The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-12-04

NOTORIET1 AND THE lNdIORIOUS GOOD. 0 NIB of the chief puerilitles of our time is the love of adver-
 tisement. To emerge from O obscurity, to be in the public eye, to make oneself talked of-some people are so consumed with this desire that we are justified In declaring them attacked with an itch for publicity. In their eyes obscurity is the height of ig- nominy, so they do their best to keep their names in every mouth. In their obscure position they look upon them selves as lost, like shipwrecked sailors some lonely rock and who have re- course to cries, volleys, fire, all the sig nals imaginable, to let 1t be known that they are there. Not content with set ting off crackers and innocent rockets, many, to make themselves heard at any cost, have gone to the length of perfidy and even crime. The incendi- ary Erostratus has made numerous dis ciples. How many men of today have become notorious for having destroyed something of mark, pulled down-or tried to pull down-some mans high reputation; signaled their passage, in short, by a scandal, a meanness or an atrocity!
 This rage for notoriety does not surge through cracked brains alone or only in the world of adventurers, charla- tans and pretenders generally. It has spread abroad in all the domains of life. spiritual and material. Politics, literature, even science. and, most odi- ous of all, philanthropy and religion are infected. Trumpets announce good deed done, and souls must be saved with din and clamor. Pursuing its way of destruction, the rage for noise has entered places ordinarily si. lent, troubled spirits naturally serene and vitiated in large measure all activ- ity for good. The abuse of showing everything, or, rather, putting every thing on exhibition, the growing inca pacity to appreciate that which chooses to remain hidden and the habit of esti- mating the value of things by the rack ct they make have come to corrupt the judgment of the most earnest men, and one sometimes wonders if society will not end by transforming itself into great fair, with each one beating his drum in front of his tent
 Gladly do we quit the dust and din of like exhibitions to go and breathe peacefully in some faron nook of the woods, all surprise that the brook is so limpid, the forest so still, the solitude so enchanting. Thank God there are yet these uninvaded cornersi How ever formidable the uproar, however deafening the babel of merry andrews, it cannot carry beyond a certain limit. It grows faint and dies away. The realm of silence is vaster than the realm of noise. Herein is our consola- ton.
 Rest a moment on the threshold of this infinite world of ingiorious good, of. quiet activities. Instantly we are under the charm we feel in stretches of untrodden snow, in hiding wood flowers, in disappearing pathways that seem to lead to horizons without bourn. The world is so made that the engines of labor, the most active agencies, are everywhere concealed. Nature affects a sort of coquetry in masking her op- erations. It-costs you pains to spy her out, ingenuity to surprise her, if you would see anything but results and penetrate the secrets of her laborato- ries. Likewise in human society the forces which move for good remain in- visible, and even in our individual lives; what is best in us is incom- municable, buried in the depths of us. And the more vital are these sensibil- ities and munitions, confounding them selves with the very source of our be- ing. the less ostentatious they are. They think themselves profaned by ex. posture to the light of day.
 There is a secret and inexpressible joy in possessing at the heart of one's being. an interior world known only to God, whence, nevertheless, come im- pulses, enthusasms, the daily renewal of courage and the most powerful mo