The Arkansas banner., 1843-10-14


 forest alike joyful l run, remembering that, if in the former shine out more fair, and have more to gaze on me admiringly as flow, in the latter find that peace and secu- rity which so dearly love. There come-no fierce bowling winds to rullc my tranquil strearn--they waste their force on the tall trees atwhose feet l glide; there come no falling floods from above to plough up my gentle breast, and lash my quiet deeps into
 fury--tlley descend harnaless nPon the thick
 oveghanging canopy of foliage under whose
 shelter hide in safety. Pine not, struggle
 not, therefore, oh child of humanity, for the
 broad and high places Of life; there the
 storms of adversity beat down upon thee
 mos. heavily, and there is thy exposure 10
 their rage most defenceless. And remember,
 too, that if the sunshine of prosperity and
 glory that beams around thee there be gorge
 ous to the eve, il dazzles sometimes even to binding. and that the warmth which vivfies
 may vet in the end consume.
 Stretch myself down beside me OH that green knoll, around which my stream winds in it's devious beauty. The sun IS yet high in the heavens, and though thy restless spirit yearns for the turmoil and hustle of that world in which 1t is for thee to strive, to hope, and to do, there is time for thee to pause awhile, communing with thy own heart and with me in this healthful solitude
 Impatient as thou art, oh man, deem not the time lost that is passed here, far from the din of that eternal contest in which thou hast borne thy part, 1t may be-from which thou f4. icl, thou must soon return. Ever the waves of that contest are heaving, and with them thou must contend, to ride triumphantly on their swelling crests, or 1t may be, after brief and profitless struggle, to go down in their depths forever, thy hopes unfulflled, thy aims unac complished, leaving no trace behind of all that thou hast done, or attempted, or dream ed. Stretch thyself down beside me, here in the mellow light of the summers declining sun, and gaze into my smooth flowing waters. Thou beholdest there thine own features, glancing up to thine, eyes from my watery depths. Swiftly my waters flow, and not for a single moment-not for thousandth part of the time that is taken up in a single beat of thy throbbing heart-does the glassy surface beneath thee remain unchanged The water on which thou vast looking an instant since is gone from before thee, to be there no more for ever; not more rapidly does the thought pass through thy mind than the liquid plane from which thine image is there reflected passes on it's way 10 the broad river, sup planting for an atom of time the plane from which that image was reflected but now, and as rapidly to be replaced by another from which 1t will be reflected in turn. But there, ever unchanging, unmoving, fixed as if graven upon adamant, the image remains. Y ct 1t is unsubstmtal, intangible, nothing-a mere semblance and show, existing only in certain filaments of thy nervous system, acted upon in some mysterious way by the rays of light, and in some way still more mysterious acting upon thy pereeptive .nind. The water is real, and il passes away-the shadow re- mains, motionless.
 What lesson e wisdom gatherest thou from this : Thy existence, oh child of hu- manity, is real; thou art substantial some thing in this thy world substantial, tangi- ble element of the great creation. And thou passest away like my flowing waters; the place that has known thee knows thee no more; 1t was filled but a moment since by another whom thou hast supplanted, and in moment hence it will be filled by another, supplanting thee. But thy thought remains; that which thou hast said, thought, or done, remains, unchanging, unchangeable for ever. or little moment is,lt to thee, therefore, W hat aspect thy body wears, or how it is clothed or lodged, or with what food it is sustained for be itrepulsive or comedy, tricked out in the fantastic decorations ofroyalty, or scant- ly shielded from cold and wet by the rags of the began, pampercd with costly viands, or nourished with the rude but hunger-havored crust of the tolling peasant, time soon comes when 'tmest passaaway and be no moro seen; when that which 1t has been--the how and the where-shall be of no moment to thee or to any, to thy race or the worlo.- But consider that action or word of thine. once gone forth, can be no more recalled; be 1t for veal or NO to myself or to others, il is there-garnered up among the imperishable things of tic past; omnipotence itself can neither annihilate nor change it. Take no care then. oh child of humanity, what thou art, but give heed to all thou doest or sayest to the speech of thy lips and the thought of thy mind; these are the reflection of thy image upon the ever-gliding stream of time, enduring as that reflection of thy features from my ever-changing bosom
 Another lesson for thy study, ill the re- flection that meets thine eyes as thou Hest there gazing upon the flow of my waters Thou knowest its existence is not in the ele- ment, but only ill the glassy surface on which it seems to be imprinted and that though the element change more rapidly even than thy perception can note the passage of time, the glassy surface always remaining, the image also remains. Tine water that gave it back to thee moment since has passed on-beiore thou eanst take consciousness of the thought even, the water which now gives it back to thee will have passed; that which shall give back the image moment hence is yet of the stream above thee Both to that which Is coming and that which is gone the image is not-is as it never had been and never should | be. Only for that on which at a single and { inappreciable point of lime its impression IS made, has it existence. Thou mayst learn @, t5,af m, ..l,o !