*
To any man there may come at times a consciousness that
there blows, through all the articulations of his body, the
wind of a spirit not wholly his; that his mind rebels; that
another girds him and carries him whither he would not.
*
The child, the seed, the grain of corn,
The acorn on the hill,
Each for some separate end is born
In season fit, and still
Each must in strength arise to work the almighty will.
So from the hearth the children flee,
By that almighty hand
Austerely led; so one by sea
Goes forth, and one by land;
Nor aught of all man's sons escapes from that command.
So from the sally each obeys
The unseen almighty nod;
So till the ending all their ways
Blindfolded loth have trod:
Nor knew their task at all, but were the tools of God.
*
A few restrictions, indeed, remain to influence the
followers of individual branches of study. The DIVINITY,
for example, must be an avowed believer; and as this, in
the present day, is unhappily considered by many as a
confession of weakness, he is fain to choose one of two
ways of gilding the distasteful orthodox bolus. Some
swallow it in a thin jelly of metaphysics; for it is even a
credit to believe in God on the evidence of some crack-jaw
philosopher, although it is a decided slur to believe in
Him on His own authority. Others again (and this we think
the worst method), finding German grammar a somewhat dry
morsel, run their own little heresy as a proof of
independence; and deny one of the cardinal doctrines that
they may hold the others without being laughed at.
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