by planning too far ahead. And a wiser than the wise and cheerful Sydney
Smith had anticipated his philosophy. You remember Who said, "Take no
thought"--that is, no over-anxious and over-careful thought--"for the
morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself."
Did you ever sail over a blue summer sea towards a mountainous coast,
frowning, sullen, gloomy: and have you not seen the gloom retire before
you as you advanced; the hills, grim in the distance, stretch into sunny
slopes when you neared them; and the waters smile in cheerful light,
that looked so black when they were far away? And who is there that has
not seen the parallel in actual life? We have all known the anticipated
ills of life--the danger that looked so big, the duty that looked so
arduous, the entanglement that we could not see our way through--prove
to have been nothing more than spectres on the far horizon; and when
at length we reached them, all their difficulty had vanished into air,
leaving us to think what fools we had been for having so needlessly
conjured up phantoms to disturb our quiet. Yes, there is no doubt of
it, a very great part of all we suffer in this world is from the
apprehension of things that never come. I remember well how a dear
friend, whom I (and many more) lately lost, told me many times of his
fears as to what he would do in a certain contingency which both he
and I thought was quite sure to come sooner or later. I know that the
anticipation of it caused him some of the most anxious hours of a very
anxious, though useful and honored life. How vain his fears proved! He
was taken from this world before what he had dreaded had cast its most
distant shadow. Well, let me try to discard the notion which has been
sometimes worrying me of late, that perhaps I have written nearly as
many essays as any one will care to read. Don't let any of us give way
to fears which may prove to have been entirely groundless.

And then, if we are really spared to see those trials we sometimes
think of, and which it is right that we should sometimes think of, the
strength for them will come at the time. They will not look nearly so
black, and we shall be enabled to bear them bravely. There is in human
nature a marvellous power of accommodation to circumstances. We can
gradually make up our mind to almost anything. If this were a sermon
instead of an essay, I should explain my theory of how this comes to
be. I see in all this somet