News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1899-11-22
CHILDISH THINGS.
NO REASON WHY WE SHOULD NOT
BE HAPPIER THAN CHILDREN.

away childish things. corinthians,
xiii. H.
One day during the last summer I
was walking along the strand listen
ing to the regular and rhythmic
pounding of the waves, when my att
tention was attracted to a couple of
children on a dune close at hand. AS L
approached them saw that they each
had a little tin pail and a wooden
spade They would dig a deep hole in
the sand or pile it up in fantastic
shapes, and all the while would chirp
like young birds in the sunshine.
They were perfectly happy, and they
needed only plenty of sand, wooden
spade and tin pail to make them so.
AS I looked at the picture l envied
those children their capacity for pleas
ure and sighed as l said to myself, Il
wish I could be as happy as they are.
They live in the present; the day is
bright and cloudless, and with that
much they are entirely satisfied. The
quality of character which anticipates
the possible troubles of the future has
not yet been developed. 1t is enough
for them to be alive, and their enjoy
ment is complete, and continuous"
Then something within me answered
in this wise: There is no reason why
you should not be far happier than
those children, but you must learn
how to be. You must be taught the
secret of happiness, and if you apply
that secret to the circumstances in
which you live you will have a serener
and profounder happiness than child
hood can ever know. Life furnishes
pleasures for the man also, but they
are not to be found with a wooden
spade and a tin pail. They are the
pleasures which come from work we'll
DONE from an aim in life which kim
dies all our powers into activity, from
the faith which makes us noble and
builds our years into a temple in
which the everlasting God visits our
souls while we worship and reveals
to us the duties of to-day and the
hopes of tomorrow.
So I went back to my little cottage
not wishing to be child again, but
resolved to be man, to live a mans
life, cherish a mans thoughts and find
in each passing hour a mans pleasA
ures, that kind of pleasure the remem-
brance of which will bring no regret
when l stand on the further shore and
look back.
To do all that one must lay the
foundation of character in those prin-
ciples which we call religious, because
religion unites time to eternity and
teaches us to make an honorable,
high minded. the best possible use Of
all the changeful experiences of life.
If you think religion is intended to
deprive you of any real pleasure or to
shroud your weeks and months in
gloom, you are seriously mistaken. It's
only object is to make you satisfied
with yourself and to make the angels
satisfied with you. There is no mar
row in religion, for it lightens every
burden and hides a hope under every
tear.
Give a child a sand dune to play on
and he asks no more; give a man
pile of gold and, alas, he thinks he is
supremely happy. But he is still in
swaddlfng clothes and has only
wooden spade and tin pail to play
Will. II IL AOI yOul llOhCy, bbI yCuI
ideas, which make the home of your
soul. In the last analysis of life you
discover, to your surprise. that there
is more enjoyment in giving than IN
grasping. The heart of man is his
sovereign, not his purse.
To spend an anxious life in trying
to make your golden dream come true;
to thrust aside the simple pleasures
which ought to make every day en-,
joyable in your hot eagerness to add
to what is already enough; to create
and cultivate the appetite which hum
gers for more, is to waste precious
time and to lose all chance of genu-
inc happiness. The wrong we have
done ourselves is. in having made
money rather than character, the
standard of excellence. Seek for gold
if you will, but in the name of good
government, of wholesome society and
of the best interests of mankind, put
virtue, honesty, national and individ-
ual honor in the first rank. Having
done that you may in all other re-
spects do as you please. Nothing cam
go wrong if you begin with what is
right and insist upon it. Start with a
lofty manhood, preserve that manhood
intact against all temptations, and it
makes no difference in what direc-
ton you travel, or what church creed
you may adopt, you are on the road to
heaven and will reach your destination
at last.
Put it down in your note book that
no one can reap the highest benefits of
life. no one can enjoy what God de-
crees for daily experience. no one can
be happy in any but the narrowest
sense. no one can bravely meet the adj
veraities which are sure to come or
die with smile on his lips and leave
a sweet and precious memory behind
unless he is governed by moral prin-
ciple as the vessel is guided by the
compass, and unless his honor, his in
tegrity has been guarded as his most
precious possession. There is nothing
in this wide world worth quite so
much as the consciousness that you
have done what is right in spite OF
fate. and nothing which so fully repays
a man for all the sacrifices which are
necessary in order to keep it.
The words of Christ in respect to
this matter are as refreshing as cool
northwest wind on hot day and as
bracing and invigorating as frosty