The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1870-12-17
Expecting too Much.
BY j. +. W. WARE.

BY J. +. W. WARE.
Moses had been long time absent from his
people His interviews with Jehovah in the
mountain, were every way important for him
self and for them. But his absence at q criti-
cal time made trouble. And that inevitably.
1t was simply wild horde of degraded slaves
he had led, by night flight, out of the bond
age of Egypt, not people possessed of large
idea of liberty or with any yearnng charac-
teristic to make that condition desirable or
profitable. They hadn't particle of conf
dence in any body but Moses, and in him it
was always and already fuctuating. His real
ly superior qualities were never quite enough
to keep them under. Aaron whom he had left
in charge, they did not know. Aaron was not
a practical man ofafairs. He was only Moses
mouth piece. The thinking and the action
all that could attract and hold a barbarous
people, were from Moses. don't much won-
der that they got into trouble, that they didn't
believe much in Jehovah when they found
Moses had deserted them, that they hurried
Aaron away with them, that they made gol-
den calf and reinaugurated worship and
emoni from which they had been in no way
hallowed.
Nor am 1 surprised that Moses should have
been taken aback by what he saw. He was
possessed by the facts ofhis strange interviews.
He had mysterious laws, mysteriously engrav-
ed in his hands. They were the beginning 10
the systematic crusade of the spirit of God
against the spirit of idolatry. l do not wonder
that he was very much startled by what he
saw. The contrast, the rev dlsion of feeling
must have been great. The singing and the
dancing shocked him. His anger waxed hot,
and he cast the tables out of his hands and
broke them, and burnt the calf in the fire,
ground it to powder, mixed the powder with
water and made the people drink it.
|. Now think that Moses did not show any of
that meekness in this, for which somehow he
has so great reputation, and l think that in
his surprise not merely his temper but his usu-
al common sense deserted him. l think he
was very unreasonable, that simply that had
happened which was purely natural and in
evitable. To expect the rabble he had left for
so long a time that they began to cry ''this
Moses The man that brought us up out of
Egypt! We wot not what is become of him."
to keep quiet, and to wait was expecting too
much.
The mistake of Moses was just one common
human mistake, which we make all the time
about all things, and then make one again.
We do not seem to have the faculty of rightly
graduating our ideas with other peoples capa-
city; our ideas with the possibility of circum-
| stance. Our imaginations picture results
which calm study of facts would not war
rant. We are under the influence and habit of
| imagination, and without reflection yield to
its decision, except when we go a peg lower
and decide off hand and dOggedly without
even the aid of imagination. 1t is inevitable
/ that the mind out run the act, and that some
fore thought of the conclusion accompa-
| ny or even precede the beginning | suppose
something Of that to be necessary to an under
taking 1t is hope that buoys us, and hope is
child of the imagination. No matter how
| vague and distant, it is her beckonings urges
| us on, and keeps us up and bears us over OBJ
| stacle and brings us in triumphant Ifitwe
| not for this how little would be done IN life and
NTH life Subtract the hope, the expo citation
l.
| ways of life, tunnel through difficulties, deny
himself all sorts of present pleasures Who
would not sit down in sullen Indifference and
| let things take their way, yielding to the cur
rent which hope alone enables him to stem
| Columbus never would have trusted himself to
the unknown seas with his cookie feet but for
| the hope which lay before him and made the
| western hemisphere almost as visible when he
sailed out of port, as when the lookout hailed
| his waiting ear with the cry of Gland" He
had expected much, and what he found was,
/ as it rarely is, as far beyond the hope the
hope seemed beyond the possibility. Hope =
| the expo citing much-takes DR.. Kane into the
winter midnight of the pole, carries Howe,
and Goodyear and Fulton and Arkwright and
Baxter and Garrison and Washington through
perils, privations, discouragements, i'll treat
ment and evil surmse, is the only thing that
| they can lay hold ofin many dark day and
strong sea, rescuing presence when all else
| fails.
| be really an Ingredient in success, but it does
seem as if those who expected much oftentimes
receive most. 1t is another application of the
saying, He who hath to him shall be given.
Hope is to the nerve, muscle, brain, heart, soul
| what steam is to the boiler. So long as it is
| "up," the unwearied implement keeps at wor (
without tagging, and I think the best thing a
| man can take with him in any work is good
| store of hope, big expectation. They tell
you that you can never hit any thing high if
you aim low, and so 1 think you compass
nothing broad save as you look out hopefully |
toward the end and at every step fortify your
selves with fresh draughts of that invigorating
power which has so largely entered into and |
secured mans happiness and the worlds adj |
vance. believe, however, that it is something |
more than the hope of imagination that man |
wants-an educated hope, a hope balanced by |
conscience and by common sense. We must |
be rational in our expectations. Vague hopes |
are dangerous frienos. These men, 1 have |
mentioned, did not hope vaguely. Their un-
dertakings were only chimerical to those who |
did not see the grounds upon which they built |
They expected much because they had receon to-
They could SO classify and control contingent |
cies as to make results possible, and where |
that is established and the right man behind,
the probable is not far off. The very general |
expecting too much, which makes so much |
trouble and disappointment in ourselves and |
in our intercourse with others is because we do |
not stop to ask ourselves what is reasonable.
Without reflection, as the wish or whim is, we |
decide what we would like, how much return
is desirable to the outlay. We do not measure,
we do not weigh, we doinot gauge. We jump
at conclusion. We ask no quesG' ons. We
take no counsel of facts, of probabilities, OF
hindrances only of the vaguest desire. Who
should wonder at disappointment and trouble |
and defeat? Life begins in this mistake. We
expect too much life tself-mere life-more of
it, other of it than it is possible it should be,
and l do not know that we can very well in
the outset help it. Life is to us a vaguely vast
gift, hemmed in by an horizon which seems
boundless, and gemmed with promises seeming |
as fadeless as they are fair. We look at it
with the eye of bewldered inexperience. We
have nothing to measure it by, to compare 1T
with. 1t is to us what mirage is to the child |
upon the sea shore, an unchangable, fixed re-
ality, yet really an exaggeration, shifting,
changing, fading; putting things up side down,
suspending them in air, bringing out the small,
concealing the big. do not see how in our
ignorance we are to help it, and must first put
ourselves down to the learning of facts about it
as the child learns to adjust its eye to sizes,
distances, objects by series ofperplexing dis
appointments.
Still when we have been a lonely while at |
school to experience we find our alterations
not entirely connected. Age hardly outgrows
an error manhood fails wholly to correct. 1t
much of the day, of the hour, of the fact, of
pleasure, of the cause, of the event. 1t is not
the child only who vaguely, qnreasonably an
ticipates. Man is ever dreamer and enthu-
siast. He wakes from one dream, but to slum-
ber and dream again, he looses one bright hope |
but to hope the more; he misses one high aim
but to aim again; he is hoored only to find his |
feet and yet he never learns one lesson. He |
gets more courage, more endurance, handles |
himself better, knows men more, but his re-
buffs never seem to teach him that one of his |
main troubles is that he expects too much. |
The young girl turns disappointed from her
first ball, she has expected too much but she |
will expect as much next time; the young |
lover has always battling sense of something |
in his bliss he does not grasp. He expects too |
nauch-and still expects. The new married |
have not entered Elysian bowery. There is |
lack somewhere. They erpect too much. The |
merchant frowns over his voyage. The cap |
tain is wrong, the market is wrong, this and The |
other to blame, while the fact is only that he |
has expected too much. The friend blames |
his friend, the younger, the older, the poorer,
the richer, because what he had hoped has not
been done foE him. The friend, the older, the |
richer man has been faithful, but the other
expected too much. The country frets, wor-
ries, wearies, gets coward and distrustful be-
cause Grant does not walk into Vicksburg or
Richmond as to morning call-and she learns
very slowly that she is expecting toe much.
Men and peoples hardly grow wiser. Expec-
tation ever wearies in the broadest and bright