e suppress?
The oracle vouchsafed from Heaven disguise?
Nay, as one crying in the wilderness,
Where none else hearken, to the vacant air
And stolid mountains utters his distress,
E'en so will I too cry aloud, 'Prepare
Before Him the Lord's way. Make His path straight,'
Nor heed though none regard me, nor forbear
Though all revile, but patiently await
Till, like light breath that panting meads exhale,
And scornful zephyrs lightly dissipate,
But which, full surely, down the echoing vale,
Shall roll with sounding current, swift and loud,
My slighted message likewise shall prevail,
Entering the heart of many a mourner, bowed
Beneath despair, and with inspiring voice
Calling to hope to cleave her midnight cloud,
And bidding grief, in hope's new dawn, rejoice.

This is a creed which long since came to me after earnest inward
communings, and which, though subsequent reflection has in some few
particulars modified it, I still in substance hold, clinging to it with
a grateful consciousness of ever-multiplying obligations. For in it the
soul has free scope for its loftiest aspirations and its widest and
deepest sympathies, strongest incentives to zeal, surest guidance for
activity, solace in every distress, support under every difficulty,
added cause for exultation in every success, renewed resolution in every
defeat. Still, it is here offered, not as ascertained truth, but merely
as a sample of those guesses at truth by which alone ordinary mortals
need hope to promote the common cause of humanity in any of its higher
bearings. Such guesses, however, when harmonising with all the
conditions of their subject-matter, may fairly claim to be provisionally
regarded as truths--nay, to be adopted as working hypotheses until
superseded by new hypotheses capable of doing the same work better; in
which supercession none ought to rejoice, nor, if sincere truth-seekers,
will rejoice, more cordially than the propounders of the discredited
doctrines. It is in this spirit and with these reservations that the
articles of faith above recited are submitted for consideration. How
much soever they may fall short of the truth, they are, I feel, in the
absence of any nearer approach to the truth, capable of rendering
excellent service. However faintly and hazily the outlines of Deity be
shown in them, the Deity whom they so imperfectly delineate is yet one
to whom may justly be ascribed glo