RETURNED EMPTIES.

Evening Star, Issue 14784, 27 January 1912, Page 2

RETURNED EMPTIES.

That was the heading of a report of 4 a case in the Police Court the other day. Some men were charged •with trying t« cheat the Railway. They had sent their goods to town by drays, and the empty cases, orates, boxes, etc., came back by train. They expected that the Railway officials would suppose the goods had gone out by rail, and thus they would get the usual reduction on the returned empties. But the plan failed, and the men were fined. Wo refer to the case here and now not for the purpose of discussing its rights or wrongs, but because we tfcink we detect in it a suggestive parable of human life. Let us see. ******* Those cases, crates, boxes were sent out full of goods of various sails—wool, cheese, cloth, or eomo such stuff. What a process had to be gone through before those products could be got together and despatched ! How many forces for ages had to co-operate to make possible their production ! The wool, for instance, came from the sheep, and the sheep from the grass, and the grass from the soil, but ages of fire and storm had to elapse before even the soil could grow the grass to feed the sheep. Or the cheese or cloth—what cunning hands and minds had to conspire in thought and work before these could reach their present perfection. Is it not the same of life? Each of us has been sent hore without our being consulted. Wonderful is the long history that lies behind a bale of goods. But it is nothing to that which lies behind a human life. To have packed up these a.Ttia7.u;g tbings we know by the name* of will, imagination, reason, conscience, and the five senses in a personality that we call I, and hidden the whole behind a queer screen of flesh and blood, making it visible for a while and then withdrawing it again into the invisible—this is indeed a marvellous business. Rich and valuable may have been the contents of those bales and crates as they wero sent forth on their outward journey. Make them as precious as you please. They are nothing compared with that with which every life starts. " I went out full," says Naomi in the lovely Hebrew idyll, recalling her youthful start in life. It is true of us all. We do indeed go out full. Think of the "fullness" of the fortune with which we are ondowed. Take what wo have. Take the world outside us. What a magnificent gift we get in it! We speak of ourselves as the heirs of the ages ; and so we are. But what an heirship ! What thought and toil and sacrifice ;.nd time have gone to the perfecting of this possession ! The earth with its soil and beauty; the glorious birth of the sunshine; the songs of birds j the .'cents of flowers, tree?, and gardens ; the endless picture galleries of Nature, ever changing form and color, perpetually painting some new vision of loveliness, in sky and eaith ; the accumulated thought of generations stored up for us in books and libraries and lives ; the achievements of music, the security and charm of homes, and the thousand-and-one internal arrangements that sweeten and dignify existence—to be bum into possession of all this is indeed a fortune of the first magnitude. *******

But what we pales into insignificance beiore what we arc. The fortune we receive in the world' without us is nothing compared with that..'which we inherit in the world within. It is this kittsr, indeed, upnn i which the former depends. Like our shadow, it moves and changes as wo do. No matter how v;e increase, it increases with vis. We find it always a match for our needs. The savage man got what he wanted from it: so dees tho civilised. And the process never stops. It is the fortune within us with which we are endowed that is tho amazing thing. To begin with our body. What a wonderful manufactory is at work there. At its open gate rolls in the raw materials of air, of food, of sunlight, of pulsing ether vibrations, and these, with tireless industry, with a vast and complicated machinery, it proceeds to manipulate there. The heart, the lungs, the billions of separate cells all co-oper-ate in turning this raw material into livjng tissue—into replacing our old dead body by a new one. But that is only the beginning of wonders. What are the age»nts at work directing and controlling all these material processes? There is, for instance, the brain, that bit of grey matter that somehow produces thought. And what a power is thought! Everything was at first an idea. The universe itself is but thought expressed in terms of matter and motion. It is with thought that revolutions have been started, wars created and ended, life turned into tragedy or triumph. And then there is will. We have in it an endowment unspeakably great. To be able to say " I will," and act accordingly—what a force that has been in the making of history! The "I will" of a Luther, a Cromwell, a Calvin, a Christ—this has made and unmade kings and kingdoms! And then there is conscience, the stay and inspire] - of will. This power to distinguish between right and wrong, and to choose the former, in spite of the branding or burning of the body—this is a wonderful possession. And Lhen, clustering round these, we. have memory, which preserves our identity and imagination, and hope and love, which crcato new worlds, and look before and after. Day by day and moment by moment these are extracting from the rawmaterial of the outside world elements to feed them and to keep them working. From our environment and the way they use it there is slowly produced that finished product we call individuality, personality —J, myself. And just as in cloth, cheese, woo], etc., we get good and bad, so in life. But the poimt just now is the wonderful fortune with which life sets out. " I went out full." There arc, indeed, degrees of fullness, but of the humblest human life it may be affirmed that it is set forth on its journey with an amazing fortune to its credit. ******* And at the end of the day it comes back. What? Returned Empties? In a sense that is literally true. What is every cemetery but a mausoleum of returned empties? And many of them have arrived there, like those in the Police Court story, without having paid their fare. We all owe am immense debt to life. We have come into a possession incredibly rich and wonderful, and that has cost us nothing whatever. And many take this possession and use it for their own ends. They forget that it is a trust, and they are but stewards set to administer it. Instead of that, they act as if they were freeholders amd an absolute owner, with the right to use the gift and goods as please themselves. What a debt we owe for the liberty we enjoy, for the right to speak our minds as we please: What an obligation we are under to those who labored with hands and head to mako this earth tho place it is to-day, this Empire of ours so strong and free! With multitudes this debt to life is never realised, and never attempted to be discharged. They come back at tho end of it not only Returned Empties, but Re-

turned Empties who have not even attempted to pay their faro through life. They havo taken everything and given back nothing. Wo knew a young fellow who went out full, who had a good position, excellent prospects, and abilities above the average. But he failod to realise his debt to life l —took it in his own hands, resolved to enjoy himself and do as he pleased. The other day we saw a letter from him pleading for help. He said that ho was tramping the country, deeping where he could. "My clothes are in tatters, I have not a "sock to my feet, and my boots are drop- " ping off." He is on the fair way to come back as a Returned Empty. And there are thousands Jiko him. But in the higher social scalo it is the same. What are we to think of fashionable ladies who spend their nights at bridge and their days, or the better part of them, in bod. William Law, depicting, the fashionable woman of his time, writes: If sho lives thirty years in this way she. will havo fqient fifteen in bed and fourteen in eating, drinking, dressing, and visiting, reading plays and romances, and going to the theatre. This description might stand for thousands to-day. Sydney Smith calculated that in ten years ho had consumed £7,000 worth of. food and drink more than was necessary to sustain him in health. He had thus eaten up the patrimony of several families. It might even excuse an early Christian council for debating the question whether or not womon had souls. ******* Jamos Russell Lowell has a terrible poem entitled ' Extreme Unction.' It might with equal truth be headed 'Returned Empty.' It telle the story of a youth who went out full. Ho started life with every fair prospect tirn3 m.'uiy omlowxneTits. Hut jhe squandered hi© great gifts. Tho light only became a track " whereby to crawl away from Heaven." And at th§ end of fourscore years his sonl had become a vacant and weed-covered shrine. The bat and owl inherit here, The snake nests on tho altar 6tone, The sacred vessels moulder near, The image of the God is gone. And it is the story of so many. One cannot read Lowell's impressive poem without thinking of such a career as that of Oecar Wilde. Hero was .1 man of brilliant genius, endowed with the rarest gifts. If ever a man went out full ho did. And he come back at the end conscious that he had been a spend thrift and a squanderer. He writes in his touching 'Do Profundis': The gods had given mo almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a dandy and a man of fashion. ... I took pleasure where it pleased me, and pae&ocf on. I forgot that every little action of the day makes or unmakes character, and that therefor© what was done in the secret chamber has some day to cry aloud on the housetop. I ceased to belord over myself. I was no longer captain of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace. Just so. The Returned Empties thai com© hack in debt to life lie in overy cemetery thick as trie leaves in * * * o 9 » • But wo need not end with this gloomy note. It is good to remember that tho Empties may be returned in a legitimate ae well «£ an illegitimate: way. There is a sense, indeed, in which it is an honor to them to como back without anything inside. It is an indication that they have fulfilled their mifsion. They havo carried safely their cargo to its destination, and have I passed it on to be distributed for the common good. And so it may be with life. Tho day comes sooner or later when it must dissever ifeelf from the body through which it worked. And that Retirned Empty will be deposited in the receptacle prepared for sneh. Rut the man ] may have recognised his obligation and | discharged his debt to the community. He may have distributed tho products which it was given him to accumulate. Instead of surreptitiously filching these, or more than his share of these, from the general fund of life, ho has imparted them to it. and so squared accounts between it and himself. Thus ho earns the right to leave the "out-worn shell by Time's unresting sea," and pass on into now and nobler forms of existence. And so tho emphasis is thus thrown back, not upon what a man has, but upon what he is. Tho main problem which life has given him to solve is tho right manipulation by thought, conscience, will, and heart of the raw material with which his circumstances supply him. The transformation of this into tho enrichment of his own personality and the sharing of this wealth in the right proportion with the legitimate) needs of tho community—this is the end and purpose of living. And so tho great sage of Greece may give us our last words : Wherefore (says Socrates) let a. man be of good cheer about his eoul who has cast away the pleasures and ornaments of tho body as alien to him. . . . who has arrayed tho soul in her own proper jewels, which are temperance, and courage, and ability, and truth. Thus she shows herself ready to go on her journey when her hour comes. Tho parable of Returned Empties thus read has its noble and inspiring significance. ~~~ 1