letters to his supernatural conversion, the particulars and accompanying circumstances of which are related in the history; and which accompanying circumstances, if all or any of them be true, render it impossible to have been a delusion. We also find him positively, and in appropriate terms, asserting that he himself worked miracles, strictly and properly so called, in support of the mission which he executed; the history, meanwhile, recording various passages of his ministry which come up to the extent of this assertion. The question is, whether falsehood was ever attested by evidence like this. Falsehoods, we know, have found their way into reports, into tradition, into books; but is an example to be met with of a man voluntarily undertaking a life of want and pain, of incessant fatigue, of continual peril; submitting to the loss of his home and country, to stripes and stoning, to tedious imprisonment, and the constant expectation of a violent death, for the sake of carrying about a story of what was false, and what, if false, he must have known to be so?
THE DAWN OF ROMANTIC POETRY.
228. Robert Blair. 1699-1746. (Manual, p. 374.)
That, after many a painful bleeding step, Conducts us to our home, and lands us safe On the long-wish'd-for shore. Prodigious change! Our bane turn'd to a blessing! Death, disarm'd, Loses his fellness quite; all thanks to Him Who scourged the venom out. Sure the last end Of the good man is peace! How calm his exit! Night-dews fall not more gently to the ground, Nor weary worn-out winds expire so soft. Behold him! in the evening tide of life, A life well spent, whose early care it was His riper years should not upbraid his green : By unperceived degrees he wears away; Yet, like the sun, seems larger at his setting! High in his faith and hopes, look how he reaches After the prize in view! and, like a bird That's hamper'd, struggles hard to get away! Whilst the glad gates of sight are wide expanded To let new glories in, the first fair fruits Of the fast-coming harvest. Then, oh, then, Each earth-born joy grows vile, or disappears, Shrunk to a thing of naught! Oh, how he longs To have his passport sign'd, and be dismiss'd! 'Tis done—and now he's happy! The glad soul Has not a wish uncrown'd. E'en the lag flesh Rests, too, in hope of meeting once again Its better half, never to sunder more. Nor shall it hope in vain: the time draws on When not a single spot of burial earth, Whether on land, or in the spacious sea,
But must give back its long-committed dust Inviolate; and faithfully shall these
Make up the full account; not the least atom Embezzled or mislaid of the whole tale. Each soul shall have a body ready furnish'd; And each shall have his own.
James Thomson. 1700-1748. (Manual, p. 375.)
'Tis listening fear, and dumb amazement all : When to the startled eye the sudden glance Appears far south, eruptive through the cloud; And following slower, in explosion vast, The Thunder raises his tremendous voice. At first, heard solemn o'er the verge of heaven, The tempest growls; but as it nearer comes, And rolls its awful burden on the wind, The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more The noise astounds: till over head a sheet Of livid flame discloses wide; then shuts, And opens wider; shuts and opens still Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze, Follows the loosen'd aggravated roar, Enlarging, deepening, mingling; peal on peal Crush'd horrible, convulsing heaven and earth.
Confess'd from yonder slow-extinguish'd clouds, All ether softening, sober evening takes Her wonted station in the middle air;
A thousand shadows at her beck. First this She sends on earth; then that of deeper dye Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still In circle following circle, gathers round, To close the face of things. A fresher gale Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream, Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn; While the quail clamours for his running mate. Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze, A whitening shower of vegetable down Amusive floats. The kind impartial care
Of Nature naught disdains: thoughtful to feed Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year, From field to field the feather'd seeds she wings.
His folded flock secure, the shepherd home Hies, merry-hearted; and by turns relieves The ruddy milkmaid of her brimming pail ; The beauty whom, perhaps, his witless heart- Unknowing what the joy-wix'd anguish means— Sincerely loves, by that best language shown Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds. Onward they pass, o'er many a panting height, And valley sunk, and unfrequented; where At fall of eve the fairy people throng, In various game, and revelry, to pass The summer-night, as village stories tell. But far about they wander from the grave Of him, whom his ungentle fortune urged Against his own sad breast to lift the hand Of impious violence. The lonely tower Is also shunn'd; whose mournful chambers hold- So night-struck Fancy dreams-the yelling ghost.
The western sun withdraws the shortened day, And humid evening, gliding o'er the sky In her chill progress, to the ground condensed The vapours throws. Where creeping waters ooze, Where marshes stagnate, and where rivers wind, Cluster the rolling fogs, and swim along
The dusky-mantled lawn. Meanwhile the moon, Full-orb'd, and breaking through the scatter'd clouds, Shows her broad visage in the crimson east. Turn'd to the sun direct, her spotted disk, Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend, And caverns deep, as optic tube descries, A smaller earth, gives us his blaze again, Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.
Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop, Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime. Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild O'er the skied mountain to the shadowy vale,
While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam, The whole air whitens with a boundless tide Of silver radiance, trembling round the world.
A TRAVELLER LOST IN THE SNOW.
As thus the snows arise; and foul, and fierce, All Winter drives along the darken'd air; In his own loose-revolving fields the swain Disaster'd stands; sees other hills ascend, Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes, Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain : Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on From hill to dale, still more and more astray; Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps, Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul! What black despair, what horror fills his heart! When for the dusky spot, which fancy feign'd His tufted cottage rising through the snow, He meets the roughness of the middle waste, Far from the track and blest abode of man: While round him night resistless closes fast, And every tempest, howling o'er his head, Renders the savage wilderness more wild. Then throng the busy shapes into his mind, Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent! beyond the power of frost; Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,
Smooth'd up with snow; and, what is land unknown, What water of the still unfrozen spring,
In the loose marsh or solitary lake,
Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils. These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death, Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots Through the wrung bosom of the dying man- His wife, his children, and his friends unseen. In vain for him the officious wife prepares The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm ;
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