Then for the first time I realized the terrible sublimity of
Niagara--the voice of God speaking audibly through one of the mightiest
works of His creation.
And as, musing, I moved away from the appalling scene, the thought
rushed into my mind that perhaps my experience of a few moments might be
that of the soul when entering upon the sublimities of the future state.
Hence my theory, which may go for what it is worth, or, as the Yankees
would say, is 'good for what it will bring.'
Reader, do you never feel an intense longing to live over again the
scenes of your youth? to begin at some certain period long gone by, and
taste again the sweets that have passed away forever? It is one of the
bitterest feelings of the heart that years are slipping away from us one
by one; that the delights of our youth have gone, never to return, and
that we 'shall not look upon their like again;' that the days are fast
coming on when we shall say we have no pleasure in them, and that we are
rapidly verging upon the 'lean and slippered pantaloon.' Were there any
future rejuvenation, when we might stand again upon the threshold of
life and look over its fair fields with all the joy and hope of
anticipation, old age would lose all its dreariness, and become but a
brief though painful pilgrimage through which we were to pass to joy
beyond. But since this can never be, old age is the rust which dims the
brightness of every earthly joy, and is looked forward to by youth only
with a shudder.
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