The Columbia daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1865, 1865-06-14
COLUMBIA.
Wednesday Morning, June ID, 1896
The Home Secret.

every maui OuL WHICH, OE reason Oh Dlo
own blind follies, vanities or prejudices, he
can never be made to see. The bounty Of
God leaves no man without his treasure,
would he only s:oop to pick it up. Every
land. in turn. has its own resources of
wealth and beauty-nay, of enchantments
fairy climes, weird wonders and spoils
of magic-preclsely as it hath resources of
soil and fruitage These, indeed, are its
moral fruitage, which race possesses only
in degree with the exercise of it's faith aud
courage. In the resources of the race,
there is no stint Of the individual. There
is a wealth for each, iu tu,n; but it can
belong to him only who seeks to find it.
1he successful search naturally depends
upon the conviction that we feel that the
thing sought for is i'll existence. TO him
who searches with this proper faith, there
are discoveries at every footstep. Hills
that seem barren on the outside, have
wondrous metals and minerals within.
Rocks that frown in granite grandeur,
but strike them with the right hand and
hammer, and they open straightway, and
reveal beneath, the wondrous loveliness of
articulote and living marble. Trees that
Lsal no fruit to the eye, have vet strange,
sweet singing birds, that harbor in their
branches; and the dull clod, the seemingly
unconscious plain of prairie under the
proper stroke of the waad, discovers the
secret currents of pure and refreshing
waters. But there must be divining rod
for the revelation Of these treasures. They
belong only to those whom the slavcs of
the lamp and ring declare Themselves will
ling to obey. These find avenues among
the hills, paths through the interminable
thickets, forms of beauty in the cavernous
rocks, and voices of rare melody in other
wise silent birds. These are your magi-
ciuns They possess what we may call
The Home Secret" These are the cenii
of art and labo:. who coasecrate, them
selves to plu:e; and unless these discover
'The Home Secret" for people, the race
after certain period of CESSATION. must
die out, falling their mission, like herbage
that never reaches seed time. Such men
constitute the genius of the nation. They
are the first to discover what people are,
what they need and What they may be-
cone. In short, they lay hands upon and
develop the secrets of q country; and
every country has certain secrets peculiar
to itself. For them, only, does ISIS the
great Mother of Mysteries, remove her
veil; and without falsifying the inscription
on her shrine. They are not mortal. They
sound the fathomlesa. they trace the path
less, they gather from all Systems the
blessings and the light. and preserve them
for the benefit of one. And all this. dear
reader, only because they look at home! 1t
is in the very humbleness of their search
that they make their discoveries. Tell the
vulgar man Of morbid selfesteem of some
great wonder passing before him, and he
elevates his eyes, and pitches his vision to
the farthest possible point within his hori-
zon; and all the while the great spectacle
is passing at his very feet Tie difference
between the great and the little man is in
nothing more remarkable than this. The
former makes himself the master of his
provinces; the latter seeks for servilude. in
the provinces of other masters. The men
tai forage of the one can only be furnished
in foreign pastures. He turns up his nose,
with nice antipathy, at the thing which
grows beside his own doors. 1t is the
noble duty of the other, which springs
from an pnselfish love-perhaps, in some
degree, from an inevitable destiny-to
labor ever in its proper cultivation. 1t is