The Uses of Literature [pp. 80-81]

THE USES OF LITERATURE.
immortality, and sit down among the loved and
cherished ones lost to me for a brief season.
The dear one passed away as calmly as an infant
to its slumber; and as I closed the dark-fringed lid,
the words of a dear friend came to my memory.
He was a man whose affections were all in heaven;
and as he stood by the yawning grave of his child,
he exclaimed, "Farewell, Claudius, till the morning of the resurrection!" " Till the morning of the
resurrection!" How often have those words rang
in my ears, while standing by the bedside of a dying friend! There we are certain of meeting once
more.
It is the last night of the year, dear. The
weather has grown winter-like, indeed, and nature
seems to mourn the expiring year. The past has
been an eventful year. Thrones have fallen, the
"powers of the earth have been shaken," and the
world seems to be convulsed to its centre. What
do these agonizing throes portend? Surely the
future is "big with events," for the shadows are
mighty. For myself, I look back with sadness.
Many hopes are buried with the year, that were
bright at its beginning-many resolves have been
broken, which I deemed were firm, and ties for
ever broken, that I thought could never be dissolved. Poor human nature, how vain is all thy
boasted strength! how worse than futile thy reliance
upon self! how weak the bulwarks raised by thy
trembling hands in the hour of temptation! When
wilt thou learn that in God alone is thy refuge-in
the Redeemer is all thy strength?
The night wanes. Through the eastern window of
my chamber the "bright bands of Orion" are softly
beaming. The three which form the glorious belt of
the hero, have always had a peculiar charm for my
heart-they are called, by the Spaniards, "the three
Marys." Do you remember, my friend, some verses
of mine addressed to those three stars, about two
years ago? Then three Marys were enshrined within my heart's core. Two have departed-one, the
dearest of all earthly friends, my mother, is at rest;
and the starlight of my soul is darkened until we
meet again: the other has gone in the spring-tide
of youth. Beauty, love, and hope were hers in an
eminent degree; but, turning away from the cup of
life, ere any of its bitterness had been tasted, she
sought a rest beside the "river that maketh glad
the city of our God."
But one of the three Marys is left to me now;
but those in that bright constellation shine on as
sweetly as ever, whispering to my heart of the
vanity of all earthly affection. My heart is sad,
dear friend; and the last moment of forty-eight has
rolled into the fathomless abyss of time, and is
buried in the tomb of ages: so, for a time, goodbye!
.,I.
REDEMPTION is the most glorious theme of the
loftiest intellects of the universe-of the mental
powers of the sons of light themselves.
THE USES OF LITERATURE.
BY OTWAY CURRY, ]EQ.
IT is said by an old writer, that "learning, like a
fitful stream, hath, from the first, swept deviously
adown the rugged ages; sometimes idly and wast ingly creeping through long-drawn tracts of ster ility; sometimes widening, and deepening, and flow ing, like a great wave of gladdening sunshine; anon
obscured and hidden, like as by shadows of the
deepmost night-but yet again emerging, and so
remaining as never to be wholly lost, and yielding
withal much help and much delight to man."
Making the abatement due here, by reason of the
style being a little too ornate, and the conceit a
little to fanciful, still the figure is a pleasant one.
Standing, as it were, upon the ideal eminence of
the present, and looking to the past, the multitudi nous ages may well seem like the changing features
of an interminably outstretching and receding land scape. And so, also, may the progress of learning
seem like the moving waters of a perpetual stream.
Away back at the furthest reach of vision, we can but
dimly trace its track. Even in the twilight of time,
however, its now-deserted shores were marked with
monuments, which are still standing in their lonely
grandeur. At distant intervals the stream grew
bold and fair. At midway of its course it seemed
to be fated to disappear for ever. But now, amidst
these years, it has become vast in its dimensions,
and most stately in its flow.
The best part of the quoted passage is that in
which the stream of literature is said to be "yield ing much help and much delight to man." That
is the statement of a great truth. Literature, in its
broad sense, is learning. The works of art, of ev ery age and clime, were the results of the exertion
of physical force, which force was exerted under
the influence and control of mind. And in this
exertion of influence learning was to mind its light
and its instrument. Compare, then, civilized man,
when in the full enjoyment of the productions of
the art, with man in a state of nature, and it is
palpable that if the condition of the former is bet ter than that of the latter, by very nearly so much
is he helped or benefited by literature. In this view
of the case, the mere physical help and enjoyment
yielded by literature swells up to an incalculable
amount. And it is this view which should espe cially be commended to certain plodding and near sighted practicalists and utilitarians, who are ac customed to speak of literature as being a fantastic
and useless thing. Were literature and its results
all things unknown to earth, these practicalists
would of necessity be engaged, to-day, in the
dreary avocations of savage life. Most probably
the wilderness would be their home. Their daily
walks would be amidst the lairs of beasts of prey.
'The busy marts of commerce, the smiling fields of
agriculture, and the teeming wonders of mechan ism would all be things undreamed of.
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