True American. [volume] (Steubenville [Ohio]) 1855-1861, 1857-04-01
Yesterday, To-Day, and Tomorrow
BY NATHALIE CARL.

BY NATHALIE CARL.
Yesterday, to-day, and tomorrow!
What spell lies within those three little
words!
Yesterday! What was yesterday but
our early life-what was our early life but
yesterday! To-day is the stern reality
of our existence-the (ates that must be
met, and braved-but yesterday oh,
that was the poetry Of exstence--the
lovely and beloved time when all was hap.
piness and innocence around us, and
when we were innocent and happy, too.
Tomorrow, in those earliest days, was
to US, the most beautiful time. All
dreams and lancies, almost impossible to
realize on account OF their very love-
ilness' were to come true then. But
now--ah now, tomorrow has very
different meaning in our ears, To-mor-
row brings new cares, and duties, and
new pains--and it is only by looking
back TO yesterday, that we can see a
time that was free from all these.
Ii was in the bright free morning Of
yesterday, that we kissed that gentle
mother whose whole life was full Of love
for us, and went bounding off 10 school.
1t was then that our playmates gathered
around US, delighted to follow where we
led. 1t was then that the merry slide
down hill, the mad "snoW ball" the noisy
game Of hide and seek, filed up our list
of pleasures. 1t was then that the blue
eyed Susie looked tmidly at US over the
top of her spelling book, and let us show
her home from school, and cried with her
little checked apron up to her eyes,
when we were whipped. 1t was then
that we loved the little fairy, almost bet
ter than life itself, and had vague impos-
sible dreams of being cast away with her
upon some desert island, and living there
with her forever. 1t was in the pleasant
hour of yesterday that we watched her
growing up into tall and graceful
naiden--that we won her, strange 10
tell.l and not to that fairy-like island !,
but to a plain and quiet home where Par
adise seemed 10 have bee n renewed on
earth.
What says to-day 10 this ! She points
her finger, laughing scornfully the while,
to the home, which from an humble cot
tage has expanded into marble palace.
and shows us Susie--no longer young
and modest-but gay, heartless and fash
ionable--the careless mother of three
daughters, as gay and careless as herself.
Paradise seems to have given place 10
Pandemonium, for strife and bitterness
reign within those walls. Unto to-day,
belongs the grave and care-wom busi-
ness man, who stands in his own beau
tiful house, and in his family. as stran-
ger. To-Day has done it all, for the
youth who married Susie, needed hard
lessons before be came to this. All the
beauty of his life is laid away--it was
Yesterday, and today has nothing 10 do
with it--yet sometimes, as he sits in the
counting room of bis great warehouse,
and hears hand-organ playing down on
the wharf, he buries his face in his hands,
and something of the old grace and beau
ty come back, as he thinks, with tears ID
his eyes, of all that is lost to him forever
What of tomorrow Should we look
upon it only as a continuation of to-day
another season in which we may grow
more careless and more proud, and lay
up for ourselves treasures which the moth
and rust may corrupt Oh, better tha
we had never been horn!
! For Tomorrow brings us 10 the grave
| Tomorrow strips us Of our business
Importance and Susie of her fashionable
robes, and lays us, two poor, cold, silen
corpses, in our coffins Then what all
swer shall we make 10 Him who trustee
us with the 4" ten talents"
| Oh, let us be warned--let us be warn
ed! life is not merely made up Of hap
piness and ambition. We are not place.
here sulely to aggrandize ourselves
there are higher and nobler things to b
: done. The sick are to be visited, tn
: suffering are to be comforted, and III
poor are to be relieved, that the worl
may be better and happier because {
our living in it. Remember: rank an
! station drop from us like taitered gal
ments when we die, and before the bs
of God, Lazarus is exalted, while Dive
: lies in outer darkness.
: Live esrnestly-liye trpyy-liye f
thy neighbor as well as for lhyself Re
member One who ytest about doin
7 good, and follow His example as Ion
y as you may. faS 6iflo-day is a ierrib
, mistake, and Yesterday was only full,
dreamy beauty, selfish in its very n atur
! let thy good deeds shine out and fill L,
{, Morrow with light that shall guide tl