Vol. 1 No.4 - Pg.1 - Col.3 - A BEAUTIFUL FIGURE

A BEAUTIFUL FIGURE.—Life is beautifully compared to a fountain fed by a thousand streams that perish if one he dried. It is a silver cord twisted with a thousand strings that part asunder if one be broken. Frail and thoughtless mortals are surrounded by innumerable dangers, which make it much more strange that they escape so long, than that they almost all perish suddenly at last. We are encompassed with accidents every day to crush the mouldering tenements that we inhabit. The seeds of disease are planted in our constitutions by nature. The earth and the atmosphere whence we draw the breath of our life are impregnated with death—health is made to operate its own destruction! The food that nourishes the body contains the elements of its decay; the soul that animates it by a vivifying fire tends to wear it out by its own action; death lurks in ambush along our paths. Notwithstanding this is the truth, so palpably confirmed by the daily examples before our eyes, how little do we lay it to heart! We see our friends and neighbours perish among us, but how seldom does it occur in our thoughts that our knell shall, perhaps, give the next fruitless warning to the world!