Bristol news. [volume] (Bristol, Va. & Tenn.) 1867-189?, 1871-09-15
BRISTOL VIRGINIA TENNESSEE FRIDAY SEPTEMBER E 1871


God brooding DER the mighty void.
nurtures into being countless worlds,
| and measures out their ciicling paths.
Now pausing OH the Confines OF new
created time, it hears the mandate OF
Jehovah, Let there be Light" and
sees the rosy-tinted harbinger of life,
| forth issue from its parent source, and
| speed across the wild domain of chaos,
kissing away the darkness with It's
sunny smiles; while Life, responsive
to this fond salute, soon checkers the
infant worlds, with rich scenes OF beau
ty and love. 1t catches the first glad
notes that issue from the starry hosts
and on down through the long cycles
of by-gOHe time, it drinks in the same
sweet music, not one jar, not one dis
cordant note, but fresh, and notion
less, as when first il broke upon the
stiffness of Creations morn. But in
all this flight of fancy, where is the
conception the mind has gained of ere
alton? Where its idea of creative
lower? Who is able to think of
nothing? ? dark, abstract, absolute nj
hility. All man, how weak thou art
how ahject! yet how august! how
wonderful The mighty chain of eX-
istence that stretches from the throne
of the Eternal, down through the
angelic hosts, in him, Is linked with
the material universe, and continuing
on down. joins the animal with the
vegetable Kingdom, and this, again
with the universal, even TO the small
est atom of inert matter, which uni
ted with its fellows, in the mysterious
bond of cohesion, reaches upward To
our own majestic orb aid from it back
to the starry worlds, that circle in the
hollow of Jehovah's hand. Mortal
yet immortal, material yet spiritual,
visible yet invisible, allied othe brutes
that perish, a compound of hopes and
fears of Joys and sorrows, of happl-
ness and woe, lord of all he surveys,
vet the slave of the most degrading
passions and hell-tending appetites.
Yes, man is wonderful he is glorious;
he is God-like. Like Prometheous OF
old, he seizes the heavenly fire, as in
its wild play, it leaps from the NUT
tering storm-cloud and flashes athwart
the sky; disarms it of its fury, and
makes it the feet, but harmless mess
enger of his thoughts. Again, he
trancends the bounds of his prorper
sphere and launches forth upon the
briny deep, successfully battling the
raging storms, and heaving billows,
that threaten to engulf him, and vet,
again he mounts on high, traverses in
triumph ethereal fields, holds gentle
converse with the bright emblazonry
of God, and to some extent, at least,
deciphers those hieroglyphis of eter-
nal ages. Ii this, then, has been ac-
complished by the potent mind what
limit shall be set to the Omni-potent
If these are the achievements of the
finite, who shall declare the power of
the infinite. Lost in the magnitude of
the thought, Reason recoils, and Fan
cy curbs her venturOus flight.
Tell me, oh thou glttering gem, now
twinkling in the blue concave of
Heaven. : thou who last witness
ed the flight of ages past, tell me
whence ] came. and what | am. Dis
close, if thou canst, to poor wander
er from home. lost far off upon an un-
friendly world, buffetted by raging
storms and howling tempests, some
knowledge of himself. l. life a dream,
a mere chimera? are its busy scenes,
its corroding cars, its tieeting pleas
ures, bnt the shOrt-lived creatures of a
fevered brain? or is il indeed a fearful
reality? Is man an ephemerai being,
to dance for a moment in the sunlight
of his own existence and then to pass
away and be no more? has he no high
responsibilities resting upon him? Is
his life that of the butterfly, to be
spent only i'm tie pursuit of pleasure? ?
or is it pregnant with responsibilities,
the mere prelude to an eternal eXis-
tence? and art thou. oh gem of night,
placed in the very ante-chamber OF
Heaven to beck poor wanderers home?
Yes, ere long, at the bidding of the
same voice that spoke thee into being,
thou must quit thy time-worn course,
and retire again into the dim land of
NOnentity, but l must move on,
through the endless ages of eternity, a
ceaselcss existence. Nam tires G1tt he
has not the prerOgdtiUe to die.
ALIQUTS.
EiOU ColIpra Aup % III