The Washington times., 1911-05-13
TO ONE GROWN WEARY OF
LIFE.

| will not come-is there any serious sin
in himself Fastening his departure In
What is the future outlook for one
who does this? Is the God before whom
he goes a cruel Judge or a stern par
ent, and will He be more severe than
be a merciful Judge and a loving
father-punishing, Of course. but with
leniency and not eyerlastingly?
Every day I live I hope will be my
but it's no use / am SO tired Of life!
| You can see the second paragraph re-
acts against the first I don't know
whether it's cowardice as to what my
there's a thought OF good mother
who loved an only child.
This is, indeed, the bitter cry of a
soul in agony. 1t bears internal evi-
dence of having come from one of
those natures SO finely wrought as to
grow disordered by excess of their own
refinement, like sweet bells tangled,
out of, tune. He has been walking in
the willow woods until the world
seems filled with gloom. One of those,
perhaps, "whom unmerciful disaster
followed fast and followed faster" he
has closed the windows of the mind,
shut out the sunlight, and shut his
brooding thoughts within.
He has passed on to US the riddle
which has perplexed the stricken
heart of humanity ever since job,
amidst the ashes of desolation, voiced
his immortal meditations on Death
and the Grave: "If a man die, shall he
live again? All the days of my 'ap-
pointed time will wait till my change
come"
The answer our correspondent de-
sires needs no deliberation. We trust
that it may reach him in that un-
known corner of the teeming city
whence his nameless message comes,
and that it may cheer and sustain him,
whatever may be the burden of his
grief Between the covers of Holy
Writ he will find nothing more true
than that "as a man thinketh in his
heart, so is he." Today his mind is
sick. His distorted vision sees life
in wrong perspective. To say that
the thought of ending his existence
is moral cowardice sounds trite, and
yet it is eternally true. The race is
not always to the swift nor yet the
battle to the strong, but the zest of
life is in the contest, not the prize.
The brightest among the shining
hosts who sing hosannas around the
Throne are set apart with this supreme
encomum: 'These are they who have
come up out of eeat tribulation."
When every wave of doctrine has
dashed itself into spray against the
sheer headlands of life and death, OF
hope and doubt and fear, the great
human fact remains that no man liveth
unto himself. 1t is this mutual de-
pendence which has led humanity on
ward from lawless savagery into the
ties of the family, the clan, the tribe
It has eliminated in that organized
society wherein man surrenders part
of his natural rights that the rest may
be made secure In obedience to laws
human and divine, he surrenders the
right to violate the social compact by
laying violent hands upon himself. II
this were not so there could be no co.
hesion, no social order. The ordeals
/. in which manhood and character are
tempered and refined would devour al
the noblest of the children of mer
"who learn in suffering what they
teach in song"
1t has been written large in all the
ages that out of the gloom and travail
of sensitive souls have. come the great
achievements. The most exquisite
, structure ever erected by human hands
the Tai Niahal, is but the splendic
memorial of an emperor's grief fol
the wife of his youth. The same
: pathetic inspiration turned the genius
of John Bright to the crowning worl
of his craftsmanship and the liberia
e tion of a. people from the oppression
n of the Corn Laws Not merely in pov
= erty, but under the incubus of debt
: the author of "Wayerly" wove his mos
r mastery romances, and the creator o
tom Sawyer" kept the world il
laughter while his own heart throbbe,
a miserere. The "Great Cham" o
e eighteenth century literature wrot
"Rasselas" to defray the funeral ex
penses of his mother. In marrow
e donjon cell Cervantes brought fort
: his diverting Don Quixote," and ii
Beford Jail John Bunyan traced tn
progress of Christian" in his pill
grimage through the world. With dealt
4 Impatient at his elbow, young Keat
I breathed forth immortal melody.
How weak it seems to .contemplat
surrender in the face of achievement
: like these, born in the bitterness o
: every phase of mental and physica
n anguish! Perhaps in moments of de
t preston they, too, asked themselves
2 their Creator would be the stern judg
: or the forgiying parent should the,