THE OFFERING OF CONTRITION.
That deepest lowliness of all—the prostration before God, the prostration in penitence—is the highest honor that humanity can achieve. It is the first great cardinal requisition in the Gospel; and it is not meant to degrade, but to exalt us. Self-condemnation is the loftiest testimony that can be given to virtue. It is a testimony paid at the expense of all our pride. It is no ordinary offering. A man may sacrifice his life to what he calls honor, or conceives to be patriotism, who never paid the homage of an honest tear for his own faults. That was a beautiful idea of the poet, who made the boon that was to restore a wandering shade to the bliss of humanity—a boon sought through all the realm of nature and existence—to consist, not in wealth or splendor, not in regal mercy or canonized glory, but in a tear of penitence. Temple and altar, charity and pity, and martyrdom, sunk before that.
I have seen the magnificence of all ceremonial in worship; and this was the thought that struck me then. Permit me to describe the scene, and to express the thought that rose in my mind, as I gazed upon it. It was in the great cathedral church of the world; and it brings a kind of religious impression over my mind to recall its awfulness and majesty. Above, far above me, rose a dome, gilded and covered with mosaic pictures, and vast as the pantheon of old Rome; the four pillars which supported it, each of them as large as many of our churches; and the entire mass, lifted to five times the height of this building—its own height swelling far beyond; no dome so sublime but that of heaven was ever spread above mortal eye. And beyond this dome, beneath which I stood, stretched away into dimness and obscurity the mighty roofing of this stupendous temple—arches behind arches, fretted with gold, and touched with the rays of the morning sun. Around me, a wilderness of marble; with colors, as variegated and rich as our autumnal woods; columns, pillars, altars, tombs, statues, pictures set in ever-during stone; objects to strike the beholder with neverceasing wonder. And on this mighty pavement, stood a multitude of many thousands; and through bright lines of soldiery, stretching far down the majestic nave, slowly advanced a solemn and stately procession, clothed with purple, and crimson, and white, and blazing with rubies and diamonds; slowly it advanced amidst kneeling crowds and strains of heavenly music; and so it compassed about the altar of God, to perform the great commemorative rite of Christ's resurrection. Expect from me no sectarian deprecation; it was a goodly rite, and fitly performed. But, amidst solemn utterances, and lowly prostrations, and pealing anthems, and rising incense, and all the surrounding magnificence of the scene, shall I tell you what was my thought? One sigh of contrition, one tear of repentance, one humble prayer to God, though breathed in a crypt of the darkest catacomb, is worth all the splendors of this gorgeous ceremonial and this glorious temple.
VIRTUE IN OBSCURITY.
And let me add, that upon many a lowly bosom, the gem of virtue shines more bright and beautiful than it is ever likely to shine in any court of royalty or crown of empire: and this, for the very reason that it shines in loneliness and obscurity, and is surrounded with no circlet of gazing and flattering eyes. There are positions in life, in society, where all loveliness is seen and noted; chronicled in men's admiring comments, and perhaps celebrated in adulatory sonnets and songs. And well, perhaps, that it is so. I would not repress the admiration of society toward the lovely and good. But there is many a lowly cottage, many a lowly bedside of sickness and pain, to which genius brings no offering; to which the footsteps of the enthusiastic and admiring never come; to which there is no cheering visitation—but the visitation of angels! There is humble toil—there is patient assiduity—there is noble disinterestedness—there is heroic sacrifice and unshaken truth. The great world passes by, and it toils on in silence; to its gentle footstep, there are no echoing praises; around its modest beauty, gathers no circle of admirers. It never thought of honor; it never asked to be known. Unsung, unrecorded, is the labor of its life, and shall be, till the heavens be no more; till the great day of revelation comes; till the great promise of Jesus is fulfilled; till the last shall be first, and the lowliest shall be loftiest; and the poverty of the world shall be the riches and glory of heaven.
THE BABY AND THE BOY MUSICIAN.
BY LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY.
A cherub in its mother's arms,
Look'd from a casement high—
And pleasure o'er the features stray'd,
As on his simple organ play'd
A boy of Italy.