Beast of burden

“ He is the only beast of burden whom man has not harnessed, or taught to draw, but whose body is looked upon as a living carriage, which may be loaded and oppressed, even during his time of rest; and when in haste sleeps under the pressure of a heavy burden, his legs bent under him, and the weight of his body resting upon his stomach. ”

“ You are hardy and valiant, life said; your shoulders are fitted to bear burdens, and bear them you shall. Here before you is a cruel burden, and you cannot turn aside. All the strong ones shall be chosen to suffer for the weak. ”

“ Therefore let us examine alone by ourselves the weight of our misfortunes, as if they were burdens. For the body is weighed down by the burden of what presses on it, but the soul often adds to the real load a burden of its own. ”

“ My little sorrows, as they hide and peep,
My little joys, as they disport and leap,
My little vanities, my budless May.
The burden of my virtues and my sins,
The burden of authority that grins
At every effort, ah, the burden kills ”

“ You carry a burden on your back whether you realise the fact or no, a burden that clogs all your efforts, and that will sink you deeper into the darkness and the mire. 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour,' and with noble, but, at bottom, vain, efforts have striven after right and truth. 'Come unto Me all ye that are burdened,' and bear, sometimes forgetting it, but often reminded of its pressure by galled shoulders and wearied limbs, the burden of sin on your bent backs. ”

“ My young friend, I easily perceive that you are put out by this Burden which you bear upon your shoulders. I am indeed surprised that one so intelligent should take such a matter so ill. What! Do you not know that burdens are the common lot of humanity? I myself, though you may little suspect it, bear a burden far heavier than yours, though, true, it is invisible, and not strapped on to my shoulders by gross material thongs of leather, as is yours. ”

“ Alas! were there a hundred of us he would still have to bear the heaviest burden alone.
All humanity at this hour is bearing a very cruel burden. Every minute aggravates its sufferings, and will no one, no one come to its aid? ”

“ It is a burden to be borne; a thing to labour for and to suffer for and to die for; a thing which gives no happiness and no pleasantness—but a hard life, an unknown grave, and the respect and bared heads of those who follow. ”

“ The suffering one is thus led to fell of the heavy burdens that are weighing down heart and mind, and before the visit closes it may be that those burdens will have been laid on the true Burden-bearer, a humble, broken prayer telling of the link being formed between the sinner and the all-powerful Saviour. ”

“ Shall we, poor human beings at such a disadvantage from the first in the fight with Fate through the many weaknesses and ailments of our bodies, load our souls as well with an ever-growing burden of regret and penitence? ”

“ The measure of our miseries is already full; our condition begins to be insupportable, and the life we lead is worse than that of beasts of burden. When these have gone their day's journey, their load is taken off, food is given them, and they are allowed to take rest; we, on the contrary, are always under arms, nor do we ever take our clothes off. ”

“ Each man's own burden seems the hardest to bear, I imagine, and to me these events have shrivelled the very marrow in my bones. They scorched me, and the glare, thrown from the larger world into the privacy of my life, made me feel that I could call on the hills to cover me. ”

“ And these poor devils of peasants, who can’t feel anything but their hunger and weariness, lose the most of life. They are not even human beings; they are merely beasts of burden, hard-working, 192 patient, unthinking oxen, who go the way they are driven, not dreaming of their strength. ”

“ If I falter and stumble under my own heavy load, which I have borne so querulously, so clumsily, shall not I say a word which can help a fellow-sufferer to bear his load more easily, help him to avoid the mistakes, the falls into which my own perversity has betrayed me? To make another's burden lighter is to lighten one's own burden ”

“ For God’s burdens are easy to bear; because he walks with us, and when the journey is too great, and the burden too heavy, and our hearts begin to fail and faint, he is sure to whisper, “Cast thy burden upon me, and I will sustain thee.” ”

“ Where was this series of hardships and perils to end? No sooner was one calamity eluded, than I was beset by another. I had emerged from abhorred darkness in the heart of the earth, only to endure the extremities of famine and encounter the fangs of a wild beast. From these I was delivered only to be thrown into the midst of savages, to wage an endless and hopeless war with adepts in killing, with appetites that longed to feast upon my bowels and to quaff my heart's blood. ”

“ He laid a burden on me and this [Pg 363] burden must I bear even though I may bear with it all the pain that is greater than the pain of the earth, greater than the ceaseless travail of the sea, even though I may bear with it that bitterest of all bitter fruits the labour that is nothing worth. ”

“ An end should be put to the burden which weighs upon the higher classes—the burden, I mean, of having to be ready every moment to expose life and limb to the mercy of anyone who takes it into his rascally head to be coarse, rude, foolish or malicious. ”

“ These burdens were fastened on at birth by His enemy, and as we grow they grow; and each year we carry them they get heavier and heavier, so that sometimes a very large burden has to be carried by a very weak person. ”

“ The burdens that are hard to bear are those we lay upon ourselves. What a 320 burden to themselves, and to every one around them, are the lazy and the unemployed! If it is a man, prayers should be offered up for his family and his dependents,—for who is so morbid and melancholy, so pettish and fretful, so devoured by spleen and ennui, as the man with nothing to do? ”

“ But if ever—in distress, peril, shame, poverty, or whatever anguish is most poignant, whatever burden heaviest—you should require a life to be given wholly, only to make your own a little easier, then summon me! ”

“ Simple weariness of the burden which he has not strength of body or mind to carry and ought never to have assumed is one attitude to be reckoned with, and failure to realize or in his heart accept the binding nature of his obligations is another. ”

“ The guilt of sin committed by us is a burden, a heavy burden; it is a burden to God (he is pressed under it, Amos ii. 13) , a burden to the whole creation, which groans under it, Rom. viii. 21, 22. It will, first or last, be a burden to the sinner himself, either a burden of repentance when he is pricked to the heart for it, labours, and is heavy-laden, under it, or a burden of ruin when it sinks him to the lowest hell and will for ever detain him there; it will be a talent of lead upon him, Zech. v. 8. Sinners are said to bear their iniquity. Threatenings are burdens. ”

“ We know that were we chained and degraded, fed like dogs, employed as beasts of burden, driven to our daily toil with threats and blows, and herded with wretches among whom all that savours of decency and manliness is held in an open scorn, we should die, perhaps, or go mad. ”

“ The great throes of human anguish have a common stratum of spirit, whether the agony rises from some Calvary of sacrifice, or in the meanest, humblest, half-ridiculous wreck of life. For the moment the man's suffering appeared to me with the dignity of genius denied expression, of exile, of high hopes crushed to sordid acceptance of daily bread. ”

“ Don't you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its somber and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It's really easier to face bereavement, dishonor, and the perdition of one's soul—than this kind of prolonged hunger. ”

“ And the burdened soul shall not bear the burden of another: and if the heavy laden soul cry out for its burden to be carried, yet shall not aught of it be carried, even by the near of kin! Thou shalt warn those who fear their Lord in secret, and observe prayer. ”

“ Why am I called upon to do this, oh cruel, most cruel destiny? Cannot I fly from the horrid scene? Cannot I rather run a dagger into my heart? But no, 'tis plain my fate is ordained, sealed, fixed! and in vain I struggle,—I must fulfil the task appointed for me! ”

“ Such a burden must no longer be placed only upon your back, for there are others whose bones are young and who are willing to share it with you. Why should we be compelled to sit still or merely to beat our back with fists while you, dear Father, undergo these too terrible fatigues? ”

“ His life had been spent in the wastes, with rough deeds and rugged habits, and a youth of hardship, danger, and almost savage endurance, had given him a half-barbarian temperament, which could strike an angry blow at one moment and fondle to death at the next. ”

“ But Warrigal had never in her life lacked courage, and now, behind her courage and her devotion to her mate, there was hunger, red-toothed and slavering in her ears; hunger burning like a live coal in her heart; hunger stretching her jaws for killing, with an eagerness and a ferocity which could not be denied. ”

“ Good God! the misery, and wretchedness, and grinding poverty, deadening to the heart, which exist in large cities, within ken of opulence, of luxury and of splendor! O! could the voice of these wretched throngs be heard, in its collected wailing, what a cry of despairful agony would go up to the throne of the Everlasting! Dead souls in living sepulchres, stalking their gloomy round of poverty, neglect and wo—uneducated, ungodly, famine-stricken—what hope is there for them in this world, and, word of horror, what in the next! ”

“ Whoever freely takes up the cause of the wretched, is left to feel the grievous pressure of the burden. The frustration of his plans by the obstinate folly of those whom he would fain serve, the apathy, the remissness, or the sinister oppositions of professed coadjutors, the dangerous hostility of profligate power, and worse than all, the secret misgivings of an exhausted spirit ”

“ Do you wish to know what is taking place?—Sometimes, when endurance is at an end and strength exhausted, bending beneath the weight of misery, without shoes, without bread, without clothing, without a shirt, consumed by fever, devoured by vermin, poor artisans torn from their workshops, poor husbandmen forcibly taken from the plough, weeping for a wife, a mother, children, a family widowed or orphaned, also without bread and perhaps without shelter, overdone, ill, dying, despairing,—some of these wretched beings succumb, and consent to "ask for pardon!" ”

“ And since, when I returned to the fortress, not one of my followers accompanied me (for I was penniless) I began to ponder deeply.
"A curse, a curse on a life of poverty! There is sound sense in the verse:
Even relatives are sure
Scornfully to treat the poor;
Pride is docked, and virtue's moon
Loses luster, waning soon;
Friends that were, disgusted fly;
Sorrows breed and multiply;
Comes the imputation then
Of the sins of other men.
When man is crushed by poverty
And stricken down by fate,
His best of friends become his foes,
And tried affection, hate. ”

“ Ah, what sad havoc do sickness and pain make of the poor body; but sadder still when they trample on the bright inhabitant within, and make it a slave to tremble at their bidding! "Bring chains—bring chains," cries the fell destroyer; and ere she has time to rally her forces around her, or even think of resistance, the poor Soul has become a helpless captive, and Disease wears a smile of triumph upon her ghastly cheek, and again lifts up her voice to shout "victory." ”

“ I am so weary of the Curse of Living The endless, aimless torture, tumult, fears. Surely, if life were any God's free giving, He, seeing His gift, long since went blind with tears. Seeing us; our fruitless strife, our futile praying, Our luckless Present and our bloodstained Past. ”

“ But remember,--remember how much more horrible is the long, slow systematic crushing, wasting, drying of men upon their bones, which year after year, century after century, has begotten the Monster, Hunger. ”

“ As though there would be a very great manifestation of his almighty power in what the fierceness of his wrath should inflict, as though omnipotence should be as it were enraged, and exerted, as men are wont to exert their strength in the fierceness of their wrath. Oh! then, what will be the consequence! What will become of the poor worm that shall suffer it! Whose hands can be strong! And whose heart endure! To what a dreadful, inexpressible, inconceivable depth of misery must the poor creature be sunk who shall be the subject of this! ”

“ I will not pause to tell you how, when I beheld young men still free and happy, married, fathers of children, cheerfully toiling at their work, my heart reproached me with the greatness and vanity of my unhappy sacrifice. I will not describe to you how, worn by poverty, poor lodging, scanty food, and an unquiet conscience, my health began to fail, and in the long nights, as I wandered bedless in the rainy streets, the most cruel sufferings of the body were added to the tortures of my mind. ”

“ The gleams of calm that fall upon his tortured heart only light up an abyss of misery—a vault of darkness peopled by demons. He is already cut off from among the living, by the doom of inevitable fate, and while we pity him we fear him. ”

“ There is a burden of care in getting them, fear in keeping them, temptation in using them, guilt in abusing them, sorrow in losing them, and a burden of account, at last, to be given up concerning them. ”