Year: 1864

and full of trouble


He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut
down he feeth also as shadow and continu-
eth not.-JoB XIV, l, 2. @
| A frail flower on frail stalk is he that


is born Of woman. Full though the foun


tains of mothers tenderness be toward


her child, she must needs blister its fresh


brow with her tears, and impart to it her
own heritage of few and ,rouble-laden days.
This transcendent union, where the throb.
bings of nameless love wake two souls to
new life is the signal for the train Of
earthly woes to pitch their tattered tents
around the white tabernacle of the child.
And their circle remains unbroken around
him, though with each dawning day the
sojourner moves on. Concealed from his
view they may be by the many y-colored haze
of hope, but the embers of their fires will
be found smoking not far from his and
when and When his worn tabernacle is
pitched for tho last time by the river of
death, and the light of eternity pours over
the scene, behold still the phantom train
As the Hebrew tribes heard the wailings
of children miDgle with their song Of tri-
umph at the passage of the Red Sea, we
hear also in this book the cries of our poor
humanity blending with the pesns of the
Gospel. The deathless life that is revealed
in Christ, the undecaying bliss that stretch
es along eternal years, appear to us on
earth fringed with few brief, wavering
hours, parodied We might almost say BY the
mask Of hollow felicity; and yet in hon.
or of the heavenly substance, in affectionate
longing for the divine reality, we speak
even in this sad world, of home and of bliss
1t is not strange that one who, looking
into the blue depths of the heavenly life
receives the image of their greatness, should
| think the vale of Time narrow in which We
stand or that be should cry with Chris.
tian apostle: Where is our life ? It is even
a vapor that appeareth for little time and
then vanisheth away; or that be should cay
With Job, Man cometh forth like . flower
and is cut down; be feeth also a. shadow
and continueth not.


What makes the life-sketches that we
have of the ong.departed patriarchs so full
Of truth and pathos to the heart of universal
man, so that the Arab and the Saxon alike
revere the story of their pilgrimage, is as.
suredly the sad but sanity spirit in which
they own the burden of their immortality, and
say, as did Jacob standing 10 The presence
of Pharaoh Few and evil have the days of
the years of my life been. Strong though
the world was with the powers Of youth,
yet the wbisperings of decay, the fitting of
the earthly life back constantly into the
Past, instructed those select souls in the
employment Of the most sublime and af
fectiDg images of death in the act of tri-
umphing here over life, as msking our day.
but a span long, and as nothing ia respec.
of God, as flying swifter than . post. "He
corneth in vanity, and he deParteth in dark.
ness, and bis name shall be coYered With
darkness" As if man comes forth FROM
one hidden state, fits swiftly across the nar.
row isthmus CT time, and seems to be los;
in the great future that follows. Frail
man, says King David, Is grass are his
days: IS the Aowey of the field 60 be -four
isheth. The wind passes over it and it is
gone, and the place thereof knoweth it no
more. 10 the thirty ninth Psalm, man is
said to walk in q shadow, or in land of
unreality. One Of the great Greek drama
lists declares: Human life, when prosper
ous, is q picture which shadow may spoil;
but adversely like sponge blots out every
lineament: i. e., brings again to utter dark.
ness that Pickering life which cleaned but
for moment to disappear in obscurty.
Even in his best estate, man is character.
lied as uanity and be is said to disquiet
himself in vain. For few years are but
as dust in the balance, when weighed
against Eternity. A little lengthening of
the earthly race becomes unnoticeable when
we observe that line which runs parallel
with it, and which, spanning the cbasm of
death. goes on forever. To the dweller in
another world, the OAK my seem little
deeper than the sapling; and the heart Of
the old man and the heart Of the child to
beat out their little day together. The
days of our age are three score years and
ten and though men be so strong that
they come to four-score years, yet is their
strength then but labor and sorrow: 30
soon passeth it away. and We are gone"
We are all a. "leaves which the wiod
scatter upon the ground, aud which perish
in every revolving season."


But as though the briefness of life we're
not sufficiently seen in the patriarch's tot
tering form, Death, lifting his iron scepter
over our laod, has bid many an houored
youth lay down the weapons of bis warfare
and rest. The hoarse throat Of battle has
uttered his command the stealthy pesti
lence has whispered it; the fatal disease
has enforced it; and man has lain crushed
before the wrath. The fallen braves, once
en- 0reot an ornament of our Nation's life