The Falls City tribune., 1910-12-02
TIL QUIET HOUR
1.-The Black Cat That isn't There"

1.-THE Black Cat That isn't There
Someone, in a mood Of irritable re-
action, after having tried in vain to
understand his somewhat vague and
hay speeulations. said that "a meta
physieian-the mar who engages i'll
speculations concerning the relation
of spirit to matter and time and space
is blind man, on a dark night, look
ing for d black cat that isn't there"
Whether he is or not, that character
ization is an only too true and tragic
word-picture of a mighty multitude OF
folk. You and | could name some of
them. They have all the ear marks.
They are blind
They are in the "dark"-some So
called blind men can tell day from
night and az not quite so badly off in
the light az the darkness. SO that
" blind me- a dark night is doub-
ly blind.
They are King for a black cat"
OF its spiritual equivalent. And e.
ven the cat isn't there"
They are concentrating their efforts
upon the futile pursuit of that which
has no real existence.
We need not go to darkest Africa to
find them either. We have sung how
1.-THE heath in his blindness bows
down to w and stone" mistakenly
fancing tbs ere is god somewhere
about that ID and stone, until we
are apt to conclude that the heather
has a monopoly of this business of
Catching frost birds" But he is not
alone in it by. any means.
There is something appalling in the
thought of the millions upon millions
of spiritually blind folk in the dark
night of heathendom who have spent
their lives for a hundred generations
in looking for what isn't there" 1t
parallels Niagara's power which has
gone waste thru the centuries. In
China and India, and Africa, for ages
countless hordes have spent their
lives energies and hearts affection
upon gods which exist only in their
own imagination.
But they are not the only deluded
folk. The world of civilization and
nominal Chr~istianization is full of PEG
pie whose lives are spent in chasing
the "black cat that isn't there
A man that permits himself to com
under the spell of the delusion that
great wealth brings great satisfaction
and who deyotes himself to its attain
ment is just as big a "fool'-and I
have the highest authority for the
use of that word. The cat he's after
isn't there" He may get wealth
Almost anybody with a little shrewd-
ness; a great deal of unscrupulousnes
and a str Of luck, can do that.
But after hat he was after was
not so mu. e mere wealth as the
satisfaction d happiness which he
had come 10 believe were the neces-
sary accompaniment of wealth-and
he misses these n~inety-nine times out
of a hundred. The happiness isn't
there, and he was blind to facts when
he supposed it was.
There is no possibility of any real
happiness in life for a shrivelled soul,
and the task of acquiring great wealt
without moral deterioration is too
great for most mortals. That is what
Christ meant by his "eye of the need
lie" sermon While wealth is not an
evil in itself, the temptations to tram
pie on all the noblest things of life in
it's requirement is so strong, that few
few millionaires resist it. Pay this
price for wealth is to bar oneself out
from all possibility of that very hap
piness which was the mans real mo-
tive in seeking wealth.
In Bishops Williams address before
the Cleveland Council of Sociology re-
Gently said: