1874-] LAST POEM. 329 During his severe illness in Colorado, he composed these lines; they were the last he ever wrote: 666 I. "Are you ready for your steeple-chase, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrèe? To keep him straight, and keep him first, and win the run for me. 2. "She clasped her new-born baby, poor Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrèe, Barum, Barum, &c. 'I cannot ride Vindictive, as any man might see, And I will not ride Vindictive, with this baby on my knee; He's killed a boy, he's killed a man, and why must he kill me?' 3. "Unless you ride Vindictive, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrèe, And land him safe across the brook, and win the blank for me, 4. "That husbands could be cruel,' said Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrèe, 'That husbands could be cruel, I have known for seasons three; But oh! to ride Vindictive while a baby cries for me, And be killed across a fence at last for all the world to see!' 5. "She mastered young Vindictive-Oh! the gallant lass was she, CHAPTER XXVIII. 1874-5. AGED 55. RETURN FROM AMERICA-WORK AT EVERSLEY-ILLNESS AT WESTMINSTER - NEW ANXIETY-LAST SERMONS IN THE ABBEY LEAVES THE CLOISTERS FOR EVER-LAST RETURN TO EVERSLEY -THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH-LAST ILLNESS AND DEPARTURE - ANSWERED PRAYER HIS BURIAL - FUNERAL SERMONS-LETTERS OF SYMPATHY-THE TRUE AND PERFECT KNIGHT THE VICTORY of Life OVER DEATH AND TIME. "Death, beautiful, wise, kind Death, when will you come and tell me what I want to know?" C. K. "Out of God's boundless bosom, the fount of life, we came; through selfish stormy youth, and contrite tears-just not too late; through manhood not altogether useless; through slow and chill old age, we return Whence we came, to the Bosom of God once more-to go forth again with fresh knowledge and fresh powers, to nobler work. Amen." C. K. It was sultry August weather when he returned to Eversley from America, and his great joy at being at home again made him plunge too eagerly and suddenly into work and Sunday services, before he had regained his full strength after his illness in Colorado. There was much sickness and a great mortality in the parish; and he was out among his poor people twice and three times a day in the burning sun and dry easterly wind. When he went up to Westminster in September, a severe attack 1874.] THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 331 of congestion of the liver came on, which alarmed his friends, and prevented his preaching in the Abbey on the first Sunday of his residence. This attack shook him terribly, and from that time he was unable to preach more than once a week during his residence; but, though altered and emaciated, he seemed recovering strength, when, early in October, a shadow came over his home, in the dangerous illness of his wife, touching him in his tenderest point, and filling him with fears for the future. When all immediate danger for her was over, it was with difficulty he was persuaded to leave her and take a few days' change of air and scene, at Lord John Thynne's, in Bedfordshire, and with his friend Mr. Fuller Maitland, in Essex. From these visits he returned invigorated in health and spirits for his November work, and got through his sermons in the Abbey with less fatigue. The congregations were enormous-the sermons powerful as ever, though their preparation was an increasing labour: but the change in his appearance was observed by many. "I went back," said an old correspondent, "from the Abbey service, sad at the remembrance of the bent back and shrunken figure, and while hoping the weakness was but temporary, I grieved to see one who had carried himself so nobly, broken down by illness." His All Saints' Day sermon will never be forgotten by those who heard it. It was like a note of preparation for the life of eternal blessedness in the vision of God upon which he himself was so soon to enter. It was a revealing too of his own deepest belief as to what that blessedness meant, with back glances into the darker passages and bitter struggles of his own earthly life and warfare with evil. In it he speaks of the mystery of evil, and of the soul puzzled, crushed, and “sickened by the thought of the sins of the unholy many-sickened, alas! by the imperfections of the holiest few." "And have you never cried in your hearts with longing, almost with impatience, 'Surely, surely, there is an ideal Holy One somewhere-or else, how could have arisen in my mind the conception, however faint, of an ideal holiness? But where? oh where? Not in the world around strewn with unholiness. Not in myself, unholy too, without and withinand calling myself sometimes the very worst company of all the bad company I meet, because that company is the only company from which I cannot escape. Oh! is there a Holy One, whom I may contemplate with utter delight? and if so, where is He? Oh that I might behold, if but for a moment, His perfect beauty, even though, as in the fable of Semele of old, the lightning of His glance were death.'. . . .” “And then, oh, then-has there not come to such a one—I know that it has come-that for which his spirit was athirst-the very breath of pure air, the very gleam of pure light, the very strain of pure music-for it is the very music of the spheresin those same words, 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come;' and he has answered with a flush of keenest joy- Yes, whatever else is unholy, there is a Holy One-spotless and undefiled, serene and self-contained. Whatever else I cannot trust, there is One whom I can trust utterly. Whatever else I am dissatisfied with, there is One whom I can contemplate with utter satisfaction, and bathe my stained soul in that eternal fount of purity. And who is He? Who, save the Cause and Maker, and Ruler of all things, past, present, and to come? Ah, gospel of all gospels-that God Himself, the Almighty God, is the eternal realization of all that I and all mankind, in our purest and our noblest moments, have ever dreamed concerning the true, the beautiful, and the good.'. .. Whosoever has entered, though but for a moment, however faintly, partially, stupidly, into that thought of thoughts, has entered in so far into the communion of the elect, and has THE "OLD FAITH" PRECIOUS TO THE LAST. 333 had his share in the Everlasting All Saints' Day which is in heaven." * He little thought when preaching this sermon that in less than three months' time he too should himself be entering the Holy of Holies. Of that very beatific vision he spoke once more shortly before his death; when, conscious of no human presence, he was heard in the night by his daughter to cry out, in a clear voice, "How beautiful God is!" One of the last letters he ever wrote was on November 22nd, to Mr. Shone, of Chester, to thank him for an "Address on the Tendency of Modern Thought." "My young friend," he says, "you see the broad truth, and you have put it in very manly words. . . . Only-don't lose hold of that belief in the old faith, which is more precious to my reason, as well as to my moral sense, the older I grow, and have to do with sorrows and difficulties which you, in your youth and strength, do not know yet-and God grant you never may know. Be true to your own manly words: and in due time God will pay you all, for He is very just and very merciful. Give my love to all the dear Chester people." To this "old faith" he clung more and more strongly; and a friend about this time with whom he was speaking of the deep things of God, said she could never forget his look and voice, as folding his arms he bowed his head and said, "I cannot-cannot live without the Man Christ Jesus." On Advent Sunday, November 29, he preached his last sermon in Westminster, with intense fervour. It was the winding-up of his year's work in the Abbey, but neither he nor those who hung upon his words thought that it was the winding-up of his public ministrations and the * All Saints' Day and other Sermons. (C. K. Paul & Co.) |