Morris tribune., 1905-09-16
r E Adm G.
Sermon Delivered by Dr.. J.C Shetland at Congrega
tional Church Last Sunday Evening.
stGive attention to reading. - Timothy 4:t2.
Reading" says Bacon, "makes foil man."
WHY SHOULD WE READ?

Because reading brings us tue gdtHereu
wisdom of the past ages. Till books came no
matter how far went through the I'M
explored wilderness of knowledge when he
died his child had to begin where his father
began The making of records has kept the
experience of the ages and enabled men to
beoin where their fathers left Off For in illus
tration, our government years ago made an
overland pony express from Omaha to Callfor-
MIA relay of horses was at Omaha twenty
miles further was another relay. The seventy
fifth relay entered the streets of the gold camps
at Sacramento. If every one OF the relays had
heoun at Omaha, not one would have reached
the coast Therefore the last century has been
richer in the accumulation of wealth. in per-
fecting reapers, and looms and engines and
telegraphs and processes in Carnegie's favorite
line of work in steel, than any age before it.
We should read because the brief time
allotted to our earth life makes knowledge from
Others necessity. BLESSED Methuselah," says
Lowell "who had nothing to learn and $50
wears to learn it in" Blessed we, who in 20
wears can learn 900 times as much Methus
elat did. Our individual horizon is but nine
miles, But the earth is $4,000 miles round. In
one lifetime of individual observation we could
learn but little of the earth we live on. Shall
we 90 and converse with the wise? Our call
may not be in favorable time When the
messenger went to tell Newton of the honor
conferred by the English government he found
the great scientist too busy talking with the
stars to spare any time for messengers from
London When poet went to talk with Carlyle
he found the savant savage in dyspepsia
4 4l,ar ne wis q
men are not always inspired. The bush burned
for Moses but once in all Of those wilderness
years We call on the great dramatist and hnd
he is too busy studying the art of expression to
express anything to Call on the railway
president and find him busy transporting
thousands that he has no time to awaken any
transports in u.s. But these have all compressed
what they knew in book, and thus all cen
turtles from Moses to DR.. Merrill give us the best
they know. We become intimate with Socrates
and Emerson, and with the great OF all time.
Though your home be in a little village, the
horizon broadens, till examine the Far
thenon and the Pyramids, and walk the great
battlefelds and hear the shout OF Romes thou
sands at the triumphal return of her generals,
and walk in the true Elysian fields, where the
flashing for us.
AS the servants of the feudal baron in his
castle on the Rhine all worked for him, and one
brought water, and another brought wood, and
another cooked his dinner, so through books
the wise men each serve us. We want to know
about our rocks and boulders? Dana says in
effect "For you L have read the handwriting OF
God on the rocks before man trod earth's sur
face and traced the grooves cut by the 1cel
blows and noted how the waters Of this region
used to flow from Lake Agassiz through Blgl
Stone river into the Cuff of Mexico, before the
continent was tipped up far enough to let thel
water run over Niagara Falls" Do want to
know about the land in Northern minnesota
Winchell says, "For you have spent long years,
that you might know the woods and swamps,
and beds of iron, without leaving the comfort
of YOUR home" Do we wish to determine the
value of ores? Drew says, "For you [ have
tested the silver and the gold and years of my
life have been given for your certainty" Dol
we want to know how to handle woodworking
tools? "The Boston Manual" gives the bene-
fit of years of experience We have not years
to give to culture of apples, but Baldwin has
done that for us. Nor of blackberries, but Law
ton did; nor of clover, but the scientist whoI
sent from Australia to England for bees who
could reach the pollen of big clover taught the
world that the difference between success and