To give the justice we claim for ourselves is, if there be a Christ, the law of Christ, to obey which is eternally better than truest theory.
I should like to give many of the hymns of Dr.Faber.Some of them are grand, others very lovely, and some, of course, to my mind considerably repulsive.

He seems to me to go wrong nowhere in originating--he produces nothing unworthy except when he reproduces what he never could have entertained but for the pressure of acknowledged authority.

Even such things, however, he has enclosed in pearls, as the oyster its incommoding sand-grains.
His hymn on _The Greatness of God_ is profound; that on _The Will of God_ is very wise; that to _The God of my Childhood_ is full of quite womanly tenderness: all are most simple in speech, reminding us in this respect of John Mason.

In him, no doubt, as in all of his class, we find traces of that sentimentalism in the use of epithets--small words, as distinguished from homely, applied to great things--of which I have spoken more than once; but criticism is not to be indulged in the reception of great gifts--of such a gift as this, for instance:-- THE ETERNITY OF GOD.
O Lord! my heart is sick, Sick of this everlasting change; And life runs tediously quick Through its unresting race and varied range: Change finds no likeness to itself in Thee, And wakes no echo in Thy mute eternity.
Dear Lord! my heart is sick Of this perpetual lapsing time, So slow in grief, in joy so quick, Yet ever casting shadows so sublime: Time of all creatures is least like to Thee, And yet it is our share of Thine eternity.
Oh change and time are storms For lives so thin and frail as ours; For change the work of grace deforms With love that soils, and help that overpowers; And time is strong, and, like some chafing sea, It seems to fret the shores of Thine eternity.
Weak, weak, for ever weak! We cannot hold what we possess; Youth cannot find, age will not seek,-- Oh weakness is the heart's worst weariness: But weakest hearts can lift their thoughts to Thee; It makes us strong to think of Thine eternity.
Thou hadst no youth, great God! An Unbeginning End Thou art; Thy glory in itself abode, And still abides in its own tranquil heart: No age can heap its outward years on Thee: Dear God! Thou art Thyself Thine own eternity! Without an end or bound Thy life lies all outspread in light; Our lives feel Thy life all around, Making our weakness strong, our darkness bright; Yet is it neither wilderness nor sea, But the calm gladness of a full eternity.
Oh Thou art very great To set Thyself so far above! But we partake of Thine estate, Established in Thy strength and in Thy love: That love hath made eternal room for me In the sweet vastness of its own eternity.
Oh Thou art very meek To overshade Thy creatures thus! Thy grandeur is the shade we seek; To be eternal is Thy use to us: Ah, Blessed God! what joy it is to me To lose all thought of self in Thine eternity.
Self-wearied, Lord! I come; For I have lived my life too fast: Now that years bring me nearer home Grace must be slowly used to make it last; When my heart beats too quick I think of Thee, And of the leisure of Thy long eternity.
Farewell, vain joys of earth! Farewell, all love that it not His! Dear God! be Thou my only mirth, Thy majesty my single timid bliss! Oh in the bosom of eternity Thou dost not weary of Thyself, nor we of Thee! How easily his words flow, even when he is saying the deepest things! The poem is full of the elements of the finest mystical metaphysics, and yet there is no effort in their expression.

The tendency to find God beyond, rather than in our daily human conditions, is discernible; but only as a tendency.
What a pity that the sects are so slow to become acquainted with the grand best in each other! I do not find in Dr.Newman either a depth or a precision equal to that of Dr.Faber.His earlier poems indicate a less healthy condition of mind.