Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1906-12-03

Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more
low,
But cheeriIy still. and said, I pray
you. then,
| Write me as one who loves his fell
| lowmen.'
/ The Angel wrote, and vanished. The
| next night
| 1t came again with a strange awak-
| ening light,
| And showed the names whom love of
| God had blessed.
And, To- Ben Adhem's name led all
the rest
Parallel Teachings of Order.
How closely this sentiment paral-
lels the teachings of our ritualistic
service is known to every member of
the Benevolent and Protective Order of
Elks. In it we find that subtle touch
of nature which indeed makes the
world kin. Its keynote is love of God.
the Father, and love of what He has
created in His image. The cry of the
human heart in it's evolution to higher
things is voiced in the cry of Abou
Ben Adhem-'Write me, then, as one
who loves his fellowmen,'
What wonderful woru is love. as
it fingers with caressing cadence upon
the tonguel Its power is greater than
the combined armies of the world:
sweeter its ministry than aught on
earth beside; and l want you now to
feel the spell of a writer upon this di-
vine attribute whose pen was tipped
with the fire of eloQuence.
Love is the only bow on life's dark
cloud. 1t is the morning and evening
star. 1t shines upon the babe ana
sheds its radiance upon the quiet home
II is the mother of art, inspirer of poet,
patriot and philosopher. 1t is the air
and the light to tired souls, builder of
every home, kinder of every fire on
every hearth. 1t was the first to dream
of immortality! 1t fills the world with
music is the voice of love.
Love is the magician, the enchanter
that changes worthless things to joy,
and makes royal kings and queens of
clay. 1t is the perfume of that
wondrous flower. the heart: and with
out that sacred passion, that divine
swOOn. We are less than beasts; but
with it, earth is heaven, and we are
gods.
Immortality the Common Hope.
at is not within our human I1Eowi-
edge that the hands of our brothers in
The unseen world are reaching out TO |
grasp the hands extended to them |
around our affairs; but there is some |
hing sweetly solemn in the Thought
hat what We do here today. i'll loving |
,ommemoration of the dead, finds rec
ignition somehow, somewhere, in the
wise plan of an infinite God.
The hope of life beyond the grave
5 rooted deep in the soul of common
Inheritance. We find it in the folklore
If the nations of the earth. Primitive
nan heard it's promptinGs when the
morning stars sang together, and when
he world was yet warm and plas,-c
rom the hands of its Maker. 1t il !
umined the darkness of the caves and
ungles in which were Graded the ear
Y ancestors of the race. 1t was hOarv
With antiquity when the stones of the
pyramids were wrenched from the
IuarrieS of the PharaohS. The inSpir
I'd singers of Israel made it the ,heme
If their grandly swelling symphonies. I
Plato taught it in his olive groves I'M
Ter the pensive beauty of Athenian
skies,-and so it became a part of the
glory that was Greece and the grandeur
hat was Rome
And this hope of Immortality is
ours today, in all its fullness, through |
he splendid heritage of a Christian |
was born anew in that |
wonderful sermon of the Master upon |
he mount, and it was baptized in the |
blood and tears of Calvary and the
iaith that leads us by its kindly light, |
when we are all called upon to give |
)ur dear ones to the shroud and pail. |
s the faith that looks up to the shining
stars, and out into the Unreasonable |
distances of space, and trusts its des
my to the unseen and the upknowable |
the faith that rises eXultant above |
he storm and stress or ne and sings
hat Gods in His Heaven; all's well
With the worldi'
He Who Died at Azan.
"In that mystical story of the orient
old by Sir Edwin Arnold. After Death
IL iIdOiur tiiC htdu
ne who died at Azan-sends a message
o his friends weeping around his bier.
He comforts them with the assuring
hought that he is in Paradise. He
ellis them that he has found immortal
ty; and that, though they mourn for
him as dead, yet in reality he lives. and
owes them, and has a conscious knowl-
sdge of what they are doing in his
earthly home. The conception of this
narrative poem is startling in its bold
less, but, after all, who would wish
hat it might not be true? Abdallah's
assurance to his kinsmen and friends,
When read in the light of his philoso-
,hy, is a beautiful allegory on the hope
# all the ages:
" Sweet friends. what the women lave,
For its last bed of the grave f,
Is a hut which / am quitting