The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1868-06-17


remember that we are impressible, as well
as set-aeting!
We should never admit that man is
the creature of circumstances" in the
sense that he has no independent, self
directing power, but, like the vane, must
veer with every breeze that blows. That
would contradict allobservation and ex-
perience, destroy the innate nobleness
of which we are conscious, and degrade
us beneath the dignity with which the
benefcent Creator has crowned US.
At the same time it is plain that exter-
nal surroundings generally have much
to do with the formation of character.
With some, self-mastery is naturally
strong, and these control circumstances
rather than are themselves controlled.
With others, it is very weak and scarcely
perceptible; and these yield to the i'm;
pressions which they receive, almost as
the ship obeys the helm, and float down
the current with hardly an effort 20 re-
sist. The first are the heroes of the
world; the second, the drones of society.
A middle class, however, is composed of
those who possess neither the iron will
which resists all external pressure, nor
that excessive impressibility which is the
sport of every outward influence; but
that union of the two,-that combination
of resolution and frmness, with plastici-
ty, which ensures the formation Of indi-
vidual character, but to a certain extent,
at least, does not exclude the adjusting
and molding power of circumstances.
Your friend does not claim to be hero,
nor wish to be a drone. But taking
his place with those who have learned in
a measure to appreciate the solemn value
of life, he would work "while it is day."
and work in the hope that through his
instrumentality the world may be the
better that he has lived.
And yet, great as is the change which
has come "over the spirit of my dream, /"
great as is the change which has come
over the views and purposes of other
days, do not for a moment suspect, dear
F., that | have lost my sympathy
with youth, its Gght-heartedness, and its
unrufled joys. Indeed such resolution
would be shock upon our nature, and is
almost impossible, except when all the
kindly, genial feelings of the soul have
been soured- disappointment, and
gradually suPPlanted ny ca,pins mo-
roseness. An inability to sympathize
with the past, is mark of degeneracy,
not of progress,-a blot upon our man.
hood, not an ornament of grace. With
the better specimens of those possessed
of quick sensibilities, even when sur
rounded with the burdens and pressures
of active business, there will be lingering
echoes of the good old days, gilded with
sunshine, and musical with the voice of
Joyous song. We may not reverse the
wheels of time, or fly back upon the
winged beams, whose course is ever on
ward; but we may check the march of
thought, and with the young, in mea-
sure, live over again that which we once
were,-sweep the harp our childish fin
gers were wont to sweep, or gather up
the joys that once clustered about our
youthful experience.
Look at the aged grand sire,-a pa
triarch in the family, the last of his
generation. His father and mother are
gone. "The clod of the valley" rests
upon all his earlier friends and asso-
ciates. The church yard contains all the
treasures of his younger years. A
thoughtful seriousness has settled down
upon all his features. And yet his SOU
is not dead. 1t is linked by thousand
ties inseparably to the past. The asso.
Citations and memories of other days are
still as fresh in his mind as the things Of
yesterday. His heart in all its gushing
sympathies with the young has lost none
of the exuberance and none of the ten
derness which it had, before it was broken
with sorrows, and made familiar with
disappointments.
All we must be strangely fashioned
indeed, if, while pressing into the future
we cannot stop the rushing tide and drive
it backwards for season. Our insensi
bility is truly to be pitied, if we can nc
longer commune with the rising genera
ton; if we cannot sometimes hide botf
the present and the future from our anx
ious eye, and with the young, the warm
hearted, and the hopeful, walk over agair
the paths along which we once walked
with so much delight, or weave the chap
lets we were wont to weave and veal
before our spirits had lost the fulness ant
roundness of youth, and been traverse(
with deep burrows of care.
No, dear F., time has wrough
many changes with me; but it has no
uprooted the feelings which SO natural
ly bind me to you and those whom yol