The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1860-02-02

sahu tiihes, no; ne has given us life and thi
good earth, and hidden us by all the laws
nature which bespeak His will, be happy
But there is something in that idea {
paddling doson the styeam that jumps wit
my humor. That is the true Philosophy {
life; to paddle down stream, not up-an
never TO tug and sweat against the current
there arc just as many flowers on the banl
down stream as up; the haven where we vii
all finally anchor is just the same whethe
we pull against the current, all our long lif
like galley shave or float luxuriously
adown it; so take my word for it /; un
ship your oars, make social group unde,
the awning Of life's good ship, be kind
believing, be virtuous, and swell to the
fullest extent the sum total Of human
happiness, and God, who loves his creatures,
and loves a cheerful heart, will stand at the
helm and guide your bark of life Alright.
In pressing upon your attention the i'm
portance of this life and urging as true Phi
losophy its full enjoyment, I do not wish to
be understood as undertaking. the rastness
and Importance ofa future existence. but T
wish to make emphatic, to give peculiar
emphasis and prominence to the idea that
Life, this life, is all there is of earth and all
that we shall ever know OF the pleasures of
sense, of emotions, of mind So blissful in
the qualification of passions which the God
OF nature gave us for rational enjoyment, in
accordance with natures laws; all these
things are crowded into a short life and vet
we daily and hourly pass by and neglect
We adulterate with imaginary evils the un-
mixed good every where offered us. We
refuse the very nectar of life when cornmen
ded to our lips, and sip instead gall and
wormwood,
No one knows until they have tried it,
how much Of happiness can be crowded into
a single hour of time, and the same hour too.
that but for this EFFORT, would have been n
listlesS and blank hour, if not one of positive
misery. a. eEe r-.
To the well ordered mind determined upon
the enjoyment of the present hour, there are
innumerable sources of hanpines, we'll.
springs of pleasure; dancing. sparkling rills
of JOY, flowers by the way side, that escape
the notice of the moody discomfort who
walks gioomily through life seeking eviden-
ces in support of his doleful doc tr,ne that
man is born to evil and misery, and who
persists in regarding what the generous Gre
ator intended as blessings, as to many en-
tailed curses.
To him who serves God by being happy,
and in efforts to make others the samc-to
such there is joy in every thing.
''There is pleasure in the painless wood
..s. There is rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrude
by the deep sea, and music in its roar
There is spell in every flower,
sweetness in each spray. .... . ....
And every simple bird hath power, ..
To please them with its lay.
And there is music on the breeze
That sports along the glade,
-s And crystal dew drons on the trees
Are gems by fancy made r.
And there is joy and happiness
In every thing they see, "H.H ..
That bids the soul Use up and bless
The God who biesses thee" .
The great error of life with US all is, a con
tinued looking beyond the present hour for
enjoyment, keeping happiness like delusive
phantom forever little in advance and for
ever an approach, always to be happy in con-
sequence of some great COOL that as to accrue
to Us. Riches, honors, and thousand and
one things, which when actually reached,
ifthey ever are, give no joy, but something
still in the future, some other anticipated
eventi is certainly going to do so, and upon
which we fix our eyes, and regardless Of a
thousand joys within our reach, stretch with
painful labor and solictude still forward to
the goal that we shall never reach. And
while thus through years Of labor and pain,
we toll on and on regardless of the happiness
Of the hour, reaching for the great good an
ticipated in the future, the muscles relax, the
limbs tremble beneath US, the ewes grow dim,
the palsed hands shake as they reach for
ward to clutch the long sought prize, the
grave opens, the sods fall upon our narrow
tenement and ere their hollow sound has
died into an echo, the rushing millions of
earth pass over us and we are forgotten.
But how,you may ask, are we to be happy,
unless some great good is vouchsafed to us
Did 1t ever occur to you my friends, that
neither the joys nor the sorrows of life are
made up Of great events, but that they are
emphatically an aggregation of TITLES A
great good may and does make glad the
heart, the obtaining long sought object
the realization of some great event of life,
but the enioyments being always less than
anticipated soon pass away, the object attain
ed to soon looses its novelty, and some other,
still in the future, engrossos all our desires,
and we are still as unsatisfed as before
So too, great misfortune, great calami-
ty may fall upon us with crushing weight,
but like the bended reed we recover our po-
sition, and our calmness when the storm is
passed. But it is the little things, the tri
fes Of life, the small events that are daily
and hourly transpiring that after all go to
make mp the great sum total of our joys and
griefs, the good and i'll Of life, and hence the
ability we all possess to be happy or wretch
ed as we will, for, il is perfectly in our pow.
or to cultivate habit of mind that will en-
hance all the little joys of life and be perfect