den; hewers of
wood and drawers of water, who think that the wood they hew and the
water they draw, are better than the pine-forests that cover the
mountains like the shadow of God, and than the great rivers that move
like his eternity. And so comes upon us that woe of the preacher, that
though God "hath made everything beautiful in his time, also he hath set
the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God
maketh from the beginning to the end."

Sec. 6. The evil consequences of such interpretation. How connected with
national power.

This Nebuchadnezzar curse, that sends us to grass like oxen, seems to
follow but too closely on the excess or continuance of national power
and peace. In the perplexities of nations, in their struggles for
existence, in their infancy, their impotence, or even their
disorganization, they have higher hopes and nobler passions. Out of the
suffering comes the serious mind; out of the salvation, the grateful
heart; out of the endurance, the fortitude; out of the deliverance, the
faith; but now when they have learned to live under providence of laws,
and with decency and justice of regard for each other; and when they
have done away with violent and external sources of suffering, worse
evils seem arising out of their rest, evils that vex less and mortify
more, that suck the blood though they do not shed it, and ossify the
heart though they do not torture it. And deep though the causes of
thankfulness must be to every people at peace with others and at unity
in itself, there are causes of fear also, a fear greater than of sword
and sedition; that dependence on God may be forgotten because the bread
is given and the water is sure, that gratitude to him may cease because
his constancy of protection has taken the semblance of a natural law,
that heavenly hope may grow faint amidst the full fruition of the world,
that selfishness may take place of undemanded devotion, compassion be
lost in vain-glory, and love in dissimulation,[3] that enervation may
succeed to strength, apathy to patience, and the noise of jesting words
and foulness of dark thoughts, to the earnest purity of the girded loins
and the burning lamp. About the river of human life there is a wintry
wind, though a heavenly sunshine; the iris colors its agitation, the
frost fixes upon its repose. Let us beware that our rest become not the
rest of stones, which so long as they are torrent-tossed, and
thunde