Analogous with that wonderful Gulf Stream, once a myth, still a
mystery, the strange current of human existence bears each and all
of us with a strong, steady sweep from the tropic lands of sunny
childhood, enameled with verdure and gaudy with bloom, through the
temperate regions of manhood and womanhood, fruitful or fruitless as
the case may be; on to the often frigid, lonely shores of old age,
snow-crowned and ice-veined; and individual destinies seem to resemble
the tangled drift on those broad gulf billows, strewn on barren
beaches, stranded upon icebergs, some to be scorched under equatorial
heats, some to perish by polar perils; a few to take root and
flourish, building imperishable landmarks; and many to stagnate in the
long inglorious rest of the Sargasso Sea.
But really to the faithful soul nothing is lost; though the great
prizes of earth are denied us, every heroic endeavor, every struggle
to benefit the world sends treasures on high to our credit in the
grand bank of heaven.
There are the thoughts that one by one died 'ere we gave them birth,
The songs we tried in vain to sing, too sweet, too beautiful for earth.
No endeavor is in vain;
Its reward is in the doing,
And the rapture of pursuing,
Is the prize the vanquished gain.
We are all conscious of these songs we have tried in vain to sing, and
we are confident we will yet sing them when the bodily impediments are
swept away, and, as the earthly shadows lengthen, as the chill winds
of old age strengthen, we more and more appreciate the wonderful
expression of this thought, in that sweetest of all poems of the minor
key, called "The voiceless.
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