Sweethearts and Wives CHAPTER 6.
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"Your bark is now fairly upon the waters, my children," Mrs. Ellis said to the happy young couple a few days after their marriage, "and the sea appears calm and pleasant before you. I desire that it would remain thus calm and pleasant — unto the end of your voyage. But it will not remain with a surface all unruffled, nor will a sky unobscured by clouds, bend always smilingly over you as now. The face of nature is a true representative of life: Today the leaves are bright, the air mild and balmy, and the earth rejoicing in sweet blossoms and fruits, with rich foliage gently undulating in the summer breezes. Tomorrow all is changed. Thick clouds have obscured the sun, and a tempest has burst from the very sky, which but yesterday was all bright and serene. In a little while, this passes away, and all looks calm and beautiful as before — except here and there some token of the storm: a broken branch, a riven tree-trunk, or some beautiful garden with its mirthful blossoms all marred by the wind and rain.
"Thus, my dear children, will your life be checkered by sunshine and storm. Pray to God, that the tempest-marks are not too deep!"
"You are in a soberer mood than usual this morning, aunt." Grace said, half laughing, half serious.
"I rarely see anyone for whom I feel a strong regard, entering upon life as you are now, without feeling sober. That you will be happy in each other, and continue to love each other with increasing affection, I am sure. But I am also sure that you will be tried in the fire, as all are in this life — 'Your dross to consume, and your gold to refine.' Without being thus tried, you cannot possibly so know yourselves, and so understand life's truest and best ends, as to be really happy."
"I don't wish to be any happier than I now am!" Grace replied to this, looking up into her husband's face with a glance of fond confidence. "I am perfectly happy."
"No doubt of it, my child," Mrs. Ellis said; "but life is not all a honeymoon. The blossom, with its beauty and fragrance — both so delightful to the sense — sports only for a brief season in the breeze and sunshine, and then gives place to the hardier and externally less attractive fruit; and this, warmed by the sun, matured and strengthened by the storm — swells into delicious maturity.
"In which state, do you suppose — is the tree endowed with consciousness like you, would it be most truly happy: in the gentle spring-time, when each bough puts forth a hundred sweet blossoms, and loaded the breeze with rich fragrances — or in sober autumn, when every branch was bending with golden fruit? Surely it would be happier far when the endfor which it had put forth its blossoms, was gained. The tree would not delight in its blossoms because they were beautiful and fragrant alone — but because they were a sweet promise of fruit, the end of its existence. So should it be with you, my children. You are now in the springtime of life, your young minds blossoming with a like rich promise of fruit. Do not, then, rest in the mere delight you now feel. Think of the true end of your existence."
"What is that true end?" asked the husband of Grace.
"To bring into active use, all the gifts which have been freely given to you — even as the tree does, for the good of all."
"We are not, then, to live for ourselves?"
"Certainly not! Does the tree produce fruit for itself? Is all the delight we have imagined it to feel in the production of this fruit, in consequence of a selfish anticipation? No! it is a happy laborer for the good of others, and thankfully receives its own portion in due season from the bountiful storehouse of nature."
"But we are not trees," Grace said, smiling.
"Nor angels either, my dear; and yet the same principle of delight in living for others, and not for ourselves — appertains to the angels. If primarily to regard others is a true principle in Heaven — ought it not to be true also on earth? Can any principle opposite to a heavenly principle, be other than evil? Surely it cannot require more than a single abstract thought, to make you conscious that to regard only your own happiness is wrong. In everything we see from the hand of a wise Creator, that has not been perverted by evil, is apparent this regard to use.
"Look, first, at the mineral kingdom. What is the effort there? Is it to sustain itself merely — or is it not to sustain the vegetable kingdom? Again, see how, in the vegetablekingdom — the end is to sustain the animal kingdom; and in all three of these kingdoms — the end is to sustain man. How beautifully apparent is this to the most thoughtless observer!
"Look, also, to the human body. The arm does not labor for itself, the eye see for itself, nor the ear hear for itself. Is it to sustain its own life, that the heart toils on with unremitting energy, or that the lungs perform, whether we sleep or wake, their allotted duty? No! Each organ and member of the body labors for the good of the whole, and receives its sustenance from the whole. And thus would it be in human society, which is truly a man, only in a larger form than the individual, because a complex of individuals — were each one governed by true principles. Each one must have a broad and generous regard for the whole, instead of selfishly struggling to appropriate all the good things of life to himself.
"As I have just remarked," continued Mrs. Ellis, "you are both now in the spring-time of fragrant blossoms, and you are happy in the beauty and sweetness which surrounds you; but do not commit the fatal error of resting contented with the blossoms; hail them rather as the precursors of fruit, that when they have lived their brief day, and fallen to the ground — you may be blessed in the consciousness that each has left a seed which will grow into ripe and delicious fruit, freely to be given for the good of all.
"Believe me, my children, that in now setting out in life, you cannot commit an error which will be more fatal to your happiness — than the error of believing that you are primarily to consider yourselves, instead of others. This may sound strange to you, and it would have sounded strange to me, had anyone thus spoken to me when at your age. Nevertheless, it is a truth, and one which I never cease to regret that I had not known and believed, in years long since passed into oblivion. The desire of being useful to othersis the only thing that can truly conjoin you as one. It is the end which unites. If your end is a generous regard to the good of society as one man — then nothing can come in to disturb the unity with which you seek that end. But if happiness to yourselves is the end — then you become separated into individuals, each of whom has a distinct regard to the means of attaining happiness, and must, sooner or later, interfere with each other. This is inevitable.
"If two, in the effort to act as one, make happiness an end, they will find opposing principles existing in themselves, which will create mutual unhappiness. Just so of a society, which unites to secure benefit to itself, regarding itself above the common good. Internal discords will be generated, for each individual who unites under such a principle, will regard his own good more than he does the good of his society, and, therefore, will be watchful and suspicious in regard to every act, lest it affect him personally. The same holds good in regard to political parties, which I need not tell you, Lewis, are ever and always rent in sunder by internal divisions. The causes of these, are fully apparent from what I have said.
"Study, then, to put away a merely selfish regard for your own happiness, and endeavor to think of others, and to make good to the whole an end. If you do this, then a regard for each other will come naturally, as an end superior to a regard for self; and then you will be truly happy in your wedded life, no matter whether there are clouds or sunlight in your sky!"
"I believe yours is the true philosophy," Milnor said, with a thoughtful air, as Mrs. Ellis ceased speaking, "but I do not know who can fully adopt it. For my part, I feel that I am tooselfish to devote myself to the well-being of others; nor do I see, in the present state of the world, that any such devotion would result in good."
"It would not, if you neglected your ordinary duties, to run about, Quixotically, to redress wrong and relieve the needy."
"But my ordinary duties regard my own interests. I follow my profession as a lawyer from personal ends."
"Could you not follow it as energetically as you now do, if you mainly regarded justice to the whole community?"
"Perhaps I might, though I doubtless would be prevented from undertaking prosecutions for the sake of heavy fees, that I knew could not be successful without doing violence to justice."
"And in not undertaking such prosecutions, you would be governed by a regard to the public good?"
"Certainly — and that would be right."
"Can a truly honest man act in any other way?"
"You probe closely, Aunt Mary; but I suppose I must answer you in the negative."
"Now, is it not possible for every man, no matter what orderly occupation he may follow, to be governed in every transaction by a regard to the good of his neighbor — and yet not suffer in his individual interests?"
"I suppose it is."
"As, for instance, may not the soldier fight from a love of country just as faithfully, and even far more so — than from the merely selfish love of pay, or a reputation for courage? And may not the magistrate dispense justice as truly when governed by considerations of equity — as when governed by some end to his own interests? And so of the physician, the merchant, the artisan, the tiller of the ground, and others? And further, will not the soldier stand as good a chance of honor and advancement, the magistrate of retention in his office, the physician, the merchant, the artisan, and others — of the just reward of their toil, as if they were governed solely by personal ends?"
"Assuredly they will."
"Then you see, that for anyone to act from an end of good to the whole, is not to injure himself. Is it not possible for you to plead the cause of innocence — as faithfully with justice as the leading end in your mind, as you could were a fee the governing impulse?"
"Yes, and perhaps far more so."
"You say right. The higher, and purer, and therefore the less selfish the end from which a man acts — the clearer will be his mind, and the more powerful his demonstrations of truth."
"Doubtless, an immutable truth. My own experience in my profession corroborates it. The best effort I ever made was one in which I became voluntarily the counsel of a poor, but injured man."
"The pure love of justice which you then felt — opened your mind to an influx of light from above, from whence all that is good and true flows down to us."
"And therefore the purer, and, consequently, higher our ends of action — the more are our minds opened to the reception of light from above."
"Yes, and as all true wisdom and power are from above, only those who by pure ends connect themselves, as it were, with Heaven, can have true power."
"But, Aunt Mary, I know men of impure minds, and evil ends of life — who yet have vigorous intellects, and who sway the multitude at will."
"Theirs is the power of darkness, and by it they move men by what is evil in them."
"But have we not men in high and important stations, who are known to have sought those stations merely for the sake of power and emolument, who yet discharge the duties of their offices with justice and judgment?"
"We have."
"Does not this destroy your position?"
"No; there is power in order, and, therefore, in orderly official stations. In other words, there is a power in office that is independent of the incumbent's individual character. Place any man in office, and while in it — he is a different man from what he is when out of it, and acts from a different influx of light into his mind. The end of the office being good to the whole, the man who fills the office, although he may be a very selfish man, and cares nothing for the office except for the sake of what it gives him — will, in all his official acts, have more or less regard to the general good. Still, it often happens that a man becomes so thoroughly depraved in mind, that he will pervert his office for selfish ends. These instances, however, are not glaring."
"To act from a general regard to the good of the whole as a principle of life, now that you have presented it to my mind clearly — seems very beautiful," Milnor said, speaking in an earnest voice.
"A very beautiful theory, truly," added Grace.
"A thoroughly practical principle, I am satisfied," remarked Milnor, with emphasis.
"It is, my dear children," resumed Mrs. Ellis, "eminently practical, and involves, as I have before said — your best interests in life."
"I feel deeply conscious that it does," Milnor returned. "I never saw the whole subject of life as I now see it; I never felt that so much hung upon our ends of action. Now I see that upon them, everything depends. Life is a matter of serious consideration."
<p align="justify">"So I would think by your countenance," Grace said, laughing. "I never saw you look so solemn in my life!"
This playful sally turned the subject into a less absorbing and more cheerful current.
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