A MEDITATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 145, 11 February 1876, Page 15

A MEDITATION.

We would, with all reverence, make a comparison between tAVo tragedies, in order to profit by the points in which they differ. The first is "King Lear," that Avork of Shakspeare's of which Shelley says, that if it can sustain, in some particulars that are doubtful — as it is yet thought it may — the comparison made between it and the Avorks of the Greek tragedians, "it may be judged to be the most perfect specimen of the dramatic art existing in the Avorld." Who than Shakespeare has ever had a more thorough insight into human nature, or been able better to pourtray its motives and feelings ? and in this tragedy of " King Lear " he has reached the greatest height to which eA'en his mighty powers Avere destined to attain, and Aye may Avell believe that his representation is true to the lif e ; it speaks to our inmost nature, and finds an echo there, louder or more faint, according as the intellect is powerful or Aveak, and the f eelings deep or shalloAv. What then does this tragedy teach us of human nature ? It represents to us a father wounded to the quick by the unnatural conduct of his children ; he trusted them, he gave them up his all, and they cast him out in his old age ; drove him from the shelter of the roof he had given them, out to the Avinds and the rain. It is piteous to hear him call upon the elements, and to listen to the lamentations that betray the love he still bears to his unnatural children, until at length he goes mad. It is beautiful, and pathetic, and sublime ; but here is human nature standing alone, and unsupported, and therefore, being sorely burdened, it falls into commotion and frenzy. The other tragedy is not fiction ; it is true, and it also represents to us human nature ; but human nature united to the divine. It is that Avhich took place nearly tAvo thousand years ago in Palestine. Let us mark the points of difference betAveen these tAvo tragedies — that which Aye have taken as representative of the highest sufferings of this peculiar kind, of Avhich ordinary human nature is capable,and that other Avhich is adorable and beyond all comparison ; but Avhich our Aveakness may perhaps thus learn to contemplate a little more justly — here also Aye see a father suffering through the ingratitude of his children. One avlio has given them all things and yet Avho, on his^oAvn earth yielded to their needs, " has not where to lay his head." He suffers through their ingratitude agonies untold ; and their hatred is provoked by His holiness. They hate Him because He is perfect; and yet He loves them, as even no mother on earth can love her little child. He is overAvhelmed Avith bitterness because of their rejection of Him ; and because by that rejection He sees them become the prey of His enemy and of theirs. The pain of His sacred heart far outAveighs that caused by the cruel stripes and thorns, the nails and the burning thirst. Yet here is no complaining, no frenzy ; but throughout all the calmness that everywhere marks the working of divinity. From the first He has suffered ,• Avhcn He lay, an infant, on the breast of His blessed Virgin Mother, beautiful and gentle as He Avas, above all infants that the world had ever seen, He Avas filled Avith soitoav. When He went about doing good through the toAvns of the Holy Land, He gave evidence of the heavy grief that Avas His portion by the tears that falling from the eyes of Him, Avho, if only fro n His sinlessness, was the strongest of all men, told of suffering beyond our powers to fathom ; but there Avas no complaining, no confusion, no disturbance. And so it Avas upon the Cross throughout those dread three hours ; until at length He Avilled that it should be, and, Avhile the words of prayer for his persecutors a\ ere on His lips, His hacred heart broke, and His sufferings closed by death— death from a broken heart. Here A\e have tA\o methods of suffering; the one represented to us by the giant intellect of modem day's ; by him Avho is the equal, perhaps the superior, of the Greek tragedians; and Avhich Aye acknoAvledge to be true to human nature. The other described to us by some who had Avitnessed it, and which avc recognise as far more excellent ; and therefore not Avithin the reach of the conception of mankind. Hoav, then, shall it be possible to tear from the records, in which this Avonderful lustory is contained, the stamp of divine truth? — M'Coul.