Page:Poems Sherwin.djvu/36



The idea that knowledge incapacitates a person for some situations in life, is a very erroneous one. There is no state, however difficult, no employ however laborious, no situation however subordinate, no condition however low, but may be amended and rendered more easy and more respectable by a person possessed with a capacious and well cultivated mind, without doing the smallest injury to any individual, or disturbing in the slightest degree, the general order of society.

Man, in a state of ignorance, is scarcely a degree above the lower animals of the creation. In vain for him does the sun shed its mild lustre upon the earth—he feels the warmth, but sees no beauty in his smiling beams. In vain do the loveliest flowers enamel the soft grass—he passes them by unheeded: in vain do the birds chaunt forth their liveliest melody—'the sounds breath not of music in his leaden ears. Dull, sullen being: his musings are on carnal things. The thrilling voice of nature cannot rouse his drowsy soul. He may raise his eyes upwards, but he feels not those unspeakable delights which the cultivated mind experiences when gazing upon the clear blue vault of heaven, studded with countless glittering orbs, whilst the senses are soothed by the gentle pressure of the light evening breezes. Who that has experienced these pleasures would wish them to be withheld from the