plays.
The lonely Earth amid the balls
That hurry through the eternal halls,
A makeweight flying to the void,
Supplemental asteroid,
Or compensatory spark,
Shoots across the neutral Dark.

Man's the elm, and Wealth the vine,
Stanch and strong the tendrils twine:
Though the frail ringlets thee deceive,
None from its stock that vine can reave.
Fear not, then, thou child infirm,
There's no god dare wrong a worm.
Laurel crowns cleave to deserts
And power to him who power exerts;
Hast not thy share? On winged feet,
Lo! it rushes thee to meet;
And all that Nature made thy own,
Floating in air or pent in stone,
Will rive the hills and swim the sea
And, like thy shadow, follow thee.

III. COMPENSATION.

Ever since I was a boy I have wished to write a discourse on
Compensation; for it seemed to me when very young that on this subject
life was ahead of theology and the people knew more than the preachers
taught. The documents too from which the doctrine is to be drawn,
charmed my fancy by their endless variety, and lay always before me,
even in sleep; for they are the tools in our hands, the bread in our
basket, the transactions of the street, the farm and the dwelling-house;
greetings, relations, debts and credits, the influence of character, the
nature and endowment of all men. It seemed to me also that in it might
be shown men a ray of divinity, the present action of the soul of this
world, clean from all vestige of tradition; and so the heart of man
might be bathed by an inundation of eternal love, conversing with that
which he knows was always and always must be, because it really is now.
It appeared moreover that if this doctrine could be stated in terms
with any resemblance to those bright intuitions in which this truth
is sometimes revealed to us, it would be a star in many dark hours and
crooked passages in our journey, that would not suffer us to lose our
way.

I was lately confirmed in these desires by hearing a sermon at church.
The preacher, a man esteemed for his orthodoxy, unfolded in the ordinary
manner the doctrine of the Last Judgment. He assumed that judgment is
not executed in this world; that the wicked are successful; that the
good are miserable; and then urged from reason and from Scripture a
compensation to be made to both parties in the next life. No offence
appeared to be taken by the c