THE VARIETY OF FACES.
I was much interested, while on board the Pittsburg, as I have often
been before, in noticing the vast variety in human faces and features.
Go where you will, on board steamboats, into railroad-cars, public
meetings, &c., where are found assemblages of from one hundred to one
thousand--or even several thousand--persons, and survey narrowly every
face; and will you find any two alike?
Examine, if you please, the faces of nearest relatives--brothers,
sisters, parents, children, and even twins themselves--and though you
may and sometimes will find a very striking similarity, yet you will,
after all, find a difference in some one or more particulars. No two, in
any assembly or company, look exactly alike.
Nay, more than all this. If you were to travel the world as much as I
have done, and to see, in the course of half a century, several millions
of people, you would find no two, anywhere, with features exactly alike.
In the eight hundred millions which now inhabit our globe there is a
shade of difference, such as would enable a careful eye to distinguish
every one from all others.
And how is it with the mind that shines out in these varied faces? Is
that as distinguishable on a close acquaintance as the exterior--the
features? Is there any reason why it should not be? I am not quite
certain it is so; but did not the great Creator intend it should be?
I do not mean to say, of course, that there are not some things alike in
every face. So there are some things which must be expected to be alike
in our mental formation.
Every one on board this steamboat--every one in the world--resembles his
fellows in the general structure and aspect of his features. Every one
looks forward and upward, and not downward like the beasts that perish.
Every one has the projecting brow, with the well-defended eye under it,
the more prominent nose and chin, &c.
So every one thinks highly of himself, his friends, possessions, home,
&c. Every one, unless by divine grace made a true Christian, is more or
less selfish. Every one loves, and, in his way, seeks happiness, and
hates misery. "Who will show us any good?" is the almost universal cry.
If people do not say it, in so many words, they do so by their actions.
It is an old maxim that actions speak louder than words; and it is of
high, very high authority, that out of the abundance of the heart (or
_mind_) the mouth speaketh.
It is not very difficult, therefore, to guess how the various minds on
board this steamer are occupied. No one is talking about the wants, the
ignorance, or the means of improving the condition of his neighbor. No
one is talking, unless the thought is suggested by another, about the
welfare of the great Jehovah's kingdom.
But I mean not quite so much. There are a few blessed exceptions to the
apparent severity of this remark. For here, just by my side, sits a
woman some fifty years of age or more, who has, for more than thirty
years, cared for and thought of other people as well as herself.
She is the wife of Mr. Byington, a famous missionary to the Choctaw
Indians. It is, I believe, nearly thirty years since she and her husband
devoted themselves to the great work of trying to instruct and improve
those poor people, and make Christians of them. Such a person will care
for the good of others, and the honor of God, even on board a steamboat.
Those who have been philanthropists and Christians as long as Mr. and
Mrs. Byington, will not soon or easily forget their former habits and
become selfish like the rest of the world.
I am greatly afraid that most persons who seem to be religious at home,
forget their religion when they go abroad. Indeed, I have known many who
were given to prayer, watchful over their tongues, mindful of the
Sabbath, and self-denying at home, who were none of these when a
thousand miles from home, or even half that distance.
True, we cannot always know whether people pray or not, when they are
abroad, because most of what deserves the name of prayer is offered
where no eye can reach but that of God. There is an opportunity for
closet prayer everywhere; and it is quite possible that they who break
the Sabbath, indulge their appetites, and do not bridle their tongues,
sometimes pray. Still I must say that, judging as well as I can, the
fear already expressed is but too well grounded.