University of Virginia Library

REASON AND FAITH.

By Unbelief our primal nature fell
From light to darkness; and by Faith it mounts
Back to the glory whence its pureness sank:
But still, that fatal tyranny of Sense,
Which Adam first around the virgin-soul
Allow'd to cast its paralysing chain,
Abides; and needs a disenchanting spell
Beyond mere Reason, in its brightest noon,
To shame or silence.—Yes, the Felt, the Seen,
And Tangible, alone appears the True!
Our touch must regulate the law of truth,
And to the Body must our high-born Soul
Stoop like a slave, before the mind admits
Motives divine, and miracles of grace,
Or myst'ries, where the Infinite Unknown
Enshrines His nature, and His love reveals.
Yet, 'tis the madness of outrageous pride,
The dismal lunacy of self-esteem;
And Reason here a suicide becomes,
When god o'er God it thus presumes to be,
And dwarfs the Everlasting down to Man!
But, faith is reason in its noblest form;
And boasts an evidence most heavenly-bright,
Sublimely-equal to our Spirit's need,
In whatsoe'er submissive Love believes
From Deity derived, our world to save.
For, breathe we not the Church's sainted air
Where all is fragrant of the truths of old?
And ritual Forms, and ceremonial Types,
With each high record of auxiliar sway,
Historic truths, traditionary lore,
And monuments of sacramental Grace,—
These have we not? And, though rejecting pride
Back on the blaze of this commingled orb
Of evidence, a sneer presume to cast,
Yet, have the wise and wondrous to such light
Their hearts submitted, and repose enjoy'd.
And, more than this, a clear-eyed wisdom finds:
For if unrisen were our spirit's King,
Then long ere this the Galiléan Lie
Had vanish'd!—for the Creed its claims involve,
Binds on the world offensive purity
Which flesh endures not: and if Christ were dead,
Tomb'd in the darkness of sepulchral clay,
How could His promise with our souls to be
Present for ever,—still on earth be proved
Infallible, through faith's unbounded world?
A living Christian proves a living Christ
As firmly to the soul, as if the heavens
Were now uncurtain'd, and our eyes entranced
Look'd through the Veil and saw Him shining there
In glory, bright as what the Martyr view'd,
When Stephen mounted from his mangled clay
In bleeding triumph, to his Master's breast.