I have read a parable of a man shut up in a fortress under sentence of perpetual imprisonment, and obliged to draw water from a reservoir which he may not see, but into which no fresh stream is ever to be poured. How much it contains he cannot tell. He knows that the quantity is not great; it may be extremely small. He has already drawn out a considerable supply during his long imprisonment. The diminution increases daily, and how, it is asked, would he feel each time of drawing water and each time of drinking it? Not as if he had a perennial stream to go to-"I have a reservoir; I may be at ease." No: "I had water yesterday, I have it to-day; but my having it yesterday and my having it to-day is the very cause that I shall not have it on some day that is approaching." Life is a fortress; man is the prisoner within the gates. He draws his supply from a fountain fed by invisible pipes, but the reservoir is being exhausted. We had life yesterday, we have it today, the probability — the certainty — is that we shall not have it on some day that is to come.
(R. A. Wilmot.)

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