of her mother, from a little room which looked out upon a court, but from which there was no entrance to the room—she came rushing to her mother, calling out—"Oh, papa, papa! I have seen papa in the court, and he called me to him. I must go—open the door for me—do, mamma! I must go, for he called me." Within twenty-four hours that child was dead. Now, said H—l—r, I knew this to be a fact, as well as I ever knew any act, for our families were like one family. Sweet image of infant and of parental love!—let us excuse the prayer, by that of the ancient mother, who, when her sons dragged her chariot to the temple, prayed that they might receive from the gods what was best for them—and they were found dead in the temple. How beautiful is the smile of the sleeping infant! "Holds it not converse with angels?" the thought is natural—ministering spirits may be unseen around us, and in all space, and love the whispering speech in the ear of sleeping innocence; there is visible joy in the face, yet how little can it know of pleasurable sensations, communicable through this world's objects? How know we but the sense must be deteriorated, to make it serviceable for the lower purposes for which in part the child is born?—as the air we breathe must have something of poison, or it would be too pure for mortal beings. Look down some lengthening valley from a height, Eusebius, at the hour of twilight, when all lands, their marks and boundaries, grow dim, and only here and there the scant light indicates lowly dwellings, shelters of humanity in earth's sombre bosom, and mark the vast space of vapour that fills all between, and touches all, broods over all—can you think this little world of life that you know by having walked its path, and now see so indistinguishable, to be the all of existence before you? Lone indeed would be the world were there nothing better than ourselves in it. No beings to watch for us, to warn us, to defend us from "the Power of the Air:" ministering spirits—and why not of the departed?—may be there. If there be those that in darkness persuade to evil—and in winter nights, the winds that shake the casement seem to denote to the guilty conscience the presence of avenging fiends—take we not peace and wholesome suggestion from milder influences of air and sunshine? Brighter may be, perhaps, the child's vision than ours; as it grows for the toil and work for which it is destined, there comes another picture of a stern and new reality, and that which brought the smile of joy upon the face, is but as a dissolving view; and then he becomes fully fitted for humanity, of which he was before but the embryo. And even in his progress, if he keep charge of his mind, in purity and in love, seem there not ministering spirits, that spread before him, in the mirage of the mind, scenes that look like a new creation? and pedants, in their kind, call this the poet's fancy, his imagination.
Lately I have spent a month by the sea: the silent rocks seemed significant in their overhanging look, and silence, as listening to the incessant sea. It would be painful to think every thing insensible about us, but ourselves. I wonder not that the rocks, the woods, and wilds, were peopled by ancient Mythologists; and with beings, too, with whom humanity could sympathize. I would not think that the greater part of the earth's islands and continents were given up to hearts insensate; that there were nothing better than wildernesses of chattering apes—no sounds more rational than
"The wolf's wild howl on Ulalaski's shore."
I would rather think that there are myriads of beings of higher nature than ourselves, whose passage is ὡστϛ νοημα, and whose home is ubiquity; and such as these may have their missions to us, and may sometimes take the dying breath of father or of brother in far-off seas, and instinct with, and maintaining in themselves, made visible, that poor remnant of life, stand at a moment at the bedside of beloved relatives, even in most distant lands, and give to each a blessed interchange and intelligence. In every sense, indeed, we "see but in part." In the dulness of the day, we see not a tenth part of the living things that people the ground; a gleam of
sunshine instantly discovers to us in leaf and flower a little world; and could we but remove this outward fog, this impure atmosphere of our mortal senses, that which may be occasionally granted at dying hour, we might behold all space peopled with the glory of created beings. There is a beautiful truth of best feeling hidden in the superstition, that at one particular moment on Christmas Eve, all the beasts of the field go down on their knees amidst the darkness, seen alone by their Creator's eye, and by that angelic host that sing again the first divine hymn of Palestine.
I do not wonder that sailors are, what we choose to call, more superstitious than landsmen; with but a plank between them and death—unfathomable seas around them, whose depths are continual wonder, from whose unseen treasure-house, the
——"billows roll ashore
The beryl and the golden ore."
Seas and skies with the great attribute of life, motion—their very ship a personification, as it were a living creature—cut off, separated as they are for the most part, from cities, and the mind-lowering ways of cities, which they see recede from them and melt into utter insignificance, leaving for companionship but the winds and the waters. Can it be a matter of wonder, if, with warm wishes and affections in their breasts, their imaginations shape the clouds and mists into being, messengers between them and the world they have all but lost? The stars, those "watches of the night," to them are not the same, changing yet ever significant. Even the waters about them, which by day are apparently without a living thing beyond the life of their own motion, in the darkness glittering with animated fire; can we wonder, then, if their thoughts rise from these myriad, invisible, lucent worms of the sea, to a faith in the more magnificent beings who "clothe themselves with light;" and if they believe that such are present, unseen, commissioned to guard and guide them in ways perilous and obscure? Seamen, accustomed to observe signs in their great solitude, unattracted by the innumerable sights and businesses of other life, are ever open and ready to receive signs and significations even of omen and vision; whereas he that is engaged in crowded street and market, heeds no sign, though it were offered, but that which his little and engrossing interests make for him; he, indeed, may receive "angels' visits unaware." Omens, dreams, and visions are to seamen more real, more frequent, as more congenial with their wants; and some extraordinary cases have even been registered in ships' logs, not resting on the credibility of one but of a crew, and such logs, if I mistake not, have been admitted evidence in courts of judicature. Am I led away by the subject, Eusebius? You will say I am; yet I could go on—the wonder increases—the common earth is not their sure grave—
"Nothing of them that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."
But I must not pursue this, lest, in your wit, you find reason to compare me to that great philosopher, who gravely asserted that he had discovered how to make a mermaid, but abstained from using the receipt; and I am quite sure you are not likely to resemble the learned Dr Farmer, who folded down the page for future experiment.[37]