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_ _THE_ heart is full of guest-chambers that are never empty; and as
the heart is the seat of life, these guests are continually acting
upon the life, either for good or evil, according to their quality.
As the guests are, so our states of life--tranquil and happy, if
good; disturbed and miserable, if evil.
We may choose our own guests, if we are wise. None can open the door
and come in, unless we give consent; always provided that we keep
watch and ward. If we leave wide open the doors of our houses, or
neglect to fasten them in the night season, thieves and robbers will
enter and despoil us at will. So if we leave the heart, unguarded,
enemies will come in. But if we open the door only to good
affections--which are guests--then we shall dwell in peace and
safety. We have all opened the door for enemies; or let them enter
through unguarded portals. They are in all the heart's
guest-chambers. They possess the very citadel of life; and the
measure of their possession is the measure of our unhappiness.
Markland was an unhappy man; and yet of this world's goods, after
which he had striven, he had an abundance. Wealth, honor among men,
luxury; these were presented to his mind as things most to be
desired, and he reached after them with an ardor that broke down all
impediments. Success answered to effort, with almost unerring
certainty. So he was full of wealth and honors. But, for all this,
Markland was unhappy. There were enemies in the house of his life;
troublesome guests in the guest-chambers of his heart, who were
forever disturbing, if not wounding him, with their strifes and
discords. Some of these he had admitted, himself holding open the
door; others had come in by stealth while the entrance was all
unguarded.
Envy was one of these guests, and she gave him no peace. He could
not bear that another should stand above him in anything. A certain
pew in the church he attended was regarded as most desirable. He
must have that pew at any cost. So when the annual choice of pews
was sold at auction, he overbid all contestants, and secured its
occupancy. For all the preceding year, he had failed to enjoy the
Sabbath services, because another family had a pew regarded as
better situated than his; and now he enjoyed these services as
little, through annoyance at having given so large a price for the
right of choice, that people smiled when they heard the sum named.
He had paid too dear for the privilege, and this fact took away
enjoyment.
Envy tormented him in a hundred different ways. He could not enjoy
his friend's exquisite statuary, or paintings, because of a secret
intimation in his heart that his friend was honored above him in
their possession. Twice he had sold almost palatial residences,
because their architectural attractions were thrown into the shade
by dwellings of later construction. Thousands of dollars each year
this troublesome guest cost him; and yet she would never let him be
at ease. At every feast of life she dashed his cup with bitterness,
and robbed the choicest viands of their zest. He did not enjoy the
fame of an author, an orator, an artist, a man of science, a
general, or of any who held the world's admiring gaze--for while
they stood in the sunlight, he felt cast in the shade. So the guest
Envy, warmed and nourished in his heart, proved a tormentor. She
gave him neither rest nor peace.
Detraction, twin-sister of Envy, was all the while pointing out
defects in friends and neighbors. He saw their faults and hard
peculiaries; but rarely their good qualities. Then Doubt and
Distrust crept in through the unguarded door, and soon after their
entrance Markland began to think uneasily of the future; to fear
lest the foundations of worldly prosperity were not sure. These
troublesome guests were busiest in the night season, haunting his
mind with strange pictures of disasters, and with suggestions
touching the arbitrary power of God, whom he feared when the thought
of him was present, but did not love. "Whom He will He setteth up,
and whom He will He casteth down." Doubt and Distrust revived this
warning in his memory, and seeing that it gave his heart a throb of
pain, they set it close to his eyes, so that, for a time, he could
see nothing else. Thus, night after night, these guests troubled his
peace, often driving slumber from his eyelids until the late morning
watches. If there had been in his heart that true faith in God which
believes in him as doing all things well, Doubt and Distrust might
never have gained an entrance. But he had trusted in himself; had
believed himself equal to the task of creating his own
prosperity--had been, in common phrase, the architect of his own
fortunes. And now just as he was pluming himself on success, in
crept Doubt and Distrust with their alarming suggestions, and he was
unable to cast them out.
Affections, whether evil or good, are social in their character, and
obey social laws. They do not like to dwell alone, and therefore
seek congenial friendships. They draw to themselves companions of
like quality, and are not satisfied until they rule a man as to all
the powers of his mind.
In the case of Markland, Envy made room for her twin-sister,
Detraction; Ill-will, Jealousy, Unkindness, and a teeming brood of
their malevolent kindred crowded into his heart, possessing its
chambers, ere a warning reached him of their approach. Is there rest
or peace for a man with such guests in his bosom?
Doubt and Distrust only heralded the coming of Fear, Anxiety,
Solicitude, Suspicion, Despondency, Foreboding. Markland had only to
open his eyes and look around him, to see, on every hand, the
unsightly wrecks of palaces once as fair to the eye as that which he
had raised with such labor and forethought, and as he contemplated
these, Doubt, Distrust, and their companions, filled his mind with
alarming thoughts, and so oppressed him with a sense of insecurity
that, at times, he saw the advancing shadows of misfortune on his
path.
Thus it was with Markland at fifty. He had all good as to the
externals of life, yet was he a miserable man, and, worse than all,
he felt himself growing more and more unhappy as the years
increased. Was there no remedy for this? None, while his heart was
so filled with evil affections, which are always tormentors. He did
not see this. Though his guests disturbed and afflicted him, he
called them friends, and gave them entertainments of the best his
house afforded.
Sometimes Pity came to the door of his heart and asked for
admission, but he sent Unkindness to double bar it against her.
Generosity knocked, but Avarice stood sentinel. Envy was forever
refusing to let Good-will, Appreciation, Approval, Delight, come in.
Detraction would give no countenance to Virtue and Excellence. Doubt
made deadly assault upon Faith, and Trust, and Hope, whenever they
drew near, while Ill-will stood ever on the alert to drive off
Charity, Loving-kindness and Neighborly regard. Unhappy man! Fiends
possessed him, and he knew it not.
It so happened on a time, that Markland, while standing in one of
his well-filled ware-houses, saw a child enter and come towards him
in a timid, hesitating manner.
"A beggar! Drive her away," said Unkindness and Suspicion, both
arousing themselves.
Markland was already lifting his hand to wave her back, when
Compassion, who had just then found an old way into his heart,
hidden for a long time by rank weeds and brambles, said, in soft and
pitying tones:
"She is such a little child!"
"A thieving beggar!" cried Unkindness and Suspicion, angrily.
"A weak little child," pleaded Compassion. "Don't be hard with her.
Speak kindly."
Compassion prevailed. Her voice had awakened into life some old and
long sleeping memories. Markland was himself, for a moment, a child,
full of pity, tenderness and loving-kindness. Compassion had already
uncovered the far away past, and the sweetness of its young blossoms
was reviving old delights.
"Well, little one, what is wanted?"
Markland hardly knew his own voice, it was so gentle and inviting.
How the, pale, pure face of the child warmed and brightened!
Gratefully with trust and hope in her eyes, she looked up to the
merchant. There was no answer on her lips, for this unexpected
kindness had choked the coming utterance. Rebuff, threat, anger, had
met her so often, that soft words almost surprised her into tears.
"Well, what can I do for you?"
Compassion held open the door through which she gained an entrance,
and already Good-will, Kindness and Satisfaction had come in.
"Mother is sick," said the child.
"A lying vagrant!" exclaimed Suspicion, jarring the merchant's
inward ear.
"There is truth in her face," said Compassion, pleading, and, at the
same time, she unveiled an image, sharply cut in the past of
Markland's life--an image of his own beloved, but long sainted
mother, pale and wasted, on her dying bed.
"Give this to your mother," he said, hastily, taking a coin from his
pocket. There was more of human kindness in his voice than it had
expressed for many years.
"God bless you, sir," the child dropped her grateful eyes from his
face, as she took the coin, bending with an involuntary reverent
motion. Then, as she slowly passed to the warehouse door, she turned
two or three times, to look on the man who, alone, of the many to
whom she had made solicitation that day, had answered her in
kindness.
"So much for the encouragement of vagrancy," said Suspicion.
"Played on by the art of a cunning child," said Pride.
Markland began to feel ashamed of his momentary weakness. But, he
was not now, wholly, at the mercy of the guests who had so long
tormented him. Compassion, Good-will and Kindness were now his
guests also; and they had other and pleasanter suggestions for his
mind. The child's "God bless you, sir," they repeated over and over
again, softening the young voice, and giving it increasing power to
awaken tender and loving states which had formed themselves in
earlier and purer years. Tranquility, so long absent from his soul,
came in, now, through the entrance made by Compassion.
Markland went back into his counting-room, almost wondering at the
peace he felt. Taking up a newspaper, he read of a rare specimen of
statuary just received from Italy, the property of a well-known
merchant. Envy did not move quickly enough. The old love of beauty
and nature, which envy, detraction, greed of gain, and their
blear-eyed companions, had kept in thrall, was already in a freer
state; and found in good-will, kindness and tranquility, congenial
friends.
So, love of art and beauty ruled his mind in spite of envy, and
Markland found real pleasure in the ideal given him by the
description he read. It was, almost, a new sensation.
A friend came in, and spoke in praise of one who had performed a
generous deed. There was an instant motion among the guests in
Markland's heart, the evil inciting to envy and detraction, the good
to approval and emulation. Tranquility moved to the door through
which she had come in, as if to depart; but Good-will, Kindness and
Approbation, drew her back, and held, with her, possession of the
mind they sought to rule. Envy and Detraction were shorn, for the
time, of their power.
Wondering, as he lay on his bed that night, over the strange peace
that pervaded his mind--a peace such as he had not known for many
years--Markland fell asleep; and in his sleep there came to him a
dream of the human heart and its guest-chamber; and what we have
faintly suggested, was made visible to him in living personation.
He saw how evil affections, when permitted to dwell therein, became
its enemies and tormentors; and how, just in the degree that kind
and good affections gained entrance, there was peace, tranquility
and satisfaction.
"I have looked into my own heart," he said, on awaking.
The incident of the child, and the dream that followed, were, in
Providence, sent for Markland's instruction. And they were not sent
in vain. Ever after he set watch and ward at the doors of his heart.
Evil guests, already in possession, were difficult to cast out; but,
he invited the good to come in, opening the way by kind and noble
acts, done in the face of opposing selfishness. Thus he went on,
peopling the guest-chamber with sweet beatitudes, until angels
instead of demons filled his house of life. _
Read next: CHAPTER VI. CAST DOWN, BUT NOT DESTROYED.
Read previous: CHAPTER IV. NOT AS A CHILD.
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