第19章 LIFE A TALE (8)

Nay, in this aspect, it is itself a great blessing, and "Every cloud that spreads above And veileth love, itself is love."It is evident that, without the contact of sin and the pressure of temptation, there might be innocence, but not virtue.Equally evident does it seem that, without an acquaintance with grief, there would soon be but little of that uplifting tendency-that softening of the heart, and sanctifying of the affections-which fit us for the dissolution of our earthly ties, and for the communions of the spirit world.Beautiful is this weaning efficacy of sorrow.By the ordinance of God, youth is made to be content with this outward and palpable life.The sunshine and the air-the flow of animal pleasures, encircled mysteriously with the guardianship of parents, and the love of friends-are sufficient for the child.But as we grow in years, there springs up a dissatisfaction, a restlessness, of which we may be only half conscious, and still less know how to cure.

With some, this may subside into merely a fearful and worldly discontent; others may heed the prophecy and lay hold on a celestial hope, an immortal possession as the only remedy.

In this secret sense of want, which neither nature nor man can fill they will hear already that low, divine voice,--"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and Iwill give you rest." But generally another and more emphatic missionary is necessary.It is the veiled angel of sorrow, who plucks away one thing and another that bound us here in ease and security, and in the vanishing of these dear objects indicates the true home of our affections and our peace.

Thus, by rupture and loss we become weaned from earth, and the dissatisfaction and discontent which sorrow thus induces are as kind and providential as the carelessness of youth.

Who does not see that it is so,--that as we journey on in life there are made in our behalf preparations for another state of being,--unmistakable premonitions of that fact which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews so eloquently states, that "here have we no continuing city"? The gloss of objects in which we delighted is worn off by attrition,--is sicklied o'er by care; the vanity of earthly things startles us suddenly, like a new truth; the friends we love drop away from our side into silence; desire fails; the grasshopper becomes a burden; until, at length, we feel that our only love is not here below,--until these tendrils of earth aspire to a better climate, and the weight that has been laid upon us makes us stoop wearily to the grave as a rest and a deliverance.We have, even through our tears, admired that discipline which sometimes prepares the young to die; which, by sharp trials of anguish, and long days of weariness, weans them from that keen sense of mortal enjoyment which is so naturally theirs; which, through the attenuation of the body, illuminates the soul, and, as it steals the bloom from the cheek, kindles the lustre of faith in the eye, and makes even that young spirit look, unfaltering, across the dark river, and, putting aside its earthly loves and its reasonable expectations, exclaim, "Now I am ready!" But it would appear that equal preparation, though in different forms, is provided for most of us, in the various experiences of sorrow which we are called upon to know, and which, if we would but heed them, have a celestial mission, seeking to draw us up from this lower state, to induce us to lay up our treasure where neither moth nor rust corrupts.And in the Christian view of man as an heir of the spiritual word, does not sorrow, in this its weaning tendency, receive a most beautiful explanation?