No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
On February 27, 1917, I had occasion to spend some hours in the library of Union Theological Seminary in New York, looking over the admirable collection of hymnody on the Seminary's shelves. As I came to the collection of Unitarian hymn-books I opened by chance a copy of the Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book (1877), when a letter fell from the volume. Picking it up I recognized the handwriting of Samuel Longfellow and saw that the letter had to do with certain of his hymns.
1 It may be interesting to compare the hymn with the passage. Martineau writes:
“Let any true man go into silence; strip himself of all pretence and selfishness and sensuality and sluggishness of soul; lift off thought after thought, passion after passion, till he reaches the inmost depth of all; remember how short a time, and he was not at all; how short a time again, and he will not be here; open his window and look upon the night, how still its breath, how solemn its march, how deep its perspective, how ancient its forms of light; and think how little he knows except the perpetuity of God, and the mysteriousness of life—and it will be strange if he does not feel the Eternal Presence as close upon his soul, as the breeze upon his brow; if he does not say, ‘O Lord, art Thou ever near as this, and have I not known thee?’ if the true proportions and the genuine spirit of life do not open on his heart with infinite clearness, and show him the littleness of his temptations and the grandeur of his trust. He is ashamed to have found weariness in toil so light, and tears where there was no trial to the brave. He discovers with astonishment how small the dust that has blinded him, and from the height of a quiet and holy love looks down with incredulous sorrow on the jealousies and fears and irritations that have vexed his life. A mighty wind of resolution sets in strong upon him and freshens the whole atmosphere of his soul; sweeping down before it the light flakes of difficulty, till they vanish like snow upon the sea. He is imprisoned no more in a small compartment of time, but belongs to an eternity which is now and here. The isolation of his separate spirit passes away; and with the countless multitude of souls akin to God, he is but as a wave of His unbounded deep. He is at one with Heaven, and hath found the secret place of the Almighty.”
“Endeavors After the Christian Life.”
Sermon 17, “Silence and Meditation.”
Longfellow's versification runs:
“He who himself and God would know,
Into the silence let him go,
And, lifting off pall after pall,
Reach to the inmost depth of all.
“Let him look forth into the night;
What solemn depths, what silent might!
Those ancient stars, how calm they roll—
He but an atom ʼmid the whole.
“And, as the evening wind sweeps by,
He needs must feel his God as nigh;
Must needs that unseen Presence own,
Thus always near, too long unknown.
“How small, in that uplifted hour,
Temptation's lure and passion's power!
How weak the foe that made him fall,
How strong the soul to conquer all!
“A mighty wind of nobler will
Sends through his soul its quickening thrill;
No more a creature of the clod,
He knows himself a child of God.”