Tárogató, 1938-1939 (1. évfolyam, 1-10. szám)
1938-07-01 / 1-2. szám
TÁROGATÓ 13 Just Living By Charles A. S. Dwight A mother who missed her small son, and suspected that he might be up to something, located him in a room where he was sitting on the floor. When asked what he was doings, he replied: “Mother, I’m just living!” That might be all right for a fouryear-old, who is not expected to put in eight hours a day working at some particular job, but it would be no sort of an answer for an ablebodied man, who is capable of great efforts. There are invalids, it is true, who seem condemned to “just live” — like the good, patient soul who said of herself that all the Master seemed to demand of her was expressed in the words, “Betty, lie there and cough!” But all able and intelligent people must give an account of themselves in the world. It is not enough just to live, but the duty is to live justly, sympathetically, making an honest living, yet meanwhile, amid all gans and in spite of all losses, achieving character, and so conducting oneself asi, on passing out of this world, to leave it at least a little better than it was when we came into it. Animals are engaged in a constant struggle for a mere existence, and after a night of terror in the jungle are satisfied if they see the light of another day, but men must have purpose, and achieve results in a co-operating society. Life, too, for them means both change and growth. The call also comes to higher things. “To live is to outlive.” The past is simply a foundation on which to build a better future. Live, then, for all that you are worth, and for the sake of all that you may become! The Field for Amateurs A recent book on “Inspired Amateurs” says, “Herschel was a musician who became one of the greatest of astronomers. Priestley was a preacher who discovered oxygen. Schliemann was a merchant with a genius for making money, who became the excavator of Troy and Mycenae. Spinosa was by trade a grinder of lenses.” What a man does for a living may not be the whole of life to him, nor may it be the best he can do. The world is too big for small men, but it is scarcely big enough for the Columbuses of the age. The fact that a man is a carpenter is no argument against his theory of government, whether it be fascism, or communism, or something better than either. The old saying “Shoemaker, stick to your last!” has its undoubted application, but it may easily be misapplied. The thinker may invade fields which his neighbour scarce knows to exist. Democracy trusts the common man, and its record, while not impeccable, is yet nothing for which we need be ashamed. The verdict of the people on the whole is better than that of the autocrats. Lincoln said wisely, “I think God must love the common people, because he has made so many of them.” And the martyr president was one of them himself. Symptoms of Moral Decay In a letter to the Young Men’s Christian Association in New York, not long ago, Professor Albert Einstein pointed out that the pillars of civilized human existence had apparently lost their firmness, and nations which not long ago ranked high are bowing the knee to tyrants, who openly assert that Right is that which serves men, and the elementary factors of justice and truth and kindness are forgotten. He said, “One misses the elementary reaction against injustice and for justice — that reaction which in the long run represents man’s only protection against relapse into barbarism.” No matter what nations may forsake the path of justice, no matter how many may bow the knee to the newlyresurrected national Baal, there is only one path to take for those who wish humanity well — the path of resolute and eternal resistance against all injustice and oppression. Humanity can only be saved if freedom is preserved. OUR ENGLISH SECTION.
