Having lost original happiness in the fall of Adam, man has been looking for it ever since; but the great trouble is that many people look for it in the wrong direction, and seek it where no happiness is to be found. They think it consists in the acquisition of fame and glory, in the possession of wealth, or in a life of ease and luxury; but these things are as transient as the evening twilight, and uncertain as the shadowy forms portrayed in the river’s depths. The entire lives of many people are consumed in a fruitless search after the vain and perishable goods of the earth. Their years glide away like the sands in an hour-glass; and, finally they sicken, faint and fall, and their end resembles the pebbles thrown into the ocean, which for a moment ripple the surface and lose themselves in its waves. The human soul is as a fathomless sea, which nothing finite can satisfy. “O God!” cried St. Augustine, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are ever troubled, ever agitated, until they find rest in Thee.”
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THE PAROCHIAL SCHOOL, CONVENT AND GARDEN.
The reverie into which the Sister had fallen was soon interrupted by the sound of children’s voices in the small playground. Hastily leaving the room, she went to meet the merry little band of day-scholars who attend the boarding-school from half-past eight in the morning until six o’clock in the evening.
Joyfully the little group of twenty gathers around their mistress. One presents a flower which mother had given; another, a pretty postcard; yet another shows a toy or picture-book. A chubby little boy is crying because he has forgotten his new drum; and thus talking, laughing and crying, they are placed in line and lead away to the cozy little classroom whose long, broad windows look out upon the garden, which is ever green, and the rose bushes near the arbor, which bloom the greater part of the year, and on whose twigs buds were often seen on New Year’s Day.
During the morning session one rosy-cheeked little girl, with long yellow curls and an apron as white as snow, stood up by her desk and said, “Sister, there is war in the newspapers. Papa said so this morning.” All the little heads turned, curious to hear about the war; and little Charlie took out his box of soldiers and arranged them in marching order on the desk. The mistress took advantage of the situation to teach the older pupils the great value of peace and the reward promised to the peacemakers; “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”