The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1898-04-14
SWEET EASTER.
BUT WHAT OF THE SUFFERING!
70 Them It means Nothing.
BY "NEMo."
Copyrighted by Dave L Tabor.)

copyrighted by Dave L Tabor.)
Sweet Easter! Its music fingers in
our ears and our hearts have happiness,
Tor it bespeaks the triumph of the beau
tiful. We know that the time now is
when the harsh outlines of the hills and
the bare trees will be softened with del
icate foliage, and the brown and dark
some tints of the winter-bound land
scape be transformed INTO every possible
tint of green. Under the influence of
this thought we feel raised up, we stand
in the high places of joy, we are full to
overf1owing of the exhilaratlon that
comes to the soul through eyes that see
and understand.
~
But empty our larders and rob us OF
cloths, drive US together like beasts and
shelter us worse slash our tremb bling
limbs with naachetes-where then would
be this bland sense of physical content
ment? Surround us with all the glo-
ries of tropic verdure, let the SUN rise
in grandeur and shine undimmed, let 1t
sink in the west and, in sinking, paint
nnspeakable wonders across one halt
the heavens-how would this feast of
the eye satisfy you when hunger was
driving out all other feelings? Easter
and its rebirth of beauty would be a
mere wretched mockery OF misery.
~
Sweet Easter! How gently have its
| associations, its flowers, its anthems, its
words OF confidence, made promise to
our hearts that though dark the winter
IF life-existant whenever we are COM
passed by perpIexities-, the darkness
will certainly sooner or later break INTO
the glorious morning of revived hope.
As we have sat and listened we have
thought and believed and through all
our pains and our sorrows-dreadfully
petty and self-imposed, many Of them
sweet peace has come. For within
our own hearts happiness has Its root,
and il we will but clear away the rub
bish of trifling griefs and puerile COM
plain,ngs that now prevent its growing,
it will spring upward into sight.
Fxf
But let each day bring more OF haze
! into our minds, let each lurking shadow
alright us with tho fear that it means
more cruelty from an enemy who Will
torture before he kills, let each hour
with it's benumbing hunger stupefy still
more our intellects-where then would
there he room for confidence that "Joy
cometh In the morning ;" where indeed
There would be one hope OF JOY left,
and that the wrenchlng apart OF soul
and body to leave behind master that
reiolces in cruelty and that finds ii
cheaper to bury than to feed. Hope
after detection? Neither hope nor de
lection, for we should have reached
while living that surcease of suffering
when the heart refuses to qulver ant
the mind to record.
~
Sweet Easter! It sounds forth will
thousand tongues that death once NOR
Is yanaulshed, that life triumphs. W.
, hear again of the resistless rolling bacl
of the gates of the neither world, OF tn
sweeping aside of the mighty, oppress
i've stone of mans safeguarding, ant
we are led to believe by every analog
r that life here is a mere prellmlnar
' one to a grander. Thus as we hav
listened our fond hearts have though
Of those whom we have loved and los
and under the gentle influence OF thi
gentle season we have contemplate
D with silent joy their lives, happily OF
e cup,ed somewhere in Gods universe
, where death hath no sting and grave n
!, victory. And in the strength OF thl
lconfidence we have cleansed our hear
- of evil, as If their precious eyes wei
q searching the recesses where Turk VI
comely images of things that wou]
= shock their tenderly nurtured nature
II *4*
al RuT if our crazed and fevered men
J. ory OF wife Is that she was last see
It be,ng outraged by brutal soldlery OF
h child. that Its innocence was scorcht
out of it by direst suffering; Of an i
fant that, before it should have know