The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1903-07-17

IL even before 10 has been exploited. In
such properties possibilities have "A large
cash value For some strange reason per-
sonal possibilities we are more incrcdulous
about and prefer TO see the metal mined
and cast into ingots before we reckon it as
assets. II Is for that reason we can elbow
our way through q crowd OF commonplace
men and women or through n swarm Of
dirty children, oDiyious of the diamonds
that quite likely would begin 30 grow lus.
trOus If the dirt were rubbed on.
In Macaulay's essay on history there oc-
ours this illustration, which, without any
straining, lends itself 10 the matter we are
now considering CAT Lincoln Cathedral
there is a beautiful painted window which
was made by an apprentice out OF the
pieces Of glass which had been rejected and
thrown away by his master. i is 50 far
superior TO every other IN the church that,
according to tradition. the vanqushed art
ist killed himself from modification"
Which means that the finest window in the
entire edfce was made out of glass that TO
an inapnreciativc and unsympathetic eye
was good for nothing and cast out as sheer
refuse The miracle of the feeding Of the
5000 lets ms see among other things That
Christ had a very distinct regard Tor what
the disicules probably thought were mere
odds and ends, and al the end OF the re-
past gathered up more than enough crusts
and scraps to feed the whole company over
again.
This accounts for the surprises So o5tep
recurring when men who have never been
credited with ability. either intellectual or
moral, are accidentally pushed into places
Of responsibility and in that way have a
pressure pvt upon them that crowds their
latent possibilities into active powers of eff
feet. it has often been to me a matter OF
amazement the heavy load that a person
with seemingly no draft power, will pull
when once he has been caught and har-
messed and properly driven, and probably
no one so much surprised as the man him
self. The difficulty is rot in finding men
that are competent to do what ls needed,
but in getting men to do enough to become
themselves persuaded that they are compe-
tent.
Just as there are people that are so in
the habit of. thinking they are sick that
they never get well and nothing less than
fright or an earthquake will convulsc
them into convalescence, so society and the
church end the State are full of competent
| incapaOles who are good for nothing simply
because they have never commenced to
imagine that they are good for almost any
thing, and have never been so circum-
stanced or have never so had responsibility
| rolled upon them rs to shake them out of
]
! who, MP to the time he was eighty, never
! did anything noteworthy, so far as we can
| learn, except to kill an Egyptan-funda-
mentally the same man, OF course, that he
/ was during the browning, distinguishing
period of his life. but not having happened
] during his first four score years to be so
] crcumstanced or to be 50 pucked by
the pull of events as to discover that he
] was not a nOnentity. and when summoned
/ RI i
many like hun have done since, by alleging
! himself to be constitutonally unequal to
the task that was set him. If you ask
man to do something who thinks himself
! incompetent and he says "No" You have
to take his ''No." The advantage the Lord
has is that He does not have to take
mans "No," did not take Moses "No."
but chung to him, stood him up and put the
load on him and told him to 90 along vita
it, and just the weight of the load made
him able to 60 along with it, pressure found
the limp muscles that had been waiting for
almost q century to be crushed into eNer-
ton. and circumstances not made MIN
great, but gave him chance to be what
he and millions of other people are in con-
dition to be when the chance comes when
the assassn's bullet strikes, when at the
oDportune moment a shove is given into
the Pool of Bethesda.
IRcuteness or in inward moral and Christian
beauty, we give him credit for only so
much as has eXternalzed itself and as has
wrought itself into a kind OF enCOmpasslng
halo, and we base estimate ON the square
contents of the halo. You have many a
time seen locomotive looming out of the
darkness with its flashing headlight, and
that light has appeared to you so brilliant
In the dense night 1t has seemed to you al
most as though the front of the engine
: were frescoed with a section of the sun
and the ground for hundred rods in adj
vance of the train whitened with almost
the brilliancy of daytime. But If you have
r had an opportunity to inspect that head
light and to narrow all this illumination
down TO its fountain source you have very
; likely discovered there a small glass lamp
. furnished with a wick and little kerosene
oil. This is not to find fault with the light,
: but only to call attention to the fact,
Z which you are likely to forget that in es-
timating it you reckoned in the reflector
4hat was framed to encompass the light
and which made you suppose there was a
great deal more lumnousness than was act
: ually the case That Is the way in which
l our estimates generally are arrived at
+ original light with the circumjacent retiec'
G tor added in-central fame Plus the au'
. reoe
! Now the Lord in His estimates dis
4 penses with aureole-which is what Scrip
' ture means when it says that He looketF
= not on the outward appearance. lie !:
!, never misled by refectors or by the alb
y sence Of 1encctors, A man may have very
little virtue and yet put that virtue into
t some snowy achievement with large su
II pcrfcia! area, whereupon men get out
y their measuring rods, figure up the area
l, consult the multiplication table and decide
1t that he has a great deal of virtue, that i
r aureole, adding reflector to the little kero
r sene lamp On The other hand, a person