Newspaper Page Text
4 (512) THE
Family F
''NEARER TO THEE."
By Margaret Burnett.
As the Titanic was Sinking, her band played
"Nearer, My- God, to Thee."
"Nearer, my God, to Thee."
Out o'er the wave
Floated the music sweet,
ETen though a grave
"Waited the players all,
Deep ia the sea;
Living and dying heard?
"Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee."
Terror and death were there.
Out on the deep;
Some with the waves went down,
Some lived to weep.
Where could they turn for help,
God of the sea,
Whether for life or death,
Where, but to Thee?
When we are called to pass
Through waters deep,
When sorrow's billows wild
Over us sweep,
Thou, only, help canst give,
To Thee we cry;
And when earth's day iB done.
When death is nigh,
Still, still the prayer must be,
"Nearer, my God, to Thee,
'Nearer to Thee."
HAPPINESS?HOW NOT TO GET IT.
WILLIAM REED M'ELKOY.
Some think money will bring it. But Solomon
had so much gold, silver and precious
stones, that the Queen of Sheba threw up her
hands in amazement and said the half had never
been told her. Wealth did not bring happiness.
Others care little for wealth but crave
power. Happiness, they are sure, will come
with the possession of power. Solomon had
all the power there was. He swayed the undisputed
sceptre over a realm so wide that it
was taken as a type of Messiah's Kingdom.
Still his heart-ache echoed?"all is vanity and
vexation of spirit."
Some seok happiness in the wine cup. Sol
omon tried that too. Like others he found
therein a temporary exhilaration; but at the
last "it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like
an adder." Even in Solomon's time drunkenness
was associated with snakes. The inebriate
is an Esau selling his future, permanent
good for a present, temporary gratification.
Many a young man imagines his cup of happiness
would be full to over flowing if he could
win the woman of his choice; but Solomon won
the women of his choice and. after vears of
sensuality, he said: "Drink waters out of
thine own cistern, and running waters out of
thine own well, and rejoice with the wife of
thy youth."
Housekeepers fancy they might be happy if
they could get the domestic problem solved so
as not to spend all their time in the tread mill
round or household drudgery. Solomon s wisdom
solved this problem. He had servants born
in his house so that they would be content to
stay. No neighbor could offer higher wages
than he. It would have been better for him
and his wives too, if they had done more work
and had less leisure.
Still another class suppose that heart's ease
would be theirs if, at will, they might listen to
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE S
A
headings
b
entrancing music. Solomon tried this; he had
vocal and instrumental music, men singers and
women singers?a full orchestra of trained
musicians, but all combined could not drive
away woe from a wicked heart. Solomon
sought happiness in his handsome buildings,
his iiowers, his walks, his gushing fountains,
>his pedigreed horses and blooded cattle. He
had his clown to provoke side-splitting laughter
but learned by experience that "Even in
laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end
of that mirth is heaviness."
Solomon swept the whole gamut of human
experience in search of happiness and found it
not. What was his trouble! His life was
thoroughly self-centered. The world was a
great bunch of grapes which he grasped and
squeezed into his own cup; but before he had
quaffed to the bottom, it had a bad taste. No
selfish person ever can find happiness. In the
first two chapters of Ecclesiastes there are
eighty personal pronouns referring to the writer
Solomon. My gold, my wisdom, I, my, me
and mine. Happiness like our shadow flees
when pursued by us but follows us if not pursued.
Happiness is a timid maiden who flies
swift on foot, when one's admiring gaze is fastened
upon her too intently but on finding the
eyes fastened upon some noble and useful
work, she steals back with gentle tread and
loving caress.
Lord Byron had the same experience as
Solomon. Beautiful in face and figure with
the single exception of a club foot, the petted
child of his nation, possessed of extraordinary
genius, he set out to walk in the "primrose
path of dallianse" to "pluck the sweets from
every flower." At thirty-six jaded by the
pangs of satiety, he sang 'that his life was in
the yellow leaf. The flowers and fruits of love
well gone. The worm, the canker and the gall
were his alone."
David after a long, active unselfish, useful
life, taking a retrospective glance and seeing
how God had led him all the way, smiled approvingly
and burst forth?"surely goodness
and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever."
Solomon after an idle, sensual self-centered
life, frowned regretfully and wrote "all is
vanity."
David was the sea of Galilee: Solomon, the
dead sea which all the waters of Jordan could
not sweeten, strange that Solomon has more
followers than David in luxurious America.
THE VIRTUE OF RESIGNATION.
Even in Christianity there is a resignation
of apparent fortitude, and of an unaltered
countenance, under which there is no free and
loving obedience. The true Christian resignation
is not only Christian, but it is one of
the virtues with which Christianity has endowed
the world. It is a steady, tender, pa
tient submission, which beholds the Christ
who has spoken to our souls, who came to
teach us all things, to live, to die, to remain
with us. This resignation is not content with
making courage a point of honor. It is the
sanctification and not the suppression of grief
and loss. It is a real abandonment to the Divine
will. It is an act living and glorious,
calm and serene, with shadows but with no
darkness. It is a faith first reverent then
submissive, and at the last victorious. This
1
81 TH [ May 8, 1912
resignation was taught us by our Lord, who
came not to do his own will, but the will of
hira that sent him. "Thy will be done" is
the tenderest and fondest word that love ever
pronounced. It is a word of salutation and
-i? - 1 ~e ?1?-?- ?
uicoomg, uuv ii/ is msu a wuru uj. suumissiOD.
The sorrows of life are permitted by Christ.
It is our duty to cherish them, but Christianity
arms us against their excess. Our Lord
will always admit to us the justice, the poignancy,
and the severity of our griefs, but he
brings to us their everlasting consolation.
Even in those worst sorrows which arc caused
by our fellow beings we see through a veil
the purpose of God, the purpose of love. "Our
griefs still cause us to suffer, but they have
lost their sting. From the rank of masters
our enemies have descended to that of instruments,
and see those obeying who dream that
they command.?British Weekly.
THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION. Etc.
(Continued from Page 3.)
opinions and views, leads easily to the corruption
of manners and of sentiments among
the nations, and to the diffusion of the bane
of indifference."
Proposition 80, "The Roman Pontiff can
not be reconciled to modern civilization and
progress, nor can he compromise with them."
After proclaiming the union of Church and
State and condemning religious freedom and
freedom of the press, she advances and places
every ruler whether president or king under
her dominion and authority:
Proposition 54, "Kings and princes are neither
excluded from the jurisdiction of the
Church, nor do they stand higher than the
Church in determining questions of jurisdiction."
She finally puts her laws above any civil
law:
Proposition 42, "In ease of conflict between
the laws of the two powers, the temporal law
does not prevail."
In Johnson's Cyclopedia, Article "Pius,"
Vol. Ill, Part II, page 1270, we read: "Pius
IX condemns as heretical the ideas of liberty
of conscience, of the liberty of the press, of
the independence of the secular government
from the ecclesiastical, of the equality of laymen
and clergymen before the law, of the
right of a people to make their own laws and
elect their own magistrates, etc.; that is to
say, he condemns in the eighty-four theses
all the principal ideas of modern civilization
as heretical."
Long ago in my polemics with the Morning
Star, the most authorized Catholic weekly
of the South, I myself said of the Syllabus:
"A document, indeed, which stands positive
ly against all the most cherished American
ideals and the American Constitution. Ameri
cans and the American Constitution / stand
for freedom of the press, and the Syllabus
condemns it as an awful sin. Americans and
the American Constitution stand for the separation
of Church and State, and the Sylla
bus condemns such separation as a dangerous
error. Americans and the American Constitution
stand for universal suffrage as the basis
of wise Dublic government.. And the. Svllabus
condemns such a doctrine as most pernicious
and anarchical, etc. Then how can it be possible
that any American may be at the same
time a faithful Catholic and a loyal American,
when the Syllabus and the American Constitution
stand for precisely opposite principle9
and ideals f' /,
/'
My readers will see in my next article ^7
answer to this last question. ^ J
J