Page images
PDF
EPUB

PREFACE.

AFTER being long tossed upon the billows of the world, and buffeting with the contending winds of fortune, it is a refreshing season in which the wearied wanderer enters the haven of repose, there to beguile the unconscious moments in a happy contemplation of the past; of dangers braved and hoped for ends achieved. Delicious must be the retrospection of him who can look back upon a career, however short, in which the finger-posts of time point to deeds upon which he can reflect and look upon again without experiencing a shadow of remorse; where the mile-stones of his backward path denote the

manful deeds of heroism and generosity; where the practice of true religion and philanthropy, the upholding of the weak and the repelling of the aggressive, are associated with the never-to-be recalled events of his manhood, from the contemplation of which he will never have cause to shrink, when the cold hand of death is stealing silently yet relentlessly upon him. Happy, I say, is such a man. But thrice happier is he who, beyond all this, can look forward and see in his ideal future a welcome reward in some treasured object of his affection, with whom he may build up to himself a habitation and found a name; for how much more noble is it to be a founder than a parasite, and with her to sail buoyantly along over the sea of his ambition, and in his children to see his own life perpetuated, and his name and fame handed down to generations of their posterity.

I do not alone speak of the bauble fame of public life-I speak of the richer fame of worthy deeds; for worth and heroism dwell in ob

scurity and the cottage, as noble as ever consecrated kings and riches.

It is these prophetic feelings and objects of a happy future that actuate men in their ardent pursuit of wealth, that impel and sustain them through arduous enterprises, and so lead them to achieve successes which otherwise would never have been. It is the influence of woman that more or less fills the mind of every man with a latent and holy fire, which arms, emboldens, and cheers him through all the great vicissitudes of life; and it is these impulses and these feelings which will send forth to the New El Dorado of 'Fifty-Eight a valorous throng, fresh, eager, and impetuous, to gather gold and plant intelligence in the newly-awakened wilderness of British Columbia. May the light of heaven smile continually upon them from without, and their highest hopes be crowned with the success which enterprise deserves, is my most fervent benediction; and may they, on an ultimate survey of their career, find that the finger-posts and

milestones which flank the vista of departed time recall to memory the happy consciousness of noble deeds-for there is a nobility in little things as well as in great ones-and every action of our lives bears witness of our hearts and understanding.

Having thus said, this book I usher upon the world, and again am a mere spectator.

September 4th, 1858.

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »