ARGUMENT. State of feeling produced by the foregoing Narrative. A belief in a superintending Providence the only adequate support under affliction. - Wanderer's ejaculation.-Acknowledges the difficulty of a lively faith. Hence immoderate sorrow. — Exhortations. How received. - Wanderer applies his discourse to that other cause of dejection in the Solitary's mind. Disappointment from the French Revolution. States grounds of hope, and insists on the necessity of patience and fortitude with respect to the course of great revolutions. — Knowledge the source of tranquillity. - Rural Solitude favorable to knowledge of the inferior Creatures; Study of their habits and ways recommended; exhortation to bodily exertion and communion with Nature. Morbid Solitude pitiable. Superstition better than apathy. - Apathy and destitution unknown in the infancy of society. - The various modes of Religion prevented it. Illustrated in the Jewish, Persian, Babylonian, Chaldæan, and Grecian modes of belief. Solitary interposes.-Wanderer points out the influence of religious and imaginative feeling in the humble ranks of society, illustrated from present and past times. These principles tend to recall exploded superstitions and Popery. - Wanderer rebuts this charge, and contrasts the dignities of the Imagination with the presumptuous littleness of certain modern Philosophers.Recommends other light and guides. - Asserts the power of the Soul to regenerate herself; Solitary asks how. - Reply.Personal appeal. - Exhortation to activity of body renewed. - How to commune with Nature. -Wanderer concludes with a legitimate union of the imagination, affections, understanding, and reason. Effect of his discourse. - Evening: Return to the Cottage. DESPONDENCY CORRECTED. HERE closed the Tenant of that lonely vale "One adequate support For the calamities of mortal life Exists, one only; an assured belief That the procession of our fate, howe'er The darts of anguish fix not where the seat Of suffering hath been thoroughly fortified By acquiescence in the Will supreme Soul of our Souls, and Safeguard of the world! Then, as we issued from that covert nook, He thus continued, lifting up his eyes To heaven: 66 How beautiful this dome of sky; At thy command, how awful! Shall the Soul, Even less than these?- Be mute who will, who can, From unreflecting ignorance preserved, By thy grace The particle divine remained unquenched; And, 'mid the wild weeds of a rugged soil, Thy bounty caused to flourish deathless flowers, From paradise transplanted: wintry age Impends; the frost will gather round my heart; If the flowers wither, I am worse than dead! Come, labor, when the worn-out frame requires Perpetual sabbath; come, disease and want; And sad exclusion through decay of sense; But leave me unabated trust in thee, And let thy favor, to the end of life, Inspire me with ability to seek Repose and hope among eternal things, Father of heaven and earth! and I am rich, And will possess my portion in content! "And what are things eternal? part," powers de The gray-haired Wanderer steadfastly replied, Answering the question which himself had asked, "Possessions vanish, and opinions change, And passions hold a fluctuating seat: But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken, Duty exists; immutably survive, For our support, the measures and the forms Which an abstract intelligence supplies; Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not. Of other converse which mind, soul, and heart, Do, with united urgency, require, What more that may not perish? source, Thou, dread Prime, self-existing cause and end of all the cloud Mightst hold, on earth, communion undisturbed; |