The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1885-06-04
..suu.bine and shadow,

the rosy East and walked up the sky, and theI
gradually sank in the gilded West, as tn
fountain of life and light. A feeling of reyer
ence and emotional worship appears to be in
herent in human nature, arising from our in
ability to comprehend our surrounding an6
our conscious dependence upon something
outside and superior to ourselves. No people
ever worshiped what they fully understood
1t was therefore, but natural that the sur
should become the first object of alteration
Accordingly, through ancient religions this
great solar sourse of heat, light and life, un.
der various names, has received the homage
OF mankind. 1t is not, however, our Objective
purpose on this occasion to enter upon and
elaborate the history of Sun worship. What
We wish to say pertains more directly to its
influence upon life, vegetable, animal and So
clcl. Science has served to confirm the opin-
ion thus early entertained that the sun is the
fountain which eminates heat, electricity, light
and life and that upon it depend the existence
of all beings. If this ball of Flame were struck
out, the universe would elapse into chaos and
darkness such as existed in the beginning, ere
Omnipotance gave forth themandate, "Let
there be Light" Notwithstanding the patent
truth that all life depends upon the Sun, per-
petual Sunshine would consume the very ele-
ments, that sustain life, would make our green
Earth a desert waste. Hence, we learn that
shadow has its uses of no less Importance than
Sunshine, showing that duality is a universal
law of being, and that Sunshine and Shadow,
4 hSho ahu udThucSS, COlue III DeutuClchtd I
nation. The great vital forces of the universe
are silent. They come not with the dread up
heavel OF the rumbling earthquake; neither in
the loud sounding thunder, nor in the desola-
ting cyclone. The loud, noisy, messengers
are destructive, but the constructive building
elements move noisessly and come in a "still
small voice." The mild radiance of sunshine,
the gentle rain, the soft falling dews and frosts
of winter,-these are the ife-giving and in
MIGRATING forces, that beautify the world.
Perpetual sunshine would consume by burn
ing, and perpetual shadow destroy by freezing.
This fact is well shown in comparing the pro4
ducts OF the frigid regions, where sunshine is
SO spareiy given to Mother Earth, that the
Ice King reigns supreme, with those more
favored places in temperate chimes and with
that wonderful Insurance of the tropics where
nature Is so prodigal in her wealth of sponta-
neous productions, that the inhabitants laugh
at poverty while living in the lap of plenty and
forget I, thank the all-wise and Benefcient
Creator for his tender care. There the wav-
ing palm furnishes food in its fruit and raj
ment in its shade. There, too, birds of most
gorgeous plumage add their song of praise
to Him who has not forgotten that man lives
not by bread alone, and here also the Vic
toria regia lifts her queenly head to catch the
sunshine before it's beams fall on the humber
foliage. As the lark, at the first rosy blush
OF dawn, rises and with spiral flight mounts
INTO the upper deep, until the sunshine falls
upon its speckled breast, when it gives forth its
song of praises; so the giants of torid forests
lift on high their majestic crowns to catch the
earliest sunlight and become radient in beauty
while the yillags are still deep in shadow.
From there we turn to our own temperate re-
glons where nature is not dwarfed by long
continuous shadow, nor clothed in a profu-
sion of gigantic verdure by tropical sun
shine, but where the alterations of these
two forces bring the delightsomes change of
seasons. What can be more heartsome and
joyous than the return of Spring, when Ma
ture warmed by the suns genial beams, awake
from dreary winters sleep, and clothes her
self in her rich vernal attire and beauty and
fragrance regales our senses? The spring
well typifys childhood when all above is sun
shine and all beneath is aowers-when the
shadows are as fleeing as the summer clouds,
as flowers have been POLITICALLY styled, "The
smiles of God" so may the Innocent child,
fresh from its wanderings through sunny fields
with garlands of lowers in hand, represent the !
glorious sunshine of our Ices. How often
have those cherubs those mementos of Gods |
love and emblems of purity, dispelled from
older hearts the shadows of life by thai joy-
sunshine, that lights up their young lives?l
We may behold in the lives of the little ones
around us the experience of our own child |
hood, better illustrated than we can recall
IN memory. But in comparing the fond recol-
.lections that infancy knew with what we see |
In others we may create a vivid picture that
the sunshine and shadows into a
pedutiiul hdlelueSCOp6, IN winch the smiles |
and tears of child-life forms the sweetest,
dearest page that our memory holds. Our
school experience viewed in retrospect de- |
lights us and the whole constitute a lyrical
chapter of our lives although it was made up
in..detail of mingled sunshine and shadow ever
shifting and changing through all the phases
of expectant hopes and vanishing fears in
to it's own laws of rhythm.
As bounteous harvest is the full
hlment of the promises of Spring, so is the
little child the type of the future man. The
while it is such a potential agent, has
been by the power of mind transformed in
to a servant of man its light, heat and
powers are all made to serve us
in various ways. Not only does his
fructifying beams cause the earth to give us
food and raiment but he is made the swift
messenger, flashing intelligence
around the world with the rapidity of thought
and to paint our pictures, as if by magic. The
value of silver and gold depends upon our
ability to sell or transport them and: we can
only use them by loosing them, the sunshine of
our lives has its greatest value from the fact
we can reflect it upon others. If we try
to hoard it the moths, rust and eruption of
selfishness will creep in until shadows take the |
place of sunshine and bitterness instead of
sweetness fills our lives. 1t is one of the sur
compensations of our being that while
the shadows resting upon others reflected or
tempered by the reflection of our sunshine vet
we only have not lost thereby but found a con-
sequent gain ourselves. When the shadows
of life fall. upon our pathway and envelop us
in darkness and hope sickens and perishes
the prospect that surround US, we should
resolutely press forward animated with the
faith that we unlike a planet in
are sure of sunlight ahead. All that
is needed is to follow the orbit of our lives and
give the sun a chance to illumine anew our
path and gid our lives with glorious
afresh. What a compensation, how
in every appreciation and how in
by the very depth of preceding
Like the sun bursting into light
after an eclipse.
who can solve the mystery of human life?
With its wrong. its sorrow, its care and strife?
Or see why q heart must be wrung with pain?
The flowers of earth spring from tempest and
rain.
II lifted my eyes and on page spotIess white,
An angel had written in letters of light:
Look above. not below life's mystery so clear
Each shadow is sent to bring Heaven more
near"
One of our most noted writer's has said: "a
mans house should be on the hilltop of cheer
fulness and serenity, so high that no shadow
rest upon it. The mornings come so early, |
the evenings so late that the day has twice as
many golden hours as other men. He is to be
pitied whose house is in some valley of grief
with the longest night and shortest day. In
the social lives of the men this world has given
us, we may see as in a panorama, the triumphs