Life — December 3, 1925 — page 38: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

g treet! “While there is VOL. 86. 2248 Life there's Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY $98 Madison Avenue, New York Cranes Dana R. E, Sugrwooo, Editor F. D. Casey, Art Editor S_ Christ- eM A ris mas comes, Peace and Good Will do not yet abso- lutely prevail in this world, but a good many things help observers to look towards them with some increase of confidence. There are several bright and cheering articles to hang on the Christmas tree. There is Locarno. It is premature to say that our world was saved there, but the spirit shown there was highly medicinal, and what was actually done there considerably helped matters. We cannot count up the practical results yet, but we have seen the effect on the spirits of men. Europe is not cured yet, but at least Europe is convalescing. It is no com- fort to the world to have the French involved in a war in Syria, especially as it is a war so destructive to ancient monuments and remains, but it is a comfort to have France, Britain, Italy, Belgium and Germany put in the way of agreement. That was done at Lo- carno and it is a whole Christmas tree in itself. Of course, there are drawbacks to joy. The course of the United States in its dealings with the rest of man- kind is not gratifying even to all the citizens of this country, much less to Europe. When Providence laid off so many of the old Battalion of Death from their mundane and political du- ties, with all the inscrutability charac- teristic of Providential action Borah was left on the job, and Borah seems not in favor of hanging much on the world’s Christmas tree except receipted bills. Of course, there are others of his mind or worse, but that is no more than the ordinary course of human events. to being good or doing good, and if There are always impediments * Gissox, President Cuaie Maxwett, Vice-President Lancnorne Ginson, Secretary and Treasurer there were not, righteousness would turn flat to the taste, and we should doubtless be worse off than we are. How sport is to be kept alive when the devil is bound for a thousand years as the Bible forecasts is a curious query, but he is not bound yet and Borah and other survivals attest it. AS a people we have two troubles in particular. They are both tem- porary. We are too rich and we are mean. At Buffalo the other day Methodist Bishop Thirkield of Chat- tanooga stopped talking about rum long enough to say that the United States was in peril from excessive wealth. “The burden of the world’s gold,” he said, “is upon us. The fact is that we are beastly rich.” And that is considerably true. The farmers would not admit it, because the money flood has not overwhelmed them ; but there is a money flood, at least there has been, and where it is, some effects of it are quite disagreeable, washing people out of their habits of life, sweeping them along into currents too deep for them, getting them in- fatuated with the idea that the chief end of life is to get money and spend it. All of that is disenchanting. All the lure of money, the yells of the people who are running to get it, the solicita- tions of the people who want to direct the uses of it—they are all tiresome and upsetting. We have had to think too much about money, and too much about rum, which last has been forced upon our attention by the clamor about enforce- * ment. However, rum, like money, is a passing evil. i Being too rich is something that usually cures itself without much outside help; being per- secuted for rum’s sake may be good for us in the end, and probably is. It is still disputed whether the figure of Volstead or of the bootlegger is fitter to hang on the Christmas tree, but Bootlegger is holding his own. 'HE churches still keep along. They squabble a good deal, clamor a good deal over theological differences, but pass the plate regularly, contribute lib- erally, and are on the whole in a fairly healthy state. It would be a bold ob- server that would call them Christian, but they certainly like the name and try ac- cording to their lights to deserve it. It was remarked the other day that humanity is speculating freely about the job of the churches, what it really is and whether they are on it. A clergyman wrote to inquire what the job of the churches really is. He was told that it is primarily to locate the invisible world, explore it and get a steer out of it that will help in the conduct of life. Of course that is what the churches are for, and al- ways have been, but it is quite likely to be news to many persons who pass the plate and to not a few who stand in a pulpit, and who seem to take little thought for the invisible and what may be drawn from it, and to concentrate their efforts on the promotion of righteousness, as they see it, by legisla- tion and compulsion. That effort, now so prevalent, to produce by fiscal and political means results that can only be compassed by spiritual means is the worst stick in our Christmas stocking. Nevertheless, just as out of the war came a deep conviction that wars could not save the world, so out of the disappointing results of the struggle for the compulsory regula- tion of conduct is coming a better day for the other conception which thinks of righteousness as the fruit of an in- ward process; the fruit, not of re- strictions, nor of padlocks nor of ter- ror, but of freedom and of love, and of the teaching and the life that Christmas stands for. That conception is gaining in the world. Hang it on the Christmas tree along with Locarno, E. S. Martin. Salty < comicbooks.com