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which put its equator beyond finite suspicion:—in other words, would it be better for man to begin life at his lowest misery, even at the last gasp of mortal agony, and slowly and evenly progress until he should reach a whole week of hearty laughter, or a week of heartfelt joy, at the the age of 30 years; or to begin life as he now does, with living instead of dying sensations, growing through a careless youth to the cares, toils, fortunes and misfortunes of manhood,—mingling his joys and sorrows, now a touch of ecstacy and now a twinge of the heart-ache, without any other consciousness of ascent than that of ever-increasing wisdom?—This gives us startling thought. What! Shall we begin in misery, and never smile for fifteen years?—nay, twenty-five? We find, thankfully, that the average plane of our lives would be far lower than we had anticipated. There are but five or six days of laughter—scarce a month of contentment in a whole lifetime. And when we further reflect that in either case the future, even as now, must be as now unknown,—for the knowledge of the future must be as now, an infinite knowledge, to share which were to dethrone the Almighty in universal confusion,—the scheme becomes altogether unpromising.

Give us a joy in our youth, and that joy draws interest for years. The memory of it is joy; the hope of its recurrence is joy, for it points to the probability of joy hereafter; and this hope is a stay to our existence. But how can we be said fairly to anticipate, or eagerly to hope for a joy which we have never conceived, or felt in our experience? This joy, though it may prove the highest joy of our grade,