Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1906-02-27
Thoughts for the 18th and the aad,

The things that have come tn pass in
our own day, while acting the parts as
signed to us in the drama of life, have a
stronger hold upon us, and necessarily
so, than the things that come to pass in
a bygone age before We had being;
and yet We know as well as it can posi-
bly, be known of those who had no lot
nor part in the matter, that the play
went on with varying fortunes, victory
following defeat and defeat following
victory till the end came and the curtain
fell and arose again upon a set of new
actors with new parts assigned.
And still the play goes on, tragedy,
comedy, farce, with old Tapertoes,
Familiarity called the Devil, in the stage
character of Harlequin in the shade-or
something worse. And still the play
goes on-tragedy, comedy, farce-and
will 90 on forever, till the lights are
out and the curtain falls at the end of
the last act in the worlds drama; till
the angel of the apocalypse, with foot
on the land and foot on the sea, shall
swear by Him that liveth that time shall
be no longer.
Speaking of the actors. Where are
and pluck and patriotism in the dim un-
peopled past? We can very easily dispose
of the vast majority in one brief SEN
tence: Compounded with forgotten
dust" How few the names, the immor-
tai names, that were not born to die,
The school boy or girl must be of an
exceedingly tender age who has never
heard nor read of the launching of the
ship, the new and untried Ship of State,
and the name of him who was the God
appointed master of the ship, and who
guided it over the troubled waters for
seven long years to safety in the harbor
of peace. A name read and known of
all men-one of the immortal names that
was not born to die--a name near and
dear to every American heart. And
those of us who, for fifty years, and for
more than fifty years, have been walking
up the stage and down the stage of life,
coming our little lines and acting our
little parts, well or i'll, or from fair to
middling, and who are soon to make our
final exit, leaving behind other actors in
other scenes, have looked upon the same
old Ship of State. older grown and more
staunch and steadfast, perhaps, walking
the waters like living thing, when the
skies above were black with tempest,
and the waves below were as the shadow
of death, the stars and stripes nailed
hard and fast to her masthead, all her
battle-lanterns lit, and we have heard
the thunder of her guns while shooting
holes below the water-line into that
piratical craft, ''long, low and rakish,"
till it sank into the bubbling depths I'M
wept, unhonored and unsung.
Ii is noticeable that whenever a crisis
comes in nations life, unless that
nation be written large in the Book of
Doom and is scheduled for destruction,
the best man in all the millions is divine
ly chosen and divinely sent to be the
leader of his people and to turn aside the
threatened peril. To forward his pur-
poses the God of nations and of armies
sends an agent that is qualified at every
point. He never yet has sent a SLOUGH
to do his work, and He never will. Had
there been any other two men among the
millions better equipped by nature or by
grace to do the work, then it might have
been that the names of Washington and
Lincoln would not be found among the
immortal names that were not born to
die, but, with the vast army that have
vanished away, might be compounded
with forgotten dust.
There was time, and we remember it
well, when the prayer-if it may be
called prayer-when the sincere desire
of the hearts of respectable minority
was that one of another name might be
master of the ship. But it would seem
that the Maker of us all knew the cali
bre of the man even better than the re-
spectacle minority knew. Four years
later on the prayer was answered, but
the answer was Lincoln, and the best
answer that He could have made. He
had done His best for the entire nation.
And now, as brevity is a good thing to
have in the family or anywhere else, we
will say but this: Our reunited people,
individually and collectively, North and
South, East and West, from the lakes to
the gulf, from Quoddy Head to the Golden
Gate, have ample reasons to thank the
Lord that He had His own way as usual,
and that He does not always answer
prayer right of quick or in the way
allowed 10 ask, and wi h no fear of being
chidden.
1t would hardly be considered pre-
sumption for some of our good ministers,
who are gifted in prayer, to unite in ask
ing that He set In motion forces that
will gently, and permanently, and con-
stitutionally, dump some of the old
Ships crew overheard, where the water
is deep and there is no land in sight.
JOHN.