The Crown of Thorns | Page 7

shall strengthen ourselves to
contemplate the fact that the countenances we love must change, and
the ties that are closest to our hearts will break; and we shall feel that it
ought to be, because it must be, -- because it is an inevitability in that
grand and bounteous scheme in which stars rise and set, and life and
death play into each other.
But, even within the circle of our own knowledge, there is that which
may reconcile us to these separations,. and prevent the vain wish of
building perpetual tabernacles for our human love. For who is prepared,
at any time, to say that it was not better for the dear friend, and better
for ourselves, that he should go, rather than stay; --better for the infant
to die with flowers upon its breast, than to live and have thorns in its
heart; --better to kiss the innocent lips that are still and cold, than to see
the living lips that are scorched with guilty passion; --better to take our
last look of a face while it is pleasant to remember--serene with thought,

and faith, and many charities --than to see it toss in prolonged agony,
and grow hideous with the wreck of intellect? And, as spiritual beings,
placed here not to be gratified, but to be trained, surely we know that
often it is the drawing up of these earthly ties that draws up our souls;
that a great bereavement breaks the crust of our mere animal
consciousness, and inaugurates a spiritual faith; and we are baptized
into eternal life through the cloud and the shadow of death.
But, once more, I remark, that there are those who may say, "We do not
ask for any permanence in the conditions of life; we do not ask that
even its dearest relationships should be retained; but give, 0! give us
ever those highest brightest moods of faith and of truth, which
constitute the glory of religion, and lift us above the conflict and the sin
of the world! No truly religious mind can fail to perceive the
gravitation of its thoughts and desires, and the contrast between its
usual level and its best moments of contemplation and prayer. And it .
may indeed seem well to desire the prolongation of these experiences;
to desire to live ever in that unworldly radiance, close to the canopy of
God, --in company with the great and the holy, --in company with the
apostles and with Jesus, --on some Mount of Transfiguration, in
garments whiter than snow, and with faces bright as the sun; and the
hard, bad, trying world far distant and far below. Does not the man of
spiritual sensitiveness envy those sainted ones who have grown apart,
in pure clusters, away above the sinful world, blossoming and breathing
fragrance on the very slopes of heaven?
And yet, is this the complete ideal of life? and is this the way in which
we are to accomplish its true end? I think we may safely say that even
the brightest realizations of religion should be comparatively rare,
otherwise we forget the work and lose the discipline of our mortal lot.
The great saints--the men whose names stand highest in the calendar of
the church universal--are not the ascetics, not the contemplators, not the
men who walked apart in cloisters; but those who came down from the
Mount of Communion and Glory, to take a part in the world; who have
carried its burdens in their souls, and its scars upon their breasts; who
have wrought for its deepest. interests, and died for its highest good;
whose garments have swept its common ways, and whose voices have
thrilled in its low places of suffering and of need; -men who have
leaned lovingly against the world, until the motion of their great hearts

jars in its pulses forever; men who have gone up from dust, and blood,
and crackling fire; men with faces of serene endurance and lofty denial,
yet of broad, genial, human sympathies; --these are the men who wear
starry crowns, and walk in white robes, yonder.
We need our visions for inspiration, but we must work in comparative
shadow; otherwise, the very highest revelations would become
monotonous, and we should long for still higher. And yet, are there not
some whose desire is for constant revelation? Who would see
supernatural sights, and hear supernatural sounds, and know all the
realities towards which they are drifting, as well as those in which they
must work? They would make this world a mount of perpetual vision;
overlooking the fact that it has its own purposes, to be wrought out by
its own light, and within its own limits. For my part, I must confess that
I do not share in this desire to know