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Page 50
The prophecy of the soul is not less evident in the emotional nature. At
first the soul is either so imperfect, or so limited by the body, that
it seems to be nothing but a creature of emotions. It loves, but its
affections are selfish and egotistic. What may be called the epochs in
its growth are finely treated by Coleridge in "The Ancient Mariner" and
by Tennyson in "In Memoriam." The Ancient Mariner felt only selfish
affection. He had no love for "being as being." He killed the albatross
with as little heed as he disregarded his fellow-men; but the ministries
of his misery were multiplied until, at length, he was able to see
something beautiful even in the writhing green sea-serpents that
followed the ship of death on which he sailed. That was the first sign
of the larger interest which had long been growing within him, and which
was to continue to grow until he could say,
"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small."
"In Memoriam" is the record of the expansion of a soul through its
increase in love. At the beginning of his grief the poet sings,
dolefully and hopelessly, through his tears,
"He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day."
But the soul is growing secretly and surely as wheat grows in winter.
The Christmas bells ring out their music and at first are almost hated,
but they break through the shell of sorrow and let in a faint echo of
the world's great suffering and the world's great joy. Thus human
sympathy is enlarged just a bit. In successive years the music of the
Christmas bells is heard more distinctly, the sorrow of the world
becomes more audible, sympathy reaches farther. At last the poem which
began with a _miserere_ ends with a marriage, and he who could at first
write that dreary line,
"On the bald street breaks the blank day"
testifies to the beneficence of the path in which he had been led in
this wise and beautiful stanza,
"Regret is dead, but love is more
Than in the summers that have flown,
For I myself with these have grown
To something greater than before."
From dwelling in a prison with grief as a jailer he has caught a vision
of the,
"One far off divine event
To which the whole creation moves."
This expansion of the soul is not difficult to follow. Traces of it may
be seen in the enlarged sympathy, the growing brotherhood, and in the
rapidly increasing conviction that even nationalities are only temporary
expedients for bringing the day when love shall be the universal law.
The charities and philanthropies which are blossoming in every city and
country district, the consciousness of responsibility for the poor and
weak, the angel songs which are heard in the midst of battle, and the
gradual disappearance of war, are all vague but true prophecies of what
the soul will be when love is perfected. The knowledge of past progress
is an inspiration, and the imagination of what will be a glorious hope.
A single clause in the Apocalypse has long seemed to me as fine a
statement of the condition which will prevail, when this prophecy is a
reality, as could be phrased,--"The Lamb is the light thereof." Light is
the medium in which objects are visible, and the Lamb is the symbol of
sacrificial love. The great dreamer, in his vision, beheld a time when
spirits would see in sacrificial love as now we see physical objects in
the medium of light. To those who have studied the expansion of
individual souls, and who then have contrasted the selfishness of
earlier social conditions with the love of men as it is revealed in the
laws, institutions, ministries of to-day, this dream of the Apostle
rises in the distance as a new continent to a voyager over the wide and
desolate ocean.
Equally prophetic is the advance which has been made from the passion
of savage barbarism, or infantile wilfulness, to the moral reason of the
present day as seen in the highest types of humanity in civilized lands.
Wilfulness characterizes the childish nature and passion the savage
nature. But with the growth of the soul choices are differentiated from
impulses, and more and more regularly are inspired by intelligence and
unselfish affection. This progress toward intelligent and unselfish
choice distinguishes the movement toward civilization. Here, again, the
advance made by the individual soul and by the race are equally
prophetic. With the years the choices become more rational and loving.
Time mellows all men somewhat, and forces a little wisdom into the
hardest heads. Even slight growth prophesies that which shall be swifter
when conditions are more favorable.
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