Читать книгу A Book for the Young - Sarah French - Страница 4

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A heartfelt greeting to you, my young friends; a merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you all. Of all the three hundred and sixty–five days none are fraught with the same interest—there is not one on which all mankind expect so great an amount of enjoyment, as those we now celebrate: for all now try not only to be happy themselves, but to make others so too. All consider themselves called on to endeavour to add to the aggregate of human happiness. Those who have been estranged, now forget their differences and hold out the hand of amity; even the wretched criminal and incarcerated are not forgotten.

Yes, to both the Christian and the worlding, it is equally the season for rejoicing. Oh yes! view them in any of their bearings, joyful are the days that mark the anniversary of the Redeemer's Nativity, and the commencement of the New Year. Fast as the last twelve months have sped their circling course, yet they have, brought changes to many. Numbers of those we so gaily greeted at their beginning, now sleep in the silent dust, and the places they filled know them no more! And we are spared, the monuments of God's mercy; and how have we improved that mercy, I would ask? or how do we purpose doing it? Have such of us as have enjoyed great and perhaps increased blessings, been taught by them to feel more gratitude to the Giver of all good. If the sun of prosperity has shone more brightly, has our desire to do good been in any way proportionate. Has God in his infinite wisdom seen fit to send us trials—have they done their work, have they brought us nearer to Him, have they told us this is not our abiding place, have they shown us the instability of earthly happiness? Have you reflected for one moment, amidst your late rejoicings, of the hundreds whose hearths have been desolated by cruel but necessary war, and then with a full and grateful heart humbly thanked the God who has not only spared you these heavy inflictions, but preserved all near and dear to you.

Oh ye young and happy! have you looked around you and thought of all this, and then knelt in thankfulness for the blessings spared you? Remembering all this, have ye on bended knees prayed, and fervently, that this day may be the epoch on which to date your resolves to be and to do better. Oh, may the present period be eventful, greatly eventful, for time and eternity.

Let us pause awhile ere we commence another year, and take a retrospective glance at the past. Can we bear to do so, or will day after day, and hour after hour, rise up in judgment against us? Can we bear to bring them into debtor and creditor account—what offsets can we make against those devoted to sin and frivolity?

Has every blessing and every mercy been taken as a matter of course, and every pleasure been enjoyed with a thankless forgetfulness of the hand from which it flowed? If such has been the case, let it be so no longer; but awake and rouse ye from your lethargic slumber, be true to yourselves, and remember that you are responsible beings, and will have to account for all the time and talents misspent and misapplied. Reflect seriously on the true end of existence and no longer fritter it away in vanity and folly. Think of all the good you might have done, not only by individual exertion, but by the influence of your example. Then reverse the picture and ask if much evil may not actually have occurred through these omissions in you.

To many of you too, life now presents a very different aspect to what it did in the commencement of the year. A most important day has dawned, and momentous duties devolved on you. The ties that bound you to the homes of your youth have been severed, and new ones formed, aye stronger ones than even to the mother that bare you. Yes, there is one who is now dearer than the parent who cherished, or the sister who grew up with you, and shared your father's hearth. Oh! could I now but impress upon your minds, how much, how very much of your happiness depends on the way you begin. If I could but make you sensible how greatly doing so might soften the trials of after life. Trials? I hear each of you exclaim in joyous doubt, What trials? I am united to the object of my dearest affections; friends all smile on, and approve my choice; plenty crowns our board: have I not made a league with sorrow that it should not come near our dwelling? I hope not; for it might lead you to forget the things that belong to your peace. I should tremble for you, could I fancy a life–long period without a trouble. You are mortal and could not bear it, with safety to your eternal well–being. This life being probationary, God has wisely ordained it a chequered one. Happy, thoroughly happy as you may be now, you are not invulnerable to the shafts of sorrow;—think how very many are the inlets through which trial may enter, and pray that whenever and however assailed, you may as a Christian, sanctify whatever befalls you to your future good.

But while prepared to meet those ills "the flesh is heir to" as becomes a Christian, it is well to remember that you may greatly diminish many of the troubles of life, by forbearance and self–command, for certain it is, that more than one half of mankind make a great deal of what they suffer, and which they might avoid. Yes, much of what they endure are actually self inflictions.

There is a general, and alas! too true an outcry, that trouble is the lot of all, and that "man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward;" but let me ask, Is there not a vast amount made by ourselves? and do we not often take it up in anticipation, too often indulge and give way to it, when by cheerful resignation, we might, if not wholly avert, yet greatly nullify its power to mar our peace. Mind, I now speak of self–created and minor troubles; not those coming immediately from God. Are we not guilty of ingratitude in acting thus; in throwing away, or as it were thrusting from us the blessings he has sent—merely by indulging in, or giving way to these minor trials. It may be said of these sort of troubles, as of difficulties, "Stare them in the face, and you conquer them; yield to, and they overcome you, and form unnecessary suffering."

If we could only consider a little when things annoy us, and reflect how much worse they might be, and how differently they would affect us even under less favourable circumstances than those in which we are placed; but instead of making the best of every thing, we only dwell on the annoyance, regardless of many extenuations that may attend it.

As one of the means to happiness, I would beg of you, my fair young Brides, not to fix too high a standard by which to measure either the perfections of your beloved partners or your own hopes of being happy. Bear in mind that those to whom you are united are subject to the same infirmities as yourself. Look well to what are your requirements as wives, and then prayerfully and steadily act up to them, and if your hopes are not built too high, you may, by acting rightly and rationally, find a well spring of peace and enjoyment that must increase. Think what very proud feelings will be yours, to find you are appreciated and esteemed for the good qualities of the heart and endowments of the mind, and to hear after months of trial, the wife pronounced dearer than the bride.

Look around at the many who have entered the pale of matrimony before you, equally buoyant with hope; with the same loving hearts and the same bright prospects as you had—and yet the stern realities of life have sobered down that romance of feeling with which they started; yet they are perhaps more happy, though it is a quiet happiness, founded on esteem. Oh, you know not the extent to which the conduct I have urged you to pursue, may affect your well–being, and that of him to whom you are united.

And now with the same greeting I commenced with, will I take my leave—a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all, and may each succeeding return find you progressing in all that can give you peace and happiness, not only here but hereafter!