The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1884-10-01
An Unaccountable Mystery.

/ Intemperence is the strangest anc
most unaccountxble mystery with which
to deal. Why, as rule, the human
soul is passionately jealous of its own
happiness, and tirelessly selfish as to its
own interest. It delights to seek the
sunshine and the flowers this side the
grave, ardently hopes for heaven in the
life to come. 1t flashes its penetrating
thought through the dark chambers of
the earth; or lighted by the lurid flames
of smouIdering volcanic fires, wings,
them through buried ogsns. It lights
up the oceans bed, melting its mystic
ries into solution, detecting It's coral
richness, and causing its buried pearls,
which have rested for long centuries
beneath the black waves, to glow with
their loug-hoarded beauty. It holds
convese with the glitteriBg planets of the
skies and compels them to tell it of their
mountain ranges, their landscapes, and
their utility. 1t toys with the mad
lightnings which break from the dark
ness, and guides death and destruction
through the earth, until it allures the
impetuous element into doeility and
subservency, It bids the painting waters
breathe their, hot heavy breath upon the
piston rod and make the locomotive a
beautiful thing of life, majestically
laundering its way over continents
screaming forth the music of civiliZa-
tion in the midst of wild forests and the
heat of burning deserts, beneath scorch-
ing, torrid suns. 1t leaps over burning |
plains and scalding streams restless and |
daring, it lights its casket over artic |
zones and seas; and perhaps firing of |
such incumbrance, deserts it in the cold |
shade of the ice mountain and speeds on |
and alone. Franklin /
the beckonings of his tireless
spirit until worn out and weary, his /
body laid down on the cold ice and slept.
Kane coaxed himself home to the old
and then bade his spirit
drop the machine it had so badly
and fly through earth or the
eternities, as God might will. Living
stone marched through the jungles and
cheerless forests of uninviting Africa,
but his limbs were too feeble to keep up
with his hungry soul, which tore itself
from its burden and left it to crumbie
beneath the burning sun. And thus
the soul flies from zone to zone and from
world to world, slipping the sweets of
wisdom, as the bee sucks honey from
The flowers ;reading.lessons from the. leaf
let on the tree, studying the language of
.he soft whispering zephyr, and of the
5he hurricane which springs from moth
ng into deyasting power, and it is ever
restless in its researches, for it seeks
is own happiness and improvement in
is new discoveries, and in better
of Gods creation. Speak to
he human soul of liberty, and swell it
With gratitude and beaming with smiles
t will follow wherever you lead. Speak
% it of its Immortality and of the
livine grandeur of its faculties, and,
warmed by your appreciation, it will
trive harder for a fuller development
md brighter existence. Lead it among
he roses, and it will seldom fail to light
Tour pathway with smiles and to remind
you of its gratitude. 1t, loves to be
noticed; loves to be assisted; loves to
,e made happy loves to be warned of
langer; and yet with reference to that
which pierces it with the most bleeding
which more than anything else
1ars from it the sunshine and robs it of
acknowledgements as needless
IS the stone.