Contemplations in Sadness
THE SUFFERINGS of the multitudes are as the agonies of gnawing pain, and in the mouth of society there are many decayed and ailing teeth. But society declines the careful and patient remedy, satisfying itself with polishing the exteriors and stuffing them with resplendent, glittering gold that blinds the eyes to the decay beyond. But the patient cannot blind himself to the continuing pain.
Many are the social dentists who endeavour to administer to the evils of the world, offering fillings of beauty, and many are the sufferers who yield to the will of the reformers and thereby increase their own suffering, draw deeper of their waning strength, and deceive themselves more surely into the abyss of death.
The decayed teeth of Syria are found in her schools, wherein today’s youth is taught to be tomorrow’s sorrow; and in her courts of justice, wherein the judges twist and play with the law as a tiger plays with its prey; and in the palaces, wherein falsehood and hypocrisy prevail; and in the huts of the poor, wherein fear, ignorance, and cowardice abide.
The political dentists of soft fingers pour honey into the ears of the people, shouting that they are filling the crevices of the nation’s weakness. Their song is made to sound higher than the sound of the grinding millstone, but in truth it is no nobler than the croaking of the frogs in the stagnant marsh.
Many are the thinkers and idealists in this world of emptiness … and how faint are their dreams!
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Beauty belongs to youth, but the youth for whom this earth was made is naught but a dream whose sweetness is enslaved to a blindness that renders its awareness too late. Will ever the day come when the wise will band together the sweet dreams of youth and the joy of knowledge? Each is but naught when in solitary existence. Will ever the day come when Nature will be the teacher of man, and Humanity his book of devotions, and Life his daily school?
Youth’s purpose of joy—capable in its ecstasy and mild in its responsibility—cannot seek fulfillment until knowledge heralds the dawn of that day.
Many are the men who curse with venom the dead days of their youth; many are the women who execrate their wasted years with the fury of the lioness who has lost her cubs; and many are the youths and maidens who are using their hearts only to sheath the daggers of the bitter memories of the future, wounding themselves through ignorance with the sharp and poisoned arrows of seclusion from happiness.
Old age is the snow of the earth; it must, through light and truth, give warmth to the seeds of youth below, protecting them and fulfilling their purpose until Nisan comes and completes the growing pure life of youth with new awakening.
We are walking too slowly toward the awakening of our spiritual elevation, and only that plane, as endless as the firmament, is the understanding of the beauty of existence through our affection and love for that beauty.
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Fate carried me by the painful current of modern, narrow civilization, taking me from between the arms of Nature in her cool green arbour, and placing me roughly under the feet of the throngs, where I fell as suffering prey to the tortures of the city.
No punishment more severe has befallen a child of God; no exile so bitter has become the lot of one who loves one blade of the earth’s grass with a fervency that causes every fibre of his being to tremble; no confinement imposed upon a criminal has approached in closeness the misery of my imprisonment, for the narrow walls of my cell are bruising my heart.
We may be wealthier than the villagers in gold, but they are infinitely richer in fullness of true existence. We sow in plenty, but reap naught; they reap the glorious bounty awarded by Nature to the diligent children of God. We calculate every barter with slyness; they take Nature’s products with honesty and peace. We sleep fitfully, seeing spectres of the morrow; they sleep as a child upon its mother’s bosom, knowing that Nature will never refuse her accustomed yield.
We are the slaves of gain; they are the masters of contentment. We drink bitterness and despair and fear and weariness from the cup of life; they drink the purest nectar of God’s blessings.
Oh, Giver of Graces, hidden from me behind these edifices of the throngs which are naught but idols and images … hear the anguished cries of my imprisoned soul! Hear the agonies of my bursting heart! Have mercy and return Your straying child to the mountainside, which is Thy edifice!