In  some  of  the  States  of  Western  America,  we  are  told  of  men  who,  by
the  very  facts  of  their  position,  are  compelled  to  clear  their  own  ground,  to
sow  and  reap  it  with  their  own  hands,  to  thatch  and  build  their  own  cottages,
and  to  break  and  shoe  their  own  horses,  and  who  give  a  great  deal  of  attan-


By  Rev. Frederick  W. Robertson. 817

tion,  notwithstanding,  to  the  consideration  of  great  questions,  commercial  and
political. This  is,  no  doubt,  an  imperfect  society,  for  every  thing  is  incom
plete  ;  and  yet  travellers  tell  us  that  there  are  nowhere  such  specimens  of
humanity  ;  that  the  men  have  not  only  large  brains  and  large  muscles,  but
both  these  joined  together. On  the  one  hand,  then,  we  have  a  more  com
plete  society  and  a  less  complete  individual ;  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  a
more  complete  individual  and  a  less  complete  society. This  is  the  disadvan
tage,  this  is  the  high  price  we  must  pay  for  all  civilization  and  progress  ;  in
the  words  of  Tennyson,  "The  individual  withers,  and  the  world  is  more  and
more."  And  then  life  is  so  divided;  we  have  the  dentist  and  the  oculist,
but  they  are  only  the  dentist  and  the  oculist ;  we  have  the  clergyman  and
the  farmer,  but  the  farmer  knows  nothing  of  the  clergyman  ;  and  is  it  not  a
charge  brought  against  the  clergy  at  this  very  moment,  that  they  are  clergy
men  and  nothing  more  ?

No  man  felt  these  two  dangers  more  than  Wordsworth  felt  them  ;  he  felt
himself  called  upon  to  do  battle  against  the  evils  of  his  age ;  he  acknowledged
that  he  had  received  a  commission  and  consecration  ;  he  was,  as  we  have  al
ready  heard,  "  a  consecrated  spirit ;"  and  yet  he  took  a  fair  and  just  measure
of  his  own  powers ;  he  knew  well  that  his  work  was  not  to  be  done  on  the
platform,  in  the  pulpit,  or  in  the  senate. He  retired  to  his  own  mountains,
and  there,  amidst  the  regenerating  influences  of  nature,  where  all  was  real,
he  tried  to  discipline  his  own  heart  in  order  that  he  might  be  enabled  to  look
calmly  and  truly  on  the  manifold  aspects  of  human  life. 