Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1894-11-08

1 "
couch of your child, and try to hold
fast the little one, and see all the time
| that he is getting weaker, and the
| breath is shorter, and make cutlery to
! God to help us, and to the doctors to
save him, and see it is of no avail, and
then to know that his spirit is gone,
and that you have nothing left but the
casket that held the jewel, and that in
two or three days you must even put
that away, and walk around about the
house and find it desolate, sometimes
feeling rebellious, and then to resolve
to feel differently, and to resolve on
self control, and just as you have come
to what you think is perfect self con-
troll to suddenly come upon some
little coat, or picture, or shoe half
worn out. and how all the floods of the
soul burst in one wild wall of agony!
Oh. my God, how hard it is to part, to
close the eyes that never can look
merry at our coming, to kiss the hand
that will never again do us a kindness.
know religion gives great consolation
at such an hour, and we ought to be
cOmforted; but anyhow and anyway
you make it, it is awful.
On steamboat wharf and at rail car
window we may smile when we say
farewell; but these good-byes at the
death bed, they just take hold of the
heart with iron pinccrs, and tear it out
by the roots till all the fbers culver
ard curl in the torture and drop thick
blood. These separations are wine
presses into which our hearts, like red
clusters, are thrown, and then trouble
turns the windlaSs round and round
until we are utterly crushed and have
no more capacity to suffer and we stop
crying because we have wept all our
tears.
On every street, at every doorstep,
by every couch, there have been part
ings. But once past the heavenly por-
tails, and you are through with such
scenes forever. In that land there are
many hand-claspings and embracings,
but only in recognition. That great
home circle never breaks. Once find
your comrades there, and you have
them forever. No Grape floats from
the door of that blissful residence.
No cleft hillside where the dead sleep
All awake, wide awake and forever
No pushing out of emigrant ship for
foreign shore No tolling of bell as
the funeral passes Whole generations
in glory. Hand to hand, heart to
heart, Joy to JOY. No creeping up the
limbs of the death chill, the feet cold
until hot tlannels can not warm them,
No rattle of scpulchal gates. No part
ing, no pain.
Further, the heavenly city will have
no pain of body. The race is pierced
with sharp distrcsses. The surgeons
knife must cut. The dentists pincers
must pull. Pain is fought with pain.
! The world is a hospital. Scores of dis
eases like vultures contending for
carcass, struggle as 20 which shall
have it. Our natures are infinitely
susceptible to suffering. The eye, the
foot, the hand, with immense capacity
Of anguish.
| The little child meets at the en-
| trance of life manifold diseases. You
! hear the shrill cry of infancy as the
lancet strikes into the swollen gum.
You see its head tess in consuming
| fevcrs that take more than half of
them into the dust. Old age passes,
dizzy, and weak, and short breathed,
and dim-sighted. On every northeast
wind come down pleurisies and pneu
monias. War lift, its sword and hacks
away the life of whole generations.
The hospitals of the earth groan into
! the ear of God their complaint. Asiatic
choleras and ship fevers and typhoids
and London plaques make the worlds
knees knock together.
Pain has gone through every street,
and up every ladder, and down every
shaft. 1t is on the wave, on the mast,
on the beach. Wounds from clip of
elephants tusk, and adder's sting, and
crocOdileS tooth, and horses hoof, and
wheels revolution. We gather up the
infrmities of our parents and transmit
to our children the inheritance aug
mented by our own sicknesses, and
they add to them their own disorders,
to pass the Inheritance to other gener-
atoms. In A. d. 262 the plague in
Rome smote into the dust 5000 citizens
daily. In 544, in Constantinople, 1000
grave diggers were not enough to bury
the dead. In 1913, ophthalmia seized
the whole Prussian army. At times
the earth has sweltered with suffering
Go through and examine the lacera-
tions, the gunshot fractures, the sabre
wounds, the gashes of the battle axe,
the slain of bombshell and exploded
mine and falling wall and those de-
stroyed under the gun carriage and the
hoof of the cavalry horse, the burning
thirsts, the camp fevers, the frosts that
shivered, the tropical suns that smote.
Add it up, gather it into one line, com,
press it into one word, spell it in one
, syllable, clanl1 it in one chain, pour il
! l out in one groan, distill it into one
tear.
; Ay, the world has writhed in SIX
: thousand years of suffering. Why
doubt the possibility of future world
of suffering when we see the torture:
, that have been inflicted in this? A de
serter from Sebastopol coming over tc
the army of the allies pointed back t.
the fortress and said THAT place il
= a perfect hell"
Our laxicOura DherS aware of the i'm