Year: 1877

Change is written on all around us, on all within us. Wherever there is life there are periods, alterations, rythmic motion an up and down, back and forth. Yet the human soul forever longs for rest, and, since the time of Solomon, one-half the race have imagi- ned a dead sleep at the end of this tumult of life, dying away to perpe- tual hush. But Death will not revolu- itonize the laws of being. Death is only the down, as life is the up. The jaws of the sepulchre are but an arch, passing through which we shall breathe a larger air and the inspirations shall be our greatest joy, but the law of the rhythm will tether us there as night and hunger do here. Though it seems desirable to the average mind to sail evermore on smooth seas, to breathe always Sum- mer air, to repose on beds of ease, yet | we need not go far to see that life like this leaves all the noblest faculties un- developed. Tropical races have left slight records on the historic page. Every day we are reminded that those who have accomplished anything of importance have been subject to this law of change. Often this subjection is voluntary, as when the sons and nephews of dukes and earls, accustomed to the refinements of Parisian and Lon don saloons, take for a time to the wild life of the Rocky Mountains, and find fascination in raising their own pota- toes, hunting their meat, being their own cooks, and living in wigwams or tents. While t'roughing it" they are brought close to primitive truths, into intimate communion with the great heart of Nature, and, when they go back to civilization, know what ill it is tinsel and what is gold. In his last essay on ''Discipline and Darkness" in 'sHours of Thought on Sacred Things" James Martineau dig courses thus :: Egypt, by the very uniformity of her physical fertility, remained in moral barrenness, and with monopoly of the arts and sciences, sat for ages, like her own Sphinx upon the desert, placidly gazing on an unfertilized world. Her stereotyped civilization aimed, not with out success, to reproduce in society the infiexible order of natural law, and to bar out the contingencies of affairs. If you would estimate such stationary periodicity, compare its fruitless longe- witty with the brief flash of the Hellenic States, which still lights up the thought and thrills the hearts of men," Even the tyrant Fashion, abused as she is, though often justly, has her beneficent uses. Nations who from generation to generation wear costumes of unchang- ing forms become stereotyped in their civilization. Witness the Chinese and other Eastern people. Those who change their styles oftenest are most versatile and highest in civilization, as the French and the Americans. Those persons among us who, regardless of the mode, dress year after year in the same style have a certain fixity of mind and manners, and are apt to settle into an unvarying routine of thought and action, which, when carried beyond a certain limit, is a disadvantage to them and their associates.

 With every change current of fresh ideas is started in the mind, new activities spring to life, growth is accelerated, and the capacity for happi- ness increased. "Variety is the spice of life." City people who leave their well-appointed residences and go to the seaside and the country for change of air and scene, though they may be than when at home, will come back refreshed and renovated by the change. Country people, who open their houses to accommodate city visitors and allow the routine of their quiet lives to be in vaded by the necessities and comfort of their guests. will find more than pecuniary gains resulting from it.. This annual crusade from the city to the country is as beneficial in its way as the Crusades of the Middle Ages for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. Only } by a blending of the freshness, the naturalness, the unconventionality o1 rural life with the style, the elegance. the conventionality of city life are the highest results of social culture at : tained.