Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1900-10-17

many thousand dollars. are in most ex-
ecrable taste. The mos Understanding
epitaphs are found in Westminster as
in all other places of burial. upon the
tombs OF the most persons the most
commonplace and inconsequent. West
minister Abbey; somehow or other you
always think of it as in some sort a
church. They do hold religious serv-
ices in it, regularly and numerously.
One week day we stood through three
most impressive and beautiful services
the most touchingly tender and sym
pathetic of all being an intercessory
service for the soldiers in South Africa.
Over it all the cross, emblem of tri-
umphant and unresisting suffering of
wrong without the doing of wrong,
emblem of the humility of perfection;
we heard again and again the name of
Jesus exalted in the service, the Prince
of Peace, the God who had humbled
Himself to the station and form of
man; we confessed ourselves "miser-
able sinners;" we heard extoled the
love and gentleness and compassion.
the pity and the tenderness of Christ;
we prayed with lusty and long drawn
"amens" that we might be forgiven.
even as I'VE forgave those who tres
passed against us" and all around us
the walls of the venerable minister
were bursting with human pride and
arrogance: shouting to the heavens
the boast and bluster of men. before
which our worldLrenowned Yankee
brag sinks into bashful whisper of
conscious meekness and confessed
humility.
| 1t takes a thousand years of fight
ing to crowd so much boastfulness of
human achievement in foray and siege.
in brawl and battle and sea fight, into
the walls of a single church. No
young nation can hope to do this.
Monument to this general and that ad-
miral; paganism overshadowing the
emblems of Christianity with her
winged victories" ever alighting on
our banners; her "histories" writing
immortal records upon the imperish-
able bronzes in purest Greek. and her
"fames" blowing out their distended
cheeks to bursting. and splitting their
long trumpets with the names of our
heroes who killed the other fellows
heroes and silenced their pretentious
flames by depriving them of the wind
wherewith to blow, for the trumpet of
fame is veritable windmill after all.
when you come to measure its power.
The chnurch is crowded with SOL
diers. And, there being no name in
the religion of the Teacher who said
to His one warlike disciple: PUT up
thy sword into its place." for a church
sacred to the glory of war, we gra-
ciously pitied, and trust, forgave
the poverty of Christian nomencla-
ture, and adopted name from our
Pagan neighbors, and so call West
minister Abbey the English Val
halla." And no old viking could go
into Valhalla with any respect-he
couldn't hold up his head unless he
had killed at least several hundred
other men and sent them before him
as his credentials. A Nalhalla for our
illustrious fighters, by all means
Only, to man brought up on a farm
and living all his life in the country
it looks as though it should be locat.
ed in fort rather than in all the
most prominent and best places in a
church.
You have to consult the guide book
repeatedly and hunt around in West
minister Abbey to find the tombs OF
the prophets and priests, and when
you do find one he is apt to be one
part priest and nine parts politician,
and while you are searching for the
life-size statue in full canonicals that
marks the resting place and commem.
crates the virtues of the humble fol-
lower of the street preacher of Galilee
Fame shrills fearful blast into your
ears and History looks up from her
tablet to shout:
"This way! Here's the tomb you're
looking for! Combination of the
fall of Jericho, siege of Gibraltar and
end of the world! Biggest mass and
mix of tumbling marble ever eXhib-
tied under one canvas!" And anoth-
er Fame. slenderer in the waist but
with much bigger cheeks and far
longer trumpet, shrills at Won:
Here's the Christian teacher, If that's
what you're looking for! Etfigy of hin
with his legs crossed, to show how
peaceable he was when he was dead
Record of his last battle on his toni
killed, $4,000; wounded, $1,000; solo
into slavery, 5000. Here's your sue
cessful evangelist! He'd either con
vert man or he'd kill him!" ModerI
evangelistic methods, too. Hold VI
your hands!" Hands go up. Saved!
Hands stay down. "Swish!" Lost
They believed in the most holy faith
these old crusaders. Wore the cross
on the back of their coats, where they
couldn't see it. Alice samee to-day.
Say, isn't it awful, these bloody per
secutions in Guaranteeing mel
by the hundred, just because they
have a different religion from the
but that's another story" a has the
Chinese. Wen teach these benightet
Pagans to pass anti-immigration laws
Who ever heard of such a thing?
Another Nalhalla.