Norwich bulletin., 1916-05-06
Sunday Morning Talk
FOUNDATIONS OF ROCK.


 There has been rough weather in the North Atlantic the past winter. The wind has shrieked and the waves have run high. Dwellers on the Massachusetts coast have seen great vessels dashed to pieces and the bod ies of hapless seamen washed up on the shore.
 The keepers in Minot's Ledge light house, that great tower rising sheer out of the sea- as Longfellow de- scribed it, like a huge stone-cannon mouth upward" have seen the salt spray dash high over their ocean home and have felt the solid masonry trenlble beneath their feet.
 Weren't you nervous?' asked one of these men, when some of those northeast combers struck you%
 'I would have been," was his re- ply, Eff I hadn't remembered how the foundation stones are sunk five feet into the solid ledge"
 His optimism is justified when one studies the plans from which Capt. Alexander worked, in his engineering feat of SO years ago. It would take considerable of a gale to blow the reef away, and, to all intents and purposes, Minot's lighthouse is part of it.
 Comfort always lies in the convic- ton that foundations are solid. That applies to a house on land or to one in the midst of the sea. It applies al- so to that house of life each one of us is building. We can stand good many shocks and endure a wide vari- ety of tremorS if we are convinced that the structure is proof against any possibility of being swept away.
 The darkest experience of a think ing mind is not in some period of moral doubt. It is hard to see the right worsted and the wrong triumph ing in the hurly burly of life. But than that. It is to question whether there be any such thing in this world as right or wrong at all. It is to fall into a mood of pessimistic distrust o1 all the spiritual foundations.
 Thousands of men and women will endure any sort of hardship for righteousness sake and make endless l sacrifices, if they believe that the struggle has some divine significance and that victory is coming in the end But the nerve of every heroic m- pulse is cut when we decide that l1u- man life is only weltering chaos after all, in which neither goodness nor badness has any vital meaning. Ii nobody cares, why should I? questions the doubting soul.
 The pagan lines of old Omar make musical reading, but they are mighty poor battle cry for moral warriors;
 We are no other than a moving row Of Magic Shadow shapes that come and go
 Round with the -illumined Ian. tern held
 In midnight by the Master of the Show.
 When the news that President Lin coin had been shot flashed over the wires men stood aghast at the dread; full tidings. Citizens gathered iH | knots in the street asking each othel l what this shock would do to a govern. ment barely through with its fiery or. deal of war. A veteran soldier and statesman appeared on the balcony of the New York Custom House, hold. 1 ing an American flag in his hands and addressed the crowd below. Fellow citizens he said, God reigns. ant the Government at Washington stiI 1 liyes.'
 In an hour like chat men need t.
 be reminded or the fundamental veri, 1 ties
 l Nothing can stampede one wh, knows that the Kingdom of God h unshalxabie. It may have temporary setbacks; apparent calamities ma1 oyertalze it, but 1t cannot be defeated l The Apostle Paul knew appa1Iint discouragements in his day. but hi never lost faith in the ultimate tri tImph of righteousness. 'Neverthc Iess.~ he said, t.tlnc foundation of Got standeth sure.'' However staggered and confused men may become ami, the chaos into which human affair
 are sometimes thrown. the same un
 shaken rock always remains to bllilI THE PARa,aH.