Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/135

 forgot thee when a living fell vacant? I have known Christians, Moslems, Methodists,—and, alas, also reverend irreverent Apes by the Dead Sea!

O modern reader, dark as this Letter may seem, I will advise thee to make an attempt towards understanding it. There is in it a ‘tradition of humanity’ worth all the rest. Indisputable certificate that man once had a soul; that man once walked with God,—his little Life a sacred island girdled with Eternities and Godhoods. Was it not a time for heroes? Heroes were then possible. I say, thou shalt understand that Letter; thou also, looking out into a too brutish world, wilt then exclaim with Oliver Cromwell,—with Hebrew David, as old Mr. Rouse of Truro, and the Presbyterian populations, still sing him in the Northern Kirks

Yes, there is a tone in the soul of this Oliver that holds of the Perennial. With a noble sorrow, with a noble patience, he longs towards the mark of the prize of the high calling. He, I think, has chosen the better part. The world and its wild tumults,—if they will but let him alone! Yet he too will venture, will do and suffer for God’s cause, if the call come. What man with better reason? He hath had plentiful wages beforehand; snatched out of darkness into marvellous light: he will never earn the least mite. Annihilation of self; Selbsttödtung, as Novalis calls it; casting yourself at the footstool of God’s throne, ‘To live or to die for ever; as Thou wilt, not as I will.’ Brother, hadst thou never, in any form, such moments in thy history? ‘Thou knowest them not, even by credible rumour? Well, thy earthly path was peaceabler, I suppose. But the Highest was never in thee, the Highest will never come out of thee. Thou shalt at best abide by the stuff; as cherished housedog, guard the stuff,—perhaps with enormous gold-collars and provender: