Benevolent Brooks, vs. Miserly Mud-holes.
Near a house we once occupied, there was a small pond. It was fed by a stream that lived long enough each season to take the surplus waters from a fine farm in the vicinity. From the dressing spread upon the grass lands, and from the ploughed fields, there was received a steady income. No collector of rents on quarter day was ever more punctually on hand, than was this pond at the occurrence of a rain, to receive its expected gains. In one respect it seemed almost human. It had no outlet. It could receive freely, but it could not impart. The riches washed from the fields never found their way back, and they went on accumulating, till, in the rustic language of the place, it was called a muck-hole. The water became unfit for the cattle to drink. Inexperienced boys, hard pushed for a place, tried occasionally to bathe in it, but were glad to escape from its defilement, and from the blood-suckers that fastened upon them. It was only and decidedly a nuisance, growing rich by that which made the fields around it poor, and becoming offensive just in proportion to its accumulations. The owner looked on in silence for years, but when a long drought had sunk to their lowest limits the waters, he found means to drain off the remainder, and take possession of the hoarded treasures. Day after day a band of teamsters might be seen driving their loads away, and happy that they were at last permitted to administer upon the old estate. In the same neighborhood, another stream set forth. What the springs gave to it, what it received from the rain and the dews, of this it freely gave. With varying resources, it imparted to the thirsty fields as it had opportunity, and rolled on through the fertility it had created, an ever-growing volume. It is there to-day, sparkling in an existence that receives and gives, and is blest in both. It never accumulates its resources to provide for a possible drought, but lays itself out for to-day, and leaves to-morrow to take thought for the things of itself. From its swift flowing waters no agues go forth to afflict those dwelling by it. No snakes hiss on its banks, or fatten in its stagnant pools. There the beasts of the field quench their thirst. The birds of Summer bathe their plumage in its shallows. Through the meadows, and down the rapids it moves on its way, "a thing of beauty, and a joy forever." It needs not the aid of the great poet to perceive that there are "books in this running brook," and in the other one which did not run. For your benefit, dear reader, we copy a few of the facts they contain. 1. It is better to be a living, running stream, than a muck-hole. For then something good will be done and gained, all along. Your accumulations, instead of lying out of sight, offensive and useless, will be constantly re-appearing in the growths they occasion. Your path of usefulness will be along fields made fertile by your instrumentality, and flowers and fruits, attending you on either hand, will cheer your onward way. You will not then be obliged to postpone your usefulness to that, to you unconscious future, when you shall be spread over a world that you have only impoverished by your life. 2. It is better to do good as you have opportunity, than wait till you shall do it, if at all, as you have not inclination. The existence and end of the pond aforesaid, finds a parallel in the career of not a few, who all their lives are bent upon acquiring wealth. How to accumulate, is the question with which their minds are unceasingly occupied. So little accustomed are they to impart to others, that they cannot make a will which will carry out their own intentions, and they waste, in the disposition they make of it, the wealth they have growled over all their days. To give away, even on paper, is a work beyond their power, and the attempt is a ridiculous failure. It is the spade and the shovel, in both cases, which distributes the accumulations. 3. It behooves muck-holes, and men like them, to remember that after all they are owned; that the eye of the owner is upon them, and that a dry time is at hand, when, willing or unwilling, they will be drained and dug out, and appropriated.—Congregationalist.