The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-10-08

IOEl<Es WHO i've III the cOun-
try know what is meant by
a "blight"-a thing which is
neither mist nor storm. neither
cloud or rama fever of the at
mOsphere, without any freshening
or cleansing force in its composition.
Like a dull stretch of smoky fog, it
hangs for hours and often for days
over the face of the landscape, pOis-
oning the wholesome fruit and grain
in the orchards and fields, and leaving
trails of nOxious insect pests behind it
upon trees and flowers, whitening their
foliage, and blackening all buds Of
promise with a destroying canker to
their very core. It is suffocatinE. ma
lodorous miasma, clinging to the air,
for which there is no remedy but a
strong, ay, even tempestuOus wind-a
wind which vigorously pierces through
the humid vapour and disperses it,
tearing it to shreds, anC finally work
ing UP such a storm as shall drown it
out of existence in torrents of purify
ing rain. Then all nature is relieved
the air is cleared,-health and glad
ness reassert their bene6cent influ-
ences, and the land lies open to re-
newed life and easy breathing once
more.
Even as blight is known in things
natural, so is it known and easily
recognizable in things moral and so
cial. 1t occurs periodically and with
more or less regularity, between GER
tain changing, and not always progress
sive, phases or epochs OF human civil
Iization. 1t visited SOdOm and Go
morrah Tyre and Sidon; it doomed
over Nineveh and Babylon-and in our
day it is steadily spreading its pail over
Europe and America. It's gloom IS
heavy and prOnOunced-it would seem
to be darkening into the true sable or
death colour, for there is no light of
faith to ilIumine it. It is the outcome
of the infected breath of peoples who
are deliberately setting God aside out
of their cOuntings. and living for Self
and the Hour alone. SO-called 'Sclent-
lists" scraping at the crust-covering of
the mine Of knowledge, and learning OF
it's hidden treasure about as much as
might be measured with ttnger-naIl,
have boldly asserted that there is no
God, no Supreme Intelligent Force
back of the uniVerse-nO future life
nothing but death and destruction OF
the aspiring, fighting, working human
soul-and that therefore, having been
created out of caprice, a sport" of
chance and the elements, and having
nothing to exist for but to make chance
and the elements as agreeable as pos
sible during his brief conscious ex-
perience of them, the best thing for
man to do is to eat, drink and be mer-
nv all the days of his life" though
even this, according to Solomon, is
"also vanity.
For of eating comes Indigestion, of
drink stupefaction. and of merriment
I
no higher destiny for man than this
world and its uses, he should always
! be thrown back upon himself dissatis-
4 fed! Give him millions of money, and
when he has them, he cares little for
what they can bring; grant him un-
+ limited power, and a few years suffice
! to weary him of its use, And stranger
! still it is to realize, that while those
who do not admit Gods existence,
strut forth like bantams on a dunghill,
/ growing their little opinions about the
/ sunrise, we are all held fast and guild
4 ed, not only in our physical, but in our
moral lives by immutable laws, invisl-
BILE in their working, but sooner or Ia
ter made openly manifest. Crime meets
with punishment as surely as night
! follows day. If the retributiou is not
of mans making,-if human law, often
so vicious and one-sided in itself, fails
4 to give justice to the innocent then
/ Something or Someone steps in to sup
ply mans lack OF truth and courage,
4 and executes a judgment from which
there is no appeal What it is or VINO
J 1t is, we may not presume to declare
the Romans called 1t Jove or Jupiter
we call it God. while denying, with
precisely the same easy fiippancy as
the Romans did just before their
! downfall that such a Force exists. 1t
/ is convenient and satisfying to Nam
monites and sensualists generally, to
1 believe in nothing but themselves, and
| the present day. 1t should be very un-
j pleasant to them to have to conten-
plate with any certainty a future life
where neither Money nor Sex prevail.