and void, useless and unnecessary. It is a fearful sadness
to think that the ones you love are to pass away into nothingness and be
no more; that the sparkling eyes will be dim forever; that the rosy
cheeks will no longer glow with radiant health; that the ruby lips will
fade into a deathly blue, motionless and forever still; that dimpled
hands and loving arms will never encircle you again, and the supremacy
and tenderness of your love must be crushed with a cold and callous
ferocity.

But, sad and mournful as it is, with the human heart beating hopelessly
against hope for only one more chance to kiss and caress and love the
one you so dearly cherish, it is nevertheless only too poignantly true
that death ends all.

Death means nothing to the affairs of the world.

To be taken from amid the world in such an ever-living condition as now
exists, is like taking a cup of water from an ever-full pail. The gap is
immediately filled, and the level of the water simultaneously adjusted,
leaving absolutely no trace of what has been withdrawn. Only the
individual suffers. What a mighty burst of heart there would be if we
all could feel and suffer at the same time!

Nature makes no difference and knows no distinction between the living
and the dead. The warm and tender rays of the sun, and its blistering
heat, fall alike upon the crying, innocent babe and the lifeless,
unfeeling corpse.

The sun does not shine to give us its necessary heat, without also
bringing to light some new problem and pain for our over-troubled hearts
to bear.

Murder, rape and greed look no different to Nature than goodness, virtue
and unselfishness.

Tears were made for the things that God causes, laughter is the result
of man's efforts.

XIII

It is man's labor, man's work, man's achievement, that gives us the
little desire that we have to live. How often do we prefer _death_ to
living life in our former condition, after our efforts have brought us
to a point of vantage and comfort!

Death is always preferable to the living of a "dog's life!" And yet,
with it all, the little improvement we have to-day, with the still
remaining cruel conditions of Nature left to endure and fight, has not
been worth the struggle through the black and bleak past. The price has
been entirely too severe for the little that has been gained.

God gives man nothing; man gives man everything!

What sublime courage it was that made the pathfinders of the pas