Article February 7, 1959 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from George R. Farnum, J. Allan Catalin, Alan Walker

George R. Farnum in Living Tissue Boston, Massachusetts

What would life signify for most people without a definite belief or a sustaining hope in immortality? Deprive humanity of this transcendent aspiration and what becomes of its consolation this side of the grave? Without this hope where could man find the foundation for that heroism and fortitude without which life would be as unendurable as meaningless?

How to explain the somber and dreary chronicle of man's earthly days—the shocking inequalities, the senseless suffering, the unrequited toil, the quest for justice that has proved so elusive—if life be but an aimless pilgrimage from birth to extinction! How to endure the sharp anguish of separation and the dull and lingering pain of loneliness, the hopes that have been shattered and the dreams unfulfilled, the enthusiasms that have died and the affections that have withered, if time marks the utmost measure of all things!

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February 7, 1959
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