The Post of Duty the Place of Safety.
By S. S. Times
ONE'S safety often depends on one's location. But to decide as to the place where safety may be found requires more than a surface judging; it is not to be settled by outside appearances. A fresh illustration of this is given in the fact that several refugees from Alexandria were engulfed in the recent earthquake at Casamicciola, on the island of Ischia, in the Bay of Naples. They had fled for their lives from an imminent danger. They lost their lives in a place of fancied security. It is not for us to say that they were wrong in leaving Alexandria and in seeking a refuge at Casamicciola. But it is for us to learn anew that we cannot always be sure of safety by a change of location. An old army commander was accustomed to say, as he saw a younger officer dodge his head at the whistle of a bullet, "You foolish fellow, you'll dodge right into the way of a bullet." And there was a suggestion of a great truth in that pungent comment. If you have a duty to do, stand fast to it or push ahead in it, without fear or flinching. There is no safer place in the world than the place of duty. Alexandria in the hour of the massacre, or in the days of cholera, is a better place, a safer place, for the man whose plain duty is there at that time than Casamicciola could be for him. Any place where duty is, is a safe place for one to stand—or to fall. Any place outside of the path of duty is a place of danger in the safest time.—S. S. Times.