Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1894-11-14
A VA TED LIFE.

ilVlnB.-Luke, ID.
1t is appalling to think of the vast
amount of unused and misused energy
there is in the world.
If all men could be persuaded to do
their best, and do it with might and
main, we should soon have race of
gods on the earth.
There is no more painful contrast in
human life than that between what
we are capable of doing and what we
really accomplish.
Perhaps there is not single instance
in history of a man who worked up to
his utmost mental or spiritual capac
ity.
The noblest man that lives can do no
more than furnish a suggestion of the
souls aspiring possibilities before he is
called hence by the toling of funeral
bells. He leaves his task only half
done. his song only half sung, when
the reverend clergy pronounce the
solemn words, dust to dust, ashes to
ashes"
In this we are notably different from
other created things The beasts OF
the field, the birds of the air, the trees
of the forest, accomplish their perfect
work and could do no more if they had
added centuries in which to develop.
The thrush would still sing his plain
tive notes, the eagle would soar to no
higher attitude. the maple and birch
would have no brighter colors after
the autumnal frost.
Man alone is endowed with the
tremendous prerogatives of imperfec
ton. He alone can say at death, my
horizon line is as far away as ever"
And beneath this consciousness of
neglected duties which brings the red
blood to his checks is the curious con
viction that even if he had worked
with entire faithfulness, and lost
neither time nor opportunity, his years
are still too few and his limitations too
many to allow him to achieve the best
of which he is capable.
He can do more if another life and a
better environment are furnished. He
has a right to think it strange, there
fore, that the Being who made him to
become great should call him away
from his task before he can possibly
achieve greatness; that He who filled
him with magnificent abilities should
close his eyes in an eternal sleep just
as he begins to appreciate them. I'M
mortality is an absolute necessity, I'M
less we are willing to admit that the
creation of man is an unaccountable
blunder. AS soon make violin and
then destroy it when only few of the
simplest airs have been played.
But apart from all this is the fact
that there are men who run riot with
themselves and at death have nothing
to carry to heaven except an armful of
regrets. Their lives are like prairie
fire, which consumes everything as it
goes and leaves nothing behind but
blackened ashes In the Resurrection
they will stand before the bar of judg
ment as spiritual ruins and must needs
unlearn nearly all they ever learned in
this life before they can make any
progress. They have found their hap
piness in physical indulgence, and will
feel curiously oat of place when they
step out of their bodies and can have
no more pleasures of the grosser sort.
The disadvantage with which they
will begin the other life is too great for
even the Imagination to contemplate
Happiness will certainly be out or the
question until by slow degrees and
painful experience they effect radical
change in themselves. The hell of
theology has no pangs which will com
pare with the remorse they must suffer
when they see things in their right
light and come to full consciousness
that they have deliberately untitled
themselves for their environment
The fiery lake would be almost a re-
lief, for God has decreed no punish
ment SO great as that which encom-
passes a soul that has lived for the
body only and doesn't know how to
live without it.
For instance, what will happen to
the poor creature who has lived be-
sOtted life, or the man whose years
have been a continuous fraud on him
self? What profounder depths of per-
sonal wretchedness can one conceive of
than he is driven into when he looks
back Cd what he has been, and then
gets a glimpse of what he might have
been? Put such man into position
in which all his faculties will be thor
oughly awakened, in which he will see
himself as he is, and be forced to view
the falling tears Of a heart broken
wife, the fateful and ruinous tenden-
cies he transmitted to his children,
which have forced them into lives
equally shameful as his own What
must be his condition of mind? The
flaming tempests of the bottomless pit
seem, by way OF contrast, like an aay-
lum built by pity. He must undo the
agony until those wrongs have been
righted.
1t is serious thing to carry vast
ed life with all its consequences into
the other world.
What precious emphasis is given by
these facts to the divine mission and
the encouraging doctrines of the New
Testament How gently and with
what solemn responsiveness Jesus
dealt with the fallen He saw in the
outcast a brother or sister, and
though He scornfully babe those who
were without sin to cast the first stone,
there must have been a melting sorrow
in His tone when He whispered to the
offender, 60, and sin no more"
He never condoned crime, but was
always sorry for the criminal The
poor creature had already lost SO much
in the way of character and happiness
that it was unnecessary to add to his
burden the SO called anger of God. No |
one knows better than the remorsefuI |
sinner himself that Gods grief is far
more painful to contemplate than His
avenging wrath, and if the Church |
would tell US less about the unsheath-
ed sword and more about the relent-
less regrets which every disembodied
oOul AuuoU locOS 0uOuIO III u6uc6
of its earthly shortcomings and mis-
deeds, it would have a larger, more
potential and a more wholesome in
f1uenCe on the world.
If any one truth taught by the Mas
ter has conspicuous prominence, it is
the truth of Gods love for us all, and
His sympathetic pity for the sinner
who has gone astray. The text is from
I parable which represents the joy of
The angels when the misguided boy
sees the folly of wasting his substance
with riotous living and returns to the
ather's house in the sad consciousness
hat he is no longer worthy to be cali
I'd a son; and there is deeper warn
ng in that pathetic story, more that
appeals to the nobler elements of hui
nan nature, than can be found in all
he imprecatory theology that was
've1 formulated.-N y. Herald.
Indigestion's painful grip
Give me many a cruel nip,
Till of remedies the chief,
"Pierce's Pellets brought relief
DR.. Pierce's Pleasant Pellets promote {
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