Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-01-05

When the splndleS Whlrl with the velocity OF
light, and the thread that would wind the earth
is produced in day! The swift shuttle flies
and the material comes forth fashioned in beauty:
and in quantities, in day, from a single city,
which all the legions of the most populous nation
of ancient times could not have produced by their
united labors, in year. And if the Past did not
leave us this legacy it at least made an approx
nation to it, and furnished us with the means of
securing it.
l think, again, how man. at first, was COM
PEELED to wend his weary way, on foot, over rocks
and mountains, and through forests glens and
boys, exposed to dangers from beasts of prey and
to all the heat of the sun and the "peltings of
the pitiless storm" Next he tanned the beast
and rode upon his back or, as an especial lux
ury, was borne in bier upon the shoulders of
his fellow-men. Then came the rude carriage
drawn by the patient ANIMAL and slowly it i'm
proved, until it became gilded coach, drawn by
the fleet horse. And the work went onward
until now the steam is harnessed to the iron car
and away we go, with the velocity of the wind;
and we perform journey of weeks in day. and
sit, the while, upon soft cushions of velvet.
The broad river, and the wide sea, are no
longer obstacles in our way; but it was a long
labor to overcome them. First came the canoe
made of bark dug from a log; and this was
padded with the strength Of the arm. Then it
grew to larger size, and the sail was added to
catch the breeze, and save an outlay of 'bone and
sinew." Ages went on, and it became a ship
riding proudly upon the wave, yet driven by the
wind; and, at last the steamship, floating like
huge and splendid castle, breasting the pillows
of the Deep and making it's way onward in spite
of wind and tide. We look at these things and
boast of them, if We had brought them from
nothing to their present perfection. But, after
all, we them to the Past. We have indeed
done something; but great work has been going
on from the beginning, and though we have taken
a step in advance yet, but for the means and
advantages furnished by those who have gone
before us, that step could not have been taken.
So of light and knowledge in every depart
ment OF science The Past has furnished it's full
share. The streams have issued from a thousand
springs, and these have united; and as they have
flowed on, they have grown broader and deeper.
until that river is formed which flows copiously
and in whose waters battle with delight Let
not the river scott at the streams that feed it.
Muddy waters they may sometimes bring useless
lumber and rubbish they may bear; yet they are
the fountains of supply and, without them, the
river would have been but bed of sand.
Take any one of the sciences, and think what
long centuries of intellectual effort have been
expended upon it. The tyro takes the little book
containing the rudiments of a science and he
thinks it simple as the alphabet. But he dreams
not what earnest investigation and patient study
what wasting of the midnight OIL and what an
arduous expenditure of intellectual energy it has
cost to work out the problems there presented
The truth is there is embodied the results of
ages of labor, done in the distance of the Past;
and, without that labor, all efforts would not
have enabled us to pass beyond the vestibule of
the temple of science
Thus Also it is with our political and social
institutions. Our republican government, with
all its advantages; schools and seminares of
learning, and all the glorious institutions that
surround us, were not struck out, as fire from the
rock, by blow from the genius of the Present.
They grew not up, like the prophets gourd, in a
night. But they the result of ages of thought
and have been evolved from the labors - che Past.
The germs from which they grew planted
far back in the history of the world; and, amid
sunshine and storm fostered by the care and
watered by the tears, of those that have sown in
sadness, they have grown and become what they
are
And so of our religious privileges. They