LXVII.—THE GUILTY CONSCIENCE.

RICHARD III, of England, had committed many murders to gain the crown. The night before the battle, in which he lost his life, he awakes from the dreams of a guilty conscience, as described in this

extract.

GIVE me another horse! bind up my wounds!
Have mercy! mercy! Soft! I did but dream.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.
Cold, fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.

What do I fear? myself? there's none else by:
Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.

Is there a murderer here? No;-yes; I am.
Then fly! What, from myself? Great reason: why?

Lest I revenge. What? Myself on myself?

I love myself. Wherefore? for any good,
That I myself have done unto myself?
Oh, no. Alas, I rather hate myself,
For hateful deeds committed by myself.
I am a villain: yet I lie, I am not.

Fool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree;
Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree;
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all,-Guilty! guilty!

I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;
And, if I die, no soul will pity me:

Nay, wherefore should they? since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself.

Methought the souls of all that I had murdered
Came to my tent; and every one did threat
To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.
FROM SHAKSPEARE.

LXVIII.-SOLILOQUY OF HAMLET'S UNCLE.

HAMLET's uncle had murdered his own brother, the king of Denmark, and usurped the throne.

OH! my offense is rank, it smells to heaven.
It hath the primal, eldest curse upon it,
A brother's murder! Pray I can not,
Though inclination be as sharp as 'twill,
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent:
And like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect.

What if this curs-ed hand

Were thicker than itself with brother's blood;
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy,
But to confront the visage of offense?

And what's in prayer, but this twofold force,

To be forestall-ed, ere we come to fall,

Or pardoned, being down? Then I'll look up;
My fault is past.

But oh, what form of prayer

Can serve my turn? "Forgive me my foul murder!"
That can not be; since I am still possessed

Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned, and retain the offense?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offense's gilded hand may shove by justice;
And oft 't is seen, the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law. But 't is not so above.
There, is no shuffling; there, the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence.

What then? What rests?

Try what repentance can. What can it not? Yet what can it, when one can not repent? Oh wretched state! oh bosom, black as death! Oh li-med soul; that, struggling to be free, NEW EC. S.-13

Art more engaged! Help, angels! make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and heart, with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!

All may be well.

FROM SHAKSPEARE.

LXIX.-NATIONAL MORALITY.

THE crisis has come. By the people of this generation, by ourselves, probably, the amazing question is to be decided whether the inheritance of our fathers shall be preserved or thrown away: whether our sabbaths shall be a delight or a loathing: whether the taverns, on that holy day, shall be crowded with drunkards, or the sanctuary of God with humble worshipers: whether riot and profaneness shall fill our streets, and poverty our dwellings, and convicts our jails, and violence our land: or whether industry, and temperance, and righteousness, shall be the stability of our times: whether mild laws shall receive the cheerful submission of freemen, or the iron rod of a tyrant compel the trembling homage of slaves.

Be not deceived. Our rocks and hills will remain till the last conflagration. But let the sabbath be profaned with impunity, the worship of God be abandoned, the government and religious instruction of children neglected, and the streams of intemperance be permitted to flow, and her glory will depart. The wall of fire will no longer surround her, and the munition of rocks will no longer be her defense. The hand that overturns our laws and temples is the hand of death, un barring the gate of Pandemonium, and letting loose upon our land the crimes and miseries of hell.

If the most High should stand aloof, and cast not a single ingredient into our cup of trembling, it would seem to be full of superlative woe. But he will not stand aloof. As we shall have begun an open controversy with him, he will contend openly with us. And never, since the earth stood, has it been so fearful a thing for nations to fall into the hands of the living God.

The day of vengeance is at hand. The day of judgment has come. The great earthquake which sinks Babylon is shaking the nations, and the waves of the mighty commotion are dashing upon every shore. Is this, then, a time to remove the foundations, when the earth itself is shaken? Is this a time to forfeit the protection of God, when the hearts of men are failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are to come upon the earth? Is this a time to run upon his neck and the thick bosses of his buckler, when the nations are drinking blood, and fainting, and passing away in his wrath?

Is this a time to throw away the shield of faith, when his arrows are drunk with the blood of the slain? to cut from the anchor of hope, when the clouds are collecting, and the sea and the waves are roaring, and thunders are uttering their voices, and lightnings blazing in the heavens, and the great hail is falling from heaven upon men, and every mountain, sea, and island, is fleeing in dismay from the face of an incensed God? FROM BEECHER.

LXX-ARRANGEMENTS OF PROVIDENCE.

WHAT Would this man? Now upward will he soar,
And little less than angel, would be more:
Now looking downward, just as grieved appears,
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Say, what their use, had he the powers of all?

Nature to these, without profusion kind,
The proper organs, proper powers assigned:
Each seeming want compensated, of course;
Here with degrees of swiftness, there with force:
All in exact proportion to their state:
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own,
Is heaven unkind to man, and man alone?
Shall he alone whom rational we call,

Be pleased with nothing, if not blessed with all?

This bliss of man, (could pride the blessing find,)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

No powers of body or of soul to share,
But what his nature and his state can bear.

Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, man is not a fly.
Say, what the use, were finer optics given,
To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at every pore?

Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

If nature thundered in his open ears,

And stunned him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that heaven had left him still
The whispering zephyr and the purling rill!
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

.

FROM POPE.

LXXI. SCEPTICISM.

IBERIA'S PILOT; Columbus.

COPE;

the arch or concave of the sky.

O, LIVES there, Heaven, beneath thy dread expanse,
One hopeless, dark idolater of Chance,

Content to feed, with pleasure unrefined,
The lukewarm passions of a lowly mind;

Who, moldering earthward, 'reft of every trust,
In joyless union wedded to the dust,
Could all his parting energy dismiss,

And call this barren world sufficient bliss?

There live, alas! of heaven-directed mien,
Of cultured soul, and sapient eye serene,
Who hail thee, man, the pilgrim of a day,
Spouse of the worm, and brother of the clay!
Frail as the leaf in Autumn's yellow bower,
Dust in the wind, or dew upon the flower!
A friendless slave, a child without a sire,
Whose mortal life, and momentary fire,
Lights to the grave his chance-created form,
As ocean-wrecks illuminate the storm,
And, when the gun's tremendous flash is o'er,
To night and silence sink forevermore!