ense desire of justice and its tenderness of
affection. And in that bitter song of the Iliad, this man, though aided
continually by the wisest of the gods, and burning with the desire of
justice in his heart, becomes yet, through ill-governed passion, the most
unjust of men; and, full of the deepest tenderness in his heart, becomes
yet, through ill-governed passion, the most cruel of men. Intense alike in
love and in friendship, he loses, first his mistress, and then his friend;
for the sake of the one, he surrenders to death the armies of his own
land; for the sake of the other, he surrenders all. Will a man lay down
his life for his friend? Yea, even for his _dead_ friend, this Achilles,
though goddess-born and goddess-taught, gives up his kingdom, his country,
and his life--casts alike the innocent and guilty, with himself, into one
gulf of slaughter, and dies at last by the hand of the basest of his
adversaries.

Is not this a mystery of life?

But what, then, is the message to us of our own poet, and searcher of
hearts, after fifteen hundred years of Christian faith have been numbered
over the graves of men? Are his words more cheerful than the Heathen's--is
his hope more near--his trust more sure--his reading of fate more happy?
Ah, no! He differs from the Heathen poet chiefly in this--that he
recognizes, for deliverance, no gods nigh at hand; and that, by petty
chance--by momentary folly--by broken message--by fool's tyranny--or
traitor's snare, the strongest and most righteous are brought to their
ruin, and perish without word of hope. He indeed, as part of his
rendering of character, ascribes the power and modesty of habitual
devotion to the gentle and the just. The death-bed of Katharine is bright
with visions of angels; and the great soldier-king, standing by his few
dead, acknowledges the presence of the Hand that can save alike by many or
by few. But observe that from those who with deepest spirit meditate, and
with deepest passion mourn, there are no such words as these; nor in their
hearts are any such consolations. Instead of the perpetual sense of the
helpful presence of the Deity, which through all heathen tradition is the
source of heroic strength, in battle, in exile, and in the valley of the
shadow of death, we find only, in the great Christian poet, the
consciousness of a moral law, through which "the gods are just, and of our
pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us"; and of the resolved
arb