endom, who never have had a chance,
and billions of the Heathen brutalised through the ages by birth and
evil custom? Yes; for all there must be in the near hereafter continuous
new chances of improvement and hopes of better life.

There is one poem in the volume superadded to my Dramatics which I will
introduce here, as it is quite a _tour de force_ in its way of double
rhyming throughout, and has, moreover, excellent moral uses: so I wish
it read more widely.

_Behind the Veil._

"Mysteries! crowding around us,
How ye perplex and confound us,--
Each our ignorance screening
Hidden in words without meaning!

"Who knoweth aught that is certain
Veil'd behind mystery's curtain?
Seeing the wisest of guesses
Foolishness only expresses.

"Ancestry? ruthlessly moulding
Bodies and souls in unfolding;
How such a mixture confuses
Judgment's indulgent excuses,--

"While the derivative nature,
Still a responsible creature,
Yields individual merits,
Biassed by what it inherits.

"Circumstance? mighty to fashion
Instant occasion for passion,
Gripping with clutch of a bandit
Weakness too weak to withstand it,--

"What? shall it mar me or make me?
Neither, till faith shall forsake me--
For, with good courage to nerve me,
Circumstance only can serve me!

"Destiny? doth it then seem so?
Or can the will we esteem so,
Change the decree at a bidding,
Us of that destiny ridding,--

"If with no fatalist weakness,
Battling in boldness and meekness,
We are determined to master
Every defeat and disaster?

"Providence? ordering all things,
Both of the great and the small things,
Equally each of us guiding,
Guarding, destroying, providing,--

"Fixt, beyond human forecasting,
Both as to blessing and blasting,--
Yet, though we darkly discern Him,
Quick'ning the prayer that may turn Him!

"Evil?--O direst enigma,
Whispered and terrible stigma
By fools to the Good One imputed,
As if everlastingly rooted!

"How so? shall wrong to no ending
Still with the Right be contending?
Must not the bitterest leaven
Melt in the mercy of Heaven?

"Or can old Baal, the sun-god,
Boast there are two gods, not one god,
Satan, the rebel infernal,
Regent with Christ the Supernal?

"Come, blessed end, through the ages,