The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-14 00:00:00

TILE SECRET OF HAPPINESS.

Life is made up of minutes, and its happiness of corre-
sponding little pleasures : the wise man secures the atoms
as they flit past him, and thus becomes owner of the aggre-
gate. Making every circumstance of life, sensuous, moral,
and intellectual, and every day and hour, contribute a little
something, be finds that though a brilliant and memorable
pleasure may come but twice or thrice, the secret
of a happy life is nevertheless his own. That fine
secret is not so much to lay plans for acquiring happy days,
as to pluck our enjoyment on the spot; in other words, to
spend that time in being happy which so many lose in deli-
berating and scheming how to become Ell. To accomplish
this, we have only, as said before, to make the most
of each little incident and opportunity, contemning and
repudiating nothing; always remembering, however, that
the way to make such incidents and opportunities most
prolific of enjoyment, is to humanise them that they shall
flower into thoughts of heaven. Wilfully to let opportuni-
ties go by, is a wickedness and an inexcusable folly ; whence
the still more foolish regrets which tear the heart that has
been so unjust to itself—for folly is only another name for
thorn and prickle seed ;--but a greater folly yet, is to stand
waiting and wishing for opportunities, when in fact they
circle us, if we will but keep on the qui vine. As the best
school in respect of high duties is the practice of the little
ones of common life, so the best and shortest road to happi-
ness and true philosophy is to make the most of what lies
beside us, and enjoy all we can of the life we have, leaving
it to God to determine what fortune shall attend our steps.
Dominus providebit. If we trusted more in his spontaneous
generosity, we should less often be disconcerted by the
failure of our own preparations, and should find that the
Divine intent is that life shall be felicitous, The same did
we ask ourselves more frequently what we have, rather
than brood .so ungratefully upon what we have not.
Though we may be poor and afflicted in comparison
with some, in contrast with others we are opulent
and blest. Life has a prize for every one who will
open his heart to receive it, though it may be a very
different one from the spirit of his early dreams. "There
is no greater mistake," says a thoughtful writer, "in con-
templating the issues of life, than to suppose that baffled
endeavours and disappointed hopes bear no fruits, because
they do not bear those particular fruits which were sought
and sighed for.

" The tree
Sucks kindlier nurture from a soil enrich'd
By its own fallen leaves ; and man is made
In heart and spirit, from deciduous hopes,
And things that seem to perish."—
HENRY TAYLOR, "Notes from Life."
The disproportion in men's inheritances is far less than we
are prone to think. If one hand of the universal Giver be
closed, the other is expanded—no one is left without his
meed of compensation—only in our weakness and unthank-
fulness we look more at the darker side of our own lot, and
at what appears to us the brighter side of our neighbour's.
Epictetus explains the mystery in part : " it is not Fortune
that is blind, but ourselves." Whatever be our lot, if man
will but just concede that that must be best for him which
the Best of Beings has ordained, life thenceforward has a
solace which no fortune can wrest away.

The opening passage of the summary, which con-
eludes the work, is well worthy of attentive con-
sideration.

If there be any coherence and validity in the reasonings
contained in the foregoing pages, the conclusion must needs
be, that everything of which human intelligence is cogni-
sant, whether animate or inanimate, material or spiritual,
depends on the personal support of the Creator, and that
Life is One and Omnipresent; in other words, that God is
the supra natural ground of all phenomena, whether
physical, physiological, or intellectual; and that all
beginnings and endings are displays of his divine life in
operation ; —life which, flowing continuously into his
creation, never begins or ends, but always is. "Natural
laws" there are, plentiful and amazing, through which his
divine wills are effectuated, but God is the great mover and
upholder of these laws; there are no laws independently of
Him, and all things are sustained by law. He who said
"I bring a cloud over the earth," teaches us thereby that
he is the direct and personal agent in all natural pheno-
mena, however slight and apparently casual they may be,
no less than in all spiritual phenomena. " Even the blind
heathen named their supreme deity cloud-driving
Jupiter :" and shall not we, thus taught by God himself;
still more explicitly and reverently own the living Jehovah,
the God in whom we live, and move, and have our being,
as the Creator of every cloud that flings its shadow over
earth ? We own him in the uproar of the tempest ; let us
own him in the stillness of the calm. We own him in the
huge billow; let us own him in the ripple that sinks
quietly to rest upon the strand. We own him in the
whirlwind ; let us own him in the placid breeze of even-
ing." It is no trifling source of mere pleasure thus to re-
cognise the Creator in the ordinary occurrences of the
world. It sweetens every moment of our time ; unites•
us delightfully to the beauties of nature ; and associates us
with its varied objects as with so many friends and compa-
nions.

While such are the conclusions to which his scien-
tific investigations conduct him, we cannot wonder
at the success of Mr. Grindon's book. We cannot
say that we agree with all his opinions, or that we
consider all his theories to be correct. In a work
embracing a plan so gigantic in its scope, and
touching upon themes so deep and so important,
some differences of opinion between writer and
reader are inevitable. In the opening chapters
upon Life the almost omnipresence of vitality is
made clear to us in a most amazing manner. Life,
" mystic life," that " beam
Of God's great glory shot through carnal things,"
appears, according to the researches of this
author, to animate " every atom of the con-
stituent matter of our globe." The theory
may startle some, but the very comprehensive and
interesting manner in which Mr. Grindon has en-
forced it, is worthy of the attentive consideration of
the ordinarily unthinking, while to those who de-
light in the exercise of their intellectual powers
these very thoughtful and beautifully written re-
flections will be a welcome boon, and the source
long afterwards,assured,
we may rest of many
fruitful meditations and pleasant memories.

The Bev. Alfred Hoblush and his Coracles. A
Memoir. By the author of " Roman Candles,"
The Night Mail," &c. Maxwell.

The hand of the divine Raphael has bequeathed
to us the best portrait of that great master, and
to the hand of the Rev. Alfred Hoblush we are
indebted for a faithful likeness of that deeply in-
teresting individual. Behold him !

THE RET. ALPRED HOBLITSH.
I am tall and slender, very gentle of aspect, and look out
at Nature very mildly—through glasses. My hair is long,
and usually saturated with unguents, and turns up sponta-
neously at the back in a sort of frill. My garment is long
and monkish, shining like satan ; and my umbrella is car-
ried full a yard in front of my person, being poised daintily
between two fingers, as though it were a hot rod. In this
guise I go my peaceful, inoffensive round, a-curing of souls :
the Reverend Alfred Hoblush, at your service.

This is the pure shell, the earthy, out-speaking portion
of him. But for that which passeth show, the spiritual,
indestructible half of the man, a hint or so may be dropped.
I have a quiet, gentle soul, in truth but ill-calculated for
contact with the furze and briars of a wicked world. The
gentle soul flies in upon itself at anything like a jar; a start
or shock—at anything like a rough joke, or wnat is called
quizzing—flies home fluttering ,trembling, and, so to speak,
in blushes. A burst of ill-regulated female merriment has
been known to rout utterly the little trifler. From the
loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind, it shrinks with
horror.

So many misfortunes, of most varied character,
assuredly never before befell unhappy curate, as
appear to have descended upon the ill-starred head
of the blushing Hoblush in eight eventful experi-
ences. Since the days of the " Bashful Irishman,"
of famous memory,
we have met with no such
felicitous compound of innocence and ignorance,
of impudent effrontery and unconscious stupidity,
as are united in the person of this much abusing