'And this believe, my only love—we cannot perfect be,
Our wish is pure and true, yet sorrow still must reign;
But when we meet to part no more, from care and anguish free,
Let Heaven seal up its charms from me when I shall give thee pain.
'Oh blessed hope! for thee alone how gladly would I die,
For thee I spurn the mocking world, and all my wealth I give;
When shall I, as on eagle's wing, soar through the radiant sky,
And be encircled in thine arms, and near thee ever live?
'A perfect light—a burning light—shines brightly on my soul.
The love that conquers years of pain shall never hence depart;
My Helen speak! thy words shall live while heavenly ages roll,
And death can come to me no more with thee within my heart!'
'I like your verses very well, Doctor,' said I, after a short pause, 'that is, if I may presume to judge. I think there is good poetry in them, but there is also a good deal of idolatry.'
'I know there is,' he answered, 'but I could not help it. You however, with your knowledge and experience, can apply them to whom you please. They need not be devoted exclusively to any Helen or Mary in existence. Substitute for a woman's name that which you most reverence, even that of the very highest, and the idolatry will disappear.
'It is true I can do so; still the name of a woman, and the leading idea it conveys of worshipping a woman, makes it sound idolatrous.'
'My dear boy,' he answered, with animation, 'what would you have? I was never born to be a Milton or a Shakespeare. Men must have idols; they must either worship God, whom they cannot see, or one or more of the beings or things He has created, which they can see and feel, either men or women, or land or gold. Do you not know that the heart of man is as full of follies and iniquities as the rock of adamant is of the hardest substance to its very centre? Do not say of a woman, "When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man thou didst not abhor the virgin's womb"?'
'But you must not worship the virgin.'
I had listened with awe to the utterances of the singular
