divine
inspiration, we cannot help wondering whether, if he had betaken himself
yet more to vital and less to half artificial symbols, the change would
not have been a breaking of the pitcher and an outshining of the lamp.
For a symbol may remind us of the truth, and at the same time obscure
it--present it, and dull its effect. It is the temple of nature and not
the temple of the church, the things made by the hands of God and not the
things made by the hands of man, that afford the truest symbols of truth.

I am anxious to be understood. The chief symbol of our faith, _the
Cross_, it may be said, is not one of these natural symbols. I
answer--No; but neither is it an arbitrary symbol. It is not a symbol of
_a truth_ at all, but of _a fact_, of the infinitely grandest fact in the
universe, which is itself the outcome and symbol of the grandest Truth.
_The Cross_ is an historical _sign_, not properly _a symbol_, except
through the facts it reminds us of. On the other hand, _baptism_ and the
_eucharist_ are symbols of the loftiest and profoundest kind, true to
nature and all its meanings, as well as to the facts of which they remind
us. They are in themselves symbols of the truths involved in the facts
they commemorate.

Of Nature's symbols George Herbert has made large use; but he would have
been yet a greater poet if he had made a larger use of them still. Then
at least we might have got rid of such oddities as the stanzas for steps
up to the church-door, the first at the bottom of the page; of the lines
shaped into ugly altar-form; and of the absurd Easter wings, made of ever
lengthening lines. This would not have been much, I confess, nor the gain
by their loss great; but not to mention the larger supply of images
graceful with the grace of God, who when he had made them said they were
good, it would have led to the further purification of his taste, perhaps
even to the casting out of all that could untimely move our mirth; until
possibly (for illustration), instead of this lovely stanza, he would have
given us even a lovelier:

Listen, sweet dove, unto my song,
And spread thy golden wings on me;
Hatching my tender heart so long,
Till it get wing, and fly away with thee.

The stanza is indeed lovely, and true and tender and clever as well; yet
who can help smiling at the notion of the incubation of the heart-egg,
although what the poet means is so good that the smile almost vanishes in
a sigh?

Ther