The Lamar register., 1905-12-20
THE EAGLE AND THE SERPENT.

to feel the serpent coil flung round our
free-breathing throats. the serpent
grapple fastened on to the stronghold
ing wing. Trust! yes, how sweet.
But out of its secret, darksome hole
glides chill suspicion. Faith! yes. but
ugly doubt slips its cold-blooded coils
around our beating breast. Health!
yes, but the head begins to reel and
the heart to faint. Love! yes. but
calumny and misconstruction are
heard to hiss: why such folly?"
God! yes, what refuge! But then.
this haunting spectacle of the deprav-
ity. misery, wrong. insanity of earth!
No mind that thinks and feels es-
capes this tragic issue. Through his
own sharp experience does each one
thus become allied with his fellow
mortals of all the generations. And.
therefore. is this old, eternal wrestle
between eagle and serpent fate
ordained for you and me and all men;
our only option which combatant We
shall through our lower or through
our higher nature, side with; fostering
the one. like Jove's eagle, on nectar
and ambrosia; remanding the other to
his primeval curse: "Dost shalt thou
eat, and on thy belly shalt thou gc!"
There can fall on the head of man
in life no reeling blow-a breaking
down of health. an envenomed wound
from the serpent tooth of ingratitu1e,
n total wreck of fortune. the death of
husband, wife or child-but that br,k-
en-winged, for the time, at least, he.
falls headlong to the ground. Ask
him not now to fly or soar. There was
a vital air he breathed, in the room
of which n lifeless vacuum is left be-
hind There was an upbuoying Gle
ment answering in elastic reaction to
every beat of his happy pinions taat
has gone from beneath them. There
was fond mate to soar with, whose
absence now has left the vast spaces.
oh! how empty and bleak. A time to
recover himself in, let so much ~
least in mercy be accorded him BY
God and man. Healing, recuperat've
forces are indeed about him and with
in him, but first must they do their
silent, unseen work before the eagle
within the soul shall begin to stir
again. But not till then, not till then!
To rally, then, upon the recuperative
energies of the soul in its alliance
with omnipreseDt renewing power, this
is mans only resource. The heraJds
and revealers of the power of religion
have been those alone who have
demonstrated to the world the posi-
bility of winning enduring victory out
of temporary defeat, higher commun-
ion of spirit out of loneliness and
desolation. Religion is no dictum Of a
book, though its record may be writ
ten there. 1t is n sense. renewed
generation by generation. and broad IN
ing and deepening by experience. OF
divine. evolving order, in virtue o.
which all things are found to work
together for good to those who are
devout and brave enough to test 1t.
The proof of the rational validity OF
all ths2 Nothing Is its proof, no
learned treatise, no philosophic argu-
ment, nothing but the divine beauty
of lives which demonstrate what high
or noble outcome may be wrung from
the seemingly saddest and most con-
trarious the world has to show. These
victorious lives. then. and the con-
trast between the inspiring lift they
give the world, and the lives of those
who but moan in weakness, rave in
bitterness, break in despair: filling our
hearts. indeed. with ceasless, impotent
pity for the poor victims. but depres-
sing our hearts likewise with tho
dread sense lest, in the world-old
tragic battle between the eagle and
the reptile, in the reptile should ever
inhere the power to choke every
channel of free contact with the in-
vigorating air of heaven. and to pinion
tight to the lumpish body every vain
pulsat!on Of the upward-soaring wing!
Boston Herald.