If then we perish not at death, but walk in spirit through the darkness, Waiting for a mansion incorruptible, whereof this body is the seed, Tell me, when shall be the period? time and its ordeals are done: The storms are passed, the night is at end, behold the Sabbath morning. Is death to be conqueror again, and claim once more the victory,-- Can the enemy's corpse awaken into life, and bruise the Champion's head? Evil, terrible ensample, that foil to the attributes of Good, Is banished to its own black world, weeded out of earth and heaven: Shall that great gulf be passed, and sin be sown again?-- We know but this, the book of truth proclaimeth gladly, Never! There remaineth the will of our God: when He repenteth of His creature, Made by self-suggested mercy, ransomed by self-sacrificing justice,-- When Truth, that swore unto his neighbour, disappointeth him, and cleaveth to a lie,-- When the counsels of Wisdom are confounded, and Love warreth with itself,-- When the Unchangeable is changed, and the arm of Omnipotence is broken,-- Then,--thy quenchless soul shall have reached the goal of its existence. But it seemeth to thy notions of the merciful and just, a false and fearful thing, To lay such a burden upon time, that eternity be built on its foundation: As if so casual good or ill should colour all the future, And the vanity of accident, or sternness of necessity, save or wreck a soul. Were it casual, vain, or stern, this might pass for truth: But all things are marshalled by Design, and carefully tended by Benevolence. O man, thy Judge is righteous,--noting, remembering, and weighing;-- Want, ignorance, diversities of state, are cast into the balance of advantage: The poisonous example of a parent asketh for allowance in the child; Care, diseases, toils, and frailties,--all things are considered. And again, a mysterious Omniscience knoweth the spirits that are His, While the delicate tissues of Event are woven by the fingers of Ubiquity. Should Providence be taken by surprise from the possible impinging of an accident, One fortuitous grain might dislocate the banded universe: The merest seeming trifle is ordered as the morning light; And He, that rideth on the hurricane, is pilot of the bubble on the breaker.