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Editor's Table, May 1852

From: Editor's Table
Creator:  A (author)
Date: May 1852
Publication: The Opal
Source: New York State Library

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Page 5:

58  

"Clapped their triumphant wings, and cried
"The glorious work is done."

59  

As the hymn is in very few books, we will quote it.

60  

Beyond the glittering starry skies,
Far as the eternal hills,
Yon heaven of heavens, with living light,
Our great Redeemer fills.

61  

Legions of angels strong and fair,
In countless armies shine,
And swell his praise with golden harps
Attuned to songs divine.

62  

Hail, Prince!" they cry, "for ever hail!
Whose unexampled love
Moved thee to quit these glorious realms
And royalties above."

63  

While he did condescend on earth
To suffer grief and pain,
They cast their honors at his feet,
And waited in his train.

64  

Through all his travels here below,
They did his steps attend;
Oft wondering how and where at last
The mystic scene would end.

65  

They saw his heart, transfixed with wounds
With love and grief ran o'er:
They saw him break the bars of death,
Which none e'er brake before.

66  

They brought his chariot from above,
To bear him to his throne;
Clapped their triumphant wings, and cried,
"The glorious work is done!"

67  

This is but a single instance of the sublime thoughts and aspirations which so often play over the insane mind. When the world, with its cares and perplexities, is shut out, when the soul is withdrawn from all terrestrial objects, by the inability of this "house of clay" to perform its ordinary functions, and the Author of our being wraps his arms of protection about us, and we live in the future, is it vain to say that like the Apostle "our lives are hid with God in Jesus Christ"? that "our conversation is in heaven? No doubt many of our brothers and sisters in this sad "house of our pilgrimage" on whom the world looks with compassionate regard because the silence of that night of intellect shrouds them, are often thus thinking on Him who in the lines of the Psalmist, said "Cast thy burthen on the Lord," and in connection with the foregoing we present the following rhapsody of one in whom the light of reason we are told, if shining, shines far down, too recedent for ordinary ken.

68  

"GOD -- I am encircled by those who trust friendship is not entirely begotten by man. In his extreme glory he wept. Not tears, but as humanity would say, He, incarnate, gave immortality to death. Imagine Divinity? Gather grapes of thorns? Unite Heaven and Hell! Go! But where are they? Where is eternity? Is Time past? Has Earth engrossed all of our desires? -- Shall we mortals enter the portals of day? Can you recall the spirits of those who have gone before you? Where are the friends who tabernacled with us in the flesh? They live. Will our spirits recommingle with theirs? Do we not recognize in all our transactions that Father of all? To be divorced from what seems most beloved, and I might say lost in the "Imis Fundis" (lowest depths) of iniquity is truly painful to human conception. "Why do we mourn departed friends"? Confide we in Him who was the Author and Giver of us? No man can serve two masters. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. How are the mighty fallen? The faces that have seen us will see us no more. Death has triumphed once, and he will ever remind us of those whose lives were for our good. The Angel bore the Message, and Him, we delighted to venerate, was enchained by the strong embrace of that mild but unerring Guardian. The Guide of so many Sheep sleepeth. The Cattle on a thousand Hills were His. The heathen in blindness will atone. The ice-bound Peaks of Greenland and the solitary wilds of Asia, the Deserts where the howling simoom sweeps his aeolion Strings, Burmah with her Pagodas and Juggernauts, China in her artless yet temporary Towers, shall harvest what is more precious than Rubies, Emeralds or Roses. We may yet reflect where, when, and how all have squandered the inestimable gifts of Him who is the only giver of inexplicable good. The Upas itself would flee in dismay at such deeds. Well might we exclaim, "Oh, me miserable," when death has warned us repeatedly that we are naught but mere automatons, choosing not to be guards at the temple of honesty. Nay, rather be reveling in the plains of disobedience, and unmindful that Omnipotence reigns. Rolling in the pride and pomp of Oriental ignorance, basking in the sunshine of prosperity, living to be blest, not proving ourselves by the stern mandates of Him who speaks and 'tis done. Angels only can gaze and wonder when they with Golden Lyres touch the Heavenly strings, and usher back to the fountain, those tried in the fiery furnace of affliction, and God exclaims, "well done good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee Ruler over many." What raptures must fill our bosoms. When; Oh! When shall we meet in Heaven?"

69  

Spiritual Rappings. -- We notice an article in the May number of Harper's Magazine, on this destructive popular delusion. -- While reading it we could not but feel deep satisfaction that this vicious mischievous thing was at length so seriously attacked, and its health and soul destroying evils so fully fairly exposed. We wish a copy of it could be placed in the hands of every reflecting man in the community, and especially do we wish, that it could be attentively read by deluded followers of this and its kindred errors -- mesmerism, clairvoyance, electro-magnetic-chemico-vital religion, this last a form of skepticism which is the legitimate offspring of these combined errors acting on illy-balanced minds. The views which the writer takes of the relations of all these popular delusions to skepticism in religion is fully sustained by facts, and is in remarkable contrast to those lately advanced by Henry James, Esq., of New-York.

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