The Radical

From the Sandy Mercury.

A SHORT PATENT SERMON.

The following lines will form the foundation of my present discourse;

The hoary fool who many days
Has struggled with continued sorrow,
Renews his hopes, and blurity lags
The desperate bet upon To-morrow.

My hearers—the ignis fatuus, To-morrow instead of leading us out of the swamps of trouble, only involves us in further difficulties, and the more we are guided by it the worse we are off. It is but the sunlight of hope gilding the horizon of the future, which recedes as we advance, and finally fades into the dull realities of to-day.

That delays are dangerous, and that procrastination is the thief of time, you have all doubtless read from books and ascertained by experience: and yet you go on standing still, and weary yourselves in doing nothing by the job, as though every object to be accomplished had the innate faculty of working its own completion.

The golden eggs that lie in the nest of to-morrow, hatch out a very beautiful brood of anticipations, but more than half of them are sure to die, just as they begin to feather, and feed upon the green pastures of our bosoms.

Therefore, my friends, place no confidence in the morrow. That which is to come is no more yours, to a certainty, than the offspring of an unfaithful wife. Three cents in the solid currency of to-day are preferable by far to three hundred in the shin plaster promises of a precarious to-morrow—for the bank of the latter is but a brittle bubble that looks fascinating at the fountain of the future, but bursts and disappears when tossed upon the troubled waters of the present.

My dear friends.—that man is a fool who wastes his time in endeavoring to lay salt on the tail of to-morrow; for it is a shy bird, that sings sweetly in the distant groves, but never was yet captured: and he too, is a hoary old fool whose days and years have been spent in a continued struggle with sorrow, and still depends on hope alone for release.

Were he to grab the present hour by the horns, and use every physical and mental exertion possible, he would soon be liberated from thraldom, and have the felicity of knowing that he is the procurer of his own peace, and that industry has made him the master over manifold miseries. Never, my friends, venture rashly to bet upon the color of the chameleon to-morrow. It may exhibit bright and dazzling hues in the distance, and yet when approached, how often do they change to dullness! You must be as green as grasshoppers to suppose that every star which glistens in the firmament of the future is plated with silver, or that the rainbow colors of expectation are permanent and lasting.

The flowers that grow in the meadows of memory have a perennial bloom, but those that bloom in the garden of hope, for the most part, squander their fragrance upon the desert air of ideality, and then droop to flourish no more. In a word, if you think you can lie and snooze upon the couch of carelessness, to-day, in full confidence of drawing an abundance from the treasury to-morrow, you will be as much mistaken as the boy was who endeavored to light a cigar by the latter extremity of a fire fly.

My friends—there is an immensity of wealth crowded in the narrow circle of to-day. All beyond is a sterile tract of country overshadowed by the dark wings of doubt and uncertainty. The whole of man's store is pent up in the present moment; and if this be neglected, the thieving fingers of Time will pick away quarts of the seed, which, had it been sown in season, might have produced bushels.

Procrastination. Shake the sin of sluggardness from off your shoulders, and dig with diligence for the gems that lie embedded deep in the bowels of human capacity. All that you get to-day is sure gain, but that which you purchase of to-morrow will be likely to prove a dead loss. To-morrow comes as empty as a fish's bladder, while yesterday is absquatulating it? It's morning—it's noon—it's night—and it's nothing but to-day after all. It is like all the other days which you despise on account of their barrenness; and so you look forward again in full faith and confidence of brighter ones to come till at last you find yourselves surrounded by the darkness of the tomb with the taper hope burning as bluely as a bug lamp towards morning.

My worthy hearers—you should not live too fast, but you cannot begin to live too soon. Don't defer it from day to day, for your bodies may be prepared to die ere your minds are made up for living. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years slip by us softly, silently and almost imperceptibly while we are musing and meditating upon prospective uncertainties. Let us not ponder upon the past, for it is but a faded picture of what once was, but no longer is; nor behold ourselves in the future, for it is a flattering mirror, too false and untrue to be trusted: but let us take the advantage of the present—because here are planted the seeds of all our rich prospects; and if we leave the young shoots to be choked by the weeds of neglect they can produce no more fruit than a heglape vine.

My friends—there is no such cavity between time and eternity as to-morrow. It is all delusion—a cheat The principal, and in fact the only point in man's existence is now. All back of this is swallowed in the vortex of the past; and all forward is unborn—a mere fetus in the womb of time. Improve, then, the present moment, and not sit foolishly starving, indulging in the vain hope that the morrow will furnish you with food, without any exertion on your own parts. Always be busy, and you will not be interrupted by care—keep travelling, and your ways to happiness will be worn smooth—make up your minds that you will begin to work now for your own salvation, and you need not trouble yourselves about any to-morrow, nor entertain doubts concerning a hereafter. So mote it be! Dow, Jr.