Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1905-12-23

JereQ are those OF the OlQ heDreW
psalmist: while I was musing the
fire burned; then spake I with my
tongue" Now, everybody in the wide
world is interested in the question of
how most effectually to -kindle fires,
and that, all the way from the most
ordinary smoker, at his wits end to
know how to light his pipe in a gale
of wind, to the prophet, how to set
and keep burning on the altar of his
own heart the divine fire of love and
righteousness amid all the distrac-
lions and contrarities of human life
On a subject, then, of such univer-
sal interest, might it not be worth
ones while to ask the psalmist how
he contrived to kindle his especial
kind of fire? His only answer would
have to be the same he had made be-
fore: while l was musing the fire
burned; then spake 1 with my
tongue" But curiously enough, this
answer will be found, On examination,
to emphasize a principle of universal
application to kindling fires of every
conceivable kind-whether on the
hearth, or on the lamp-wick, or in the
social circle, the students study, or
the saints retreat of silent prayer.
This present age of ours in Amer
lea, with its monotony of endless va
riety and it's ceaseless round of activ-
tiles which drive so many at last
into mental bankruptcy, has been de-
nominated by many the helter-skelter,
skip-jack age, which has changed the
old proverb, look before you leap"
into Leap before you look, and then
don't look, but leap again. AS though
one were no higher up in the rank OF
<,r<n cch or o.
instead of being capable of large dis
course of reason, looking before and
afteri"
Now, let any man try-and try for
whole year if he pleases-to think
of any single vital and beautiful pro-
cess of life that is not at the same
time a process of burning-a process
of persistently concentrating on some
chosen thought, feeling or personal
ity, the else-scattered energies of a
thousand rays. He might as we'll try
to think of a MinOt'S Ledge light
house, set on a rock to warn off the
mariner, forty miles away, from the
perils of shipwreck; yet whose keeper
should declare it a matter of no i'm
port to keep fiery combustion going
on by concentrating the fierce oxy
gen of the air on the infiammatory
carbon of the pumped-up oil, and then
sending up the splendid flame through
the draught of a high glass chimney
so crystal clear that its immaculate
purity would drive to despair the
most consecratedly distracted private
housewife in New England who
should ever dream of entering into
competition with him in the luster of
her own lamps.
No; there is the one immutable law,
everywhere prevailing. The solar
heat, for example, is all about us, but
so diffused as, through diffusion, to
prove too feeble for a thousand need
full, practical purposes. Collect its
rays on the surface of a lens, refract
them till they focus in one fiery cen
ter, and forthwith your gunpowder
explodes, your solid oak leaps into
flame and your refractory iron me1ts
and runs. And just so is it with us
poor scatter-brained and wool-gather-
ing mortals. Thoughts and emotions
in plenty are there in all our minds,
but vague and imperative through
verging lines upon hundred distract
ing objects. And thence comeS-as
we reaectively survey the thousand
mechanical devices for concentrating
force on imperative ends, which the
ingenuity of man has devised in can
non, steamship or simple watch-yes,
thence comes the tremendous momen-