The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1893-05-24
EVOLUTION OF THE FlREslDE.
Great Races Generally Spring From Place
WHARF the Family Hearth Exists.

Great Races Generally Spring From fiaces
Where the Family Hearth Exists.
SOMEBODY found out that the friction
Of two sticks would produce flame
And 10, all the arts and sciences were
bornl This discovery must have been
made very, very long ago, for the
earliest people Of whom we have any
knowledge had forgotten about IT and
were turning it into myth and miracle
Agni, the fire, was worshiped by the
Hindoos as one Of the great gods, while
among the Greeks the Titan Prom
ethens was said TO have stolen the fire
from heaven and brought 1t down 70
men hidden In a reed. This he did In
pity for the suffering race of man.
while for the pity and help he, like SC
many other of mans helpers and re-
formers, was doomed to persecution
and torture. II is only within the
present century and since the diseov'
cry of the old Sanslsrit scriptures that
we have found out that Prometheus Is
Pramantha, the fire drill, and that out
Of the wonder Of the fire the worship
ing imnginations Of the people have
created the wonder story of the man
loving victim OF Zeus.
The fire early became q symbol o.
the sun and through thousand
changes this primeval marvel of the
fire has become part of the poetry,
the folklore, the religion of all the
world. The Parsis were fire worship
ers. Bael, the fire god, ruled many q
Semitic tribe. The beautiful Perse'
phone is seized by the god Of the under
world and borne away TO his sunless
kingdom. Her mother, Ceres, mourns
her and searches everywhere over the
desolate earth for her daughter. BY
and by she is permitted to return and
spend six months in the upper world
The flowers bloom, the corn grows and
the birds sing at her approach. Sc
grows the fairy story of winter and
summer. But not only in pagan lands
do these traces Of sun and fire worship
appear. Our Lents and Casters, our
altar candles, our Halloweens are east
ward positions in prayer-all these are
poetic relics Of the age-long wonder OF
the fire.
In the first place, the sunshine isiths
condition Of all life on earth, and the
FIRE on the hearth is only transformed
sunshine. This sunshine was stored
up ages ago in the beds Of coal or In
! the growing trees year by year. SO, al
we sit about the fire, II is the sunshin,
ofother years or other ages that dances
in the flame or glows In the red an
thracite. And as II is the sun that givei
life, 80 II Is this sunshine in the fir,
that makes man the free inhabitant o
all the earth, whatever the natura
climate may be. Wherever he is abl,
to live at all he creates for himself art
ificial tropics, thus establishing onc'
more and permanently the essentia
conditions Of his primeyal home. Bori
in the tropics, he can live only In tn
tropics, and with the wonder wand o
fire he creates for himself the tropio
anywhere. In the next place 1t is some
times said that the great races are tn
ones who live In the northlands. Thi
may be so to-day, but II we look bacl
and study the past we see that all tn
greatest arts and literatures and re
ligions Of the world grew and blossome,
and bore fruit In the lands Of the sun
When we speak the names Of India, o
Palestine, OF Egypt, Of Greece, Of Rome
we speak OF the homes Of all the beaut
and truth and aspiration Of man tina
have culminated In our modern civfli
| zation. All? Not qnite, for we mus
remember Germany and France an
; England. But those do not contradic
our statement, for the achievement O
these was not attained except "a IN
i fire enabled the people 70 mako 10
themselves lands Of the sun about thei
fresides, and In thcse artificial sur
lands the great works have bec
! wrought out Petsrson's Magazine.