A common and very simple reason for this disappointment is that most of us overrate our capacity. We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to, in virtue of our endowments. The figurative descriptions of the last Grand Assize must no more be taken literally than the golden crowns, which we do not expect or want to wear on our heads, or the golden harps, which we do not want or expect to hold in our hands. Is it not too true that many religious sectaries think of the last tribunal complacently, as the scene in which they are to have the satisfaction of saying to the believers of a creed different from their own, "I told you so"? Are not others oppressed with the thought of the great returns which will be expected of them as the product of their great gifts, the very limited amount of which they do not suspect, and will be very glad to learn, even at the expense of their self-love, when they are called to their account? If the ways of the Supreme Being are ever really to be "justified to men," to use Milton's expression, every human being may expect an exhaustive explanation of himself. No man is capable of being his own counsel, and I cannot help hoping that the ablest of the, archangels will be retained for the defence of the worst of sinners.
He himself is unconscious of the agencies which made him what he is.
Self-determining he may be, if you will, but who determines the self which is the proximate source of the determination? Why was the A self like his good uncle in bodily aspect and mental and moral qualities, and the B self like the bad uncle in look and character?
Has not a man a right to ask this question in the here or in the hereafter,--in this world or in any world in which he may find himself? If the All-wise wishes to satisfy his reasonable and reasoning creatures, it will not be by a display of elemental convulsions, but by the still small voice, which treats with him as a dependent entitled to know the meaning of his existence, and if there was anything wrong in his adjustment to the moral and spiritual conditions of the world around him to have full allowance made for it. No melodramatic display of warring elements, such as the white-robed Second Adventist imagines, can meet the need of the human heart. The thunders and lightnings of Sinai terrified and impressed the more timid souls of the idolatrous and rebellious caravan which the great leader was conducting, but a far nobler manifestation of divinity was that when "the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend."
I find the burden and restrictions of rhyme more and more troublesome as I grow older. There are times when it seems natural enough to employ that form of expression, but it is only occasionally; and the use of it as the vehicle of the commonplace is so prevalent that one is not much tempted to select it as the medium for his thoughts and emotions. The art of rhyming has almost become a part of a high-school education, and its practice is far from being an evidence of intellectual distinction. Mediocrity is as much forbidden to the poet in our days as it was in those of Horace, and the immense majority of the verses written are stamped with hopeless mediocrity.
When one of the ancient poets found he was trying to grind out verses which came unwillingly, he said he was writing INVITA MINERVA.
Vex not the Muse with idle prayers,--
She will not hear thy call;
She steals upon thee unawares, Or seeks thee not at all.
Soft as the moonbeams when they sought Endymion's fragrant bower, She parts the whispering leaves of thought To show her full-blown flower.
For thee her wooing hour has passed, The singing birds have flown, And winter comes with icy blast To chill thy buds unblown.
Yet, though the woods no longer thrill As once their arches rung, Sweet echoes hover round thee still Of songs thy summer sung.
Live in thy past; await no more The rush of heaven-sent wings;
Earth still has music left in store While Memory sighs and sings.
I hope my special Minerva may not always be unwilling, but she must not be called upon as she has been in times past. Now that the teacups have left the table, an occasional evening call is all that my readers must look for. Thanking them for their kind companionship, and hoping that I may yet meet them in the now and then in the future, I bid them goodbye for the immediate present.
