Page:Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse.pdf/77

 her cell she neglects to store her sweetness: You are now collecting stores of intellectual sweetness for the approaching winter of life, it may be a winter darkened with depression, infirmity, or sorrow. If you will then wish for internal resources, when the streams of external enjoyment have become embittered; if you will then need an asylum to retreat to, when the tempest of trouble is beating without, prepare now those resources, and furnish that asylum. Conquer now that folly and levity which will inscribe the tablet of remembrance, with traces not grateful to the calm eye of retrospection. Guard against associations of ideas which you would blush to pronounce, lest the pure sources of recollection should become polluted; and think no exertion too great to strengthen a talent which can cheer the days of depression and decline.

But do we not sometimes hear of the pains of memory? How can a faculty like this become painful to its possessor? Is it because it reminds us of past losses and disappointments? No! these the hand of time disarms of their anguish, and to the submissive mind they are converted into blessings. Is it the recollection of injuries or unkindness? No! these the Christian will repay with forgiveness and gentleness, and thus extract good out of evil. Is it then the remembrance of departed friends, who cherished and guided us,