SHIPS AT SEA.
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SHIPS AT SEA.
"Whether of high or low degree. All men and women have ships at sea."
The future, whose secrets no man knoweth nor can know, seems, on account of this very fact, to possess a peculiar attraction for us all, and to furnish fancy ample material with which to build many an air-castle. Many are the plans we make to be perfected in the bright to be. There are our most fondly cherished ambitions to be realized: there are our idle fancies to become sober realities. Seeing and recognizing this propensity of man, time has been compared to an ocean, of which the hopes and aspirations of humanity are the ships at sea.
On the shore of this great ocean, limitless and vast, whose boundaries the imagination of man has never yet traced, youth and age meet on a common plane—the golden-haired child and the old man upon whose head have fallen the snows of many winters.
Although the brow of the latter may have become furrowed as the years have rolled by, and his eyes grown dim while watching for his earthly all, still hope like some guiding star ever points to the unpossessed. Although perchance the past may be strewn with wrecks, bright hopes that have been blighted, dreams that have faded in air, joyous days that have ended in sorrow, still he trusts that better things are in store. His memory sifts from the past all its pain and unpleasantness, and suffers only its beauties to remain.
What words can fitly describe the expectations of youth? What painter, be he ever so skillful, can paint them? Beautiful indeed would be the picture, though sad might be the reality. The sunset glow has fallen upon the aged man, shedding a soft halo over the present, covering the mistakes of the past, giving promise of a wonderful sunrise in another land. All the glory of morning is with youth, visions of wealth and fame
and power, hope as high as the sun in the heavens, generous impulses, untried faith in humanity.
Yes, young and old have ships at sea differently freighted it is true, for with the advance of age come larger aims and ambitions. Each along the golden sands of time listening to the waves' eternal obb and flow, with feelings of mingled hope and fear, gazes out upon the vast expanse, alike eager to catch a glimpse of a snowy sail. Each anxiously watches every wind that blows, hoping to see his gallant bark come sailing majestically home, although long it may have voyaged.
Often their dreams seem about to be realized, their ships seem almost home when some wave of misfortune, hitherto unseen, strikes it, drives it from its course and it is "lost at sea." Ah, how many such wrecks there are in life! How many ships bearing most precious burdens, go down at sea. How often is eager anticipation followed by blank depression and dismay.
On the other hand, how frequently the ship, which has seemingly made the voyage successfully, for all are not lost at sea, does not bring to port the burden which is anxiously waited for; how frequently does the realization of some cherished hope or plan fail to equal our extravagant expectations. Many times has some much coveted object when at length obtained, proved to he unworthy the trouble taken to obtain it. Be this as it may, human nature is too weak to see it in this philosophic light. We all dislike to see our attempts end in failure, our ships wrecked and stranded.
But are not we ourselves responsible for shipwrecked ships, our own and our friends? Should not we like good merchantmen take every precaution that our ship is sea-worthy that ours is a cargo useful, valuable, and one that can stand the perils of the sea, that our ship is guided by high principles and good impulses? S.M.E.