Omaha daily bee., 1914-12-28
WeAre What
We Make
Ourselves
BY MAURICE MAETERLINCK.


1t is well that men should be reminded
that the very humblest OF them has the
power to fashion, after a divine model
that he chooses not. a great moral per-
sonality composed in equal parts of him
self and the ideal.
1t is only in the depths OF life that this
great moral personality can be carved
out. and only by means of incessant reve-
lations of the divine can we add to the
stores of the ideal we require.
To every man It is given to attain in
spirit to the heights of virtuous life and
to know at all times what his conduct
should be. would he act like hero or
saint
But more than this is needed. It is. es-
sential that the spiritual atmosphere
about us should be transformed to such
degree that it ends by resembling the
atmosphere OF Swedenborg's beautiful
countries of the age OF gold. wherein the
air permitted not falsehood to leave the
lips.
An instant comes then, when the small
est evil we feel like committing falls at
our feet like a leaden ball upon a disc OF
bronze when everything changes, though
We know 1t not, into beauty. love or
truth.
But this atmosphere enwraps only those
who have been heedful to ventilate their
life sufficiently by at times flihging open
the gates of the other world. 1t Is when
we are near those gates that we see; it
is when we are near those gates that we
love. For to love ones neighbor does
not mean only to give ones self to him,
to serve him and sustain others We
may possibly be neither good nor noble.
nor beautiful even in the midst of the
greatest sacrifice, and the Sister Of Char
ity who dies at the BEDSIDE OF a typhoid
patient may perhaps/h have a mean, ran
corous, miserable soul.
To love ones neighbors In the unmov-
able depths means to love in others that
which is eternal, for ones neighbors in
the truest sense of the term is that which
approaches the nearest to God-ln other
words, all that Is best and purest in man
-and it is only by ever lingering near
the gates 1 spoke OF that you can dis
cover the divine in the SOUL
Then you will be able to say with the
Jean Paul: when I desire to love
most tenderly one who is dear to me-
and wish to forgive him everything, 1
have but to look at him q few moments
| in silence"
To learn to love one must learn TO see.
II lived twenty years by my sisters
| SIDE" said a friend to me, ''and I saw
her for the first time at the moment of
our mothers death"
Here. too, It had been necessary that
death should violently fling open an
eternal gate, 30 that the two souls might
behold each other in ray of the
primeval light. Is there one among us
who has not near him sisters he has
never seen?
Happily. even In those whose vision is
most limited, there is always something
that acts In silence as though they had
seen. 1t is possible, perhaps, that to be
in little light when all are in dark
ness. Therefore. doubtless, It is well that
we should endeavor to raise our lives
and should strive toward SUBMITS where
evil-doing is impossible. And, therefore.
too, II is well to accustom the eve to be-
hold events and men In a divine atmos-
phere.
But even that is not indispensable, and
how small must the difference seem to
the eyes OF God? We are in a world
where truth reigns at the bottom of
things and where 1t is not truth but
falsehood that needs to be explained.
II the happiness of your brother sad
dens you, do not desplse yourself; you
will not have to travel far along the
road before you will come across some
thing in yourself that will not be sad
dened And even though you do not
travel the road. 1t matters littIe-some-
thing there was that was not sad.