The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1898-04-14


detection? Neither hope nor de-
lection, for we should have reach
ed while living that surcease of
suffering when the heart refuses
to culver and the mind to record.
~
Sweet Easterl Itsounds forth with
a thousand tongues that death once
more is vanquished, that life triumphs
We hear again of the resistless rolling
back of the gates of the neither world,
of the sweeping aside of the mighty,
oppressive stone of mans safe guard-
ing, and we are led to believe by every
analogy that life here is mere pre-
liminary one to granduer. Thus as
we have listened our fond hearts have
thought of those whom we have loved
and lost, and under the gentle in
fluence of this gentle season we have
contemplated with silent joy their
lives, happily occupied somewhere in
Gods universe-where death hath no
sting and grave no victory. And in
the strength of this confidence we
have cleansed our hearts of evil, as if
their precious eyes were searching
the recesses where Turk uncomely
images of things that would sllecas.
their tenderly nurtured natures.
***
BUT if our craZed' and fevered
memory of wife is that she was
last seen being outraged by brut-
al soldiery; of child, that its in
nocence was scorched out of it by
direst suffering; of an infant that,
before it should have known want,
want was its shadow, and that its
little body bloated with dropsy
while its limbs shrank from star
walton; of ourselves, that we have
walked in nakedness and shame
before our fellows-th also stag
gering on like us-to helpless
death: then to become full often
the pickings of buzzards and vul-
lures and carrion crows-if all
this, what would Easter mean
with its promises of life of triumph
to come? A fierce and wild de-
mand that in that life to come
should be a chance to revenge
yourself in some way upon the
bloodyminded, butchering men
who had made the earth-life for
you and yours a bowling waste.
Can you imagine yourself under
such pressure of unearned and
undeserved sorrow, calmly con-
templating gentle gliding on
ward through eternity? Nay, if
naught else could be done you
would raise your ghostly hand to
strike, just for the satisfaction of
making even a motion of protest
*x*
Let us be done with self-deceivings
and glib responses and snug piety
and the contented folding of fattened
hands, There is war against
women and children and defenceless
men Il am not writing of the insur-
gents. They are safe near enough
to our coast to be reached in four
hours. This war in Cuba is being
carried on by nation that has been
raised to the very heavens by its
but that has cast itself to
the beasts by its blindness. That
nation in the frenzy of its expiring
age, has dragged warfare back to the
reckless, heartless slaughterings of
the 18th Century. 1t MUST be re-
buked. Its only dread is FORCE.
God will never perform miracles,
while we fail to perform duties.
You sing of the 'Sun of Righteous
ness" arising with healing in His
wings. Your part is to see that the
healing takes the form of food for the
hungry, drugs for the diseased, cloth
ing for the naked, and warfare with
the oppressor until the last of his
ships disappears on the
eastern horizon. Till then your holy
Easter is a mockery.