The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-08-30
ALL Is LIFE.
By IDESBURG.


For the Sunday Crescentl
Does the caterpillar seem as II dead, Yet.
dressed in beauty, it flies forth as a batterhy.
Does that seed you so lately planted seem to have
rotted in the ground? Yet the blades OF its new
existence are presently seen above the sur.
face. to be developed, with the march of the sea-
sons, into q full maturity. Have we not often
beheld the overthrow of some giant Of the forest,
cast down TO apparent ruin! Yet its scared, de-
caying debris serve still purpose-to noursh into
life other and newer creations Of the vegetable
kingdom. Ia it not an sscertained chemical fact
that seven years hence Our bodies will not be what
they to-dsy-tbat the particles Of their compo-
8 ton continually lose and maks-thatin the death
OF each atom another is brought into existence
Again comes not the dc ath rattle 10 all-that uni
versal usherer.in to the chambers of the dead
those six-by-two chambers slow 10 the groundsl"
Yet even in this state, where the physical man
would seem as II doomed 10 utter humiliation.
there are to be seen evidences Of life. 1t is unde
niable that human bodies enrich the soil of their
sepuchre for are not those fields Of cultivation
where grim visaged war" once held "high carni-
val" the most fruitful Of vegetable life a.? Food
good for man comes forth in abundance from such
soil-aye, living beings acquire new bone and
muscle from the very bodies Of their long-past
dead!
But let us take more pleasing view Of our sub
iect We all know clothes when we see them
old clothes shreds of clothing, rags-and most of
us, too, throw them aside as useless. Yet there
are those who pick them from the cutters, gather
them into bales. and ship them TO distant cities;
and there still those who, passing them through
the mills, exhibit to an aimiring public spotess
reams and reams of paper. Pushing the matter
| further, the leaden pencil, the ink-dipped pen
point, or the printers bIackened,type, make quick
| havoc with the virgin whiteness of our newly
made paper. Though this paper Is not to be re-
written upon or passed again through the rotary
| press though it would seem TO have been disfg-
ured and rendered useless, yet tits now more alive
than ever for It's the wire along which the light
| ming of thought flashes from mind to mind, and 1t
| even recalls from the Oblivion of the dead past the
| realizatOBs of what was the then present, while
ITS tongue pTOclams to all posterty the beings OF
| the day.
| If we look aloft, see we not the clouds forever
| shifting, " ftiul a growing maidW Do not
| planets and systems revovey Is not all celestial,
as we'll as terrestrial, creation pregnant with life!
| But let us look for moment atthe uneasy ocean
| is it ever still! Or if there be a calm, tits but of
the surfaee-'ts a calm IN notion for the great
hesrto of the mighty deep forever swells and throbs.
| True, "the painted ship on painted ocean" Is
often to be seen; yet, as whole, the sea is never
at rest, and, in a calm, the winds but hold their
breaths 10 lend greater fury to the storm even
then moving in terrible majesty upon the face OF
the waters. We need illustrate no further to learn
that nothing in the universe of God Is at a dead
halt, and that the forces of life are re0rganized
from death itself. II matter, though subject TO
constant change OF form, never ceases To exist,
much less does man. the Immortality Of whose
being is beyond question, ever remain stationary.
How m seraby then, do those persons err who
persist in stless inaction, fondly believing that
though they may not gain or advance, yet they
| neither lose retrograde. The strict truth Is,
that there is no point in his existence where man
can rest for an ininiiesimal space OF time with alb
| -l.t.o g fair So Ia od
| thus how valuable the minutes, and how lament
able the waste Of days, years, and lives even,
wherein not single transaction has reached the
'.heigbts of glory" stamped with the impress Of
earnest effort. We see how highly God values
life-and it is but another term for opportunity
Why will not the young think more of life Out
upon him who would proclaim that any life is toe
short for great achievements. All may not win
lame and fortune; yet each may solve what Web
| ster declared 10 be the greatest thought he had
ever had, his individual responsibility to God
| Centuries are not required 10 solve IT, for God
| can speak instantaneous comfort to the believing
soul But the thought we would impress is this
| That since we never can remain stationary, every
act of a life goes TO mould the character of that
life; and character, in the words of some divine,
ais the dress of the soul" Then, while on earth,
let a. weave the garments ofimmortaity for when
the soul shall break its material letters, il Is des-
tined either 70 shine t fS5h & ed for aye in
gloom Of eternal night
Reader. depend upon it, each and all are dress
ing for heaven or he'll, and tnat TINS me, 50 uSot
inc ia Int the chamber of another OF endless
DURATION where God sits as final judge.
! 1.-The bell strikes one We take no note OF time
But from its loss. To give it then tongue,
Is wise in man. As II an angel spoke,
| feel the solemn sound. If heard Alright,
Il is the knell Of my departed hours: :,
! | Where are they? With the years beyond the nood
III The signal that demands dispatch;
? How much is to be done! My hopes and fears
Start M alarmed, and DER life's narrow verge
!. Look down-on whatl fathomless abyss;
: dresd eternity how surely mine!
And can eternity belong TO me,
Poor pensioner on the bounties oil an hour'
! | Osvv. Mes Aug 1868