The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-21 00:00:00

EVERY MAN MUST BEAR HIS OWN BURDEN.

"Pardon the triteness of the remark, but it is really a
very awful thing to have been born. I suppose there is
hardly a human being, however thoughtless or reckless, to
whom that idea has not occurred at some time or another ;
to most of us it is a familiar subject of consideration. Then
why write it down here ? Because, while I was consider-
ing William Bathurst's position at this period of his life
just now, the fact came home to me, not like the exist-
ence of a country called Timbuctoo, or the number of
miles the moon is distant from the earth, but as a per-
sonal practical truth. You are born and reared without
having an,y voice in the matter, it is true, but from the
moment you become a walking, talking, sentient animal
_ _

you can help almost everything you do ; you have the
choice of acting rightly or wrongly every minute ; and
when you prefer the latter, you are responsible for it,
and will some day, in some way or other, suffer for the
choice. If a child steals a lump of -sugar he will find

it moro difficult afterwards to fight against dishonesty;
if he allows passion its head, he will find the beast's
month-'harder, and his arm weaker next time ; if he
shrinks from peril, his cowardice will increase. When

Ito coroner's inquest brings in a verdict of temporary
nsanity upon the suicide, wo all say—" Poor fellow!
to could not help it." But could he not? No, not at
he time, perhaps, but could he not have helped giving
way to thtit fit of sulks five, ten, fifteen, twenty years
ago ? And all those increasing outbursts of temper, did
ho fight them fairly, or strike his colours with greater
and greater pusillanimity every time ?
"Committed theft has he ? Poor fellow !--the most
honest man in the world—well off—no necessity for the
act—he was not responsible for it—a mere attack of klepto-
mania ; was there not a time when the temptation to take
might have been resisted, ay, and with ease ? The
drunkard ! Has a craving, has he, which it is almost im-
possible to resist ? Had ho that always ?—was he born
with it ? I tell you, in ninety-nine cases out of a hun-
dred, he forced himself to drink to excess in the first
instance ; his gorge rose at the extra glass, Nature stood
up against him and wrestled to prevent his swallowing
it ; but he thought intoxication was manly, or he had
imbibed from Anacreontic poetry romantic ideas of the
pleasure attached to it, or he was curious to try a new
sensation, and so he wilfully forced himself through the'
vicious portals, and at that moment at least was respon-
sible for the loss of power to resist the poison when at
a later period he was dying of it.
"It is a fearful thing to Be—every weakness, every
failing, every sin of omission as of commission, is our
own fault ; we could not help committing it at the mo-
ment, perhaps, but we could have helped committing
some other sin years before, and a series of subsequent
sins in the interim, which incapacitated us from resist-
ing at the last. Is not the goVernor who neglects the
defence of the outposts responsible for the loss of citadel ?
Is not the man who fires the fusee the one who blows up the
magazine, what matter whether that fusee smoulder for
five minutes, an hour, a month, a year, a decade, a century?
And therefore I say that William Bathurst was himself in
a great measure to blame for the weakness of his character.
It is true that he was born with a yielding disposition ; it
is true, also, that an injudicious education had tended to
foster rather than discourage the evil ; but nevertheless it
is also true that unless he had in thousands of little matters
given way when his conscience told him to make a stand
which he might have made with ease with a slight amount
of trouble and self-denial, from which, however, he wilfully
shrank, ho would never have fallen into habits of vicious
indulgence without a harder struggle against his fate, nor
succumbed so speedily and utterly to the influence of a man
whose walk in life was not, he well knew, along the paths
of virtue."

We will dwell no further on the moral purpose so
very admirably and effectively carried out in the
warning history of " William Bathurst." We may
safely commend the book to all our readers, grave
or gay, for it is one that cannot fail to interest, and
it is one that no one will be the worse for reading.
Let not the seeker of amusement he deterred by
this grave recommendation. As an evidence of
the amusing powers of the writer, let us quote
the following delightful description of