Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-01-02
Our Pilgrimage.


1T once only. Chance for re- living vii
never be yielded us. Abel, Enoch
Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah
might indeed have had longer pill
yrimage of life than we shall ever
have. But they had only their lives
Each of US, too, has his one earthly
life, never another in addition
Whether we fail or succeed with tive
can succeed or fail with but this one
life
A man was hunting birds eggs on a
northern seacoast. 1t was his means
OF livelihood. The wild birds bnild
their nests on the shelves of rocks or
IN the slight caves gouged out of the
faces of the precipice reaching to the
sea. The man got at the eggs by
fastening a rope to some tree or
boulder, letting himself carefully down
awaying himself back and forth upon
the rope there in mid-a until the os-
GsIllation was enough to land him on
the shelf Or in the cave where the
eggs lay. Then, gathering the eggs,
ne would swing out on the rope again
and Chamber to the summit. So once,
rs was his wont, he had fastened his
rope, slipped down upon it, swung
himself upon sledge, and busted him
self with his egg gathering Somehow
MS rope slipped from his grasp, and
awayed gently back and forth in front
of him at a distance from him, for the
head of the precipice jutted beyond
its side considerably There he was,
with just that one rope dangling in
front of him; above him, the cliff I'M
acalable; below him, the greedy sea,
tsashing its breakers against the rocks
1T the bottom of the sheer depth.
There he was, with just that one rope
osci.lating in front of him. There
could be no other rope. There was
for him but that one. There was but
one thing for him to do,-to leap from
his rock ledge and seize that one rope
as it swung nearest him. If he caught
it. nc was safe; if he missed it, he was
dead man, battered by the rocks
beneath and overwhelmed by the
cruel sea. Gathering his energy and
waiting for the moment when the
rope would swing nearest him he
Ieaped and-caught it. So it is with
your life and mine. There is but one
life in this world for each of us.
Whether we triumph with it or miss
with it, there is no other rope of a life
for us to seize which we may try
again.
Also, this life of ours is irretracea-
bic We cannot go back along it's line
and change what the past has forever
fixed. In deeper sense than PLATE
meant must every one Of us reply
with him, ''What I have written, I
Fave written The late celebrated
Boston publisher, Mr.. James T. Fields,
who was so intimate with many of the
most prominent writer's of this CEN
tury, and whose books of reminis-
eeRces about them are SO interesting,
tells in one of these books how he
would do if he had another opportu-
Hity TO be young. He says, eff were
a boy again, I would look on the
cheerful side of everything, for al
most everything has a cheerful side.
If were boy again I would school
myself to say mo- oftener. If were
self more courtesy toward my COM
panions and friends. I would if I
were boy again, try still harder to
deserve happiness" All me! who Of
us is not constantly saying, off were
only again where and what was once,
would surely do and be thus, so diff
ferently!" I have been home to
Cleveland, where I was born and
where my father lives. 1t is quite i'm
possible for me to walk those streets
with which my boyhood is so associat-
ed, TO gaze upon the house in which
my boyhood was passed, to view some
scene of my early life whose warmly
weicomely chance was unused, to see
fash before me some of the sad mis-
takes 1 have allowed myself to make.
and not say to myself, eff were but
back there again, would surely take
that road instead of this; I would push
aside that door of opportunity passed
then so heedlessly; I would listen to
the song of that bright opportuni-
ty my dull ears would not then hear,
my dim eyes would not see.''
But neither Mr.. Field nor j, nor any
one OF you, can possibly get back to
0hat place to which we often think we
would get back so gladly. We NAV