We are now living through the period of demolition. In morals, in social life, in politics, in medicine, and in religion, there is a universal upturning of foundations.
But the day of reconstruction seems to be looming in the orient, and now the grand question is, Are there any sure and universal principles that will evolve a harmonious system in which all shall agree? Or, is the only unity to be anticipated that which results from the unsatisfactory conclusion that all must "agree to disagree?"
The first alternative is believed to be in our future; and it is hoped that this volume will contribute something toward evolving such principles of reconstruction.
In some happily constituted minds and singularly favorable circumstances, the passages of this life are almost uniformly happy, and no clouds ever shut out the sunshine of a cheerful existence.
But, as a general rule, the farther we advance in life, the more solemn become our convictions that its experiences are stormy, sad, disappointing, and unsatisfactory. And the nobler the mind and the more exalted its aspirations, the more surely are these lessons read and understood.
If we turn aside from the lower haunts of poverty, vice, and crime, and look only at the more favored classes, we find men toiling for years and years to build up schemes which, in some sudden shock, crumble and pass away; or, are their high hopes accomplished, some bitter ingredient mingles with the cup of success, that turns it to gall.
And so, in heart-histories, the tenderest ties are formed, as it would seem, only to be wrenched and torn. The young heart gives its fresh impassioned love to its appropriate object, and, just at the happy consummation, death or desertion forever ends life's brightest experience.
The young parents receive their first-born with untold rapture, and then some disease or accident turns it to a hopeless idiot or ceaseless sufferer.
The young husband lays at once his first love and his first born in the same grave. The tender parents spend years and years of care and effort to rear a darling child, and at the culmination of their hopes the flower is cut down.
Business or misfortune severs those whose chief happiness would be to live together. The long-tried friends of early life are thrown into painful antagonisms that end their friendship. The conflicts of interest and party develop conduct and character that shatter confidence in men and tempt to misanthropy.