And Nature, always fair if we will allow her time enough, after giving mankind the inspired tinker who painted the Christian’s life as that of a hunted animal, “never long at ease,” desponding, despairing, on the verge of self-murder,—­painted it with an originality, a vividness, a power and a sweetness, too, that rank him with the great authors of all time,—­kind Nature, after this gift, sent as his counterpoise the inspired ploughman, whose songs have done more to humanize the hard theology of Scotland than all the rationalistic sermons that were ever preached.  Our own Whittier has done and is doing the same thing, in a far holier spirit than Burns, for the inherited beliefs of New England and the country to which New England belongs.  Let me sweeten these closing paragraphs of an essay not meaning to hold a word of bitterness with a passage or two from the lay-preacher who is listened to by a larger congregation than any man who speaks from the pulpit.  Who will not hear his words with comfort and rejoicing when he speaks of “that larger hope which, secretly cherished from the times of Origen and Duns Scotus to those of Foster and Maurice, has found its fitting utterance in the noblest poem of the age?”

It is Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” to which he refers, and from which he quotes four verses, of which this is the last: 

    “Behold! we know not anything
     I can but trust that good shall fall
     At last,—­far off,—­at last, to all,
     And every winter change to spring.”

If some are disposed to think that the progress of civilization and the rapidly growing change of opinion renders unnecessary any further effort to humanize “the Gospel of dread tidings;” if any believe the doctrines of the Longer and Shorter Catechism of the Westminster divines are so far obsolete as to require no further handling; if there are any who thank these subjects have lost their interest for living souls ever since they themselves have learned to stay at home on Sundays, with their cakes and ale instead of going to meeting,—­not such is Mr. Whittier’s opinion, as we may infer from his recent beautiful poem, “The Minister’s Daughter.”  It is not science alone that the old Christian pessimism has got to struggle with, but the instincts of childhood, the affections of maternity, the intuitions of poets, the contagious humanity of the philanthropist,—­in short, human nature and the advance of civilization.  The pulpit has long helped the world, and is still one of the chief defences against the dangers that threaten society, and it is worthy now, as it always has been in its best representation, of all love and honor.  But many of its professed creeds imperatively demand revision, and the pews which call for it must be listened to, or the preacher will by and by find himself speaking to a congregation of bodiless echoes by and by find himself speaking to a congregation of bodiless echoes.