Let them annihilate human pain, and literally “charm ache with air, and agony with ether.”  The blessing of God will attend all their toils, and the gratitude of man will await all their triumphs.  Let them dig down into the bowels of the earth.  Let them rive asunder the massive rocks, and unfold the history of creation as it lies written on the pages of their piled up strata.  Let them gather up the fossil fragments of a lost Fauna, reproducing the ancient forms which inhabited the land or the seas, bringing them together, bone to his bone, till Leviathan and Behemoth stand before us in bodily presence and in their full proportions, and we almost tremble lest these dry bones should live again!  Let them put nature to the rack, and torture her, in all her forms, to the betrayal of her inmost secrets and confidences.  They need not forbear.  The foundations of the round world have been laid so strong that they can not be moved.

But let them not think by searching to find out God.  Let them not dream of understanding the Almighty to perfection.  Let them not dare to apply their tests and solvents, their modes of analysis or their terms of definition, to the secrets of the spiritual kingdom.  Let them spare the foundations of faith.  Let them be satisfied with what is revealed of the mysteries of the Divine Nature.  Let them not break through the bounds to gaze after the Invisible.

Notes.—­Orion and Andromeda are the names of two constellations.

The Leviathan is described in Job, chap. xli, and the Behemoth in Job, chap. xl.  It is not known exactly what beasts are meant by these descriptions.

CXIII.  THE DOWNFALL OF POLAND. (396)

O Sacred Truth! thy triumph ceased a while,
And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile,
When leagued Oppression poured to northern wars
Her whiskered pandours and her fierce hussars,
Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn,
Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet horn;
Tumultuous horror brooded o’er her van,
Presaging wrath to Poland—­and to man!

Warsaw’s last champion, from her height surveyed,
Wide o’er the fields a waste of ruin laid;
“O Heaven!” he cried, “my bleeding country save! 
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave? 
Yet, though destruction sweep those lovely plains,
Rise, fellow-men! our country yet remains! 
By that dread name, we wave the sword on high,
And swear for her to live—­with her to die!”

He said, and on the rampart heights arrayed
His trusty warriors, few, but undismayed;
Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form,
Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm;
Low murmuring sounds along their banners fly,
Revenge or death—­the watchword and reply;
Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm,
And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm.