The Christian Scholar :: :: University of Virginia Library

“But then revenge more pleasant is than life,
“So say the unwise, whose bosoms fraught with strife
“On every trivial cause with anger burn;
“Whate'er the occasion, it will serve the turn.
“Chrysippus and mild Thales say not so,
“Nor the old man of sweet Hymettus, who
“With his accuser in his chains denied
“The poison'd cup to share of which he died.
“Wisdom first teaches right, and gathering strength
“All errors and much vice weeds out at length.
“For aught of pleasure in revenge to find
“Indicates an infirm and little mind:
“Which hence thou mayst infer—for note aright,
“That women in revenge most take delight.
“But think not he escapes thee, though he flies,
“Whom conscious guilt still holds and terrifies

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“With lash that sounds not, and the scourge of fear,
“The mind itself its executioner.
“Worse pain than can Cæditius here bestow,
“Or Rhadamanthus in the shades below;—
“By night and day, with ceaseless watch oppress'd,
“To bear his own accuser in his breast.

“A Spartan was once answer'd by the shrine
“That he should suffer for his ill design;—
“For he enquired should he a pledge retain,
“And by a perjured oath the fraud sustain;
“If such the Pythian deity would speed,
“And if Apollo would persuade the deed.—
“And so from fear, not conscience, he restor'd,
“A terrible example to afford,
“Well worthy of the shrine and prophet's word,
“Himself cut off, his kindred, and his home,
“Extinguish'd utterly in fearful doom.

“Such punishment awaits the wish to sin,
“For he who meditates a crime within
“Is guilty of the deed; but if the crime
“Itself he perpetrate, for after time
“Endless anxiety will on him lie,
“Nor at the table cease, his throat is dry,
“He cannot the chew'd morsel swallow down,
“From choicest wines he turns with sickly frown . . .
“At night should care allow him brief repose,
“His limbs at length find rest, his eye-lids close,

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“He sees, all trembling, the Avenger's rod,—
“The temple, and the altar, and the God,
“And thee thyself. With sacred terrors fraught,
“Greater than human, is thine image brought
“Before him, and in slumber's empty dread
“Constrains him to confess the guilty deed.

“Such men at lightnings tremble and turn pale,
“Half-dead at the first murmuring thunder-gale,
“As if not clouds by chance together driven,
“But vengeance had brought down the fire from Heaven.
“When pass'd, then of the next they are afraid,
“Lest Judgment by this calm be but delayed.
“Should side-felt pains and fever hold awake,
“They feel the offended God; and all things take
“As weapons hurl'd by angry deities.
“They cannot sacrifice; what can appease?
“What hope when guilty men in sickness lie?
“What victim not less worthy far to die?

“Though sin be in its nature mutable,
“Yet once admitted, stedfastness in ill
“Remains: when crime is finish'd, men begin
“To ope their eyes to goodness and to sin;
“Yet nature, once perverted, will recur
“To self-condemning ways, nor from them stir,
“Fix'd and unchangeable: when once let in,
“Who to himself can set the bounds of sin?

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“When modesty is worn out from the brow
“What ever hath restor'd its virgin glow?
“Whom hast thou seen contented with one crime,
“And then to cease from ill? Wait but the time,
“And this our, now successful, criminal
“Will in the nets of sin his steps enthrall.”

THE SAME ILLUSTRATED BY REVELATION.

That calm Philosophy hath music's charms,
And of revenge the soul of man disarms,
'Till neath the angry storms of Passion wild,
By honeyed sweet Hymettus, Wisdom's child
Is gentle as a sleeping infant's breast,
Or the calm sea that heaves and is at rest.—

That ill intention in the All-seeing Eyes
Is guilty, though withinthe heart it dies;—
That there is something in the sinful soul
Which points in fear to some more fearful goal;
And sees in all around the shafts of God,
While that within bids to expect His rod.—
At the first sin that scales fall from the eyes,
Knowledge of good and evil open lies;—
That thence the power of the perverted Will,
Half-lost, is onward borne, till it fulfil
The cup of evil, which itself must drain,
In some intolerable weight of pain—

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These things stand written in the Gentile's scroll,
All full of mourning, like the Prophet's roll.

What then hath Revelation brought from high,
Which sheds its light on immortality?

All there is life;—of sin the Heathen feels,
But God's own Word the living scene reveals;
Things into fearful form and being strive,
And characters come forth, and burn, and live.

All there is life;—with ways unspeakable
In man's own soul doth the Great Witness dwell.
Before us our Example living stands,
God—Man, our Life, and scattering live commands.
Where is revenge, and thoughts to it allied?
They are all buried with the Crucified.
All things there point to Judgment at the last,
Each thunder-storm a warning of that blast,—
All speak the Accuser who our ways doth scan,
And of a Judge which is the Son of Man.

All there is life;—'tis not the law of sin
But the live Tempter who hath power within;
And if to the first sin he can surprise
Then open to that knowledge leaves the eyes.
With Adam's children who accept his chain
The scene of Paradise he acts again;
Leads to false shades to hide their misery—
To hide from God, and loving life to die.

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And what is this, when guilt doth once begin,
The fix'd immutability of sin?
'Tis that the evil one in ambush waits
Till he return, and watching at the gates
Enters with seven worse spirits to remain;
Such is the moulding of the sinner's chain.

All there is life;—a seven-fold Spirit still
May aid with His omnipotence the will.
Shall we then circumscribe the power of Heaven,
And cannot e'en at last such chains be riven?
Fearful the struggle, hazardous the strife,
For immortality of death or life.
And awfully the contest is pourtrayed,
Where Heathen wisdom darkens every shade;
Unless the light from Christian Heavens may blend,
Its strength e'en adamantine fetters rend.

All there is life;—can nought then lift the head
Of soul-struck sinners on the dying bed?
No slaughter'd victims can the Conscience ease,
Nor aught those angry deities appease:
No beasts which more unworthy are to die
The sinful soul itself can satisfy.
But yet That Living Sacrifice of Love
May to the sin-sick heart atoning prove:
Yea, though neglected long, and greater grace
Be griev'd, yet not quite hidden is His Face;

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And pitying still, betwixt us and the skies,
Our living Intercessor never dies.

All there is life; in this our mortal state
Innumerable eyes upon us wait:
Dead bones of Heathen Sages at That Breath
Clothe them with flesh and sinew; they from death
Wake and arise, in stillness most profound;
And stand like living Witnesses around.