Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1883-08-17
Drifting.
IT. J. Shelton, in Wichita Times. !

The city is silent. 1t is the hour for
meditation. The stars look down and
the old world goes on whirling through
space. What world! For unknown
ages this planet has been playing along
on its course around the sun. 1t seems
10 m9vo with regularity. 1t is not adrift
without law or guidance. But the peo-
pie on this ball of matter seem to be
drifting hither and thither without any
fixed purpose. They are killing each
other, hangings, lynchings, murders,
adulteries, theft and drunkenness seem
to be the order of the day and night.
What does it mean? Everything above
and below us is governed by rules and
regulations which maintain perfect er-
der. But man, born of woman has no
Lalanee wheel. He goeth about driven
with the wind. Take humanity as a
whole, take the race as we find it, and
there is no governor; no orbit to hold
us in place. Glance backward over the
history of man and you will find con-
fusion, recklessness and ruin. Look at
the world to-day in the bright light of
the nineteenth century and what do you
find but wretchedness and furious folly.
Men are cranks, lunatics, libertines,
gluttons, drunkards, murderers and
thieves. The world lieth in wickedness
and it always has been wicked and fool
ish. Why did the Creator put the plan
cts in their places, the birds of the air
in their elements and teach the fishes
the paths of the mighty deep, and yet
leave man to drift at the mercy of his
impulses and passions? Why should
not man have fixed orbit and be en-
dowed with the law of attraction and
repulsion which would keep him in his
natural position? What in the devil is
the matter with the worlds inhabitants?
There, you say, is the explanation. t.
devil is in the world. But this only gets
US out of one difficulty into another. If
man is left at the mercy of subtle be-
ing who is more powerful and better
disciplined than we are it makes the
enigma of life more perplexing than ev-
er. The devil theory is more terrible
than the awful driftings of natural i'm
pulse. But, you say. there are two pow
erful beings the Lord and the devil.
This gets us deeper in the mud. If poor
undisciplined, weak, ignorant humani-
ty is to be tossed to and fro as a foot
ball for the Lord and the devil he is
still an enigma to himself. A limited
number of individuals may be saved by
this process, but the devil will get the
great majority. For our part we are
not anxious to be saved if the race is to
be eternally damned. That the race
has been damned SO far and is damned
now is plain to be seen by any man who
cares to look at the past and present.
But why it should be is mystery to the
writer. We give it up as the problem
of problems. Why God should create
men and toss them out Oh small plan
ct and leave them there to bite and de-
YOUR one another is something we can
not solve. Murder, suicide, war and
commotion, sin in every form is an alb
sOlute mystery.
Life, death, and the struggle for ex-
istence cannot be explained by the phi
losophy of man. The race from the ma
ked Hottentot to the boss of Tammany
Hall, the bloody savage of the jungle
and the blOodier savage Of civilization
seem to he q disastrous abortion. OF
course once in awhile a model man will
appear above the level of the race and
we will think for a moment that we
have found an explanation, a key to the
fiddle of existence. But, alasi on clos
er inspection we find our model is akin
to the race of sinners. The sweet sing
er Of Israel, the poet-king, David, was
called man after Gods own heart, and
he did give promise of nobleness of pur-
pose and strength of will. But after he
had large family and sons and daught-
ers growing up around him, the sight of
Bude woman in the bath was more than
his wilkpower or better Judgment could
Withstand. Down goes the temple of
manhood, and lustful devil takes the
place of Gods man. He not only COM
1 ulioo duutScfy y DuIf W nluo uiSCiiinc duu
give himself freedom for years Of indul-
gence, he murders the woman's hus-
band. This is but an illustration Of the
tendency of the race. Take tfse iAbab-
itants of China and the savages of At
RIGA and more than half the race are
poor specimens of the animal to say
nothing of the man; and as civilization
progresses we seem TO commit more re-
voting crimes than in our savage state.
You may call this misanthropic fault
finding, but it is not. When we speak
of humanity as it is, of the race OF men
and women we cannot have o very ex-
alted opinion of our fellows unless we
shut our eyes to the history Of the past
and the actual facts Of the present. 1t
may be that this is the formative state
of man, kind of tadpole period, and THAT
after awhile we will come out of Che
mud and mire, wash on selves i'm the
clear waters of life, and look back and
laugh at our present predicament. This
is the only hope we have for hs m nifty.