AN OUTLOOK UPON LIFE 



O to share the great, sunny, joyous life of the 

 earth ! to be as happy as the birds are ! as contented 

 as the cattle on the hills ! as the leaves of the trees 

 that dance and rustle in the wind ! as the waters that 

 murmur and sparkle to the sea ! To be able to see 

 that the sin and sorrow and sufifering of the world 

 are a necessary part of the natural course of things, 

 a phase of the law of growth and development that 

 runs through the universe, bitter in its personal 

 application, but illuminating when we look upon 

 life as a whole! Without death and decay, how 

 could life go on ? Without what we call sin (which 

 is another name for imperfection) and the struggle 

 consequent upon it, how could our development 

 proceed ? I know the waste, the delay, the suffering 

 in the history of the race are appalling, but they only 

 repeat the waste, the delay, the conflict through 

 which the earth itself has gone and is still going, and 

 which finally issues in peace and tranquillity. Look 

 at the grass, the flowers, the sweet serenity and re- 

 pose of the fields — at what a price it has all been 

 bought, of what a warring of the elements, of what 

 overturnings, and pulverizings and shif tings of land 

 and sea, and slow grindings of the mills of the gods 

 of the fore-world it is all the outcome! 



The agony of Russia at the present time (1904), the 



fire and sword, the snapping of social and political 



ties, the chaos and destruction that seem imminent 



— what is it but a geologic upheaval, the price that 



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