Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-02
Maturing a Soul!
Abram Washington Congregation.

in one night and persisted in night
woman. Men have a right to be looked
upon as personalities, not as hands or
possessions
America is maturing national soul out
of the richest seeds of the past and pres
emit Yet our steady development is ham
pered by much underground. The European
keeps haunting US that America is only
gourd, a plant of yesterday. To him the
gourd types the mushroom growths in in
dustry, politics and social life in America.
Is the American fascinated by the gourd?
Has he raised Hurry to the dignity of a
divinity? Yet there are some Americans
who are stupefied by short cuts to station,
wealth and marriage. We cannot deny it,;
we are in rush. We cannot take time to
breathe. Leisure for the soul is almost
impossible. The American has not yet
learnt the repose of maturity, hence, to the
European our culture is of too rapid a
growth to be worth considering. It's recen-
cy seems but an overnight Towering.
Truly, we are making great progress,
even using the side-step. We finish build.
ings overnight and new graves monument
our architectural success. We are annihil-
ating time and space, and they are getting
even on us. We are taking giant leaps for
ward, while the ''hurry-up" wagon is fast
behind us in hot pursuit.
The better sentiment of the American
people is being stirred to a righteous pro-
test. The soul is insisting on being taken
seriously. 1t declares that a democracy of
souls. does not mean a monotony or d
nant at the resuscitation of the old philos-
ophy it has outgrown. Paganism is the
real American worm. Paganism says: "A
short life and merry one. Give me sue
cess and the devil take the hindmost." The
soul is a gourd, a temporary makeshift of
negotiating atoms. Responsibility is fine
phrase and God is a bloom in the fertile
brain of self-delusion. Enjoy life to the fill
and sniff the candle out. Marriage is a
Irritation. and domestic love but matter
of laboratoral experiment with the Bun
enough to be respectable. Look we'll to the
rite; right will take care of itself. Let us
make bricks, whether without straw or
with BLOOD who cares how long they
hold?"
1t is against this salacious, veneered
soft soaked yet positively dangerous pa
science must cry and fight in defiance and
in defense. 1t is true, every steal is stab
at the heart of the republic. 1t is true,
constituting citizenship as a cheap sale is
treason of the deepest dye. 1t is true that
marriage reduced to a convenience is as
poisonous as the rapid-transit divorce that
blossoms overnight. Our greatest trouble
lies not in the ignorance of the humble i'm
migrant, but in the moral myopia of the
smart set who will not see far ahead nor
deep enough. We are suffering from the
pad citizenship OI our BOou iiOiil
the small caliber of our big men. It is
this hateful decentralization of our spiritual
treasures that bids us pause, especially
around the Thanksgiving season. The graf
itude of the American soul demands purity
in the personal, piety in the domestic, pat
riotism in the national relations, but pa
ganism in no sphere and at no time Amer
lea must stand sponsor to the sanity, sane
tity and serviceableness of the ever-grow-
ing soul in dignity, chastity and beauty.
From this prophetic message no true
American need flee; nor in it's delivery fall
asleep, while the storm is brewing on the
deep and the worm is gnawing at the
roots America can afford to make haste
slowly.