Man, who builds bridges, sails ships, fights battles for
liberty, erects cathedrals, writes hymns and prayers, founds
homes, is given a little handful of thirty or forty years. Nor
can the bulk of the elephant above man’s size ever explain the
two hundred years given to some Jumbo munching hay, or the
three thousand years given to some tree that is dead, inert and
voiceless. The architect builds a marble palace for centuries,
stores it with art treasures, that all the generations may
throng in and out, feeding the eye and feasting the hunger for
beauty, in form and color. But God spent millions of years upon
this body, fearfully and wonderfully made, storing the soul’s
temple with intellect, memory and judgment, with conscience,
affections and moral sentiments. And did He build this soul
that goes laughing, weeping, inventing, praying, through life,
for that goal named a black hole in the ground?--N. D.
HILLIS.
(1538)