"
And the burden of the song that interprets their symphony is this:--
"Justice and Truth again Shall down return to men.
Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
Mercy will sit between,
Throned in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering,
And Heaven, as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall."
The hope of universal unity has been born, cradled in the rude manger
of labor; nurtured by charity, ever virgin; worshipped by shepherds,
guarding humble, humane thoughts, like flocks in the fold of their
hearts; it has sat with the doctors in the temple, unsullied by
timidity and prudence, and has astonished them at its profound doctrine
of unbounded love; it has grown in favor with God and man, and answered
to its half doubting, half hoping parents of the church and state,
"Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" and now is it
driven away into the wilderness of poverty and hard toil, of loneliness
and mortification, to be tempted of the devil.
Let us first consider awhile these temptations; then review the forty
days' meditation upon the divine mission of this principle of perfect
love; and so be ready to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is
at hand.
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