Show more than once has been witnessed by observant naturalists a deadly struggle in mid air between an eagle in full flight and a serpent it has grasped in its talons the writhing reptile helpless prey at the center of its body has yet both extremities free and with one flexible writhe struggles to fix and tighten a buffo rating coil around the throat of its captor while with the other it secures a purchase on a clapp ng wing drag ging it down in its strong pulsation and straining to pinion it closer and ever closer to the body soon loss of equilibrium begins to betray itself in the eagle s flight over and over it Is seen to reel recovering itself again only to become more hopelessly en tangled till at last man ached or outright strangled it drops like a stone to the ground how picturesque a symbol this of the kindred struggle enacting itself throughout all generations in the pa destiny of man symbol of the grim fight unto death and aloft even in the highest ether to which he mounts between the eagle or soaring element in his being and the reptilian creeping on the ground what need to multiply illustrations 7 the vigorous healthy brain in the suffocating coil of weak and gasp ng lungs the tender affectionate heart chilled and paralyzed in its pulse beat of love by the em brace of cold blooded apathy genius dragged down by poverty to grind in the treadmill of sordid cares enthuse aftic hope for family country church broken winged by bereavement dis ease treachery coarse materialism of spirit ever through all the ages is encountered the witness of their un dying warfare all literature is full of it every heartfelt psalm moans with its pain or exults with its triumph it is in all litanies and prayers of supplication music sets it to sym phonies and anthems in which the mighty masters strain to commingle every note of wall or athani of sob or hush of peace that can be wrung out of plain ng viol throbbing drum ringing bugle or pealing organ not the victory however of the reptilian over the eagle or soaring element not this Is the theme of those who the isaials the st johns the dantes and Beet hovens have uttered the highest and est in epic lyric symphony requiem or anthem only the reality the pathos the pain of the conal ct this they all profoundly recognized for tain would they speak home to the quivering ties of their brothers in flesh and blood in compassionate sympathy would they draw nigh to the spectacle of the highest and most aspiring in the soul in its deadly wrestle with what their own personal experience has revealed to them as possessed of such stealthy sinewy as power but th s once ten derly expressed all the sublime st man has achieved in chant and prater takes form as a miriam song of thanksgiving tor deliverance out of the red sea as a striking of the ringing cymbals in triumphant faith that health not disease love not dispain life not death are the eternal powers which as finality rule the world in every man or woman yes in every fibre and blood globule of man or woman is there something of the eagle or soaring element of that which yearns for and exults in free flight and wide ranging under the vault of the blue sky no capacity in us that has once been awakened and given a taste of what glories of creation respond to it no endowment of intellect affection con science without a longing setting in for happy nesti ng indwelling in its blessed realm but alas how soon are we in one shape or another made to feel the serpent coll flung round our free breathing throats the serpent grapple fastened on to the strong beat ing wing trust es how sweet but out of its secret hole glides chill on faith yes but ugly doubt slips its cold blooded coils around our beating breast health yes but the head begins to reel and the heart to faint love yes but calumny and misconstruction are heard to hiss why such god yes what a refuge but then this haunting spectacle of the deprad ity misery wrong insanity ot earth no mind that thinks and feels es capes this tragic issue through hia own sharp experience does each one thus become allied with his fellow mortals of all the generations and is this old eternal wrestle between eagle and serpent a fate orda ned for you and me and all men our only option which combatant we shall through our lower or through our higher nature side with fostering the one like jove s eagle on nectar and ambrosia remanding the other to his primeval curse dost thou eat and on thy belly thou go there can fall on the head of man in life no reeling blow a breaking down of health an envenomed wound from the serpent tooth of ingratitude a total wreck of fortune the death of husband wife or child but that brok en winged tor the time at least he falls headlong to the ground ask him not now to fly or soar there was a vital air he breathed in the room of which a lifeless vacuum is left be hind there was an up buoying ele ment answering in elastic reaction to every beat of his happy pinions that has gone from beneath them there was a fond mate to soar with whose absence now has left the vast spaces oh how empty and bleak A time to recover himself in let so much at least in deicy be accorded him by god and man healing recuperative forces are indeed about him and with in him but first must they do their silent unseen work before the eagle within the soul shall begin to stir aga n but not till then not till then to rally then upon the recuperative energies of the soul in its alliance w th omnipresent renewing power this is man s only resource the heralds and revealers of the power of religion have been those alone who have demonstrated to the world the bality of winning enduring victory out of temporary defeat higher comman ion of spirit out of loneliness and desolation religion is no dictum of a book though its record may be writ ten there it is a sense renewed generation by generation and broaden ing and deepening by experience ot a d vine evolving order in virtue of which all things are found to work together for good to those who are devout and brave enough to test it the proof of the rational of all th sa nothing Is its proof no learned treatise no philosophic ment nothing but the divine beauty of 1 ves which demonstrate what high or noble outcome may be wrung from the seemingly saddest and most con arar ous the world baa to show these victorious lives then and the con between the inspiring lift they give the world and the lives of those who but moan m weakness rave in bitterness break in despair filling our hearts indeed with ceaseless cea impotent pity for the poor victims but depres sing our hearts likewise with the dread sense lest in the world old tragic battle between the eagle and the reptile in the reptile should ever inhere the power to choke every channel of free contact with the in air ot heaven and to pinion tight to th lumpish body every vain pulsation of the upward soaring wing boston herald |