CAPT. WALTER F. HENRY
Commanding Officer
CDR. WESLEY E. SKILL
Executive Officer
Published each Monday
on Adak by Special Services. Provisions
for NavExos P-35 (Rev. July 58) complied
with. Mimeographed at NavSta Adak. Funds
furnished from non-appropriated sources
at no cost to the government. Articles
contained herein are not to be construed
as representing the official opinion of
the Commanding Officer or the Navy Dep
artment, inasmuch as the Adak Sun is not
an official publication*
EDITORS H. T. DAVIS, YN1 055J or 365
ADAK
SUN
for all personnel
CHAPLAINS COKHElk
The theme of tne Advent season is
preparation by perance. The spectacle
of his repeated rejection of God's
graces, of his weakness and unworthi
ness brings gloom into the soul of the
sincere Christian during this season.
In the middle of Advent, however, his
attention is directed from himself to
the reason for his penance and prepar
ation.
The Son of God was born into the
world. Christ will once again come
into the world in glory. These God
centered reflections change the mood
of the season from gloom to pure joy.
In this week of joy it is very appro
priate to quote one of the most beauti
ful tributes to Christian joy in Eng
lish literature. It is the last page
from G, K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy.
"It is said that Paganism is the
religion of joy and Christianity the
religion of sorrow....everything human
must have in it both joy and sorrows
the only matter of interest is the
manner in which the two things are bal
anced or divided. And the really in
teresting thing is that the pagan was
(in the main) happier and happier as
he approached the earth, but sadder and
sadder as he approached the heavens.
The gaiety of the best Paganism,..is an
eternal gaiety never to be forgotten
by a grateful humanity. But it is all
a gaiety about the facts of life, not
(continued next column)
i
about its origin. To the pagan small
things are as sweet as the small brooks
breaking out of the mountain, but the
broad things are as bitter as the sea.
When the pagan looks at the very core
of the Cosmos he is struck cold. Be
hind the gods who are merely despotic
are the fates, who are deadly. Nay,,
the fates are worse than deadly they
are dead. And when rationalists say
that the ancient world was more enlig
htened than the Christian world, from
their point of view they are right.
For when they say enlightened they mean
darkened with uncurable despair.
"The mass of men have been forced
to be gay about the little things, but
sad about the big ones. Nevertheless,
it is not native to man to be so. Man
is more himself, more manlike, when
joy is the fundamental thing in him
and grief the superficial. Melancholy
should be an innocent interlude, a ten
der and fugitive frame of mind; praise
should be the permanent pulsation of
the soul. Pessimism is at best an em
otional half-holiday; joy is the up
roarious labor by whichall things live.
Yet according to the apparent estate
of man as seen by the pagan or agnostic,
this primary need of human nature can
never be fulfilled* Joy ought to be
expensive; but for the agnostic it must
be contracted, it must cling to one
corner of the world. Grief ought to
be a concentration; but for the agnos
tic its desolation is spread 'through
an unthinkable eternity. This is what
I call being •born upside down. The
sceptic may truly be said to be topsy
turvy; for his feet are dancing upwards
in idle ecstacies, while his brain is
in the abyss. To the modern man the
heavens are actually below the earth.
The explanation is simple; he is stand
ing on his head; which is aovery weak
pedestal to stand on. But when he has
found hisv feet again he knows it. Chri
stianity satisfies suddenlyand perfect
ly man’s ancestral instinct for being
the right way up; satisfies it supreme
ly in this; that by its creed joy be
comes something gigantic and sadness
something special and small. The vault
above us is not deaf because the uni
(continued on page 10)
I
I