The Eureka sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1902-current, 1915-12-25
SATURDAY. DECEMBER a5. 1915
CHRISTMAS BELLS
By Charles Goodwin In the Christmas
Number of Coodwin's Weekly

Number Of Coodwin's Weekly
When the Christmas bells ring this
year it will not be as eve before in
all the years of all the men now on
the earth. Even in u W most
blessed land as those bells ring out,
their peals, erst so joyous, to thought
full people. there will seem to be a re-
frain of sorrow in their ring, even as
when marriage bells change to tolling
for the dead.
For think of it! For nineteen
hundred years those bells have been
rung, those carols sung and the bless
ed refrain has been, borrowed from
the angel choir. ION earth Peace,
and to man Good WILL"
AS the centuries have come and
gone, with more and louder acclaim
each year, the anthem has rung upon
the world, with ever increasing as
have the words of promise
been spoken; with more and more
ostentation has the day been celebrat-
ed; with more and more eloquence
have devout men pointed out how
civilization has advanced most in
those lands where the cross has been
most revered, until now on the wings
of the lightnings the messages are
being carried and the ~perfecting
press as it tolls, with every deep
respiration, emphasizes the truth
that the highest grace is that which
has grown out of that same message
of peace on earth and to man Good
WILL"
But now every echo from the old
world is not only one violence, but it
brings an impression that there
where most crosses have been up
reared. where most monuments to
Christianity have been raised, where
oftenest the message of Peace on
earth, and to mar Good WIFI has
been repeated, there with most fury
men and nations r. stamping all
the records of good into the ground,
and from their hearts have cast out
every generous sentiment OF good
will.
A year ago. the outside world,
looking on, said: 1T is but a frenzy
and will soon pass" But during
the past year that frenzy has seemed
to crystalize into a settled hate
among those who are guiding affairs
and executing the bloody work,
while those at home strain their eyes
up through the darkened sky above
them and %mournfully whisper to
their own souls: There are no an
swers to our prayers"
And there all the Christmas bells
will be tolling bells and in lieu OF
Christmas carols, only dirges will be
chanted.
The wisest, straining their eyes,
cannot see why the present scourge
was permitted. why the stage was
set. why the terrible acts are being
called. They only know that it is
natures way when the air becomes
fetted and a pestilence is threatened.
to call up the cyclone to clear the air,
and they remember that while in the
wake of the storm and swept fields,
shattered homes and dead animals
and men, the atmosphere is cleared.
Is there any parallel between that
and the cataclysm that is now chang
ing the face of Europe and a part OF
Asia; where death comes from the
clouds and destruction up from the
depths of the sea, until it almost
seems as though another geological
period was about to be completed!
We cannot tell. but there are signs
that the old claim that a man is every
thing and the people nothing. is
about to pass; that the decree is al
ready to be issued that all men must
have equal opportunities; that there
are no devine rights to mortals save
those that come of heart and brain;