Fayetteville observer. [volume] (Fayetteville, Tenn.) 1850-1966, 1867-08-29

wipe out that stern penmanship
of the hand of fate and bring
back the wanderer to the green
pastures of hope and the still
waters Of f.peace!
! Surely, surely it Is more bless.
ed to give than to receive, more
blessed to relight the lamp of a
despairing brother Or sister than
to put out their light and leave
them groping all alone through
the gloom and the darkness.
Life is not a gala day, not
high carnival of mirth and pleas
ure but an earnest, solemn reality.
There are none Of us but find bit
terness mingled with its sweets.
thorns among its roses. No sky
eyer yet SO bright and wondrous
fair but cloud might fling there.
on the shadow of its gloomy wing
We are mo,uners all, land sooner OIL
late our ears are attuned to the
melancholy dripping of Grain IN
the heart" Yea
! The shores of time with wrecks are strewn,
Unto the ear comes ever moan
! Wrecks of hopes that set sail with glee,
Wrecks of love sinking silently.
Many are hid from the human eye,
Only God knoweth how deep they lie:
Only God heard when arose the cry,
Help me to bear-ohl help me to bear.
How needful then that we
should be patient and forbearing
with one another, for who knows
how bitterly his brother mourn
eth DER his fallen clay idols, and
how hopelessly he kneels above
the sad wrecks and laments their
desecration and departed glory.
The All Father, from the begin
ing, intended that we should help
one another. He has sown within
our heart the goodly seed of mercy,
and His willing hands have clip
ped tender cuttings from the spa
cious tree of love, and grated them
into the life of each and every
one of his children. All! woe to
him who lendeth not those seeds,
and who leaveth I the cuttings OF
the all-seeing Gardener to wither
and wilt in the sun. Verify a
time will come when he will sigh
for the incense of flowers and
long, oh! how earnestly, for the
cooling shade and sheltering arms
of goodly tree in his life-garden.
But the sun of wrong-doing will
glow fercely down upon him, and
the storms of grief will lash him
round about, while the raindrops
of remorse will descend coldly,
freezingly into his innermost life,
and wear mercilessly deep, deep
into his very soul! Alas, who
can picture the emptiness, the
dreariness, the hollow mockery
Of that life unblest by the sun
shine Of love and pity for his
erring fellow-creature! The great
Omniscient God never meant any
life to be SO empty, SO drear, SO
wholly cursed and unblest. He
did not make us unkind and void
of feeling-He never yet made a
snarling, carping misanthrope,
neither a fawning hypocrite, nor
yet reckless sin-steeped wander
er, outcast alike from earth and
Heaven. Not His the hands that
thrust into our hearts the ranking
! thorns of hatred, or coiled about
our souls the Kissing serpents of
remorse and bitterness. That is
a work which mans hands have
wrought and fearfully, thrice fear
fully hath man marred Gods per-
feet and faaltless handiwork !
All, how I pity that being who
has lost all faith in his fellow-man,
that being who with his own
hands plucked away from his life
the sweet plants of pity and COM
passion, that being who frowns at
the rejoicings of his brother and
chuckles with a fendish joy DER
bis shortcomings and life-defeats.
Has such an one known wrongs
then methinks he will never
know the blessed boon of forgiving.
Has he witnessed the pulling down
of his idols and seen them lie all
broken and crownless at his feet
t-oh, then methinks he mourns
as one without a hope, as one who
sits him down in the masterpieces
of despair and refuseth to be COM
forted, as one who wanders forth
ltbro,,oh wida-snraad rI1in and des-