Wanting is—what

(Prologue to Jocoseria , 1883.) In every phase of human life, and in every human action, there is imperfection—always something still to come. In the characters depicted and the incidents narrated in the volume called Jocoseria the poet asks us to say what is wanting to perfect them. His question “Wanting is—what?” governs the whole volume. In Solomon and Balkis what was wanting was not mere wisdom, but a sanctified nature. In Christina and Monal des chi the woman was wanting in forgivene . Here the love was not perfect. In Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli what was wanting was self-sacrifice. Had Mary really loved Fuseli, she would not have attempted to ruin his life by endeavouring to win him from his wife. In Adam, Lilith, and Eve , there was wanting, says Mr. Sharpe, “the union of perfect love with perfect holine .” In Ixion was wanting a just conception of the Fatherhood of God. God is not the tyrannical Master of the world, but the Loving All-Father. In Jochanan Hakkadosh , Mr. Sharpe says, in answer to the question, “Wanting is—what?” “One who shall combine perfect wisdom with the full experience of life, and the completene of these intuitions of the Spirit.” “Is not this the Christ?” In Never the Time and the Place , to completely develop our souls we need perfect conditions of existence. We shall not find them till we reach heaven. In Pambo the saint recognised that he could not perfectly fulfil the smallest of God’s commandments, nor can we perfectly keep God’s law. Wanting is the Atonement. Note. —“ Come, then, complete incompletion, O Comer, Pant through the bluene ,”— i.e. descend from heaven. The Rev. J. Sharpe, M.A., thus explains the title “ O Comer ”: “ ὁ ἐρχόμενος , in the New Testament, is one of the titles of the Me iah—the Future One, He who shall come (Matt. xi. 3, xxi. 9; Luke vii. 19, 20; John xii. 13; also John vi. 14, xi. 27). So in the periphrase of the name Jehovah, ὁ ων καὶ ὀ ὴν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος (Rev. i. 4, 8; iv. 8).—Robinson’s Greek Lexicon of the New Testament . The title hints at the connection between this preface and the stories from the Talmud which follow. The Incarnation, the union of God and man, of Creator and creation, supplies the solution of the problem raised by the incompletene and death all around us. The beauty is no longer without meaning, for it is a revelation of God; the huge ma of death is no longer revolting, for ‘all things were created by Him, and for Him... and by Him all things consist,’ and He will ‘reunite all things... whether they be things on earth or things in heaven.’” In the character of Donald , what was wanting was the development of “the latent moral faculty.” He did not recognise the rights of the stag, which the commonest principles of justice, to say nothing of gratitude, should have made obvious to the sportsman.