26 SEEING OUR WAY. 



derstanding, is far more valuable to us than the 

 common light of day. It is our own a light within 

 U s nothing can cloud it ; darkness itself cannot hide 

 it, if it is once kindled in the proper manner, and 

 to the proper extent. But though its illuminating 

 influence be within, we must at first light it up from 

 without ; and though it be the candle of the mind, it 

 can only be lighted by knowledge obtained through 

 the medium of those senses with which our all- 

 bountiful Creator has furnished us. The exercise 

 of those senses is OBSERVATION ; and that is the foun- 

 tain of all knowledge, and the original source of all 

 pleasure, whether that which we immediately know 

 or enjoy be or be not present to the senses. What 

 we thus obtain is unalienably vested in us for the 

 whole period of our lives. That which we have in 

 our coffers may decay through time, or be destroyed 

 by accident ; or it may be taken from us, or we from 

 it ; and' that which is told to us by others may be 

 false, or we may forget it because of the weakness 

 of the impression that it made ; but that which we 

 see with our own eyes, or otherwise perceive with 

 our own senses, is proof against accidents, against 

 time, and against forgetfulness. 



In the case of old people, even after their powers 

 of observation are decayed, and when themselves 

 are, as we would say, in their dotage, we find that 

 they enjoy themselves and are happy in the memory 

 of .their young years. Not only so; but when, in- 

 sensible, as it were, to the present, they glance back 

 for pleasure to the days that they have lived, the 

 earlier in life the occurrence is, they remember it 

 the better. And past events, and past objects, get 

 more shadowy, not as they are more remote, as is 

 the case with views in- space, but as they are nearer 

 to the present time. The man of fourscore may 

 forget that he was a man of threescore and ten ; but 

 he never forgets that he was a boy ; and one of the 

 reasons why very old people are so fond of the 



