Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1868-01-24
For the Journal
CAREER OF MAN.
By NIONONLA.

| By MONONIA.
"Can one please all? there is mono from censurt
free,
| To look for t, then, it were absurd in thee"
| SALo. TANNER.
! To more philosophic minds than ours
| this subject would-as it has been, ano
will ever be-one Of deep though ,,of patient
| labor. But we all have our crotchets, D
and you know they will out, and if we
cannot please all, we will have the extreme
| pleasure Of pleasing ourselves. Indeed, ii
is with some difidence we assume this task
to advance opinions which, to some may
appear crude and antiquated, to others
practicable, and adapted to the times i'll
which We live. Orr object is the latter
our aim is to please without punning,
to instruct without exhibition, to speak
frankly, and freely without Indifference,
without boldness. The theme is of vast
interest to me as young man, and should
be to every young man IN every community
in every station of life. The humblest
youth that walks the dreary Streets alone,
unknown and friendless, may yet be called
upon by an unseen agent to MAINTAIN the
welfare, the happiness, the glory, and the
greatness of his beloved land. We there
fore beg your kind attention, your charity,
while we lay before you treatise on the
following lines from Young's Night
Thoughts "
s' How poor, how rich, how abiect, how al: gust,
How complcate, how wonderful is mani"
Or, in other language, to depict the Ca
reer of man through this Hfe-tO show
him the similitude of Omnipotence and Gre
ated to execute the designs of Omnipotence;
to picture him as the individual and his re-
lation to society to show him formed for
society, to enjoy society, to enllven society;
and, to bring out this result, to show what
are his external relations to his fellow man.
We must not conclude that because num-
bers of brilliant writer's, far and deep-see
ing philosophers, and eloquent orators,
have discoursed and acclaimed on this i'm
portant topic, that we ergo ought not refer
to it, present ii, and keep it up before
public gaze.
Antiquity has composed and transmitted
to US codes of ethics suited to almost every
revolution of manners, to every country
and government. But in vain would the
great men of the past have labored in vain
would it be if we permitted the lore
of ancient times to moulder i'll dust and in
cobwebs, Or look solemnly down upon us,
never molested from fancy and richly
carved shelves. In vain would all this be
resources. For what would it benefit
modern institutions if the science, the
wisdom and the experience of past ages,
of kingdoms, and empires, and republics,
that arose and fell if WE did not enrich
ourselves from so instructive a fountain,
and be wisely guided in our social, our
civil, our religious, and our political under
takings by our researches ? How much
would be lost if we closed our ears and our
eyes to the teaching of that Book wherein
is explicitly described the majesty, the
greatness, the pride, and the Wickedness of
the human race! The example of the
transgressions Of Israel; the misery, the
slavery, and the persecution of the once
properly styled children of the chosen Of
God would be lost to us forever.
And here, before proceeding farther, we
will assert with many others, that to rep
resent truths which should every day be in
the hands of men, "There is no medium
thro' which knowledge can be SO we'll trans
mitted to the masses as the newspapers and
periodicals of the country. We think that
a greater latitude given IN those dispensers
of education would be heralded with de-
light by artisans and the laboring classes.
There should be system, too, employed,
and not an indiscriminate tumbling and
fumbling together Of physics, meta
DlySlcS, mathematics anu rIoLOI1c. All
acquaintance with the media by which
we are surrounded is of the hrst import
ance" And if you term man medium
he is certainly the most important. We
cannot refer to history without seeing there
related either his greatness or his degrade
ton.
"In tie sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,
Till thou return into the ground; for thou
Out of the ground vast taken; know thy birth,
For dust thou art and shalt to dust return"
Behold mans first fall his career his
end Inspiring the breath of Omnisclence
he walked sole master of the universe, no
devil yet had divided it with him, he was
monarch of the land and the sea, and all
that in them is. Moulded FOR high duties
he was taught by Divinity to hold his head
erect, and with his right hand, TO point to
that Home of eternal sunshine unto which
he was journeying. The noble passions of
our nature were all ordained for this great
end, for high and sublime deeds in this
t.ansitu, not only to make us immortal
among the sons of men, but to make us
worthy of Immortality on High where the
sun of glory never sets. The vitiation OF
these passions can alone make him mean
in his own estimation, abject in that of his
fellow man, and forever blottel out of the
book of Fate. Whatever tends to guard
orra;oe& &l,;o ,,oruorsion shnn1d ha sndulOuslv