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UTILE DULCI. | ||
The New-York Weekly Magazine;OR, MISCELLANEOUS REPOSITORY. | ||
| Vol. II.] | WEDNESDAY, September 7, 1796. | [No. 62. |
AN EVENING MEDITATION.
Now all is hushed, and nature seems to make a pause; the sun has withdrawn his radiance, yet the gloom from yonder western sky bespeaks him still at hand, promising to return with his reviving warmth, when nature is refreshed with darkness.
The moon borrows her light, and bestows it upon us; she arises in silent majesty, humbly waiting to reign when he resigns his throne. No chorus ushers in his reign, no rays pronounce her approach; gently she steals on the world, and sits in silent majesty to view the good she does. She lights the wandering traveller, she warms the earth with gentle heat, she dazzles not the eye of the philosopher, but invites him to view and to admire.---How still is nature! not a breeze! each tree enjoys its shadow undisturbed, the unruffled rivers glide smoothly on reflecting nature’s face; here thro’ this road, by the side of this fair stream, let me steal gently, step by step, wrapped up in future thoughts.—A time will come when earth, and seas, and sun, and stars will be no more——what then will be my thoughts——Think, oh then now!—Think—that time is nothing to eternity, think,——all nature, sun, and earth, and man, and angels are nothing—to thy God.—Think, that thou art to thyself thy all; thyself once lost, nothing can give thee joy or pain from without, but all will be concentered in thy own misery: if happiness be thy lot, then wilt thou be capable of enjoying also the happiness of others, thus redoubling thy own.
Oh! my soul, behold yon spangled sky---count the number of the stars——No---thy counting fails, then think on that eternity which awaits thee in another world; think too now, how great is the goodness of God, to grace our little world with beauties to attract the eye and captivate the mind. Beauties by day to cheer, to enliven, to call forth thy active powers, to bustle with the busy, beauties and blessings inviting thee to see, to taste, to smell, to hear.---Beauties too, Oh see, by night, beauties transcendant and glorious; such as draw up the eye to yon vast concave, where the mind’s eye follows in silent wonder, quickly passing from star to star, till struck with the beauty of the whole, it feels “the hand that made it is divine.”
Passion, at this silent hour and awful scene, shrinks away unperceived, and every light idea flies off. The mind takes the reins, and the body seems for a while to partake of that spiritual nature it will have hereafter. Listen then, while reason is uninterrupted, to the silent councils of nature;---every shadow whispers, such are you! A breeze may blow you away---to-morrow you may be no more; tread then,---as now---with caution through the slippery paths of life; beware of the briars and thorns that lie athwart your way; mistake not shadow for substance. Brush away, as the dew on the ground, at every step, the little affairs that momentary rise to check your progress towards heaven.
This river too has its lesson to give, she is like the cool hour of reflection, when conscience gives back the actions of our life in legible characters. Oh may they be as smooth! See, says she, how fair is my face! how transparent I am! You see my depth; even the ground whence I spring is open to your view. Let your conscience be ever as smooth, as clear, as open; let your breast need no disguise, so will no troubled waters impede your heavenly voyage.
Now again behold the stars, they have a language; and with a powerful tongue, they call on me to adore the Great King of Heaven and Earth, whose name they write in golden characters legible to all mankind. They proclaim him, Creator of all Worlds, and the Friend of Man.
Let me, then, often read their book and listen to their tale.---Let me, like them, proclaim my maker’s praise, by shining in the orb in which his hand has placed me; nor ever leap the bound, nor strive to rise above, nor dare to sink beneath the sphere wherein I am. So when the sun, and stars, and earth shall be no more; my Creator shall raise me to another world, “to shine like the stars for evermore.”