The Black Eagle

Among the minor trials of faith, few, perhaps, are more difficult to contend against than that growing conviction, which, commencing very soon after the holiday happiness of youth has been first tasted, becomes stronger every year, as experience unfolds to us the great, dark secrets of the world in which we are placed—the conviction of the general worthlessness of our fellow-men. A few splendid exceptions, a few bright and glorious spirits, a few noble and generous hearts, are not sufficient to cheer and to brighten the bleak prospect of the world's unworthiness; and we can only reconcile to our minds the fact that this vast multitude of base, depraved, tricky, insincere, ungrateful beings, are the pride of God's works, the express images of his person, by a recurrence to the great fundamental doctrine of man's fallen state, and utter debasement from his original high condition, and by a painful submission to the gloomy and fearful announcement, that 'strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, and few there he that find it.' If man's general unworthiness be a trial of our faith and of our patience, the most poignant anguish of the torture is perhaps the keen conviction of his ingratitude and his injustice—not alone the ingratitude and injustice of individuals, but those of every great body—of every group—of so-called friends, of governments, of countries, of people. Vainly do we follow the course of honour and uprightness; vainly do we strive to benefit, to elevate, to ennoble our fellow-men; vainly do we labour to serve our party, or our cause, or our country. Neither honour, nor distinction, nor reward, follows our best efforts, even when successful, unless we possess the mean and contemptible adjuncts of personal interest, pushing impudence, crooked policy, vile subserviency, or the smile of fortune. "Here am I, who for many arduous years laboured with zeal, such as few have felt, at sacrifices such as few have made, and with industry such as few have exerted, to benefit my kind and my country. That I did so, and with success, was admitted by all; even while others, starting in the career of life at the same time with myself, turned their course in the most opposite direction, pandered to vice, to folly, and even to crime, and trod a flowery and an easy way, with few of the difficulties and impediments that beset my path. "And what has been the result? Even success has brought to me neither reward, nor honour, nor gratitude. On those who have neither so laboured, nor so striven, whose objects have been less worthy, whose efforts have been less great, recompenses and distinctions have fallen thick and fast—a government's patronage—a sovereign's favour—a people's applause. And I am an exile on a distant shore; unthought of, unrecompensed, unremembered."