See now, suppose you, there where you see rock Round us?) I know not; such was the effect, So faith grew, making void more miracles Because too much they would compel, not help. I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ All questions in the earth and out of it, Wouldst thou unprove this to re-prove the proved? "For I say, this is death and the sole death, A lamp's death when, replete with oil, it chokes ; When man, appalled at nature, questioned first, And did give, as ye have the written word: But when he finds might still redouble might, Yet asks, 'Since all is might, what use of will?' - Will, the one source of might, - he being man With a man's will and a man's might, to teach In little how the two combine in large, That man has turned round on himself and stands, Which in the course of nature is, to die. "And when man questioned, 'What if there be love And did give, as ye have the written word: He reasons, Since such love is everywhere, And since ourselves can love and would be loved, How shall ye help this man who knows himself, "If he rejoin, 'But this was all the while the fault was, first of all, in thee, A trick; Thy story of the places, names, and dates, Where, when, and how the ultimate truth had rise, - Thy prior truth, at last discovered none, truth absolute, uniform? Why must I hit of this and miss of that, And not ask of thee and have answer prompt, Was this once, was it not once? then and now And evermore, plain truth from man to man. Is John's procedure just the heathen bard's? Put question of his famous play again How for the ephemerals' sake, Jove's fire was filched, Nor tell the whole truth in the proper words?' 66 I answer, Have ye yet to argue out The very primal thesis, plainest law, - Man is not God but hath God's end to serve, A master to obey, a course to take, Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become? Grant this, then man must pass from old to new, From vain to real, from mistake to fact, From what once seemed good, to what now proves best. How could man have progression otherwise? Before the point was mooted 'What is God?' No savage man inquired 'What am myself?' Might can exist with neither will nor love, In God's case - what he names now Nature's Law- No less than might and will: and rightly takes. Than any might with neither love nor will, I give such to the midge for resting-place! Thus, man proves best and highest — God, in fine, And thus the victory leads but to defeat, The gain to loss, best rise to the worst fall, His life becomes impossible, which is death. "But if, appealing thence, he cower, avouch Nor conscious that they know, nor craving more ; And in this striving, this converting air Into a solid he may grasp and use, Finds progress, man's distinctive mark alone, Not God's, and not the beasts': God is, they are, Man partly is and wholly hopes to be. Such progress could no more attend his soul |