Show AIMS AND OBJECTS BY GASKELL = 1 i I Be jut fain no Let all the ends thou aimist at be thy countrys Toy Gods and truths SJl KJS > EAR There is no end 1 Q our studies of human life Though thousands of years have passed away since the morning stars sang together and mac was placed upon the earth yet the study of existence still is fresh and interesting and is still develop iner new facts and principles or presenting old ones under new guises One generation has succeeded suc-ceeded another flourished for a day as it were and then has passed away to make room for fresh arrivals ar-rivals Their part played upon the worldly stage they have gone where the lingering ethos of past fame alone telling us they have lived and suffered and passed away Love and batefriendship an enmity have each in turn arrayed their power to sway poor human nature love of fame wild ambition unsparing un-sparing in its selfishness noble emulation true strong and selffor getful desirous of competing in J usefulness with alleach in turn i passes before our mental vision in chronicle of old adding to the ever increasing aggregate ot human experience ex-perience and wisdom The noblest triumphs and the most miserable failures jostle and crowd each other on the way of life constituting a sort of kaleidIs copic patchwork of light and shade change tble unreal and uncertain readable in meaning only by the earnest eye of faithfaith in an omnipotent omnipresent and love inspiring God of justice and mercy An aim or object is needed in life to arrest and chain the attention and consistency and perseverence are necessary if a straightforward consistent course is followed and dispatch in the accomplishment of a purpose is desired If there is no guiding aim no object of pursuit no purpose to carry out no defined pathway to follow we will be apt to swerve from our course one side or the other as interest or desire prompt us and as likely to miss entirely the goal sought as to win it The plowman who desires to turn a straight furrow sets his gaze upon an object on the farther side of the field he plows nand no matter what his skill in the absence of such an object he is liable to follow fol-low a crooked course And in setting set-ting that aim we should be sure that it is not a movable one or we may fare as did the unfortunate Irishman who was told by his master mas-ter to take for his object point a grazing horse upon the opposite side of the field and plow directly towards The master being called away did not watch Pats proceedings proceed-ings and when he returned at the end of a quarter of an hours absence ab-sence he saw Pat still plowing towards the horse which had left his former position and walked to the opposide side of the field and the furrow Pat had turned had followed the sinuous course of the moving horse and was about as crooked as a corkscrew or a Chinese puzzle So it seems is the movable aim of many people It is not stationary and changes at different periods of their lives there being no certainty of the same views being continuous for two days together It is not everyone I every-one who understands what he does want or he allows the ever recurring i recur-ring incidents of daily life to carry him away from it and the indeffina tiveness of his desiresleads him at times to the extremes of foolishness There are very tew individuals who escape altogether a departure from a right path only frequency and extent ex-tent creating a difference in degree A young man or a young woman has an object of pursuit and an aim of some kind What is it Is it to gain wisdom and knowledge and to follow worthily in the footsteps of the virtuous dead or the noble living liv-ing for many noble men and women wo-men are living nowor is it to gratify grat-ify some trifling want er foolish fool-ish vanity that we may show our superior abilities and graces Is it to become a goodman good-man or a good woman a useful citizen cit-izen doing our part in the work of life easing the burden of the sin laden weary and suffering poor on the way of life cheering the unfortunate unfor-tunate giving encouragement to the despondent and cast down or is it to listlessly pass our time in indolence indo-lence fostering every selfish feeling to the exclusion of all useful and honest laborin i apathy or worse still to waste our energIes In pursuing pur-suing objects of yanity and sin No young man should seek to enter en-ter upon the arena and undertake the dutiesof life without having an aim of some kind nor should older ones persevere in their labors without with-out la definate purpose The more pure and noble this aim is the purer and nobler will be the life lived No one can set his aim too high regards purity and usefulness useful-ness We are all children of one common parent and in no way can we better display our regard to God than in living useful and kind to one another While everyone should think with the Englishman that his house is his castle yet like the generous pioneer of our western borders the latchstring should always hang out Innocence should ever be shielded from contact with sin where possible pos-sible and weakness should always be protected from the tyranny of power While it is desirable that wickedness be recognized and avoided yet it should never besought be-sought out in its secret haunts in the vaunting spirit of a desire to meet and vanquish it and it is in just such moments of selfglorifica tion and overconfidence that men are really most weak because off their guard Let us pray rather that temptation be kept from us than for power to resist as such a course is far the safest for no man really knows what he may do under certain circumstances nor may he go through a similar trial a second time entirely unsoiled and unharmed un-harmed |