Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-11-17

should look for too much while the con-
vulsions continue, even though the suf-
ferer be a saint. Saint and sinner are
pretty much alike when this malady at
tacks them.
Nor can one be other than sorrowful
when the greater. ills of life are to be
borne. There will always be a differ
ence between a funeral and a feast.
Laughter in the hour of mourning is
simple lunacy. Levity in the midst of
solemn services is idiocy. There are
chromatic passages in the symphony Of
human life which can not be avoided.
We need no sage to tell us that there
are miserable and wretched experiences
through which we must find our way as
best we can. The shoulders will bend,
and the heart will almost break at times,
though we do the best we can, We may
see the silver lining of the cloud, but it
is impossible to ignore the cloud. The
rule holds good, nevertheless. The hab-
it which some have acquired of making
things harder than they are is a crimi-
nal habit. Some n has said: "The
worst tribulations through which 1 have
passed are those which never hap
pened." To take things as they really
are, not as they seem to be, is a noble
secret. The man who, looking at his
sorrow, sees his sorrow only, and not
the hope beneath it, sees only half Of
what God intended him to see. Death
is a thousand times worse than death,
if one sees only death in death. Death
with a beautiful life or this side of it
and the glories of immortality on the
other side is not altogether dreadful. 1t
is cloudy weather. to be sure, but the
setting sun s%aturates the clouds with
splendor.
You see at a glance, therefore, that I
I'm not advising the skeptic to be cheer
full. If a man plants briers, he must
expect to be pricked by his own crop
of thorns. It is as natural for the ag-
nostic to fume and fret at the apparent
incongruities Of life, to him sadly real.
as it is for water to run down hill.
He has nothing to be cheerful about; he
has every reason to be restless and mis-
cradle. With no God, no Savior, no
Heavenly home after the WEAKNESS Of
this work-day life, how can he be any
thing else than miserable and restless?
! He is the %plaything Of ill-luck, with mo-
power to control or cajole good fortune,
and no optic ability to discern anything
but the shadow of events. He is to be
pitied for his f~orlornness, even when he
despises your pity; and though he may
christen his forlornness with the high
sounding name of science, it is only
forlornness after all. Neither he nor
you can make anything better out of it.
One is in a sorry plight if he searches
The world thoroughly and discovers no
ruling Providence. but accidentally
stumbles upon accident at every step,
and then at last gets tripped up, and
falls into the grave as the worst acci-
dent of all. His laugh is the laugh of
desperation, and is wholly devoid of
buoyancy. His heroism is stoicism, a
grinding, almost a crashing Of the
teeth, and a defiant clenching Of the
fists, as far removed from Christian
resignation as madness is from sanity.
When a man believes in God he may
grumble once in a while, because he is
human; but constant fretting is irrelig-
ion. This life at its best is a kind of
corduroy road across the lowlands to
the highway of the King; and if you be-
gin the journey by bewailing the fact,
and wondering why the Lord has not
had it macadamized, and then continue
the journey by exclaimingg at every jolt
as though it was a personal insult, you
will probably be SO busy finding fault
with everything that you will have little
time left to enjoy the landscape. If
others seem to have an easier time than
you, it is poor policy to make a bad
thing worse by fretting because it is not
better. 1t is what it is; so make the
best of it. If you try to be contented
with your lot, you will be surprised to
discover that there are many desirable
things in this world which you a get
on very well without. Move out of
Grumbiing Terrace, ard rent an apart
ment in Thanksgiving Row, and your
health, and that Of your wife and chill
dren, will begin to improve at once
Geo. e. Hepworth, IN N. Y. Independent.