পাতা:তত্ত্ববোধিনী পত্রিকা (পঞ্চম কল্প প্রথম খণ্ড).pdf/৮৫

*ఫ్ఫె tion and understanding are unequally as he expresses less imperfectly than dispensed; but these are only distinctions in the conditions of the trial to be endured : for we all possess, in the necessary degree, a knowledge of the law, and the means whereby it is to be fulfilled. IIeroin lies the only point of real importance.: for the ‘duration of this life, compared with the eternity of the future, is not worthy of being taken into consideration. Finally, whatever doubt may be attached to the miserable events of the world, one thing we know to a certainty—the happiness that awaits us hereafter, if we are faithful. We have only thus to understand that it is our duty to bless the name of God, even in our afflictions. In the act of worship we recognise a just homage rendered by the creature to his creator. Love and admiration, in common with all human feelings, are uot always legitimato ; but they cannot fail to be so, if their selected object is truly beautiful and amiable; and a wellregulated mind measures its attachment by the perfections of the being adored. To love and admire thus, is to walk in the right path, and to direct steadily the faculties of the mind and heart to a lawful end. Such sentiments increase instead of exhausting our strength. Deadness of soul, languor, and discouragement are unknown to those happy spirits who are attracted and retained by the truly good and beautiful. We mayoy of them, that they possess something above humanity, for they are gifted with the only earthly power which never exhausts itself, and the source of which augments as it flows. But how can any created being be amiable, except in proportion others the divine perfection ? All that is good and lovely below God, can only be so by the indirect reflection of his coinplete beauty. He alone concentrates the essence of the true, the beautiful, and the perfect. To learn how to love him, above every other consideration, is the greatest happiness of which we are capable. All our affections must yield to this paramount feeling, which forms at once the source and consecration of every human sentiment. There is yet another cause beyond the perfections of God which ought to incline our hearts to love him. He is our benefactor, our support, and our hope. We love the man who has snatched us from peril, and he who has instructed us in our duty; the mother who has mourished us with her milk, the father who has watched over us with vigilant anxiety, and who during one half of his life has laboured incessantly for our advantage. Howardently then ought we to love God, who has given us life itself, with all that ronders the life en durable and delightful We ought to bloss him for our creation, and for having gifted us with an intelligence apable of knowing and loving our creator. We ought to adore him for the gift of freedom, and for having imposed on us the salutary yoke of duty. It is not only ungrateful but insane to acknow. ledge obligations to a fellow-creature, and to withhold then from the creater; for every advantage that we enjoy proceeds from him. It is he who by his will or by his laws, which express the human formula of his will, sustains and protects the life that he has