ON EVIL: — A RHAPSODY.
O EVIL, creature abhorred of God and man! —
whence is thy origin? how did so deformed
and monstrous a birth gain entrance into the fair
creation? Canst thou be from God, — since thou art
so opposite to his nature? And if from man, — why
was he suffered to produce thee? Weak, unexperienced,
unsuspecting man, — why was he permitted
to bring such enormous ruin on his own
head, and that of all his posterity? Was there no
warning voice, no sheltering hand, to save him
from such a fall — to save thy image, O God,
from pollution? Let us sit down in sad shades,
and join the moral poet,
"Who mourns for virtue lost, and ruined man."
What fair, what amiable creatures were our
first parents when they came from the hands of
their Maker! They knew neither Pain, nor Sin,
the sire of Pain; nor Shame, the daughter of Sin.
Innocent, happy, and immortal: — so far from practising
evil, that they had not even the knowledge
of it. Their passions, nicely balanced, admitted
no internal war. A milky innocence in their
veins, their eyes beaming with smiles, — the
smiles of candour and simplicity, — they were
the head of the happy creation, till one fatal moment
ruined all: — the garden of paradise is shut
for ever; and man (unhappy outcast!) — exposed to
the war of elements without and passions within;
his peace broken, his heart torn by the conflict of
jarring emotions; his life worn away by perplexing
doubts and heart-withering care, — moistens
his daily bread with tears: and after struggling a
few years in the hard, unequal warfare, he returns
to the dust from whence he was taken.
Such is the dark side of the picture. — But let
us change the view, and see whether in reality the
human race have such great reason to lament the
fall of their first progenitor. Whether virtuous
man now, is not a nobler creature than sinless man
then? — the follower of the second, than the offspring
of the first Adam? Man in his first state
had a mind untainted with crimes; but unformed,
uncultivated, void of moral ideas, he could not
rise, but by his fall; he could not attain to more
perfection, but by moral discipline; he could
not know the joys of self-approbation, without
being subject to remorse, — of sympathy, without
feeling distress. Had he been always innocent,
he had been nothing more than innocent; — had
he never known his weakness, he had never acquired
strength. Behold him now, fashioned by
the hand of culture, and shining through the dark
cloud of ruin, guilt and pain, that is spread over
him. What a different creature from the former
man! He now knows vice, but abhors it; temptation,
but resists it; error, but he laments it.
His passions were once balanced, they are now
subdued; he has tasted good and e il, and he
knows to choose the one and refuse the other.
Intellectual ideas crowd upon him, and a new
world opens within his breast. His nature is
raised, refined, exalted: he lives by faith, by devotion,
by spiritual communion, by repentance —
he, weeping beneath the bitter cross, washes off
the stain of sin. The world is beneath his feet;
for behold he prayeth, and things unseen become
present to his soul. Meek resignation blunts the
edge of suffering; and triumphant hope looks
beyond all suffering, to glory and to joy. Thus
advancing through life, he learns some new lesson
at every step, — till by receiving, but still more by
conferring, benefits; by bearing, and still further
by forgiving, injuries, — his mind is disciplined,
his moral sense awakened, his taste for beauty,
order and rectitude, unfolded. He becomes endeared
to those he has wept and prayed and
struggled with through this vale of sin and suffering;
— he learns to pity and to love his fellow-partners of mortality; till at length the divine
flame of universal charity begins to kindle in his
breast. Then is the era of a new birth; then
does he become partaker of a divine nature:
sense is mortified, passion is subdued, self is annihilated.
And is not this a noble creature? a
being worth forming by so expensive and painful
a process? a being God may delight in? a faithful
well-disciplined soldier, fit to cooperate in
any plan, or mingle with any order of rational
and moral beings throughout the wide creation?
Place him where you will, he has learned to follow,
to trust in, the Supreme Being: he has
learned humility from his errors, steadiness and
watchfulness from his weakness; his virtues depend
not now on constitution, but on firm principles
and established habits. Is this the feeble
being whose infant mind was unable to resist the
allurements of forbidden fruit? who so easily
listened to the seduction of the tempter? Se him
now resisting unto blood, superior to principalities
and powers, to wicked men and bad angels: —
neither terrors nor pleasures can move him. He
once believed not the living voice of his Maker;
having not seen, he now believes. His gratitude
once was faint and languid, though he was surrounded
with pleasant things: he now loves God,
though overwhelmed with sorrow and pain; trusts
in him, though surrounded with difficulties; hopes
even against hope, and prays without ceasing.
His hopes now are superior to his joys then.
Glorious exchange! from reposing on flowers, to
tread upon stars, — from naked purity, to a robe
of glory, — from the food which cometh out of the
earth, to the bread which cometh down from
heaven. For ignorance of ill he hath knowledge
of good; for smiles of innocence, tears of rapture;
for the bowers of paradise, the gates of
heaven. Hadst thou, Adam, never fallen, shepherds
and husbandmen only would have sprung
from thee; — now patriots, martyrs, confessors,
apostles!