The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1907-08-18
A SUNDAY TALK.

Remember. beseech thee that thou hast made
the clay: and wilt thou bring me unto dust
again Job K: g.
The question asked by Job in his com
plant against God is one that since
Jobs time has resounded through the
ages. Omar Khayyam voiced 1t. and
later Goethe and Tennyson, and always
with d note Of petulance. as If there was
no answer 70 be found Omar, indeed,
though his strange thought was able to
borrow from the philosophers before his
time some sort Of hopeful, If irreverent,
answer when he turned his quatrains TO
the idea Gong before used in the Hindu
philosophers to comparing God and man
kind 10 the potter and his pots:
Why said another. sosce there be who tell
OF one who threatens he will toss 10 hell
The luckess pots he maued Ia making,
Pish He's a good fellow and twill al be well -
Even Tennyson. with all his fine reli-
gious feeling and awe and reverence,
could hardly get much farther than Omar
had gone hundreds Of years before him.
In that, the greatest elegy in the English
language. In Memoriam. he felt the
same doubts that assailed Job:
My own dim life should teach me this.
That lie shall live ior eyernore,
Else death is darkness al the core
And dust and ashes all that Is
II is not all unhealthful for man at GER
tain seasons TO reckon with himself and
his deeds. and 10 come back 20 that
/ thought Of humbleness which led Job 10
cry that he was made as the clay for
the Inevitable growth Of such a thought
is 10 lead the mind on 20 what since, of
first clay they did the first man knead, ="
has been accomplished by mankind.
To the dust again we must return! That
too, is a thought that should not be
wholly gloomy The world was made for
US, not we for the world; its laws are in
exorabie and though in our sbort-sighted
wisdom. We sometimes deem that we could
have bettered the making in some ways.
yet ar the last we have 10 be content
with this gray old earth as 81 is. and
humble ourselves 10 the laws which no
repining OF ours can abrOgate.
The result of such searching is GER
tain, If one thinks sanely and clearly. to
bring us 70 the point where we must de-
termine that 1t Is not for US 10 grieve be-
cause We cannot solve the mighty mys-
terles Of Gods universe. We shall come
TO see that II is our duty TO accept them
as they are and 20 make the best 81 them
Even as Job was tried, so is mankind
tried to-day, but never beyond his
strength; and the power lies within all OF
us 20 wrest, with the help Of Cod. even
the most adverse circumstances to our
greatest good
Within US all the old beast that was In
separable from the clay from which we
sprang is strong but we can conquet him
II we will and so live our lives that our
old age may say:
= hear no yelp Of the beast and Che man is quiet
al last as be stands the heights Of his life with
glimpse OF a life that is higher
Dust 70 dust ashes TO ashes-it sounds
melancholy enough! But that is in the
future. The present we have. and il Is
for rs 10 make the most Of il while We
may Though our feet may remain in the
clay. our heads may be lifted TO the stars.
and, instead of weak and causeless
whining about a tomb that seems 10
yearn for us we may look with clear eyes
and unafraid toward
That God, which ever lives and loves.
One God- one law. one element.
Ana one far-0f divine event
To which the whole creation uovee