The record-union., 1899-04-19
PRESENT DAY THOUGHTS.
~ g. Grosvenor Dave.

BY G.. Grosvenor Dave.
To Young Men Once More.-Where,
for months. in the Northern States there
has been chill and discomfort, the air
has now begun to take on milder
character. There is the singing of birds
and the Joy of physical life again, SO
ttha. earth and tree and creature throb
with the knowledge that out of the
death and darkness Of the winter there
is to come the beauty of abundant lie.
We talk of life as mystery, but so
also is death; for though death seems
to end all. yet what is it but the death
of rock and tree and creature that rem
ders possible all the wondrous and
beauteous forms of life that now solace
our eyes. weary of dun and gray tints.
There is the thought for you, fell
lows. Your limbs are strong, your arms
are corded and knit your powers are
superabundant, your eyes are clear to
Isee, your brains are fresh to think 1t is
we'll for YOU and the dear girls like
yourselves strong and vigorous. are the
spring of our humanity. The blithe-
some birds on the wing are not gayer
than your hearts and the thrusting buds
of tree life shed no greater beauty over
bare woods than do you, along high
ways that would be bare indeed with
out you But whence this beauty, this
charm, this gaiety? It's sap, its susie
nance, its power, jts glory, is drawn
from the dead and the past. Those who
have been are part of the substance of
those who are and just as seed time
and harvest have never failed so have
new generations of men ever come for
ward to go on with the tasks of the
dead and to draw inspiration from the
leaves of human life that have Drowned
| in the autumn breezes and then fut-
tered to rest
All the glory of the world is a bor-
rcwed glory; the past is in it; the pres
ent is not sufficient unto itself. An
unbroken chain connects all those who
are proud of themselves back through
the ages by gradual steps to simplicity
back even to savagery.
Your thrill of pride, therefore, shall
not be this glorious springtide, the
pride that makes you feel self-sufficient
but the pride that you are in the race
and of the race, and that some hand
before you, feeble and frail with age has
passed into your stronger hand the
torch of truth and of life. And you, If
ycu are fit product of the death-pos-
seased past are here to live and to love
and to strive with might that is in
herited until your own hand grows
| weak, and until to stronger and
younger hand you again surrender the
torch of truth and of progress that you
have kept blazing throughout the years.
|
/ Viewed in this way there is nothing
| of sorrow or of shock in realizing that
the living must die. in order that the
living yet to be may die The unwhole-
some fear of death inculcated into some
of us from a mistaken religious view is
nothing but unwholesome; death is the
order of things; death has been the for
warding of our race. How else would
all things be possible to US, did not the
exhausted and the enfeebled give over
into the charge of the fresh and the
vigorous their own uncompleted work?
Death has neither victory nor sting;
each springtime proves it, each upright,
glorious youth proves it. This ac-
lceptance of a great truth produces no
mawkish desire to die, but rather de-
sire to live and to be worthy of the
proud lists of the grand souls that are
gene before. Yet, if in the glorious
springtime of our lives, we quietly
reckon upon death as a factor in our
careers, we can live all the better and
stronger for it, because We shall be
freed from the fear of death, which by
strange paradox takes away the very
joy of living.
So then, you lissom lasses and sinewy
lads, lift your eyes from the ground and
look about you; turn your feet away
from that which is degrading and walk
abroad; open the windows of your souls
to the gentle air of glorious uni
verse and learn. The glory of the tree
is that it is clothed anew, in purity and
in freshness, the glory of the grass is
that it fulfills its work in humility. The
glory of the crops that in their sim
picity and in their tractableness there
is a, useful surrender of themselves to
others, for others good.
But befouling worms do often strip
the tree of it's glory, and the fierce
passion of the sun parches the grass
beyond redemption and blight and mill
dew and disease destroy crops till not
only is there no longer any giving of
their strength to others but the strength
they have is not even sufficient for
themselves. l need not enlarge. The
tree the grass the crops are helpless;
they cannot move away nor take
shelter. What comes to them, comes
and cannot be averted by any effort of
their own, else would they put it forth.
1t is not so with you. Loathsome vices
indeed there are: scorching passion we
all know: and blights have fallen on
many households because those who
lmight have struggled against them, yet
would not. have been supine as trees
and made no effort to move away from
4 those, circumstances that had in them
iundoing of character and destruction of
life.
| With YOU. in this time of your SUI
premest energy and grandest possibili-
ties there is the chance to glorify the
: past by making the future yet more
glorious: and vet at the same time the
pcssibility of making the present so ig-
noble that it would shame your remot-
| est savage ancestor. You are, it is
true. made up of countless influences
drawn from numberlees ancestors good,
bad and Indifferent. But though thou
sand shreds and patches contribute to
your make up you dare not blame
| weakness and failure and vice ON those
| who have gone before you. You are,
| .ro,,,.colf with a powpr of