Norwich bulletin., 1917-09-22
Sunday Morning Talk
Carbon in the Cylinders

When the motor is sluggish, does not l respond readily to the throttle, begins l the knowing chauffeur will hazard several guesses as to where the trouble lies. He may blame the gasolene, the coil, the carburetor, the spark plugs, of the car But the one best guess l is apt to be-carbon. The black deposit need not be abundant to do lot of 1 damage. Nothing can more effectual1y kill the engines power and take away the joy of motoring.
 It is remarkable how small handi- cap will make heavy going for any of us on the road of life. One sometimes imagines that only outstanding faults are destined to ensure failure. To learn better let him study people in his immediate vicinity. Better still, let him begin nearer home and take
 stock of himself. The facts are writ ten so plain that he who runs may read
 Most mortals lag behind in the process
 sion, not because of hopeless incapac-
 ity, or of pronounced vices. but simply because their life engines. have never developed full power. Carbon has gathered in their cylinders and been allowed to remain.
 Let us admit that scores of personal habits and indulgences not to be con- than helpful. Their general tendency is to hinder They interfere to greater or less degree with the smooth running of the human machine.
 A writer who had for years con- stunned more cigarets than he, perhaps realized, gradually became conscious that his work was costing him more effort than formerly, and, at the same The blame-was finally laid on the sub tie poison of nicotine. The man said that he had begun to feel like a person wearing mittens-only, in this case, tI 1,ie !,
 Against how many common prac- tises might a similar charge be brought! It is not so much for the bad work they do, as for the good Subtracting. say, a tenth of the workers power, they mar the full ex- cellence of his product.
 Various habits of thought to which the average man must plead guilty are not the less serious because they are generally unrea1iZed. They repre- sent just enough waste and energy to keep one behind in the race. A habit of irresolutfon, the inability to weigh evidence and choose, chronic lack of self confidence, worry in all it's mani fold forms, such as mental traits as these represent carbon, fit only to over heat the human engine, to short circuit the mental spark plugs, and, generally, to dissipate power.
 If an efficiency expert were to ob- serve most of us, he would not be long in putting his finger on the weak places. The marvel to most of us would We ourselves might have discovered these things if we had looked for them. They escaped us simply because we had become stupidly content with a life engine that was skipping, knocking, and developing about six-eights of its normal power.
 "The proper study of mankind Is man." said Pope. For most of r.S the field may well be narrowed down Let one turn his gaze, at least at frequent away from E1cial problems and toward personal ones, not to swell his own conceit, but to grasp his pos- work, if he would with the most deli cate and wonderful machine he will ever have the handling of! What un- utilized powers lie dormant in his own 
 Life at it's best is so much more in l teresting and worth while than life l even at it's second best! It is com 1 parable to the difference between mo- tor that purrs even while it speeds and l one can enlarge the bore of his life | cylinders, but each one of us can keep 1 those chambers of power clean. That 1 Is part of the wisdom of the road. |
 The Apostle Paul never saw gaso- l ene engine but he understood the hu man spirit as few have done before or i since. Ee knew how we strugglers in this earthly pilgrimage need all the | aids. seen and unseen. He asked us to 1 shun the needless encumbrances. 'Wherefore", he said. laying aside | every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us. let us run with pa- .fence the race that is set before us." If he had been as familiar with motor ng as with foot racin gin the amphi- 1 theatre. he might have written: Keep your cylinders clean"
 THE PARSoN. !