328 Musings by Camp- Fire and Wayside 



them there is no evening; it is all morning. Their 

 drowsy eyelids closed over visions of coming pleas- 

 ures, which were more real to them than the memo- 

 ries of the day. Sleep drew a transparent veil 

 before their gaze, leaving what they saw, not 

 obscured, but only softened and dimmed in their 

 dreams. We must shut off the sunlight with cur- 

 tains in the morning, and thus prolong the night, 

 that they may have sufficient rest. They are too 

 eager for the future. It is so bright and so charm- 

 ing that they will not so much as turn to glance at 

 the past. And thus it was in the morning of life: 

 looking to the future, to delightsome things to 

 come; the most of which never came, or coming, 

 were not what they appeared to be when viewed 

 from the distance. But we now look back on what 

 has been as things that are secure. Those best 

 days of the past are eternal days. The sun will 

 never set upon them. The clouds pass over them, 

 and the rain, and veil them from our view, but 

 when we look again, there they are, serene and 

 sweet in the distance. They were made immortal 

 by a good deed given or received, by an act of love 

 and of service, by a bonfire of friendship, by a 

 triumph over temptation, by a smile or a tear, or a 

 wedding or a birth. They are treasures which 

 neither moth nor rust can corrupt, nor thieves 

 break through and steal. Each one of their rising 

 suns was a new golden coin from the mint of God. 

 He who takes his journey into the beyond with his 



