On a human scale,I think no loss can ever compare to the Holocaust in Europe. How much promise was extinguished there? What Shakespeares,Platos,Einsteins were among those murdered in their childhoods?And what loss of innocence did Mankind suffer from that clinical expression of the worst side of its nature?

For my country,I think the greatest loss was in Abraham Lincoln's assassination.Having suffered through five years of slaughter,holding the union together with his strength of will and the brilliance of his words,this man of peace at last saw his country delivered to safety.How might we have healed had he been there as healer?What other work might he have been capable of?The shot that rang out in Ford's Theater that night changed the direction of this country,and denied Lincoln his legacy of Peace.

Perhaps the most intriguing loss is that of the Arc of the Covenant.Most scholars agree that it probably did exist,and its history is documented in the ancient history of other peoples of the near east as well as in the biblical accounts.For thousands of years it was produced by the Israelites in times of war and catastrophe to work its miracles on their behalf.If such a thing did exist,would it indeed manifest the Power of Heaven? Or was its power the result of a lost science known only to the ancients?

LEJ