Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-11-20
THE MOST TRAGIC IGNO

TN HOMAS CARLYLE said, This I call
tragedy that any human soul should
a have capacity for knowledge and not
know"
Truly that is tragedy Ignorance of any
good thing is a sad misfortune.
1t is as if one had the power of sight,
and should be imprisoned in perpetual dark
ness Or, as if one had hearing, and were
forced to dwell In endless silence unbroken
by the sound of human voices in speech
song. In such a state, eyes and ears would
be panied by the fact of their own futile
and Intellectual existence.
But all forms of knowledge are not equal
ly valuable and all forms of ignorance are
not equally tragic.
The knowledge of the higher mathematics
is quite important and desirable; but, one
may be destitute of it without suffering
deep distress or falling short of happiness
or usefulness in life.
Acquaintance with poetry yields delight
to the mind; but failing to know the epic
lines of Homer and Virgil and Milton,s or
the lyric compositions of Tennyson and
Burns and Lanier does not impose insupera-
BILE obstacles to well-being. Most people
have no knowledge of these high things
The blind without knowledge of light and
the colors, are often happy and the deaf
who hear not the melody and harmony of
music, are not thereby deprived of all joy
and bessedness
But there is a knowledge which is in
an ignorance which is unspeakably disas-
trOus.
The knowledge of persons, especially of
persons near and dear to us, is necessary to
happiness, and ignorance of them brings
keenest grief Herein is found the pathetic
sorrow of orphans who have never known
the parents who gave them birth. Such
lack of knowledge, such ignorance Of the
most tender of human relations is nothing
less than desoation of soul.
And yet there is deeper desolation, and
that desolation is found in ignorance of
"God, the Father Almighty" This is the
most sorroWful form of orphanage and the
most tragic type of ignorance.
No soul is utterly desolate who can grasp
and appropriate in personal experience the
blessed truth poured forth by the Hebrew
psalmist as he sang out of his own solaced
spirit when my father and my mother
forsake me, then the Lord will take me up
(Psalms XXVII:10.) In all the iteratures
of earth we will look in vain to find more
confident confession Of faith a more
beautiful expression of hope.
In contrast with such ilia1 knowledge of
God is dark ignorance of our Father in
heaven. Such ignorance is the source of
deepest despair; for to be without God in
the world is to have mo hope" in the
heart. (Ephesians I:12.) Atheism secretes
pessimism and gOdlessness spreads uniting
clouds over life.
The knowledge Of God is of the very es-
sence of spiritual life So Jesus taught
when praying to the Father, on behalf of
His disciples, he said, "And this is life eter-
nal, that they might know Thee the only
true God and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou
hast sent" (John XVII:3.) Ignorance of
the true God is the absence of true life in
the human soul "Sin bringeth forth DEATH
Games I:15). And because of sin ''the
whole world lieth in darkness"
The deepest darkness in a world of sin
can be dispel1ed by nothing less than a
work of salvation wrought by a divine Re-
deemer To lift the gloom resting upon our
benighted of sinners "the Sun Of
righteousness must arise with healing in
his wings" (Malachi IV:2). By a Redeemer
from the guilt and pollution of sin the
scales, which render US blind to God, must