The native American. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1840, 1837-12-16

absolutely to deny itfor this would at once take
away, as il were, the pivot ON which the present.
life moves, and deprive total unity, completeness,
and hope. There are few who are bold enough
habitually to believe it; for they have no eyes
look upon their own transiguration, and the di-
mnshed earth turns pale for fear. But most
men seem to me to be moved by the impulse Of
alternating feelings, in the mid-space betwixt the
two opinions.
AS we paint devils more easily than gods-Fu-I
ries more easily than the Venus Urana--hell more
easily than heaven--so also we believe In those
more readily than in these; in the greatest misery
more readily than in the greatest bliss. How, IN
deed should our souls, Injured to disappOintments
and chains, look without occasional doubling on
Utopia on which our vulgar earth is to 60 wreck!
In,morfaity.-Man were upon earth vanity
and ashes, and smoke, did he not feel that he
was so. 0 God! this feeling is our Immortality!
Conversion shall explain to me the
mystery of our Unborn sympathies and desires!
We are not made good Though we are made BETTER
because we are converted; but we are converted
because we are good.
The Moral La,c.-Pure reason, with all its
triumphs, cannot make men good. 1t is only the
outstretched wooden arm that directs upon
the road of virtue; but this arm can neither carry
us thither, nor give to us wherewithal may car
ry ourselves Reason has the Legislative not the
executive power. The power to love the COM
mands which reason gives forth, is second con-
science beside the first. As Emmanuel Kant can
not set down in ink what it is that makes men
bad; SO, on the other hand, neither can that be
described which sustains them above the slough
of moral pollution, or lifts them out Of it.
Measure Of Characfer.-All men are better
than their ebullitons of eyil-but they are also
worse than their outbursts of noble enthusiasm.
Oar Passions.-We are all like Adam in the
epic poem; we look upon our first night as the
crack of doom, and the first setting of our sun,
as the setting of the sun of the world. We be-
wall our friends if there no better futurty
yonder, and bewail ourselves as if there were no
better futnrity here: for all passions are born
Athe lists and Infdes.
IdlkdfiUeness.-It is common remark that
those talk most who think least; Just as frogs
cease their quacking when person brings al
light to the water side.
ReUieUers.--The Reviewers are seldom men
who have written any books themselves, and in
written by other people, and to take them TO pie
or, if they have written books, they are gene
rally bad ones; SO that they can know at once
from experience what bad book is when it comes
in their way. Many OF them have become the
patron-saints Of authors and their books, for the
same reason that Saint Nepomuk is the patron
saint of bridges, and of those who coupon them
because, on one occasion, happening to 20 half
drunk along the bridge at Prague, he fell into
the Moldau, and was drowned.
Happiness -Msey.-T make us happy we
require not much less than every thing; to make
lus miserable, not much more than nothing will
!, suffice.
Progression.-We learn to climb by keeping
our eyes not on the hills that lie behind, but on
the mountains that rise before us.
RI Smooth Wmers.-The streams that run most
rapidly do not run most clearly; water puriies
itself by flowing calmly.
i Polemics.-Is life then SO long that men have
time to be angry?-and are good men SO plentiful
in the world that we can afford to quarrel with
the few that are?
iSfoicism.-No stoicism is worth any thing but
that which we make to ourselves; we must be ca
pable of passion in order to be capable Of COM
handing it. The overflowings of the will are
like the overhowings of the streams which for
/ a time trouble all the wells in the neighborhood;
but, if you take away the streams altogether, you
take away the wells with them.
Il ooePcJofHtOf.-lAll Tic systems Oh ner6tCS and
heathens have some truth in them, lust as the
human face divine is repeated in the brute crea-
81 ton, with features that run more and more into
caricature. No man belieUes absolute nonsense
though he often speaks it.
i Innate deas.-There is an inward world sls
pended within our hearts, which breaks forth
through the cloudy mantle Of the corporeal world
like warm sun. | mean the inward universe Of
virtue, beauty, and truth, three inward heavens
and worlds which are neither parts nor copies Of.
nor emanations from, the external world. we
are not lost in admiration at the unexplained ex
istence of these three transcendenta heavens
globes, only because they continually float before
us, and because we foolishly ween that we create
them, whereas we only knoaD them After what
pattern, by means Of what plastic nature could
we inoculate into our minds spiritual world
which is one and the same in all and each of rs,
Cheeyuiness-Cheerfuln which is quail
ty peculiar to mana brute being capable only oil
enjoyment like Spring, all the blossoms
of the inward man: discontinued God were a con-
radction, and salvation is an eternity older than
damnaion. Try for single day, beseech Won.
to preserve yourself in an easy and cheerful frame
OF mind-be but for one day, instead of fire.
worshlPper OF passion and hell, the sun-worship-
per of clear selfpossessiOn--and conn,ra ~