ARGUMENT.

State of feeling produced by the foregoing Narrative. — A Delief in a superintending Providence the only adequate support under affliction. - Wanderer's ejaculation.-Acknowledges the difficulty of a lively faith. Hence immoderate sorrow. — Exhortations. How received. — Wanderer applies his discourse to that other cause of dejection in the Solitary's mind. Disappointment from the French Revolution. States grounds of hope, and insists on the necessity of patience and fortitude with respect to the course of great revolutions. Knowledge the source of tranquillity. - Rural Solitude favor able to knowledge of the inferior Creatures; Study of their habits and ways recommended; exhortation to bodily exertion and communion with Nature. Morbid Solitude pitiable.. Superstition better than apathy. - Apathy and destitution un known in the infancy of society. The various modes of Religion prevented it. Illustrated in the Jewish, Persian, Baby lonian, Chaldæan, and Grecian modes of belief. - Solitary interposes.-Wanderer points out the influence of religious and imaginative feeling in the humble ranks of society, illustrated from present and past times.. These principles tend to recall exploded superstitions and Popery. - Wanderer rebuts this charge, and contrasts the dignities of the Imagination with the presumptuous littleness of certain modern Philosophers.

--

Recommends other light and guides. - Asserts the power of

the Soul to regenerate herself; Solitary asks how. - Reply.Personal appeal. - Exhortation to activity of body renewed.

- How to commune with Nature. -Wanderer concludes with a legitimate union of the imagination, affections, understanding, and reason. Effect of his discourse. - Evening: Return to the Cottage.

DESPONDENCY CORRECTED

HERE closed the Tenant of that lonely vale
His mournful narrative, commenced in pain,
In pain commenced, and ended without peace:
Yet tempered, not unfrequently, with strains
Of native feeling, grateful to our minds;
And yielding surely some relief to his,
While we sat listening with compassion due.
A pause of silence followed; then, with voice
That did not falter, though the heart was moved,
The Wanderer said:

"One adequate support

For the calamities of mortal life

Exists, one only; an assured belief
That the procession of our fate, howe'er
Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being
Of infinite benevolence and power;
Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to good.
-The darts of anguish fix not where the seat
Of suffering hath been thoroughly fortified

By acquiescence in the Will supreme
For time and for eternity; by faith,
Faith absolute in God, including hope,
And the defence that lies in boundless love
Of his perfections; with habitual dread
Of aught unworthily conceived, endured
Impatiently, ill-done, or left undone,
To the dishonor of his holy name.

Soul of our Souls, and Safeguard of the world!
Sustain, thou only canst, the sick of heart;
Restore their languid spirits, and recall
Their lost affections unto thee and thine!"

Then, as we issued from that covert nook, He thus continued, lifting up his eyes

To heaven:

"How beautiful this dome of sky And the vast hills, in fluctuation fixed

At thy command, how awful! Shall the Soul, Human and rational, report of thee

Even less than these?- Be mute who will, who can,
Yet I will praise thee with impassioned voice:
My lips, that may forget thee in the crowd,
Cannot forget thee here; where thou hast built,
For thy own glory, in the wilderness!

Me didst thou constitute a priest of thine,
In such a temple as we now behold

Reared for thy presence: therefore am I bound

To worship, here, and everywhere, as one

Not doomed to ignorance, though forced to tread, From childhood up, the ways of poverty;

From unreflecting ignorance preserved,

And from debasement rescued. - By thy grace
The particle divine remained unquenched;
And, 'mid the wild weeds of a rugged soil,
Thy bounty caused to flourish deathless flowers,
From paradise transplanted: wintry age
Impends; the frost will gather round my heart;
If the flowers wither, I am worse than dead!

Come, labor, when the worn-out frame requires
Perpetual sabbath; come, disease and want;
And sad exclusion through decay of sense;
But leave me unabated trust in thee, -
And let thy favor, to the end of life,
Inspire me with ability to seek

Repose and hope among eternal things,

Father of heaven and earth! and I am rich,

And will possess my portion in content!

"And what are things eternal?-powers depart,"

The gray-haired Wanderer steadfastly replied.
Answering the question which himself had asked,
"Possessions vanish, and opinions change,
And passions hold a fluctuating seat:

But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken,
And subject neither to eclipse nor wane,

Duty exists; immutably survive,

For our support, the measures and the forms

Which an abstract intelligence supplies;

Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not.

Of other converse which mind, soul, and heart, Do, with united urgency, require,

What more that may not perish?

source,

Thou, dread

Prime, self-existing cause and end of all
That in the scale of being fill their place;
Above our human region, or below,

Set and sustained; -- thou, who didst wrap the cloud
Of infancy around us, that thyself,

Therein, with our simplicity awhile

Mightst hold, on earth, communion undisturbed;
Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,
Or from its death-like void, with punctual care,
And touch as gentle as the morning light,
Restor'st us, daily, to the powers of sense
And reason's steadfast rule, - thou, thou alone
Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits,
Which thou includest, as the sea her waves:
For adoration thou endur'st; endure
For consciousness the motions of thy will;
For apprehension, those transcendent truths
Of the pure intellect, that stand as laws
(Submission constituting strength and power)
Even to thy Being's infinite majesty !
This universe shall pass away,

a work Glorious! because the shadow of thy might, A step, or link, for intercourse with thee. Ah! if the time must come, in which my feet No more shall stray where meditation leads, By flowing stream, through wood, or craggy wild,