Memory is faithful, but while we remember with affection
that we were Tom and Dick to each other then (twenty
years ago) we cannot, out of that slender material,
build up a hearty fraternal conversation of to-day.
And with advancing years we find that the old subjects
that we spent hours of mirth over, a life-time ago,
are not amusing to-day, if indeed our defective memories
can recall them. Ah! how little it took to furnish
youth with mirth, that common standing ground upon
which all so easily form acquaintance and friendship.
I trust I may be forgiven, seeing that I meant well,
but I declare to you that I have practiced outrageous
deceit in affecting to remember incidents that some
of these old boys recall, and in trying to be agreeable
by so doing. But doubtless you have also.
Perhaps we all have. After all I take it that
separation, like time, tries everything—love,
friendship, even acquaintance, and those of the three
which survive the test are like the ruins of ancient
cities, of great value as curiosities, but worth little
for aught else. Mrs.
Boyzy remarks that this
is a heartless view of it. But I silence that
estimable woman by the observation that philosophers
do not take the heart into account; the heart is the
field of young lovers, physicians’ fees and patent
medicines. This observation which she does not
understand, and, I may admit to you I am not so clear
about myself, convinces her that I am not only a philosopher,
but a profound one. Ah! to a man of profound
observation, how many better ways of securing the respect
of the female sex there are than the primitive one
of clubbing them.
OBSERVATIONS OF A RETIRED VETERAN XI
I do not reverence ministers of the gospel simply
because they hold that office, any more than I esteem
a man as a gentleman simply because he has the manners
and dress of one. The bare fact that at some period
in his life, oftenest the period of youth, when the
mind teems with odd fancies and ambitions, a man has
concluded that he is called to the ministry, has successfully
gotten through theology and been ordained, forms too
uncertain a foundation on which to base reverence,
which is one of the most solemn emotions of the mind.
But I do respect and reverence the credentials of
an earnest, God-fearing and self-sacrificing life
which are found with these men, and I am obliged in
excusing this weakness, to say that in a long and varied
experience with them, these traits have been characteristic
of those I have met. But it is not my lack of
reverence that I intended to write about, it is the
contradictory way in which those who are under their
charge view this matter. The practical, effective
and active irreverence of professing Christians astonishes
as much as it puzzles me. They believe, or assume
to believe, in the sacredness of the ministry and in
the reverence due ministers as such; how do they show
it? It seems to me that the architectural custom
Copyrights
Observations of a Retired Veteran from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
