The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 48, October, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 48, October, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Let me tell you a story of To-Day,--very homely and narrow in its scope
and aim. Not of the To-Day whose significance in the history of humanity
only those shall read who will live when you and I are dead. Let us bear
the pain in silence, if our hearts are strong enough, while the nations
of the earth stand far off pitying. I have no word of this To-Day to
speak. I write from the border of the battle-field, and I find in it no
theme for shallow argument or flimsy rhymes. The shadow of death has
fallen on us; it chills the very heaven. No child laughs in my face as
I pass down the street. Men have forgotten to hope, forgotten to pray;
only in the bitterness of endurance they say "in the morning, 'Would God
it were even!' and in the evening, 'Would God it were morning!'" Neither
I nor you have the prophet's vision to see the age as its meaning stands
written before God. Those who shall live when we are dead may tell their
children, perhaps, how, out of anguish and darkness such as the world
seldom has borne, the enduring morning evolved of the true world and the
true man. It is not clear to us. Hands wet with a brother's blood for
the Right, a slavery of intolerance, the hackneyed cant of men or
the bloodthirstiness of women, utter no prophecy to us of the great
To-Morrow of content and right that holds the world. Yet the To-Morrow
is there; if God lives, it is there. The voice of the meek Nazarene,
which we have deafened down as ill-timed, unfit to teach the watchword
of the hour, renews the quiet promise of its coming in simple, humble
things. Let us go down and look for it. There is no need that we should
feebly vaunt and madden ourselves over our self-seen lights, whatever
they may be, forgetting what broken shadows they are of eternal truths
in that calm where He sits and with His quiet hand controls us.
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