The Angel in the Cloud

by Edwin W. Fuller

The good is sought, because it pleases God,
Not with the doer, but with what is done.
Good has its origin in th’ idea God,
And what He loves; but to continue good
It must retain approval in the act,
And not transfer it to the agent’s self.
The consciousness that God approves a deed,
Makes Man approve, and thus his mind is brought
In correlation with the Mind Divine.
The man who does an alms, if done to gain
God’s favor for himself, feels selfish pain;
But if because the act, not he, will please,
He finds the pleasure. Man, as time rolls on,
Finds general laws that please or displease God,
And ranging, under these, subordinates
Amenable to them and not to God,
The moral quality of lesser deeds
He reckons by these laws, nor does ascend
To God, that gives their moral quality.
Jouffroy, in Order, placed the Abstract Good,
And paused a step below the real truth,
The idea God, whence Order emanates.

Thus Man, progressing, good withdraws from God
And seems an independent entity,
And man denominates it, Abstract Good.
He can attain the Abstract but in part;
When mind is freed from flesh, he may attain
To its full grandeur. Here, at most, he grasps
A faint outline, and fits it on concrete.
No concept occupies one act of mind,
But opening the lettered label, he
May count the attributes, and by an act
Complex, of memory and cognition, gain
Some idea of his Abstract. Thus of “Man,”
One act can only cognize M-A-N,
But opening, he finds the attributes,
As “mammal,” “biped,” “vertebrate.” This act
Is complex, and he cannot unitize,
Save by the bundle of a word. You’ve said
It answers all the purposes of life,
Then why seek more? lest speculation vain
Point out dim realms, where Man can never tread,
These baffling thoughts are given, as peacocks’ feet,
To Man’s fond pride. The simplest avenue
Of thought, pursued, will reach absurdity,
To comprehension finite.
Even the truth
Of numbers you presume to doubt. Two balls,
You claim, can ne’er be two unless alike.
You mingle quantity and number, foolishly,
As if a ball the size of Earth, and one,
A tiny mustard-seed, would not be two!
You deem all Mathematics wide at fault,
Because Man’s powers to illustrate are weak.
Earth has oft seen a pure right angle drawn,
Because Man’s sight could not detect a flaw;
And if to his discernment perfect made,
He must admit its perfect form. If life,
In every intricate demand, finds truth,
Why seek to overturn by sophistry?
You see and know Achilles far beyond
The tortoise, yet the super-wise must prove
That he can never pass the creeping thing,
Although his speed a hundred times as swift!
When Man commences, he may find a doubt
In everything; his life, his neighbor’s life,
The outside world, may all be but a myth;
Then let him so believe, but let him act
Consistently; but does the skeptic so?
He crams all Nature in his little mind,
Yet how he cringes to her slightest law!
He flees the rain, and wards the cold, or fears
The lightning’s glittering blow. He doubts his frame
Can work by mechanism so absurd,
Yet will not for a day refrain from food!

When Man compares his body and his mind,
And tries the power of each, he magnifies
The mind to Deity, and yet how small
Compared with what it has to learn! The more
Man knows, the more he finds he does not know;
And as a traveller toiling up the hill,
Each upward step reveals a wider view
Of fields of thought sublime he dares not hope
To ever reach in life; and wearily he sits
Him down upon the mountain-side, so far
Beneath its untrod top, and recklessly
Doubts everything, because beyond his grasp.

All skeptic reasoning ends, as did your own,
No fruit but blind bewilderment of thought!
And none but fools will e’er believe sincere
The faith that doubts alone by theory,
And yet approves by practice. Such is yours;
The stern necessities of life demand
A practical belief, and such is given;
And still, forsooth, because your narrow mind
Cannot contain the Truth in perfect form,
You dare deny it does exist. But few
Of skeptic minds are let to live on Earth,
And even these made instruments of good,
In calling forth defenders of the Truth,
Who add their strength to its Eternal Walls.
Then here behold God’s wisdom manifest!
Amid the care of countless greater orbs,
He watches Earth, and knows its smallest thing.
While Man, as individual, is free,
Collective Man is being surely led
Towards an end, but when it will be reached,
God knows alone. Then Man will be removed
Into a higher or a lower sphere,
As he has worthy proved. With Man ’twill be
A great event; his awful Judgment-day!
When from those far-off realms, the Son shall come
With Angel retinue, and through the worlds,
Shall lead their solemn flight, to where we stand;
And as the trump shall peal its clarion tones,
And beat away Earth’s gauze of atmosphere,
The millions living, and the billions dead,
Will leave the sod, and “caught up in the air,”
Shall stand before the Throne, to hear their doom.
Then, faces pale with fear, and trembling limbs,
Will be on every side, as on the air
They rest, with nothing solid ’neath their feet;
And see dismantled Earth burst into flames,
And reel along its track, a globe of fire,
The volumed smoke, a dusky envelope;
Its revolutions wrapping pliant flames,
In scarlet girdles, round its bulging waist,
And hurling streams of centrifugal sparks,
In broad red tangents, from the burning orb.
Upon the conflagration Man will gaze,
With shuddering horror; ’tis his only home,
The scene of all his fame, the source of wealth,
For which he toiled so wearily. All gone!
He would not touch a mountain of pure gold,
For ’twould be useless now! Poor, pauper Man,
Without his money, chiefest aim of life,
Stands homeless ’mid a Universe, to learn
If God will be his Father, or his Foe!
And from the blackness underneath, the swarms
Of Evil ones are thronged, their hideous forms
Half shown in lurid light, as here and there
They flit, like sharks, expectant of their prey.
Then comes the closing scene. The sentence passed,
The righteous breaking forth to joyous praise,
Shall thread Creation’s wondrous maze of life,
And with their Leader, sweep towards yon Heaven;
While down the black abyss, with cries of woe
That make the darkness tremble, the condemned
Are dragged, into its gloom,—and all is o’er—
Earth’s ashes float in scattered clouds through space—
To Man the grandest era of all Time,
To God, completion of Salvation’s scheme!

But Man deems Judgment too far off for thought,
Nor will prepare for such a distant fate;
Yet there is something, far more sure than aught
Uncertain life can offer; its decision, too,
Is just as final as the Judgment doom;
And still ’tis oftenest farthest from the thought.
’Tis Death, the welcome or unwelcome guest
Of every man, and yet how few prepare
For its approach! They give all else a care;
Wealth, honor, fame, get all their time,
While certain Death’s forgotten, till disease
Gives warning; then with hasty penitence,
The knees are worn, the heart’s thick rubbish cleared;
But oft too late; the heart will not be cleared,
The stubborn knees will not consent to bend,
The house is set in order, while the guest,
In sable robes, stands at the throbbing door.

And now to close thy lesson, look through this!
He gave to me a strangely fashioned glass,
Through which, when I had looked to Earth, I saw
A long black wall, that towered immensely high,
So none might see beyond. Before its length,
Mankind were ranged, all weaving busily;
The young and old, the maiden and the man;
The infant hands unconscious plied the thread,
The aged with a feeble, listless move.
They wove the warp of Life, and drew its thread
From o’er the wall; none knew how far its end
Was off, nor when ’twould reach the busy hand,
Nor did they care, in aught by action shown,
But bending o’er their work, without a glance
Towards the thread, that still so smoothly ran,
They threw the shuttle back and forth again,
Till suddenly the ravelled end appeared,
Fell from the wall, and to the shuttle crept;
And then the weaver laid his work aside,
With folded hands, was wrapped within his warp,
To wait the Master’s sentence on his task.
I saw the thread, in passing through their hands,
Received the various colors, from their touch,
And tinged the different patterns that they wove.
And oh! how different in design! Some wove
A spotless fabric, whose pure simple plan
Was always ready for the ending thread;
Come when it would, no part was incomplete;
But what was done, could bear th’ Inspector’s eye.
And others wove a dark and dingy rag,
That bore no pattern, save its filthiness;
Fit garment for the fool who weaves for flames!
Some wove the great red woof of war,
With clashing swords, and crossing bayonets,
With ghastly bones, and famished widows’ homes,
With all the grim machinery of Death,
To gain a paltry crown, or curule chair;
Perchance, before the crown or chair is reached,
The thread gives out, the work is incomplete,
And in the gory cloak his hands have wrought,
With all its stains unwashed, the hero sleeps.
Some shuttles shape the gilded temple, Fame,
And count on thread to weave its topmost dome;
But ere the lowest pinnacle is touched,
The brittle filament is snapped. Some weave
The bema, with its loud applause; and some
The gaudy chaplet of the bacchanal,
And others sweated bays of honest toil.
But all the fabrics bear the yellow stain
Of gold, o’er which the sinner and the saint
Unseemly strive, and he seems happiest
Whose work is yellowest.
Along the wall,
“A fountain filled with blood,” plays constantly,
Where man may cleanse the fabric as he weaves;
Yet few avail themselves; the waters flow,
While Man works on, without regard to stains,
Till thread worn thin arouses him to fear,
Or breaks before the damning dyes are cleansed.

And down the line I ran my anxious eyes,
To find a weaver I might recognize,
And saw, at last, a form by mirrors known.
Oh! ’twas a shameful texture that I wove,
So dark its hue, so little saving white,
Such seldom bathing in the fountain stream,
I could not look, but bowed my blushing face,
And like the publican of old, cried out,
“Be merciful to me a sinner!”
“Rise!”
The Angel said, “And worship God alone,
Return to Earth, enjoy an humble faith,
Whose simple trust shall make thee happier
Than all the grandeur of philosophy.
Should doubts arise, remember, God’s designs
Above a finite comprehension stand,
And finite doubts, about the Infinite,
Assume absurdity’s intensest form.
Man, from the stand-point of the Present, looks,
And disappointed, bitterly complains
Of what would move his deepest gratitude,
Could he the issue of the morrow know.
God sees the future, and in kindness deals
To every man his complement of good.
Remember then the weakness of thy mind,
Nor doubt because thou canst not understand.
To gather scattered jewels thou must kneel;
So on thy knees seek truth, and thou shalt find;
The nearer Earth thy face, the nearer Heaven
Thy heart. And now farewell!”
I sprang to clasp
His hand in gratitude, but with a wave
Of parting benediction, he was gone!
Then in an instant, like an aerolite,
With naught to bear me up, I fell to Earth,
Swifter and swifter, with increasing speed!
Now bursting through a sunlit bank of cloud,
And clutching, vainly, at the yielding mist,
Or through a cradling storm, with thunder charged,
Down through the open air, whose parted breath
Hissed death into my ears, while all below
Seemed rushing up to meet and mangle me.
I shrieked aloud, “Oh save me!”—
And awoke.
The day was o’er, and night had drawn her shades;
The twinkling eyes of Heaven shone through the leaves,
And lit the tiny rain-globes on the grass;
The cloud had passed, and on th’ horizon’s verge,
A monster firefly, with shimmering flash,
It slowly crawled behind the curve of death.
And evening’s silence deeper seemed than noon’s,
For not a sound disturbed the hush of night,
Save katydids, with quavering monotones,
Returning contradictions from the trees.
All drenched and chilled, with trembling limbs I rose,
And homeward bent my steps; and pondering
Upon my dream, this moral from it drew:
Man cannot judge the Eternal Mind by his,
But must accept the mysteries of Life,
As purposes Divine, with perfect ends.
And in our darkest clouds, God’s Angels stand,
To work Man’s present and eternal good.

THE VILLAGE ON THE TAR
DEDICATED TO PETTIGREW COUNCIL NO 1. F. OF T.

A DRUNKARD in a distant town lay dying on his bed,
There was lack of woman’s gentle touch about his fevered head,
But a comrade stood beside him, and wiped the foam away,
That bubbled through his frothy lips, to hear what he might say.
The poor inebriate faltered, as he caught that comrade’s eye,
And he said, “’Tis hard, far, far from home ’mid strangers thus to die.
Take a message and a token to my friends away so far,
For Louisburg’s my native place, the village on the Tar.

“Tell my brothers and companions, should they ever wish to know
The story of the fallen, ah! the fallen one so low,
That we drank the whole night deeply, and when at last ’twas o’er,
Full many a form lay beastly drunk along the barroom floor.
And there were ’mid those wretches some who had long served sin,
Their bloated features telling well what faithful slaves they’d been;
And some were young and had not on the Hell-path entered far—
And one was from the village, the village on the Tar.