Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1852-09-08

for il seems to me as if thoughtful and feel
Iingmind, without any trust the great Prov
idence of God, without any communion
PRAYER, with Father in Heaven, withor
any purifying influence of the great Atone
ment of Christ, or any holy sympathy wit
earthly brethren, or any cheering hope c
their progress, must necessarily becom
wearied, distrustful, and often melancholy
Youth, though often disappointed. is ye
always looking forward, and it is lookin
forward with indefinite and unchecked an
ticipation. But IN the. progress of life ther
comes time when the mind looks back
ward as we'll as forward; when it learns t.
correct the anticipations Of the future by th
experience of the past. 1t has run througl
the courses of acquisition, pleasure or am
bition and it knows what they are and wha
they are worth. The attractions of hop'
have not indeed los. all their power, bu
they have lost part of their charm.
Perhaps, even the disappointment o
youth, though it has more of passion ane
grief IN it, is not so bitter and sad, as tha
of maturer life, when it says, "Well and thi'
is all. If should add millions my store
if | should reap new honors, or gain new
pleasures, it will only be what I have expe'
rienced before ; know what 1t is; know
1t all. There is no more in this life, know
it ALL" All how cold and cherries is tha
period of human existence-how does the
heart of a man die within him, as he stands
in the very midst of his acquisitions-how
do his very honors and attainments teach
him to mourn--and ID mourn without hope
if there is no spiritual hope If the grea
moral objects of this lite and the immortal
regions of another life, are not spread be-
fore him, then is he most miserable. Yes
his very success, has good fortune bring:
him to this. There are untoWard circum-
stances, there are Affections, that may lead
a man to religion but what | now say Is
that the natural progress of every rejecting
mind, however prosperous its fortunes, tha
the inevitable development of the growing
experience of life unfods in the very struc'
ture of the human soul the necessity ol
real religion. =
This world is dark, and must be dark
without the light of religion even as the
material orb would be dark without the
light of Heaven to shine upon it. As if
'.The bright Sun was extinguished and the stars
Did wander darkling in TIE eternal space,
Rayless and painless and the icy earth
Surging blind and blackening in the moonlesi
air."
so would the soul be, without the light Of
Gods presence shining around it, without
those truths that beam like the stars from
the depths of heaven, without those infu.
ences, invisible and far of, like the forces o1
gravitation, to hold it steadily in its orbit
and to convey it onward will unerring guid.
ance, in its highest career. And no phi.
losopher, no really intellectual beirg, ever
broke from the bonds of all religious faith
without his course becoming dreary, "blind
and backening," in its spiritual armament
Hla soul becomes in the language OF ST
Jude, ''like wandering star or cloud
without water" 1t is not true, that intel.
lecttial weakness most stands ih'need of re-
liglon, but it is intellectual strength. l hold
no truth to be more certain than this, thai
every mind in proportion to its real develop.
ment and expansion, is dark, is dispropor.
tisned and unhappy without religion. If il
this life alone it had hope, of all men the
Lockes, Boyles, Newtons, Washingtons
Marshals, Clays, Scots and Websters woule
have been most miserable. ,....
| have spoken of youth and manhood, as
developing the need. of religion. Does age
any less need it, Where can that wanI
exist, if not in the aged heart. 1t is moi
alone, that its pulses are faint and few; i
is not alone, that so many of its once cher.
ished objects have departed from ii; it is
not that the limbs are feeble. the eye din
and the ear dull of hearing; it is not that tht
aged frame is bent towards the earth, int
whichit is soon to sink ard find its last rest
But what is the position Of an old person
Where does he stand3 One life is passet
through, one season of being almost spent
youth has found long since the gaol of its
career, manhood at length is gone and he
stands where and upon what? What is il
that spreads before him : Is it a region oi
clouds and shadows? Is all before him
dread darkness s. vaculty, an eternal sleep.
boundess void Thus would it be with
out religion, without faith! But how must
he who stands upon that shore of all visible
being from whence he can never turn back,
how must he long for some sure word OF
promise, for some voice that can tell him of
eternal life, Of eternal youth, of regions far
away IN the boundless universe of God
where he may wander on and onward for.
ever? Age with faith, is but the beginning
of life, the youth of lmmo tality; the times
and seasons of Its being are before it its
gathered experience, is but an education to
prepare it for higher scenes and services /;
but age without faith is wreck on the
shore Of life,a a ruin upon the beetling cliffs of
time, tottering to its fall and about to be en-
gulphed and lost forever! "What shall it
profit a man if he should gain the whole
world and lose his soul ?"
In fine, my view Of life is such that if it
were not for my faith and hope, should
very little care what became of it. Let it
be longer or shorter, 1t would but little
matter, if all was to end; when life end
ed, if all my hopes and cherished joys and
aspirations were to be buried with me for
ever in the tomb. Oh that life of insect
cares and pursuits and of insect brevity,
the mind that God has given me could on
" cast sad and desparing look upon it,
and then dismiss it as not worth further
thought. But no such sad and shocking
inconpruity is there, thanks be to God, in
the we'll ordered course Of our being. The
that are all around, in all ami
NAL and vegetable life, in light and shade,
in mountain and valley, in stream and O.
cean, in the linked train of the seasons, in
the moving and dread array of all the heav-
enly hosts of worlds, the harmonies of uni.
versal nature, but above all the teachings