St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1902-06-07


900, and yet in 1871 the loss in Chicago
alone was 5000, 200, 900.
But where did fire come from and
who gave it and when. There is NC
mention Of fire in the Mosaic account
of the creation nor for 1000 years
after it. Until after the food there
was not much need of fire, for the PEG.
pie were not permitted to eat meat.
Their food was the fruits of the earth.
But reckon they did have fire and
blacksmith shops and made hammers
and hoes and rails, etc. Noah could
not have built the ark without tools
and nails. The presumption is that
the Creator supplied Adam with tools
to dress the garden and Abel with
knives to sacrifice the frstlings of his
flock, but there are Indian tribes in
our day and negroes in Africa and Es-
quimaux in the arctic regions who
have no knowledge of iron or it's uses.
A thousand years before Christ Ho.
mer wrote that Jupiter only possessed
the element that we call fire and when
man was created man he refused to
give him fire. But Prometheus stole
some from Heaven and gave it to man
and it made Jupiter SO mad that he
chained him to a rock and sent eagles
to eat his liver out, and as fast as they
eat it by day the liver grew again by
night, but finally he was unclaimed
and the eagles driven away. 1t seems
inst Prometheus was q friend of man
kind an1 by the command of Jupiter
actually created man out of the mud
that was left after the aood-not
Noah's flood, but the flocd of Deucal-
ion, away back in the ages. lie was a
god nearly as powerful as Jupiter and
was always in quarrel with him. Rs
taught mankind architecture, astron-
omy, figures, medicine, navigation and
all the arts that adorn life. At Ath-
ems and other ancient cities, temples
were built to his honor. They believed
that the very fire that he brought
down from Heaven was still preserved
and was always burning on an altar in
the temple of Vesta. 1t is called the
sacred tire-the Vesta fre-the fire of
the hearthstore, and must not be al
lowed to go out. If it does go out from
accident even the family who loses it
must go to the temple of Vesta and get
a new supply.
Of course all these stories about the
gods are superstitious, but they are
very fascinating ones and old Homer
still stands as the greatest poet, and
ranks as the equal of Shakespeare or
Milton. That reverence for sacred fire
is not yet extinguished, and it is said
that the Roman Catholic priesthood
burn candles in their cathedrals day
and night because the custom was
handed down from the ancient
churches and those churches probably
got it from Grecian and Roman my.
thology. Anyhow, we know that the
Jews had great reverence for fire, for
they had to use it in their sacrifices,
and God appeared to Moses in burn
ing bush and descended on Mount
Sinai in fire and the Israelites were
guided through the wilderness by
pillar of fire by night, and fire came
Sodom and Gomorrah and many other
important events were marked by fire.
In our young days when there were no
matches it was no sure or certain
thing to find fire on the hearthstone
every cold morning that came. Some
times the live chunk that was buried
in the ashes at bedtime went out or
was burned up, and then one of the
boys had to go to a neighbours and
borrow fire. It was always called
borrowing fire, for it was reasonably
expected that the neighbor would
sometimes find himself in the same
condition. The Cherokee Indians
made fire by rubbing two hard dry
sticks together with great rapidity.
have seen little Indian boys do it very
quickly, and I tried to initiate them,
but failed.
But if the good pure vestal fire came
from heaven l reckon old Satan got
some of it when he fell and took it
down below. That's the kind that
concerns us most. The old preacher
who used to go around preaching
about the mountains of Hepsidam
where the lion roareth and the whang-
doodle mourneth for its first born, and
he played on harp of thousand
strings-sperets of just men made per-
feet" also had few broken remarks
about fire. ''My impertinent hearers.
there are several kinds of fire. There
arc foy fire and camn fire and fire and
fall back, but the kind that consarns
you most are the fire that is not
squenched and is called hell fire for
short" BILL ARP.