Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1906-08-10
THE BROOK IN THE WAY.
By Henry F. Cope.


He shall drink of the brook in the
way: therefore shall he lift up the
head.-Ps. cX., Z.
Nature has u prodigal way of scat
tering rivulets down the hillside and
along the pathways, little. needing
whether men walk there or not The
practical eye sees waste; these streams
might have been made to turn wheels;
the needs of the traveller, weary with
the way, might be met by faucets at
regular intervals.
1t Is well for us all that the power Of
the practical man finds its limitations,
else all poetry would have gone from
the world and great and glorious us
might have been our physical perfec-
tions our bodies would be but the emp
ty habitations whence souls had long
since fed. The utilitarian would have
stolen from us the bliss OF the deep
draft from the pebbly brook.
The man who is proud of being prac-
tical tells us we are wasting time and
nervous energy in stopping to think Of
ideal things; we must take the world
as we find 1t, he says, forgetting how
fair and poetic we once found 1t and
how bleak and ugly we likely are to
leave it. But to him trees are always
lumber, grass and flowers but hay, bird
songs spell poultry, wind and waters
energy. Many are too busy making
things ever to enjoy anything that Is
made.
In this steel age it may seem folly
and waste to stop and think of sacri
flee and courage and love, to admire
and answer TO the thrill of human
passions; but alas for him who never
sees the light Of heaven in another's
tear, nor hears the brush of angels
wings when men and women fly to
their fellows aid.
If you haven't time in your busy life
to turn aside to drink of the brook of
human affection, to look deep into the
eyes of friendship, to sympathize, to
comfort. to taste this strange, sweet
and bitter cup of our common fellow
ship, then is your heart going dry and
thirsty and life becoming whitened
road that knows no wells or springs.
But something there is in man that
calls for drafts at yet deeper streams
than these. Foolish and unlearned he
may be, ignorant Of the wise cOnclu-
sions Of philosophers who have looked
into these things with their lanterns,
but through the ages he has been
drinking eagerly at the waters Of eter-
nifty. In every man there is a thirst
after the deep, unreasonable things IL
vine; the deeper the nature Of the man
the greater his necessity for drinking
often here.
The consciousness of the great life
that embraces all life, the sense of its
nearness to us all, has been a peren.
NAL refreshing to all great hearts. In
some way to bring the life into touch
with the infinite is to take down Its
limitations, break it's barriers, and give
1t sense of infinitude, to lift up the
head in vision of the divinity Of our
lives and of every life. We who wall,
in the dust often need to be filled with
the divine lest we become ourselves
but dust.
This world of things Is hungry fol
the life that is more than things, the
life Of the spirit; that Is why SO many
love to sing Of heaven and dream of D
fair world peopled by strange and glo
rious celestial ones. Heaven Is nearer
than we think; like the brook by the
way, the life Of the spirit flows beside
this life, happy they who drink of 1t!
waters, who already enter into eter
nifty, who find strength for this life's
way and work by the contact with tn,
life that is life indeed.
Is 1t any wonder that life Is wear
isome thing, dead drag, when you art
, starving its very sources? You neglec
, the soul at the peril Of all. So anxious
are you to run this race that you hav,
, no time to allow him who rides in tn,
, chariot to drink of the water of life
, This Is not utilitaranism this Is sui
eide from the center out.
| The most practical common sense de
mands that you feed the inner places o
! your life, the heart that has gone 81
! long thirsty and longing for love, 70
! things too deep for words, for thing
] that cannot be used, cannot be quote,
In dollars. Give your inner life 1t
deep drafts of the infinite life and you
, outer life shall take its place and d