SECTION III.-SACRED AND MORAL.
I-THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD.
Dr. Edward Young, author of the "Night Thoughts," was born in Hampshire n 1681, and died in 1765, at his rectory of Welwyn, in Hertfordshire.
RETIRE;-the world shut out;-thy thoughts call home ;-
Imagination's airy wing repress;
Lock up thy senses :-let no passion stir ;—
Wake all to Reason;-let her reign alone:—
Then, in thy soul's deep silence, and the depth
Of Nature's silence, midnight, thus inquire,
As I have done; and shall inquire no more.
In Nature's channel, thus the questions run.
What am I? and from whence? I nothing know,
But that I am; and, since I am, conclude
Something eternal. Had there e'er been nought,
Nought still had been: eternal there must be.
But what eternal ?-Why not human race;
And Adam's ancestors without an end?—
That's hard to be conceived, since every link
Of that long-chained succession is so frail :
Can every part depend, and not the whole?
Yet, grant it true, new difficulties rise:
I'm still quite out at sea, nor see the shore.
Whence earth, and these bright orbs ?-eternal too?—
Grant matter was eternal; still these orbs
Would want some other father. Much design
Is seen in all their motions, all their makes.
Design implies intelligence and art :
That can't be from themselves-or man; that art
Man scarce can comprehend, could man bestow?
And nothing greater, yet allowed, than man.
Who, motion, foreign to the smallest grain,
Shot through vast masses of enormous weight?
Who bade brute matter's restive lump assume
Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly?
Has matter innate motion? then, each atom,
Asserting its indisputable right
To dance, would form a universe of dust.
Has matter none? then, whence these glorious forins,
And boundless flights, from shapeless and reposed?
Has matter more than motion? Has it thought,
Judgment, and genius? Is it deeply learned
In mathematics? Has it framed such laws,
Which, but to guess, a Newton made immortal?—
If so, how each sage atom laughs at me,
Who think a clod inferior to a man!
If art, to form; and counsel, to conduct--
And that with greater far than human skill,
Resides not in each block :- a GODHEAD reigns-
And, if a God there is, that God how great!
Dangers escaped during a storm in the Mediterranean called forth this beautiful hymn.
How are thy servants blest, O Lord!
How sure is their defence!
Eternal Wisdom is their guide;
Their help, Omnipotence.
In foreign realms and lands remote,
Supported by thy care,
Through burning climes I passed unhurt,
And breathed in tainted air.
Thy mercy sweetened every soil,
Made every region please;
The hoary Alpine hills it warmed,
And smoothed the Tyrrhene seas.
Think, O my soul, devoutly think,
How, with affrighted eyes,
Thou saw'st the wide extended deep
In all its horrors rise!
Confusion dwelt in every face,
And fear in every heart,
When waves on waves, and gulfs on gulfs,
O'ercame the pilot's art.
Yet then, from all my griefs, O Lord,
Thy mercy set me free;
Whilst, in the confidence of prayer,
My soul took hold on Thee.
For though in dreadful whirls we hung,
High on the broken wave,
I knew thou wert not slow to hear,
Nor impotent to save.
The storm was laid, the winds retired,
Obedient to thy will:
The sea that roared at thy command,
At thy command was still.
In midst of dangers, fears, and death,
Thy goodness I'll adore;
And praise thee for thy mercies past,
And humbly hope for more.
My life, if thou preserv'st my life,
Thy sacrifice shall be ;
And death, if death must be my doom,
Shall join my soul to thee!
III.-THANATOPSIS; OR, A VIEW OF DEATH.
William Cullen Bryant, one of the most popular, perhaps the most popular, of living American poets, was born in the State of Massachusetts in 1794. He studied for the profession of the law, but turned journalist, and in 1828 became co-editor of the New York Evening Post.
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,-
Go forth under the open sky and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters and the depths of air,—
Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again:
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thy eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone-nor could'st thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,-the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods-rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old ocean's grey and melancholy waste,-
Are but the solemn declarations all
Of the great tomb of man.
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.-Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings—yet—the dead are there,
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep-the dead reign there alone.—
So shalt thou rest-and what if thou withdraw
Unheeded by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages, glide away the sons of men,-
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the grey-headed man,—
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
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