Of Ignorance, too dull to judge aright,
The love that rises to this wondrous height.
He knows we have not yet attain'd; and so
He wearies not, but bears complaint and moan,
And shields each willing heart against His own,
Knowing that some glad day we too shall know.
Carlotta Perry.

547. COMPLAINT: brings no relief.

To tell thy mis'ries will no comfort breed ;
Men help thee most that think thou hast no need ;
But if the world once thy misfortunes know,
Thou soon shalt lose a friend and find a foe.

548. COMPLAINT: cowardly.

Randolph.

I THINK we are too ready with complaint
In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope
Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope
Of yon grey bank of sky, we might be faint
To muse upon eternity's constraint
Round our aspirant souls. But if the scope
Must widen early, is it well to droop

For a few days consumed in loss and taint?
O pusillanimous Heart, be comforted,
And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road,
Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread
Be bitter in the inn, and thou unshod

To meet the flints ?-At least it may be said,
'Because the way is short, I thank Thee, God!'
E. B. Browning.

549. COMPLAINT : unwise.

I THINK if thou couldst know,
O soul that will complain,
What lies conceal'd below

Our burden and our pain;
How just our anguish brings
Nearer those longed-for things

We seek for now in vain,

I think thou wouldst rejoice, and not complain.

I think if thou couldst see,
With thy dim mortal sight,
How meanings dark to thee

Are shadows hiding light;
Truth's efforts cross'd and vex'd,
Life-purpose all perplex'd,—

If thou couldst see them right,

I think that they would seem all clear and wise and bright.

And yet thou canst not know, And yet thou canst not see;

Wisdom and sight are slow

In poor humanity.

A PARENT ask'd a Priest his boy to bless, Who forthwith charged him-he must first confess. 'Well,' said the boy, 'suppose, sir, I am willing, What is your charge?' To you 'tis but a shilling!' 'Must all men pay, and all men make confession?' 'Yes, every man of Catholic profession.'

'And who do you confess to?' 'Why, the Dean.' And do the Deans confess?' 'Yes, boy, they do, Confess to Bishops, and pay smartly too!' 'Do Bishops, sir, confess? if so, to whom?' 'Why, they do confess, and pay the Church of Rome.' 'Well,' quoth the boy, all this is mighty odd: And does the Pope confess?' 'Oh yes, to God.' And does God charge the Pope?' 'No,' quoth

the Priest,

'God charges nothing.' 'Oh, then God is best ; God is able to forgive, and always willing; To Him I shall confess, and save my shilling.'

556. CONFIDENCE. Christian

I KNOW not if the dark or bright
Shall be my lot;

If that wherein my soul delight
Be best or not.

It may be mine to drag for years
Toil's heavy chain;

Or day and night my meat be tears

On bed of pain.

Dear faces may surround my hearth
With smiles and glee;

Or I may dwell alone, and mirth
Be strange to me.

My bark is wafted to the strand
By breath divine,

And on the helm there rests a hand
Other than mine.

One who has known in storms to sail
I have on board;

Above the raging of the gale
I hear my Lord.

O TREACHEROUS conscience! while she seems to sleep

On rose and myrtle, lull'd with syren song!
While she seems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop
On headlong appetite the slacken'd rein,
And give us up to license, unrecall'd,
Unmark'd;-see, from behind her secret stand,
The sly informer minutes every fault,
And her dread diary with horror fills.

Not the gross act alone employs her pen ;

She reconnoitres fancy's airy band,

A watchful foe! The formidable spy,

Listening, o'erhears the whispers of our camp,
Our dawning purposes of heart explores,
And steals our embryos of iniquity.

As all-rapacious usurers conceal

Their doomsday-book from all-consuming heirs;
Thus, with indulgence most severe, she treats
Us spendthrifts of inestimable time;
Unnoted, notes each moment misapplied;
In leaves more durable than leaves of brass
Writes our whole history; which death shall read
In every pale delinquent's private ear;
And judgment publish--publish to more worlds
And this-and endless age in groans resound.

Young.

560. CONSCIENCE : and future judgment.

I SAT alone with my conscience,

In a place where time had ceased, And we talk'd of my former living

In the land where the years increased.

And I felt I should have to answer
The question it put to me,

And to face the answer and question
Throughout an eternity.

The ghosts of forgotten actions

Came floating before my sight;

And things that I thought were dead things,
Were alive with a terrible might.

And the vision of all my past life
Was an awful thing to face,
Alone with my conscience sitting
In that solemnly silent place.

And I thought of my former tremblings,
Of the judgment-day to be,
But sitting alone with my conscience
Seem'd judgment enough for me.

And I wonder'd if there was a future
To this land beyond the grave;
But no one gave me an answer,
And no one came to save.

Then I felt that the future was present,
And the present would never go by,
For it was but the thought of my past life
Grown into eternity.

Then I woke from my timely dreaming,

And the vision pass'd away,
And I knew the far-away warning
Was a warning of yesterday.

And I pray that I may not forget it,
In this land before the grave,
That I may not cry in the future,
And no one come to save.

So I sit alone with my conscience,

In the place where the years increase,
And I try to remember the future

In the land where time will cease.

And I know of the future judgment,
How dreadful soe'er it be,

That to sit alone with my conscience
Will be judgment enough for me.
W. Stubbs.

561. CONSCIENCE. A good
WHAT stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

Shakespeare.

I know myself now, and I feel within me
A peace above all earthly dignities;
A still and quiet conscience.-Shakespeare.

He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun :
Himself is his own dungeon. -Milton.

Knowledge or wealth to few are given;
But mark how just the ways of Heaven :
True joy to all is free;

Nor wealth nor knowledge grant the boon,
'Tis thine, O Conscience! thine alone :
It all belongs to thee.-Mickle.

562. CONSCIENCE. A guilty

SUSPICION always haunts the guilty mind: The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

Shakespeare.

Not sharp revenge, nor hell itself, can find
A fiercer torment than a guilty mind,
Which day and night doth dreadfully accuse,
Condemns the wretch, and still the charge renews.
Dryden.

First guilty conscience doth the mirror bring,
Then sharp remorse shoots out her angry sting;
And anxious thoughts, within themselves at strife,
Upbraids the long misspent, luxurious life.—Dryden.

Here, here it lies; a lump of lead by day;
And in my short, distracted nightly slumbers,
The hag that rides my dreams.-Dryden.

Now guilt once harbour'd in the conscious breast
Intimidates the brave, degrades the great.—Johnson.

Thus oft it haps, that when within,
They shrink at sense of secret sin,

A feather daunts the brave;

A fool's wild speech confounds the wise,
And proudest princes veil their eyes,

Before their meanest slave.-Scott.

Not all the glory, all the praise,

That decks the prosperous hero's days, The shout of men, the laurel crown,

The pealing echoes of renown,

May conscience' dreadful sentence drown.
Mrs Holford.

None have accused thee; 'tis thy conscience cries,
The witness in the soul that never dies;
Its accusation, like the moaning wind
Of wintry midnight, moves thy startled mind;
Oh! may it melt thy harden'd heart, and bring
From out thy frozen soul the life of spring.

Mrs Hale.

So do the dark in soul expire,

Or live like scorpion girt with fire;

So writhes the mind remorse has riven,
Unfit for earth, undoom'd for heaven.
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death.-Byron.

570. CONSCIENCE: a supreme authority.
ACCOUNTABLE to none

But to my conscience and my God alone.
Oldham.

571. CONSCIENCE: sweetness of her commendations in the final hour.

WHEN tyrannizing pain shall stop
The passage of thy breath,
And thee compel to swear thyself

True servant unto death;
Then shall one virtuous deed impart

More pleasure to thy mind,
Than all the treasures that on earth
Ambitious thoughts can find.

The well-spent time of one short day,
One hour, one moment, then,
Shall be more sweet than all the joys

Amongst us mortal men.
Then shalt thou find but one refuge
Which comfort can retain :
A guiltless conscience, pure and clear
From touch of sinful stain.-Brandon.

The sweetest cordial we receive at last
Is conscience of our virtuous actions past.
Denham.
Terrors of an awakened

572. CONSCIENCE.

OH-I have pass'd a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days:
So full of dismal terror was the time.

Shakespeare.

Oh, it is monstrous! monstrous ! Methought the billows spoke and told me of it; The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder, That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced The name of Prosper.-Shakespeare.

No; 'tis the tale which angry conscience tells,
When she with more than tragic horror swells
Each circumstance of guilt; when stern, but true,
She brings bad actions forth into review,
And, like the dread handwriting on the wall,
Bids late remorse awake at reason's call;

Arm'd at all points, bids scorpion vengeance pass,
And to the mind holds up reflection's glass-
The mind, which starting, heaves the heart-felt groan,
And hates that form she knows to be her own.

Churchill

Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign
Can match the fierce, the unutterable pain
He feels, who, night and day devoid of rest,
Carries his own accuser in his breast.
Gifford.

But conscience, in some awful, silent hour,
When captivating lusts have lost their power,
Perhaps when sickness, or some fearful dream,
Reminds him of religion, hated theme!
Starts from the down on which she lately slept,
And tells of laws despised, at least not kept;
Shows with a pointing finger, but no noise,
A pale procession of past sinful joys,
All witnesses of blessings foully scorn'd,
And life abused, are not to be suborn'd.-Cowper.
There is no future pang

Can deal that justice on the self-condemn'd
He deals on his own soul.-Byron.

There is no power in holy men,
Nor charms in prayer, nor purifying form
Of penitence, nor outward look, nor fast,
Nor agony, nor, greater than all these,
The innate tortures of that deep despair,
Which is remorse without the fear of hell,
But all in all sufficient to itself,

Would make a hell of heaven-can exorcise,
From out the unbounded spirit, the quick sense
Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge
Upon itself.-Byron.

No ear can hear, no tongue can tell,
The tortures of that inward hell!—Byron.
How awful is that hour, when conscience stings
The hoary wretch who on his death-bed hears,
Deep in his soul, the thundering voice that rings,
In one dark, damning moment, crimes of years,
And screaming like a vulture in his ears,
Tells, one by one, his thoughts and deeds of shame ;
How wild the fury of his soul careers!
His swart eye flashes with intensest flame,
And like the torture's rack the wrestling of his frame.
J. G. Percival.

573. CONSCIENCE: the oracle of God.

YET still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard through Gain's silence, and o'er Glory's din:
Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the oracle of God!-Byron.