2 SEEING OUR WAY. 



This seeing with the mind this light of the un- 

 derstanding, is far more valuable to us than the 

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

 us 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 fountain of all knowledge, and the original 

 source of all pleasure, whether that which we im- 

 mediately 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 forget- 

 fulness. 



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, insensible as it were to the pre- 

 sent, 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, 



