The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-03-08
THE GREAT QUESTION.
Is EXISTENCE WORTH THE ANxI.
ETY. INTO WHICH III THROWS US.

The True Sense of Mans History and
OF His Destiny-The Sense of Inf
mite Necessary TO His Aspirations.
The MateriaIistic Doctrine show
ing Only the Miserable Side of Life.
what Is 10 he Thought of the Des-
tiny of Nations.
To what question do we here refer? To
the grand. unique question. to the one
which embraces all others. the question of
existence Let us leave for a moment the
European and eastern questions whose So
luton we cannot advance by a single min
ute; the American financial question,
which gets more involved every day; and
let us ask whether existence itself Is worth
all the anxiety into which 1t throws us,
the agitations and troubles 1t causes us;
whether, in short, it has all the importance
which we generally grant to 1t.
When the sky becomes hidden by dark
clouds. when cold vapors surround and
penetrate within US, this dismal sight and
disagreeable sensation naturally produce
in us a state of melancholy. If the sky
remained long hidden from us, II the fog
continued to envelop us or rain to mum
date us, without our being able to escape,
such a situation would place us in state
of profound misery, which many would be
unable to Withstand. But let ray of sun
shine pierce this thick fog, let the clouds
become gilded and disperse before the gen
tle breeze, enabling us once more to view
the immense azure, and Immediately joy
and courage enter our souls with the light.
If is not only the physical effect which is
nerceived, the agreeable sensation which
takes the place of the slow torture and in
tolerabIe misery; there is also deliverance
from the narrow limits OF our vision, there
Is, the moral satisfaction produced by the
revelation of the infinite. This sense Of the
infinite is necessary to our aspirations; ii
Is only with this condition that we ac-
cent existence; 1t is there alone that we OBJ
tain the strength necessary to accomplish
the obligations It imposes upon us. When
the clouds reappear, we know that they
hide the clear beauty of the heaven from
us for a few hours or few days only; we
know that light and the sky are beyond
them; we know even that If we climb to
the summit of some high mountain we
could then look down upon this sea of
mists lighted up by the suns rays. and
that il every cloud has dark side lower
AAAAC1a
and bright surface turned towards the re-
gions of boundless space.
The troubles which beset us in this life
are like the fog, the rain or the boar frost,
from which we have so often to suffer.
Material wants have to be satisfied which
demand constant preoccupation and in
cessant labor To these primary wants
have to be added those of the intellect,
those which result from habits contracted
or from social intercourse, and which so
far from being less imperious are, If any
thing perhaps even more So We faith
fully accomplish our daily task for weeks.
months and years; and there is apparently
no good reason why we and. ours should
not have our daily bread, why our rela-
tons with other beings, in the intimacy
Of the family or in the world, should not
always be harmonious. Nevertheless
nothing of all this Is assured to us. Sup
pose the sweets Of life to be wanting all
at once; its necessaries, or what we have
been in the habit Of considering as SUCH
to be unobtainable. determinations sue
coed friendly greetings; shame menaces
US; misery brushes US; everything be-
comes gloomy the horizon is dark with