"On Evil" (1773)Anna Letitia BarbauldTyped and edited by Zach WeirProofread by Jongyoll ChoiGeneral editor, Laura Mandell18250000TEI formatted filesize uncompressed: approx. 13 kbytesevilKing Library, Miami UniversityOxford, OH20040609
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Judith Session, DeanKing LibraryMiami UniversityOxford, OH 45056United States of AmericaEMail: sessioja@muohio.eduThe Poetess Archive: An Electronic ResourceLaura Mandell,General Editor.Anna Letitia BarbauldOn Evil, A RhapsodyAnna Letitia BarbauldThe Works of Anna Letitia Barbauld.With a Memoir by Lucy Aikin.Lucy AikinLondonLongman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green182500002272-275
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Primaryreligionphilosophy20060619Last Changed ByLaura MandellCoding corrections20050208changed byZach WeirCorrections made from Yongcholl; XML coding; XSL application.On Evil, A Rhapsody
O Evil, creature abhorred of God and man! -- whence is thy origin? how did so
deformed and monstrous a birth gain entrance into the fair creation? Canst thou be
from God, -- since thou art so opposite to his nature? And if from man, -- why was
he suffered to produce thee? Weak, unexperienced, unsuspecting man, -- why was he
permitted to bring such enormous ruin on his own head, and that of all his
posterity? Was there no warning voice, no sheltering hand, to save him from such a
fall -- to save thy image, O God, from pollution? Let us sit down in sad shades, and
join the moral poet,
"Who mourns for virtue lost, and ruined man."
What fair, what amiable creatures were our first parents when they came from the
hands of their Maker! They knew neither Pain, nor Sin, the sire of Pain; nor Shame,
the daughter of Sin. Innocent, happy, and immortal: -- so far from practising evil,
that they had not even the knowledge of it. Their passions, nicely balanced,
admitted no internal war. A milky innocence in their veins, their eyes beaming with
smiles, -- the smiles of candour and simplicity, -- they were the head of the happy
creation, till one fatal moment ruined all: -- the garden of paradise is shut for
ever; and man (unhappy outcast!) -- exposed to the war of elements without and
passions within; his peace broken, his heart torn by the conflict of jarring
emotions; his life worn away by perplexing doubts and heart-withering care, --
moistens his daily bread with years: and after struggling a few tears in the hard,
unequal warfare, he returns to the dust from whence he was taken.
Such is the dark side of the picture. -- But let us change the view, and see whether
in reality the human race have such great reason to lament the fall of their first
progenitor. Whether virtuous man now, is not a nobler creature than
sinless man then? -- the pupil of reason, than the child of nature?
-- the follower of the second, than the off-spring of the first Adam? Man in his
first state had a mind untainted with crimes; but unformed, uncultivated, void of
moral ideas, he could not rise, but by his fall; he could not attain to more
perfection, but by moral discipline; he could not know the joys of self-approbation,
without being subject to remorse, -- of sympathy, without feeling distress. Had he
been always innocent, he had been nothing more than innocent; -- had he never known
his weakness, he had never acquired strength. Behold him now, fashioned by the hand
of culture, and shining through the dark cloud of ruin, guilt and pain, that is
spread over him. What a different creature from the former man! He now knows vice,
but abhors it; temptation, but resists it, error, but laments it. His passions were
once balanced, they are now subdued; he has tasted good and evil, and he knows to
choose the one and refuse the other. Intellectual ideas crowd upon him, and a new
world opens within his breast. His nature is raised, refined, exalted: he lives by
faith, by devotion, by spiritual communion, by repentance -- he, weeping beneath the
bitter cross, washes off the stain of sin. The world is beneath his feet; for behold
he prayeth, and things unseen become present to his soul. Meek resignation blunts
the edge of suffering; and the triumphant hope looks beyond all suffering, to glory
and to joy. Thus advancing through life, he learns some new lesson at every step, --
till by receiving, but still more by conferring, benefits; by bearing, and still
further by forgiving, injuries, -- his mind is disciplined, his moral sense
awakened, his taste for beauty, order and rectitude, unfolded. He becomes endeared
to those he has wept and prayed and struggled with through this vale of sin and
suf-fering; -- he learns to pity and to love his fellow partners of mortality; till
at length the divine flame of universal charity begins to kindle in his breast. Then
is the œra of a new birth; then does he become partaker of a divine nature:
sense is mortified, passion is subdued, self is annihilated. And is not this a noble
creature? a being worth forming by so expensive and painful a process? a being God
may delight in? a faithful well-disciplined soldier, fit to cooperate in any plan,
or mingle with any order of rational and moral beings throughout the wide creation?
Place him where you will, he has learned to follow, to trust in, the Supreme Being:
he has learned humility from his errors, steadiness and watchfulness from his
weakness; his virtues depend not now on constitution, but on firm principles and
established habits. Is this the feeble being whose infant mind was unable to resist
the allurements of forbidden fruit? who so easily listened to the seduction of the
tempter? See him now resisting unto blood, superior to the principalities and
powers, to wicked men and bad angels: -- neither terrors nor pleasures can move him.
He once believed not the living voice of his Maker; having not seen, he now
believes. His gratitude once was faint and languid, though he was surrounded with
pleasant things: he now loves God, though overwhelmed with sorrow and pain; trusts
in him, though surrounded with difficulties; hopes even against hope, and prays
without ceasing. His hopes now are superior to his joys then. Glorious exchange!
from reposing on flowers, to tread upon stars, -- from naked purity, to a robe of
glory, -- from the food which cometh out of the earth, to the bread which cometh
down from heaven. For ignorance of ill he hath knowledge of good; for smiles of
innocence, tears of rapture; for the bowers of paradise, the gates of heaven. Hadst
thou, Adam, never fallen, shepherds and husbandmen only would have sprung from thee;
-- now patriots, martyrs, confessors, apostles!