Town and Country; Or, Life at Home and Abroad Part 12

WHAT IS TRUTH?

LONG, long ago, one whose life had been one of goodness-whose every act had been that of charity and good will-was persecuted, hated and maligned! He came with new hopes. He held up a light, whose rays penetrated far into the future, and disclosed a full and glorious immortality to the long doubting, troubled soul of man.

He professed to commune with angels! He had healed the sick; he had given sight to the blind; caused the lame to walk; opened prison-doors, and had preached the Gospel to the poor. Those he chose for his companions were from humble rank. Their minds had not become enslaved to any creed; not wedded to any of the fas.h.i.+onable and popular forms of the day, nor immovably fixed to any of the dogmas of the schools. He chose such because their minds were free and natural; "and they forsook all and followed him."

Among the rulers, the wealthy and the powerful, but few believed in him, or in the works he performed. To them he was an impostor. In speaking of his labors some cant phrase fell from their wise lips, synonymous with the "it is all a humbug" of our day. His healing of the sick was denied; or, if admitted, was said to be some lucky circ.u.mstance of fate. His opening of the eyes of the blind was to them a mere illusion; the supposed cure, only an operation of the imagination.

All his good deeds were underrated; and those who, having seen with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears, were honest enough to believe and openly declare their belief; were looked upon by the influential and those in high places as most egregiously deceived and imposed upon.

But, notwithstanding the opposition, men did believe; and in one day three thousand acknowledged their belief in the sincerity of the teacher, and in the doctrines which he taught.

Impressed deeply with the reality and divinity of his mission,--looking to G.o.d as his father, and to all mankind as his brethren,--Jesus continued his way. To the scoffs and jeers of the rabble, he replied in meekness and love; and amid the proud and lofty he walked humbly, ever conscious of the presence of an angelic power, which would silence the loudest, and render powerless the might of human strength.

He spoke as one having authority. He condemned the formalism of their wors.h.i.+p; declared a faith that went deeper than exterior rites and ceremonies; and spoke with an independence and fearlessness such deep and soul-searching truths, that the people took up stones to stone him, and the priests and the rulers held council together against him.

At length the excited populace, beholding their cherished faith undermined, and the new teacher day by day inculcating doctrines opposed to those of Moses and the prophets, determined to take his life, and thus terminate his labors and put a stop to his heresies.

They watched his every movement. They stood by and caught the words as they fell from his lips, hoping thus to get something by which to form an accusation against him. In this they failed. Though what he said was contrary to their time-worn dogmas, yet nothing came from his lips but sentiments of the purest love, the injunctions of reason and justice, and the language of humanity. Failing in this plan to ensnare him, justice was set abide, and force called in to their aid.

See him now before a great tribunal, and Pilate, troubled in soul, compelled to say, "I find no fault in this man."

Urged to action by the mad crowd around him, balancing his decision between justice, the prisoner's release, and injustice, the call to crucify him, he knows not what to do. In an agony of thought, which pen cannot describe or human words portray, he delays his irrevocable doom.

In the mean time, the persecutors grow impatient; and louder than ever, from the chief priests and the supporters of royalty, goes up the infamous shout, "Crucify him, crucify him!" At this moment, the undecided, fearful Pilate casts a searching glance about him. As he beholds the pa.s.sionate people, eager for the blood of one man, and he innocent, and sees, standing in their midst, the meek and lowly Jesus, calm as an evening zephyr over Judea's plains, from whose eye flows the gentle love of an infinite divinity,--his face beaming in sympathy with every attribute of goodness, faith and humanity,--all this, too, before his mad, unjust accusers, from whose eyes flash in mingled rays the venom of scorn and hate,--his mind grows strong with a sense of right. His feelings will not longer be restrained, and, unconscious of his position, forgetting for the moment the dignity of his office, he exclaims, with the most emphatic earnestness, "WHAT IS TRUTH?"

Eighteen hundred years have intervened between that day and this; and now the same inquiry is heard, and often with the same earnestness as then. Men ask, and often ask in vain, "what is truth?" and yet the great problem to millions remains unsolved.

Generations pa.s.s on, and leave to others the great question for them to ask, and they, in turn, to leave unanswered. The child, ere it can speak in words, looks from its wistful eye, "What is truth?"

Youth comes, and all the emotions of the soul are awakened. It arises from the playfulness of childhood, forgets its little games, and, finding itself an actor in the drama of life, looks over the long programme of parts from which it is to choose its own, and anxiously inquires "What is truth?" Manhood feels the importance of the question; and Age, though conscious of its near approach to the world of revealed truth, repeats it.

The present is an era of thought. Men begin to a.s.sume a spirit of independence, and to look less upon human authority, and more upon that light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. And it is well that it is so. It is well that we begin to look upon liberty in another light than a mere absence of iron bonds upon our hands and feet; that we begin to discern that "He is a freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves beside." We are pressing on to know the truth. We have grown weary of darkness, and are seeking the light. We should remember, in our researches, that, to find out truth, we must not be pledged to any form, any opinion, or any creed, however old or dearly cherished such limitations may have been with ourselves or others. We must come to the task like little children, ready to learn. We must leave our beliefs behind us. We must not bring them, and attempt to adapt our discoveries in the realms of eternal truth to them; but we must build up the structure with the material we find in the universe of G.o.d; and then, when reared, if we find that in doing so we have a stone from our old temple nicely adjusted in the new, very well;--let it remain, and thank G.o.d for it.

Men have trusted too much in the views of past ages, and taken for truth many an error, because some one back in by-gone ages introduced it as such, and it has been believed in and held most sacred.

Let our course be our own course, and not that of others. Let us seek for truth as truth. Let us be honest and press on, trusting in G.o.d the rewarder of all, who will bless all our efforts to ascertain his truths, and our duty to him, to our fellow-men, and to ourselves.

THE HOMESTEAD VISIT.

He had wandered far and long, and when, on his return to the scenes of his early life, he came in full view of the old house, in which and around which those scenes were cl.u.s.tered, he throw down his oaken staff, raised his hands, and clapped them like a child. Then a tear would roll down his face; then a smile illumine it; then he would dance with joy. As he approached the building, he observed that the door was open; and the large, hospitable-looking room was so inviting, and there being no one present, he entered, and indulged in thoughts like these:

I STAND where I have stood before: The same roof is above me, But they who were are here no more, For me to love, or love me.

I listen, and I seem to hear A favorite voice to greet me; But yet I know that none are near, Save stranger forms, to meet me.

I'll sit me down,--for I have not Sat here since first I started To run life's race,--and on this spot Will muse of the departed.

Then I was young, and on my brow The rays of hope were s.h.i.+ning; But Time hath there his imprint now, That tells of life's declining.

How great the change!-though I can see Full many a thing I cherished- Yet, since beneath yon old oak tree I stood, how much hath perished.

Here is the same old oaken floor, And there the same rough ceiling Each telling of the scenes of yore, Each former joys revealing.

But, friends of youth-they all have fled; Some yet on earth do love us; While others, pa.s.sed beyond the dead, Live guardian ones above us.

Yet, o'er us all one powerful hand Is raised to guard forever, And all, ere long, one happy band Be joined, no more to sever.

I've trimmed my sail on every sea Where crested waves are swelling; Yet oft my heart turned back to thee, My childhood's humble dwelling.

I've not forgot my youthful days, The home that was my mother's, When listening to the words of praise That were bestowed on others.

See, yonder, through the window-pane, The rock on which I rested; And on that green how oft I've lain- What memories there are vested!

The place where once a sister's hand I held-none loved I fonder; But she's now with an angel band, Whilst I a pilgrim wander.

There was a pretty, blue-eyed girl, A good old farmer's daughter; We used the little stones to hurl, And watch them skip the water.

We'd range among the forest trees, To gather woodland flowers; And then each other's fancy please In building floral bowers.

Within this room, how many a time I've listened to a story, And heard grandfather sing his rhyme 'Bout Continental glory!

And oft I'd shoulder his old staff, And march as proud as any, Till the old gentleman would laugh, And bless me with a penny.

Hark! 't is a footstep that I hear; A stranger is approaching; I must away-were I found here I should be thought encroaching.

One last, last look-my old, old home!

One memory more of childhood!

I'll not forget, where'er I roam, This homestead and the wild-wood.

THE MARINER'S SONG.

O THE sea, the sea! I love the sea!

For nothing on earth seems half as free As its crested waves; they mount on high, And seem to sport with the star-gemmed sky.

Talk as you will of the land and sh.o.r.e; Give me the sea, and I ask no more.

I love to float on the ocean deep, To be by its motion rocked to sleep; Or to sit for hours and watch the spray, Marking the course of our outward way, While upward far in a cloudless sky With a shriek the wild bird pa.s.seth by.

And when above are the threatening clouds, And the wild wind whistles 'mid the shrouds, Our masts bend low till they kiss the wave, As beckoning one from its ocean cave, Then hurra for the sea! I love its foam, And over it like a bird would roam.

There is that's dear in a mountain home, With dog and gun 'mid the woods to roam; And city life hath a thousand joys, That quiver amid its ceaseless noise; Yet nothing on land can give to me Such joy as that of the pathless sea.

When morning comes, and the sun's first rays All around our gallant topmast plays, My heart bounds forth with rapturous glee, O, then, 't is then that I love the sea!

Talk as you will of the land and sh.o.r.e; Give me the sea, and I ask no more!