Sometimes it sweeps over different lands, and exhibits the peculiarities of various personages.In one word, it is characterized by comprehensiveness.And this, I repeat, is also a characteristic of human life.When the consideration of the brevity of our mortal existence excites us to diligence it is well; but when we make it an argument for indolence, disgust, and despair, we should be reminded of the fact I am now endeavoring to illustrate,--the fact that even the briefest life contains a great deal, and means a great deal; and that, if we estimate things by a spiritual standard, a man's earthly being may contain more than all the cycles of the material world.From the best point of view, life is not merely a term of years and a span of action; it is a force, a current and depth of being.Indeed, considered in its most literal sense, as the vital spark of our animal organism, it is something more than a measurement of time;--it is a mysterious, informing essence.No man has yet been able to tell us what it is, where it resides, or how it acts.
We only know that when we gaze upon the features of the dead we see there the same organs that pertained to the living;but something has gone,--something of light, power, motion;and that something we call life.
But it is chiefly in a moral sense that I make the remark that life is something more than a term of years or a span of action.In fact, life is a sum of spiritual experiences; and thus one act, or result, often contains more than a century of time.Who does not understand the fact to which I now refer? Who has not felt something of it? Has not each one of us, at times, realized that he lived a year in a single day,--in a moment,--in an emotion or thought? Nay, could that experience be measured by any estimate of time? And if we should compute the length of any life by such experiences, and not by a succession of years, would it not be a long life? At least, would it not be a full and immeasurable life?
But, while every man's history will furnish instances of what I mean, let us, for the sake of clearer illustration, consider some of the experiences which are common to all.
Defining life to be depth and intensity of being, then,--a current of spiritual power, and not a mere succession of incidents,--how much we live when we acquire the knowledge of a single truth! What an inexhaustible power!--what an immeasurable experience it is! We are made absolutely stronger by it; we receive more life with it,--a new and imperishable fibre of being.Fortune cannot pluck it from us, age cannot weaken it, death cannot set limits to it.And now, with the fulness of this one experience as a test, just consider our whole mortal experience as filled up with such revelations of truth.Suppose we improve all our opportunities; into what boundless life does education admit us, and the discoveries of every day, and the ordinary lessons of the world! Tell me, is this life to be called merely a brief and worthless fact, when by a little reading, for instance, I can make the experience of other men, and lands, and ages, all mine? When in some favored hour, I can climb the starry galaxy with Newton, and pace along the celestial coast to the great harmony of numbers and unlock the mighty secret of the universe? When of a winter's night, I can pass through all the belts of climate, and all the grades of civilization on our globe; scan its motley races, learn its diverse customs, and hear the groaning of lonely ice-fields and the sigh of Indian palms? When, with Bacon, Ican explore the laboratory of nature, or with Locke, consult the mysteries of the soul? When Spenser can lead me into golden visions, or Shakespeare smite me with magic inspiration, or Milton bathe me in immortal song? When History opens for me all the gates of the past,--Thebes and Palmyra, Corinth and Carthage, Athens with its peerless glory, and Rome with its majestic pomp?--when kings and statesmen, authors and priests, with their public deeds and secret thoughts are mine? When the plans of cabinets, and the debates of parliaments, and the course of revolutions, and the results of battle, are all before my eyes and in my mind? When I can enter the inner chamber of sainted souls, and conspire with the efforts of moral heroes, and understand the sufferings of martyrs? Say, when all these deep experiences-these comprehensive truths-may be acquired through merely one privilege, is life but a dream, or a breath of air? Thus, too, do immeasurable experiences flow in to me from nature,--from planet, flower, and ocean.Thus, too, does more life come to me from contacts in the common round of action.And, I repeat, every truth thus gained expands a moment of time into illimitable being,--positively enlarges my existence, and endows me with a quality which time cannot weaken or destroy.
Consider, again, how much we really live in cherishing good affections, and in performing noble deeds.We have the familiar lines of the poet, to this point:
