Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature

which took place in the geological section
he took an active part; he communicated
many papers to its different meetings; and
at Ipswich, in 1851, he succeeded in es-
tablishing the new section of physical
geography, ethnology, and philology,
thus removing geography from the geo-
logical section, in which it was overborne
by more popular topics of discussion.

to St. Petersburg, examining the hills, | 1842 and 1843. When the British Asso-
lakes, and rivers which they passed. Mr. ciation assembled at York for the first
Murchison returned to England in 1840; time in 1831, he was one of the few geol-
but on the invitation of the Emperor ogists that responded to the invitation of
Nicholas the explorers went back to St. its founder, Sir David Brewster; and,
Petersburg in the following year to su fully appreciating the value of such an in-
perintend a geological survey of Russia. stitution, he discharged the arduous duties
Joined by Count Keyserling and Lieuten- of general secretary for several years, and
ant Kotsharof, they proceeded to explore was president of the Southampton meet-
the Ural Mountains, the southern proving in 1846. In the important discussions
inces of the empire, and the coal dis-
tricts between the Dneiper and the Don.
Next year Mr. Murchison travelled alone
through several parts of Germany, Po-
land, and the Carpathian Mountains.
With the same object-that of rendering
his great work on the geology of Eastern
Europe as perfect as possible-he ex-
plored in the summer of 1844 the paleo-
zoic formations of Sweden and Norway.
On his return to England in 1845, Mr.
Murchison, in conjunction with M. de
Verneuil and Count Keyserling, published
his magnificent work on the Geology of
Russia and the Ural Mountains, consist-
ing of two quarto volumes of seven and
six hundred pages respectively. The Em-
peror Nicholas, by way of thanks for the
great work Mr. Murchison had conducted,
presented him with the Grand Cross of
the Order of St. Stanislaus and the com-
mandership of St. Anne in diamonds. In
1846, not long after the publication of his
great work on the geology of Russia, he
was knighted by his own sovereign. To
Sir Roderick's Russian journey, and his
researches among the Ural Mountains, are
due those observations on the physical
phenomena of gold-producing countries,
that led him by theoretical induction to
anticipate for the Australian Cordilleras
a place in this class of countries.

The actual discovery of the precious metal in Victoria was made by Count Strzelecki; but to Sir Roderick belongs the merit of having first in England predicted its existence. As sometimes happens in science, two men of science, unknown to each other, were pursuing the same study and arriving at the same conclusion. The theoretical discovery of gold by Sir Roderick Murchison in England seems to have been contemporaneous with the indications of the Rev. W. B. Clarke in Australia.

After having for five years discharged the arduous duties of secretary to the Geological Society, he filled the office of president in the years 1831 and 1832, and

In 1844, Sir Roderick was elected president of the Royal Geographical Society, and was reëlected in the following year. He again became president in 1852, and succeeded in obtaining from the govern ment a grant of £500 annually in aid of its maintenance and public objects. In 1856, he was elected president for the third time. That distinguished honor he holds at the present moment. The African discoveries of Speke and Grant are, perhaps, after the travellers themselves, chiefly due to Sir Roderick Murchison.

In addition to the numerous honors to which we have already referred, Sir Roderick has received the honorary de grees of M.A. from the Universities of Cambridge and Dublin, and D.C.L. from that of Oxford. He is a member of all the principal scientific academies of Europe; a trustee also of the British Museum, the Hunterian Museum, and the British Association. Besides the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London, he has received the Brisbane Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which was presented to him at the Aberdeen meeting of the British Association. On the death of Sir H. De la Beche, in 1855, a memorial signed by the leading geologists and men of science in every department was presented to the government, and Sir Roderick Murchison was appointed Director-General of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, including the direction of the Government School of Mines. Sir Roderick Murchison has published upwards of a hundred memoirs in the journals and transactions of the learned societies, some of them of great

length and elaboration. His memoir On the | a sixth visit to the Alps, occupies more Geological Structure of the Alps, Apen- than three hundred pages of the Quarnines, and Carpathians, published after terly Journal of the Geological Society.

[THE poem which I have here attempted to translate has, at any rate, the undisputed merit of antiquity. It comes before us as beyond all doubt the earliest of all extant hymns. Fragments of still earlier date may perhaps meet us in the older liturgies; and when the worshippers join, in the Communion Service of the Church of England, "with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven" in their great hymn, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts," or raise their jubilant thanksgiving, "Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good-will toward men," they are probably echoing words which were heard from the beginning, in the upper chambers where the disciples of the first century met together to break bread. But the Ter-Sanctus and the Gloria in Excelsis, in their present form, are of later date, and the hymn of Clement of Alexandria is the one complete relic of the worship of the second century, the one witness, in this form, of the manner in which the Christians of that age and that city sang the praises of their Lord.

HYMN.

(lessly over the sea of sin, sharing the calm serene
of the Holy Spirit, and his ineffable wisdom, by
night, and by day, even unto the perfect day, to
praise and give thanks always to the Father and
the Son, to the Son and the Father, the Son who
guides and teaches, with the Holy Spirit; all to
the ONE, in whom are all things, for whom all
things are One, for whom is the Everlasting Now,
of whom all we are members, whose is the glory,
whose are the ages, all for Him the Good, all for
Him the Beauteous, all for Him the Wise, all for
Him the Just." Such a prayer, full even to burst-
ing of the very soul of adoration, could not but
pass into a hymn of like character. Every thought,
image, parable, similitude, which in the course of
the book had suggested itself as setting forth the
work of the Divine Teacher, pours as in "
ing mighty wind" through all his soul, and he
speaks, as those may have spoken, who told of the
great deeds of God, the Spirit giving them utter-
ance. In the half-wild abruptness, and short in-
cisive rhythm, and passionate exclamations, rather
than continuous trains of thought and feeling, such
as later hymns abound in, we may see, it is be-
lieved, no remote likeness to those "spiritual
songs," songs in very deed coming from the Spirit
who taught men to cry Abba, Father, which were
at once the expression and the food of the ecstatic
love and adoration of the new-born Church of
Christ.

a rush

That outward character I have endeavored, though with some inevitable dilution, to reproduce. I should not have ventured on a task so difficult had I anywhere found the work ready to my hands. But I am not aware that there is any accessible translation of this hymn into any form of English verse. If, among the many thousands into whose hands this may fall, any have come across such a version of it, I shall be thankful if they will inform me.]

A few words are needed, it may be, to enable us to enter into what is, in many ways, so unlike our modern forms of thought. The hymn stands in close relation to a treatise bearing the title Padagogus, the Guide of Children, the Instructor, that is, according to the full meaning of the word, whose function it was less to impart knowledge than to train character, to guard from the contamination of evil, to guide the daily life. The central thought of the treatise is, that the true Guide is none other than the Divine Word, the Son of God, the man Christ Jesus. Entering with a simplicity and minuteness which might almost cause a smile, if it did not also awaken our love and reverence, into all the commonest details of daily life, the good old man passes in review the temptations of luxury, self-indulgence, vanity, licentiousness, to which the young Christians of Alexandria were exposed. As throwing light on the habits and modes of thinking of the time, the contrast between the new Christian Society and the old dying Heathenism of the Empire, these details, however trivial, are often full of interest, and if I should see reason to believe that any who read this hymn would like to know more of the man who wrote it, and of the time in which it had its birth, I will make the attempt to meet the demand with a supply. At the end of the discourse, however, Clement passes from rules and precepts to a higher strain, and pours out, still in the same prose as before, a prayer to this Divine Instructor, that he "would be gracious to his children, grant them by following his precepts to fill up the image of his likeness, to think of God with all their strength as being not an austere but a perfectly gracious Judge. as citizens living in English Poets, p. 18. She assumed, somewhat, I think, too his peace, translated into his city, passing storm-hastily, that her readers would not wish for more.

CURB for the stubborn steed,
Making its will give heed;
Wing that directest right

The wild bird's wandering flight;
Helm for the ships that keep
Their pathway o'er the deep;
Shepherd of sheep that own
Their Master on the throne,
Stir up thy children meek
With guileless lips to speak,
In hymn and song, thy praise,
Guide of their infant ways.
O King of Saints, O Lord,

A portion of the hymn, ending with the line which speaks of the Divine Guide as the "Fisher of men," may be found in Mrs. E. Barrett Browning's Greek Christian Poets and

Mighty, all-conquering Word;
Son of the highest God,
Wielding His Wisdom's rod;
Our stay when cares annoy,
Giver of endless joy;
Of all our mortal race
Saviour, of boundless grace,
O Jesus, hear.

Shepherd and Sower thou,
Now helm, and bridle now,
Wing for the heavenward flight
Of flock all pure and bright,
Fisher of men, the blest,
Out of the world's unrest,
Out of Sin's troubled sea
Taking us, Lord, to thee;
Out of the waves of strife
With bait of blissful life;
With choicest fish, good store
Drawing thy nets to shore.

Lead us, O Shepherd true,
Thy mystic sheep, we sue,
Lead us, O Holy Lord,
Who from thy sons dost ward,
With all-prevailing charm,
Peril, and curse, and harm;
O path where Christ hath trod,
O Way that leads to God,
O Word, abiding aye,
O endless Light on high,
Mercy's fresh-springing flood,
Worker of all things good,
O glorious Life of all
That on their Maker call,
Christ Jesus, hear.

O Milk of Heaven, that prest
From full, o'erflowing breast
Of her, the mystic Bride
Thy Wisdom hath supplied;
Thine infant children seek,
With baby lips, all weak,
Filled with the Spirit's dew
From that dear bosom true,
Thy praises pure to sing,
Hymns meet for thee, our King,
For thee, the Christ;

Our holy tribute this,
For wisdom, life, and bliss,
Singing in chorus meet,
Singing in concert sweet,

The Almighty Son.
We, heirs of peace unpriced,
We, who are born in Christ,
A people pure from stain,
Praise we our God again,

Lord of our Peace.

-E. H. Plumptre.

THE BRIDGE OF CLOUDS.
BURN, O evening hearth, and waken
Pleasant visions, as of old!
Though the house by winds be shaken,
Safe I keep this room of gold!

Ah, no longer wizard fancy
Builds its castles in the air,
Luring me by necromancy

Up the never-ending stair!

But, instead, it builds me bridges
Over many a dark ravine,

Where beneath the gusty ridges, Cataracts dash and roar unseen.

And I cross them, little heeding
Blast of wind or torrent's roar,
As I follow the receding

Footsteps that have gone before.
Naught avails the imploring gesture,
Naught avails the cry of pain!
When I touch the flying vesture,
'Tis the gray robe of the rain.

Baffled, I return, and, leaning
O'er the parapets of cloud,
Watch the mist that, intervening,
Wraps the valley in its shroud.

And the sounds of life ascending,
Faintly, vaguely, meet the ear,
Murmur of bells and voices blending
With the rush of waters near.

BY J. E. CARPENTER.

SHE took his rifle from the wall,
The same his father bore;
She gave the boy his alpenstock,
His father's long before;
She did not let him see her weep,
But kissed his rosy face,
Then bade him boldly hasten forth
And take his father's place.

She thought but of her country's wrongs,
Yet pressed him to her heart,

Oh! well might that proud mother grieve
To see her boy depart.

A month before her husband joined
His brethren of the glen;

A week-his lifeless form they bore
In sorrow back again;
Those warrior-peasants laid it down
Within her Alpine cot,

Then hastened back to meet the foe,
For they might mourn him not.

But she must send another forth,
Her doubly stricken heart
Might well be proud and not to break
From her brave boy to part.

And so she took the rifle from
The chamber of the dead,

And filled the flask, and put it on,
Then forth her boy she led:

"Go," she said, proudly, "o'er the hills:
You'll find your father's foe,

Yet not his death-blow to avenge,
For freedom strike the blow."

It was her bleeding country's wrongs
That nerved that mother's heart,
Yet bitter were the tears she shed
To see her boy depart.

-Bentley's Miscellany.

WHO CARES?

WHO cares for the last year's rose?

Or the flowers of last year's May?

Or the leaf dried sweet in a mouldy book
Of the love who is away?

Who cares for the cloud gone by?
Or last year's rain and wind?.
Or a golden crescent of folded curl
The dead one left behind?

A tress of hair and a faded leaf

Are paltry things to a cynic's eyes; But to me they are keys that open the gates Of a paradise of memories.

GREGORY'S HYMN.

WHAT lies before me? Where shall set my day? Where shall these weary limbs at length repose?

What hospitable tomb receive my clay?

What hands at last my failing eyes shall close? What eyes will watch me ?-eyes with pity fraught? Some friend of Christ? or those who know him not?

Or shall no tomb, as in a casket, lock

This frame, when laid a weight of breathless clay? Cast forth unburied on the desert rock,

Or thrown in scorn to birds and beasts of prey?
Consumed and cast in handfuls on the air,
Left in some river-bed to perish there?

This as Thou wilt, the Day will all unite
Wherever scattered, when thy word is said:
Rivers of fire, abysses without light,

Thy great tribunal, these alone are dread.
And thou, O Christ, my King, art fatherland to me,
Strength, wealth, eternal rest, yea, all I find in thee!

BIRTH-DAYS.

BIRTH-DAYS are mile-posts on the road of time,
Each with its two arms pointing different ways,
On one inscribed, in flaming characters,
"The past," and from the other darkly gleam
Through murky mists, in letters dimly seen,
The words, "Straight forward for eternity."
Life is like a book,

And new years are the opening of fresh pages
Each numbered in its order. We value books
Not by their length, but by the thoughts that
crowd

In lustrous halos round their hallowed leaves,
And though the book of life may be but short,
Yet if from every page there shimmers out
The one word, love, that volume will, at last,
Rest in a golden binding on the shelves,
The mystic shelves, of God's great library.
We measure life by years, but not so God:
A thousand ages are as one short day

With him. He counts by deeds, not fleeting hours,
And he who speaks a gentle word, or gives

A cup of water to a fainting one,

Will count more birth-days in Heaven's register
Than if he lived a million centuries

Unto himself alone. Now is the seed-time,
And every birth-day we begin to sow
Another furrow in life's fertile field,
And at the coming harvest we shall reap
As we have sown-rich golden grain or weeds,
Well-ripened fruit or loathsome rottenness.
Here all our countless actions touch the springs
That send a thrill throughout infinity.

On earth our erring fingers strike the keys
That shall resound in endless cadences
Of harmony or discord evermore.

UNSEEN SORROW.

WHEN in thy wearied ear sad voices mourn,
Oh, measure not the burden of their woe
Only by that thou see'st; thou canst not know
What unfulfilled desires within them burn,
What prayers unto their longing hearts return,
Like hungry birds across the barren snow.
Much they may hold, perchance, and yet forego
More than thine eye hath wisdom to discern,
Or tears can e'er reveal. None are so blest

But something fails them. In the garden gay
We miss the wayside flowers that men love best;

And they who round their brow the jasmine wreathe And pluck the orange bloom, may sigh to breathe The scent of dewy cowslips far away.-E. H. W.

THE SONG OF AUTUMN.

I HAVE painted the woods, I have kindled the sky, I have brightened the hills with a glance of mine eye;

I have scattered the fruits, I have gathered the

corn,

And now from the earth must her verdure be torn.
Ye lingering flowers, ye leaves of the spray,
I summon ye all-away! away!

No more from the depth of the grove may be heard
The joy-burdened song of its fluttering bird;
I have passed o'er the branches that shelter him
there,

And their quivering drapery is shaken to air.
Ye lingering flowers, ye leaves of the spray,
I summon ye all-away! away!

Plead not, the days are yet sunny and long,

For the shores of Earth and Heaven
Meet, and mingle in the blue:
She can wander down the glory
To the places that she knew,
Where the happy lovers wandered
In the days when life was true.

So I think, when days are sweetest,
And the world is wholly fair,
She may sometime steal upon me
Through the dimness of the air,
With the cross upon her bosom

And the amaranth in her hair.

Once to meet her, ah! to meet her,
And to hold her gently fast

Till I blessed her, till she blessed me,-
That were happiness, at last:
That were bliss beyond our meetings
In the autumns of the Past!

-Bayard Taylor.

THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE. "Patience is the key of Content."-Mahomet.

That your hues are still brightening, your fibres still To cheer, to help us, children of the dust,

strong;

To vigor and beauty, relentless am I-
There is nothing too young or too lovely to die.
Ye lingering flowers, ye leaves of the spray,
I summon ye all-away! away!

And I call on the winds that repose in the north,
To send their wild voices in unison forth;
Let the harp of the tempest be dolefully strung—
There's a wail to be made, there's a dirge to be

AUTUMNAL DREAMS. WHEN the maple turns to crimson And the sassafras to gold; When the gentian's in the meadow, And the aster on the wold; When the noon is lapped in vapor, And the night is frosty cold: When the chestnut-burs are opened, And the acorns drop like hail, And the drowsy air is startled

With the thumping of the flail,With the drumming of the partridge And the whistle of the quail:

Through the rustling woods I wander,
Through the jewels of the year,
From the yellow uplands calling,
Seeking her that still is dear:
She is near me in the autumn,
She, the beautiful, is near.

Through the smoke of burning summer, When the weary winds are still,

I can see her in the valley

I can hear her on the hill,

In the splendor of the woodlands,
In the whisper of the rill.

More than one angel has Our Father given; But one alone is faithful to her trust,

The best, the brightest exile out of Heaven.

Her ways are not the ways of pleasantness;

Her paths are not the lightsome paths of joy; She walks with wrongs that cannot find redress, And dwells in mansions Time and Death destroy. She waits until her stern precursor, Care,

Has lodged on foreheads, open as the morn, To plough his deep, besieging trenches there, The signs of struggles which the heart has borne. But when the first cloud darkens in our sky,

And face to face with Life we stand alone, Silent and swift, behold! she draweth nigh, And mutely makes our sufferings her own. Unto rebellious souls, that, mad with Fate, To question God's eternal justice dare, She points above with looks that whisper, "Wait,What seems confusion here is wisdom there."

To the vain challenges of doubt we send,

No answering comfort doth she minister:
Her face looks ever forward to the end,
And we, who see it not, are led by her.

She doth not chide, nor in reproachful guise
The griefs we cherish rudely thrust apart;
But in the light of her immortal eyes

Revives the manly courage of the heart.

Daughter of God! who walkest with us here,
Who mak'st our every tribulation thine,
Such light hast thou in Earth's dim atmosphere,
How must thy seat in Heaven exalted shine!

How fair thy presence by those living streams

Where Sin and Sorrow from their troubling cease! Where on thy brow the crown of amaranth gleams, And in thy hand the golden key of Peace!

-Bayard Taylor.

« Anterior Continuar »

Livros

Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Volume 63