Once more, consider Matter, how small a thing is father to the greatest; Thou that lightly hast regarded the results of so-called accident. A blade of grass took fire in the sun,--and the prairies are burnt to the horizon: A grain of sand may blind the eye, and madden the brain to murder: A careful fly deposited its egg in the swelling bud of an acorn,-- The sapling grew,--cankrous and gnarled,--it is yonder hollow oak: A child touched a spring, and the spring closed a valve, and the labouring engine burst,-- A thousand lives were in that ship,--wrecked by an infant's finger! Shall nature preach in vain? thy casualty, guided in its orbit, Though less than a mote upon the sunbeam, saileth in a fleet of worlds; That trivial cause, watered and observed of the Husbandman day by day,-- In calm undeviating strength doth work its large effect. Thus, in the pettiness of life note thou seeds of grandeur, And watch the hour-glass of Time with the eyes of an heir of Immortality. There still be clouds of witnesses,--if thou art not weary of my speech,-- Flocks of thoughts adding lustre to the light, and pointing on to Life. For reflect how Truth and Goodness, well and wisely put, Commend themselves to every mind with wondrous intuition: What is this? the recognition of a standard, unwritten, natural, uniform; Telling of one common source, the root of Good and True. And if thus present soul can trace descent from Deity, Being, as it standeth, individual, a separate reasonable thing, What should hinder that its hope may not trace gladly forward, And, in astounding parallel, like Enoch walk with God? Yea, the genealogy of soul, that vivifying breath of a Creator, Breath, no transient air, but essence, energy, and reason, Is looming on the past, and shadowing the future, sublimely as Melchisedek of old, Having not beginning, nor end of days, but present in the majesty of Peace! O false scholar, credulous in vanities, and only sceptical of truth, Wherefore toil to cheat thy soul of its birthright, Immortality? Is it for thy guilt? He pardoneth: Is it for thy frailty? He will help: Though thou fearest, He is love; and Mercy shall be deeper than Despair: Even for thy full-blown pride, is it much to be receiver of a God? And lo, thy rights, He made thee; thy claims, He hath redeemed. Hath the fair aspect of affection no beauty that thou shouldst desire it? And are those sorrows nothing, to thee that passest by? For it is Fact, immutable, that God hath dwelt in Man: With gentle generous love ennobling while He bought us. What, though thou art false, ignorant, weak and daring,-- Can the sun be quenched in heaven--or only Belisarius be blind?