Bethlen Naptár, 1958 (Ligonier)

Highlights in Hungarian Life…

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BETHLEN NAPTÁR

and a session of 4 members. Would there be one among the refugee pastors who would be willing to undertake work among them?

This brief report indicates that the church situation of Hungarians in South America is very difficult. First of all there is need for pastors, then for financial help from our brethren in North America, especially from our Hungarian Reformed friends. Whether we like it or not, we are responsible for each other and God expects more from those to whom He has given more, and rightly so.

ONE THOUGHT TORMENTS ME

Egy gondolat bánt engemet . . .

Upon a featherbed to die!

One thought torments me: that 1 lie Slowly wither, slowly waste away,

Flowerlike, the furtive earthworm’s prey;

Like a candle, slowly to be spent In an empty, lonely tenement.

No death like this, my Lord Divine,

No death like this, be ever mine!

Let me be a tree through which the lightning flashes,

Or the tempest plucks up by the roots and smashes;

Let me be a rock from mountain rent asunder,

Hurtled to the gorge by skyearthshakening thunder . . .

When once they rise, all fettered folk Who’ve had enough of chain and yoke,

With faces red and banners red, in line Emblazoned there this sacred countersign:

“World Liberty!”

Exultantly,

Their exultations ring from East to West,

When tyrants come to battle with their best:

My life, let me yield On the battlefield!

’Tis there that the blood of youth shall flow from my heart,

And when, from my lips, last paeans of joy but start,

Let me be drowned in the clatter of steel,

In the roar of the guns, in the trumpet’s peal,

And through my still corpse

Shall horses after horses

Full gallop ahead to the victory won,

And there shall I lie to be trampelled upon. — —

’Tis there they shall gather my scattered bones,

When once the great day of burial comes . . .

With solemn, muffled drumbeats for the dead,

With sableshrouded banners borne ahead,

One grave for all the brave who died for thee,

O sacrosanct World Liberty! Alexander Petőfi.