dares little and succeeds in proportion--occasionally, however, flashing
out into true song. In politics he had no character--let us hope from
weakness rather than from selfishness; yet, towards the close of his
life, he wrote some poems which reveal a man not unaccustomed to ponder
sacred things, and able to express his thoughts concerning them with
force and justice. From a poem called _Of Divine Love_, I gather the
following very remarkable passages: I wish they had been enforced by
greater nobility of character. Still they are in themselves true. Even
where we have no proof of repentance, we may see plentiful signs of a
growth towards it. We cannot tell how long the truth may of necessity
require to interpenetrate the ramifications of a man's nature. By slow
degrees he discovers that here it is not, and there it is not. Again and
again, and yet again, a man finds that he must be born with a new birth.

The fear of hell, or aiming to be blest,
Savours too much of private interest:
This moved not Moses, nor the zealous Paul,
Who for their friends abandoned soul and all;
A greater yet from heaven to hell descends,
To save and make his enemies his friends.

* * * * *

That early love of creatures yet unmade,
To frame the world the Almighty did persuade.
For love it was that first created light,
Moved on the waters, chased away the night
From the rude chaos; and bestowed new grace
On things disposed of to their proper place--
Some to rest here, and some to shine above:
Earth, sea, and heaven, were all the effects of love.

* * * * *

Not willing terror should his image move,
He gives a pattern of eternal love:
His son descends, to treat a peace with those
Which were, and must have ever been, his foes.
Poor he became, and left his glorious seat,
To make us humble, and to make us great;
His business here was happiness to give
To those whose malice could not let him live.

* * * * *

He to proud potentates would not be known:
Of those that loved him, he was hid from none.
Till love appear, we live in anxious doubt;
But smoke will vanish when that flame breaks out:
This is the fire that would consume our dross,
Refine, and make us richer by the loss.

* * * * *

Who for himself no miracle would make,
Dispensed with[134] sever