The Yale expositor., 1913-12-25

O1A1A1N
build their air castles without any fear of any
dissillusionment for over the sea lies Spain"
We get all the exaltation which came to
Abou Hassan when the amiable deception of
Haroun-alRaschid was played upon him, without
any of the i'll effects which we may presume came
to him when his dream of power dispelled itself
The day and the scene invites us to enjoyment
and to contribute to the enjoyment of others For
this day at least, of the year the golden age
is no myth. 1t is here with us, and must ut-
lie it while it stays. This is the hour when life's
wireless telegraphy carries greetings of good will
between all the individuals and all the peoples of
of the earth. To every one of us the world
stretches forth the glad hand and salutes us with
May you live long and prosper"
The old prophets conceived the sublime thought
that the Creator set the heavenly bodies in their
places to mark for man the progress of time. The
early leaders of the human race who watched the
stars in their courses, and from their movements
worked out the division of the days and years,
left blessing behind them for all time to come.
For if we are to believe the records of the rocks
and clays the first men who lifted their faces to
the skies in profound awe and with germs of
thought stirring in their brains had little if any
more conception of time and of the moving planets
than the brutes that shared with these primitive
savages the caves the huts which-were all
the houses they had It took long ages to learn
that the sun is a fixed body regards earth.
to divide the globe into degrees and the day into
"a hours. The seasons came and went and savage
man had no conception of why beyond the suns
declension below his zenith and the return of the
fiery orb TO a place high above his head. Then
from the crude superstitions OF astrology men of
high civilization worked out our year and set the
day that as this we now live marks the beginning
of new circle Of the four seasons.
The crudest savage needed no prophet with
message from the skies to teach him that if he
n1,,,
was the man of all generations who knew best
that lin the sweat Of his face" he must eat
bread" if he ate at all Storedup wealth there
was none. Each generation began practically
where the last did, with no inheritance to profit
by. Nor was there spark of charity to minister
TO the needs of age or sickness The child born
with low vitality met it's fate early in its career
The man who met with accident sufficient TO in
capacitate him for the chase or for was left
to perish miseraby where he fell. When age
dimmed the eye or made the hand nerveless the
useless one was not permitted to be a burden on
society. AS the wounded deer is left as the aged
wolf is abandoned, was the wounded man or
the toothless woman Percentage or other relation
ship counted nothing.
AS civilization climbed the path of progress 10
higher levels toll became more constant, more
pressing. The savage has few needs and there
fore much leisure He needs no weekly day Of
rest. With increasing needs to meet man had to
bend his back more necessarily and 20 strain mus
Gle tendon and ligament. Life had more enjoy
ment at the cost of longer hours of toll that made
rest seem very sweet. Then arose the leader OF
men, the reformer, the teacher philosopher or
prophet who ordained that there were times
and seasons so there should be days of rest If we
were to run the world around we would find many
Sabbaths. The follower of Mohammed takes his
rest on Friday, the Hebrew on Saturday the Chris
tian on Sunday. And the man of advanced ideas
who gave his Sabbath was a leader and a
benefactor in very deed.
The man who stands in the Escorial in Spain
and looks the sepulchers of kings reaching
back 300 years, has a span about as long as the
most ancient history of America. When he goes
to Granada he is face TO face with the times OF
the Moors whose invasion OF the peninsula was
centuries before Columbus was born AS he looks
on some paved road or some aqueduct he is car
ried back to the Scipios to Hannibal and back to
his forefathers who moved about here; and so
we go back to Carthage which was a great city
before Rome founded and Carthage takes
over the sea to Asia where Moses people and
some Philstines into combat And we 90
back to Egypt and its pyramids to the Pharaohs
and Jacob and his children and on back to Abra-
ham and the nomad chiefs who fed their hocks in
the fat plains of central Asia as long before the
Christian era as il is from the year 1911 In these
lands, among these races of men grandfatheTs
and greatgrandfathers count for little One meets
men whose ancestors took part in the expulsion of
the Moors, with others whose ancestors resisted
them when they first invaded Spain, and still
others whose forbears were in the armies of the
Scipios or of Hannibal. The mind loves to dwell
on the memory of these faraway days and to
dream of the way of life of men and women who
died so long ago, and to whom we owe our being
and our civilization The oldest title lands in the
Pacific states do not go back far There are
titles In Spain that date back centuries Castles
here are owned by families who come down di.
rectly or collaterally for ages. To these gen.
Grafton is as short as year to us In our brand