Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-14
SUNDAY MORNING TALK.
Our Human Islands.

Did you ever live or SOjourn on ar island.
| II so, can you remember lying upon the
sands some midsummer day and listening to
the gentle splashing of the waters or
| watching the faraway sails? Your idle
reyery made more acute your sense OF de-
tachment from the main land, of isolation
from the great world of affairs, of being
shut in with your own thoughts and emo
tons, and, as it were cut off from former
association and interests. That must have
been the feeling of the great Napoleon
when exiled the Island of st. Helena
and that must have made the punishment
peculiarly bitter for one who had figured SO
conspicuously in European politics.
Herein is a parable. We are all more or
less islanders. We send out our little boats
that meet, salute and pass one another and
perhaps exchange commodities, but still we
are separated by great CULTS and inlets from
our fellow-men. We live under the same
roof with our kindred, we work in the
same store with those whom we have
known from childhood, we go in and out
on the trains year after year with the same
people, and yet how far apart we may be
from them in all the movements of our
inrer life, in our hopes and ideals, in our
thought of God and duty and heaven.
Scientists tell us that even the tiny mole
cules do not touch one another but whlri
about in space in their Independent orbits.
And how few human lives really meet and
melt into common purpose.
Pathetic from some points of view in
deed is this isolation. 1t certainly makes
great appeal for charity in our judgment
of others. Said a woman who had recently
lost her husband Il am sorry to decline
invitations to social functions. l don't
want to be selfish in my grief, but when
ever l go to places where used to go
with him the sense of his absence is so
keen that l can hardly bear it. 1t seems
as If / were living on an island. My life
is partial, SO incomplete, SO broken, that
1 cannot enter heartily and joyously into
tha oil p1a nd a
greater half is gone. People about me do
NOT begin to realize how far away in spirit
1 am from them" This widow represents
the great army of the bereaved, toward
whom we who have not thus suffered
should extend the utmost consideration and
not let our own joy in earthly things jar.
uron their lonely spirits.
Sympathy and tact are needed too.
There comes time when every growing
boy draws apart from his mother. She
finds it hard to understand his reserve; she
yearns for the old confidential relationship
But let her not chafe under the new condl-
tions. Her boy is undergoing those pangs
of self-discovery which accompany the first
experience of adolescence; he is coming to
a knowledge of his own individuality; he
will have to dwell apart for a time on his
island. But If he has been surrounded by
right influences hitherto, he will in due time
re-establish the precious relationship with
his mother, though on different plane.
The girl comes home having completed her
college course. She is no longer girl, but
a young woman 1t is hard for her to ad-
just herself to her old place in the family.
Her parents feel a difference in her. Mis-
understandings may easily grow up if the
parents insist on too great close conformity
to former practices. Give her time to work
out her personal problem. AS she retires
into her island, believe that she will learn
lessons there to be gained nowhere else.
On the other hand, people conscious Of
the gulf between them and others should
beware of becoming narrow and provincial.
One whose own life has become sharply
defined from others should not be proud of
his isolation nor let the spirit of reticence
and detachment grow upon him. We are
still a part of the human race, sharers in
the great elemental human passions. We
must not become hermits and anchorites.
The last book of the Bible was written
by man living on an island who appar-
emily fretted sometimes over his limitations
and looked eagerly forward to the time
ting him off from continents and empires.
And the ideal for all of us sooner or later
is SO to link our lives to others that, with
out sacrificing our personality, we shall feel
the thrill and inSpirat ton of kinship with
humanity That time ought to come sooner
or later for all of us. AS a poet has said:
when dead, when you and are dead
Have rent and tossed aside each earthly fetter
Have wiped the grave dust from wondering
eyes,
And stand together fronting the sunrise
think that shall know each other better"
But we need not wait for death to bring
us into closer, tenderer rela atoms to others
While We are still island dwelers we NAV
hoist our beacons and send forth over the
waves the CLEAN of friendly light
THE PARSON.