The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-05-31

Another Memorial Day is gone. There were more graves to dec crate this year. More than ever before. Nature is kind. The wounds of grief are healed by time. Men and women cannot long remember grief, or feel grief very much, except for those who were near, and dear. If all the grief of the ages could be laid at once upon an individual heart, the agony of it would slay as by stroke Of lightning.
 
 These who are dead by the Great War are more than all who were slain in the wars of a hundred years before. Small is their num- Der compared with the number of those who were slain in all the wars during all time on earth. They are forgotten, save these few. These will be forgotten in their season. This Is one of the mer- cies of life.
 Memorial Day was beautiful and happy. The people made a great holiday. Some few marched in parades Many assembled to hear speeches about the dead, and about deeds they did. Such are for the comfort of the living. Thus the living are instructed how to live.
 What Is the state of these dead? Men like to think of 1t as a bless ed state of happiness, and enIght- enment in which the reason of things Is unfolded. Why through all the ages have men killed each other, to settle very tr1fling diff ferences? Why are wars brewing again, despite the terrible lesson of the Great War? The dead, in their habitats, may know the answer. They may be happy in the knowledge that their suffering and their end was a necessary part of the fabric Of things.
 America, yesterday. in the sun shine was a blessed abode, the home of those who of the peoples of the world are most blessed. The dead died. as now perhaps they know, for the good of others. If so, 1t Is most pleasing in the sight of those myrfads of depart ed. that the world was at play. To them the sound of youthful laugh ter, coming from the earth planet. yesterday. was like music of the spheres.
 To be cut off untimely is no doubt regrettab1e. But there is something in the spirit of man which enables him to feel, that the soldier dies happily. because he dies unselfishly In the end all die. This is the absolutely certain thing. More certain than taxes.
 s.s
 Cancellations have been devised. which do not much console. It is said that either the soul lives forever, or it does not. If it does, the period of earthly life Is a mere nothing in time. If it does not, measured against an eternity of nottingness the span of life is equal to nothing.
 
 Needless to repine because the young people make a holiday. It is best Some will attend to the more foxr1al aspects of each Me morfal Day. Be sure that the sac rifices of all the line of hero dead, stretching back to remotest ages, have been to benefit the living; more especially for the good of those who are unborn.
  For those who are perturbed be- cause there Is more laughter than tears on Memorial Day, this will help. The way to show gratitude to veterans whose graves were decorated. is to treat veterans who are alive as such men, who have so served their country and hu- nanity, ought to be treated. Ser vice to the living Is more import ant than flowers for the dead. Those whose graves are decorated fought for the living. that they might be safe and happy. honored