“Was that, after all, the best thing? Would it not have been better so or so?” And the self-tormented individual lies wakeful, during weary night-hours, revolving a thousand possibilities, and conjuring up a thousand vague perhapses. “If I had only done so now, perhaps this result would have followed, or that would not”; and as there is never any saying but that so it might have turned out, the labyrinth and the discontent are alike endless.
Now there is grand good sense in the Apostle’s direction, “Forgetting the things that are behind, press forward.” The idealist should charge himself, as with an oath of God, to let the past alone as an accomplished fact, solely concerning himself with the inquiry, “Did I not do the best I then knew how?”
The maxim of the Quietists is, that, when we have acted according to the best light we have, we have expressed the will of God under those circumstances,—since, had it been otherwise, more and different light would have been given us; and with the will of God done by ourselves as by Himself, it is our duty to be content.
Having written thus far in my article, and finding nothing more at hand to add to it, I went into the parlor to read it to Jenny and Mrs. Crowfield. I found the former engaged in the task of binding sixty yards of quilling, (so I think she called it,) which were absolutely necessary for perfecting a dress; and the latter was braiding one of seven little petticoats, stamped with elaborate patterns, which she had taken from Marianne, because that virtuous matron was ruining her eyes and health in a blind push to get them done before October.
Both approved and admired my piece, and I thought of Saint Anthony’s preaching the fishes:—
The sermon now ended,
Each turned and descended;
The pikes went on stealing,
The eels went on eeling.
Much delighted were they,
But preferred the old way.
THE END.
Cambridge: Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.