stands it well, understands the Prophecy of the whole Future; the last Evangel, which has included all others. Its cathedral the Dome of Immensity,-hast thou seen it? coped with the stargalaxies; paved with the green mosaic of land and ocean; and for altar, verily, the Star-throne of the Eternal! Its litany and psalmody the noble acts, the heroic work and suffering, and true heart-utterance of all the Valiant of the Sons of Men. Its choirmusic the ancient Winds and Oceans, and deep-toned, inarticulate, but most speaking voices of Destiny and History,-supernal ever as of old. Between two great Silences: 'Stars silent rest o'er us, Between which two great Silences, do not, as we said, all human Noises, in the naturalest times, most preternaturally march and roll? I will insert this also, in a lower strain, from Sauerteig's Esthetische Springwürzel. Worship?' says he 'Before that 'inane tumult of Hearsay filled men's heads, while the world lay 'yet silent, and the heart true and open, many things were Wor'ship! To the primeval man whatsoever good came, descended 'on him (as, in mere fact, it ever does) direct from God; whatso'ever duty lay visible for him, this a Supreme God had prescribed. 'To the present hour I ask thee, Who else? For the primeval 'man, in whom dwelt Thought, this Universe was all a Temple; 'Life everywhere a Worship. 'What Worship, for example, is there not in mere Washing! Perhaps one of the most moral things a man, in common cases, 'has it in his power to do. Strip thyself, go into the bath, or ( were it into the limpid pool and running brook, and there wash 'and be clean; thou wilt step out again a purer and a better man. 'This consciousness of perfect outer pureness, that to thy skin 'there now adheres no foreign speck of imperfection, how it ra'diates in on thee, with cunning symbolic influences, to thy very 'soul! Thou hast an increase of tendency towards all good things 'whatsoever. The oldest Eastern Sages, with joy and holy grat'itude, had felt it so, and that it was the Maker's gift and will. 'Whose else is it? It remains a religious duty, from oldest times, in the East.-Nor could Herr Professor Strauss, when I put the 'question, deny that for us at present it is still such here in the 'West! To that dingy fuliginous Operative, emerging from his 'soot-mill, what is the first duty I will prescribe, and offer help 'towards? That he clean the skin of him. Can he pray, by any 'ascertained method? One knows not entirely-but with soap and a sufficiency of water, he can wash. Even the dull English 'feel something of this; they have a saying, "Cleanliness is near ' of kin to Godliness:"-yet never, in any country, saw I opera'tive men worse washed, and, in a climate drenched with the soft'est cloud-water, such a scarcity of baths!'-Alas, Sauerteig, our 'operative men' are at present short even of potatoes: what 'duty' can you prescribe to them! Or let us give a glance at China. Our new friend, the Emperor there, is Pontiff of three hundred million men; who do all live and work, these many centuries now; authentically patronised by Heaven so far; and therefore must have some 'religion' of a kind. This Emperor-Pontiff has, in fact, a religious belief of certain Laws of Heaven; observes, with a religious rigour, his 'three thousand punctualities,' given out by men of insight, some sixty generations since, as a legible transcript of the same,-the Heavens do seem to say, not totally an incorrect one. He has not much of a ritual, this Pontiff-Emperor; believes, it is likest, with the old Monks, that Labour is Worship.' His most public Act of Worship, it appears, is the drawing solemnly at a certain day, on the green bosom of our Mother Earth, when the Heavens, after dead black winter, have again with their vernal radiances awakened her, a distinct red Furrow with the Plough,-signal that all the Ploughs of China are to begin ploughing and worshipping! It is notable enough. He, in sight of the Seen and Unseen Powers, draws his distinct red Furrow there; saying, and praying, in mute symbolism, so many most eloquent things! If you ask this Pontiff, "Who made him? What is to become of him and us?" he maintains a dignified reserve; waves his hand and pontiff-eyes over the unfathomable deep of Heaven, the Tsien,' the azure kingdoms of Infinitude; as if asking, "Is it doubtful that we are right well made? Can aught that is wrong become of us?"-He and his three hundred millions (it 6 is their chief 'punctuality') visit yearly the Tombs of their Fathers; each man the Tomb of his Father and his Mother; alone there, in silence, with what of worship' or of other thought there may be, pauses solemnly each man; the divine Skies all silent over him; the divine Graves, and this divinest Grave, all silent under him; the pulsings of his own soul, if he have any soul, alone audible. Truly it may be a kind of worship! Truly, if a man cannot get some glimpse into the Eternities, looking through this portal,-through what other need he try it? 6 Our friend the Pontiff-Emperor permits cheerfully, though with contempt, all manner of Buddists, Bonzes, Talapoins and such like, to build brick Temples, on the voluntary principle; to worship with what of chantings, paper-lanterns and tumultuous brayings, pleases them; and make night hideous, since they find some comfort in so doing. Cheerfully, though with contempt. He is a wiser Pontiff than many persons think! He is as yet the one Chief Potentate or Priest in this Earth who has made a distinct systematic attempt at what we call the ultimate result of all religion, Practical Hero-worship: he does incessantly, with true anxiety, in such way as he can, search and sift (it would appear) his whole enormous population for the Wisest born among them; by which Wisest, as by born Kings, these three hundred million men are governed. The Heavens, to a certain extent, do appear to countenance him. These three hundred millions actually make porcelain, souchong tea, with innumerable other things; and fight, under Heaven's flag, against Necessity;-and have fewer Seven-Years Wars, Thirty-Years Wars, French Revolution Wars, and infernal fightings with each other, than certain millions elsewhere have! Nay, in our poor distracted Europe itself, in these newest times, have there not religious voices risen,-with a religion new and yet the oldest; entirely indisputable to all hearts of men? Some I do know, who did not call or think themselves 'Prophets,' far enough from that; but who were, in very truth, melodious Voices from the eternal Heart of Nature once again; souls forever venerable to all that have a soul. A French Revolution is one phenomenon; as complement and spiritual exponent thereof, a Poet Goethe and German Literature is to me another. The old Secular or Practical World, so to speak, having gone up in fire, is not here the prophecy and dawn of a new Spiritual World, parent of far nobler, wider, new Practical Worlds? A life of Antique devoutness, Antique veracity and heroism, has again become possible, is again seen actual there, for the most modern man. A phenomenon, as quiet as it is, comparable for greatness to no other! The great event for the world is, now as always, 'the arrival in it of a new Wise Man.' Touches there are, be the Heavens ever thanked, of new Sphere-melody; audible once more, in the infinite jargoning discords and poor scrannel-pipings of the thing called Literature:-priceless there, as the voice of new Heavenly Psalms! Literature, like the old Prayer-Collections of the first centuries, were it well selected from and burnt,' contains precious things. For Literature, with all its printing presses, puffing-engines and shoreless deafening triviality, is yet the Thought of Thinking Souls.' A sacred religion,' if you like the name, does live in the heart of that strange froth-ocean, not wholly froth, which we call Literature; and will more and more disclose itself therefrom;-not now as scorching Fire: the red smoky scorching Fire has purified itself into white sunny Light. Is not Light grander than Fire? It is the same element in a state of purity. My ingenuous readers, we will march out of this Third Book with a rhythmic word of Goethe's on our lips; a word which perhaps has already sung itself, in dark hours and in bright, through many a heart. To me, finding it devout yet wholly credible and veritable, full of piety yet free of cant; to me joyfully finding much in it, and joyfully missing so much in it, this little snatch of music, by the greatest German Man, sounds like a stanza in the grand Road-Song and Marching-Song of our great Teutonic Kindred, wending, wending, valiant and victorious, through the undiscovered Deeps of Time! He calls it Mason-Lodge,-not Psalm or Hymn: 'The Mason's ways are Is as the days are Of men in this world. The Future hides in it And solemn before us, While earnest thou gazest, But heard are the Voices,- Here eyes do regard you, Ye brave, to reward you; |