Look Back: Inspiration abounds
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The Past, the Present, and the Future - The following beautiful and correct thought is from a sermon preached by the Rev. Mr. Peabody, in Portsmouth, on the occasion of the State Thanksgiving:
"Ours, it is to be feared, is an irreverent age and land. The number of those who neither fear God nor regard man is greatly multiplied. The whole providentially arranged system of things is reversed; and if there is any one motto which might be inscribed upon the surface of society as it now is, or as modern innovators and radicals would have it, it would be this, 'The elder shall serve the younger.' Youth no longer hangs upon the council of age and experience, or deigns to ask of the former times; but the less one knows of the past, the surer and wiser guide for the future is esteemed by many. Men often talk of the past, as if God had never worked, virtue never breathed, philanthropy never lifted a finger, and wisdom never given a true response, until now. We hear much concerning the dead past, and are bidden to let it bury its dead. Oh how soon, if our children are no wiser than ourselves, will they be talking the same unmeaning cant about our boasted present!"
The Parkersburg Gazette
Jan. 13, 1842
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LIFE.
Life is a fountain fed by a thousand streams, that perish if one be dried. It is a silver cord twisted with a thousand strings that part asunder if one be broken. Frail and thoughtless mortals are surrounded by innumerable dangers which make it much more strange that they escape so long than that they almost all perish suddenly at last. We are encompassed with accidents ever ready to crush the mouldering tenements that we inhabit. The seeds of disease are planted in our constitution by the hand of nature. The earth and the atmosphere whence we draw our life are impregnated with death, health is made to operate its own destruction. The food that nourishes the body contains the element of decay - the soul that animates it by the vivifying fire tends to wear it out by its action - death lurks in ambush along our paths.
The Parkersburg Gazette
July 17, 1845
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TRY! "I can't do it." - Yes, you can. Try - try hard, try often - you will accomplish it. Yield to every discouraging circumstance, and you will do nothing worthy of a great mind. Try. Try and you will do wonders. You will be astonished at yourself -- advancement in whatever you undertake. "I can't," has ruined many a man; has been the tomb of bright expectation and ardent hope. Let "I will try," be your motto in whatever you undertake, and if you will steadily and surely accomplish your object, you will come off victorious. Try - keep trying - and you are made for this world.
The Parkersburg Gazette
Oct. 9, 1845
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HOPE. The last refuge of man is hope. -- When afflictions come upon him thick and fast; when cares fever his brain, and sorrow gnaws his heart; when the tide of misfortune has parted the last cord that held his bark to the moorings, and the sound of parting sinks like a death knell into his inmost soul, awakening all his sympathies to the fearful reality of the moment; the intensity of excitement gives away to a burst of anguish, a bitter tear of disappointment, or to that more strange and uncontrollable yet silent power despondency. But it is for a moment only; one convulsive throb, one long drawn, heart heavy sigh, and it is all over - a flush passes over the heart like the fleet sun shadow of an April day, and HOPE, the divine prince of cheats, the glorious emperor of deceivers, sits smiling on his throne.
The Parkersburg Gazette
March 26, 1853
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Bob Enoch is president of the Wood County Historical and Preservation Society. If you have comments or questions about Look Back items, please contact him at: roberteenoch@gmail.com, or by mail at WCHPS, PO Box 565, Parkersburg, WV 26102.