The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-05-26

He does not seem to dare to interfere. Socially they are as independent of France as if they lived out of 1t. They pay no more attention to the president of the republic than the pope pays to the king Of Italy They look for the re- turn of the monarchy and are all the while secretly plotting for the consum- nation of their hopes and wishes. How can country flourish which is so hope lessly divided against itself?
 The death of the Duchess d'Alencon VIII throw into mourning several reign ing families. She was princess of the royal house of Bavaria, a sister of the empress of Austria, 0 cousin of the king of SaXony and was related to the Bour- bons of Spain. Her husband, whose in Juries may prove fatal, is a cousin of the king of Belgium and an uncle of the king of Portugal.
 Could the terrible catastrophe be con- Verted into the beginning of social ra- proachement, it would not be an unmit- igated horror. But as all the victims were from one class, and that the most exclusive class in France, there seems nothing upon which to build hope The element of mutual suffering is ab- | sent and the Orleanists are already | showing that they care not for republi- can sympathies. The body of the duch- l ess will probably be taken to Vienna, where the obsequies can be held with royal pomp and safe from republican | intrusion. The lesson for Americans is to be ever watchful against the estab- | fishing of permanent aristocracies in their beloved country.
 All the joy and pleasure of Paris
 seem to have fled for the thoughtful, I for while at least. For a hundred | people to be burned up in five minutes; ! to have the pleasant babble and laugh 1 teE of cheery voices turned instantly | into mad shrieks and frantic screams; | to have all the beauty of garments of | exquisite fashioning turned at once into | cunglng, lncinerating torture; to have | life go out in the burning torments of
 molten flesh, leaving nothing behind
 for the recognition of relatives but | bones grappling heirlom jewels; is a | picture too awful for the refined sensi-
 bilities of the nineteenth century. Can
 it be that our own ancestors of the
 days of the inquisition were capable of
 as much suffering as we are!
 With what vividness come up again
 the questions of life and death of per
 sonal experience. Consolation! There
 is none whatsoever to the human heart.
 What can be said to the parents whose
 lovely darlings have been burnt up as
 you would burn up Wisp of old hair, l or the contents of a dust-pan? Will | you dare to tell them that those lovely
 girls so full of joy, beauty life and hope l Lo to1, | drawn out lives of unhappiness and
 from slow, protracted deaths of finger
 ing misery? Have you the faith, the
 actual firm confidence, the real assur-
 ance, to tell them that their lost ones
 are In heaven, rejoicing already in a far | greater pleasure than the one inter- | rupted by the fatal spark? Is your
 faith so literal? Can they believe you
 so fully as to rejoice themselves? Can
 you have the devils gift to tell them
 that they must submit because the
 whole catastrophe was prepared before-
 hand by the Almighty, who 'com- passed" the death of every one of the
 victims by His own foreordained plans
 and for His own eternal glory?
 If ever moved, or advised, to preach
 such a doctrine, pause for your steps
 are leading to the lowest abyss.
 Then what's to be done? The answer
 is easy. If you believe in God, believe
 that He is God of life, and not God
 of death; God of love, and not God of hate; God of joy, and not a God of
 grief. Believe that He has made us to
 live, and not to die; to be happy, and not to be miserable. If this Re so, then
 all His laws must be for our happiness.
 They must have been created for the
 express purpose of enabling us to live
 out the fulness of our days in health
 and happiness. It therefore follows,
 absolutely, that whenever a young life
 Is cut short by sickness or accident,
 there has been violation of Gods law.
 Equally so whenever any life is not from end to end happy. The violation
 may not have been committed by the
 victim. It may have been committed and unwittingly, too, by an ancestor !, generations before the victim came into existence; or, as in the Paris tragedy by those who through relationship, or , confidence, are entrusted with the care of others. If the duke and his associ-
 ates had turned their attention away , from their aristocracy to the considera. , tion of the laws of conf1agrations, Paris
 would not be in mourning; hundreds of houses, where now are lying charred , corpses, would be still bubbling with ; joy and laughter. That above all there is pardoning and reviving power l which can restore life to black ashes and to whitened bones is the blessed be- lief of the Christian, which may only be preached, however, by those who have 7 been called; to whose spirits have been revealed the mysteries of eternity, and 3 whose lips have been touched with a r coal from Gods altars.
 r FERNANDEZ.