The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1904-01-19
RAMBLING THOUGHTS.
(By the Editor.

(By the Editor)
Fossils tell the story of creatures and
things of long ago. They unknowing-
ly left an impress upon the world.
That the mud around them should
turn to rock, bearing through all ages
record that they had lived and moved
and had their being, was beyond their
knowledge. Even a humble leaf of
ages ago shows its record imperishable
in coal and shales.
Every thing leaves record more or
less lasting. Permanency of influence
was not confined to the fierce days
when the fires of the great world
burned mud to rock. Here and now
the same story is being rounded out.
Change is over all things, forms van
ish but influence remains. Confined
to the animal and vegetable kingdom?
No. You, l, all of us-humble or
great-are making records that do not,
cannot perish when the great trans
figuration day comes. We cannot es-
cape our tremendous Importance and
influence as individuals. 1t is thrill
ing to realize that the unconscious
good we do may set forces free here
after, through an influence that cannot
be lost, which would astonish us had
we the eyes to see into the future
Believing in possibilities like these, no
matter how tiny and unimportant we
may seem to ourselves, life becomes a
sacrament, too holy to be wasted, too
divine to be trampled under foot of
swinishness.
Events do not ''just happen" They
are the results of causes, themselves
the effects of preceding causes. The
business man who understands this
makes no moan because mysterious
mama fails to rain down in the night
upon his enterprises. His business
success or failure has causes to explain
either way. A failure thus becomes
real gain, by compelling man TO
analyze out his defects of method or
his poorness of judgment. Some
causes, like trade conditions, are be-
you'd mans control; but most of
them still lie beneath his hand. The
man with wreck in his life can
usually find the cause. 1t may be iu
himself, and likely enough it is, it
may be in false education, over which
he had no control; il may be the evil
influence of dead hand reaching
a man spend his days plying himself.
He suffers, it is true, from outraged
law on the part of someone, perhaps
the nearest, dearest of all. Still the
world is waiting, longing for honest
workers and its tasks are many for
hands that have been washed in afflic-
tion and rendered pure for the higher
purposes that come to right heart.
The wreck of life does not free
that life from social duties. 1t is a
craven sailor who does not try to live,
\ If possible; it is a craven sailor who
will not die like a man, if he has to.
Truly it would sometimes be easier,
sweeter, shorter to die than to live, but
manly courage is not shown thu J..
Neither is manly courage shown by
remaining alive and still giving up all
effort because one effort or one hope
went to ruin. Such a spirit recruits
the tramp army.
| Let us long to hear harmony all
around us; harmony even in seeming
discord, harmony that rises and swells
aud triumphs over discords All the
motions of Nature are harmonious; the
roar Oh In bempeSL duu tue JnOuShuu
beat hum of an insects wing. have be-
tween them in their vast separation in
volume, unnumbered other notes less
violent than the tempest, or louder,
deeper than the shrill of the insect
all of them forming the great key
/ board of Natures organ. Have you
ever felt a sort of impatient shudder-
ing protest when discord is struck on
piano? ? 1t is instructive if your ear
is true. Let us seek to cultivate the
same instructive resistance to discord
when they strike from within. Bear
this in mind when you hear discord
it is only discord because its rela-
tions TO other notes are untimely or
improper. By itself no note is a dis
cord; when its relations are proper it
aids in making harmony. There is
food for thought along this line il our
| lives seem discordant-we have not
| learned true relations to those of the
human family who sing or ring along
! the highway with us.