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Page 58
The heart that with its luscious cates
The world has fed so long,
Could never taste the simple food
That gives fresh virtue to the good,
Fresh vigour to the strong.[91]
The pure and innocent pleasures which the hand of Providence diffuses
plentifully around us will, too probably, become tasteless and insipid
to one whose habits of excitement have destroyed the fresh and simple
tastes of her mind. Stronger doses, as in the case of the opium-eater,
will each day be required to produce an exhilarating effect, without
which there is now no enjoyment, without which, in course of time, there
will not be even freedom from suffering.
There is an analogy throughout between the mental and the physical
intoxication; and it continues most strikingly, even when we consider
both in their most favourable points of view, by supposing the victim to
self-indulgence at last willing to retrace her steps. This fearful
advantage is granted to our spiritual enemy by wilful indulgence in sin;
that it is only when trying to adopt or resume a life of sobriety and
self-denial that we become exposed to the severest temporal punishments
of self-indulgence. As long as a course of this self-indulgence is
continued, if external things should prosper with us, comparative peace
and happiness may be enjoyed--(if indeed the loftier pleasures of
devotion to God, self-control, and active usefulness can be
forgotten,--supposing them to have been once experienced.) It is only
when the grace of repentance is granted that the returning child of God
becomes at the same time alive to the sinfulness of those pleasures
which she has cultivated the habit of enjoying, and to the mournful fact
of having lost all taste for those simple pleasures which are the only
safe ones, because they alone leave the mind free for the exercise of
devotion, and the affections warm and fresh for the contemplation of
"the things that belong to our peace."
Sad and dreary is the path the penitent worldling has to traverse;
often, despairing at the difficulties her former habits have brought
upon her, she looks back, longingly and lingeringly, upon the broad and
easy path she has lately left. Alas! how many of those thus tempted to
"look back" have turned away entirely, and never more set their faces
Zion-ward.
From the dangers and sorrows just described you have still the power of
preserving yourself. You have as yet acquired no factitious tastes; you
still retain the power of enjoying the simple pleasures of innocent
childhood. It now depends upon your manner of spending the intervening
years, whether, in the trying period of middle-age, simple and natural
pleasures will still awaken emotions of joyousness and thankfulness in
your heart.
I have spoken of thankfulness,--for one of the best tests of the
innocence and safety of our pleasures is, the being able to thank God
for them. While we thus look upon them as coming to us from his hand, we
may safely bask in the sunshine of even earthly pleasures:--
The colouring may be of this earth,
The lustre comes of heavenly birth.[92]
Can you feel this with respect to the emotions of pleasurable excitement
with which you left Lady M.'s ball? I am no fanatic, nor ascetic; and I
can imagine it possible (though not probable) that among the visitors
there some simple-minded and simple-hearted people, amused with the
crowds, the dresses, the music, and the flowers, may have felt, even in
this scene of feverish and dangerous excitement, something of "a child's
pure delight in little things."[93] Without profaneness, and in all
sincerity, they might have thanked God for the, to them, harmless
recreation.
This I suppose possible in the case of some, but for you it is not so.
The keen susceptibilities of your excitable nature will prevent your
resting contented without sharing in the more exciting pleasures of the
ball-room; and your powers of adaptation will easily tempt you forward
to make use of at least some of those means of attracting general
admiration which seem to succeed so well with others.
"Wherever there is life there is danger;" and the danger is probably in
proportion to the degree of life. The more energy, the more feeling, the
more genius possessed by an individual, the greater also are the
temptations to which that individual is exposed. The path which is safe
and harmless for the dull and inexcitable--the mere animals of the human
race--is beset with dangers for the ardent, the enthusiastic, the
intellectual. These must pay a heavy penalty for their superiority; but
is it therefore a superiority they would resign? Besides, the very
trials and temptations to which their superior vitality subjects them
are not alone its necessary accompaniment, but also the necessary means
for forming a superior character into eminent excellence.
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