ossessions, our houses, lands,
goods, money, are such substantial things;--it cannot be that we are
not fixed permanently here,--that the years like a swift river, sweep us
nearer and nearer to a point where we must sink and leave it all,--that
the corridors of the earth echo our footsteps only as the footsteps of
a successive march-myriads going before, and myriads coming after us-and
soon they will catch no more murmurs of our individual life; for that
will be as "a tale that is told."

The whole train of thought I am now pursuing strikes us with peculiar
force, in reading the biographies of men who have lived intensely, who
have realized the fulness of life, who have mingled intimately with its
varied experiences, and occupied a large place in it. We see how to them
life was, as it is to us, an absorbing fact,--how they have planned, and
thought, and acted, as though they were to live forever; and yet we have
noticed the premonitions of change, the dropping away of friends, the
failing of vigor, the deepening of melancholy shadows, and the coming
of the end; the business closed, the active curiosity and intermeddling
ceased, the familiar haunts abandoned, the home made desolate, the
lights put out, the cup fallen beneath the festal board, and all the
earnest existence stopped forever. And this, too, so quick,--filling so
small a space in absolute time! From their illustration let us, then,
realize that our life, too, amid all these real conditions, is unfolding
rapidly to an end, and is "as a tale that is told."

But life is like a tale that is told, because of its comprehensiveness.
It is a common characteristic of a narrative that it contains a great
deal in a small compass. It includes many years, and expresses many
results. Sometimes it sweeps over different lands, and exhibits the
peculiarities of various personages. In one word, it is characterized by
comprehensiveness. And this, I repeat, is also a characteristic of human
life. When the consideration of the brevity of our mortal existence
excites us to diligence it is well; but when we make it an argument for
indolence, disgust, and despair, we should be reminded of the fact I
am now endeavoring to illustrate,--the fact that even the briefest life
contains a great deal, and means a great deal; and that, if we estimate
things by a spiritual standard, a man's earthly being may contain more
than all the cycles of the material world. From the best point of view,