best know how hard it is to be the interpreter of such
a mind; but they will sympathize with the wish to call
attention to it. They know, and would wish others
also to know, not by hearsay, but by experience,
the power of that wonderful poem. They know its
austere yet subduing beauty; they know what force
there is in its free and earnest and solemn verse, to
strengthen, to tranquillize, to console. It is a small
thing that it has the secret of Nature and Man; that
a few keen words have opened their eyes to new sights
in earth, and sea, and sky; have taught them new mys-
teries of sound; have made them recognize, in distinct
image or thought, fugitive feelings, or their unheeded
expression, by look, or gesture, or motion; that it has
enriched the public and collective memory of society
with new instances, never to be lost, of human feeling
and fortune; has charmed ear and mind by the music
of its stately march, and the variety and completeness
of its plan. But, besides this, they know how often its
seriousness has put to shame their trifling, its mag-
nanimity their faint-heartedness, its living energy their
indolence, its stern and sad grandeur rebuked low
thoughts, its thrilling tenderness overcome sullenness
and assuaged distress, its strong faith quelled despair
and soothed perplexity, its vast grasp imparted the
sense of harmony to the view of clashing truths. They
know how often they have found, in times of trouble,
if not light, at least that deep sense of reality, perma-
nent, though unseen, which is more than light can
always give -- in the view which it has suggested to
them of the judgments and the love of God.

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