Part 37

Despondency too long continued gives place to despair. No calamity can produce such a paralysis of the mind. It is the capstone of the climax of human misery. The mental powers are frozen with indifference, the heart becomes ossified with melancholy, the soul is shrouded in a cloud of gloom. No words of consolation, no cheerful repartee can break the death-like calm; no love can warm the pent-up heart, no sunbeam dispel the dark cloud. Time may effect a change; death will break the monotony. We can extend our kindness, but can not relieve the victim. We may trace the cause of this awful disease; God only can effect a cure. We may speculate upon its nature, but can not feel its force until its iron hand is laid upon us. We may call it weakness, but can not prove or demonstrate the proposition. We may call it folly, but can point to no frivolity to sustain our position. We may call it madness, but can discover no maniac action. We may call it stubborness, but can see no exhibition of indocility. We may call it lunacy, but can not perceive the incoherence of that unfortunate condition. We can properly call it nothing but dark, gloomy despair, an inexpressible numbness of all the sensibilities rendering a man happy.

It is, indeed, a happy providence that has given to mankind the bright, shining sun of hope to dispel the gloom of despondency. We have all seen the sun burst from behind the clouds and light up a storm-swept landscape. Even so, when the hand of misfortune has darkened our brightest prospects and swept away our sunlit dreams of future happiness, has some unseen monitor inspired our drooping spirit with hope and bid us struggle on; and as we look forward into the future fancy points us to a brighter day's dawning. When the soul is often bowed down with the weight of its own sorrows and the heart is well-nigh crushed, even then some faint glimmering of a happier future steals upon it like a rainbow of light.

It is to be feared that many do not as resolutely fight against fits of despondency as they might. Many fits of the blues need but to be resolutely contended against, and they will disappear; harbored, they will grow into despondency and despair. It is worth while to remember that fortune is like the skies in April, sometimes clouded and sometimes clear and favorable, and it would be folly to despair of again seeing the sun because to-day is stormy. So it is equally unwise to sink into despondency when fortune frowns, since in the common course of things she may be surely expected to smile again.

Life is a warfare, and he who easily desponds deserts a double duty—he betrays the noblest property of man, his dauntless resolution, and he rejects the providence of God, who guides and rules the universe. There is but one way of looking at fate—whatever that may be, whether blessings or afflictions—to behave with dignity under both. We must not lose heart, or it will be the worse, both for ourselves and for those whom we love. To struggle, and again and again to renew the conflict—_this_ is life's inheritance.

Do not, then, allow yourself to sink into despondency. Man is born a hero, and it is only by darkness and storms that heroism gains its greatest and best development and illustrations; then it kindles the black cloud into a blaze of glory, and the storm bears it to its destiny. Despair not, then. Mortifying failures may attend this effort and that one, but only be honest and struggle on, and it will all work out right in the end. Do not make the mistake, either, of supposing that despondency is a state of humility; on the contrary, it is the vexation and despair of a cowardly pride; nothing is worse; whether we stumble or whether we fall, we must only think of rising again, and going on in our course.

Do your work, then; only let it be a noble one. Be faithful to your trust. If you have but one talent improve it; do not bury it in the earth because you have not ten. Toil steadily and hopefully on, for life is too short to admit of delay or despondency. Let those who are in sorrow remember that deliverance may be coming, though they see it not. Your days may wear more gold in the morning, and more at night, though the midday be full of snow. God may be gracious, though he comes to us robed in darkness and clothed in storms. It is a journey of release towards the Spring when Winter is coldest and darkest. Despondency is but the shadow of too much happiness thrown by our spirits upon the sunshiny side of life. Look up, and God will give you a song in your heart instead of a tear in your eye.

Causeless depression of spirits is not to be reasoned with, nor can even David's harp charm it away by sweet discoursings. As well fight with the mists as with this shapeless, undefinable, yet all-beclouding, hopelessness. Yet we are familiar with many such instances in practical, every-day life. Many who have much to be thankful for are full of complaint. Such disposition is no less unfortunate than it is reprehensible. They make miserable not only their own life, but also the lives of those with whom they are in daily contact. No doubt the one given over to causeless melancholy feels a full weight of sorrow, and those who laugh at his grief, could they but experience it, would quickly be sobered into compassion. What is wanted is a firm reliance on Providence, and a determination to do your duty; then go forward bravely and cheerfully, resolutely fight against this disposition. Your life will be much happier.

The trouble is, that many of us, when we are under any affliction, are troubled with a certain malicious melancholy. We only dwell and pore upon the sad and dark occurrences of Providence, but never take notice of the more benign and bright ones. Our way in this world is, like a walk under a row of trees, checkered with light and shade, and, because we can not all along walk in the sunshine, we, therefore, perversely fix upon the darker passages, and so lose all the comfort of the cheering ones. We are like froward children, who, if you take one of their playthings from them, throw away all the rest in spite. What a pitiable confession is this of human weakness! Let us, then, strive against such a spirit of despondency. Even when the way before us is both dark and dreary it still is worse than useless to give way to despondency. Think not that you are forsaken; you have much still to make life enjoyable. Energy and proper application may recover what you have lost; take heart; pluck up courage; give not over to despondency; by resolutely confronting the evils of life they will lose their force.

"Faith is the subtle chain That binds us to the infinite; the voice Of a deep life within, that will remain Until we crowd it thence."

Faith is the true prophet of the soul, and ever beholds a spiritual life, spiritual relations, labors, and joys. Its office is to teach man that he is a spiritual being, that he has an inward life enshrined in this material encasement—an immortal gem set now in an earthly casket. It assures man that he lives not for this life alone, but for another superior to this, more glorious and real. It teaches that God is a spirit, and seeks to worship him as such. It dignifies humanity with immortality. It dwells ever upon an unseen world, announcing always that unseen realities are eternal.

A living, active faith is not only a necessity, if we would reap great good, but it is so founded on the nature of things that it is natural for men to have a faith in the promises of others. It is only from experience that the little child learns to distrust others. Then, there is the faith in one's own powers. This is as necessary a form of faith as any, and where not allowed to degenerate into egotism is a most beneficent form of faith. Its true foundation is the same as any faith; that is, reliance on God's promises. "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." Hence, relying on this, and putting forth the necessary exertions, why not confidently expect a fulfillment of the promise? This is the germ of all true self-reliance.

A true faith we can somehow reach all through life, and it will bring to the soul a rich meed of consolation, even in the shades of life. We can cherish a sure hope about our future and the future of those that belong to us—a sunny, eager onlooking toward the fulfillment of all the promises God has written on our nature. We should have faith in the ultimate triumph of the good and the true. It is quite the fashion of the times to lament over the degeneracy of the present, and to think of the palmy day long since past. We have indeed read history to but little account do we not realize that the world is growing better, and feel confident of the ultimate triumph of the forces of good.

Life grows darker as we go on, till only one pure light is left shining on it, and that is faith. Old age, like solitude and sorrow, has its revelations. It is then that we perceive the hollowness and emptiness of many of the bubbles we have been pursuing. Fortunate is he who in that hour can rest down on the promise of God with a steadfast faith. When in your last hour all faculty in your broken spirit shall fade away, and sink into inanity—imagination, thought, effort, enjoyment, all fade away—then will the flower of belief, which blossoms even in the night, remain to refresh you with its fragrance in the last darkness.

Morality as a guiding light to man sometimes conduces to noble ends. It is sometimes so resplendent as to make a man walk through life amid glory and acclamation; but it is apt to burn very dimly and low when carried into the "valley of the shadow of death." But faith is like the evening star, shining into our souls, the more gloomy is the night of death in which they sink. Surrounded by friends and the comforts of life, morality appears sufficient; but when the storms of life blow upon us, then we see how necessary to us is a faith in God's Word and his promises. Its light only is capable of dispelling the gloom of our surroundings.

Never yet did there exist a full faith which did not expand the intellect while it purified the heart, which did not multiply the aims and objects of the understanding while it fixed and simplified those of the desires and passions. Faith often builds in the dungeon and lazar-house its sublimest shrine, and up through roofs of stone, that shut out the eye of heaven, ascends the ladder of prayer, where the angels glide to and fro. Faith is the key that unlocks the cabinet of God's treasures, the messenger from the celestial world to bring all the supplies that we need. It converses with angels and antedates the hymns of glory. To every man this grace is certain that there are glories for him if he walks by faith and perseveres in duty. Faith is a homely, private capital, as there are public savings-banks and poor funds, out of which in times of need we can relieve the necessities of individuals; so here the faithful take their coin in peace.

A Christian builds his fortitude on a better foundation than stoicism. He is pleased with every thing that happens, because he knows it could not have happened unless it first pleased God, and that which pleases him must be the best. He is assured that no new thing can befall him, and that he is in the hands of a Father who will prove him with no affliction that resignation can not conquer or that death can not cure. In the darkest night faith sees a star, in the times of greatest need finds a helping hand, and in the times of sorest trouble hears a sympathizing voice.

Judge not a man by his outward manifestation of faith, for some there are who tremblingly reach out shaking hands to the guidance of faith; others who stoutly venture in the dark their human confidence, the leader which they mistake for faith; some whose hope totters upon crutches; others who stalk into futurity upon stilts. Faith is not an exotic that grows in but one clime. The snows of an eternal Winter can not quench its fire, neither can the glow of a tropical sun destroy its life and freshness. In the palace of the king or the hut of the peasant, in the homes of the rich or the cabins of the poor it emits its fragrance with equal powers to please. It is as necessary to the learned as to the ignorant, and comforts alike the declining years of the sage and him who never knew the value of education.

As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works. He who has strong faith will show his faith by his works. If he has faith in himself he shows it by ambitious plans, resolves, and endeavors. A true faith is necessary to enable us to make the most of life and its possibilities. We need a faith in our fellow-men. In all the ordinary business transactions we must exercise this virtue or accomplish nothing. Did you ever reflect what this world would be were all faith destroyed? Faith and confidence are synonymous terms. What a wilderness would this be were the confidence which exists between husband and wife destroyed or did not mutual confidence exist between the members of the same family circle! Home would cease to be home; family ties would prove to be bonds of straw; communities could not be held together; the vast fabric of society would dissolve, and smiling countries would once more be the abode of savages. Too great a confidence bespeaks a trusting simplicity suited only for childish years. But an utterly incredulous nature, refusing to believe unless supported by the evidence of his own senses, as certainly portrays the selfish, narrow, and bigoted nature as that fields of waving grain are proof positive of fertile soil, the shining sun, and the early and later rain.

Prayer is the key to open the day, and the bolt to shut in the night. But as the sky drops the early dew and the evening dew upon the grass, yet it would not spring and grow green by that constant and double falling of the dew, unless some great shower at certain seasons did supply the rest, so the customary devotion of prayer twice a day is the falling of the early and the latter dew. But if you will increase and flourish in works of grace, empty the great clouds sometimes, and let fall in a full shower of prayer. Choose out seasons when prayer shall overflow like Jordan in times of harvest.

Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of its own feeling. Perfect prayer, without a spot or blemish, though not a word be spoken and no phrases known to mankind be uttered, always plucks the heart out of the earth, and moves it softly, like a censer, to and fro beneath the face of heaven. A good man's prayer will, from the deepest dungeon, climb heaven's height, and bring a blessing down. Prayer is the wing wherewith the soul flies to heaven, and meditation the eye wherewith we see God.

He that acts toward men as if God saw him, and prays to God as if men heard him, although he may not obtain all that he asks, or succeed in all that he undertakes, will most probably deserve to do so; for, with respect to his actions toward men, however much he may fail with regard to others, yet if pure and good, with regard to himself and his highest interests they can not fail. And with respect to his prayers to God, though they can not make the Deity more _willing_ to give, yet they will, and must, make the suppliant more _worthy_ to receive.

Between the humble and contrite heart and the Majesty of heaven there are no barriers. The only password is prayer. Prayer is a shield to the sword, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge to Satan. Prayer has a right to the word "ineffable." It is an hour of outpouring which words can not express—of that interior speech which we do not articulate even when we employ it. The very cry of distress is an involuntary appeal to that invisible Power whose aid the soul invokes. Our prayer and God's mercy are like two buckets in a well; while one ascends the other descends.

For the most part, we should pray rather in aspiration than petition, rather by hoping than requesting; in which spirit, also, we may breathe a devout wish for a blessing on others upon occasions when it might be presumptuous to beg it. Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness: not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling it; not figures of speech, but compunction of soul. When the heart is full, when bitter thoughts come crowding thickly up for utterance, and the poor common words of courtesy are such a very mockery, how much the bursting heart may relieve itself in prayer!

The dullest observer must be sensible of the order and serenity prevalent in those households where the occasional exercise of a beautiful form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the keynote to every temper for the day, and attunes every spirit to harmony. Family worship embodies a hallowing influence that pleads for its observance. It must needs be that trials will enter a household. The conflict of wishes, the clashing of views, and a thousand other causes, will ruffle the temper, and produce jar and friction in the machinery of the family.

There is needed some daily agency that shall softly enfold the homestead with its hallowed, soothing power, and restore the fine harmonious play of its various parts. The father needs that which shall gently lift away from his thoughts the disquieting burden of his daily business; the mother, which will smooth down the fretting irritation of her unceasing toil and trial; and the child and domestic, that which shall neutralize the countless agencies of evil that ever beset them. And what so well adapted to do this as, when the day is done, to gather around the holy page, and pour a united supplication and acknowledgment to that sleepless Power whose protection and security are ever around their path, and who will bring all things at last into judgment?

And when darker and sadder days begin to shadow the home, what can cheer and brighten the sinking heart so finely as this daily resort to the fatherly One, who can make the tears of the lowliest sorrow to be the seed-pearls of the brightest crown? The mind is thus expanded, the heart softened, sentiments refined, passions subdued, hopes elevated, and pursuits ennobled. The greatest want of our intellectual and moral nature is here met, and home education becomes impregnated with the spirit and elements of our preparation for eternity.

The custom of having family prayers is held in honor wherever there is real Christian life, and it is the one thing which more than any other knits together the loose threads of a home, and unites its various members before God. The religious service in which parents, children, and friends daily join in praise and prayer is at once an acknowledgment of dependence on the Heavenly Father and a renewal of consecration to his work in the world. The Bible is read, the hymn is sung, the petition is offered, and unless all has been done as a mere formality and without hearty assent, those who have gathered at the family altar leave it helped, soothed, strengthened, and armored as they were not before they met there. The sick and the absent are remembered, the tempted and the tried are commended to God, and, as the Israelites in the desert were attended by the pillar and cloud, so in life's wilderness the family who inquire of the Lord are constantly overshadowed by his presence and love.

We, ignorant of ourselves, may ask in prayer for what would be to our injury, which the Father denies as for our own good; so find we profit by losing of our prayers. Or we may even pray for trifles, without so much as a thought of the greatest blessings. And, with sorrow be it said, we are not ashamed many times to ask God for that which we should blush to own to our neighbors. It is by reason of the worthlessness of so many of our petitions that they remain unanswered. Good prayers never come creeping home. We are sure we shall receive either what we ask or what we should ask. Prayer is a study of truth, a sally of the soul into the infinite. No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

It is for the sake of man, not of God, that worship and prayer are required. Not that God may be rendered more gracious, but that man may be made better, that he may be confirmed in a proper sense of his dependent state, and acquire those pious and virtuous dispositions in which his highest improvement consists. When we pray for any virtues we should cultivate the virtue as well as pray for it. The form of your life, every petition to God, is a precept to man. Our thoughts, like the waters of the sea, when exhaled toward heaven lose all their bitterness and saltness, and sweeten into an amiable humanity, until they descend in gentle showers of love and kindness upon our fellow-men.

God respecteth not the arithmetic of our prayers, how many they are; nor the rhetoric of our prayers, how neat they are; nor the geometry of our prayers, how long they are; nor the music prayers, how melodious they are; nor the logic prayers, how methodical they are: but the divinity of our prayers, how heart-sprung they are—not gifts, but graces prevail in prayer. We should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect every thing from God, and act with as much energy as those who expect every thing from themselves.

It is possible to have a daily worship which shall be earnest, vivifying, tender and reverential, and yet a weariness to nobody. Only let the one who conducts it _mean_ toward the Father the sweet obedience of the grateful child, and maintain the attitude of one who goes about earthly affairs with a soul looking beyond and above them to the rest that remaineth in heaven. It is not every one who is able to pray in the hearing of others with ease. The timid tongue falters, and the thoughts struggle in vain for utterance. But who is there who can not read a psalm or a chapter or a cluster of verses, and kneeling repeat in accents of tender trust the Lord's prayer? When we think of it that includes every thing.

Religion is the moral link that binds man most closely with his God—the spiritual garden where the creature walks in companionship with his Maker. This sentiment is the highest that man is capable of cherishing, since it binds him to a being fitted as no other being is to impart to the soul the highest moral grandeur that created beings can enjoy. It is the upper window of the soul, which opens into the clear, radiant light of God's eternal home. Its influence in every department of the mind is salutary and holy; no faculty can rise to its most exalted state without the sanctifying power of this sentiment. Neglect it not; the highest beauties of your souls, the finishing touch of your character, the sweetest charm of your life, will be given by due attention to this, your first and last duty.

If men have been termed pilgrims, and life a journey, then we may add that the Christian pilgrimage far surpasses all others in the following important particulars: In the goodness of the road; in the beauty of the prospect; in the excellence of the company, and in the rich rewards waiting the traveler at the journey's end. All who have been great and good without Christianity would have been much greater and better with it. True religion is the poetry of the heart; it has enchantment, useful to our manners; it gives us both happiness and virtue.