The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1889-07-05
NATURES CRUELTY,
The following is Mr.. DIX0N's article

Nature smiles, threatens, curses, and
commands, but never weeps. She rises in
a thousand forms of beauty and oublimity
and receives mems homage. but never
stoops to sympathiZe with a SHINING,
stumbling child. She knows no sympa-
thy. She has no ear for prayer, no heart
to pity, no arm 20 save. She acts with
fearful uniformity through laws as stern
as fate. as ineXOrable as death, as merci-
less as hell.
The terror stricken sailor climbs into
the rigging of his doomed ship and cries
in vain for mercy to the wind that shrieks
in demouiac glee through the cordage
about him. The wind does not care, the
waves do not hear
TIE victim who trembles in the grasp of
an earthquake need not pray to mother
earth, her only response is an open grave
that yawns to be filled, while from the
depths of her bowels comes The roar as of
a hungry, maddened hon. The storm
king in remorseless fury lauses not for
cry, or groan, or tear, or prayer. The
peStlIence at whose subtle touch thou
sands fall laughs at mans calamity a
single frost might stay the bloody work
and bind again the blessed seals that held
in manacles the monsters hands. The
frost does not come. No Mothers
hearts lie still More lives must yet be
drained And for many morning still
the rumbliug Of that dreaded cart must be
heard as at early dawn its driver cries
Bring out your dead Bring out your
dead :" Nature does hot care Over all
the bloody fields of our Civil War Nature
never shed tear. The grass grows only
the richer for the blood that was shed
Nature only smiled the brighter from the
nutriment of such rare food
The sunlight steals through the window
of the sick room and lights it, but falls on
the dung heap with just as glad a smile
and plays on the FURNISHED coffin lid of
the dead with just as merry twinkle
The sun does not care.
The water slowly rises along that fatal
dam on the South Fork, higher, higher,
higher, adding every inch ton on ton of
pressure against mans weak masonry
Not one jot or little of her rights did Nat
ure suspend. Every pound of hydraulic
pressure to which she was entitled she re-
morselessly demanded until at last with
millions of tons gathered in her arms she
leaped upon the puny structure, crushed
it like toy, and with the roar of Mag
ara plunged down the mountain gorge on
her wild mission of death Shrek and
groan rend the air She does not heed,
but lest any snould escape, lights up the
dN III SCCI1C VIII pllcO upon
the seething flood. No, Nature did not
care
We hear of men sometimes worshiping
Nature. Can Nature ever satisfy the cry
of the human soul for sympathy and help!
WANTED: A God of pity | call the
roll of all the gods Of the past. | walk
through the ma este temples of Greece
and call the roll from ZEUs down and
hear no response. ! walk through the
! temples of the proud mistress of the an
| cent world and call the roll from JUPITER
| down and hear no response. | find grace,
and beauty, and dignity, and power, and
| majesty, and patriotism, but no pity In
vain search, unit! at last | hear the sweet
voice of Jesus of Nazareth as it echoes
DER the hills of Galilee and comes ringing
down the ages with its divine message
wet with the tears and winged with the
triumphS of the fervor and faith of thou
sands ''In the world We have tribula-
| ton. but be of good cheer, ! have over
come the world" Not a sparrow falleth
to the ground without the Fathers knowl
edge. Fear not, therefore, ye are OF
more value than many sparrows.' There
is mourning in the little home at Bethany
and Jesus comes Hear the broken
hearted sister as she tells the sad story
and in her tears turns to him and says,
Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my
brother had not died" Jesus wept. See
Him, AS He stands with head bowed in
sympathy weeping with those who weet
while the Jews looking on exclaimed
''Behold how He loved him -
Standing before the awful calamity al
Johnstown, love to think that Jesus ten
derly bent DER the stricken valley of the
Conemaugh on that fatal Friday night
and that he walks weeping amid its ruin:
to-day. Over every unmarked grave, il
sand heap, burning rubbish, crowded