Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1911-12-14
THE MAN OF STRAW
WAS THE TOPIC.
Sixth Shop Talk Given at McCrumm
Howell Plant by Rev. c. n. Ricketts,.


The sixth shop talk given on the Sc
ries az the McCrum- Howell company
plant under the auspices of the Y. NJ.
C. A. was on Wednesday at noon. the
speaker being Rev. c. II. Ricketts, of
the Greeneville Congregational church.
He had an Interested audience of good
numbers.
Rev. Mr.. Ricketts, spoke upon the
topic, The Man of Straw He spoke in
part as follows:
1 hold in my hand small model of
what you call a core, kindly made for
my use by q workman here. / need
not tell you what it is for, because you
know better than 1. In some of the
mfdabIe looking object, but it is not
as heavy as IL looks 1t is made up
in unequal portions of nothing more
dangerous than sand. flour and mo-
baked hard. After 1t is set in the
mold it comes into contact with the
molten ore, and what happens? Why
the intense heat of the liquid saps the
very life and what is left crurnbles
like gravel; 1t Is raped out of the
casting and thrown away as a useless
thing.
This is a good illustration of what 1
want to say to you at this noon hour.
Human life everywhere has these
cores. or whatever you wish to call
them; things that seem to be more
formidable than they really are. AS
you all know, the strength of the core
is more imaginary than real. Hot
iron robs IL of 1t strength, and shears
1t of the last vestige of Its power. A
great majority, perhaps qine-tenths,
of those things in life that loom up
before us as insurmountable obstacles
are, for the most part, imaginary. At
second glance their terrors dimin-
ish. and when approached with skill
and courage they entirely vanish
away. These things are what
choose to call men of straw, because
their existence is fancied rather than
real.
Imaginary things. for the time be-
ing, can give us as much pleasure or
pain as the real. A great novel fas-
cinates us when we know that most
of 1T was born in the brain of a skilful
writer. When Melba sings the dying
wall of Marguerite we weep, even IL
Faust is most imaginary. A little
girl once burst INTO tears during a
thunder shower on the stage. There
was all the binding and deafening eff
feet of a real storm. Even though it
was produced by sheet iron and a skill
full use of the light, 1t was a tremen-
dous reality to the frightened child.
Did you ever come face to face
with black shadows that took some
nerve to go through? / have. both as
boy and man. and / tell you that
a boys shadows cause as much pain as
a mans.
worse shadows since. but not alone,
for the great white hand of love and
mercy from the throne has grasped
mine and led me safely through them
showing that they were mere spectres
that couldn't HARM Nothing will
make these men of straw disappear so
rapidly as to face them squarely under
the divine leadership.
Worlmen are up against ugly snags
very often but most snags are NOV
able. Workers of all kinds who find
life worth while meet obstacles, but
most bears and all kinds of bugbears
wilr run away when faced by a strong,
determined man.
AS workInen some of you are fac
ing this problem: How am I to edu-
cate those four boys? My income is
slender, my bank account more so.
and i can hardly meet my living ex-
Norwich wrestling with that PROPOSE
ton. But doesn't the fog lift a bit
when we think that the Almighty is
interested in the education of those
children? And that four live boys
themselves are factors in the solu-
ton? You may not be entirely out
of the woods, but now and then a
stray light comes that points GU. the
direction.
Think for moment how many men
of straw have been demolished by
sciencei With blanched faces we no
longer sing weird songs and beat
drums to drive away the evil spirits
that produce eclipses. Tennyson's
Harold is a vivid picture of early Eng
land distracted by the red trail of Hal
ley's comet. for it portended war and
carnage. Science has met these and
other superstitious bugbears and over
thrown them. But 1t is d ing a
grander work today 1t Is putting
consumption into the list of dead
nightmares. 1t has already robbed
smallpox of it's once supreme terror.
1t is throttling diphtherta and typhoid,
cancer has met it's Waterloo. Science
has been pouring hot iron upon
the core of disease, sapping its
strength and killing its power. Men.
ing us by one hand and the Almighty