The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1907-12-12

Someone has beautifully said that
the greatest thing man can do for his
God is to be kiud to some of His other
children. Another thus expressed the
whole of earthly charity. / shall pass
through this world but once, Any
good thing, therefore, that 1 can do,
or any kindness that / can show to
any human being, let me do it now.
Let me not defer it or neglect it, for |
shall not pass this way again.
I'VE are not unmindful that all the
living, too, will join the dead in the
silent march, for it is natures inexor.
able law that every living thing must
die. II a leaf, it bursts and grows in
the spring, is green through summer
months, and falls at the first blast of
winter 8 breath, and trembling, futter-
ing returns to earth, and mingles with
its elements. If q bird, its song may
be poured out in sunlight and gladness
but dark day comes, the song dies in
the throat of the singer, and the bright
feathers mix with the same old earth.
Ii q man, he may toll and slave unit!
millions are his reward, reach out for
place and power, discover a world, or
tell truth that has not been told be-
fore, but none nor all of these will save
or stay the hand Of fate. Whether his
soul be peopled with the kindest, gent
lest thoughts, breathing the sweet air
OF virtue and love, or foul with the
dark denizens of sin and despair, it is
the same.
'Nero died, so did Washington Sol
omon and the fool. Life does not start
on equal terms, but it ends for all
alike. The swift, the slow, the rich
and poor, the high and low, come at
last to their common mother, end
crave only for place to rest. There
wealth lays down its boarded bag of
gold, wantits care, ambition its pride,
and love its tender sacrifice, The
compelling will of imperial Caesar is
no more than the futile protest of old
age.
"But is there nothing more? Is the
dark creed of the Roman fatalist,
Death is nothing and there is nothing
after death, true? Does that which
sins and sorrows, laughs and weeps,
crawls and aspires, love and hate, die
with the body?
MYSTERY OF LIFE
Like an imprisoned bird beating
against the bars of its cage until it
falls back, futtering and breathless.
so the mind beats forever against the
limits OF its knowledge and fears be-
cause it does not know. We are sur
rounded with the unknown, the un-
seen, the unfathomable, and both pres
ent and future are curtained from our
vision by the thick mists Of darkness.
The mystery of death is no stranger
than the mystery of life.
"Who knows why the tree lives
again from the death of its seed, or
how the petal of q flower has caught
and held its hue or color? No seer or
prophet, no brain, cunning and won
derful though it be to see and know
and combine the material, can ever ex-
plain why child smiles or create a
thing TO breathe or feel or die. The
lowest OF all living created things is
infinitely higher and moro wonderful
than all the inventions and discoveries
OF man since time began. For inven-
tlon Is but new combination OF old
things, and when man found a new
world it was only new to hint was
old to the trees, the birds and flowers
and when Newton announced his
discovery of the law OF gravity it was
but comprehending force which was
as old as time, and which had ruled
every sphere in it's orbit since God di-
vided the night from the day.
''Surely the divinity which created
all things, and man the king of all,
and who sends them back to the earth
from whence they came, to bring forth
in death new forms of life, can extend
the soul of the infinite and cIothe it
with immortal life. To deny that
which we do not understand is the
vanity and weakness of fool.
"God said in the beginning, Let
there be light He will say in the end,
Let there be light"