THE HOUSE FLY 85 



we learned that the leaders deliberately turned a deaf ear 

 to the warnings of the scouts, or listened but refused to 

 take any steps to learn if the reports and warnings were 

 true, would not a wave of fierce indignation rise within 

 us against those men ? 



People unnecessarily expose themselves daily to grave 

 danger of disease and premature death, but they know it 

 not. They are like pilgrims traversing a bridge across a 

 roaring torrent, and in the floor of that bridge there are 

 many trapdoors of which the travellers are ignorant. Out 

 of a multitude of pilgrims who are pressing eagerly on, 

 but few reach the opposite bank. 



So, too, in the race of life ; few reach a healthy old 

 age the vast bulk lose their physical bodies prematurely. 

 Sages tell us, and we have no valid reason for doubting 

 it, that the present life is but a preparatory stage for the 

 real immortal life in the spiritual world, and it would 

 therefore follow that the longer we succeeded in retaining 

 the physical body the more mature would we be mentally 

 and spiritually on departing from it. 



Apart from the metaphysical aspect of the subject, surely 

 it is of the most practical importance to guard the people 

 of a community against premature death. 



It is indeed a misfortune to a community and a State 

 for a man to be cut off in his prime when he is, through 

 experience, just beginning to be of real value to others. 

 We consider it a misfortune to lose a well-stocked library, 

 but it is as nothing to the loss of a well-stocked brain a 

 brain educated by experience and study. Such a loss is 

 not a matter of concern to relatives only it is of grave 

 importance to the community and the State. 



