University of Virginia Library

They tell me faith is powerless now, and ancient love grown cold,
That we may not trust the sainted dust of those dark days of old;
They say traditions are worn out, and the consecrated lore,
The long result of ages, may enthrall the mind no more:
No confessor is prisoned now, no fond enthusiast bleeds
For the great truths that are heralded in antiquated Creeds.
The age of faith is past away with its glory and its gloom,
And unfettered Reason springs to life, the darkness to illume.
We had our Saints and miracles and the martyrs' blazoned scroll,
And through the circling centuries rung the church-bell's thundering toll;
It was an age of glorious dreams, and it was well, they say,
That men should sleep the whole night through till the dawning of the day.
But the age of Faith is past and gone, 'tis the age of Reason now,
And who would change the noonday sun for the embers' dying glow?
Now Science lights her beacon fires, and Faith must be resigned
To the mastery of Intellect, and the haughty force of Mind;
New truths each day discovered which the Universe enshrines,
New revelations dug from out Geology's deep mines,
New philosophies to idolize in Opinion's boundless range,
New theories drifted ceaselessly down the torrent stream of Change.

So thought the proud Kaïres as he trod that soulless shore,
Where Oblivion hangs her cypress wreath o'er Science' buried lore,
Where the flowery Ceramicus hides the unemulated brave,
And the Salaminian waters flash 'neath the oar-stroke of the slave.
So thought he, all unmindful how the wrecks of human pride,
In its greatness and its littleness, were strewn his path beside;
The pride of blood, the pride of power, of science and of art,
They were the heirloom of the Greek, the pulses of his heart.
And where are they? and what is Greece? She only lives to tell,
That land of shadows and of graves, how erst the mighty fell.

The Fathers of the Conclave are met in solemn state,
Before them stands Kaïres, all eager for debate;
What recks he of a few old men, ungifted and unknown,
Whom the crozier and the oil invest with a greatness not their own?
He threads the mazy labyrinth of ideal speculation,
Sounds the depths of theologic lore, and the theory of salvation,
And much he speaks of spirit-life, of purpose deep and high,
Of comprehensive intellect, and broad philosophy,
Of the meanness and the bigotry of hard dogmatic rules,
Of the trammels of the Fathers, and the subtlety of the schools;
And yet he is a Christian true, his faith may none gainsay;
So spake he, and the prelates gazed, perplexed with sore dismay.
They gazed on the apostate;—there was triumph in his eye,
The contempt of baffled disputants, the pride of victory;—
They gazed on one another, and their meeting glances fell,
They had sought to probe his meaning, but he parried them full well.
Then one rose up of reverend mien, of bearing grave and sage,
His voice was low and tremulous, his beard was blanched with age,
But something in his look a more than earthly grace did show,
Like Saints in ancient pictures with a glory round their brow;
His voice was low and tremulous, and yet that voice had power
To rouse the grovelling earthworm, to make the haughty cower.
But now he spoke right briefly, and his keen regards were bent
Full on Kaires where he stood with calm yet fixed intent,
“Thou sayest thy faith is true, brother, but thy words that “faith belie,
“Simple and sure the test ordained of old such claim to try;
“We seek no subtle argument thy secret soul to read,
“We do but ask thee to repeat the Church's ancient Creed.”
Sullen and mute he listened, he who had flung erewhile
Defiance from his curling lip and proud disdainful smile;
The colour faded from his cheek, the lustre from his eye,
Those accents smote upon his ear, like a warning from on high.
Learning, and wealth, and power of mind, and eloquent display,—
The weakest weapons of the Saints are stronger far than they.
The wit of Greece, the lordly state of old imperial Rome,
The Nazarenes subdued them by the blood of martyrdom.
They died not for themselves alone, for Christendom they fought
Who weighed the world against a Creed, and counted it for nought.