Chapter XVII: Part 17

Let one of our loved ones be taken away, and memory recalls a thousand sayings to regret. Death quickens recollection painfully. The grave can not hide the white face of the one who sleeps. The coffin and the green mound are cruel magnets. They draw us further than we would go. They force us to remember. A man never sees so far into human life as when he looks over a wife's or a mother's grave. His eyes get wondrous clear then, and he sees as never before what it is to love and be loved, what it is to injure the feelings of the beloved.

When death comes into a household, we do not philosophize; we only feel. The eyes that are full of tears do not see, though, in the course of time, they come to see more clearly and brightly than those that have never known sorrow. Perhaps the heaviest affliction of life is that of the mother who has lost a child. As the waters roll in on shore with incessant throbs—not alone when storms prevail, but in calms as well—so it is with a mother's heart, bereaved of her children. Death always speaks with a voice of instruction and reproof; but when the first death happens in a home it speaks with a voice which scarcely any other form of tribulation can equal.

Some of the saddest experiences of life come without premonition. Yesterday life went well; hope was in the ascendant; it was easy to be content. To-day all is reversed. The crushed heart can scarcely lift itself to pray; speech seems paralyzed. It seems cruel that such calamity should be permitted, when we might have been so happy. Was there not some way by which it could have been avoided? What are life's compensations now? What are its ambitions worth in the face of this? In a great affliction there is no light, either in the mind or in the sun; for when the inward light is fed with fragrant oil, there can be no darkness, though clouds should cover the sun. But when, like a sacred lamp in the temple, the inward light is quenched, there is no light outwardly, though a thousand suns should preside in the heavens.

Why should body and soul be plunged into sorrow's dungeon when God sees fit to afflict? Is not the world as bright as of yore? Are there not still some happy phases to life's weary pilgrimage? We should not complain of oppression, but, with submission and love, perform the duties of life; and though sorrow and grief come, we must not let darkness obscure the talents which God has given to promote our own and others' happiness, or bury them with the brighter past, but nobly use them, and count all sorrow as naught in comparison with the future great reward of right actions. After this life of sorrow and pain, where we are continually weighed down with care, there is a home of perpetual rest, the streets of which are thronged with an angelic host, who, "with songs on their lips and with harps in their hands," tell neither the sorrow nor grief which perhaps wasted their lives. To bear the ills of life patiently is one of the noblest virtues, and one that requires as vigorous an exercise of the will as to resent the encroachments of wrong.

It is sometimes of God's mercy that men in the eager pursuit of ambitious plans are baffled; for they are very like a train on down grade—pulling on the brake is not pleasant, but it keeps the car on the track. We mount to heaven mostly on the ruins of our cherished schemes, finding in our failures our real successes.

Disappointments seem to be the lot of man. From the little child with golden hair attempting to catch the glancing sunbeams to the old man who, with whitened locks and bent frame, pursues some scheme of wealth, disappointment is the almost inevitable consequence. Well it is for us that the future is veiled from our eyes, else we would weary of the trials and allurements that make up the sum of our existence. The child looks forward to manhood; his dreams are speculative; the man looks back to childhood, and thinks of the happy days of old. From the time he sits on his mother's knee, with the sunlight streaming in through the open window, until the last hours of life, when the sunlight glances in through closed shutters, he is playing with shadows.

And one of the saddest thoughts that come to us in life is the thought that in this bright, beautiful, joy-giving world of ours there are so many shadowed lives. If disappointment came only to the lot of the sinning, even then we might drop a tear over him whose errors wrought their own recompense. But it is not so. The most pure lives are sometimes those that are the fullest of disappointments. With one it is the wreck of a great ambition. He has builded his ship, and launched it on the sea of life freighted with the richest jewels of his strength and manhood. Behold, it comes back to him beaten, battered, and torn by the fury of the gale—the wreck of a first trial.

Many are disappointed because they do not look for happiness and success either in the right spirit or by the proper methods. There is a legend told of a knight who,—

"In the brave days of old,"

journeyed far away in search of the Holy Grail. He engaged in great pursuits. He sought the most arduous undertakings. But failing to seek in the right spirit his search and his efforts were in vain. At length, wearied and disappointed, he sought his native land. Here, in the work of daily, trifling duties, humbly seeking to do what was right, he unexpectedly found that for which he had so long searched. In life we all seek happiness and success. There is but one way in which we can succeed; when we admit that happiness is but a state of the mind, and that success is the faithful performance of known duties, then shall we acquire both. Though we may wander the wide world over, and gather wealth and fame, they will be found impotent to confer happiness, and life to us will seem full of disappointments; but it is so simply because we failed to seek for life in that spirit of quiet content which alone conducts us to its portals.

It never yet happened to any man since the beginning of the world, nor ever will, to have all things according to his desires. And there never was any one yet to whom fortune was not at some time opposite and adverse. Those who risk nothing can, of course, lose nothing; sowing no hopes they can not suffer from the blight of disappointment. But let him who is enlisted for the war expect to meet the foe. It is with life's troubles as with the risks of the battle-field; there is always less of aggregate danger to the party who stands firm than to the one who gives way. To give way to disappointments is to invite defeat. To bravely cast about for means to resist them is to put them to flight, and out of temporary misfortune to lay the foundation of a more glorious success. Send disappointments to the winds; take life as it is, and, with a strong will, make it as near what it should be as possible.

Dark and full of disappointments may be our lot, and we may not be able to fathom the reason for them; but if we can only bring ourselves to see that they are for our good, that we need their chastening influence, all will be well in the end. In the trials of life we must look more for consolation within than from without. The surest consolations of life are those which we thus derive from our own thoughts. For this end it matters not so much whether we spend time in study or toil; the thoughts of the mind should go out and reach after higher good. In this manner we may improve ourselves till our thoughts come to be sweet companions that shall lead us along the paths of virtue. Thus we may grow better within, whilst the cares of life, the losses and the disappointments lose their sharp thorns, and the journey of life be made comparatively pleasant and happy.

It is generally known that he who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectations. It is human to err; so it is the lot of mortals to be disappointed, for never yet did error secure the end wished. It is, however, the better philosophy to take things calmly and endeavor to be content with our lot. We may at least add some rays of sunshine to our path if we earnestly endeavor to dispel the clouds of discontent that may arise in our bosom, and by so doing enjoy more fully the bountiful blessing that God gives to his humblest creatures. The great secret of avoiding disappointment is not to expect too much. Despair follows immoderate hopes, as the higher a body rises the heavier it falls to the ground.

Time is the great consoler of the world, inasmuch as he heals our sorrows and trials. But time, in dashing to pieces our most cherished plans and brightest dreams, also brings us to many disappointments which in turn disappear with the passage of years. While sagacity contrives, patience matures, and labor industriously executes, disappointment laughs at the curious fabric formed by so many efforts and gay with so many brilliant colors, and when the artist imagines the work arrived at the moment of completion, brushes away the beautiful fabric, and leaves nothing behind.

We thus see that life is, indeed, a variegated scene, full of trials and full of joys—bright dreams, some fulfilled, more disappointed. What is the lesson for us to learn from this? Perhaps the truest philosophy is not to expect much, to be moderate in our plans and hopes. In youth especially are we apt to be over sanguine. Reflect that life is full of disappointments, that it is vain for you to expect to escape them. But also learn to go forward with a brave face. You may fail, but from this failure you can organize future success. Because disappointed in one particular plan, it is no reason why you should abandon all plans, and settle down to the conviction that life itself is a failure. Show yourself a man, and rise superior to misfortune, and you will be rewarded by a final victory made more glorious by temporary discouragement, just as the sun bursting from behind the clouds lights up the landscape with a more glorious light because of the storms of the morning.

It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failure. By far the best experience of men, experience from which they gain the most of lasting value, is gathered from their failures in their dealings with others in the affairs of life. Such failures, for sensible men, incite to better self-management and greater tact and self-control, as a means of avoiding them in the future. Ask the successful business man, and he will tell you that he learned the secret of success through being baffled, defeated, thwarted, and circumvented, far more than from his successes. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done. It has disciplined and taught them what to do as well as what _not_ to do. And this latter is often of more importance than the former.

Many have to make up their minds to encounter failure again and again before they finally succeed; but if they have pluck, the failure will only serve to rouse their energies, and stimulate them to renewed efforts. Failure in one direction has sometimes had the effect of forcing the far-seeing student to apply himself in another, which latter application has in many instances proven to be in just the line that they were fitted for. No one can tell how many of the world's most brilliant geniuses have succeeded because of their first failures. Failures in many instances are only means that Providence takes to work an otherwise too pliable disposition into one fitted to confront the stern duties of life. Even as steel is tempered by heat, and, through much hammering and changing of original form, is at last wrought into useful articles, so in the history of many men do we find that they were attempered in the furnace of trials and affliction, and only through failures in first attempts were at length fitted for the ultimate success that crowned their efforts.

They are doubly in error who suffer themselves to give up the battle at one, or even two successive, failures. As in the military field he is the greater general who from defeat organizes ultimate victory, so in the battle of life he is the true hero who, even while smarting under the sting of present failure, lays his plans and summons his forces for a triumphant victory. We must not allow our jaundiced views to prevail over our knowledge of men and affairs. The world is not coming to an end, nor society going to destruction, because our petty plans have miscarried. The present failure should only teach you to be more wary in the future, and thus will you gather a rich harvest as the final outcome of your efforts.

Above all, do not sink into apathy and despair. Rouse yourself, and do not allow your best years to slip past because you have not succeeded as you thought you would. Is not the sun as bright, nature as smiling as before? Why, then, do you go about as if all hope had fled? Know you not that

"In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men."

As in the physical world, disease is but the effort nature makes to remove some pressing evil, so failure should be but the methods whereby we are enabled to eliminate those traits of character which are a hindrance to our lasting success. As the inventor subjects his production to the most rigorous tests in order that inherent defects may become known and, if possible, remedied, even so does Providence, in subjecting us to great trials, discover to us by our failures wherein we lack; and we are remiss in duty to ourselves do we not most earnestly endeavor to improve by these tests?

The man who never failed is a myth. Such a one never lived, and is never likely to. All success is a series of efforts in which, when closely viewed, are to be seen more or less failures. These efforts are ofttimes not visible to the naked eye, but each individual heart is painfully conscious of how many of its most cherished plans ended only in failures. If you fail now and then, do not be discouraged; bear in mind that it is only the part and experience of every successful man. We might even go farther, and say that the most successful men often have the most failures. These failures, which to the feeble are mere stumbling-blocks, to the strong serve to remove the scales from their eyes, so that they now see clearer, and go on their way with a firmer tread and a more determined mien, and compel life to yield to them its most enduring trophies.

The weakling goes no farther than his first failure; he lags behind, and subsides into a life of discontent and vain regrets; and so by this winnowing process the number of the athletes is restricted to few, and there is clear space in the arena for those who determinedly press on. There can hardly be found a successful man who will not admit that he was made so by failure, and that what he once thought his hard fate was in reality his good fortune. Success can not be gained by a hop, skip, and a jump, but by arduous passages of gallant perseverance, toilsome efforts long sustained, and, most of all, by repeated failure; for the failures are but stepping-stones, or, at the worst, non-attainment of the desired end before the time.

If success were to crown your efforts now, where would be the great success of the future? It is the brave resolution to do better next time that lays the substrata of all real greatness. Many a prominent reputation has been destroyed by early success. Too often the effect of such success is to sap the energies. Imagining fame or fortune to be won, future efforts are remitted; relying on the fame of past achievements, the fact is overlooked that it is labor alone that renders any success certain; and so by the remission of labor and energy, disgrace or failure awakens him from his delusive dreams; but, alas! in how many instances the awakening comes too late!

There is no more prolific source of repining and discontent in life than that found in looking back upon past mistakes. We are fond of persuading ourselves and others that had others acted differently our whole course in life would have been one of unmixed success instead of the partial failure that it so often appears. If we would only look on past mistakes in the right spirit—in the spirit of humility, and with a desire to learn from past errors—it would be well; but the error men make in this review is in attributing the failures to circumstances instead of to character. They see the mistakes which lie on the surface, but fail to trace them back to the source from whence they spring. The truth is, that even trifling circumstances are the occasions for bringing out the predominant traits of character. They are tests of the nature and quality of the man rather than the causes of future success or failure.

None can tell how weighty may be the results of even trivial actions, nor how much of the future is bound up in our every-day decisions. Chances are lost, opportunities wasted, advisers ill-chosen, and disastrous speculations undertaken, but there is nothing properly accidental in these steps. They are to be regarded as the results of unbalanced characters, as much as the cause of future misery. The disposition of mind that led to these errors would certainly, under other circumstances, have led to different, but not less lamentable results.

We see clearly in judging others. We attribute their mischances without compunction to the faults we see in them, and sometimes even make cruel mistakes in our investigation; but in reviewing our own course self draws a veil over our imperfections, and we persuade ourselves that mistakes or unfortunate circumstances are the entire cause of all our misfortunes. It is true that no circumstances are always favorable, no training perfectly judicious, no friend wholly wise, yet he who is always shifting the blame of his failures upon these external causes is the very man who has the most reason to trace them to his own inherent weakness or demerits.

It is questionable whether the habit of looking much at mistakes, even of our own, is a very profitable one. It might be rendered of use were we only to do so in the proper spirit. Certainly the practice of mourning over and bewailing them, and charging upon them all the evils that afflict us, is the most injurious to our future course, and the greatest hindrance to any real improvement of character. Acting from impulse, and not from reason, is one of the chief causes of these mistakes; and if any would avoid them in the future they must test all their sudden impulses by the searching and penetrating ordeal of their best judgment before acting upon them. Above all, the steady formation of virtuous habits, the subjection of all actions to principles rather than to policy, the firm and unyielding adherence to duty, as far as it is known, are the best safeguards against mistakes in life.

Who lives that has not, during his life, aspired to something that he was unable to reach? The sorrows of mankind may all be traced to blighted hopes; like frost upon the green leaves comes the chilling conviction that our hopes are forever dead. We may live, but he who has placed his whole mind on the attainment of some object and fails to reach it, life to him seems a burden—a weary burden. To youth blighted hopes come like the cold dew of evening upon the flowers. The sun next morning banishes the dew, and the flower is brighter and purer from its momentary affliction. Sorrow purifies the heart of youth as the rain purifies the growing plant. But to the man of mature years the blighting of cherished hopes falls with a chilling effect. 'T is hard to proceed as though nothing had happened—to cheerfully take up life's load, yet such is the course of true manhood; this is the inheritance of life—the test of character.

Our world presents a strangely different aspect according to the different moods in which it is viewed. To him whose efforts have been crowned with success it is superlatively beautiful; to him whose life has known no care it appears to be filled with all manner of comfortable things; to those who pine in sickness and suffering, the unfortunate, and those whose efforts have ended only in failure, it most truthfully seems to be "a vale of tears," and human life itself a bubble raised from those tears and inflated with sighs, which, after floating a little while, decked, it may be, with a few gaudy colors from the hand of fortune, is at last touched by the hand of death, and dissolves.

He who has a stout heart will do stout-hearted actions—actions which, however unconscious the doer may be of the fact, can not fail to have something of immortality in their essence—something that in all coming time will preserve alive their memory long after the valiant doer has lain in dust. Such a man will not be daunted by difficulties. Opposition will but serve as fuel to the fire which feeds the spirit of self-reliance within him, stimulating him to still greater efforts, and, in fact, creating opportunities for them. And though, in the nature of things, failure must often be his portion, still they will nerve him anew for the struggles of active life, and endow him with courage to meet the further disappointments which past experience will have taught him are likely to be his lot.

Neither will he, in his efforts to attain some great end, to bring to happy accomplishment some noble work, be daunted by the reflection that he can never be sure of success even in enterprises springing from the highest motives and steadfastly pursued at the cost of all that is dearest. To him it will suffice that the end he has in view is the right one, and that if he is not destined to accomplish it eventually it must triumph. With prophetic eye he looks forward to the dawning of the time when, long after he has been called hence, posterity shall enter into his labor and eat of the fruit of the tree that he has planted.

"The darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, will have passed away."

There are dark hours that mark the history of the brightest years. For not a whole month in any one of the thousand of the past, perhaps, has the sun shone brilliantly all the time. And there have been cold and stormy days in every year, and yet the mists and shadows of the darkest hours were dissipated and flitted heedlessly away. In the wide world also we have the overshadowing of dark hours. There were hours of despondency when Shakespeare thought himself no poet and Raphael no painter, when the greatest wits doubted the excellence of their happiest efforts.

But we have also bright days to offset the sad ones. Though there are the dark ones, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor our hearts, and all without and within is dismal and dark, there come days when we rejoice in the brightness of hope and prosperity. It is human nature to look upon only the bright and cheery scenes of life, to forget its trials and storms in the light of the present. But let us not forget that there will come other moments, when the eye will be less calm, the cheek less bright, and the tongue less silent; the brain will be full of imaginings, pensive and sad, its inmost springs less elastic and buoyant.

Despondency too long continued gives place to despair. No calamity can produce such a paralysis of the mind. It is the capstone of the climax of human misery. The mental powers are frozen with indifference, the heart becomes ossified with melancholy, the soul is shrouded in a cloud of gloom. No words of consolation, no cheerful repartee can break the death-like calm; no love can warm the pent-up heart, no sunbeam dispel the dark cloud. Time may effect a change; death will break the monotony. We can extend our kindness, but can not relieve the victim. We may trace the cause of this awful disease; God only can effect a cure. We may speculate upon its nature, but can not feel its force until its iron hand is laid upon us. We may call it weakness, but can not prove or demonstrate the proposition. We may call it folly, but can point to no frivolity to sustain our position. We may call it madness, but can discover no maniac action. We may call it stubborness, but can see no exhibition of indocility. We may call it lunacy, but can not perceive the incoherence of that unfortunate condition. We can properly call it nothing but dark, gloomy despair, an inexpressible numbness of all the sensibilities rendering a man happy.

It is, indeed, a happy providence that has given to mankind the bright, shining sun of hope to dispel the gloom of despondency. We have all seen the sun burst from behind the clouds and light up a storm-swept landscape. Even so, when the hand of misfortune has darkened our brightest prospects and swept away our sunlit dreams of future happiness, has some unseen monitor inspired our drooping spirit with hope and bid us struggle on; and as we look forward into the future fancy points us to a brighter day's dawning. When the soul is often bowed down with the weight of its own sorrows and the heart is well-nigh crushed, even then some faint glimmering of a happier future steals upon it like a rainbow of light.

It is to be feared that many do not as resolutely fight against fits of despondency as they might. Many fits of the blues need but to be resolutely contended against, and they will disappear; harbored, they will grow into despondency and despair. It is worth while to remember that fortune is like the skies in April, sometimes clouded and sometimes clear and favorable, and it would be folly to despair of again seeing the sun because to-day is stormy. So it is equally unwise to sink into despondency when fortune frowns, since in the common course of things she may be surely expected to smile again.

Life is a warfare, and he who easily desponds deserts a double duty—he betrays the noblest property of man, his dauntless resolution, and he rejects the providence of God, who guides and rules the universe. There is but one way of looking at fate—whatever that may be, whether blessings or afflictions—to behave with dignity under both. We must not lose heart, or it will be the worse, both for ourselves and for those whom we love. To struggle, and again and again to renew the conflict—_this_ is life's inheritance.

Do not, then, allow yourself to sink into despondency. Man is born a hero, and it is only by darkness and storms that heroism gains its greatest and best development and illustrations; then it kindles the black cloud into a blaze of glory, and the storm bears it to its destiny. Despair not, then. Mortifying failures may attend this effort and that one, but only be honest and struggle on, and it will all work out right in the end. Do not make the mistake, either, of supposing that despondency is a state of humility; on the contrary, it is the vexation and despair of a cowardly pride; nothing is worse; whether we stumble or whether we fall, we must only think of rising again, and going on in our course.

Do your work, then; only let it be a noble one. Be faithful to your trust. If you have but one talent improve it; do not bury it in the earth because you have not ten. Toil steadily and hopefully on, for life is too short to admit of delay or despondency. Let those who are in sorrow remember that deliverance may be coming, though they see it not. Your days may wear more gold in the morning, and more at night, though the midday be full of snow. God may be gracious, though he comes to us robed in darkness and clothed in storms. It is a journey of release towards the Spring when Winter is coldest and darkest. Despondency is but the shadow of too much happiness thrown by our spirits upon the sunshiny side of life. Look up, and God will give you a song in your heart instead of a tear in your eye.

Causeless depression of spirits is not to be reasoned with, nor can even David's harp charm it away by sweet discoursings. As well fight with the mists as with this shapeless, undefinable, yet all-beclouding, hopelessness. Yet we are familiar with many such instances in practical, every-day life. Many who have much to be thankful for are full of complaint. Such disposition is no less unfortunate than it is reprehensible. They make miserable not only their own life, but also the lives of those with whom they are in daily contact. No doubt the one given over to causeless melancholy feels a full weight of sorrow, and those who laugh at his grief, could they but experience it, would quickly be sobered into compassion. What is wanted is a firm reliance on Providence, and a determination to do your duty; then go forward bravely and cheerfully, resolutely fight against this disposition. Your life will be much happier.

The trouble is, that many of us, when we are under any affliction, are troubled with a certain malicious melancholy. We only dwell and pore upon the sad and dark occurrences of Providence, but never take notice of the more benign and bright ones. Our way in this world is, like a walk under a row of trees, checkered with light and shade, and, because we can not all along walk in the sunshine, we, therefore, perversely fix upon the darker passages, and so lose all the comfort of the cheering ones. We are like froward children, who, if you take one of their playthings from them, throw away all the rest in spite. What a pitiable confession is this of human weakness! Let us, then, strive against such a spirit of despondency. Even when the way before us is both dark and dreary it still is worse than useless to give way to despondency. Think not that you are forsaken; you have much still to make life enjoyable. Energy and proper application may recover what you have lost; take heart; pluck up courage; give not over to despondency; by resolutely confronting the evils of life they will lose their force.

"Faith is the subtle chain
That binds us to the infinite; the voice
Of a deep life within, that will remain
Until we crowd it thence."

Faith is the true prophet of the soul, and ever beholds a spiritual life, spiritual relations, labors, and joys. Its office is to teach man that he is a spiritual being, that he has an inward life enshrined in this material encasement—an immortal gem set now in an earthly casket. It assures man that he lives not for this life alone, but for another superior to this, more glorious and real. It teaches that God is a spirit, and seeks to worship him as such. It dignifies humanity with immortality. It dwells ever upon an unseen world, announcing always that unseen realities are eternal.

A living, active faith is not only a necessity, if we would reap great good, but it is so founded on the nature of things that it is natural for men to have a faith in the promises of others. It is only from experience that the little child learns to distrust others. Then, there is the faith in one's own powers. This is as necessary a form of faith as any, and where not allowed to degenerate into egotism is a most beneficent form of faith. Its true foundation is the same as any faith; that is, reliance on God's promises. "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." Hence, relying on this, and putting forth the necessary exertions, why not confidently expect a fulfillment of the promise? This is the germ of all true self-reliance.

A true faith we can somehow reach all through life, and it will bring to the soul a rich meed of consolation, even in the shades of life. We can cherish a sure hope about our future and the future of those that belong to us—a sunny, eager onlooking toward the fulfillment of all the promises God has written on our nature. We should have faith in the ultimate triumph of the good and the true. It is quite the fashion of the times to lament over the degeneracy of the present, and to think of the palmy day long since past. We have indeed read history to but little account do we not realize that the world is growing better, and feel confident of the ultimate triumph of the forces of good.

Life grows darker as we go on, till only one pure light is left shining on it, and that is faith. Old age, like solitude and sorrow, has its revelations. It is then that we perceive the hollowness and emptiness of many of the bubbles we have been pursuing. Fortunate is he who in that hour can rest down on the promise of God with a steadfast faith. When in your last hour all faculty in your broken spirit shall fade away, and sink into inanity—imagination, thought, effort, enjoyment, all fade away—then will the flower of belief, which blossoms even in the night, remain to refresh you with its fragrance in the last darkness.

Morality as a guiding light to man sometimes conduces to noble ends. It is sometimes so resplendent as to make a man walk through life amid glory and acclamation; but it is apt to burn very dimly and low when carried into the "valley of the shadow of death." But faith is like the evening star, shining into our souls, the more gloomy is the night of death in which they sink. Surrounded by friends and the comforts of life, morality appears sufficient; but when the storms of life blow upon us, then we see how necessary to us is a faith in God's Word and his promises. Its light only is capable of dispelling the gloom of our surroundings.

Never yet did there exist a full faith which did not expand the intellect while it purified the heart, which did not multiply the aims and objects of the understanding while it fixed and simplified those of the desires and passions. Faith often builds in the dungeon and lazar-house its sublimest shrine, and up through roofs of stone, that shut out the eye of heaven, ascends the ladder of prayer, where the angels glide to and fro. Faith is the key that unlocks the cabinet of God's treasures, the messenger from the celestial world to bring all the supplies that we need. It converses with angels and antedates the hymns of glory. To every man this grace is certain that there are glories for him if he walks by faith and perseveres in duty. Faith is a homely, private capital, as there are public savings-banks and poor funds, out of which in times of need we can relieve the necessities of individuals; so here the faithful take their coin in peace.

A Christian builds his fortitude on a better foundation than stoicism. He is pleased with every thing that happens, because he knows it could not have happened unless it first pleased God, and that which pleases him must be the best. He is assured that no new thing can befall him, and that he is in the hands of a Father who will prove him with no affliction that resignation can not conquer or that death can not cure. In the darkest night faith sees a star, in the times of greatest need finds a helping hand, and in the times of sorest trouble hears a sympathizing voice.

Judge not a man by his outward manifestation of faith, for some there are who tremblingly reach out shaking hands to the guidance of faith; others who stoutly venture in the dark their human confidence, the leader which they mistake for faith; some whose hope totters upon crutches; others who stalk into futurity upon stilts. Faith is not an exotic that grows in but one clime. The snows of an eternal Winter can not quench its fire, neither can the glow of a tropical sun destroy its life and freshness. In the palace of the king or the hut of the peasant, in the homes of the rich or the cabins of the poor it emits its fragrance with equal powers to please. It is as necessary to the learned as to the ignorant, and comforts alike the declining years of the sage and him who never knew the value of education.

As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works. He who has strong faith will show his faith by his works. If he has faith in himself he shows it by ambitious plans, resolves, and endeavors. A true faith is necessary to enable us to make the most of life and its possibilities. We need a faith in our fellow-men. In all the ordinary business transactions we must exercise this virtue or accomplish nothing. Did you ever reflect what this world would be were all faith destroyed? Faith and confidence are synonymous terms. What a wilderness would this be were the confidence which exists between husband and wife destroyed or did not mutual confidence exist between the members of the same family circle! Home would cease to be home; family ties would prove to be bonds of straw; communities could not be held together; the vast fabric of society would dissolve, and smiling countries would once more be the abode of savages. Too great a confidence bespeaks a trusting simplicity suited only for childish years. But an utterly incredulous nature, refusing to believe unless supported by the evidence of his own senses, as certainly portrays the selfish, narrow, and bigoted nature as that fields of waving grain are proof positive of fertile soil, the shining sun, and the early and later rain.

Prayer is the key to open the day, and the bolt to shut in the night. But as the sky drops the early dew and the evening dew upon the grass, yet it would not spring and grow green by that constant and double falling of the dew, unless some great shower at certain seasons did supply the rest, so the customary devotion of prayer twice a day is the falling of the early and the latter dew. But if you will increase and flourish in works of grace, empty the great clouds sometimes, and let fall in a full shower of prayer. Choose out seasons when prayer shall overflow like Jordan in times of harvest.

Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of its own feeling. Perfect prayer, without a spot or blemish, though not a word be spoken and no phrases known to mankind be uttered, always plucks the heart out of the earth, and moves it softly, like a censer, to and fro beneath the face of heaven. A good man's prayer will, from the deepest dungeon, climb heaven's height, and bring a blessing down. Prayer is the wing wherewith the soul flies to heaven, and meditation the eye wherewith we see God.

He that acts toward men as if God saw him, and prays to God as if men heard him, although he may not obtain all that he asks, or succeed in all that he undertakes, will most probably deserve to do so; for, with respect to his actions toward men, however much he may fail with regard to others, yet if pure and good, with regard to himself and his highest interests they can not fail. And with respect to his prayers to God, though they can not make the Deity more _willing_ to give, yet they will, and must, make the suppliant more _worthy_ to receive.

Between the humble and contrite heart and the Majesty of heaven there are no barriers. The only password is prayer. Prayer is a shield to the sword, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge to Satan. Prayer has a right to the word "ineffable." It is an hour of outpouring which words can not express—of that interior speech which we do not articulate even when we employ it. The very cry of distress is an involuntary appeal to that invisible Power whose aid the soul invokes. Our prayer and God's mercy are like two buckets in a well; while one ascends the other descends.

For the most part, we should pray rather in aspiration than petition, rather by hoping than requesting; in which spirit, also, we may breathe a devout wish for a blessing on others upon occasions when it might be presumptuous to beg it. Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness: not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling it; not figures of speech, but compunction of soul. When the heart is full, when bitter thoughts come crowding thickly up for utterance, and the poor common words of courtesy are such a very mockery, how much the bursting heart may relieve itself in prayer!

The dullest observer must be sensible of the order and serenity prevalent in those households where the occasional exercise of a beautiful form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the keynote to every temper for the day, and attunes every spirit to harmony. Family worship embodies a hallowing influence that pleads for its observance. It must needs be that trials will enter a household. The conflict of wishes, the clashing of views, and a thousand other causes, will ruffle the temper, and produce jar and friction in the machinery of the family.

There is needed some daily agency that shall softly enfold the homestead with its hallowed, soothing power, and restore the fine harmonious play of its various parts. The father needs that which shall gently lift away from his thoughts the disquieting burden of his daily business; the mother, which will smooth down the fretting irritation of her unceasing toil and trial; and the child and domestic, that which shall neutralize the countless agencies of evil that ever beset them. And what so well adapted to do this as, when the day is done, to gather around the holy page, and pour a united supplication and acknowledgment to that sleepless Power whose protection and security are ever around their path, and who will bring all things at last into judgment?

And when darker and sadder days begin to shadow the home, what can cheer and brighten the sinking heart so finely as this daily resort to the fatherly One, who can make the tears of the lowliest sorrow to be the seed-pearls of the brightest crown? The mind is thus expanded, the heart softened, sentiments refined, passions subdued, hopes elevated, and pursuits ennobled. The greatest want of our intellectual and moral nature is here met, and home education becomes impregnated with the spirit and elements of our preparation for eternity.

The custom of having family prayers is held in honor wherever there is real Christian life, and it is the one thing which more than any other knits together the loose threads of a home, and unites its various members before God. The religious service in which parents, children, and friends daily join in praise and prayer is at once an acknowledgment of dependence on the Heavenly Father and a renewal of consecration to his work in the world. The Bible is read, the hymn is sung, the petition is offered, and unless all has been done as a mere formality and without hearty assent, those who have gathered at the family altar leave it helped, soothed, strengthened, and armored as they were not before they met there. The sick and the absent are remembered, the tempted and the tried are commended to God, and, as the Israelites in the desert were attended by the pillar and cloud, so in life's wilderness the family who inquire of the Lord are constantly overshadowed by his presence and love.

We, ignorant of ourselves, may ask in prayer for what would be to our injury, which the Father denies as for our own good; so find we profit by losing of our prayers. Or we may even pray for trifles, without so much as a thought of the greatest blessings. And, with sorrow be it said, we are not ashamed many times to ask God for that which we should blush to own to our neighbors. It is by reason of the worthlessness of so many of our petitions that they remain unanswered. Good prayers never come creeping home. We are sure we shall receive either what we ask or what we should ask. Prayer is a study of truth, a sally of the soul into the infinite. No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

It is for the sake of man, not of God, that worship and prayer are required. Not that God may be rendered more gracious, but that man may be made better, that he may be confirmed in a proper sense of his dependent state, and acquire those pious and virtuous dispositions in which his highest improvement consists. When we pray for any virtues we should cultivate the virtue as well as pray for it. The form of your life, every petition to God, is a precept to man. Our thoughts, like the waters of the sea, when exhaled toward heaven lose all their bitterness and saltness, and sweeten into an amiable humanity, until they descend in gentle showers of love and kindness upon our fellow-men.

God respecteth not the arithmetic of our prayers, how many they are; nor the rhetoric of our prayers, how neat they are; nor the geometry of our prayers, how long they are; nor the music prayers, how melodious they are; nor the logic prayers, how methodical they are: but the divinity of our prayers, how heart-sprung they are—not gifts, but graces prevail in prayer. We should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect every thing from God, and act with as much energy as those who expect every thing from themselves.

It is possible to have a daily worship which shall be earnest, vivifying, tender and reverential, and yet a weariness to nobody. Only let the one who conducts it _mean_ toward the Father the sweet obedience of the grateful child, and maintain the attitude of one who goes about earthly affairs with a soul looking beyond and above them to the rest that remaineth in heaven. It is not every one who is able to pray in the hearing of others with ease. The timid tongue falters, and the thoughts struggle in vain for utterance. But who is there who can not read a psalm or a chapter or a cluster of verses, and kneeling repeat in accents of tender trust the Lord's prayer? When we think of it that includes every thing.

Religion is the moral link that binds man most closely with his God—the spiritual garden where the creature walks in companionship with his Maker. This sentiment is the highest that man is capable of cherishing, since it binds him to a being fitted as no other being is to impart to the soul the highest moral grandeur that created beings can enjoy. It is the upper window of the soul, which opens into the clear, radiant light of God's eternal home. Its influence in every department of the mind is salutary and holy; no faculty can rise to its most exalted state without the sanctifying power of this sentiment. Neglect it not; the highest beauties of your souls, the finishing touch of your character, the sweetest charm of your life, will be given by due attention to this, your first and last duty.

If men have been termed pilgrims, and life a journey, then we may add that the Christian pilgrimage far surpasses all others in the following important particulars: In the goodness of the road; in the beauty of the prospect; in the excellence of the company, and in the rich rewards waiting the traveler at the journey's end. All who have been great and good without Christianity would have been much greater and better with it. True religion is the poetry of the heart; it has enchantment, useful to our manners; it gives us both happiness and virtue.

True religion hath in it nothing weak, nothing sad, nothing constrained. It enlarges the heart, is simple, free, and attractive. It enables us to bear the sorrows of life, and it lessens the pangs of death. It is the coronet by token of which God makes you a princess in his family and an heir to his brightest glories, the sweetest pleasures, the noblest privileges, and the brightest honors of his kingdom. It is a star which beams the brighter in heaven the darker on earth grows the night.

When the rising sun shed its rays on Memnon's statue it awakened music in the heart of stone. Religion does the same with nature. Without religion you are a wandering star. You are a voiceless bird. You are a motionless brook. The strings of your heart are not in tune with the chords which the Infinite hand sweeps as he evolves the music of the universe. Your being does not respond to the touch of Providence, and if beauty and truth and goodness come down to you like angels out of heaven and sing you their sweetest songs, you do not see their wings, nor recognize their home and parentage.

True religion and virtue give a cheerful and happy turn to the mind, admit of all real joys, and even procure for us the highest pleasures. While it seems to have no other object than the felicity of another life it constitutes the chief happiness of the present. There are no principles but those of religion to be depended on in cases of real distress, and these are able to encounter the worst emergencies and to bear us up under all the changes and chances to which our life is subject. The difficulties of life teach us wisdom, its vainglories humility, its calumnies pity, its hopes resignation, its sufferings charity, its afflictions fortitude, its necessities prudence, its brevity the value of time, and its dangers and uncertainties a constant dependence upon a higher and all-protecting power.

All natural results are spontaneous. The diamond sparkles without effort, and the flowers open naturally beneath the Summer rain. Religion is also a natural thing—as spontaneous as it is to weep, to love, or to rejoice. There is not a heart but has its moments of longing—yearning for something better, nobler, holier, than it knows now; this bespeaks the religious aspiration of every heart. Genius without religion is only a lamp on the outer gate of a palace. It may serve to cast a gleam of light on those that are without, while the inhabitant sits in darkness.

Religion is not proved and established by logic. It is, of all the mysteries of nature and the human mind, the most mysterious and most inexplicable. It is of instinct, and not of reason. It is a matter of feeling, and not of opinion. Religion is placing the soul in harmony with God and his laws. God is the perfect supreme soul, and your souls are made in the image of his, and, like all created things, are subject to certain mutable laws. The transgression of these laws damages your souls—warps them, stunts their growth, outrages them.