Norwich bulletin., 1914-11-28
SUNDAY MORNING TALK
THE SHADOW OF PETER.

When of old the apostle passed along the streets of Jerusalem we read that people brought out their sick that lat least the shadow of Peter passing by might overhadow some of them" Wherever the great-hearted, sympa- thetic man walked an unconscious but mighty and healing influence emanated from him that gave strength to the weak and courage to the faint. So runs the beautiful story in the books of Acts.
 As casters of shadows at least we Your own life, gentle reader, is making its inevitable impression from day to day There is a radiation of influence from your personality that you can not prevent even if you would. As a clear thinker has said, Some name less influence goes out from your least conscious hours that alters and shapes in its little measure every man, woman or child that you ever know"
 One may be as unconscious of this influence as Peter was. It is not pri- marily the result of ones words. You may be a reserved and rather silent individual, wondering sometimes whether so quiet life as yours can tell in any way on its surroundings. Remember that character rather than words is the real dynamic that moves 1u0 1l1G 1S 1T1OTe CEOQucnL the lip. Emerson is right in his epi- gram: ''What you are speaks so loud l cannot hear what you say.
 There is nothing more subtle or more real than the aroma that clings to personality. I cannot tell why one per- son cheers and invigorates me and another depreSSeS me. l cannot tell why come from one interview be- lieying more intensely in myself and in my kind and from another with my ideals blurred, my faith disturbed, and my courage dampened. But I know that it is so.
 Have you ever been on shipboard when the mercury begins to drop and the air to shiver with chill and to drip with wet? The captain says that an iceberg is near and stays on the bridge in anxious vigil. The fcebergs are not all on the sea. You may run across one on land almost any day. They cross our path at intervals, these human frigidities, and chill us to the marrow. We are at our worst in their presence.
 But the story has another side. There are personalities also as charged with genial and vitaizing warmth as the sun in Sprtngtime. In their pres ence we reach our maximum degree Of wit and wisdom and cheer. They invigorate us by the simple contact of their minds upon our own. We go
 
 and singing with joy.
 Browning teiis the story of Pippa, the little worker in the silk mills of Asolo, who sang a cheerful song as she roamed the streets on her one holiday. The girlisn voice, the inno- cent words, reach the ears and touch the coneeiences of four, different peo- pie in whose lives the day marks a moral crisis, but none of whom the singer sees When Pippa passes the sky grows clear again for these tempted ones. How little we realize, in our mutual dependence one upon the other. what simplest act of ours may turn the balances in favor of the good as against the evil!
 Let one consider well then the in- fuence proceeding from those hours when he acts or speaks with the least of conscious design. Let one have a care for that subtle thing in his life that is we'll named-atmosphere It may not be weighed or analyized, but there is no mightier moral force. It may be saver of faith and of hope or of ci1serless doubt, the former. if we will it so quite as surely as the latter. One has no moro immediate responsibility than to pass through life in such a spirit as shall make this same pilgrim way easier for some toiling brother.
 THE PARSoN.