University of Virginia Library

Nature alone, is universal want;
Yet how to fill it, Man can never find
Till Heaven instruct him. Sin a gap hath made,
Which all the glory that below the skies
Our dreams may image, or some vast desire
Adumbrate, cannot now conceal, or close.
The happy are the holy; none besides!
But, God in man plants holiness complete:
Life from The Spirit, by His Word inbreathed,
Like to a soul within a soul must reign
Or, at the best, Humanity corrupts;
Her lights are cold, her attributes eclipsed,
And all her high prerogatives a cheat.

Still, man himself a moral Crœsus thinks,
And by his power perfected being longs
To frame, or fashion. Hence the World has tried
The hunger of his heart with food to feed,
Drawn from the depths of that presumed supply
By Self created: but the effort fails;
And Time recorded yet repeats the tale
Of mutual wants, by mutual pride befool'd
With false supplies, which took the name of Good,
But never reach'd its nature: till at length
Giants in faith, by God himself equipp'd,
Rise into action and the earth redeem!
And these, like moral incarnations prove
Of all that sighing Ages had invoked,
Or Truth predicted as the master-mould
In which to cast our virtues. What was once
An aimless yearning, or a blind desire
Haunting the heart with perturbation wild,
Is now personified by Form express
And open: Want hath now a Priest obtain'd
Whose genius gives each high abstraction voice,
And bodies forth by energy sublime
Sorrows which pleading Centuries long deplored.

And such was Luther, when the clock of Time
Sounded the hour for his decreed approach.
He was the Mouthpiece of oppress'd mankind,
A great Interpreter of tongueless wants
And pains, which lack'd an intellectual Power
Their own profundity to tell, or prove.
Yet, Preludes dawn'd which oft a change foretold
And Heralds of divine relief began
More perfect morals and a purer creed
To sanction, from the deeps of Scripture drawn,
Ere the lone monk from out his convent pour'd
Those thunder-peals of theologic truth,
Which startled Leo from a sensual trance
And shook the Vatican with such a force,
Its chambers vibrate with th' impulsive blow,
They gave them! though three hundred years
Have swept their wings o'er Martin Luther's grave.
There was a ripple in the mental tide
Awaken'd; streams of holier thought began
Heavenward and onward through the heart to roll,
Till lo! at length, a master-Mind proceeds
Forth from the secrecies of convent-life,
In whom the Spirit of the age can find
Its true Embodiment, by grace inspired
The mind to utter and its motion wield.

And we, who now the Reformation scan
Mellow'd by time, and by experience tried,
No random impulse, no erratic move
Aimless and blind, in that achievement hail;
But rather a momentum, pure and deep,
From Deity Himself directly sent
To Nature, that her inmost heart might wake.
Reason and Man were agencies alone;
They acted nought but instrumental parts:
One Great Director did o'er all preside,
But yet, invisible; behind the veil
Of mortal drapery, His guiding hand
Arrested, moved, and modified the work
With sacred watch incessant. Hence the Cause
So often grew mysterious, and appear'd
Curtain'd by gloom infernal, which bemock'd
A timid gazer; but the high result
Proved far beyond what Romish annals feign,—
Mere anarchy from man's revolted mind
Heady and proud, by lawless will inspired.
Nor was it but the negative excess
Of haughty Reason, with disdainful ire
All ritual forms time-hallow'd and revered,
Trampling to dust: for then, the Work had died
E'en in its birth, as imposition blind
As baseless; founded in no faith, or law,
And tinged with nothing but sectarian hues
Petty, and partial. No, The Truth was there!
And from that centre, like a scriptural heart,
Recover'd Grace with throbs of doctrine sent
A gospel life-blood through the generous Whole.
And thus, th' Almighty did Himself inspire
The Reformation: all unheard, unseen
And unimagined, in the midst He moved,
While Luther was the mental Hand, which made
The outward Index of His secret will.
And what makes history, but that Will evolved,
In fact embodied, or in form contain'd!
When thus perused, the page historic glows
With life intelligent, and force divine:
But when apart from heaven's presumed Decree
The glooms or glories of this world we scan,
Our creed must be confusion: then the Church
Matter and mind alone can thus display
To faith, or feeling. History's life is God:
All second causes are the First disguised,
And great results, though Man sole master seem,
Produce mere echoes which His will repeat.

And oh, how thrilling! touch'd with solemn awe,
Or, pregnant with philosophy how deep,
Are Time's events, when, thus divinely read!
Here is the harmony of Things obtain'd,
When from the Cross pure explanations flow,
And one vast Principle itself reveals
That binds with concord, and embraces all,
Which else, looks chaos in the whirl of life.
Yea, such the homage to some Power believed
Empires and nation in His hand to hide,
That pagan Instinct canonised the creed
Ere God in gospel to the earth came down
His heart revealing. Never yet hath man
A wisdom high, or greatness holy sought,
But claim'd he kindred with celestial Law
And by Divinity himself explain'd.
Thus Truth in time shall magnify the Cross,
Until the hearts of God-revering men
Echo on earth, the chant by angels sung
In glory,—“King of Kings! and Lord of Lords!
In Thee and for Thee, do all things consist
In souls, or systems, by the world contain'd.