_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!”

THE DIVINITY.

“Yes, write it in the rock,” Saint Bernard said, “Grave it on brass with adamantine pen! ’Tis God himself becomes apparent, when God’s wisdom and God’s goodness are displayed;

For God of these his attributes is made.”-- Well spake the impetuous saint, and bore of men The suffrage captive: now not one in ten Recalls the obscure opposer he outweighed.

God’s wisdom and God’s goodness! Ay, but fools Mis-define these till God knows them no more. Wisdom and goodness, they are God!--what schools

Have yet so much as heard this simpler lore? This no saint preaches, and this no Church rules; ’Tis in the desert, now and heretofore.