Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/193

Rh than adversity, we shall find the solution of all our difficulties.

In a religious point of view, it may be permitted to endeavor to improve our temporal condition, by the use of lawful and just means, but it is never proper to repine. Christ, in the parable of the vine dressers, has taught us a sublime lesson of justice, by showing that to the things which are not our own, we can have no just claim. To this obvious truth, may be added the uncertainty of the future, and the ignorance in which we exist of what is good, or what is evil, as respects our own wants.

There is but one true mode of viewing life, either in a religious, or in a philosophical sense, and that is to remember it is a state of probation in which the trials exceed the enjoyments, and that, while it is lawful to endeavor to increase the latter, more especially if of an intellectual and elevated kind, both form but insignificant interests in the great march of time. Whatever may be the apparent inequalities here, and even they are less real than they appear to be, it is certain that we bring nothing with us into the world, and that we take nothing out of it. Every thing around us serves to teach the lesson that, though inequality of condition here is as probably intended for some great end as it is unavoidable, we come from a state of being in which we know of no such law, to go to one that we have divine revelation for believing will render the trifling disparities and the greatest advantages of this life, matters of insignificance, except as they have had an influence on our deportment, characters and faith. It would be just as discreet for a man who is suffering with hunger to murmur at having been created with such a want, while others are feeding, as to repine that another enjoys advantages he cannot possess. In this country, the aim has been to