The Crown of Thorns | Page 5

spite even of our very sins; who would go back to the hours of his youthful experience, and have the shadow stand still at that point upon the dial of his life? Who, for the sake of its innocence and its freshness, would empty the treasury of his broader knowledge, and surrender the strength that he has gathered in effort and endurance? Who, for its careless joy, would exchange the heart-warm friendships that have been annealed in the vicissitudes of years, --the love that sheds a richer light upon our path, as its vista lengthens, or has drawn our thoughts into the glory that is beyond the veil? Nay, even if his being, has been most frivolous and aimless, or vile, --in the penitent throb with which this is felt to be so, there is a. spring of active power which exists not in the dreams of the youth; and the sense of guilt and of misery is the stirring, of a life infinitely deeper than that early flow of vitality and - consciousness which sparkles as it runs. Build a tabernacle for perpetual youth, and say, "It is good to be here"? It cannot be so; and it is well that it cannot. Our post is not the Mount of Vision, but the Field of Labor; and we can find no rest in Eden until we have passed through, Gethsemane.
Equally vain is the desire for some condition in life which shall be free from care, and want, and the burden of toil. I suppose most people do, at times, wish for such a lot, and secretly or openly repine at the terms upon which they are compelled to live. The deepest fancy in the heart of the most busy men is repose - retirement-command of time and means, untrammeled by any imperative claim. And yet who is there that, thrown into such a position, would find it for his real welfare, and would be truly happy? Perhaps the most restless being in the world is the man who need do nothing, but keep still. The old soldier fights all his battles over again, and the retired merchant spreads the sails of his thought upon new ventures, or comes uneasily down to snuff the air of traffic, and feel the jar of wheels. I suppose there is nobody whose condition is so deplorable, so ghastly, as his whose lot many may be disposed to envy,--a man at the top of this world's ease, crammed to repletion with what is called "enjoyment;" ministered to by every luxury, --the entire surface of his life so smooth with completeness that there is not a jut to hang, a hope on, --so obsequiously gratified in every specific want that he feels miserable from the very lack of wanting. As in such a case there, can be no religious life--which never permits us to rest in a feeling of completeness; which seldom abides with fulness(sic) of possession, and never stops with self, but always inspires to some great work of love and sacrifice --as in such a case there can be no religious life, he fully realizes the poet's description of the splendor and the wretchedness of him who
" * * built his soul a costly pleasure-house Wherein at ease for aye to dwell;"
and who said
" * * O soul, make merry and carouse Dear soul, for all is well.
* * * * * * *
Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth, Joying to feel herself alive, Lord over nature, lord of the visible earth, Lord of the 'senses five
"Communing with herself: , 'All these are mine, And let the world have peace or wars, 'T is one to me,' * * * * *
* * * * * So three years She throve, but on the fourth she fell, Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears, Struck through with pangs of hell."
The truth is, there is no one place, however we may envy it, which would be indisputably good for us to occupy; much less for us to remain in. The zest of life, like the pleasure which we receive from a work of art, or from nature, comes from undulations --from inequalities; not from any monotony, even though it be the monotony of seeming perfection. The beauty of the landscape depends upon contrasts, and would be lost in one common surface of splendor. The grandeur of the waves is in the deep hollows, as well as the culminating crests; and the bars of the sunset glow on the background of the twilight. The very condition of a great thing is that it must be comparatively a rare thing. We speak of summer glories, and yet who would wish it to be always summer? -- who does not see how admirably the