He said this with a dramatic wave of his stately white robed arm.
"The sunsets still flame from that western mountain peak, overlooking your city beautiful!" I said with a smile.
"Yes, the sunsets still flame behind that peak," he responded with a far-away look in his aged eyes.
"Perhaps the good Christian God is lighting the fires for you?" I suggested.
"Yes, He, the good Christian God; is still lighting the fires for us; but they are fires of freedom, fires of hope, and fires of Democracy!" the old man said with a new light in his own flashing eyes.
"And fires of peace," I added.
"Yes, fires of Peace when freedom comes!" he responded.
But whatever the political implications are; it is historically true that this old custom had existed for years until the Japanese took possession of Korea and stopped this beautiful tradition.
But behind that same mountain from which the bonfires used to flash in the olden days; indicating that the frontiers were safe for the night; that no enemy hosts were invading the peninsula; behind that mountain the fires of sunset still flame, flash, flare, and die away in the somber purple shadows of night.
* * * * * *