It Is Comparatively A Faint
And Reflected Beauty That Is Admired, Not An Essential And
Intrinsic One.
It is because the old are weak, feel their
mortality, and think that they have measured the strength of man.
They will not boast; they will be frank and humble.
Well, let
them have the few poor comforts they can keep. Humility is still
a very human virtue. They look back on life, and so see not into
the future. The prospect of the young is forward and unbounded,
mingling the future with the present. In the declining day the
thoughts make haste to rest in darkness, and hardly look forward
to the ensuing morning. The thoughts of the old prepare for
night and slumber. The same hopes and prospects are not for him
who stands upon the rosy mountain-tops of life, and him who
expects the setting of his earthly day.
I must conclude that Conscience, if that be the name of it, was
not given us for no purpose, or for a hinderance. However
flattering order and expediency may look, it is but the repose of
a lethargy, and we will choose rather to be awake, though it be
stormy, and maintain ourselves on this earth and in this life, as
we may, without signing our death-warrant. Let us see if we
cannot stay here, where He has put us, on his own
conditions. Does not his law reach as far as his light? The
expedients of the nations clash with one another, only the
absolutely right is expedient for all.
There are some passages in the Antigone of Sophocles, well known
to scholars, of which I am reminded in this connection. Antigone
has resolved to sprinkle sand on the dead body of her brother
Polynices, notwithstanding the edict of King Creon condemning to
death that one who should perform this service, which the Greeks
deemed so important, for the enemy of his country; but Ismene,
who is of a less resolute and noble spirit, declines taking part
with her sister in this work, and says, -
"I, therefore, asking those under the earth to consider me, that
I am compelled to do thus, will obey those who are placed in
office; for to do extreme things is not wise."
ANTIGONE
"I would not ask you, nor would you, if you still wished, do it
joyfully with me. Be such as seems good to you. But I will bury
him. It is glorious for me doing this to die. I beloved will
lie with him beloved, having, like a criminal, done what is holy;
since the time is longer which it is necessary for me to please
those below, than those here, for there I shall always lie. But
if it seems good to you, hold in dishonor things which are
honored by the gods."
ISMENE
"I indeed do not hold them in dishonor; but to act in opposition
to the citizens I am by nature unable."
Antigone being at length brought before King Creon, he asks, -
"Did you then dare to transgress these laws?"
ANTIGONE
"For it was not Zeus who proclaimed these to me, nor Justice who
dwells with the gods below; it was not they who established these
laws among men. Nor did I think that your proclamations were so
strong, as, being a mortal, to be able to transcend the unwritten
and immovable laws of the gods. For not something now and
yesterday, but forever these live, and no one knows from what
time they appeared. I was not about to pay the penalty of
violating these to the gods, fearing the presumption of any man.
For I well knew that I should die, and why not? even if you had
not proclaimed it."
This was concerning the burial of a dead body.
The wisest conservatism is that of the Hindoos. "Immemorial
custom is transcendent law," says Menu. That is, it was the
custom of the gods before men used it. The fault of our New
England custom is that it is memorial. What is morality but
immemorial custom? Conscience is the chief of conservatives.
"Perform the settled functions," says Kreeshna in the
Bhagvat-Geeta; "action is preferable to inaction. The journey of
thy mortal frame may not succeed from inaction." - "A man's own
calling with all its faults, ought not to be forsaken. Every
undertaking is involved in its faults as the fire in its
smoke." - "The man who is acquainted with the whole, should not
drive those from their works who are slow of comprehension, and
less experienced than himself." - "Wherefore, O Arjoon, resolve to
fight," is the advice of the God to the irresolute soldier who
fears to slay his best friends. It is a sublime conservatism; as
wide as the world, and as unwearied as time; preserving the
universe with Asiatic anxiety, in that state in which it appeared
to their minds. These philosophers dwell on the inevitability
and unchangeableness of laws, on the power of temperament and
constitution, the three goon or qualities, and the circumstances
of birth and affinity. The end is an immense consolation;
eternal absorption in Brahma. Their speculations never venture
beyond their own table-lands, though they are high and vast as
they. Buoyancy, freedom, flexibility, variety, possibility,
which also are qualities of the Unnamed, they deal not with. The
undeserved reward is to be earned by an everlasting moral
drudgery; the incalculable promise of the morrow is, as it were,
weighed. And who will say that their conservatism has not been
effectual? "Assuredly," says a French translator, speaking of
the antiquity and durability of the Chinese and Indian nations,
and of the wisdom of their legislators, "there are there some
vestiges of the eternal laws which govern the world."
Christianity, on the other hand, is humane, practical, and, in a
large sense, radical. So many years and ages of the gods those
Eastern sages sat contemplating Brahm, uttering in silence the
mystic "Om," being absorbed into the essence of the Supreme
Being, never going out of themselves, but subsiding farther and
deeper within; so infinitely wise, yet infinitely stagnant;
until, at last, in that same Asia, but in the western part of it,
appeared a youth, wholly unforetold by them, - not being absorbed
into Brahm, but bringing Brahm down to earth and to mankind; in
whom Brahm had awaked from his long sleep, and exerted himself,
and the day began, - a new avatar.
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