truggle, godlike daring, godlike suffering, godlike martyrdom;
the very conception which was so foreign to the mythologies of any other
race--save that of the Jews, and perhaps of our own Teutonic
forefathers--did prepare, must have prepared, men to receive as most
rational and probable, as the satisfaction of their highest instincts,
the idea of a Being in whom all those partial rays culminated in clear,
pure light; of a Being at once utterly human and utterly divine; who by
struggle, suffering, self-sacrifice, without a parallel, achieved a
victory over circumstance and all the dark powers which beleaguer man
without a parallel likewise.

Take, as an example, the figure which you know best--the figure of
Antigone herself--devoting herself to be entombed alone, for the sake of
love and duty. Love of a brother, which she can only prove, alas! by
burying his corpse. Duty to the dead, an instinct depending on no
written law, but springing out of the very depths of those blind and yet
sacred monitions which prove that the true man is not an animal, but a
spirit; fulfilling her holy purpose, unchecked by fear, unswayed by her
sisters' entreaties. Hardening her heart magnificently till her fate is
sealed; and then after proving her godlike courage, proving the
tenderness of her womanhood by that melodious wail over her own untimely
death and the loss of marriage joys, which some of you must know from the
music of Mendelssohn, and which the late Dean Milman has put into English
thus--

Come, fellow-citizens, and see
The desolate Antigone.
On the last path her steps shall tread,
Set forth, the journey of the dead,
Watching, with vainly lingering gaze,
Her last, last sun's expiring rays,

Never to see it, never more,
For down to Acheron's dread shore,
A living victim am I led
To Hades' universal bed.
To my dark lot no bridal joys
Belong, nor e'er the jocund noise
Of hymeneal chant shall sound for me,
But death, cold death, my only spouse shall be.

Oh tomb! Oh bridal chamber! Oh deep-delved
And strongly-guarded mansion! I descend
To meet in your dread chambers all my kindred,
Who in dark multitudes have crowded down
Where Proserpine received the dead. But I,
The last, and oh how few more miserable,
Go down, or ere my sands of life are run.

And let me ask you whether the contemplation of such a self-sacrifice
should draw you,