The Pace That Kills

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 31, 1907

The Pace That Kills

LAST week in this city the final act was played in a world-old tragedy. A young man, young at least in years, scarcely past the first flush of manhood, but old evidently in knowledge of evil ways, blasé and sated and hopeless at the time when life should have been blooming out into lofty ambitions and splendid imaginings, reckless with the recklessness that moral obliquity alone induces, in a moment of despair, or of shame, or of memory of what might have been, with a pistol in his own hand, took his life. It was a peculiarly sad case. Only a few years ago, how few it seems almost impossible to believe, he was a bright, attractive, beautiful little boy. Life was very full of promise, though the lad had a handicap in two particulars—he was an only child, and his father was rich. However, these were not serious disadvantages, as many in our time would view them.

Time went on, and the boy grew into young manhood. He was trained, as hundreds of others are, with little to do, little responsibility to bear, and little thought of life only as he might have a good time with it. The father died before he was of age, and left him and his somewhat indulgent mother with a fortune on their hands. He had not been trained to work, and there seemed no good reason why he should learn, for had he not plenty without it? But idleness is always the fruitful parent of greater evils. Young manhood must do something, and so he settled down to making a business of pleasure. Fast living makes terrible inroads even upon young and vigorous manhood; the pace that kills, kills with terrific haste sometimes. What he did, how many and heinous were his transgressions of the moral law, we know not. But the end of it all we know, and it was this—a suicide, and not yet thirty.

What a horrible tragedy, we say, even we who look at it from the outside. If we could take a glimpse into that home from which his body has been recently borne, or into the heart of that widowed mother, we might know more about it. And who was to blame for it all? That we may not say; in fact, the great pity of it would almost make it impossible for us to discuss that question. But we can not escape the conviction that this terrible tragedy has its message that ought not to be neglected; its message to young men, its message to parents; its message to all who have any responsibility in the training and guiding of the young. And what these lessons are each one may know for himself; they are lessons indeed that touch vitally the highest and holiest things that earth knows.

One thought specially may be emphasized. The father worked hard, early and late, was careful and shrewd and energetic and enterprising—what for?—To make money. That one thought was a great thought in his life. He succeeded, but having gained money in abundance, it turns out to be the great curse in the life of his boy. Has it often so proved itself?—Yes, times without number. Then what shall we say of the lust of money-getting? Is it a sane and wholesome passion? And are there any more of us who are jeopardizing high and holy interest, the concerns of life and of death, and of things even more important and sacred than these, on its account? Let each one answer for himself. This great and distressing calamity seems to say that it is possible for a man to pay a terrible price for the money he gets, and pay it in a way that he is little expecting.—The Christian Guardian.