The Crown of Thorns [16]
power!--what an immeasurable experience it is! We are made absolutely stronger by it; we receive more life with it,--a new and imperishable fibre of being. Fortune cannot pluck it from us, age cannot weaken it, death cannot set limits to it. And now, with the fulness of this one experience as a test, just consider our whole mortal experience as filled up with such revelations of truth. Suppose we improve all our opportunities; into what boundless life does education admit us, and the discoveries of every day, and the ordinary lessons of the world! Tell me, is this life to be called merely a brief and worthless fact, when by a little reading, for instance, I can make the experience of other men, and lands, and ages, all mine? When in some favored hour, I can climb the starry galaxy with Newton, and pace along the celestial coast to the great harmony of numbers and unlock the mighty secret of the universe? When of a winter's night, I can pass through all the belts of climate, and all the grades of civilization on our globe; scan its motley races, learn its diverse customs, and hear the groaning of lonely ice-fields and the sigh of Indian palms? When, with Bacon, I can explore the laboratory of nature, or with Locke, consult the mysteries of the soul? When Spenser can lead me into golden visions, or Shakespeare smite me with magic inspiration, or Milton bathe me in immortal song? When History opens for me all the gates of the past,--Thebes and Palmyra, Corinth and Carthage, Athens with its peerless glory, and Rome with its majestic pomp?--when kings and statesmen, authors and priests, with their public deeds and secret thoughts are mine? When the plans of cabinets, and the debates of parliaments, and the course of revolutions, and the results of battle, are all before my eyes and in my mind? When I can enter the inner chamber of sainted souls, and conspire with the efforts of moral heroes, and understand the sufferings of martyrs? Say, when all these deep experiences-these comprehensive truths-may be acquired through merely one privilege, is life but a dream, or a breath of air? Thus, too, do immeasurable experiences flow in to me from nature,--from planet, flower, and ocean. Thus, too, does more life come to me from contacts in the common round of action. And, I repeat, every truth thus gained expands a moment of time into illimitable being,--positively enlarges my existence, and endows me with a quality which time cannot weaken or destroy.
Consider, again, how much we really live in cherishing good affections, and in performing noble deeds. We have the familiar lines of the poet, to this point:
"One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas."
It is true. There is more life in one "self-approving hour,"-one act of benevolence,-- one work of self- discipline,--than in threescore years and ten of mere sensual existence. Go out among the homes of the poor, lift up the disconsolate, administer comfort to the forlorn; in some way, as it may come across your path, or lie in the sphere of your duty, do a deed of kindness; and in that one act you shall live more than in a year of selfish indulgence and indolent ease,--yea, more than in a lifetime of such. The poet, with his burning, immortal lines, while doing his work, lives all the coming ages of his fame. From every marble feature he chisels, the sculptor draws an intensity of being that cannot be imparted by a mere extension of years. The philanthropist, in his walks of mercy and his ministrations of love, lives more comprehensively than another may in a century. His is the fathomless bliss of benevolence,--the experience of God. The martyr, in his dying hour, with his face shining like an angel's, does not live longer, but he lives more than all his persecutors.
Consider, too, the experiences of religion, of worship, of prayer. In the act of communion with God, in the realization of immortality, in the aspirations and the idea of perfection, there is a depth and scope of being from which all sensual
Consider, again, how much we really live in cherishing good affections, and in performing noble deeds. We have the familiar lines of the poet, to this point:
"One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas."
It is true. There is more life in one "self-approving hour,"-one act of benevolence,-- one work of self- discipline,--than in threescore years and ten of mere sensual existence. Go out among the homes of the poor, lift up the disconsolate, administer comfort to the forlorn; in some way, as it may come across your path, or lie in the sphere of your duty, do a deed of kindness; and in that one act you shall live more than in a year of selfish indulgence and indolent ease,--yea, more than in a lifetime of such. The poet, with his burning, immortal lines, while doing his work, lives all the coming ages of his fame. From every marble feature he chisels, the sculptor draws an intensity of being that cannot be imparted by a mere extension of years. The philanthropist, in his walks of mercy and his ministrations of love, lives more comprehensively than another may in a century. His is the fathomless bliss of benevolence,--the experience of God. The martyr, in his dying hour, with his face shining like an angel's, does not live longer, but he lives more than all his persecutors.
Consider, too, the experiences of religion, of worship, of prayer. In the act of communion with God, in the realization of immortality, in the aspirations and the idea of perfection, there is a depth and scope of being from which all sensual