University of Virginia Library

Then Eleazar spake. “Ah me! my son,
Thy questions come as fast and wild as winds
Of autumn; and they vex thee, as the blasts
Vex the deep waters of a mountain lake.
Here once again I bid thee walk by faith:
Nor I, nor thou, can see the mystery clear.
But wonder not, if thoughts should lead thee on,
Each starting from divinest, wisest words,
To issues which agree not. Evermore
We see the sides of truth, and cannot grasp,
So low we stand, the greatness of the whole.
Thus God elects, yet man is free to choose;
And God, foreseeing evil, lets it be,
Yet evil is not His; and Christ our Lord,
One with the Father in His boundless might,
Is one with us in all that makes us weak;
And God hath shown His Love in sending Christ,
Yet Christ by death hath reconciled to God
The creatures else condemned; and God is One,
Yet evermore we praise the threefold Name,
The Father, and the Spirit, and the Son.
So fares it with all mysteries of God;
Men cannot bring them to the rule and line
Of earthly wisdom, or with subtle art
Build up their systems. Broad, o'erarching all,
They float above us, and with hopes or fears
We watch their changing aspects. And we need
Both hopes and fears: we may not cast aside
One truth that Christ has spoken, may not say
To all the heedless souls that turn from God,
‘Go on, and sin; the end is still the same,
The journey only longer;’—dare not close
The door of hope which Christ Himself throws wide,
Nor lose from sight the many stripes, and few,
The lighter, heavier woes. Our feebler thoughts
Dwell on the outward symbols of the doom,
The worm, the fire, the darkness, and the scourge
But thou, my son, hast learnt the doom itself.
These are but signs and figures of the true,
Shadows of things that are. The enduring pain
Is memory of evil seen at last
As evil, hateful, loathsome. Pleasant sins,
Which here the doer of the wrong recalls
With faint vibrations of the former sense,
There evermore are present to the soul
In all their foulness, and we feel the wrath
Eternal then unveiled. And hence the woe
Is endless: there we cannot drug our souls,
Or blot from sight the ever hateful past,
The feignèd semblance, or the open shame.
We cannot change that past; through all the years
Its woe is with us, shading all the life
In gloom of twilight, or in thickest night
Deepening the blackness. To the souls that sinned
In ignorance of God, His grace may come
In mercy wide and free, revealing Light
To those in darkness, blotting out the guilt
Of sins of wild confusion, leaving still,
Through endless æons, all the inward pain
Which waits on conscious sin. To cancel that
Were to undo the eternal work of God,
And leave them still in blindness. And to dream,
As some have dreamt, of agony of sense,
The burning flame, and thick-ribbed ice in turn,
As having power to purify and cleanse,
As greater terrors than the accusing thoughts,
The voice that speaks in thunder, and the wrath
Eternal of the All-knowing and All-good,
This is to take the shadow for the truth,
And live in outward symbols. Golden throne,
Bright gates of pearl, and walls of amethyst,
The pure clear river, and the mystic tree,—
These are but tokens of the inward bliss,
The vision of our God, to pure hearts given
As life, and peace, and joy. And so the woe,
Which makes the doom of evil, is to see
That face averted. God, whose Name is Love,
Condemns the unloving: so we see in Him
That Light eternal, that consuming Fire;
And still the question meets us as of old,
‘What child of man can face that ceaseless flame,
And dwell with burnings everlastingly?’
And evermore, as once from Prophet's lips,
The strange, bold answer reaches unto us,
‘He who the truth hath spoken, right hath done,
Who, fearing God, has conquered self and sin,
He need not fear the fire.’ It burns and burns,
Consuming what is worthless, cleansing still
The pure, bright gold, the treasure of our God.

“And if these thoughts still leave a darkened space
Through which no light can pierce, if awful words
Speak of persistent evil, wills that, fixed
In hate, defiance, scorn, reject the Light,
Increasing through the endless age their woe,
As adding still fresh deeds of deeper guilt,—
Who then am I to question and to judge?
I bow before the judgment, and am dumb;
I cannot tell how evil first began,
Or why through all the mystery of the world
It runs its course, and all creation groans
In bondage, panting, struggling to be free.
I cannot tell if it shall cease to be,
Or when or how, the final victory won,
The conquering Christ shall yield his throne to God;
Or if the conquest shall destroy the works
Of sin and death, or leave them as they are,
His curse upon them. All I know is this,
That God is holy, and that righteous wrath
Must fall for ever on the soul that sins;
That God is Love, and willeth not the death,
Or here, or there, of any soul of man.
And if I see not how, in secret depths,
(The light and darkness melting into one)
The discords of the world are harmonised,
The truths that clash brought once again to peace,
I find my stay in old, familiar words,
The key-note of my life, and all its thoughts,
True of that life through all its wondrous course,
True of the world through all its circling years,
True of the endless ages as they pass,—
Words that rebuke the doubter, bow our pride,
Refresh the mourner, strengthen all our prayers,
The words for thee, my son, when vexing thoughts
Distract thy soul, and fill thy heart with fears;
Make answer thou, with firm unwavering faith,
Against those doubts, as Christ made answer once,
‘Impossible with man, but not with God.’

“For thee, at least, the path is clearly traced:
Do thou thy Master's bidding. If He came,
Enduring all the torture and the death,
To speak to all men of His Father's love,
Thou, too, if thou hast learnt to think His thoughts,
Must speak to them of Him. Thou may'st not leave
Those souls to wander in their hopeless night,
Nor make the mercy of thy God a cloak
For coward sloth, nor, rapt in visions high,
Forget the present. If thou see'st the wrong,
Rebuke it; if the many sin and die,
In pity to their souls, hold not thy peace,
But warn them of the Everlasting Fire,
And win them with the Everlasting Love.
And oh! my son, beware lest pride of heart,
Or yearning pity, or thy zeal for God,
Lead thee to change His order. Not in vain,
Taught He at first, by fear of endless woe,
In parable and drama shadowing forth
The doom of evil. Men must learn to hate
The accursèd self that keeps their souls from God;
Must learn to feel the burden of their guilt,
As measured by the woe which God assigns
In that dark prison which the Eternal Love
Hath ordered in its wisdom and its might:
And some may find the lesson hard to learn,
And, knowing not thy thoughts, may miss their way,
If thou should'st leave the simple, open path
Which Christ hath trodden. Teach as He hath taught,
Not halving truths, in haste of jealous strife,
Nor twisting words awry with subtle art,
Not speaking where the voice of Christ was dumb,
Nor silent where He spake. Judge thou thyself,
And leave the greater task to greater power;
Commit thy friends, thy brothers, yea, thy foes,
The myriads, past, and present, and to come,
To Him who sitteth on the Eternal Throne,
The Son of Man, and yet the Lord of All,
The Judge, the Priest, the Saviour, and the Friend.
Thou canst not gauge His drear abyss of wrath,
Thou canst not fathom all His boundless love,
Thou canst not track His footsteps on the deep;
And still if doubt, or grief, or hope, or fear
Perplex thee for the future or the past,
Cling to His cross for shelter, own thy guilt,
Thy shame, thy blindness, and with veilèd face,
Low in the dust, be silent and adore.”