The Crown of Thorns | Page 6

be the monotony of seeming
perfection. The beauty of the landscape depends upon contrasts, and
would be lost in one common surface of splendor. The grandeur of the

waves is in the deep hollows, as well as the culminating crests; and the
bars of the sunset glow on the background of the twilight. The very
condition of a great thing is that it must be comparatively a rare thing.
We speak of summer glories, and yet who would wish it to be always
summer? -- who does not see how admirably the varied seasons are
fitted to our appetite for change? It may seem as if it would be pleasant
to have it always sunshine; and yet when fruit and plant are dying from
lack of moisture, and the earth sleeps exhausted in the torrid air, who
ever saw a summer morning more beautiful than that when the clouds
muster their legions to the sound of the thunder, and pour upon us the
blessing of the rain? We repine at toil, and yet how gladly do we turn in
from the lapse of recreation to the harness of effort! We sigh for the
freedom and glory of the country; but, in due time, just as fresh and
beautiful seem to us the brick walls and the busy streets where our lot is
cast, and our interests run. There is no condition in life of which we can
say exclusively "It is good for us to be here." Our course is appointed
through vicissitude,--our discipline is in alternations; and we can build
no abiding tabernacles along the way.
But, I observe, in the second place, that there are those who may
discard the notion of retaining any particular condition of life and yet
they would preserve unbroken some of its relations. They may not keep
the freshness of youth, or prevent the intrusion of trouble, or shut out
the claims of responsibility, or the demands for effort; --they may not
achieve anything of this kind; and they do not wish to achieve it; but
they would build a tabernacle to LOVE, and keep the objects of dear
affection safe within its enclosure. "Joy, sorrow, poverty, riches, youth,
decay, let these come as they must," say they, "in the flow of
Providence; but let the heart's sanctuaries remain unbroken, and let us
in all this chance find the presence and the ministration of those we
love." And, common as the sight is, we must always contemplate with a
fresh sadness this sundering of family bonds; this cancelling(sic) of the
dear realities of home; this stealing in of the inevitable gloom; this
vacating of the chair, the table, and the bed; this vanishing of the
familiar face into darkness; this passage from communion to memory;
this diminishing of love's orb into narrower phases, --into a crescent,
--into a shadow. Surely, however broad the view we take of the
universe, a real woe, a veritable experience of suffering, amidst this

boundless benificence, reaching as deep as the heart's core, is this old
and common sorrow; -- the sorrow of woman for her babes, and of man
for his helpmate, and of age for its prop, and of the son for the mother
that bore him, and of the heart for the hearts that once beat in sympathy,
and of the eyes that hide vacancies with tears. When these old stakes
are wrenched from their sockets, and these intimate cords are snapped,
one begins to feel his own tent shake and flap in the wind that comes
from eternity, and to realize that there is no abiding tabernacle here.
But ought we really to wish that these relations might remain unbroken,
and to murmur because it is not so? We shall be able to answer this
question in the negative, I think, -- however hard it may be to do so, --
when we consider, in the first place, that this breaking up and
separation are inevitable. For we may be assured that whatever in the
system of things is inevitable is beneficent. The dissolution of these
bonds comes by the same law as that which ordains them; and we may
be sure that the one --though it plays out of sight, and is swallowed up
in mystery --is as wise and tender in its purpose as the other. It is very
consoling to recognize the Hand that gave in the Hand that takes a
friend, and to know that he is borne away in the bosom of Infinite
Gentleness, as he was brought here. It is the privilege of angels, and of
a faith that brings us near the angels, to always behold the face of our
Father in Heaven; and so we shall not desire the abrogation of this law
of dissolution and separation. We