Long Valley advocate. (Lardo, Idaho) 1904-1907, 1906-01-04

psalmist: while | was musing the
fire burned; then spake | 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 was musing the fire
burned; then spake l with my
tongue" But curiously enough, this
answer will be found, on examination,
to emphasize 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
creation than grasshopper or flea,
instead OF being capable of large dis.
course of reason, looking before and
after!"
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 process of burning-a process
or persistently concentrating on some
chosen thought feeling or personal
1ty, the else-scattered energies of a
thousand rays. He might as well try
to think of Minot's Ledge light
house, set on a rock to warn off the
mariner, forty miles away, from the
perlls 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 oxv-
gen OF the air on the infiammatory
carbon OF the pumped-up oil, and then
sending up the splendid flame through
the draught of high glass chimney.
so crystal clear that it's 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. hut
SO diffused as, through diffusion. To
prove TOO feeble for thousand need,
full, practical purposes. Collect IT'S
rays on the surface of lens. refract
them till they focus in one fierv cen.
ter, and forthwith your gunpowder
explodes, your solid oak leans into
flame and your refractory iron melts
and runs. And just so is it with us
poor scatter-brained and wool-gatber.
Ing mortals Thoughts and emotions
In plenty are there in all our minds
but vague and imperative through
only fitfully shining on hundred di. |
verg1ng lines upon hundred distract.
Ing objects. And thence comes-as
we refectively survey the thousand
mechanical devices for concentrating