A LESSON FOR CREED-MAKERS.
By James Russell Lowell
Never, surely, was a holier man
Than Ambrose, since the world began:
With diet spare and raiment thin,
He shielded himself from the Father of sin;
With bed of iron and scourging oft,
His heart to God's hand as wax made soft. Through earnest prayer, and watching long,
He sought to know 'twixt right and wrong;
Much wrestling with the blessed word
To make it yield the sense of the Lord,
That he might build a storm-proof creed
To fold the flock in at their need. At last he builded a perfect faith
Fenced round about with, “The Lord thus saith.”
To himself he fitted the doorway's size,
Melted the light to the need of his eyes,
And knew by a sure and inward sign,
That the work of his fingers was divine. Then Ambrose said, “All those shall die
The eternal death, who believe not as I;”
And some were boiled, some burned in fire,
Some sawn in twain, that his heart's desire
For the good of men's souls might be satisfied,
By the drawing of all to the righteous side. One day as Ambrose was seeking the truth,
In his lonely walk he saw a youth
Resting himself in the shade of a tree:
It had never been his lot to see
So shining a face; and the good man thought,
'Twere a pity he couldn't believe as he ought. So he sat himself by the young man's side,
And the state of his soul with questions plied;
But the heart of the stranger was hardened indeed,
Nor received the stamp of the one true creed;
And the spirit of Ambrose waxed sore to find
Such face in front of so narrow a mind. “As each beholds in cloud and fire
The shape that answers his own desire,
So each,” said the youth, “in the law shall find,
The figure and feature of his own mind;
And to each in his mercy has God allowed
His several pillar of fire and cloud.” The soul of Ambrose burned with zeal
And holy wrath, for the young man's weal.
“Believest thou this, most wretched youth,”
Cried he, “a dividual essence of truth?
I fear me thy heart is too cramped with sin
To take the Lord and his glory in.” Now there bubbled beside them, where they stood,
A fountain of waters, sweet and good;
The youth to the streamlet's bank drew near,
Saying, “Ambrose, thou maker of creeds, look here!”
Six vases of crystal then he took
And set them along by the edge of the brook. “As into these vessels the water I pour,
There shall one hold less, the other more,
And the water, unchanged, in every case
Shall put on the figure of the vase.
O thou who wouldst unity make through strife,
Canst thou fit this sign to the Water of Life?” When Ambrose looked up he stood alone;
The youth, and the stream, and the vases were gone;
But he knew by a sense of humble grace
He had talked with an angel face to face,
And felt his heart changed inwardly,
As he fell on his knees beneath the tree.