When the
problem of poverty is mastered, when disease is extirpated, when a
period is put to all disorganization of industry and misgovernment,
social and political, it will be found by the emancipated and enriched
community what is now found by opulent individuals and privileged
classes, that the secret of our discontent is internal and mysterious,
that it springs from the ungodliness, the egotism, the sensuality,
which theology calls sin. But whatever the future may reveal, all the
sorrows of life are upon us here and now; we cannot deny them, we
have constantly to struggle with them, we are often overwhelmed by
irreparable misfortune. Esther "sent raiment to clothe Mordecai, and
to take his sackcloth from him; but he received it not." In vain do
men offer us robes of beauty, chiding us for wearing the color of the
night; we cannot be deceived by flattering words; we must give place
to all the sad thoughts of our mortality until haply we find a
salvation that goes to the root of our suffering, that dries up the
fount of our tears.
In a very different spirit and for very different ends do men
contemplate the dark side of human life.
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