West-Jersey pioneer., 1865-03-04
From the Carleton Place HERALD.
TIME.
BY LEWIS DAVIS.

In the first stage of life, as we begin to OBJ
serve the coming years, while enjoying the
golden hours of the present, our infantile
conceptions of time in advance are such as none
but a youth can have. We view with bright
anticipations the fair Eden to which the dis
! tance of a score of years lends enchantment =
Then what prodigious length of time is the
thing We call year, for in waiting, in expec-
tation, the passing moments seem tedious as
hours, and coming day as year when it is
past. Time viewed in the distant future seems
to creep with decrepitude, and our wish is that
he would move more rapidly to bring the an
tcipated period of our happy manhood. But
| time goes at an unvarying ra'e; his movements
are under the wise regulation of Jehovah g
laws; so that he can neither haste nor tarry
while the steady orbit of his wheels are bal
anced beyond the sun. But delusion hides in
the region of futurity, where hopes bright
syren sings, and mercy renders viewless the
tolls, the burdens, the griefs, the mseries, the
terrors, the perils, the woes, and the ruin in
the fatal future.
1t is well that time progresses at one con-
slant and steady rate, and that experience can
only come to US as companion OF years.
Time is the agent of Change; and such is their
wonderful power in working out destiny, that
we suspect them combined to bring revolution,
and put all things under dominion. So we
must undergo gradual change in body and un
derstanding, and differ in both substance and
thought or else we shall. be indifferently pre-
pared for long and useful life. Unless thus
changed throughout before we become adult,
we shall be undeveoped and unimproved, pre-
senting the righteousness of manhood in speak
ing and understanding, and thinking as chill
dren.
We must be students, and go through a Sc
we're course of study in the university of Time,
and be taught a great deal by experience in
the most effectual way, learning as fools learn,
if they learn at all. Time is the great ex-
pounder and powerful reasoner. He teaches
right logic, and by his silent power brings
things at last into positions where absurdities
become evident to the most obtuse learner.
By analysis and affinity of things, Time de-
tects scattered error hid in sophisms, and ex-
poses startling paradoxes. On comparing pro
fessions with actual tendencies, and presenta-
tion of conclusions in juxtaposition with prom
ises, the incongruity of error with facts is made
apparent and truth is seen in its proper light.
In advanced life, when half century that
has passed appears as yesterday, Time seems
present and near to our view, rushing by with
terrible train of operations and developments,
groans and travels in pain for there is toll,
confusion, CONSERVATION, anarchy, and univer-
sal tumult; convulsion, catastrophe, storm.
flood. wreok, fire, plague, war, and famine,
without order or end, attend his career while
Death, the insatiate foe, follows on his track.
Time came out from eternity and is hasten
ing to ioin his immutable home; being part
and parcel of that duration which is from ever
lasting to everlasting. So in our present life
a miniature of time-short and ieeting, having
beginning and ending in it, both being woven
of the same portions and seasons, and measured
by successive hours, days, and years. Our
existence is as ephemeral as morning flower
in the morning it fourisheth and groweth up,
in the evening it is cut down and withered.-
As the changing clouds which cast their NOV
ing shadows asross the variegated landscape
are crowded beyond the horizon, and known
no more, so one generation passeth and another
generation cometh Our longest quiet life is
| as vapor resting in the sky, which the morning
sun cannot help dissipating-the course of
| some more brilliant genius CLEANS as a meteor
along the sky leaving no trace behind it
| Some in pleasure, others in intemperance, and
| to satiate their appetites, rush precipitately
| through life as voracious eagle hastens to his
prey faster than natural gravitation tends.
Though time seems present to US, yet it is
not; for the present is point where all is passed
! or to come. 1t is bestowed in the smallest
conceivable parts, which glide quicker than the
| flying shuttle, until our age is departed, and
life is cut off. Of all the many moments given
we can have but one, and that one no power
can retain; so we never have more than one.
We are never insured moment to come, while
every fleetiug one leaves the number less, and
is gone for ever. There is no blank in time,
u. ~ Jatoa Co. o1Io y
ings in life. While we throw time away as
worth nothing, every moment has its useful
mission, and is worth an empire or world;
for nothing else is ours. Scarce and valuable
as time is, many squander these small moments
as of no value; light as the y seem, they are
heavy burden to some. Bestowed precisely
alike upon the Industrious and lazy, yet this
equal distribution does not seen adapted to
| men, IS inadequacy in their application and use
| of it for while some men bave abundance of
| time to spare, others seem not to have enough.
Those who have least time have most to do;
on he contrary, those who have most of it to
spare have little to do, of course. But, while
time is short, uncertain, and feeting, there is
time for every purpose under the sun, and
enough for great business here. There
is time enough given to repent-to pray-and
to ensure eternal bliss.
While time is either passed or to come, life
is to-day. Now is the time to snatch fruition.
Now is the crisis of our destiny. Now is
is the watchword on the banner of the prudent.
The years bring round the designs Of Provi-
dence. The world keeps moving forward
Fogies must not stand still and be dreaming.
There is no use in opposition, for the march
of events is.onward. Laggers must be up and
ioing, and keep in step, or be trampled upon
by an army in aspiration and progression
Let the signs of the times be read aright-time
ever turns up something new We see the
| world is growing better. Since Time began,
what age of men ever witnessed such wonder
| full developments, as we see upon whom the
| end of the world is come. Never before was
| such tribute paid to genius. The means are
found to make and onnihilate time. News Of
thought, and word, and deed outstrip the roll
| ing earth on the spirit track of the Telegraph,
and is heralded ahead of time on the cleaning
| highways of thought, SO as to be omnlpresent
before the future has its birth.
Also we see the spirit of freedom evoked !;
| light over darkness prevails; the day of liberty
and justice is dawning; there is triumph CT
| the heaven born over the earth-bOrn and the
hell-born We witness q memorable conflict
between the irreconcilable antagonisms.
Time can never be retrieved, for there are
no yesterdays to come. Time cannot put back
his ear to reimpart the given period, for the
ground on which he ran is gone; his footsteps
are the years which crumble into the abyss Of
1.-THE past. But we can take backward look
in the memory over our own span of life, where
all the realities for halt a century, perhaps, OF
what was once the dark eventful future, which
we were then SO anxious to penetrate, is laid
open to view. Events of our fortune and des
tiny are now seen in the clear light of the past,
but the great weight of care, interest, and i'm
mort is extracted from them by experience and