The Patience of Hope
By the Author of “ A Present Heaven.” With an Introduction by . Boston : Ticknor & Fields.
As the method by winch an individual soul reaches conclusions with regard to the Saviour and the conditions of salvation, “ The Patience of Hope ” is worthy of particular attention. It does not, however, stand alone, hut belongs to a class. Its peculiarity is that it proceeds by apposite text and inference, more than by the illumination of feeling,—aiming to convince rather than to reveal, as is the manner of those whose convictions have not quite become as a star in a firmament where neither eclipse nor cloud ever comes. Evidently there was a most searching examination of the Scriptures preparatory to the work ; and yet the ample quotation, often fresh and felicitous, appears to be made to sustain a preconceived opinion, or, more strictly, an emotion. This emotion is so single and absorbing that there is some gleam of it in each varying view, and every sentiment is warm with it, however the flame may lurk as beneath a crust of lava. Only from a richly gifted mind, and a heart whose longings no fulness of mortal affection has power to permanently appease, could these aspirations issue. It is the tender complaint and patient hope of one whom the earth, and all that is therein, cannot satisfy. Moreover, so pure and irrepressible is the natural desire of the heart, so does it color and constitute all the dream of Paradise, that the divinest Hope not only thrills and palpitates with Love’s ripest imaginings, but puts on nuptial robes. Touchingly she pictures herself as “ The Mystic Spouse, — her that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon the arm of her Beloved, — and we shall see that she, like her Lord, is wounded in her heart, her hands, and her feet.” Though sowing in such still remembered pain, she yet reaps with unspeakable joy. She has now the full assurance that the mystic and immortal embrace is for her, and in the fulness of her heart cries, “ When were Love’s arms stretched so wide as upon the Cross ? ”
It is in keeping with such an aspiration that this and kindred natures should perceive in Christianity the sacred mystery from which is to be drawn, in the world to come, the full fruition of the tenderest and most vital impulse of the human heart, and therefore to be most fitly meditated and vividly anticipated in cloistered seclusion. Throughout their revelations (here is a yearning for Infinite Love; and ardent receptivity is regarded as the true condition for the conception and enjoyment of religion. It is clear that they have a passion, sublimated and glorified indeed, but still a passion, for Christ. This is the mightiest impulse to that exaltation of His person against which the calm and Consummate reasoner contends in vain. Truly we are fearfully and wonderfully made! The soul is touched with the strong necessity of loving; and its power becomes intense and inappeasable in proportion to the capacity of the heart; and yet some of the greatest of these have reposed so supremely in the innate and ineffable Ideal that to the uninitiated they have seemed in their serenity as pulseless as pearls. Through this sublime influence lovely women have become nuns, and have lived and died saints, that they might continually indulge and constantly cherish the blissful hope of being, in some spiritual form, the brides of Jesus. A long line of these, coeval with the Crucifixion, have passed on in maiden meditation, and so were fancy-free from all of mortal mould. This ecstatic dreaming is so charming, and so insatiable withal, that it seems to those who entertain it a divine vision. It is an enchantment so complete that He as on cannot penetrate its circle, and Logic has never approached it. Doubtless this fond aspiration finds freest and fairest expression in the Roman Church, — a communion that not only encourages, but enjoins, the adoration of the Virgin, in order that certain enthusiasts among men may also aspire to the skies on the wings of pure, yet passionate love.
The ready objection to this course of life is that it leads to solitude. It wins the devotee apart, and away from the influences to that universal brotherhood whereto Philanthropy fondly turns as the finest manifestation of the spirit of the Redeemer. And yet they are equally the fruits of His coming. Without the perfect Man the subhmest endurance and most marvellous aspiration of Hope would never have found development below. Now it has become a power that so pervades the bosoms of sects that they accept its soaring wing as one to which the heaven of heavens is open. This, certainly, is the greatest triumph that human nature has achieved over those who have systematically depreciated it; inasmuch as it is a heightening, not a change of heart. Verily, Love is stronger than Death; and in its complete presence or utter absence, here or hereafter, there is and will be the extreme of bliss or hale. Therefore it is in the affections to lead those sweetly and swiftly heavenward who singly seek the immortal way. So guided and inspired, it cannot but he a charming path; for those who perpetually walk therein come to look as though they were entranced with the perfume that floats from fields of asphodel. Characters so developed are beautiful exceedingly, and seem of a far higher strain than those who most generously and effectively labor for the amelioration and moral advancement of the race. They, more than any others who have riches there, illumine the grand, yet gloomy arches of the Christian Church with their ineffable whiteness. No preacher therein is so eloquent as their marble silence ; for they reveal in their countenances the mystery of Redemption. Even while among the living, men looked upon them with awe, — feeling, that, though coeval in time, infinite space rolled between. They teach as no other order of teachers can, that the days and duties of life may be so cast under foot as to exalt one to be only a little lower than the angels. In fine, through them is made visible tlie value of the individual soul; and thus we see, as iu the central idea of our author, that “that which moulds itself from within is free.”