第12章 LIFE A TALE (1)

We spend our years as a tale that is told.Psalm xc.9.

We bring our years to an end like a thought, is the proper rendering of these words, according, to an eminent translator.But as the essential idea of the Psalmist is preserved in the common version, I employ it as peculiarly illustrative and forcible.It will be my object, in the present discourse, to show the fitness of the comparison in the text; --to suggest the points of resemblance between human life and a passing narrative.

I observe, then, in the first place, that the propriety of this simile is seen in the brevity of life.What more rapid and momentary than a story? It is heard, and passes.Though it beguiles us for the time, it dies away in sound, or melts from before, the eye.And this I say, strikingly illustrates the brevity of life.The brevity of life! It is a trite truth, and yet how little realized! Probably there is nothing, more common, and yet there is nothing, more pernicious, than the habit of virtual dependence upon length of days.Thus the best ends of our mortal being are lost sight of; the solemn circumstances, the suggestive mysteries of life, are misconstrued.The heavens, which give a myriad hints of worlds beyond the grave, are, to many, impenetrable walls, shutting them in to mere pursuits of sense, -- the upholstery of a workshop or bazaar; and this earth, which is but a step, --a filmy platform of our immortal course, --is to them the solid abiding place of all interest, and of all hope.

It is well, then, to break in upon this worldly reliance, --to consider how fleeting and uncertain are the things in which we garner up so much.Therefore, in order that we may more vividly realize the brevity of life,--how like it is to a passing tale,--let us consider the rapidity of its changes, even in a few short years.We are, to some degree, made aware how fast the current of time bears us on, when we pause and remark the shores; when we observe how our position to-day has shifted from what it was yesterday; how the sunny slopes of youth have been changed for the teeming uplands of maturity; yea, perhaps, how already the stream is narrowing, and rushing more swiftly as it narrows, towards those high hills that bound our present vision, upon whose summits lingers the departing light, and around whose base thickens the solemn shadow.

This rapidity of change is most strikingly illustrated when, after a few years' absence, we return to the scenes of our youth.We plunged into the current of the world, buoyant and vigorous; our thoughts have been occupied every hour, and we have not noticed the stealthy shadow of time.But we come back to that early spot, and look around.Lo! The companions of our youth have grown into dignified men,--the active and influential citizens of the place.Care has set "Busy wrinkles round their eyes."They meet us with formal deportment, or with an ill-concealed restlessness, as though we hindered them in their work,--work! Which, when we parted with them, would have been flung to the winds for any idle sport.How quickly they have changed into this gravity and anxiety! On the other hand, those who stood where they stand now,--whose names occupied the signs and the records which theirs now fill,--have passed away, or, here and there, come tottering along, bent and gray-headed men.Those, too, who were mere infants-those whom we never saw-take up our old stations, and inspire them with the gladness of childhood.And exactly thus have we changed to others.We are a mirror to them and they to us.

From this familiar experience, then, let us realize that the stream of life does not stop, nor are we left stationary, but carried with it; though our condition may appear unchanged, until we lift up our eyes, and look for the old landmarks.

The brevity of our life! my friends.Amid our daily business,--in the sounding tumult of the great mart, and the absorption of our thoughts,--do we think of it? Do we perceive how nearly we approach a goal which a little while ago seemed far before us? Do we observe how quickly we shoot by it? Do we mark with what increasing swiftness the line of our life seems reeling off, and how close we are coming to the end? Time never stops! Each tick of the clock echoes our advancing footsteps.The shadow of the dial falls upon it a shorter and shorter tract, which we have yet to pass over.Even if a long life lies before us, let us consider that thirty-five years is high noon with us,--the meridian of that arc which comprehends but threescore years and ten!

But we may be more vividly impressed with the fact of the brevity of life, if we adopt some criterion wider than these familiar measurements.The narrative, the story, engages our ears, in the pauses of care and labor.We listen to it in the noonday rest, and around the evening fire.It is a slight break in the monotony of our business,--an interlude in the solemn march of life.And thus, in some respects, is life itself.It is so, if we take into view a long series of existence, such as the succession of human generations, or, still more, the periods of creative development, and the computations of time as applied to the forms and changes of the material universe.In this vast train of being, our individual existence, however important to ourselves, is but an interlude-a tale.Let us, then, for a while, lay aside any conventional method of estimating our life,--a method in which that life fills a large space, simply because it is brought near to the eye, --and let us endeavor to take a view of it, as it were, from the fixed stars, or from the elevation of the immortal state.