Page:Opening of the Connecticut Asylum Sermon 1817.djvu/8

 recovery from sickness. He, who has always trod the soil, and breathed the air, of freedom, cannot sympathize with the feelings of ecstacy, which glow in the breast of him, who having long been the tenant of some dreary dungeon, is brought forth to the cheering influence of light and liberty.

But there is a sickness more dreadful than that of the body; there are chains more galling than those of the dungeon—the immortal mind preying upon itself, and so imprisoned as not to be able to unfold its intellectual and moral powers, and to attain to the comprehension and enjoyment of those objects, which the Creator has designed as the sources of its highest expectations and hopes. Such must often be the condition of the uninstructed deaf and dumb! What mysterious darkness must sadden their souls! How imperfectly can they account for the wonders that surround them. Must not each one of them, in the language of thought, sometimes say, "What is it that makes me differ from my fellow men? Why are they so much my superiors? What is that strange mode of communicating, by which they understand each other with the rapidity of lightning, and which enlivens their faces with the brightest expressions of joy? Why do I not possess it, or why can it not be communicated to me? What are those mysterious characters, over which they pore with such incessant delight, and which seem to gladden the hours that pass by me so sad and cheerless! What mean the ten thousand customs, which I witness in the private circles and the public assemblies, and which possess such mighty influence over the conduct and feelings of those around me? And that termination of life; that placing in the cold bosom of the earth, those whom I have loved so long and so tenderly; how it makes me shudder!—What is death?—Why are my friends thus laid by and forgotten?—Will they never revive from this strange slumber?—Shall the grass always grow over them?—Shall I see their faces no more forever?—And must I also thus cease to move and fall into an eternal sleep"!!