or Overcoming the World 
 
 "The soul is cured of its maladies by certain incantations : these incanta- 
 tions are beautiful reasons, from which temperance is generated in souls." 
 
 SOCRATES. 
 
 "These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. 
 In the world ye shall have tribulation : but be of good cheer, / have over- 
 come the world." MESSIAS. 
 
 A NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 Ticknor and Fields 
 
 1864
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by 
 
 T I C K N O R A N I> F I K 1. 1) S , 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS: 
 
 WELCH, B i n E L r> \v , AN C o M p A N v , 
 
 C A M n R i D o E .
 
 TO THOSE 
 
 WHO HAVE GIVEN 
 
 THEIR BEST AND DEAREST 
 
 KOR GOD'S WORK IN OUR COUNTRY'S CAUSE, 
 
 JT Ill's 15oot 
 
 IS DEDICATED.
 
 ,treut eifrttj in empfanglic^e @emutl?er 
 5)ftf uten unfr t>e (Sc^fiicn amcntorner! 
 &e ti'tincn unt erbluben tort jii
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS AND WORKS QUOTED. 
 
 [The numbers correspond with those in the text.J 
 
 b Unknown. 47 John James Taylor. 
 
 1 Lyra Innocentium. 48 Saadi. 
 
 2 Festus. 49 Helps. 
 Quarles. 50 Shakespeare. 
 Alfred Tennyson. 51 Akenside. 
 Whittier. 52 Camoens. 
 
 6 Mrs. Jameson. 53 North British Review. 
 
 7 Mrs. Silsbee. 54 Vaughan. 
 
 8 Goethe. 55 Bacon, Lord Verulam. 
 
 9 Rahel. 56 Patience of Hope. 
 10 Montgomery. 57 William Ware. 
 
 Mrs. Child. 58 Cornelius Matthews. 
 
 J. R. Lowell. 59 Fenelon. 
 
 D. 
 
 . . . . 
 
 13 D. A. Wasson. 60 Feltham. 
 
 14 R. Browning. 61 Young's Night Thoughts. 
 
 15 Emerson. 62 Herder. 
 
 16 Bishop Hall. 63 Kingsley. 
 
 17 Milton. 64 Christian Examiner. 
 
 18 Sir Thomas Browne. 65 W. S. Landor. 
 
 19 Coleridge. 66 N. P. Willis. 
 
 20 Bishop Taylor. 67 Confucius. 
 
 21 John Bunyan. 68 Economy of Life (A.I). 1800; 
 
 22 C. A. Bartol. 69 Thomas De Quincey. 
 
 23 Thomas a Kempis. 70 Dr. Wadsworth. 
 
 24 Tragedy of Errors. 71 Francis de Sales. 
 
 25 A. Bronson Alcott. 72 Longfellow. 
 
 26 Edmund Waller. 73 Offering of Sympathy 
 
 27 William Treat. 74 Charles Lamb. 
 
 28 Spenser. 75 Arthur Hallain. 
 
 29 Barry Cornwall. 76 George Herbert. 
 
 30 Victor Hugo. 77 Milnes. 
 
 31 Dryden. 78 F. Schlegel. 
 
 32 Portsmouth Journal. 79 Barrow. 
 
 33 Harriet Martineau. 80 James Martineau. 
 
 34 Jean Paul Friedrich Richter. 81 Ruskin. 
 
 35 William Wordsworth. 82 Sismondi. 
 
 36 Thomas Carlyle. 83 Thomas Hood. 
 
 37 Plato. 84 Henry Giles. 
 
 38 Keats. 85 W. C. Bryant. 
 
 39 Schiller. 86 Moimtford. 
 
 40 Dr. Fuller. 87 Dickens. 
 
 41 Dr. John Brown. 88 Edward Jarvis. 
 
 42 Jones Very. 89 Henry Taylor. 
 
 43 Essays written in Intervals of 90 Dr. Watts. 
 
 Business. 91 Lamartine. 
 
 44 Chaucer. 92 Pope. 
 
 45 Bettina. 93 Thackeray. 
 
 46 Dr. Samuel Brown. 94 The Dud.
 
 VI 
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 95 Archytes on the Good and 135 
 
 Happy Man. 136 
 
 96 Dr. Parr. 137 
 
 97 Shelley. 138 
 
 98 Sterling. 139 
 
 99 Hare. 140 
 oo Chapman. 141 
 
 William Dunbar. 142 
 
 02 Thomas Decker. 143 
 
 03 Crashaw. 144 
 
 04 Jacobi. 145 
 
 05 Hymns of the Ages. 146 
 
 06 Sir William Temple. 147 
 
 07 Dr. Walker. 148 
 
 08 Thoreau. 149 
 
 09 Sidney Smith. 150 
 
 10 Wilkinson. 151 
 
 11 Hippodamus on Felicity. 152 
 
 12 Pascal. 153 
 
 13 Cecil. 154 
 
 14 J. H. Thorn. 155 
 
 15 A. L. Waring. 156 
 
 16 Seed-Grain. 157 
 
 17 Thomas C. Upham. 158 
 
 18 Lyra Germamca. 159 
 
 19 Story of To-day. 160 
 
 20 Reminiscences of Thought and 161 
 
 Feeling. 162 
 
 21 E. H. Sears. 163 
 
 22 Lady Elizabeth Carew. 164 
 
 23 Leigh Hunt. 165 
 
 24 Thomson. 166 
 
 25 Clough. 167 
 
 26 Diirer's Artist's Married Life. 168 
 
 27 Mrs. Stowe. 169 
 
 28 Benjamin Whichcote. 170 
 
 29 Shirley. 171 
 
 30 W. Irving. 172 
 
 31 R. C. Waterston. 173 
 
 32 W. E. Channing. 174 
 
 33 Morison. 
 
 34 Parting Gift. 175 
 
 Fields. 
 
 Dr. South. 
 
 Chambers's Journal. 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 
 Webster. 
 
 Baxter. 
 
 Spanish of Argensolas. 
 
 Dr. Dewey. 
 
 John Wilson. 
 
 Gerald Massey. 
 
 H. W. Beecher. 
 
 Breviary. 
 
 F. W. Robertson. 
 O. W. Holmes 
 Maria Lowell. 
 Mrs. Browning. 
 A. A. Procter. 
 Cowper. 
 Russian Poetry. 
 
 G. W. Bethune. 
 W. D. Moir. 
 
 Sir John Davies. 
 
 Williams. 
 
 Leopold Schefer. 
 
 Edmeston. 
 
 Dr. W. E. Channing. 
 
 G. W. Doane. 
 
 Thomas Aird. 
 
 Vita Nuova. 
 
 F. W. Newman. 
 
 Robert Nicoll. 
 
 Constant. 
 
 Habington. 
 
 Giles Fletcher. 
 
 Dirk Smits. 
 
 Dublin University Magazine. 
 
 Jacob Boehme. 
 
 Gaskill. 
 
 J. F. Clarke. 
 
 Author of " Counterparts ' 
 
 and "Charles Auchester." 
 Marcus Antoninus.
 
 Fear not to approach 
 
 THERE arc who love upon their knees 
 To linger when their prayers are said, 
 And lengthen out their Litanies, 
 In duteous care for quick and dead. 
 Thou of all Love the Source and Guide ! 
 O may some hovering thought of theirs, 
 Where I am kneeling, gently glide, 
 And higher waft these earth-bound prayers 
 
 Thus may the heart of Innocents 
 On earth, of Saints in heaven above, 
 Guard, as of old, our lonely tents, 
 Till, as one Faith is ours, in Love 
 We own all Churches, and are owned ; 
 Thus may He save, by chastenings keen, 
 The harps that hail His Bride enthroned, 
 From wayward touch of hands unclean. '
 
 Stand thy ground, 
 
 PRELUDE. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 These are " Reminiscences of the best hours 
 of Life for the hour of Death," by which we 
 may look back from the glow of the evening 
 to the brightness of the morning of Youth. 
 " Give me," said Herder to his son, as he lay 
 in the parched weariness of his last illness, 
 " give me a great thought, that I may quicken 
 myself with it." Let these thoughts, whether 
 they come in the best hours of life, or in the 
 hour of death, teach 
 
 Each man to think himself an act of God, 
 His mind a thought, his life a breath of God ; 
 And bid each try, by great thoughts and good deeds, 
 To show the most of Heaven he hath in him. 2
 
 PART 1. 
 
 OF LIFE. 
 
 Think not, Earth, that I would raise 
 
 Weary forehead in thy praise, 
 
 (Weary that I cannot go 
 
 Farther from thy region low, ) 
 
 If were struck no richer meanings 
 
 From thee than thyself. 
 
 Praised be the mosses soft 
 
 In thy forest pathways oft, 
 
 And the thorns, which make us think 
 
 Of the thornless river-brink, 
 
 Where the ransomed tread. 
 Praised be thy sunny gleams, 
 And the storm that worketh dreams 
 
 Of calm unfinished. 
 Praised be thine active days, 
 And thy night-time's solemn need, 
 When in God's dear book we read, 
 No night shall be therein. 
 
 Earth, we Christians praise thee thus, 
 Even for the change that comes 
 With a grief from thee to us ! 
 For thy cradles and thy tombs, 
 For the pleasant com and wine, 
 And summer heat ; and also for 
 The frost upon the sycamore, 
 And hail upon the vine ! 15
 
 The Angels in like manner can utter in a few words singular the things 
 which are written in a volume of any book, and can express such things, 
 or every word, as elevate its meaning to interior wisdom ; for their speech 
 is such, that it is consonant with affections, and every word with ideas. 
 Expressions are also varied, by an infinity of methods, according to the 
 series of the things which are in a complex in the thought. SWEDENBORC. 
 
 Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
 And grow forever and forever.*
 
 ANGEL VOICES. I I 
 
 Being tempted : Angels ministered unto him. 
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 To weary hearts, to mourning homes, 
 God's meekest angel gently comes ; 
 No power has he to banish pain, 
 Or give us back our lost again ; 
 And yet in tenderest love our dear 
 And Heavenly Father sends him here. 5 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Blessed is the memory of those who have 
 kept themselves unspotted from the world ! 
 Yet more blessed and more dear the memory 
 of those who have kept themselves unspotted 
 in the world. 
 
 Eyes, that with holy tears are dim, 
 Shine, when God's sunbeam on them plays ; 
 In stricken souls angelic lays 
 Are rising like a happy hymn. 
 
 And friends beloved, unto whom 
 Sorrow hath come with keenest sting 
 The drooping of the angel's wing 
 Shall bring the shade and not the gloom. 7
 
 12 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Blessed are the poor in spirit. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 True religion teaches us to reverence what 
 is under us, to recognize humility and pov- 
 erty, and, despite mockery and disgrace, 
 wretchedness, suffering, and death, as things 
 divine. 8 
 
 The saint that wears heaven's brightest crown 
 In deepest adoration bends ; 
 The weight of glory bows him down 
 Then most when most his soul ascends ; 
 
 Nearest the throne itself must be 
 
 The footstool of humility. 10 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 So long as we do not take even the in- 
 justice which is done us, and which forces 
 the burning tears from us, so long as we 
 do not take even this for just and right, we 
 are in the thickest darkness without dawn.' 
 
 The bird that soars on highest wing 
 Builds on the ground her lowly nest ; 
 And she that does most sweetly sing 
 Sings in the shade when all things rest ; 
 
 In lark and nightingale we see 
 
 What honor hath humility. 10 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 The mere lapse of years is not life : to eat
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 13 
 
 I am that Bread of Life. 
 
 and drink and sleep ; to be exposed to the 
 darkness and the light ; to pace round in 
 the mill of habit, and turn the wheel of 
 wealth ; to make reason our book-keeper, 
 and turn thought into an implement of 
 trade, this is not life. In all this, but a 
 poor fraction of the consciousness of hu- 
 manity is awakened ; and the sanctities still 
 slumber which 'make it most worth while to 
 be. Knowledge, truth, love, beauty, good- 
 ness, faith, alone give vitality to the mechan- 
 ism of existence. 
 
 The laugh of mirth that vibrates through 
 the heart, the tears that freshen the dry wastes 
 within, the music that brings childhood back, 
 the prayer that calls the future near, the doubt 
 which makes us meditate, the death which 
 startles us with mystery, the hardship which 
 forces us to struggle, the anxiety that ends in 
 trust, are the true nourishment of our natu- 
 ral being. 10 
 
 We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; 
 In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
 We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 
 Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best ; 
 And he whose heart beats quickest lives the longest, 
 Lives in one hour more than in years do some
 
 14 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 He that eateth of this bread shall live forever. 
 
 Whose fat blood sleeps, as it slips along their veins. 
 Life is but a means unto an end ; that end, 
 Beginning, mean, and end to all things God. 
 The dead have all the glory of the world. 2 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 The wealth of a man is the number of 
 things which he loves and blesses, which he 
 is loved and blessed by. 
 
 For amid all life's guests 
 
 There seems but worthy one to do men good ; 
 It matters not how long we live, but how ; 
 For as the parts of one mankind while here, 
 
 We live in every age. 2 
 
 i 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 This, and especially the type which fol- 
 lows ; place it securely among the multitude 
 of wares in the store-house of " beautiful mem- 
 ories." 
 
 There is a fine engraving of Jean Paul 
 Richter, surrounded by floating clouds, all 
 of which are angels' faces ; but so soft and 
 shadowy, that they must be sought for, to be 
 perceived. It was a beautiful idea thus to en- 
 viron Jean Paul, for whosoever reads him with 
 earnest thoughtfulness will see heavenly fea- 
 tures perpetually shining forth through the 
 golden mists or rolling vapor Remem- 
 ber, This picture embodies a great spiritual
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 15 
 
 Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. 
 
 truth. In all clouds that surround the soul, 
 there are angel faces, and we should sec them 
 if we were calm and holy. It is because we 
 are impatient of our destiny, and do not 
 understand its use in our eternal progression, 
 that the clouds which envelop it seem like 
 black masses of thunder, or cold and dismal 
 obstructions of the sunshine. If man looked 
 at his being as a whole, or had faith that all 
 things were intended to bring him into har- 
 mony with the Divine will, he would grate- 
 fully acknowledge that spiritual dew and rain, 
 wind and lightning, cloud and sunshine, all 
 help his growth, as their natural forms bring 
 to maturity the flowers and the grain. " Who- 
 soever quarrels with his fate does not under- 
 stand it," says Bettine ; and among all her 
 inspired sayings, she spoke none wiser. 11 
 
 High natures must be thunder-scarred 
 
 With many a searing wrong ; 
 Naught unmarred with struggles hard 
 
 Can make the soul's sinews strong. 1 - 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Dante places in his lowest Hell those who 
 in life were melancholy and repining without a 
 cause, thus profaning and darkening God's 
 blessed sunshine, "Tristi fummo nel aer dol-
 
 1 6 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Strive to enter in. 
 
 ce " ; and in some of the ancient Christian sys- 
 tems of virtues and vices, melancholy is unholy 
 and a vice ; cheerfulness is holy and a virtue. 
 
 Lord Bacon also makes one of the char- 
 acteristics of moral health and goodness to 
 consist in " a quick sense of felicity and a no- 
 ble satisfaction." 
 
 What moments, hours, days, of exquisite 
 felicity must Christ our Redeemer have had, 
 though it has become too customary to place 
 him before us only in the attitude of pain 
 and sorrow ! Why should he be always 
 crowned with thorns, bleeding with wounds, 
 weeping over the world he was appointed to 
 heal, to save, to reconcile with God ? The 
 radiant head of Christ in Raphael's " Transfig- 
 uration" should rather be our ideal of Him 
 who came to " bind up the broken-hearted, to 
 preach the acceptable year of the Lord." 
 
 "All mine is thine," the sky-soul saith : 
 
 " The wealth I am, must thou become : 
 Richer and richer breath by breath, 
 Immortal gain, immortal room ! " 
 And since all his 
 Mine also is, 
 
 Life's gift outruns my fancies far, 
 And drowns the dream 
 In larger stream, 
 As morning drinks the morning star. B
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 17 
 
 That he who loveth God love his brother also. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Inquiringly, If we float over the surface 
 of society with perpetual sunshine and favor- 
 ing airs, how can we sound the shoals and 
 gulf which lie below? 8 
 
 Night brings out stars, as sorrow shows us troths. 2 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 By earnest endeavor, to gladden the human 
 circle in which we live, to open our hearts 
 to the gospel of life and nature, seizing each 
 moment and the good which it brings, be it 
 friendly glance, spring breeze, or flower, ex- 
 tracting from every moment a drop of the 
 honey of eternal life. 12 
 
 " True bliss is to be found in holy life ; 
 In charity to men, and love to God." 
 
 Probe the profound of thine own nature, Man ! 
 And thou may'st see reflected, e'en in life, 
 The worlds, the heavens, the ages ; by and by, 
 The coming come. 2 
 
 REMEMBRR, 
 
 That unto him who works, and feels he works, 
 This same grand year is ever at the doors. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Those who would understand the courses 
 of the heavens above, must first of all recog- 
 nize the heaven in men.
 
 1 8 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Blessed are the merciful. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There is a law of neutralization of forces, 
 which hinders bodies from sinking beyond a 
 certain depth in the sea ; but in the ocean of 
 baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the 
 sinking. As for the kindness which Milton 
 and Burns felt for the Devil, I am sure that 
 God thinks of him with pity a thousand 
 times to their once, and the good Origen be- 
 lieved him not incapable of salvation. 12 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 Mercy is 
 
 mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 
 The throned monarch better than his crown ; 
 His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 
 The attribute to awe and majesty, 
 Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings ; 
 But mercy is above this sceptred sway, 
 It is enthroned in the hearts of kings ; 
 It is an attribute to God himself. 50 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There never was a right endeavor but it 
 succeeded. Patience and patience, we shall 
 win at the last. We must be very suspicious 
 of the deceptions and elements of time. It 
 takes a good deal of time to eat or to sleep, 
 or to earn a hundred dollars, and a very little 
 time to entertain a hope and an insight which
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 19 
 
 Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness : 
 
 becomes the light of our life ; daily routine 
 makes but little impression ; but in the soli- 
 tude to which every man is always returning, 
 he has a sanity and revelations, which in his 
 passage into new worlds he will carry with 
 him. 15 Thus may 
 
 ' ' Our yesterdays look backward with a smile. " 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The simplest faith, be it only deep and 
 trustful, the very smallest idea of a mission 
 in life assigned by God, be it only lovingly 
 and clearly seen, "lifteth the poor out of 
 the dust," and "to them that have no might 
 increaseth strength." As of old it banished 
 disease, and couched the blind, and soothed 
 the maniac, by miracles of power, so does it 
 still heal and bless by its miracles of love. It 
 puts a divine fire into the dullest soul, and 
 draws in Saul also among the prophets ; it 
 turns the peasant into the apostle, and the 
 apostle's meanest follower into the martyr. 83 
 
 all ambitious upwards tending, 
 
 Like plants in mines, which never saw the sun, 
 But dream of him, and guess where he may be, 
 They do their best to climb, and get to him. 14 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There do remain dispersed in the soil of
 
 2O ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 They shall be filled. 
 
 human nature divers seeds of goodness, of be- 
 nignity, of ingenuity, which being cherished, 
 excited, and quickened by good culture, do, 
 by common experience, thrust .out flowers 
 very lovely, and yield fruits very pleasant of 
 virtue and goodness. 11 
 
 Good deeds are very fruitful. Out of one 
 good action of ours, God produces a thou- 
 sand ; the harvest whereof is perpetual. If 
 good deeds were utterly barren and incom- 
 modious, I would seek after them from a con- 
 sciousness of their own goodness ; how much 
 more shall I now be encouraged to perform 
 them, that they are so profitable both to my- 
 self and others ? 10 Since men may, 
 
 "after all their tribulations long, 
 See golden days fruitful of golden deeds, 
 With joy and peace triumphing, and fair truth. 17 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There is no felicity in that the earth adores. 
 That wherein God himself is happy, the holy 
 angels are happy, in whose defect the devils 
 are unhappy, that dare I call happiness. 
 Whatsoever conduceth unto this may, with 
 an easy metaphor, deserve that name. What- 
 soever else the world terms happiness is to me 
 a story out of Pliny, a tale of Boccace or Ma-
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 21 
 
 As he prayed, his countenance was altered. 
 
 lizspini, an apparition or a neat delusion, where- 
 in there is no more of happiness than the 
 name. Bless me in this life with but peace 
 of my conscience, command of my affections, 
 the love of my dearest friends, and I shall be 
 happy enough to pity Caesar. These are, O 
 Lord, the humble desires of my most reason- 
 able ambition, and all I dare call happiness 
 on earth ; wherein I set no rule or limit to thy 
 hand of providence. Dispose of me according 
 to the wisdom of thy pleasure. Thy will be 
 done, though in my undoing. 18 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Believing with me, to pray with all your 
 heart and strength, with the reason and the 
 will, to believe vividly that God will listen to 
 your voice through Christ, and verily do the 
 thing he pleaseth thereupon, that is the last, 
 the greatest achievement of the Christian's 
 warfare on earth. 19 
 
 He prayeth well who loveth well 
 Both man and bird and beast. 
 
 He prayeth best who loveth best 
 
 All things both great and small ; 
 For the same God who loveth us, 
 
 He made and loveth all. 19
 
 22 
 
 AXGEL VOICES. 
 
 Blessed aire the pure in heart. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Prayers are but the body of the bird ; de- 
 sires are its angel's wings. 30 
 
 In the greatest battle of his life 
 
 Man stands by himself alone ; 
 
 No hand save his and the foes to the strife, 
 
 No heart to beat high but his own. 
 
 Yet the war goes on right desperately, 
 And whether he stand or fail 
 Himself and God alone may see 
 Till the judgment-day of alL 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 In prayer it is better to have a heart with- 
 out words, than words without a heart. 21 
 
 Therefore let every man study his prayers, 
 and read his duty in his petitions. For the 
 body of our prayer is the sum of our duty ; 
 and as we must ask of God whatsoever we 
 need, so we must labor for all that we ask.* 
 
 More things are wrought by prayer 
 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice 
 Rise like a fountain for me night and day ; 
 For what are men better than sheep or goats, 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, 
 Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? 
 For so the whole round world is every way 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 4
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 23 
 
 They shall see God. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The making one object, in outward or in- 
 ward nature, more holy to a single heart, is 
 reward enough for a life ; for the more sym- 
 pathies we gain or awaken for what is beauti- 
 ful, by so much deeper will be our sympathy 
 for that which is most beautiful, the human 
 soul. 12 
 
 Those there are 
 
 Whose hearts have a look southward, and are open 
 To the whole noon of nature. 
 Be thou of such. 2 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 "Who are the most godlike of men? The 
 question might be a puzzling one unless our 
 language answered it for us, the godliest." 
 
 Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer 
 Before all temples the upright heart and pure, 
 Instruct me. " 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Only the Purified are the Pure. 22 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 It is only the finite that has wrought and 
 suffered ; the infinite lies stretched in smiling 
 repose. 15 
 
 God is the Perfect Poet, 
 Who in creation acts his own conceptions.
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Become as little children. 
 
 Shall man refuse to be aught else than God ? 
 Man's weakness is his glory, for the strength 
 Which raises him to Heaven and near God's self 
 Came spite of it ; God's strength his glory is, 
 For thence came with our weakness sympathy, 
 Which brought God down to earth a man like us. 1 * 
 
 When a man is so far advanced in the 
 Christian life, as not to seek consolation from 
 any created thing, then does he first begin per- 
 fectly to enjoy God; then "in whatsoever 
 state he is, he will therewith be content " ; 
 then neither can prosperity exalt, nor adver- 
 sity depress him, but his heart is wholly fixed 
 and established in God, who is his All in All. 23 
 
 Then 
 
 Love is a celestial harmony. 80 
 His thoughts were as a pyramid up-piled, 
 On whose far top an angel stood and smiled, 
 Yet in his heart he was a little child. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Wisdom, earthly wisdom 
 Is the last wealth a man can take to heaven : 
 More cumbersome it is than bags of gold. 
 
 And would you know what station God prefers, 
 
 And what respect he has for human learning, 
 
 Inquire where Christ was born, and what his breeding. 24 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Whoever speaks not to the love and wonder
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 2$ 
 
 Blessed is the man that maketh the Lord his trust. 
 
 of mankind, says little deserving of lasting 
 interest. 25 
 
 For all we know 
 
 Of what the blessed do above 
 
 Is that they sing, and that they love. 26 
 
 REMEMBER 
 
 Schiller's words ; they are to the mother of 
 young Carlos. " Tell him, that when become 
 a man he shall reverence the dreams of his 
 youth, that he shall not open his heart, the 
 tender, divine flower, to the deathly insect of 
 boasted superior wisdom." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Only a great pride, that is, a great and rev- 
 erential repose in one's own being, renders 
 possible a noble humility. 13 
 
 REMEMBER* 
 
 If the will, which is the law of our nature, 
 were withdrawn from our memory, fancy, un- 
 derstanding, and reason, no other hell could 
 equal, for a spiritual being, what we should 
 then feel, from the anarchy of our powers. 
 It would be conscious madness, a horrid 
 thought ! 1T 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Man cannot be utterly lost to good, for then
 
 26 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Labor not for the meat which perisheth. 
 
 he would be a devil at once. Thus to talk is 
 absurd. 19 Even Montgomery's "Satan," 
 
 Though by nature a whirlpool of desires, 
 And mighty passions, perilously mixed, 
 Yet, with the darkness of the demon world, 
 Had he something of the light of heaven. 
 
 REME^[BER, 
 
 That victory belongs to him who is constant 
 in faith and courage. That Peter, by faith, 
 walked upon the water, until, momentarily 
 losing his faith, he began to sink. A his- 
 tory, Goethe said, he loved better than any ; 
 as it expresses the noble doctrine that man, 
 through faith and animated courage, may 
 come off victor in the most dangerous enter- 
 prises, while he may be ruined by a mo- 
 mentary paroxysm of doubt. 27 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 He hath riches sufficient who hath enough 
 to be charitable. 18 
 
 And forget not, that Mammon was 
 
 " the least erected Spirit that fell 
 
 From heaven ; for even in heaven his looks and thoughts 
 Were always downward bent ; admiring more 
 The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold, 
 Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed 
 In vision beatific." " 
 
 Poor and content is rich. 30
 
 ANG&L VOICES. 2/ 
 
 Thou art my rock. 
 
 I do rather choose 
 
 To be the lord of those that riches have, 
 Than have them to myself and be their servile slave. 28 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Everything perishes except Truth, and the 
 worship of Truth, and Poetry, which is its 
 enduring language. 29 
 
 " Rich are the diligent, who can command 
 Time, nature's stock ! and could his hour-glass fall, 
 Would, as for seed of stars, stoop for the sand, 
 And by incessant labor gather all. " 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 It is only the stout heart, and strong, reso- 
 lute will, that enables one in truth to say, 
 
 This life of mine 
 Must be lived out, and a grave thoroughly earned. 
 
 Pitch then thy project high : 
 Sink not in spirit Who aimeth at the sky 
 Shoots higher much than if he meant a tree. 
 Let thy mind still be bent, still plotting where, 
 And when, and how, the business may be done. 78 
 
 L'Enfant chantait ; la mere au lit, extenuee, 
 Agonisait, beau front dans 1'ombre se penchant ; 
 La Mort au dessus d'elle errait dans la nuee, 
 Et j'ecoutais ce rale, et j'entendait ce chant. 
 
 L'Enfant avait cinq ans et pres de la fenetre, 
 Ses rires et ses jeux faisaient un charmant bruit ; 
 Et la mere a cote de ce pauvre doux etre 
 Qui chantait tout le jour, toussait toute la nuit.
 
 28 
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Jesus opened his mouth and taught them. 
 
 La mere alia dorrnir sous les dalles du cloitre : 
 
 Et le petit enfant se remit a chanter 
 
 - La douleur est un fruit ; Dieu ne le fait pas croitre 
 Sur la branche trop faible encore pour le porter. 30 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 In joy and affliction, and resolve with Sie- 
 benkas : " It is thy intention to try my soul, 
 good Destiny, and therefore dost thou put it 
 into every position, as a man does his watch, 
 into a perpendicular and a horizontal position, 
 easy and uneasy ones, in order to see whether 
 it goes well, and shows the time correctly. 
 Verily it shall I" 34 
 
 Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends ; 
 
 Hath he not always treasures, always friends, 
 
 The good, great man ? Three treasures Love and Light, 
 
 And calm Thoughts, regular as infant's breath : 
 
 And three firm friends, more sure than day and night, 
 
 Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death. 19 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Speech is the light, the morning of the mind ; 
 It spreads the beauteous images abroad, 
 Which else lie furled and shrouded in the soul. 31 
 
 Life is a suggestion of the Spirit through 
 the mind, giving us news of Him in guise of 
 queries for beginners in the study of it. 25 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 A child should be approached with rever-
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 2 9 
 
 Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are 
 
 ence as a recipient of the Spirit from above. 
 The best of books claims the best of persons 
 and the gracious moments to make its mean- 
 ing clear, else the reading and listening are 
 but a sounding pretence, and of no account. 
 The Spirit within must invite and prepare the 
 heart instantly, inspiration answer inspira- 
 tion, and so answering, informing and renew- 
 ing ; a Pentecost and an awakening from on 
 high. I have wished these books were opened 
 with the awe belonging to the eminent person- 
 alities portrayed therein, thinking them best 
 read when the glow of the sentiment kindles 
 the meaning into life. 23 
 
 Yet forget not that, the man who cannot en- 
 joy his own natural gifts in silence, and find 
 his reward in the exercise of them, will gener- 
 ally find himself badly off. 8 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The eloquent man is he who is no eloquent 
 speaker, but who is inwardly drunk with a cer- 
 tain belief. 15 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 11 As no man liveth to himself," so no man 
 sinneth to himself; and every vagrant habit 
 uprooted from the young and ignorant ev-
 
 30 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation. 
 
 ery principle of duty strengthened every 
 encouragement to reform offered, and rightly 
 persevered in is casting a shield of safety 
 over the property, life, peace, and every true 
 interest of community ; so that it may be said 
 of this most emphatically, as of every duty 
 of man, " Knowing these things, happy are ye 
 if ye do them" 3 
 
 Beneath this starry arch, 
 
 Naught resteth or is still ; 
 But all things hold their march, 
 As if by one great will. 
 Moves one, move all : 
 Hark to the footfall ! 
 On, on, forever ! 
 
 Yon sheaves were once but seed : 
 Will ripens into deed ; 
 As eave-drops swell the streams, 
 Day thoughts feed nightly dreams 
 And sorrow tracketh wrong, 
 As echo follows song, 
 On, on, forever ! 
 
 By night, like stars on high, 
 
 The hours reveal their train ; 
 They whisper, and go by, 
 " I never watch in vain." 
 Moves one, move all : 
 Hark to the footfall ! 
 On, on, forever !
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 31 
 
 If we love one another, God dwelleth in us. 
 
 They pass the cradle-head, 
 And there a promise shed ; 
 They pass the moist new grave, 
 And bid rank verdure wave ; 
 They bear through every clime 
 The harvests of all time, 
 On, on, forever ! ** 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 If thy heart yearns for love, be loving ; if 
 thou wouldst free mankind be free ; if thou 
 wouldst have a brother frank to thee, be frank 
 to him : " But what will people say ?" - Eter- 
 nal and sure is this promise, " Blessed are the 
 meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Only 
 have faith in this, and thou wilt live high 
 above the rewards and punishments of that 
 spectral giant, which men call Society. Be 
 found with thine own conscience in that circle 
 of duties, which widens ever, till it enfolds all 
 beings and touches the throne of God. 11 
 
 Be noble ! and the nobleness that lies 
 In other men, sleeping, but never dead, 
 Will rise in majesty to meet thine own. b 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 To think gently of all, and include all with- 
 out exception in the circle of our kindly sym- 
 pathies, not thrusting out even the common 
 hangman (though if athirst, I should prefer
 
 32 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. 
 
 receiving water, if it required waiting, from 
 other hands than his). Yet what is the hang- 
 man but a servant of public opinion ? And 
 what is the law but an expression of public 
 opinion ? And if public opinion is brutal, and 
 thou a component part thereof, art thou not 
 the hangman's accomplice ? In the name of 
 our common Father, sing thy part of the great 
 chorus in the truest time, and thus bring this 
 crashing discord into harmony. 12 
 
 Man is dear to man : the poorest poor 
 
 Long for some moments in a weary life 
 
 When they can know and feel that they have been 
 
 Themselves the fathers and the dealers out 
 
 Of some small blessings ; have been kind to such 
 
 As needed kindness, for this single cause, 
 
 That we have all of us one human heart 35 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Drinking, singing, talking, none of these 
 things are good in themselves, but the mode in 
 which they are done stamps them with its 
 own nature ; and that which is done well is 
 good, and that which is done ill is evil. 37 
 
 REME.MKER, 
 
 Rightly viewed, no object is insignificant ; 
 all objects are as windows, through which the 
 philosophic eye looks into infinitude itself.
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 33 
 
 How beautiful are thy works ! 
 
 Now, if this earthly love has power to make 
 Men's being mortal, immortal ; to shake 
 Ambition from their memories, and brim 
 Their measure of content ; what merest whim 
 Seems all this poor endeavor after fame 
 To one, who keeps within his steadfast aim 
 A love immortal, an immortal too. 38 
 
 Howe'er it be, it seems to me 
 
 'T is only noble to be good ; 
 
 Kind hearts are more than coronets 
 
 And simple faith than Norman blood. * 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 It is only through the morning gate of the 
 beautiful that you can penetrate into the realm 
 of knowledge. That which we feel here as 
 beauty, we shall one day know as truth." 9 
 
 His grave rebuke, 
 
 Severe in youthful beauty, added grace 
 Invincible : abashed the Devil stood, 
 And felt how awful goodness is, and saw 
 Virtue in her shape, how lovely. 17 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 That a beautiful form is better than a beau- 
 tiful face ; a beautiful behavior is better than a 
 beautiful form ; it gives a higher pleasure than 
 statues or pictures ; it is the finest of the fine 
 arts. 15
 
 34 ANGEL VOIC-ES. 
 
 Sing unto the Lord a new song. 
 
 The idea of her life shall sweetly creep 
 
 Into his study of imagination ; 
 
 And every lovely organ of her life 
 
 Shall come apparelled in more precious habit, 
 
 More moving delicate, and full of life, 
 
 Into the eye and prospect of his soul, 
 
 Than when she lived indeed. 50 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Upon sight of beautiful persons, to bless 
 God in his creatures, to pray for the beauty of 
 their souls, and to enrich them with inward 
 graces to be answerable unto the outward. 
 Upon sight of deformed persons, to send them 
 inward graces, and enrich their souls, and give 
 them the beauty of the resurrection. 18 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 In thankfulness, thy Heavenly Father, for 
 every manifestation of human love. Thank 
 him for all experiences, be they sweet or bit- 
 ter, which help to forgive all things and enfold 
 the whole world with blessing. " What shall 
 be our reward," asks Swedenborg, " for loving 
 our neighbor as ourselves in this life ? That 
 when we become angels, we shall be enabled 
 to love him better than ourselves." This is a 
 reward pure and holy ; the only one which 
 my heart has not rejected, whenever offered as 
 an incitement to goodness. It is this which,
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 35 
 
 O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness. 
 
 chiefly, makes the happiness of lovers more 
 nearly allied to heaven than any other emo- 
 tions experienced by the human heart. Each 
 loves the other better than self; each is will- 
 ing to sacrifice all to the other, nay, finds joy 
 therein. This is it that surrounds them with 
 a golden atmosphere, and tinges the world 
 with rose-color. A mother's love has the same 
 angelic character ; more completely unselfish, 
 but lacking the charm of perfect reciprocity. 11 
 
 Neither shalt thou forget thy song, when, 
 as Bettine has said, "The whole country looks 
 as if it had turned its face towards its Cre- 
 ator." 
 
 Heaven "disapproves that care, though wise in show, 
 That with superfluous burden loads the day, 
 And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains." 17 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 " Gratitude is memory of the heart." There- 
 fore forget not to say often, with Bettine, " I 
 have all I have ever enjoyed." 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 If thou beest not so handsome as thou 
 wouldest have been, thank God thou art no 
 more unhandsome than thou art. It is his 
 mercy thou art not the mark for passengers'
 
 36 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Seek not honor one of another. 
 
 fingers to point at, a heteroclite in nature 
 with some member defective or redundant. 
 Be glad that thy clay cottage hath all the 
 necessary rooms thereto belonging, though the 
 outside be not so fairly plastered as some 
 others. 40 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 You must in a certain sense reward God. 
 You cannot give him money, for the silver 
 and gold, the cattle upon a thousand hills, are 
 all his already, but you can give him your 
 grateful lives ; you can give him your hearts ; 
 and, as old Mr. Henry says, " Thanksgiving is 
 good, but thanks-living is better." 4 
 
 It is not life upon thy gifts to live, 
 But to grow fixed with deeper roots in thee ; 
 And when the sun and shower their bounties give, 
 To send out thick-leaved limbs : a fruitful tree, 
 Whose green head meets the eye for many a mile. 42 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 A great deal of discomfort arises from over- 
 sensitiveness about what people may say of 
 you or your actions. Many unhappy persons 
 seem to imagine that they are always in an 
 amphitheatre, with the assembled world as 
 spectators ; whereas they are playing to empty 
 benches all the while. 43
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 37 
 
 If any will come after me, let him deny himself. 
 
 Fly from the prease, and dwell with soothfastnesse, 
 
 Suffice unto thy good though it be small, 
 
 For horde hath hate, and climbing tickelnesse, 
 
 Prease hath envy and wele (wealth) is blent over all, 
 
 Savour no more than thee behove shall, 
 
 Rede well thyselfe that other folke canst rede, 
 
 And trouth thee shall deliver, it is no drede. 
 
 Paine thee not ech crooked to redresse 
 In trust of her that tourneth as a ball, 
 Create rest standeth in little businesse, 
 Beware also to spurn againe a nail, 
 Strive not as doth a crocke with a wall, 
 Deme thyselfe that demest others dede, 
 And trouth thee shall deliver, it is no drede. 
 
 That thee is sent receive in buxomnesse, 
 The wrestling of this world asketh a fall, 
 Here is no home, here is but wildernesse, 
 Forth, pilgrime ! forth, beast, out of thy stall ! 
 Look up on high and thanke God of all ! 
 Forsake thy lusts, and let thy ghost thee lecle 
 And trouth thee shall deliver, it is no drede. 44 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The Lord creates occasions of contest, to 
 bless us with opportunities of victory. 23 
 
 Who has ever loved who has reserved any- 
 thing for himself ? Reservation is self-love. 4j 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The unselfish must be economical. 40
 
 38 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The old Polytheism was Nature, in. the 
 plenitude of sensuous wealth, projecting the 
 shadow of her gorgeous but coarse imagery 
 on the pure expanse of the Infinite ; not the 
 might and glory of the Infinite coming down 
 on Nature with resistless influence, to chasten 
 and spiritualize her wild energies, and humble 
 them in reverent submission to the law of the 
 
 Eternal Our intensest conviction of the 
 
 presence of God, our dearest persuasion that he 
 has drawn nigh to us, is not, however, when we 
 are the quiet and contemplative spectators of 
 His works, or the passive recipients of outward 
 influence ; but in those higher exercises of faith 
 which engage our wills, and put us on virtuous 
 effort, and excite us to active co-operation with 
 Him, when we seek Him, and believe that 
 we have found Him, in the glad appropriation 
 of every duty and the cheerful acceptance of 
 every sacrifice which he demands. 47 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 That maxim is of earth, of fallible man, 
 which says, "The voice of the people is the 
 voice of God." It may be, but with equal 
 probability also the voice of the Devil. That 
 the voice of ten millions of men calling for the
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 39 
 
 He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, 
 
 same thing is a spirit, I believe ; but whether 
 that be the spirit of heaven or hell, I can only 
 know by trying the thing called for by the 
 prescript of reason. 19 Even then that knowl- 
 edge must be infinite, embracing the whole 
 cycle of God's universe. Better said, by the 
 same, " Public opinion is the average preju- 
 dices 'of the community." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Heaven is not separated from temporal life 
 by an abyss that in death we must overleap ; 
 heaven begins immediately where we first feel 
 impelled for the conception of the divine. 45 
 Heaven lies about us in our infancy. 85 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The beloved of the Almighty are the rich 
 who have the humility of the poor, and the 
 poor who have the magnanimity of the rich." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Would you make yourself dear to every do- 
 mestic scene you enter, form the habit of for- 
 bearance, and all your kindred will bless your 
 face for its own benediction. Your very com- 
 ing in at the door shall be as a balm : and that 
 comfort is not insignificant which is repeated, 
 a drop of sweetness in every draught, a thou- 
 sand and a million times. 23
 
 4O ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 But shall have the light of life. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 For thy consolation in the hurry of life, that 
 perhaps the short hasty gazes cast up any 
 day in the midst of business, in a dense city, 
 at the heavens, or at a bit of tree seen amid 
 buildings, gazes which partake almost more 
 of a sigh than a look, have in them more of 
 intense appreciation of the beauties of nature 
 than all that has been felt by an equal num- 
 ber of sight-seers enjoying large opportunity 
 of seeing, and all their time to themselves. 
 Like a prayer offered up in the midst of ev- 
 ery-day life, these short, fond gazes at nature 
 have something inconceivably soothing and 
 beautiful in them. 49 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The highest and most profitable learning 
 is the knowledge and contempt of ourselves ; 
 and to have no opinion of our own merit, and 
 always to think well and highly of others, is 
 an evidence of great wisdom and perfection. 
 Why dost thou prefer thyself to another, since 
 thou mayst find many who are more learned 
 than thou art, and better instructed in the will 
 of God. 23 
 
 The man forget not, though in rags he lies, 
 
 And know the mortal through the crown's disguise. 51
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 41 
 
 Of such are the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 Just like Love is yonder rose ; 
 Heavenly sweetness round it throws, 
 And in the midst of briers it blows, 
 Just like Love! 52 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Life strong life and sound life that life 
 which lends approaches to the Infinite, and 
 takes hold on Heaven, is not so much a pro- 
 gress as it is a resistance. 63 
 
 Why should we be cowed by the name of 
 
 Action ? We know that the ancestor of 
 
 every action is a thought To think is 
 
 to act Let us, if we must have great 
 
 actions, make our own so. All action is of 
 infinite elasticity, and the least admits of be- 
 ing inflated with celestial air, until it eclipses 
 the sun and moon. Let us seek one peace by 
 fidelity. Let me do my duties. Why need I 
 go gadding into the scenes and philosophy 
 of Greek and Italian history, before I have 
 washed my own face, or justified myself to my 
 own benefactors ? How dare I read Washing- 
 ton's campaigns, when I have not answered 
 the letters of my own correspondents ? Is not 
 that a just objection to much of our reading ? 
 It is a pusillanimous desertion of our work to 
 gaze after our neighbors. 15
 
 42 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things ; 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 That religion is, in its essence, the most 
 gentlemanly thing in the world. It will, alone 
 and of itself, gentilize, if unmixed with cant ; 
 and I know of nothing else that will. 19 
 
 There is no wisdom, no perception of truth, 
 which asks for more than to be loved. 45 
 
 REMEMBER* 
 
 We cannot make our home too attractive. 
 Let it be the home of the affections ; a parlor 
 for conversation, a pantry of comforts, yet not 
 reminding us too broadly of the brute satis- 
 factions. Let its chambers open eastward, 
 admitting sunshine and the sanctities, for our 
 and still more for the children's sakes. They 
 covet the clear sky, delighting in the blue 
 they left so lately, nay, cannot leave in com- 
 ing into Nature, whereof they are ever asking 
 the news of it. The gay enthusiasts must run 
 eagerly, and never have enough of it. Their 
 poise and their plenitude rebuke us. So the 
 poet sings sadly, yet truly for some of us 83 : 
 
 " Happy those early days when I 
 Shined in my angel infancy ; 
 Before I taught my soul to wound 
 My conscience with a sinful sound, 
 Or taught my soul to fancy aught 
 But a white celestial thought,
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 43 
 
 But one thing is needful. 
 
 Or had the black art to dispense 
 A several sin to every sense ; 
 But felt through all this fleshly dress 
 Bright shoots of everlastingness. " M 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Animate the heart, and it no longer thirsts 
 for common air, but for ether. No one is less 
 vain than a bride. 34 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Two sentiments alone suffice for man, were 
 he to live the age of the rocks, love, and the 
 contemplation of the Deity. 90 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 The word of Solon to Croesus, when in 
 ostentation he showed him his gold : " Sir, if 
 any other come that hath better iron than 
 you, he will be master of all this gold." 5 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The sober Christian may possibly feel a 
 shock in finding Novalis describe his faith as a 
 foe " to art, to science, even to enjoyment " ; 
 yet does not his own daily experience prove 
 that the holding of the one thing needful in- 
 volves the letting go of many things lovely 
 and desirable, and that in thought as well as 
 in action he must go on, " ever narrowing his
 
 44 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. 
 
 way, avoiding much" And this, not because 
 his intellect is darkened to perceive beauty 
 and excellence, or his affections dulled to em- 
 brace them, but because human life and hu- 
 man capacity are bounded things ; the heart 
 can be devoted but to one object, and the 
 winning of the great prizes of earthly endeavor 
 asks for an intensity of purpose, which in the 
 Christian has found another centre. 56 
 
 REMEMBER 
 
 God's livery is a very plain one ; but its 
 wearers have good reason to be content. If it 
 have not so much gold lace about it as Sa- 
 tan's, it keeps out foul weather better, and is 
 besides a great deal cheaper. 12 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 He who loves with purity considers not the 
 gift of the lover, but the love of the giver. 23 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 If it be God whom we love in loving one, 
 then shall the bright halo of her spirit expand 
 itself over all existence, till every human face 
 we look upon shall share in its transfiguration, 
 and the old forgotten traces of brotherhood 
 be lit up by it ; and our love, instead of pin- 
 ing discomforted, shall be lured upward and
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 45 
 
 Open not thine heart to every man. 
 
 upward by low, angelic voices, which recede 
 before it forever, as it mounts from brighten- 
 ing summit on the delectable mountains of 
 aspirations and resolve and deed. 12 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 While others are curious in the choice of 
 good air, and chiefly solicitous for healthful 
 habitations, study thou conversation, and be 
 critical in thy consortion. The aspects, con- 
 junctions, and configurations of the stars, which 
 mutually diversify, intend, or qualify their in- 
 fluences, are but the varieties of their nearer 
 or farther conversation with one another, and 
 like the consortion of men, whereby they be- 
 come better or worse, and even exchange their 
 natures. 
 
 He who must needs have company, must 
 needs have sometimes bad company. Be able 
 to be alone. Lose not the advantage of soli- 
 tude, and the society of thyself; nor be only 
 content, but delight to be alone and single 
 with Omnipresency. He who is thus pre- 
 pared, the day is not uneasy, nor the night 
 black unto him. 18 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 A good jest, well timed, for misfortune, may
 
 46 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Edify one another. 
 
 prove as food and drink, strength to the 
 arm, digestion to^the stomach, courage to the 
 heart. It is better than wisdom or wine. A 
 prosperous man may afford to be melancholy : 
 but if the miserable are so, they are worse 
 than dead, but it is sure to kill them. 5 ' 
 
 The heart-gates, mighty, open either way, 
 Come they to feast, or go they forth to pray. 58 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Any boy can teach a man, but it takes a 
 man to teach a boy anything. 40 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 When the great God lets loose a thinker on 
 this planet, then all things are at risk. There 
 is not a piece of science, but its flank may be 
 turned to-morrow ; there is not any literary 
 reputation, nor the so-called eternal names of 
 fame, that may not be revised and condemned. 
 
 He claps wings to the sides of all the 
 
 solid old lumber of the world. 15 
 
 Yea, copyists shall die, spark out and out ; 
 Minds which combine and make, alone can tell 
 The bearings and the workings of all things 
 In and upon each other.* 
 
 REMEMBER 
 
 The gentle words of Meta Klopstock, who
 
 ANGEL VOICES, 47 
 
 The life of man upon earth is a continual warfare. 
 
 said, " Though I love my friends dearly, and 
 though they are good, I have, however, much 
 to pardon, except in the single Klopstock 
 alone. He is good, really good, good in all 
 the foldings of his heart. I know him and 
 sometimes I think, if we knew otliers in the same 
 manner, the better we should find them. For it 
 may be an action displeases us which would 
 please us if we knew its true aim and whole 
 extent. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 If a man is not rising upwards to be an 
 angel, depend upon it he is sinking down- 
 wards to be a devil. He cannot stop at the 
 beast. The most savage of men are not 
 beasts ; they are worse, a great deal worse. 
 
 As there is much beast and some devil in 
 man, so is there some angel and some God 
 in him. The beast and the devil may be 
 conquered, but, in this life, never wholly de- 
 stroyed. 19 
 
 Life is a business, not good cheer 
 
 Ever in warres. 
 The sun still shineth there or here, 
 
 Whereas the stars 
 Watch an advantage to appear. 
 
 O that I were an orange-tree, 
 That busie plant !
 
 48 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 In your patience possess ye your souls. 
 
 Then should I ever laden be, 
 
 And never want 
 Some fruit for him that dressed me. 78 
 
 There sits not on the wilderness' edge 
 
 In the dusk lodges of the wintry North, 
 Nor couches in the rice-field's slimy sedge, 
 
 Nor on the cold, wild waters ventures forth, 
 Who waits not, in the pauses of his toil, 
 
 With hope that spirits in the air may sing ; 
 Who upward turns not at propitious times, 
 
 Breathless, his silent features listening, 
 In desert and in lodge, on marsh and main, 
 
 To feed his hungry heart and conquer fain.'* 
 
 REMEMBEK, 
 
 Dear to us are those who love us : the swift 
 moments we spend with them are a compen- 
 sation for a great deal of* misery ; they enlarge 
 our life ; but dearer are those who reject us 
 as unworthy, for they add another life ; they 
 build a heaven before us whereof we had not 
 dreamed, and thereby supply to us new 
 powers out of the recesses of the spirit, 
 and urge us to new and unattempted perform- 
 ances. 15 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There are "eternal homes, built deep in 
 poor men's hearts," for such as do God's work 
 on earth. 93
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 49 
 
 Charity never faileth. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 So to regard the absent who are out of 
 hearing as virtually under the protection of 
 that law of Jewish charity, 
 
 " Thou shalt not curse the deaf." 64 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 That love never contracts its circles : they 
 widen by as fixed and sure a law as those 
 around a pebble cast into still water. The 
 angel of love, when, full of sorrow, he fol- 
 lowed the first exiles, behind whom the gates 
 of Paradise shut with that mournful clang, 
 (of which some faint echo has lingered in 
 the hearts of all their offspring,) unwittingly 
 snapped off and brought away in his hand the 
 seed-pod of one of the never-failing flowers 
 which grew there. Into all dreary and deso- 
 late places fell some of its blessed kernels ; 
 they asked but little soil to root themselves 
 in, and in this narrow patch of our poor clay 
 they sprang most quickly and sturdily. Gladly 
 they grew, and from them all time has been 
 sown with whatever gives a higher hope to 
 the soul, or makes life nobler and more god- 
 like ; while from the over-arching sky of po- 
 esy sweet dew forever falls, to nurse and 
 
 4
 
 50 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Charity suffereth long, and envieth not 
 
 keep them green and fresh from the world's 
 dust. 12 
 
 Like bird to sunshine fled he to a smile. 84 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 If he loves me, the merit is not mine, the 
 fault will be if he ceases. 65 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 It was not by retiring into himself, but by 
 going out of himself, that CHRIST OVERCAME 
 THE WORLD ; not by spiritual pathology and 
 self-torture, but by veritable " sufferings," that 
 he " became perfect " ; not by measuring his 
 own emotions, but by oblivion of them amid a 
 crowd of toils, a succession of fulfilled resolves, 
 a profuse expenditure of life and effort having 
 others for their object, that he rose above the 
 dignity of men, and ripened the divinest spirit 
 for the skies. 80 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There is " woe to the nation or the society 
 in which the individualizing and separating 
 process is going on in the human mind ! 
 Whether it take the form of a religion or of a 
 philosophy, it is at once the sign and cause of 
 senility, decay, and death. If a man begins
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Bear ye one another's burdens. 
 
 to forget he is a social being, a member of a 
 body, and that the only truths which are 
 worthy objects of his philosophical search 
 are those which are equally true for every 
 man, which will equally avail every man, 
 which he must proclaim as far as he can to 
 every man, from the proudest sage to the 
 meanest outcast, he enters, I believe, into a 
 lie, and helps forward the dissolution of that 
 society of which he is a member. I care little 
 whether what he holds be true or not. If it 
 be true, he has made it a lie by appropriating 
 it proudly and selfishly to himself, and by ex- 
 cluding others from it. He has darkened his 
 own power of vision by that act of self-appro- 
 priation, so that, even if he sees a truth, he 
 can see it only refractedly, discolored, by the 
 medium of his own private likes and dislikes, 
 and fulfil that great and truly philosophic 
 law, that he who loveth not his brother is 
 in darkness, and knoweth not whither he 
 goeth. 83 
 
 REUEMSER, 
 
 All good conversation, manners, and action 
 come from a spontaneity which forgets usages 
 and makes the moment great. 15
 
 52 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Out of the heart are the issues of life. 
 
 Action is transitory, a step, a blow, 
 
 The motion of a muscle this way or that 
 
 'T is done 
 
 Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark, 
 And has the nature of infinity. 35 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Our contentments stand upon the tops of 
 pyramids, ready to fall off, and the insecurity of 
 their enjoyments abrupteth our tranquillities. 
 To enjoy true happiness, we must travel into a 
 very far country, and even out of ourselves ; 
 for the pearl we seek for is not to be found in 
 the Indian, but in the empyrean ocean. 18 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Prayer is a constant source of invigoration 
 to self-discipline ; not the thoughtless praying 
 which is a thing of custom, but that which is 
 sincere, earnest, watchful. Let a man ask 
 himself whether he really would have the 
 thing he prays for ; let him think, while he is 
 praying for a spirit of forgiveness, whether, 
 even at that moment, he is disposed to give 
 up the luxury of anger. If not, what a hor- 
 rible mockery it is. 49 
 
 REMEMBER 
 
 To make thy door fast behind thee, and 
 invite Jesus, thy beloved, to come unto thee,
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 53 
 
 Commune with thy heart and be still. 
 
 and enlighten thy darkness with his light. 
 Abide faithfully with him in this retirement, 
 for thou canst not find so much peace in any 
 other place. 23 
 
 Thus shalt thou make " thine eyes the homes of silent prayer. " 4 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 No man can safely go abroad who does not 
 love to stay at home. 23 
 
 Said Walter Scott, I have been always 
 careful to place my mind in the most tran- 
 quil posture which it can assume during my 
 private exercises of devotion. 
 
 Be not sorry that men do not know you, 
 but be sorry that you are ignorant of men. 07 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 " There is a hush in our nation's heart. An 
 expectancy, a waiting and longing for some 
 unspoken word, which sometimes seems aw- 
 ful in the bounty of its promise. I know men 
 educated to speak, with the burden of a speak- 
 er's vocation on their hearts, but now these 
 many years remaining heroically silent ; the 
 fountains of a fresh consciousness sweet with- 
 in them, but not yet flowing into speech, and 
 they too earnest, too expectant, too sure of 
 the future, to say aught beneath the strain.
 
 54 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Thy speech bewrayeth thee. 
 
 ' Why do you not speak ? ' was inquired of one. 
 'Because I can keep silent,' he said. 'And 
 the word I am to utter will command me.' " 
 
 &.EMSMBER, 
 
 Wouldst thou see thine insufficiency more 
 plainly, view thyself at thy devotions ; to what 
 end was religion instituted, but to teach thee 
 thine infirmities ? to remind thee of thy weak- 
 ness ? to show thee, that from Heaven alone 
 thou art to hope for good ?** 
 
 K E.VEMBER, 
 
 In all thy life's course, that Truth is strong 
 next to the Almighty ; she needs no policies, 
 no stratagems, no licensings, to make her vic- 
 torious ! Though all the winds of doctrine 
 were let loose to play upon the earth, so 
 Truth be in the field, we injure her to mis- 
 doubt her strength. Let Truth and False- 
 hood grapple : who ever knew Truth put to 
 the worse in a free and open encounter ? 1T 
 
 Truth, crashed to earth, shall rise again ; 
 
 The eternal years of God are hers ; 
 While Error, wounded, writhes in pain, 
 
 And dies amidst her worshippers. 85 
 
 A word spoken in season, at the right mo- 
 ment, is the mother of ages. 36
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 55 
 
 We were foolish, living in malice and envy. 
 
 Let it be said of thee, 
 
 " Words of good cheer were most native to her lips." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Reserve is the truest expression of respect 
 towards those who are its objects. 09 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 It is not always the dark place that hinders, 
 but sometimes the dim eye. 64 
 
 'T is by comparison an easy task 
 Earth to despise ; but to converse with heaven, 
 This is not easy. b 
 
 Know, 
 
 Without or star or angel for their guide, 
 Who worship God shall find him. Humble love, 
 And not proud reason, keeps the door of heaven. 
 Love finds admission where proud science fails. 01 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Augustine calls envy the besetting sin of the 
 Devil, who envied Jehovah in heaven, and 
 Adam in paradise, and the essence of whose 
 torment is a thought of happiness which he 
 cannot share. To an envious soul true joy is 
 impossible ; if perfect in conditions of man- 
 hood, it will writhe at the thought of angelic 
 spheres and pinions ; if raised to Gabriel's 
 ministry in the very presence of God, it will
 
 56 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Let us walk honestly, not in strife and envying. 
 
 be in anguish at the sight of that higher 
 throne and the loftier One that sitteth on it. 70 
 
 Wisdom consists in being very humble, as if 
 we were incapable of anything, yet ardent, as 
 if we could do all." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Since the stars of heaven do differ in glory ; 
 since it hath pleased the Almighty hand to 
 honor the north pole with lights above the 
 south ; since there are some stars so bright 
 that they can hardly be looked upon, some 
 so dim that they can scarcely be seen, and 
 vast numbers not to be seen at all even by 
 artificial eyes ; read thou the earth in heaven, 
 and things below from above. Look content- 
 edly upon the scattered difference of things, 
 and expect not equality in lustre, dignity, or 
 perfection in regions or persons below ; where 
 numerous numbers must be content to stand 
 like lacteous or nebulous stars, little taken 
 notice of, or dim in their generations. All 
 which may be contentedly allowable in the 
 affairs and ends of this world, and in suspen- 
 sion unto what will be in the order of things 
 hereafter, and the new system of mankind 
 which will be in the world to come ; when the
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 57 
 
 I ascend unto my Father and your Father. 
 
 last may be the first, and the first the last ; 
 when Lazarus may sit above Caesar, and the 
 just obscure on earth shall shine like the sun 
 in heaven ; when personations shall cease, and 
 histrionism of happiness be over ; when reality 
 shall rule, and all shall be as they shall be for- 
 ever. 18 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The world is not so framed that it can keep 
 quiet Could we perfect human nature, we 
 might expect perfection everywhere ; but as 
 it is, there will always be this wavering hither 
 and thither ; one part must suffer while the 
 other is at ease. Envy and egotism will be 
 always at work like bad demons, and party 
 conflicts (and those of sects) find no end. Do 
 what you were born or have learned to do, and 
 avoid hindering others from doing the same. 
 
 Trace the forms 
 
 Of atoms moving with incessant change 
 Their elemental round ; behold the seeds 
 Of being, and the energy of life 
 Kindling the mass with ever-active flame ; 
 Then to the secrets of the working mind 
 Attentive turn. 61 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 A judicious silence is always better than 
 truth spoken without charity.
 
 58 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 The idle are 
 
 " Like ships that sailed for sunny isles, 
 But never came to shore.'' 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 What wonders lie in every day, had we 
 the sight, as happily we have not, to decipher 
 it : for is not every meanest day the conflux 
 of two eternities ? M 
 
 She was mistaken in saying bad authors 
 may amuse our idleness. Leontion knows not, 
 then, how sweet and sacred idleness is. 65 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 It is no more possible for an idle man to 
 keep together a certain stock of knowledge, 
 than it is possible to keep together a stock of 
 ice exposed to the meridian sun. Every day 
 destroys a fact, a relation, or an influence ; 
 and the only method of preserving the bulk 
 and value of the pile is by constantly adding 
 to it. 
 
 Ydelnes, that is the gate of all harmes. 
 An ydil man is like an hous that hath 
 
 Noone walls ; 
 The develes may enter on every side. 44
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 59 
 
 Weep with them that weep. 
 
 V 
 
 Indolence is^ methinks, says Steele, an inter- 
 mediate state between pleasure and pain, and 
 very much unbecoming any part of our life 
 after we are out of the nurse's arms. 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 After his blood, that which a man can next 
 give out of himself is a tear. 91 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The mercy of God hath singled out but few 
 to be the signals of his justice, leaving the 
 generality of mankind to the pedagogy of 
 example. 18 
 
 Do not trials and sorrows (also, it is true, 
 deep joys) shared between two friends, part- 
 ings, dangers, above all, the having stood to- 
 gether in the presence of death, deepen the 
 channel of our affection in deepening that of 
 our existence ? Are not such moments as 
 it were sacramental, bringing us nearer each 
 other in bringing us nearer God, from whom 
 the poor unrealities of time, unworthy of us as 
 they are of Him, too much divide us? When 
 the veil of the temple, even this poor worn 
 garment of our humanity, is rent from the 
 top to the bottom, we catch glimpses of the 
 inner glory. " They who love," as says St. 
 Chrysostom, "if it be but man, not God,"
 
 60 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Passing the time of thy sojourning in holy fear. 
 
 will know what I mean, when I speak of joys 
 springing out of the very heart of anguish, and 
 holding to it by a common and inseparable 
 life ; will understand how it comes that the 
 pale flowers which thrust themselves out of the 
 ruins of hope, of endeavor, of affection, yes, 
 even out of the mournful wreck of intellect 
 itself, should breathe out a deep and intimate 
 fragrance, such as the broad wealth of air and 
 sunshine never yet gave. 56 
 
 Constantly endeavor to do the will of an- 
 other rather than thine own : 
 
 Constantly choose rather to want less, than 
 to have more : 
 
 Constantly choose the lowest place, and to 
 be humble to all : 
 
 Constantly desire and pray that the will of 
 God may be perfectly accomplished in thee, 
 and concerning thee. 
 
 Verily, I say unto thee, he that doeth this 
 enters into the region of rest and peace. 23 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 That though there is something painful, yea, 
 terrific, in feeling one's self involved in the 
 great wheel of society, which goes whirling on, 
 crushing thousands at every turn, yet though
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 6 1 
 
 I will purely purge away thy dross. 
 
 this relation of the individual to the mass is 
 the sternest and most frightful of all conflicts 
 between necessity and free will, here too con- 
 flict should be harmony, and will be so. Put, 
 then, far away from thy soul all desire of re- 
 taliation, all angry thoughts, all disposition to 
 overcome or humiliate an adversary, and be 
 assured thou hast done much to abolish gal- 
 lows, chains, and prisons, though thou hast 
 never written or spoken a word on the crimi- 
 nal code. 
 
 'T is Nature's law, 
 
 That none, the meanest of created things, 
 Of forms created the most vile and brute, 
 The dullest or most noxious, should exist 
 Divorced from good, a spirit and pulse of good, 
 A life and soul, to every mode of being 
 Inseparably linked. Then be assured 
 That least of all can aught that ever owne J 
 The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime, 
 Which man is born to sink, howe'er depressed, 
 So low as to be scorned without a sin, 
 Without offence to God, cast out of view. 35 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, 
 good and ill together ; our virtues would be 
 proud, if our faults whipped them not ; and 
 our crimes would despair, if they were not 
 cherished by our virtues. 50
 
 64 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Be content with such things as ye have. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Every moment instructs, and every object ; 
 for wisdom is infused into every form. It has 
 been poured into us as blood ; it convulsed us 
 as pain ; it slid into us as pleasure ; it en- 
 veloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in 
 days of cheerful labor : we did not guess its 
 essence until after long time. 10 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 And repine not over your daily lot ; but 
 regard all your labor solely as a symbol ; at 
 bottom, it does not signify whether we make 
 pots or dishes. 8 
 
 " The reward of work well done, is the hav- 
 ing done it." 
 
 Teach us for all joys to crave 
 
 Benediction, pure and high, 
 
 Own them given, endure them gone, 
 
 Shrink from their hardening touch, yet prize them won ; 
 
 Prize them as rich odors, meet 
 
 For Love to lavish on His sacred feet ; 
 
 Prize them as sparkles bright 
 
 Of heavenly dew, from yon o'erflowing well of light l 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Happy the man who can embark his small 
 adventure of deeds and thoughts upon the 
 shallow waters round his own home, or send
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 65 
 
 The kingdom of God is within you. 
 
 them afloat on the wide sea of humanity, with 
 no great anxiety in either case as to what re- 
 ception they may meet with." 8 
 
 All the glory and beauty of Christ are 
 manifested within, and there he delights to 
 dwell ; his visits there are frequent, his conde- 
 scension amazing, his conversation sweet, his 
 comforts refreshing ; and the peace that he 
 brings passeth all understanding. 23 
 
 Yet much remains 
 
 To conquer still ; peace hath her victories 
 No less renowned than \var. ir 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 And make search for that " inmost centre 
 in us all, where truth abides in fulness " ; and 
 there learn that to know 
 
 Rather consists in opening out a way 
 Whence the imprisoned splendor may dart forth, 
 Than in effecting entry for a light 
 Supposed to be without. 14 
 
 REMEMBEX, 
 
 The first creature of God in the works of the 
 days was the light of the sense ; the last was 
 the light of reason ; and his Sabbath work 
 ever since is the illumination of his Spirit. 37 
 
 Yet forget not that " the whole world is a 
 phylactery, and everything we see an item of 
 the wisdom, power, or goodness of God." 1
 
 64 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Be content with such things as ye have. 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Every moment instructs, and every object ; 
 for wisdom is infused into every form. It has 
 been poured into us as blood ; it convulsed us 
 as pain ; it slid into us as pleasure ; it en- 
 veloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in 
 days of cheerful labor : we did not guess its 
 essence until after long time. 15 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 And repine not over your daily lot ; but 
 regard all your labor solely as a symbol ; at 
 bottom, it does not signify whether we make 
 pots or dishes. 8 
 
 " The reward of work well done, is the hav- 
 ing done it." 
 
 Teach us for all joys to crave 
 
 Benediction, pure and high, 
 
 Own them given, endure them gone, 
 
 Shrink from their hardening touch, yet prize them won ; 
 
 Prize them as rich odors, meet 
 
 For Love to lavish on His sacred feet ; 
 
 Prize them as sparkles bright 
 
 Of heavenly dew, from yon o'erflowing well of light. 1 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Happy the man who can embark his small 
 adventure of deeds and thoughts upon the 
 shallow waters round his own home, or send
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 6$ 
 
 The kingdom of God is within you. 
 
 them afloat on the wide sea of humanity, with 
 no great anxiety in either case as to what re- 
 ception they may meet with. 58 
 
 All the glory and beauty of Christ are 
 manifested within, and there he delights to 
 dwell ; his visits there are frequent, his conde- 
 scension amazing, his conversation sweet, his 
 comforts refreshing ; and the peace that he 
 brings passeth all understanding." 
 
 Yet much remains 
 
 To conquer still ; peace hath her victories 
 No less renowned than war. 11 
 
 REMEMBXK, 
 
 And make search for that " inmost centre 
 in us all, where truth abides in fulness " ; and 
 there learn that to know 
 
 Rather consists in opening out a way 
 Whence the imprisoned splendor may dart forth, 
 Than in effecting entry for a light 
 Supposed to be without. 14 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The first creature of God in the works of the 
 days was the light of the sense ; the last was 
 the light of reason ; and his Sabbath work 
 ever since is the illumination of his Spirit. 37 
 
 Yet forget not that " the whole world is a 
 phylactery, and everything we see an item of 
 the wisdom, power, or goodness of God." 13
 
 66 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 If so be that we suffer with him, 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Man is buried in consecrated earth ; even 
 thus should we bury great and rare occurrences 
 in a beautiful tomb of remembrance, to which 
 each one may approach and celebrate the 
 memory thereof. 8 
 
 Said Margaret Fuller: "All the good I 
 have ever done has been by calling on every 
 nature for its highest. I will admit that some- 
 times I have been wanting in gentleness, but 
 never in tenderness or in noble faith." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 To run not too hotly in the pursuit of 
 earthly knowledge, which is, after all, but 
 "broken wonder." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Natqre, indeed, draws tears out of the eyes, 
 and sighs out of the breast, so quickly, that 
 the wise man can never wholly lay aside the 
 garb of mourning from his body ; but let his 
 soul wear none. Though philosophy may not, 
 like a stroke of the brush of Rubens, trans- 
 form a laughing child into a weeping one, it is 
 well if it change the full mourning of the soul 
 into half-mourning, by teaching us how to 
 bear present transient ills.
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 67 
 
 We may be also glorified together. 
 
 Even physical pain shoots its sparks upon 
 us out of the electrical condenser of the im- 
 agination. The most acute pangs could be 
 endured calmly, if they lasted only the sixtieth 
 part of a second ; but, in fact, we never have 
 to endure an hour of pain, but only a succes- 
 sion of the sixtieth parts of a second, the sixty 
 beams of which are collected into the burn- 
 ing focus of a second, and directed upon our 
 nerves by the imagination alone. The most 
 painful part of our bodily pain is that which is 
 bodiless, or immaterial, namely, our impa- 
 tience, and the delusion that it will last for- 
 ever. 34 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Firmian did well in that he touched lightly 
 and passed hastily in narration over the bad 
 year of his stomach, over his hard times, over 
 the figurative winter of his life, though, in the 
 eyes of his intimate friend, his pallid, withered 
 face, and his sunken eye, formed the frontis- 
 piece of his months of ice, and was a winter 
 landscape of this snow-covered portion of his 
 path of life ; because no one deserves the 
 name of man who makes a greater fuss about 
 the wounds of poverty than a girl makes about 
 those of her ears, since, equally in both cases,
 
 68 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Then shall we know. 
 
 hooks, whereby to suspend jewels, are inserted 
 into the wounds.* 4 
 
 Light came from darkness, gladness from despair, 
 
 As, when the sunlight fadeth from the earth, 
 
 Star after star comes out upon the sky, 
 
 And shining worlds, that had not been revealed 
 
 In day's full light, are then made manifest. 
 
 Thus it is when, light of earth shut out, 
 
 Our thoughts turned inward, we discover there 
 
 Things of immortal wonder, living springs 
 
 Of an unfailing comfort ; hidden things 
 
 Brighter than earth's allurements. We can trace 
 
 The operations of the immortal mind, 
 
 On its high path to excellence and joy, 
 
 And see the prize of its high calling there. 73 
 
 Goethe says : " Perhaps we shall be blessed 
 (hereafter) with what here on earth has been 
 denied us, to know one another merely by see- 
 ing one another, and thence more thoroughly 
 to love one another." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 And judge not man by his outward mani- 
 festation of faith ; for some there are, who 
 tremblingly reach out shaking hands to the 
 guidance of Faith ; others, who stoutly ven- 
 ture in the dark their human confidence, their 
 leader, which they mistake for Faith ; some, 
 whose Hope totters upon crutches ; others,
 
 ANGEL VOICES, 69 
 
 When I am weak, then am I strong. 
 
 who stalk into futurity upon stilts. The dif- 
 ference is chiefly constitutional with them. 71 
 
 Each is but 
 
 An infant crying in the night, 
 And with no language but a cry. 4 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The more consciousness in our thoughts and 
 words, and the less in our impulses and gen- 
 eral actions, the better and more healthful the 
 state both of head and heart. As the flowers 
 from an orange-tree in its time of blossoming, 
 that bourgeon forth, expand, fall, and are mo- 
 mently replaced, such is the sequence of hourly 
 and momently charities in a*pure and gracious 
 soul. The modern fiction which depictures 
 the son of Cytherea with a bandage round his 
 eyes, is not without a spiritual meaning. There 
 is a sweet and holy blindness in Christian love, 
 even as there is a blindness of life, yea, and of 
 genius too, in the moment of productive en- 
 ergy. 18 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 In thy silent wishing, thy voiceless, uttered 
 prayer, let the desire be not cherished that 
 afflictions may not visit thee ; for well has it 
 been said,
 
 70 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Glory in tribulation. 
 
 Such prayers never seem to have wings. 11 
 
 Extremity is the trier of spirits ; 
 
 Common chances common men could bear : 
 
 When the sea is calm, all boats alike 
 
 Show mastership in floating. 60 
 
 " If my bark sink, 't is to another sea." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Pain is the deepest thing we have in our 
 nature, and union through pain has always 
 seemed more real and holy than any other. 73 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Rabia, a devout Arabian woman, who being 
 asked in her last illness how she endured 
 the extremity of her sufferings, made answer, 
 " They who look upon God's face do not feel 
 his hand." 77 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 In no life does the secret of all tragedy, the 
 conflict between the will and circumstance, 
 so unfold itself as in that of the Christian ; he, 
 of all men, feels and mourns over that sharp, 
 ever-recurring contrast of our existence, the 
 glorious capabilities, the limited attainments 
 
 of man's nature and destiny below If 
 
 he would stretch forth his hand and live by 
 what he can reach of absolute truth, he will
 
 ANGEL VOICES, 71 
 
 Put on the whole armor of God. 
 
 quickly come across the flaming sword turn- 
 ing every way to keep the way of the Tree of 
 Life. 56 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Interior freedom and exterior necessity, 
 these are the two poles of the Tragic World. 73 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 A straight line is the shortest in morals as 
 well as in geometry. 9 
 
 Be thou not 
 
 a rogue in grain, 
 Veneered with sanctimonious theory. 4 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 If men lived like men indeed, their houses 
 would be temples. 81 
 
 A 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The great secret both of health and success- 
 ful industry is the absolute yielding up of 
 one's consciousness to the business and diver- 
 sion of the hour, never permitting the one 
 to infringe in the least degree upon the other.'" 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 What is human life, if not a vast desire and 
 a great attempt ?
 
 72 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 What profiteth it a man if he gain 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 To rest not in an ovation, but a triumph 
 over thy passions. Let anger walk hanging 
 down the head ; let malice go manacled, and 
 envy fettered, after thee. Behold within thee 
 the long train of thy trophies, not without 
 thee. Make the quarrelling Lapithyles sleep, 
 and Centaurs within lie quiet. Chain up the 
 unruly legion of thy breast. Lead thine own 
 captivity captive, and be Caesar within thy- 
 self. 18 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 Tis 
 
 the hypocrites that ope Heaven's door 
 Obsequious to the sinful man of riches, : 
 But put the wicked, naked, barelegged poor 
 In parish stocks instead of breeches. 83 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The capital art of life is to renew and aug- 
 ment your power by its expenditure. It was 
 intimated some eighteen centuries since, that 
 the highest are obtained only by loss of the 
 same ; and the transmutation of loss into 
 gain is the essence and perfection of all spirit- 
 ual economics. Now of this art of arts he is 
 already master who steadily draws upon his 
 own spiritual resources. The soul is an ex-
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 73 
 
 the whole world and lose his own soul? 
 
 traordinary well ; the way to replenish is to 
 draw from it. 13 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 It is a poor centre of a man's actions, him- 
 self. It is right earth. For that only stands 
 fast upon her own centre, whereas all things 
 that have affinity with the heavens move 
 upon the centre of another, which they benefit. 
 
 Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches 
 thereof, a depraved thing. It is the wisdom 
 of rats, that will be sure to leave a house 
 somewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom 
 of the fox, that thrusts out the badger who 
 digged and made room for him. It is the 
 wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when 
 
 they would devour And when they have 
 
 all their time sacrificed to themselves, they 
 become in the end themselves sacrifices to 
 the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings they 
 thought by their self-wisdom to have pin- 
 ioned. 55 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Man is greater than a world, than systems 
 of worlds ; there is more mystery in the union 
 of soul with the physical, than in the creation 
 of a universe. 84
 
 74 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 What shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? 
 
 I never could feel any force in the argu- 
 ments for a plurality of worlds, in the common 
 acceptation of that term. The vulgar infer- 
 ence is in alio genere (for other beings). What 
 in the eye of an intellectual and omnipotent 
 Being is the whole sidereal system to the soul 
 of one man for whom Christ died ? 19 
 
 I will make a man more precious than fine gold ; even a man 
 than the golden wedge of Ophir. Isa. xiii. 12. 
 
 Coleridge adds : " A lady once asked me, 
 ' What then could be the intention in creating 
 so many great bodies, so apparently useless to 
 us ? ' I said, I did not know, except, perhaps, 
 to make dirt cheap ! " 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Things are of the shake. 15 
 
 To commiserate is sometimes more than to 
 give ; for money is external to a man's self, 
 but he who bestows compassion communicates 
 his own soul. 80 
 
 "There's naught so fathomless as woe unshared." 
 
 We have our younger brothers, too, 
 The poor, the outcast, and the trodden down, 
 Left fatherless on earth to pine for bread ; 
 They are a-hungered for our love and care,
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 75 
 
 He who giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord. 
 
 It is their spirits that are famishing, 
 
 And our dear Father, in his Testament, 
 
 Bequeathed them to us as our dearest trust, 
 
 Wherefore we shall give a straight account. 
 
 Woe, if we have forgotten them, and left 
 
 Those souls that might have grown so fair and glad, 
 
 That only wanted a kind word from us, 
 
 To be so free and gently beautiful, 
 
 Left them to feel their birthright a curse, 
 
 To grow all lean, and cramped, and full of sores, 
 
 And last, sad change, that surely comes to ail 
 
 Shut out from manhood by their brother man 
 
 To turn mere wolves for lack of aught to love. 12 
 
 Shall we speak of the inspiration of a poet 
 or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by 
 love and self-devotion to the lowliest work in 
 the lowliest way of life ? ** 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Among those whom the world calls poor, 
 there is less vital force, a lower tone of life, 
 more ill-health, more weakness, more early 
 death. There are also less self-respect, ambi- 
 tion, and hope, than among the independent. 83 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 He who knows, like St. Paul, both how to 
 spare and how to abound, has great knowl- 
 edge ; for if we take account of all the vir- 
 tues with which money is mixed up, lion-
 
 76 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. 
 
 esty, justice, generosity, charity, frugality, fore- 
 thought, self-sacrifice, and of their correla- 
 tive vices, it is a knowledge which goes near 
 to cover the length and breadth of humanity ; 
 and a right measure and manner in getting, 
 saving, spending, giving, taking, lending, bor- 
 rowing, and bequeathing would almost argue 
 a perfect man. 89 
 
 Felicity is nothing else than the use of vir- 
 tue in prosperity. 95 
 
 REMEMBKK, 
 
 He that believes only what he understands, 
 has the shortest known creed. 98 
 
 God judgeth us by what we know of right, 
 Rather than what we practise that is wrong 
 U nknowingly. 12 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 In your intercourse with sects, The sub- 
 lime and abstruse doctrines of Christian belief 
 belong to the Church ; but the faith of the 
 individual, centred in his heart, is, or may be, 
 collateral to them. Faith is subjective. 19 
 
 Whom the heart of man shuts out, 
 Straightway the heart of God takes in. 1 -
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 77 
 
 Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The necessary mansions of our restored 
 selves are those two contrary and incompatible 
 places we call Heaven and Hell ; to define 
 them, or strictly to determine what and where 
 these are, surpasseth my divinity. That ele- 
 gant Apostle, which seemed to have a glimpse 
 of heaven, hath left but a negative description 
 thereof. 18 
 
 I have so fixed my contemplations on 
 heaven, that I have almost forgot the idea of 
 hell, and am afraid rather to lose the joys of 
 the one than endure the misery of the other ; 
 to be deprived of them is a perfect hell, and 
 needs, methinks, no addition to complete our 
 afflictions. 18 
 
 Know ye, there are two worlds of life and death ; 
 One, that which thou beholdest ; but the other 
 Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit 
 The shadows of all forms that think and live, 
 Till death unite them, and they part no more. 97 
 
 REMEMBEK, 
 
 They who are incapable of self-devouring 
 emotion and brooding melancholy may easily 
 find in rules of duty a safeguard against any 
 such wrong-doing as would produce conse- 
 quences very painful to them ; but a fervid 
 and meditative spirit carries conscience with
 
 78 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. 
 
 it as a divine curse, if this be not transfigured 
 and glorified into the revelation of a good 
 higher than all laws of duty. 03 
 
 O tell her, brief is life, but love is long, 
 And brief the sun of summer in the North, 
 And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 4 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 A weak mind sinks under prosperity, as 
 well as under adversity. A strong and deep 
 one has two highest tides, when 'the moon 
 is at the full, and when there is no moon." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 And lay on thy heart the deep meaning of 
 these words : 
 
 " Exceeding fair she was not, and yet fair 
 In that she never studied to be fairer 
 Than Nature meant her ; beauty cost her nothing." 100 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The conflict of Christianity is the harder 
 because it is civil ; it has allied itself with that 
 against which it must contend to the death, or 
 be itself overcome of it. Hence its fierce col- 
 lisions, its sorrowful victories ; hence too its 
 still more sad, more fatal compromises, its un- 
 holy, unhallowing alliances, " the Woman sit- 
 ting upon the Beast," the compact between
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 79 
 
 Give to him that asketh. 
 
 the Church and the World, at the sight of 
 which he who had learned so many secrets 
 from his beloved Master yet "wondered with 
 great admiration." M 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 To be charitable before wealth make thee 
 covetous, and lose not the glory of the mite. 
 If riches increase, let thy mind hold pace with 
 them ; and think it not enough to be liberal, 
 but munificent. Though a cup of cold water 
 from some hand may not be without its re- 
 ward, yet stick not thou for wine and oil for 
 the wounds of the distressed ; and treat the 
 poor, as our Saviour did the multitude, to the 
 relics of some baskets. Diffuse thy benefi- 
 cence early, and while thy treasures call thee 
 master ; there may be an Atropos of thy for- 
 tunes before that of thy life, and thy wealth 
 cut off before that hour when all men shall be 
 poor ; for the justice of death looks equally 
 upon the dead, and Charon expects no more 
 from Alexander than from Irus. 18 
 
 Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, 
 Not light them for themselves ; for if our virtues 
 Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike 
 As if we had them not. w
 
 8O ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 The world hateth you. 
 
 REMEMBER the words of Archdeacon Hare : 
 There are persons who, by a certain felicity 
 of nature, through a peculiar combination of 
 magnanimity and generosity with gentleness 
 and open-hearted frankness, loving to give the 
 very best of what they have, are gifted with a 
 sort of divining-rod for drawing out what is 
 hidden in the hearts of their brethren ; and of 
 such persons I have known no finer example 
 than Sterling. For in him, as in such persons 
 it must ever be, the nobleness of his outward 
 look and gesture and manner betokened that 
 of his spirit, and showed that the whole man, 
 heart and soul and mind, was uttering himself 
 in his eloquent speech. 
 
 O, if there is one law above the rest 
 
 Written in wisdom, if there is a word 
 
 That I would trace as with a pen of fire 
 
 Upon the unsunned temper of a child, 
 
 If there is anything that keeps the mind 
 
 Open to angel visits, and repels 
 
 The ministry of ill, 't is human love ! 
 
 God has made nothing worthy of contempt. 
 
 The smallest pebble in the well of truth 
 
 Has its peculiar meaning, and will stand 
 
 When man's best monuments have passed away. 
 
 The law of Heaven is love, and though its name 
 
 Has been usurped by passion, and profaned 
 
 To its unholy uses through all time, 
 
 Still the eternal principle is pure ;
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 8 1 
 
 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers. 
 
 And in these deep affections that we feel 
 Omnipotent within us, we but see 
 The lavish measure in which love is given, 
 And in the yearning tenderness of a child 
 For every bird that sings above his head, 
 And every creature feeding on the hills, 
 And every tree and flower and running brook, 
 We see how everything was MADE TO LOVE, 
 And how they err who, in a world like this, 
 Find anything to hate but human pride ! 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Hospitality is threefold : for one's family, 
 this is of necessity ; for strangers, this is cour- 
 tesy ; for the poor, this is charity. 
 
 Measure not thy entertainment of a guest 
 by his estate, but thine own. Because he is a 
 lord, forget not thou art but a gentleman ; 
 otherwise, if with feasting him thou breakest 
 thyself, he will not cure thy rupture, and per- 
 chance rather deride than pity thee. 
 
 Company is one of the greatest pleasures of 
 the nature of man. For the beams of joy are 
 made hotter by reflection, when related to 
 another ; and otherwise gladness itself must 
 grieve for want of one to express itself to. 40 
 
 Be merry, man, and take not sair to mind 
 The wavering of this wretched world of sorrow ; 
 To God be humble, to thy friend be kind, 
 6
 
 82 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 
 
 And with thy neighbors gladly lend and borrow ; 
 His chance to-night, it may be thine to-morrow. 
 
 Be charitable and humble in thine estate, 
 
 For warklly honor lastes but a day. 
 
 For trouble in earth take no melancholy ; 
 Be rich in patience, if thou in gudes be poor ; 
 
 Who lives merrily, he lives mightely : 
 Without sadness avails no treasure. 101 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 In how many instances servants, living un- 
 der the same roof with us, share none of our 
 feelings nor we of theirs ; their presence is felt 
 as a restraint ; we know nothing about them 
 but that they perform certain set duties ; and, 
 in short, they may be said to be a kind of live 
 furniture. There is something very repug- 
 nant to Christianity in all this. Surely there 
 might be much more sympathy between mas- 
 ters and servants without endangering the 
 good part of our social system. At any rate, 
 we may be certain that a fastidious reserve 
 towards our fellow-creatures is not the way in 
 which true dignity or strength of mind will 
 ever manifest themselves in us. 49 
 
 For each enclosed spirit is a star 
 
 Enlightening his own little sphere, 
 Whose light, though fetcht and borrowed from far, 
 
 Both mornings makes and evenings there. 54
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 83 
 
 The trying of your faith worketh patience. 
 
 Faith provides for every affection, every 
 want and aspiration. It stretches itself over 
 humanity as the prophet stretched himself 
 above the child, eye to eye, mouth to mouth, 
 heart to heart ; and to work a kindred miracle, 
 to bring back life to the dead, by restoring the 
 One to the One, the whole nature of Man to 
 the whole nature of God 
 
 The fluctuations to which spiritual life is 
 subject show the wisdom and goodness of 
 God in making so much of it to reside in duty, 
 a principle independent of the variations of feel- 
 ing. There are long seasons of banishment 
 from God's presence, unconnected, perhaps, 
 with any sense of his displeasure, in which 
 the soul must say, " Make me as one of thy 
 hired servants." 50 
 
 Sense of pleasure 
 
 We may well spare out of life, and live content ; 
 Which is the happiest life. 17 
 
 REMEMBEI:. 
 
 There is no real elevation of mind in con- 
 tempt of little things ; it is, on the contrary, 
 from too narrow views that we consider those 
 things of little importance which have in fact
 
 84 ANGEL VOICES, 
 
 Be ye angry and sin not 
 
 such extensive consequences. The more apt 
 we are to neglect small things, the more we 
 ought to fear the effects of this negligence, be 
 watchful over ourselves, and place around us, 
 if possible, some insurmountable barrier to this 
 remissness. 59 
 
 Patience ! Why, 't is the soul of peace : 
 Of all the virtues, 't is nearest kin to heaven. 
 It makes men look like gods. The best of men 
 That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer, 
 A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit ; 
 The first true gentleman that ever breathed. 103 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Anger is one of the sinews of the soul ; he 
 that wants it hath a maimed mind, and with 
 Jacob, sinew-shrunk in the hollow of his thigh, 
 must needs halt. Nor is it good to converse 
 with such as cannot be angry, and with the 
 Caspian Sea never ebb nor flow. 40 
 
 To climb steep hills 
 
 Requires slow pace at first : anger is like 
 A full hot horse, who, being allowed his way, 
 Self-mettle tires him. 50 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 If it be pain to us to love, and at the same 
 time to contradict, to refuse with the head 
 what the heart grants, it is all the sweeter to 
 us to find ourselves and our faith transplanted
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 85 
 
 Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. 
 
 forwards in a younger being. Life is then a 
 beautiful night, in which not one star goes 
 down but another rises in its place. 34 
 
 "And he answered them nothing." 
 
 O mighty Nothing ! unto thee, 
 Nothing, we owe all things that be. 
 God spake once, when he all things made, 
 He saved all, when he Nothing said. 103 
 
 Rli ME. \rnF.R, 
 
 That such an anger alone is criminal which 
 is against charity to myself or my neighbor ; 
 but anger against sin is a holy zeal, and an 
 effect of love to God and my brother, for 
 whose interest I am passionate, like a con- 
 cerned person. And if I take care that my 
 anger makes no reflection of scorn or cruelty 
 upon the offender, or of pride and violence, or 
 transportation to myself, anger becomes char- 
 ity and duty. And when one commended 
 Charilaus, the king of Sparta, for a gentle, a 
 good, and a meek prince, his colleague said 
 well, " How can he be good, who is not an 
 enemy even to vicious persons ? " : 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Quiet gives not a strength to human kind, 
 To leave all suffering powerless at its feet,
 
 86 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 My peace I give unto you. 
 
 But keeps within the temple of the mind 
 A golden altar, and a mercy-seat : 
 A spiritual ark, 
 
 Bearing the peace of God 
 Above the waters dark, 
 
 And o'er the desert's sod. 
 How beautiful within our souls to keep 
 
 This treasure, the All-Merciful hath given ; 
 To feel, when we awake, and when we sleep, 
 Its incense round us, like a breeze from heaven ! 
 Quiet at hearth and home, 
 
 Where the heart's joys begin ; 
 Quiet where'er we roam, 
 Quiet around, within. 105 
 
 Hooker's anger is said to have been like a 
 vial of clear water, which, when shook, beads 
 at the top, but instantly subsides, without any 
 soil or sediment of uncharitableness. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Recreation is a second creation, when busi- 
 ness hath almost annihilated one's spirits. It 
 is the breathing of the soul, which otherwise 
 would be stifled with continual business. 40 
 
 As a countenance is made beautiful by the 
 soul's shining through it, so the world is beau- 
 tiful by the shining through it of a God. 1<H 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The only way for a rich man to be healthy
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 87 
 
 Your body is the temple. 
 
 is, by exercise and abstinence, to live so as if 
 he were poor. 10 * 
 
 REMEMBP.K, 
 
 There is no temperament which may not be 
 formed to a Christian temper. 107 
 
 Every man is the builder of a temple, called 
 his body, to the god he worships, after a style 
 purely his own ; nor can he get off by ham- 
 mering marble instead. We are all sculptors 
 and painters, and our material is our own flesh 
 and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins 
 at once to refine a man's features, any mean- 
 ness or sensuality to imbrute them. 103 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Life is too short to get over a bad manner ; 
 besides, manners are the shadows of virtue. 1 " 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Spill not the morning (the quintessence of 
 the day) in recreations. For sleep itself is 
 a recreation ; add not, therefore, sauce to 
 sauce. 40 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 A man's own observation, what he finds 
 good of, and what he finds hurt of, is the best i 
 physic to preserve health To be free-
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 A show of wisdom in neglecting of the body. 
 
 minded, and cheerfully disposed, at hours of 
 meat, and of sleep, and of exercise, is one of 
 
 the best precepts of long lasting 
 
 Use fasting and full eating, but rather full 
 eating ; watching and sleep, but rather sleep ; 
 sitting and exercise, but rather exercise ; and 
 the like. So shall nature be cherished, and 
 yet taught masteries." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Health is the ground which great persons 
 cultivate, whereby they exchange the light 
 flying hours into golden usage. To them it 
 is industry represented in its power ; the hu- 
 man riches of time. The minute-glass runs 
 willingly sand of centuries when great ideas 
 are in the healthful moments. 110 
 
 Said Milton : " My morning haunts are, 
 where they should be, at home ; not sleeping, 
 nor concocting the surfeits of an irregular 
 feast, but up and stirring ; in winter, often ere 
 the sound of any bell awake men to labor or 
 to devotion ; in summer, as oft with the bird 
 that first rises, or not much tardier, to read 
 good authors, or cause them to be read till the 
 attention be weary, or memory have its full 
 freight."
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 89 
 
 He giveth his beloved sleep. 
 
 Health and strength are the virtue of the 
 body. 111 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 We term sleep a death ; and yet it is wak- 
 ing that kills us, and destroys those spirits that 
 are the home of life. 'T is indeed a part of 
 life that best expresseth death ; for every man 
 truly lives, so long as he acts his nature, or 
 some way makes good the faculties of him- 
 self. Themistocles, therefore, that slew his 
 soldier in his sleep, was a merciful execu- 
 tioner ; 't is a kind of punishment the mild- 
 ness of no laws hath invented. I wonder the 
 fancy of Lucan and Seneca did not discover 
 it. It is that death by which we may be liter- 
 ally said to die daily ; a death which Adam 
 died before his mortality ; a death whereby 
 we live a middle and moderating point be- 
 tween life and death ; in fine, so like death, I 
 dare not trust it without my prayers, and an 
 half adieu unto the world, and take my fare- 
 well in a colloquy with God. 
 
 Virtuous thoughts of the day lay up good 
 treasures for the night ; whereby the impres- 
 sions of imaginary forms arise into softer 
 similitudes, acceptable unto our slumbering 
 selves, and preparatory unto divine impres-
 
 90 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Work while it is day. 
 
 sions. Hereby Solomon's sleep was happy. 
 Thus prepared, Jacob might well dream of 
 angels, on a pillow of stone. 18 
 
 Sadi said, " God gives sleep to the bad, in 
 order that the good may be undisturbed." 
 
 O magic sleep ! O comfortable bird, 
 
 That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind, 
 
 Till it is hushed and smooth ! O unconfined 
 
 Restraint ! imprisoned liberty ! great key 
 
 To golden palaces, strange minstrelsy , 
 
 Fountains grotesque, new trees, bespangled cave~, 
 
 Echoing grottoes full of tumbling waves, 
 
 And moonlight : ay, to all the mazy world 
 
 Of silvery enchantment ! who, upfurled 
 
 Beneath thy drowsy wing a triple hour, 
 
 But renovates and lives ? M 
 
 Labor is the Lethe of the Past and of the 
 Present. 34 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 In the morning, when you awake, accustom 
 yourself to think first upon God, or something 
 in order to his service ; and at night also let 
 him close thine eyes, and let your sleep be 
 necessary and healthful, not idle and expen- 
 sive of time, beyond the needs and conven- 
 iences of nature ; and sometimes be curious 
 to see the preparation which the sun makes,
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 91 
 
 The night cometh when no man can work. 
 
 when he is coming forth from the chambers 
 of the east. 20 
 
 REMEMBER* 
 
 As much as may be to cut off all imperti- 
 nent and useless employments of your life, 
 unnecessary and fantastic visits, long waitings 
 upon great personages, where neither duty 
 nor necessity nor charity obliges us ; all vain 
 meetings, all laborious trifles, and whatsoever 
 spends much time to no real civil, religious, 
 or charitable purpose. 
 
 Let not your recreations be lavish spend- 
 ers of your time, but choose such which are 
 healthful, short, transient, recreative, and apt 
 to refresh you ; but at no hand dwell upon 
 them, or make them your great employment ; 
 for he that spends his time in sports, and calls 
 it recreation, is like him whose garment is all 
 made of fringes, and his meat nothing but 
 sauces ; they are healthless, chargeable, and 
 useless. 20 
 
 Laborare est orare. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, 
 and to see ships tost upon the sea ; a pleasure 
 to stand in the window of a castle, and to see
 
 Q2 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 If a man love me, he will keep my words. 
 
 a battle, and the adventures thereof below ; 
 but no pleasure is comparable to the stand- 
 ing upon the vantage-ground of Truth (a hill 
 not to be commanded, and where the air is 
 always clear and serene) ; and to see the er- 
 rors and wanderings, and mists and tempests, 
 in the vale below; so always that this pros- 
 pect be with pity, and not with swelling or 
 pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth 
 to have a man's mind move in charity, 
 rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles 
 of truth. 85 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 "Elias was a man of like passions as we 
 are," says St. James, to wean Christians from 
 that false idea which makes us reject the 
 examples of the saints as disproportioned 
 to our own condition. "These were saints," 
 we cry, "and not men like us." We look on 
 them as being crowned in glory ; and now 
 that time has cleared up things, it does really 
 appear so. But at the time when the great 
 Athanasius was persecuted, he was a man 
 who bore that name ; and St. Teresa, in her 
 day, was like other religious sisters of her 
 order. 113
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 93 
 
 One day with thee is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Time sadly overcometh all things, and is 
 now dominant, and sitteth upon a sphinx, and 
 looketh unto Memphis and old Thebes, while 
 his sister Oblivion reclineth semi-somnous on 
 a pyramid, gloriously triumphing, making 
 puzzles of Titanian erections, and turning 
 old glories into dreams. History sinketh be- 
 neath her cloud. The traveller, as he passeth 
 amazedly through those deserts, asketh of 
 her, Who builded them ? and she mum- 
 bleth something, but what it is he heareth 
 not. 19 
 
 Remember and rejoice, " in the dark hour, 
 that thy life dwells in the midst of a wider 
 and larger life. The earth-clod of the globe 
 
 has been divinely breathed upon The 
 
 sea of time glitters like the sea of space, with 
 countless beings of light ; death and resurrec- 
 tion are the valleys and mountains of the ever- 
 swelling ocean. There exists no dead anat- 
 omy ; what seems to be such is only another 
 body. Without a universal living existence, 
 there would be nothing but a wide, all-en- 
 compassing death. We cling like mosses 
 to the Alps of nature, drawing life from 
 the high clouds, and the fly of a day
 
 94 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt. 
 
 may retrace its infinite series of progenitors, 
 to those first beings of its kind which played 
 over the waters of Paradise before the even- 
 ing sun. 34 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 If there is any person to whom you feel dis- 
 like, that is the person of whom you ought 
 never to speak. 113 
 
 Forget not the words of Sir Thomas Browne : 
 " There is no man of so discordant and jar- 
 ring a temper, to which a tunable disposition 
 may not strike a harmony." 
 
 'T is a kind of good deed to say well ; 
 And yet words are no deeds. 60 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Expression is a sacred thing; it comes free 
 only out of deep and rich experiences ; it is 
 forced at the peril of a man's soul ; it is wrung 
 out of him only at the price of the spoiling 
 of his nature. Perhaps the rarest gift that 
 God confers upon a man is the power of inter- 
 esting, quickening, or elevating other men by 
 the utterance of his thoughts, especially upon 
 subjects spiritual and eternal, when they touch 
 no living passion.
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 95 
 
 He that hath ears to hear let him hear. 
 
 It is not to think of these things that is 
 unnatural or an effort, but to think of them 
 with the view of one's thoughts passing into 
 words, that they may raise to spring-tides 
 the living waters that lie latent in the cells of 
 other men's souls. It is this, to have to think 
 and feel with a view to others, that so often 
 stops thought itself, breaks its living flow, and 
 curdles and taints the emotion, by the re- 
 flection of how it is to be used. The desire 
 for the utterance of a man's spirit in any 
 deep direction is intermittent, and, even to the 
 richest nature and most sympathizing heart, 
 can only be occasional. 114 
 
 There is great force hidden in a sweet com- 
 mand. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 A man that is of judgment and understand- 
 ing shall sometimes hear ignorant men differ, 
 and know well within himself that those which 
 so differ mean one thing, and yet they them- 
 selves would never agree. And if it come so 
 to pass, in that distance of judgment which is 
 between man and man, shall not we think that 
 God above, that knows the heart, doth not 
 discern that frail men, in some of their contra-
 
 96 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. 
 
 dictions, intend the same thing, and accepteth 
 of both ? M 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 St. Gregory reckons sadness " the sad- 
 ness of the world, worldly sorrow" among 
 the seven capital sins ; and we read in the 
 Meditations for the English College at Lis- 
 bon, " Sadness proceedeth from self-love ; and 
 joy, from the love of God." 
 
 There are briers besetting every path, 
 
 Which call for patient care ; 
 There is a cross in every lot, 
 
 And an earnest need for prayer ; 
 But a lowly heart, that leans on Thee, 
 
 Is happy anywhere. 115 
 
 The action of the soul is oftener in that 
 which is felt and left unsaid, than in that 
 which is said in any conversation. It broods 
 over every society, and men unconsciously seek 
 for it in each other. 15 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 De Quincey says, that all our thoughts have 
 not words corresponding to them ; many of 
 them, in our imperfectly developed nature, 
 can never express themselves in acts, but must
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 97 
 
 Star differeth from star in glory. 
 
 lie, appreciable by God only, like the silent melo- 
 dies in a great musician's heart, never to roll 
 forth from harp or organ. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 He who agrees with himself agrees with 
 others.* 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Nothing recalls the close of life to a noble- 
 hearted young man so much as precisely the 
 happiest and fairest hours which he passes. 
 Gottreich, in the midst of the united fragrance 
 and beauty of the flowers of joy, even with 
 the morning star of life above him, could not 
 but think on the time when the same should 
 appear to him as the evening star, warning 
 him of sleep 
 
 "I will, then," he said, "live through the 
 daytime of truth attentively, and bear it away 
 with me to the evening dusk, that it may 
 lighten my end." 34 
 
 REMEMBEK, 
 
 To live nobly, we must be noble ; and we 
 become noble by resolutely banishing every 
 unworthy thought and feeling. This is as
 
 98 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Awake to righteousness. 
 
 much a part of a good life as sedulously ful- 
 filling the offices of affection. Some persons 
 feel that devoting the whole life to family 
 duties is the only safe thing. They prize so 
 highly the satisfaction of filling their ideal of 
 life, that they are afraid to enlarge it. Those 
 are bold who willingly narrow it ua 
 
 REMEMREK 
 
 Catherine Adorna, who was in the habit of 
 speaking not only of purity of the heart, but, 
 what is of hardly less importance, of purity of 
 conscience. Sanctification gives to the con- 
 science intensity and multiplicity of existence ; 
 so that, like the flaming sword of the cherubim, 
 it turns every way, and guards the tree of life. 117 
 
 Let us keep in mind the Chinese proverb : 
 " Virtue does not give talents, but it supplies 
 their place. Talents neither give virtue nor 
 supply the place of it." 
 
 Remember Leigh Hunt's prayer : " May 
 exalting and humanizing thoughts forever ac- 
 company me, making me confident without 
 pride, and modest without servility." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Man can only learn to rise, from the consid T 
 eration of that which he cannot surmount. 34
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 99 
 
 Thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 If one listens to the faintest, but constant, 
 suggestions of his genius, which are certainly 
 true, he sees not to what extremes, or even 
 insanity, it may lead him ; and yet that way, 
 as he grows more resolute and faithful, his 
 
 road lies No man ever followed his 
 
 genius till it misled him. Though the result 
 were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one 
 can say that the consequences were to be 
 regretted, for these were a life in conformity 
 with higher principles. If the day and the 
 night are such that you greet them with joy, 
 and life emits a fragrance like flowers and 
 sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more 
 starry, more immortal, that is your success. 
 All nature is your congratulation, and you 
 have cause momentarily to bless yourself. 
 The greatest gains and values are furthest 
 from being apprehended. We easily come to 
 doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. 
 They are the highest reality. Perhaps the 
 facts most astounding and most real are never 
 communicated by man to man. The true 
 harvest of my daily life is somewhat as in- 
 tangible and indescribable as the tints of 
 morning or evening. It is a little star-dust
 
 100 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly. 
 
 caught, a segment of a rainbow which I have 
 clutched. 108 
 
 " For we are hasty builders, incomplete ; 
 Our Master follows after, far more slow 
 And far more sure than we ; for frost and heat, 
 And winds that breathe, and waters in their flow, 
 Work with Him silently. " 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Most natures are insolvent ; cannot satisfy 
 their own wants, have an ambition out of all 
 proportion to their practical force, and so do 
 lean and beg day and night continually. 15 
 
 Let us not forget these words of De Sales : 
 "We must never undervalue any person. The 
 workman loves not that his work should be de- 
 spised in his presence. Now God is present 
 everywhere, and every person is his work." 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 To observe the calmness of great men, not- 
 ing by the way that real greatness belongs to 
 no station and no set of circumstances. This 
 calmness is the cause of their beautiful be- 
 havior. Vanity, injustice, intemperance, are 
 all smallnesses arising from a blindness to 
 proportion in the vain, the unjust, the intem- 
 perate. Whereas no one thing, unless it be
 
 ANGEL VOICES. IOI 
 
 Take no thought for the morrow. 
 
 the love of God, has such a continuous hold 
 on a great mind as to seem all in all to it. 49 
 
 Spirit of childhood ! loved of God, 
 By Jesus' spirit now bestowed, 
 How often have I longed for thee ; 
 O Jesus, form thyself in me ! 
 
 And help me to become a child 
 While yet on earth, meek, undefiled, 
 That I may find God always near, 
 And Paradise around me here. 118 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 What is To-morrow until it comes ? This 
 moment the evening air thrills with a purple 
 of which ho painter as yet has caught the 
 tint, no poet the meaning ; no silent face 
 passes in the street on which a human voice 
 might not have charm to call out love and 
 power; the Helper yet waits near. Here is 
 work, life. 
 
 Child-souls, you tell me, may find it enough 
 to hold no past and no future, to accept the 
 work of each moment, and think it no wrong 
 to drink every drop of its beauty and joy ; we 
 who are wiser laugh at them. It may be ; yet 
 I say unto you, their angels only do always 
 behold the face of our Father in the New 
 Year. 119
 
 102 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Why sleep ye ? Arise and pray. 
 
 His name was Care ; a blacksmith by his trade, 
 That neither day nor night from working spared ; 
 But to small purpose yron wedges made : 
 Those be unquiet thoughts that careful minds invade. 28 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The wise words of one who confessed to 
 himself early one morning, " I am in a very 
 cranky sort of humor ; I must take care what 
 I am about to-day." These strange attacks 
 of gloom and restlessness are suddenly and 
 wonderfully alleviated by the interposition of 
 any subject of pleasurable excitement ; and 
 for a long period of my life I opposed them 
 after the fashion in which unwise parents quiet 
 a fractious child, by giving it a cake or a new 
 toy ; that is to say, I went forth and bought 
 something pretty or pleasant, or wrote a letter, 
 or made a call upon somebody or other ; in 
 short, I made an effort to produce a feeling of 
 agreeable excitement in the place of the ennui 
 that disturbed and dissatisfied me. It was 
 really a great many years before I discovered 
 that it was no accidental or trifling disturb- 
 ance of the moral system which these attacks 
 of restlessness indicated, but that they were 
 the necessary and natural accompaniments of 
 a lapsed spiritual condition.
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 103 
 
 Be thou faithful unto death. 
 
 Well, then, as soon as I had breakfasted, I 
 informed myself that there would be no going 
 to town to-day to buy either books or music, 
 for neither was wanted. 
 
 Many persons may say, " Well, suppose 
 you had dissipated your uncomfortable feel- 
 ings by indulging yourself with the purchase 
 of any little matter you had a fancy for, where 
 would be the harm ? " To which I reply, that 
 it is not the mode in which this restlessness of 
 nature acts that is of so much importance as 
 the thing itself. The disease itself is the 
 dreadful thing, and that which is to be fought 
 against. 120 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Two worlds are ours, one creative of the 
 other. There is the inner realm of thought, 
 emotion, and imagination, and there is the 
 outward realm of practice, where thought, 
 emotion, and imagination take their investi- 
 ture of flesh and matter, and pass into nature 
 and history. In one we have them in their 
 warmth and fusion, in the other we have them 
 crystallized into fact. All radical changes in 
 character begin in the inner realm of thought 
 and emotion. There we are moved upon by
 
 IO4 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 I will give thee a crown of life. 
 
 the powers that are above us ; by the Eternal 
 Spirit that lies on our soul like a haunting 
 presence, giving us visions of celestial purity, 
 bitter compunctions, sighs for a better state, 
 and images that float down out of heaven 
 through our fancies. But none of these are 
 yet ours. They sometimes come without 
 any agency of our own. Thus far they have 
 wrought no change in character, for they have 
 not yet passed under the action of a human 
 will. Left to themselves, they are as indeter- 
 minate as celestial ethers. They are appro- 
 priated by a distinct agency on our part, 
 which consists in giving them a place by our 
 own right arm among fixed and solid realities. 
 The thoughts and emotions wrought in us by 
 the Spirit of God are as yet foreign to us. 
 They are heavenly treasures let down within 
 our grasp. We grasp them by fixing them in 
 the voluntary life, and then they are forever 
 ours. 121 
 
 The fairest action of our human life 
 
 Is scorning to revenge an injury ; 
 For who forgives without a further strife, 
 
 His adversary's heart to him doth tie. 
 And 't is a firmer conquest truly said, 
 To win the heart, than overthrow the head. 12 -
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 105 
 
 Be not a forgetful hearer. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There 's always morning somewhere in the 
 world. 6 
 
 Pythagoras taught that we should avoid and 
 amputate by every possible artifice, by fire 
 and sword, and all various contrivances, from 
 the body, disease ; from the soul, ignorance ; 
 from the belly, luxury ; from a city, sedition ; 
 and at the same time, from all things, in 
 moderation. Such, therefore, was the com- 
 mon form of his life at that time, both in 
 words and actions. 
 
 Sadi says : " Abu-Horairah was making a 
 daily visit to the prophet Mustafa-Moham- 
 med, on whom be God's blessing and peace. 
 He said, ' O Abu-Horairah, let me alone every 
 other day, that so affection may increase ; that 
 is, come not every day, that we may get more 
 loving.' " 
 
 REMEMBER 
 
 Wan Tsze always considered a thing three 
 times before he acted. Confucius, hearing of 
 it, said, "Twice may do." (He means Wan 
 Tsze was in danger of wasting time in doubt, 
 or losing spirit in letter.) 123
 
 io6 
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Be a doer of the work. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Sternness and levity were the two constitu- 
 tional evils which most severely exercised Mr. 
 Cecil. But so far had grace triumphed over 
 these enemies, that the very opposite features 
 were the most prominent in his character, 
 and no one could approach him without feel- 
 ing himself with a most tender and serious 
 mind. 113 
 
 REMEMKEK, 
 
 The spoken word, the written poem, is said 
 to be an epitome of the man ; how much 
 more the done work. Whatsoever of mo- 
 rality and intelligence, what of patience, per- 
 severance, faithfulness, of method, insight, 
 ingenuity, energy, in a word, whatsoever of 
 strength the man had in him will be written 
 in the work he does. 
 
 Great honor to him whose Epic is a melodi- 
 ous hexameter Iliad. But still greater honor 
 if his Epic be a mighty empire slowly built 
 together, a mighty series of heroic deeds, 
 a mighty conquest over chaos. There is no 
 mistaking this latter Epic. Deeds are greater 
 than words. Deeds have such a life, mute 
 but undeniable, and grow as living trees and
 
 ANGEL VOICES. io/ 
 
 The glory of the terrestrial. 
 
 fruit-trees do : they people the vacuity of 
 Time, and make it green and worthy. 30 
 
 REMEMKKK, 
 
 Persons first, we are wont to consider, and 
 books next, in the order of influence. But 
 both disappoint and deceive more or less, 
 Nature taking the larger share in our culture. 
 Books aid us as we have the skill to use them 
 to advantage ; persons best by indirect means, 
 as if they served us not. Nature converts us 
 to ourselves, and against our knowledge or 
 consent 
 
 Nature is the armory of genius. Cities 
 serve it slightly, books and colleges chiefly as 
 they celebrate Nature. She is the first school 
 of eloquence; her images bait the senses to 
 pluck free and fair the befitting rhetoric. A 
 good writer is a pensioner of sun and stars, of 
 fields, woodlands, water, skies, the spectacle 
 of things ; agencies these more than libraries 
 or universities, competing successfully for the 
 prizes of inspiration. Whoever would strike 
 effective strokes for truth and ideas, for the 
 times, must be afoot often and early to im- 
 port the stuff of things into his thoughts, 
 the sprightliness and point that tell tenderly
 
 108 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Jesus went through the corn-fields on the Sabbath day. 
 
 and deeply upon the soul of mankind. " A- 
 field all summer, and the winter spent in 
 studies indoors," is the good Anglo-Saxon 
 rule, and as good for the Anglo-American of 
 to-day. We must take the seasons into us, 
 drinking off their cup daily, if we will live in 
 earnest, and take life with the zest that life is, 
 and the health it gives. For never is the j 
 mind weaned from nature or ideas ; pasturing 
 at these meadows, she plucks their fruits un- 
 restrained, loving to be abroad musing and 
 amused. 2 ' 
 
 I care not, fortune, what you me deny, 
 
 You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace, 
 You cannot shut the windows of the sky, 
 
 Through which Aurora shows her brightening face, 
 You cannot bar my constant feet to trace 
 
 The woods and lawns by living stream at eve. 
 Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, 
 
 And I their toys to the great children leave ; 
 
 Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave. 1 - 4 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 In this world there is one godlike thing, the 
 essence of all that ever was or ever will be of 
 godlike in this world ; the veneration done to 
 human worth by the hearts of men. 36 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 The graces of behavior spring from a sense
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 109 
 
 We have borne the image of the earthy. 
 
 of beauty planted in all minds, even the 
 meanest, and its prevalence is the symptom 
 of a genial culture, distinguishing man or child 
 from the brute he were otherwise. There is a 
 fine religion, or the seed and scion of sanctity, 
 seen in that blushing diffidence by which the 
 loveliest souls are characterized and shown, 
 unconsciously to themselves, by implication. 
 A bashful child is still in Paradise, while the 
 flush of innocency mantles the cheeks, and the 
 maid is apparent there. 
 
 It is useless, I should say impious, to clothe 
 for show merely ; as useless to teach manners 
 as to give innocence ; we must guard and keep 
 the last, that the graces of good behavior 
 may maintain the gloss of their own, and be 
 fine manners indeed, an emanation of the 
 soul, and the gesture of the mind ; self-respect 
 and sensibility being their groundwork and 
 showing. While the child is pure, the person 
 innocent, there is the fine behavior of necessity 
 and the natural piety that graces its owner 
 as counterfeit piety cannot. Good hearts are 
 always graceful, and take captive against any 
 blemishes of nature. 23 
 
 Stately is service accepted, but lovelier service rendered, 
 Interchange of service the law and condition of beauty ; 
 Any way beautiful only to be the thing one is meant for.
 
 IIO AXGEL VOICES. 
 
 Have not the faith of Christ with respect to persons. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Wisdom will never let us stand with any 
 man or men on an unfriendly footing. We 
 refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as 
 if we waited for some better sympathy and 
 intimacy to come. But whence and when ? 
 To-morrow will be like to-day. Life wastes 
 
 itself while we are preparing to live Let 
 
 us suck the sweetness of those affections and 
 consuetudes that grow near us. Undoubtedly 
 we can easily pick faults in our company, can 
 easily whisper names prouder, and that tickle 
 the fancy more. Every man's imagination 
 hath its friend ; and pleasant would life be 
 with such companions. But if you cannot 
 have them on good mutual terms, you cannot 
 have them. If not the Deity, but our ambi- 
 tion, hews and shapes the new relations, their 
 virtue escapes, as strawberries lose their flavor 
 in garden-beds. 14 
 
 Your little child is your only true demo- 
 crat. 127 
 
 REMEMBER 
 
 Love, like the opening of the heavens to 
 the saints, shows for a moment, even to the 
 dullest man, the possibilities of the human 
 race. He has faith, hope, and charity for an-
 
 ANGEL VOICES. \ \ I 
 
 If ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin. 
 
 other being, perhaps but a creation of his 
 imagination j^still it is a great advance for a 
 man to be profoundly loving even in his im- 
 aginations. 49 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Be not' anxious about those enjoyments 
 which result from the society of accomplished 
 and intellectual persons. There is a subtle 
 snare in everything that appeals to the mind 
 on the side of its tendency to self-glorification 
 and its capacity for estimating talent ; and we 
 never think less of ourselves for being in asso- 
 ciation with gifted persons. Seek delight in 
 that which meekens rather than exalts your 
 mind. Keep a watchful eye over yourself on 
 the side of your disposition to self-exalta- 
 tion. 120 
 
 So Love doth loathe disdainful! nicitee. 23 
 
 REMEMBEK, 
 
 Form no connections too close with any 
 who live only in the atmosphere of admiration 
 and praise. The love or the friendship of such 
 people rarely contracts itself into the narrow 
 circle of individuals. You, if you are brilliant 
 like themselves, they will hate ; you, if you are 
 dull, they will despise. Gaze, therefore, on
 
 112 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Watch, therefore. 
 
 the splendor of such idols as a passing stran- 
 ger. Look for a moment as one sharing in 
 the idolatry ; but pass on before the splendor 
 has been sullied by human frailty, or before 
 your own generous homage has been con- 
 founded with offerings of weeds. 6 ' 
 
 Nightly we pitch our moving tents 
 A day's march nearer home.* 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Heaven is first a temper, and then a place. 128 
 The ripeness, or unripeness, of the occasion 
 must ever be well weighed ; and, generally, it 
 is good to commit the beginnings of all great 
 actions to Argus with his hundred eyes ; and 
 the ends to Briareus with his hundred hands ; 
 first to watch, and then to speed. For the hel- 
 met of Pluto, which maketh the politic man go 
 invisible, is secrecy in the council and celerity 
 in the execution. For when things are once 
 come to the execution, there is no secrecy 
 comparable to celerity ; like the motion of a 
 bullet in the air, which flieth so swift as it out- 
 runs the eye. 55 
 
 REMEMBER 
 
 Nothing but effort for virtues which are not, 
 can keep alive virtues which are.
 
 AXGEL VOICES. I I 3 
 
 Give to him that asketh. 
 
 There is not on the earth a soul so base 
 
 But may obtain a place 
 
 In covenanted grace ; 
 So that forthwith his prayer of faith obtains 
 
 Release of his guilt-stains. 
 And first-fruits of the second birth, which rise 
 From gift to gift, and reach at length the eternal prize, 
 All may save self; but minds that heavenward tower 
 
 Aim at a wider power, 
 
 Gifts on the earth to shower. 
 And this is not at once ; by fastings gained, 
 
 And trials well sustained, 
 
 By pureness, righteous deeds, and toils of love, 
 Abidance in the truth and zeal for God above 11 * 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 A lively perception of the transitoriness of 
 earth is an ingredient in all virtuous deter- 
 mination. It is not sour in its effect, it is not 
 at all cloistral, it is not melancholy, it is not 
 disheartening, but quite otherwise. 
 
 There are few misfortunes, whether of mind, 
 body, or estate, so dangerous as that disease 
 of the spiritual eye by which it fails in per- 
 ception of the world evanescence. 
 
 " To smell the fresh turf is wholesome for 
 the body ; no less are thoughts of immortality 
 a cordial for the soul." To the healthy soul 
 they are cordial ; but for the salvation of the 
 luxurious they are an indispensable astrin- 
 gent. 81
 
 114 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 This night thy soul shall be required of thee. 
 
 "The tree 
 
 Sucks kindlier nurture from a soul enriched 
 By its own fallen leaves : and man is made, 
 In heart and spirit, from deciduous hopes 
 And things that seem to perish. " 
 
 So live, that, when thy summons comes to join 
 The innumerable caravan that moves 
 To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
 Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
 Scourged to his dungeon ; but, sustained and soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 85
 
 PART II. 
 
 OF DEATH. 
 
 We have the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in 
 ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead. 2 COR. i. 9. 
 
 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him ; 
 He hath put him to grief. ISAIAH liii. 
 
 Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends ! for the hand 
 of God hath touched me. JOB. 
 
 That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. i COR. xv. 36. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order ; for thou shall die, and 
 not live. ISAIAH xxxviii. 
 
 For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which 
 cannot be gathered up again ; neither doth God respect any person ; yet 
 doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him. 
 2 SAM. xiv. 14. 
 
 Put thou my tears into thy bottle : are they not in thy book ? PSALM 
 Ivi. 8. 
 
 If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I go to my Father. JESUS 
 CHRIST. 
 
 Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality. 34 
 
 Death is another life. We bow our heads 
 At going out, we think, and enter straight 
 Another golden chamber of the KING'S, 
 Larger than this we leave, and lovelier.
 
 Our little systems have their day ; 
 
 They have their day and cease to be* 
 They are but broken lights of thee, 
 
 And thou, O Lord, art more than they. 
 
 We have but faith : we cannot know ; 
 
 For knowledge is of things we see ; 
 
 And yet we trust it comes from thee, 
 A beam in darkness : let it grow. 
 
 Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
 But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
 That mind and soul, according well, 
 
 May make one music as before, 
 
 But vaster 
 
 Forgive my grief for one removed, 
 
 Thy creature, whom I found so fair. 
 I trust he lives in thee, and there 
 
 I find him worthier to be loved.*
 
 ANGEL VOICES. \\J 
 
 Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors. 
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 REMEMBEK, 
 
 The strange perversity of human nature, 
 that we are wont to offer nothing but images 
 of terror, no stars of cheering light, to those 
 who lie imprisoned in the darkness of a sick- 
 bed, when the glitter of the dew of life is wax- 
 ing gray and dim before them. It is indeed 
 hard that lamentations and emotions are fre- 
 quently vented upon the dying, which would 
 be withheld from the living in all their vigor. 
 
 There stands no lofty spirit, elevated 
 
 above the circumstance of sorrow, to conduct 
 the prostrate soul of the sufferer, thirsty for 
 the refreshment of joy, back to the old spring- 
 tide waters of pious recollection ; and so to 
 mingle these with the last ecstasies of life, as 
 to give the dying man a foreboding of his 
 transition to another state. On the contrary, 
 the death-bed is narrowed into a coffin with- 
 out a lid. . . Our exit from life would,
 
 Il8 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Their works do follow them. 
 
 therefore, be greatly more painful than our 
 entrance into it, were it not that our good 
 mother Nature had previously mitigated its 
 
 sufferings (as we learn from those who 
 
 have recovered from apparent death, and from 
 the demeanor of many dying persons,) the 
 brain is, as it were, inundated and watered by 
 faint eddies of bliss, comparable to nothing 
 upon earth better than to the ineffable sensa- 
 tions felt by a patient under magnetic treat- 
 ment 34 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There is a voice from the tomb sweeter 
 than song ; there is a remembrance of the 
 dead to which we turn even from the charms 
 of the living. These we would not exchange 
 for the song of pleasure or the bursts of rev- 
 elry. 130 
 
 With what a marvellous vigor can the soul 
 Put forth its hidden strength, looking at Death 
 As at an Angel from the courts of God ! 
 And with what beauty, at the closing hour, 
 Will childhood's sweet affections blossom out 131 
 
 All heads must come 
 
 To the cold tomb ; 
 Only the actions of the just 
 Smell sweet and blossom in the dust. 129
 
 ANGEL VOICES, 119 
 
 Let us wait for salvation. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The work of righteousness shall be peace ; 
 and the effect of righteousness quietness and 
 assurance forever. 
 
 A life well spent is like a flower 
 That had bright sunshine its brief hour ; 
 It flourished in pure willingness, 
 Discovered strongest earnestness, 
 Was fragrant for each lightest wind, 
 Was of its own particular kind, 
 Nor knew a tone of discord sharp ; 
 Breathed alway like a silver harp, 
 And went to immortality, 
 A very proper thing to die. 132 
 
 ' Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
 Of the eternal silence ; truths that wake, 
 To perish never : 
 
 Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavor, 
 Nor man nor boy, 
 Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 
 . Can utterly abolish or destroy. 30 
 
 With what shifts and pains we come into 
 the world we remember not, but 't is com- 
 monly found no easy matter to get out of it. 
 Many have studied to exasperate the ways of 
 death, but fewer hours have been spent to 
 soften that necessity. That the smoothest 
 way into the grave is made by bleeding, as 
 common opinion presumeth, beside the sick
 
 120 
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Of the day and the hour knoweth no man. 
 
 and fainting languors which accompany that 
 effusion, the experiment in Lucan and Seneca 
 will make us doubt. 
 
 But to learn to die is better than to study 
 the ways of dying. Death will find some 
 ways to untie or cut the most Gordian knots 
 of life, and make men's miseries as mortal as 
 themselves ; whereas evil spirits, as undying 
 substances, are inseparable from their calam- 
 ities ; and, therefore, they everlastingly strug- 
 gle under their angustias, and, bound up with 
 immortality, can never get out of themselves. 18 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The unskilful, unexperienced Christian 
 shrieks out whenever his vessel shakes, think- 
 ing it always a danger that the watery pave- 
 ment is not stable and resident like a rock ; 
 and yet all his danger is in himself, none at 
 all from without ; for he is indeed moving 
 upon the waters, but fastened to a rock ; faith 
 is his foundation, and hope is his anchor, and 
 death is his harbor, and Christ is his pilot, 
 and heaven is his country ; and all the evils 
 of poverty, or affronts of tribunals and evil 
 judges, of fears and sadder apprehensions, are 
 but like the loud wind blowing from the right
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 12 1 
 
 Why seek ye the living among the dead? 
 
 point, they make a noise and drive faster to 
 the harbor ; and if we do not leave the ship, 
 and leap into the sea ; quit the interest of re- 
 ligion, and run to the securities of the world ; 
 cut our cables and dissolve our hopes ; grow 
 impatient, and hug a wave, and die in its 
 embraces ; we are as safe at sea, safer in the 
 storm which God sends us, than in a calm 
 when we are befriended with the world. 20 
 
 Life and thought have gone away 
 
 Side by side, 
 
 Leaving door and windows wide : 
 Careless tenants they ! 
 
 All within is dark as night : 
 In the windows is no light ; 
 And no murmur at the door, 
 So frequent on its hinge before ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Close the door, the shutters close, 
 Or through the windows we shall see. 
 The nakedness and vacancy 
 
 Of the dark deserted house. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Come away ; no more of mirth 
 Is here, or merry-making sound. 
 
 The house was builded of the earth, 
 And shall fall again to ground.
 
 122 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 The harvest of the earth is ripe. 
 
 Come away ; for life and thought 
 Here no longer dwell ; 
 
 But in a city glorious 
 A great and distant city have bought 
 A mansion incorruptible. 
 
 Would they could have stayed with us. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The harvest must be wherever the Son of 
 Man shall send forth his reapers to gather us 
 in. The little child that, without one ques- 
 tioning thought or fear, resigns itself into their 
 hands, though but an opening bud, is gathered 
 into the harvest of the Lord. The young 
 girl, who, through some mysterious sympathy 
 with them, or some strange monition to the 
 soul, seems to hear the sound of their coming 
 from afar, and, without apprehension or sur- 
 prise, composes herself for the solemn change, 
 and in perfect trust leaves all she loved on 
 earth, goes already ripe for the harvest. 133 
 
 Whate'er thou lovest, man, that too become thou must ; 
 God, if thou lovest God j Dust, if thou lovest dust. 105 
 
 "I saw in seed-time," said Thomas Fuller, 
 "a husbandman at plough on a very raining 
 day ; asking him the reason why he would 
 not rather leave off than labor in such foul
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 123 
 
 The earth was reaped. 
 
 weather, his answer was returned to me in 
 their country rhyme : 
 
 ' Sow beans in the mud, 
 And they '11 come up like a wood. ' 
 
 This could not but remind me of David's ex- 
 pression, ' They that sow in tears shall reap 
 in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, 
 bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come 
 again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with 
 him.' 
 
 "These last five years have been a wet 
 and woful seed-time to me, and many of my 
 afflicted brethren. Little hope have we, as 
 yet, to come again to our own homes, and in 
 a literal sense now to bring our sheaves, which 
 we see others daily carry away on their shoul- 
 ders. But if we shall not share in the former 
 or latter harvest here on earth, the third and 
 last in heaven we hope undoubtedly to re- 
 ceive." 
 
 Take them, O Death ! and bear away 
 Whatever thou canst call thine own ; 
 Thine image, stamped upon this clay, 
 Doth give thee that, but that alone : 
 
 Take them, O Grave ! and let them lie 
 Folded, upon thy narrow shelves,
 
 124 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Thou hast delivered mine eyes from tears. 
 
 As garments by the soul laid by, 
 And precious only to ourselves. 
 
 Take them, O great Eternity ! 
 Our little life is but a gust 
 That bends the branches of thy tree, 
 And trails its blossoms in the dust ! 7a 
 
 Those last hours of the German pastor, 
 when his son "would fain have infused the 
 fire of conquest reflected in his own bosom, 
 which like a red evening cloud was announ- 
 cing a fair dawn to Europe, into that old and 
 once strong heart, but he heard neither word 
 nor question of it ...... A dying man knows 
 
 no present, nothing but the future and the 
 past. 
 
 "Death is beautiful," murmured the old 
 man, "and the parting in Christ." Then he 
 added, more and more emphatically, " O thou 
 blessed God ! " until all the other luminaries 
 of life were extinguished, and in his soul there 
 stood nothing but the one sun God ! 
 
 At length he raised himself, and, stretching 
 out his arm forcibly, exclaimed : " There are 
 three fair rainbows over the evening sun ; 
 I must go after the sun, and pass through 
 with him ! " He then fell back, and all was 
 over. 34
 
 ANGEL VOICES. '125 
 
 Hearken unto the word of the Lord. 
 
 Hearken to yon fine warbler, 
 Singing aloft in the tree ; 
 Hearest thou, O traveller ! 
 What he singeth to me ? 
 
 Not unless God made sharp thine ear 
 With sorrows such as mine, 
 Out of that delicate lay couldst thou 
 Its heavy tale divine. 15 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Those so few ! who walk the earth 
 with ever-present consciousness all morn- 
 ings, middays, star-times that the unknown, 
 which men call heaven, is "close behind this 
 visible scene of things." m 
 
 He that has light within his own clear breast 
 May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day ; 
 But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts 
 Benighted walks under the midday sun ; 
 Himself is his own dungeon. 1T 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 " The sorrow which God appoints is purify- 
 ing and ennobling, and contains within it a 
 serious joy." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 " There is no death to those who know of Life, 
 No Time to those who see Eternity. "
 
 126 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Jesus wept. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Moderate lamentation is the right of the 
 dead ; excessive grief, the enemy to the liv- 
 ing." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 In the last hour, that pure being with whom 
 thy life was beautiful and great, with whom 
 thou hast wept tears of joy, with whom thou 
 hast prayed to God, and in whom God ap- 
 peared unto thee, in whom thou didst find the 
 first and last heart of love, and then close 
 thine eyes in peace ! 
 
 "Ay, this day shall we see one another 
 again ! " continued the old man ; but he spoke 
 of his wife, who was long since dead. 
 
 But be one sorrow alone forgiven thee, or 
 made good to thee, the sorrow for thy dead 
 ones ; for this sweet sorrow for the lost is it- 
 self but another form of consolation. When 
 the heart is full of longing for them, it is but 
 another mode of continuing to love them ; 
 and we shed tears as well when we think of 
 their departure, as when we picture to our- 
 selves our joyful reunion, and the tears, me- 
 thinks, differ not. 34
 
 ANGEL VOICES. I2/ 
 
 Thou shall sleep with thy fathers. 
 
 IN DEATH. 
 
 I saw an aged man upon his bier, 
 
 His hair was thin and white, and on his brow 
 A record of the cares of many a year, 
 
 Cares that were ended and forgotten now. 
 And there was sadness round, and faces bowed, 
 And women's tears fell fast, and children wailed aloud ! 
 
 Then rose another hoary man, and said, 
 In faltering accents, to that weeping train, 
 
 Why mourn ye that our aged friend is dead ? 
 Ye are not sad to see the gathered grain, 
 
 Nor when their mellow fruit the orchards cast, 
 
 Nor when the yellow woods shake down the ripened mast. 
 
 Ye sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled, 
 His glorious course, rejoicing earth and sky, 
 
 In the soft evening, when the winds are stilled, 
 Sinks where his islands of refreshment lie, 
 
 And leaves the smile of his departure, spread 
 
 O'er the warm-colored heaven and ruddy mountain head. 
 
 Why weep ye, tfien, for him, who, having run 
 The bound of man's appointed years, at last, 
 
 Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labors done, 
 Serenely to his final rest has passed, 
 
 While the soft memory of his virtues yet 
 
 Lingers, like twilight hues when the bright sun is set ? 
 
 His youth was innocent ; his riper age 
 
 Marked with some acts of goodness, every day ; 
 
 And watched by eyes that loved him, calm and sage, 
 Faded his late declining years away. 
 
 Cheerful he gave his being up, and went 
 
 To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent.
 
 128 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 I will lay me down in peace and sleep. 
 
 That life was happy ; every day he gave 
 Thanks for the fair existence that was his ; 
 
 For a sick fancy made him not her slave, 
 To mock him with her phantom miseries. 
 
 No chronic tortures racked his aged limb, 
 
 For luxury and sloth had nourished none for him. 
 
 And I am glad that he has lived thus long, 
 And glad that he has gone to his reward, 
 
 Nor deem that kindly Nature did him wrong 
 Softly to disengage the vital cord. 
 
 When his weak hand grew palsied, and his eye 
 
 Dark with the mists of age, it was his time to die. 85 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 That, though the realm of Death seems an 
 enemy's country to most men, on whose shores 
 they are loathly driven by stress of weather, 
 to the wise man it is the desired port where he 
 moors his bark gladly, as in some quiet haven 
 of the Fortunate Isles ; it is the golden west 
 into which his sun sinks, and, sinking, casts 
 back a glory upon the leaden cloud-rack which 
 had darkly besieged his day. 18 
 
 The death-bed of the just, 
 Angels should paint it, Angels ever there ! 
 There on a post of honor and of joy. 61 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There is healing in the bitter cup. God 
 takes away, or removes far from us, those we
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 129 
 
 Lighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. 
 
 love, as hostages of our faith (if I may so ex- 
 press it) ; and to those who look forward to a 
 reunion in another world, where there will be 
 no separation, and no mutability except that 
 which arises from perpetual progressiveness, 
 the evening of life becomes more delightful than 
 the morning, and the sunset offers brighter and 
 lovelier visions than those which we build up 
 in the morning clouds, and which appear be- 
 fore the strength of the day. Faith is that 
 precious alchemy which transmutes grief into 
 joy ; or rather, it is the pure and heavenly 
 Euphrasy, which clears away the film from 
 our mortal sight, and makes affliction appear 
 what it really is, a dispensation of mercy." 4 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 From our mere eyes Death takes only the 
 visible form of the objects of our love, for this 
 is only borrowed ; from our souls it cannot 
 take the love itself to which that is subservi- 
 ent, for it is given us forever. The very grief 
 that wastes us testifies that, in his true worth, 
 the companion we lament as lost is with us 
 still ; for is it not the idea of him that weeps 
 in us, his image that supplies the tears ? 
 His best offices he will continue to us yet, if
 
 130 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 The maid is not dead, but sleepeth. 
 
 we are true to him ; with serenest look, as 
 through the windows of the soul, rebuking our 
 disquiet, bracing our faith, quickening our con- 
 science, and cooling the fever-heats of life. 
 Doubtless the thought of him is transmuted 
 from gladness into sorrow. But will any true 
 heart say, that an affection is an evil because 
 it is sad, and wish to shake it off the moment 
 it brings pain ? Call it what you will, that 
 is not love which itself is anxious to grow 
 cold ; the emotions of a faithful soul never 
 entertain a suicidal purpose, and plan their 
 own extinction ; rather do they reproach their 
 own insensibility, and passionately pray for a 
 greater vitality. Whether, then, in anxiety or 
 in peace, in joy or in regrets, let the spirit of 
 affection stay; and if the spirit stay, the ob- 
 jects, though vanished, leave their best pres- 
 ence with us still. Thus the sainted dead 
 shall finish for us the blessed work which 
 they began. They tarried with us, and nur- 
 tured a human love ; they depart from us, 
 and kindle a divine. 80 
 
 Death is the crown of life. 
 
 Were death denied, poor man would live in vain ; 
 Were death denied, to live would not be life ; 
 Were death denied, even fools would wish to die. 
 Death wounds to cure ; we fall, we rise, we reign,
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 131 
 
 I sleep, but my heart waketh. 
 
 Spring from our fetters, fasten in the skies. 
 This King of Terrors is the Prince of Peace. 
 When shall I die to vanity, pain, death ? 
 When shall I die ? When shall I live forever V ul 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Death is a commingling of eternity with 
 time ; in the death of a good man, eternity is 
 seen looking through time. 8 
 
 THE DEAD. 
 
 " Still the same, no charm forgot, 
 Nothing lost that Time had given." 
 
 Forget not the Dead, who have loved, who have left us, 
 Who bend o'er us now from their bright homes above ; 
 
 But believe never doubt that the God who bereft us 
 Permits them to mingle with friends they still love. 
 
 Repeat their fond words, all their noble deeds cherish, 
 Speak pleasantly of them who left us in tears ; 
 
 Other joys may be lost, but their names should not perish 
 While time bears our feet through the valley of years. 
 
 Dear friends of our youth ! can we cease to remember 
 The last look of life, and the low- whispered prayer ? 
 
 O, cold be our hearts as the ice of December, 
 
 When Love's tablets record no remembrances there ! 
 
 Then forget not the Dead, who are evermore nigh us, 
 Still floating sometimes to our dream-haunted bed ; 
 
 In the loneliest hour, in the crowd, they are by us : 
 Forget not the dead, O, forget not the dead ! 1M
 
 132 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 He saith, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth. 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 The word friend is of a large signification ; 
 and means all relations and societies, and 
 whatsoever is not enemy. But by friendships, 
 I suppose you mean the greatest love, and the 
 greatest usefulness, and the most open com- 
 munication, and the noblest sufferings, and 
 the most exemplar faithfulness, and the sever- 
 est truth, and the heartiest counsel, and the 
 greatest union of minds of which brave men 
 and women are capable. 20 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The last and most sacred duty of friendship 
 is after we have stood upon the planks round 
 his grave. When my friend is dead, I will not 
 turn into his grave and be stifled with his 
 earth ; but I will mourn for him, and perform 
 his will, and take care of his relatives, and do 
 for him as if he were alive ; and thus it is that 
 friendships never die. 136 
 
 Good night ! now cometh gentle sleep, 
 And tears that fall like gentle rain ; 
 
 Good night ! O, holy, blest, and deep 
 The rest that follows pain ! 
 
 How should we reach God's upper light, 
 
 If life's long day had no " good night " ? r7
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 133 
 
 God hath given to us eternal life. 
 
 Leaves and clustered fruits, and flowers eterne, 
 Eternal to the world, but not to me. M 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 The iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth 
 her poppy, and deals with the memory of men 
 without distinction to merit of perpetuity. 
 Who can but pity the founder of the pyra- 
 mids ? Erostratus lives that burnt the Tem- 
 ple of Diana ; he is almost lost that built it. 
 Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's 
 horse, confounded that of himself. In vain 
 we compute our felicities by the advantage of 
 our good names, since bad have equal decora- 
 tions ; and Thersites is like to live as long as 
 Agamemnon. Who knows whether the best 
 of men be known ; or whether there be not 
 more remarkable persons forgot than any that 
 stand remembered in the known account of 
 time ? Without the favor of the everlasting 
 register, the first man had been as unknown 
 as the last, and Methuselah's long life had 
 been his only chronicle. 18 
 
 O eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom 
 none could advise, thou hast persuaded ; what 
 none hath dared, thou hast done ; and whom 
 all the world hath flattered, thou only hast
 
 134 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Death is swallowed up in victory. 
 
 cast out of the world and despised ; thou hast 
 drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, 
 all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, 
 and covered it all over with these two narrow 
 words, Hicjacet ! la8 
 
 REMEMBER 
 
 This fair picture of true piety, drawn by 
 Jeremy Taylor from the life and death of 
 Frances, Countess of Carbery. 
 
 " Her religion took root downward in hu- 
 mility, and brought forth fruit upward in the 
 substantial graces of a Christian ; in chanty 
 and justice; in chastity and modesty ; in fair 
 friendships and sweetness of society. She had 
 not very much of the forms and outsides of 
 godliness, but she was hugely careful for the 
 power of it, for the moral, essential, and useful 
 parts, such which would make her to be, not 
 
 seem to be, religious In all her religion, 
 
 and in all her actions of relation toward God, 
 she had a strange evenness and untroubled 
 passage, sliding toward her ocean of God and 
 of infinity with a certain and silent motion. 
 
 Though she had the greatest judgment 
 
 and the greatest experience of things and per- 
 sons that I ever yet knew in a person of her 
 youth and sex and circumstances ; yet, as if
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 135 
 
 Whither I go thou knowest not now, but thou shall know hereafter. 
 
 she knew nothing of it, she had the meanest 
 opinion of herself, and, like a fair taper, when 
 she shined to all the room, yet round about 
 her own station she had cast a shadow and a 
 cloud, and she shined to everybody but her- 
 self. 
 
 " But so it was that the thought of 
 
 death dwelt long with her, and grew, from the 
 first steps of fancy and fear, to a consent ; from 
 thence, to a strange credulity and expectation 
 of it ; and, without the violence of sickness, 
 she died as if she had done it voluntarily and 
 by design, and for fear her expectation should 
 have been deceived, or that she should seem 
 to have had an unreasonable fear or apprehen- 
 sion, or rather (as one said of Cato) she died 
 as if she were glad of the opportunity." 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Happy are they which live not in that dis- 
 advantage of time, when men could say little 
 for futurity but from reason ; whereby the no- 
 blest minds fell often upon doubtful deaths and 
 melancholy dissolutions. With those hopes 
 Socrates warmed his doubtful spirits against 
 that cold potion ; and Cato, before he durst 
 give the fatal stroke, spent part of the night 
 in reading the immortality of Plato, thereby
 
 136 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 I am the life. 
 
 confirming his wavering hand unto the ani- 
 mosity of that attempt. 18 
 
 Death, thou wast once an uncouth, hideous thing ; 
 
 But since our Saviour's death 
 Has put some blood into thy face, 
 Thou hast grown sure a thing to be desired 
 And full of grace. Ta ' 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There is a countrie 
 Afar beyond the stars 
 Where stands a winged sentrie 
 All skilfull in the wars. 
 There, above noise and danger, 
 Sweet Peace sits crowned with smiles, 
 And One born in a manger 
 Commands the beauteous files. 
 He is thy gracious friend, 
 And (O my soul, awake !) 
 Did in pure love descend, 
 To die here for thy sake. 
 If thou canst get but thither, 
 There growes the flowre of peace, 
 The Rose that cannot wither, 
 Thy fortresse, and thy ease. 54 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Grief is only the memory of widowed affec- 
 tion. The more intense the delight in the 
 presence of the object, the more poignant 
 must be the impression of the absence
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 137 
 
 Blessed are they that mourn. 
 
 These associations with the past do not excite 
 sorrow, but to an affectionate mind are sor- 
 row. The morality, then, which rebukes sor- 
 row, rebukes love. There are doubtless cases 
 not infrequent, in which the mind is unduly 
 overpowered by affliction, in which the tran- 
 quillity of the reason is wholly overset, and the 
 energy of the will utterly prostrated. Here, 
 beyond controversy, is a state of mind morally 
 wrong ; for God never absolves us from our 
 duties, however he may sadden them. But to 
 rebuke the feelings of grief in such a case is 
 to cast the censure in the wrong place : it is 
 not that the sorrow is excessive, but that other 
 emotions are defective in their strength. 
 
 The wise interpreter of his own nature will 
 let his mourning affections alone. To inter- 
 fere with them would be to wrestle with his 
 own strength. But he will draw forth into 
 prominent light sentiments now sleeping idly 
 in the shaded recesses of his mind. He will 
 summon up the sense of responsibility, to 
 rouse him with the spectacle of his relations 
 to God, his father, and his brother, man ; to 
 recount to him the deeds of duty and the toils 
 of thought which are yet to be achieved ere 
 life is done ; to show him the circle of high
 
 138 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 They shall be comforted. 
 
 faculties which the Creator has given him to 
 ennoble and refine and keep ready for a world 
 where thought and virtue are immortalized. 
 He will call forth his affections for the living 
 who surround him, and whom yet it is happi- 
 ness to love and his obligation to bless ; and 
 these sympathies will be fruitful work for his 
 hands, and interests refreshing to his heart ; 
 here are some of the invitations to the aspir- 
 ings of benevolence, to bid the drooping soul 
 look up. And the sufferer will evoke the 
 spirit of Christian trust and hope. Invoke the 
 spirit of this trust ; and though sorrow may 
 not dry its tears, it rises to a dignity above 
 despair. 80 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 He whose mission it was to teach the pater- 
 nity of Providence and the serenity of the im- 
 mortal hope, he who himself lived in the 
 divinest peace which they can give, thought it 
 no treason to these truths to weep. To the 
 eye of the Man of Sorrows, sorrow was no 
 sin ; nor did he, who was emphatically the 
 Son of God, see in even the passionate utter- 
 ance of grief any of that spirit of filial distrust 
 towards God, and reluctant acceptance of his 
 will, which have often been charged on it by
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 139 
 
 A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 
 
 the hard and cold temper of his followers, who 
 would multiply the penances of natural emo- 
 tion, and sublime from the Gospel its pure 
 humanities. 80 
 
 Be sure that God 
 Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns to impart. u 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Heaven and God are best discerned through 
 tears ; scarcely, perhaps, are discerned at all 
 without them. The constant association of 
 prayer with the hour of bereavement and the 
 scenes of death suffices to show this. Yet is 
 this effect of external distress only a particular 
 instance of this general truth, that religion 
 springs up in the mind wherever any of the 
 infinite affections and desires press severely 
 against the finite conditions of our existence. 
 Instead of slumbering at noon in Eden, we 
 must keep the midnight watch within Geth- 
 semane. We, too, like our great Leader, must 
 be made perfect through suffering ; but the 
 struggle by night will bring the calmness of 
 the morning ; the hour of exceeding sorrow 
 will prepare the day of godlike strength ; the 
 prayer for deliverance calls down the power of 
 endurance. And while to the reluctant their 
 cross is too heavy to be borne, it grows light 
 to the heart of willine trust. 80
 
 140 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away : 
 
 " She died young." 
 ' I think not so ; her infelicity 
 Seemed to have years too many." 1; * 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 When in the other world love meets love, 
 
 it will not be like Joseph and his brethren, 
 who lay upon one another's necks weeping ; 
 it will be loving and rejoicing, not loving and 
 sorrowing. 1 * 3 
 
 Endure and dare, true heart, through patience joined 
 With boldness come we at a crown enriched 
 With thousand blessings. 141 
 
 REMEMBER 
 The hour of death, dark hour to hopeless 
 
 unbelief! hour to which, in that creed of de- 
 spair, no hour shall succeed ! being's last hours ! 
 to whose appalling darkness, even the shadows 
 of an avenging retribution were brightness 
 and relief, death ! what art thou to the Chris- 
 tian's assurance ? Great hour of answer to 
 life's prayer, great hour that shall break asun- 
 der the bond of life's mystery, hour 6f re- 
 lease from life's burden, hour of reunion 
 with the loved and lost, what mighty hopes 
 hasten to their fulfilment in thee ! What long- 
 ings, what aspirations, breathed in the still 
 night, beneath the silent stars ; what dread 
 emotions of curiosity ; what deep meditations
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 141 
 
 Blessed be the name of the Lord. 
 
 of joy ; what hallowing imaginings of never 
 experienced purity and bliss ; what possibil- 
 ities shadowing forth unspeakable realities to 
 the soul, all verge to their consummation 
 in thee, O death ! the Christian's death ! what 
 art thou, but the gate of life, the portal of 
 heaven, the threshold of eternity ! U3 
 
 They are not lost 
 Who leave their parents for the calm of heaven. 
 
 I know well 
 
 That they who love their friends most tenderly 
 Still bear their loss the best. There is in love 
 A consecrated power, that seems to wake 
 Only at the touch of death from its repose, 
 In the profoundest depths of thinking souls, 
 Superior to the outward signs of grief, 
 Sighing or tears, when these have past away, 
 It rises calm and beautiful, like the moon, 
 Saddening the solemn night, yet with that sadness 
 Mingling the breath of undisturbed peace. 143 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There is nothing greater, for which God 
 made our tongues, next to reciting his praises, 
 than to minister comfort to a weary soul. 
 And what greater measure can we have, than 
 that we should bring joy to our brother, who 
 with his dreamy eyes looks to heaven, and 
 round about, and cannot find so much rest as 
 to lay his eyelids close together, than that
 
 142 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. 
 
 thy tongue should be tuned with heavenly ac- 
 cents, and make the weary soul to listen for 
 light and ease, and, when he perceives that 
 there is such a thing in the world, and in the 
 order of things, as comfort and joy, to begin 
 to break out from the prison of his sorrows ? 
 
 So have I seen the sun kiss the frozen 
 
 earth, which was bound up with the images of 
 death, and the colder breath of the north ; 
 and then the waters break from their enclos- 
 ures, and melt with joy, and run in useful 
 channels ; and the flies do rise again from 
 their little graves in walls, and dance awhile 
 
 in the air, to tell that there is joy within 
 
 So is the heart of a sorrowful man under the 
 discourses of a wise comforter ; he breaks from 
 the despairs of the grave, and the fetters and 
 chains of sorrow ; he blesses God, and he 
 blesses thee, and he feels his life returning ; 
 for to be miserable is death, but nothing is 
 life but to be comforted ; and God is pleased 
 with no music from below so much as in the 
 thanksgiving songs of relieved widows, of sup- 
 ported orphans, of rejoicing and comforted 
 and thankful persons. 20 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 If the nearness of our last necessity brought
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 143 
 
 I die daily. 
 
 a nearer conformity unto it, there were a hap- 
 piness in hoary hairs, and no calamity in half 
 senses. But the long habit of living indispos- 
 eth us for dying; when avarice makes us the 
 sport of death, when even David grew polit- 
 ically cruel, and Solomon could hardly be 
 said to be the wisest of men. But many are 
 too early old, and before the date of age. 
 Adversity stretcheth our days ; misery makes 
 Almena's nights (one night as long as three), 
 and time hath no wings unto it. 18 
 
 God ! whom I as Love have known, 
 Thou hast sickness laid on me, 
 And these pains are sent of Thee. 
 
 In my weakness be Thou strong, 
 
 Be Thou sweet when I am sad, 
 
 Let me still in Thee be glad, 
 Though my pains be keen and long. 
 
 Suffering is the work now sent, 
 
 Nothing can I do but lie 
 
 Suffering as the hours go by : 
 All my powers to this are bent, 
 Suffering is my gain ; I bow, 
 
 To my Heavenly Father's will, 
 
 And receive it hushed and still ; 
 Suffering is my worship now. 118 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can
 
 144 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Behold, we count them happy who endure. 
 
 throw at a man, to tell him he is at the end 
 of his nature : or that there is no further state 
 to come, unto which this seems progressional, 
 and otherwise made in vain. Without this 
 accomplishment, the natural expectation and 
 desire of such a state were but a fallacy in 
 nature. 
 
 But the superior ingredient and obscured 
 part of ourselves, whereto all present felicities 
 afford no resting contentment, will be able at 
 last to tell us we are more than our present 
 selves, and evacuate such hopes on the frui- 
 tion of their own accomplishment. 18 
 
 High hopes, that burned like stars sublime, 
 Go down the heavens of Freedom ; 
 And true hearts perish in the time 
 We bitterliest need them ! 
 But never sit we down and say 
 There 's nothing left but sorrow ; 
 We walk the wilderness to-day, 
 The promised land to-morrow. 
 
 Build up heroic lives, and all 
 Be like a sheathen sabre, 
 Ready to flash out at God's call, 
 O chivalry of labor ! 
 Triumph and toil are twins ; and aye 
 Joy suns the cloud of sorrow ; 
 And 't is the martyrdom to-day 
 Brings victory to-morrow. 1M
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 145 
 
 All that a man hath will he give for his life. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 This is that very life which Christ asks us 
 to lay down for him ; this life of which he 
 tells us that he who loveth it shall lose it, and 
 he who loseth it for his sake shall keep it 
 unto life eternal. 58 
 
 Upward steals the life of man, 
 As the sunshine from the wall ; 
 From the wall into the sky ; 
 From the roof along the spire. 
 Ah ! the souls of those that die 
 
 Are but sunbeams lifted higher." 
 
 \ 
 
 We ought to love life ; we ought to desire 
 to live here so long as God ordains it ; but let 
 us not so encase ourselves in time that we 
 cannot break the crust and begin to throw out 
 shoots for another life. 145 
 
 Remember the touching words of Southey 
 in recalling the fear expressed by Henry 
 Kirke White, "that early death would rob 
 him of his fame." 
 
 Just at that age when the painter would 
 have wished to fix his likeness, and the lover 
 of poetry would delight to contemplate him, 
 in the fair morning of his virtues, the full 
 spring blossom of his hopes, just at that 
 age hath death set the seal of eternity upon
 
 146 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 We are as the grass of the field. 
 
 him, and the beautiful hath been made perma- 
 nent. 
 
 My joy is Death ! 
 
 Death, at whose name I oft have been afeared, 
 Because I wished this world's eternity. 50 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 It is as natural to die as to be born ; and to 
 a little child, perhaps, the one is as painful as 
 the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit 
 is like one that is wounded in hot blood, who 
 for the time scarce feels the hurt ; and there- 
 fore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat 
 that is good doth avert the dolors of death. 
 But above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle 
 is "Nunc dimittis" when a man hath obtained 
 worthy aims and expectations. Death hath 
 this also, that it openeth the gate of fame, 
 and extinguisheth envy. 63 
 
 The glories of our birth and state 
 
 Are shadows, not substantial things ; 
 There is no armor against fate ; 
 Death lays his icy hands on kings ; 
 Sceptre and crown 
 Must tumble down, 
 And in the dust be equal made 
 With the poor crooked scythe and spade. 129 
 
 REM&MBKR, 
 
 The iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 147 
 
 Rejoice evermore. 
 
 her poppy, and deals with the memory of men 
 without distinction to merit of perpetuity. 
 
 In vain we compute our felicities by the 
 
 advantage of our good names, since bad have 
 
 equal duration Oblivion is not to be 
 
 hired. The greater part must be content to 
 be as though they had not been, to be found 
 in the register of God, not in the record of 
 
 men The night of time far surpasseth 
 
 the day : and who knows when was the equi- 
 nox? 18 
 
 Like a common weed 
 The sea-swell took her hair. 38 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Were the happiness of the next world as 
 closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it 
 were a martyrdom to live ; and unto such as 
 consider none hereafter, it must be more than 
 death to die, which makes us amazed at those 
 audacities that durst be nothing, and return 
 into their chaos again. 
 
 But the contempt of death from corporal 
 animosity promoteth not our felicity. They 
 may sit in the orchestra and noblest seats 
 of heaven who have held up shaking hands 
 in the fire, and humanly contended for glo- 
 ry. 18
 
 148 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Ye now have sorrow ; but I will see you again. 
 
 O Light of light celestial ! 
 
 O charity ineffable I 
 
 Come in thy hidden majesty ; 
 
 Fill us with love, fill us with Thee. 144 
 
 Courage ! ye that bear the sublime lot of 
 sorrow ! It is not forever that ye suffer. God 
 wills it. It is the ordinance of Infinite Love 
 to procure for us an infinite glory and beati- 
 tude. 142 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The greatness of our sufferings points to a 
 correspondent greatness in the end to be 
 gained. This end must rise higher and 
 brighter before us, before we can look through 
 
 the dark cloud of human calamity 
 
 Troubles, disappointments, afflictions, sorroAvs, 
 press us on every side, that we may rise up- 
 ward, upward, ever upward Misery', 
 
 strictly speaking, and in its full meaning, does 
 not belong to a good mind. Misery shall 
 pass into suffering, and suffering into disci- 
 pline, and discipline into virtue, and virtue 
 into heaven. So let it pass with you. Bend 
 now patiently and meekly in that lowly "wor- 
 ship of sorrow," till in God's time it become 
 
 the worship of joy Remember, too, a 
 
 man of sorrows was that Divine Master, and
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 149 
 
 It is expedient for you that I go away. 
 
 acquainted with grief. And what were the 
 instruments, the means, the ministers of that 
 very victory, that last victory ? The rage 
 of men, and the fierceness of torture ; arraign- 
 ment before enemies, mocking, smiting, 
 scourging ; the thorny crown, the bitter cross, 
 
 the barred tomb When I stand in the 
 
 presence of that high example, I cannot listen 
 to poor, unmanly, unchristian complainings. 
 I would not have his disciples account too 
 much of their griefs. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Astronomers have built telescopes which 
 can show myriads of stars unseen before ; but 
 when a man looks through a tear in his own 
 eye, that is a lens which opens, reaches in the 
 unknown, and reveals orbs which no telescope, 
 however skilfully constructed, could do ; nay, 
 which brings to view even the throne of God, 
 and pierces that nebulous distance where are 
 those eternal verities in which true life con- 
 sists. 145 
 
 Silent rushes the swift Lord 
 Through ruined systems still restored, 
 Broad-sowing, bleak and void to bless, 
 Plants with worlds the wilderness, 
 Waters with tears of ancient sorrow 
 Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow. 13
 
 150 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Suffering is a part of the Divine idea. All 
 new faculties stand in a double constitution, 
 and are just as really susceptible of pain as 
 of pleasure. We were created so that every 
 nerve was provided with this twofold nature, 
 and both of them are divine. The world is 
 filled full of dangerous things, things which 
 can bruise and cut and poison, and no an- 
 gel stands near them to say, " Come not here." 
 There is not a step we take but death is there. 
 Pain is continually on the larboard or star- 
 board side, and life consists in steering be- 
 tween dangers on the one hand or the other. 
 Where there is so much sorrow, there is only 
 one way. It is to think that suffering is a 
 part of happiness. One who does this takes 
 all trials, and heaps them up, and says, " They 
 are no longer to me what they were before. 
 They are not opaque, they are luminous." 1 
 
 How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clear 
 Are thy returns ! e'en as the flowers in spring ; 
 
 To which, besides their own demean, 
 The late past frosts tributes of pleasure brinrj. 
 Grief melts away 
 Like snow in May, 
 As if there were no such cold thing. 78 
 
 Blessed is the man who, when the tempest
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 151 
 
 I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness. 
 
 has spent its fury, recognizes his Father's 
 voice in its under-tone, and bares his head 
 and bows his knee, as Elijah did. To such 
 
 it seems as if God had said : " In the 
 
 still sunshine and ordinary ways of life you 
 cannot meet me, but like Job in the desolation 
 of the tempest you shall see My Form and 
 hear My Voice, and know that your Redeemer 
 liveth." 
 
 If ever failure seemed to rest on a noble life, 
 it was when the Son of Man, deserted by his 
 friends, heard the cry which proclaimed that 
 the Pharisees had successfully drawn the net 
 round their Divine Victim. Yet from that 
 very hour of defeat and death there went 
 forth the world's life, from that very mo- 
 ment of apparent failure there proceeded 
 forth into the ages the spirit of the conquering 
 Cross. Surely if the Cross says anything, it 
 says that apparent defeat is real victory, and 
 that there is a heaven for those who have 
 nobly and truly failed on earth." 7 
 
 Remember the words of Robert Southwell 
 when awaiting martyrdom. We have sung 
 the canticles of the Lord in a strange land, 
 and in this desert we have sucked honey from 
 the rock, and oil from the hard stone ; but
 
 152 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Be strong, and He shall comfort thine heart. 
 
 " we now sow the seed with tears, that others 
 hereafter may with joy carry in the sheaves 
 to the heavenly granaries." 
 
 Time ! O Death ! I clasp you in my arms, 
 For I can soothe an infinite cold sorrow, 
 And gaze contented on your icy charms, 
 
 And that wild snow-pile, which we call to-morrow ; 
 Sweep on, O soft and azure-lidded sky, 
 Earth's waters to your gentle gaze reply. 
 
 1 am not earth-born, though I here delay ; 
 Hope's child, I summon infiniter powers, 
 And laugh to see the mild and sunny day 
 Smile on the shrunk and thin autumnal hours ; 
 I laugh, for hope hath happy place with me, 
 If my bark sinks, 't is to another sea. 132 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, 
 neither shall fruit be in the vines ; the labor 
 of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall 
 yield no meat ; the flock shall be cut off from 
 the fold, and there shall be no herd in the 
 stalls ; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will 
 joy in the God of my salvation. Habakkuk. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 God sees sin not in its consequences, but in 
 itself; a thing infinitely evil, even if the con- 
 sequences were happiness to the guilty instead 
 of misery. So sorrow, according to God, is
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 153 
 
 Lord, thou knowest all things. 
 
 to see sin as God sees it. The grief of Peter 
 was as bitter as that of Judas. He went out 
 and wept bitterly ; how bitterly none can tell 
 but they who have learned to look on sin as 
 God does. But in Peter's grief there was an 
 element of hope ; and that sprung precisely 
 from this, that he saw God in it all. De- 
 spair of self did not lead to despair of God. 
 
 I believe the feeling of true penitence 
 
 would express itself in such words as these : 
 there is a righteousness, though I have not 
 attained it. There is a purity and a love and 
 a beauty, though my life exhibits little of it. 
 In that I can rejoice. Of that I can feel the 
 surpassing loveliness. My doings ? They are 
 worthless ; I cannot endure to think of them. 
 I am not thinking of them. I have something 
 else to think of. There, There ; in that Life 
 I see it. And so the Christian gazing, not 
 on what he is, but on what he desires to be 
 dares in penitence to say, That righteousness 
 is mine ; dares, even when the recollection of 
 his sin is most vivid and most poignant, to 
 say, with Peter, thinking less of himself than 
 of God, and sorrowing as it were with God, 
 " Lord, thou knowest all things, thou know- 
 est that I love thee. 147
 
 154 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 And Enoch walked with God : and he was not, for God took hhn. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 To be content with death may be better 
 than to desire it ; a miserable life may make 
 us wish for death, but a virtuous one to rest 
 in it : which is the advantage of those resolved 
 Christians, who, looking on death not only as 
 the sting, but the period and end of sin, the 
 horizon and isthmus between this life and a 
 better, and the death of this world but as a 
 nativity of another, do contentedly submit 
 unto the common necessity, and envy not 
 Enoch or Elias. 18 
 
 We go to the grave of a friend saying, " A 
 man is dead," but the angels throng about 
 him, saying, A man is born. 145 
 
 Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 
 
 As the swift seasons roll ! 
 
 Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
 
 Till thou at length art free, 
 Leaving thine out-grown shell by life's unresting sea. 143 
 
 God's saints are shining lights : who stays 
 
 Here long must passe 
 O're dark hills, swift streams, and steep ways 
 
 As smooth as glasse : 
 
 But these all night, 
 
 Like candles, shed 
 
 Their beams, and light 
 
 Us into bed. 54
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 155 
 
 Thy love to me was wonderful. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Our sweetest experiences of affection are 
 meant to be suggestions of that realm which 
 is the home of the heart. 14 " 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There are questions which nothing can an- 
 swer but God's love ; which nothing can meet 
 but God's promise ; which nothing can calm 
 but a perfect trust in his goodness. Speak to 
 the void darkness of affliction, " the first dark 
 day of nothingness" after trouble has come; 
 speak to life through all its stages and for- 
 tunes, from oftentimes suffering infancy to 
 trembling age, none of these can an- 
 swer us There is shadow and mystery 
 
 upon all the creation till we see God in it ; 
 there is trouble and fear till we see God's love 
 in it. 142 
 
 How my cup o'erlooks her brims ! 
 
 So, even so still may I move 
 
 By the line of thy dear love ; 
 
 Still may thy sweet mercy spread 
 
 A shady arm above my head, 
 
 About my paths ; so shall I find 
 
 The fair centre of my mind, 
 
 Thy temple, and those lovely walls 
 
 Bright ever with a beam that falls 
 
 Fresh from the pure glance of Thine eye, 
 
 Lighting to Eternity. 103
 
 156 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Into thy hand I commit my spirit. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 In the hour of death, faith will be our only 
 availing possession. How many persons mis- 
 take, as though innocent recollections would 
 be support enough ! And how many Phari- 
 sees imagine the blessedness of looking back 
 from their death-beds upon years of intense 
 hatred, borne unremittingly against what they 
 call the world, namely, their fellow-men and 
 their pleasures ! But faith is not formed out 
 of hatred, not even of Satan ; it is a nobler 
 fruit ; it springs out of love, that love of God 
 which is so strong as to believe all things, and, 
 concerning the very worst, to hope all things ; 
 it is " Christ in you the hope of glory " ; it is 
 the essence of many prayers ; it is the state of 
 a pure heart. At death all other possessions 
 fail us. Interest in the surrounding world 
 declines ; reflection is enfeebled ; and sensa- 
 tion fails. The light of genius is sometimes 
 so resplendent as to make a man walk through 
 life, amid glory and acclamation ; but it burns 
 very dimly and low when carried into "the 
 valley of the shadow of death." But faith is 
 like the evening star, shining into our souls 
 the more brightly, the deeper is the night of 
 death in which they sink. 8 *
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 157 
 
 It is I ; be not afraid. 
 
 I placed thee in a land of light, 
 Where the Gospel round thee shone : 
 Where is the heavenly-mindedness 
 I find in all mine own ? 
 And last I "sent thee chastisement," 
 That thou might'st be my son : 
 Where is the trusting faith which says, 
 "Father ! thy will be done"? 105 
 
 In death remember Christ, how, inter- 
 penetrated by his spirit, thy soul was born 
 again, and, blessed token thereof, calamity 
 itself counted all joy, how through him the 
 forms and the vicissitudes of nature have, in 
 thy sight, grown significant of a holier philos- 
 ophy than that anciently so called, how, 
 upon this earth, thou hast been shown the 
 Father, and, amid earth's disorders and dark- 
 ness, it hath sufficed thee Life, as far 
 
 as it has been life, hath it not been through 
 Christ ? and death, is not that the sure com- 
 ing of Christ ? * 
 
 A blissful vision through the night 
 Would all my happy senses sway, 
 
 Of the Good Shepherd on the height, 
 Or climbing up the stony way, 
 
 Holding our little lamb asleep, 
 
 And like the burden of the sea 
 Sounded that voice along the deep, 
 
 Saying, "Arise and follow me."" 9
 
 158 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Death meets us everywhere, and is procured 
 by every instrument, and in all chances, and 
 enters in at many doors, by violence and 
 secret influence, by the aspect of a star and 
 the stink of a mist, by the emissions of a 
 cloud and the melting of a vapor, by the fall 
 of a chariot and the stumbling at a stone, by 
 a full meal or an empty stomach, by watching 
 at the wine or by watching at prayers, by the 
 sun or the moon, by,a heat or a cold, by sleep- 
 less nights or sleeping days, by water frozen 
 into the hardness and sharpness of a dagger, 
 or water thawed into the floods of a river, by 
 a hair or a raisin, by violent motion or sit- 
 ting still, by severity or dissolution, by God's 
 mercy or God's anger. 
 
 The chains that confine us to this condition 
 are strong as- destiny and immutable as the 
 eternal laws of God. 20 
 
 To wandering men how dear the sight 
 Of a cold, tranquil autumn night, 
 
 In its majestic, deep repose. 
 
 Thus shall their genius be 
 
 Not buried in high snows, 
 Though of as mute tranquillity. 
 
 An anxious life they will not pass, 
 Nor, as the shadow on the grass,
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 159 
 
 I will fear no evil. 
 
 Leave no impression there to stay : 
 To them all things are thought ; 
 The blushing morn's decay, 
 
 Our death, our life, by this is taught. 
 
 find in every haze that shines 
 A brief appearance without lines, 
 A single word, no finite joy ; 
 
 For present is a Power 
 Which we may not annoy, 
 Yet love him stronger every hour. 
 
 1 would not put this sense from me, 
 If I could some great sovereign be ; 
 Yet will not task a fellow-man 
 
 To feel the same glad sense ; 
 For no one living can 
 Feel, save his given influence. 132 
 
 REMEMBER the words of Richter : 
 
 If ever my heart were so unhappy and with- 
 ered, that all the feelings which assert the 
 existence of God should be destroyed, I 
 would terrify myself with this my essay, and 
 it would heal me, and give me my feelings 
 
 back again One summer evening I lay 
 
 upon a mountain in the sunshine, and fell 
 
 asleep I saw one corpse alone, which 
 
 had just been buried in the church, lying still 
 upon its pillow, and its breast heaved not, 
 while upon its smiling countenance lay a 
 happy dream ; but on the entrance of one of
 
 l6o ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Under the cloud and through the sea. 
 
 the living shadows he awoke, and smiled no 
 more. He opened his closed eyes with a 
 painful effort, but within there was no eye ; 
 and in the sleeping bosom, instead of a heart, 
 
 there was a wound A lofty, noble form, 
 
 having the expression of a never-ending sor- 
 row, now sank down from above upon the 
 altar, and all the dead exclaimed, " Christ ! is 
 there no God ? " And he answered, " There 
 is none ! " The whole shadow of each dead 
 one, and not the breast alone, now trembled, 
 and one after another was severed by the 
 
 trembling Then there arose and came 
 
 into the temple a terrible sight for the 
 heart ! the dead children who had awakened 
 in the churchyard, and they cast themselves 
 before the lofty form upon the altar, and said, 
 "Jesus! have we no Father?" And he an- 
 swered with streaming eyes, "We are all 
 orphans, I and you : we are without a Fa- 
 ther." 
 
 Here Christ looked towards the earth and 
 
 said : " Alas ! I too was once like you : 
 
 too happy dwellers of earth, ye still believe in 
 
 him ! When the man of sorrows 
 
 stretches his sore-wounded back upon the 
 earth to slumber towards a lovelier morning,
 
 ANGEL VOICES. l6l 
 
 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart. 
 
 full of truth, full of virtue and of joy, behold 
 he wakes in the tempestuous chaos, in the 
 everlasting midnight, and no morning cometh, 
 and no healing hand, and no Infinite Father. 
 Mortal who art near me, if thou still livest, 
 worship him, or thou hast lost him forever ! " 
 
 And as I fell down and gazed into the 
 gleaming fabric of worlds, I beheld the raised 
 rings of the giant serpent of eternity, which 
 had couched itself round the universe of 
 worlds, and the rings fell, and she enfolded the 
 universe doubly. Then she wound herself in 
 a thousand folds round Nature, and crushed 
 the worlds together, and, grinding them, she 
 squeezed the infinite temple into the church- 
 yard church, and all became narrow, dark, 
 and fearful, and a bell-hammer stretched out 
 to infinity was about to strike the last hour of 
 Time, and split the universe asunder, when I 
 awoke. 
 
 My soul wept for joy that it could again 
 worship God ; and the joy, and the tears, and 
 the belief in him, were the prayer. And 
 when I arose the sun gleamed deeply behind 
 the full purple ears of corn, and peacefully 
 threw the reflection of its evening blushes on 
 the little moon, which was rising in the east
 
 1 62 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Enoch walked with God. 
 
 without an aurora. And between the heavens 
 and the earth a glad, fleeting world stretched 
 out its short wings and lived like myself in the 
 presence of the Infinite Father, and from all 
 nature around us flowed sweet, peaceful tones, 
 as from evening bells. 34 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 With a Christian, at the end of a grievous 
 trial, and when the soreness of it is abating, 
 there is a strange and sublime experience. 
 There is the feeling of sorrow, and there is 
 that of infinite goodness, and the two blend 
 into a consciousness like that of having been 
 just about to be spoken to by God. And this 
 is not a deceptive feeling, though God is silent 
 towards us all our lives ; for with him a thou- 
 sand years are as one day ; and when he will 
 justify himself to us, it will not be our fleshly 
 impatience which he will address, but the calm 
 estate of spirits everlasting like himself. 86 
 
 Angel of Patience ! sent to calm 
 Our feverish brows with cooling palm ; 
 To lay the storms of hope and fear, 
 And reconcile life's smile and tear ; 
 The throbs of wounded pride to still, 
 And make our own our Father's will. 
 
 O thou, who mournest on thy way, 
 With longings for the close of day,
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 163 
 
 The Lord is at hand. 
 
 He walks with thee, that angel kind, 
 And gently whispers : "Be resigned, 
 Bear up, bear on ; the end shall tell, 
 The dear Lord ordereth all things well ! " 5 
 
 I think, says Henry Ward Beecher, that the 
 wickedest people on earth are those who use a 
 force of genius to make themselves selfish in 
 the noblest things ; keeping themselves aloof 
 from the vulgar and the ignorant and the 
 unknown ; rising higher and higher in taste, 
 until they sit, ice upon ice, on the mountain- 
 top of eternal congelation. Now, as we as- 
 cend the hills of improvement, those who are 
 poor and needy are not to hear our voices 
 chanting ever farther and farther in the dis- 
 tance. No ! by our singing we are to win 
 others upward to the same heights to which 
 we aspire. 
 
 We ask for peace, O Lord ! 
 
 Thy children ask thy peace ; 
 Not what the world calls rest, 
 
 That toil and care should cease, 
 That through bright sunny hours 
 
 Calm life should fleet away, 
 And tranquil night should fade 
 
 In smiling day, 
 It is not for such peace that we would pray. 
 
 It is thine own, O Lord ! 
 Who toil while others sleep,
 
 1 64 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. 
 
 Who sow with loving care 
 
 What other hands shall reap ; 
 They lean on thee, entranced, 
 
 In calm and perfect rest ; 
 Give us that peace, O Lord ! 
 
 Divine and blest, 
 Thou keepest for those hearts who love thee best. 151 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 As opposed to passion, changefulness, or 
 laborious exertion, repose is the especial and 
 separating characteristic of the eternal mind 
 and power; it is the "I am" of the Creator 
 opposed to the "I become" of all creatures; 
 it is the sign alike of the supreme knowledge 
 which is incapable of surprise, the supreme 
 power which is incapable of labor, the su- 
 preme volition which is incapable of change ; 
 it is the stillness of the beams of the eternal 
 chambers laid upon the variable waters of 
 ministering creatures ; and as we see that the 
 infinity which is a type of the Divine nature 
 becomes yet more desirable from its peculiar 
 address to our prison hopes, and to the expec- 
 tations of an unsatisfied and unaccomplished 
 existence, so the types of this attribute of the 
 Deity seem to have been rendered further 
 attractive to mortal instinct through the inflic- 
 tion upon the fallen creature of a curse neces-
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 165 
 
 I will give you rest. 
 
 sitating a labor once unnatural and still most 
 painful, so that the desire of rest planted in 
 the heart is no sensual nor unworthy one, but 
 a longing for renovation, and for escape from 
 a state whose every phase is mere preparation 
 for another equally transitory, to one in which 
 permanence shall have become possible 
 through perfection. Hence the great call of 
 Christ to men, that call on which Saint Au- 
 gustine fixed essential expression of Christian 
 hope, is accompanied by the promise of rest, 
 and the death bequest of Christ to men is 
 peace. 
 
 As unity demanded for its expression what 
 at first might have seemed its opposite, vari- 
 ety, so repose demands for its expression 
 the implied capability of its opposite, energy. 
 It is the most unfailing test of beauty : noth- 
 ing can be ignoble that possesses it, nothing 
 right that has it not. 81 
 
 He that lacks time to mourn lacks time to mend ; 
 Eternity mourns that 'T is an ill cure 
 For life's worst ills, to have no time to feel them. 
 Where sorrow is held intrusive, and turned out, 
 There wisdom will not enter, nor true power, 
 Nor aught that dignifies humanity. 60 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Life is short. " Man has two minutes and
 
 1 66 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 _ 
 
 A time for every purpose, a time to die. 
 
 a half to live, one to smile, one to sigh, and 
 a half to love ; for in the middle of this he 
 dies ! But the grave is not deep : it is the 
 shining tread of an angel that seeks us. 
 When the unknown hand throws the fatal 
 dart at the end of man, then boweth he his 
 head, and the dart only lifts the crown of 
 thorns from his wounds."* 
 
 The time of life is short ; 
 To spend that shortness basely were too long, 
 If Life did ride upon a dial's point, 
 Still ending at the arrival of an hour. 50 
 
 " Leaves have their time to fall, 
 And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath, 
 
 And stars to set : but all, 
 Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death ! " 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 It is not well for us to live in the con- 
 stant atmosphere and presence of death ; that 
 would unfit us for life ; but it is well for us, 
 now and then, to talk with death as friend 
 talketh with friend, and to bathe in the 
 strange seas, and to anticipate the experiences 
 
 of that land to which it will lead us 
 
 Our spiritual life decays in the confinement 
 and darkness of the world ; and that it may 
 gain new vigor, our thoughts must now and
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 167 
 
 Thy will be done. 
 
 then be unfurled and held high, and shaken in 
 the air of heaven. 145 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The body is a more expert dialectician than 
 the soul, and buffets it, even to bewilderment, 
 with the empty bladders of logic ; but the 
 soul can retire from the dust and turmoil of 
 such conflict, to the high tower of instinctive 
 faith, and there, in hushed serenity, take com- 
 fort of the sympathizing stars. We look at 
 death through the cheap glazed windows of 
 the flesh, and believe him for the monster 
 which the flawed and crooked glass presents 
 him. 13 
 
 " Choice befits not our condition : 
 Acquiescence is the best." 
 
 Complain not that the way is long : 
 What road is weary that leads there ? 
 
 But let the angel take thy hand, 
 And lead thee up the misty stair ; 
 
 And then with beating heart await 
 
 The opening of the Golden Gate. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 A trustful heart strengthens to the last. 
 
 And to the last we will trust With us 
 
 spring and summer and autumn and winter 
 shall be the will of God ; and the will of God
 
 1 68 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Whosoever is born of God overcometh the world. 
 
 shall be the wisdom of the starry courses. 
 The vital nature of the air about us shall be 
 the will of God ; and it shall be the will of 
 God that we breathe without thinking. And 
 to us joys shall be the will of God, and so 
 
 shall pains and sorrows be And no less 
 
 than birth, death shall be His will ; and in it 
 we will rejoice always, though sometimes, per- 
 haps, not without trembling. 64 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There is nothing strictly immortal but im- 
 mortality. Whatever hath no beginning, may 
 be confident of no end : which is the peculiar 
 of that necessary essence that cannot destroy 
 itself, and the highest strain of omnipotency, 
 to be so powerfully constituted as not to suf- 
 fer even from the power of itself. God, 
 
 who can only destroy our souls, and hath as- 
 sured our resurrection, either of our bodies or 
 names, hath directly promised no duration. 
 Wherein there is so much of chance that the 
 boldest expectants have found unhappy frus- 
 tration, and to hold long subsistence seems 
 but a scope in oblivion. But man is a noble 
 animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the 
 grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 169 
 
 Many that sleep in the dust shall awake. 
 
 equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of 
 bravery in the infancy of his nature. 18 
 
 So may we our lives control, 
 Cast aside what we desire, 
 Feeling that the sweeping soul 
 Has than earthly path a higher. 
 
 Life has bridged our destiny, 
 Walled our woes within its breast, 
 Runs through us a troubled sea 
 Which perceiveth here no rest 
 
 Death shall sweep the works away, 
 Set our current flowing free, 
 Leave us no more yesterday, 
 And be the thing we feebly see. 133 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 The shore of the beautiful spring is steep, 
 and we swim on the dead sea of life near the 
 shore, but we the ephemera have no wings. 
 Death, this sublime evening-red of our St. 
 Thomas's day, this great amen of our hope, 
 shouted across from yonder shore, would ap- 
 pear before our low couch like a beautiful 
 crowned giant, and lift us up by degrees into 
 the ether, and rock us there, were it not we 
 are broken and stupefied ere thrown into his 
 gigantic arms. It is illness alone that takes 
 from death his glory ; and the pinions of the 
 aspiring soul (laden and stained with blood,
 
 I/O ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 There shall be no more death nor sorrow. 
 
 tears, and clumps of earth) trail broken on 
 the ground. But death is a flight, and no fall, 
 only then when the hero throws himself upon 
 one single fatal wound, and man stands like a 
 spring-world full of new blossoms and old 
 fruit, and the earth passes by him like a 
 comet. 34 
 
 " So may we live, that every hour 
 May die as dies the natural flower, 
 A self-reviving thing of power ; 
 That every thought and every deed 
 May hold within itself the seed 
 Of future good and future meed. " 
 
 Death ! thou art the palace of our hopes, 
 The storehouse of our joys, great labor's end, 
 Thou art the bronzed key which swiftly opes 
 The coffers of the past : 
 
 Look not upon us till we chasten pride, 
 And preparation make for thy high home ; 
 
 1 come, I come, think not I turn away ! 
 Fold round me thy gray robe ! I stand to feel 
 The setting of my last frail earthly day ; 
 
 I will not pluck it off, but calmly kneel : 
 For I am great as thou art, though not thou, 
 And thought as with thee dwells upon my brow. 132 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Pious spirits, who passed their days in rap- 
 tures of futurity, made little more of this 
 world than the world that was before it, while 
 they lay obscure in the chaos of pre-ordina-
 
 ANGEL VOICES. \>j\ 
 
 The sting of death is sin. 
 
 tion and night of their fore-beings. And if 
 any have been so happy as truly to under- 
 stand Christian annihilation, ectasis, exolu- 
 tion, liquefaction, transformation, the kiss of 
 the spouse, gustation of God, and ingression 
 into the Divine shadow, they have already had 
 a handsome anticipation of heaven ; the glory 
 of the world is surely over and the earth in 
 ashes unto them. 18 
 
 O fair ! O fortunate ! O rich ! O dear ! 
 O happy, and thrice happy she, 
 Dear silver-breasted dove, 
 Whoe'er she be, 
 Whose early love, 
 With winged vows, 
 
 Makes haste to meet her morning spouse, 
 And close with his immortal kisses. 103 
 
 Life's harvest reap, like the wheat's fruitful 
 ear." 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Joy, most of all, loves to see Death at her 
 festive board ; for he is himself a joy, and the 
 last rapture of earth. Only the vulgar can 
 confound the heavenward soaring flight of hu- 
 manity into the far land of the spring, with 
 the mock funeral phenomena on the earth ; in 
 the same manner as they take the hooting of
 
 1/2 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 O grave, where is thy victory? 
 
 owls, on their departure for warmer climes, for 
 the rattling of ghosts. 34 
 
 As the tree 
 
 Stands in the sun, and shadows all beneath, 
 So, in the light of great Eternity, 
 Life eminent creates the shade of death ; 
 The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall, 
 But life shall reign forever over all. 4 
 
 He gave her therewith a sure token that he 
 was a true messenger, and was come to bid 
 her make haste to be gone. The token was 
 an arrow, sharpened with love, let easily into 
 her heart ; so Christiana knew that her time 
 was come. 
 
 We grieve not for those going, 
 Their home and ours to find ; 
 For us our tears are flowing, 
 For us who stay behind. 
 
 Not those who 're havened yonder, 
 Where rest and plenty bless ; 
 But we mourn those who wander 
 Still in the wilderness. 24
 
 RESURRECTION. 
 
 " We awake and remember and understand." 
 
 Ich sag 'es jedem dass er lebt 
 Und auferstanden ist 
 Dass er im unserer Mitte schwebt 
 Und ewig bei uns ist Ncvalis. 
 
 He pleased God, and was beloved of him : 
 so that, whereas he lived among sinners, he 
 translated him. Wisdom of Solomon, iv. 10. 
 
 Unto her is Paradise opened. Esdras. 
 
 REMEMBER the words of St. Augustine : 
 
 And there, in Abraham's bosom, whatever it 
 be which that bosom signifies, lives my sweet 
 friend. For what other place is there for such 
 a soul ? 
 
 O, Bearer of the key 
 
 That shuts and opens with a sound so sweet 
 Its turning in the wards is melody, 
 All things we move among are incomplete 
 And vain until we fashion them in Thee !
 
 1/4 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 He is not here, he is risen. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Resurrection is not one of those questions 
 on which you can afford to wait ; it is the 
 question of life and death. There are times 
 
 when it does not weigh heavily But at 
 
 last a time comes when we feel it will be all 
 over soon, that much of our time is gone, 
 and the rest swiftly going. And let a man 
 be as frivolous as he will at heart, it is a ques- 
 tion too solemn to be set aside,. whether he 
 is going down into extinction and the blank 
 
 of everlasting silence, or not Whether 
 
 that thrilling, loving, thinking something that 
 he calls himself has indeed within it an inde- 
 structible existence, which shall still be con- 
 scious when everything else shall have rushed 
 into endless wreck. Oh ! in the awful earnest- 
 ness of a question such as that, a peradventure 
 and a speculation will not do : we must have 
 proof. The honest doubt of Thomas craves a 
 sign as much as the cold doubt of the Sad- 
 ducee. And a sign shall be mercifully given 
 to the doubt of love which is refused to the 
 doubt of indifference. 
 
 The Bible tells us of two kinds of proof of 
 a Resurrection. The first is the evidence of 
 the senses : " Thomas, because thou hast
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 The dead are raised up. 
 
 seen me, thou hast believed." The other is 
 the evidence of the spirit : " Blessed are they 
 that have not seen, and yet have believed." 
 
 The feeling which arose in the mind of 
 Thomas, Christ pronounced to be faith : 
 "Thomas, because thou hast seen, thou hast 
 
 believed." It matters not Jww faith 
 
 comes, whether God has many ways of 
 bringing different characters thitherward ; but 
 that blessed thing which the Bible calls faith 
 is a state of the soul, in which the things of 
 God become glorious certainties. 
 
 There are men in whom the resurrection 
 begun makes the resurrection credible. In 
 them the spirit of the risen Saviour works 
 already, and they have mounted with him 
 from the grave. They have risen out of the 
 darkness of doubt, and are expatiating in the 
 brightness and sunshine of a day in which 
 God is ever light. 147 
 
 Hear what God, the Lord, hath spoken : 
 
 O my people, faint and few, 
 Comfortless, afflicted, broken, 
 
 Fair abodes I build for you ; 
 Scenes of heart-felt tribulation 
 
 Shall no more perplex your ways ; 
 You shall name your walls Salvation, 
 
 And your gates shall all be Praise. 15;
 
 1/6 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 With what body do they come. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 I have drunk at many a fountain, but 
 thirst came again ; I have fed at many a 
 bounteous table, but hunger returned ; I have 
 seen many bright and lovely things, but while 
 I gazed, their lustre faded. There is nothing 
 here that can give me rest ; but when I be- 
 hold thee, O God, I shall be satisfied! 145 
 
 The golden palace of my God 
 Towering above the clouds I see ; 
 Beyond the cherub's bright abode, 
 Higher than angels' thoughts can be. 
 How can I in those courts appear, 
 Without a wedding-garment on ? 
 Conduct me, thou Life-giver, there, 
 Conduct me to thy glorious throne ! 
 And clothe me with thy robes of light, 
 And lead me through sin's darksome night, 
 My Saviour and my God. 153 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Though this poor instrument, the human 
 body, may be broken, the dial-plate effaced, 
 and though the hidden artist can make no 
 more signs, he may be rich as ever in the 
 things to be signified. Fever may fire the 
 pulses of the body ; but wisdom and sanctity 
 cannot sicken, be inflamed, and die. This 
 would be to set the cross above the Cruci- 
 fied. 80
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 177 
 
 That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. 
 
 One by one, we miss the voices which we loved so well to 
 
 hear, 
 One by one, the kindly faces in the shadow disappear. 
 
 One whose feet the thorns have wounded passed that barrier, 
 
 and came back 
 
 With a glory on his footsteps lighting yet the dreary track. 
 Boldly enter where he entered. All that seems but darkness 
 
 here, 
 When thou once hast passed beyond it, haply shall be crystal 
 
 clear. 85 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 To subsist in lasting monuments, to live in 
 their productions, to exist in their names and 
 predicament of chimeras, was large satisfac- 
 tion unto old expectations, and made one part 
 of their Elysium. But all this is nothing in 
 the metaphysics of true belief. To live indeed, 
 is to be again ourselves, which being not only 
 a hope but an evidence in noble believers, 't is 
 all one to lie in St. Innocent's Churchyard as 
 in the sands of Egypt, ready to be anything, 
 in the ecstasy of being ever, and as content 
 with six feet as the moles of Adrianus. 18 
 
 We saw Thee in thy balmy rest, 
 Young dawn of our eternal day, 
 We saw thine eyes break from the East, 
 And chase the trembling shades away : 
 We saw Thee and we blest the sight, 
 We saw Thee by thine own sweet light. 103
 
 178 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 The glory of the celestial. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The world by wisdom knew not God ; 
 
 but if obedience were entire and love were 
 perfect, then would the revelation of the 
 
 Spirit to the soul of men be perfect too ; 
 
 every sight would be resplendent with beauty, 
 and every sound would echo harmony ; things 
 common would become transfigured, as when 
 the ecstatic state of the inward soul reflected 
 a radiant cloud from the frame of Christ. 
 The human would become Divine, life, even 
 the meanest, noble. In the hue of every vio- 
 let there would be a glimpse of Divine affec- 
 tion and a dream of heaven. The forest 
 would blaze with Deity, as it did to the eye 
 of Moses. The creations of genius would 
 breathe less of earth and more of heaven. 
 Human love itself would burn with a clearer 
 and intenser flame, rising from the altar of 
 self-sacrifice. 
 
 These are " the things which God hath pre- 
 pared for them that love him." Compared 
 with these, what are loveliness, the eloquent 
 utterances of men, the conceptions of the 
 heart of Genius ? What are they all to the 
 serene stillness of a spirit lost in Love, the 
 full, deep rapture of a soul into which the
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 179 
 
 It is raised in power. 
 
 Spirit of God is pouring itself in a mighty 
 tide of revelation ? 147 
 
 Let them immortal wake 
 Among the breathless flowers of Paradise, 
 Where angel-songs of welcome with surprise 
 
 This their last sleep may break, 
 And to celestial joy their kindred souls invite. 154 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The day of our decease will be that of our 
 coming of age ; and with our last breath we 
 shall become free of the universe. And in 
 some region of infinity, and from among its 
 splendors, this earth will be looked back on 
 like a lowly home, and this life of ours be 
 remembered like a short apprenticeship to 
 Duty. 86 
 
 REME-MBER, 
 
 This is the prerogative of noble natures, 
 that their departure to higher regions exer- 
 cises a no less blessed influence than did their 
 abode on earth ; that they lighten us from 
 above like stars, by which to steer our course, 
 often interrupted by storms. 8 
 
 Deep, deep are loving eyes, 
 Flowed with naphtha fiery sweet ; 
 And the point is paradise 
 Where their glances meet ;
 
 180 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Be ye therefore perfect. 
 
 Their reach shall yet be more profound, 
 And a vision without bound ; 
 
 Higher far, 
 
 Upward unto the pure realm, 
 
 Over sun and star, 
 
 Over the flickering Daemon film, 
 
 Thou must mount for love ; 
 
 Where good and ill, 
 And joy and moan, 
 Melt into one. 
 
 Pray for a beam 
 
 Out .of that sphere, 
 
 Thee to guide and to redeem. 15 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Three months' sunshine and rain have fos- 
 tered out of dead earth all yonder beauty and 
 abundance; but rain and sunshine, what 
 are they as agents, compared with holy influ- 
 ences like those which the Father Almighty 
 can exert upon men's souls ! Oh ! there are 
 persons whom we have known, whose spirits, 
 divested of the numbing investiture of the 
 flesh, they in God, and God in them, con- 
 cerning whom no magnitude of glory would 
 seem incredible. 86 
 
 O heavenly child of mortal birth ! 
 
 Our thoughts of thee arise, 
 Not as a denizen of earth, 
 
 But inmate of the skies ;
 
 ANGEL VOICES. iSl 
 
 We shall bear the image of the heavenly. 
 
 To feel that life renewed is thine, 
 
 A soothing balm imparts ; 
 We quaff from out Faith's cup divine, 
 
 And Sabbath fills our hearts. 
 
 Thou leanest where the fadeless wands 
 
 Of amaranth bend o'er ; 
 Thy white wings brush the golden sands 
 
 Of Heaven's refulgent shore. 
 Thy home is where the psalm and song 
 
 Of angels choir abroad ; 
 And blessed spirits all day long 
 
 Bask round the throne of God. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 This, the soul's questioning : If the soul 
 lose this poor mansion of hers by the sudden 
 conflagration of disease, or by the slow decay 
 of age, is she therefore houseless and shelter- 
 less ? If she cast away this soiled and tat- 
 tered garment, is she therefore naked ? A 
 child looks forward to his new suit, and dons 
 it joyfully ; we cling to our rags and foulness. 
 Ask thyself, why we should not welcome 
 Death as one who brings us tidings of the 
 finding of long-lost titles to a large family 
 estate, and set out gladly to take possession, 
 though, it may be, not without a natural tear 
 for the humbler home we are leaving. Death 
 always means us a kindness, though he has 
 often a gruff way of offering it. Even if the
 
 1 82 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Faith is the substance of things hoped for, 
 
 soul never returns from that chartless and un- 
 mapped country, which I do not believe, I 
 would take this reason as a good one. 12 
 
 Farewell, brave relics of a complete man, 
 Look up and see thy spirit made a star, 
 
 and, when thou sett'st 
 
 Thy radiant forehead in the firmament, 
 Make the vast crystal crack with thy receipt, 
 Spread to a world of fire, and the aged sky 
 Cheer with new sparks of old humanity. 100 
 
 'T is immortality to die aspiring. 100 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 Nothing ever led man on to real victory 
 
 but faith Even in this life he is a 
 
 greater man, a man of more elevated charac- 
 ter, who is steadily pursuing a plan that re- 
 quires some years to accomplish, than he who 
 is living by the day. Look forward but ten 
 years, and plan for it, live for it ; there is 
 something of manhood, something of courage, 
 required to conquer the thousand things that 
 stand in your way. And therefore it is, that 
 faith, and nothing but faith, gives victory in 
 death. It is that elevation of character which 
 we get from looking steadily and forever for- 
 ward, till eternity becomes a real home to us, 
 that enables us to look down upon the last
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 183 
 
 The evidence of things not seen. 
 
 struggle, and the funeral, and the grave, not 
 as the great end of all, but only as something 
 that stands between us and the end. We are 
 conquerors of death when we are able to look 
 beyond it. 1 " 
 
 O Lord ! by thee doth man live, and from 
 thee is the life of my spirit ; therefore wilt 
 thou recover me, and make me to live ! 
 
 The steps of faith 
 Fall on the seeming void, and find 
 The rock beneath. 5 
 
 REMEMRER, 
 
 Even as God is the strength of the world, 
 and the pervading presence of its glorious 
 scenery, and of its plenteousness in field and 
 meadows, valley, plain, and vineyard, and in 
 stream and ocean, so is the idea of God the 
 strength of the soul : it is vast, quickening, 
 congenial, satisfying ; and under its influence 
 legions of haunting imaginations, and beset- 
 ting hosts of afflictive feelings, are put to 
 flight, superseded in their place by warmth 
 and gladness and freedom. 86 
 
 Blessed are they who see, and yet believe not, 
 Yea, blest are they who look on graves, and still 
 Believe none dead ; who see proud tyrants ruling, 
 And yet believe not in the strength of Evil,
 
 1 84 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 We shall all be changed. 
 
 Blessed are they who see the wandering poor, 
 And yet believe not that their God forsakes them ; 
 Who see the blind worm creeping, yet believe not 
 That even that is left without a path. 158 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Thou mourner for the dead ! often dost 
 thou go sorrowing after thy virtuous friend 
 into the churchyard ; but he is not there, for 
 he is risen, a spirit now among the just 
 made perfect. In his coffin there are only 
 grave-clothes and a decaying body, which, 
 indeed, when living, was never more than a 
 garment of earth. Be thou tranquil, since, in 
 place of a worn-out body, thy lost companion 
 is now clothed upon with immortality !..... 
 Look on the newly-made graves and see on 
 them how the flowers spring more luxuriantly 
 than before. So ought thy hopes to rise up 
 the more strongly out of sorrow ; and not 
 only to spring up on high, but also to blossom 
 there, and ripen those consolatory fruits which 
 drop down into the soul, like manna from 
 heaven. 86 
 
 Well done of God to halve the lot, 
 
 And give her all the sweetness ; 
 To us, the empty room and cot ; 
 
 To her, the heaven's completeness.
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 185 
 
 The living, the living, he shall praise thee. 
 
 To us the grave ; to her the rows 
 
 The mystic palm-trees spring in ; 
 To us, the silence in the house ; 
 
 To her, the choral singing ! 
 
 Grow fast in heaven, sweet Lily clipped, 
 , In love more calm than this is ; 
 
 And may the angels, dewy lipped, 
 Remind thee of our kisses ! 
 
 While none shall tell thee of our tears, 
 
 These human tears now falling, 
 Till, after a few patient years, 
 
 One home shall take us all in. 150 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There is an inner heart-contained spirit-world, 
 which breaks through the dark clouds of the 
 body-world as a warm sun. I mean the inner 
 universe of virtue, beauty, and truth ; three 
 soul-worlds and heavens, which are neither 
 parts nor shoots nor cuttings nor copies of 
 
 the outer one This inner universe, which 
 
 is still more glorious and admirable than the 
 outer, needs another heaven than the one 
 above us, and a higher world than one a sun 
 now shines upon. Therefore we rightly say, 
 not a second earth or globe, but a second 
 world, another beyond the universe. 34 
 
 Remember the words of Professor Nichol, 
 who, drawing us reverently after him, to gaze 
 upon the unspeakable glories of the heavens,
 
 1 86 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 The heavens declare thy glory. 
 
 compared with whose light all knowledge is 
 but as the faintest star, says : " Grand thoughts 
 and deeds, as well as physical marvels, spring 
 up without apparent parentage in our world ; 
 but angelic natures penetrate to their birth- 
 place, and by the sight are strengthened still 
 
 further to adore In the vast heavens, as 
 
 well as among phenomena around us, all 
 things are in a state of change and progress ; 
 here too, on the sky, in splendid hiero- 
 glyphics, the truth is inscribed, that the grand- 
 est forms of present being are only germs, 
 swelling and bursting with a life to come ! 
 And if the universal fabric is thus fixed and 
 constructed, shall aught that it contains be 
 un-upheld by the same preserving law ? is 
 annihilation a possibility, real or virtual, 
 the stoppage of the career of any advancing 
 being, while Hospitable Infinitude remains f 
 No ! let the night fall : it prepares a dawn 
 when man's weariness shall have ceased, and 
 his soul be refreshed and restored. To come ! 
 To every creature these are words of hope 
 spoken in organ tones : our hearts suggest 
 them, and the stars repeat them, and through 
 the Infinite, aspiration wings its way, rejoic- 
 ingly, as an eagle follows the sun."
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 187 
 
 Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 When engineers would bridge a stream, 
 they often carry over at first but a single 
 cord. With that, next, they stretch a wire 
 across. Then strand is added to strand, until 
 a foundation is laid for planks ; and now the 
 bold engineer finds safe footway, and walks 
 from side to side. So God takes from us 
 some golden-threaded pleasure, and stretches 
 it thence to heaven. Then he takes a child, 
 and then a friend. Thus he bridges death, 
 and teaches the thoughts of the most timid to 
 find their way hither and thither between the 
 shores. 145 
 
 'T is but one family, the accents come 
 
 Like light from heaven to break the night of woe, 
 
 The banner cry to call the spirit home, 
 
 The shout of victory o'er a fallen foe. 
 
 Death never separates ; the golden wires, 
 That ever trembled to their names before, 
 Will vibrate still, though every form expires, 
 And those we love we look upon no more. 
 
 No more indeed in sorrow and in pain, 
 But even memory's need erelong will cease, 
 For we shall join the lost of love again, 
 In endless bands, and in eternal peace. VM 
 
 And remember, neither the day nor the
 
 1 88 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 The master calleth for thee. 
 
 hour knoweth any man. " In the very middle 
 of Spenser's great work he was called " ; and 
 the lines that happened to be the last from 
 his pen are as though they had been meant 
 against his death : 
 
 For all that moveth doth in change delight, 
 
 But thenceforth all shall rest eternally 
 
 With Him that is the God of Sabaoth hight ; 
 
 O, that great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabbath's sight 
 
 Of this poet's having died, I do not 
 
 think. And it is as though Spenser had been 
 changed while talking with me. And then I 
 think how, to the angels, this whole earth 
 
 looks like a Mount of Transfiguration 
 
 We hear a poet singing ; and while we listen, 
 we are bettered, and silent, we are enraptured. 
 Then while we are listening so eagerly, the 
 voice dies away into silence and into heaven. 
 
 Celestial was the last word Keats wrote, 
 
 and then he himself became it. 80 
 
 Ah ! what time wilt thou come ? when shall that crie, 
 The Bridegroome's comming ! fill the sky ? 
 Shall it in the evening run, 
 When our words and works are done ? 
 Or will thy all-surprizing light 
 Break at midnight, 
 
 When either sleep, or some dark pleasure 
 Possesseth mad man without measure ?
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 189 
 
 Who maketh his angels spirits. 
 
 Or shall these early, fragrant hours 
 
 Unlock thy bowers, 
 And with their blush of light descry, 
 Thy locks crown'd with eternitie ? ** 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Although we are accustomed to think of 
 heaven as distant, of this we have no proof. 
 Heaven is the union, the society, of spiritual, 
 higher beings. May not these fill the uni- 
 verse ? Milton has said, 
 
 " Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth, 
 Both when we wake and when we sleep. " 
 
 A new sense, a new eye, might show the 
 spiritual world compassing us on every side. 
 Whilst we know not to what place our friends 
 go, we know what is infinitely more interest- 
 ing, to what beings they go. We know not 
 where heaven is, but we know whom it con- 
 tains ; and this knowledge opens to us an 
 infinite field for contemplation and delight. 
 They who are born into heaven go not only 
 to Jesus, and an innumerable company of 
 pure beings ; they go to God. These new 
 relations of the ascended spirit to the Uni- 
 versal Father, how near ! how tender ! how 
 strong ! how exalting ! But this is too great 
 a subject for the space which remains ; and
 
 ICp ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 All that are in the graves shall hear his voice. 
 
 yet is it the chief element of the felicity of 
 heaven. 180 
 
 "Come away ! above the storm 
 
 Ever shines the blue ; 
 Come away ! beyond the form 
 Ever lies the true." 
 
 Every man I part with is a soul to be met 
 again, and every face I see is what will be 
 bright with the light of heaven some time, 
 and in my sight. Duty reaches down ages in 
 
 its effects, and into eternity Every day 
 
 the world is ripening against that harvest 
 which is to be at the end of it ; slowly per- 
 haps ; and yet not so very slowly, considering 
 what the fruits of it are to be, for they will 
 be eternal, they will be souls, everlasting 
 souls. 86 
 
 In some hour of solemn jubilee 
 The massy gates of Paradise are thrown 
 Wide open, and forth come, in fragments wild, 
 Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies, 
 And odors snatched from beds of amaranth, 
 And they that from the crystal river of life 
 Spring up on freshened wing, ambrosial gales ! 
 The favored good man in his lonely walk 
 Perceives them, and his silent spirit drinks 
 Strange bliss, which he shall recognize in heaven. 19 
 
 That we, with sin polluted, 
 
 Should have our home so high ! 
 
 That we should dwell in mansions 
 Beyond the starry sky !
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 191 
 
 Father, 1 will that they be with me where I am. 
 
 And now we fight the battle, 
 
 And then we wear the crown 
 Of full and everlasting 
 
 And ever bright renown. la> 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Faith, Hope, and Love, these three, but the 
 
 greatest of these is Love And in that 
 
 there is all comfort for them that hope to 
 
 meet again O, if there is a heaven for 
 
 our faith, there are friends in it for our love. 
 I have known those who have grown holy 
 through thoughts of the dead. I have known 
 one who, as he prayed, always felt, as it were, 
 the presence of a spirit about him, one of 
 the blessed vanished. And it was in her 
 spirit he prayed, and was earnest in prayer. 
 Another person I have known, to whom the 
 meeting of her husband was all of heaven, 
 beside God ; for he had been the husband of 
 her soul, as well as her youth, and they had 
 suffered much together, but she much more 
 by herself. We are saved by hope, and some 
 of us by the special hope of being with our 
 friends again. So that if there is salvation 
 by hope, our friends whom we so hope for we 
 shall certainly have again. 86 
 
 Transition into the divine is ever woful, yet 
 it is life. Bettina.
 
 1 92 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. 
 
 They who die in Christ are blessed, 
 Ours be, then, no thought of grieving ! 
 
 Sweetly with their God they rest, 
 All their toils and troubles leaving. 
 
 So be ours the faith that saveth, 
 
 Hope that every trial leaveth, 
 
 Love that to the end endureth, 
 
 And through Christ the crown secureth. 161 
 
 To Death's dark land some heedless go ; 
 
 But there was One 
 
 Who searched it quite through to and fro, 
 And then, returning like the sun, 
 Discovered all that there is done. 
 
 And since his death we throughly see 
 
 All the dark way ; 
 
 Those shades but thin and narrow be, 
 Which his first looks will quickly fray ; 
 Mists make but triumphs for the day. M 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 When man finds that if he would do God's 
 will, however imperfectly, he must offer up 
 this continual sacrifice, the sacrifice of his own 
 will, his thoughts are irresistibly carried to 
 rest upon that one offering up of a higher 
 than any human will, by which Christ has 
 perfected forever them that are sanctified. 
 
 The more deeply we feel the existing con- 
 tradiction between God's will and that of his 
 creature, the deeper becomes our sense of the 
 need of somewhat to take it away, so that the
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 193 
 
 The communion of saints. 
 
 heart draws near to a truth unapproachable 
 by the intellect, the necessary death of Clirist. 
 All things in nature, as well as all things in 
 grace, point to a Redeemer. Nature strug- 
 gles, but she cannot speak ; she remains in 
 bondage with her children, dumb like them, 
 and beautiful. Humanity has found a voice, 
 but where, save for Christ, would she find an 
 answer? She has showed him of her wound, 
 her grievous, incurable hurt, and how has he 
 consoled her ? Even by showing her his, 
 " Reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my 
 side." 38 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Unto you is paradise opened, the tree of 
 life is planted, the time to come is prepared, 
 plenteousness is ready, a city is builded, and 
 rest is allowed, yea, perfect goodness and 
 wisdom. 
 
 Remember, Soul ! out of this straitened and 
 fiery place thou shalt escape, 
 
 And thou shalt walk in soft, white light, with kings and 
 
 priests abroad, 
 And thou shalt summer high in bliss upon the hills of God. 102 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 The Divinity is already very near to that
 
 194 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 As he lay and slept, an angel touched him. 
 
 man who has succeeded in collecting all 
 beauty and greatness, all excellence, both in 
 the small and great of nature, and in evolving 
 from this manifoldness the great unity. The 
 whole creation sinks into his personality. If 
 each man loved all men, then every individual 
 would possess the world. 39 
 
 REMEMBER 
 
 The vision of Dante, who, seeing the birds 
 as they flew, fall dead, questioned of that fan- 
 tasy. Then one answered him, " Dost thou 
 not know ? Thy wondrous lady has departed 
 from this world." " I began," said Dante, " to 
 weep very piteously, and wept not only in im- 
 agination, but with my eyes, bathing them 
 with real tears. Then I imagined that I 
 looked toward heaven, and it seemed to me 
 that I saw a multitude of angels who were 
 returning upwards, having before them a little 
 cloud of exceeding whiteness. It seemed to 
 me that these angels sang gloriously, and that 
 the words of their song were these : ' Osanna 
 in Excelsis ! ' and other than these I did not 
 hear. 
 
 " Then the heart in which abode such great 
 love seemed to say to me, ' True is it that our 
 lady lieth dead.' And thereupon I seemed to
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 195 
 
 God is a spirit. 
 
 go to behold that body in which that most 
 noble and blessed soul had been. And the 
 erring fancy was so strong that it showed to 
 me this lady dead, and it appeared to me that 
 ladies were covering her head with a white 
 veil, and that her face had such an aspect of 
 humility that it seemed to say, ' I behold the 
 beginning of peace.'" 163 
 
 Pure, meek, with soul serene, 
 Sweeter it was to her to serve unseen 
 Her God, than reign a queen. 
 
 Now far above our sight, 
 
 Enthroned upon the azure star-paved height, 
 
 She reigns in realms of light ; 
 
 So long as time shall flow 
 
 Teaching to all who sit on thrones below, 
 
 The good that power can do. 146 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The joys of heaven are spiritual. The 
 fleshly-minded think more of the chrysolites, 
 the amethysts, the sapphires, with which the 
 city of God is resplendent, than even of the 
 Son of God, who is himself the chief glory of 
 that house not made with hands ; just as 
 their Jewish predecessors esteemed Christ's 
 miracles more than his Messiahship, and the
 
 196 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up, a spiritual house. 
 
 twelve baskets' full of meat more than that 
 spirit which was given to Jesus without meas- 
 ure. So they be of a purifying tendency, and 
 spiritual in character, our hopes, then, cannot 
 be too vast to be Christian. Eternity is the 
 divine treasure-house, and hope is the window, 
 by means of which mortals are permitted to 
 see, as through a glass darkly, the things 
 which God is preparing. 80 
 
 He saw through life and death, through good and ill, 
 
 He saw through his own soul. 
 The marvel of the everlasting will, 
 
 An open scroll, 
 
 Before him lay. 4 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 It is impossible to be a hero in anything, 
 unless one is first a hero in faith. 104 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 In claiming a personal relation with God, 
 nothing exclusive is intended ; nay, he who 
 thus learns he is loved by God, learns simul- 
 taneously that all other men and creatures 
 are also loved. That is an important lesson 
 for the man's external action, indeed, is a 
 foundation of universal love in the soul ; but 
 its inward movements towards God proceed
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 197 
 
 By faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death. 
 
 exactly as if there were no other creatures 
 beside itself in the universe. Thus the dis- 
 covery that it loves and is loved in turn, pro- 
 duces sensible joy ; in some natures very 
 powerful, in all imparting cheerfulness, hope, 
 vivacity. The personal relation sought is dis- 
 cerned and felt. The soul understands and 
 knows that God is her God, dwelling with her 
 more closely than any creature can. Yea, 
 neither stars nor sea nor smiling Nature hold 
 God so intimately as the bosom of the soul. 
 It no longer seems profane to say, " God is 
 my bosom friend ; God is for me, and I am 
 for him." So joy bursts into praise, and all 
 things look brilliant ; and hardship seems 
 easy, and duty becomes delight, and con- 
 tempt is not felt, and every morsel of bread 
 is sweet. 164 
 
 Death is upon me, yet I fear not now. 
 
 Open my chamber window, let me look 
 
 Upon the sunny vales, the sunny glow 
 
 That fills each alley, close, and copsewood nook. 
 
 I know them, love them, mourn them not to leave ; 
 
 Existence and its change my spirit cannot grieve ! 165 
 
 Let the king 
 
 Me ever into these his cellars bring, 
 Where flows such wine as we can have of none 
 But Him who trod the wine-press all alone ;
 
 198 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 I am come that ye might have life. 
 
 Wine of youth's life, and the sweet deaths of love 
 Wine of immortal mixture, which can prove 
 Its tincture from the rosy nectar \ wine 
 That can exalt weak earth ; and so refine 
 Our dust, that at one draught mortality 
 May drink itself up, and forget to die. 103 
 
 he last words of Jean Paul : 
 Life is not flown with the soul, but in the 
 soul, which lays down its organic sceptre. 
 The sceptre releases from its service the in- 
 tellectual world which it had governed till 
 now, or rather the intellectual world aban- 
 dons it. 
 
 When Faith and Love which parted from thee never 
 Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God, 
 Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load 
 Of death called life, which us from Life doth sever. 1 " 
 
 Nations and men are only the best when 
 they are the gladdest, and deserve Heaven 
 when they enjoy it. 84 
 
 O purblind race of miserable men, 
 How many among us at this very hour 
 Do forge a lifelong trouble for ourselves, 
 By taking true for false, or false for true ; 
 Here, through the feeble twilight of this world 
 Groping, how many, until we pass and reach 
 That other, where we see as we are seen ! 4
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 199 
 
 I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me. 
 
 My voice that long hath faltered, shall be still. 
 The mystic darkness drops from Calvary's hill 
 Into the common light of this day's sun. 130 
 
 REMEMKEK, 
 
 The prayer of persevering faith is a hymn 
 of sacrifice ; the sigh of sorrow that hopes is 
 a chant of resignation, " the desire of the 
 night for the morning," and the outgoing of 
 charity is one prolonged canticle of love ! 
 
 The voice that sings is the prayer of the 
 world, it is the morning hymn, announcing 
 the awakening of the ages, as the song of 
 birds heralds the opening of the day ! 
 
 The martyrs sang amid their punishments, 
 for the faith in their souls felt itself immortal, 
 like the Phoenix, and resumed a new youth 
 amid the flames of the stake. The poetry of 
 the soul awakens harmonies in the last dying 
 sighs of the just, and sings, like the swan of 
 our fable, its passage to other realms of life. 
 
 Leave in tears those children of the earth 
 who feel but present pain, nor dream of good 
 to come. But you, children of heaven, poets 
 of charity, of hope and faith, you, who could 
 see the world broken to pieces without ceas- 
 ing to bless God in the midst of its ruins, 
 prophet consolers, sing, sing ever.
 
 200 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps : 
 
 Let us love, and the life of our hearts shall 
 be a song-burst of goodness towards all ; for 
 love is all harmony ; and if you ask me what 
 is this Voice that sings, I will answer, It is 
 the Voice of Love, the Believer. 164 
 
 O Thou Eternal banquet ! where 
 
 Forever we 
 
 May feed without satietie ! 
 Who harmonic art to the eare ! 
 Who art, while all things else appeare ! 107 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 All the sweetest songs and the grandest 
 and most touching poetry that have ever 
 been on earth, breathed into sound or written 
 in characters, have sprung out of work and 
 strife, sorrow and peril. And why should not 
 a new song, unknown even to the elder ser- 
 aphs, be so composed and framed in heaven, 
 out of all life's trouble and disaster, while 
 the mercy of God, the atoning influence of 
 Christ, all heavenly help and guidance that 
 they have received in their struggles, shall 
 add depth and melody to those voices of the 
 redeemed ? M 
 
 The light of her young life went down, 
 
 As sinks behind the hill 
 The glory of a setting star, 
 
 Clear, suddenly, and still.
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 2OI 
 
 And they sung as it were a new song before the throne. 
 
 As pure and sweet her fair brow seemed, 
 
 Eternal as the sky ; 
 And like the brook's low song her voice, 
 
 A sound which could not die. 
 
 Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds 
 
 Were in her very look ; 
 We read her face as one who reads 
 
 A true and holy book. 
 
 The measure of a blessed hymn, 
 To which our hearts could move ; 
 
 The breathing of an inward psalm, 
 A canticle of love. 5 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Public calamity should not, as theologians 
 
 assert, make us humble, but proud. When 
 the long, heavy sword of war sinks down 
 upon mankind, and when a thousand wan, 
 cloven hearts bleed, or when in the clear 
 blue evening the smoking, hot cloud of a city 
 thrown upon the funeral pile hangs darkly in 
 the heavens, as it were the clouds of dust from 
 a thousand hearts and joys, lying in ashes, 
 let the spirit proudly raise itself and loathe 
 the tear, and that for which it falls, and let it 
 say : " Thou art much too insignificant, com- 
 mon life, for the disconsolateness of an im- 
 mortal, thou life, sent and deformed in the 
 mass ! On this globe, rounded out of ashes
 
 202 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 In thy presence is fulness of joy. 
 
 of thousands of years, under these earthly 
 storms of mist, in this wailing of a dream, it 
 is a shame that the sigh falls into dust only 
 with its breast, and not sooner ; and the tear 
 only with its eye ! " M 
 
 The many waves of thought, the mighty tides, 
 The ground-swell that rolls up from other lands, 
 
 From far-off worlds, from dim, eternal shores, 
 Whose echo dashes on life's way-worn strands, 
 
 This vague, dark tumult of the inner sea 
 
 Grows calm, grows bright, O risen Lord, in thee ! 
 
 Thy pierced hand guides the mysterious wheels ; 
 
 Thy thorn-crowned brow now wears the crown of power ; 
 And when the dark enigma presseth sore, 
 
 Thy patient voice saith, " Watch with me one hour ! " 
 As sinks the moaning river in the sea, 
 In silver peace, so sinks my soul in Thee. 127 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 The happy seasons when we may say, " My 
 spirit raises itself to-day with all its earthly 
 strength, I lift up my eyes to the infinite 
 world beyond this life, my heart of dust, 
 knit to a purer Fatherland, beats aloft to thy 
 starry heavens, Thou Infinite Being, to the 
 constellation of thy boundless form ; and I 
 became great and eternal through thy voice 
 sounding in the inmost, noblest feelings of 
 my nature, 'Thou shalt never perish.'"
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 203 
 
 At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. 
 
 Let him who with me recollects an hour 
 when the angel of peace appeared to him, and 
 drew beloved souls from his earthly embrace, 
 
 ah ! let him who remembers an hour in 
 which he lost too much, subdue his languish- 
 ing, and with me look steadfastly to the 
 clouds and say, " Repose continually on your 
 clouds. Ye beloved ones who have been 
 snatched away from us, ye number not the 
 centuries that flow betwixt your evening and 
 your morning ; no stone lies any longer on 
 your protected hearts, except the tombstone, 
 
 and that presses you not, and never does 
 a thought on us disturb your rest." 
 
 Deep in man lies a something unconquer- 
 able, which sorrow only benumbs, but does 
 not" vanquish. Therefore it is that he sup- 
 ports a life, in which the best of us bear foli- 
 age only instead of fruits ; therefore it is 
 that he watches out almost the nights of this 
 Western globe, wherein the objects of his best 
 affections pass over his loving breast into a 
 far-distant land ; while, like swans that fly 
 through Iceland's gloomy nights with tones 
 of the violin, they leave behind to the present 
 world only the after-sounds of pleasing recol- 
 lections. 24
 
 204 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. 
 
 Heaven is no flaming lustre, made of light ; 
 
 No sweet content, or well-tuned harmony ; 
 Ambrosia, for to feast the appetite ; 
 
 Or flowery odor mixed with spicery ; 
 
 No soft embrace or pleasure bodily. 
 And yet it is a kind of inward feast, 
 A harmony that sounds within the breast, 
 An odor, light, embrace, in which the soul doth rest. 
 
 A heavenly feast no hunger can consume ; 
 
 A light unseen, yet shines in every place ; 
 A sound no time can steal ; a sweet perfume 
 
 No winds can scatter ; an entire embrace 
 
 That no satiety can e'er unlace ; 
 Ingraced into so high a favor there, 
 The saints with their beaupeers whole worlds outwear, 
 And things unseen do see, and things unheard do hear. 
 
 Ye blessed souls, grown richer by your spoil, 
 Whose loss, though great, is cause 
 
 Of greater gains ; 
 
 Here may your weary spirits rest from toil, 
 Spending your endless evening that remains 
 Among those white flocks and celestial trains 
 That feed upon their Shepherd's eyes, and frame 
 That heavenly music of so wondrous frame, 
 Psalming aloud the holy honors of his name ! 168 
 
 Eternity ! eternity ! 
 How long art thou, Eternity ! 
 A little bird with fretting beak 
 * Might wear to naught the loftiest peak, 
 
 Though but each thousand years it came, 
 Yet thou wert then, as now, the same. 
 Ponder, O man, Eternity ! 118
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 205 
 
 I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice. 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 All that are in Christ must be made to 
 drink into one Spirit ; yet often, perhaps, must 
 he return and ask his chosen ones, " Are ye 
 able to drink of my cup ? " before that free, 
 calm answer can be given, "We are able" ; 
 and many offerings must be laid upon his 
 altar with tears and weeping before the sacri- 
 fices of joy are brought there. For, as Christ 
 was made like unto us, we must be made like 
 unto him, even at the cost of much that is 
 grievous to natural feeling. His coming with- 
 in the soul is the bringing in of a new order ; 
 and when was there a painless transition, a 
 bloodless revolution ? 
 
 "They were all baptized in the cloud and 
 in the sea" ; this is the register of all Christ's 
 chosen ones When the veil of the tem- 
 ple, even this poor worn garment of our 
 Humanity, is rent from the top to the bottom, 
 we catch glimpses of the inner glory : the 
 rocks are riven, the graves open, they who 
 have long slept in the dust come forth and 
 reveal to us awful and tender secrets, of which 
 otherwise we should have known nothing. 56 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 If only men's sighs lived on the air, we
 
 206 ANGEL VOICES, 
 
 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. 
 
 could not bear the sound. But it is as though 
 God did hear what man would not bear to 
 hear ; for to his nature it is possible, and to 
 his almightiness it would be endurable, and in 
 the ear of his foreknowledge it would be a 
 sublime sound ; for as he listens from ever- 
 lasting to everlasting, it is as though voices 
 that are anguish one moment are crying aloud 
 with all angels the next. But, indeed, with 
 God, past, present, and future are one ; and 
 to his eyes, in the sowing of tears, there is 
 ripe at once the golden harvest of joy. 86 
 
 I got me flowers to strew Thy way ; 
 
 I got me boughs off many a tree ; 
 
 But Thou wast up at break of day, 
 
 And brought' st thy sweets along with Thee. 
 
 The sun arising in the east, 
 
 Though he give light, and the east perfume ; 
 
 If they should offer to contest 
 
 With Thy arising, they presume. 
 
 Can there be any day but this, 
 Though many suns to shine endeavor ? 
 We count three hundred, but we miss : 
 There is but one, and that one ever. 78 
 
 Wem Zeit ist wie die Ewigkeit 
 Und Ewigkeit ist wie die Zeit 
 Der est befreit von allem Streit.
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 2O/ 
 
 The chariots of God are thousands of angels. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 They are the chariots of His will, they bear 
 His will about to every part of the universe. 
 This is their delight. They bless God who 
 vouchsafes thus to employ them. But when 
 they have fulfilled God's message, then they 
 return back to Him, and stand before Him 
 drinking in fresh streams of life and strength 
 and purity and joy from His presence. 99 
 
 How oft do they their silver bowers leave, 
 To come to succour us that succour want ! 
 How oft do they with golden pinions cleave 
 The flitting skyes like flying pursuivant, 
 Against fowle fiends to ayd us militant ! 
 They for us fight, they watch, and dewly ward, 
 And their bright squadrons round about us plant, 
 And all for love and nothing for reward ; 
 O why should heavenly God to men have such regard ! -* 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Great sufferers in this world are not very 
 rare, and so are no wonder to us ; but our 
 human mysteries are mysteries to the angels, 
 and things they desire to look into. Yet a 
 good man's suffering must be the wonder of 
 many a heavenly dweller ; he having himself 
 been formed through another discipline than 
 
 that of endurance, perhaps And there 
 
 are heavenly spirits, to whom the knowledge
 
 208 
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. 
 
 of our righteous sufferers must be more pro- 
 phetic of creative newness than a voice would 
 be, if heard calling down the depths of infin- 
 ity, to let new worlds be started. Yes, Paul, 
 yes ! Thy Lord and Master, and mine, if 
 we suffer with Him, we shall be also glorified 
 together. 84 
 
 A host of angels flying, 
 
 Through cloudless skies impelled, 
 
 Upon the earth beheld 
 A pearl of beauty lying, 
 
 Worthy to glitter bright, 
 
 In heaven's vast halls of light. 
 
 They saw with glances tender 
 
 An infant newly born, 
 
 O'er whom life's earliest morn 
 Just cast its opening splendor : 
 
 Virtue it could not know, 
 
 Nor vice, nor joy, nor woe. 
 
 The blest angelic legion 
 
 Greeted its birth above, 
 
 And came, with looks of love, 
 From heaven's enchanting region ; 
 
 Bending their winged way 
 
 To where the infant lay. 
 
 They spread their pinions o'er it, 
 
 That little pearl which shone 
 
 With lustre all its own, 
 And then on high they bore it, 
 
 Where glory has its birth ; 
 
 But left the shell on earth. 189
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 209 
 
 He turneth the shadow of dedth into morning. 
 
 Love strong as death measures eternity. 
 
 Two worlds there are. To one our eyes we strain, 
 Whose magic joys we shall not see again ; 
 
 Bright haze of morning veils its glimmering shore. 
 
 Ah, truly breathed we there 
 
 Intoxicating air, 
 Glad were our hearts in that sweet realm of Nevermore. 
 
 Upon the frontier of this shadowy land 
 We, pilgrims of eternal sorrows, stand ; 
 
 What realm lies forward, with its happier store 
 
 Of forests green and deep, 
 
 Of valleys hushed in sleep, 
 And lakes most peaceful ? 'T is the land of Evermore. 
 
 They whom we loved and lost so long ago 
 Dwell in those cities far from mortal woe, 
 
 Haunt those fresh woodlands, whence sweet carollings soar. 
 
 Eternal peace have they : 
 
 God wipes their tears away : 
 They drink that river of life which flows for Evermore. 170 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 O man, take now this light of life, which 
 was in the Word, and is eternal ; and behold 
 the Being of all beings, and especially thyself: 
 seeing thou art an image, life, and derive thy 
 being of the unsearchable God ; and a like- 
 ness as to him. Here consider time and eter- 
 nity ; heaven and hell ; this world ; light and 
 darkness ; pain, and the source ; life and
 
 2IO ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Understand thou for thyself. 
 
 death. Here examine thyself, whether thou 
 hast the light and life of the Word in thee ; 
 so shalt thou be able to see and understand 
 all things ; for thy life was in the Word, and 
 was made manifest in the image which God 
 created ; it was breathed into it from the 
 Spirit of the Word. 171 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 The heart accepts Christ because it needs 
 him, even while the mind may be unable to 
 receive him fully, because the orbit of this star 
 is so extended as to carry it beyond the 
 
 sphere of human intelligence Enough 
 
 to learn that we shall find no higher thing 
 above, shall pierce to no deeper thing below, 
 than the cross and its solemn and tender 
 teachings. If we would climb up into heaven, 
 it is there ; if we would go down into hell, it 
 is there also. He alone among men who has 
 clasped this great mystery of grief and love 
 to his bosom sees, if it be as yet but through 
 a glass darkly, how pain and love, yes, joy 
 also, all things that have a living root in hu- 
 manity, come to bloom under its shadow. 
 And how love that cannot die, and faith that 
 grows to certainty, and hope that maketh not
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 211 
 
 Seek out the glory for such as be like thee. 
 
 ashamed, root themselves about it with all fair 
 things that wither in life, and noble things for 
 Avhich it has no room. " I took," said Luther, 
 "for the symbol of my theology a seal on 
 which I had engraven a cross with a heart in 
 its centre ; the cross is black, to indicate the 
 sorrows, even unto death, through which the 
 Christian must pass, but the heart preserves its 
 natural color, for the cross does not extinguish 
 nature, it does not kill, but gives life. Justus 
 fide vivet scd fide crucifixi. The heart is 
 placed in the midst of a white rose, which 
 signifies the joy, peace, and consolation that 
 faith gives ; but the tose is white, not red, be- 
 cause it is not the joy and peace of the world, 
 but that of spirits." 
 
 "Whoso is wise will ponder these things, 
 and he shall understand the loving-kindness 
 of the Lord.' 66 
 
 They are all gone into the world of light ! 
 
 And I alone sit lingering here ! 
 Their very memory is fair and bright, 
 
 And my sad thoughts doth clear. 
 
 He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know 
 
 At first sight if the bird be flown ; 
 But what fair dell or grove he sings in now, 
 
 That is to him unknown. 54
 
 212 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 The world passeth away, and the lusts thereof; 
 
 RE. I//T JIB/-: A 1 , 
 
 The withdrawal of a friend from our side 
 is a special providence, even for ourselves. 
 Never does the grave take hold of a mortal's 
 feet, but his companion hath an omnipresent 
 eye the while fixed on him in compassion. 
 We should think of that eye, as well as of the 
 hand that taketh away. Meditation on the 
 dead quickens our faith in the unseen, for 
 sorrow hath a sacred efficacy ; there being no 
 touch so purifying as that of a dead man's 
 hand ; and few living objects having such 
 regenerative power as the sight of a fellow- 
 mortal's death. 88 
 
 Virtue thus 
 
 Sets forth and magnifies herself ; thus feeds 
 A calm, and beautiful, and silent fire, 
 From the encumbrances of mortal life, 
 From error, disappointment, nay, from guilt. 35 
 
 Let us awake to righteousness ! May 
 Christ present us, one and all, faultless before 
 God's throne ! And at our solemn trial may 
 all the earthly witness proffered be that of 
 our good works, such as do follow the blessed 
 dead that die in the Lord I 86 
 
 Flowers gathered in this world die here ; if thou 
 Wouldst have a wreath that fades not, let them grow, 
 And grow for thee. Who spares them here shall find 
 A garland where comes neither rain nor wind. 8 *
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 213 
 
 He that doeth the will of God abideth forever. 
 
 The best thing in being man, after all, is 
 that the good which we have enjoyed does 
 not perish from us, that it establishes itself 
 within and around us, propagates itself, mul- 
 tiplies ; and that thus we acquire ever more 
 power for greater enjoyment. 104 
 
 No more, in heaven no more 
 That face a shadow bears, 
 
 But looks of light, born of a bliss 
 Unknown to earth, it wears. 
 
 No more, in heaven no more 
 That voice is faint with pain ; 
 
 It mingles with angelic bards, 
 In their enraptured strain. 
 
 No more, in heaven no more 
 The parting grief is known ; 
 
 But love has all eternity 
 
 To look through as its own. 172 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Man feels himself to be greater than the 
 universe, yet feebler than the meanest thing 
 within it which can follow the appointed law 
 of its being. The splendor also of his mate- 
 rial acquisitions is but a robe too short and 
 thin to wrap him from cold and shame. 56
 
 214 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There is a sadness in all Idealism ; it lifts 
 the soul into a region where it cannot now 
 dwell ; it must return to earth, and it is hard 
 for it not to do so at the shock of a keen 
 revulsion, the dashing of the foot against a 
 stone. But in no life does the secret of all 
 tragedy, the conflict between the will and the 
 circumstance, so unfold itself as in that of the 
 Christian ; he, of all men, feels and mourns 
 over that sharp, ever-recurring contrast of our 
 existence, the glorious capabilities, the lim- 
 ited attainments, of man's nature and destiny 
 below. 56 
 
 World^s use is cold, world' 1 s love is vain, 
 World's cntelty is bitter bane, 
 But pain is not the fruit of pain. 
 
 I am content to be so bare 
 
 Before the archers, everywhere 
 
 My wounds being stroked by heavenly air. 150 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 The sphere of the soul is then luciform, 
 when the soul is neither extended to anything 
 (external), nor inwardly concurs with it, nor is 
 depressed by it, but is illuminated with a light 
 by which she sees the truth of all things, and 
 the truth that is in herself. 175
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 215 
 
 Whosoever will, let him come and drink of the water of life freely. 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Between these two magnificent notes rolls 
 the anthem of God's mercy. "Whosoever 
 will " ! That is the beginning and the ending. 
 Let every Christian heart respond in those 
 final and sublimest words of revelation, 
 "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!" 145 
 
 REMEMBER 
 
 This experience, common, at an earlier or 
 later age, to all humanity, and remember the 
 mortal sorrow as an immortal blessedness. 
 
 Thou, around whose ample brow, as 
 
 often as thy sweet countenance rises in the 
 darkness, I fancy a tiara of light or a gleam- 
 ing aureola in token of thy premature intel- 
 lectual grandeur, thou too wert sum- 
 moned away from our nursery ; and the night 
 which for me gathered upon that event ran 
 after my steps far into life ; and perhaps at 
 this day I resemble little for good or for ill 
 that which else I should have been. Pillar of 
 fire that didst go before me to guide and to 
 quicken, pillar of darkness, when thy coun- 
 tenance was turned away to God, that didst 
 too truly reveal to my dawning fears the 
 secret shadow of death, by what mysteri-
 
 2l6 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Unto him that is able to keep us from falling, and to present us 
 
 ous gravitation was it that my heart had been 
 drawn to thine ? Could a child six years old 
 place any special value upon intellectual for- 
 wardness ? Hadst thou been an idiot, 
 
 my sister, I must have loved thee, having that 
 
 capacious heart ! This it was which 
 
 crowned thee with beauty and power. 
 
 " Love, the holy sense, 
 Best gift of God, in thee was most intense." 
 
 Rightly it is said of utter, utter mis- 
 ery, it " cannot be remembered." On the 
 
 day after my sister's death, whilst the sweet 
 temple of her brain was yet unviolated by 
 human scrutiny, I formed my own scheme for 
 
 seeing her once more I imagine that it 
 
 was about an hour after high noon when I 
 reached the chamber door ; it was locked, but 
 the key was not taken away. Entering, I 
 closed the door so softly that, although it 
 opened upon a hall which ascended through 
 all the stories, no echo ran along the silent 
 walls. Then, turning round, I sought my sis- 
 ter's face. But the bed had been moved, and 
 the back was now turned towards myself. 
 Nothing met my eye but one large window, 
 wide open, through which the sun of midsum-
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 21 / 
 
 faultless before the presence of his glory with his holy angels. 
 
 mer at midday was showering down torrents 
 of splendor. The weather was dry, the sky 
 was cloudless, the blue depths seemed the ex- 
 press types of infinity ; and it was not pos- 
 sible for eye to behold or for heart to conceive 
 any symbols more pathetic of life and the 
 glory of life. From the gorgeous sun- 
 light I turned around to the corpse. There 
 lay the sweet, childish figure ; there the angel 
 face ; and, as people usually fancy, it was said 
 in the house that no features had suffered any 
 change. Had they not ? The forehead, in- 
 deed, the serene, noble forehead, that might 
 be the same ; but the frozen eyelids, the dark- 
 ness that seemed to steal from beneath them, 
 the marble lips, the stiffening hands, laid palm 
 to palm, as if repeating the supplications of 
 closing anguish, could these be mistaken for 
 life ? Had it been so, wherefore did I not 
 spring to those heavenly lips with tears and 
 never-ending kisses ? But so it was not. I 
 stood checked for a moment ; awe, not fear, 
 fell upon me ; and, whilst I stood, a solemn 
 wind began to blow, the saddest that ear 
 ever heard. It was a wind that might have 
 swept the fields of mortality for a thousand 
 centuries. Many times since, upon summer
 
 2l8 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 To the only wise God be honor and glory. 
 
 days, when the sun is about the hottest, I 
 have remarked the same wind arising, and 
 uttering the same hollow, solemn, Memno- 
 nian, but saintly swell ; it is in this world the 
 
 one great audible symbol of eternity 
 
 Grief! thou art classed among the depressing 
 passions. And true it is that thou humblest 
 to the dust, but also thou exaltest to the 
 clouds. Thou shakest as with ague, but also 
 thou steadiest as with frost. Thou sickenest 
 the heart, but also thou healest its infirmi- 
 ties 
 
 On Sunday mornings I went with the rest 
 of my family to church ; it was a church on 
 the ancient model of England, having aisles, 
 galleries, organ, all things ancient and vener- 
 able, and the proportions majestic. Here, 
 whilst the congregation knelt through the 
 long litany, as often as we came to that pas- 
 sage, so beautiful amongst many that are so, 
 where God is supplicated on behalf of "all 
 sick persons and young children," and that he 
 would " show his pity upon all prisoners and 
 captives," I wept in secret ; and, raising my 
 streaming eyes to the upper windows of the 
 galleries, saw, on days when the sun was shin- 
 ing, a spectacle as affecting as ever prophet
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 219 
 
 To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, 
 
 can have beheld. The sides of the windows 
 were rich with storied glass ; through the deep 
 purples and crimsons streamed the golden 
 light ; emblazonries of heavenly illuminations 
 (from the sun) mingling with the earthly em- 
 blazonries (from art and its gorgeous coloring) 
 of what is grandest in man. There were the 
 apostles that had trampled upon earth and 
 the glories of earth, out of celestial love to 
 man. TJiere were the martyrs that had borne 
 witness to the truth through flames, through 
 torments, and through armies of fierce, insult- 
 ing faces There were the saints who, 
 
 under intolerable pangs, had glorified God by 
 meek submission to his will. And all the 
 time, whilst this tumult of sublime memorials 
 held on as the deep chords from some accom- 
 paniment in the bass, I saw through the wide, 
 central field of the window, where the glass 
 was uncolored, white, fleecy clouds sailing 
 over the azure depths of the sky : were it but 
 a fragment or a hint of such a cloud, immedi- 
 ately, under the flash of my sorrow-haunted 
 eye, it grew and shaped itself into visions of 
 beds with white lawny curtains ; and in the 
 beds lay sick children, dying children, that 
 were tossing in anguish, and weeping clamor-
 
 220 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 which is in the midst of the paradise of God. 
 
 ously for death. God, for some mysterious 
 reason, could not suddenly release them from 
 their pain ; but he suffered the beds, as it 
 seemed, to rise slowly through the clouds ; 
 slowly the beds ascended into the chambers 
 of the air ; slowly, also, his arms descended 
 from the heavens, that he and his young chil- 
 dren, whom in Palestine, once and forever, he 
 had blessed, though they must pass slowly 
 through the dreadful chasm of separation, 
 might yet meet the sooner. These visions 
 were self-sustained. These visions needed 
 not. that any sound should speak to me, or 
 music mould my feelings. The hint from the 
 litany, the fragment from the clouds, those 
 and the storied windows were sufficient. But 
 not the less the blare of the tumultuous organ 
 
 wrought its own separate creations 
 
 Sometimes I seemed to rise and walk tri- 
 umphantly upon those clouds which, but a 
 moment before, I had looked up to as me- 
 mentos of prostrate sorrow ; yes, sometimes, 
 under the transfiguration of music, felt of 
 grief itself as of a fiery chariot for mounting 
 victoriously above the causes of grief. 09 
 
 REMI-.MRKR, 
 
 Heaven will be inherited by every one who
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 221 
 
 She hath received a glorious kingdom. 
 
 has heaven in the soul. "The kingdom of 
 God is within you." 1 ' 
 
 Happy we are ! 
 
 For though we stand alone, 
 
 Like the disciples gazing up to Heaven, 
 
 Toward our ascended one, 
 
 We know that God, who takes what he has given, 
 
 Never a soul forsakes, 
 
 And surely gives again that which he takes. 
 
 He who has passed above the sky 
 
 Has gone in time, comes in eternity. 
 
 His young feet pressed death's portal without fear, 
 To lift our deathlike thoughts and bring Heaven near. 
 
 No creeping doubts perplexed us, 
 
 In those life-laden hours ; 
 The boy lay teaching better things, 
 
 A flower begirt with flowers. 173 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 There are moments in the Christian life 
 upon which the spoil of a long conflict seems 
 heaped, in which it can rejoice even with the 
 
 joy of a late yet abounding harvest 
 
 Light is good, and it is a pleasant thing to 
 behold the sun. Yet far dearer than outward 
 peace, far sweeter than inward consolation, is 
 that the ever-during stay, the solace of the 
 Christian's heart, the imperishable root of 
 which all else that gladdens it is but the
 
 222 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 And a beautiful crown from the Lord's hand. 
 
 bloom and odor ; the dry tree that shall flour- 
 ish when every green tree of delight and 
 desire fails. It is to the Cross that the heart 
 must turn for that which will reconcile it to 
 all conflicts, all privations ; which will even 
 enable it, foreseeing them, to exclaim, " Yet 
 
 more." Let this powerful attraction be 
 
 once felt, the heart's, the world's great and 
 final Overcoming, and all other bonds will 
 weaken, all other spells decay. " Midnight is 
 fast" sings the sailor on the Southern Ocean. 
 " Midnight is past, the Cross begins to bend'' 
 " Thou art gone up on high ; thou hast led 
 captivity captive." 51 
 
 REMEMREK, 
 
 The glory of our promise is " unspeakable." 
 Conceive a translation to Heaven, and a return 
 from thence. How would a man describe 
 the things seen and heard ? In the fourth 
 chapter of Revelation the attempt is made, 
 but it instantly takes the form of symbols 
 and figures. A throne is there, and One is 
 there like a jasper and a sardine stone ; a 
 rainbow like an emerald encircles all. Seven 
 Spirit Lamps are burning ; the lightnings and 
 thunderings and voices are heard, and the sea 
 of glass shines like a crystal. Thus did the
 
 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 All things work together for good to them that love God. 
 
 writer in high symbolic language attempt, in- 
 adequately, to shadow forth the glory which 
 his spirit realized, but which his sense saw not. 
 For heaven is not scenery, nor anything ap- 
 preciable by ear or eye. Heaven is God felt. 
 God dwells in thick darkness. Silence knows 
 more of Him than speech. His Name is Se- 
 cret ; therefore beware how you profane His 
 stillnesses. To each of His servants He giveth 
 " a white stone, and in the stone a new name 
 written, which no man knoweth saving he that 
 receiveth it." 117 
 
 REMEMBER, 
 
 Man is higher than his place ; he looks up- 
 ward and uncloses the wings of his soul ; and 
 when the sixty minutes, .which we call sixty 
 years, have finished striking, he arises and 
 kindles whilst he mounts, and the ashes of his 
 plumage fall back, and the unveiled soul arrives 
 alone, without earth, and pure as music, on 
 high. But here, in the midst of his darkened 
 life, he sees the mountains of the future world 
 standing in the morning-gold of a sun which, 
 here below, does not ascend. Thus the in- 
 habitant on the North Pole, in the long 
 night, when the sun no longer rises, espies, 
 nevertheless, at twelve o'clock, a morning-red
 
 224 ANGEL VOICES. 
 
 Is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well. 
 
 gilding the highest mountains ; and he thinks 
 on his long summer, wherein the sun never 
 
 sets. 34 
 
 Nosegays \ leave them for the waking ! 
 
 Throw them earthward, where they grew ; 
 Dim are such beside the breaking 
 
 Amaranths he looks into ; 
 Folded eyes see brighter colors than the open ever do. 
 
 We should see the spirits singing 
 
 Round thee, were the clouds away ; 
 'T is the child-heart draws them, singing 
 
 In the silent-seeming clay, 
 Singing ! Stars that seem the mutest go in music all the way.