The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book Part 37

So shall inferior eyes, That borrow their behaviour from the great, Grow great by your example and put on The dauntless spirit of resolution.

Shakespeare

MYSTERIOUS NIGHT

Mysterious Night! When our first parent knew Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue?

Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus with the host of heaven came, And lo! Creation widened in man's view.

Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find, Whilst flow'r and leaf and insect stood revealed, That to such countless...o...b.. thou mad'st us blind!

Why do we, then, shun Death with anxious strife?

If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?

Joseph Blanco White

The Future hides in it Gladness and sorrow: We press still thorow; Nought that abides in it Daunting us--Onward!

Goethe

VITA LAMPADA

(The Torch of Life)

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night-- Ten to make and the match to win-- A b.u.mping pitch and a blinding light, An hour to play and the last man in.

And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat, Or the selfish hope of a season's fame, But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote "Play up! play up! and play the game!"

The sand of the desert is sodden red,-- Red with the wreck of a square that broke;-- The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead, And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.

The river of death has brimmed his banks, And England's far, and Honour a name, But the voice of a school-boy rallies the ranks: "Play up! play up! and play the game!"

This is the word that year by year, While in her place the school is set, Every one of her sons must hear, And none that hears it dare forget.

This they all with a joyful mind Bear through life like a torch in flame, And falling, fling to the host behind-- "Play up! play up! and play the game!"

Henry Newbolt

THE IRREPARABLE PAST

("And he cometh the third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest; it is enough, the hour is come; behold the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise up, let us go; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand." Mark, XIV. 41, 42)

The words of Christ are not like the words of other men. His sentences do not end with the occasion which called them forth: every sentence of Christ's is a deep principle of human life, and it is so with these sentences. The principle contained in "Sleep on now" is this, that the past is irreparable, and after a certain moment waking will do no good.

You may improve the future, the past is gone beyond recovery. As to all that is gone by, so far as the hope of altering it goes, you may sleep on and take your rest: there is no power in earth or heaven that can undo what has once been done.

Let us proceed to give an ill.u.s.tration of this. This principle applies to a misspent youth. The young are by G.o.d's Providence, exempted in a great measure from anxiety; they are as the apostles were in relation to their Master: their friends stand between them and the struggles of existence. They are not called upon to think for themselves: the burden is borne by others. They get their bread without knowing or caring how it is paid for: they smile and laugh without a suspicion of the anxious thoughts of day and night which a parent bears to enable them to smile.

So to speak, they are sleeping--and it is not a guilty sleep--while another watches.

My young brethren--youth is one of the precious opportunities of life--rich in blessing if you choose to make it so; but having in it the materials of undying remorse if you suffer it to pa.s.s unimproved. Your quiet Gethsemane is now. Do you know how you can imitate the apostles in their fatal sleep? You can suffer your young days to pa.s.s idly and uselessly away; you can live as if you had nothing to do but to enjoy yourselves: you can let others think for you, and not try to become thoughtful yourselves: till the business and difficulties of life come upon you unprepared, and you find yourselves like men waking from sleep, hurried, confused, scarcely able to stand, with all the faculties bewildered, not knowing right from wrong, led headlong to evil, just because you have not given yourselves in time to learn what is good. All that is sleep.

And now let us mark it. You cannot repair that in after-life. Oh!

remember every period of human life has its own lesson, and you cannot learn that lesson in the next period. The boy has one set of lessons to learn, and the young man another, and the grown-up man another. Let us consider one single instance. The boy has to learn docility, gentleness of temper, reverence, submission. All those feelings which are to be transferred afterwards in full cultivation to G.o.d, like plants nursed in a hotbed and then planted out, are to be cultivated first in youth.

Afterwards, those habits which have been merely habits of obedience to an earthly parent, are to become religious submission to a heavenly parent. Our parents stand to us in the place of G.o.d. Veneration for our parents is intended to become afterwards adoration for something higher.

Take that single instance; and now suppose that _that_ is not learned in boyhood. Suppose that the boy sleeps to the duty of veneration, and learns only flippancy, insubordination, and the habit of deceiving his father,--can that, my young brethren, be repaired afterwards? Humanly speaking not. Life is like the transition from cla.s.s to cla.s.s in a school. The school-boy who has not learned arithmetic in the earlier cla.s.ses, cannot secure it when he comes to mechanics in the higher: each section has its own sufficient work. He may be a good philosopher or a good historian, but a bad arithmetician he remains for life; for he cannot lay the foundation at the moment when he must be building the superstructure. The regiment which has not perfected itself in its manoeuvres on the parade ground, cannot learn them before the guns of the enemy. And just in the same way, the young person who has slept his youth away, and become idle, and selfish, and hard, cannot make up for that afterwards. He may do something, he may be religious--yes; but he cannot be what he might have been. There is a part of his heart which will remain uncultivated to the end. The apostles could share their Master's sufferings--they could not save him. Youth has its irreparable past.

And therefore, my young brethren, let it be impressed upon you,--now is a time, infinite in its value for eternity, which will never return again. Sleep not; learn that there is a very solemn work of heart which must be done while the stillness of the garden of Gethsemane gives you time. Now, or Never. The treasures at your command are infinite. Treasures of time--treasures of youth--treasures of opportunity that grown-up men would sacrifice everything they have to possess. Oh for ten years of youth back again with the added experience of age! But it cannot be: they must be content to sleep on now and take their rest.

Rev. F. W. Robertson: "Sermons."

A CHRISTMAS HYMN, 1837

It was the calm and silent night:-- Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up to might, And now was Queen of land and sea!

No sound was heard of clashing wars; Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain; Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars Held undisturbed their ancient reign, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago!

'Twas in the calm and silent night!

The senator of haughty Rome Impatient urged his chariot's flight, From lordly revel rolling home!

Triumphal arches gleaming swell His breast with thoughts of boundless sway; What recked the Roman what befell A paltry province far away, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago!

Within that province far away Went plodding home a weary boor: A streak of light before him lay, Fallen through a half-shut stable door Across his path. He pa.s.sed--for nought Told what was going on within; How keen the stars! his only thought; The air, how calm and cold and thin, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago!

O strange indifference!--low and high Drowsed over common joys and cares: The earth was still--but knew not why; The world was listening--unawares; How calm a moment may precede One that shall thrill the world for ever!

To that still moment none would heed, Man's doom was linked no more to sever In the solemn midnight Centuries ago!

It is the calm and solemn night!

A thousand bells ring out, and throw Their joyous peals abroad, and smite The darkness, charmed and holy _now_!

The night that erst no name had worn, To it a happy name is given; For in that stable lay new-born The peaceful Prince of Earth and Heaven, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago.

A. Domett

THE QUARREL