The Baptistery, or the way of eternal life :: :: University of Virginia Library

Reef after reef upon its ocean bed
The coral branches forth, and lifts its head,
More and more spreads around its woodland caves,
Emerging like a palace from the waves,
Hard'ning and reddening in each glowing cell,
Fit haunt for fabled spirit there to dwell;—
Fair roof'd abodes, crystalline cells and floors,
Where shells and living things, old Ocean's stores,
Take varied hues and put on mailèd form,
Gathering their strength and beauty from the storm.
And yet the while it hath no root on earth,
But feeds on air and sea, from whence its birth.
Thus Habits mould the soul to be a place,
Wherein may dwell forms of immortal grace;
While thoughts and tempers in the spirit's shrine
Grow into shape and take the life divine;—
Born and uprais'd from the Baptismal sea,
And drinking Heaven—elastic, stainless, free.

Branch after branch the Banyan tree gives birth
To daughter arms, that downward seek the earth:

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Whose envious branches make a mid-day gloom,
And hide the sun;—dun, silent as the tomb,
A life-destroying, gloom-embowering cave,
A temple for dark spirits of the grave.
Thus evil Habits wreathe their snakes around,
With elephantine trunks that love the ground,
And form a sullen shield against the sky,
Hiding from all the soul Heaven's genial eye:
Where sinful passions brood and range the shade,
And hide them in the gloom themselves have made.

Say, shall the dusky Ethiop change his skin?
Then he that long hath sinn'd shall cease from sin.
And shall the dappled leopard lose his spots?
Then time shall wear away the sinner's blots.
With changing life we change through our short span,
Yet still “the boy is father of the man;”
In alter'd lineaments the same we trace,
And in the man behold the stripling's face.

First soft and flexible ourselves we mould,
Then cold and harden'd the sure impress hold;
See the fresh youth alive to breath of blame,
Soft as the air to catch the tinge of shame;
He laughs at vice, decrying virtue's pains,—
Now look again, his spirit is in chains.
Or if his will hath wrought the mastery,
It hath regain'd the reins, and now is free.

As we advance a silent hand we find,
A form unseen is pulling from behind;
In ways and thoughts of weakness and of wrong,
Threads turns to cords, and cords to cables strong,
Till Habit hath become our Destiny,
Which drives us on, and shakes her scourge on high.

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Stumbling when we our heavenly course would run,
Caught in the meshes we ourselves have spun;
Then knowing not the cause we feel a chain
Withholding, and of outward things complain,
Of fate,—foreknowledge,—nails by Nature driven,—
Of stern necessity,—and power of Heaven,—
Of head's formation,—all-constraining will,—
Of inborn evil,—power invincible;
Alas our folly doth divine too well
Of Satan's bondage, and the toils of hell;
As if the mandate had gone forth in doom,
“Bind hand and foot, and take him to the gloom.”

The Will is moulded warm, but hard remains,
And is upon the heart with iron chains;
And Sin, within the seat of conscience wrought,
Brings in her teeming brood of evil thought;
Those thoughts of evil still unbid return,
Till through the veins the secret fevers burn:
While every avenue lies open still,
And from each scene lets in the taint of ill.

Then let thine Angel seize thee by the hand,
And lead thee onward to a happier land,
While thou art able yet to hear his call,
Ere bound within by Passion's secret thrall.
And know thy Heaven-ward pathway to descry,
There is no guide like sweet Simplicity;
The serpent's wisdom, manhood's worldly sense,
Can boast no light like dove-like innocence.
Nay, serpent's wisdom, manhood's strength combin'd
Are found in childlike innocence of mind.

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For love on earth, in things unearthly wise,
Doth of the desert make a paradise;
Wherein the child doth with the lion stray,
The serpent and the dove together play.
Thus death to life and night to daylight turns,
And round thy feet the light of duty burns,
While purity keeps watch at every pore,
And 'gainst each evil phantom shuts the door.

Behold how Mammon's child through earth and sky
Weighs all, unconscious, with a practis'd eye,
To something of prophetic sight attains,
While finger upon finger counts his gains:
How keen to scape all loss, all store to hold!
He deems nought pleasant but what turns to gold.
Thus Love divine looks round with eager eyes,
Transmuting all things to her growing prize,
Her task on earth is treasure in the skies.

And now Occasion calls thee with her glass,
Wherein thy sands are number'd as they pass;
Ere it hath flown seize now the fleeting hour;
Each hour may break a link of Satan's power;
Each hour one Heavenward step may thee advance,
For good or evil may the next enhance;
Till Virtue meet thee, fair as star of even,
And her own light and liberty hath given.

How sweet the ways of Wisdom early gain'd,
Growing with growth, and strength by strength attain'd,
As higher heights and broader ways expand,
A freer air more near th' immortal land,

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More treasure stor'd in Heaven! Then Habit's might
Gives armour, makes the yoke and burden light,
When with spontaneous spring the heart ascends
In prayer to Heaven, in prayer begins and ends;
Till custom shall to Nature's strength attain,
Duty her present joy, her future gain,
Opening a wider path in green old age,
Strewed with calm hopes of her high heritage.

Then Wisdom's self descending from the sky
Shall train thy heart to glad philosophy;
And Christ Himself upon the way appears,
In things of Heaven to school thine eyes and ears;
To walk with thee as erst with them of old,
And all the world around thee to unfold.
The scene to worldlings, where their glory dies,
The grave wherein their hope in ruin lies,
Becomes replete with pictures ever new,
Presenting Heavenly lessons to the view;—
Portraying things of our immortal birth,
As evening clouds oft shadow things of earth,
Obscure and transient, yet as by they sail,
There the full heart reads many a solemn tale;
Each object seen becomes a speaking sign,
Which with a finger points to things divine,
A mirror wherein things celestial pass,
Eternity disclos'd as in a glass.

For if Christ is within, enshrin'd in light,
From all without, from like or opposite,
From scenes we meet, or by the way behold,
He forms His parable, as erst of old,
Giving the seeing eye and hearing ear,
And heart to understand His presence near;

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Till all around our life shall find a tongue,
And witnesses of God our pathway throng.

All Nature then becomes a living book,
Wherein the eyes of Faith for ever look,
And see a Father's love, a Father's care,
And the eternal kingdom rising there.
Then she walks forth 'neath Heaven's o'er-arching light,
And reads the glorious tidings brought to sight,
And carries on her holy orison
Through all His works in sacred shrines begun.

Read we in learned lore of rural scene?
Or range the moor and mount, and pause between;
Where fleecy wand'rers browse the sunny hill,
Or bleating drink of the dark winding rill,—
While by the sidelong path and jutting rock,
The shepherd hastens down to aid his flock?
That watchful guide, and wolf that prowls at eve,
When thoughts of evil the weak bosom grieve,
Shall speak of guardian Love in dangers nigh—
The Shepherd ready for His sheep to die;
On mountain sides and wilds all bleak and bare,
Sweet are such lessons of His gentle care;
On wind and wave His presence seems to brood,
Till that lone sheep-moor is not solitude.

Then let me pass along to cultur'd plains;
Lo, in destruction gay the charnock reigns,
The proud usurper o'er the waving corn,
Sharing soft dews, and rains, and rays of morn.
Alas, in Christ's own kingdom, all unseen,
The footsteps of the deadly fiend have been;

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Such are bad thoughts in the untutor'd breast;
Such the bad men that break the Church's rest.
Thus e'en in sorrows we discern the sign,
And read in works of men Thy truth divine;
Read Thine own lessons, and no more repine,
But haply gain therein a thought of care,
Of sleepers—and the harvest—and the tare.

Or shall we wander forth to southern skies?
There Wisdom still shall bear her Heaven-taught eyes,
Where creeps from branch to branch the hanging vine,
And fair festoons with clustering grapes entwine.
Sweeter than fragrant dews and genial air,
Breathe o'er that beauteous scene the thoughts of prayer.
O wondrous truth of awful mystery,
Are we the branches that bear fruit in Thee?
All one with Thee, by Thee, in Thee abide,
Planted in Thee, and growing from Thy side,
Thyself in us—we not ourselves but Thine,
Form'd of and in one new mysterious Vine!
Our better thoughts—our works—are all Thine own,
Thou spread'st Thyself in us, in us art grown,—
Bearing Thy fruit in us, Thyself our fruit,—
Thyself expanding in each living shoot.

Grow, glorious Vine, around our homely halls,
Spreading Thine arms about our peaceful walls;
Type of that heavenly Bride whose living grace
Clasps our poor homes with her serene embrace;
With sheltering arms around and costly dower,
Drinking the airs of Heaven, and sun, and shower.

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Nor shall the hills and vales that breathe of Heaven,
And vines, and setting suns, and rays of even,
Alone speak Thy blest language, but the walls
Of crowded cities echo back Thy calls;
Heard stilly amid rude suburban cells;
And thickly-peopled towns, where luxury dwells.
There haply some fond parent's aching breast
Looks for a long-lost child, in sad unrest,
Watching the distance in his lone abode,
Where opes the window to the mountain road;
Or hastes to meet the wanderer on the wild,
And Justice yields to Mercy reconcil'd.
Thus yearning Nature speaks a parent's love,
And this is Pity such as dwells above.
So when sad Memory sinks in guilty fears,
Such emblem of Thy love shall move his tears,
And urge to rise and seek a Father's face,
Who hastes to hold him in his fond embrace.

Thus when the heart, from fleshly bonds made free,
Attains to that immortal liberty,
The spirit of adoption shall make wise,
And clothe the world with her own mysteries.
The Spirit Which made all things gives to read
In His own works below His living creed.

Then as we walk abroad, in singing bird
A Father's care is seen, His praise is heard;
And lilies, in their sweet and dewy nest,
Speak of more radiant hues that shall invest
The earth-soil'd soul, which while it hastes to die
Is cloth'd afresh with immortality.

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While withering flowers, which bloom but to decay,
Leave seeds that shall abide the harvest-day:
And labouring ants still teach us at our feet
Of Heavenly stores, and sure unseen retreat.

Soul-lighting Wisdom, unto whom is given,
To find on earth a shadow of thy Heaven,
Purge from the dross of sin my feeble sight,
That I Thy blessed lore may read aright!