SOUNDINGS 



ups and downs in the long, hard road of human 

 development, and that, in the nature of things, 

 justice is meted out to all men — if not in a day, 

 then in a year, or in a thousand years; if not to the 

 individual, then to his family, or to his race — 

 those who take no account of all these things soon 

 lose their reckoning in times like ours. 



Every good deed, every noble thought, counts in 

 the counsels of the Eternal. Every bad deed, every 

 ignoble thought, counts also. But the stream tends 

 to purify itself; the world is thus made; evil is 

 real, but short-lived; the remedial forces of life and 

 nature burn it up or convert it into good. Our fer- 

 tile landscapes are the result of the wear and tear of 

 geologic ages; fire, flood, tornadoes, earthquakes, 

 volcanoes, have all had a share in shaping them. 

 Decay and death have fed the sources of life. Our 

 own history as a people and the history of the 

 European countries exhibit a like contrast and min- 

 gling of good and evil. We are too personal in our es- 

 timates, too limited in our perspectives; thoughts 

 of our own comforts and private aims are too much 

 with us. We must give Providence the advantage 

 of a wiser perspective. 



The thoughtful mind, capable of viewing these 

 things on a bigger scale, does not need a world 

 calamity to reveal the unsatisfactory character of 

 the reigning gods. The daily course of events does 

 that. Infantile paralysis, for example, with its long 



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