The Journey of Life

rest! Lonely I no longer roam, Like the cloud, the wind, the wave, Where you dwell shall be my home, Where you die shall be my grave! Hebrew Melody. There are rules of perspective to be observed in life as well as in painting. A skilful artist gives to the faintest and most distant objects all their due prominence and solidity in a landscape, while we plainly see the real insignificance of the larger and more highly coloured masses in the foreground; and so does the Christian award to a remote futurity that dignity and importance in his estimation to which the trifles immediately around him have no claim. The most difficult task in life, however, is to make the future predominate in our thoughts over the present, and to prefer invisible realities to visible shadows; for imagination incessantly paints an extreme of earthly happiness as almost within our grasp, which mortal man is never permitted to reach. The young naturally anticipate life as a holyday voyage on a cloudless morning, and expect to float along the tide of events, enjoying a state of consummate felicity which does not belong to the nature of man. Always anticipating more, they despise, in the mean while, the moderate portion of good, as it seems to them, now mingled in their cup, and thus extravagant hopes engender their own disappointment. Longer experience and more extended views bring a well- disciplined mind to the salutary conviction that all is vain and empty, ex... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.