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he poets who have reached the heart of men, since Burns dropped the tear for poor "auld Nickie-ben" that softened the stony-hearted theology of Scotland, have had "non-clerical" minds, and I suppose our young friend is in his humble way an optimist like them. What he says in verse is very much the same thing as what is said in prose in all companies, and thought by a great many who are thankful to anybody that will say it for them,--not a few clerical as wall as "non-clerical" persons among them. WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS. V What am I but the creature Thou hast made? What have I save the blessings Thou hast lent? What hope I but Thy mercy and Thy love? Who but myself shall cloud my soul with fear? Whose hand protect me from myself but Thine? I claim the rights of weakness, I, the babe, Call on my sire to shield me from the ills That still beset my path, not trying me With snares beyond my wisdom or my strength, He knowing I shall use them to my harm, And find a tenfold misery in the sense That in my childlike folly I have sprung The trap upon myself as vermin use Drawn by the cunning bait to certain doom. Who wrought the wondrous charm that leads us on To sweet perdition, but the self-same power That set the fearful engine to destroy His wretched offspring (as the Rabbis tell), And hid its yawning jaws and treacherous springs In such a show of innocent sweet flowers It lured the sinless angels and they fell? Ah! He who prayed the prayer of all mankind Summed in those few brief words the mightiest plea For erring souls before the courts of heaven, Save us from being tempted,--lest we fall! If we are only as the potter's clay Made to be fashioned as the artist wills, And broken into shards if we offend The eye of Him who made us, it is well; Such love as the insensate lump of clay That spins upon the swift-revolving wheel Bears to the hand that shapes its growing form, --Such love, no more, will be our hearts' return To the great Master-workman for his care, Or would be, save that this, our breathing clay, Is intertwined with fine innumerous threads That make it conscious in its framer's hand; And this He must remember who has filled These vessels with the deadly drau
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