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"My book speaks on, because it cannot pass;
"One listens quietly, nor scoffs but pleads
"Here is a tale of things done ages since;
"What truth was ever told the second day?
"Wonders, that would prove doctrine, go for
nought.

"Remains the doctrine, love; well, we must love, "And what we love most, power and love in one, "Let us acknowledge on the record here,

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Accepting these in Christ: must Christ then be? "Has He been? Did not we ourselves make Him? "Our mind receives but what it holds, no more. "First of the love, then; we acknowledge Christ"A proof we comprehend His love, a proof "We had such love already in ourselves, "Knew first what else we should not recognize. ""Tis mere projection from man's inmost mind, 'And, what he loves, thus falls reflected back, "Becomes accounted somewhat out of him;

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He throws it up in air, it drops down earth's. "With shape, name, story added, man's old way. "How prove you Christ came otherwise at least? "Next try the power: He made and rules the world: "Certes there is a world once made, now ruled, "Unless things have been ever as we see. "Our sires declared a charioteer's yoked steeds "Brought the sun up the east and down the west, "Which only of itself now rises, sets,

"As if a hand impelled it and a will,

"Thus they long thought, they who had will and hands:

"But the new question's whisper is distinct,

"Wherefore must all force needs be like ourselves? "We have the hands, the will; what made and drives "The sun is force, is law, is named, not known, "While will and love we do know; marks of these, Eye-witnesses attest, so books declare

"As that, to punish or reward our race,

"The sun at undue times arose or set """Or else stood still: what do not men affirm? "But earth requires as urgently reward "Or punishment to-day as years ago, "And none expects the sun will interpose: "Therefore it was mere passion and mistake, "Or erring zeal for right, which changed the truth. "Go back, far, farther, to the birth of things; "Ever the will, the intelligence, the love, "Man's!—which he gives, supposing he but finds, "As late he gave head, body, hands and feet, "To help these in what form he called his gods. First, Jove's brow, Juno's eyes were swept away, "But Jove's wrath, Juno's pride continued long; "As last, will, power, and love discarded these, "So law in turn discards power, love, and will. "What proveth God is otherwise at least? "All else, projection from the mind of man!' "Nay, do not give me wine, for I am strong, But place my gospel where I put my hands. "I say that man was made to grow, not stop; "That help, he needed once, and needs no more, "Having grown but an inch by, is withdrawn: "For he hath new needs, and new helps to these. "This imports solely, man should mount on each "New height in view; the help whereby he mounts, "The ladder-rung his foot has left, may fall, "Since all things suffer change save God the Truth. "Man apprehends Him newly at each stage "Whereat earth's ladder drops, its service done; "And nothing shall prove twice what once was proved.

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"You stick a garden-plot with ordered twigs "To show inside lie germs of herbs unborn,

"And check the careless step would spoil their

birth,

"But when herbs wave, the guardian twigs may go,

"Since should ye doubt of virtues, question kinds, "It is no longer for old twigs ye look,

"Which proved once underneath lay store of seed, "But to the herb's self, by what light ye boast, "For what fruit's signs are. This book's fruit is plain, "Nor miracles need prove it any more.

"Doth the fruit show? Then miracles bade 'ware "At first of root and stem, saved both till now "From tramping ox, rough boar and wanton goat. "What? Was man made a wheelwork to wind up, "And be discharged, and straight wound up anew? "No!-grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets:

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May learn a thousand things, not twice the same. "This might be pagan teaching: now hear mine. "I say, that as the babe, you feed awhile, "Becomes a boy and fit to feed himself,

So, minds at first must be spoon-fed with truth: "When they can eat, babe's-nurture is withdrawn. "I fed the babe whether it would or no:

"I bid the boy or feed himself or starve. "I cried once, 'That ye may believe in Christ, "Behold this blind man shall receive his sight!' "I cry now, "Urgest thou, for I am shrewd

"And smile at stories how John's word could cure'Repeat that miracle and take my faith?'

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"I say, that miracle was duly wrought "When, save for it, no faith was possible. "Whether a change were wrought i' the shows o' the world,

"Whether the change came from our minds which

see

"Of shows o' the world so much as and no more "Than God wills for His purpose,-(what do I "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 "Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee "All questions in the earth and out of it,

"" And has so far advanced thee to be wise. "Wouldst thou unprove this to re-prove the proved? "In life's mere minute, with power to use that proof, "Leave knowledge and revert to how it sprung? "Thou hast it; use it and forthwith, or die!

"For I say, this is death and the sole death, "When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, "Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, "And lack of love from love made manifest; "A lamp's death when, replete with oil, it chokes; "A stomach's when, surcharged with food, it starves "With ignorance was surety of a cure, "When man, appalled at nature, questioned first 'What if there lurk a might behind this might?' "He needed satisfaction God could give, "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.

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'And when man questioned, 'What if there be love "Behind the will and might, as real as they?'— "He needed satisfaction God could give, "And did give, as ye have the written word: "But when, beholding that love everywhere, "He reasons, 'Since such love is everywhere, 'And since ourselves can love and would be loved, "We ourselves make the love, and Christ was not,'

"How shall ye help this man who knows himself,

"That he must love and would be loved again, "Yet, owning his own love that proveth Christ, Rejecteth Christ through very need of Him?

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"The lamp o'erswims with oil, the stomach flags "Loaded with nurture, and that man's soul dies.

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"If he rejoin, 'But this was all the while "A trick; the fault was, first of all, in thee, Thy story of the places, names and dates, 'Where, when and how the ultimate truth had rise, "-Thy prior truth, at last discovered none, "Whence now the second suffers detriment. "What good of giving knowledge if, because "'O' the manner of the gift, its profit fail? "And why refuse what modicum of help "Had stopped the after-doubt, impossible "I' the face of truth-truth absolute, uniform? 'Why must I hit of this and miss of that,

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Distinguish just as I be weak or strong, ""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,

"And carried in a cane and brought to earth: The fact is in the fable, cry the wise,

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Mortals obtained the boon, so much is fact, Though fire be spirit and produced on earth. "As with the Titan's, so now with thy tale: 'Why breed in us perplexity, mistake,

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"Nor tell the whole truth in the proper words?'

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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?

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