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Page 17
"Against the threats
Of malice or of sorcery, of that power
Which erring men call Chance, this I hold firm--
Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt,
Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled;
Yet, even that which mischief meant most harm,
Shall in the happy trial prove most glory;
But evil on itself shall back recoil,
And mix no more with goodness, when at last
Gathered like a scum, and settled to itself,
It shall be in eternal restless change
Self-fed, and self-consumed; if this fail
The pillar'd firmament is rottenness
And earth's base built on stubble."
No one should believe, after all the growth of the ages, that the soul
was made to be imprisoned in a fleshly prison. It was intended that it
should burst its barriers and press toward the light. There is an
eternal enmity between the serpent and the soul, and the serpent's head
must be bruised, but the soul resisting all the forces and fascinations
of the flesh, rising on that which has been cast down to higher things,
slowly but surely, painfully but with ever added strength moves toward
the ideal humanity which has never been better defined than as "the
fullness of Christ."
Meanwhile it is well to reinforce our faith by remembering that it is
written in the nature of things that truth and goodness must prevail.
This is a moral universe. Error never can be victorious. It may be
exalted for a time, but that will be only in order that it may be sunk
to deeper depths. Evil and error are doomed and always have been. Evil
is moral disease, and disease always tends toward death, while life
always and of necessity presses toward larger, more beautiful, and more
beneficent being.
Here let us rest. Many things are dark and impossible of explanation,
but we have already been taught a few lessons of superlative importance.
We have learned that the soul is made for the light; that it can be
satisfied only with love and truth; that every hindrance may be
overcome; that the animal was made to be the servant of the spirit; that
the body makes a good servant but a poor master; that strength comes to
those who refuse to submit to the clamors of appetite: thus we have been
led to see something of the way along which the soul has moved from
animalism toward freedom and victory.
And we have learned one thing more, viz., that the Over-soul is not a
dream, but a reality; that the individual may be in correspondence with
the Over-soul and from it be continually reinforced. Or, to put our
faith in sweeter and simpler form, we have learned by experience which
cannot be gainsaid that God is a personal spirit, interested in all that
concerns His children, and anxious for their growth; and that He can no
more allow His love for them to be defeated than He could allow the
suns and planets to break from their orbits. How much more is a man
than a sun! Therefore, since God is in His heaven, all must be right
with the world and with man, and some time all the hindrances will be
changed into helps, all obstacles be converted into strength, and "all
hells into benefit."
THE AUSTERE
We cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides;
The Spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides.
But tasks in hours of insight will'd
Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.
With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish 'twere done.
Not till the hours of light return,
All we have built do we discern.
--_Morality._ Matthew Arnold.
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