Norwich bulletin., 1914-09-19
SUNDAY MORNING TALK
MORAL USES OF A DARK THING.

Years ago a great thinker. Horace
 Bushnell, wrote sermon that has be-
 come classic entitled. Moral Uses of
 Dark Things It was dedicated to
 often advanced by events apparently
 full only of pain and of loss.
 Certainly no event more full of pain
 and loss than war is known to mod
 ern society. Can it be said to have
 any moral use whatsoever? Aside
 from great economic readjustments
 that may mean material gain for one
 country, with something quite the op-
 posite for er"tho-
 helpful contribution to the thought
 and the moraL eAper4ence d 1.-
 Is the philosophers contention at all
 justified. for instance, as regards the present cataclysm devastating Europe? Thoughtful observers may be able to detect on the black cloud some suggestion of 8 silver lining. In the first place there is the focusing of at- 'tention on grave instead of on trihing matters. For the last six weeks the world has been thinking serious thoughts. Our reading has been of different character. Newspapers that have magnified and inflated triviali- ties, scandals and the like have swept these things off the first page in favor of mighty events that are making history. Chattering and gossip cease. q H4Sn CulIiSdtf d "Of1d OOIlOOk. 1HSy read history study geography, enter into the character and ideals of allies and enemies Here is a moral level higher than the common one. Fright l ful as Is war is it as bad as that moral slough into which individuals ! did pleasures, selfish interests and pal tfy adnairations?
 Faith in the essential heroiSm of our race revives when the tocsin calls
 all men to the colors. Human na- | ture has its sublime possibilities after all The usual traits. manifest in pip f ing times of peaee-our love of ease, l our fear of pain, our dread of death, these the soldier despises and puts behind him. All that a man hath will | he give for his life, and yet eight | out of every ten soldiers are only beg ging to be sent to the front. It is | equally true of the Black Watch and l the Imperial Guard. of Zouave and | Cossack.
 l One cannot help glorifying these | men of different races, not because l they are shooting down their fellows | but because they expose their own \ bodies to the enemy's shot and shell; \ not because they kill others, but be- 1 cause they themselves are willing to die.
 When nations pour out their treas | ure in golden tide. when men leave | their unreaped fields and abandon their busy shops and offices for in- tangible things like honor and jus | tice, we may know that idealism has not perished from the human heart In war. moreover, countless thou sands learn to take account of that power not ourselves that makes for righteousness" War is an appeal tC the supreme Arhiter in human affairs by no means always to be found, as Napoleon declared. ''on the side of the heaviest battalions.- We are forced tc
 a recognition Of other agencies thas these material ones named dread }. thoughts and machine guns.
 | Franklin and Lincoln, skeptics both
 in earlier years, were driven to faith
 and hope during anxious years of two wars on which the destiny of America
 depended. Today. king. emperor, pres
 ident and czar claim divine aid Fer vent prayers are offered. not all ot which can be answered. Man pro-
 poses but God disposes The AL mightys will works itself out while i, even the wrath of men Is made tc praise Him.
 Il THE PARsoN.