It is vain, it is vain, saith the preacher; there be none but the righteous and the wicked, Base rebels, and staunch allies, the true knight, and the traitor: And he beareth strong witness among men, There is no neutral ground, The broad highway and narrow path map out the whole domain; Sit here among the saints, these holy chosen few, Or grovel there a wretched condemned, to die among the million. And verily for ultimate results, there be but good and bad; Heaven hath no dusky twilight; hell is not gladdened with a dawn. Yet looking round among his fellows, who can pass righteous judgment, Such an one is holy and accepted, and such an one reprobate and doomed? There is so much of good among the worst, so much of evil in the best, Such seeming partialities in providence, so many things to lessen and expand, Yea, and with all man's boast, so little real freedom of his will,-- That, to look a little lower than the surface, garb or dialect or fashion, Thou shalt feebly pronounce for a saint, and faintly condemn for a sinner. Over many a good heart and true, fluttereth the Great King's pennant; By many an iron hand, the pirate's black banner is unfurled: But there be many more besides, in the yacht and the trader and the fishing-boat, In the feathered war-canoe, and the quick mysterious gondola: And the army of that Great King hath no stated uniform; Of mingled characters and kinds goeth forth the countless host; There is the turbaned Damascene, with his tattooed Zealand brother, There the slim bather in the Ganges, with the sturdy Russian boor, The sluggish inmate of a Polar cave, with the fire-souled daughter of Brazil, The embruted slave from Cuba, and the Briton of gentle birth. For all are His inheritance, of all He taketh tithe: And the church, His mercy's ark, hath some of every sort. Who art thou, O man, that art fixing the limits of the fold? Wherefore settest thou stakes to spread the tent of heaven? Lay not the plummet to the line: religion hath no landmarks: No human keenness can discern the subtle shades of faith: In some it is as earliest dawn, the scarce diluted darkness; In some as dubious twilight, cold and grey and gloomy: In some the ebon east is streaked with flaming gold: In some the dayspring from on high breaketh in all its praise. And who hath determined the when, separating light from darkness? Who shall pluck from earliest dawn the promise of the day? Leave that care to the Husbandman, lest thou garner tares; Help thou the Shepherd in His seeking, but to separate be His: For I have often seen the noble erring spirit Wrecked on the shoals of passion, and numbered of the lost; Often the generous heart, lit by unhallowed fire, Counted a brand among the burning, and left uncared for in his sin: Yet I waited a little year, and the mercy thou hadst forgotten Hath purged that noble spirit, washing it in waters of repentance;