SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

Waikato Argus, Volume VI, Issue 382, 14 January 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

A VISION OF LIFE AND ITS MEANING.

"No load of woe Need brings despairing frown : For while we bear it, we can bear; Past that, we lay it down." It is possible to see the will of God in everything, and to find it, as one has said, no longer a sigh, but a song.—H. 0. G. Mouldc, D.D.

I see a young man standing at the opening gates of life, and with earnest eyes scanning the landscape that stretches before him. Flowers are springing at his feet among the velvet grass. His heart is bold, his limbs are strong, his blood is healthful. He takes a step and pleasure comes from her secret bower and invites him to her banquet of delights. He pauses for a moment, shivers with the stress of the temptation, puts her resolutely aside and passes on. Idleness, lolling beneath a shade, points to a vacant seat, and closes her languid eyes; but with disgust he leaves her aud presses forward. Ambition beckons from some sudden summit, but he heeds her not. Then duty comes, and standing before him a firm and earnest figure, points to a burden and bids him take it up, and bear it as he journeys onward. He pauses, looks around. ali3ad, above, then lifts it to his shoulder and with muscles firmly strained pressed forward with new vigour. Soon he becomes accustomed to the load, and then duty comes again and bids him add to it. He willingly takes on the new burden, and as he does so, fiuds his heart warming with cheerfulness and his voice bursting into song. Temptations that throng the path of the weak or faithless, slink away from him without attack ; or, if one scatter its charms upon him, they slide off like dew from bronze.

So duty becomes to him a guiding Angel. Whenever she leads he follows. In her steps he drops into deep ravines, hidden from the light of the sun ; he plunges into streams whose billows, affright and chill him and crosses them by a might which grows with every struggle ; he scales mountains that lie in his path, piled with huge discouragements and sees from the summit of achievement, shimmering in the distance, the streams of great reward, winding among mea lows of heavenly recompense. At last he comes to a point iu his way where he pauses and looks around him. In the pause he listens to the beating of his own heart. It is the thrill and rhythm of manhood which thit heart' is strongly telling, He sees that he has made progress towards the golden mountains, with their crowns of golden cloud. . . He see? ho* the burden he has borne, and the struggles he has put forth have knit his muscks and strengthened his will and developed his power. He sees how each constituent of the mauhood that has now become his choicest possession was won by toil and fatigue and self-denial and patienc-J and resistance of temptation. He sees that it could have been won in no other way and gives honest thanks to the providence which has thus transmuted the evil of life iato good. —T. Titcomb (F). Thou hast proved that purest joy is duty." —H. Coleridge.