Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 3, March 1849Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 3, March 1849
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
It was for woman to make beautiful her mission by her implicit faith; it
was for woman to minister to his _physical_ wants; her humility would
find a delightful office when she bathed his feet with her tears, and
her faith had comforting expression when she wiped them with the hairs
of her head. Woman’s care provided the household comforts which humanity
needed, and woman’s piety sat self-abased, yet gathered strength at the
Master’s feet as he opened the oracles of truth. Woman wept for him as
he bore his cross upward to Calvary; and woman lingered at the foot of
that cross when others had fled; and it was woman that came earliest to
kneel at the sepulchre. Where service was to be performed, where faith
was to be tried, where physical wants were to be supplied, and physical
suffering assuaged, there woman was to be found. But where the agony of
mental passion was to be endured; where the unspeakable and the
incomprehensible were to be exhibited, woman was not. Her mission of
faith and love required no such exercise, her feelings demanded no such
purification.
We have done. The picture which we give is suggestive, and we hope that
it will suggest more to others than we have been able to express;
because to such a scene as the artist represents, when the heart or
fancy enters it is lost in amazement. A thousand thoughts crowd, less
for utterance than for existence, and we feel that when there is more
than earthly love, more than earthly interest, the idea must be more
than human, and expression will be infinitely short of the conception.
* * * * *
HUMAN INFLUENCE.
BY MARIE ROSEAU.
Oh! deem not thou canst lightly err,
And none may bear its weight but thee:
There’s none on earth who stands alone,
None so devoid of sympathy,
But that each fault will wing a dart
To pierce some gentle, feeling heart.
Oh! say not that no sin of thine
Will cause another, weaker one,
To fall, or stumble by the way—
By following _thee_ his soul undone—
Drawn to the very depths of shame:
Then on whose head shall rest the blame?
Oh! say not thou art far too weak
To help some brother poor and frail,
Whose footsteps falter by the way—
Whose burthened strength begins to fail—
Thy words of hope may sooth his grief,
Thy hand, though weak, may bring relief.
Perchance some weary spirit mourns,
In bitterness of grief e’en now,
That thus in bonds, by error wrought,
So strong a soul as thine should bow—
That _thou_, of all the world shouldst stray
From wisdom’s straight and pleasant way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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