George MacDonald

England's Antiphon George MacDonald

In the midst of wars and rumours of wars, the strife of king and barons, and persistentefforts to subdue neighbouring countries, the mere effervescence of the life of the nation, let us think for a moment of that to which the poems I am about to present bear goodwitness-the true life of the people, growing quietly, slowly, unperceived-the leaven hidin the meal. For what is the true life of a nation? That, I answer, in its modes of thought, itsmanners and habits, which favours the growth within the individual of that kingdom ofheaven for the sake only of which the kingdoms of earth exist. The true life of the people, asdistinguished from the nation, is simply the growth in its individuals of those eternalprinciples of truth, in proportion to whose power in them they take rank in the kingdom ofheaven, the only kingdom that can endure, all others being but as the mimicries of childrenplaying at government. Little as they then knew of the relations of the wonderful story on which their faith wasbuilt, to everything human, the same truth was at work then which is now-poor as therecognition of these relations yet is-slowly setting men free. In the hardest winter theroots are still alive in the frozen ground. In the silence of the monastery, unnatural as that life was, germinated much of this deeperlife. As we must not judge of the life of the nation by its kings and mighty men, so we mustnot judge of the life in the Church by those who are called Rabbi. The very notion of thekingdom of heaven implies a secret growth, secret from no affectation of mystery, butbecause its goings-on are in the depths of the human nature where it holds communionwith the Divine. In the Church, as in society, we often find that that which shows itselfuppermost is but the froth, a sign, it may be, of life beneath, but in itself worthless. Whenthe man arises with a servant's heart and a ruler's brain, then is the summer of theChurch's content. But whether the men who wrote the following songs moved in someshining orbit of rank, or only knelt in some dim chapel, and walked in some pale cloister, we cannot tell, for they have left no name behind the