, the poor display of human character, the
little low wordnetdesire which bad been called up, even in himself, alike
destitute of worthy cause and aim, and which had perhaps but just missed
ending in the death of some and the living death of others,--it all
wrought to bring him back to his old wearying of human nature and
despondent eying of the everywhere jarrings, , and discordances
in the moral world. The fresh sea-breeze that swept by the ship,
roughening the play of the waves, and brushing his own cheek with its
health-bearing wing, brought with it a sad feeling of contrast. Free, and
pure, and steadily directed, it sped on its way, to do its work. And like
it all the rest of the natural world, faithful to the law of its Maker,
was stamped with the same signet of perfection. Only man, in all the
universe, seemed to be at cross purposes with the end of his being. Only
man, of all animate or inanimate , lived an aimless, fruitless,
broken life,--or fruitful only in evil. How was this? and whence? and when
would be the end? and would this confused mass of warring elements ever be
at ? would this disordered machinery ever work smoothly,