te aspirations attach themselves to objects which cannot satisfy
them, and thence arise stupendous aberrations. With some, it is the
pursuit of sensual gratifications; they rush with a kind of fury into
the passions of their lower nature. With others it is the ardent pursuit
of riches, power, fame,--feelings which are always crying more: More!
and never: Enough. And the after-taste from the fruitless search after
happiness in the paths of ambition and vanity is not less bitter perhaps
than the after-taste from sensual enjoyments. Listen to the confession
of a man whose works, full as they are of beauties, are disfigured by so
many impure allusions, that the author appears to have indulged, more
than most others, in the giddy follies and culpable pleasures of life:

If, tired of mocking dreams, my restless heart
Returns to take its fill of waking joy,
Full soon I loathe the pleasures which impart
No true delight, but kill me, while they cloy.[25]

Here are the accents of a true confession. These are moreover truths of
daily experience. I have seen--and which of you could not render similar
testimony?--I have seen the sick man, deprived of all the ordinary
avocations and amusements of life, and with pain for his constant
companion, I have seen him find joy in the thought of his God, and
feeding, without satiety, on this bread of contentment. I have seen the
face of the blind lighted up by a living faith, and radiant with a light
of peace, for him sweeter and brighter than the rays of the sun. But
where God is wanting, and all connection is broken with the source of
joy, there you shall see the richest of the rich, the most prosperous
among the ambitious, the man of fame whose renown is most widely
extended,--you shall see these men carrying the heavy burden of
discontent. Their brow, unillumined by the celestial ray, is furrowed by
the lines of sadness. If you meet them in a moment of candor, these
rich, ambitious, and famous men will tell you with a sigh: "All this
does not satisfy; we are but pursuing chimeras." Still they continue to
run after these chimeras. They cry Vanity! Vanity! and they do not cease
to pursue vanity. They flee from themselves: if they retired within
themselves, they would find there ennui, inexorable ennui, which is but
the sense of that place which God should fill left void in the depth of
the soul. For the deceived heart, life becomes a bitter comedy. Those
who do n