The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-02-11
Common Mercies.

The common mercies of our daily
life are apt, think, by reason of that
very quality-because they are so COM
mon and familiar-to be unacknowl-
edged and unappreciated. They do
not announce themselves, when they
enter into our experience, as special
interpretations of the divine love and
care. They seem to belong to our very
being, as much as any of our natural
appetites and adaptations, and so do
not summon us to any emphatic thanks
giving. Take the word just written,
appetite;" what mercy is this COM
mon relish for food, this quickening of
our step thrice a day toward the boun-
ties of the table, and yet how seldom is
it made a theme of praise! But bring
in state of health that repels these
table bounties, and we begin to per-
ceive what a mercy we have possessed
with such insensibility. The sleep of
night-how seldom it inspires our graf
itude when the day returnsl OF course
darkness. We lay our head on our
pillow on purpose to lose ourselves in
slumber. This issue, then, is nothing
to excite a thankful surprise. But
bring upon us some state of the nerves,
some disquieting sensation that forbids
the closing of our eyelids from sun to
sun, and we discern something of the
preciousness of this common mercy of
mighty rest. The comfortable use of
our limbs in walking or laboring does
not so much as attract our attention.
But give us a wound, or strain, or
rheumatic attack with one of these dill
gent servants, and we see how indis-
pensable they are to our daily tasking,
and how great the kindness that keeps
them girded for action. We open our
two eyes upon landscape, or page, or
occupation, with no glance upward Of
grateful blessing. But let some tiny
shaft penetrate one of these orbs of
vision, or some fretful mote settle
there, and we begin to feel to what
mercy we have been blind. In our
moments of thirst we swallow draught
of water without acknowledging or in
voking the favor of the Giver. But in
a desert journey let that supply be sus-
pended, or, as we drink in our ordinary
condition, let a drop enter the wind
pipe, missing its way, and we see what
mercy there may be in such trifling
dispensation. We handle edged tools
with which we are familiar with no
sense of peril, and no words expressive
of happy deliverance. But when we
feel the keen edge, we feel, also,
the debt of our common and wonted
safety. So it is with us in going and
coming in the vehicle of public travel,
in riding or driving our own steeds
over the pleasant highway, in crossing
bay or river on strong and swift keels,
in the prospecting of our days work
with skill and dispatch, in unobstructed
hearing and speech in social inter-
course, in the clearness and force of
our brain in all the problems of skill
and study, and in the manifold func-
tions of, our whole complete manhood.
Unqualified comfort and success are
so common with us that we bend no
knee in worship, and sing no song of
greatful acknowledgment. We do not
seem to know how great our debt for
such constant favors until some breach
occurs in their regularity and continu-
ity. Oh, that our insensibility to this
largest breadth of daily blessing were
removed, and succeeded by a quick,
and thankful, and loving appreciation
of such heavenly favor!-Rev. DR.. A.
L. Stone, in The Pacific.