e is no doubt that the works of man's hands will also afford many
true symbols; but I do think that, in proportion as a man gives himself
to those instead of studying Truth's wardrobe of forms in nature, so will
he decline from the high calling of the poet. George Herbert was too
great to be himself much injured by the narrowness of the field whence he
gathered his symbols; but his song will be the worse for it in the ears
of all but those who, having lost sight of or having never beheld the
oneness of the God whose creation exists in virtue of his redemption,
feel safer in a low-browed crypt than under "the high embowed roof."

When the desire after system or order degenerates from a need into a
passion, or ruling idea, it closes, as may be seen in many women who are
especial house-keepers, like an unyielding skin over the mind, to the
death of all development from impulse and aspiration. The same thing
holds in the church: anxiety about order and system will kill the life.
This did not go near to being the result with George Herbert: his life
was hid with Christ in God; but the influence of his _profession_, as
distinguished from his work, was hurtful to his calling as a poet. He of
all men would scorn to claim social rank for spiritual service; he of all
men would not commit the blunder of supposing that prayer and praise are
that service of God: they are _prayer_ and _praise_, not _service_; he
knew that God can be served only through loving ministration to his sons
and daughters, all needy of commonest human help: but, as the most devout
of clergymen will be the readiest to confess, there is even a danger to
their souls in the unvarying recurrence of the outward obligations of
their service; and, in like manner, the poet will fare ill if the
conventions from which the holiest system is not free send him soaring
with sealed eyes. George Herbert's were but a little blinded thus; yet
something, we must allow, his poetry was injured by his profession. All
that I say on this point, however, so far from diminishing his praise,
adds thereto, setting forth only that he was such a poet as might have
been greater yet, had the divine gift had free course. But again I rebuke
myself and say, "Thank God for George Herbert."

To rid our spiritual palates of the clinging flavour of criticism, let me
choose another song from his precious legacy--one less read, I presume,
than many. It shows his tendency to asceticism--the fancy of f