It would be strange if it had not been. It is 'No stretched metre of an antique song,' but quick and to the point. There are finer sonnets in the English language than the two following, but there are no better sermons. And if it be said that sermons may be found in stones, but ought not to be in sonnets, I fall back upon the fact which Mr. Arnold himself so cheerfully admitted, that the middle classes, who in England, at all events, are Mr. Arnold's chief readers, are serious, and love sermons. Some day perhaps they will be content with metrical exercises, ballades, and roundels. 'EAST LONDON ''Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green, And the pale weaver, through his windows seen In Spitalfields, look'd thrice dispirited. 'I met a preacher there I knew, and said: "Ill and o'erwork'd, how fare you in this scene?" "Bravely!" said he; "for I of late have been Much cheer'd with thoughts of Christ, _the living bread_." 'O human soul! as long as thou canst so Set up a mark of everlasting light, Above the howling senses' ebb and flow, To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam-- Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night! Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home.' 'THE BETTER PART 'Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man, How angrily thou spurn'st all simpler fare! "Christ," some one says, "was human as we are; No judge eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan; '"We live no more, when we have done our span."-- "Well, then, for Christ," thou answerest, "who can care? From Sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear? Live we like brutes our life without a plan!" 'So answerest thou; but why not rather say: "Hath man no second life?--_Pitch this one high!_ Sits there no judge in Heaven, our sin to see? '"_More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!_ Was Christ a man like us?--_Ah! let us try If we then, too, can be such men as he!_"'