Historical Papers: Part 3 from Volume VI of The Works of John Greenleaf WhittierWhittier, John Greenleaf
History
Historical Papers: Part 3 from Volume VI of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier
Whittier, John Greenleaf
History
Will it be said, however, that this tribute comes too late; that it
cannot solace those brave hearts which, slowly broken by the long agony
of colonial servitude, are now cold in strange graves? It is, indeed, a
striking illustration of the truth that he who would benefit his fellow-
man must "walk by faith," sowing his seed in the morning, and in the
evening withholding not his hand; knowing only this, that in God's good
time the harvest shall spring up and ripen, if not for himself, yet for
others, who, as they bind the full sheaves and gather in the heavy
clusters, may perchance remember him with gratitude and set up stones of
memorial on the fields of his toil and sacrifices. We may regret that in
this stage of the spirit's life the sincere and self-denying worker is
not always permitted to partake of the fruits of his toil or receive the
honors of a benefactor. We hear his good evil spoken of, and his noblest
sacrifices counted as naught; we see him not only assailed by the wicked,
but discountenanced and shunned by the timidly good, followed on his hot
and dusty pathway by the execrations of the hounding mob and the
contemptuous pity of the worldly wise and prudent; and when at last the
horizon of Time shuts down between him and ourselves, and the places
which have known him know him no more forever, we are almost ready to say
with the regal voluptuary of old, This also is vanity and a great evil;
"for what hath a man of all his labor and of the vexation of his heart
wherein he hath labored under the sun?" But is this the end? Has God's
universe no wider limits than the circle of the blue wall which shuts in
our nestling-place? Has life's infancy only been provided for, and
beyond this poor nursery-chamber of Time is there no playground for the
soul's youth, no broad fields for its manhood? Perchance, could we but
lift the curtains of the narrow pinfold wherein we dwell, we might see
that our poor friend and brother whose fate we have thus deplored has by
no means lost the reward of his labors, but that in new fields of duty he
is cheered even by the tardy recognition of the value of his services in
the old. The continuity of life is never broken; the river flows onward
and is lost to our sight, but under its new horizon it carries the same
waters which it gathered under ours, and its unseen valleys are made glad
by the offerings which are borne down to them from the past,--flowers,
perchance, the germs of which its own waves had planted on the banks of
Time. Who shall say that the mournful and repentant love with which the
benefactors of our race are at length regarded may not be to them, in
their new condition of being, sweet and grateful as the perfume of long-
forgotten flowers, or that our harvest-hymns of rejoicing may not reach
the ears of those who in weakness and suffering scattered the seeds of
blessing?
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