8 = -. p- 3 m 8 m ^= jG 4 = ^^ 3> 4 m 1 — 8 — TOW ■^M wm THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES UPWARD AND ONWARD. r UPWARD AND ONWARD A THOUGHT BOOK ^FOE THE THEESHOLD OF ACTIVE LIFE. BY S. W. PARTRIDGE, AUTHOR OF " VOICES FROM THE GARDEN," " AN IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN"," ETC. SECOND "THOUSAND. LONDON : PARTRIDGE AXD CO., PATERNOSTER RO^V J858. MEADEK, PRINTER, HIGH STREET, ClAPHAM. FR CONTENTS. PAGE PitEFACE vii A DEO ......... ix GOD 1 RELIGION 7 EARLY DECISIOX , . 19 THE HEART . . » . 24 LIFE . 29 LAW ... . 35 THE LAUNCH ........ . 40 SERVING . 45 SELF-RELIANCE . 50 THE SEVEN STEPS IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE . . 54 THY END . 59 THE MANNER . 63 KNOVFLEDGE . 67 BOOKS 73 THE lord's day . 79 THE GREATNESS OF THE LITTLE .... . 84 WORK . 90 THE INNER MAN . 97 KING THOUGHT . 101 LOVE . lOG Q-^ i^'Q ^T/UZl VI CONTENTS. FRIENDSHIPS WITHIN THE MEANS THE BOW UNSTKUNG THE STRANGE WOMAN . A BIRTHDAY MEDITATION BUSINESS . . . . A HOME . . . , INFLUENCE . . . . KING GOLD AND SLAVE GOLD FAREWELL . . . . A PRAYER . . . . NOTES PAGE 111 115 119 123 128 133 143 148 153 160 163 171 PREFACE. Few mature men can look back on their past history ^Wtho^lt feeling how much suffering and loss they have endured from the absence, in their youth, of a judicious counsellor at their side or a siiitable book in their hand. For want of such sympathy and advice how many are wrecked in their youth by perilous mistakes and fatal errors, or at the best robbed of much of the comfort, re- spectability and honour to which, with better principles and nobler aims, they might have attained. With such feelings the following pages have been written, and though composed under circumstances the most disadvantageous, yet it is hoped there is in them sufficient of true sentiment and right thought to render their perusal purifying and elevating, and to help the youthful reader to higher thoughts and loftier aspirations respecting life, duty, and religion, ■\\-hich, by God's blessing, may cheer and guide him in the present world, and fit him for a nobler existence hereafter. S. W. P. PATEKN03TEU ROW. A DEO. The works of God, yea, all his works, do praise Their great and good Creator. The wild Sea Raves out his mighty chorus to the sky, The Mountains lift on high their snowy hands. And the green-liveried Earth exhales a psalm. The Air — that azure girdle of the earth — "Wafts sweetest incense to his crystal throne ; The giant Trees — those green-robed choristers — Chant forth his glory on earth's temple floor ; The spectral Winds howl anthems to the Lord ; The Brooks run singing through the listening woods, Waking the echoes ; and the voiceful Flowers Look perfumed hymns from out their sheltered nooks. Far noblest of them all, the kingly Sun, Th' unwrinkled father of the noiseless years, Pacing his azure palace, leads the song From morn till even ; Avhile his pearly mate, The Moon, with all her train of infant Months, Leads forth her starry household numberless, To join the universal symphony. Could I behold all this, nor feel my breast Heave with a holy strong ambitiousness To bring my offering, too, of grateful praise ? For should a man be empty-handed, dumb. When all things are thus eloquent for God r Should the sole tongue of this wide earth be mute r All in the temple vocal but the priest ? X A DEO. Alas, poor offering mine ! Some, Lord, have felled, ^ And on thine altar laid, great trees of thought ; I, though -with no small pains and mental throes. Have gathered but at best a few mean sticks From out the forest of eternal truth. Yet, great in condescension as in power, Thou wilt accept them, for my heart, myself, Are both in the poor gift. Have I writ truths ? Commend them to my youthful brothers, Lord ; Make them like burrs upon their minds and hearts To make them wiser, better. Use, and bless. UPWARD AND ONWAED. GOD. God, the great world sustainer ! The End- seer, The everywhere and ever present One, The voiceless and mysterious Unseen,, The Self-existing, the dread Uncreate ! Who shall describe his might, or fitly phrase The vast hieroglyphics of his power ? Girdling himself with the unfading sun, He wraps the light about him, gems the flower "With beaded dewdrops, strings the pearly stars Round the black throat of night ; in gyves of ice Fetters the swirling flood, and broadcast sows The armed earth with snow-flakes ; in his fist He grasps the wrestling winds, and harnesses The hurricane impetuous. At his beck Flics the white Lightning, and the Thunder hoarse Saith to him " Here am I." In icy mail He arms the rivers and the naked woods, Rattles the sudden hail against the hills, ^/ 2 UPWARD AND ONWARD. And curbs tlie comets. The affrighted earth Eeels like a hammock at his gathering frown, And cahn as childhood sleeps the huge-limbed sea. He breathes new life upon the hills, commands Presh beauty in the valleys ; he re- clothes The woods in gayer green, ribs the crimped leaf That twinkles in the sunlight, wooes the flowers From the black womb of earth, and smiles again The desert to an Eden. It was He Who taught th' earth- scorning lark— that seraph bird- His bubbling song ; who gave the blushing flowers — Persuasive preachers ! — their calm happy looks. He carpeted the black and naked earth "With its green covering, tusked the bristly boar, Gave to the elephant his homed teeth ; Fashioned all living things — the shy giraffe ; The tunnelling worm ; the lion, stout of heart ; The strong sun-soaring eagle, the cold snake, The serviceable camel, the meek ass, And the devoted horse. Far, far above This restless sea of things, He sits serene. Sees flitting generations come and go, Th' unchanging and unchangeable I am. He reigneth — the Almighty ; rides and rules The rude fierce surgings of a \vilful world. And from his cloud-based crystal throne beholds This strangely chequered earth. Eefore the sun GOD. Had glassed himself iu oiu' yet slimy world, Ere earth had bubbled into glancing gems, Or darted into crystals ; ere the Wind — Gaunt athlete — had o'erswept the bending woods ; Before the grass had hid earth's granite beams, Ere man — its latest tenant — had looked forth On his new-fui'nished home — His whispering voice From chaos woke the elemental Eoiu', His feet o'ershadowed the emerging hills. Oh ti'ust in Him, and hush thy causeless fears ; Eest calmly on his bosom.' He who spoke Light into life, and looked the waves to rest, Shall he not rule all lawlessness, and bring. Yet, order from confusion ? Doth he ope His hand to the unthankful, and rain down Fresh blessings on the disobedient, "Water the clutching miser's field, and sun The garden of the churl ? Doth he stiH fill The granary of the merciless, still pile The basket o' th' unjust; still multiply The flock o' th' grudging, still increase the herd Of the dull thoughtless boor ? And shall he not Do more for those who trust him, look to him, Their life, theii- joy, their pattern, and their hope ? He is the best, that mightiest ; he is Love, That omnipotent, omnipresent one. Whate'er thou art to him, he is to thee A fond, kind father, and a pitying God. Under the kindest, mercifuUest laws B 2 4 UPWAKD AND ONWARD. Hatli he not placed thee, hedged with kind restraints- The tenderest restraints — thy freedom round ? Still hath he strown, on sin's deceitful paths, The thorns of trouble ; with convictions barbed Goaded thee truthward ; gently uxged thee on With motives ; scared thy heart with fears ; Surrounded thee with keen observing eyes ; Schooled thee with providences stem and strange ; Wooed thee with wonderfullest promises. He ruddered thee with reason, and still fills Thy bellying sails with impulse ; with fond hope Gently persuades thee, and with interest lures ; Sets thought within thee, and opinion round : With conscience garrisons thy breached heart, All sentinelled with angels. With high powers And winged affections hath he fashioned thee, And daily by those strangest miracles — The commonest of blessings, he appeals Alike unto thy intellect and heart. He crumbles, with the biting frost of care, The clods o' thy stubborn nature, and anon With the warm beams of full prosperity Makes fruitful thy cold heart. All that thou hast, 'Twas he who gave it; all — whate'er thou art — His helpful grace enabled thee to be. When thou didst prate of fortune, it was He Sent thy success ; when thou didst glorify The fool's god, Chance, 'twas he, 'twas he alone That weaved for thee thy prosperity. GOD. 5 Ponder thyself, with all thy wondrous powers, Take stock of all thy strange capacities. He fashioned thee in wisdom, mossed thy nest, Swathed thee and cradled thee with loving care. Reared thee with watching mercy, and thus long In life's fail" orchard hath continued thee, — Ah, for how little fruit ! They praise him still, "With all theii' varied capahilities, — The dew-fed grass, and the sun-painted flowers, The burnished buttercup, the odorous rose, The queenly arum, and the teasel armed. The garish poppy, and the clustered vine. The tasselled plane, and the funereal fir, The quick low- wheeling swallow, the hoarse crow, The watchman of the woods — the nightingale. The saucy sparrow (bold, audacious friend !) The tiny-waisted gnat, the bulky bull. The ponderous elephant, the monster whale, The giant-leafed banana, the stern oak. The towering cocoa, the white-wristed birch. The graceful tree-fern, and fantastic palm, Th' unfooted snow-peaks, and the sheltered vales. Ocean's hoarse waves, and heaven's white island-clouds, — All praise their great Creator ; and wilt thou — A man endowed with lustrous regal thought. Freighted with reason and high intellect. Stand silent 'mong the choristers, like one Possessed by a dumb devil ? b UPWAKD AND OMWAKD. Lift thine heart lu humble adoration and firm trust To him thy God and Father, nor forget His eye is on thee "when thou thinkest not, His ear bent down when thou dost seem unheard. In the lone wood and crowded street alike, In the gray twilight, in the silent night, He still is near thee, with thee. Live to him. As 'neath his sleepless eye ; so act as though In the continual presence of thy God.^ E E L I G 1 X. Be no mere creedsman, yet select a creed : Thrice miserable lie who has not learned "VYhat to believe ; the sceptic, of all men, Is the most credulous : who would be safe From gorging error — let him feed on truth. Happy thou art if thou rememberest not The date of thy conversion ; knowest not When thou didst first prefer the right and true. Cradled in all the holy influences Of a piire happy home, still din n king in The Master's precepts at thy mother's knee, Thou didst betimes the voice of duty heed, Nor madly burst the moorings of control. Ah how much better to have acted thus, Than lived to mourn the best half of a life. And dedicated all its sunniest hours To error and to evil ! Next to God Honour thy parents ; ponder the command That hath a special promise. The good man y UPWARD AND ONWARD. Bare-headed walked beside his father's grave ;' The preacher, too, the pulpit would not mount Till he had kissed his mother/ No pet truths Thou mayst allow thyself : have reverence For all thy Father's laws. Creeds, parties, forms, Endlessly diverse, spring up from this source. An earnest digger in the Bible field Has excavated some strange fossil truth. Oh how important is it in his eyes ! He would denounce, unchristianize, the man AVho will not own its value ; 'tis to him A test, a shibboleth. But he, unwise, Confounds the petty fraction with the whole : Blindly mistakes the solitary pearl For the fall-beaded chaplet. Few there are But into error's confines push pet truths ; And yet a feature cannot be a face, A member not a man : truth must be still A rounded whole, composed of minor parts, A system, not an isolated star. Think more of duty than of happiness. "What is it — happiness ? Mere surface-soil, Loose earth, above deep-lying piinciple. Do well, and thou'lt be happy ; get right thoughts Of God,^ that thou mayst trust and honour him ; And also of thyself, that thou mayst be j!^ot only meek but self-reliant too. RELIGION. The wise man sentinels his very looks. For what so wicked as an eye ? "Weigh words, Before thou dare to give them utterance. Few blush for silence : silence oft is good. And speech not always better. He who knows How to be silent hath attainment made That praters well might covet : the unsaid Is sometimes most sublimely eloquent. Thrice blest is wisdom's tongue : it understands When to be silent, with all modesty ; Yet in fit season boldly speaks right words. Be gentle in thy speech, considerate, kind ; A word may be more cruel than a blow, Murders have been committed by the tongue, But loving words are all-omnipotent. If uttered grudgingly, consent is worse ITian flat denial ; but in ev'n a " ]S"o" May be a world of liberality. Guard, too, thy roving thoughts with jealous care. For speech is but the dial-plate of thought, And every fool reads plainly in thy words What is the hour i' thy heart. Above all things Be spu-itual ; what thou hast to do Do as before thy God," th' all-seeing one, Lest thou become the slave of hollow shams, And meaningless observances ; a thing Less of vitality than mechanism. Examine if thy piety to God Be real, earnest, thorough ; if to man 10 ITPWARD AND ONWAKD. A sacrificing, self-denying thing. Let tliy devotions be sincere, beware Lest prayers be only words : remember, God jS'ot only hears thy prayers but answers thoughts. They who live prayer best pray,' live praise Best worship. With thyself be still sincere, If thou desirest peace or joy. Thy heart — Is it antagonistic to thy head ? Behind conviction still does duty lag ? Woe, woe to him Avho is a two-souled man, Heavenly on Sabbaths, worldly all the week, An angel in. God's house, a fiend at home, Neither at one with God nor with himself. Perchance thy progress is at best but slow, Yet be thou not discom^aged ; few things grow Like salloAvs by the stream. The diamond Hath needed for its growth full many a year ; The acorn springs not to an oak ia a day : Greatness is made, not born ; all earthy things Do grow unto perfection. Ere it soar. The tree must grow for many a tedious year.- Few things in this world are mature at once. Like the imcradled sun ; the path to heaven Rough may be, but there is a rougher one, For easier is it to chmb up to heaven, Than to dig down to hell. Man's wickedness May trouble much thy heart, nor less perchance Hypocrisy and cant. But be not moved, RELIGION. 11 c Look at religion less as lived than taug-lit : From its professors learn it not, but spell From out the Master's teaching ; and the Book, — The alphabet of truth. Before thy mind The great ideal keep continually ; And Him, the -wondi'ous Model. Study truth Here rather, lest thou stumble at the faults, The hollowness and inconsistency, Of those its advocates, and shouldst refuse The precious gold, because thou hast been duped By some base counterfeit. Keep ever free From misty care-clouds and rude passion-gusts The sky o' thy heart. Live in the calm clear light. The sunlight of God's loving fatherhood. Small things are only great to little men. And an unruffled mind is no mean Avealth. It is the tallest tree i' th' wood enjoys Most of the sunshine. To the soul erect. And living far above the dust of things, Joy shall be strength, to do and to endure ; For 'tis the heavenliest spirit hath most strength, As the top leaf falls last. Have fullest faith : Thou lovest, brother, to be trusted too, Audi canst thou, then, too fullj^, firmly tnist Almighty love and wisdom ? Have, too, faith In noble efforts ; or thou'lt ne'er achieve. Or bless thv fellows with a useful deed. 12 UPWARD AND ONWARD. Have faith, too in thy prayers. Our arrowy prayers Awhile may seem to linger in the sky, But never yet was prayer propelled in faith But fell at length in blessing. Of thy store, If justice, honesty forbid not, give. And liberally : but give not thy gold, Instead of service — that far better gift ; For service is a rarer offering, More self-denying too. The Go-alongs Strangle the efforts of the Come-alongs. Shall the world's teaching be entirely left To gowned and salaried official men ? How many a noble project comes to nought. Because so many rather give than do ! Thou livest in a sternly echoing world. And thine own acts will all return to thee. Aye, and with interest. 'Tis a tennis court, And thine own racket struck the very ball 'No^v bounding to thy bosom. "WTiat thou giv'st Thou wilt most surely get ; thy garnering Is thine own sowing. Art thou liberal ? Thy sheaves shall sure be neither few nor small. Or niggardly ? A niggard's harvest-home As surely shall be thine. Dost thou complain The world is selfish, cold to thee ? Perchance 'Tis but thine image mirrored in the glass. Speak therefore as thou wouldest Avish to hear, And be as thou desirest to behold ; HELIGION. 13 JSTor think to speak or act, to plan or do. But all shall echoing be returned to thee. If things be adverse, cheerfully submit, And to the change thyself accommodate. Useless and badly tempered is the steel If it refuse to bend, but the good blade — The true Toledo — circleth on itself rninjiu-ed. To be Httle learn ; Like the haired caterpillar, fortune is Tor ever changing ; or the gay balloon. Today inflated and tomorrow burst. Life is a chequered lot ; we may not have The summer without winter, the bright day Without the gloomy night. Both, both are good, Ajud doubtless best alternated. The earth In winter is the nearest to the sun, So men afflicted oft are nearest heaven ; And as the truant homeward turns at night So trouble drives men Godward. Sense alone Would in the wai-m enjoyment ever bask ; But in the atmosphere of suffering The spirit is best ripened. Bravely, then. And patiently, endure ; the Perfect One Attained to perfectness through sufferiag. 'Tis easier do than sufi'er, hard it is To nurse the passive virtues ; sin dies hard, And vices oft are only rooted up By the sharp ploughshare of adversity. For we by nature are rough stubborn ore 14 UPWARD AND ONWARD. Till God in mercy melt, and mould us too, In trouble's crucible, to heavenlier shape. Yet blame not Providence too hastily If things are adverse and unprosperous. How many are there who with thoughtless hand Sow their own miseries, and forsooth on Heaven Father the suffering they themselves begot. Out of the earth the lightning sometimes springs, ]^ot always from the sky descends ; so men, Yea, good ones too, nor seldom, plant, themselves. The seeds of their own ruin. Every plan. And every project, then, baptize in prayer. See that thou art no idler, "^^^len was not Some lion prowling fierce in Sluggard Sti'eet ? And who shall hope to bless or succour him "VYho still will curse himself ? Be not afraid, For fear unmans us ; nothing di'ead but sin. Ev'n the red butcher. Death, fear thou him not ; The mass shrink from him as the timorous sheep From the fierce sheep-dog, but he'll harm thee not. That honest jailer of the Prince of Life. On Him the Ever-living fix thy hope, Xor fear his servant. Death.* The weary earth Is full of graves, but be thou not unmanned If death bereave thee. "Where, ah where, is he But hath already buried half his heart. KELIGION". 15 And more than half Ms hopes ? The faii-est flower Still bears the sharpest thorn, the loveliest bud Is scattered even while we gather it. Heaven hath the more attractions for thee then, And earth the less. Let thy aspiring thoughts Be oftener of the angel-peopled world. Soon satisfied must that man be for whom This world, with all it hath, is big enough. "Worship thou always, everywhere; God's earth Is an hypoethi-al temple, never roofed. Live close to God, with glad religiousness Too piu'e to be sectarian. To him Who is a temple, 'tis of small account Where he may worship. Superstition shun. For 'tis religion in senility ; Nor be, contrariwise, fanatical. Fanaticism is its babyhood. Religion, let it be thy law, thy Life, For if thou live it, art it, not, thou hast As yet attained to little. He in vain "Will look for heaven, who, searching his own heart, Finds it not there. Prepare for grief and change. But snivel not o'er coming miseries, !N'or let tomorrow's unsubstantial ghost Affright thee from the banquet of today. Chafe not at trouble when it comes ; the dew Falls in the darkness, so heaven's choicest boons Distil in sorrow's dim and starless night. 16 UPWARD AND ONWAKD. Who would exult in an unclouded sky If days were never dull and overcast ? Trouble is but love's shadow, after all : It is not so much, what we bear, as how. Be humble, and submit thy will to God's, Thankful for all things. Hath he ta'en away ? Thank him for what is left. Eefused thy prayers ? Por what he hath denied. Thy blessedness Perchance in what thou dreadest rather lies Than what thou most desirest. Hunger not Por rank or station, neither envy wealth ; The poor man hath but the one care, to get. But the rich man hath two — to keep' and spend. Wisdom is the true diamond after all. And with what coronet shall he be decked Whom virtue crowns not ? Por all ministers Pray, and pray fervently, for much they crave Thy intercessions and thy sympathies. He whose sole business is religion needs More grace than common men, for he alas Not only lives to pray but prays to live. Live in the world, nor imitate the fools Who, rashly madly wrenching out their hearts, Immure the husks of their ignoble selves Par from their fellows, useless and alone. Love wears no hood, and wisdom is uncowled. Where is thy virtue if thou makest vice Impossible to thee ? HEUGIOX. Sliim selfishness In every form ; yea, even in good things : In office, station, notoriety; The sect, the creed, the sermon, and the peTr. Remember, in the alphabet of things. There's many a letter more important far Than the great " I " man thinks so much upon. Let not the plumb-line doAvn of anxious thought Into the depths of hid and secret things. More satisfaction hath the practical. And how much more of benefit ! If proud, (And pride may skulk beneath a gabardine,) Set the great God before thee reverently, For scarcely can he be a happy man Who knows not a superior. He is bad. Or should be great indeed, who worships not ; For one alone is great, and only God May be his own divinity. " To me, Come, all ye weary, heavy-laden ones. And I will cheer you."» Wondrous Nazavone, Thy words have comforted this weary world ; Worthy a God, how suited to man's need I Thou wast indeed a brother, more than all Hast sj-mpathised with poor humanity ; Thy truths have flooded earth with light, for aye Thy sayings perfumed it, c 18 UPWARD AND ONWARD. • Turn not away Prom him, the Comforter. If thou reject His consolation, who shall comfort thee ? Thou tiUTiest to thy brother, hut alas Some want the power, and more the will, to help ; And after all, for many earthly griefs Both inclination and ability Are all too insufficient. Go to Him ~Wnio with his love unites omnipotence, Who sweetened with a promise each command. And never in the sternness of the sage Porgot the pupil's frailty." Art thou weak ? He can be strength to thee. Art sorrowful ? He can be comfort. Art thou contrite, friend ? Mercy is he ; and, lest thou shouldst despair. Forgiving love. Ah, thou art doubly blest If thou hast gone for comfort to thy Lord, And with his consolations nerved thyself. Thou shalt not turn thy back i' th' hour of fear, But shalt be calm in all perplexity. Bun in the way of duty, and be strong For aU obedience. Joy shall light thy path,. And mercy guide and guard thee to the end, Thi'ough all the trials of this baffling world. 19 EARLY DECISION. YoriH is a promise and a prophecy, An adumbration of the coming man, And as the blossom scarce belies the bud, And even childhood is significant, So manhood hath small diflference from youth ; The child walks in the shadow of the man : A man is but a boy intensified. The world soon labels men, and character Grows with the many full as fast as age. Power, aptitude, and eaj)ability Distinguish man from man ; the common herd Will stand aside unbonneted, for him Who hath with industry equipped himself For the stern work of life. But who will budge Respectful for the dreamer, who will care To blazon his dishonourable name "WTio trifles opportunities away. Postpones, doubts, pauses, lingers, hesitates, And tries his unaccustomed armour on When half the battle's fought ? --<, 20 UPWARD AND ONWARD. Life is at best, With ev'n the youngest, a short summer day ; And he who hopes to serve his fellow men, Or rank with earth's achievers, scarce must lie And doze away the morning." No man yet Ever attained to be a medal man Among mere human coin, but early set His face to duty, chose him some high path, Breasted the adverse tide, and steeled himseK 'Gainst opposition, danger, ridicule. And gave himself all imreservedly A holocaust to some great noble aim. The steps to greatness take a life to climb, And he who dreams its morning at the base How shall he hope to gain the pinnacle ? Alas how many vainly strive to weave Great patterns on the seKedge of a life, And crowd a world of entei-prise and work In the brief space of one scant afternoon ! The leaf in autumn scarce becomes the tree When men are seeking fruit. Ihe bud, the flower, Pleasant in spring, are then poor substitutes For the ripe growth of full maturity. Not the seed-basket, but the sickle, then Becomes th' autumnal field. Alas, alas. There is too much to be, too much t' achieve. In this short life, for any to delay. Or waste its hours in meaningless resolves. " There Avill be time tomorrow," saith the fool : There mat/ be time, and opportunity ; EARLY DECrsrON. 21 But lie who liatli no willingness today Will he have more tomorrow ? The platoons Of truth and error, and of good and ill, Behold on either side, for fight arrayed. Life's paths are all before thee. Solemn choice ! What wilt thou be, and whose ? Along which road Art thou prepared to travel ? Awful thought 1 On thy decision hangs thy hell or heaven. He who iu life's fresh morn doth choose aright. And spends his energies on noblest things, The day of life before him — he it is Who lives to ripen well his purposes. And gather ia the harvest from his plans. The finest apple was the earliest formed, So 'tis the early ti'ained that ripen best To full proficiency and highest use : But he who waits and trifles, lingers on, Till, nudged to action by the westering sun, He bungles in his fatal haste his task, And only Hves to see a few sour fruits Hanging around reproachful. A true man, Titanic, brave, one-purposed, resolute. Doth seldom grow from undecided youth. Greatness casts no mean shadow. If thy youtli Is marked by indecision, tremble then For manhood and for age. To few indeed 22 UPWARD AND ONWARD. Doth life's fast-sinking tide flow more than once : And while irresolution dubioiis stands, It ebbs, and all is lost. It needs not vice, Debasing habits, lawlessness or crime, To mar and poison life. The two-souled man, AVho oscillates between the right and wrong. With scarce a preference discernible, "Who is, yet is not ; will, and yet will not ; He may as surely ruin, curse himself, As he who, 'reft of name and character. Hides from his branding fellow-men. The tree Was not a vicious but a barren one. The gentle Saviour cursed. ' The salt denoimced Was only useless and unsavoury, No base corroding poison. Something more Than a mere will-less human negative Must be the man who can expect to please His God, his fellows, — or his own poor self. The undecided — what shall prosper him ? The tide is flowing and the wiad is fair. All is propitious, and the gallant barks. With beUying sails, glide merrily along ; But still he pauses, eyes askant the clouds. Suspects a storm, the wind may veer ere long. He'll wait awhile — and then. So fade the hours, With all their golden opportunities, And he who might have distanced any man, And made the port of Fortune with the best. EATILY DECISION. 23 Tempts the long voyage with a worsing tide, Or never ventures out to sea at all. Life's opening chapters colour all the rest. And blessed he who hath surrendered up, Free from aR base duality of heart, A hearty holocaust, his whole of life, With all its round totality of years. On duty's hallowed altar. To repent A wasted youth may be a seemly thing, But ev'n contrition can't efface the past, Or hide the scars of evil. Innocence Is better than repentance. Sighs and tears Are miserable pumice-dust to hide The ugly blots on the past leaves of life : Arrears of duty cannot be repaid. 24 THE HEART. To rank among the intellectual And soar above the herd of vxdgar men, Is this thy fond ambition ? Prime thy wing, Fhitter, and fly, and soar — 'tis well and right. Praise-worthy and commendable. But know The heart is the tnie pedestal : 'tis much To think correctly, to feel rightly more. The best men are the greatest after aU. Eight thoughts in heaven's balance lighter weigh Than pure and high affections. Be thy aim Less to be richly gifted than be good, For goodness — that is greatness. 'Tis for this— That our prone selfish hearts be schooled to love — "We day by day live on in this dull world. !N^ot to heap up mere intellectual wealth, And learn and plan and do, but rather this — That we get pure unselfish loving hearts. Alas how often is high intellect Blighted by base affections. All of us Are far less as we think than as we feel ; THE HEART. 25 Aud in how many is the judgment fooled, Reason obscured and intellect bedimmed, By the foul exhalations of a heart Unsanctiiied by purity and love. The titled bard^^ had been a greater one Had he but been a purer holier man. The heart is the mind's father, the well-spring Of thy most secret thoughts : as are thy loves. So will be thy opinions and thy acts. Hence rise the limpid streams of purity, Humility, love, gentleness, and joy; Or the thick troubled and polluted waves Of hate, self-love, and sensuality. Oh sentinel, my brother, thy young heart, It needs thy sleepless care and vigilance. "Watch well its tendencies, its love and hate ; Be ever jealous of its preferences. Watch lest it cool and harden, for thy heart, Whate'er may perish, shall for ever live. High is the dignity of purity, And enviable is large-heartedness. Th' unselfish — every man must honour him. Men wonder at the gifted, all agape ; But the true-hearted still doth win their love. " Give me thy heart, my son," stem "Wisdom cries; Say, shall she cry in vaia ? Shall that high fane. That shekiaah of man, that altar veiled, That hallowed, noble and palatial thing, Be a mere nest for all things base and foul ? 26 UPWARD AND ONWARD. Porbid it, Dut)', Interest. Give thy heart, And early, to all dnteousness and truth. That so if evil and temptation come, They may no lodging find prepared withia. Fast are we drifting to a naked world ; And soon must leave this mnffled masquerade, ^Vliere hearts all ulcerous and leprosied, Long rotten with all selfishness and vice, Are cloaked with dignity and masked in state ; While many a godful nature is concealed, Unrecognised and scorned. However great, Thou must put off thy robe of circumstance. Gay, gaudy though it be ; must strip thyself Of every adjunct and accessory. And stand a naked and transparent soul, Before thy Maker's eye. How oft a man Will strive to tinker up his faulty Ufe, Reform his conduct, and amend his ways, Forgetful that 'tis all but e^ddcuce Of an unsoxmd, sin-striken heart within, Neglected and unthought-of. 'Tis not hard To patch and whiten the old tenement, But 'tis at best a useless industry If the main beams be rotten. " Keep thy heart," And aU will be well kept : thy words, thy deeds Will flow a limpid and imsullied stream From the pure crystal fountain. THE HEART. 27 There is one That ever- watchful sits beside the door, The open door o' th' heart, still noting down Who enters, who departs. With lidless eye Stern Conscience marks the guests, and knows them well. And smiles approval or with frowns condemns. Ev'n though she slept awhile, not one could pass IFm-ecognised, for every visitor Leaves his own several footprint large and plain, And leaves it there for ever. Keep thy heart. And keep it specially from smaller sias^^ (If any sins be small). Full many a man Who ne'er would let great ugly Murder in, Howe'er he heat the door, will suffer yet. All patiently and unsuspiciously. The pigmy. Anger, to climb undisturbed, And enter at the window. But the least. His footing once made good, will ope the gate, And straight admit the greatest. Watch and guard, The mine is not less dangerous than the breach. And open force is oft less perilous Than hidden craft. The solitary sin. The puny tempter, are thrice- dangerous spies. Scouts from the rabble hordes that wait hard by, Hung'iing for prey. Sius never walk alone ; 'Tis only one that knocketh at the door. But lo, a hundred crouch unseen behind, Eager to wriggle in. 28 UPWARD AND ONWARD. Tliiice happy lie Who, early loyal to the right and true, Hath barred his heart against the rabble throng That fain would cross the threshold : who hath won. By prayer, and purity, and pious will, Angelic sentinels and heavenly aid To keep the sacred citadel secure. 29 LIFE. Oh what a strangely chequered thing is life ! Sunshiae and shadow, confidence and fear Form the mosaic so mysterious. How boastful, yet how hollow ! What a cheat, Yet ah how full of promise ! To raw youth "What a May-day balloon ; to wiser age Wliat a vile bimdle of old worn-out rags ! 'Tis to the glad and merry-hearted child Bloomy and fresh as an unfingered plum ; But to the saddened man 'tis dull, and stale, Untoothsome as a cold and re-cooked dish. How different this rainbow sketch by him That painter prince — Imagination, From that tame picture by Eeality ! " What buttercups and daisies," shrieks the child; " WTiat fearful thorns and briars," sighs the man. 'Tis the hot room where Confidence, Despair, Prosperity and Ruin, Joy and Tears, llattlc the dice in the mysterious game For the dread stake, humanity. 30 UPWAKD AXD ONWARD. Young friend, Have lightest riews of things, and play the man. Life is no pastoral ; the earnest live, And they alone. It is a solemn game ; Heaven, Hell, are struggling for the precious pool. 'T^is no parade, but a stern battle-field, !N^o playground, but a school-room ; no calm port. But a fierce open sea. The trifling fool "Will find it disappointing to his hope As an unkemelled nut, but to the wise 'Tis honey-laden as the luscious lime. Art thou a man, thou shalt find grain enough, And golden, for thy sickle ; shalt return With no mean burden, up the shaft again. Of precious ore : but if a trifling thing In search of pleasure merely, or a churl Whose every thought turns on the poles of self, Inglorious will th' arena be to thee, All shame and disappointment. Dost thou think Life a strange mystery, full of wonderment ; Doubt whence and where thou'rt diiftiug, where is He Th' almighty helmsman ? Mysteries there are, And doubtless needs must be to puny man ; But we must learn to hope as well as know, And where our penetration cannot ti^ace Our piety must trust. Be patient, Avait, The drama is not ended ; the fifth act Shall all its predecessors well explain, And reconcile God's purpose with man's hope. LIFE. Faith is the medicine to uusting our cares. Life, like a dial, is but meanitigiess Unless its hierogh-[)hics be illumed By an unriddling futiu'e. Leave to God, "With a calm, patient, and unwavering trust, T' evolve from out this ugly growth of things Perfection, beauty, holiness and use. Ponder the laws of life, nor foolish prate Of chance, fate, fortune, and necessity. Life — 'tis the plastic stuff the wise man moulds To great and good results ; the priceless wine The sleeping fool allows to flow away. 'Tis the rough pregnant ore, from which with sweat The earnest smelts the gold of endless life ; The spai'kling stone the gaping trifler hugs, Proud of the bauble. 'Tis the smooth descent Down which the wicked to their ruin slide ; 'Tis the ringed ladder good men climb to heaven. 'Tis the sky-kissing pyramid, all built Out of minutest thoughts and actions — all Hanged by thyself, and piled by thine own hand. Thou standest just were thou hast climbed or fall'n ; And if the credit be not all thine own, Thine own assuredly is all the blame. Within the rough rind of thy aging heart Behold the rings of all thy former years. Thy past is living still ; thou'rt what thou ai-t Because thou hast been what thou'st been. Thou hast, ITiough slowly, climbed the ladder of thy years, And the swoll'n crested wave of thy to-day 32 TJPWAKD AND ONAVAED. Is but til' addition of thy yesterdays. Earth, is heaven's threshing-floor ; the chaff", the AA'heat, Fall in their places by th' eternal law, And in the spirit world say will the laws Be diff'erent ? Nay, surely every soul Will still obey the gravitating law Fixing it ever and unalterably In its own fitting place. The -ndcked then "Will, far as zenith from the nadir, sink From God and happiness ; the buoyant good Rise up to highest glory. " All is vain," Taught the stem Preacher, but 'twas sourly said. Life to the vain alone is vanity. But to the wise it is the precious bulb That effloresces into perfectness. Life is to thee but what thou art to it. With truth and duty in thy heart enthroned, A settled purj^ose, a defined plan, 'Tis neither vain nor vapid ; but to him, The trifling pleasure-seeker, 'twill be dull . And meaningless. How few there are but stand Beside the grave of opportunity ; How oft the swagger of "I am" is shamed By the stern whisper of " I might have been." Bitter, thrice bitter, is the retrospect Of a blurred, bungled and disjointed life, — Sad as the burial of an only son. Then sow not, as thou vainest thy peace, Thy memory with regrets ; let duty make lilFE. 33 Of every clay a pleasant yesterday, Unblushing, unacciising. So the beams Of effort, honour and success, shall gild Thy purposeful career, nor thou lament In future years over the puckered past. Tomorrow seldom disappointed him But who despised to-day. "Wouldst truly live ? Regret not yesterday, scorn not to-day, Nor trust too much tomorrow. Live thou so That earth shall be to thee heaven's corridor, The ante-room of bliss. Ah trifle not "With life's young hours, but while thou livest, live. The palette, colour-filled, is on thine hand, The virgin canvas wooeth thy design ; What picture wilt thou paint ? Oh fearful choice I How many have but laboured to their shame. And daubed their infamy. Tempt not life's sea I' th' leaky hull of pleasiu'e. The taut bark Of duty is the only one that rides Secure among the breakers. Learn and earn ; Let not the present smoulder, life at most Is a short summer ; like dead leaves from trees Our days fall from us, and the grisly beard Bristles to-day upon the wrinlding chin That yesterday was smooth and all unhaircd. Thrice happy they who wait not the grey hair To school their heart to wisdom, who need not The canonizing grave-yard, where the bad Are angcliscd in marble ; but who reach . I) 34 UPWAllD AND ONWARD, Th' appointed mark, well drilled in truth and love, While yet the noon of life is all unspent. How old, my brother ? Nay, how good art thou ? Tell me thy wisdom, I will tell thy age. In wisdom many of the young are old, And many old have not yet learned to live. Age is as nothing : earth's bright eldest-bom Is fairest still, for he, the parent sun. Is far less wrinkled than his children are, And the old tottering greybeard may be oft A very babe in all that makes a man. Life, life, eternal life — still on and up Travel our strained thoughts. This is at best But life's rehearsal, crude apprenticeship ; A mimicry of manhood, the first scene I' th' drama, a mere playing at men, A puling babehood. Let not added years Find us unripe ; but (like a forest leaf. Most lovely when decaying) sweet, matured. Fit for the Master's use, the Master's home. 35 LAW. All things are under law. The earth, the sun ; Night, day; spring, summer; the imtethered stars ; The vagrant comets, the fu-e-belching hills, The giant sea, the sky-rack, the tall hills, Ice continents, sand deserts — all obey The several ii'on laws that govern them. Thou livest under law, howe'er thou chafe ; Law thou canst not escape. Thou couldst as soon Eid thee of thine own shadow as the law That wraps thee round as doth a clinging cloak. Or as a fitting skin. At home, abroad. Beside thy hearth, beyond the farthest sea, It grips thee with a tight unloosening grasp, And holds thee stUl its helpless prisoner. God's laws are wondrous things — they still revolv On their own axes, promulgate themselves, And in one language speak to every tribe. They are their own police and magistrate, And need no jail nor executioner. They work their own results all noiselessly, As they who built the Temple. D 2 36 UPWARD AKD ONAVAED. Under law Is thy mysterious body. Health, and strength Are both in thine o^vn keeping, life and death. Morally right is physically best : Thou mayest poison all the springs of health, Abridge life's lease, and die before thy time ; Oi* lengthen out thy threescore years and ten By peaceful joy and temperate exercise. Thy mind is under law. Thy inmost thoughts, Thy bodyless ideas, all obey The regal voice of law. Thou mayest nerve And energize thy lofty faculties ; Or thou mayst brutify thy mental man, Debauch thy reason ; shut, and rudely, out The witnesses for the truth, and smuggle in The clamorous rabble passions. Thy soul, too, Is governed by a law ; but not the law That governs grosser and material things. The gentle law it owneth is the law jS^ot of compidsion, but persuasiveness. "With the material 'tis necessity, Bat with the spiritual it must still be choice. Motive and interest, reason and reward Are set around, before thee, and within. To beckon, guide, allure. Ah awful choice I Thou'rt perilously free ; canst choose, refuse. Prefer the better, worse ; the right, the wrong. LAW. Under the law, the blessed law, of grace God hath in mercy placed us. " Do and live " No longer sounds from Sinai, stem and hoarse, But Calvary whispers in a gentle tone " Believe and be ye saved." I^o longer deeds, But faith, is the requii'ement of the law. Bow gladly to its summons, ope thy heart To its thiice blest and hallowing influence, And let the sinuer in the Saviour trust With surest hope and fallest confidence. Be thankful that thou livest under law. That God hath placed thee where effect with cause Are leashed together indissolubly. Make them thy friends, that they may speed thee on Joywai'd and heavenward ; not thine enemies, To sting, and goad, and jostle thee to hell. Were it not thus, all things would be confased ; The produce might belie the parent seed. Seasons confoimd the shrewdest prophecies. And all be dark, uneertaia. JN'one might hope To reap what he had sown ; then might men dare To plant the vilest weeds, and fondly trust To gather rarest fi-uit, or painfully Water the cereal seed, yet knowing not What harvest they might gather. On and on — Fast are we drifting to another world, A world of stern infallible results. Eternity is but tune's harvest-home, 38 TTPAVARD AND ONWAKD. Futurity the blossom of to-day. Wliat thou dost sow, in measure and in kind, That also shalt thou reap. Eevere God's laws : !N'one mayst thou break unharmed. Forget it not, Thou liv'st in no chance world, where trees of fame Will grow from seeds of sloth, where flowers of wealth Evolve from out the buds of indolence, And plenteous autumns follow idle springs. Obey them, they shall speed thee surely on To health, to reputation, and to heaven. They shall be to thee the smooth shining rut Down which thy jewelled and eternal soul Shall safely glide. But if thou disobey. Heedless and wilful, straggling off the line, Thy ruin shall be without remedy. Set not thyself against God's any law : The train that speeds thy neighbour to his home May crush the life from out thee shouldst thou dare To cross the line before it. None despise : Not ev'n the laws that govern lesser things Mayst thou neglect imharmed. This godly man — He was a very pattern to his race, But he had trifled with his health so long That he became unnerved, irresolute, A piteous wreck among taut human barks. That healthful giant, full of lusty strength, Too long had set at nought the social laws : LAW. 39 But crime at length extinguished character, Opinion I'ose and rent him ; without law Fain did he hope to live, but learned too late That the most lawless still are imder law, And he must break who will not learn to bend. 40 THE LAUNCH. It glides, all smooth and noiseless, do-^-n the stocks. Amid the deafening plaudits of the crowd ; Boon, "«T.th the queenly swan's majestic grace, To float all gallantly, away, away, Adown the sparkling river. Eank and wealth Have honoured its first essay with a smile, Eeauty upon it hath bestowed a name, The sunlight gilds its pennon, and the wind Laughs loud and hoarsely in its snowy sails. So leaves the youth his home — the sacred home Of infancy and childhood. He departs Far from his father's prayers, his mother's tears. His boy-companions, games, and dogs'-eared books. The cricket field, the green, the village walks. His sisters (proud of so much manliness). That well-worn hearth, and that accustomed bed, — To joust among the combatants for place In the far-distant city, and dig gold In the hard quarry of the wide, wide world. riill many a peril lours o'er that fair ship, Many a trial o'er that hopeful boy. THE LAUNCH, 41 He too must meet with many a simken rock, Many a treacherous quicksand ; weather, too, The current fierce, and brave the wrathful storm. Ah happy ignorance ! He knows them not, — The tug and wear of life ; hut rushes on. Like a strong charger to the thickest fight, Regardless of the danger of the fray. He longs, th' impatient, brimmed with lusty life, Most eagerly for manhood, scorns a guide, Obeys, and only, his own wilfulness. Champs the restraining bit, and will not bear The bridle of reproof, for he is sick Of boy pursuits, and fain would be a man. The goal of manhood is at length attained. But ah how disappoiated he who runs ! That which, while distant, seemed a lovely plain Proves but a scene of conflict : soon he faints Amid the dust and heat, with anxious eye Looks round for quiet and repose in vain. And learns, though late, that longed-for manhood hath No little prose, with all its poetry. Prepare, then, diligently for thy change, That when the season for thy launch shall come Thou mayst be found knee-timbered," well equipped For battling with all adverse elements. Go with a prayer, and with a purpose too, And gird thee for the conflict trustfully. Go, strong in rectitude, armed cap-a-pie With the tried mail of wisdom ; see thy mind 42 T7PWAED AND ONWARD, Be fully stored with Ms perceptive lore" "Wlio ranks as wisest of the sons of earth. So shalt thou look before thee without fear, Around without dismay ; when weary, sad, reeUng the crowded city's loneliness, Shalt cheer thee wdth all comfortable thoughts Of duty, heavenly help, and inward peace. The world will test thy mettle. Lean on none But on thy heavenly Father and thyself. As thou woiildst disappointment shun. Dream not Of coming wealth from living relatives, Possible legacies, appointments snug. Kind patronage — and such besotting things. That oft befool the young. Delusive streaks Of mirage ia the sandy plaius of life. How many an eye of hope hath turned to these, How many a youth been wasted and consumed In the heart-aching chase ! Make for thyself An honoured name, build thou the edifice Of thine own fortunes, never be content To be the puppet spender of the wealth Another and a better man hath earned. Incompetents may crouch for patronage, But, for thyself, remember that desert Is stUl the surest step to dignity. Nor lack decision. 'Tis a wretched thing To be a will-less man. Few things ai'e hard, Nothing impossible, to him who wills ; But a mere nurseling — what shall he achieve ? THE LAUNCH. 43 Though mLful, still a will, if masterful, Is ne'er despised. The yaliant daring man Boldly begins th' attack, and seizes straight Th' advantage an aggressor always has. But weak irresolution houghs the steeds Of action, and but tries, to fail. Young friend, What art thou, standing in the ranks of life, Waiting for thy commission ? Thy young hand, — What has it learned to plan, accomplish, dare ? Of what achievement is it capable ? Art self-impelled, — a hearty volunteer In duty's path,- — prepared to play the man In God's stem working world ? 'Tis better far To be self-moved, a true, truth-steering man Than to be ignominiously pricked on By the sharp bayonets of necessity, To duty and to truth. What art thou ? Say Is thy min d ballasted with truth and use, Thy heart rectangular with right and love, True to the poles of rectitude and God ? What art thou ? All things in God's universe Ask the momentous question. Duty, tmth. The Bible, money, life ; religion, heaven, — All are to thee but what thou art to them. What art thou, is inquii-ed by every flower On which thou gazest, and by every truth Thou leamest. To the base and vicious man What can bo truth ; or to the prodigal What can be gold ? Yet to wise-minded men 44 UPWARD AKD 0N\7AKD. Truth still is life ; to the wise-handed, gold Is real riches. Care hut for the what ; The luhere will surely follow, soon or late. God sleeps not, and his providence selects Desert and merit ; trust, and pray, and wait, He will not disappoint thy hope. The where Thou art so anxious for, 'tis but th' effect Of a preceding cause, the shadow dim Of the immense reality, desert. 45 S E E V I N G. Art thou a servant? Be thy master's best. Serve him not only with thine hand, but heart. His eye is on thee when thou tliinkest not. And if not his, Another's. Self impelled, Make thou his interest still thy care, nor need His eye to spur thee to thy duteous toU. Sigh not for higher place or wider sphere. But wait submissive till promotion come : Deserve it, and then leave results to God. Station still waiteth for desert, the best "Will ia the end be greatest. Trust in Him Who calls us first to serve before we rule, And makes obedience the first step to place. Think less on thy condition than thyself, For never was his occupation mean ^Tio used it nobly. Dream not, then, but choose, (If not already chosen), and at once, Thy business or profession ; time's swift tide Fast ebbs, and waits for none. "Without delay Consult thy tastes, thy interest, and thy friends ; 46 UPWARD AND ONWAED. Choosing the active rather, lest, thy powers Stunted and dwarfed for lack of exercise, Thou miss thy full development. Alas, What an unsalted dish at best is life "Without an avocation ! Th' unskilled Is useless as an old unlimbered gun. They who would wear earth's laurels must be those Equipped with capabilities. To learn Thy business througlily, and to bring to it, As it is honourable, no dishonour, Be this thy aim and study. Blubber not If thou art poor, and of low parentage, For so were they, the many, who now fill The niches in fame's temple. Great the gain Of being cradled in adversity ; But oh, what untold perils lurk for him Bom unto riches ! He who understands His mercies, will be thankful for his needs. If thou inheritest a spotless name And a sti'ong healthful body, be content, For thine is no mean heritage. Have health ; It is thy duty, as thy privilege. Fly the narcotic and the stimulant, For youth and health need neither. Shun with care Th' rollicking sons of riot, and avoid Unmanning drink, for every self abuse Adds to thy mortgage on life's lessening lease ; SERVING. 47 And drunkenness— it lets out all the man, Yea, lets in all the devil. Slumber not After th' early-rising sun ; the night Sufficeth for repose. God gives thee time — The capital he lendeth every man, Therefore trade wisely with it, that his own Thou mayst retimi with interest. Nor defraud Thy master of his rightful hours, he claims Thy best and chicfest ones ; be punctual, Exact thyself as thou wouldst have him be, Were thou the master, he the servitor. Enjoy, with moderation, thy life's 7iow, Nor think that added income will add much Unto thy satisfactions. All enjoy Less in possession than expectancy, "Wants fast beget each other, none are rich Eut those that are content, and ah how oft Doth wealthful age look backward with a sigh On the stern struggling penury of youth. Offend not, have no enemies ; the sting 0' th' meanest insect may be troublesome. And th' unnoticed grub o' to-day may be A butterfly tomorrow. Ee thou kind, Courteous to aU ; to none unmannerly : But affable as one whose loving heart Ilespects his neighbour, dignified as one Who also hath respect unto himself. 48 TJPWAKD AND ONWARD. Be ready to kind offices, with scorn Refuse the proffered bucksheesh ; kindness still Is its own sole, its only craved, reward : The noble-natnred man desires no fee. Be thankful both for what thou art and hast. And strive t' improve them both : drink not in vain. Like the bare desert, the choice gifts of heaven, But press thee on and up ; not worth the name Is Kfe, unless it be progression too. Envy not any ; ev'n the master's self Is often the most careworn man of all : He in his turn serves many — aye, far worse. That JSTimrod harsh — the Public. Bear with him ; The counting-house, too, hath its many cares, Many thou httle know'st. He might perchance "With full as much of reason envy thee Thy happy ignorance of ledger things, Bad sj)eculations, bankrupt customers. There is no state in life hath all the " ands," Nor any aU the " bnts." The poorest lad Hath no small share of this world's happiness. The wealthiest merchant hath but little more. Nor envy thou thy fellows : have they won Their high position well, and without blame ? Eespect them ; and their office, though not well. Strive, for thyself, less to outshine than shine : For what the world calls greatness hunger not ; But as respects truth, duty, be thou great. The tiifler's gibe, the sneer of the profane — SERVING. 49 Let not these things iinnican thee ; the barbed jest Drops scatheless on good temper's globed shield, And only rankles in the stunted heart Which pee^-ishness hath made impressible. 50 SELF EELIANCE. A MAN shoiild be a self-reliant thing, Freighted with trust and capability, Equipped for the requirements of life's war, And leaning only on himself .and God. N^ot from around him will a wise man look, But from within, above, for strength and help. He Avdll despise the smile of circumstance. And hold the promise cheap ; will hunger not For rich men's smiles nor great men's patronage, (The patronised is only half a man) ; But nerves himself with all subjective strength, Earns for himself, and lays, too, for himself The timbers of his fortune, stands an oak Amid the human bindweeiall around, • And seeks at his own hai|p deliverance From penury and want. How many a youth Lingers at home in enervating sloth. And wastes the precious months which nobler men Have coined already into worthy deeds. Pillowed on circumstances, wrapped in ease, A lazy idler, an unearning thing ; SELF BELIANCE 51 Of Kttle earthly use, except to spend What better men have earned, he waits forsooth His uncle's legacy, his aunt's bequest, His patron's promise, his friend's interest, The government appointment, the snug post. And then — and then he will begin to live. He reads the " "Wanted " list, and haunts the club, And worries the M.P. The seasons roll, The tide— the tide of opjjortunity Ebbs daily fast away, while from the shore He marks the white-sailed argosies glide by, "Which, had he been a self-reliant youth, Might have been his ; wealth, honour, fame, all reaped. And he, unladen, sneaking to the hive Amid his scorning fellows : bare, unsheaved, Amid the shouts of harvest. Linger not Till skies are fairer, therefore. Life is short. And now is the strong peg on which to hang The weightiest achievements. Legacies — Leave them for those who cannot earn, themselves ; Patrons — for those who cannot rise alone ; And government appointments for the mean, Th' unable and the imbecile. Success Will be the sweeter, though it come but late, Because unaided thou hast carved it out, And hewn, thyself, thy fortune to a shape. " He can, who thinks he can." Self-conlidcuco And Self-reliance are twin Anakim, i:2 52 UPWARD AND ONWAKD. Strange thamiiaturgi both : possessed of these, All tilings are possible, few difS-cnlt. Man steps from hindrance on to hindrance As a boy crosses, on the stones, the stream ; Ev'n obstacles themselves are but the rungs That form the ladder of success. Alas, Of what is he possessed who hath them not, — This self-reliance and seK-confidence ? — Little will he attempt, and less achieve ; He will but be a unit in the herd, UnlaureUed and unblest. The helping hand, (Without self-help there's little neighbour-help,) The ready piu*se, the station, influence. That nobler men secui'e, can ne'er be his : Nor, worse, that self-respect^ that consciousness Of capability and high desert. That, even if success be partial, brings At least sweet calm consolatory thoughts, Placid contentment and benignant peace. Leave " Can't" for children ; " Try's" the word for men. He prospers most i' th' world who early learns This weighty lesson — confident self-trust. Whole- willed, resourceful, from his early years, His masculine prompt natui'e stiU will wring From out th' xinlikeliest and most adverse things The fairest, best results. He loses not The top o' th' tide when favouring breezes blow ; jS"or idly wastes the fleeting priceless now, SELF EELIANCE. 53 In times of trial and emergency, In seeking puzzling counsel from his friends, And heaping up impossible advice. The steam of his convictions does its work 'Ere he allows it to escape ; the force. The strong momentum, of an earnest man Will leap a thousand barriers, oveiiwwer The obstacles that trip up weaker men, And, by God's blessing and his own strong arm, Make the calm evening of his busy life. Like yonder west, a glory and a grace. 54 THE SEVEN STEPS IN THE CHKISTIAN LIFE/' Young brother, thou hast Faith ; the dai-k unseen Is, to thy spirit, real, palpable. Thou hast the sixth sense also, ai't not found Among rude doubters of th' invisible. Thou canst believe that hidden things may be The truest, mightiest, realities. And that the greatest things in God's great world May still exist beyond the pale of sense. 'Tis well ; thou stand' st on the broad common floor 0' th' Christian temple : gird thee now for toil, For lo the steep ascent lies fuU before. First, for thyself, — that world-spelled part of thee— Thy character. Add Virtue to thy faith, That thy belief in the invisible Be healthful and robust. A. weakling faith Brings neither joy nor safety. See that thine Be ever living, growing, strengthening ; So shall it soothe thee in the weary hour Of stern endurance, raise and sti'cngthen thee "When bland temptations whisper, nerve thy heart For Christian trial, conflict, enterprise. That thou mayst dare (ah best courageousness !) THE SEVEN STEPS IN THE CHETSTIAN LIFE. 55 Be singular in goodness if need be, A lone unaided combatant for truth Against platoons of error. Good it is To have th' feminine wish, but better far Th' masculine wiU. Without this thou mayst be A facile dreamer of cheap victories, But thine wiU never be an athlete's arm To throw a difficulty, nor wilt thou Kank with the strong victorious wrestlers That gripped the throat of Evil — sinewy fiend. "Were but the wish the eff'ort, few indeed Would stand contented at the ladder's base. Weakness is few removes from wickedness. Have a strong will, add courage to thy faith, That duty find thee ready ; trial, armed ; Temptation leave thy natiu-e unseduced. And prove thee also unseducible. Add to thy virtue Knowledge. What avails The vessel's strength, if it be rudderless, Or a skilled helmsman stand not at the wheel ? Strength undirected is a brutish thing. And without knowledge ev'n the strong may be Only a zealous fool, an unmanned brig ; A skiff unballasted, fast eddying down The rapid stream of life. Well understand. Therefore, thyself, thy sphere, thy duties, and thy God, That so thou fall not short, through ignorance. Of what the age, the day, demand of thee. Add, also, knowledge Temperance, 56 UPWARD AND ONWARD. That self-denial may have exercise. In vain the head is tended, if the heart Grow seK-indulgent and luxurious. Thou hast not only a bit-scorning mind, But a rebellious body, to subdue,^' And discipline and train. Be moderate In all thy appetites ;'^ a man should be Something far higher than an animal. Be in affection also temperate, As one who loves a merely mortal thing, Lest haply if it should be torn from thee Thy wounded heart should bleed remediless. Eein in thy sorrows too ; let reason, faith. Within the bounds of wisdom keep thy grief. To temperance add Patience. Hast thou learned To curb thy body ? Govern sternly too Thy temper — that wild steed. Avoid rash haste, Impulsiveness, impatience. Thou hast faith. And when thy faith has fully learned to wait Thou wilt have reached to patience. Weary earth Is rich in sufferings and endurances. And happy he who meets the adverse tide With calm and patient self-possessedness. But thou hast other close relationship Than that thou bear'st thyself. To patience, then, Forget not thou add Godliness. On God The Omnipresence, Mercy, Wisdom, Love, The Might, the Goodness, the Omniscience, Think often, deeply, long. And if 'tis hard THE SEVEN STEPS IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 57 To picture adequately to thy mind That glorious reality, then take Best qualities of all good men thou know'st, And form from them one noble great ideal. Thus the God-likeness thou must imitate Thou shalt be helped to picture ; ever fresh Before thy mind the vast idea keep, For was there ever a great man on earth But set the great God full before his face ? Other relationships are also thine ; Add, then, Fraternal Love to godliness. Let thy religion be a loving one, With aspect unto men as well as God. After thy Father's own thy brother's claim, That so thy daily acts discredit not Thyself or thy profession ; and the men Who cannot read thy heart at least may read The book of thy own life. AU, all receive To thy compassion and thy sympathy, Nor ev'n deny yon sin- worn groveller's claim. Love's leverage is all-omnipotent. Kindness perchance may elevate ev'n him ; Or if it fail, the effort must be blest To him who makes it, still. IsTow last, not least. Add to thy loving-kindness Charity. Hast kindness unto men ? Be tolerant To their opinions ; patiently forbear. For every creed embodies much of truth, 58 UPWAKD AND ONWARD. Somewhat of error also. All is mixed : Ev'n that opinion thou so tightly hold'st Is not perchance so parallel to truth As thou dost fondly dream. That error, too, That thou so sweepingly hast learned t' abuse, Not the pure falsehood thou imaginest. Where standest thou, my brother ? Is thy foot, UndiscipUned, ev'n yet on the first step, Or panting hast thou toiled to the seventh ? If thou art low, despair not ; nor presume, However high : let thy foot-hold be firm. And onward press to holiness and heaven. Slippery and smooth is the stern upward path Out of this weary world. The Chiistian life Hath neither solstice nor meridian ; Safety is certain only in advance. And he is falling that ascendeth not. 59 THY END. Thoxt lookest on and on, with anxious eye, Down life's perspective. Death is at the end, But ah how much between of hope and joy ! Health, manhood, busuiess, childi-en, fortune, friends, - Lo, what a crowd of glad and joyous ones Peep from among the liower-enwreathed paths ! Ere thou dost ope life's portal, pause awhile, And let me ask thee what thy motive is ; Thy mainspring, thy impelling principle, In entering thyself upon the lists. "Wealth ? Riches never made a great man yet. Though little men full often : never yet Made a man happy, though it oft hath made. And many, miserable. 'Tis the hope Of godless men, the favourite port of fools ; The idol of the churl. Consider well Thy aptitudes and capabilities : Surely thou wert created not for this, — A human save-all in God's universe, But something better than to heap and hoard. 60 UPWAKD AND OKWAED. StatiojST ? It hath discomforts not a few : Greatness brings neither happiness nor peace." 'Tis better be a giant on the floor, Than be a pigmy on a pedestaL It is a thorny eminence, round which False, fawning friends, and envious vizored foes Do love, with homage sham, to congregate. 'Tis a tall target, and the foul and base Delight to shoot their venomed shafts at it. 'Tis a gay vest that glitters to the eye, But leaves the wearer pinched and ill at ease Amid th' applause of parasitic friends. Fame ! 'Tis but oft the empty lessening praise Of a poor grudging few ; the late reward — Too late — of toilsome and neglected men : The stinted and belated pay of him — The sad, long-hoping slave : the mean base coin The niggard world doles out to its great men, Nor that till often it hath starved them first. ^'' Ease ? 'Tis the stagnant, dull, and waveless port That fools alone are boimd for. Ignorance Sighs for the cheating mirage that still gleams Sparkling i' th' far horizon ; but the man Who knows his duty to the world and God, Work-loving, energetic, self-impelled. Cares but for health t' accomplish, strength to do. Content to work to th' end. The noble horse. Is he for harness, and thrice noble man Not for achievement too ? Shall God himself For us work every day, nor we for him ? THY END. 61 Holiness, TJse, — let these, young brother, be Thy chiefest ends, thy primal purposes. First, let God's likeness, graved upon thy heart, Transform thee to his image, make thee pure. He that would do must he ; hands are heart-moved ; Th' Apostles— they had done far greater things Had they been better men." With this high aim, "Wealth, station, ease and fame, may all be thine, And all be thine to bless thee : all will move Around this pivot most harmoniously, Used for thy God, thy neighbour, and thyself. So shalt thou stand among the men who wear The epaulettes of merit : fii-m, erect, A generous-hearted and high-motived man ; A pyramid upon the human plain, Casting its shadow far. "With anxious eye The world is looking, next to God above, To its young budding men. Long-rooted wrongs. Hoary abuses, grey iniquities. Demand a busy hand, a stalwart arm. To dig them from their burrows, and to clutch The many-headed monsters by the throat. And chain them up for ever. "VMao shall teach The pxirer doctrine and the deeper truth, Exhort to friendlier speech and holier life. Explore the far-off wilderness, reclaim The distant savage horde, and try the claims Of new inventions and philosophies ? Not they who half a century ago 62 UPWAKD AND ONWARD. Formed their opinions, and hiave spent their powers ; Whose clock of life in now fast running down. To strike the hour no more. Who then shall be The pattern or the genius of his age ? Who shall Stand up in the vacated place Of greatness, to indoctrinate the world In science, learning, or benevolence ? Not he with selfish or ignoble ends. Not he with puny and with dwarfed heart ; But he alone who from his youth hath set Life's awful end before him, and pursued, — Facing his duties like the regal Jew,^' Careless alike of obloquy or praise, — His one high aim with all his energies. Not he whose nature doth no higher rise Than the dead level of humanity ; But he who sets before him life's great end. Enthusiast in goodness, who can leave To lesser men the mean ignoble aims That wear and waste their godlike energies. And, gain or loss betide him, weal or woe, A lever 'mong his fellows, points them on. And leads them, too, to goodness and to truth, Wooes them to higher thoughts and hoKer deeds. And wins them to contrition and to God. 63 THE MANNEE. No little thing is manner to a man. 'Tis much to be a diamond, how much more To be a sparkling and a polished one ! A churlish manner is most ruinous, But gentleness and loving courtesy Are introductions universally. Many a fraud and many a solemn sham Hath grown to an unmeasurable size Behind the vizor of soft courtesy ; And many a true man, spite of all his truth, Been beggared by his sour ungainliness. The book lay on the table, all unread, Because forbidding was the frontispiece ; And all neglected also was the man. Because his manner was a churlish one. Manner ! 'Tis the heart's language, the soul's speech, The hieroglyphics of the inner man ; Its gauge, barometer, and test : the vane That shows us every current of the wind. Manner ! 'Tis beauty to the plainest face : And, to the loveliest, deformity. It decks a flat refusal with a grace, 64 TJPWAKD AND ONWARD. And can transform a favour and a gift Into an insult. With how sweet an air It whispers kind advice, how lovingly It utters the reproof ! It raised yon youth From a mere shopboy into mastership, And beggared the fair prospects of that churl. It won this maid — ill-favoured though she was, A loving husband ; rendered yon fine form Th' aversion of wife-seeking men. It woke The tears of the mirth-loving, and lit up The dim desponding eye ; it re-assured The timid heart, and cheered the penniless. "Wouldst cherish a good manner ? That is best Wliich is to none offensive, specially To those who are beneath thee. He alone Who to his servants doth behave aright. Is the true real gentleman. T' appear An angel in the parlour is not hard To many who are, in the kitchen, fiends. Nabal so chm-hsh was, that no man cared To speak to him ; but Boaz^^ greets his men. Like a kind mannerly master. Some possess The varnishing of manner, who yet lack The virtue and the truth of manliness ; Who rather seem than are, — but, at the best, Veneered and highly lacquered nothingness. There are, too, whose soft manner scarce conceals A skulking fiend, whose sensibility THE MANNER. 65 Masks cruel callousness, whose etiquette Hides a cold, eelfisli, and unfeeling heart. Have thou the manner of the best, but have The heart of the best too ; a monolith. Whose semblance augui's its reality. He, best and holiest, model of the race, 'Twas he who was the truest gentleman ; And the best manner still will grow and bud From the most loving and the purest heart. The Christian's is the best gentility ; He who his duty understands to God WiU scarcely lack true courtesy to man. Not the fine coat, gold watch, or diamond ring, Make, after all, the gentleman. In vain "Wni cii'cumstantials group around a man, To raise him 'mong his fellows, if he fail In courteous fit deportment. Bubbling up, Manner still rises to the top o' th' stream. The teU-tale of the hidden depths beneath ; Revealing to the thoughtless passer-by The heart-gentility that dwells within ; Or the base spirit that so vainly strives To hide its coarseness and vulgarity, And skulk among its betters. Travelled men, And those who mingle with their fellows most, These are best mannered. Travel throws a mau Into companionship with high and low, r 66 UPWARD AND ONWAKD. Conforms him to strange scenes and usages, Teaches him due respect to every man, Gives him a dignified kind courtesy, Rounds off his angularities, and smoothes His ruggedness and roughnesses ; compels His patient audience of a differing creed, And opposite opinions : schools him thus To self restraint, forbearance, tolerance, And every passive virtue cherishes That helps to form a model-mannered man. Who would select a sour, uncivil churl For guest, companion, friend ; who spread his board For one whose manner or whose countenance Was like to hail in harvest ? Who would choose To have a shadow o'er his daily path, A gloom around his hearth ? Such is the man Whose manner is discourteous and sour ; He carries with him his own enemy, Eeady for aU disservice, bailing up Against his entrance every wise man's door. And severing him from hiinian sympathies. 67 KNOWLEDGE. The builder bee tbe fittest angle knows For Ms own cell, tlie brainless sbeep his place In all the numerous flock.^* The dog his path Snuffs surely back to his far- distant home ; The duckling breaks the egg, and hurries down To its appointed element : the ass, Dull as he is, selects unerringly The nutritive from out the harmful weeds. The landless gull knows well his weary way Over the wilderness of waves. The tree Knows his fit time for leafing, and the flower Its closing hour ; the very crystal knows Its own peculiar angle, and the bird His special song. Thus all created things Have knowledge : little it perchance may be, But still sufficient' for their smaller needs. And shaU. the law be thus, and regal man, — God's heaven-surveying representative, — Remain content with ignorance ? Ah no ; Bo childlike in simpKcity,^' but be A man in understanding. Sit thee down, 68 UPWAKD AND ONWAKD. A hard, laborious student, to thy books, And that one, latest understood, — the world ; Lest in thy empty and unfurnished mind The bloated spiders, Error, Prejudice, Spin their accursed webs. The shallow stream In many scarce conceals the pebbly bed, And every gaping fool that hui'ries by Can see the muddy bottom. He alone, Mentally furnished, well equipped with thought, IntelKgent, observant, — he alone Is fit to form a unit in the van, Or lead his cii'cling fellows unto truth. Let not a little knowledge puff thee up, For wisest men are humblest. Small indeed Must be that mind a little truth can fill, And who knows most knows little. How confined Is the horizon of the farthest seer ; How small the circle within which the minds Of ev'n the wisest move ! 'Tis but the fool Who boasts his voyagings while anchored stiU Fast on the rock of ignorance. Alas, How ignorant is he, — the learner, man ! Yea, ignorant as are the bad, of God. Our depth is quickly fathomed, we're soon gauged, In spite of our conceit ; the wisest he Who fullest understands his ignorance. How much there is unknown — and worse, — mis-known 1 The proud i:»hilosopher's complete because KXOWLEDGE. 69 Scarce answers to the fool's inquiring whij ; The boldest stand confounded at the gulf Of secondary causes, walled around With the mysterious, cieled and circled still By the incomprehensible. To dig About the roots of truth, to mine beneath The granite ribs of primal principles, Probe through the shallow surface of effects To underlying causes, or to take The soundings and the depths of hidden tliiags — Who hath done, can do, this ? We idly di-eam Of far excursions, but have all the while Stood only on the threshold ; made our boast Of fathoming the great deep sea of things, — Poor paddlers in the shallows that we are. Know'st thou the dew-point ? Say, hast thou explored Earth's burning bowels, or the tangled woods That brave the tides of ocean ? Canst thou name The central sun, or hast thou tracked the path Of th' mysterious wind ? The source of light Hast thou discovered ; or its properties ? Earth's subtle Kfe-blood, electricity? Hast fathomed yet the dark philosophy Of the snow-crystal — that mysterious thing, Fantastic ice-bud of the frozen air ? Canst thou explain the organs of the voice, Or syllable the language of the birds ? Dost understand that wonderment — thyself, Thine own existence, or the tangled skein Of thy compounded nature ? Comprehend 70 TJPWAKD AND OJfWAKD. That strange omnipotent, the hand ? The fonns In the kaleidoscope of dreams ? Birth, sleep ? Laughter and tears ? Life, growth, digestion, strength ? The functions of the spleen ? Smell, hearing, taste ? The radix principle of harmony. Or the conditions of a future Kfe ? Of all the wise, none ever answered yet The question of the Roman, ^^ never yet Attained to height so intellectual, But quailed before that mystery — a tree. Felt bafl9.ed at that marvellous thing — a flower. And fingered, T\-ith a child-like hushing awe. That delicatest organism — a leaf. Oh, 'tis a pleasant, an exciting thing T' explore the caves of knowledge, and to rove In fresh unfooted paths ; a thrilling joy To track the slots of a concealed truth, Find out a law in natui'e, excavate A fossil fact long hid, or overlooked By ev'n her keenest quanymen. Dig, strive. Early and late, then, to equip thyself With all the Imowledge needful to a man. Tet in thy keen pursuit remember still Unsatisfying is the knowledge of most things, Yea, of how many is it but at best Trouble and sorrow. Aye, there is a tilth That scarce repays the reaper, yea there are Who, travelled as the wind although they be. All-seeing as the sun, are ignorant Of their own nature, nor have learned to know KNOWLEDGE. 71 Or where or what they are. How many still, Sore blinded by the dust and steam of things, Befooled by every quack's Eureka, err, Gatheiing laborious from truth's harvest field Sheaves scarcely worth the gameiing ! To end :-- Knowledge is great, but love is greater far. What ever ripened in the moonlight cold ? 'Tis love that hath the learning eye, 'tis love Best understands the truth ; a nature pure Is the best tablet to write truth upon, And an unselfish heart is no mean aid To a clear head. Ah blessed thrice is he Whose instinct is to goodness, who hath felt In his own heart the evidence of truth ; But woe to him who is contentedly Worse than he knows; and learns, but not t' improve. The knowledge, brother, thou already hast, Live it, and make it wisdom. Get, and add, For unintelligent humanity Is but a wretched thing ; go, seek it out. For, save of evil, knowledge must be good. The knowledge of the physical is hfe, Of the mechanical is power, but, — best, — The knowledge of the holy— noblest lore !— That, that is understanding. Great AU-wise, Have mercy on our wilful ignorance ; 72 UPWARD AND ONWARD. The good we know not, help us all to learn, And what we know, to practise. Bear, Lord, still With our unteachableness, keep our hearts From error and from evil ; yea, from all That separates our sovds from truth and thee. 73 BOOKS. Books are strange things. Although untongued and dumb, Yet "with their eloquence they sway the world ; And, powerless and impassive as they seem, Move o'er th' impressible minds and hearts of men Like fire across a prairie. Mind-sparks, They star the else dark firmament ; they spur The thoughtless to refiection, raise the prone With the strong leverage of intelligence ; Furnish the empty-minded, chart the soul Through her stem perilous voyage ; pedestal The great and gifted, beckoning meaner men To gaze upon their mightier works and ways. Oh that all books were such ; that what is writ Were always worth the reading : that the pen Were wielded ever with a noble aim, And none aspired to awful authorship But those who, fit to teach, had anned themselves With high intention and pure purposes. And something like a capability. Alas, they come like locusts, or like fi'ogs ; 'Tis the eighth plague, that Egypt never knew : And Shallowness, Conceit, Ambition, Greed, \- 74 UPWARD AND ONWAKD. Deluge the land with most unmeaning trash, And hug themselves as authors. Oh beware ; Much is not worth the reading that we read, And still less the remembrance. Many a book, Haloed by critics, stilted by the crowd, Is a mere brainless and dishonest knave, "With eye upon thy leisure and thy purse ; That seems a likely and an honest man, But really is a tempter and a thief. And, spite of all its big pretentiousness, And all the publisher's kind midwifery, Is but a sad abortion after all. Some books there are that scarce deserve their room, However gay theii' liveries : some are shams. On false pretences seeking audience ; Others are idle rhapsodies ; or crude And ignorant incapabilities. Beware, nor waste thy time nor wear thine eyes Unless the book be recommended well By those whose judgment is of worth and weight. 'Good books are priceless, read them o'er again, They may be arches firm on which to bmld The noblest character ; but vicious ones Conceal a subtle poison which remains Oft through a lifetime ; , and for silly ones, — 'That numerous herd, — time, money, temper, cry Keep them, and always, far from thee and thine. To have no books is undesirable. To have too many is almost as bad. BOOKS. 75 Manj'- an ignorant, unfurnished fool Hath owned a goodly library ;^' great men Have seldom boasted many. Choose thy books. A handful better than a houseful is, For many have a multitude of books Who truly scarce know rightly how to read. Yet is a good, well-chosen library No vulgar, mean, or useless luxury ; Yea, to a true and intellectual man A stem necessity. Here silent wait Their audience with thee, sages, heroes, saints ; Here of the wisest thou may'st ask advice. And hear the converse of earth's best-taught sons. There is compressed the learning of an age, The lore of many generations here. Here is the dream of genius, here the woof The wondrous woof of fancy ; here, beside, Are the shrewd guesses of philosophy. The breathings of devotion ; arranged facts Of scientific calculating men. These are earth's levers, and their writers are The truest conquerors. They in twilight times Battled with ignorance, conserved the true, And combatted the false opinion. These were the Titans that with sinewy arm Wrestled with error, slew defiant wrong, Chased superstition. Honour to theii' names. Fragrant for ever be their memories ! How great they look, how wooingly they stand ; 76 UPWARD AND ONWARD. Yea, how suggestive are their very names ! There stands the son of Avon, lofty-browed, Stilted above the best of his compeers ; Grave Milton, first in theme, and only less. Because less universal. Goethe, too. The wondrous wizard of the haunted Hartz ; Cold, selfish intellectualist though he was : His scarcely less, yea, nobler countryman, He of " The Eobbers ; " Dante, mighty shade ! The patient chi'onicler of Eome's decline; The Mantuan, and that oldest beggar bard : The Essayists, and Olney's pensive son ; The famed magician of proud Abbotsford ; The holy train of Puritans. What awe, Ai^Tiat mingled veneration and regard, Eise at the utterance of their very names ! One is there 'mong thy books — forget it not — Well worth thy deepest pondering ; a book Thales could not have writ, nor Plato dreamed. It stands, perchance, most uninvitingly Among its gaudier compeers ; its look, Grave, modest, and retiring above most. Yet is it in itself a wondrous book In matter, origin, and history. It hath withstood th' ordeal, long and stem. Of adverse criticism, it hath braved The shafts of ridicule, received unmoved The rudest darts of deep malignity. Before the light of scientific tnith Hath it e'er cowered, ever suffered loss BOOKS. / I From all th' unfriendly sifting it liath borne ? The coin, th' inscription, the decree, the law, The fragment, torso, excavation, — All, all have witnessed to its truthfulness. The learned sceptic sat him down lq vaia To shake its testimony ; infidels, Loving it least, were first to copy it. And from its pages beautify their own. It hath inspired the pen of genius : To it the painter came, and deeply drank Th' inspii-ing draughts that brought his humble name Undying glory ; the lean poet here Learned his immortal song ; the sculptor hence BoiTowed his breathing statue. To it came The little child, and wondered, sighed, and wept Over its fascinating histories ; To it th' unlettered peasant, yet he found Its ti-uths so plaia they would be understood ; To it the sage, but failed, with aU his lore, Fully to grasp its mys'tries. Long and oft Study this volume then, for here is meat Fit for the strongest stomach. Let it be The book of books to thee, thy oracle. The volume of thy reverence and choice. A very child is in its shallows safe, And pleasantly may there disport itself; But who, of aU the wisest sons of earth. May hope to gauge its depths ? The tide of time Leaves most books quickly dry upon the sand, 78 UPWARD AND ONWARD. But this, the eldest, is still far ahead Of each succeeding generation. The sole historian of thy origin Th' exponent of thy mission, 'tis to thee ; Of life's enigma the interpreter, Th' unveiler of the dark invisible. 79 THE LORD'S DAY. HoxouB, the sabbath, if thou lov'st thyself', Or carest for thy country or thy kind ; For few have prospered who have dared despise Its solemn obligations. Toil not, then. On sabbath hours, nor suffer other men To work for thee on that day needlessly. Oh choicest gift of Heaven, oh welcome boon To labour's jaded sons, oh crowning gift. Oh wondrous solder of society ! Had none been ordered, ev'n work-loving man Had surely thirsted for a day of rest From his ot\ti industry, by one consent Had put apart a set convenient day To rest his used-up energies awhile. He that hath never prized the boon aright Let him sit down and picture to himself A land without a sabbath. Stalwart men Would be no more, all would deteriorate. The race would dwindle : the robust and strong "Would sicken, and the mad be multiplied. Worse men woidd fill the senate and th' exchange, 80 XJPWAllD AND ONWARD. "Worse -woinen fill the parlotir, nursery, Worse chilclren fill the playground and the school. Books would be little read, and men would grow Base and embrutcd. Commerce would decline, The wheels of business would soon jar and grate ; Few public worshippers would then be found, And fewer private ones. Men would lose faith In God, in one another, in themselves. Morals would loosen, public conscience droop, The bands that bind society would slack ; All would grow vicious, lawless, wicked. Men Would rather Kve to get than get to live. And who w^ould reach his threescore years and ten ? Alas for woman's virtue then; alas For man's high honoiu-. Influence would be Demoralised, and intellect befooled. The labourer would be chained remediless To sad incessant toil. The artisan Would be defrauded of one-seventh his time, For in seven days the son would earn no more Than did his sire in six. The sabbath sun Rises upon the city gloriously, And, rushing up the undimmed smokeless sky, Silvers its many steeples, towers and domes. Th' apprentice wakes, but not to-day for toil ; His master, too, but not for business : No bills are due to-day, no letters come. Demanding answer by the post's return. The church bell chimes the hour, but summons none THE liOED's DAY. 81 To laboTir ; ev'n the factory bell is still, Its tall slim chinmey smokeless is to-day, And nimbling waggons wake awhile no more The echoes of the street. The shopman pale Enraptured sniffs the unaccustomed breeze. And blesses his deliverance awhile From heat, and gas, and wearying customers. The shopboy, sorely pent, is up betimes, Not to take down the shutters, but to hie, Well smartened, to his dear suburban home. Oh day of happy meetings, kindly nurse Of holiest charities and purest joys ! Oh day of glad domestic gatherings ! The sister, from the neighbouring village now Th' family circle joins, and cheers the heart Of her fond father, and awakes his pride. Observant of her budding womanhood. Th' apprentice trudges from the distant town Big with commercial duties, laden too With a huge hard-earned present, — all for her, His fond indulgent mother. With kind hand The loving gentle Sabbath gathers those Whom labour had dispersed, unites again The social fragments round the homely hearth, And makes the circle once again complete. Ev'n the brick floor, ruddy every day, To-day is clean and red beyond its wont, The hearth is whitened worthy " the best day ;" There is a larger joint upon the board, A bigger pie i' th' cupboard ; and around, 82 UPWAED AND ONWABD. The pure thank offering of a gladsome heai't Beams manifest from every brightened eye. Still is the smithy, and the flail no more Is sounding from the bam. The timid hare Securely leaves her form, the pheasant whirrs Unharmed above the fern. The ass, Tinyoked, "Wanders across the common at his will ; The horse is dozing over his sweet hay, Snug in the stable ; all unyoked the ox ; And in a comer of the fallow field Lies th' unneeded plough. The ploughman's self, Clad in his snowy smock, adown the lane. Arched over head by tall embracing elms. Is trudging churchward. His all-thrifty wife Leads by the hand her pet and chubby boy. The squire around him nods familiarly : None may be proud to-day. Ah happy land. Where thus the hallowed sabbath leads the week. And brings its comfortable peace and rest To the most tired and jaded. May it ne'er. Too busy, seek t' unloose the golden band That Heaven has sweetly bound around its sons ; The rosy chaplet of the prosy week, The blossom of the earth, the bud of heaven. Few things have turned so many feet aside From duty and religion in their youth. As sabbath disrespect. When once, alas, THE lord's D&.Y. • 83 The sabbath lever raises not the week, What shall ennoble life ? Beware of him Who dares habitually to speak or act Without due reverence for this holy day, 'Nov e'er allow thyself in anything That tends to vulgarize its hallowed hours. Still use it for its noblest purposes, A strengthening, elevating, lever day, Giving a tone and colour to the rest. G 2 84 THE GREATNESS OF THE L]TTLE. Be wise in small, urmoticeablc things, And true ia little actions. Ponder well The greatness of the little. A loose stone May jeopardize a mansion, and a spark Peril a regal city. The wild flood That desolates a district, 'tis but this — An aggregation of minutest drops ; The foaming cataract that roars along — But gathered runnels from the snow-clad hills ; And the entombiag avalanche, that shrouds The unsuspectiug villagers beneath. But congregated snow-flakes. All is great, I^othiag is really little. A man's smUe Shall indicate his spirit, though his soul Behind a solemn look would hide itself. So a besetting sin, howe'er enwrapped Within the heart's most secret folds, shall peep. And show its monstrous features unto all ; The sly coiled lust betray its serpent head, And the ill habit, howsoe'er concealed, Shall brand thy every feature with its mark. THE GREATNESS OF THE LIXTLE. 85 By fractions piled the merchant builded up His business and his fortune : venal faults Utterly ruined the proud millionaire. By the omission of a trifling act The able general lost the victoiy ; By an unnoticed petty stratagem The admiral dispersed the adverse fleet. The giant perished — poisoned by a grain ; And he who thrice had braved the battle-field Was choked by a poor seed. Stern, iron world, Nothing in thee is little. Th' very ant His shadow casts, and ev'n the atom leaves Its impress round about it ; everything Is strangely -^ital, and the meanest hath Long and undying roots. Upon the earth Each son of Adam leaves his footprint plain, And in its huge imperishable leaves Each passing mortal writes his signature. Pause then awhile, young brother, tiH thou feel'st How great are little things. Thy smallest acts Are quietly congealing even now Into imthawing habits, therefore deem No thought or action little, for the least Is grave and solemn. 'Twas no bulky stone — Yet it hath ringed the lake, and yonder waves. Small though they be, shall into others melt. Till the momentum reach tfce furthest shore. 86 UPWAKD AND ONWAKD. I^othing is little. I£e but signed a bond, And that one single act destroyed his trade. And beggared all bis family. He wrote Just on a parcbment a mere signature, And he was hanged for the forgery. 'Twas but a word, and the affianced pair 'Ne'er met each other more ; a simple look. And the fast friends became defiant foes. It was the eddying feather that betrayed The pathway of the wind, the simple straw That showed th' set o' th' current. The tall ship Sank thi'ough the small unnoticed leak, the wound Thi'ough which life ebbed away was only made By a poor pin. He uttered but a thought. And it became a proverb to a state ; He wrote a sentence in a studious mood, — It was a saying for a hemisphere. I thought on man, in aU his pride matured. And aU, I saw, were but the fettered slaves Of an invisible giant. Some there were Who dreamed of freedom, but his heavy chain Was fast upon them. Whether, Hke the birds, They sung i' th' branches with sun-gazing eye, Or, swine-like, champed the dusty mast below. In thought, word, action, they his bidding did, Although unwittingly. The drunken wretch, Steeped in his sottishness ; the profligate, Embruted by his lewdness ; the sour churl, Loving no other god beside his gold ; The sickly artist, pale and eagle-eyed, THE GREATNESS OF THE LITTLE. 87 Earnest admirer of the beautiful ; The Christian, with his reverence for the true — All bowed before his feet, his herded slaves. And who, niethought, is this despotic king, Who rules these myriads undisputedly ? And straight his name was whispered in my ear, Can it be other than Necessity ? I pondered o'er this giant's history. And thought on man in ancongealed youth : Surely the monster was not then so strong, Nor then his chain so heavy. Younger men At least, are not so hopelessly enthralled, Sure greater freedom is in boyish years. Yes, I concluded, it is surely so — This man- enslaver's name was Habit once. Again I thought upon this giant's birth. And man in plastic childhood. Surely then He was still less enthralled ; his tyrant's chain "Was then the merest web of gossamer. There is less bondage still in childhood then, And ev'n this giant was a pigmy once. Yea, Tendency, I cried — unnoticed babe ! — 'Tis it hath grown to this Necessity. Oh hopeful youth, thy first beginnings heed. For ah, how pregnant and how grave is life ! "Weigh well the end, deem nothing small or mean, For habits have a strange vitality. And many a ponderous and massive gate 88 UPWARD AND ONWARD. Hangs on a little hinge. No vassalage Is half so hopeless and debased as his, The slave of a vile habit. Many sigh, But all in vain, for unreturning youth ; See to it, therefore, that thy chosen ship Be bound for no wi'ong port. Yon molten mass That seems to hunger for a settled shape. Is thine own image : yonder moulded thing Shadows thy future ; thou' It be fixed, like it, Never to be re-east. Keep well thine eye. Young helmsman, on the compass and the tack. What is the sea, but drops ; the hill, but grains ? Tomorrow's habits are but to-day's acts ; And character is but propensity, Confirmed and strengthened into habitude. Watch jealously those bright and fairy flowers That silently are wreathing round thine heart, Anon they petrify. The tendency. So soft to-day, tomorrow will congeal Into the stony thing, necessity ; And the slow-gathering rain-drops presently Become a wild and rushing cataract. Once the hard ore was fluid, once the coal A mass of bending boughs and tender leaves. Ages have passed, but see how fresh is still The footpiint of the mammoth, and the clay Bears the plain impress of the kissing fern Ages before the Flood ; yon sandstone's spots Tell of the slanting shower that pelted down THE GREATNESS OF THE XITTLE. 89 Ere Adam walked the earth. Thou cherishest A strange mysterious creatui'e in thy breast, — An overshadowing angel, to protect, Or else a black- winged devil, to consume. Who shall beMend him who, in spite of all, Persists in being his own enemy ? It doth not need a sea to drown a man ; If thou neglect the friendly crimson Hght That glares before thee on the rail of life. And suffer thy ill actions to congeal To habit's adamant, thy fate is sealed, Remediless, like the flame-circUng fly ; A human straw, still eddying round and round Destruction's narrowing vortex. Sit thee down, And I will tell thy fortime, if thou wish ; Not from the erring lines within thy hand. But rather from the habits of thy life : For stiU the child doth surely prophesy Of manhood, even as the bud o' th' blossom. And youth tlirows forwai'd its long shadows far On the dim path of age. Forget it not, " We may" is but the privilege of youth, " We must" is the stem iron law of age. Thrice cursed art thou if it find thee chained To error and to evil : oh how blest, If when it cometh it shall find thee safe. Fast linked to goodness, rivetted to God ! 90 WORE. Thou liv'st, young brother — oh forget it not — Under the law — the blessed law — of toil; And this fair world which thou inhabitest, Is the Almighty's workshop. Play the man, If happiness or honour thou wouldst gain, For neither he deserves who dares to live In listless indolence. Around thee lie. In God's great wondrous storehouse, tools enough, And raw material waiting for thy skill. With earnestness, stout heart and willing hand Enrol thee therefore in the noble ranks Of earth's thrice-dignified achievers. Work! What conquests it hath won, what triumphs gained ! It pencilleth the chaste and fair design ; Weaves the fine fragile textm'e ; it builds up The tall palatial warehouse, large and strong, For plodding merchant princes ; it tracks out The stealthy ore in its unsunned bed, And fires th' unyielding rock. WORK, 91 The workman, man, Witli what strange marvels hath he sown the earth I 'Tis he disarms the charged thunder-cloud, And tames the lightning. To the sun he sits For portraiture, and doth constrain his beams To chronicle the fleeting hours. The wind To speed him to his haven he compels. He charges straight the electricity To bear his messages, and harnesses Unto his chariot- wheels the elements. "With the sharp scalpel of observancy He doth dissect the very soul of things. He studies earth's strange physiognomy. And bores — and not uncertainly — for gold ; He seeks from out its entrails, auguries About its history, birth, and baptism, And traces to its distant rocky home The travelled boulder. From the fossil things Safe cabinetted in the chalky cliff He worms the secrets of a former age. He calculates the years of oldest hills, Tells the grey granite-ribbed mountain's age, Gauges the spanless heavens, and reckons up The mileage of the universe. He maps The annulated mountains of the moon, Draws every vmnkle on old Tycho's^* face, Measures th' imtrodden journey to the sun, Tracks the coy star, and surely prophesies The vagrant comet's path and its return. He peers into the water-drop — that world ! — Dissects th' atomic monad ; from a bone Tells where and how the iguanodon lived, 92 UPWAKD AND ONWAKD. And pencils out tlie strange colossal form Of the iinwieldly megatherium. He clears the tangled forest, saith to earth " Feed me." He levels the sim-hiding hill, Changes the river's course ; he bores the rock, Arches the torrent, bridges o'er the vale, Waters the gaping desert, drains the marsh. Makes him a garden in the -wilderness. And nurses weeds to loveliness and use. He laughs at wind and tide, the curliag steam Doth his behest, the fetid vapour waits T' illuminate his darkness ; for himself He maketh chambers deep beneath the sea. He steers him northward all unerringly. Counselled and taught by the magnetic steel. He turns adown the cavern, damp and dim, A stream of sunlight ; he lays down his lines Deep in the sea-bed, and the distant shore Echoes his faintest whisper. On he glides Along his iron pathway, like a thought. Straight to his destination ; calculates The area of the hurricane ; worms out The law o' th' raging storm. He bores, and deep. In earth's black dej^ths, and bids the fossil woods Warm his cold shivering limbs : th' unsightly stone- He melts it down to crystal ; and detects The subtle poison i' th' long-buried corpse. With his accustomed eye and practised hand He hews the stubborn marble to a shape j "WORK. 93 And lo tlie undraped beauty stands confess' d Panting beneath Ms chisel. Fast he grips The bodyless idea and coy thought, Daguerrotyped for ever in yon book ; And with his thinkings builds a bulky tome, Hewn from the quarry of his brain. The king, Great as his station was, in earlier days, Ere eai-th was fooled by Fashion and by Pride, Guided the plough, yea, dug the stony soil. Compelled the grudging soil to nourish him, Nor e'en disdained himself to tend his flock. He, too, the wondrous N'azarene — ev'n he. He was a workman, he the Model man, And cloaked behind the humble carpenter His ill-concealed divraity ; the hand That made the world used then the saw and plane. Xor sought he his disciples from the great, But from th' enduring hardy sons of toil Chose out the favoured twelve. He taught the proud ; But specially rejoiced that to the poor, The sweating fishers of blue Galilee, His kind consoling lessons were addressed. Denounce not, therefore, work as drudgery, Xor bear it as a sad necessity : Hath not thy Maker placed the motto " "Work " Before thee on life's lintel ? Every limb, Each impulse, faculty, aloud proclaim He fomied thee for a Avorkcr. The great world 94 UPWAKD AND ONWAKD. Is full of work, and everything therein Finds in it its best blessedness. The bee Sings at his task throughout the summer day ; The beaver banks his home beside the stream With human ingenuity ; yon isle "Was builded up upon its coral beams Out of the ocean by the madrepore. Wouldst be a zoophite in God's working world ? Rest hath no relish for right-minded men, And how much worse is death than idleness ? However great the purse may be, the hand — That is the tiniest noble. He who hath "Work he can do, thrice independent he : He who hath work he must do, is twice blessed. For he is safe and happy. To thy toil Harness thyself; let not thy shoulder wince At duty's pressing collar; train thy hand. And see thy every finger be bedecked "With that best jewel — capability ; For wistfully Desire may eye the goal, But Effort gains the crown. "Work, after aU, Best circulates the blood ; none eat and sleep As workers do. Work is the sauce of life, 'Tis the prime pleasure, the true interest. The chiefest duty after worshipping. Pleasure abridges, but work lengthens, life : It lends a colour to life's picture, gives Fresh vigour to the limb ; and healthfulness WORK. 95 To the whole man. 'Tis a well-spring of joy, It is itself an inspiration ; It curbs ill passions, cherishes the good, It exercises patience and self-trust, And multiplies high capabilities. 'Tis the peace-keeper in the family, The watchman in the city ; the gold band, The solder of society. Ev'n in heaven — That nightless world — will there be no work there ? For what, then, are we thus by God endowed "With all these powers and capabilities ? Why thus so tediously do we graduate Through this stem college of endurance — earth ? Axe we not training for far nobler deeds, Higher achievements ? Surely yonder heaven Is no mere dreamland, no still waveless pool, No sunny isle of abject indolence. Surely the blessed law of work will be Unabrogated in the coming world. Work is religious, even as worship is ; The prayer of effort is not meaningless. Eebel not 'gainst thy higher nature then, Nor stunt nor weaken thy best energies. Not only in thy seventh-day rest rejoice, But in thy six-days' labour. God himself Honours the hand, and blesses earnest toil, And never, never yet refused the yarn To him who sought to spin.** 96 UPWARD AND ONWARD. Come glance with me Eound tlie wide gallery of the past awhile. This was no sorry tilth ; those noble forms, They were no mean achievers. This one built A fortune upon nothing, that man stamped His impress on his age. This won himself Outdui'ing reputation, that one made His name a synonym of charity. This self-taught peasant rained upon the world Enduring thoughts ; that, wormed his tortuous way To the arcana of the universe. See, from the warp and woof of health and time, What glorious —what romantic — things have sprung. "Work is the word that makes so meaningful Th' involved and prosy paragraph of life. Were there no work, this many- wheeled machine Would rust away from very indolence ; Or wearying pleasui-e soon exhaust the man, And flare poor life's short candle. Blessed work Is thus conservative of health and sti-ength, Economises ev'n the very powers It still so largely uses ; lengthens out The thread of man's existence upon earth, And elevates his nature and his lot. 97 THE IXNER MAN. Thy outer man — thoa knowest it full well, Its nature, wants, peculiarities. How anxious art thou for its healthfulness, How jealous for its welfare ! Half thou hast Thou'dst be content to part with, could it serve To lengthen its duration. For its food, Its lodgment and its clothing, thou dost toil Anxious, unintermittingly. Thy plans Are for its weKare ; and thy thoughtfulness, All for its many needs. Most carefully Thou keep'st the record of its yesterdays, Potest its varying bulk, minutely mark'st Its still increasing stature, and with grief Sigh'st o'er its wrinkles and its greying hairs. Yet what is, after aU, the outer man. But the mere husk of the true man within ? The fragile habitation for an hour Of him the strange eternal ; the frail tent Where lodges the mysterious fleshless king ; The mean automaton that apes the man. Moved by the master hand behind the scene ? 98 UPWARD AND ONWARD. Within is he, the wondrous shapeless one, Whom no man seeth or hath ever seen. In un.divorceable companionship His is a constant presence, day and rdght, Yet are his lineaments unknown to thee. He slumbers not, for lidless are his eyes ; I^eeds not thy viands, scorns thy heaped gold. Heeds not thy board, and loathes thy luxuries. He cares for neither title nor degree, For what is dignity or place to him ? Wilt thou adorn his temples with a crown. Or deck his shoulders with an ermined robe ; Offer a regal palace for his home, A province for his park ? The poison cup Destroys him not, and famine leaves him strong ; He stands unharmed amid the pestilence, The sword and bullet were not meant for him. He understands not danger, for he boasts A charmed existence, daily gathers strength Ev'n while the body sinks to native dust ; Yea, from the cinders of a burning world Would rise in lusty juvenility. Stem and unbribeable, he will not be Cajoled by any of thy sophistries. Thou canst not buy his verdict for the wrong, Wor palm upon him a base counterfeit. Thou canst not blind him by expediency. Or hoodwink him with int'rest. He will speak. Close, as thou wiU, thine ear, ; reprove thee stiU, Though thou refuse to listen or to heed. THE INNEK MAN. 99 This is tlie wondrous one within thy breast Whose thinkings grow and blossom into words ; Whose will is father of thy every act. What are mere words compared with thoughts ; what acts, With their parental will ? The outer man Is but the shadow, wondrous though he be, Of the indwelling Titan. Think on him Oft, seriously, and long. With care compute His weight and measure, for all silently He even now is gravitating down To his eternal place ; is winging up To heaven's pearl gates, or ballasting for hell. Care for the outer man, but ne'er forget How earthy and how perishing he is ; Care for the inner rather, since he lives A still unending life.* Ah were we wise Tar offcener should we pause awhUe, and think On the mysterious tenant that we house. How many iUs and providences strange The thought might help t' unravel. How 't would blunt The barb of pain, and sugar the sour cup Of pinching poverty ! Transform at once The starless night of tears to moonlit peace, And bridge the welkin of the sorrowing With the bright bow of comfortable hope ! Oh fool of fools is he who, pampering up H 2 100 UPWAliD AND ONWARD. His meaner nature, big with sumless cares Of eating, drinking, dress, and company, Can find no time to think of his lean so\il, And feed his stunted spirit. Scarcely less Would be his folly who should tend his trees With sleepless care, watch anxiously his flowers, Kepair his furniture and paint his house, Yet miserably starve himself within. 101 KING THOUGHT. Lag not behind among unthinking men, But walk i' th' van of things ; still well abreast Of all the onward movements of thy age. 'Tis sad to think how many live t' impede The world's progression, clinging to the past With all the doggedness of ignorance, As though it were a deadly sin to be Wiser to-day than we were yesterday. Few things so scarce as thinking ; learn to think. And often be alone. Thought makes us wise. It has a moral wholesomeness, and Kfts The man from out the sensual and th' impure : The thinker seldom is a vicious man. How great the pleasure of deep serious thought, The dignity of mental kingship, is ! The thinker is the wealthiest after aU, The truest nobleman, the greatest lord, And hath a stature above common men. Be thoughtful, if thine impress thou wouldst stamp On thy surrounding feUows ; thought is king Ev'n of the monarch, ruler ev'n of law, 102 ' UPWAKD AND ONWARD. The sceptre to which all things earthly bow. Thought is the regal lord of clamorous Speech, And noisy-footed Action ; leader, sire Of each high deed and noble enterprise. The thoughtful — he it is that rules ; and seals With his right regal crest the common wax That meaner men are made of. Canst thou think ? Thou hast no puny sceptre ia thine hand ; But if thou'rt thoughtless, then go herd with them, The branded slaves, who wait i' th' market-place To drudge for any fool. iN'ot truest kings "Were they — the throned and the sceptred throng. Who led their troops to battle, made decrees. And stamped their image on the plastic coin. These were the kings — who thought the noble thoughts In that thrice-regal volume, dreamed the dreams In that great poem, spoke those sentiments I' th' senate, wrote that leader stem I' th' world-read paper. The grave thoughtful man — Men haiiiit his hearth, and congregate to him ; They wait for his opinion, they refer To him, as arbiter in. all disputes ; And enter on no project, form no plan, Without his approbation. Calmly wise. He gently disentangles the gnarled skein, Sees through th' opaqueness, and the mist dispels ; Suggests, advises, modifies, explains, KING THOUGHT. 103 And where was hati'ed, strife, litigiousness, Sows concord, justice, unity, and peace. Thoughts are stem pregnant things ; strange vital seeds That blossom into actions. None is mean, The least is freighted with eternity : It may be heaven or hell i' th' bud to thee. A good thought !— "Whiat a mighty sea of strength To separate from evil ! A bad thought ! — What a strong linlc to ruin and to woe ! Strange thoughts, and not the purest, oft may come Unbidden to thy mind, and woe to thee Shouldst thou be empty or ungarrisoned "With pure and holy thoughts to conquer them. But thoughts of evil are not evil thoughts, At least are not so necessarily : It is the entertainment of bad thoughts That constitutes the sia. Ah, house them not : Howe'er unnoticed, coiled up i' th' dark. They will all shameless soon or late grow bold, An d at thy door or casement show themselves^ To thy confusion. Scorn not a first thought, It is the heart's unstudied utterance : !N"or, if thou wisely wouldst decide, refuse To listen to a second. ToUy once, And Caution twice, but Wisdom thinks three times. Neglect not, then, thy mental man. With books, 104 UPWARD AND ONWARD. With conversation, lectures, travelling, Nourish and feed him into healthful strength. That thou mayst herd not with the thoughtless ones, Where coiled abuses, error, ignorance, Oppression, cruelty, all nestled close, Spread o'er the world their misery and woe. Perchance thou'rt not a genius, canst not write Thought- wealthy hooks, thou art not eloquent, — Hast no wide-surging, sparkling, blinding thoughts. Yet be content : if thou hast common sense Thou hast an attribute that orators, And poets too, oft need ; a heavenly gift, More useful far for hourly purposes. And aU the common needs of daily life, And more conducive to thy happiness, Than all the genius the world ever knew. There is a luxury in earnest thought, Th' unthinking little dream of. Happy he Who, holding sweet communion with himself, Roving the fields of ideality, Feels not his loneliness, though all alone, Nor craves an endless multitude of books T' amuse his listless mind. The daisied field, The garden or the wood, alike shall be For him a study ; everything around. The flower, the tree, the birds, the running brooks, - All are to him materials for thought, All minister a pure delight to him, Yea, never-failing pleasure. Grief may come, KING THOUGHT. 105 Death's cold eclipse conceal his fiill-orbed joy, Sickness may pale his cheek, loss pinch his pui'se, But thought shall be for him an antidote To most of earth's disquietness, a charm To lull the hateful enemy to sleep, And lighten ev'n the heaviest load of ills. 106 L V E.^" Love is the mother virtue, the banyan In the wide wood of graces : the top rail In the taU ladder of religiousness ; Man's high distraction, noblest faculty, The apex of the Christian pjrramid. The sxm in aU the moral firmament, The name and glory of th' Eternal One. She sufiers, suffers long, yet is she still Kindly affectioned to her very foes ; lU-usage, even, scarcely moveth her. Or only unto pity and to prayer. There's no revenge or gall in all her heart, And therefore there is honey on her Up, And with a blessing she doth still return The railing of the cruel : well avenged, Can she but serve her persecutiag foes. And act the friend towards her enemies. She envies not — the rich man his domain. The titled man his dignity, the famed His genius, no, nor envies ev'n the good ^is covetable virtues : she looks not LOTE. 107 "Witii jealous eye on their superior gifts> 'Not views their envied o-wners all askant. Glorious are gifts, hut how responsible Are they that boast them : therefore on her own. However humble, she doth look content, And on the gifts of others with good- will. What matters who doth own them, she or they. So that the gifts and powers he used aright ? She longeth not to perch and stilt herself Amid her crouching mates ; is not of those To whom distinction and the highest place Is — base ambition ! a necessity. And who are neither good nor great enough To fall with grace or comfort to the rear. She is no bloated, puffed-up arrogant. Big with conceit of her imagined powers, Inflated, like some hoKday balloon. With its own nothingness. No cuckoo she. For ever syllabling her own dear name ; Too modest to select herseK for test. Not rudely she behaveth ; she hath learned The good should illustrate gentility : Too loving is her bosom to allow Her any act to be unmannerly. She shuns not haughtily the son of need. Nor cringes sneakingly beside the rich ; But graceful are her manners, for her heart Is gentle, kindly, and considerate. 108 UPWAEB AND ONWARD. She hath no crooked bye-ends : pure in aim, She is unselfish in her purposes ; Intent to serve and aggrandize herself In serving others. No exactor she, Rigid litigiously, unjustly just ; But waives ev'n her own rights, and takes least thought For her own int'rest. Their prosperity Sums up her satisfaction ; her best joy In her dear neighbour's welfare she hath found. Patient, unruffled, she is not provoked : ^^ The planned deliberate insult, the barbed word. The sticking nickname, the base calumny, The sly malignant whisper, the foul slur. The heartless sarcasm — these, and more than these. With patience and with pity she can bear ; And Wrong's rude foot but crushes from her heart The fragrant perfume of forgiving love. She hath no ingenuity to frame Or forge an ill report, she cradles not (Scorning the hearsays of the gaping world) Evil surmisings, neither can suspect That motives may be any worse than acts. She dares not to denounce a virtuous deed The child of sinister or selfish aim. Nor looks she upon others with distrust : Unapt to aggravate iniquity. She hath for slander neither heart nor ear, Nor listens to the foul defamer's tale. She hath no appetite for evil news, LOVE. 109 But gladdens at the tidings of success Of even those who hate her. She laments (How bitterly !) injustice, fraud, and wrong. But her large heart rejoicingly expands To hear of truth, and uprightness, and good. She wears not, as a cherished ornament. The failing of a neighbour. Many a fault Her Father lovingly hides every day ; And should she waste her powers and golden time In petrifying follies ? IS'o ; alas. The scavengers of evil are enow. And never is there lack of trumpeters To advertise iniquity. "With tears The sin she cannot hinder she conceals. And the putrescence with a sigh entombs. How credulous she is to good reports. How unsuspecting to a fair surmise ! She waits not for the fullest evidence ; Still ready with her verdict, " Innocent," The white ball is already in her hand, "VNTiile yet the trial is in infancy. The evidence is adverse, bold is he Who votes for an acquittal. Spite of all She hopes still good, yea, and believes the best ; Her ear is open more to the defence Than to the accusation : her sweet heart Some palliating circumstance suggests. Lo, Persecution hounds her gentle steps ; 110 UPWAED AND ONWAED. Detraction, like a shadow, haunts her side; Eeproach — he seeks for opportunity To pour his bitter torrent after her ; Suspicion questions what her motives are. And Envy searches for her slot i' th' sand ; Contempt scarce condescends her a reply. Nor bids her a good-morrow. This, and more, She with unruffled temper still endures. And braves it aU with calm serenity. Oh wondrous is the excellence of love ! Little desired, yet how desirable ! Station and power are good ; possessions, wealth, Wit, wisdom, genius, knowledge, eloquence : But love — how far superior to all ! Have love, young brother ; it will be to thee A daily settled sunshine in thine heart, A blessed and felt influence for good Throughout thy circle, a new element Of happy satisfaction to thy breast : An added glory and a dignity In thy hereafter in a nobler world — The home of love. Love, after all, is truth, If men would but believe it. Soon, alas, The moon of knowledge wanes, but love's bright star, That never, never sets. "Wealth is to some. And genius adds distinction to a few. But love may be the ornament of aU. Ill FEIENDSHIPS. Choose cautiously thy friend, observe .him well Ere thou admit him to thy confidence : But having proved his vt^orth, then hold him fast, For Mends are hard to get, but easy lost. Be not ambitious of great Mends, at least No servile seeker for their Mendliness. Unequal Mendships are of transient date ; The one must fawn, the other condescend : Therefore from thine own equals choose thy Mend. Like famed Aladdin with his wondrous lamps, Many are ever ready to exchange Old Mends for new, but shun their fickleness. That friendship which hath stood the trial well. Despise it not ; and weary not of him Thy father called his friend.^^ There are, alas, Friends that will never wear, and Mcndship is In many but a semblance.^^ Him avoid. Who talks of women with contemptuousness : True men will reverence thcii- parentage. 112 UrWAKD AND ONWARD. And no man ever yet despised the sex Who had not wronged it first. Eespect thy Mend ; Familiarity begets contempt, And they who often meet should watch with care Lest disrespectful words, or even looks, Estrange two trustful bosoms. Many a friend Has fled for ever at » foolish jest. True love is ever sensitive, and bears Aught better than indifference or neglect. Trifle not therefore with thy friend's regard, Kor play with his affections : lord it not. Assume not a superior air ; but love. Candour, esteem, and thorough confidence, Give, as thou wouldst receive them. Be not slow T' acknowledge thy friend's service or his gift, Nor underrate it as a thing of course : Eetum him, with good interest, his own, For kindnesses should be memorials To grateful men. And weary not thy friend "With thy too-frequent presence ; absence, too. May in its season not ungraceful be. And even silence sometimes well become The warmest, truest friendship. If thy friend Should have, however, need of thee, then haste. The first to counsel and assist him ; friends Are far less for the simshine than the storm. And he who flies his friend when in distress Deserves to perish friendless and alone. FRIENDSHIPS. 113 Take heed of friendships with the other sex, For friendship is mistaken oft for love. Love is soon kindled in a maiden's heart, Therefore with her affections trifle not, For ev'n a look may be a solemn vow ; A glance, avowal nnequivocal. An nnlledged youth wooed a poor trustful girl : She blushed consent, already her fond heart Twined round him as a husband. But the youth, • Thoughtless'* and fickle, mingled with the world ; Others he saw, superior to her In beauty, — and in wealth. He paused, re-thought ; Neglected, left her, his lirst love, his choice, Chose now for gold, and grew respectable. But he had blighted a warm truthful heart. Deeply had wronged a guileless loving girl, And thoughtlessly inflicted a sad wound No after-love could ever fully heal. Expect not to find many bosom friends. Yet let their number not decrease with age , For ah how many currents, in this world, Sever continually ev'n li^-ing friends. A fresh localitj', a higher sphere. An altered income —ah what trifling things Estrange fast fr-iends for ever. The warm grasp Cools to a foi-mal nod ; a tall stout wall — A waU of nothings— now alas divides The sworn and bosom friends. 114 UPWAKD AND ONWARD. Art hiingering. And vainly, for a friend ? Remember 'tis Only th' unloving that are long unloved.^^ He was the very model of a friend, That king's son — greater, better than a king. Sit down, and study his devotedness, His seK-denying love. Deserve a friend. As he did, and be sure 'twill not be long That Jonathan a David seeks in vain. Show thyself friendly, loving unto all, Still ready-handed both to help and serve : An enemy to none. Unreckoning, warm. Self-immolated at the shrine of love. Confiding, unsuspicious, zealoas, kind. Be wise, be prudent, and be circumspect ; But have a manly faith in human-kind. And freeze not mth a shrug thy fellow-man, Wlio yearns to love and trust thee. He who doubts, Pauses, considers, niggard of his hand. Trusts little, and trusts few, may find at last, When most he needs them, that he hath no friends ; "WMle others, far more loveable, have found, Or, winsome, made perhaps, a phalanx firm, To shelter them in trouble's darksome hour, Or soothe at least their poignant miseries. 115 WITHIN THE MEANS. As thou lov'st freedom, and preferrest peace, And ratest independence above price, As thou dost value an unsoiled name, And aim'st at true respectability, Give not desire the rein,^*' nor run the race AVith every ostentatious challenger. Reckon thine income, keep expense within, ^' And be not anxious for appearances ; Content though thou be last in fashion's race. The praise or blame of fools is little worth, And if thou'rt poor 'tis better far to live Courageously, as honest poor man should, Than sneak unbidden in at rich men's doors, As wealthier than thou art. 'Tis better shine Feebly, a dim and all-unnoticed star. Than, rocket-like, go blazing up the sky. And rush to ruin. Oh beware of debt : It crushes out the manhood of a man, Jlobs his bright eye of boldness, cheats his limbs Of elasticity, imncrves his hand, I '2 116 UPWAKD AKD ONWAED. Beclouds his judgment, dulls his intellect, Perils his uprightness, and stains his name, And minifies him to his fellow men. Yea, far worse degradation, to himself. Who hath the hurried step, the anxious eye ; Avoids the public haunt and open street ; And anxious waits for evening ? Eestlessly Tosses upon his bed, and dreads th' approach 0' th' tell-tale morning sunlight ? Who, unmanned, Starts at the sudden knock, and shrinks with dread Ev'n at his own shadow ; shuns with care The stranger's look, skulks from his fellow's glance, And sees in. every man a creditor ? The debtor — he is only half a man. He saddens and estranges his chief Mends, Burdens his dearest relatives : he hears In vain the stranger's tale, the widow's prayer, And sends away the orphan all unalmsed. None dares to place him in a post of trust, And business men regard him with a shrug. If thou art wooing, friend, beware, beware, Lest thou be linked to a spendthrift wife. Not all the husband's effort, care and thrift Can coimtervail a wife's extravagance.^* " Owe no man aught." Stand in the world erect. And lean alone upon thyself and God. Th' habitual borrower will be ever found WITHIN THE MEANS, 11' ■\Vicked, or weak, or both. Sweat, study, stint, Yea, rather anything than meanly owe. Let thine own honest hands feed thee and thine, And if not thy friend's purse, at least respect Thine own sweet independence. A good house Is no uncovetable thing : large rooms. Servants, gay drapery, new furniture, 2s or undesired, nor undesirable. But first take counsel of thy iucome ; wait, Till prudence speak in the affirmative. Too dear thou purchasest these luxuries If peace and independence be their price. Such things to other men perchance may be A credit, a necessity ; to thee. If thou canst not afford them, but a shame. Have fewest wants : the book, however good. Thou shouldst not purchase, let it go unbought ; And fashion's vests by thee be all unworn. Soon luxuries become necessities. But self-denying thrift more joy affords Than all the pleasures of extravagance. A cottage free from clamorous creditors. Is better than a mansion dunned ; a coat. However darned, if paid for, hath an ease, — And a respectability beside, — Gay, iU-atforded vests can never boast. Oh 'tis a mean and an unmanly thing 118 UPWARD AND ONWARD. To be the slave of fashion. Still to spend, To plan, arrange, increase and beautify, Forespend one's income, hamper one's estate, Peril one's honour, pauperise one's heirs, All that, forsooth, one's neighbours round may cry, " How beautiful, how grand !"^^ However cheap, Whate'er thou want'st not, buy not. That is dear, A mere extravagant impertinence, For which thou hast no need. Feel first the want Ere it be satisfied : bargains full oft Are money- wasting things, that prudent men Will keep afar from with suspicious eye ; Perchance to any but of little use, And to themselves, most likely none at all. The habit of economy once formed, 'Tis easy to attain to prosperous things. Thou then shalt lend, not borrow ; shalt not want A helping trifle when thy friend hath need, Or means to seize the opportiinity. Seed-coin, t' ensure a harvest. Thou shalt then Want not an alms for pinching poverty ; And though a sudden sickness dam the stream, And cut off" thy supplies, thou shalt lie down And view thy morrows with a tranquil eye ; Even benumbing age shall scare thee not, But find thee unindebted, and secure From all the penury and wretchedness That dog the footsteps of impro\T.dence. 119 THE BOW UNSTEUXG. A man's attention business may absorb, But leisui'e manifests his preferences : So will thy inmost tendencies peep out Amid amusements, that woiild scarce be seen By long observance of thy duteous course. Cease sometimes from thy toil, and give thyself Leisure for relaxation, that thy powers Be not o'erworked ; yet crave not thou, unwise, Completest rest, for the mind needs it not : A change of occupation — that is rest Sufficient for thy nature. Do thy limbs Hunger for exercise ? Defraud them not ; Thy body is the tent of thy great soul. Leave sometimes, then, the city for the field ; Sometimes the field for th' city. Canst thou stride The pawing courser, skim the frozen lake, Feather the oar, or trim the bellying sail, Guard well the wicket, breast the swollen wave ? All these are healthful and medicinal. And to thy brow will add a confidence. 120 UPWARD AND ONWAED. And self-reliance to thy character. Laughter-provoking books, and cheerful friends Are good, and sometimes no mean medicine ; For joy and gladness add fresh strength to man, And he who niu'tures not a gladsome heart Will scarce be an achiever. If thou canst, — Enriched with means and opportunity, — Travel, for it is reading, yea, and more. The world and man are no mean senseless books, And he who can without improvement read Indeed is a dull scholar. Yet rove not For travel' sake, or thou mayst wander on, And endlessly ; but travel to return. Observe, in order to improve thyself; And gather up opinions, that thine own May be the more correct. Enrich thyself With all accomplishments a man may have. That leisure may not find thee unemployed. Happy is he who hath within himself His satisfactions, who puts not away His pleasures with his harness, but can look, When business is done and friends are far, Within for his amusement. Winter eves. However long, are not too long for him : He looks within for his companionship ; In reading, music, drawing, he can spend, Pleasant and inexpensive, aU the hours ; THE BOW UNSTRUNG. 121 And needs no betting room, nor tavern song, Nor gaming table, with its feverish charms, T' amuse his leisure. Be thou temperate. Yea, and in all things. Shun the tempting glass, And tavern company. The headed wine Sparkles with ruby lustre in the cup. Another and another — toast on toast ! T^ight wanes, but yet the drinkers are not gone : Oh how inspiring is the juiceful grape. What poetry there is in sparkling wine ! But fresh and yellow morning blushes in. And shames the dull lights in the stifling room ; More the blear eyes of that pale unmanned crew. The joy is gone, the reason, dignity — All but the prose of a beclouded eye, A brain all misty, and a palsied hand. Whate'er thy pleasures and amusements are. Let them be such as shall ennoble thee/" And elevate thy nature : levers all To raise thee ; to improve thy strength and health, To nerve and purify and cheer thy mind. And lift thy prone affections unto heaven. Mingle not pleasure with thy business, Nor trifling with thy study. Nothing well Was e'er accomplished by half-heartedness. Do all thou hast with all thy energy. Whether thou work or play. Some men there are 122 UPWARD AND ONWAKD. Wlio play at work, and feebly waste their time, Toying with, labour most ingloriously. And ripening nothing. Let thy work be work," Do it "with all thy might," nor spare thyself. Till th' impetuous arrow hits the mark. Then may the bow with honour be unstrung, For use another day ; the battle o'er. The soldier piles his arms upon the plain, And gives himself to slumber and to peace. 123 THE STEANGE WOMAX. She lurks at the street corner, and with smiles And soft endearing words — rehearsed full oft — Accosts with wooing air the passer-by. She apes the manner of the chaste and pure, And hath the mincing gait of modesty ; But impudently doth she stare at men. And measure every stranger with her eye. Her very feet proclaim her shamelessness, Her look betrays the wanton. Heed her not ; Or if thou fain must swell the silly herd. The " void of understanding " and " the fool " Whose feet still wear her threshold, ponder first The fowler's ti'ap that Im-es the brainless bird. Here is her vaunted home — her pleasure-house : Lo, what grim skeletons, what heaped bones ! There lies a man who, but for her, had been Laurelled among his fellows ; here rots one — Ignoble heap ! the candle of whose life Was guttured down by lust : that skull was his Whose name might else have ranked with honoured ones, A synonym of greatness. Here was wealth Unspigotted, fame tarnished, honour stained. 124 TTPWAKD AND ONWAHD. Here purity defiled, and strength entombed, Manhood degraded, youth abused, sense fooled, Eeason bewitched, and intellect bedirruned. Art rich ? She will impoverish thy estate : Noble ? Eclipse thy full-orbed dignity. Heed not her blandishments, but close thine ear To her protested love. She bares her breast To any buyer ; zoneless are her charms, All ticketed : small preference hath she. But for the highest bidder. Him she calls Her favourite — how in heart she scorns the fool ! Long hath the honey of her woman's heart Been turned to gall by sensuality, And that persuasive tongue now hides, alas, The bitter and deceitful. Ugly lust Hath all imsesed her ; though a female still, No more a woman. By an alchemy Fearful and strange, her crystal love hath changed Ev'n to this black precipitate of hate, And all her nature become bestial. Wouldst thou excel in knowledge ; wouldst thou add To boyhood, manhood, and to manhood age, Gather respect in life, regret in death. Escape disease, disgrace ? Fly wantonness, Beware of sensuality. Thy strength — What, give it to a whore ? Thy reputation — Commit it to a wanton ? Health's pure spring She poisons, and still gnaws the beams of life. Nothing so hardens as the sensual, THE STRANGE WOMAN. 125 Debases like to lust. It is the clog That weighs men earthward, hellward ; and that sinks The loftiest purpose and the noblest aim, Nor lets the wearer soar. The laurelled bard Learned, and learned early, he that would excel Must robe in purity : the conqueror Climbed up to fame by the steep rugged path, The path of self-control. Oh there are streams Where thou may'st drink to very thii-stiness : Such is the turbid stream of lawless lust, y But there are others that can satisfy, Healthful and pure : such is the placid stream Of calm connubial love and wedded joy. Thou hungerest for pleasure ? Follow me, And I will guide thee safely. Choose thee one From virtue's loving daughters for thy wife, To cheer thy bosom and adorn thy home, Focus thy young affections, summon back Thy wandering loves, and chain them to thy hearth. Her fondest smiles shall be for thee, her love Shall be aU — all thy own, her pulse shall beat Responsive unto thine ; her busy care In health shall cheer thee, and in sickness smoothe The ruffled couch of pain. Thy interest hers, Safe shall thy treasures in her keeping be : Thy pleasure shall be still her chief concern. Thy smile her only coveted reward. I walked the crowded street, amid the hum 126 UPWARD AND ONWARD. Of congregated men, when by me slunk The profligate, in all his wretchedness. His years were scarce i' th' zenith ; yet he stooped, And tottered on with unelastic step. His eye reproved him, and his countenance Was a hoarse accusation. Pm^poseless, A waif upon the waters, sullenly He drifted on amid the passing barks That, piloted, still voyaged on to port, Despised by all, but most of all, himself. The father pointed at him to his son : He was the old man's jest, for even age Scofi'ed at his premature decrepitude. None asked him for his counsel or his help. Whatever was afoot, for he long since Had buried all his manhood, sinned away His hope and self-respect, and had at length Worn out his better nature. Ah how changed, How fallen, since he came, a ruddy youth. Up to the city from his village home, Beauteous in innocence ; his mother's hope. His sisters' joy and pride. Parental tears. Grave lessons, holy counsel, sage advice. Fond letters, fervent prayers, and holiest books, AU were in vain. Beguiled by the impure, He madly dared to tempt the eddying waves, And in the sensual vortex shipwrecked all. Have few companions of the other sex, And none but such as thou couldst, without blush. Present to thy own mother, or select THE STRANGE WOMAN. 127 To be thy sister's friend, for ah how great Is woman's influence, for good or ill ! By her the first nian*^ was beguiled, by her The wisest was befooled ;" and he subdued, The strongest of the strong." Zuleekha's" smile "Was the worst peril for old Jacob's son ; And had he yielded he perhaps had missed His after-dignity at Pharaoh's court, And we the lovely record of his life. The first seducer was a woman : guard Thy perilled heart, and guard its gate — the eye. Take heed what female influences twine Their cobra-coils around thee. Turn thee not Impatient fi'om thy mother's loving voice, jS'or weary of thy sister ; but from her, The crafty lustful woman, turn and fly, Far from her serpent eye and witching tongue. 128 A BIETHDAY MEDITATION. An^oTHEE station on life's shortening road — How swiftly runs the train ! The sun declines, The clock ticks on unheeded, all around The shadows lengthen ; yet we doze along, Scarce conscious of the friendly nudge of time. Ah solemn day ! Waste not its precious hours, But use it less for action than for thought. It is a day for grave and solemn search Into thy inmost spirit ; 'tis a day To look within, around thee, and to gaze Backward and forward, upward above all ; To pause awhile, take careful stock o' th' heart. Turn o'er the spirit's ledger, note again Our latitude and longitude, consult The shelved and dusty chart, to reckon where Where in Hfe's rapids we have drifted to ; Re-trim the bark, and steer afresh for heaven. Alas how often birthdays are misused In riot, dissipation, luxury ! Their solemn hours undedicated all To either praise to God or love to man. A BIRTHDAY MEDITATION. 129 How seldom Conscience, grave and free to act, Arraigns the man at tlie stern bar of right ! Pharaoh must keep his birthday, and forsooth" Feasts all his trooping servants ; but alas, The tyrant, merciless, his baker hangs. Proud Herod celebrates his natal day,*' And feasts his friends and nobles, but the wine Eeigns o'er th' unkingly monarch, and a girl — Unwomanly base dancer that she was — Wrings from the doting king a cruel vow, And to fulfil it the Baptiser dies. Thou hast perchance lived long, sure long enough T' have learned, my brother, the great art of life — The art of living well. The added year. Say, hath it added to thy virtue too ? Our clocks, our dials, and our calendars Are sorry things to date our natures by : The heart's growth is the real test of age. And progress chronicles oxxr birthdays bes^.*** Thou'rt older now in days, but tell me, art Older in goodness also ? Time's the stuff That wise men coin to greatness. Hast thou lived To pleasure rather than to pur[)ose ? Spent Thy precious moments as a miser gold ; As one who knows that every added day Is but a fresh responsibility ? Come, brother, dare to be alone awhile ;" Shut out the rabble trifles, and be grave. Be honest with thyself, nor Conscience bribe ic 130 UPWARD AND ONWAKD. To purchase an acquittal. It is wise To look within ; great is it to confess. Spread out tlie inventory of thyself, Measiu'e thy inner man, and weigh thy heart ; Compute with care thy spirit's altitude, For an immortal lodger dwells within, Amid thy wondrous dust ; all kernelled close, A strange mysterious inhabitant Hides in this fleshy husk. I' th' woof of life What pattern art thou weaving ? Every thread Is everlasting, every fault endures. The past is a safe garner, where are piled AU thy life's deeds and misdeeds. Ah, look back ; The wise and cunning leaper backward runs, That he may leap the higher. Though thou'rt young Thou standest on the graves of younger men. Say, hast thou trifled with thy beaded days, TiU now thou tremblest at the shortening string ? Hast closed thine ear to warnings, heeded not The startling knock of providences strange ? Prowned at the whispering wrinkle, and despised — Significantly sad — thy fii'st grey hair ? Yet nurse not harsh, severe, self- chiding thoughts : Despond not, nor despair, because thou find'st So much of sin and foUy in the past, l^othing canst thou recall — misdeeds nor deeds, Be thankful that in neither thou wert worse. Thronging memorials of departed days Hover around thee, and invite thee still Backward to look with humble thankfulness. A BIRTHDAY MEDITATION. 131 Forward with, confidence. In infancy Thy Father's gentlest arm sustained thee Through all its helplessness : he left thee not In ignorant childhood to thy heedlessness ; He kept thee in thy wild and wilful youth From the sad tUth of thy perversity. He ripened thy sour plan, thy weak resolve — He strengthened it, he fixed thy wavering choice. And prospered thy poor effort. Vast the debt Thou owest to thy Patron. Let it not — The sun o' this birthday — set without a psalm : Let thy heart siag to Him a fervent song, A glad thanksgiving, a memorial hymn, Based on contrition, crovoied with prayerful vows ; And pile the offering of warm gratitude Afresh upon the altar of thiae heart. Man looks both on and up ; the present hour The happiest scarce would care to petrify ; "Who would live here for ever ? Let us joy Ev'n in the wrinkling face and greying hair. For each fresh milestone whisj)ers of the goal. Tomorrow — the fool's now — may ne'er be thiae. For all things round us, like the falling leaf, — That frail recorder of the year — remind That life is fleeting. Husband therefore well Th' unresting hours, lest thy days, too, be few. Young as thou art, th' summoning angel soon May call thee up to judgment ; or if not, How soon may aU thy resolutions fade. And thy convictions die ! Enduring days K 2 132 UPWAKD AND ONAVARD. Are poor weak beams to build on ; bow mucb worse Endming resolutions ! Freighted well Witb useful heavenly purposes, impelled By holiest motives, if thy natal day Still find thee, when it next returns, on earth, It shall not startle like an ungreeting face At a friend's threshold, it shall not return Fierce as an iuj ured foe ; but it shall come As a grave friend, whose very frowns are love ; Who, strange at accusation and rebuke, Comes full of consolation and of peace. 133 BUSINESS. Art thou in business ? Have tlie noble aim To steer through all its trials stainlessly, In all things still the Christian and the man. Trade gauges both the heart and intellect, Braces the moral natui'e, honour tests, And tries the inmost loves and principles. Have no light thoughts of business ; ponder well Its use and dignity. Remember those. The great and gifted, that have trod before The selfsame rugged path ; and trod it, too, "With uprightness and honoui\ It hath laws. And duties too, that thou shouldst study well. It needs equipment ; skill and energy, Method, attention, caution, promptitude, Determination, order, enterprise, — All these are indispensable to him Who would succeed in business. Above all. See that thou throughly understand thy trade. For ign'rance seldom blunders to success. Thou needest all thy vigilance, for trade Hath numerous perils. Insufficient means. Dull seasons, bankrupt debtors, suretyships, 134 IJPWAIID AND ONWARD. Bad speculations, over-trading, fire ; Panics, expenses ; thieves without, within, Unreasonable credits — these are rocks On which full many a gallant bark hath split, And stand between thee and the port Success. Yet be thou not dismayed, but follow on, And put thy shoulder to thy business. Be earnest, energetic, resolute ; There's no enigma in the word — success. Honour thy hand — that strange omnipotent : Try is the true magician ; thou wilt find Endeavour no bad word to conjure with, And there is no abracadabra, after all, Potent as eff'ort. Summon all the man "Within thee ; hoist desire's full sail. But ne'er neglect the oar of industry.'" How few alas, how very few, there are Of calm and plodding patient energy ! They tug with fitful force, they sweat awhile. They seize the plough with no unmeaning grip, And promise great achievements. But anon They weary, are impatient, turn aside To a new vein i' th' mine, — and night comes on. And months and years glide by, with little done ; Nought polished and complete, though much rough-hewn. Let therefore Patience marry Energy, For marvellous achievers are their sons. He that doth hammer always on one nail "Will drive it home at last. Who steers right on. BUSINESS. 135 Will gain at lengtli, however far, tlie port. Then persevere, work not impulsively, But plod, nor faint, nor weary. Ah how oft The spider — oldest spinner — mends his weh, Still hoping against hope." If trials come — As come they will — with a brave manful heart Breast boldly the rough wave. The Sybarite Will find this world was never made for him. For common is endurance unto all. The salt of difficulty gives to life Its zest and flavour. Difficulty !^^ 'tis The firm foundation of all noble things, The stepping-stone of bravery, the spring-board Of the true man, the cradle of the great, The able nurse of energy ; the goad That pricks men on to greatness. What, forsooth ! Should a man duck to difficulty ; tiu-n From his high pm'pose for a little straw That lies across his path ? There's nothing great But hath a bloody baptism. The small seed Must brave the fi-ost of many a winter night Ere it become a tree. A. bold attempt Is never quite in vain ; if now it fails. It makes success more likely presently. Where woixld the honour or the hero be, Were there no danger ? Any mean poltroon Can play the soldier on parade, but Hfe Is no field-day ; and though prosperity May manufacture scented gentlemen. 136 UPWARD AND ONWARD. 'Tis trial and adversity make men. These are the educators, these have trained Scholars unnumbered.^' Difficulty ! 'tis Life's healthful tide : in a dead waveless sea What thing could live ? It is the bracing wind, That energises every faculty. Things lessen by familiarity. And that which seemed gigantic in our youth Proves but a dwarf to age ; so' he who breasts The sea of difficulty with brave heart, Gathers from every buffet a fresh strength, And learns at last to scorn the hindrances That once so sorely vexed and stumbled him. Earth hath no healthier exercise than this — Contention with the difficult; no joy Purer than when 'tis made successfully. The thread-branched weed is only beautiful While tossing on the wave ; but, heaped on shore, Is nothing but a tangled sightless mass. Be cu'cumspcct, and learn to measure men. Trust strangers cautiously : scarce trust at all The reckless, sottish, and extravagant. The man who is not honest to himself Will scarce be so to thee. The needy man Must not be too much trusted ; and beware Of women, ministers, professionals, And all who have not weU been schooled to learu The use of money. Suretyships avoid, BUSINESS. 137 If thou wouldst hope to prosper. Keep afar Habitual borrowers ; rather give than lend, Or lend but what thou canst afford to lose,'* Mature thy plans, and ripen them with thought. Yet be not slow to act : the hardening was Refuses straight the impress of the seal. And the white iron hath how quickly cooled ! 'Twas not the feeble arrow hit the mark. Seek, and at all times, opportunities, And if thou canst not find them — make them then. Yet be not greedy, for a few bad debts Destroy no little profit. Stake not all On one great speculation : no wise man "Will hazard what he would not dare to lose. The prudent general, though resolved to win, Provides for a defeat ; he marches on, But has a refuge and a sure retreat. Should he have need. Keep accurate accounts. Nor let thy business lack transparency. Lest men suspect thy truth and uprightness. 3Iere honesty is little, nobly strive For honour too. Eemember, character Is no mean capital ; an honoured name No trifliag stock-in-trade. Be punctual In all thy dealings : in thy settlements Postpone not, with the poor especially. Also in thy engagements : be a watch Thyself, and strike the hour for thoughtless men. 138 UPWARD AND ONWARD. For time is gold, minutes are precious things, And he who is unpunctual to the hour "Will scarce be punctual to the pound. Take heed That caution helm thy bark ; for recklessness Is not a foUy merely, but a crime. Yon heedless bankrupt, by his mad career, Hath ruined wife and babes, and sadly stained The name of his unconscious little ones. Nor these alone, but many a one beside Must di'itik the bitter draught that he hath brewed. The widow and the fatherless are there, Among his creditors ; and many a heart Is sorrowful, and many a hearth is drear ; Because he checked not his expenditure, And speculated so incautiously. Let prudence therefore guide at every step ; Proportion also to thy boat the sail, And live withia thy income. Curb thy wants, Nor form expensive habits. Of thy gains Still add a portion to thy capital. For age abounds with clamorous dogging wants. Even stout manhood hath its haimting cares ; And many a strange thing on the beach of life Time's ebbing tide throws up. Art prospering ? Let liberality grow gracefully With thy successes. The half-closed bud That in the twilight shut and veiled itself. BUSINESS. 139 Expands in the warm sunlight. Ope thy hand, Give, and give promptly : a postponed gift — Say, how much better is it than a " I^o ?" Oh how unseemly is it for a man To be, though prosperous, mean and little-souled. Better to be a princely beggar far, Than be a beggarly prince. What is a king. If he demean himself unregally ? Oft doth the baggy robe of circumstance The puny nature of the wearer shame ; And all the setting of the goldsmith's art Is but a mockery if the stone itself Be mean and valueless. Bet generous To all men — to thy servants specially, And let them not in sickness be forgot. The hand is no mean preacher, eloquent Is generous free open-handedness, And the considerate master is served best. See that thy servant as a creature knows His duty to his Maker ; thus he'll leam His duty as a servant unto thee. !N'ot with exacting and unfeeling wrath Eule thy dependents, but with gentle love. Hide, when thou usest most, authority ; Show thyself less the master than the friend. Be not, unwisely, anxious to retire ; 'Tis work alone gives dignity to life. And he that's worthy of the name of man 140 UPWABD AND ONWARD. "Will never sigh to put his harness off. If thou thyself no longer wealth shouldst need, Still thou canst labour for the poor, and God. But never, never let thy ledger be Thy Bible, never let thy banker's book Become thy diary ; nor prosperity, Or mere accumulation, be the ends Thou sett'st before thyself. He wrinkles fast, The weary man. Long hath he plodded on, jS^or hath he toiled ia vain. He now must spend More tranquilly the evening of his life. Before his eyes already rises up The snug retreat, with all its blessedness ; The comfort and the leisure : the arm-chair, And perfect freedom from all care and toil. He closes straight his ledger, and retreats "With rapture to his Goshen. But alas, The poetry hath proved the veriest prose ; The day is tedious and the book is dry, The garden lonely and the parlour dull. He finds how little luxury there is In being unemployed ; that idleness Is only to the lazy, happiness ; And he who sudden leaves accustomed toil Had need indeed be a well-furnished man. If thou'rt not married, marry." None wiU keep Thy house as can a wife. Her cheerful look. Her fond kind word, will cheer and strengthen thee BUSINESS. Througli many a business labyrinth. She'll divide Thy troubles and anxieties with thee, And with her loving counsel and advice (Instinctively sagacious, strangely wise) May keep thee safe from many a harmful thing. The business thou hast chosen — leave it not For others thou art unacquainted with : There may not be two helmsmen at the wheel. 'Tis he who perseveres along the rut In which he started, that progresses most : But he who turns impulsively aside At every will-o'-th'-wisp, must waste his time, And lose much pains, if not much property. x^eglect not business, she's a jealous jade That scarce endures a rival ; but beware Lest business joys and cares fiU aU thy heart. And rob thy nature of its nobler half. It matters not how deep or wide the sea If but the ship can ride it buoyantly : But if the waves once force an entrance in, "Woe to the gaUant bark. In business hours Give to it all thy thought and energy : But past, then shake awhile thy business off; As the white swan, her plumage fair and dry. Unruffled leaves the waters of the lake, "WTicre aU the morning she had glassed herself, For the smooth daisied lawn. Thy business Must not be such as wiU debase thyself. 141 142 UPWAED AND ONWARD. 'Tis a poor bargain that — a fortune made By a soul's ruin. Nor must thou so trade That thou become a mean and cunning knave, An overreaching and unconscienced thing, Lying thy goods off to thy customers. And foisting trashy things on ignorance With well-dissembled candour. Be a man, Truthful and upright, fair and unseduced ; Nor sell thy manhood for thy business. There are who butt impossibilities. Like silly bluebottles at window-panes ; But be not thou of those. Waste not thy powers In vain attempts at most unlikely things ; But ciu'b and rein thy straggling energies Within the rut of possibility. Not he who hath most power achieves the most, But he who, knowing what is do-able, And also where his efforts best will tell, There makes, with all his energy, th' attack.'^ 143 A HOME. UxDER the law of expansion God hath, placed All tiibes and creatiu'es in this teemino' world. Where is the bidb that flowers not ? Where the tree But gems his boughs with berries or with fruit ? Where is the bix'd that would not build his nest ? So man is not for solitude : he jjines Por one to love him, and to shai'e his nest ; (Love is the picture to life's chequered tale ;) And with this instinct strong within his breast, Impatient of his unrelatedness. Becomes not merely the circumference But centre of a circle, forms a home, And chooses from among his female friends A partner for his bosom and his hearth. A man unwedded loses more than half Of the best education he can have. Women teach meekness, love and gentleness ; And children, patience and unselfishness. Unless, then, other duties bid thee not, Marry, and while thou'rt young. What is a home. Without a smiling wife to grace the board ? I 144 UPWARD AND ONWAED, She is the young man's best companion; And better 'tis t' obey Heaven's primal law, Than live companionless, like yonder sun, In solitary splendom-. Pearingly Shun not th' expenses of a wedded life," Although they be not small. They rouse the man To new exertion and fresh energy, And oft develop capabilities The owner never dreamed of Children, too, If they make lean th' estate, are yet themselves Riches, yea riches most enjoyable, And He who giveth life will not deny The food that must sustain it. Yet with care, Pradence and forethought, first prepare thy home ; For 'tis not manly to aUui-e a girl From peace, and comfort, and sufficiency, To a sad cheerless hearth and stinted board. Ilot from the ball-room choose her, nor the haunt Of fashion, pleasure, or frivolity. Avoid the sOly trifler, with two thoughts — Sole freightage — whom to marry, what to wear.^' Ask counsel of thy female friends, for stiU A woman best knows women. At her home Observe her. Is she gentle, modest, kind, A good obedient daughter ; is she fond Of her own sisters and her family ; Are her accomplishments for ornament, Or — better far — for usefulness at home ? A HOME. 145 Has slie health, sense, affection, piety ? Such dowry is no mean one/^ Better this, Than all th' attractions of a perfect form, Or sculptni-ed featiires ; better than estate, Wit, fashion, fortune, or a high descent."" Deceive not thy intended nor her fiiends As to thy means of living. Ah how oft (Th' unwelcome truth no longer to be hid) The vision so poetic fades away To the sad prose of dull reality ! Surely the marriage edifice should stand On the foundations of stern truthfulness ; And 'twere more manly tell her thou art poor Than pledge her at the altar with a lie. Begin no grander than thou canst aiford, Just as thou canst continue. Comfort, still, Must have the precedence of elegance. Thy style of living pitch within thy means, Nor let thy wife expend in ignorance What thou canst iU afford. Who wastes to-day. Will surely want tomorrow. Better far That both be schooled to strict economy. Than that thy business and thy character. Her peace and home, should all be wrecked and lost By thoughtless luxury and extravagance. A home — 't may often be a lever thought To raise thee to achievement. Hence thou'lt draw Motive to purity and carefulness, I. 146 UPWAED ANi) ONWARD. Incentive to exertion. It wiU prompt To self-denial and economy, To watching toil and studious thouglitful pains, And all the man mthin thee energise. Not always at the far circumference, A human unit, wouldst thou choose to move. But be a centre also in thy turn, Others round thee revolving. It is well : So hope, so plan, so purpose, so provide, That when at length thou leave thy lonely sphere, And love and helplessness aroiind thee twine, They may not on a disappointing thing Lean their o'ei-flowing hopes, in name alone A husband, or a father, or a man. Beware of any habit, any act. That may unfit thee in thy after years For this — man's earthly heaven. Reverence Thy own great nature and thy budding hopes, Nor let the dice, the glass, the courtesan, Cheat thee of coming pleasures ; lest thy age Find thee a homeless, wifeless, childless thing, A thing that none can lean on : unlike him Who stands a firm banyan upon the plain. Verdant and sheltering, with his stalwart sons Gracing and strengthening the parent tree. Man has three several homes. The first, the nest AVhere, cradled 'neath a mother's loving eye, He grows from helplessness to lusty strength. The second, where, now bearded and mature. A HOME. 147 He chooses him a partner, and with her Mosses with love and hope the downy nest Where they may nurse their fledglings. For the third, The crystal-beamed seven-tinted bright abode Which, with their Father, godful men enjoy, — Happy is he, thrice happiest of the race. Who, looking back upon his childhood's home With yeamiag and with tears, looks on and up. Out of the windows of his second one, And sees by faith the sun-lit halls afar Where he expects to dwell for evermore. l2 148 INFLUENCE. RANKiifG thyself with unregarded men, Thou hungerest for a wider circle, friend. Ponder the influence thou already hast, Ere thou increase responsibility. Thou art a Man, and in society. And therefore circled round by copiers. Howe'er secluded or howe'er unknown, Thou never hast lived, and canst never live, Unto thyself alone : thy neighbour, friend. Have copied both thy virtues and thy faults. Thou hast a character for good or ill. And character is power and influence : Thou hast, in spite of thee, to great extent Stamped deep thine impress upon all around. That word forgotten, spoke in by-gone years. Still lives : the seed hath grown and blossomed too. Behold the flower in yonder character. J'hy good and evil sayings, jests and songs. Thy blasphemies and blessings — none are dead : Earth hath no sponge to wipe out meanest things, All, all are petrified, immortalised. Or rather, growing with an endless growth. INFLUENCE. 149 Art thou a ITaster ? All thy servants round Have learned the trick of imitation. They by thy virtues have been Godward spurred, Or by thy vices stumbled and debased. An open book thou hast still been to them, Where they have read thy evil and thy good. Not only thy professions have they heard, But marked thee in the shop and counting-house. They have upheld thee to the light of truth, Taken thy weight and measure ; sat, thy judge. At the eternal bar of right and wrong ; Heard thine own acts —truth-telling witnesses ! And in that silent court — the mind — pronounced Thy guUt or thy acquittal. Art a Sire ? Thou hast begot immortal spirits, then ; And the soft mental tendrils of thy babes Twine round thy nature all unwittingly. Forget not that they daily, hourly read The language of thy looks. Thy very tone Is to their listening ear significant. Thy every gesture meaningful. Each hour Chisels them to the likeness of thyself. Thy father lives in thee, and thou in these ; And though thou shouldst bequeath them nothing else, Thou'lt leave to them thy virtue or thy vice. Thou art an Author, and thy brain, perchance. Still busy, breedeth books. Ah pause awhile, And think on the responsibilities 1 50 UPWAKD AND ONWAED. Of him \\'ho wields the pen. A multitude May sit them at thy feet to read thy book, Th' unborn will be thy readers ; thou mayst aid To form th' opinions of a continent, The lore and maxims of a hemisphere. Thy words may rouse to action error, truth, Oppression, freedom, knowledge, bigotry ; Thou mayst unchain the bnite, the fiend, in men, Or beckon down the angel ; mayst amuse The weary hour, or dry the mourner's tear, Spur on the upward and aspiring soul. And lash the false and wi'ong. Lay down awhile Thy pen, if lightly thou wouldst dare to -svrite, Cui'b thy thick-rising fancies, rein thy skill, For every thought the press will petrify. And books are weU-springs of vast influence. Art thou a Teacher 'mong thy fellow-men. And set apart from meaner purposes T' instruct and to exhort them ? Heed thyself. That thou be worthy neither blame nor shame. There may be some commands that thou thyself. Hast scarcely honoiu'ed yet sufficiently And 'tis a shame and pity that the Pew Should have t' rebuke the Pulpit ; sad it is The precious ointment should be e'er refused Because of the dead fly ; and " Heal thyself" The answer, neither pert nor undeserved, To him whose office 'tis to teach and heal. Measure thyself by Him the Teacher oft. For none e'er taught, or spoke, or lived, like Him. INFLUENCE. 151 How solemn is it in a world like this To speak, to act, to be ! Om- very words, Trifling and meaningless as oft they seem, Are wafted round about on every side, Like thistle-down before the autumn wind. Looks may be very cuxses ; actions, oaths : Ev'n the unsaid hath oft strange emphasis. And glances may be imprecations deep. If even goodness be contagious, sure Evil, alas, is imitable more. Let all thine influences, ev'n the least, Improve thy fellows, and take heed at home. How eloquent are looks ! From them we draw Always our first impressions, oft our last. The child had marked its mother's loving smile Long ere it learned its father's lesson grave : 'Twas from his mother's fond approving look The boy became a painter. ^^ Finally : — Of all thine influences take most heed Of thy unstudied ones. Full many a man Can with the lightning flash, that cannot shine "With the mild sun ; but the impetuous storm Is valueless beside the silent dew. So the good deeds of a pure-hearted man Are the least portion of his influence. And that of which thyself art conscious least May be most felt by others. The presence ev'n Of a good man is no mean homily ; 1^^ UrWAED AND ONWARD. Of a bad man, a curse. Shine like a star ; And glare not, as a beacon. The white slime Betrays the tortuous track of the cold worm, The ocean long retains the foamy trace Of the dividing keel ; and shall man pass— The meanest man— thi-oagh this vibrating world, Without his lea^iag, where he once hath been. His footprint, deep and all indelible ? In thy worn track across the heath of life Full many an after-ti-aveller will tread : See that thou lead him not astray from God, But prove a certain poineer to heaven. 153 KING aOLD AND SLIYE GOLD. Thott'dst surely be a getter, my young friend : Wouldst thou not also be a giver too ? Give not, if tbou'rt in debt ; he who thus gives, Is Kberal with the gold that's not his own. Yet give, and grudge not, if thou canst afford, For gold, if wisely used, is truest wealth, But, hoarded, 'tis but dross. AVhy rob thyself Of earth's supremest joy — the joy of giving? Open thine hand, as God — the giver — doth, And make the poor thy banker. What thou giv'st Thou ne'er canst lose, whatever chances come'; And he who gives most — he it is hath most. "Why shouldst thou have that fool's ambitiousness — A plethoric estate to leave thy sons. Defrauding them of all the blessedness Of healthful toil, and burdening their souls With all the fearful peiilous woe of him Who hath no motive unto industry ? Wouldst build thyself a monument of shame. To prove how mean thy heart, how base thy life ? Beware lest on thy tombstone men should read Not thy wealth merely, but thy avarice. Not only count thy gains, but gifts. Wouldst die 154 UPWARD AND ONWARD. In the world's debt ? Wouldst make thy heart a piirse ? Ambition's base is everywhere, but where, Where is its apex ? That high-piled heap ! — Beware lest, trumpet-tongued, it cry aloud, And shame thee for thy greed, rebuke thee stern For ignorance untaught, for want unalmsed. Orphans unpitied, widows unrelieved. For God dishonoured and for man despised. How rich thou diest will be soon forgot ; How niggardly thou wast, remembered long. "Wicked indeed is he who will not use The golden lever God hath given to him, To bless and raise his generation with ; Who suffers — wretched pleurisy of gold ! — That yellow life-blood of society To clog and jelly in the arteries. He clutched it firmly in his iron fist, And added heap to heap ; his appetite Grew with his gains, and still he gasped for more. (Of all things gold doth satisfy us least : A man is never in such hungry mood As when he once hath had a meal of gold. ) The godlike features of humanity That once distinguished him, were now, alas, Distorted by this hideous wen of wealth. A starveling was he at the feast of things, A living lie, for at the best his life Was a mere pauper's ; necessary things He grudged to purchase ; he eschewed all friends, For friends are apt to borrow and to beg ; KING GOLD AND SLAVE GOLD. 155 Even that liouseholcl angel, ^voman — she "Was all unloved and undesired by him : A wife at best was an extravagance, Shameful and ruinous, — a needless charge ; And childi'en — they would make a Croesus poor. He was a very husk and shell of man In God's most blessed universe. Agape And miserly as is the clutching sea. His humble Mends and needy relatives — He wanted not to know them, closed his ear To all the sorrows of the hearthless poor, For poverty, above all evil things, "Was his aversion. A base human sponge, A calculating, hard, gold-hungering man, Coffined in self, cold as the moonlit snow, Gold was his aim, his hope, his joy, his life. His business, relaxation, work and dream, His wife and children, friends, relationships. His pleasure, his ambition, and his god. He knelt, with fond devotedness of heart, To Gold, the world's almighty. Eveiy line That marked his forehead and his bloodless cheek Betokened the divinity within, Whose gaunt proportions cast a lurid shade On every look and gesture. Giving was Ev'n as a fiery martyrdom to him. Unnatural, abhorrent, for his heart, Misshapen as a pear tree, had grown cold ; And strangely eloquent must he have been Who wrung a sixpence from his clutching palm. And he a sturdy beggar who could hope. 156 trPWAKD AND ONWAKD. Wliile looking in his avaricious eye, For sympathy or alms. Thus did he live, With worsing spirit and with leaner soul, Stunted and shrivelled as a cowering hedge Before the salt sea hreeze. He sickened, died ; Death, xinrelenting, dragged him from his gold : And to his hurial like a prince he went, In all the sable pageantry of death, And the plumed hearse and the funereal steeds Witnessed to his distinction. Some, agape, Inquired the great man's name, but no one sighed " Heaven rest him." All unwept, unblost, was he ; His very followers did not mourn his loss, For who laments a niggard ? Ev'n in death His hand refused to scatter : God's own poor, Lifelong neglected, in his dying hour Were unremembered still. His very gifts Were now a shame to him ; for neither want, Relationship, nor sickness, nor desert, Moved him to give ; he left his total wealth To fatten up a gorged society. And aid "religious" objects, hoping thus, By giving what he could no longer keep, T' atone for aU the selfish uselessness Of a protracted lifetime. With a sigh (Oh pauper misery of mammonism !) I turned me from the money-clutching thing. Dear loving God, I cried, that ungrudged man Should play the niggard 'mong his fellows thus ! KING GOLD AND SLAVE GOLD. I5't Various and vain man's bubbles truly are, But the poor bubble that the miser blows Is the most mean and silly of them all. A fearful despot art thou, Gold ; and cursed, Thrice cursed, is he who wears thy manacles. He gave, and freely, for he deeply felt That he had so received ; to worthlessness He sometimes ev'n would scarcely shut his hand, For God, said he, gives freely every day To many no way worthy. The sad poor Were gladdened by his presence into tears, The widow taught her friendless little ones To bless his honoured name : his servants too. With conscientious scrupulosity, Nor dared to wi'ong, nor suffer others, one So thoughtful, so ungrudging. In his house Was neither waste nor yet extravagance. But comfort, welcome, and sufficiency. His friend, unstinted, sat beside the board. And, if with a fair reputation blessed. The stranger found a welcome and a home. I looked ; and while I hated with worst hate The tyranny so crushing of King Gold, Surely Slave Gold, I cried, is not to blame, But useful, fitting, and commendable. He needs to be a man indeed whom gold Makes not still poorer, his no common heart WTiich gold collapses not and renders worse. Happiest and safest he who hath enough, 158 UPWARD AND ONWARD. And but a little more ; yet if he get, And prosper, let the man possess the gold,®" But never let the gold possess the man. How few, alas, will try to nuderstand The laws of liberality ! A man Oft grows to wealth by very bounteousness ; How often by his parsimony poor! "Wouldst thou reap golden harvests ? Broadcast sow. Set reverently apart proportion due, Of all thy gains, for God and for the poor. " It is more blest to give than to receive, " Remember, was the saying of thy Lord. Money is good, nor undesirable. Therefore desj)ise it not,®* nor count it nought. Strange power of gold ! 'Tis stature to the dwarfed, Beauty to th' ill-favoured, brains to th' fool, Symmetry to th' deformed, to th' witless wit. How piquant doth it make " my lord's " dull jest, How excellent the chairman's prosy song. Gold is the sinews of philanthi'opy, The muscle and the spine of entei-prise. Wealth is the representative of work. By its possessor or his forefathers. It is the pedestal of influence ; Therefore go earn it, but by no dishonour. Remember riches, reckon how thou wilt, Is far less thy possessions than thyself. Show me thy thoughts, and I will sum thy wealth : The heart is the true coffer ; if not filled KIXG GOLD AND SLATE GOLD. 159 With love and truth, thou fill'st thy hand in vain "With gold and silver : WTetched still is he Who calls himself not wealthy without gold. In its laborious honourable getting Lies the best pai't of wealth : be Kberal, For generosity's a heavy purse, But what so worthless as a raiser's gold ? And the " God bless thee " of the hungry poor Shoiild be a far more covetable thing Than salutations of world-famous men. 160 FAEEWELL. Thtts far, together, have we travelled on, And now we part, my brother. Fare you well ; If but one noble thought, one high resolve, One lofty purpose, or one heavenly aim, Hath been or born or nurtured by the page, AVe have not met in vain. If but, perchance. It may have spurred thee to a purer life, Or helped thee to a manlier character. Bless Him who brought us side by side awhile. Take for thy motto. Duty, and be brave, Eor life is no smooth idyl ; arm thyself With courage, patience, and with cheerful trust, A leaping nature and a Christful heart. That thou mayst be, do, suffer, manfully.*^* Crawl not,^'^ but soar. Let "ought" be "must" with thee. Do all things rightly and religiously, As one rehearsing for an angel, and May He the strengthener keep thy perilled heart That so it WTinkle last, unscarred by care. And pure as in thy childhood. A child-man. Be self-sufficing, individual, Moving on love's bright axis. Like the bard, FAREWELL. 161 Among thy fellows be a lever man, Still pointing up, like the cloud-kissing spire, That at that day of days no ruined soul, Down-sinking hellward, point at thee, and shriek " He lured me onward to this red abyss." Guard well thy heart, be neither weak nor wicked ; Still live the right, and ever love the true. And always be the good. Respect thyself : Envy nor follow the base human worms That wriggle up to fortune ; rather them Who keep the path of right where'er it lead. And scorn ill-gotten gains. If thou art low In earth's great social pyramid, thy part A mean unnoticed one on life's strange stage, Oft the mean character best actor needs ; lust any fool can play the nobleman, How few can play the man !*^ 'Tis better far To do the little greatly, than essay A mighty labour with a pigmy hand." Be patient and deserve, and thou may'st rise. The reaper — he must be a sower first : But ah, forget not, while thou sow'st thy seed, The sickle soon must follow, therefore sow Just only such as thou wouldst choose to reap. Use well the present hour — that young To-be, For one to-day is worth a score tomorrows, That so thou look not back on decdless days, Nor mourn a wasted youth. ii 162 TJPWAKD AND ONWAKD. Sigh, not for wealth, Por poorest days are happier, as more safe. Content is no mean nugget : thank kind Heaven Not only for thy comforts but thy needs. Christ make thee rich in pure and noble thoughts, Hell tempt thee not with either want or wealth. Meet troubles if thou must, but make th.em not, And if thy means be small, contract desire, That so thy wants be bounded by thy needs. Be independent, and in no man's debt : But if thou prosper, worship not thy gold ; Misuse, disuse it not. Death shears the rich. And coffins hold no wealth. Be liberal ; 'No human magpie, getting but to hoard, But helpful to thy brother, nor forget The fatherless, the widow, and the poor. And now farewell. Seek at thy Father's side Not counsel merely, but companionship, Gath'ring fresh truths, soaring to higher love. And oh, may Christ, the helper, bless thee still "With a pure, holy, true and loving heart, Save thee from what might separate from him. Or separate thee from thy nobler self. God speed, yoimg brother, both to thee and thine : May we all meet in yonder heaven at last ; Heaven — oiu' fond Father's hearth. Farewell, farcAAell. 163 A PEAYEE. Fathee, thy hand hath formed me ; furnished nw With all this manhood, godhood. Thou hast set Thy seal upon me as a thing of heaven, Hast given me instincts after noblest things, And taught me to look upward from this earth, Away from this unsatisfying now, To a diviner life. Confirm, oh Lord, My unknit resolutions, moat my heart With a broad stream of love and purity ; Strengthen my better me, that so my soul, Unstained, untarnished, in this dimming world. May still retain, up to my latest age. The lustre of my childhood. Gird me. Lord, For efforts worthy of these godlike powers ; For ceaseless war with the bad world without, And the worse world within me. Help me breast The tide of trial with a man's resolve, The tide of e^^l with an angel's strength. The what and where of this SAvift-ficcting life, Aye, all its " ifs " and its " perhapses " too, Lord, I can leave with thee. 'T may not be mine, To stand apart among medallic men, M 2 1C4 "UPWARD AND ONWARD. To leave behind a mouumental book, Or make my name historic. "With the herd, That like a steam- wreath fade before the wind, Deedless and unescutcheoned, I may pass Unheeded to my burial. Be it so ; Yet would I nurse some small ambition too — To serve my kind and Thee. With loving heart. Christian matuiity, ripe holiness, Eespectful of my duty and myself, Sweetly correct and beautifully good. Freighted with God-love and wise energy, I would walk blameless, witnessing for thee Amid a proud and misbelieving world. "Worship and service should divide my hours, And form the varied chequers of my life : I would be the sad friendless orphan's stay, The widow's help, the poor man's comforter; Thus, if not adding to earth's intellect. At least subtracting from its wretchedness. And that I thus may do. Lord, let me be, Not steering moneywards like meaner men. But self-improving, introspective ; still Preening my pinions for a higher flight, And loftier elevation. Habits ill. Growing with all the vigour of a weed. Oh may I never form them ; or if formed. Help me to slough them as the chesnut''^ doth In summer his dead leaves. Give earnestness. A PRATER. 165 That I, enthusiast for the good and true, 3J[ay live one-purposed. JS^ever let me be — Worst state — indifferent to these greatest things ; Xot like the oarsman, with my back t' th' goal, But like a runner, with both hands outspi'ead, Hungering to reach the prize. Thus shall I be Equipped for all earth's needs, God-helping, brave ; And, humbly duteous from the highest aims. Shall push my various projects to success "With all a man's momentum. Gracious God, Bless this hoarse, selfish and ignoble world With light, and greater, love. Let everywhere 'Hen be unselfish, loving, neighbourly, Pure, helpful, and forgiving. For the good, Oh may they have a graceful holiness, A winsome goodness that shall charm the bad To virtue and religion. Let there be Through all the peoples deep and perfect peace, Man one vast loving brotherhood. Thy word — Eain it on every continent and tribe. Till each old superstition pale and fade Before the sun of ti'uth. Oh stretch thine arm To help the friendless and neglected poor, ^\Tio pick laborious from life's grudging board The scanty crumbs of comfort, and to whom Children are doubtful blessings at the best, Life but a daily round of pinching care, A tedious endurance. Pity too The poor dumb brute that only sighs and pines 166 UPWARD AND ONWAED. Under the lash of more embruted man. Save the enslaved from his oppressor, Lord : Poorest of men, he hath not ev'n himself; Except his master, the most abject thing That earth endures. The weak, the maimed, the sick, Bless them with healthier bodies, healthful souls, And may their sorrows and their sufferings, Lord, Strengthen the inner man. The little ones — The prattling children — keep them childlike, pure, And cherish and preserve then- childhood long. Spite of the hardening world. Initial men, The human seals that with their regal crest Stamp the soft plastic wax of humankind, Oh may their impress be a heavenly one, Such as thou wilt approve. Preside, oh God, In cabinets and councils : wisdom, peace, Philantliropy, discretion, are of thee. Join continent to island, shore to shore, Till severed nations and estranged tribes Merge all their quarrels in one brotherhood. And smoke the calumet of peace. How long Shall Might hound on his brainless herds to war ? The jarring peoples of this stained earth Gaze on each other with defiant brow ? How long fleece-hungering priests neglect the flock ; The rich man surfeit while his neighbour starves ? How long shall power be with the tyrannous ; How long a man be dungeoned for his creed ? Man chattelize his brother, and embrute "Whom he is taught to cherish and defend ? How long shall wolfish and predaceous man. A PRAYER. 16' Huddled in cities — those o'ercrowded pools, — Like the great corsair pike, ■with ravenoas greed Fatten upon his fellows ? Pity, Lord, This dark unanchored world. Thou hast spread out Before it I^Tature, that great unclasped book, Where it might read thy wisdom, speU thy love : Sent it a Model, and a lesson book Brimful of gracious promise. Tet, alas, It still is dark as any sunless sea : Goaded by passion and seduced by gain. Causeless its sorrows, meaningless its fears. Its joys are threaded on a rotten string, Its scanty pleasures muf&ed. All is sad As the memorials of a buried child : There is no more an Eden upon earth. Its Egypt hath no Goshen. Pardon, Lord, Th' imiipeness of our choicest services. The halfaess of our hearts. Be merciful To Christendom and Christians. Save us. Lord, From selfish hirelings : send us zealous men To fold thy little flock and teach the world ; Men that shall teach the truth by living it. And care far less for their own praise and pay Than truth's supremacy. Oh Lord, I come "With the best offering I can bring — myself : Accept me. Lord, and use me at thy wiB.. May thought and memory never be my foes. 168 UPWARD AND ONWARD. 'Nov my own hand accuse me. Keep me pure, That it may never my chastiser be, That Nemesis — the conscience ; nor my heart From the stem standard thou hast set incline. The moral perpendicular of things. Thus would I be and do — tmll be and do, Thy mighty grace enabling. I resolve, And with each resolution weave a prayer. NOTES. NOTES ^ " Rest ill the Lord (or, as the margin beautifully renders it, ' Be silent to the Lord'), and wait patiently for him." — Ps. xxxvii. 7. 2 " When thou wishest to transgress, seek for a place where God cannot see thee," — Lockman's Sayings. 3 It is recorded of the celebrated Dr. Adam Clarke that he never passed through the chuichyard where his father lay buried without reverently taking off his hat. * The late Rev. John Natt, for many years vicar of St. Sepul- chre's, London, was in the habit of kissing his mother in the vestry before ascending the pulpit to preach. 5 " And thou, Solomon my son, know thou tlie God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind ; for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts : if thou seek him, he will be found of thee ; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee ofT for ever." — 1 Chron. xxxiii. 9. •5 "If thou fear God and walk in his ways, whatever befalls thee, good shall be brought out of it ; it shall be well with thee while thou livcst, better when thou dicst, and best of all to eternity." — Matthew Ucnry. 1 " He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small ; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all," — Coleridge {Ancient Mariner). 172 NOTES. " " So live, that when thy summons comes to join Th' 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." — Bryant ( Thanatopsis) . 9 " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I wdll give you rest." — Matt. xi. 28. " " As you grow up and go out into life, you will be tempted in a hundred different ways, by things which are pleasant— every one knows that they are pleasant enough, but wrong. One will be tempted to be vain of dress ; another to be self-conceited ; another to be lazy and idle ; another to be extravagant and roving ; an- other to be over fond of amusement ; another to be over fond of money ; another to be over fond of liquor ; another to go wrong, as too many young men and young women do, and bring them- selves, and those with whom they keep company, and whom they ought, 'if they really love them, to respect and honour, down into sin and shame. You will all be tempted, and you will all be troubled ; one by poverty, one by sickness, one by the burden of a family, one by being laughed at for trying to do right. But re- member, oh remember, whenever a temptation comes upon you, that the blessed Jesus has been through it all, and conquered all, and that His will is, that you shall be holy and pure like Him, and that therefore, if you but ask him. He will give you strength to keep pure. When you are tempted, pray to Him ; the struggle in your own minds will, no doubt, be very great ; it will be very hard work for you — sin looks so pleasant on the outside ! Poor souls, it is a sad struggle for you ! Many a poor young fellow, who goes wrong, deserves rather to be pitied than to be punished. Well, then, if no man else will pity him, Jesus, the Man of all men, will. Pray to Ilim ! Cry aloud to Him ! Ask Him to make you stout-hearted, patient, really manful, to fight against tempta- tion. Ask Him to give you strength of mind to fight against all NOTES. 173 bad habits. Ask Him to open your eyes to see when you are in danger. Ask Him to help you to keep out of the way of temp- tation. Ask Him, in short, to give you grace to use such absti- nence that your flesh may be subdued to your spirit. And then you will not follow, as the beasts do, just what seems pleasant to your flesh; no, you will be able to obey Christ's godly motions, that is, to do, as well as to love, the good desires which He puts into your hearts. You will not do merely what is pleasant, but what is right ; you will not be your own slaves, you will be your own masters, and God's loyal and obedient sons ; you will not be, as too many are, mere animals going about in the shape of men. but truly men at heart, who are not afraid of pain, poverty, shame, trouble or death itself, when they are in the right path, about the work to which God has called them." — Kingsley's Sermons [True Abstinence). 11 " "\\Tiat is not doing to-day, is not done to-morrow. Xo day should be wasted in dallying. Resolution should boldly seize the possible by the forelock at once. She will then not let it go, and works on, because she cannot help it." — Goethe [Dedication to Faust). 1- Lord Byron. " SIN. " Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round ! Parents first season us : then schoolmasters Deliver us to laws ; they send us bound To rules of reason, holy messengers — Pulpits and Sundays ; sorrow, dogging sin ; Afflictions, sorted ; anguish, of all sizes ; Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in ; Bibles, laid open ; millions of surprises ; Blessings beforehand ; ties of gratefulness ; The sound of glory ringing in our ears. Without, our shame : within, our consciences ; Angels, and grace ; eternal hopes and fears— 174 NOTES. Yet all these fences, and their whole array, One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away." George Herbert. 14 Knee-timber is technically that part of the trunk where the branch is inserted, and is consequently closer grained and tovigher than any other part of the wood. 15 The Proverbs of Solomon. If- " Giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue ; and to virtue knowledge ; and to knowledge temperance ; and to temperance patience ; and to patience godliness ; and to godliness brotherly kindness ; and to brotherly kindness charity." — 2 Peter i. 5-7. 17 " Fortior est qui se, quam qui fortissima vincit Mcenia, nee virtus altius ire potest." — Ovid. i*' " Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl- chain of all virtues." — Thomas Fuller, 1^ " Men in great place are thrice servants ; servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business ; so as they have no freedom, neither hi their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty ; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self. The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains." — Lord Bacon {Essays). 2» " You sigh for Fame, "Would serve as long as Jacob for his love, So you might win her. Spirits calm and still Are high above your order, as the stars Sit large and tranquil o'er the restless clouds That weep and lighten, pelt the earth with hail, And fret themselves away. The truly great Rest in the knowledge of their own deserts, Nor seek the confirmation of the world." Alex. Smith. NOTES. 175 21 See Mark ix. 14—29. 22 Paul the Apostle. 23 " And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers. The Lord be with you, and they answered him, The Lord bless thee."— Ruth ii. 4. 2* Tliis, I am informed by a person long familiar with the habits of sheep, is literally the case, each sheep choosing its own place in the flock, and rarely changing it. ■ji » The path to bliss abounds with many a snare : Learning is one, and wit, however rare. The Frenchman, first in literary fame, (Mention him if you please. Voltau-e r — The same.) With spirit, genius, eloquence, supplied, Lived long, wrote much, laughed heartilj% and died : The Scripture was his jest-book, whence he drew Bon-mots to gall the Christian and the Jew ; An infidel in health, but what when sick ? Oh — then a text would touch him at the quick : View him at Paris in his last career, Surromiding throngs the demigod revere ; Exalted on his pedestal of pride. And fumed with frankincense on every side. He begs their flattery with his latest breath. And, smothered in't at last, is praised to death. Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door. Pillow and bobbins all her little store. Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, Shufliing her threads about the livelong day, Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night Lies down secure, her heart and jjocket light ; She, for her humble sphere by nature fit. Has little understanding, and no wit, Receives no praise ; but, though her lot be such, (Toilsome and indigent), she renders much ; Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true — A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew ; 176 NOTES. And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes Her title to a treasure in the skies. Oh, happy peasant ! Oh, unhappy bard ! His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward ; He praised perhaps for ages yet to come, She never heard of half a mile from home : He, lost in errors his vain heart prefers. She, safe in the simplicity of hers." — Cowper [Truth) . 26 " Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?" — John xviii. 3S. 27 " It is a vanity," quaintly remarks Thomas Fuller, " to per- suade the world one hath much learning by getting a great library. As soon shall I believe every one is valiant that hath a well-furnished armoury." 28 An immense lunar crater, generally supposed to be the father of the mountains in the moon, and so named after the great Danish astronomer. 29 " For him who will spin, God finds yarn." — Cornish Proverb. 30 1 Cor. xiii. " " Is not provoked." This, as Dr. Adam Clarke, in loc, re- marks, is undoubtedly the true rendering. How the word " easily' ' got added it is difficult to say. The first English translation renders it thus— It is not stirid to wrath. 32 " Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not."— Prov. xxvii. 10. 33 «< Ut hirundines festivo tempore prsesto sunt, frigore pulsaj re- cedunt : ita falsi amici sereno tempore prsesto sunt : simul atque fortunse hiemem viderint, evolant omnes." — Cicero. 31 " Evil is wrought by want of thought, As well as want of heart." — Thomas Hood. 3'> " The only way to have a friend, is to be one." — Emerson. NOTES. 177 ;i6 •' Avoid extravagance," says Barnum, the well-known Ame- rican speculator, " and always live considerably within your in- come, if you can do so without actual starvation. It needs no prophet to tell us that those who live fully up to their means, without any thought of a reverse in life, can never attain a pecuniary independence Thousands of men are kept poor, and tens of thousands are made so after they have acquired quite sufficient to support them well through life, in consequence of laying their plans of living on too expensive a platfonn." 37 " What would I have you do ? I'll tell you, kinsman ; Learn to be wise, and practise how to thrive. That would I have you do : and not to spend Your coin on every bauble that you fancy. Or every foolish brain that humours you. I would not have you to invade each place. Nor thrust yourself on all societies, Till men's affections, or your own desert. Should worthily invite you to your rank. He that is so respectless in his courses, Oft sells his reputation at cheap market. Nor would I you should melt away yourself In flashing bravery, lest, Avhile you affect To make a blaze of gentry to the world, A little puff of scorn extinguish it, And you be left like an unsavoury snuff, A^Tiose property is only to offend. I'd ha' you sober, and contain yourself; Not that your sail be bigger than your boat ; But moderate expenses now (at first) As you may keep the same proportion stUl." Ben Jonson. 38 " I know," relates Barnum, " a gentleman of fortune, who says that, when he first began to prosper, his wife would have a new and elegant sofa. ' That sofa,' he says, ' cost me thirty thousand dollars !' The riddle is thus explained. When the sofa reached the house, it was found necessary to get chairs to match ; then sideboards, carpets, and tables ' to correspond' with them, and so on through the entii'e stock of furniture, when at last it 178 NOTES. was found that the house itself was quite too small and old- fashioned for the furniture, and a new one was built ' to corre- spond' with the sofa and et ceteras ; ' thus,' added my friend, ' runnmg up an outlay of 30,000 dollars caused by that single sofa, and saddling on me, in the shape of servants, equipage, and the necessary expenses attendant on keeping up a fine ' establish- ment,' a yearly outlay of 11,000 dollars, and a tight pinch at that ; whereas ten years ago we lived with much more real comfort, because with much less care, on as many hundreds. The truth is, he continued, ' that sofa would have brought me to inevitable bankruptcy, had not a most unexampled tide of prosperity kept me above it.' " 33 «' The eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I should want neither fine clothes, fine houses, nor fine furniture." — Fraiiklin. *o , " His delights Were dolphin-like ; they showed his back above The element they lived in." — Shakspere {Ant. § Cleopat.) 41 " I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day." — John ix. 4. 42 Adam. 43 Solomon. ** Samson. *'■' The name of Potiphar's wife, according to the Persian poets. " Genesis, xl. 20, et seq, ^^ Matthew xiv. 6, et seq. 4" " Honourable age is not that which standeth in length of time, nor that is measured by number of years. But wisdom is the grey hair unto men, and an unspotted life is old age." — Wisdom of Solomon, iv. 8, 9. NOTES. 179 M " Let's learn to live, for we must die, alone." — Crabbe. 50 «< "Who is he that hath acquired wealth, that hath risen to power, that hath clothed himself with honour, that is spoken of in the city with praise, and that standeth before the king in his council ? Even he that hath shut out Idleness from his house ; and hath said unto Sloth, Thou art mine enemy." — Dodsley (^Economy of Human Life J. =1 " Mankind in general mistake difficulties for impossibilities. That is the difference between those who effect, and those who do not." — Memoirs of Sir T. F. Buxtoji, by his Son. *2 General Pierce, the late President of the United States, de- cided in early life to embrace the profession of the law, but his debut at the bar was a complete failure. One of his friends ven- turing to express to him sentiments of condolence and encourage- ment. " I have no need of your encouragement," said he ; " I have failed this time, but I will succeed in the end. I will make the attempt nine hundred and ninety-nine times, and if I fail then, I will make it for the thousandth." 5* " Rubs and difficulties," says the late Rev. "W. Ho wells, in one of his letters written when a young man at Oxford, " after all, are the best tutors, for a young man : they teach him more wisdom than all the sages of antiquity." 5* "As to borrowing and lending," says Mr. Taylor in his essay ' Of Money,' " never lend money to a friend, unless you are satisfied that he does wisely and well in borrowing it. Borrowing is one of the most ordinary ways in which weak men sacrifice the future to the present ; and thence it is that the gratitude for a loan is proverbially evanescent ; for the future, becoming present in its turn, will not be well pleased with those who have assisted in doing it an injury. By conspiring with your friend to defraud his future self, you naturally incur his future displeasure." 55 Among other directions of John Grigg, the founder of the publishing firm of Grigg, Elliot and Co., of Philadelphia, to young business men, is the following — " Marry early. The man of 180 NOTES. business should marry as soon as possible, after twenty-two or twenty-three years of age. A woman of mind will conform to the day of small beginnings; and in choosing a wife a man should look at, 1st, the heart ; 2nd, the mind ; 3rd, the person." ^s " The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy— invincible determinatio7i—a. purpose once fixed, and then death or victory. That quality will do anything that can be done in this world ; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities, will make a two-legged creature a man without it."— Memoirs of Sir T. F. Buxio7i, Bart., by his Son. " " Marry not without means ; for so shouldst thou tempt Pro- vidence : But wait not for more than enough ; for marriage is the duty of most men." — Tuppers Proverbial Philosophy. 5^ " The destinies of the race depend more on its future mothers than on anything else ; that is to say, on the sort of women that young girls and young ladies are to be made into, or into which they will make themselves ; and the sort of wives that young men will have the sense to prefer, the judgment to select, and the hap- piness to secure. There is nothing so little thought of by the young, and no single thing that would be in its issues of such moment, as for the one sex to remember that they are born to be the makers of future men, and for the other to feel that what they want in marriage are not merely mates for themselves, but mothers for their children." — Rev. T. Binney [Sir T. F. Buxton. A Study for Young Men). 5^ The writer of Ecclesiasticus, in his description of a good wife, (Eccles. xxvi. 14) beautifully selects two special characteristics — " A silent and loving woman is a gift of the Lord." "" Eead and study that very beautiful picture of a good wife, Proverbs xxxi. 10 — 31. ci Benjamin West asserts that a smile of approval bestowed by NOTES. 181 his mother on one of his iirst efforts at painting gave him the im- petus that resulted in his future excellence and fame. " That smile," he records, " made me a painter." ^2 " Be thrifty, but not covetous : therefore give Thy need, thine honour, and thy friend, his due. Never was scraper brave man. Get, to live ; Then live, and use it ; else it is not true That thou hast gotten." George Herbert (^Church Porch). ^* " The philosophy which affects to teach us a contempt of money does not run very deep ; for, indeed, it ought to be still more clear to the philosopher than it is to the ordinary man, that there are few things of greater importance. And so manifold are the bearings of money upon the lives and character of mankind, that an insight which would search out the life of a man in his pecuniary relations, would penetrate into almost every cranny of his nature. He who knows, like St. Paul, both how to spare and how to abound, has a great knowledge ; for, if we take account of all the virtues with which money is mixed up — honesty, justice, generosity, charity, frugality, forethought, self-sacrifice, and of their correlative 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." — Taylor's Notes from Life, ''* " Oh fear not in a world like this, And thou shalt know, ere long, Know how sublime a thing it is To suffer, and be strong." — Longfellow, '''■' " Do all things like a man, not sneakingly." — George Herbert. ""' " Life's great play May, so it have an actor great enough. Be well performed upon a liunible stage." — Murston. 182 NOTES. 1^" " Be great, and seek little things; don't be little and seek great things." — Dr. W. Gordon. •""* Tlie sweet, or Spanish, chesnut : Castanca Vcsca. MEADtN, PRINTER, HIGH STREET, CLAPHAM. WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. AN IDEA OF A CHRISTIAX. Second Thousand. Demy 8vo, cloth, Is. 6d.; paper, Is. Post free. *' A book full of .ffems of thought and expression. Mr. Partridge has caught the true idea of a Chris- tian, and very beautifully has he wrought it out."— Christian' Spectator. *' This book is not a formal treatise on the Christian, but a string of aphorisms and brief sententious sayings, like so many radiant pearls and gems of richest hue, sparkling with truth, love, and every moral excellence which adorns the Christian character. There is thought and wisdom in every sentence, and from their unconstrained freedom, their quaintness, their frequent antithesis, and from their preg- nant fullness of important meaning, they will be sure to hx themselves in the memory aad the heart/* — Methodist New Connexion Magazixe. " Pages of elaborate thought, clearly and nobly expressed The book is singularly fitted to promote profitable meditation." — British Baxxer. ^ " The Christian, his principles, spirit and conduct, are here beautifully described in the style adopted by Mr. Tapper in his ' Proverbial Philosophy.' The attempt may be regarded by some as a bold one, but it is admirably sustained. We hope professing Christians will read this book and ponder it, and ex- amine themselves by it. By so doing they will he immensely benefitted, both intellectually and spiritually."— British Mother's Magazine. *• It is a complete Cbristianome'.er, by which any self-investigator may ascertain his degree of ad- vancement in the narrow but still only true and pleasurable life."— Dr. J. S , Author of *' Inci- dents of Travel," &c. " Allow me to thank you for your beautiful ' Idea of a Christian.' It forms, at family prayer (about two pages at a time), an extremely interesting diversity to our usual reading. "—Rev. O.T. D-^ — , LL.D. VOICES FROM THE GARDEN ; or, the Christian Language of Flowers. Third. Thousand. Is.; cloth gilt, 2s. Pust free. '* "VVe have read these poems with inexpressible delight. We never read a poetical work, of the same size, richer in sentiment, more fraught with solid thinking, or better adapted to convey sound instruc- tion to the heart." — MEXHonisT New Connexion Magazine. ** Beautiful exceedingly. The current rhymes which have been said and sung about the flower- garden, with their feeble sentimentalism and jejune prettinesses, will hardly be retained in the boudoir of a Christian lady who has once seen this. Nothing in the shape of verse has, foi many a day, fallen so sweetly on our ear or so delighted our fancy as * The Voices from the Garden.' " — United Presby- rERiAX Magazine. '• A beautiful design, beautifully esecuted."—BRiTisK ^Iothers' Magazine. 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"'Gems' they arc, every one of them— precious gems, which in like number, beauty, and value, »ouid perhaps he found in Ihi.- writiiurs of no other man Asa suj{Ke3live liook for closet use, or is a travelling friend, this little voUfmc will he invaluable."— Chri.stian Tlvks. " The compiler has devoted ?reat labour and displayed great judgment in the selection of his gems. .... We very cordially welcome the volume, and earnestly recommend it to our readers."— Metho- dist New ("o.s'.nexio.n .Magazi.ve. " A beautiful little hook. A string of pearls, a necklace of rubles, a tiara of diamonds— these and )thergems are here."— Nonconformist. " As a manual for daily study it will be invaluabln. A more excellent prize book in Sunday Schools ;ould not be given," — Standard ov Kukedom. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. FOR THE YOUNG. IMPORTANT TRUTHS IN SIMPLE VERSE. Third Thousand. ISmo, Is. Gd. ; crimson, 2s. Post free. 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