(1) Two old people who lived near me, after working hard for years to supply themselves with a competence, were ruined by the failure of a bank and were therefore forced to seek work. Not finding it, they were compelled to make a choice between subsisting on charity and dying. Desiring to be as agreeable to the world as possible and not to be a burden to it, they chose death by gas, locking the doors of their bare little home, stuffing paper and clothing into chinks and under doors and windows, and turning on the gas, seated side-by-side and hand-in-hand. Naturally the end came quickly enough, for Divine Mind has no objection to ordinary illuminating gas killing any one. It did not inform any one of their predicament. Impartial gas choked them as quickly as it would have lighted the room, and yet at the same time, according to the same papers, in this very same world——
(2) The sixteen-year-old son of a multi-millionaire real estate holder was left over fifty million dollars by his fond father, who did not know what else to do with it, the same son having not as yet exhibited any capacity for handling the money wisely or having done anything to deserve it save be the son of the aforesaid father.
(3) A somewhat bored group of Newport millionairesses give a dinner for the pet dogs of their equally wealthy friends, one particular dog or doggess being host or hostess.
(4) A Staten Island brewer worth twenty millions died of heart failure, induced by undue joy over the fact that he had been elected snare drummer of a shriners’ lodge, after spending thousands upon thousands in organizing a band of his own and developing sufficient influence to cause a shriners’ organization to tolerate him.
(5) A millionaire politician and horse-racer erected a fifteen-thousand-dollar monument to a horse.
(6) An uneducated darkey, trying to make his way North, climbed upon the carriage trucks of a Pullman attached to a fast express and was swept North into a blizzard, where he was finally found dying of exhaustion, and did die—arms and legs frozen—a victim of an effort to better his condition.
Puzzle: locate Divine Mind, Light, Wisdom, Truth, Justice, Mercy in these items.
By these same papers, covering several months or more, I saw where:
(1) Several people died waiting in line on bundle day for bundles of cast-off clothing given by those who could not use the clothes any longer—not such people as you and I, perhaps, but those who were sick, or old, or weak.
(2) Mr. Ford, manufacturer of automobiles, was convinced that he could reform any criminal or bad character by giving him or her plenty of work to do at good wages and with the prospect of advancement; also that he was earning too much and wished to divide with his fellow man.