The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-27
The Lamps Of sFaillsre
By Dk. FRANK CRANE

In the parable of the five. fo,lish virgins, when the bridAgroom came, the yfound thenls selves with no4ol in their lanip..s .ssi
 They stand for all those whom the crisis finds unprepared. <. <. .s... s5
 Twill explicate 10 you what are these five empty lamps, if you don't mind a pit ot preachment ...s
 Lamp one is religion without morality. Max Mueller says that the Hindus are tho most religious and sthe most immoral of peo- ples. And there is no doubt of the sad fact that religious emotion can glow in heart as fellow flame to immoralities. The great est enemies to religion are those who profess piety, but fail to show rectitude. Theirs is the lamp of no oil. Why call ye me Lord. Lord" said the Master, "and do not the things I say?" s%
 Lamp two is sentiment without habit4 Life is made up. of sentiments. Life, after all, is the way you feel about it. It is es- sential, then, that we acquire set of de- pendable and permanent feelings. The only way to deeply root desired emotions in the soul is to practice them regularly. The habit of doing that which you do not care about, when you would much rather be tlo- ing something else," said Huxley, lis iuvnI- uable." It is only they who do thus who have oil in their loves lamp They whose rule is to do as they please are the foolish virgins whose lamp of joy early burns to a smoky wick. tl Lamp three is training without training the will Of all our parts that which needs most and gets least education is the will. Happihess is the product of strength. A strong body is good and so are strong nnind and strong emotions, but none Of them IS 70 good as . strong will The will is the human mainspring and ought to be of tempered steel. A soft will that gives way to the push cf any desire is the cause of most human wreck age. And a vacillating, hesitant will that cannot move firmly toward a chosen end is the cause of most failures.
 Lamp four is goodness without cheerful ness. It is doubtless your duty to do :igtt, but it is no less your duty to be as pleasant about it as you can. Goodness may be a very splendid lamp, of bronze or oi gold, like the lamps of the temple, or of ,cunningly wrought iron. hard as the lamps upyn the wall vf the Strozzi palace at Florence. bat without cheer fulness it is but a dead lamp and sends out no guiding ray to other souls. Be good for your own sake and bc cheerful for your wife's sake. ass
 Lamp five is love without loyalty. To say that loyalty is the oil in loves lemp is 'a ve,y accurate ei.ure of speech. for. as q matter of fact, the enduring brightness Of love fs wloly drawp fro n loyalty. Why dc Ts ana womanfat th, altar swear they will tyc each other til death do then, i,h1 Simply because, other things being normal, a man and woman cannot live together in the intimacies of marriage, remaining loyal, and not grow more and more into mutual love. The free lovers, who look on marriage as bondage. as an unpsychological attempt to confine to one channel an emotion that should be free. do not understand the human heart. With the oil of fixed loyalty in the heart the flame of true love will not cease to burn. Without that oil love ceases to be lambert and clear and is but an occasional dull coal when the match of opportunity is touched to it, and consumes not the souls oil of life, but the souls very substance, the light of whose burning is no light and whose only product is a most ill-smelling vapor.
 Happy are those five wise virgins whose religion is. the crown of a just life, whose emotions flow in deep canals to irrigate their dcsert days. whose education begins with the culture of the will, whose piety is amiable to us poor sinners and whose love is fed from deep wells of loyalty. for it is they who are the lamps of this dull world. It is they who shine unquenchable and lovely as the clus- tered Pleiades in the night of our doubt and despair.