Part 8

His native instincts, tastes and sympathies were all singularly pure and generous. His family attachments were strong. In the latest periods of his life, when she had long been dead, the name of his mother could not be mentioned by him without a visible gush of deep and tender emotion. The loss of his favorite sister, some years before his own departure, almost shattered him. For days he drooped and mourned amongst his books, and could do no work. Only the thought that God had taken her to Himself, and that He doeth all things well, finally availed to quiet him. So of all his friends; he never forgot and was never false to them. But his special care was bestowed upon the young men of the University, who had gathered about him, in the spirit of a most enthusiastic discipleship, out of all Germany, and indeed out of nearly all Christendom. To the last he continued to be a young man himself, as fresh, impulsive and eager, and with as entire a freedom from all appearance of assumption and authority, as though his pupils and he were merely peers. There was at once a warmth, a blandness and a child-like simplicity of manners, which made him the idol of every heart. And he carried the same amenity of temper into all the theological controversies of his life. He never stooped to ungracious personalities, and never seemed to be in pursuit of victory at the expense of truth and fairness. The result was that he was never assailed with personalities in return. Through all the bitterest contentions which raged around him, he was uniformly treated with respect and deference. Not that men were ignorant of his opinions, or thought him neutral, but because he was felt to be an Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile. He committed himself to no clique, and allowed no clique to be committed to him.

In his personal habits he was temperate and frugal in the extreme; though not for the sake of accumulation. His income from his books and lectures must have been considerable; but he gave it nearly all away. Hundreds of indigent students could testify to his generosity, while amongst the poor of the city, there were many pensioners upon his bounty.

In regard to his intellectual gifts and powers, their peculiar cast has already been intimated. The dominant feature of his genius was its deeply subjective and spiritual character. The accidents of a subject never detained him for a moment from his search after the essential and the abiding. Outward circumstances were of little interest to him. And in this direction lay the main defect of his mind; it was too exclusively Platonic, subjective and spiritual. Had his profound Germanic intuitiveness of vision been tempered with a little more of our homely Anglo-Saxon common sense, the combination would have been well-nigh perfect.

What has just been said of his intellectual peculiarities will help us to understand also his religious life. It was preëminently an inward life; a fire in the very marrow of his being. As it was his own solitary and independent reflection which first turned his feet toward Nazareth and Calvary, so was it by deep and steady communion with his own heart that he advanced in sanctity. The natural and unchanging atmosphere of his life was that of faith and prayer. His religious experience was rooted in peculiarly deep and pungent views of sin. Not that he had gross outward offences to be ashamed of; but he felt the law of evil working within him, disturbing his peace; and he longed for the serenity of a child of God. Thus did he learn his need of Christ. His pupils relate with much interest how, on the evening of one of his birth-day festivals, when they were gathered at his house, he spoke to them of his own spiritual infirmities, and with trembling voice confessed himself a poor sinner seeking forgiveness through atoning blood. Theologically, he was comparatively indifferent in regard to minor points; but he clung with the tenacity of a martyr's faith to the great essentials of the Gospel. His religious life was therefore at once very fervent and very catholic. Loving Christ with all the ardor of a passion, he loved with a generous latitude of heart all those of every name in whom he discerned Christ's image. The motto adopted by him as best describing his own aim and method, was that of St. Augustine: "Pectus est quod facit theologum." _It is the heart which makes the theologian._ It was a Divine Form, for which he was ever seeking, while he walked about amongst men, as he walked up and down the centuries of our Christian faith, murmuring to himself: "It is the Lord."

As a writer of church history, his first great claim to gratitude is on account of the living pulse of faith and love which beats through all his pages. He traces the golden thread of Christian life through the darkest centuries. He does much to save the church of God from reproach, and God's own gracious promise from contempt, by showing how much there has been of Christian grace and truth under the worst forms and in the worst ages. He has thus made his History what he said it should be, "a speaking proof of the Divine power of Christianity, a school of Christian experience, and a voice of edification and warning sounding through all ages for all who are willing to believe." Of the original sources of history, particularly for the earlier centuries, his knowledge was profound, and his use of them masterly. How thorough and how fair he is, can be fully appreciated only by those who explore for themselves the fountains from which he drew his materials. His chief defect is in the matter of form. He had but little dramatic power. He gives us the inward life, but not the outward stir and shock of history. Nor is he remarkable for analytical sharpness in his delineation of the growth of Christian doctrine. It is in the sphere of experience and life that he succeeds the best. His own doctrinal views were not, at all points, quite up to our English and American standards of orthodoxy. But these points were of minor importance. All that is cardinal was precious to him. With peculiar fidelity did he cling to the Head, which is Christ, and was full of that faith which conquers the world and saves the soul.

His last days, as described by his friends and pupils, were in marked keeping with his whole career. On Monday, the 8th of July, at 11 o'clock, he lectured at the University. But he had been for some time back much feebler than usual, the weather was sultry and debilitating, and his system was out of tune. His voice failed him two or three times in the course of the lecture, and it was only by a desperate struggle that he got to the end; his strength barely sufficing to bring him home. The impression upon his class was such, that one of the students, turning to his neighbor, said: "This is the last lecture of our Neander." Immediately after dinner, which he scarcely tasted, his reader came. He dictated on his Church History three hours in succession, repressing by force of will the rising groans, his debility all the while increasing. At 5 o'clock the symptoms of a dangerous illness appeared; but he would not abandon his work. His sister, who came to expostulate with him and warn him against further effort, was sent impatiently away. "Let me alone," he said; "every laborer, I hope, may work if he wishes; wilt thou not grant me this?" At seven he was compelled to pause. His reader gone, his first thought was to call back his much loved sister, and say to her: "Be not anxious, dear Jenny, it is passing away; I know my constitution." But his physicians were agreed in the opinion that the very worst was to be feared. They succeeded, however, in subduing the symptoms of the disease, which was a violent cholera, and began to hope. The next morning, having hardly got breath from this first furious attack, he inquired with touching sadness, "shall I not be able to lecture to-day?" When answered in the negative, he distinctly demanded that the suspension should be only for that one day. In the afternoon of Tuesday, he called out vehemently for his reader, desired him to go on with Ritter's Palestine, with which he had been occupied, and impatiently blamed the anxiety of his friends who had dismissed his assistant too hastily. He then, according to his daily custom, had another of his pupils read to him the newspaper. He followed the reading with lively attention, making his remarks now of agreement and now of dissent, till at length he fell asleep, and so ended the day's work. Later in the afternoon, while racked with pain, it occurred to him that his sister might think of foregoing sleep on his account, which he begged her not to do. Wednesday he had the newspaper read to him, and made his comments, as usual. Thursday night brought with it a convulsive hiccough. Friday, his spirit was clear, peaceful and full of love. But Friday night extinguished the last hopes of his friends. The pains he endured were excruciating. With an indescribably affecting and deeply tender voice, before which no eye remained tearless, he exclaimed, "Would to God I could sleep." Saturday he was clamorous for the servant to bring him his clothes, that he might dress and go about his work. His sister came: "Think, dear August, what thou hast said to me when I have rebelled against the directions of the physician, 'It comes from God, therefore must we acquiesce in it.'" "That is true," answered quickly the softened voice, "it all comes from God, and we must thank him for it." During the day he asked to be taken into the study. The sweet sunlight, streaming on his nearly blinded eyes, refreshed and gladdened him. After this, a bath of wine and strengthening herbs was administered, which seemed to do him good. Finding himself amongst his books again, he rose upon the cushions which supported him, and, to the astonishment of all, began a lecture upon the New Testament, and announced for the coming term a course of lectures upon the Gospel of John. At half-past nine, having inquired the hour, he fell asleep. When he awoke, it was Sunday. There came back a gush of bodily strength, the last leaping of the light before it flickered in the socket. Taking up the thread of his history where he had dropped it two days before, he began to dictate for some one to write. The passage was about the mystics of the 14th and 15th centuries. The concluding sentence was: "So it was in general; the further development is to follow." Then turning to his sister, he said: "I am tired; let us make ready to go home;" as though they were somewhere on a long and wearisome journey. And then rallying his last energies in one parting word of tenderness to her who was bending over him with a breaking heart, he murmured, "Good night," and died.

Thus he died with his harness on, not aware, probably, that he was so near his end; else he might have uttered some dying testimony, which would have passed into the literature of the church to be the comfort of other saints in their mortal agony. But, on his own account, no such dying testimony was required. For thirty-seven years he had stood his ground gallantly in Berlin, witnessing for Christ in the face of a learned skepticism, and he could well afford to pass directly, without an interlude, from the toils and conflicts of earth to the joys and triumphs of the redeemed in heaven.

His labors had been prodigious. He usually lectured not less than fifteen times a week, published twenty-five volumes, and left behind him several other volumes nearly ready for the press. His health was never firm. A rheumatic disease lurked in his system from the time of his illness at Göttingen. Three years before he died, this disease settled in his eyes, and made him nearly blind. But against all impediments, he struggled on, fighting the good fight of faith, patient and resolute, till suddenly his course was finished, and he took his crown.

POEMS.

BY JULIA WARD HOWE.

I.

THE BEE'S SONG

Do not tie my wings, Says the honey-bee; Do not bind my wings, Leave them glad and free. If I fly abroad, If I keep afar, Humming all the day, Where wild blossoms are, 'Tis to bring you sweets, Rich as summer joy, Clear--as gold and glass; The divinest toy That the god's have left, Is the pretty hive, Where a maiden reigns, And the busy thrive.

If you bar my way, Your delight is gone, No more honey-gems; From the heather borne; No more tiny thefts, From your neighbor's rose, Who were glad to guess Where its sweetness goes.

Let the man of arts Ply his plane and glass; Let the vapors rise, Let the liquor pass; Let the dusky slave Till the southern fields; Not the task of both Such a treasure yields; Honey, Pan ordained, Food for gods and men, Only in my way Shall you store again.

Leave me to my will While the bright days glow, While the sleepy flowers Quicken as I go. When the pretty ones Look to me no more, Dead, beneath your feet, Crushed and dabbled o'er; In my narrow cell I will fold my wing; Sink in dark and chill, A forgotten thing.

Can you read the song Of the suppliant bee? 'Tis a poet's soul, Asking liberty.

II.

LIMITATIONS OF BENEVOLENCE.

"The beggar boy is none of mine," The reverend doctor strangely said; "I do not walk the streets to pour Chance benedictions on his head.

"And heaven I thank who made me so. That toying with my own dear child, I think not on _his_ shivering limbs, _His_ manners vagabond and wild."

Good friend, unsay that graceless word! I am a mother crowned with joy, And yet I feel a bosom pang To pass the little starveling boy.

His aching flesh, his fevered eyes His piteous stomach, craving meat; His features, nipt of tenderness, And most, his little frozen feet.

Oft, by my fireside's ruddy glow, I think, how in some noisome den, Bred up with curses and with blows, He lives unblest of gods or men.

I cannot snatch him from his fate, The tribute of my doubting mind Drops, torch-like, in the abyss of ill, That skirts the ways of humankind.

But, as my heart's desire would leap To help him, recognized of none, I thank the God who left him this, For many a precious right foregone.

My mother, whom I scarcely knew, Bequeathed this bond of love to me; The heart parental thrills for all The children of humanity.

EARTH'S WITNESS.

BY ALICE B. HAVEN.

That Poet wrongs his soul, whose dreary cry Calls "winds" and "waves," and "burning stars of night" To bring our darkness nature's clearer light On that just sentence, "Thou shalt surely die;" To track the spirit as it leaves its clay To bring back surety of its future home, Or echo of the voice that calleth "come," To prove that it is borne to perfect day. Say rather, "winds," who heard the Master speak, And "waves," who by His voice transfixed were stayed, And stars that lighted Christ's deep shade-- Your confirmation of our trust we seek. Ye know how shadowy Death's dreary prison, Because ye witnessed Christ our life, up risen.

THE WILLOWS, 1858.

THE NEW ENGLAND THANKSGIVING.

BY THE REV. HENRY W. BELLOWS, D.D.

When cellar and barn and storehouse were filled with food for the coming winter, our pious New England forefathers used their first common leisure to make public and joyful acknowledgment of their blessings to the God of sunshine and of rain; to Him, who clothes the valleys with corn, and the hills with flocks. Almost universally, they placed the meeting-houses, where these thanks were rendered, on the hill-top commanding the widest view of the fields from which their prosperity sprung, and nearest to the sky, whence their blessings came. Their modest homes were sheltered from the winds by the barns that held their wealth and overshadowed their low dwellings. The earth was precious in their eyes, as the source of their living. They could spare no fertile or sheltered spot, even for the burial-ground, but economically laid it out in the sand, or on the bleak hill-side; while they threw away no fencing on the house of God, but jealously preserved that costly distinction for their arable lands and orchards. They were farmers; and it was no unmeaning thing for them to keep the harvest feast. They had prayed in drought, with all faith and fervor, for the blessing of rain; in seed-time, for the favoring sunshine and soft showers; and in harvest, that blight and frost might spare their corn; and when in the late autumn, all their prayers had been heard, and their hands and homes were crowned with plenty, their thanksgiving anthem was an incense of the heart, and their honored pastors knew not how to pour out a flood of gratitude too copious for the thankful people's "Amen." A full hour's prayer wearied not their patient knees; and the sermon, with its sixteenthly, finally, and to conclude (before the _improvement_, itself a modern sermon in length), did not outmeasure the people's honest sense of their grounds of thankfulness to God.

The landscape appropriate to thanksgiving is not furnished by brick walls and stone pavements. It is a rural festival. The smoke from scattered cottages should be slowly curling its way through frosty air. As we look forth from the low porch of the homestead, the ground lightly covered with snow, stretches off to a not distant horizon, broken irregularly with hills, clothed in spots with evergreens, but oftener with bare woods. The distant and infrequent sleigh-bells, with the smart crack of the rifle from the shooting match in the hollow, strike percussively upon the ear. Vast piles of fuel, part neatly corded, part lying in huge logs, with heaps of brush, barricade the brown, paintless farmhouses. Swine, hanging by the ham-strings in the neighboring shed; the barn-yard speckled with the ruffled poultry, some sedate with recent bereavement, others cackling with a dim sense of temporary reprieve; the rough-coated steer butting in the fold, where the timid sheep huddle together in the corner; little boys on a single skate improving the newly frozen horse-pond--these furnish the foreground of the picture during the earlier hours of the morning. Later in the day, without, the sound of church bells, the farmers' pungs, or the double sleighs, with incredible numbers stowed in their strawed bottoms, drive up to the meeting-house door. An occasional wagon from the hills, from which the snow has blown, with the crunching, whistling sound of wheels upon snow, sets the teeth of the crowd in the porch on edge, as it grinds its way to the stone steps to deposit its load. Great white coats, with seven or eight capes apiece, dismount, and muffs and moccasins--each a whole bearskin--follow. Long stoves, with live coals got at the neighboring houses, occasionally join the procession. Few come afoot; for our pious ancestors seemed to think it as much a part of their religion to fill the family horse-shed as the family pew; and in good weather would send a mile to pasture for the horses to drive a half mile to meeting. But, meeting out, the parson's prayer and sermon said, the choir's ambitious anthem lustily sung, the politics of the prayer, and the politics of the sermon, both summarily criticised, approved, condemned, partly with looks and winks, and partly with loud words in the porch, there is now a little space for kind inquiries after the absent, the sick, and the poor; a few solitary spinsters, and one old soldier, lame and indigent, are seized on and carried off to homes, where certain blessed Mothers in Israel, are wont to keep a vacant chair for a poor soul that might feel desolate if left alone on this sociable day. Some full-handed visits are paid on the way home to scattered and rickety houses; but by one o'clock, all the people are beneath their own roofs, never so attractive as on this glorious day. The married children from the neighboring towns have come home, and the old house is full.

The great event of the day is at hand. It is dinner-time. The table of unnatural length, narrower at one end, where it has been eked out for the occasion, groans with the choicest gifts of the year. There is but one course, but that possesses infinite variety and reckless profusion. For one day, at least, the doctrine of an apostle is in full honor. "For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving." The long grace sanctifies the feast with the word of God and with prayer. The elders and males are distributed to front the substantial of the board--the round of _a-la-mode_, the brown crisp pig with an apple in his mouth, the great turkey who has frightened the little red-cloaked girls and saucy pugs for months past, the chicken-pie with infinite crimping and stars and knobs, decorating its snowy face. The mothers and daughters are placed over against the puddings and pies, which have exercised their ambition for weeks--vying with rival housekeepers in the number and variety of sorts--and which, after the faint impression made on them to-day, shall be found for a month, filling the shelves of spare-closets and lending a delicious though slightly musty odor to the best wardrobe of the family. Children of all ages--to the toddling darling, the last babe of the youngest daughter--fill up the interstices, while the few books in the house are barely sufficient to bring the little ones in their low chairs to an effective level with the table. Incredible stowage having been effected, the sleepy after-dinner hours are somewhat heavily passed; but with the lamps and the tea-board, sociability revives. The evening passes among the old people, with chequers and back-gammon. Puss-in-the-corner, the game of forfeits--blind-man's-buff entertain the young folks. Apples, nuts and cider come in at nine o'clock, and perhaps a mug of flip--but it is rather for form's sake than for appetite. At ten o'clock the fire is raked up, and the household is a-bed. Excepting some bad-dreams, Thanksgiving day is over.

SONG OF THE ARCHANGELS

(FROM GOETHE'S FAUST.)

BY GEORGE P. MARSH.

RAPHAEL.

E'en as at first, in rival song Of brother orbs, still chimes the SUN, And his appointed path along Rolls with harmonious thundertone; With strength the sight doth Angels fill, Though none can solve its law divine; Creation's wonders glorious still, As erst they shone, eternal shine.

GABRIEL.

The gorgeous EARTH doth whirl for aye In swift, sublime, mysterious flight, And alternates elysian day With deep, chaotic, shuddering night; With swelling billows foams the sea. Chafing the cliff's deep-rooted base, While sea and cliff both hurrying flee In swift, eternal, circling race.

MICHAEL.

And howling TEMPESTS scour amain From sea to land, from land to sea, And, raging, weave around a chain Of deepest, wildest energy; The scathing bolt with flashing glare Precedes the pealing thunder's way; And yet Thine Angels, LORD, revere The gentle movement of Thy day.

TRIO.

With strength the sight doth Angels fill, For power to fathom THEE hath none. The works of Thy supernal will Still glorious shine, as erst they shone.

A NIGHT AND DAY AT VALPARAISO.

BY ROBERT TOMES.