About London - James Ewing Ritchie

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believe. At any rate the Spiritualists of the new school ought not to be angry with us. Mr. Howitt writes, “Moles don’t believe in eagles, nor even skylarks; they believe in the solid earth and earth-worms; – things which soar up into the air, and look full at the noon sun, and perch on the tops of mountains, and see wide prospect of the earth and air, of men and things, are utterly incomprehensible, and therefore don’t exist, to moles. Things which, like skylarks, mount also in the air, to bathe their tremulous pinions in the living æther, and in the floods of golden sunshine, and behold the earth beneath; the more green, and soft, and beautiful, because they see the heavens above them, and pour out exulting melodies which are the fruits and streaming delights of and in these things, are equally incomprehensible to moles, which, having only eyes of the size of pins’ heads, and no ears that ordinary eyes can discover, neither can see the face of heaven, nor hear the music of the spheres, nor any other music. Learned pigs don’t believe in pneumatology, nor in astronomy, but in gastronomy. They believe in troughs, pig-nuts, and substantial potatoes. Learned pigs see the wind, or have credit for it – but that other Πνευμα, which we translate Spirit, they most learnedly ignore. Moles and learned pigs were contemporaries of Adam, and have existed in all ages, and, therefore, they know that there are no such things as eagles, or skylarks and their songs; no suns, skies, heavens, and their orbs, or even such sublunary objects as those we call men and things. They know that there is nothing real, and that there are no genuine entities, but comfortable dark burrows, earthworms, pig-troughs, pig-nuts, potatoes, and the like substantials.” If this be so, – and Mr. Howitt is an old man and ought to know, especially when he says there are not in London at this time half-a-dozen literary or scientific men who, had they lived in Christ’s time, would have believed in him – well, there is no hope for us. Spiritualism is beyond our reach; it is a thing too bright for us. It is high, we cannot attain unto it. The other Sunday night, Mr. Harris was very spiritual, at any rate, very impractical and unworldly. At the close of the service he informed us that some few of his sermons, containing an outline of his religious convictions, were for sale at the doors, and would be sold at one penny and a half, a mere insignificant sum, just sufficient to cover the expense of paper and printing. On inquiring, we found, of the three sermons, one was published at three-halfpence, one at twopence, and one at fourpence, prices which, if we may judge by the copy we purchased, would yield a fair profit, if the sale were as great as it seemed to be on Sunday night.

      But Mr. Harris is a poet – there is not such another in the universe. The Golden Age opens thus: —

      “As many ages as it took to form

      The world, it takes to form the human race.

      Humanity was injured at its birth,

      And its existence in the past has been

      That of a suffering infant. God through Christ

      Appearing, healed that sickness, pouring down

      Interior life: so Christ our Lord became

      The second Adam, through whom all shall live.

      This is our faith. The world shall yet become

      The home of that great second Adam’s seed;

      Christ-forms, both male and female, who from Him

      Derive their ever-growing perfectness,

      Eventually shall possess the earth,

      And speak the rythmic language of the skies,

      And mightier miracles than His perform;

      They shall remove all sickness from the race,

      Cast out all devils from the church and state,

      And hurl into oblivion’s hollow sea

      The mountains of depravity. Then earth,

      From the Antarctic to the Arctic Pole,

      Shall blush with flowers; the isles and continents

      Teem with harmonic forms of bird and beast,

      And fruit, and glogious shapes of art more fair

      Than man’s imagination yet conceived,

      Adorn the stately temples of a new

      Divine religion. Every human soul

      A second Adam, and a second Eve,

      Shall dwell with its pure counterpart, conjoined

      In sacramental marriage of the heart.

      God shall be everywhere, and not, as now,

      Guessed at, but apprehended, felt and known.” – p. 1.

      I will take, says Mr. Howitt, as a fair specimen of the poetry and broad Christian philosophy of this spiritual epic, the recipe for writing a poem. In this, we see how far the requirements of Spiritualism are beyond the standard of the requirements of the world in poetry. They include the widest gatherings of knowledge, and still wider and loftier virtues and sympathies.

      “To write a poem, man should be as pure

      As frost-flowers; every thought should be in tune

      To heavenly truth, and Nature’s perfect law,

      Bathing the soul in beauty, joy, and peace.

      His heart should ripen like the purple grape;

      His country should be all the universe;

      His friends the best and wisest of all time.

      He should be universal as the light,

      And rich as summer in ripe-fruited love.

      He should have power to draw from common things

      Essential truth! – and, rising o’er all fear

      Of papal devils and of pagan gods,

      Of ancient Satans, and of modern ghosts,

      Should recognise all spirits as his friends,

      And see the worst but harps of golden strings

      Discordant now, but destined at the last

      To thrill, inspired with God’s own harmony,

      And make sweet music with the heavenly host.

      He should forget his private preference

      Of country or religion, and should see

      All parties and all creeds with equal eye;

      His the religion of true harmony;

      Christ the ideal of his lofty aim;

      The viewless Friend, the Comforter, and Guide,

      The joy in grief, whose every element

      Of life received in child-like faith,

      Becomes a part of impulse, feeling, thought —

      The central fire that lights his being’s sun.

      He should not limit Nature by the known;

      Nor limit God by what is known of him;

      Nor limit man by present states and moods;

      But see mankind at liberty to draw

      Into their lives all Nature’s wealth, and all

      Harmonious essences of life from God,

      And so, becoming god-like in their souls,

      And universal in their faculties,

      Informing all their age, enriching time,

      And blinding up the temple of the world

      With massive structures of eternity.

      He shall not fail to see how infinite

      God is above humanity, nor yet

      That God is throned in universal man,

      The greater mind of pure intelligence,

      Unlimited by states, moods, periods, creeds,

      Self-adequate, self-balanced in his love,

      And needing nothing and conferring all,

      And

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