TATORS OF HUMAN CONDUCT.
BY THE REV. H. WOODWARD, M.A.,

Rector of Fethard, Tipperary.

THERE is no passage of the kind, the justness and felicity of which have been more generally applauded, than that of our great dramatic poet

"All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players." This pregnant thought is capable of being expanded in various ways; and, amongst other trains of reflection, naturally suggests the following:-There is nothing perhaps more wounding to the natural pride and native ambition of the mind than to fancy, at least, that we are unsuitably placed in lifethat the part allotted us to act is below that rank which our talents and capabilities might fairly claim, and to which they might unpresumptuously aspire. It is no small trial to flesh and blood when we see men of inferior attainments raised above us. We look up, perhaps from amidst the dark shades of obscurity and the drudgeries of a struggling life, or it may be from the lowest depths of pining want and sorrow, and behold the favourites of fortune riding upon the high places of the earth, and basking in the sunshine of the world, envied, caressed, and flattered, while at he same time we feel that all intrinsic superiority is on our side. We know that this glitter is but the thin covering of a coarse and mean and narrow soul; while beneath the outward garb of poverty and depression, there breathes within our bosom a loftier spirit, forced as it were into an unnatural position, and struggling to escape

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deep dissatisfaction of the mind is much enhanced when we begin to reach that point at which it appears that our present allotment is fixed for life, and that things must now continue as they are to the end. In early youth we feel that we are still malleable, and that if Providence should raise us higher, we can easily take such new impressions as our change of circumstances may require. But when we are conscious of habits being so formed, that we are better suited to keep the blank we have drawn in the lottery of life than to ascend to the rank of those who hold its glittering prizes-that now it would be too late to acquire the modes, to become naturalized to the manners, of those in high station, so as to act our part with grace and ease if elevated to their level; there is, under these convictions, a dejection of spirit and rebellion of soul best known to those who would have things otherwise than God has ordered, and who oppose their will to the march of an almighty Providence: for experience alone can tell how thorough discontent can fester in the heart, and rankle in the breast which harbours it.

A truly pious friend, placed in both trying and humiliating circumstances, once told me that the burden was considerably lightened by the hope of better things to come, even here below. While comparatively young, and while paths of deliverance seemed not wholly closed, he felt the justice of that say-. ing, "The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity:" but when he began to have too good grounds for thinking that his present trials would terminate only with his life, and that those crosses, which to flesh and blood

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have to carry to the borders of the grave; when nature was deprived of every temporal and congenial hope, and when no apparent door of extrication opened, save that gate which leads to the world of spirits, my friend told me that when this conviction flashed upon his mind it almost overset his reason. However, in his case, man's extremity was God's opportunity. It drove him to a throne of grace: it forced him to cut the last cable which bound his affections to the world: it weaned his heart from earth, and was the instrument of rendering him what he was at the time of this disclosure-one of the best and happiest of men.

It is true that for misery and sin, and for pride, the main ingredient of both, there is an unfailing cure-there is a balm in Gilead, and a Physician there. The good Samaritan is at hand, and ever ready to apply his mollient medicines to the wounded heart, to still the throbbings of the breast, and to give peace where there was no peace. All these murmurings against a wise and gracious Providence are hushed to rest when we learn of him who was meek and lowly in heart when we take up his cross and press it to our bosom-when we die with him to the vanities of time, and open our eyes upon the dawning glories of eternity. Entering thus into the true sanctuary of God, we are taught lessons there which were too hard for us before." We no longer "fret ourselves because of the ungodly, neither are we envious against the evil-doers;" for "then understand we the end of these men, namely, how God doth set them in slippery places, and casteth them down, and destroyeth them." There also we learn that, through a vale of tears, and by rugged roads and paths of sorrow, the heirs of immortality pass onwards to their joyful resurrection, to live beneath the cloudless skies of a new heaven, and to taste the pure felicities of that land which God has prepared for them that love him.

The grand specific for pride is thus to look, with realizing faith, upon an invisible and crucified Redeemer. Nevertheless our weaknesses require every possible variety of aid; and truths, unheeded before, will often act with influence upon the mind, merely by being thrown into some new attitude, or by being clothed in some new dress. Thus, that lesson which it is the great object of both Providence and scripture in all their length and breadth to teach, namely, the utter vanity of temporal things, may possibly impress itself upon minds untaught till now; when cast in the mould of these simple words"All the world's a stage." This lively thought, if duly apprehended, would clear off many a

that, because we are low in life, we stand low in the estimate of heaven-doubts (for such there are, though rather misgivings of the heart than reasonings of the mind), that what we are here, in comparative circumstances, we shall be hereafter.

But let us trace this fine analogy. Each actor on the theatric boards performs his part before a double class of witnesses-the one his fellow-players composing the dramatis persona, the other the audience assembled in the house. But how different is the comparative rank of the rôle assigned him, as it is supposed to appear to the company who live and move upon the stage, or as it does appear to the multitude of mere spectators! In the former instance, he who comes forth in royal robes, or is called by some high sounding titles, is (I speak not now of moral worth) the great man, surrounded with all the magic and splendour of exalted station; on the other hand, the real hero of the piece-the offspring of the loftiest conceptions of the poet-is often, in this mimic world, placed in humble life-remarkable, perhaps, only for the crimes with which he is unjustly charged, or for the wrongs and injuries which are heaped on his defenceless head. But all this is entirely reversed in the judgment and estimate of the audience. To them the king, or prince, or duke, is a mere cipher--a peg on which to hang the history and fortunes of the man he scorns and tramples under foot. Such, it should be added (and here lies the main point of the analogy), such is the comparative view of the manager who assigns to the performers their several parts. He who acts the king is often the very lowest of the company, selected only because some glittering robe or spangled coat may happen to fit his person; while to some eminent man it falls to personate the suffering and the oppressed-the nian who bears with magnanimity

"The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

Thus it is upon the stage of actual life. Often may God's first-rate actor say, in the language of the prophet, "Thou hast made us the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people." In the view of his fellow-actors he is not unfrequently an object of contempt He is sometimes low in station, depressed by poverty, beneath the attention or observance of the children of prosperity.

and, scorn.

"The self-approving haughty world Scarce deigns to notice him; or, if she see, Deems him a cipher in the works of God."

Such does the heir of glory-such does the great agent in the schemes of Providenceoften seem to those who strut before him

upon the high places of the earth. Such did Moses appear to the king of Egypt when he said, "Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works? Get you unto your burdens." Such were the apostles in the eyes of their oppressors, when, bleeding with stripes, they stood before the face of the proud sanhedrim; and "departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus." Such was their blessed Master in the estimate of this apostate world, when the deep-toned language of his own depression was but the echo of that scorn and contumely which compassed him on every side. "Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them: they cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, he trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him." But how did these champions of heaven appear in the view of that grand audience—that august assembly-those invisible spectators before whom the actors upon this earth perform their several parts? What applauses did they not win from the cloud of witnesses that encompass us-from the innumerable company of angels who "look into" our concerns-from the everpresent and all-seeing God in whom we live, and move, and have our being? What, in their estimate, were the meekness, the patience, the long-suffering which it was Moses's part to exercise, and which filled perhaps the infatuated breast of Pharaoh with a momentary sense of triumph? They saw the true constituents of intrinsic greatness-the elements of that moral power which fitted him as a mighty agent in the hands of Providence. His short-lived "afflictions with the people of God" were, in their view, but the rugged steps by which alone he could ascend to the recompence of the reward. Again, how was it with those apostles who 66 were made a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men?" To mere eyes of flesh they were as the filth of the world, and as the offscouring of all things." Nevertheless, what was the verdict of that invisible assembly before whom they performed their daily miracles of patience?-when, "being reviled, they blessed; being persecuted, they suffered it; being defamed, they entreated?" Were these triumphs over all that is selfish in man's nature-their taking joyfully the spoiling of their goods, their rejoicing in sorrow, and glorying in tribulations-was all this to act a

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second-rate part upon the stage of life, or to sustain a subordinate character before those high intelligences who sit in heavenly places, and fill the amphitheatre above? No: their estimate was but a loud amen to that voice which said "Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations; and I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

But if we would see in full contrast how differently the same things seem to earthly and to heavenly witnesses, we must look to the cross of Christ. Spat upon, scourged, and buffeted-numbered with the transgressors, and placed between two public malefactorsdisowned by his acquaintances, and deserted by his friends-blackened with every stain which can degrade the character, and accused of every crime which can render man contemptible or hateful-convicted, by the solemn sentence of the law, of blasphemy against God, and that sentence re-echoed by the voice of a whole people; it was in that last stage of human misery, and lowest depth of degra tion, that he " spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly;" out in the open daylight of eternity-before angels and archangels and all the company of heaven-triumphing over the legions of hell and the hosts of darkness in the death of the cross. "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our grifs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth." Such was the earthly portrait of him who to heavenly spectators was the brightness of the Father's glory--the express image of his person. Thus was the incarnate Redeemer "a cloud and darkness to them, but a pillar of fire to these." Nay, in exact proportion as he was humbled in human calculation, did he rise in the scale of heaven; cherubim and seraphim learning new songs of adoration from the cross: nay, the love of his eternal Father burning towards him with still intenser fire, "because he laid down his life that he might take it again."

If, then, we all perform our parts before two classes of spectators-the one, whose approval or disapproval is in unison with the mind of God, and must stamp our destinies for ever; the other, whose censure or ap plause "is even a vapour, that appeareth for

a short time, and then vanisheth away"-of what incalculable importance is it to our highest interests, that, comparatively regardless of what our fellow-mortals think or say, we keep a constant eye to the gloriou sassembly who surround the stage-to the brilliant company who look dewn upon the chequered scenes of human action. Nay, how essential is it to our present happiness to pierce the clouds which hem us in; to dissipate the delusions which make us, in spite of all our theories, feel that nothing exists but what we see-nothing lives but what wears the livery of flesh and blood; and to believe with realizing conviction and waking certainty that this world is not our all-that we shall soon be let out upon a wider plain, and breathe a freer air; nay, that we are now inhabitants of a more extended sphere-that boundless space and universal nature are all around us that there is a church above, "bound in the bundle of life" with the church below-that angels are at every moment as cending and descending by that mystical ladder whose bottom is resting upon the earth, and whose top is leaning against the battlements of heaven. How essential, I say, to our present happiness is it to burst this bubble that encircles us, and to let the daystar dawn, and the reality of things appear! This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. It is the introduction of the soul to scenes like these, which delivers it from the solitude, or worse than solitude, of this dim spot which men call earth. Once admitted to this fellowship, and we shall never want an audience before whom to act our part. Nay, let our lot be rather to suffer than to act; let banishment from all we love, and all that interests us, be our portion; let the psalmist's complaint be ours" My lovers and friends hast thou put away from me, and hid mine acquaintance out of my sight;" let our experience amply testify of the world, as it assuredly will do if we want her aid, that the wretched she forsakes, and "swift on her downy pinions flies from woe;" let us be "made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights be appointed to us;" let lingering pains, and pining sickness, and withering old age, chain us to cur deserted couch; let nature whisper to us that we are "clean forgotten, as a dead man cut of mind"-that we are "become like a broken vessel”—that we are cumberers of the ground, burdens to our friends, to be salt that has lost its savour, good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men-in this lowest depth of gloom and of fancied solitude, let faith uplift her glass from earth to heaven, and what living pictures, what brilliant exhibitions burst upon the view! We exclaim at once with Jacob-"This is God's host." Like

the same patriarch, we awake as it were out of sleep, and say-" Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not; this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."

But

We are not made for solitude. It is part of our original constitution, and bound up in the very essence of our being, to desire the notice, to value the approval, and to thirst for the applause of some witness; and, though this great moral instinct tends supremely unto God, it does not point exclusively to that one glorious object. In this, as well as in other respects, there are propensities in man which prove that, while his full felicity can be found in God alone, he is found to experience a sweet complacency in the interchanges of a more equal love-in cherishing and being cherished, in valuing and being valued, by those who were made by the same hand that he was-who are the product of the same mind that he is-who are children of the same Father that he is—who reflect back the image of the same great Archetype that he does-and of whom God pronounces, as he did of us in our primeval innocence, that they are "very good." we are not left to our own imaginings upon this point. The whole principle is involved in those words spoken, be it observed, when man walked with his Creator in amity and filial confidence, amidst the flowers of paradise: the Lord God said-" It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." Hence we see how deeply seated in our nature is the desire of companionship, and dread of solitary existence. Hence the anxiety that we should attract attention, and play our parts before spectators who observe our conduct. Hence the consolation to those whom man despises, of knowing and feeling that they "have greater witness than that of" beings who see with mortal eyes. Hence the life-giving energy of that faith which, when the sun of this world goes down, cheers the night, and illuminates the arch above with other suns, and draws out upon the plains of heaven stars as the sand on the sea-shore innumerable. Hence, in a word, the blessedness of realizing to ourselves those glorious prospects which the apostle thus opens to the believing soul— "Ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God-the heavenly Jerusalem; and to an innumerable company of angels; to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven; and to God, the judge of all; and to the spirits of just men made perfect; and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant; and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel."