acred things before defiled hands have touched their tender
skins,--yet the sad experience of every man and woman is, that
misfortunes overtake them sooner or later. True, some people are more
fortunate than others, but none are exempted from grief and pain.
Have we not the best authority for saying that "man is born to
trouble, as the sparks fly upwards." This being so, every member of
the human family must submit to his destiny, strive against it how he
may.

Since the time the old serpent beguiled Eve, to the present day, the
half of man's time has been spent in bringing about prosperity and
averting evil. He watches the signs of the times; he seeks for tokens
and omens, as these, he supposes, are often sent for his guidance.
That warnings were given to our fathers and mothers of old in
mysterious ways, they fully believed; and if sent to them, there is no
good reason for supposing, say our aged relations, that they should
not be sent to us. Lord Bacon believed in presages; and so did other
learned men of his time. Dugdale anticipated the approaching scenes in
1641, when many ancient monuments were destroyed. So convinced was he
of their early destruction, that he hurried on his itinerant labours
of taking sketches and engraving inscriptions, to preserve their
history and appearance for future times. Sir Thomas More was enabled
to judge from passing events of what was to happen in after years.
Erasmus, when looking at the tomb of Becket at Canterbury, wished that
the jewels with which it was loaded had been given to the poor; "for,"
said he, "those who have heaped up all this mass of treasure will one
day be plundered, and fall a prey to rapacious tyrants in power." His
prediction was literally fulfilled twenty years after it was uttered.
Sir Walter Raleigh regarded omens, and from these predicted truly.
Tacitus foresaw the calamities which long desolated Europe on the fall
of the Roman empire, and wrote concerning the future events five
hundred years before they happened. Solon predicted many of the
miseries that overtook the Athenians. Aristotle collected remarkable
information concerning predictions. Cicero always judged of the
affairs of the republic by prediction; and he not only told what was
to happen in his own time, but he also foretold important things that
came to pass long after his death. Philosophers, however, did not
pretend to have the second sight, or to possess any superhuman powers;
but the art of