The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1902-04-16

Covery, ana now i am Suteu."
SDr. Pierce's Pleasant Pellets cure
constipation.
away In the night and the iiremen came
running she ran out in her night
clothes and begged them to save her
Christian Index. She had a stock of
them and treasured them more than
anything else.
Our good old professor, Charles F.
Mccoy, of Franklin college, used to
lecture to us students, and his favorite
subject was "The Regularity of IRE
gular things" and he satisfied me that
the longer my house escaped a fire the
more L was liable TO have one. The
chances against me increased as the
years rolled On, and 80 l have been ex-
pecting a fire. The insurance COM
panies understand this and base all
their calculations and rates upon it.
They will tell you whist is the average
life of adwelling, a store, a gin, q plan
ing mill or a church. The professor
illustrated with a dice box and said if
you cast the dice a dozen times the six
spot might come up three or four times
in succession and the ace several times,
but if you cast the dice a thousand
times, each number from one to six
| would show up about an equal number
of times. That is according to the
calculation of chances and proves the
regularity of irregular things. So it is
with the rainfall which, however I'M
certain in its coming, amounts to about
the same every year. Since 1883 the
losses by fire in the United States have
averaged $1O5 900 900 a year. the
lowest being 800, 900 900, and the
highest $40, 900 900, and yet in 1871
the loss In Chicago alone was $780,
600 900.
But where did fire como from and
who gave it and when. There is no
mention of fire in the Mosaic account
of the creation o for two thousand
years after it. Until after the flood
there was not much need of fire, for
the people were not permitted to eat
meat. Their food was the fluits of the
earth. But l reckon they did have fire
and blacksmith shops and made ham.
mers and hoes and nails, 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 firstlings
of his flock, but there are Indian tribes
in our day and negroes in Africa and
EsquimauX in the Arctic regions who
have no knowledge of iron or its uses.
a thousand years before Christ,
Homer wrote that Jupiter only pos
sessed 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 il by day the liver grew
again by night, but finally he was I'M
chained and the eagles driven away.
1t seems that Prometheus was a friend
to mankind and by the command of
Jupiter actually created man out of the
mud that was left after the lood-not
Noah's flood, but the flood of Deucalion,
away back in the ages. lie was a god
nearly as powerful as Jupiter and was
always in a quarrel with him. He
taught mankind architecture, astron-
omy, figures, medicine, navigation and
all the arts that adorn life. AT Athens
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
fire-the Vestal fre-the fire of the
hearthstone and must not be allowed
to go out. If it does go out from ac-
cident even the family who loses 1t
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 1T
from Grecian and Roman mythology.
Anyhow, We know that the Jews had
great reverence for fire, for they had
to use 1T in the sacrifices, and God ap-
peared to Moses In a burning bush and
descended on Mt. Sinai in fire, and the
lsraelltcs were guided through the
WILDERNESS by a pillar of fire by night,
and fire came down from heaven and
destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. and
many other important events were
marked by fire.
In our young days when there were
matches 1t 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
the ashes at bed time went out or
was burned up, and then one of the
boys had to go to a neighbors and Dor
row fire. 1t was always called borrow
ing fire, for it was reasonably expected
the neighbor would sometimes