THE HOUSE I LIVE IN. 4 No building, however ancient, however elegant, however costly, concerns me so much as the house I live in. And yet, unless I am constantly urged, nay, driven to the task, I am disposed to overlook it, and to study the structure, arrangements, regulations, internal economy, and ultimate objects of every other building in preference. Fortunately for my own happiness, and not less so for the happiness of those around me, since their happiness must always, in a measure, rise or fall with my own,-I am thus urged, thus compelled to withdraw my thoughts from traversing other climes, plunging into distant and remote habitations, and reading suns and stars, and to fix them on this humble, but at the same time fearful and wonderful dwelling. Every want 1 feel, every pang I endure, every imperfection I find in the frame, the covering or the furniture, every symptom of decay I perceive in either,. reminds me that I have left undone something which should have been done, or done something which ought not to have been done, and that I am now receiving, in my own person, a just measure of punishment for the transgression. This concession of guilt may strike some individuals as uncalled for. Such a thing has certainly been known, I shall be told, as the confession of faults by one who was entirely innocent. But such confessions are usually extorted by fear, from the timid or inexperienced. On the contrary, my confessions are voluntary, the result of many years' observation and experience. Let me not be understood as representing, that my own errors are the sole cause of every want or pang I feel, and of every defect; but only that none of these are ever felt, or ever exist, to which my own errors and mistakes have not greatly contributed; if they have not been,-which I believe has sometimes happened,—their sole origin. My whole life consists of a struggle to sustain the house I live in, and prevent its destruction. Like other material substances, it is subject to the law of gravitation, and such is its peculiar structure, that were it not constantly and vigorously supported by the efforts of every moment, during my waking hours, it would fall to the earth. All the streams that run through its various apartments, would also pour their congregated flood into the lower apartments, and there remain. Why should they not? By what law is it, that these numerous rivulets are continually pursuing their course, up hill as well as down hill, for seventy, eighty or a hundred years, when the laws of gravitation are continually forcing every surrounding stream, on which my eye rests, downward? Let this struggle which I am constantly sustaining in my frame, against gravitation and the mechanical laws, cease, but for one short hour, and the house in which I reside, forsaken in its upper apartments by every fountain that once flowed there, would soon fall to the earth tenantless, and useless to others. All the fluids in our atmosphere, if left free to the action of air, light and heat, are constantly evaporating; and five sixths of the material of the house in which I reside, are subject to this law of evaporation. Now, if I withhold my efforts to sustain the house, but for an hour, it is injured; and in a few hours, or at most a day or two, destroyed. I must eveu continue,and do continue,-the struggle, to a certain extent, while I sleep. In the midst of a temperature of 20° below zero, I am also obliged to struggle, or the frost would shiver every one of my timbers, and, in half an hour, leave my mansion tenantless and wretched. Once more, there is a perpetual tendency of the whole frame-work, covering and furniture, to yield to the chemical laws. If I do not resist most manfully, by the vital forces placed at my command within, both in my waking and sleeping hours, if the struggle is intermitted but for a few minutes,― a change commences; fermentation, putrefaction, decomposition, ensue; and the fabric is destroyed for ever. "The dust returns to dust as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." Now, the application of all this to the case before us is as follows: Just in proportion to the energy with which I maintain this struggle,-just in proportion to the exactness with which I obey all the laws of God, as established in this frame, -just in the same proportion is its duration and usefulness. I have said, that if I neglect the conflict but for a short time,an hour or a day, as the case may be,-all goes to decay, if not to destruction. The fact is, that if I am guilty of neglect, but for the twinkling of an eye, mischief is done. You ask, perhaps, how I can watch and struggle while I sleep? Does not the skilful defender of a fort against its besiegers, maintain the conflict for days, often with success,-though yielding, for a few hours, occasionally, to an imperative demand, he solicits the aid of "nature's sweet restorer,-balmy sleep?" In fact, this is one of the necessary means of keeping up the struggle. He must sleep, at times, and so must his men. But, if his army is well disciplined, and its numbers sufficient, it is easy to make such arrangements, that the defence shall continue, though a part of his forces, and even himself sleep. While I sleep, therefore, if every previous, necessary arrangement is made, the struggle can go on as well as if I were awake; and, in the end, far better. |