VICTORY.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16780, 24 April 1926, Page 13 (Supplement)

VICTORY.

THE PASSING OF FEAR. (By Darius.) "Fast by the manger stands the Inactive steed, And sunk in sorrow hangs his languid head: • He stands, and, careless of the golden grain. Weeps his associates and his master slain." So Homer will impute the sorrow for the dead even to the war-horse. Certainly the horse knows his master and the ox his stall, and a kindly disposed animal may miss a kindly master and joyfully welcome his return both by voice and deportment, but the idea of the sense of loss is greatly exaggerated. So far as human beings are concerned, I feel sure that a good deal of our expressed sorrow is hypocritical, and that we may lie preparing in pari, for what we consider a seemly sorrow at our own demise. We like to think we shall be missed and mourned for.

It is, However, not the sense of loss with which we are dealing, so much as ttie fear of death. Seen at a distance, fear is dark, and massive, and strange, but after all ho is only a cloud, dark without and luminous within. The calm harbours are guarded by stern headlands. The frowning castle walls arc the safe refuge—safer for the moat and drawbridge withdrawn. I have an idea that dcatli is not a blow but a caress. What do I know of Death? Only what I learned from him and his twin brother, Sleep. Their ways are the same. They are wise men who come from the East, with the stars, and balm, and deep peace. Seeing death afar, I, too, have feared. Knowing him anear, I knew him not as death. Knowing him again withdrawn, the old, inherited, ghostly, hobgoblin fear returned witli the strong lust to live and be among my companions in the homely world. How shall a man reassure his mind that death has no sinister intent? One time I would be with him, and another time I would have none of him. Therefore I am—: Undecided. Swirt to attack and tliund'rous in retreat, I saw the sun, hut yesterday professed Night's mortal enemy, for battle dressed, His head in heav'n, the earth beneath his feet: And then the evening eloquent and sweet — An arbiter uniting East and West, Saying to Light and Darkness, "Trace is best"; Go greenly through the valleys clothed with wheat. Night folded all her charges, each in turn, Woods, waters, cities, flocks and birds and 'flow'rs, By the mere wisdom of her quiet breath. Then came with stars to place upon Day's urn. And I stood still midway between the hours, Knowing not whether to follow Life or Death.

There, you will say, goes on the old war between light and darkness, which are compared to the powers benign and the powers malign. You must remember that darkness first held dominion over the world. It took centuries upon centuries for light's rays to reach this solitary sphere, and still a million of years hence other heavenly lights, the rays of which are travelling througli the vast, may beam upon heaven-aspiring man. Who finds fault with night and darkness, with sorrow and with joy? By these present shall ye know that God is God.

The toad is a poor thing of slight emotions, but every pulse in man beats like a martial drum, and calls him on to conflict. Do not mistake the meaning of the word. Man is a tighter, and it is as such that all the gods glory in him. It is his, "Get the*; behind me, Satan," that has made our world. If he cannot conjure up flesh and blood for his shattering Mows, then he will conjure up spirit as an adversary for his spirit. Hear this triumphant shout in face of death: "I have fought a good fight. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Life!" Go to your golden crowns, you who love gold, but give me "the Crown of Life" —manhood ennobled until it must appear as almost a god-hood. Benign Death. A contributor to the Sunday Express, Mr James Douglas, partly in explanation of the absence of his contributions to that journal, says he has been as close to death as it is possible to go and return, and that if he really had died, he would have learnt nothing more concerning the process of dving than ho now knows, and I believe him. We will, he says, all die in much the same way as he died to all sense and consciousness, and our feelings will be much the same as his, until we accomplish the final and universal act. It is comforting to find his opinion backed by the medical men of every country, who steadfastly affirm that the dying havc.no fear. It is living, Mr Douglas says, that hurts. Life is far more terrible than dcalh, the regions of which arc kind and compassionate in a gentle atmosphere, witli nothing to wound and nothing to annoy. Death is a sweet and serene peace, and the song of it is a lullaby and not a dirge. It is terrible it is dreadful to have to live on certain days, for certain months, and even years—terrible to have to face a hopeless future, laddered with long periods to a high scaffold, for the term of a natural life. Is it humane to Inflict such a punishment on man in place of benign death? Arc those kindly souls, our frequent and unsolicited advisers, very wise in their immature judgments and decisions? It is the mourners going about the streets who spread the fear of dcalh as if it were a plague. Hope on and shout your defiance —"0 grave, where is thy victory? 0 Death, where is thy sting?" Love Extinguished Hell. The world must be emancipated from the rule of fear that peoples hell and purgatory with damned and tormented shapes, still wishful to sin but so prevented by the flame that they writhe ami squirm and yell in eternal and impotent madness, unable further to pursue their loathly passions. Aeh I il is damnable to put such a blasphemy on God as I have heard good men preach How the world needed a Blessed Redeemer, proclaiming Himself God incarnate, and His gospel Love 1 Ann, oil. Willi longinps Mary Knew. With von. vounpc Christ, upon her breast, Sing with those lips, adored and true. Your sons or love, tor love is best! Sins' till from chaos'in this soul. Clod's blazing cosmos shall unroll. I will have none of lliis foul death and I lie carrion worm, either for myself or my friends. I shall dream, too, of a going home across a lideless sra —Home, aye, and with soft homowinds in the sail I