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NATURE AND SIMPLICITY.
“The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.”
Byron.
No one of gifted mind has passed even
the first freshness of youth, without feeling
that it is not with him as it has been. Knowledge
and taste may have increased his intellectual
riches, and association may have
added her powerful spell to half the charms
of nature; but the soul does not rejoice in
these possessions, as it once did in the simple
wealth of birds and flowers.
But yet we know, where'er we go,
That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth.”
We talk very philosophically of the negative
enjoyments of childhood; and try to
convince ourselves that the light and glory
delusions of imagination. It is not well to
argue thus. There is deep meaning in the
maxim, “Reverence little children;” and it
would be better for us, both here and hereafter,
if we inscribed it on our hearts as a
spell against the festering influence of our
own bad passions. I would not, with sickly
sentimentality, mourn over states of mind
never to be entirely recalled: this idle habit
has too often wasted the strength of intellect,
and been assumed by inferior minds, incapable
of imitating anything of genius except
its errors.
But if we observe that all the world look
back to the earlier stages of being with fond
regret, ought we not to suppose there is
strong reason for so deep a feeling? If the
thoughts and affections were then veiled in
a robe of sunbeams, should we not ask
whence the light came, and why it now visits
us so transiently?
There is but one answer—we are simple
and artless then. Therefore the influence of
God is around us, and within us, like the
giving joy to those who perchance have never
known there was an atmosphere.
If, then, there is such close sympathy
between simplicity and heaven, let us earnestly
strive to “be as little children.” It
is not well to be too wise for happiness; it
is not safe to be too learned for salvation.
Byron was an intellectual Laocoon, writhing
majestically in the embrace of serpents
himself had wakened into life; but how
much wiser and happier is that meek and
quiet poet, who finds in a simple wild-flower
“thoughts too deep for tears.”
Every thing that we involuntarily love is
true to nature; and nothing that we learn to
love produces fresh and glowing emotions.
What is genius? It is but a fitting expression
of that which Nature teaches the
soul; and when our hearts thrill in sympathy
with this mysterious power, we wonder that
those simple feelings, which form the very
elements of our common nature, are not
always as artlessly expressed.
What are gracefulness and majesty? We
find them in the rapid gambols of the antelope,
and the stately motion of the eagle;
and we love and admire them because they
speak of happy freedom, careless of observers.
Art, with her utmost skill, never touches
the heart, unless she makes herself forgotten
by her close imitation of nature. Why do
we suffer pride, vanity, or ambition, to take
from us a gift, which we exert all our faculties
to seem to possess?
Our religion expressly tells us how to
“enter the kingdom of heaven;” our own
hearts repeat it with mournful tenderness,
whenever we look on the guilenessness of
infancy; and why do we persist in disobeying
the lesson?
The haughty soul of man has always
scorned simplicity. He, that was told to
wash in the pool, and be healed, was indignant
because he was not commanded to perform
some great thing; and thus it ever is
with us self-sufficient mortals. We are willing
to make extraordinary sacrifices, and act
character that would be the natural result of
a simple and sincere course. We destroy
the vitality of nature by engrafting upon her
motives taught by worldly selfishness; and
we are then obliged to counterfeit what we
cannot regain. This is the reason “a glory
has departed from the earth;” and for this
cause do the welcome indications of its return
come so rarely and so briefly, to gladden the
rich in mind, and innocent of heart. If we
were willing to “become as little children,”
we should keep our souls open to the holy
influence of God's works, as well as his
word; and then we should not have cause to
mourn over the faded brightness of our youth.
The Dodonian oracle spoke through doves
and trees; and the pure in heart may still
hear a voice in nature proclaiming truth
from heaven.
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