Article #57 - Reflecting on the Past

 For the Journall

Who that looks backward on his manhood’s  

   prime

Sees not the error of his misspent time

And from the shade of Cypress planted thick

  behind

Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind

From his loved dead?

Who would not cast half of his future from him

But to win wakeless oblivion for the wrong

  and sin

Of the sealed Past?

                                                Whittier

Another month on its swift wing has glided by but not without leaving with us impressions that shall mingle in the contempletions of coming years, some to cause feelings of joyesness [sic] and youth again to animate us, as memory takes us back to the circumstance that caused them, or to the place where they were first made, while the remembrance of other scenes and events that have occurred within that short space of time, will bring only such feelings of gloom and sadness as we will gladly give a portion of our life not to remember, or at least to be con[s]cious that the circumstances causing them did not exist, but possibly they may serve to teach us the universal relationship of mankind how that none can be happy without all, may cause us to learn what seems to be a great truth, that every person is responsible for the crimes of each, if not for directly committing the crimes, at least indirectly for not exercising the power to prevent them. And thus to serve to stimulate us or in the cause of universal education reform and improvement. With a “firmer faith a warmer zeal and a more determined perseverance.”