Norwich bulletin., 1913-02-15
SUNDAY MORNING TALK
LAMPS AND REFLECTIONS.

Home corners by night to the port of Boston may discern the flashing of Minot's Ledge lighthouse while miles out at sea. The solemn winking of that great eye sending out it's 1-4-3 seems like welcome to America. It is the sign that good Uncle Sam s latchstring is out and his light still in the window of home.
 1 counted the flashes one night from the deck of Cunarder, and long aft erward on summer morning climbed the tower to see the beacon itself. It proved to be no electric arc that had pierced the gloom for 5 miles sea ward, but only a gOod-SfZed kerosene lamp. The apparatus did not look powerful enough to send out such powerful beams.
 One got the real secret of that bril- great burnished refiectors. They are polished like ladys mirror and no touch of visitor or attendant is all lowed to cloud their gleaming sur faces. It wouldn't take such a stup- endous light after all to shine brightly before a background like that.
 Let your light shine" said the Mas ter of life to us all He assumes that our light will shine up to it's capacity if we only give it a proper chance. We are not commanded to change the form or double the strength. of the lamp, We are only to provide condi- tions so that it's whole power may be available.
 None of us can change the candle power of the light he has to exhibit. Each one of the sons of men comes Into the world with certain native powers not capable of change. The most strenuous effort. the most earn est prayer even will not alter ones native endowments.
 But if the candle power of the light may not be enlarged, it's actual efn- cienc. may be immeasura bly, increased by proper attention to the refiectors- When the furnished mirrors of indus try and concentration and deterfnina- ton are put behind even a small lamp, is is simply amazing how the light is outraged.
 No truer definition of genius has been given than this, "an infinite ca- pacity for hard work" More often than not, the pre-eminent man is sim ply one who has used his latent pow CTS to the utmost. He may or may not be exceptionally gifted.
 Some time ago, on the centenary of his birth, the papers were full of the career of the Learned Blacksmith of New Britain Conn. Elihu Burritt And it is surely remarkable what g man at the forge could accomplish foI himself and for the times in which he lived. The blacksmith struck the key note Of his own success better than SOi1G oi HIS ptCSTdplieES WHeH HE wrote of himself, "All that I have accomplished or expect or hope te accomplish has been by that plodding patient, persevering process of sccre- tien which builds the ant heap parti- ele by particle. thought by thought fact by faet' Edison said the same thing with. perhaps. touch of ex aggeration, when he remarked. Any one can do what I have done who iF willing to hold his mind day by day for 12 hours at a stretch on single problem
 The one duty for each of us is te keep his lamp of life trimmed and his ref1ectors bufnished. Whether you keer a light of the first, second third class, your sole responsibility is te make it shine up to its capacity, while Out there, entangled in the fog and i spray
 Unnumhered hopes go sailing through
 the night
 And reach the haven of a clearer day Becatise refiilgent l have kept the
 light.
 THE pARSoN