Good Out Of Evil?
When the full horror of our president's brutal murder finally began to dawn upon me, and I was able to compose myself enough to view the terrible event in historical perspective, I remembered the words Walt Whitman had written when Lincoln had been felled by an assas. sin's bullet nearly a century ago:
"0 Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
B.It 0 heart! heart! heart!
0 the bleeding drops of red.
Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead."
The grief that shook the nation on Lincoln's death found its counterpart in the shock and dismay that was everywhere evident when President Kennedy was slain. This anguish was by no means limited to those who shared Kennedy's political views and supported his policies. It was the soul-searing agony of America — not of Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals, Northerners or Southerners. I was no supporter of Kennedy; I voted against him when he was elected, viewed his socialistic trend with deep concern and apprehension, and was alarmed at the rapid pace he set in enhancing and promoting Catholic influences in our government and our national life. But I wept, openly and unashamedly, when he was slain. A brutal and senseless murder is not America's way to resolve political and ideological differences.
When Lincoln was slain the national frustration and hatred for his assassin vented itself in a terrible and punitive era enforced upon the South — the "Reconstruction." Actually, the South had no part in the President's death. He was slain by a warped and twisted ego-maniac — as was apparently also the case in the murder of President Kennedy. Lincoln's death plunged the nation into a mood of hatred and division and resentment which was to last for nearly a century. General Robert E. Lee correctly gauged what would happen when, upon being informed of Lincoln's assassination, he said, "This is the worst blow the South has yet suffered." Evil, and only evil resulted from that savage act of violence.
But in our present tragedy, I believe the president's death, senseless and barbarous as it was, may serve to unite the nation, rather than to divide it. Out of the evil and twisted malevolence of a social misfit may come a new spirit of tolerance and understanding and sympathy among and between all Americans. If so, the result will be exactly the opposite of what the murderer must have imagined and desired. Instead of tearing the nation asunder, his evil act may serve, under the providence of God, to do the very opposite.
In this national and political event are lessons for all those who are concerned with their "heavenly citizenship" even more than with their earthly citizenship. The church of our Lord has experienced a bitter and devastating blow these past fifteen years as scores of congregations and thousands of once-faithful Christians have taken the swift downward path into materialistic worldliness and apostasy. Those congregations seeking to remain faithful to the Lord, perhaps not more than three or four thousand by even the most optimistic estimates, have all too often found themselves sensitive and suspicious of one another — hurt, angry, bewildered by the wholesale defection of their brethren. And willing, at the drop of a hat, to bring about still further division and "splintering" of the faithful ones left into warring factions and parties. The spirit of "division" seems to be in the air. Questions about which brethren have differed for generations, and which they have discussed and argued about for a hundred years, but which have never caused division, are suddenly blown up into great "issues," on which there must be unanimity of judgment — or separation! Purely local and non-doctrinal problems suddenly take on the aspects of insoluble situations, for which the only answer' is "division"; the mere expression of an opinion, once considered innocuous and innocent enough, now becomes the occasion for heated controversy, with charges and counter-charges flying thick and fast.
As the New Year opens up before us, bringing its own quota of griefs and sorrows, and in the somber and quietened atmosphere of national mourning, surely it is appropriate that every faithful child of God take a new look into his own heart and life. It is a time for petty jealousies and trivial animosities to be forgotten. As new unity may come to our nation by the tragic death of a gifted young Chief Executive, can it not be so that a new spirit of unity and good-will may prevail among the faithful ones of God — the tragedy of a brutal murder shocking the nation into a new spirit, and the tragedy of an wholesale defection from the truth causing the "remnant" to be aware of their need for God, and for one another!
Let 1964 be a year in which every single disciple makes a truly valiant effort to "walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." — F.Y.T.