The Logan Republican. [volume] (Logan, Utah) 1902-1924, 1918-12-17
THREE

ence OF death The grave is longer CELL it is an open
a9or, Something lies beyond What? They cannot tell
ahey have no vision of celestial city, of Elysian
fleds They have no theory of Immortality But to them
death has become only step in the Great Adj
venture to which they gave themselves when they cose-
Grated their lives to the service of her country and their
fellow man. That conservation not the consequence
OF any unthnng emotionasm. They weighed the ques-
ton carefully Into theone scale they put ease comfort
home, their youthful ambitions liberty of action their
comfort discipline probable PAIN possible DEATH but al
SO their honor the honor of their country and their love
for their fellow These outweghed the others It is
true that some went under compusion but most Of them
went gladly and the reluctant caught the spirit Of
the enthusiastic The achievement which inspired them
they counted as worth dying for death the end
the achievement would still be worth dying for But they
no longer think of it the end 1t has become them
new beginning.
How shall we receive them? Shall we chill their new
drapd in the pagan emblems Of the hopeless Of
those who can see only tomb from which the stone
be rolled away or shall we intensity their faith BY
unquenchabe faith in the nextinguishable life
of love- service and self sacrifice?
And our boys have acquired-no! there has been be-
stowed upon boys in this the greatest hour Of their
lives experience Of the Eternal It may not be
new faith in the creeda definitions Of God It may be
that those definitions have been swept away by their
periences Their faith may be as vague as Matthew Ar
nolds faith in "a Power not ourselves that makes tor
faith in ian infinite and Eternal Energy from which all
things proceed" But it is faith from which all things
proceed But it is faith, from which they cannot II
they would escape in Power greater than their own
p One soldier wriees home: mAl the infides are In
the Every here at the front believes in God and
the future" Another writes "There is no fear here
cept the fear of God" Still another 1--WE at last will
ling to act though believed in both God and mmor-
tality" Miss Kirkland in her little book "The New
Death up her study of these soldiers experiences in
\ the following two sentences:
GA power is certainly at worw-is it God or devil,
for no one dares longer to call it Chance. Every instinct
y answers God"
:! And again: "He is not the God Of theology. He is
u sometimes frankly evoutonal God, Himself travelling
Y with His universe towards perfection"
e These boys have been caught up in tidal wave OF
human thought and feeling which did not create and
cannot control and which is sweeping the nations
of the earth toward future which can but dimy
foresee They have felt the Eternal Power and realize
only they realize it who have experienced it. And
this hour Of vctoryvcory beyond their expectations
they have felt also the Eternal Goodness They de-
voutly glad that God has not fought their battles for
hem that he has not performed their duty and let them
the trial. that he has trusted them to fight his bat
ties with him and share with him the glory Of the victory
~ Their exuberant joy is also reverent thanksgiving
This is not true Of ALL There some careless and
= indifferent spirits who will be careless and indifferent
still. But many, if may judge from their published
letters most of these boys will have passed through these
Experiences without vision Of truth, som new
Understanding of ife What greeting shall we be pre-
IS pared to give them? Into what atmosphere will they
come? Shall we chill them with skeptssm and our
indifference? Or shall be ready to the truth they
they together may build the world Of faith in God
the future and OF love and hope for our fellow man.
Abbott in The Outlook.