Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-03-29
THE DEATH THAT KILLS NOT
Thoughts for Good Friday

TT is we'll for mans tranquility that his
i individual capacity for understanding and
detached speculation is so petty. 1t is WELL
perhaps, that each of us. engrossed in the
instant problems of every day, can rarely
sit down to ponder tho great common cry OF
suffering and pcrplexity that humankind
sends up to the unistening stars. Amid all
the beauty and graciousness of the visible
world amid the joyous and diverse medley
of human contacts amid our loves and
daughters and the harmless vanities of earth
there runs the note of pity and terror. Ste
venson and every other philosopher who has
tried to scrutinize the double face of destiny
has had to confess his Illustration. I'VE cam
not reason the problems of the soul TO any
logical satisfaction. In the eyes of every
human being, If We look close enough there
is this pathos of the enigma We can never
solve Not the enigma of natural DEATH
which is often the beautiful and kindly
release from battered cropping, but tho
enigma of blind and aimless suffering.
GOOD Friday, dedicated in the worlds
VI most solemn and revcrent memory as the
symbolic day of yanquishmcnt and loss, Is
the day of the lightning, the earthquake and
the Cross. 1t Is the day of death and sor-
row. the day of inscrutable darkness and
tears. The wells of earth's temples arc rent
from top to bottom; men look questions they
dare not phrase.
And on this Good Friday the world faces
issues and horrors such men have never
grappled with before. Our globe has lived
through a million tragedies its kind and
familiar old face is SCARED with the tor
ments of countless defeated hopes and tor
tured lives. And yet 1t seems not mere
egotlsn of the moment to thlnl; that we are
now in the torment of pangs sharper than
the race has faced before. Never in history
were forces so titanic leveled at each other.
The very air around us vibrates with the
wings of death AS the great tide of battle
swings savagely to and fro the listening
heart grows faint TO think of the fury of it.
CNOMETIMES IL seems as though humanity
y had wantonly pulled down the pillars of
its house and all who dwell therein arc
| stricken and whelmed in the wreckage. All
the hard-won sanctitics, the laborious gains
| of generations. are tossed and splntered in
the turmoil. The world reels and staggers
in a net of pain. No matter where one goes
he cannot escape it, There Is no abiding
place to which he can fly; the tremble of the
earth will seek him out. the hands of pain
will press upon his forehead. Death has us
| In his snare; the world is Wars and the
| fulness thereof. Who can find words to tell
the sadness of 1t all?
TIME brain throbs and the heart sickens at
| | the needless tragedy. And yet humanity
will rise above this fearful tornado of de-
| struction Man is a building animal. Like
the ant, IL his home is devastated, he sets
anew to refashion H. and better than before.
| Who can look down the aisles of history
| without marvellng at the indomitable cour-
age the restless eagerness of the human
| being? Busy to build, to harness the mys-
| terious powers of nature. to bend his sur
| roundings TO his plan, every city street
| one wonders at the richness and determina-
tion of his will. One after another we
| sicken age and die. but the miraculous
| struggle goes on. Where fails his chill
| dren succeed. What humanity sets it's heart
| on 1t achieves
| TO-DAY humanity is on the cruciflx. II Is
| i the day of death and bitter disappoint-
| ment. Our enemy has pressed us hard his
| lines are almost where they were when he
1 was first halted three and one-half years
| ago. Gallantry and sacrifice such as were
| never exceeded have spilled themselves in
| scarlet to stem the tide. yet peace is still far
away. Before lie months and years Of
| unremitting effort. And yet, on this of all
| days we have no voice for disheartenment
| First of all. humanity has willed that the
| Prussian menace shall cease. II Is the united
| fat OF civilization that this group of bullies
| shall no longer fill the earth with haired
| They will learn. In their appointed time. what
| II means to defy the will of united man.
And then we can In utter sincerity repeat
| the greatest words once said on Good Fri
/ day, "Forgive them. for they know not what
| they do" or the vast majority Of our foes
i this II wholly true. Cajoled and cudgeled
/ into arms by generations of false and treach-
| crows teaching, they win yet learn that our
! steoI - the'r, steel t1cht tn>n and absss