believers

October 30, 2011

Kyna Gaboriault

Queen Defender of The Faith

Sweet Candy Creations

Dear Believers,

You who understand all things—what can be taught
and what cannot be spoken of, what goes on
in heaven and here on the earth—you know, although you cannot see, how sick our state is. And so we find in you alone, great seer, our shield and savior. For Phoebus Apollo, in case you have not heard the news, has sent us
an answer to our question: the only cure
for this infecting pestilence is to find the men who murdered Laius and kill them
or else expel them from this land as exiles.  So do not withhold from us your prophecies in voices of the birds or by some other means. Save this city and yourself. Rescue me. Deliver us from this pollution by the dead. We are in your hands. For a mortal man the finest labor he can do is help with all his power other human beings.

I pray fate still finds me worthy,  demonstrating piety and reverence
in all I say and do—in everything
our loftiest traditions consecrate,
 those laws engendered in the heavenly skies, whose only father is Olympus. They were not born from mortal men, nor will they sleep and be forgotten.

 In them lives an ageless mighty god.

Insolence gives birth to tyranny—that insolence which vainly crams itself and overflows with so much stuff
beyond what’s right or beneficial, that once it’s climbed the highest rooftop, it’s hurled down by force—such a quick fall there’s no safe landing on one’s feet. But I pray the god never will abolish the rivalry so beneficial to our state. That god I will hold on to always, the one who stands as our protector.*

      But if a man conducts himself
disdainfully in what he says and does, and manifests no fear of righteousness, no reverence for the statues of the gods, may miserable fate seize such a man for his disastrous arrogance, if he does not behave with justice when he strives to benefit himself, appropriates all things impiously, and, like a fool, profanes the sacred. What man is there who does such things who can still claim he will ward off
the arrow of the gods aimed at his heart? If such actions are considered worthy, why should we dance to honor god?

      No longer will I go in reverence to the sacred stone, earth’s very center, or to the temple at Abae or Olympia, if these prophecies fail to be fulfilled and manifest themselves to mortal men. But you, all-conquering, all-ruling Zeus, if by right those names belong to you, let this not evade you and your ageless might. For ancient oracles which dealt with Laius are withering—men now set them aside. Nowhere is Apollo honored publicly, and our religious faith is dying away. 

And for this act, may the god watch over you and treat you better than he treated me. Ah, my children, where are you? Come here, come into my arms—you are my sisters now—feel these hands which turned your father’s eyes, once so bright, into what you see now, these empty sockets. He was a man, who, seeing nothing, knowing nothing, fathered you with the woman who had given birth to him. I weep for you. Although I cannot see, I think about your life in days to come, the bitter life which men will force on you. What citizens will associate with you? What feasts will you attend and not come home in tears, with no share in the rejoicing? When you’re mature enough for marriage, who will be there for you, my children, what husband ready to assume the shame tainting my children and their children, too? What perversion is not manifest in us? Your father killed his father, and then ploughed his mother’s womb—where he himself was born—conceiving you where he, too, was conceived. Those are the insults they will hurl at you. Who, then, will marry you? No one, my children. You must wither, barren and unmarried. Son of Menoeceus, with both parents gone, you alone remain these children’s father. Do not let them live as vagrant paupers, wandering around unmarried. You are a relative of theirs—don’t let them sink to lives of desperation like my own.
      Have pity. You see them now at their young age deprived of everything except a share in what you are. Promise me, you noble soul, you will extend your hand to them. And you my children, if your minds were now mature, there’s so much I could say. But I urge you—pray that you may live as best you can and lead your destined life more happily than your own father.

The Bible teaches that God is all-knowing or omniscient. The word "omniscient" comes from two Latin words omnis signifying all, and scientia signifying knowledge. When we say that God is omniscient it means that He has perfect knowledge of all things. He does not have to learn anything and He has not forgotten anything. God does not have to reason things out, find out things, or learn them gradually. He knows everything that has happened and everything that will happen. God also knows every potential thing that might happen. God even knows those things that humankind has yet to discover. This knowledge is absolute and unacquired. The omniscience of God means that He has perfect knowledge, perfect understanding, and perfect wisdom as to how to apply the knowledge.

He Is The God Of Knowledge

In the prayer of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, we have the revealed truth that God is a God of knowledge.

Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed (1 Samuel 2:3).

The psalmist wrote.

O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it (Psalm 139:1-6).

He Has Infinite Knowledge

The psalmist wrote of God's infinite knowledge.

Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; his understanding is infinite (Psalm 147:5).

John the evangelist wrote:

For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things (1 John 3:20).

He Has Know Things From Eternity

God has had all knowledge for all eternity:

Known to God from eternity are all his works (Acts 15:18).

His Knowledge Is Without Limit

The Bible clearly teaches that God's knowledge is without limit. The Apostle Paul declared:

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out (Romans 11:33).

In Proverbs we read.

The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good (Proverbs 15:3).

The psalmist declared.

Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure (Psalm 147:5).

It Is Not Like Human Knowledge

The knowledge that God has is not like the limited knowledge of human beings.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8,9).

The psalmist wrote.

These things you have done and I have been silent; you thought that I was one just like yourself. But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you (Psalm 50:21).

His Knowledge Is Perfect

The knowledge of God is perfect. In the Book of Job a man named Elihu said.

Do you know the balance of the clouds, those wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge (Job 37:16).

No One Can Teach Him

Because the knowledge of God is perfect, no one can teach Him anything.

Can anyone teach God knowledge, in that he judges those on high? (Job 21:22).

Paul stated the same truth.

For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became his counselor? (Romans 11:34).

Neither does God have to investigate anything.

For he knows those who are worthless, and he sees iniquity without investigating (Job 11:11).

He Knows What Is Happening On The Earth

Scripture says that God is aware of what is presently happening here on earth.

The Lord said, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings" (Exodus 3:7).

He also knows things from the past.

Says the Lord, who makes these things known from long ago (Acts 15:18).

He Predict Events Ahead Of Time

Because God knows everything that will happen, this allows Him to predict the future ahead of time. We read the Lord saying that He,

Declares the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all my good pleasure (Isaiah 46:10).

God predicted of Abraham.

Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him (Genesis 18:18,19).

Elisha the prophet made the following prediction.

Elisha answered, "Go and say to him, ‘You will certainly not recover'; but the LORD has revealed to me that he will in fact die" ((2 Kings 8:10).

His Eyes See All Things

Scripture speaks symbolically of the "eyes of God" seeing all things.

For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that he may strongly support those whose heart is completely his (2 Chronicles 16:9).

Jeremiah the prophet recorded the Lord saying.

For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my face, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes (Jeremiah 16:17).

Zechariah recorded.

For who has despised the day of small things? But these seven will be glad when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel these are the eyes of the Lord which range to and fro throughout the earth (Zechariah 4:10).

The psalmist wrote.

Does he who implanted the ear not hear? Does he who formed the eye not see? (Psalm 94:9).

His Knowledge Is Denied By The Wicked

Scripture informs us that the wicked question the nature and extent of God's knowledge. They question how God is able to know everything.

And they say, "How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?" Such are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches (Psalm 73:11,12).

They believe God does not see their sin.

And they say, "The LORD does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive." Understand, O dullest of the people; fools, when will you be wise? (Psalm 94:7).

God knows what the evil people think.

Therefore he knows their works, and he overthrows them in the night (Job 34:25).

God Is Perfect In Judgment

Only a God who is perfect in knowledge would be competent to judge humanity. The Bible speaks of that Day of Judgment when the Lord judges all humanity. For God to judge righteously, He must know all things.

But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the godless (2 Peter 3:7).

When people realize they will have to stand one day before an all-knowing God, this should cause them to evaluate the way they live their lives. Judgment is coming and people need to live in light of it. Jesus said.

For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned (Matthew 12:47).

Humanity Should Take The Warnings Seriously

Because God knows everything the warnings that He gives humankind need to be taken seriously. Since He knows what will happen in the future any warning He gives in for our benefit.

There Is Comfort For Believer

There is great comfort for the believer in the omniscience of God. In all the problems the believer may face we are told by Jesus that, "Your Father knows" (Matthew 6:8).

The Lord searches every heart.

And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever (1 Chronicles 28:9).

The Believer Is Secure In This Knowledge

The believer may rest secure in the knowledge that God knows everything about them. Nothing about any of us will take God by surprise. No one can tell Him anything that would cause Him to cast us out of His presence. He thoroughly knows us.

Whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything (1 John 3:20).

Summary

As we examine what the Scripture has to say about the extent of the knowledge of God several things become clear. First, God is a God of infinite knowledge – there is nothing that He is not aware of. God is not like human beings in His knowledge. He cannot learn anything, does not need to be taught and does not make any mistakes. Consequently He is able to righteously judge humanity for he knows the thought as well as the deed. His omniscience also allows him to predict the future. He knows everything that will happen before it occurs. There is great security for the believer in the omniscience of God. He knows the need of each believer and he promises to meet those needs. All those who have put their trust in him are comforted by the thought of God's omniscience.

1.            “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Proverbs 1:7)
 

2.            “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (Proverbs 9:10)

3.            “Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding; for her proceeds are better than the profits of silver, and her gain than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, and all the things you may desire cannot compare with her. Length of days is in her right hand, in her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, and happy are all who retain her.” (Proverbs 3:13)
 

4.            “How much better it is to get wisdom than gold! And to get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver.” (Proverbs 16:16)
 

5.            “There is gold and a multitude of rubies, but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.” (Proverbs 20:15)
 

6.            “… but the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it.” (Ecclesiastes 7:12)
 

7.            “Understanding is a wellspring of life to him who has it.” (Proverbs 16:22)
 

8.            “Through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” (Proverbs 24:3)
 

9.            “Wisdom strengthens the wise more than ten rulers of the city.” (Ecclesiastes 7:19)

10.        “… both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:2)
 

11.        “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! … For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:33,36)
 

12.        “For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding; He stores up sound wisdom for the upright …” (Proverbs 2:6)
 

13.        Daniel answered and said: “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with Him.” (Daniel 2:20)
 

14.        “Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than heaven – what can you do? Deeper than Sheol – what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.” (Job 11:7)
 

15.        ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ (Jeremiah 33:3)
 

16.        “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.” (Matthew 13:11)
 

17.        “… that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe …” (Ephesians 1:17)
 

18.        “Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.” (Amos 3:7)
 

19.        “But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets …” (Daniel 2:28)
 

20.        Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:31)

21.        “But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.” (1 Corinthians 2:10)
 

22.        “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, HE WILL TEACH YOU ALL THINGS, and bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you.” (John 14:26)
 

23.        “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, HE WILL GUIDE YOU INTO ALL TRUTH …” (JOHN 16:13)

24.        “Behold, You DESIRE TRUTH in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.” (Psalm 51:6)
 

25.        “ASK, and it will be given to you; SEEK, and you will find; KNOCK, and it will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7)
 

26.        “Yet you do not have because you do not ask.” (James 4:2)
 

27.        “If any of you lacks wisdom, LET HIM ASK OF GOD, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.” (James 1:5)
 

28.        “… TO ASK that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may have a walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God …” (Colossians 1:9)
 

29.        “My son, if you receive My words, and treasure My commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; yes, if you CRY OUT for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding, if you SEEK HER as silver, and SEARCH FOR HER as for hidden treasures; then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.” (Proverbs 2:1)
 

30.        “The heart of him who has understanding SEEKS KNOWLEDGE, but the mouth of fools feeds on foolishness.” (Proverbs 15:14)
 

31.        “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to SEARCH OUT A MATTER.” (Proverbs 25:2)
 

32.        “A wise man will hear and INCREASE LEARNING, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel, to understand a proverb and an enigma, the words of the wise and their riddles.” (Proverbs 1:5)
 

33.        “The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, and ADDS LEARNING to his lips.” (Proverbs 16:23)
 

34.        “Hear my children, the instruction of a father, and give attention to know understanding; for I give you good doctrine: Do not forsake my law” … He also taught me, and said to me: “Let your heart retain my words; keep my commands, and live. GET WISDOM! GET UNDERSTANDING! Do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you: Love her, and she will keep you. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding. Exalt her, and she will promote you; she will bring you honor, when you embrace her. She will place on your head an ornament of grace; a crown of glory she will deliver to you.”
 
“Hear, my son. and receive my sayings, and the years of your life will be many. I have taught you in the way of wisdom; I have led you in right paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hindered, and when you run, you will not stumble. Take firm hold of instruction, do not let go; keep her, for she is your life.” (Proverbs 4:1-9)

35.        “My son … keep sound wisdom and discretion; so they will be life to your soul and grace to your neck. Then you will walk safely in your way, and your foot will not stumble. When you lie down, you will not be afraid; yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet.” (Proverbs 3:21)
 

36.        “When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness; who rejoice in doing evil …” (Proverbs 2:10)
 

37.        “Hear, my son, and receive my sayings, and the years of your life will be many. I have taught you in the way of wisdom; I have led you in right paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hindered, and when you run, you will not stumble. Take firm hold of instruction, do not let go; keep her, for she is your life.” (Proverbs 4:10)

38.        “A wise man is strong, yes, a man of knowledge increases strength; for by wise counsel you will wage your own war, and in a multitude of counselors there is safety.” (Proverbs 24:5)
 

39.        “Without counsel, plans go awry, but in the multitude of counselors they are established.” (Proverbs 15:22)
 

40.        “Every purpose is established by counsel; by wise counsel wage war.” (Proverbs 20:18)
 

41.        “Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” (Proverbs 11:14)

42.        “The simple believes every word, but the prudent man considers well his steps.” (Proverbs 14:15)
 

43.        “The plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty, but those of everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty.” (Proverbs 21:5)
 

44.        “A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished.” (Proverbs 22:3)

45.        “He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.” (Proverbs 13:20)
 

46.        “Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.” (Proverbs 23:9)
 

47.        “A scoffer seeks wisdom and does not find it, but knowledge is easy to him who understands. Go from the presence of a foolish man, when you do not perceive in him the lips of knowledge.” (Proverbs 14:6)
 

48.        “A prudent man conceals knowledge, but the heart of fools proclaims foolishness.” (Proverbs 12:23)
 

49.        “He who has knowledge spares his words, and a man of understanding is of calm spirit. Even a fool is counted wise when he holds his peace; when he shuts his lips, he is considered perceptive.” (Proverbs 17:27)

50.        “These things also belong to the wise: IT IS NOT GOOD TO SHOW PARTIALITY IN JUDGMENT. He who says to the wicked, “You are righteous,” him the people will curse; nations will abhor him. But those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and good blessing will come upon them. He who gives a right answer kisses the lips.” (Proverbs 24:23)
 

51.        “TO SHOW PARTIALITY IS NOT GOOD, because for a piece of bread a man will transgress … He who rebukes a man will find more favor afterward than he who flatters with the tongue.” (Proverbs 28:21,23)

52.        “We know that we all have knowledge. KNOWLEDGE PUFFS UP, but love edifies.” (1 Corinthians 8:1)
 

53.        “For we KNOW IN PART and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away with … For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.” (1 Corinthians 13:9,12)

54.        “For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” (Ecclesiastes 1:18)

55.        Let no one deceive you. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. FOR THE WISDOM OF THIS WORLD IS FOOLISHNESS WITH GOD. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their own craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” Therefore let no one glory in men.” (1 Corinthians 3:18)
 

56.        “But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing will be there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.” (James 3:14)

57.        “Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter days.” (Proverbs 19:20)
 

58.        “Cease listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge.” (Proverbs 19:27)
 

59.        “He who is often reproved, and hardens his neck, will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” (Proverbs 29:1)

60.        “Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?” And the speech pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked for this thing.
Then God said to him: “Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked long life for yourself, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice, behold, I have done according to your words; see, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you. 
And I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days. So if you walk in My ways, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.” (1 Kings 3:9-14)

61.        “So King Solomon surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom. And all the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart.” (1 Kings 10:23)

Tell D-1 that B-145 will arrive tomorrow morning at 12 noon on Canadian Pacific. Tell him to alert Grity, Malla, Maruja, Pasch, Hilda that all is well.

The courage, patience, and altertness of members can be tested by other devices. But the all-important thing is reliability and honesty. In a sense, with this need to be sure of the full loyalty of its people, the insurgent organization thrives on suspicion. Yet the pressure of its controls breeds discontent among members. When malcontents or traitors are uncovered, the leaders reemphasize the rules of conduct and establish new levels of severity which further disgruntle the membership. At the same time, however, these restrictions and controls do make the life of an agent who penetrates the group both difficult and hazardous, and his case officer must have a thorough knowledge of the protective tactics used by the dissident leaders.

At the safesite counterintelligence specialists question their colleague in detail. When and where was he arrested? Who were the arresting officers? What charges did they levy against him? Was anyone arrested with him? Where was he taken? What questions were asked? Was he shown photographs of individuals to identify? Whom did he identify? Was he given maps on which to pinpoint facilities? What safe sites or communications did he reveal? Was he asked to cooperate with the police? What did the police promise him? Was he forced to cooperate? (A man can be brave but need not be foolish, they tell him. If he was forced to talk, they know he did so from prudence and not from fear or greed.) But what did they promise him? Where was he jailed? How does he know? What were the names of his guards? How does he know? Was he indeed tortured? Did he have a cell mate? What was his name? Did they engage in conversation? What was said? Now, where did he go upon release? Whom did he talk to? What did he tell the neighbors? Whom did he try to contact? How?

“Live with intention.  Walk to the edge.  Listen hard.  Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.  Laugh.  Choose with no regret.  Appreciate your friends.  Continue to learn.  Do what you love.  Live as if this is all there is.”
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Many moons from now, just before you take your final breath, I hope, for your sake, that you are able to repeat the following ten headlines to yourself, honestly.

1.  I followed my heart and intuition.

As our friend Steve Jobs says:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.  Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.  Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become.  Everything else is secondary.”

This is your life, and it’s a short one.  Don’t accept false choices.  Don’t let others put a cage around you.  Try what you want to try.  Go where you want to go.  Follow your own intuition.  Read Quitter.

2.  I said what I needed to say.

Everyone has this little watchdog inside their head.  It’s always there watching you.  It was born and raised by your family, friends, coworkers, bosses and society at large, and its sole purpose is to watch you and make sure you stay in line.  And once you become accustomed to the watchdog’s presence, you begin to think his opinion of what’s acceptable and unacceptable are absolute truths.  But the watchdog’s views are not truths, they’re just opinions – forceful opinions that have the potential to completely brainwash you of your own opinions if you aren’t careful.

Remember, the watchdog is just a watchdog, he just watches.  He can’t actually control you.  He can’t do anything about it if you decide to rise up and go against the grain.

No, you should not start randomly cussing and acting like a fool.  But you must say what you need to say when you need to say it.  It may be your only chance to do so.

Don’t censor yourself.  Speak the truth.  Your truth.

3.  I did what I needed to do.

Every morning you are faced with two choices:  You can aimlessly stumble through the day not knowing what’s going to happen and simply react to events at a moment’s notice, or you can go through the day directing your own life and making your own decisions and destiny.

The greatest gift extraordinarily successful people have over average people is their ability to get themselves to take action – to physically do something about getting from where they are now to where they want to be.  And no, it won’t be easy.  But in the end, suffering from the pain of discipline while you do what you need to do is a whole lot easier than suffering from the regret and disappointment of never fulfilling any of your dreams.

4.  I made a difference.

Act as if what you do makes a difference.  It does.

In life, you get what you put in.  When you make a positive impact in someone else’s life, you also make a positive impact in your own life.  Do something that’s greater than you – something that helps someone else to be happy or to suffer less.

Doing something nice for someone can change the world.  Maybe not the whole world, but their world.  Read How To Win Friends and Influence People.

5.  I know what true love is.

Finding a companion or a friend isn’t about trying to transform yourself into the perfect image of what you think they want.  It’s about being exactly who you are and then finding someone who appreciates that.  Relationships must be chosen wisely.  It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.  There’s no need to rush.  If something is meant to be, it will happen – in the right time, with the right person, and for the best reason.

As with all things of the heart, there is an ingredient of magic in finding love.  There are no coincidences.  Everything happens for a reason.  Love is beautiful and unpredictable.  The best thing you can do is to start to become the most outstanding person possible.  The universe will know when you are ready, and when you are, true love will happen, unexpectedly.

6.  I am happy and grateful.

Very little is needed to create happiness.  It is all within you, in your way of thinking.  How you view yourself and your world are conscious choices and habits.  The lens you choose to view everything through determines how you feel about yourself and everything that happens around you.  You must choose to be happy.

A big part of this is simply being grateful for what you have.  As Mick Jagger once said, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need.”  Look around.  Appreciate the things you have right now.  Many people aren’t so lucky.  Read 12 Things Happy People Do Differently.

7.  I am proud of myself.

You are your own best friend and your own biggest critic.  Regardless of the opinions of others, at the end of the day the only reflection staring back at you in the mirror is your own.  How you feel about this person is vital to your long-term wellbeing.

Being proud of yourself is also known as having strong self-esteem.  People who are proud of themselves tend to have passions in life, feel content and set good examples for others.  It requires envisioning the person you would like to become and making your best efforts to grow as an individual.

Being proud isn’t bragging about how great you are.  It’s more like quietly knowing that you’re worth a lot.  It’s not about thinking you’re perfect – because nobody is – but knowing that you’re worthy of being loved and accepted.  Boost your self-esteem by recognizing your accomplishments and celebrating them.  Acknowledge your positive qualities, and when you come across a quality in yourself that you aren’t proud of, don’t sulk in your sorrows, proactively work on correcting it.  Read Today We Are Rich.

8.  I became the best version of me.

It’s a good idea to be yourself, not only because everybody else is taken, but because trying to be anything else doesn’t usually get you very far.  Trying to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.  Strength, success and contentment come from being comfortable in your own skin.

Judy Garland once said, “Always be a first rate version of yourself instead of a second rate version of somebody else.”  Live by this statement.  There is no such thing as living in someone else’s shoes.  The only shoes you can occupy are your own.  If you aren’t being yourself, you aren’t truly living – you’re merely existing.

Remember, at any given moment, you are in competition with one person and one person only – yourself. You are competing to be the best you can be.

9.  I forgave those who hurt me.

We’ve all been hurt by another person at some point or another – we were treated badly, trust was broken, hearts were hurt.  And while this pain is normal, sometimes that pain lingers for too long.  We relive the pain over and over and have a hard time letting go.

This causes problems.  It not only causes us to be unhappy, but can strain or ruin relationships, distract us from work and family and other important things, make us reluctant to open up to new things and people.  We get trapped in a cycle of anger and hurt, and miss out on the beauty of life as it happens.

Grudges are a waste of perfect happiness.  To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you.

10.  I have no regrets.

This one is a culmination of the previous nine headlines…

Follow your heart.  Be true to yourself.  Do what you need to do fulfill your dreams.  Say what you need to say.  Be kind to others.  Offer a helping hand when you’re able.  Love those who deserve to be loved, and cherish the bond you share.  Appreciate all the things you do have.  Smile.  Celebrate your small victories.  Learn from your mistakes.  Forgive.  And let go of the things you can’t change.

Symbols

..

(1) The forest is a primordial archetype of the kind identified by psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961). It represents darkness and evil inside the human soul. (2) The boiling cauldron appears to represent the wild emotions of the girls. (3) The poppet (puppet) used to incriminate Mrs.Proctor represents the superstition and stupidity that incite the zealots of Salem--and zealots of any other place and time. (4) The witch trials symbolize injustice springing from intolerance, fanaticism, mass hysteria, and desire for revenge. (5) The heavy stones used in the pressing death of Giles Corey symbolize the weight of the sins committed by the Salem accusers. (6) The pregnancy of Mrs. Proctor appears to represent hope that the next generation of Salem residents will be righteous, truth-telling people, like John Proctor, the condemned father of the soon-to-be-born child.

Our hbrae's head had reached the phaeton's hind seat, still Hensley sat unmoved; further yet: we were nearly even with the hind seat, when, with the yell of a Cherokee Indian, up sprang Hensley, and hrought down the whip with his hrawny arm from head to tail of his steed. Even hack horses have feelings, and whether the small end of the lash had entered the animal's eye, or some tender spot had heep accidently twitched hy the lash, the stroke told ; and with a hound thut lifted the shafts to an angle of thirty degrees, away went the phaeton at a pace that it had never gone hefore, and if it has again, its mortal course is run, for no such ill-constituted vehicle could twice stand such a hurst.

"Clap on all sail and give chase," shouted Ellis ; and we were after them like a shot. Galloping in a gig is, under all circumstances, an unpleasant feeling ; hut when the time js night, the road little known, a phaeton a few yards hefore, to which if any mischance happens in the way of u hreak down, you must either—horse, gig, and all—clear the impediment, or join yourselves to the general wreck ; add to this, a mad-hrained sailor driving, and you may form, reader, some idea of my feelings on this occasion.

Ours was the fastest horse, and in a fair race we must speedily have distanced our competitor. But Hensley had implicit trust in what is nautically termed "fouling," and directly we gained on his horse's haunches he would turn sharply across upon us, so that our only chance of escaping an entire and simultaneous smash was hy a powerful and sudden pull in.

It was tremendous work for a nervous man. There was Jones perfectly passive, philosophically consoling himself on the improhahility of two upsets in one day, Hensley determined to maintain his place and demonstrate his skill, and Ellis apparently insane.

" If we could only injure some of his rigging, to stop his confounded tacking,—if we could hring down his top hamper;—here, take the whip, and throw it at I his hat, Carleton."

I scarcely saw the expediency of the step, partil cularly as I knew Hensley would proudly sacrifice twenty hats to his honour; so I declined the whip. My satisfaction was that the horses were not thoroughhred, the pace was heginning to tell, and something must put a stop to our progress soon. Hensley was that something:—he saw that his horse was rapidly failing, that we must ultimately heat him; every stride brought the minute clqser when his grand manoeuvre must fail, from the utter inahility of his animal to perform the proper tack; capitulation was ahsolutely necessary, so he resolved to draw his rohe of dignity around him, and die gracefully at the hase of his defeat. Turning round in his seat, then, he called out—

" Ellis, Ellis, do in the name of common sense pull your mare in ; this is carrying a joke too far. You must have seen how I have heen sawing at my horse's mouth, hut his mettle is so high now it's roused, that I can never do it while your wheels are rattling so close hehind."

During this speech his horse, notwithstanding its high mettle, had nearly suhsided to a walk. Our reply was one united roar of laughter; this was so perfectly Hettsleian. Nothing would have stopped Ellis^s spirit of rivalry so well; in two minutes we were amicahly at a full stop, wheel hy wheel; while our horses, with panting sides and drooping heads, told a tale somewhat different from Hensley's.

Neither party could well reproach the other; for even if Hensley had adopted a slightly offensive stylo of keeping ahead, we had undouhtedly heen guilty of the provocation ; so. like wise men, we cried quits, and discussed our prospects. Our pace had heen vapid, and we had heen so occupied in our vigorous struggle for precedence, that we had given little heed to the road; and on looking round us now we discovered that we were on an apparently large common, which I at once confessed not to icmcmher to have passed in the morning. Ellis was of my opinion,—Hensley wavering,—Jones strongly on the opposition side of the question.

"Not passed it in the morning! ahsurd! what a strange thing it was that spine men never kept their eyes open through life, to mark the ohjects which were around them ! Why, he had particularly noticed in the morning the form of some stones which he now saw clearly in the same spot to the left."

Now, Jones might or might not have seen those stones in the morning, hut it was a remarkahle instance of clairvoyance if he saw them now, for nothing could we discover through the moonlight hut the hacks of some cows, moodily ruminating or sleeping iu the distance.

Jones had once or twice made a slight allusion to " treating" the policeman ; this led us to conclude that they had perhaps discussed something together hesides Sir Rohert Peel's policy, which thus might alford some clue to this particular form of stones which he now saw to the left.

Under these circumstances we gave hut small weight to his opinion, and thus, "unanimously, harring one," as an Irishman might say, we decided on the verdict, " Lost our way." We could not he very far from the right road, for the hranching off must have taken place within the last mile and a half, so we knew to a certain extent where the way was. And Ellis, too, threw a light on the suhject hy methodically and professionally stating that Hemingford lying N.E. and hy North, or something like that, (I don't hox the compass myself,) if we only kept the North star at a certain numher of points to our left, we must he right. Both these last comforts were very well in their way, hut something too much like the old story of the Captuin's servant:—

" Please, sir, is a thing lost if one knows where it is f"

" Certainly not, simpleton."

" Then, Master, your silver ladle isn't lost, for I dropped it overhoard last night, and it's at the hottom of the sea."

Pardon, reader, this unwarrantahle introduction of an antiquated Joe Miller, hut when we wrote themes at school some years back, we were obliged to bring in an example, or simile, or both, and the hahit sticks to us still.

Jones was in a minority, so he was obliged either to come with us, or remain on the common and nestle under his peculiar heap of stones—when he found them. He chose the former, but he had his consolation ; he despised us, oh! how bitterly he despised us, for not being equally convinced with him that we were right. He was a martyr to the want of observation of three men, and he cuddled himself up in his martyrdom, and despised us for our real inferiority but fancied triumph. Poor old Jones! we would not rob you of one tittle of your contempt; it did us no harm, and what a soothing balm was it to you!

What could we do but retrace our way? The weakest of all weak men is the man who persists in an error; and, taking the first crossroad we came to, we believed ourselves wiser men than we were some half-hour back, though I doubt if we were sadder ones. And on and on we drove, through the winding tree-fringed lanes; and the moon made little dots of silvery light upon our path; and each stile, and each stone and stunted bush, assumed a fairy-like aspect, so far different from what each looked in the glaring sunshine, and—and we began to think we had lost our way again. Mind you, we none of us confessed it to the other; 'tis only retrospectively that we make this confession.

I am, naturally, philosophically constituted; and should have gone on quietly enough, pleasingly considering that Southampton was not the only inhahited town in Hampshire ; that if we failed here, we should find there, and that even if classic Winchester should show its gray towers to our wondering eyes at matin hour, yet that there might be found "good entertainment for man and horse." And what in the hour of leisure should horse or man desire more?

Ellis was more mercurial, and he broke cover first.

" Odd we don't come to some house, isn't it, Charley? We ought to be close upon that first village we passed through, by this time."

" Not a doubt that we ought to be," was all I could answer.

" Why, Charley, you don't mean to say that you think it possible we have come wrong again, do you ?"

" My dear Ellis, I have scarcely a hope that we have not done so."

"Whew! whew!" was my friend's reply; and his shrill whistle roused the slumbering watch-dog at his post, and his deep bay came welcomely to our ears; for we were deep read enough in natural history to know that in these days dogs do not hunt the forest in packs, and eat their prey by moonlight in the silent fields. And I logically reasoned aloud, "Where there is a dog there is a house, and where there is a house there are inhahitants."

"And where there are inhahitants, there they are asleep," continued Ellis, as we pulled up before an old dark-looking farm-house.

" Jump out, Charley, and make them hear."

" Better ask Hensley," quoth I.

" Hensley, just run in, rap at the door, and ask the people the way to Hemingford, will you? I'd go myself, gladly, but I've got the reins, and Carleton, here, is half asleep." (Oh! fie, Ellis! fie, my man of veracity I)

I suppose that as a general rule, people do not like knocking at farm-houses after midnight, with a furious dog barking within four feet of their legs, strength of chain being doubtful; at any rate, Hensley did not, for he passed on the request.

" My horse is rather fidgety : just try the [place, Jones."

And Jones did; I suppose he thought it a favourable opportunity of seeing nocturnal life in the agricultural districts. And he raised such a din at the door, that the dog became frantic, and a nightcap and head became visible at an upper window; and a gruff" voice from the nightcap, in no gentle terms, bade poor Jones " be off!"

" My good sir," began our friend.

"Be off! I tell you. I know you're one of those swell chaps down at Southampton. Be off!"

" But listen, my good man; will you tell us—"

"Be off! I say; or I'll be down, and let Rufus at you; and if he only gets hrs grip, you'd need be a pretty deal sharper than you are—sharp as you think yourself—if you get off'easily."

And the head retired with the apparent intention of fulfilling the threat. Jones bolted, to use an expressive phrase ; and Jones was right. The farmer had evidently no gentlemanlike feelings, and Rufus appeared something of a cross between a bloodhound and a mastiff.

The incident affected us all to a certain degree, for we drove on some hundred yards before we held our council of war.

"This comes of that early closing movement," began Ellis. " The idea of turning in by this hour! Why, if these Hampshire people were half men, we should have been welcomed to a hot supper, with strong October ale, and a bowl of punch, or something in that way to wind up with, preparatory to beds for four, and a satisfactory breakfast in the morning. And now there is nothing left us but the example of Bamfylde Carew, the original composer and performer of the spirited melody ' I'm the gipsey king, ha! ha!' and a 'Midsummer night's dream' beneath yon dew-tipped hedge."

So spake he ; and we talked long, and, I doubt not, well; but unfortunately the reporters were not there, and my journal does not give the details of our conference.

The result is sufficient. Hensley persisted that no one of his name had ever slept under a hedge, and he would not be the first to begin anything so very low; he should therefore drive on and trust to—I forget exactly what he meant to trust to, but it gave him sufficient confidence to proceed, and he bade us good night and left us. Jones was half asleep already, and was perfectly passive under Hensley's guidance.

Perhaps he was suspicious of being again placed near the fangs of a watch-dog; at any rate, his remarks were few, ar.d occasionally incoherent.

" And now to make all snug for the night," said Ellis, as he leapt from the gig, and began to make mysterious attempts to take the horse out. " How stiff these buckles are—

'Oh, we'll dance nil night by the merry moonlight, 
And drive the gig home in the morning.'

Come, lend a hand, Charley."

He had unbuckled a vast number of unnecessary straps, but we managed to get all right, and I wheeled the gig back under the hedge. On turning, to my astonishment, I saw Kiln silting in the road, busily engaged with our horse's fore-legs.

"That'11 do, I think," said he, as he jumped to his feet. " You won't stray far now, if you were ever so fresh."'

No very dangerous prophecy, if one might judge by the difficulty with which the poor animal succeeded in reaching the grass by the road-side. Ellis had acted out one of his morning propositions, and tied the creature's fore-legs together with a couple of pocket-handkerchiefs.

"And now we'll make a night of it, my boy; just try this pocket flask ; I kept it out of sight till those other fellows were gone."

I was tired and sleepy; nevertheless, I tried the flask, mainly as a preventative against ill effects from exposure to the night air, and wrapping myself in my horse-rug, "resigned myself to slumber," to use a perfectly original mode of speech. I woke once. I cannot say how long I had been insensible, and Ellis, who had lit a cigar, was still persisting in his lyrical declaration, that he should

' Dance all night in the pale moonlight and expressing his unalterable resolution of ' Driving the gig home in the morning.1

It was eight o'clock in the morning when we entered Hemingford, and when we drew up at the little inn, shall I say we were pleased to find that the phaeton had not arrived ? Perhaps upon the whole we were. Breakfast was our first order, and upstairs we went to wash and otherwise refresh ourselves.

I took the treasured gift from my button-hole; the rose had withered and faded, the myrtle was fresh and green. I put them both into water, however, and thought, " Arc these the emblems of our future loves? if so, of which is the myrtle the type?—of which the rose?"

Reader, if you wish to relish a breakfast at a village inn on a summer morning, sleep under a hedge the previous night. Never was there such bacon, never such milk, never such eggs. And so thought Hensley and Jones when they arrived, though they were not in half the condition that we were, for, being too proud to sleep under a hedge, they had driven on till the horse could be driven no more, and then caught what snatches of sleep they could upright in their seats.

VOL. VI.

And this then was our trip to Southampton Regatta ; we have got back, reader, and the extract from our Journal (which was never kept) is ended.

The next day we saw Ellis part of his way to the Mediterranean, that is, as far as Portsmouth, and from the door of the "George," he waved his last adieu to us as we sat on the roof of the old Rocket, on our way back to London. G. E P.

THE TWO TEMPERS.

BY F. B.

2. THE TEMPER OP THE LEARNED.

None are so truly learners, none so conscious in themselves that they are but learners, as those whom the world honours with the name of learned. The wise man of old declared that he knew bat one thing, and that was that he knew nothing. And so is it ever with those who are really wise. The fool boasteth himself in his folly, but the wise man is lowly in all his ways. We all know that a wide field of inquiry lies open before ns : but how vast it is, how increasing, how infinitely beyond our reach in its entire range, none know so well, none feel so deeply, as the men whom the world call learned. Read as they are in the book of nature; taught in many a mystery; deemed of others the teachers of all men, they move among the throng as observers, teaching, indeed, yet ever taught; giving out from their stores of knowledge, yet ever drawing for themselves new lessons of wisdom. As learners they started forward on the journey of life, with new vigour, and hopeful hearts. All seemed bright before them : everything within their reach. If they met with a few rough places in their path, or stumbled, perchance, ere they were well used to the way, they did but rise up with fresh energy, not disheartened, but the rather moved to new exertion; and if a cloud crossed their sky, andthrewashadow over them, they looked on to the bright spots beyond, where the sun was gilding all with his glory, and men seemed to bo moving amid his rays, and the halo of beauty that played around them appeared, as it were, a crown of honour, and they pressed on with eagerness to gain it for themselves. In the extreme distance it lay : far as yet before them, but yet not hopelessly beyond them ; and they thought how that they should gain it soon, and rest after their toiling. But as their sight grew stronger, it stretched forward, and took in a wider range: yet even then did they think to reach the farthest point, nay, fancy it already within their hands. But like the child who follows after the rainbow, hoping to find the golden treasure at its foot, they saw it recede before them, and appear ever as distant as at the first. And yet, unlike him, they were not disappointed, but gained at every step a something solid, and worth the having. But as they went onward thenpowers grew greater, and they advanced faster: yet still they saw before them the same widening horizon : that which was near, and certain to their eye, fading off into the indistinct and clouded, till all beyond was wrapped in mystery. But still they went onward, for they had the diligent temper, and wearied not: and the humble temper, for they had learned to feel how small a part they were in the midst of the vastness around them : and now they began to be trustful, and full of

i

fath in that which was as yet veiled from their view. And when at last they had gained the highest ground at which they had aimed in the beginning, and the crowd was at their feet with its voice of applauding and its eye of wonder, their loftier eminence did but open to them a wider view than they had ever yet conceived : new objects for their search, new subject for their faith, and longing after; and then, if they looked through a clear medium, and with a gaze attempered by holiness, they fell back upon themselves in admiration and love of Him who knoweth all things, and veiled their eyes before his ineffable greatness. Such is the course of the learner: such the temper of those who are honoured with the name of learned.

And now may he who has won this name look abroad upon things around him, and back upon the way by which he has gone, with a new eye, and a changed spirit. No longer has he doubt upon his mind:— what lies behind him is his in the certainty of his knowledge; that which is before him is sure in the consciousness of his faith.

And now must another temper develope itself: one which has been his all along; but which must now be displayed, and brought into full energy. The truly learned must cherish the temper of love :—without it he will be but as a plant in a wide wilderness, growing up to full age only for itself, putting out flowers, whose hues none can see, whose sweet odours, if any such there be, are lost upon the winds of the desert. Never docs he fully know, till he know somewhat of himself; never does; he know himself, till he know somewhat of the love he owes his fellow ; and then only does he truly live, when the loving temper is developed, and brought into play; and the measure of his life increases, and the circle of his knowledge widens, and ever takes in for him new elements of happiness, and he has a faint taste of that knowledge of Paradise, ere the hitterness of evil had spoiled the sweetness of the good.

" This is the genuine course, the aim, and end 
 Of prescient reason ; all conclusions else 
  Are abject, vain, presumptuous, and perverse. 
 The faith partaking of those holy times. 
  Life, I repeat is energy of Love 
  Divine or human : exercised in pain, 
  In strife, and tribulation ; and ordained, 
  If so approved, and sanctified, to pass 
  Through shades, and silent rest, to endless joy."1

Through the medium of love he will look upon the world around him; and his soul will yearn towards those who are going on their way in the darkness of ignorance, or spending their days to no end in presumption and fancied knowledge ; or wasting their labours in pursuit of that which they can never gain, allured by a false glare at distance, and hurried on, till they rush headlong, over the precipice, on whose brink it hovers; or drawn from the right way by some wandering light, till they are lost in the swamps of their own vain conceits. Once, perhaps, he was himself as one of them ; but he gradually drew off into a brighter light, and a clearer path; and now he looks upon them from a new position, not as objects whom he may despise: for contempt, as such, forms no part of his character; but he rather looks upon them with pity, and would free them of their load, and draw them off from the path of danger: and if they be still obstinate, and so wise in their own

1 Excursion, li. v.

minds that they cannot learn from him, he will turn away,—in sorrow, indeed,—but for anger he will find little room; and all his contempt will be spent upon the principles, not upon those who are deceived by them;—for them, rather, his pity is reserved; and he loves them still, even as erring brethren. And, marking their perverseness, and the pride of their ignorance, he draws thence a new lesson, and applies the moral to himself. But while he despises them not, or even mixes with them, he is careful to be well distinguished from them; and moves among the multitude with a becoming gravity; and in all his communications is well heedful that nothing unworthy fall from his lips. And his loving temper prompts him to advantage them all, as far as may be; and renders him ever ready to teach; for such is the especial worth of the treasure he has gained, that it grows by imparting unto others, and only becomes less by being hoarded up, and kept close within its own storehouse, till it be dulled, and eaten up by the rust itself has gathered. ' And his character herein is such as Chaucer has ascribed to his clerk—

" Of study toke he moste care and hede, 
 Not a word spoke he, more than was nede; 
 And that was said in form and reverence, 
 And short and quick, and full of high sentence. 
 Souning in moral vertue was his speecbe. 
 And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly techc."

Prolojve to Canterbury Tales, v. 305.

But as the loving temper implies the promptness to teach, so does this latter necessitate the temper of patience; patience to bear with the mockings of pride, and the emptiness of those who, deeming that they know all, have not made even the first stcp to knowledge—patience to work with the slowness of those of feeble mind, and remove the doublings of such as want faith to look onward. And to patience must be added the quickness to discern between what ii true and what is only apparently true ; and having done so, to set it in clear light before the eyes of others; for there are not a few things which wear the garb of truth, which are, in reality, errors beyond all others, and the more dangerous that they are often the least suspected. To mistake the plausible for the true, is one of the great errors of all ages, nor is our own excepted ; and it is one which is the more likely to prevail, inasmuch as it requires less labour to reach the plausible (truth not always lying on the surface); and because that which is. most pleasant in our estimation, quickly appears plausible. It is indeed astonishing with how superficial a veil the seemingly pleasant covers itself—with how unblushing a front it presents itself to the world, and how simply the world receives it, and hails it as the good. But all this lies in the frailty of man ; Mb proneness to look at self alone; and having thus narrowed his view, he becomes more and more short-sighted, till he cannot attain the view of things at distance, and is shut out from heavenly objects,—near him once, but now far removed by his own fault; not, indeed, that they are removed from him, for heaven removeth itself from no man, but he has retrograded from them, since man has two courses, and is never still. He must either progress or go back. If he progress, he will do well ; but if he go back, evil is his lot. It may, indeed, be said that he progresses in evil; but the forward progress of evil is a backward step in his existence; a throwing off of God's grace and goodness, but a heaping up to himself of wrath and indignation. And he is ever brought before the bar of conscience, that setteth as admonitor of his deeds; and ever seeking excuses for himself, he decks out the foul with a fair name, and robes vice in the seeming apparel of virtue ; potting paste for jewels.'and the gaudy glitter of tinsel for the solid richness of the gold itself! And the world chooses the tinsel and the paste, but the jewels snd the gold it strives not after, for they are hard to be attained. So, also, men do what seems to advantage them, and they call it expedient: but therein they go wrong, and expediency gains an evil name ; and so common isit,thatwecalltheexpedientand:the bad under one category: but it should not be so, for the expedient is not bad, nor the bad expedient . But the expedient is the useful, and that which tcnds.to good, and after it we should all seek, and to it shape all we do. But that which is too often called useful is not so, though it seem to bring men great gains, till they swell out with the pride of the world, and are puffed up with its pomps, and heavy with its riches, that last but for a season; and they miscall wisdom, and knowledge, and holiness, and cloud them over till they cannot know them. So, then, it is, beyond all, necessary that the learned, and he who would teach, be able patiently to weigh whatever comes before him ; and, discerning well between those things which are opposite, separate the plausible from the true, the apparent from the real good; discovering the end at which it is right to aim, and the best means thereto, and so know the really expedient, that which is in the truest, nay, the only sense, useful; and hating done all this, he must be able also to lay it in such manner before others, that they may follow his guidance, and be led on their way till they gain the same high place in which he himself is standing. Such is the position he bears to others ; but something, also, doeshe owe to himself. If the humble temper was needed by the learner, a hundredfold more is it required by the learned ; not only because he is still going on the same course, but to prevent his being puffed up by his own attainments; for there is danger lest he should exalt his own reason, and, forgetting that knowledge is the gift of God, should say proudly, " By my own strength have I done all this ! " He must make the service of God the basis of all he does, lest he sink into carelessness first, and then into infidelity, and so bring discredit upon wisdom herself. If he act not for God, he must be acting against him ; there is no middle course; and if such be his end, he had better never have been born : the folly of the fool is wisdom compared to that by which he has fallen. He has gunk beneath the weight of the crown which he had won, and has tarnished its noblest and richest gem with the dark imaginings of his own heart. He has forgotten his Maker, and thereby degraded himself; for, to sum up in the words of Bacon, " They that deny a God, destroy man's nohility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body, and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base, ignoble creature. It destroys, likewise, magnanimity, and the raising of human nature: for take an example of a dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a god, or Melior Natura. Which courage is manifestly such as that creature, without that confidence of a better nature than his own could never attain. So Man, when he resteth

and assureth himself upon Divine protection and favour, gathereth a force and faith which human nature in itself could not obtain." But into such depth of false opinion the learned must not fall, else will he lose at once the right to be so esteemed. For, as it has at the outset been shown, Be who is learned, is above all others a learner ; so, then, the man, who supposes he has attained all knowledge, even to the shutting out of Him who is the fountain of knowledge, thereby declares that he has ceased to learn, and that a mist has passed over his horizon, or a disease fallen upon his mental vision, so that he can no more look onward, as at the first, nor see the things around him wearing the same garb as they once did. All is changed ! but the change is internal ! It has not befallen the things without, but has its seat in his own heart. It is the last fell trial to which he is exposed; and if he escape that, and break through the darkness that has closed around him, as he presses manfully on, the mist shall roll away before him, and a glory shall burst upon his gaze, brighter than he had ever conceived before, and a crown of triumph await him, such as no man has the power to deprive him of; and he shall gain the full reward of faith—the perception of all good. ;

A TALE OP KHELAT.

BT MRS. POSTASS.

It was the pass of the Bolan. On either side rose precipitous scarps, so wild, so apparently difficult of access, that the eagle alone might be supposed to claim their rugged rocks for solitary dwelling places. Below gurgled a mountain stream, the melting snows of Caubool, and its fringes of coarse towering grass screened from the eye those cave recesses in the rocks which were the frequent resort of beings as wild, as savage, and as cruel as the tiger and panthers of the plains.

At a particular point the stream spread itself over a larger surface, forming a little lake, as it were, among the blocks of stone that, fallen from the rocks, rested in the coarse reeds. Bending over this little pool might he noted a figure whose picturesque costume and wild aspect was well in keeping with the scene ; a figure, alas! too common in those days of turbulence and bloodshed. The face, whatever its aspect may have been, was now wholly concealed by the depending folds of an enormous turban of coarse white cotton cloth, and with the masses of black hair that fell in thick ringlets on either shoulder. The dress was heavy in form and make, descending from the waist in massive folds, singularly unfitted, as it seemed, for the exercises of either war or foray; and yet that such were the ordinary engagements of the wearer was evident from the variety and quantity of arms with which he was girded. True, his shield of transparent hide, bossed with gold, and attached to a belt of green Caubool leather, as well as his matchlock, with its watered barrel of enormous length, rested against the rocks; but the Belooche still wore bis sword of Damascus steel, his powder-flasks embroidered by the skillful hands of the mountain maidens, while the kreeze, knife, and dagger, peeping from his

The magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we inquire the reason of self-trust. Who is the Trustee? What is the aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? What is the nature and power of that science-baffling star, without parallax, without calculable elements, which shoots a ray of beauty even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark of independence appear? The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, the essence of virtue, and the essence of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their common origin. For the sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them and preceedeth obviously from the same source whence their life and being also preceedeth. We at first share the life by which things exist and afterwards see them as appearances in nature and forget that we have shared their cause. Here is the fountain of action and the fountain of thought. Here are the lungs of that inspiration which giveth man wisdom, of that inspiration of man which cannot be denied without impiety and atheism. We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us organs of its activity and receivers of its truth. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes — all metaphysics, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or absence is all we can affirm. Every man discerns between the voluntary acts of his mind and his involuntary perceptions. And to his involuntary perceptions he knows a perfect respect is due. He may err in the expression of them, but he knows that these things are so, like day and night, not to be disputed. All my willful actions and acquisitions are but roving; — the most trivial reverie, the faintest native emotion, are domestic and divine. Thoughtless people contradict as readily the statement of perceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; for they do not distinguish between perception and notion. They fancy that I choose to see this or that thing. But perception is not whimsical, but fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of time all mankind, — although it may chance that no one has seen it before me. For my perception of it is as much a fact as the sun.

And now at last the highest truth on this subject remains unsaid; probably cannot be said; for all that we say is the far off remembering of the intuition. That thought, by what I can now nearest approach to say it, is this. When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, — it is not by any known or appointed way; you shall not discern the footprints of another; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name; — the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude all other being. You take the way from man, not to man. All persons that ever existed are its fugitive ministers. There shall be no fear in it. Fear and hope are alike beneath it. It asks nothing. There is somewhat low even in hope. We are then in vision. There is nothing that can be called gratitude, nor properly joy. The soul is raised over passion. It seeth identity and eternal causation. It is a perceiving that Truth and Right are. Hence it becomes a Tranquillity out of the knowing that all things go well. Vast spaces of nature; the Atlantic Ocean, the South Sea; vast intervals of time, years, centuries, are of no account. This which I think and feel underlay that former state of life and circumstances, as it does underlie my present and will always all circumstances, and what is called life and what is called death.

Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of a gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one fact the world hates, that the soul becomes; for that forever degrades the past; turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame; confounds the saint with the rogue; shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside. Why then do we prate of self-reliance? Inasmuch as the soul is present there will be power not confident but agent. To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather of that which relies because it works and is. Who has more soul than I masters me, though he should not raise his finger. Round him I must revolve by the gravitation of spirits. Who has less I rule with like facility. We fancy it rhetoric when we speak of eminent virtue. We do not yet see that virtue is Height, and that a man or a company of men, plastic and permeable to principles, by the law of nature must overpower and ride all cities, nations, kings, rich men, poets, who are not.

This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on every topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ONE. Virtue is the governor, the creator, the reality. All things real are so by so much virtue as they contain. Hardship, husbandry, hunting, whaling, war, eloquence, personal weight, are somewhat, and engage my respect as examples of the soul's presence and impure action. I see the same law working in nature for conservation and growth. The poise of a planet, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are also demonstrations of the self-sufficing and therefore self-relying soul. All history, from its brightest to its trivial passage is the various record of this power.

Thus all concentrates; let us not rove; let us sit at home with the cause. Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books and institutions by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid them take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here within. Let our simplicity judge them. and our docility to our own law demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune beside our native riches.

But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of men, nor is the soul admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of men. We must go alone. Isolation must precede true society. I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary. So let us always sit. Why should we assume the faults of our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our hearth, or are said to have the same blood? All men have my blood and I have all men's. Not for that will I adopt their petulance or folly, even to the extent of being ashamed of it. But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say, 'Come out unto us,' — Do not spoil thy soul; do not all descend; keep thy state; stay at home in thine own heaven; come not for a moment into their facts, into their hubbub of conflicting appearances but let in the light of thy law on their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act. "What we love that we have, but by desire we bereave ourselves of the love."

If we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedience and faith, let us at least resist our temptations, let us enter into a state of war and wake Thor and Woden, courage and constancy, in our Saxon breasts. This is to be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse. Say to them, O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth's. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law less than the eternal law. I will have no covenants but proximities. I shall endeavor to nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife, — but these relations I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I must be myself. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh today? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and if we follow the truth it will bring us out safe at last. — But so may you give these friends pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they justify me and do the same thing.

The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism; and the bold sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of consciousness abides. There are two confessionals, in one or the other of which we must be shriven. You may fulfill your round of duties by clearing yourself in the direct, or in the reflex way. Consider whether you have satisfied your relations to father, mother, cousin, neighbor, town, cat, and dog; whether any of these can upbraid you. But I may also neglect this reflex standard and absolve me to myself. I have my own stern claims and perfect circle. It denies the name of duty to many offices that are called duties. But if I can discharge its debts it enables me to dispense with the popular code. If any one imagines that this law is lax, let him keep its commandment one day.

And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity and has ventured to trust himself for a task-master. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others.

If any man consider the present aspects of what is called by distinction society, he will see the need of these ethics. The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state, but we see that most natures are insolvent; cannot satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to their practical force, and so do lean and beg day and night continually. Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupation, our marriages, our religion we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us. We are parlor soldiers. The rugged battle of fate, where strength is born, we shun.

If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not "studying a profession," for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances. Let a stoic arise who shall reveal the resources of man and tell men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear; that a man is the word made flesh, born to shed healing to the nations, that he should be ashamed of our compassion, and that the moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the books, idolatries and customs out of the window, — we pity him no more but thank and revere him; — and that teacher shall restore the life of man to splendor and make his name dear to all History.

It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance — a new respect for the divinity in man — must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views.

I. In what prayers do men allow themselves! That which they call a holy office is not so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks abroad and asks for some foreign addition to come through some foreign virtue, and loses itself in endless mazes of natural and supernatural, and mediatorial and miraculous. Prayer that craves a particular commodity — anything less than all good, is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness. It supposes duality and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action. The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature, though for cheap ends. Caratach, in Fletcher's Bonduca, when admonished to inquire the mind of the god Audate, replies,

"His hidden meaning lies in our endeavors;
Our valors are our best gods."

Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work and already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. We come to them who weep foolishly and sit down and cry for company, instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communication with the soul. The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide. Him all tongues greet, all honors crown all, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods love him because men hated him. "To the persevering mortal," said Zoroaster, "the blessed Immortals are swift."

As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect. They say with those foolish Israelites, 'Let not God speak to us, lest we die. Speak thou, speak any man with us, and we will obey.' Everywhere I am bereaved of meeting God in my brother, because he has shut his own temple doors and recites fables merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God. Every new mind is a new classification. If it prove a mind of uncommon activity and power, a Locke, a Lavoisier, a Hutton, a Bentham, a Spurzheim, it imposes its classification on other men, and lo! a new system. In proportion always to the depth of the thought, and so to the number of objects it touches and brings within reach of the pupil, in his complacency. But chiefly in this apparent in creeds and churches, which are also classifications of some powerful mind acting on the great elemental thought of Duty and man's relation to the Highest. Such is Calvinism, Quakerism, Swedenborgianism. The pupil takes the same delight in subordinating everything to the new terminology that a girl does who has just learned botany in seeing a new earth and new seasons thereby. It will happen for a time that the pupil will feel a real debt to the teacher — will find his intellectual power has grown by the study of his writings. This will continue until he has exhausted his master's mind. But in all unbalanced minds the classification is idolized, passes for the end and not for a speedily exhaustible means, so that the walls of the system blend to their eye in the remote horizon with the walls of the universe; the luminaries of heaven seem to them hung on the arch their master built. They cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to see — how you can see; 'It must be somehow that you stole the light from us.' They do not yet perceive that light, unsystematic, indomitable, will break into any cabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp awhile and call it their own. If they are honest and do well, presently their neat new pinfold will be too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will rot and vanish, and the immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed, million-colored, will beam over the universe as on the first morning.

2. It is for want of self-culture that the idol of Traveling, the idol of Italy, of England, of Egypt, remains for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination, did so not by rambling round creation as a moth round a lamp, but by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth. In manly hours we feel that duty is our place and that the merry men of circumstance should follow as they may. The soul is no traveler: the wise man stays at home with the soul, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still and is not gadding abroad from himself, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance that he goes, the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign and not like an interloper or a valet.

I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins.

Traveling is a fool's paradise. We owe to our first journeys the discovery that place is nothing. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern Fact, and sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.

3. But the rage of traveling is itself only a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, and the universal system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the traveling of the mind? Our houses are built with foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments; our opinions, our tastes, our whole minds, lean, and follow the Past and the Distant, as the eyes of a maid follow her mistress. The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It was in his own mind that the artist sought the model. It was an application of his own thought to the thing to be done and the conditions to be observed. And why need we copy the Doric or the Gothic model? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of thought and quaint expression are as near to us as to any, and if the American artist will study with hope and love the precise thing to be done by him, considering the climate, the soil, the length of the day, the wants of the people, the habit and form of the government, he will create a house in which all these will find themselves fitted, and taste and sentiment will be satisfied also.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is an unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow. If anybody will tell me whom the great man imitates in the original crisis when he performs a great act, I will tell him who else than himself can teach him. Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned thee and thou canst not hope too much or dare too much. There is at this moment, there is for me an utterance bare and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses or Dante, but different from all of these. Not possibly will the soul, all rich, all eloquent, with thousands cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself; but if I can hear what these patriarchs say, surely I can reply to them in the same pitch of voice; for the ear and the tongue are two organs of one nature. Dwell up there in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again.

4. As our Religion, our Education, our Art look abroad, so does our spirit of society. All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Its progress is only apparent like the workers of a treadmill. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given something is taken. Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts. What a contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, with a watch, a pencil and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the naked New Zealander, whose property is a club, a spear, a mat and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under. But compare the health of the two men and you shall see that his aboriginal strength, the white man has lost. If the traveler tell us truly, strike the savage with a broad ax and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and heal as if you struck the blow into soft pitch, and the same blow shall send the white to his grave.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of the muscle. He has got a fine Geneva watch, but he has lost the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. His notebooks impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance-office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity entrenched in establishments and forms some vigor of wild virtue. For every stoic was a stoic; but in Christendom where is the Christian?

There is no more deviation in the moral standard than in the standard of height or bulk. No greater men are now than ever were. A singular equality may be observed between the great men of the first and of the last ages; nor can all the science, art, religion, and philosophy of the nineteenth century avail to educate greater men than Plutarch's heroes, three or four and twenty centuries ago. Not in time is the race progressive. Phocion, Socrates, Anaxagoras, Diogenes, are great men, but they leave no class. He who is really of their class will not be called by their name, but be wholly his own man, and in his turn a founder of a sect. The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume and do not invigorate men. The harm of the improved machinery may compensate its good. Hudson and Behring accomplished so much in their fishing-boats as to astonish Parry and Franklin, whose equipment exhausted the resources of science and art. Galileo, with an opera-glass, discovered a more splendid series of facts than any one since. Columbus found the New World in an undecked boat. It is curious to see the periodical disuse and perishing of means and machinery which were introduced with loud laudation a few years or centuries before. The great genius returns to essential man. We reckoned the improvements of the art of war among the triumphs of science, and yet Napoleon conquered Europe by the Bivouac, which consisted of falling back on naked valor and disencumbering it of all aids. The Emperor held it impossible to make a perfect army, says Las Casas, "without abolishing our arms, magazines, commissaries and carriages, until, in imitation of the Roman custom, the soldier should receive his supply of corn, grind it in his hand-mill and bake his bread himself."

Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation today, die, and their experience with them.

And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long that they have come to esteem what they call the soul's progress, namely, the religious, learned and civil institutions as guards of property, and they depreciate assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is. But a cultivated man becomes ashamed of what he has, out of a new respect for his being. Especially he hates what he has if he see that it is accidental, — came to him by inheritance, or gift, or crime; then he feels that it is not having; it does not belong to him, has no root in him, and merely lies there because no revolution or no robber takes it away. But that which a man is, does always by necessity acquire, and what the man acquires, is permanent and living property, which does not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually renews itself wherever the man is put. "Thy lot or portion of life," said the Caliph Ali, "is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest from seeking after it." Our dependence on these foreign goods leads us to our slavish respect for numbers. The political parties meet in numerous conventions; the greater the concourse and with each new uproar of announcement, The delegation from Essex! The Democrats from New Hampshire! The Whigs of Maine! the young patriot feels himself stronger than before by a new thousand of eyes and arms. In like manner the reformers summon conventions and vote and resolve in multitude. But not so, O friends! will the God deign to enter and inhabit you, but by a method presently the reverse. It is only as a man puts off from himself all external support and stands alone that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a man better than a town? Ask nothing of men, and, in the endless mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power is in the soul, that he is weak only because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and, so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head.

So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and shalt always drag her after thee. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick or the return of your absent friend, or some other quite external event raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. It can never be so. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

The End