There let the way appear Steps unto heaven; All that thou sendest me In mercy given; Angels to beckon me Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee! Then with my waking thoughts Bright with thy praise, Out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise; So by my woes to be Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee! Or if on joyful wing, Cleaving the sky, Sun, moon, and stars forgot, Upward I fly; Still all my song shall be,-- Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee! From 'Adoration, Aspiration, and Belief.' JOSEPH ADDISON (1672-1719) BY HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE There are few figures in literary history more dignified and attractive than Joseph Addison; few men more eminently representative, not only of literature as a profession, but of literature as an art. It has happened more than once that literary gifts of a high order have been lodged in very frail moral tenements; that taste, feeling, and felicity of expression have been divorced from general intellectual power, from intimate acquaintance with the best in thought and art, from grace of manner and dignity of life. There have been writers of force and originality who failed to attain a representative eminence, to identify themselves with their art in the memory of the world. There have been other writers without claim to the possession of gifts of the highest order, who have secured this distinction by virtue of harmony of character and work, of breadth of interest, and of that fine intelligence which instinctively allies itself with the best in its time. Of this class Addison is an illustrious example. His gifts are not of the highest order; there was none of the spontaneity, abandon, or fertility of genius in him; his thought made no lasting contribution to the highest intellectual life; he set no pulses beating by his eloquence of style, and fired no imagination by the insight and emotion of his verse; he was not a scholar in the technical sense: and yet, in an age which was stirred and stung by the immense satiric force of Swift, charmed by the wit and elegance of Pope, moved by the tenderness of Steele, and enchanted by the fresh realism of De Foe, Addison holds the most representative place. He is, above all others, the Man of Letters of his time; his name instantly evokes the literature of his period. [Illustration: JOSEPH ADDISON.]