The voyage of life. A journey from the cradle to the grave

Introduction

" Your defects to know Make use of every friend and every foe."

HE title of this book will suggest something of its scope and aim. Life is a fact, and not a glittering generality. The period bounded by its horizons is bristling with great possibilities. The alchemy of success consists in knowing an opportunity when it is met, and what use to make of it. In some sense that lesson will be taught in the following pages. Tender infancy, frolicking childhood, and stern manhood, each with the surroundings incidental to its period, will receive careful consideration. The parents or guardians of youth are exhorted to instill right principles in the minds of their children — to train them to become good citizens. Young men and women are told how to carry out these wise maxims.

4 INTRODUCTION.

Another aim of this book has been to supplant, in some measure, the trashy and pernicious literature of the day, by supplying instead, healthful and inviting food for the mind. It is a compendium of life experience garnered in brief space.

Old age is not always experience. The youth of our land aspire to be greater — all need to be better. We lend a helping hand.

In the preparation of this work, the best thinkers and writers — all available sources of which would add to its merit, and acceptation — have been consulted.

It has been most carefully revised, and nearly one hundred pages of original matter and several new engravings have been added.

The cordial welcome with which the preceding edition has been received, its widespread popularity, induces us to hope that the book in its new and attractive dress will meet with a reception no less flattering.

In the sincere aim to present a volume of solid, instructive and interesting reading matter, especially adapted to the requirements of the home circle, we send " The Voyage of Life " on its mission.

Contents

PAGE

I. The Voyage of Life .... 7

II. Infancy 18

I. The Voyage Oe Life

IFE is the spring-time of eternity — a voyage to the grave. The sea we ^^ have to navigate, viewed in prospect, looks smooth and inviting ; but beneath, it conceals shoals, quick sands, and rocks ; and great multitudes in attempting to reach the distant shores are shipwrecked and lost. No man knows his destiny. We pass our lives in regretting the past, complaining of the present, and indulging false hopes of the future. Every anniversary of a birth-day is the dispelling of a dream. We aspire and aspire and then give in. Life in this particular is like a coffin, which widens up to a certain point, and then tapers off again. Happy the man who sees a God employed in all the good and ill that chequer life.

Life bears us on like the stream of a mighty river. Our boat at first glides down the narrow channel, through the playful murmurings of the little brook and the windings of its grassy borders. The trees shed their blossoms over our young heads ; the flowers seem to offer themselves to our young hands ; we are happy in hope, and grasp eagerly at the beauties around us, but the stream hurries us on, and still our hands are empty. Our course in youth and manhood is along a deeper and wider channel, among objects more striking and magnificent. We are animated at the moving pictures and enjoyment and industry all around us ; we are excited at some short-lived disappointment. The stream bears us on, and our joys and griefs are alike behind us. We may be shipwrecked, but we cannot be delayed. Whether rough or smooth, the river hastens on until the roar of the ocean is in our ears and the tossing of the waves is beneath our feet, and the floods are lifted up around us, and we take leave of earth and its inhabitants, until of our future voyage there is no witness save the Infinite and Eternal.

The great art and philosophy of life is to make

THE VOYAGE OF LIFE. g

the best of the present, whether it be good or bad ; and to bear the one with resignation and patience, and to enjoy the other with thankfulness and moderation. Are we brought into the world, and allowed to occupy a place in it, only that we may pursue trifles ! that we may brutishly gratify our appetites and passions! that we may leave the world at last, perhaps at the expiration of three score years and ten, without having derived any advantage from being in, it, or conferring a single benefit upon it ! Memory goes like a resurrectionist to the graves of our past errors and crimes, and shows us their skeletons. The conventional robes in which we dressed them to make them seemly are gone — the tinsel of subterfuge and sophistry with which we bedecked their loathsomeness has fallen away — self-deception is no longer possible, and we shrink from the foul offspring of our misguided souls, but cannot, dare not repudiate them. If the young doubt the resemblance of this picture, let them ask the old, and they will learn that its drawing is correct and its tints true. Ah, if the man of the world were only as careful to consult his conscience on points

IO THE VOYAGE OF LIFE.

of moral right, as to consult his lawyer on points of law, how much misery would he not escape both in his life of action and his life of afterthought.

We have often been impressed by the deep significance of the phrase which Dickens has given as a title to one of his Christmas stories, " The Battle of Life." It is full of solemn meanings. All our hours, from the cradle to the grave, are but a series of antagonisms. Hunger, fatigue, sickness, temptation, sin, remorse, sorrow — these are the strong powers with which we must wa^e continual war. Foes beset us from without and from within, and make life one long and earnest battle. But there are victories to be won on the field, more glorious than those which crimsoned Marathon and Waterloo. Evil habits may be subdued — fiery passions brought under the control of principle — temptations resisted — self-denial cheerfully sustained, and life itself consecrated to high and holy purposes. To triumph over the infirmities of a perverted nature, and render life, once deformed by passion and stained by sin, beautiful with love made manifest in deeds of beneficence, is worthier our ambition

THE VOYAGE OF LIFE. n

than all the blood-wrought heroism that ever linked a name to a world's remembrance. Every day witnesseth triumphs such as these — yet fame proclaims them not. What matters it ? In the serene depths of these all conquering spirits, God's peace abides, and harmonies are heard, such as the angels make, when they welcome the victorious soul from the conflicts of this, to the raptures of the heavenly world.

We have been watching with intense interest, a man's journey up the roof of yonder building. It may be some sixty feet to the top, and his only foothold and dependence is a frail ladder, that shakes with his every step. It is a fearful thing to hang thus suspended — one round loosened, his hold is lost, and death is certain. We are all going up the steep ladder of life, and we are not so sure as he that the round before us is not loose. Let us take heed — like him, be slow and sure ; like him feel that we hang midway between earth and the grave ; like him hold closely on to the sides, God's providences, and as he at lasts mounts to the top, there to rest from his labors, so shall we attain to Heaven, not like him for a transient hour, but a whole and delightful eternity.

That state is capable of the greatest enjoyment where necessity urges, but not painfully ; where effort is required, but as much as possible without anxiety ; where the spring and summer of life are preparatory to the harvest of autumn and the repose of winter. Then is every season sweet, and in a well spent life, the last the best — the season of calm enjoyment the richest in recollections, the brightest in hope. Good training and a fair start constitute a more desirable patrimony than wealth ; and those parents who study their children's welfare rather than the gratification of their own avarice or vanity, would do well to think of this. Is it better to run a successful race, or to begin and end at the goal ? Life has an ultimate purpose. We are not appointed to pass through this life, barely that we may live. We are not impelled, both by disposition and necessity, to buy and sell, barely that we may get it. There is an end in business beyond supply. There is an object in the acquisition of wealth beyond success. There is a final cause of human traffic ; and that is Virtue !

The laugh of mirth which vibrates through

THE VOYAGE OF LIFE.

the heart ; the tears which freshen the dry wastes within ; the music which brings childhood back ; the prayer that calls the future near ; the doubt which makes us meditate ; the death which startles us with mystery ; the hardships that force us to struggle ; the anxiety that ends in trust — these are the true nourishments of our natural being.

Life is no speculative adventure with those who feel its value and duties. It has a deeper purpose, and its path becomes distinct and easy in proportion as it is earnestly and faithfully pursued. The rudest or the most refined pursuit, if adapted to the wants and capacities of the pursuer, has a truth, a beauty, and a satisfaction. All ships on the ocean are not steamers or packets, but all freight bearers, fitted to their tasks ; and the smallest shallop nobly fulfills its mission, while it pushes on toward its destined port, nor shifts its course because ships career to other points of the compass. Let man ride himself on the ocean of Time. Let him learn by nature whether he is a shallop or a ship, a coaster or an ocean steamer ; and then freighting himself according to his capacity and the market he should seek, fling his sail to the breeze, riding with wind and tide, if they go his course, but beating resolutely against them if they cross his path.

Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, and to gain applause which he cannot keep. We often speak of being " settled in life." We might as well speak of anchoring in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean. Like the leaf, life has its fading. We speak and think of it with sadness, just as we think of the Autumn season. But there should be no sadness at the fading of a life that has done well its work. If we rejoice at the advent of a new life, if we welcome the coming of a new pilgrim to the uncertainties of this world's way, why should there be so much gloom when all these uncertainties are passed, and life at its waning wears the glory of a competent task ? Beautiful as is childhood in its freshness and innocence, its beauty is that of untried life. It is the beauty of promise, of Spring, of the bud. A holier and rarer beauty is the beauty which the waning life of faith and duty wears. It is the beauty of a thing completed ; and as men come together to congratulate each other when some great work has been achieved, and see in its concluding nothing but gladness, so ought we to feel when the setting sun flings back its beams upon a life that has answered well life's purpose. When the bud drops blighted, and the mildew blasts the early grain, and there goes all hope of the harvest, one may well be sad; but when the ripened year sinks amid its garniture of Autumn flowers and leaves, why should we regret or murmur ? And so a life that is ready and waiting for the " well done " of God, whose latest virtues and charities are the noblest, should be given back to God in uncomplaining reverence, we rejoicing that the earth is capable of so much goodness, and is permitted such virtue. Like flakes of snow that fall unperceived upon the earth, the seemingly unimportant events of life succeed one another. Thus imperceptibly and swiftly life passes away. Life's moments are ever fleeting ; the generations of men come and pass away like the leaves of the forest : as the year blooms and fades, so does human life.

Men seldom think of the great event of death until the shadows fall across their own path, hiding forever from their eyes the traces of loved ones whose living smiles were the sunlight of their existence. Death is the great antagonist of life, and the cold thought of the tomb is the skeleton of all feasts. We do not want to go through the dark valley, although its passage may lead to paradise ; and with Charles Lamb, we do not want to lie down in the muddy grave, even with kings and princes for our bed-fellows. But the fiat of nature is inexorable, there is no appeal from the great law which dooms us to dust. We flourish and we fade as the leaves of the forest ; and the flowers that bloom and wither in a day have not a frailer hope upon life than the mightiest monarch that ever shook the earth with his footsteps. Generations of men appear and vanish as the grass, and the countless multitude which fills the world to-day, will to-morrow disappear as the footsteps on the shore. This is life. If we die to-day, the sun will shine as brightly and the birds sing as sweetly to-morrow. Business will not be suspended a moment, and the great mass will not bestow a thought upon our memories. Is he dead ? will

THE VOYAGE OF LIFE.

*7 be the solemn inquiry of a few as they pass to their work. But no one will miss us except our immediate connections, and in a short time they will forget us, and laugh as merrily as when we sat beside them. Thus shall we all, now active in life, pass away. Our children crowd close behind us, and they will soon be gone. In a few years not a living being can say, " I remember him ! We lived in another age, and have no business with those who slumber in the tomb." This is life ; how rapidly it passes !

" So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go, not like the quarry-slave at night Scourged to his dungeon ; but sustained and

soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."

II. Infancy

BABE in a house is a well-spring of pleasure, a messenger of peace and love, a resting-place for innocence on earth ; a link between angels and men.

A babe is a mother's anchor, she cannot go far from her moorings. And yet a true mother never lives so little in the present as when by the side of the cradle. Her thoughts follow the imagined future of her child. That babe is the boldest of pilots, and guides her fearless thoughts down through scenes of coming years. The old ark never made such a voyage as the cradle daily makes. Maternity is the perfecting, not only of womanhood, but humanity. And to the first baby, has God given the sacred power to complete the circle of human sympathies, to waken the conscious soliditary of human interests. Every mother that i is a mother, pictures the whole troop of loves, joys, and sorrows hovering around " the first baby." She lays every mother's baby in the cradle which held her own first baby, and listens to the songs that gush forth, or as they are softly murmured in the motherheart. To a mother's heart, every mother's baby is the representative of inestimable treasure ; it is an estate held in " fee simple ; ' a little sub-soiler that leaves no affections fallow, no sympathies isolated from the claims of a common humanity.

Welcome to the parents the puny struggler, strong in his weakness, his little arms more irresistible than the soldier's, his lips touched with persuasion which Chatham and Pericles in manhood had not. His unaffected lamentations when he lifts up his voice on high ; or, more beautiful, the sobbing child — the face all liquid grief, as he tries to swallow his vexation — soften all hearts to pity, and to mirthful and clamorous compassion. The small despot asks so little that all reason and all nature are on his side. His ignorance is more charming than all knowledge, and his little sins more bewitching than any virtue. His flesh is angel's flesh, all alive. " Infancy," said Coleridge, " presents body and spirit in unity ; the body is all animated." All day, between his three or four sleeps, he coos like a pigeon house, sputters and spurs, and puts on his faces of importance, and when he fasts, the little Pharisee fails not to sound his trumpet before him. By lamplight, he delights in shadows on the wall ; by daylight, in yellow and scarlet. Carry him out of doors — he is overpowered by the light and by the extent of natural objects, and is silent.

The first baby ! — why, it brings treasures with it ! True, its little hand is empty ; but then it brings to light and activity unrevealed capacities, looses the sealed fountains, and assays the unwrought treasure of the human soul. It is not all joy — that baby gift ; — if it were it could not be a joy forever. It is not all sorrow ; if it were, the fountains of the heart it stirs, could not grow pure to reflect the heaven above ; would not flow down the stream of time, bearing rich freight for unknown and unborn posterity. But see, it lays its tiny hand on the heart, and it forgets to beat for self. It pillows its soft cheek on the bosom that, hitherto, had looked out upon the struggling world — all unlinked to its wants, all unmoved by its destiny — and henceforth that bosom is the asylum of the orphan, the refuge of the oppressed, the sanctuary which invites a world lying in wretchedness to the banquet of love, to the smiles of a common Father. And why ? — Ah, that baby is the medium through which the helplessness, the wants and the promise of humanity have appealed to the woman. In behalf of the race, it has whispered mother ! and looking into its trusting, worshipping eyes, she accepts the consecration, answers the appeal with a deep, an eternity echoed — my child.

No one feels the death of a child as a mother feels it.. The father cannot feel it thus. True, there is a vacancy in his home and a heaviness in his heart. There is a chain of association that at set times comes round with a broken link — there are memories of endearment, a keen sense of loss, a weeping over crushed hopes, and a pain of wounded affection. But the mother feels that one has been taken away who was still closer to her heart. Hers has been the office of constant ministration. Every graduation of feature developed before her eyes ; she detected every new gleam of infant intelligence ; she heard the first utterance of every stammering word ; she was the refuge of its fears, the supply of its wants ; and every task of affection wove a new link, and made dear to her its object. And when her child dies, a portion of her own life as it were dies with it. How can she give her darling up, with all these living memories, these fond associations ? The timid hands that have so often taken in trust and love, how can she fold them on its sinless breast, and surrender them to Death? The feet whose wanderings she watched so narrowly, how can she see them straightened to go down into the dark valley ? The head that she had pressed to her lips and bosom, that she has watched in peaceful slumber and in burning sickness, a hair of which she could not see harmed, oh, how can she consign it to the dark chamber of the grave? It was a gleam of sunshine and a voice of perpetual gladness in her home ; she had learned from it blessed lessons of simplicity, sincerity, purity, faith ; it had unsealed within her a gushing, never-ebbing tide of affection ; when suddenly it was taken away, and that home is left dark and silent ; and to the vain and heart-rending aspiration, " Shall that dear child never return again ? ' there breaks in response, through the cold gray silence, " Nevermore — oh, nevermore ! " The heart is like a forsaken mansion, and that word goes echoing through its desolate chambers. And yet, fond mother ! (" Time brings such wonderous easing,") thou wilt in after years look back, with a not unpleasing sadness, even upon this scene of grief :

EMPTY CRADLES.

Mrs. Georgie A. H. McLeod.

Oh, the empty, empty cradles,

That must now be put away, For the little ones will need them

Never more by night or day, For the pure and dreamless sleepers,

Never more they'll rock to rest, Their bright heads upon the pillows,

Shall no more be softly prest !

In the still and solemn nightfall, Death's pale angel noiseless sped,

* I have gathered only Lilies, For my Lord, to-day," he said ;

Oh, the Lilies, the White Lilies,

That made earthly homes so bright,

How many, many buds are missing, Since the happy morning light !

Waxen hands, with blossoms in them,

Faces very white and fair, Curtained eyes, like hidden star-light,

Silken rings of sunny hair.

Hushed and still, we gaze upon them

And we scarcely know our loss ; But to-morrow we shall feel it,

Almost crushed beneath the cross.

Little robes, so richly broidered,

Wrought with so much love and pride Dainty laces, pale, pure ribbons,

They must all be laid aside ; For in glorious robes of brightness

Are the little ones arrayed, All unstained by earth the whiteness,

Such a little while they stayed.

Ah, the busy, busy mornings,

And the nights of anxious care ; Now, there is no need of watching,

There'll be time enough to spare. There's no baby's voice, we'll listen,

Thinking that we hear it oft ; On our face no baby fingers,

Touches like the rose leaves soft.

Never mind the noisy household,

Nor loud foot-falls on the stair, 'Twill not wake the peaceful sleeper,

There's no baby anywhere.

In a casket, white as snow-flakes,

Nestling all among the flowers, Are the pure and stainless Lilies,

That a little while were ours.

In our dreams 'midst dazzling brightness,

And a rapturous burst of song, Through our tears, we saw above us,

Oh ! the radiant spirit throng ! In their arms so softly cradled

Our own little ones we know, And we hear them whisper gently,

" The White Lilies from below."

Wide the shining gates are opened,

For the children are at home, Back to us, come the sweet echoes,

" Oh, suffer them to come ! "

Put away the empty cradles,

Keep we only in our sight That bright glimpse of the fair dwelling

Which the children have to-night.

III. Childhood

And say to parents what a holy charge Is theirs ; with what a kingly power their love Might rule the fountains of the new-born mind. Warn them to wake at early dawn and sow Good seed, before the world has sown its tares.

HE child is father of the man. Men are but children of a larger growth.

How often do we meet with this array of words! Yet how insensible we are to the profound philosophy they enwrap. See yonder group of children now playing together — like birds among the blossoms of earth, haunting all the green shadowy places, and rejoicing in the bright air ; happy and beautiful faces, and as changeable as happy, with eyes brimful of joy, and with hearts playing upon their little faces like sunshine upon clear waters ; among those who are now idling together on that slope, or hunting butterflies together on the edge of that wood, — you see our future men and women, not only the gifted and the powerful, the wise and the eloquent, the ambitious and the renowned, but the wicked and the treacherous, the abandoned profligate and the faithless husband, the gambler, the drunkard and the robber.

Among them, and that other little troop just appearing, children with yet happier faces and pleasanter eyes, the blossoms of the future — the mothers of nations, the unfaithful wife and the broken-hearted husband, the proud betrayer and his pale victim, the living and breathing portents and prodigies, the embodied virtues and vices, of another age and of another world. If this picture be true, parents, what a responsible charge you have. To you are entrusted these beautiful gems of God, and He will hold you responsible for their proper culture. Upon your training will rest their future destiny and a nation's hope. How important then that parents should remember the words of Archbishop Leighton, who says, " Fill the bushel with good wheat, and there will be no room for chaff and rubbish." This is a good thought for every mother while tending her children,, and watching the growth of their power in body and mind.

" As soon as they be born," the Bible says, " children go astray speaking lies." So soon, therefore, will a Christian mother begin to " train her child in the way he should go," that good habits may be formed, ready to carry out good principles as the child grows old enough to understand the reason for his conduct.

Not without design has God implanted in the maternal breast that strong love of her children which is felt everywhere. This lays deep and broad the foundation for the child's future education from parental hands. Nor without designs has Christ commanded, "Feed my lambs," — meaning to inculcate upon his Church the duty of caring for the children of the Church and the world at the earliest possible period. Nor can parents and all wellwishers to humanity be too earnest and careful to fulfill the promptings of their very nature and the command of Christ in this matter. Influence is as quiet and imperceptible on the child's mind as the falling of snow flakes on the meadow. One cannot tell the hour when the human mind is not in condition of receiving impressions from exterior moral forces. In innumerable instances, the most secret and unnoticed influences have been in operation for months and even years to break down the strongest barriers of the human heart, and work out its moral ruin, while yet the fondest parents and friends have been unaware of the working of such unseen agents of evil. Not all at once does any heart become utterly bad. The error is in this : that parents are not conscious how early the seeds of vice are sown and take root. It is as the Gospel declares, " While men slept, the enemy came and sowed tares, and went his way."

Grown persons are apt to put a lower estimate than is just, on the understanding of children. They rate them by what they know ; and children know very little ; but their comprehension is great. Hence the continual wonder of those who are unaccustomed to them, at the old fashioned ways of some lone little one, who has no play- fellows — and at the odd mixture of the folly and wisdom in its sayings. A continual battle goes on in the child's mind, between what it knows and what it comprehends. Its answers are foolish from partial ignorance ; and wise from extreme quickness of apprehension. The great art of education is so to train this last faculty as neither to depress nor over-exert it. The matured mediocrity of many an infant prodigy proves both the degree of expansion in which it is possible to force a child's intellect, and the boundary which nature has set to the success of such false culture.

A majority of character, throughout civilized society, gets its mood and bent from home influences. Education, it has been well said, forms the common mind, and home influences are the most impressive common educators. Good or bad, their potency is the same.

Do not command children under six years of age to keep anything secret, not even the pleasure you may be preparing as a surprise for a dear friend. The cloudless heaven of youthful openheartedness should not be overcast, not even by the rosy dawn of shyness ; otherwise, children will soon learn to conceal their own secrets as well as yours.