however fragrant or refreshing, can disperse the ashy heap. Can this be in accordance with the laws of order? Is not the highest happiness promised as the guerdon of the greatest goodness? What would avail the offered gift, without the capacity to receive the boon? It was manifestly designed that we should guard and cultivate this Heaven-bestowed faculty for enjoyment. In a healthful, grateful, coherent mind, it may be preserved, increased, matured from year to year, even to the very sunset of existence. The objects by which it is awakened vary, the species of enjoyment itself changes; but the expanding of the soul to pleasurable sensations remains.
Mark how quickly the man who wraps himself up in mere business avocations, and walks ploddingly, with head bent earthward, to his labors, loses his taste for the beauties of nature, for literature, for music, for the arts, for all elevating and refining pursuits. See how he carries to his fireside a dull and joyless influence, which even the smiles of a tender wife and the prattle of lovely children cannot counteract. With him the capacity for enjoyment is not merely uncultivated, but stifled; nipped in the bud. It has never been permitted to force a single blossom through the sheath of circumstance. And when in a few years the man acquires the great wealth for which he bartered this precious faculty, when rest invites him, and even prudence bids him relax his labors,
