The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1897-04-14

his energies are
ends, makes him great in the sight O
God. The best life is the life of hin
who, in the largest sense, has made
the most of everything. He who la
wasted least of what God has givel
him, and improved most; who has in
creased his talents by the creates
multiple, and has the largest amount
to present to his Lord when he come!
to take account of his stewardship
is the man who has lived to most pur
pose, and although he may have dice
without a shilling, he has really ac
cumulated the greatest fortune.
There is no such thing as waste il
Nature; invariably the most is made
of everything, lavish and prodiga
though Nature often seems. There is
no waste, for example, in the human
body; of nothing there could it bt
said that there is no more use for il
than cart has for third wheel. NJ
one of it's two hundred and ffty-fou1
bones, and its still larger number o1
muscles, could be dispensed with with
out inconvenience and loss. What 6
wonderful muztum IN parro is the
healthy human bodyl What a variety
of purposes are often served by sin
gle contrivance, and these purposes sc
dissimilar! The eye, for example, is
telescope and microscope in one; il
is, moreover, one of the chief orna'
ments of the face, ,and at the same time
one of the principal organs of intel
lectual and moral expression. Il
sparkles with intelligence, flashes with
indignation, kindles with hope, melts
with grief, trembles with pity, Ian,
guishes with love. twinkles with hu:
NOR, starts with amazement, or shrinks
with horror, according to the impulse
given to it from the soul within. II
is whole alphabet of signs, com
plete gamut of tones; each of which
it expresses by a modification of its
parts so slight that none but the most
skillful painters are able to reproduce
them on the canvas.
The windpipe, in like manner, is a
combination Of chimney and musi-
cal instrument; and strange to say, it
is while doing the work of the chin
ney that it creates the beauty of mu-
sical sounds. Not only is the foul air
from our lungs expelled through the
windpipe, like the smoke of factory
through its long chimney; but it is in
the course, and in the act of its ex-
pulsion, that it gives birth to articu-
late speech and to musical sounds.
The finest notes of the greatest sing
er, or of the veritable nightingale it.
self, are produced by the discharge of
used up air through the chimney Of
the system turned into music by an
art which mocks the feeble perform
ance of the famous Memnon.
Let US observe, too, what a wonder
full thing the human voice is, depend,
ent though it is on the byplay of Or
gans most of which in their direct ac-
tion have another use. If it be true
of the eye that it can be adapted to
the expression of such variety of
moods and feelings, how much vaster
in this respect is the capacity of the
voice What endless diversities Of
sound, and not of broad sounds only,
but of delicate shades and varieties of
sound, is is capable Of expressing
What mysterious blending it under
goes with varieties of,human feeling,
coming out differently in every case
according to the emotion to which for
the moment it is married! What tri-
umh it would be if, in regulating the
discharge of the air employed in fac
tories, man should come to initiate
Nature, and teach his long chimneys
to discharge their contents amid
sounds sweet and silvery as the
chimes of Continental church spires
In nature, too, we constantly find
that whenever an object turns useless
for one purpose, it becomes useful for
another. The sailor who boasted that
in the course of his adventures he
had on one occasion come'to the end of
the world, and on climbing to the top
Of the boundary wall, had looked over
it and seen great heap of old moons
lying at the bottom, would have given a
very different turn to his imagination
if he had known anything of the
economy of nature. That very sub
stance of which we have been speak
ing, the used-up air expelled from our
lungs, commonly called carbonic acid
gas, has no sooner become useless for
animals than it becomes useful for
vegetables. 1t is as unwilling to ad,
nit its mission at an end as the devils
in the Gospel, expelled from the ma.
MAC, when they begged to be allowed
to enter the herd of swine; but unlike
those cmissarics of evil, its ambition
is to continue career of usefulness.
Having served it's purpose in the hu,
man frame, the air proceeds to fulfill a
similar end in the vegetable'world; hav,
ingits oxygen to one, it gives it's carbon
to the other. And thus, as the song
says, it's goes on and on forever: con.
tributing alternately to vegetable and
to animal life; Fastening as it has
supplied the one, to look after the 9th.
or; never retaining, like the banks, an
unemployed surplus, but keeping the
whole of it's treasures in constant and
beneicent circulation.
One of the most striking examples
Of the wonderful economy of Nature
is furnished by the uses to which that
ugliest and most repulsiye Of sub
stances tar-is now found to be
capable of being put. Coaltar is the
residuum of coal when burnt in re.
torts in the manufacture Of gas, and
not many years ago was thing sc
abominable that it had to be cartcd
by night to the sea, and committed by
stealth to that good-naturcd receiver
general. But now, in the hands Of
the chemist, it products are all but
endless. Benzine, that so uscfully
removes stains from dresses; creosott
that mitigates the tortures of tooth
ache, and preserves beams from rot
ting when sunk in water; naptha, as
,.,b>l,a II