The Pickens sentinel. (Pickens, S.C.) 1911-2016, 1912-06-20

~ e us tuluh l1lIlS al u@&ASS<S
not, my speculative friend, nal
IS lions OF dollars. but. to begin
81 A with. in millions OF miles.
Where were you last year at
this time? Just where you are now
and signing for some experience OF
travel" do you say? Why. my dear
sir, or madam, you have travelled some
hundreds OF millions Of miles To this
twelvemonth and still are travelling.
What is Panama or Constantinople or
Pekin in comparison with this great
journey of the sun and It's attendant
earth! While you have been longing
to go from Boston to Lynn to visit
friends, you have in fact traTersed an
untmaginable breadth Of space. The
difficulty of getting started is in your
imagination The yeriest Lob-he-oy-
the-fire, In the remotest hamlet-even
that woman who lived for sixty years
within sight of the passing trains and
never stepped on board OF one OF
them-is far traveller.
Yes. but you say, that cosmic travel
is both unimaginable and unsatisfac-
tory. Lynn and Boston are at least
real places where houses stand and
taxes are collected. One gets the e1.
citement OF the crowded station and
may look out OF the car window. But
our werld-spiral round the Fastening
sun is like going from nowhither to
nowhere. There are neither stations
nor stops nor scenery.
Two Views Of Lies Journey.
1t Is quite true, OF course. in enc
sense. that the pleasures Of this
prodigious journey are largely out OF
sight. But do not the world and your
fellow travellers take on different
aspect because you are not marooned
in some corner Of the universe, but
travel in the midst of stars and suns?
These thoughts may not appeal to
you. Perhaps your Imagination Is 80
rusty from disuse that you cannot
make it work at all In this direction.
Then you are like the fly that buzzes
in moving railroad car. It is un-
aware that it's car has moved from
Boston and will arrive in Montreal.
So long as it finds food and occupa-
ton. the journey Is matter OF indif-
ference The fly is happy-let 1t buzz,
and find no fault with its limitations.
1t will be quite as much at home In
Canada as Massachusetts,. And so
are we, except that age draws on, in
all the stages OF our unimaginable
journey. The widest imagination.
like the exactest research. cannot
grasp and picture the facts and i'm
plications Of this planetary and solar
f:ght-a journey where to stop would
be annihilation, and In which we have
no hint OF destination. Did We start
from anywhere? We can only guess.
Are We bound for anywhere! We
can never know. Some OF our friends.
the astronomers, have reasoned that
we are bound from a collision and
catastrophe to a collision and catas-
trophe. Others incline to guess that
barring accidents-our journey may
be endless.
The frst effect OF this thinking in
millions OF miles was to make man
seem Insignificant and God remote.
The poet Young, who told rs that IAN
undeyout astronomer Is mad" might
come back to find astronomers OF this
degree OF madness not uncommon.
God, regarded as the artihcer, must
certainly seem far away when We
consider the unthinkable distances We
travel and the greater spaces We dis
Germ Man seems puny in the limlta-
tions Of his being and his knowledge.
How slow our steps beside the silent