The record-union., 1898-02-27
some RAMBLING THOUGHTS.
BY Memo"
copyrighted by Dave & Tabor)

copyrighted by Dave g. Tabor)
AS to Immortality: With all animals
we share our physical needs and frail-
ties: SO that there is nothing out of con-
forInity TO nature if this body waste
away by age or by disease Ii this mind,
remarkable though its powers are, is
based upon physical changes within the
substance of the brain. we need to raise
no serious protest if its powers wane as
We become aged. If in the grave these
hands and eyes, these bones and muscles
transform into mere gases and COM
pounds, so that in the place of the liv-
ing being there remain but few pinches
of dust, why should we shudder at the
thought? These. our elements, were
wathered through the years from earth
and air and they have simply returned
to their own. But if this personality,
this EGO which makes me differ from
every other person, and every other
person from me--if this individuality
that sits in judgment somewhere within
us, daring all things hoping all things,
measuring all things; if this come to an
end like the rest; if this though noting
physical decay yet still soaring higher
and higher. undecaying and undecayed
is only to be Knocked at the end with sud
den humiliation, then may we well
curse God and die. For then are we
mere experimental whims of fiend in
stead of nurtured and cherished crea-
lures of benign being.
What else can be true if death ends
all. The knowledge of oneself as a being
separate and individual, is a very hor-
ror; for it only leads US UP to high places
in order to cast us down headlong as
soon as we have gained a glimpse of
broad. well-ordered universe. Better
not to have been. than to attain glories
| blotted out--as dark. unwholesome,
| bewidering night bots out the day.
There is DO escaping the cruelty OF the
thing, if humiliation is all that remains
after our noble curbings of self, after
our deeds of love, after our sense of
kinship with the good, after our longings
for fuller life and knowledge. Look on
noble woman Her individual character
is quite independent of any functions
that remain or any functions that cease.
She lives to impress others, and TO GUIDE
| them, whether her own or her nelgn-
| bors. Follow her onward through the
years. With enfeebled step, but with
heart enriched, she still does her un-
selfish errands and plannings. Now
| comes helplessness; but she is yet the
same individual whose best remains
! brightest. At last we hear final Sob
| bling sigh. Am / to believe that the
mere circumstance of Debated lung has
destroyed a character that neither trials
nor pain nor weakness could destroy?
If so, then matter is superior to mind
| and mind to character; and we would
better eat, drink and live sensuously, for
| tomorrow We vanish.
There is another phase of the subject
that gives us distress if we think OF
it, Reflect on the imperfect ones; the
victims of heredity who know not what
| they do save as the impulse of an an
| cestor compels them; the bearers OF
physical and mental burdens by rea-
| son of wrongs which they themselves
never committed. Think on those who
are weighted down with care and trou-
! BILE almost from the cradle to actually
| the grave; on those-serfs, slaves ana
the wretchedly poor-who get, not or
| free-will but by chance, merely the
| bread crumbs that fall from rich mems
tables. Think on the jewellers in the
| dark places of the earth. All these are
human beings whose lives are spent i'll
stolid misery. They have rights, and,
| by all that is fair and equitable in hu~
man nature, we declare that somewhere,
some day, some how they shall have
chance to live life in its highest.
| This desire for a hereafter-this de-
mand, shall / say?-is definite hunger
of the self within us. By every anology
of nature spread out in all its varied
forms by creative hand we never see
a hunger without provision made to
meet it. Must we know all about the
beyond in order to be content? We know
not the beauties of a palace until we
are within. The very ability to think or
it, however, predicates it; for we cannot
think the unthinkable. The Frightening
faces of the dying ofttimes proclaim 1t.
What their eyes see and their ears hear,
will be ours Also when we approach the
mere veil that covers the entrance to the
beyond. AS one of the Restoration poets
says:
The souls dark cottage, battered and de-
cayed,
Lets in new light through chnks which
| Time hath made.
Stronger by weakness. wiser men become
/ AS they draw near their SttIlietl iioiiC.
| Both worlds al once they view
Who stands upon the threshold of the new.
| close with some verses based upon
| line in one of the Horace Odes:
| mon OMNIS MORTAR"
AS prisoned birds in alley dark
/ We fret our lives away,
Longing to rise like soaring lark,
| And watch the opening day.
| And now we crouch in dull despair,
| And fret our earth-floored cage
Anon our useless wings we tear
| In idle, hopeless rage.
| In gentler mood we gaze above
And fiutter feebly higher,
Hoping to bring the blue we love.
If but a little. higher.
But ever cloud or falling night
Or half-forgotten bars,
| Forbids cen the constant light
OF distant misty stars.
And yet beyond these bars, they say,
Beyond the swollen town.
The full sun rises every day,
And every night goes down.
And sometimes from a dusty pane
a mirrored sunbeam falls,
And wakes an aforementioned strain,
THAT tells of love and life again
Beyond these prison walls.
yTysI.J MID