"A good that never satisfies the mind, A beauty fading like the April flowers, A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined, A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours, An honour that more fickle is than wind, A glory at opinion's frown that lowers, A treasury which bankrupt Time devours, A knowledge than grave ignorance more blind, A vain delight our equals to command, A style of greatness in effect a dream, A swelling thought of holding sea and land, A servile lot, decked with a pompous name; Are the strange ends we toil for here below, Till wisest death make us our urns know." But the poet, while taking this despondent view of life, forgets--not only that it is an opportunity, but--that it is the first stage of an eternal existence, and that the progress begun now shall be continued hereafter, when the mind, freed from its material clogs, shall enter upon the full fruition of its wondrous powers. And however brief it may be, is it not better it should be devoted to noble work than to ignoble idleness? Is it not better to use it as a time of preparation than to waste it in empty pleasures? To the despairing wail of the poet just quoted we would oppose, as far worthier of a gallant spirit, Ben Jonson's admirable conclusions:-- "It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make men better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere. A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night; It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see, And in short measure life may perfect be." This is the true philosophy; to make our life as perfect as our faculties will permit, and to look upon it as the introduction to a grander life, where the problems here discussed shall find a satisfactory solution. "Oh for the time when in our seraph wings We veil our brows before the Eternal Throne-- The day when, drinking knowledge at its springs, We know as we are known." Let us beware, however, when we devote our life to the pursuit of wisdom, that we do not make a false start. Do not let us diverge into the narrow way of bigotry and dogma. It is the property of exclusive and intolerant error to dominate and to reign alone. For this reason we systematically refuse and reject all control; and it is thus men have been fatally led to lay a rash hand upon intellectual liberty,--liberty, which the All-wise Himself has refrained from touching! Such is the early taint of our race, the moral situation of humanity.