I have often
been surprised to hear young Quakers talk of the folly and vanity of
pursuits, in which persons older than themselves were then embarking for
the purposes of pleasure, and which the same persons have afterwards
found to have been the pursuits of uneasiness and pain.
Let us stop for a while, just to look at the situation of some of those
young persons, who, in consequence of a different education, are
introduced to the pleasures of the world, as to those, which are to
constitute their happiness. We see them running eagerly first after this
object, then after that. One man says to himself "this will constitute
my pleasure." He follows it. He finds it vanity and vexation of spirit.
He says again "I have found my self deceived. I now see my happiness in
other pleasures, and not in those where I fancied it." He follows these.
He becomes sickened. He finds the result different from his
expectations. He pursues pleasure, but pleasure is not there.
[14]"They are lost
In chase of fancied happiness, still woo'd,
And never won. Dream after dream ensues;
And still they dream, that they shall still succeed
And still are disappointed."
[Footnote 14: Cowper.]
Thus after having wasted a considerable portion of his time, he is
driven at last by positive experience into the truth of those maxims,
which philosophy and religion have established, and in the pursuit of
which alone he now sees that true happiness is to be found.
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