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the best, they sought, and followed it.

       "The Pastor fills his office well," he said,

       In homely jest; "—the Past alone he heeds!

       Honours those Jewish times as he were a Jew,

       And Christ were neither Jew nor northern man!

       He has no ear for this poor Present Hour,

       Which wanders up and down the centuries,

       Like beggar-boy roaming the wintry streets,

       With witless hand held out to passers-by;

       And yet God made the voice of its many cries.

       Mine be the work that comes first to my hand!

       The lever set, I grasp and heave withal.

       I love where I live, and let my labour flow

       Into the hollows of the neighbour-needs.

       Perhaps I like it best: I would not choose

       Another than the ordered circumstance.

       This farm is God's as much as yonder town;

       These men and maidens, kine and horses, his;

       For them his laws must be incarnated

       In act and fact, and so their world redeemed."

      Though thus he spoke at times, he spake not oft;

       Ruled chief by action: what he said, he did.

       No grief was suffered there of man or beast

       More than was need; no creature fled in fear;

       All slaying was with generous suddenness,

       Like God's benignant lightning. "For," he said,

       "God makes the beasts, and loves them dearly well—

       Better than any parent loves his child,

       It may be," would he say; for still the may be Was sacred with him no less than the is— "In such humility he lived and wrought— Hence are they sacred. Sprung from God as we, They are our brethren in a lower kind, And in their face we see the human look." If any said: "Men look like animals; Each has his type set in the lower kind;" His answer was: "The animals are like men; Each has his true type set in the higher kind, Though even there only rough-hewn as yet. The hell of cruelty will be the ghosts Of the sad beasts: their crowding heads will come, And with encircling, slow, pain-patient eyes, Stare the ill man to madness."

      When he spoke,

       His word behind it had the force of deeds

       Unborn within him, ready to be born;

       But, like his race, he promised very slow.

       His goodness ever went before his word,

       Embodying itself unconsciously

       In understanding of the need that prayed,

       And cheerful help that would outrun the prayer.

      When from great cities came the old sad news

       Of crime and wretchedness, and children sore

       With hunger, and neglect, and cruel blows,

       He would walk sadly all the afternoon,

       With head down-bent, and pondering footstep slow;

       Arriving ever at the same result—

       Concluding ever: "The best that I can do

       For the great world, is the same best I can

       For this my world. What truth may be therein

       Will pass beyond my narrow circumstance,

       In truth's own right." When a philanthropist

       Said pompously: "It is not for your gifts

       To spend themselves on common labours thus:

       You owe the world far nobler things than such;"

       He answered him: "The world is in God's hands,

       This part of it in mine. My sacred past,

       With all its loves inherited, has led

       Hither, here left me: shall I judge, arrogant,

       Primaeval godlike work in earth and air,

       Seed-time and harvest—offered fellowship

       With God in nature—unworthy of my hands?

       I know your argument—I know with grief!—

       The crowds of men, in whom a starving soul

       Cries through the windows of their hollow eyes

       For bare humanity, nay, room to grow!—

       Would I could help them! But all crowds are made

       Of individuals; and their grief and pain,

       Their thirst and hunger—all are of the one,

       Not of the many: the true, the saving power

       Enters the individual door, and thence

       Issues again in thousand influences

       Besieging other doors. I cannot throw

       A mass of good into the general midst,

       Whereof each man may seize his private share;

       And if one could, it were of lowest kind,

       Not reaching to that hunger of the soul.

       Now here I labour whole in the same spot

       Where they have known me from my childhood up

       And I know them, each individual:

       If there is power in me to help my own,

       Even of itself it flows beyond my will,

       Takes shape in commonest of common acts,

       Meets every humble day's necessity:

       —I would not always consciously do good,

       Not always work from full intent of help,

       Lest I forget the measure heaped and pressed

       And running over which they pour for me,

       And never reap the too-much of return

       In smiling trust and beams from kindly eyes.

       But in the city, with a few lame words,

       And a few wretched coins, sore-coveted,

       To mediate 'twixt my cannot and my would, My best attempts would never strike a root; My scattered corn would turn to wind-blown chaff; I should grow weak, might weary of my kind, Misunderstood the most where almost known, Baffled and beaten by their unbelief: Years could not place me where I stand this day High on the vantage-ground of confidence: I might for years toil on, and reach no man. Besides, to leave the thing that nearest lies, And choose the thing far off, more difficult— The act, having no touch of God in it, Who seeks the needy for the pure need's sake, Must straightway die, choked in its selfishness." Thus he. The world-wise schemer for the good Held his poor peace, and went his trackless way.

      What of the vision now? the vision fair

       Sent forth to meet him, when at eve he went

       Home from his first day's ploughing? Oft he dreamed

       She passed him smiling on her stately horse;

       But never band or buckle yielded more;

       Never again his hands enthroned the maid;

       He only worshipped with his eyes, and woke.

       Nor woke he then with foolish vain regret;

       But, saying, "I have seen the beautiful,"

       Smiled with his eyes upon a flower or bird,

       Or living form, whate'er, of gentleness,

       That met him first; and all that morn, his face

      

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