Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-10-30

the loss of etS1Iity. has had effects.
social and political, that intensity
our private discomfort. Perhaps II
our difficulties are clarified We may
recognize how burdened we actual
ly are, and willing to allow our
selves a makeshift leniency. Chief
among the public phenomena di-
rectly traceable to the absence of
eternity is the war On basis of
strict mortality. war for aggran-
dzement becomes the only legiti-
mate activity for person or nation.
Reason shows that since death ends
all. material things are the only
things worth getting. and even
more clearly shows that since hui
man beings are as finite as mosqui-
toes. they are no more worthy of
preservation. Germany is the most
laudhly logical nation in the world.
but Ger logic has been a little un-
comfortable for the nations who
are more sluggish i'm evolution, and
who will stu cling to their retro
gressive respect for spiritual val
nations and to their obsolete rever-
ence for the human soul. OF course
if Germany had not purified her
self from all faint of faith in
have waited for permeation through
peace instead of being in such a
devil OF a hurry to chop way
through for her culture. Doubtless
i'm the couse of time, other nations
will attain Germanys serene
heights of pure reason; but at
present il is necessary frankly to
admit that aggression. while our
brains pronounce it a most rational
pastime, is still for our imagina-
ton and sympathies one of the
chief temporary discomforts of do
ing without eternity"
That 1.-THE los sof eternity has had eff
fects. social and political" is demon
strated and exemplified by some utter
ances of Count Bernstorff, the German
at Washington. just before
his departure from our country.
This Count BernstoTff, it will be re
gave himself to the most dis
and immoral intrigues while
he was the accredited and accepted am
bassador of his country to our govern
ment. What was the credal base of his
shameless conduct?
Let him answer for himself. From
an interview with him, published by Z
New York daily just before he left
America, the following sentences are
taken:
II know this world and don't trou-
BILE about any other
II think the man a fool who de-
MES himself any good thing in this
life, unless for healths sake, or
some dominant reason
IL think a man should do right,
but ] am very lenient, especially
towards sins of the flesh, when the
temptation is great and the results
unimportant."
In the three sentences quoted is am
pie explanation of all his perfidious con
duct. His conduct is controlled by M
of inviolable right because he
the future world and knows
and cares for no world but that of the
present. suffocating worldliness ha:
choked to death all virtue in his soul
So in every man of the world just il
proportion to his indifference to eternity
and his devotion to time. Such worldli
ness destroys the moral perspective and
looks with self-deceiving gaze even upor
the things of time and sense. 1t is both
and blear-eyed.
Prevalent worldliness Is pervertins
the education of youth. 1t demands thai
all education be what it calls scientific
and practical" The curriculum which
1t prescribes proceeds on the assump-
ton that students belong to this world
only and that the culture which serves
anything higher than what the senses
,an enjoy and what may be desired in
time, is vain thing.
And so our exceedingly worldly world
shows symptoms in it's social, educa-
ional, political and religious life of a
Mortal malady preying upon its vitals.
h. S,,andilxr a
fresh, tonic air from the heights of eter-
lity, it must surely perish. The world
which forgets God will be turned into
Tell, or rather will itself become a hell.
Our worldly world is now afire. World
mess is very inflammable and is easily
consumed by spontaneous combustion.