Come to me, 0 ye children! And whisper in my ear
What the birds and the winds are singing In your sunny atmosphere.
For what are all our contrivings,
And the wisdom of our books, When compared with your caresses,
And the gladness of your looks ?
Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said; For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.*
^ " We are His poem ! " Each Christian age has been a canto of it ; each Christian life and death a word. Its strains have been pealing down the centuries, and "though set to a tune which admits of such endless variations that it is often difficult to detect the original melody amid the clash of the chords that conceal it,
* 0. Jerdan, Manna for Voung Pilgrims, 102.
38 GOD'S WORKMANSHIP
it will eventually be resolved, through many a swift modulation and startling cadence, back to the perfect key." ^
^ Biographers of "Wordsworth have marked the exact period when his genius reached its height, and after that the glory came only at intervals, and the real poems were rare. And because a true poem is so rare a thing, it has always been appraised as the highest form of literature. Many great books come — and go ; but a true poem is as fresh after long centuries as when it was first written, "Poesy never waxeth old," and knows no decay. It knows no decay because it is permeated with the spirit of beauty ; because it is the enduring monument of a combination of fine gifts, whose final result is a thing of beauty and a joy for ever. That is what a poem is, and St. Paul says that we are the ex- pression of the mind of God, as the In Memoriam is the expression of the full mind and heart of Tennyson. We are God's Poems. ^
If thou hadst been a poet! On my heart
The thought flashed sudden, burning through the weft
Of life, and with too much I sank bereft.
Up to my eyes the tears, with sudden start.
Thronged blinding: then the veil would rend and part!
The husk of vision would in twain be cleft!
Thy hidden soul in naked beauty left,
I should behold thee. Nature, as thou art!
0 poet Jesus! at thy holy feet
1 should have lien, sainted with listening; My pulses answering ever, in rhythmic beat, The stroke of each triumphant melody's wing, Creating, as it moved, by being sweet;
My soul thy harp, thy word the quivering string.^
2. The poem depends entirely upon the poet for its creation. It is the unveiling of the deepest and most intimate secrecies of his heart. His own image is projected over every page, and it is the poignant personal element in poetry that makes it so beautiful, and gives it its enduring charm. Men, then, are God's poems. The intimacies of God's heart are expressed in man — God's highest thoughts, God's deepest emotions. The prayer of Moses was that the beauty of God might rest upon him. When a man is finished at last in the likeness of Christ, God's sense of beauty is
1 H. G. Miller, St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, 93.
* W. J. Dawson, The Divine Challenge, 111.
* George M£^cDonald, " Copcerning Jesvis" {Poetical Works, i. 255).
EPHESIANS II. TO 39
satisfied in him, God's art has found its finest expression and the beauty of God does rest upon him. The true Christian is God's poem in a world of prose, God's beauty in a world of gloom, God's fine and finished art in a world where men forget beauty, and are careless si moral symmetry and spiritual grace.
^ There is no bioplasm in the spiritual world. By no means or contrivance can a soul live the life of God without the direct interposition of the Holy Spirit. You may galvanize a dead bird into a flutter, but there is no life in a galvanic shock. The Gospel, which is such a rich exhibition of pathos, beauty, and prospect, when its truths are naturally presented, may create emotion, but it cannot give the new heart by outward experi- ment. Life comes from life, and not from declarations of truths. We may touch and move the external nature, but God alone can give the new life.^
^ I remember once seeing a little fountain playing in the room of a house in which I was staying. I went near to examine it and heard the click and whirr of machinery ! The fountain was the product of a mechanical contrivance ; it went by clock- work. It was wound up and played for a little while and then sank into stagnancy again. How different from the spring ! One plays in feverish spasms; the other flows in restful persistence. " Not of works " : that is the manufactured fountain. " We are his workmanship " : that is the life of the spring. The Christian life is quietly natural ; it is the creation of the ceaseless energy of God.2
3. The new creation is " in Christ Jesus." One of the earliest and most majestic names of God is Maker, Creator. The Psalmist says, " Thy hands have made me and fashioned me." We wear the image of the earthly Adam by our natural descent, and in this sense we are the creatures of God. But the first creation has been marred, and we need to be created again by being brought into connexion, relationship, and union with the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. We are created in Christ Jesus.