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Untitled Article
Sabbath , and the place a temple . In summer days the homage was of a different kind . I came for rest from the tumult of emotions raised by the voice of the preacher . When that voice spoke things that I could understand , it was like the voice of a growing waterfall , waxing stronger till the spirit could bear no more ; till the young hearer looked up to the dome to see if angels were looking in , or to watch for signs that the judgment-day was come . After such an hour , welcome was the coolness which fell on me when I nestled here from the burning sun , and found all unchanged as in the wintry day : all within green and shining , whether I looked abroad on an expanse of snow , or on the sultry haze of an August noon . Welcome
was rest after exhaustion ; welcome were the old thoughts which came to blend with those which throbbed like keen sensations . Welcome hath been the blended influence of old and new thoughts from that day to this , when i can rejoice in the present through a clear interpretation of the past . O how merciful is the injunction to man to pray ! If there were no such injunction , who would not eagerly snatch the permission ? What spirit is there that never needs rest , or can be happy without a home ? And where is there a rest , where a home , but in communion—private communion—with
the father of the spirit ? In sleep there is a rest for the body ; in incessant change of objects there is refreshment for the intellect ; but for the spirit there is or ought to be no sleep , and endless vicissitude brings weariness ; and of the many refreshments which are perpetually administered by Providence , none are wholly and permanently satisfying but intercourse with itself . The natural influences of grief are strengthening and cheering when the clouds are overblown ; the effects of sudden joy are often salutary as sweet ; the exercise and growth of a healthful intellect affords delights which can be understood only by sympathy ; and human love can fully satisfy all but an immortal spirit , can satisfy even an immortal spirit often and long together—but all these are not enough . Grief and joy come seldom and
soon pass away ; the intellect sickens at times ; and as for human friendship , what two minds ever were as one in their progress , their experience , their earthly destiny , their heavenly capabilities ? What spirit , however purely and firmly wedded to another , has not in its bitterness sighed , " I am alone 1 " or in more peaceful moments breathed , " Father , there is none but thou 1 " Where has not absence , estrangement , or death , sooner or later , worn or snapped the bond , and left the spirit unsupported ? This failure of early sympathy is a necessary consequence of that spiritual advancement which , though it confers a more than counterbalancing bliss in the formation
of nobler attachments , yet cannot stay the tears which hallow the remains of buried friendships ; and if , in some rare instances , minds advance together , it can only be for awhile—only till the messenger , whom they know to be on the wing , appears to bear one away . In all earthly changes there is life , there is hope , there is joy ; but there is no rest—and the spirit must have rest . Of even this place I should grow weary if its mutable elements were all—if the springing and fading flowers , the moving clouds , the ivy-clad trunks which bear within the seeds of decay , were all—if there were no eternal presence pervading and vivifying all , and uniting the many parts into one whole ; and in the same manner would the elements of human experience be received at times with disgust if the same eternal presence were not there to sanctify their influences .
There are some who feel this perpetual presence a restraint ; or rather , who , when they remember it , imagine that a perpetual consciousness of it would be a restraint . I wonder such do not feel the atmosphere stifling ,
Untitled Article
236 Sabbath Musings .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1831, page 236, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2596/page/20/
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