The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-03-12

ings of the ages filtered through the
ewes of lost desire toward the sum
of its expression. Pity, doubtless, is
memory also, the cries of those who
found it not, the prayer in the blood
of generations magnanimous in death
for the offspring of those who missed
the mercy of their kind.
But while. when fuel is high and
the demand beyond the supply the
contributions fail in ten fold measure,
the thought of those who suffer is as
a spasm to the body of health struck
with a passing qualm. There is no
general contribution SO long as the
sun shines. no matter how general the
need. Spring, with its wooing calls
toward the unattainable, carries on
her gentle breath as deep IL not so.
harsh q woe winter. But when
the springs of the tickle stream of no
tice fail from charity, the moss along
the bank likewise withers and fades.
The world wags on in it's hopes, for
getting its sorrows, hiding as best it
NAV. its Joys. But to become con-
scious of the duties which each breast
locks up for future contemplation like
an old heirloom, there must needs be
the spur of habit or the shock of
calamity, lest the casket for all time
remain unopened.
Purely from the point of view of
one who appreciates a Sunday, 1t is
to be regretted that Lent has not a
uniform observance. The writer is
one of those who believes that rules
have no place in the Sabbath, except
the one incident that it should be a
day devoted to the relaxation of or
binary pursuits and the weekly accu-
mutation of thoughts, emotions and
amusements denied by the demands
of work or clouded by the drosS of
every day desire. 1t is curious de-
velopment how responsibilities and
experience and labor put value on
Sunday. To a school boy, the
first day of the week has been for
too long a time a dreary season of
useless self-denial. It's advantages do
not nearly compensate for it's restric-
tons. School comes to an end, even
if ii be in the shank of the after
noon but Sunday lasts from dawn
till dawn. The average boy to keep
his health cannot get along with
much more of piety than a tom-cat
and a solemn day in the back yard,
varied by a serious march to church
in alien creaking shoes and a ruffled
shirt and a sedate walk of an after
noon is, to say the least. not con-
in life
But later, when the rantankerous
energy of his youthful days has been
changed, ex necessitate. into a six days
of more or less productive labor,
when the one day looms up as that
of quiet and recuperation, the beckon-
ing staggered on the path of effort,
shines cody amid the sands
like a quivering thing of green trees
blessed with happy waters to which
the week-ender. with the comfortable
sigh of troubles gone and ease at
hand, throws himself at last in pas
sion of realization.
1t is so. 1 take it. with the larger
Sunday of Lent a longer break, not |
from work but from worry, not from
enjoyment, but from the harder |
pleasures which are bought with pain. |
Aside from it's religious significance, |
which is per Sc of value as one is |
religious in the accepted sense or not, |
the season is an economical blessing. !
drift. At least does it give the op- |
portunity, if it does not demand. a |
change of thought as we'll as of diet. |
That is a selfish prejudice which !
would either monoDolize the benefits |
or deny the obligations of the rest |
pause of the year. 1t is a universal |
right and a common heritage. From |
the battle of the SHOWS, it comes with |
quiet counsels and cool courage to /
fill the dormant space before the |
promise of the spring with a conf
dence gaining strength from the real |
ization of peace and the eternity of |
hope.
Lent is rot sectarian; it is merely |
humane. 1t is not even sad, except |
as sympathy for the sorrows that lie |
beneath the heart of Mother Life is |
sad, the while it makes for saner hap |
piness.
Let US enjoy the feast of, rest in |
Lent-even if we fast to do it!