The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-09-13

What would happen if our soul were suddenly to take visible shape and were compelled to advance into the midst of her assembled sisters, stripped of all her veils, but laden with her most secret thoughts, and dragging behind her the mysterious inexplicable facts of her life ?
 Of what would she be ashamed? Which are the things she would like to hide Would she. like a bashful maiden, cloak beneath her long hair the countless sins of the flesh?
 She knows not of them and those sins have never come near her. They were committed a thousand miles from her throne, and the soul even of the prosti- ute would pass unsuspectingly through the crowd with the transparent smile of the child in her eyes. She has not inter- fered. she was living her life where the light fell on her, and it is this life only that she can recall.
 Are there any sins or crime of which she could be guilty? Has she betrayed, deceived. lied7 Has she inflicted suffer- ing or been the cause of tears? Where was she while this man delivered over his brother to the enemy? Perhaps far away from him she was sobbing and from that moment she will have become more beautiful and more profound She will feel no shame for what she has not done; she can remain pure in the midst of terrible murder.
 Often she will transform into inner radiance all the evil wrought before her. These things are governed by an invisi- ble principle and hence, doubtless. has arisen the inexplicable indulgence Of the gods.
 And our indulgence, too. Strive as we may, we are bound to pardon and when death, the great conciliator." has passed by, is there one of us who does not fall on his knees and silently, with every token of forgiveness, bend over the de- parting soul?
 When I stand before the rigid body of my bitterest enemy, when look upon the pale lips that slandered me, the sight less eyes that so often brought the tears to mine, the cold hands that may have done me so much wrong-do you imagine that l can still think of revenge. Death has come and atoned for all.
 l have no grievance against the soul of the man before me. Instinctively do I recognize that it scars high above the gravest faults and the cruelest wrongs and how admirable and full of signifi- canoe is still instinct. If there finger still regret within me. 1t is not that I am unable to inflict suffering in my turn, but 1t is perhaps that my love was not great enough and that my forgiveness has come too late.
 One might almost believe that these things were already understood by us deep down in our soul. We do not judge our fellows by their actunay, for these are not always undiscernible, and we go far beyond the undiscernible. man shall have committed crimes
 reputed to be the vilest of all, and vel 1t may be that even the blackest of these shall not have tarnished for one single moment the breath of fragrance and ethereal purity that surrounds his presence, while at the approach of a philosopher or martyr our soul may be steeped in gloom?
 may choose his friends from among men whose faces bear the stamp of every de- graded thought, and that. by the side of others, those brows are radiant with lofty and magnanfmous dreams. he shall not feel a human and brotherly atmos- phere about him.
 What tidings do these things bring us1 And wherein lies their significance? Are there laws deeper than those by which deeds and thoughts are governed? What are the things we have learned and why do We always act in accordance with rules that none ever mention, but which are only rules that cannot err?
 For 1t may be boldly declared that. ap-