ooked
at--alleviated--repented--expiated--atoned for--now! In the olden time,
such was the prostration of the "million," that it was only when seen in
high places that even Guilt and Sin were felt to be appalling;--Remorse
was the privilege of Kings and Princes--and the Furies shook their
scourges but before the eyes of the high-born, whose crimes had brought
eclipse across the ancestral glories of some ancient line.

But we now know that there is but one origin from which flow all
disastrous issues, alike to the king and the beggar. It is sin that does
"with the lofty equalise the low;" and the same deep-felt community of
guilt and groans which renders Religion awful, has given to poetry in a
lower degree something of the same character--has made it far more
profoundly tender, more overpoweringly pathetic, more humane and
thoughtful far, more humble as well as more high, like Christian Charity
more comprehensive; nay, we may say, like Christian Faith, felt by those
to whom it is given to be from on high; and if not utterly destroyed,
darkened and miserably weakened by a wicked or vicious life.

We may affirm, then, that as human nature has been so greatly purified
and elevated by the Christian Religion, Poetry, which deals with human
nature in all its dearest and most intimate concerns, must have partaken
of that purity and that elevation--and that it may now be a far holier
and more sacred inspiration, than when it was fabled to be the gift of
Apollo and the Muses. We may not circumscribe its sphere. To what
cerulean heights shall not the wing of Poetry soar? Into what
dungeon-gloom shall she not descend? If such be her powers and
privileges, shall she not be the servant and minister of Religion?

If from moral fictions of life Religion be altogether excluded, then it
would indeed be a waste of words to show that they must be worse than
worthless. They must be, not imperfect merely, but false; and not false
merely, but calumnious against human nature. The agonies of passion
fling men down to the dust on their knees, or smite them motionless as
stone statues, sitting alone in their darkened chambers of despair. But
sooner or later, all eyes, all hearts, look for comfort to God. The
coldest metaphysical analyst could not avoid _that_, in his sage
enumeration of "each particular hair" that is twisted and untwisted by
him into a sort of moral tie; and surely the impassioned and
philosophical poet will not, dare not, for