THE

GOLDEN WAY.

H

INTRODUCTORY.

THE LIFE THAT NOW IS.

ERE we are on earth. Fourteen hundred millions of people whirling and rushing through the abyss of space at the rate

of sixty-five thousand five hundred miles per hour. A few years ago we had no existence. The earth was here, but other human beings occupied the places we now fill. They lived, they died, they went away. We too shall go. We are now living, but we shall die. Others will live after us. The earth will be inhabited throughout the course of time. Each little life will be just as real, just as conscious, just as valuable to itself, as ours, dear reader, are now to us. Yet each life will in its turn be quenched, and its generation pass away. From the Greek of Homer we read:

"Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,

Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;

So generations in their course decay,

So perish these, when those have passed away."

But Arthur Cleveland Coxe pictures the reality, as regards the individual, in language quite graphic:

"March, march, march! earth groans as they tread!

Each carries a skull; going down to the dead!
Every stride, every stamp, every footfall is bolder;
'Tis a skeleton's tramp, with a skull on his shoulder!
But ho! how he steps with a high tossing head,
That clay-covered bone, going down to the dead!"

This is natural. It is right. It is our privilege to live, while we do live, in vigor and delight. If we begin to die while we live,

as Sir Thomas Browne would say, and long life be but a prolongation of death, our life is a sad composition; we live with death, and die not in a moment. This is not the way. There is a time to die, and our time will come. But it is now our time to live. Let us live as long as we can, and live right.

"Live while you live, the epicure will say,
And take the pleasures of the present day;
Live while you live, the sacred preacher cries,
And give to God each moment as it flies.
Lord, in my view let both united be,

I live in pleasure when I live to thee."

But what does life mean? Where did we come from? Where are we going? What are we here for? These questions cannot be answered in one breath. In a sense they can hardly be answered at all. Every human being may truthfully adopt the words of Mrs. Barbauld:

"Life, I know not what thou art,

But know that thou and I must part;
But when, or how, or where we met
I own to me's a secret yet."

But each one knows something of his own life; if not of its origin, at least of its history. You know where you have lived, how you have lived, and to what purpose. The glory of childhood is in your memory. Childhood is past; its light has died out of our hearts, and we cannot restore it. We cannot, save in fancy, live it over, but as a fact of existence it is ours forever. As Wordsworth says:

"Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy;

But he beholds the light and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy:

The youth, who daily further from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."

Perhaps most of us have lived long enough to have discovered the dignity and worth of life. We have perceived that human existence differs immensely from mere animal or vegetable existence. A man is not a hog, however much of greediness there may be in some natures. My life, each one may say, is more than that of yonder brute. There is about me something that the brutes fear, and my fellow-men respect. It is not the size of my stature, for the elephant is greater than I, yet the elephant flees at my approach. It is not the compass of my voice, for other sounds are more terrible than this. The lion roars and the beasts of the forest tremble. It is not the greatness of my strength, for the horse is mightier than I, yet he yields obedience to my commands. The secret is in my nature the nature God has given me. "Man," says F. W. Robertson, "is the weakest, and yet the strongest of living creaturesbecause he obeys the laws of nature; he has the strength of the lion, the speed of the antelope; he bids the sun be his painter, and the lightning carry his messages, and the seas his merchandise; because he is the servant, therefore he is the master."

Theodore Parker expressed the same truth in different words: "Man is the highest product of his own history. The discoverer finds nothing so grand or so tall as himself, nothing so valuable to him. The greatest star is that at the little end of the telescope—the star that is looking, not looked after, nor looked at.

"Man," says Ruskin, "is the sun of the world; more than the real sun. The fire of his wonderful heart is the only light and heat worth gauge or measure. Where he is are the tropics; where he is not, the ice-world."

However man is regarded, he is an object worthy of contemplation and study. Mankind, says John Foster, viewed collectively, as an assemblage of beings, presents to contemplation an object of astonishing magnitude. "It has spread over this wide world to essay its

powers against every obstacle, and every element; and to plant in every region its virtues and vices. As we pass along the plains we perceive them marked by the labors, the paths or the habitations of man. Proceeding forward across rivers, or through woods or over mountains, we still find man in possession on the other side. Each valley that opens, and each hill that rises before us, presents a repetition of human abodes, contrivances and appropriations; for each house, and garden and field (in some places almost each tree), reminds us that there is a person somewhere who is proud to think and say, 'This is mine.'

"All the beautiful and rugged varieties of earth, from the regions of snow to those of burning sand, have been pervaded by man. If we sail to countries beyond the seas, we find him still, though he may disclaim our language, our manners, and our color. And if we discover lands where he is not, we presently quit them, as if the Creator too were a stranger there. Here and there, indeed, a desert retreat is inhabited by an ascetic, whom the solemnity of solitude has drawn thither, or by a felon, whom guilt has driven thither.

"While he extends himself thus over the world, behold this collective grandeur. It appears prominent in great cities built by his own hands; it is seen in structures that look like temples erected to time, which promise by their strength to await the latest years of his continuance with men, and seem to plead by their magnificence against the decree which dooms them to perish, when he shall abandon them; it is seen in wide empires, and in armies, which may be called the talons of imperial power-to give security to happiness where that power is just, but for cruel ravage where it is tyrannical; it is displayed in fleets; in engines which operate as if informed with a portion of the actuating power of his own mind; in the various productions of beauty; the discoveries of science; in subjected elements, and a cultivated globe. The sentiment with which we contemplate this scene is greatly augmented when Imagination bears her flaming torch into the enormous shade which overspreads the past, and passes over the whole succession of human existence, with all its attendant prodigies. When we have made the addition for futurity of supposing the human race extensively enlightened, apprized of their dignity and power, and combined in

a far stricter union, till the vast ocean of mind prevail over all its accustomed boundaries, and sweep away many of the evils which oppress the world—we may pause awhile and indulge our amazement. Such an aggregate view of the multitude, achievements and powers of man is grand. It has the air of a general and endless triumph."

Man has a proper business in this world. Ruskin makes it fall mainly into three divisions:

First, to know themselves, and the existing state of things they have to do with.

Secondly, to be happy in themselves, and in the existing state of things.

Thirdly, to mend themselves, and the existing state of things, as far as either are marred and mendable.

These are the three plain divisions of proper human business on this earth. For these three, the following are usually substituted and adopted by human creatures :

First, to be totally ignorant of themselves, and the existing state of things.

Secondly, to be miserable in themselves, and in the existing state of things.

Thirdly, to let themselves, and the existing state of things, alone (at least in the way of correction).

The dispositions which induce us to manage, thus wisely, the affairs of this life seem to be, as he says:

First, a fear of disagreeable facts, and conscious shrinking from clearness of light, which keep us from examining ourselves, and increase gradually into a species of instinctive terror at all truth, and love of glosses, veils and decorative lies of every sort.

Secondly, a general readiness to take delight in anything past, future, far-off, or somewhere else, rather than in things now, near, and here; leading us gradually to place our pleasure principally in the exercise of the imagination, and to build all our satisfaction on things as they are not. Which power being one not accorded to the lower animals, and having indeed, when disciplined, a very noble use, we pride ourselves upon, whether disciplined or not, and pass our lives complaisantly, in substantial discontent, and visionary satisfaction.