Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1905-12-02


for both masculine and feminine.
Benefits of improvements.
But, after discussing for little while
the benefits which machinery has CIV
en- to us in our eating and drinking
and our sanitation and in our wearing
apparel shall we stop there? Shall we
not at least hint at the wonderful ben
efts that have come to us from tele-
phone and telegraph and the modern
newspapers and the lights by which
we read in the evening hours, and /
from the typewriter, which has so lift
ed the onerous burdens Of professional
and mercantile life, and the electric
cars which for 8 cents make it possi-
bic for a business man to be in his Of
fee at half past 8 in the morning ana
vet take his evening meal In a subur-
ban home surrounded by flowers and
grass grown yard, as well as by wife
and children? Shall we not thank Cod
for the wonderful inventions OF the
biologists laboratory, for the micro
scope, the Roentgen rays and all the
wonderful means by which disease is
being halted in its onward march and
driven back and by which the crooked
limbs are made straight? Shall we not
thank God for the wonderful system
of street lamps we have, which makes
midnight in a large city almost as
bright as midday and which light Is
the greatest Of all crime preyenters!
And, above all, shall we not thank God
for our library shelves filled with
books. cheap books, yet books ready
TO serve us when we stretch out our
hands for them?
We are living in a wonderful age.
How wonderful it is not one OF US can
truly grasp. was never more i'm
pressed with the rapid advancement OF
material blessings and Of inventions
than when reading recently a synopsis
of a lecture delivered by the late Bish-
Cd Clark Of Rhode Island In 1853. AT
that time there were no bicycles, no
automobiles, no typewriting machines,
no telephones, no Atlantic cables, no
transcontinental railroad, no great
steamship lines as we conceive them,
no successful airships, no sleeping cars,
no large office buildings, with their ele-
vators. and no electric cars. The title
of this lecture was "The Next Flfty
Years" These are some of the prophe-
cies Bishop Clark then made: 1--WE have
made wonderful progress in travelling
facilities during the last half century,
but do you think improvement is going
to stop there? Nay. Posterity Will not
be content to travel at the slow rate OF
only thirty miles an hour, seated in
these narrow cars, stifed with bad air
and dirt. 1t costs no great effort to
imagine fifty years hence a splendid
locomotive, with hotel, spacious par
lors, dining rooms and dormitories,
moving gently as the bird flies over
road carpeted by turf and bordered by
shade trees and sweet shrubs from
Boston to San Francisco in four days"
Have not the good bishops prophecies
almost literally come true? Shall we
not soon leap the continent from the
Atlantic to the Pacific in less than four
days? Then Bishop Clark goes on and
prophesies some Of the wonderful in
ventions that have come to pass in the
electric world: "The electric battery,
which now in some of our cities strikes
the midnight hour, may be made at
evening to light all Of our street lamps
at one fash, secure perfect uniformity
Of time in our public clocks and kindle
a beacon on these dreary rocks in the
sea. where human beings now endure
a melancholy and dangerous solitude"
Bishop Clark from the celestial heights
might see those electric lights shining
today. Speak out ye lonely islanders
now in touch with mankind. Speak
OUT
Then the good bishop goes on and de-
scribes the wonderful invention Of the
modern typewriter to me one of the
greatest labor saving machines in the
world. He continues: There Is an
other invention which l for one would
hail with exceeding joy. 1t may seem
absurd to predict that the time may
come when it will not be customary
TO teach our children how to write. 1t
would have been thought just as alb
surd fifty years ago to have foretold
that the boys of this generation would
grow up not knowing how to make a
pen. But that time is going to come"
Thus in closing this sermon on this
| Thanksgiving Sabbath would have us
| one and all. amid the great hum Of fac
tory and by the fash of electric spark,
make this one prayer: 30 God, make
me thankful for the food | eat, for the
clothing | wear and for the many,
many blessings Of inventions round
about me. Fill me with the holy de-
sire not to build for myself a hang
ing garden of Babylon, but to be so
blessed through the help Of modern in
vention that out Of my abundance l
may give to thee and to thy children"
Nav this be the Thanksgiving prayer
Of every heart. Then instead Of ma
terial wealth being the cause Of our
spiritual overthrow it will be the means
by which we ourselves may be lifted
by lifting a hungry and a naked and a
fallen race up toward God and heaven.
Then. indeed, shall the desert blossom
as the rose and the barren places OF
the earth through the power Of inyen-
ton be filled with the glory Of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea. Then will
our Thank sglving day be a glorious
Thanksgiving day for those we love
and for those whom we shall bless.
[Copyr, gbt 1905. by Louis Klcpsch.l