We can fling
them aside any minute; they become ignoble the moment the soul has
departed. We have proof. Often at zero hour we have seen whole
populations of cities go over the top and vanish, leaving behind them
their bloody rags. We should go mad if we did not believe in
immortality. We know that the physical is not the essential part. How
better can a man shake off his flesh than at the hour when his spirit
is most shining? The exact day when he dies does not matter--to-morrow
or fifty years hence. The vital concern is not _when_, but _how_. The
civilian philosopher considers what we've lost. He forgets that it
could never have been ours for long. In many cases it was misused and
scarcely worth having while it lasted. Some of us were too weak to use
it well. We might use it better now. We turn from such thoughts and
reckon up our gains. On the debit side we place ourselves as we were.
We probably caught a train every morning--the same train, we went to a
business where we sat at a desk. Neither the business nor the desk
ever altered. We received the same strafing from the same employer;
or, if we were the employer, we administered the same strafing. We
only did these things that we might eat bread; our dreams were all
selfish--of more clothes, more respect, more food, bigger houses. The
least part of the day we devoted to the people and the things we
really cared for. And the people we loved--we weren't always nice to
them. On the credit side we place ourselves as we are--doing a man's
job, doing it for some one else, and unafraid to meet God.
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