Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1904-12-08

and its fruitful labor. Deep seated con-
ddence is the mysterious spring that
sets in motion the energy within us. It
is our nutriment. By it man lives much
more than by the bread he eats. And
so everything that shakes this conf
dence is poison, not food.
Dangerous is every. system of thought
that attacks the very fact of life de-
claring it to be an evil Life has been
too often wrongly estimated in this
century. What wonder that the tree
withers when its roots are watered
with corrosives. And there is an ex-
tremelr simple reflection that might
be made in the face of all this mega
ton. You say life is an evil. Well,
what remedy for it do you offer? Can
you combat it, suppress it? / do not
ask you to suppress your own life. to
commit suicide-of what advantage
would that he to us Shut to suppress
.lle, nor merely human life, but lite
at its deep and hidden origin, all this
upspringing of existence that pushes
toward the light and, to your mind, is
rushing to misfortune; | ask you to
suppress the viii to live that trembles
through the immensities of space, to
suppress. in short the source of life
Can you do it? No Then leave US in
peace. Since no one can hold life in
check is it not better to respect it
ami use il than to go about making
other people Disguised with it.? When
one knows that certain food is danger
GUS to health he does not eat it, and
when a certain fashion of thinking
.obs us of confidence, cheerfulness and
strength we should reject that, certain
not only that it is a nutriment noXious to
the mind, but also that it is false. There
is no truth for man but in thoughts
that are human, and pessinism is in
human. Besides, it wants as much in
modesty as in logic To permit one
self to count as evil this prodigious
thing that we call life one needs have
seen its very foundation, almost to
have made it. What strange atti-
tude is that of certain great thinkers
Of our times! They act as if they had
created the world very long ago, in
their youth. but decidedly it was a mis-
take, and they had well repented it.
Let US nourish ourselves from other
meat, strengthen our souls with cheer
ing thoughts What is truest for man
is what best fortifies him.
If mankind lives by confidence, it
lives also by hope-that form of conf
dence which turns toward the future.
All life is result and an aspiration;
all that exists supposes an origin and
tends toward an end. Life is progress
progress of the future is an infnitude
of hope Hope is at the root of things
and must be reflected in the heart of
man; no hope, no life The same pow
er which brought us into being urges
US to go up higher What is the mean
ing of this persistent instinct which
pushes us on? The true meaning is
that something is to result from life,
that out of it is being wrought good
greater than itself, toward which it
slowly moves, and that this painful
sower called man needs, like every
sower, to count on the morrow. The
history of humanity is the history of
indomitable hope; otherwise everything
would have been over long ago. To
press forward under his burdens, TO
guide himself in the night, to retrie-Te
his falls and his failures, to escape de-
spair even in death, man has need of
hoping always, and sometimes against
all hope Here is the cordial that sus-
tafns him. Had we only logic We
should have long ago drawn the con-
clusion, Death has everywhere the last
word, and we should be dead of the
idea. But we have hope, and that is
why we live and believe in life.
Suso, the great monk and mystic,
one of the simplest and best men that
ever lived, had touching custom.
Whenever he encountered a woman,
were she the poorest and Oldest, he
stepped respectfully aside, though his
bare feet must tread among thorns or
in the gutter. Il do that he said, ito
render homage to our holy lady the
Virgin Mary" Let us offer to hope a
like reverence. If we meet it in the
shape of a blade of wheat piercing the
furrow, bird brooding on its nest, a
poor wounded beast, recovering itself
rising and continuing its way; a peas
ant blowing and sowing a field that
has been rayaged by flood Or hail, a
nation slowly repairing its losses and
healing its wounds under whatever
guise of humanity or suffering it ap-
pears to us, let us salute it. When we
encounter it in legends, in untutored
songs, in simple creeds, let US still sa-
lutte it, for it is always the same, indie
structible, the immortal daughter of
God.
We do not dare hope enough. The
men of our day have developed strange
timidities rhe apprehension that the
sky will fall-that acme of absurdity
among the fears of our Gallo forefa-
thers-has entered our own hearts.