 refuge from ultraisms in the simple conviction that the 
 discovery of truth is the proper employment of 
 mind, and that the noblest intellect is that which 
 most sincerely desires and most thoroughly attains 
 it. Divine truths are simple truths, they are in- 
 tended to meet the necessities of the human mind 
 wherever and in whatever condition it may be found. 
 In the development and application of these truths it 
 is not intended that we should act as complements to 
 one another ; we cannot be trusted to do so, we are 
 too weak, too ignorant, too easily uplifted by a little 
 comparative activity or precocity of intellect to render 
 such an attitude safe either to him who imparts or 
 to him who receives ; teaching degenerates into dicta- 
 tion, learning sinks into worship. God is the com- 
 plement, the only complement of man : communion 
 
42 Rcspo7isibility, 
 
 with him is the only nourishment which can give 
 vitaHty, energy and enlargement to the mind of his 
 creature ; and the feeblest intellect thus vivified and 
 enlarged becomes more available for all the purposes 
 of wise and noble living than the self-reliant profun- 
 dity of a des Cartes, or the self-exalting ambition of 
 a Buckle or a Compte. 
 
 But in order to accomplish this, you and I, my 
 friends, must learn to value our own minds, must 
 show our reverence for the Creator by recognizing 
 and appreciating the grandeur of his work and feeling 
 how utterly we dishonor him, whenever, by any 
 mock-humility, we consent to its degradation. These 
 minds, which God has given us, we must account for, 
 and if from a fancied sense of inferiority or the in° 
 dulgence of a mortified vanity or a reverence for self- 
 constituted authority, we dare to neglect his gift, we 
 have no right to complain if we forfeit it forever. 
 
 The man who yields his judgment to anything but 
 honest conviction, the man who suffers himself to be 
 overawed by the pretentions of a domineering intel- 
 lect, has fairly earned his vassalage and must be con- 
 tent henceforth to lose his individuality. We hear a 
 
Responsibility. 43 
 
 great deal about the retributions of eternity ; but 
 there are none to be dreaded but such as are the re- 
 sult of our own ehoice and the consequences of our 
 own laches. 
 
 Your Maker is your inspirer and your judge, and 
 you will find in him, not only an infallible guide to 
 your duties, but an all-powerful vindicator of your 
 rights. 
 
 Men are everywhere alive to their lesfal and social 
 claims, and are pressing them with a vindictive fury 
 which will retard their progress and recoil upon them- 
 selves ; but they seem, almost in the same proportion, 
 dead to their mental and spiritual privileges, and yet 
 it is these last which are most seriously assailed and 
 most worthy of vindication ; take away my property, 
 deprive me of life if you will, but leave my intellect 
 untrammelled, let my spirit go free and it will soon 
 soar out of the reach of earthly chains and human 
 despotism, A great deal of this despotism is perpe- 
 trated under cover of an assumed obligation to defend 
 the truth ; but this is only another form of presump- 
 tion. Truth — divine truth — the truth which we need 
 and which alone can correct human folly and pro- 
 
44 Responsibility. 
 
 , mote human expansion, is by no means that feeble 
 and mawkish thing which requires to be sustained 
 upon its pedestal by external supports. Truth, be 
 well assured, can take very good care of herself, she 
 needs no champion and will endure no patronage at 
 human hands, and it will be well for us all, from the 
 highest to the lowest, if we be found walking humbly 
 and carefully in that noble company gathered from 
 the east and from the west, from the north and from 
 the south of every tribe and family and sect and per- 
 suasion under heaven, who are content to follow 
 patiently in her footsteps and have resisted the temp- 
 tation to thrust their insignificance in the path of her 
 resistless and triumphant advance. But again, we are 
 responsible for our virtue, not that negative and im- 
 becile thing which so often claims the title, but that 
 revealed and embodied force which was implied in 
 the original construction of the word and of which 
 the Roman was blindly conscious when he named it 
 ''manhood," In our time men have adroitly contrived 
 to turn the tables and virtue, nowadays, is but too 
 apt to degenerate into a meek surrender to evil as a 
 necessary consequence of human imperfection; but I 
 
Responsibility. 45 
 
 still cleave to the old Roman interpretation, changin^^ 
 only the field of contest ; we have reached a stage in 
 earthly progress in which we cannot with much claim 
 to intelligence retain the standards which belonged 
 to the infancy of the human intellect. Now, that we 
 have become men, we must put away childish things, 
 we can no longer tilt at the windmill antagonists of 
 a former generation ; the struggle for temporal suc- 
 cess and material grandeur and human applause has 
 ceased to occupy the minds and employ the energies 
 of honest and intelligent men ; that vulgar struggle has 
 been remitted, as it should be, to the thoughtless and 
 the sensuous, to the narrow-minded and the profane ; 
 we have reached a higher platform, from whence we 
 have caught glimpses of real life, and we blush with 
 shame to think of the delusions upon which we have 
 expended our energies and wasted our triumphs. We 
 have learned at last, by sad experience, by mortify- 
 ing failure, by overwhelming defeat, that, " we 
 wrestle not with flesh and blood," and that we have 
 often4)een the victims of a sardonic mockery, when 
 we fancied ourselves the heroes of a righteous antag- 
 onism. No ! let us congratulate ourselves that we 
 
46 Responsibility. 
 
 have been introduced into a higher life, and that 
 while virtue in the abstract is the same noble energy 
 which the Greek admired and the Roman cultivated, 
 it is exercised upon a higher plane, with a wider 
 scope and for a grander result than could have 
 entered into a mind upon which Christianity had not 
 shed its divine effulgence. Virtue does not now 
 mean merely courage, it means patience, it means 
 humility, it means self-sacrifice, it means not only a 
 readiness to face death, but a willingness to endure 
 life, when its zest is gone and its bloom decayed — 
 that living death which no merely human hero could 
 for a moment endure. 
 
 It still means manhood, but a manhood sustained 
 and energized by a higher spirit; that divine man- 
 hood which meets the threats of usurped authority 
 with the calm rebuke, " Thou couldst have no power 
 at all against me except it were given thee from 
 above." 
 
 It is for such a manhood as this that we become 
 responsible when we profess to have risen above the 
 childishness, the effeminacy and the brutality which 
 disgrace our social annals, and which form the ele- 
 
Responsibility . 47 
 
 ments of every nature in which a divine energy is 
 not predominant. 
 
 Finally^ we are responsible for our honor, and here 
 again I must discriminate ; I do not mean reputation, 
 nor do I mean homage, nor do I mean popularity; 
 these things are external, ambiguous and beyond our 
 control, they depend upon the passions, the interests 
 and the caprices of men, they may be unworthily ac- 
 corded and unjustly withheld, an accident may confer, 
 a falsehood may withdraw them ; the honor of which 
 I speak and to which I would direct your ambition 
 is something very different from these, it is a princi- 
 ple, an internal unchangeable principle ; it cannot 
 be imparted, and it cannot be withheld ; it depends 
 upon no contingencies ; it is unmoved by threats 
 and inaccessible to flattery; it is the same lofty 
 energy in adversity as it is in prosperity ; it is as 
 noble and self-respectful in obscurity as it is modest 
 and unassuming before the public gaze ; it does 
 not ask what is convenient or what is profit- 
 able or what is politic, but it rests immovably 
 upon what is true, what is noble, what is generous, 
 what is brave ; it is not a relative but an absolute 
 
48 Responsibility, 
 
 constituent; it has no envies, no malignities, no hates 
 and no fears ; it cannot build itself upon the ruin of 
 another, because it is pledged to consult the feelings 
 and respect the rights and acknowledge the virtues 
 of all with whom it comes in contact ; and it is un- 
 suspicious because it is conscious of an energy 
 within which sets at defiance all the powers of dark- 
 ness. In its social exercise it recognizes no legiti- 
 mate ground of enmity, but, if an issue is forced upon 
 it, it accepts it reluctantly and allows no personal 
 feeling to degrade the contest; seeking only the truth 
 it discards all irrelevant and ad captandum influences, 
 scorns all mean advantage and welcomes defeat in a 
 wrong cause. It meets its adversary face to face, not 
 seeking victory, but right, and never feels itself 
 stronger or higher than when it has confessed a wrong 
 or redressed an injury. 
 
 I have been at the pains thus to analyze and define 
 because a principle is current in the world which, under 
 the name of honor and with professions and claims 
 which attract the thoughtless and deceive the un- 
 wary, oppresses society by an influence the very 
 reverse of that I have endeavored to invoke, an in- 
 
Responsibility . 49 
 
 fluence which narrows the mind, corrupts the heart, 
 degrades the spirit and brutalizes the manners of all 
 who yield to its irrational control. I wish to relieve 
 you, as far as I can, from entering upon the exacting 
 duties of life burdened with an incubus which v/ill 
 utterly unfit you for their proper performance ; you 
 cannot defend your honor, its proper function is to 
 defend you, and if you have been so unfortunate as to 
 cultivate a sickly sentimentality instead of a robust 
 and manly power, the sooner you correct the error 
 the better will it be for your manhood and your true 
 success : depend upon it, the only honor that is worth 
 cultivating is that which can take care of itself, which 
 is strong and true and trustful and patient, willing 
 and able to bide its time ; that honor which must be 
 guarded with jealous watchfulness, which cannot en- 
 dure a slur, which must be kept clean by blood, is not 
 honor, but its shadow reputation, and you may well 
 be anxious about that, for its very existence depends 
 upon the sunshine of prosperity. 
 
 And now you will charge me, very justly, with 
 presenting you an impracticable, a superhuman stand- 
 ard. I acknowledge that I have done so, and that I am 
 
50 Responsibility. 
 
 bound in consequence, not to close this address until 
 I have suggested some reasonable ground for the in- 
 justice and some adequate provision for the difficulty 
 in which I seem to have involved you ; fortunately I 
 have not far to go; the very nature of the difficulty 
 suggests the remedy : If the work is superhuman so 
 must be the agent, and you are privileged to claim 
 an interposition adequate to your necessities ; you 
 cannot rise above yourselves ; you cannot give more 
 than you have received or live in an atmosphere un- 
 suited to your organs of respiration ; God is not un- 
 just and we are authorized to assume all that logi- 
 cally follows from that inevitable postulate ; if he re- 
 quires virtue above your strength, His strength must 
 be pledged to aid you in the attainment ; here lies the 
 secret of your paradoxical experience ; you must in- 
 voke and exercise a superhuman, a divine power, and 
 upon that power you must cast the burden of your 
 superhuman responsibilities. 
 
 It is needless to enlarge upon this suggestion, it 
 commends itself to the intelligence of every mind 
 capable of appreciating its own native dignity and 
 ultimate destiny. 
 
THE PATHOS OF POETRY. 
 
 HEN the great English Epic evolved line by 
 line 
 From the mind of the hermit we now call 
 
 divine, 
 And the whole stately structure was reared in its 
 
 place 
 Resplendent with genius and instinct with grace, 
 The soul from whose throes came that marvelous 
 
 birth 
 In its struggle for truth had been crushed to the 
 
 Earth ; 
 And there as he pondered, deserted, forlorn, 
 The Sectary's hate and the Courtier's scorn. 
 From the depths of his time-darkened spirit there 
 
 sprung 
 That song which no time-nurtured bard could have 
 
 sung ; 
 The sunlight, withdrawn from those fathomless eyes, 
 Rose cloudless and warm in unchangable skies ; 
 
52 The Pathos of Poetry. 
 
 And the darkness which curtained his earth-bounded 
 
 sight, 
 Gave relief to those visions of heavenly light, 
 Which, nurtured in sorrow and tempered by pain, 
 Revealed to his soul how his loss might be gain- 
 
 The Garden of Eden, the home of the soul. 
 
 Whose denizens felt not and feared not control ; 
 
 The birth place of innocence, cradled in sense. 
 
 Unconscious of virtue, unknowing offence, 
 
 Unfallen, and therefore unable to rise, 
 
 Never touching the depths, never reaching the skies ; 
 
 The womb of creation from whence she might spring 
 
 Into finite existence, an objective thing. 
 
 In that gorgeous, phenomenal mystery draped, 
 
 The reflex of mind in whose mold it was shaped ; 
 
 And shrouding the sensitive creature from ill 
 
 While soft to the touch of an infinite will. 
 
 The life-tree that nourished, the death-tree that 
 
 warned, 
 The tempter that blasted what God had adorned, 
 The perennial grove and the amaranth bower. 
 The fountain that watered the tree and the flower, 
 
The Pathos of Poetry, 53 
 
 All rose at the touch of his life-giving wand 
 Embodied his thought and fulfilled his command ; 
 And the pictures which sprang from the touch of the 
 
 blind, 
 Still ravish the sight and the soul of mankind. 
 
 He stands not alone, down the broad aisle of time 
 Far off in the distance, majestic, sublime, 
 Stands the bard of the Ages, whose voice evermore 
 Shall ring through the arches of time as of yore 
 And in echo still clear and sonorous restore 
 The song of the free to each freedomless shore. 
 
 From the primeval dawn of man's earliest thought 
 When pure from it's spring inspiration was caught. 
 All nature was vital with marks of its God 
 And man found his Maker wherever he trod : 
 He dwelt on the mountain in lordly conclave, 
 He hallowed the forest and brightened the wave, 
 To furnish his weapon the sun lent his beam 
 And the naiad confessed his abode in the stream. 
 One divinity guided the steeds of the sun 
 And another presided when daylight was done, 
 
54 The Pathos of Poetry. 
 
 And thus the poor heir of ephemeral day 
 Surmounted in spirit his vesture of clay. 
 The thought of the seer was narrow and crude, 
 The form of his mythos was simple and rude; 
 But his ear was attuned to aeonian sounds, 
 And unconsciously spurned it's material bounds. 
 But Olympus no longer can shelter the Gods, 
 Earth trembles no longer when Jupiter nods. 
 And the chain he suspended from heaven to earth. 
 No longer avails to demonstrate his worth ; 
 Yet the Father we crave and the God we adore 
 Bends over his children in love, as of yore; 
 And the Power diffracted by myopic eyes 
 Now shines as a unit direct from the skies. 
 
 Creation can never Creator disown, 
 
 God moves in the water and rests in the stone, 
 
 And the Pagan who saw him in mountain and stream 
 
 Shames the victim of science who counts him a dream ; 
 
 And scorns the transcendent devotion refined, 
 
 Which excogitates God from the depths of the mind 
 
 A subjective God whose enjoyment depends 
 
 On submission enforced to his personal ends; 
 
The Pathos of Poetry. 55 
 
 An irrational God whose omnipotent will ' 
 
 Draws a meaningless line twixt the good and the ill ; 
 
 A tyrannous God whose despotic command 
 
 Creates for destruction the work of his hand, 
 
 Almighty to punish the thrall's of his hate 
 
 Omniscient to cognize, in foresight, their fate. 
 
 Far better the poet who saw him afar, 
 
 And worshipped his God in the sun or the star, 
 
 Than the Zealot who makes him the tool of his spite 
 
 Or the Bigot who finites his infinite light. 
 
 One Father we have, the protector of all, 
 
 Who masters the great and ennobles the small ; 
 
 What he has created in vain we despise, 
 
 Not an atom too small for his vigilant eyes ; 
 
 And the mortal, who dares to interpret his plan, 
 
 Needs the mind and the heart of an infinite man. 
 
 The sensual thought, whether gross or refined, 
 
 Is the herald of death to the sensual mind ; 
 
 And the fruit of that tree, ever fair to the sight 
 
 Is poison to him who partakes not aright ; 
 
 Time and space are but '* thought forms " of sensual 
 
 man. 
 There was never a time when creation began ; 
 
56 The Pathos of Poetry. 
 
 And thought cannot find in indefinite space, 
 
 The outcome of might which no thought can embrace. 
 
 All hail ! then, the Poet, whose songs interfuse 
 
 A Power divine in his mythical muse ; 
 
 And mingle the tones of conventional thought, 
 
 With a waft of the air from eternity brought. 
 
 There's a darkness excluding the sensual light, 
 Sternly biding creation from visual light, 
 Reducing the splendors of nature to naught 
 And compelling the mind to intuitive thought. 
 There's a darkness involvinof a murkier gloom, 
 The darkness of death which o'ershadows the tomb ; 
 And the ray, which can pierce through that opaline 
 
 shade, 
 Must be lit in the land where the lights never fade. 
 TJie Poet, who stands twixt the living and dead, 
 The light of whose life has been quenched in the bed 
 Where the form which was hallowed by friendship is 
 
 cold, 
 And the earth which was vital is turning to mold ; 
 The P(?^/ whose innermost light has gone out 
 In the coldness of death and the darkness of doubt, 
 
The Pathos of Poetry. 57 
 
 Must illumine his soul with the sunlight of trust, 
 Ere his spirit can wake from its sleep in the dust. 
 And the Latweate^ who reared o'er the grave of his 
 
 friend 
 A memento whose pathos time never can mend, 
 Has hallowed the ground where his footsteps have trod 
 And pointed the pathway from nature to God. 
 Ah ! deep is the vale of the shadow of death, 
 And prostrate the soul that has wandered from faith ; 
 And dread, in the darkness, the cry of despair. 
 Which is wrung from that soul in its midnight of 
 
 fear ; 
 But the spark of divinity never goes out. 
 And the mind where it rests cannot linger in doubt 
 And "' resiirgam'''' is written in letters of light, 
 On the crest of the mortal who stands in the fight, 
 The good fight of faith, the internal strife, ♦ 
 
 Which triumphs in death and which issues in life. 
 
 It is strange, it is wonderful, minstrels that sing 
 In the power of sunlight and glory of spring, 
 Never touch the true heart of humanity so 
 As the Poet who labors, in darkness and woe : 
 
58 The Pathos of Poetry. 
 
 Like the artist who shrouds the beholder in gloom 
 And curtains the window and darkens the room, 
 And woos, to illustrate the child of his heart, 
 Concentrated light to emblazon his art, 
 Or astronomer, sounding the depths of the sky, 
 Through a tunnel of darkness brings light to his 
 
 fcye, . 
 So the Poet, whose vision to nature is blind. 
 
 Sees a loftier world with the eye of his mind, 
 
 And dying to sense and forgetful of time, 
 
 Awakens, restirgent, to visions sublime, 
 
 The Bards of the Ages ! The finger of time, 
 As it sweeps o'er the dial in movement sublime, 
 Marks the epochs which signal it's awful advance, 
 By chimings which waken the ear they entrance ; 
 And those watchmen who stand, each alone, on his 
 
 tower 
 Give note to the slumbering world, of the hour, 
 Now loud, as in triumph, now low, as in fear. 
 Now warning the sleeper when danger is near ; 
 Each looking above for the keynote to give 
 Inspiration to song and the power to live ; 
 
The Pathos of Poetry. 59 
 
 Each looking within for the soul to reply- 
 To the touch of the magnet that draws him on high. 
 
 We live in two worlds, the philosophers teach, 
 
 And science concurs in her technical speech. 
 
 And Poets give rythmical note of the fact, 
 
 And heroes respond in superlative act. 
 
 But Philosophy fails to illustrate her creed, 
 
 And Science supplies not the clue that we need ; 
 
 And the World of the Poet, subjective alone, 
 
 Only claims the ideal and vague as its own. 
 
 Action only is real, the issue that springs 
 
 From the marriage of thought with phenomenal things. 
 
 The potential evolved into actual life 
 
 By the fusion of elements singly at strife. 
 
 From the world of the senses and world of the mind 
 
 Antithetic in nature and different in kind, 
 
 There emerge into action spontaneous and free, 
 
 Individual spirits of lofty degree ; 
 
 And nature, which seems universal in plan, 
 
 Attains the responsible unit in man : 
 
 A unit endowed with a glorious dower, 
 
 A selthood instinct with appropriate power. 
 
60 The Pathos of Poetry. 
 
 A form which embodies an infinite life, 
 
 Giving light to its darkness and strength to its strife; 
 
 A form, in which Godhead and manhood combine 
 
 To embody forever the human divine : 
 
 A Temple whose curtains but faintly conceal 
 
 The shrine which the Holiest came to reveal ; 
 
 Drawing up to himself by an infinite art 
 
 The spirit enthralled by its earthlier part. 
 
 Then man becomes Godlike, when God becomes man. 
 
 And here, on this earth, is developed the plan 
 
 Which satisfies thought and reconciles doubt 
 
 And unifies all things, within and without; 
 
 And thus from the mist of the mythical ages 
 
 Recorded by Bards and embalmed by the sages, 
 
 Through the long-drawn and teeming succession of 
 
 years 
 Polluted by crimes and embittered by tears, 
 Those types of the Godlike, exalted and free, 
 Foreshadow the glories which yet are to be; 
 Those types of the Godlike, to worldlings unknown, 
 Who leaven the world by their presence alone, 
 Who stand in their lot, representative men, 
 Bravely making their mark with their blood or their pen: 
 
The Pathos of Poetry. 61 
 
 Responsible each for his act and his thought 
 With a mind unseduced and a conscience unbought ; 
 Who live for their manhood and dare to be free 
 Where the thralls of the world bow idolatrous knee. 
 
 Our life is no drama, no scenic display — 
 Now tragic, now comic, then passing away ; 
 With selfhood comes conscience and conscience sub- 
 tends 
 An infinite presence and infinite ends ; 
 The power of choice, which ennobles our life, 
 Gives token within of an infinite strife ; 
 And he only conquers whose triumph proclaims 
 A struggle inspired by infinite aims ; 
 No contest with man, no irrational strife, 
 With ills v/hich beset our external life ; 
 No wasting of energy, misuse of power, 
 In impotent strife with the wrongs of the hour ; 
 No weak prostitution of mental resource, 
 In subtle refinement or pompous discourse ; 
 Abusing the power which language supplies 
 For a vulgar renown which the noble despise ; 
 
62 The Pathos of Poetry. 
 
 Disgusting the honest, misleading the bhnd 
 
 And only deceiving the cultureless mind. 
 
 No pitiful struggle for place or for name. 
 
 The paltry result of an ignoble game ; 
 
 But the God-like employment of God-given mind 
 
 In loving and raising and blessing mankind ; 
 
 Mae^nanimous thought for the good of the whole 
 
 In noble response for the gift of a soul ; 
 
 And self with the falsehood in which it reposed 
 
 By the might of true manhood forever deposed. 
 
 Im.prisoned in sense as the bird in its shell 
 We live, all unconscious, the thralls of a spell 
 Whose glamor avails to conceal from the mind 
 That its thought is unformed and its vision purblind, 
 That the world of true being, from which it is barred, 
 Is hedged by the sword of the seraph on guard, 
 And that all that the effort of man can achieve 
 Is, Creation accomplished, its cause to believe. 
 When worldings paint heaven, they travesty earth 
 Unlearned in the lore of the spirit's new birth ; 
 A sensual heaven, with worldly delights 
 And melodious sounds and enrapturing sights \ 
 
The Pathos of Poetry, 63 
 
 Where the body set free from the safeguards of 
 
 earth, 
 
 Shall wallow in pleasure and revel in mirth ; 
 
 Where the unfettered passions, released from control, 
 
 Shall return to their house in the regarnished soul. 
 
 And fiends of ambition and demons of vice, 
 
 Hold revelry high in a fool's paradise. 
 
 But Heaven dwells not in the sensual mind. 
 
 Whether lofty or low, whether gross or refined ; 
 
 It knows not the limits of time or of space, 
 
 Is heedless of years and unmindful of place ; 
 
 It's infinite home is the bosom of love, 
 
 Contracted below, but expanded above ; 
 
 And wherever the spirit of charity reigns, 
 
 Eternity measures the life it maintains ; 
 The malice of man cannot banish it thence, 
 
 It defies all the blundering weapons of sense, 
 
 Whose keenness controlled by the hand of a friend, 
 
 Is directed alone to arouse and amend, 
 
 It heeds not the agent, or only to bless, 
 
 Despises revenge and is cold to redress ; 
 
 But awaits, in the calm of ineffable peace, 
 
 The summons which heralds the spirit's release. 
 
64 The Pathos of Poetry, 
 
 We are creatures of time and we live in a zone 
 
 Whose orbit is scanned by the Maker alone ; 
 
 The impotent tools of omnipotent mind, 
 
 Who work in time's loom unconsulted and blind ; 
 
 The ignorant agents of wisdom supreme, 
 
 Borne ruthlessly onward by time's ceaseless stream ; 
 
 Who shape not events, nor control their estate, 
 
 But live at the mercy of merciless fate. 
 
 The machine of creation in perfect accord, 
 
 Unceasingly prints an unchangeable word. 
 
 Which stamped on the organ of changeable man, 
 
 Results in the chaos in which time began ; 
 
 But creation, the work of an infinite hand 
 
 Permits no free agent to cross his command 
 
 And the gift of a zvill, introactive alone 
 
 Involves not the power to alter a stone : 
 
 Affects not creation, but only is given 
 
 To locate the agent in Hell or in Heaven. 
 
 In the pride of our selthood we thoughtlessly deem 
 
 Things are in reality such as they seem ; 
 
 But logic, too stern for unreasoning man, 
 
 Incontestably proves an unchangeable plan. 
 
The Pathos of Poetry. 65 
 
 In a world of perfection an atom astray 
 
 Brings ruin as sure as the failure of day, 
 
 And what must ensue if the thoughtless and blind 
 
 Interfere with the order of infinite mind ? 
 
 Thou thrall of probation relentlessly tried, 
 
 By visions of beauty forever denied, 
 
 Who livest for duty nor seekest reward, 
 
 And holdest thy standard direct from the Lord ; 
 
 Whose aims are misjudged by a sensual age, 
 
 And wliose name finds no place upon history's page, 
 
 Thou thrall of probation ! be still of good cheer, 
 
 Before the Unerring, thy record is clear ; 
 
 Enough that the issue for which thou hast striven 
 
 Shall find its due place in tlie archives of Heaven ; 
 
 And the crown now denied thee or given in scorn, 
 
 Shall rest on thy brow, dispossessed of its thorn ; 
 
 Enough that the stone which the builders denied, 
 
 Shall stand in its corner, its claim justified ; 
 
 And the workman withdrawn from his labor of love, 
 
 Shall find never ending employment above. 
 
 Our natures are two-fold, without and within, 
 Are the parts of the synthesis whence we begin ; 
 
66 The Pathos of Poetry, 
 
 And mind with its analogue matter compose 
 The ultimate ovum from whence man arose. 
 Mind alone is not man, unconscious and vain 
 It wanders unformed till a body it gain ; 
 Then the composite being, who dominates earth, 
 Takes his place as ordained at his wonderful 
 
 birth ; 
 And when thus the concrete individual gains 
 The conscious existence which henceforth remains, 
 He finds now within him, aside from his will, 
 A responsible claim he can never fulfil ; 
 And, urged by a pressure beyond his control, 
 Appropriates evil as part of his soul. 
 Thus the conflict begins, to surcease nevermore, 
 Till his destiny point to that ultimate shore 
 Where the claims of probation are finally weighed, 
 And fixed by the choice each probationer made ; 
 When, its first combination resolved once again 
 Into separate elements, pure and inane; 
 The spirit of life, its identity lost, 
 A naked, unconscious, unrecognized ghost, 
 Attains the objective and conscious once more 
 By fusion with substance eternally pure, 
 
The Pathos of Poetry, 67 
 
 And the self v;hich once crept as a mortal on earth, 
 
 Rejoices on high in a heavenly birth. 
 
 There pure and serene, in eternal embrace, 
 
 Exalted in nature and perfect in grace, 
 
 The Psyche which chafed under secular vows 
 
 ft/ 
 
 Shall repose in the arms of a heavenly spouse, 
 And the voices which welcome her advent above 
 Shall hail her, the bride of an infinite love. 
 
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