Tobe

“ AFTER THREE DAYS.
[Written after visiting Holman Hunt's picture of 'Christ in the Temple.']
I stood within the gate
Of a great temple, 'midst the living stream
Of worshippers that thronged its regal state
Fair pictured in my dream.
Jewels and gold were there;
And floors of marble lent a crystal sheen
To body forth, as in a lower air,
The wonders of the scene.
Such wild and lavish grace
Had whispers in it of a coming doom;
As richest flowers lie strown about the face
Of her that waits the tomb. ”

“ Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle teems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun—a part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal. ”

“ Every one who bears the name of the Son of God, ought to bear the names also of these; for the Son Himself bears the names of these virgins. As many stones," he continued, "as you saw [come into the building of the tower through the hands ] of these virgins, and remaining, have been clothed with their strength. For this reason you see that the tower became of one stone with the rock. So also they who have believed on the Lord through His Son, and are clothed with these spirits, shall become one spirit, one body, and the colour of their garments shall be one. ”

“ Oh marvelous harvest, promised to One alone! Fruit shown to that immortal part of us which triumphs!
Before I reach the pines night falls and the cold moon lights me. This seems to me to be the difference: that the sun looks at us, but we look at the moon. Her face is turned away, and like a fire which lights up the bottom of the sea she makes every shadow become visible.... In the heart of this ancient tomb, in the thick grass of this ruined temple, under the form of fair ladies or wise old men, possibly I shall meet a company of foxes! ”

“ On stones, still stones, the gospels dwell ⁠25
In lesson meet or happier parable.
Attesting here the Holy Writ--
In brook, in glen, by tomb and town
In natural way avouching it--
Behold the stones! And never one ⁠30
A lichen greens; and, turn them o'er--
No worm--no life; but, all the more,
Good witnesses. ”

“ And far the carven temple gates
⁠Of red and gold—
The dreamy temples where the gods
⁠Have long been old.
The dragonflies and irises
⁠Beside the stream,
Are far away in lands of dawn
⁠And lands of dream. ”

“ The soul of every true saint is that temple. It has a holy of holies where God’s Spirit dwells. The world, the flesh, and the devil have been cast out. It has an altar on which the sacrifice of thanksgiving is laid, a censer in which burns the incense of prayer, which rolls aloft to heaven, while the voice of praise and adoration echoes through its arches and along its aisles. ”

“ We are engaged all our lives in the erection of magnificent temples about ourselves, and in embroidering gold-besprent curtains, and in the burning of frankincense, and in the kindling and feeding of lamps, in these tabernacles; and what is behind the veil? Do we know? Do we ever look? We paint and plate with gold ideal representations of the god within on the propylæum of our temple, but what resemblance does this figure bear to the reality? Do we know? Do we care to know? Will we not rather put out our eyes than compare them? ”

“ Then you have only to stroll and stroll and gaze and gaze; to watch the glorious altar-canopy lift its bronze architecture, its colossal embroidered contortions, like a temple within a temple, and feel yourself, at the bottom of the abysmal shaft of the dome, dwindle to a crawling dot. ”

“ To move the unrelenting gloom,
For short surcease of pain.
The font, the altar, and the tomb!
Accept frail nature’s dower;—
To thee, to all, an equal doom,—
The inevitable hour!
106The font, the altar, and the tomb!
Faint not at “Dust to Dust;”—
The love of God leaves ample room
For deathless hope and trust. ”

“ O Tomb, of all these tears,
In my recesses ere the sun appears,
I make a perfume which the gods will prize.
Said the Tomb: O plaintive Flower,
Of every mortal I devour
An angel do I make for Paradise. ”

“ Even the body is fearfully and wonderfully made, and well may be, for it is the temple of the Holy Ghost; but if the temple is sacred, how much more that holy thing which the temple enshrines,—the unseen, incomprehensible, infinite soul, the essential spirit, the holy ghost. Who that cherishes the divine visitant in his own heart but must be amazed at the reckless irreverence with which we assail each other. ”

“ The voices swell till the temple rocks, or seems to rock to the reeling senses of the prophet, and the house is filled with smoke, or seems to be so, as a mist envelops the swooning spirit of the spectator. ”

“ And Love hath temples ancient as the world!
Where mystery like the veil by Beauty worn
Hides but to win and shades but to adorn;
Where that luxurious melancholy born
Of passion and of genius sheds a gloom
Making joy holy;—where the bower and tomb
Stand side by side and Pleasure learns from Death
The instant value of each moment's breath. ”

“ GRANT, we beseech Thee, almighty and merciful God, that Thy Holy Spirit may come to us, and make us to be a temple worthy of the habitation of His glory, through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son; Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the same Holy Spirit, God, world without end. ”

“ An alcove filled with shrubs and flowers,
But lighted by the distant hall,
With one or two fair statues placed,
Like deities of the sweet shrine
That human art should ever frame
Such shapes so utterly divine! ”

“ Our bodies, too, become the temples of the Holy Ghost by Baptism and Confirmation, because God the Holy Ghost dwells in us by His grace. ‘'Know you not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. ”

“ Approach this tomb which the voice of Jesus Christ is now to open before your eyes; and, in that spectacle of infection and putrefaction, behold the true picture of your soul. You fly to profane spectacles in order to see your passions represented under pleasing and deceitful colours: approach, and see them expressed here such as they are: come, and, in that infectious and loathsome carcass, behold what you are in the sight of God, and how much your situation is worthy of your tears. ”

“ In each man’s heart a secret temple stands
For rites idolatrous of praise and prayer;
And dusky idols through the incensed air,
On single thrones, or grouped in curious bands,
Gaze at the lamp which swings in memory’s hands,—
Some richly carved, with face of beauty rare,
Some with brute heads and bosoms foul and bare,
Yet crowned with gold and gems from distant lands. ”

“ The vague belief, the mysterious custom and tradition, develope themselves into an elaborately ordered ritual— into personal gods, imaged in ivory and gold, sitting on beautiful thrones. Always, wherever a shrine or temple, great or small, is mentioned, there, we may conclude, was a visible idol, there was conceived to be the actual dwelling-place of a god. ”

“ Dig down to the living Rock, Christ and His infinite love to you, and let it be the strong foundation, built into which you and your love may become living stones, a holy temple, partaking of the firmness and nature of that on which it rests. ”

“ To you, I said, the presence of God shall be revealed in his temple as a consuming fire, and your sacred garments shall become a winding-sheet of flame, and for sweet music there shall be shrieks and hissing, and for soft couches there shall be thorns, and for the breath of wantons shall come the pestilence. ”

“ You bend the knee of the body in the visible temple; but that is nothing if in the temple of the heart you are standing upright against God. You adore the wood of the cross;—follow much more the mystery of the cross. ”

“ In some I see grand pictures, and note the incense floating up toward the Heavens; in some I see high vaulted roofs, and the light in many glowing colors falls on the bowed forms of the worshippers. I hear holy words, the voice of prayer, but I see no crosses borne, and all are rich and grand. I go down in the low places. I see the poor toiling on unpitied and uncared for. ”

“ The arch beneath them is not built with stones,
Not Art but Nature traced these lovely lines,
And carved this graceful arabesque of vines;
No organ but the wind here sighs and moans,
No sepulchre conceals a martyr's bones. ”

“ What earthly temple such a roof can boast?-- What flickering lamp with the rich starlight vies, When the round moon rests, like the sacred Host, Upon the azure altar of the skies? We breathed aloud the Christian's filial prayer, Which makes us brothers even with the Lord ”

“ O Sacred Virgin, Tabernacle of the Holy Ghost, we beseech thee to obtain, by thine intercession, that this Comforter, whom thy beloved Son sent down upon His Apostles, filling them thereby with spiritual joy, may teach us in this world the true way of salvation, and make us walk in the way of virtue and good works. ”

“ When about to sever every earthly tie—when on the eve of parting with every object rendered dear by nature and association—when the gloomy portals of the silent tomb open to receive us, then comes Hope to paint the joys of heaven. ”

“ Nature is great, but God is greater.
In riding through the Alps—especially through deep passes, where walls of rock on either hand almost touch the sky—it seems as if the whole world were a realm of Death, and this the universal tomb. ”

“ Let then these little things be drawn aside, these Clouds that hide the most adorable Face of GOD from us, these Mud-walls that enclose our Earthly Tabernacle and will not suffer us to be pierc’d with the Beams of his Glory, and wounded, not to Death but Life, with the Arrows of his Love and Beauty. ”

“ Shall the temple of our thought be a public arena where the most trivial affairs of the market and the gossip of the tea-table is discussed,—a dusty, noisy, trivial place? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself, a place consecrated to the service of the gods, a hypæthral temple? I find it so difficult to dispose of the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate to burden my mind with the most insignificant, which only a divine mind could illustrate. ”

“ The lofty pines that grace the other crest,
Enrobed in sparkling splendor, raise their heads
In solemn awe to yonder jewelled dome,
And offer praise to Him whose temple bright
Holds earth and sky. ”

“ Look around and behold the sparkling eye and blushing cheek of youth and beauty; but remember these are flowers gathered for the tomb! Whether we see them or not, Time has wings; whether we realize it or not, his flight is rapid. ”

“ These people from the North, long-haired, heavy-bearded, long-booted, heavy-coated men, and short-frocked, heavy-shod women had come there, we could plainly see, on a holy pilgrimage to the tomb of their Savior, believing and trusting in the reality of everything they saw. ”

“ O Love, forever doth heaven's wheel design
To take away thy precious life, and mine;
⁠Sit we upon this turf, 'twill not be long
'Ere turf shall grow upon my dust, and thine!
391
When life has Bed, and we rest in the tomb,
They'll place a pair of bricks to mark our tomb ”

“ Evidently the underlying idea is that the individual's body is itself the temple, in whose inner mystic shrine the Divine appears before the soul, and the key to it has to be found from those who know. ”

“ An aged ilex, spreading from the sides of the rock, and bending over the edifice, covers the roof with its ever verdant foliage. Numberless shrubs spring around, and interwoven with ivy clothe the walls and hang in festoons over the precipice. The edifice before us was an ancient tomb—the tomb of VIRGIL! ”

“ Wondering she gazed, until, penetrating further and further through the light, she saw in the depths of heaven a Temple like her own, only perfect, glorious beyond comparison, [Pg 105] and full—full of worshippers robed and singing like herself, and full of that wondrous radiance which streamed from the heavenly form she had seen. She laid her harp upon the shrine, and to her surprise the strings began to quiver of their own accord! An electric current united them to the harps in the heavenly temple, and they vibrated in exquisite harmonies the echo of the harmonies above. ”

“ First temples of God—where His presence still seems
To tremble like visions of angels in dreams;
Would that never thine echoes might wake to repeat
The voice of the white man, the tread of his feet ”

“ And in the temples are the sounds of music, and from each roof arises the savour of pleasant burning; and all that look at a cool temple, whichever temple they look at, or hear the hidden music, turn in to see whether it be indeed the End. ”

“ Haunting foreshadowings of the temple appear in the realm of imagination, in music, in architecture, in the untroubled kingdom of reason, and in the golden sunset magic of lyrics, where beauty shines and glows, remote from the touch of sorrow, remote from the fear of change, remote from the failures and disenchantments of the world of fact. ”

“ A shadow on the ground, a vapor in the air, an arrow speeding to the mark, an eagle hasting to the prey, a post hurrying past with despatches, a swift ship gliding out of sight over the misty horizon—these are the Scripture emblems of what we are. Every day is but a new stage in the pilgrim's progress—every act and every pulse another step toward the tomb. ”

“ They very kindly wished to entertain us with a species of circus performance, known as the dibâltig, a great equestrian feat, carried out in this case by some fifty Somalis on typical native ponies got up for the occasion—a veritable attempt to make silk purses out of sow’s ears—in trappings of red, and many tassels. Their riders were dressed in brilliantly dyed tobes of green and scarlet and blue, and each man carried a complete warrior’s kit of shield, spear, and short sword. ”