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little thought that my pleasure was but the sweetness on the edge of the bitter cup which I was to drain to the very dregs . Yet I would not that it should have passed from me . Far nobler is the most humiliating depression of doubt than the false security of acquiescence in human decisions .
Far safer are the wanderings of a mind which by original vigour has freed itself from the shackles of human authority , than the apathy of weak minds which makes them content to be led blindfold whithersoever their priestly guides shall choose . The happiest lot of all is to be born into the way of truth , to be placed among those who themselves learn of God and only commend their youner charge to his teaching : but where , as in my case , it
is not so ordained , the next best privilege is to be roused to a conflict with human opinions * provided there is strength to carry it through . Though it be fought in darkness , in horror , in despair , God is nigh to behold and aid , and to bid the sufferer repose at length in the light of his countenance .
Yet none could be found to encounter the conflict if they had the slightest prescience of its horrors . My former Sabbaths in this place—what infliction in all the records of condemnation could aggravate their misery ? The same bell which now brings the young worshipers tripping over the green , and calls the old man from among the tombstones , rang then as now ; but how differently to my ears ! I looked out then from this very alley upon the church porch , where sober greetings are exchanged as the people enter ;
but \ yith what an agonizing mingling of contempt and envy , of compassion for them and loathing of myself ! I might have been among them , but I would not ; and yet I coveted what I thought their ignorant repose . I thought of them in prayer , and longed to pray : but how could I ? I could not make to myself an- idol , and then believe it was a God ; and I was as yet unsatisfied that there was One who heareth prayer . I followed with my eye the gay insects that flitted round me , and longed to be , like them ,
alive and active , but without wish or want . I listened for the song of praise , and felt that I also would adore if I knew whither to refer my adoration , and if I could offer it unmixed . I was oppressed with a sense of the marvellous beauty of the face of things , and the immeasurable might of that which organized them . But what and where was this principle ? Could it be reached ; could it be worshiped ? And how could I adore when I felt in every nerve that all this mighty , this delicate , this beautiful
assemblage of creations , was to me but an apparatus of torture ? Then I envied the lark as , hushing its warblings , it dropped from its heights info its grassy nest . I longed , like it , to delight in the crimson cloud , and in looking abroad over the earth at sunrise , without questioning whence came those hues , or to whom belonged the praise of that transcendent architecture . Then I looked on the unfinished labours of the fields and orchards :
the shocks in which the sickle was left , the ladder and basket beneath the tree , the remainder of whose burden was to be stripped to-morrow . •* Va-
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Untitled Article
Sabbath Musings . 687
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1831, page 687, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2602/page/35/
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