Both by reason of my age and my natural temperament, I am
unfitted for either. Unable to penetrate the inscrutable judgments of
God, I am more than ever thankful that my life has been prolonged till
I could in some small measure comprehend His mercy. As there is no man
who does not at some time render himself amenable to the one,--_quum
vix Justus sit securus_,--so there is none that does not feel himself
in daily need of the other.
I confess, I cannot feel, as some do, a personal consolation for the
manifest evils of this war in any remote or contingent advantages
that may spring from it. I am old and weak, I can bear little, and can
scarce hope to see better days; nor is it any adequate compensation
to know that Nature is old and strong and can bear much. Old men
philosophize over the past, but the present is only a burthen and a
weariness. The one lies before them like a placid evening landscape;
the other is full of the vexations and anxieties of housekeeping.
It may be true enough that _miscet haec illis, prohibetque Clotho
fortunam stare_, but he who said it was fain at last to call in
Atropos with her shears before her time; and I cannot help selfishly
mourning that the fortune of our Republick could not at least stand
till my days were numbered.
Pages:
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347