Montana news. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1904-191?, 1908-07-02
7stsss uistorisas SIpruy
he physician would be VIII

SohipieA huthah iiie Wuicu BTedt
city represents? What explains Its
tragedy OF vice and passion as we'll
as Its romance OF love and its epic
OF power and achievement Is hu-
man life merely the arena In which
an infinite power OF evil strives with
an infinite power OF good for mastery
over body and mind and soul? Is 1t
not rather-all of 1.-THE vice. the
crime. the passion, the heart-stirrinS
tragedy. the shipwreck of lives, the
eclipse Of virtue. the perversion sf
power. the trickery. the corruption, -
the whole black story of shame and
wrong, as well as the endeavor after
knowledge and love and respecta-
bility-is IL not. down at the bottom,
the obedience OF the human soul TO
one supreme desire: the desire to
make life good, TO find something
which shall make life worth living
We do not find It difficult to be-
lieve that some of the phenomena Of
our human life answer such a de-
scription. We think of the boys and
girls who have come from good
homes, in whose veins flows the
slower currents of blood that is tenn
pered by generations of culture and
self-controi. and who quite naturally
choose the common and conventional
avenues of expression. who go TO high
school and college, enter some pro-
fession or take their places in honored
positions In the business world, and
live and die in the ranks of respect
ing the highest instincts and achiev-
ing the noblest ends. But when we
think of another company of bo"s
and girls, of young men and young
women. who from widely different
parentage and with wholly different
surroundings and opportunities just
as naturally and inevitably choose or
take paths that lead to shame and
disgrace. to shipwreck and crime, we
are apt to say that these have been
under the spell of an evil power. or
they have deliberately chosen their
own undoing and deserve the loss
which in bitterness they must reap.
/ cannot think that the common
verdict is a true one. i must believe
that the deepest desire OF human life.
however high or low its origin. is
one and the same; that the dirtiest
gamin of the streets. the most de-
praved man OF abandoned woman is
as conscious as any member of the
most privileged class of this deepest
desire that our nature knows: the de-
sire to find life good. And If the
chance rightly to fulfil that desire is
denied, this sacred demand for ex-
preston will find some avenue which
means shipwreck or shame. If the
seeking spirit of man cannot find the
real, it will take the counterfeit. And
perhaps the counterfeit is as often
found among the respectable as
among the disreputable. IL Is as pos
Il
sible to make shipwreck OF life In a
palace as in a hovel. No more dis
solute characters can be found any
where than are to be found in kings
courts-whether they be sovereigns
by virtue of an inherited political ira
dition or by the more subtle, but not
less intolerable, virtue OF commercial
might. 1t is as possible to fail to
make life good In the beaten paths OF
conventional virtue as IL is in the un-
surveyed wastes of what Is called law
lessness. IL is not always right or
good to keep in a well-worn rut II
Is some times the only hope of sal
walton to blaze a way where no
former footprint of man appears
Better wander through the wilderness
with a Moses. though a glimpse OF
the Promised Land never gladden.
ones soul and ones bones whiten the
desert sands, than live out ones days
In the sordid security OF Egyptian re-
spectability and bondage. There IL
infinitely more of hope and inspira-
ton in the story of that exodus than
there is In all the treasures of the
pyramids and all the stately ruins OF
Egypt
What IL this human life Of ours
What definition can satisfy its mean
ing7 Is 1t like some shooting star
without source or purpose OF destiny
or is It the elimination and crown
of creation, the one thing which
makes the world worth while? The
trouble with our definitions is thai
they are too pitifuliy small. They dc
not describe human life at all. Th!i
is what our theologies are. at the boz
tom-they are all definitions of hu
man life. And not one OF them Il
large enough. Life fits into none NJ
them, however sublime and usefu
they may once nave seemed. Life II