When Solomon was gathering his materials to build the Temple, his, large cedar trunks from Lebanon and his costly materials from everywhere, he used oxen, mules, camels.
With all his wisdom, he little dreamed that the day would come when his descendants, instead of using mules and huge beasts of burden, would heat water and with steam develop a force sufficient to tear his Temple from its foundation.
Still less did he dream that steam would eventually be superseded, as clumsy and primitive, by the invisible force of electricity.
When the thunder roared, the lightning flashed and his conscience troubled him, Solomon, turning away from his thousand wives and his numerous other doubtful a.s.sociates, put his head under the richly embroidered pillow, worked, perhaps, by Sheba"s own fair hands--it did not enter his mind that that lightning could be tamed and put to work.
Man has been gradually controlling and employing the various animals on the earth"s surface. He taught the elephant to haul wood and water and to fight his battles. He trained the horse, the dog. He even taught falcons to bring him back birds from beyond the clouds, and otters to catch fish in the bottom of lakes and rivers.
Gradually he has made himself independent of his animal partners.
The rifle made the falcon useless; steam destroyed the importance of the horse and the ox.
But apparently we have only begun using animal life. We must run the whole gamut of the marvels of creation before conquering conditions on this earth. ----
We used to train the biggest dogs to kill wolves. The Government of the United States is now breeding darning-needles to kill mosquitoes.
A certain kind of wasp, with a black and white striped body, spends his time killing house-flies, and this creature could be bred and used to destroy the disease-spreading pests.
Even the invisible insect life can be made most useful to man and to his health.
The latest plan for disposing of city sewage involves the cultivation of microbes, to be employed as disinfectors.
Several towns in Illinois and in Wisconsin have established plants for the purification of sewage by means of microbe life.
The collections of organisms invisible to the naked eye are to be kept in great antiseptic tanks, and employed in the purification of the city "s refuse.
Mosquitoes will ultimately be destroyed, undoubtedly, by breeding among them smaller creatures fatal to their existence.
Man, in his conquest and use of animal life, will run the gamut, from the biggest elephant, employed as a public executioner in India, to the invisible microbe, doing a work ten thousand times more important all over the globe.
These infinitesimal microbes, bred and controlled by science, will do regularly and methodically the work which buzzards and vultures have done on land, which sharks and dogfish have done at sea, throughout endless centuries.
To the marvellous workings of nature we cannot possibly give too much thought or too great admiration. Gardens are filled with beautiful flowers, and fields are fertile to-day because hundreds of years ago sea birds were devouring the carca.s.ses of dead fish, acting as nature"s scavengers, and building up the great guano fields of South America.
There is a Peruvian millionaire in his big yacht, and there is a rose in full bloom--the millionaire"s money, the beauty of the rose, come from those birds that picked up the dead fish five hundred years ago.
It"s an interesting world.
THE ELEPHANT THAT WILL NOT MOVE HAS BETTER EXCUSES THAN WE HAVE FOR FOLLY DISPLAYED
This is an editorial which we shall merely suggest, and which each reader will write out for himself.
In the Zoological Garden of New York a poor elephant has stood in chains for years. The animal was thought to be vicious, and was kept fastened tightly to one spot, that it might have no leeway to do damage.
A short time ago its keeper became convinced that the elephant would do no harm and might safely be unchained. The chains were taken off, and the keeper thought with satisfaction that the poor beast would now enjoy freedom and be made happy by the possibility of moving freely about its large inclosure.
The elephant did not move. The chains were gone, it was no longer tied, but it stood, and it still stands, in just the same spot.
The habit of slavery, of monotony, had become too strong. The elephant, though free, stands still, sadly swaying its heavy head, ignorant of the freedom that has come to it.
Men and women and children who see the elephant, and other men who write paragraphs for the newspapers, dilate on the poor animal"s "stupidity."
"The elephant has been called the most intelligent of animals,"
says one writer, "but this elephant, that doesn"t know when the chains are off, seems to prove that the elephant can be a good deal of a fool."
How easy it is for us human beings to see the faults in others, our fellows, and the animals below us.
But which one of us can truly say that he is not in exactly the same position as that poor elephant, fixed to one spot by the chains of long ago?
Are we not still standing as a race just as we stood years and centuries ago, ignorant of the freedom that has come to us?
Thousands of splendid men have worked, lived and died to free us from superst.i.tion, from credulity, from ignorance, yet still we stand in the same place, and fail to appreciate the freedom that is ours. ----
Millions of us, tied down by foolish superst.i.tion, are like that elephant--the chains are off, but we stand still.
The road to peace, happiness and universal progress has been shown us in the teachings of great leaders, but we still stand in the same old place, fighting, hating, cheating, suspecting, harming one another.
Here and there there is a little progress; gradually we begin to appreciate and enjoy the freedom that has been given to us with the striking away of old mental chains. The process is slow.
Look into your own mind. Do you take advantage of all the possibilities that are before you? Do you use your brain to control your existence, acts and habits for your own benefit and the benefit of others?
If not, you ought to sympathize with this poor elephant, and realize that as your brain exceeds his in bulk proportionately, so do you exceed him in the folly that misses opportunity.
LET US BE THANKFUL
You get tired of reading editorials in which one man, spouting from his editorial pulpit, lays down the law for you--without giving you a chance to reply or contradict.
So let us write this editorial together.
There you sit--the reader--in your street car, or perhaps clinging to a strap, and here we sit, impersonal editorial creature, thinking over thankfulness, Thanksgiving Day, and what reasons we have for feeling thankful.
Let us talk as few plat.i.tudes as possible, and try to get at a few of the inside workings of human life. ----
You look across the car and hate the fat man who lounges and spreads his feet around so boorishly.
LET US BE THANKFUL THAT WE SO READILY PERCEIVE THE SHORTCOMINGS OF OTHERS.
Much comfort is derived from others" failings. In the quiet evenings we talk of our neighbors" weaknesses and we enjoy them.
By contrast we admire ourselves.
LET US BE THANKFUL THAT WE NEVER APPRECIATE OUR OWN LIMITATIONS.
Each man"s children are beautiful and promising in his view.