The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1911-11-22

ence Of walking in the black dark
ness Of our own sleeping rooms at
night and losing ourselves within
narrow surroundings, blundering
about stupidly, not knowing where
the fireplace or the window or the
door or mantle-piece or any article
we could imagine the situation Of a
human being astray in forest or
a desert by night or by day without
guide or landmark or track to fol-
low. or glimpse of kindled light to
direct. In the forest, densely black,
in the desert sands flooded and
scorched by the sun or lying white
and far beneath the moon. Or at sea
with the sun shining fiercely as
consuming fire or the moon or at
sea still, throwing glittering radi-
ance on the crests and foam of break
ing waves-the condition is the
same. Lost. The sense Of direction
Is gone in the wide stretches Of the
desert or the sea as 1t is in the shades
OF the forest or the confined black
ness Of the little room.
AS We are in the black darkness Of
sudden awakening. as we are in the
desert or forest or tossing solitary
at sea. so we are in life without
faith and hope and belief. We come
into the world helpless and blind.
AS we become older. no matter how,
fortunate and surrounded with help
and comforts. or how unfortunate or
environed in misery and poverty we
may be. we begin to look about try
ing to see. Left to ourselves we dis
cover with our growing thought and
intelligence and knowledge. nothing
but darkness and mystery. We make
new link, small link, in a long
chain OF people extending into
hidden and lost time gone The
highest and most clearly bred Of us
can trace back not more than a
thousand years, an inconsiderable
period Of the life of the world and
the human race. Behind the most
remote and exalted ancestor we can
trace may be a long lire of slaves
and criminals and ruffians. What is
to come after us. what is to happen
to us when inevitable death has end
ed our lives here, be they brief or
long, we cannot know What de-
scendants we will leave and what
they will do in the world and wheth-
er they will make our names splen-
did or ignoble, whether they will JUS
tify our pride Of race and breeding
or carry family names into obscur-
ity, are matters beyond our possible
knowledge or control.
Each of us is in a dark room, a
black forest, toiling in the desert
without landmark or direction or
tossing on cruel sea with an un-
broken horizon on every side and no
hope or help or destination in sight
unless
And there comes the cruelty, the
blind and frantic bruising and
biighting and destruction Of the ag-
nostic, who says we may know moth.
Ing, and the infidel and atheist who
tries to teach us that all we think
We know is wrong. They leave us III
black darkness We do not know
whence. nor why nor how we came
i,tc this life. that the inspirations
and longings Of our souls are but
careless and unmeaning instincts.
They would leave us lost and wan
dering and hopeless, destined to live
and suffer, to beget and to bear and
leave and then to rot as our times
arrive and to return to the oblivion
from which we came.
None of us who can think believe
that we are intended to stumble
from a blank past. through an un-
satisfactory and more or less dis
tressed life to future without mean-
ing or promise or result. Our in
stinctive tendency is to feel that
there must be light and guidance
and leadership, release and compen-
sation, reward and balm somewhere.
So the most OF us Of healthy and
normal constitutions reject the teach
tngs Of the apostles Of darkness,
whether they be Ingersol, with his
brilliancy and keen analysis, or the
most vulgar and vociferous clown,
who. on a little knowledge, tries to
erect a structure of nothing and