Hope. Hope sets the stamp of vanity on all That men have deemed substantial since the fall. Hope, with uplifted feet, set free from earth, On steady wings sails through th' immense abyss, HOPE is one of the grand operative principles of our nature: it is the hinge on which turn a majority of our actions; and it is the impelling motive of almost every thing we perform. Hope is probably a blessing that is confined solely to man, for we have no reason to conclude that quadrupeds, insects, and birds, in providing for their future safety and accommodation, have any idea of that futurity against which they provide; or that they act otherwise than under the impulse of a present instinct, mercifully and providentially given them by the beneficent Creator of the universe. But though hope among terrestrial creatures, be exclusively confined to human beings, among them it is universally diffused, from the potent monarch on his throne, to the meanest wretch that grovels in * Cowper, the dust. Yes: even the monarch who appears to have attained the height of glory and ambition, can still find some wish ungratified-something else to hope for and if a beam of light gleams not on the soul of the fettered captive, he cannot live;he is, of all men, the most miserable. Like all the other principles which incite men to action, hope may be considered as a compound of good and evil; yet only relatively so: for abstractedly considered, hope is an unalloyed good, and becomes evil only when it is mis-applied. Hope is the balm of human life. It prevents us from sinking under the weight of afflictions, and enables us to brave the storms of adversity. It is a ray of the intellectual sun, which shines upon our souls when the clouds of disease and misery envelope us, and saves us from madness and despair. Imagination and hope are always united, for we cannot hope for that of which we have no idea, and an idea of futurity can only be formed by imagination; and thus the hopes of human beings vary with their years and the progressive perfection of their intellectual faculties: for the hopes of the child are not those of the youth, nor the hopes of the youth those of the man. Cold is his heart that can look back with apathy on the hopes of his childhood; when life was young -the world unknown-and nature appeared in her most lovely hues. When the existence of guilt was an incomprehensible paradox, and when the heart was free from every evil passion and painful feeling. And O! that some native instinct would teach us to avoid the man who never felt, or has forgotten the fervid wishes, the sanguine hopes, and the delightful anticipations of youth, ever the season of pleasure and of thrilling passion, except in those instances where the iron hand of adversity has checked the exuberant flow of youthful spiritgiven to the blood the chill of years—and prematurely called forth the exertions of intellectual power. We have a wonderful facility in persuading ourselves that there is room to hope for that which we wish to obtain; and, therefore, as the wishes, so are the hopes of the man different from those of the child and of the youth. The passions now burn with a less glowing heat, and are more checked by prudence than in the days of youthful fervour; and he now directs his hopes to glory-to ambitious elevation to riches to literary successes or scientific fame; although indeed, these sometimes form the hopes of the youth as well as those of the man. The hope of obtaining the object of our wishes subdues indolence, and makes us exert ourselves to procure the fruition of our desires. The hope of reward and approbation impels even the child to exertion, and very often that line of conduct which at first-needed the stimulus of anticipated reward, has, in time, become habitual and difficult to be forsaken, both in the instances of children and of men. Hope is generally more pleasing than the fruition of our wishes, because these wishes are fixed on objects which cannot communicate happiness. When we pursue the bawble which is the present object of our hopes, its apparent beauty animated us, and pleasure is afforded to us in the anticipated possession of it; but, when we come to enjoy it, we are disappointed to find, that like the apples of Sodom, it is but dust and ashes. Thus disap-, pointed, we engage in a fresh pursuit-again possess-and are again dissatisfied. All men have hoped; and which of them has found happiness in the fruition of his hopes? None! This is a fact: and from it, even if revelation were unknown to me, I should deduce the important inference that there is a future state. For, as no man ever on earth reached that point of exultation where hopes and wishes cease, it must be evident to every thinking being, who admits the existence of a Deity, that we have another homea native home, in some "undiscovered country" where our wishes shall not remain ungratified, nor our hopes be disappointed; for which on earth we can discover no substitute, and where we shall "dwell in fulness of joy for evermore.” This home is the true point to which our hopes should be directed; and this is the hope of which the Poet spoke, when he said Hope of all passions, most befriends us here, Hope, fixed on a future state, is hope indeed.The storms of adversity make little impression on him whose eye is firmly fixed on eternity :-in sickness and distress he does not despair, for he looks forward to that happy period when his griefs shall be no longer remembered, and when his troubled head shall find repose in "The bosom of his Father and his God." Let it not be thought that I undervalue human hope;-no: I only assert its inferiority to that hope where our views are directed to the skies. The pursuit of hope is pleasure, though its fruition be disappointment; and it disappoints us only because we discover that something else is necessary to our happiness, even when we have obtained the possession of that, which, when we pursued it, we fancied would be our ultimate good. * Young. |