The Union and journal. [volume] (Biddeford, Me.) 1858-1882, 1860-06-01
Yesterday, To-Day, and Tomorrow.

Yesterday, to-day, ana tO-mOrrOw! w Dat
a spell lies within these three little words!
Yesterday! What was yesterday but our
early life-what was our early life but yes.
terday? To-day is the stern reality OF our
existence tho fate that must bc met and
braved but yesterday = oh that was tho
poetry of existence the lovely and beloved
time when all was happiness and innocence
around us, and when we were happy and in
nocent too. Tomorrow, in those earliest
days, was to us, the most beautiful time All
dreams and fancies, almost impossible to re-
alize on account Of their very loyelincss,w
TO come true then. But now-ah, now-to-
morrow has very different meaning in our
ears.
Tomorrow brings new cares and duties,
and new pains; and II is only by looking
back to yesterday, that We can see time
that was free from all these.
II was in the bright, free morning of yes
terday that we kissed that gentle mother
whose whole life was full of love for us, and
went bounding Of to school. IL was then
that our playmatcs gathered around us de-
lighted TO follow where we led. TWAS then
tharthe merry slide down-hill, the mad
.snow.ball. the noisy game Of hidc-and-scck
filled up our list of pleasure. 1t was then
that bluc-eycd Susie looked timidly at us
over her spelling-book, and let us show her
home from school, and cried with her little
checked apron to her eyes, when we were
whipped. II was then that VIC loved the little
fairy almost better than life itself, and we
had vague, impossible dreams OF being cast
away with her upon some dcsolate island,
and living with her there forever. 1t was
in the pleasant hours of yesterday that we
watched her, grown up into tall and grace
full maiden - that we won her, strange to
tell and not to that fairy.like island, but
to plain and quiet honc-a paradise on
earth.
What says To-day to this? She points her
finger, laughing scornfully the while, to the
homo which, from humble cottage has ex-
handed into marble palace, and shows us
Susie, no longer young and modest, but gay,
heartlcss and fashionable, the careless moth
or of three daughters, US gay and careless as
herelf. Paradise seems to have given place
10 Pandemonium, for strife and bitterness
reign within those walls. Unto to-day be-
longs the grave and carc-worn business man,
who st ,nds In his own beautiful house, and
in hi, family, rs stranger. To-day has
done 1t all, for the youth who married Susan
needed hard lessons before he came to this.
All the beauty Of his life is laid away,it was
Yesterday, and to day II had nothing to do
with it-yet, sometimes as no sits in the
countng-roon Of his great warehouse, and
hears a hand-organ playing, he buries his
face in his hands, and something of the old
grace and beauty come back as he thinks,
with tears in his eyes, OF oil that is lost to
him forever
What of tomorrow? Should we look up
on il only Us continuation Of to-day
another season in which We may grow more
careless and proud, and lay up for ourselves
treasures which the moth and the rust may
corrupt? Oh, better that wc never had been
born.
For, tomorrow brings us 10 the gravel
Tomorrow strips us of our business import
dncc. and Susie of her fashionable robes,
and lays us two poor, cold, corpscs in the
coffin! Then, what answer shall we make to
Him who entrusted us with the " ten tai
ents 2"
Oh! let us be warned-lct us be warned
Life is not merely made up Of happiness and
ambition. We are not placed here solely to
crafty or aggrandize ourselves there are
higher ald nobler things to be done. The
sick are to be visited, the suffering are to be
comforted, and the poor are to bo relieved,
that the world may be better because Of our
living in 1t.