At Dawn (verse)
Thayer, Mary Dixon
November 4, I925 THE COMMONWEAL 64I early examination of children suspected of mental ab- normality is advisable. A greater development and closer unification of the work of social agencies is...
...Shadows and scents And sounds---of these, your sacraments, Mortals too carelessly partake, O World, when will a poet make A song that fully utters you...
...O World, you are too beautiful-For pity press Not closer in your loveliness Against our hearts...
...O World, you are too beautiful...
...The community at large, in its manner and thought, in its expression of ideals and its actions, must hold out to youth proper examples of civic virtue and proper incentive thereto...
...Social agencies must mobilize throughout the country all forces which serve to strengthen character and tend to destroy the forces of evil...
...All these means help to give youth opportunities to assimilate ideals and principles which can dominate constructively the formation of character...
...A greater development and closer unification of the work of social agencies is imperative for the strength- ening of character...
...Here, He Who came not "to call the just, but sinners" calls upon His faithful to kneel, one by one, before a duly author- ized priest, and there unfold the exact state of his soul...
...Exquisite pain Is in the sunshine and the rain . . . Slim grasses leaning on the wind, And shining wings Of butterflies, and little things That happen in the leaves have power To wound me as they wound a flower...
...That soul, she tells each of us, is precious, and however incased it may be in a body crippled or weakened by infirmity, it is the direct creation of God Almighty...
...for the Church's message is not only for society...
...I cannot sing The sudden glory of the spring-I cannot tell in words the ways Of autumn through enchanted days...
...They must aim at that degree of perfection which will uncover incipient character de-terioration in any youth of the community...
...Dawn 0 World, you are too beautiful...
...The best recreational facilities, clubs and settlements, boy scout and girl scout movements, should be utilized for this purpose...
...MARY DIXON THAYEL...
...Any real solution must rest on true understanding and right action, for the greatest social forces of today are clear ideas in the minds of energetic men and women of good will...
...Ah, would that I Might clasp your swiftness in a sigh, Might brim your silence in a word-- Might speak what in the dawn is heard...
...WheI;e in all the category of human forces can we find a power for the reclamation of the sinner and the remolding of his character which compares witl~ the Divine instituted tribunal of penance...
...She speaks directly to the individual soul...
...Through these great channels of grace, she brings God's helping hand to the individual soul--to encourage, to strengthen, to forgive and tO inspire...
...she sees Him turn that face toward another, bound like Himself on a cross, and from His lips she hears those words of eternal promise--"This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise...
...After this presentation of the case, the priest, trained for long years in the care of souls, gives the word of warning, or encouragement, or correction, or consolation that is needed by the particular penitent who kneels beside him...
...That soul, she tells us, is so dear to His heart that He sent His Own Divine Son to suffer and to die in order that it might be won back from the pathway of sin...
...These doctrines the Church with Divine authority has preached to her children in every age...
...Then the sinner expresses the sorrow which he feels in his heart and his determination to put aside the things of sin and cling to the things of God...
...Disclosed also are the pertinent facts and cir- cumstances surrounding the sins which have been com- mitted and the habits which have been contracted...
...If the community atmosphere is health-giving, then our young folk will grow up strong and active in the principles of right living...
...but if the atmosphere be permeated with degrading in-fluence, if the unworthy things of life are allowed to be depicted in word and picture, on the screen and stage, can we logically expect that our youth will be other than tainted by that atmosphere ? Finally, though all of those social forces can con-tribute appreciably to the formation of stable, worth- while character, none of them can exercise so con-structive an influence as the Church...
...O World, O World, be temperate In your caress-- Withdraw a little, loveliness...
...Only when he has the full facts before him, does the priest make his decision, impose the punishment, and forgive the sinner...
...But there has been given to her another heritage, an inestimable boon to mankind, in the Divine gift of the seven Sacraments...
...November 4, I925 THE COMMONWEAL 64I early examination of children suspected of mental ab- normality is advisable...
...We must keep our civic conscious- ness virile and clean...
...Ever mindful of that fearful sentence imposed on the unrepentant sinnerm"Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," the Church still turns her eyes wistfully toward the hill of Calvary, and as they rest upon the torn and bleeding figure of One condemned to die as a rebel and a blasphemer, she sees on His bruised and swollen face a look of kindness...
...With the desire that our ideas of justice toward the criminal may conform to the Divine Ideal, let us adopt a rational viewpoint on the crime problem...
Vol. 2 • November 1925 • No. 26
