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Manyfail in life from the want, as they are too ready to suppose, of those great occasions wherein they might have shown their trustworthiness and their integrity. But in order to find whether a vessel be leaky we first prove it with water before we trust it with wine. The more minute and trivial opportunities of being just and upright are constantly occurring to every one. It is the proper employment of these smaller opportunities that occasion the great ones. It is one of the common mistakes of life, and one of the most radicalsources of evil, to wait for opportunities. Many persons are looking for some marked event or some grand opening through which they hope to develop what may be in them, and thus make potent a character which now, for lack of motives, is barren and unfruitful.
The real materials out of which our characters are forming are the hourly occurrences of every-day life. Every claim of duty, the employment of each minute, the daily vexations or trials we are called upon to bear, the momentary decisions that must be made, the casual interview, the contact with sin or sorrow in every-day dress—all, these and many others as small and as constant, are the real opportunities of life. These we are continually embracing or neglecting, and out of them we are forming a character that is fast consolidating into the shape we gave it for good or for evil. If we watch through a single day we shall doubtless discover hundreds of opportunities of both doing and receiving good that we have, perhaps, hitherto passed by with indifference, and by diligent assiduity in seeking for and embracing these we shall be prepared to encounter the fiercer storms of life that may await us, or to take advantage of future opportunities that may offer for our good.
A man's opportunity usually has some relation to his ability. It is an opening for a man of his talents and means. It is an opening for him to use what he has faithfully and to the utmost. It requires toil, self-denial, faith. If he says, "I want a betteropportunity than that; I am worthy of a higher position than that," or if he thinks the opportunity too insignificant to be embraced, he is very likely in after years to see the folly of his course. There are scores of young men all over the land who want to acquire wealth, and yet every day scorn such opportunities as our really rich men would have improved. They want to begin, not as others do, at the foot of the ladder, but half way up. They want somebody to give them a lift or to carry them up in a balloon, so that they can avoid the early and arduous struggles of the majority of those who have been successful.
The most unsuccessful men are usually the ones who think they could do great things if they only had the opportunity. But something has always prevented them. Providence has hedged them in so that they could not carry out their plan. They knew just how to get rich, but they lacked opportunity. A man can not expect that great opportunities will meet him all along through his life like milestones by the wayside. Usually he has one or two; if he neglects them he is like the man who takes the wrong course where several meet. The farther he goes the worse he fares. In the life of the most unlucky persons there are always some occasions when by prompt and vigorous action he may win the thing he has at heart. "There is nobody," says a Roman cardinal, "whom fortune does not visit once in his life. But when she finds he is not ready to receive her, she goes in at the door andout through the window." Opportunity is coy. The careless, the slow, the unobservant, the lazy fail to see her, or clutch at her when she has gone. The sharp fellows detect her instantly, and seize her on the wing.
It is ofttimes not sufficient to wait for opportunity, even though improved when it has come. We must not only strike the iron while it is hot, but make it hot by striking. In other words, if opportunity does not present herself we must try our best to compel her attendance. Opportunity is in respect to time in some sense as time is in respect to eternity; it is the small moment, the exact point, the critical minute on which every good work so much depends. Hesitation is in some instances a sign of weakness, and an exhibition of caution instead of an aid is a hinderance. At the critical moment there is no time for over-squeamishness; else the opportunity slips away beyond recall, even as the spoken word or the sped arrow. The period of life during which a manmustventure, if ever, is so limited that it is no bad rule to preach up the necessity in such instances of a little violence done to the feelings, and of efforts made in defiance of strict and sober calculation, rather than to pass one opportunity after another. It is not accident that helps a man in the world, but purpose and persistent industry. These make a man sharp to discover opportunities and to turn them to account. To the feeble, the sluggish and purposeless the happiest opportunities avail nothing. They pass them by, seeing no meaning in them. But tothe energetic, wide-awake man they are occasions of great moment, the improvement of which contribute in no small degree to his ultimate success.
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Duty
"I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty;I woke, and found that life was duty."
"I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty;I woke, and found that life was duty."
"I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty;I woke, and found that life was duty."
"I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty;
I woke, and found that life was duty."
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Dutyrounds out the whole of life, from our entrance into it until our exit from it. There is the duty to superiors, to inferiors, to equals, to God and to man. Wherever there is power to use or to direct, there is a duty devolving upon us. Duty is a thing that is due and must be paid by every man who would avoid present discredit, and eventual moral insolvency. It is an obligation, a debt, which can only be discharged by voluntary effort and resolute action in the affairs of life. The abiding sense of duty is the very crown of character. It is the upholding law of man in his highest attitudes. Without it the individual totters and falls before the first puff of adversity or temptation; whereas, inspired by it, the weakest become strong and full of courage.
"Duty," says Mrs. Jameson, "is the cement which binds the whole moral edifice together, without which all power, goodness, intellect, truth, happiness, love itself, can have no permanence, but all the fabric ofexistence crumble away from under us, and leave us at last sitting in the midst of a ruin, astonished at our own desolation." Take man from the lowest depths of poverty or from the downy beds of wealth, and you will find that to act well his part in life he must recognize and live up to the rule of duty. As the ship is safely guided across the ocean by a helm, so on the ocean of existence duty is the helm, without which life is lost. It is the lesson of history, no less than the experience of the present age, that an attention to duty in all of its details is the only sure road to real greatness, whether individual or national.
Duty is based upon a sense of justice—justice inspired by love—which is the most perfect form of goodness. Duty is not a sentiment, but a principle pervading the life, and it exhibits itself in conduct and in action. Duty is above all consequences, and often, at a crisis of difficulty, commands us to throw them overboard. It commands us to look neither to the right nor to the left, but straight forward. Every signal act of duty is an act of faith. It is performed in the assurance that God will take care of the consequences, and will so order the course of the world that, whatever the immediate results may be, his word shall not return to him empty. The voice of conscience speaks in duty done, and without its regulating and controlling influence the brightest and greatest intellect may be merely as a light that leads astray. Conscience sets a man upon his feet, while his will holds him upright. Conscience is the moral governor of the heart, and only through itsdominating influence can a noble and upright character be fully developed. That we ought to do an action is of itself a sufficient and ultimate answer to the questionwhywe should do it.
The conscience may speak never so loudly, but without energetic will it may speak in vain. The will is free to choose between the right course and the wrong one; but the choice is nothing unless followed by immediate and decisive action. If the sense of duty be strong and the course of action clear, the courageous will, upheld by the conscience, enables a man to proceed on his course bravely, and to accomplish his purposes in the face of all opposition and difficulty; and should failure be the issue, there will remain at least the satisfaction that it has been in the cause of duty. There is a sublimity in conscious rectitude, a pleasure in the approval of one's own mind, in comparison with which the treasures of earth are not worth mentioning. The peace and happiness arising from this are above all change and beyond all decay. Disappointment and trials do but improve them; they go with us into all places and attend us through every changing scene of life. They sustain and delight at home and abroad, by day and by night, in solitude and in society, in sickness and in health, in time and eternity. All this is sure to be the reward of him who knows his duty and does it, regardless as to what others say or as to the immediate results flowing from thence.
We all have good and bad in us. The good would do what it ought to do; the bad does what itcan. The good dwells in the kingdom of duty; the bad sits on the throne of might. Duty is a loyal subject; might is a royal tyrant. Duty is the evangel of God that proclaims the acceptable year of the Lord; might is the scourge of the world that riots in carnage, groans, and blood. Duty gains its victories by peace; might conquers only by war. Duty is a moralist resting on principle; might is a worldling seeking for pleasure. These are the inward principles contending with each other in every human soul.
To live truly and nobly is to act energetically. Life is a battle to be fought valiantly. Inspired by high and honorable resolves a man must stand to his post, and die there if necessary. Like the hero of old his determination should be "to dare nobly, to will strongly, and never to falter in the path of duty." It has been truly said that man's real greatness consists, not in seeking his own pleasure or fame, but that every man shall do his duty. What most stands in the way of the performance of duty is irresolution, weakness of purpose, and indecision. On the one side are conscience and the knowledge of good and evil; on the other are indolence, selfishness, and love of pleasure. The weak and ill-disciplined will may remained suspended for a time between these influences, but at length the balance inclines one way or another, as the voice of conscience is heeded or passed by. If its warning voice is unheeded the lower influence of selfishness will prevail; thus character is degraded, and manhood abdicates its throneas ruler, and sinks to the level of slave to the senses.
Be not diverted from your duty by any idle reflections the silly world may make upon you. Their censures have no power over you, and, consequently, should not be any part of your concern. No man's spirits were ever hurt by doing his duty; on the contrary, one good action done, one temptation resisted and overcome, one sacrifice of desire or interest, purely for conscience's sake, will prove a cordial for weak souls most salutary for their real good; conducing not less to their present happiness and welfare than to their eternal and unending good.
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Trials
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Life,no matter in what aspects it has been presented before us, when we come to the reality, is full of pitfalls and entanglements, into which our unwary feet often stumble. Day after day, as we watch the different vicissitudes of life, we are reminded of the frailty of human hopes and aspirations. As the leaves of the tree, once flourishing, once verdant, lose their vitality and finally waste away, so it is with our desires and anticipations.
In youth we look forward; the future appears calm and tranquil; as we approach manhood and womanhood life changes its appearance and becomes tempestuous and rough, as the ocean changes beforethe advancing storm. In the changes of real life joy and grief are never far apart. In the same street the shutters of one house are closed, while the curtains of the next are brushed by the passing dancers. A wedding party returns from church, and a funeral train leaves from the adjacent house. Gladness and sighs brighten and dim the mirror of daily life. Tears and laughter are twin-born. Like two children sleeping in one cradle, when one wakes and stirs the other wakes also.
Be not dismayed at the trials of life; they are sent for your good. God knows what keys in the human soul to touch in order to draw out its sweetest and most perfect harmonies. These may be the strains of sadness and sorrow as well as the loftier notes of joy and gladness. Think not that uninterrupted joy is good. The sunshine lies upon the mountain top all day, and lingers there latest and longest at eventide. Yet is the valley green and fertile, while the peak is barren and unfruitful.
Trials come in a thousand different forms, and as many avenues are open to their approach. They come with the warm throbbing of our youthful lives, keep pace with the measured tread of manhood's noon, and depart not from the descending footsteps of decrepitude and age. We may not hope to be entirely free from either disciplinary trials or the fiery darts of the enemy until we are through with life's burdens. Men may be so old that ambition has no charm, pleasures may pale on the senses, but they are never too old to experience trials.
Life all sunshine without shade, all happiness without sorrow, all pleasure without pain, were not life at all—at least not human life. Take the life of the happiest. It is a tangled yarn. It is made up of joys and sorrows, and the joys are all the sweeter because of the sorrows. Even death itself makes life more loving; it binds us more closely together while living. The severer trials and hazardous enterprises of life call into exercise the latent faculties of the soul of man. They are for the purpose of putting his manhood to the test, and rouse in him strength, hardihood, and valor. They may be hard to take, though they strengthen the soul. Tonics are always bitter.
Heaven, in its mercy, has placed the fountain of wisdom in the hidden and concealed depths of the soul, that the children of misfortune might seek and find in its healthful waters the antidote and cordial of their cares and calamities. Knowledge and sorrow are blended together, and as closely and inseparably so as ignorance and folly, and for reasons equally as salutary and just. Such is the established course of nature; such is her best and wisest law. When she leads us from what is frivolous and vain in the land of darkness, and brings us to the impressive and true in the land of light, the first act she performs is to remove the scales from our eyes that we may see and weep. We must first learn to mourn and feel before we can know and think. And the deeper we shall go into the depths below the higher shall we ascend into the heights above.
Man is like a sword in a shop window. Men that look upon the perfect blade do not dream of the process by which it was completed. Man is a sword, daily life is the workshop, and God is the artificer, and the trials and sorrows of life the very things that fashion the man. We should remember when borne down by trials that they are sent to us only for our instructions, even as we darken the cages of our birds when we wish them to sing. Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls, the most massive characters are seamed with cares, martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire, and through tears many caught their first glimpse of heaven.
Never meet trouble half-way, but let him have the whole walk for his pains. Perhaps he will give up his visit even in sight of your house. If misfortune comes be patient, and he will soon stalk out again, for he can not bear cheerful company. Do not think you are fated to be miserable, because you are disappointed in your expectation and baffled in your pursuits. Do not declare that God has forsaken you when your way is hedged about with thorns, when trials and troubles meet you on every side. No man's life is free from struggles and mortifications, not even the happiest; but every one may build up his own happiness by seeking mental pleasures, and thus making himself independent of outward fortune.
The greatest misfortune of all is not to be able to bear misfortune. Not to feel misfortune is not the partof a mortal; but not to bear it is not becoming in a man. Calamity never leaves us where it finds us; it either softens or hardens the heart of its victim. Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it, for such do always see in every cloud an angel's face. Every man deems that he has precisely the trials and temptations which are the hardest of all others for him to bear. From the manner in which men bear their conditions we should ofttimes pity the prosperous and envy the unfortunate.
The simplest and most obvious use of sorrow is to remind us of God. It would seem that a certain shock is needed to bring us in contact with reality. We are not conscious of breathing till obstruction makes it felt. So we are not conscious of the mighty cravings of our half divine humanity, we are not aware of the God within us, till some chasm yawns which must be filled, or till the rending asunder of our affection brings us to a consciousness of our need.
To mourn without measure is folly; not to mourn at all is insensibility. God says to the fruit-tree bloom and bear, and to the human heart bear and bloom. The soul's great blooming is the flower of suffering. As the sun converts clouds into a glorious drapery, firing them with gorgeous hues, draping the whole horizon with its glorious costume, and writing victory along their front, so sometimes a radiant heart lets forth its hopes upon its sorrows, and all blackness flies, and troubles that trooped to appall seem to crowd around as a triumphant procession following the steps of a victor.
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Sickness
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Sicknesstakes us aside and sets us alone with God. We are taken into his private chamber, and there he converses with us face to face. The world is afar off, our relish for it is gone, and we are alone with Him. Many are the words of grace and truth which he then speaks to us. All our former props are struck away, and now we must lean on God alone. The things of earth are felt to be vanity. Man's sympathy deserts us. We are cast wholly upon God, that we may learn that his praise and his sympathy are enough.
There is something in sickness that lowers the pride of manhood, that softens the heart, and brings it back to the feelings of infancy. Who that has languished, even in advanced life, in sickness, but has thought of the mother who watched over his childhood, who smoothed his pillow, and administered to his helplessness? When a man is laboring under the pain of any distemper, it is then that he recollects there is a God, and that he himself is but a man. No mortal is then the object of his envy, his admiration, or his contempt, and, having no malice to gratify, the tales of slander excite him not. But it unveils to him his own heart. It shows him the need there is for sympathy and love between man and man. Thus disease, opening our eyes to the realities of life, is an indirect blessing. One who has never known a day's illness is lacking in onedepartment, at least, of moral culture. He has lost the greatest lesson of his life; he has missed the finest lecture in that great school of humanity, the sick chamber.
Disease generally begins that equality which death completes. The distinctions which set one man so much above another are very little perceived in the gloom of a sick chamber, where it will be vain to expect entertainment from the gay or instruction from the wise; where all human glory is obliterated, the wit is clouded, the reasoner perplexed, and the hero subdued; where the highest and brightest of mortal beings finds nothing of real worth left him but the consciousness of innocence.
Sickness brings a share of blessings with it. What stores of human love and sympathy it reveals! What constant, affectionate care is ours! what kindly greetings from friends and associates! This very loosening of our hold upon life calls out such wealth of human sympathy that life seems richer than before. Then, it teaches humility. Our absence is scarcely noticed. From the noisy, wrestling world we are separated completely; yet our place is filled, and all moves on without us. So we learn that when at last we shall sink forever beneath the waves of the sea of life, there will be but one ripple, and the current will move steadily on.
It is on the bed of sickness that we fully realize the value of good health. The first wealth is health. Sickness is poor-spirited, and can not serve any one; but health is one of the greatest blessings we arecapable of enjoying. Money can not buy it; therefore, value it, and be thankful for it. Health is above all gold and treasure. It enlarges the soul, and opens all its powers to receive instruction and to relish virtue. He that has health has but little more to wish for; and he that has it not, in the want of it wants every thing. It is beyond price, since it is by health that money is procured. Thousands, and even millions, are small recompense for the loss of health. Poverty is, indeed, an evil from which we naturally fly; but let us not run from one enemy to one still more implacable, which is assuredly the lot of those who exchange poverty for sickness, though accompanied by wealth.
In no situation and under no circumstances does human character appear to better advantage than when watching by the side of sickness. The helplessness and weakness of the sick chamber makes a most effective appeal to the charity and natural kindness inherent in the hearts of all, even of the most degraded. Thus it appears that sickness is not only of discipline to the sick one, but it serves also to bring to a more perfect growth the flowers of charity and kindness in the hearts of those who care for the sick one.
It is on the sick-bed that the heart learns most completely the value of self-examination. Life passes before the sick one as a gliding panorama. How strong are the resolutions formed for future guidance! And only God and the angels know how many lives have been turned from evil courses to the right, havebeen snatched as brands from the burning, who can date their progress in the good and true modes of living from some bed of sickness. Then, let us be patient in sickness. Let us turn it to account in the bettering of our hearts, and thus may we reap from seeming evil what will conduce in no small degree to our ultimate happiness.
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Sorrow
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Sorrowsgather around great souls as storms do around great mountains, but, like them, they break the storms and purify the air. Those who have suffered much are like those who know many languages—they have learned to understand and be understood by all.
Sorrows sober us and make the mind genial. In sorrows we love and trust our friends more tenderly, and the dead become dearer to us. Just as the stars shine out in the night, so there are faces that look at us in our grief, though before they were fading from our recollections. Suffering! Let no man dread it too much, because it is better for him, and will help make him sure of being immortal. Just as it is only at night that other worlds are to be seen shining in the distance, so it is in sorrow—the night of the soul—that we see the farthest, and know ourselves natives of infinity, sons and daughters of immortality.
The path of life meanders through a bright and beautiful world—a world where the fragrant flowers of friendship, nourished by the gentle dews of sympathy and the warm sunlight of affection, bloom in perennial beauty. But through this bright world there flows a stream whose turbid waters cross and recross the path of every pilgrim. It is the stream of human suffering. As the rose-tree is composed of the sweetest flowers and the sharpest thorns; as the heavens are sometimes overcast, alternately tempestuous and serene, so is the life of man intermingled with hopes and fears, with joy and sorrow, with pleasures, and with pains.
Life is beset with unavoidable annoyances, vexatious cares, and harassing events. But we endure them—we strive to forget them—or, like the dustworn garment, or the soil on our shoes, we brush them off, and, if possible, scarcely bestow a thought on the trouble it requires. But when we have once been called upon to feel and undergo a great sorrow, to bend the back and bow the head, to endure the yoke and suffer the agony, to abide the pelting of the storm of adversity and sorrow, when few, perhaps none, sympathize with us—these are the days of anguish and of darkness, these the nights of desolation and despair; and when they have once come upon us with their appalling weight, their remorseless power, we can never be beguiled into a forgetfulness of them. The memory of them will endure as long as life shall last. We may again behold the beams of a cheerful sun throwing a delusive coloring over thelandscape around us, but while our eyes may rest upon the lights they will dwell upon the shadows of the picture.
"Time is the rider that breaks youth." To the young how bright the new world looks! how full of novelty! of enjoyment! of pleasure! But as years pass on they are found to abound in sorrowful scenes as well as those pleasant—scenes of toil, suffering, difficulty, perhaps misfortune and failure. Happy they who can pass through such trials with a firm mind and a pure heart, encountering trials with cheerfulness, and standing erect beneath even the heaviest burdens.
Sorrow is the noblest of all discipline. Our nature shrinks from it, but it is not the less a discipline. It is a scourge, but there is healing in its stripes. It is a chalice, and the draught is bitter, but health proceeds from the bitterness. It is a crown of thorns, but it becomes a wreath of light on the brow which it has lacerated. It is a cross on which the spirit groans, but every Calvary has an Olivet. To every place of crucifixion there is likewise a place of ascension. The sun that is shrouded is unveiled, and the heavens open with hopes eternal to the soul which was nigh unto despair. Even in guilt sorrow has a sanctity within it. Place a bad man beside the death-bed, or the grave, where all that he loved is cold—we are moved, we are won, by his affection, and we find the divine spark yet alive, which no vice could quench.
Christianity itself is a religion of sorrow. It wasborn in sorrow, in sorrow it was tried, and by sorrow it was made perfect. The Author of Christianity was a "man of sorrow and acquainted with grief." Sorrow is exalting, and a baptism of sorrow is awarded to every one who strives for the higher life. Since Christ wept over Jerusalem the best, the bravest, who have followed him in good will and good deeds have commenced their mission alike in suffering. Sorrow is not to be complained of; it is the passport by which we are to be made acceptable in that house where all tears shall be wiped away. It has power for good; it has joy within its gloom, and, though Christianity is a religion of trials and suffering, it is not less a religion of hope; it casts down in order to exalt, and if it tries the spirit by affliction it is to prepare it for a future great reward.
All mankind must taste the cup which destiny has mixed, be it bitter or be it sweet. Be not impatient under suffering. It is for the correction of thy soul. It is better to suffer than to injure. It is better to suffer without a cause than that there should be cause for our suffering. By experiencing distress an arrogant insensibility of temper is most effectually corrected. Endeavor to extract a blessing from the remembrance of thy own sufferings. If so be that Providence has so ordered your life that you are not subject to much of the discipline of sorrow, strive to extract this discipline from the consideration of the lot of those less favored than you are. Step aside occasionally from the flowers and smooth paths which it is permitted you to walk in, in order to view thetoilsome march of your fellow creatures through the thorny desert. The designed end of temporal afflictions is to cause men to consider their spiritual wants, and to seek the good of their higher natures.
Often suffering not only fails to purify the soul from sin, but aggravates and intensifies its selfish and malignant passions. This is always the case where the heart fails to accept the lesson taught. By submission to sorrow the sweetest traits of character are developed, as some fruits are brought to perfection only by frost. Misfortune should act upon us or upon our feelings like fire upon old tenements, which are consumed only to be rebuilt with greater perfection. The winds of adversity sweep over the soul and scatter the fairest blossoms of hope. But the blossoms fall that the fruit may appear. So with us, when the flowers of hope are gone, there come the fruits of long-suffering, patience, faith, and love. Thus the darkest clouds which overhang human destiny may often appear the brightest to the angels who behold them with prophetic ken from heaven.
The damps of Autumn sink into the leaves and prepare them for decay, and thus are we, insensibly perhaps, detached from our hold on life by the gentle pressure of recorded sorrows. Who is not familiar with the fact that life, which to the young promises so much, but to the middle-aged presents a stern reality, seems to the old as a day's labor now closing; and even as the laborer, worn by the burdens and heat of the day, looks forward to rest, so doesthe aged pilgrim, oppressed by the accumulated griefs and sorrows of a life-time, look forward to the rest of death?
The first thing to be conquered in grief is the pleasure we feel in indulging it. Persons may acquire a morbid and unhealthy state of feeling on this subject, and by a constant giving way to feelings of grief become at last so constituted that on the slightest occasions they give way to apparently uncontrollable sorrow, converting thus what was intended as a means of discipline necessary to soul growth into an evil which contracts life. Remember, then, that in the matter of giving expression to sorrow self-control is no less necessary than in the other affairs of life. There is but one pardonable grief—that for the departed. This pleasing grief is but a variety of comfort, the sighs are but a mournful mode of loving them.
There are sorrows too sacred to be babbled to the world, griefs which one would forbear to whisper even to a friend. Real sorrow is not clamorous. It seeks to shun every eye, and breathes in solitude and silence the sighs that come from the heart. Every heart has also its secret sorrows, of which the world knows nothing, and ofttimes we call a man cold when he is only sorrowful. Sorrow may be divided into two classes—that which really comes from the heart and is for the bettering of man, and that which comes from wounded selfishness, egotism, and pride. It is our duty to strive against giving vent to the latter kind of sorrow. It is, after all, only selfish in feelingand expression. It is the duty of all to cultivate cheerfulness of manner and disposition. Another hath said, "Give not thy mind to heaviness. The gladness of heart is the life of man, and the joyfulness of a man prolongeth his days. Remove sorrow far from thee, for sorrow hath killed many, and there is no profit therein; and carefulness bringeth age before the time."
As limbs which are wrenched violently asunder do not bleed, so the sudden shocks of overwhelming sorrow are unrelieved by tears. The heart is benumbed. The eyes are dry, and the very fountain of feeling obstructed and stagnant. Our lighter afflictions find relief in lamentations and weeping, and the voice of sympathy and compassion brings some consolation and peace. But when the heart has been deeply and powerfully struck by some cruel blow of destiny, the intensity of suffering exceeds the bounds of sensibility and emotion.
Those who work hard seldom yield themselves entirely up to real or fancied sorrow. When grief sits down, folds its hands, and mournfully feeds upon its own tears, weaving the dim shadows that a little exertion might sweep away into oblivion, the strong spirit is shorn of its might, and sorrow becomes our master. When sorrow, then, pours upon you, instead of giving way to it, rather seek by occupation to divert the dark waters that threaten to overwhelm you into the thousand channels which the duties of life always present. Before you dream of it those waters will fertilize the present and give birth toflowers that may brighten the future—flowers that will become pure and holy in the sunshine which illumes the path of duty, in spite of every obstacle.
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Poverty
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Itcan not be too often repeated that it is not the so-called blessings of life, its sunshine and calms, that makes men, but its rugged experiences, its storms, tempests, and trials. Early poverty, especially, is emphatically a blessing in disguise. The school of poverty graduates the ablest pupils. It does more, perhaps, than any thing else to develop the energetic, self-reliant traits of character, without which the highest ability makes but sorry work of life's battles. Thousands of men are bemoaning present indigence and obscurity who might have won riches and honor had they only been compelled by early poverty to develop their manhood. As well expect the oak to grow strong in the atmosphere of the hot-house as that man would reach his best estate surrounded from earliest years by the comforts and luxury of wealth.
Many of the evils of poverty are imaginary, arising from mistaken notions we may entertain as to what constitutes happiness and comfort. There is not such a difference as some men imagine between the poor and the rich. In pomp, show, and opinion there is a great deal, but little as to the real pleasuresand joys of life. No man is poor who does not think himself so. But if in a full fortune, with impatience he desires more, he proclaims his wants and his beggarly condition. We are more and more impressed that the poor are only they who feel poor. He whom we esteem wealthy in a true scale would perhaps be found very indigent. Of what avail the wealth of Cr[oe]sus if the heart feels pinched and poor?
It is one of the mysteries of our life that genius, the noblest gift of God to man, is nourished by poverty. Its noblest works have been achieved by the sorrowing ones of the world in tears and despair. Not in the brilliant saloon, furnished with every comfort and elegance; not in the library, well-fitted, softly carpeted, and looking out upon a smooth, green lawn or a broad expanse of scenery; not in ease and competence,—is genius born and nurtured. More frequently in adversity and destitution, amidst the harassing cares of a straitened household, in bare and fireless garrets, is genius born and reared. This is its birthplace, and with such surroundings have men labored, studied, and trained themselves, until they have at last emanated out of the gloom of that obscurity, the shining lights of their time, and exercised an influence upon the thoughts of the world amounting to a species of intellectual legislation.
If there is any thing in the world that a young man should be more grateful for than another, it is the poverty which necessitates his starting in life under very great disadvantages. Poverty is one ofthe best tests of human quality in existence. A triumph over it is like graduating with honor from West Point. It demonstrates stuff and stamina. It is a certificate of worthy labor faithfully performed. A young man who can not stand this test is not good for any thing. He can never rise above a drudge or a pauper. If he can not feel his will harden as the yoke of poverty presses upon him, and his pluck rise with every difficulty that poverty throws in his way, he may as well withdraw from the conflict, since his defeat is already assured. Poverty saves a thousand times more men than it ruins; for it only ruins those who are not worth saving, while it saves multitudes of those whom wealth would have ruined.
It is of decided advantage for a man to be under the necessity of having to struggle with poverty, and conquer it. "He who has battled," says Carlyle, "were it only with poverty and toil, will be found stronger and more expert than he who could stay at home from the battle." It is not prosperity so much as adversity, not wealth so much as poverty, that stimulates the perseverance of strong and healthy natures, rouses their energy, and develops their character. Indeed, misfortune and poverty have frequently converted the indolent votary of society into a useful member of the community, and made him a moving power in the great workshop of the world, teaching men, and developing the powers which nature has bestowed on them.
Poverty is the great test of civility and the touchstone of friendship. Amid the poverty and privationof the humblest homes are often found scenes of magnanimity and self-denial as utterly beyond the belief as it is the practices of the great and rich—acts of self-denial, kindness, and generosity, which borrow no support either from the gaze of the many or the admiration of the few, yet giving daily exhibitions of its strength and constancy. It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and unenvied, to be healthy without physic, secure without a guard, and to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of art.
Few are the real wants and necessities of mankind. Some men with thousands a year suffer more for want of means than others with only hundreds. The reason is found in the artificial wants of the former. Though his income is great his wants are still greater, and, as a consequence, his income is not equal to his outgo. There are many wealthy people who, of course, enjoy their wealth, but there are thousands who never know a moment's peace because they live above their means. He who earns but a dollar a day, and does not run in debt, is a happier man. The great secret of being solvent and well-to-do and comfortable is to get ahead of your expenses. Eat and drink this month what you earned last month, not what you are going to earn the next.
Poverty may be a bitter draught, yet it often is a tonic, strengthening all the powers of manhood. Though the drinker makes a wry face there is, after all, a wholesome goodness in the cup. But debt,however courteously it may be offered, is the cup of a siren, and the wine, spiced and delicious though it be, is poison. The man out of debt, though with a flaw in his jerkin and a hole in his hat, is still the son of liberty, free as the singing bird above him; but the debtor, although clothed in the utmost bravery, what is he but a serf out upon a holiday? a slave to be reclaimed at every instant by his owner, the creditor?
Poverty is never felt so severely as by those who have seen better days. The poverty of the poor has
many elements of hardness, but it is endurable, and is developing their strength and endurance. The poverty of the formerly affluent is, indeed, hard; it avoids the light of the day and shuns the sympathy of those who would relieve its wants; it preys upon the heart and corrodes the mind; the sunshine of life is gone, and it requires a strong mind to resolutely set about to mend the impaired fortune.
It is the misfortune of many young persons today that they begin life with too many advantages. Every possible want of their many-sided nature is supplied before it is consciously felt. Books, teachers, mental and religious training, lectures, amusements, clothes, and food, all of the best quality, and without stint in quantity—in short, the pick of the world's good things—and help of every kind are lavished upon them, till satiety results, and all ambition is extinguished. What motive has a young man for whom life is thus "thrice winnowed" to exert himself? Having supped full of life's sweets he findsthem palling on his taste; having done nothing to earn its good things he can not appreciate their value. Like a hot-house plant, grown weak and spindling through too much shelter and watching, he needs nothing so much as to be set in the open air of the world, and to grow strong with struggling for existence.
It is a fact that the working, successful men of to-day were once industrious, self-reliant boys. And the same thing will be repeated, for from the ranks of the hard-working, economical, temperate, and self-reliant boys of to-day will emanate the progressive, prominent men of the future. All boys should grow up strong as steel bars, fighting their way to an education, and then, when they are all ready, plunging into real life. The majority of the men of mark in this country are not the sons of those whose fathers could give them all they want, and much more than they should have, but are those who were brought up in cottages and cabins, cutting their way through difficulties on every side to their present commanding position.
Of all poverty that of the mind is the most deplorable. And it is, at the same time, without excuse. Every one who wills it can lay in a rich store of mental wealth. The poor man's purse may be empty, but he has as much gold in the sunset, and as much silver in the moon, as any body. Wealth of heart is not dependent upon wealth of purse. Home comfort and happiness does not depend upon elegance of surroundings. But it is found in thespirit presiding over the household; this is the spirit of loving kindness, and is as apt to dwell with poverty as with wealth. Thus the evils of poverty are much exaggerated. And the evils, if evils they be, are, after all, for our own ultimate good.
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Thereis an elasticity to the human mind capable of bearing much, but which will not show itself until a certain weight of affliction be put upon it. "Fear not the darkness," saith the Persian proverb; "it conceals perhaps the springs of the water of life." Experience is often bitter, but wholesome. Only by its teachings can we learn to suffer and be strong. Character in its highest forms is disciplined by trial and made perfect through suffering. Even from the deepest sorrow the patient and thoughtful mind will gather a richer mead than pleasure ever yielded.