Milestone

“ More frequently the milestone is not perceived as such until we look back along the road, see the event clearly upstanding and realise that we were one man as we approached it and have become another since we left it behind ”

“ When the light has gone off the morning hills we have no particular pleasure in reminding ourselves how the shadows are lengthening on our path. Years ago we reached a new milestone with the comfortable feeling that there were any number of milestones ahead, and that to pass another one was rather a gay experience. If anything, we did not pass them speedily enough. We could not make the laggard time keep pace with the hurry of the spirit. But when the milestones stretch far behind us and we can count those in front on the fingers of one or two hands the zest for birthdays is diminished. ”

“ Sometimes these events are recognised as milestones immediately they fall; a death, a birth, a marriage, a new employment, a journey, a sickness—we know at once that a new phase is begun, we take a new lease of interest in life ”

“ You come to a milestone on a hill, or some place where deep ways meet under trees; and off goes the knapsack, and down you sit to smoke a pipe in the shade. You sink into yourself, and the birds come round and look at you; and your smoke dissipates upon the afternoon under the blue dome of heaven; and the sun lies warm upon your feet, and the cool air visits your neck and turns aside your open shirt. If you are not happy, you must have an evil conscience. You may dally as long as you like by the roadside. ”

“ Louis, President of the Association, spoke as follows: As one after another the milestones are reached which mark the progress of our cause, we pause to examine the ground upon which we stand. If to our impatient vision in looking forward the journey seems long, we have only to look back to see how much of the way has been left behind. ”

“ Next came the three philosophers, highly delighted with their walk, and full of rapturous exclamations on the sublime beauties of the scenery.
The Doctor shrugged up his shoulders, and confessed he preferred the scenery of Putney and Kew, where a man could go comfortably to sleep in his chaise, without being in momentary terror of being hurled headlong down a precipice.
Mr. Milestone observed, that there were great capabilities in the scenery, but it wanted shaving and polishing. ”

“ They have shown us the way, they have led man to the gateway of the unknown, and there in their robes of glory passed behind the Veil. Their lives were the key to their wisdom, as it must always be. They have gone, but in history they stand, milestones on the road of human progress. ”

“ These are but milestones on the turnpike. Human progress is over a vast field, and it is only at considerable intervals that a retrospective view enables us to discern whether the movement has been slow or rapid, onward or retrograde. ”

“ How many a success in after-days is reckoned but as one step in that ladder of ambition some boyish review has framed, perhaps, after all, destined to be the first and only one! With what triumph we hail some goal attained, some object of our wishes gained, less for its present benefit, than as the accomplishment of some youthful prophecy, when picturing to our hearts all that we would have in life, we whispered within us the flattery of success. ”

“ In moments of gratified ambition, in the glorious triumph of success, they have sounded to me like the confirmed predictions of one who foresaw my elevation, in less prosperous hours. When fortune has looked dark and louring, they have been my comforter and support, telling me not to be downcast or depressed, that the season of sadness would soon pass away, and the road to fame and honor again open before me. ”

“ His great work is, emphatically, for strictness of statement, combined with such comprehensiveness of subjects, for depth and clearness of disquisition, and for splendour of style, one of the most magnificent “Triumphs of Perseverance.”
And is the roll of these triumphs complete? Have the labours of the past pretermitted the possibility of equal victories in the future? Never, while the human mind exists, can the catalogue of its successes be deemed to have found a limit or an end. ”

“ May they not forget the pioneers who worked in the thick gloom with few rays to cheer, except such as flow from faith in God's promises! We work for a glorious future which we are not destined to see--the golden age which has not been, but will yet be. ”

“ It is not by sudden achievement that we consummate a long journey. It is step by step and mile by mile over a stony road that brings us to the goal, and it is not by mere resolving that we renounce the old and attain unto the new. ”

“ Growth is in every particle, and whatever time may bring—for the past it is a flower that "smells sweet and blossoms in the dust"—for present and future, a steady march toward the better day, whose twilight is our sunshine. ”

“ Is it so certain, then, that the new generation whereunto you offer your lives will merit the sacrifice; will be more beautiful, happier, will do something you have not done? Your aim is clear to us, clearer far than our own; you desire to live, as long as the world itself, in those that come after; but what can the aim be of this great aim; what the mission of this existence eternally renewed? ”

“ The building, or coming back to a normal state, is slow; it takes time, patience and will power, but it can be done. I know. I have been through the mill, and I pass the word to you and try to stir you to be up and doing, even as I did.
Your nerves can be steadied, your thoughts uplifted, your health restored, your ambition re-established, your normality fixed.
Smiles, love and content are to be yours. Poise, efficiency, peace, your blessings. Health, happiness and hope your dividends. ”

“ This era was one of development and promise, and richly were the promises fulfilled in the achievements of his later years. A careful study of his life to this point is sufficient to show that, with health and time, such a nature would certainly leave a mark wide and deep on the world in which it was placed. His characteristics were such that achievement was the very essence of life, and, with the promise and potency as revealed in this first twenty-three years of his life, we may be well prepared for the brilliant record of the remaining sixty-three. ”

“ Each is a measure of time,—the Old belonging to the infinite Past, the New to the infinite Future. But each has its own trials and its own triumphs. Be it our aspiration to smooth the trials and assure the triumphs before us! ”

“ AN HOUR LADEN WITH FATE The hour is critical, laden with fate. Responsibilities numerous and varied, as well as urgent and sacred, are crowding, in quick succession, upon a community youthful and valorous in spirit, rich in experience, triumphant in the past, sensible of its future obligations, keenly aware of the sublimity of its world mission, inflexibly resolved to follow with unfaltering steps the road of its destiny. ”

“ How great to think that things well done and the enlargement of others shall call down upon our names, even when all is lost but the mere names, a continuous and an increasing benediction. Nay, more than this: how great to think of the noise only of an achievement, and to be sure that the poem written, the carving concluded, or the battle won, the achievement of itself, though the name of the achiever be perished or unknown, shall awake those tremendous echoes. ”

“ It seems as though that fickle goddess, Fortune, showered every blessing, save one, on my path. Success followed success, triumph succeeded triumph. I was lionized, feted, petted, caressed by the social and literary world. ”

“ At that moment, perhaps, life and honor hang in the balance; thirty years of study, of hopes, of sacrifices, are about to be crowned with glory or scattered like a handful of dust down that green slope at his feet—it all hangs on a thread. ”

“ He would reach what would seem to be the very limit of his endurance, but if he held on, and would not rest, would not yield, this curious new vigor would come to him, this feeling of triumph, as if he had passed the boundary of normal endeavor and had become superhuman. ”

“ Two million men were transported across three thousand miles of infested sea and landed with eager hearts on foreign soil, in itself an accomplishment for which history draws no parallel. Even in the ages to come will the story be told in song and carried down in the minds and hearts of men -- a fame more lasting than ineffaceable records on stone. ”

“ The years come to us but once, and they come then only to pass swiftly on, bearing the ineffaceable record we have put upon them. If we wish to make them beautiful years or profitable years, we must do it moment by moment as they glide before us. ”

“ Your record will necessarily form a great part of the history of the world from this time onward, and though your present trials and perplexities seem past endurance, yet patience and perseverance, until a final triumph overtakes you, should be your polar star and watchword. ”

“ The subdued abundance, restrained success, the perfect balance of personal accomplishment and concealed consciousness of it, rose in delicate spires and minarets against a background of inexhaustible possibility, Eastern in its opulence. ”

“ So pleasant is the flowing ascent to the mist-shrouded pinnacle of the moments known as success. There, for we behold it in no other spot on earth, we fondly deem that happiness abides. If that haunting presence, unearthly bright, there displays her charms who shall say? Let those who have reached the spot whence can be descried the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them declare! ”

“ This year the fullness of time will come, the shout of victory will be heard in Heaven, the triumphant return of our great Captain may be expected, the new song will commence before the throne, eternity begin its revolution, and time shall be no more. ”

“ And the manner of our rising to it may shape anew our lives and other lives, and determine our progress here and hereafter. From the cradle to the grave, each of us carries a sleeping energy capable of immense expansion, which wakes when the great opportunity presents itself. ”

“ The greatest triumph of the nineteenth century is not its marvellous progress in invention; its strides in education; its conquests of the dark regions of the world; the spread of a higher mental tone throughout the earth; the wondrous increase in material comfort and wealth,—the greatest triumph of the century is not any nor all of these; it is the sweet atmosphere of Peace that is covering the nations, it is the growing closer and closer of the peoples of the earth. ”

“ Now, in looking at the shortness of human life, which is compared to a hand's breadth or to the vapor, which appears in the morning is seen but a little while and then vanishes away to be seen no more; and thinking that the pioneers stopped but so short a time to enjoy the fruits of their toil and the labor of their hands, I would exclaim again in language similar to that of the good man of old, "O, pioneers, pioneers, live forever!" ”

“ The hand of time, that resistlessly winnows the wheat from the chaff of human achievement, has been quietly shaping what will remain as the permanent sum of his work and influence. The temporary and transitory events in his career have already, in large measure, receded into the background. ”

“ It is a pledge of the destiny appointed for us that the Creator has set in our hearts an infinite standard of achievement, judged by which our past attainments seem always insignificant, and the goal never nearer. ”

“ Well, we agreed that night that we would meet here again exactly twenty years from that date and time, no matter what our conditions might be or from what distance we might have to come. We figured that in twenty years each of us ought to have our destiny worked out and our fortunes made, whatever they were going to be. ”

“ What the mind hath conceived, that the hand hath performed. Though few be the months that have passed, the rapidity of our successes and the splendour of our victories fill the whole world with astonishment. ”

“ Hence it is incumbent upon you to look forward, and with your eyes set on the wide field lying open before you, to put your hand to the plough in an earnest and determined spirit, glancing at the furrows already traced only to gain courage for additional exertions; thus using the past simply as a stimulus to the future, and not permitting yourselves to subside into indolence, delusively fancying that enough has already been accomplished. ”

“ Let the first year of our social memory be once settled, and, whether it be an Egyptian dynasty or the first celebration of public games, or the birth or the death or the flight of a prophet, we are ready to measure back by year and day to this arbitrary terminus the lives of individuals and of groups alike. ”

“ Do the work of each, and reap your reward in peace. So when the dreaded moment in the future becomes the present, you shall meet it walking in the light, and that light will overcome its darkness. The best preparation is the present well seen to, the last duty done. ”

“ The culmination of certain events, which must exert a tremendous influence in assuring the success of this Mission, draws very near, and countless hosts of Ento's, Earth's and of other Spirit Worlds, watch the movement with deepest interest and ardent longing for the dawning of a glorious day for a people who long have lived and died in a hopeless faith. ”

“ I replied, “that, with every year added to your life, you may, if you will, grow wiser and stronger. You stand, as all young minds, at the bottom of a ladder. The height to which you climb will depend upon your strength and endurance.” ”

“ The rising generation who will build upon it will extol your virtues, ennoble your task, preserve the record of your acts, and transmit to posterity the great tradition which you are now so happily and nobly establishing. My heart brims over with gratitude for all that you are achieving, and is filled with hopes for all that you will achieve in the near and distant future. ”