Chapter 56

Gen. Fitzhugh Lee witnessed the memorable meeting between his uncle, Gen. Robert E. Lee, and Grant, and he frequently exprest his appreciation of the magnanimity displayed by the victorious commander on that occasion. The fact that General Grant refrained from asking for Gen. Robert E. Lee’s sword made a lasting impression on Fitzhugh Lee, who subsequently said: “General Grant not only refrained from demanding my uncle’s sword, as is customary, but he actually apologized to General Lee for not having his own sword on at the time.” (Text.)

(1945)

SeeGood for Evil.

Magnanimity, A Boy’s—SeeVicarious Sacrifice.

Magnanimity, A Nation’s—SeeAmerica’s Attitude.

MAGNANIMITY, UNDISCIPLINED

Precipitancy of judgment and heat of temper are responsible for all the errors of Walter Savage Landor’s life. To recount these errors is neither wise, necessary, nor generous. One thing, however, is noticeable, that in every case the difficulties which he created for himself arose from a sort of undisciplined magnanimity of nature, a belief in impracticable ideals, a radical inability to adapt himself to the common convictions of life. He sinned against himself in a hundred instances, but against others never. His generosity was extreme and incessant. In his enormous agricultural experiments at Llanthony he squandered seventy thousand pounds in five years—J. W. Dawson, “Makers of English Prose.”

(1946)

MAGNETISM

The use of powerful electromagnets for lifting pieces of iron in foundries is increasing. InThe American Machinist, E. F. Lake gives some particulars of recent applications of electromagnetism to lifting, and discusses the economies effected thereby. He says:“At the West Allis works of the Allis-Chalmers Company, lifting magnets are prest into service for saving the small pieces and even minute particles of iron and steel which have heretofore been allowed to go to waste without thought of the possibility of recovery.“This is done periodically by hitching the magnets to traveling-cranes and allowing them to sweep over every inch of ground area, both in and around the works. It is a never-failing source of wonder to the shops’ management how much lost metal the magnets can find.” (Text.)

“At the West Allis works of the Allis-Chalmers Company, lifting magnets are prest into service for saving the small pieces and even minute particles of iron and steel which have heretofore been allowed to go to waste without thought of the possibility of recovery.

“This is done periodically by hitching the magnets to traveling-cranes and allowing them to sweep over every inch of ground area, both in and around the works. It is a never-failing source of wonder to the shops’ management how much lost metal the magnets can find.” (Text.)

(1947)

Magnificence—SeeIce Beauty.

MAGNIFYING A SACRED OFFICE

Increase Mather, in a sermon entitled “Be Very Courageous,” tells the story: “It has been reported that a minister, preaching to the Earl of Stratford, then lord deputy of Ireland, faithfully reproved some corruptions which that governor was known to be guilty of, but at which he was displeased; and the next day, in a great passion, he sent for the minister, and began his discourse thus: ‘Yesterday, when you were before me, you said such and such things.’ The minister replied to him: ‘You are mistaken, sir; I was not before you yesterday. I confess I am before your excellency to-day, but you were before me yesterday. You represent the kingdom; but yesterday I was made representative of the Almighty God, who is infinitely above the greatest kings on earth.’ Upon that, the earl was so affected as to dismiss the minister without saying anything more to him.” Here was a man who magnified his office, who spoke with authority, and not as the scribes.—Christian Register.

(1948)

Magnifying Objects—SeeScience, Improvements by.

Mail, Handling—SeeCare in Performing Duties.

Main Objects versus Incidentals—SeeTasks, The Real.

Majority Not Always Right—SeeConviction, Unyielding.

Majority-rule—SeeJustice by Majority;Tact.

MAKE-BELIEVE

If all difference could be atoned as easily as that described in this extract from thePopular Magazine, much bloodshed would be saved:

Not long ago a Paris journalist, who had by some criticism offended a politician, received from him the following letter:“Sir—One does not send a challenge to a bandit of your species: one simply administers a cuff on the ears. Therefore, I hereby cuff both your ears. Be grateful to me for not having recourse to weapons.

Not long ago a Paris journalist, who had by some criticism offended a politician, received from him the following letter:

“Sir—One does not send a challenge to a bandit of your species: one simply administers a cuff on the ears. Therefore, I hereby cuff both your ears. Be grateful to me for not having recourse to weapons.

“Yours truly, ——”

The journalist answered:“My Dear Sir and Adversary—I thank you, according to your wish, for having sent me cuffs by post, instead of slaughtering me with weapons. Cuffed by post, I respond by dispatching you by post six bullets in the head. I kill you by letter. Please consider yourself dead from the first line of this epistle.“With a respectful salutation to your corpse, I am,

The journalist answered:

“My Dear Sir and Adversary—I thank you, according to your wish, for having sent me cuffs by post, instead of slaughtering me with weapons. Cuffed by post, I respond by dispatching you by post six bullets in the head. I kill you by letter. Please consider yourself dead from the first line of this epistle.

“With a respectful salutation to your corpse, I am,

“Very truly yours, ——.”

The intent to kill is present. Is not that reckoned in morals as bad as the overt act? (Text.)

(1949)

Malaria, Stamping Out—SeeImmunity from Disease.

Malice—SeeModesty.

Malingery—SeeSham.

MAMMON WORSHIP

At Nashville, Tenn., there recently died an eccentric old lady, known in the neighborhood as a miser of the most pronounced type, tho possessing multiplied thousands. After her death the premises were searched for the money, known to be hidden in various places about the house. She had no confidence in banks, and therefore employed this method of concealing her treasures. For seventeen years she never left her home, lest some one get her money. Was ever a life more completely misspent? The joy she might have had by helping others, she missed because of her miserly disposition. She preferred to be poor—really poor—in the midst of her gold. She starved her soul that she might worship at the shrine of Mammon.—The Gospel Messenger.

(1950)

MAN A CREATOR

The fork, the knife, the graver, the spade, they are merely steel fingers, iron hands, accumulating and prolonging the energy of those members. The rudder which the hand holds, it is in effect that hand itself, enlarged, and shielded from the wash of the waves. The telescope, with its wondrous space-penetrating power, the microscope, with its clear and searching lens, in which seems almost an image of Omniscience, are yet only adjutants and servitors to the eye, that more marvelous instrument which no hand can fashion. The soul of man, invisible itself, controlsthe eye. It creates the telescope, to be its assistant. The locomotive steam-engine, with its connected trains of cars, whose tread is like an earthquake traversing the surface, whose rush outruns in noise and power the plunge of the cataract—the soul has created that as a servant to the body, to move this on its errands, and to carry its burdens. The steamship flashing through night and storm, trampling the riotous waves beneath it, and drowning the strife and uproar of the winds, by its more measured and peremptory stroke, is a similar instrument sent forth on the seas. Each began in a thought. Each was born of the soul. And that which produced them has the power to work with them, for any effects.—Richard S. Storrs.

(1951)

MAN A TIMEKEEPER

There are many ways in which a man is like a watch, as this curious epitaph shows, which can be seen in the churchyard at Lydford, Devonshire, England:

Here lies in a horizontal positionThe outside case ofGeorge Routledge, watchmaker.Integrity was the main-spring and prudencethe regulator of all the actions of his life;Humane, generous and liberal,His hand never stopt till he had relieveddistress;So nicely regulated were his movements thathe never went wrong,Except when set a-going by people who didnot know his key;

Even then he was easily set right again.He had the art of disposing of his time sowellThat his hours glided away in one continuedround of pleasure.Till, in an unlucky moment, his pulsestopt beating.He ran down Nov. 14, 1801, aged 57,In hopes of being taken in hand by hisMaker,Thoroughly cleaned, repaired, wound up andset a-going,In the world to come, when time shall beno more.

(1952)

MAN AS A TEMPLE

My God, I heard this dayThat none doth build a stately habitationBut he that means to dwell therein.What house more stately hath there beenOr can be, than is man? To whose creationAll things are in decay.Since then, my God, Thou hastSo brave a palace built, O dwell in it,That it may dwell with Thee at last!Till Thou afford us so much witThat, as the world serve us, we may serve Thee,And both Thy servants be. (Text.)—George Herbert.

My God, I heard this day

That none doth build a stately habitation

But he that means to dwell therein.

What house more stately hath there been

Or can be, than is man? To whose creation

All things are in decay.

Since then, my God, Thou hastSo brave a palace built, O dwell in it,That it may dwell with Thee at last!Till Thou afford us so much witThat, as the world serve us, we may serve Thee,And both Thy servants be. (Text.)—George Herbert.

Since then, my God, Thou hast

So brave a palace built, O dwell in it,

That it may dwell with Thee at last!

Till Thou afford us so much wit

That, as the world serve us, we may serve Thee,

And both Thy servants be. (Text.)

—George Herbert.

(1953)

MAN GODLIKE

An unidentified writer here points out the greatness of man even tho often overthrown:

Swarming across the earthly crust,Delving deep in the yellow dust,Raising his ant-hills here and there,Scoring the soil for his humble fare,Braving the sea in his tiny boat—Tireless he struggles, this human mote.Tempests scatter his ant-hills wide,Vainly he braves the boiling tide,Fire will ruin his busy mart,Famine stilleth his throbbing heart,Trembles the earth and prone he falls,Crusht and tombed by his pigmy walls.Heir of the kingdom ’neath the skies,Often he falls, yet falls to rise.Stumbling, bleeding, beaten back,Holding still to the upward track;Playing his part in creation’s plan,Godlike in image—this is man!

Swarming across the earthly crust,

Delving deep in the yellow dust,

Raising his ant-hills here and there,

Scoring the soil for his humble fare,

Braving the sea in his tiny boat—

Tireless he struggles, this human mote.

Tempests scatter his ant-hills wide,Vainly he braves the boiling tide,Fire will ruin his busy mart,Famine stilleth his throbbing heart,Trembles the earth and prone he falls,Crusht and tombed by his pigmy walls.

Tempests scatter his ant-hills wide,

Vainly he braves the boiling tide,

Fire will ruin his busy mart,

Famine stilleth his throbbing heart,

Trembles the earth and prone he falls,

Crusht and tombed by his pigmy walls.

Heir of the kingdom ’neath the skies,Often he falls, yet falls to rise.Stumbling, bleeding, beaten back,Holding still to the upward track;Playing his part in creation’s plan,Godlike in image—this is man!

Heir of the kingdom ’neath the skies,

Often he falls, yet falls to rise.

Stumbling, bleeding, beaten back,

Holding still to the upward track;

Playing his part in creation’s plan,

Godlike in image—this is man!

(1954)

Man Imitating Nature—SeeImitation of Nature.

MAN INDESTRUCTIBLE

Some time ago a Philadelphia anatomist announced to the world that the brain of Walt Whitman, through the carelessness of a hospital employee, had been lost to science. The jar that held the poet’s brain fell to the floor and was broken, so that not even the fragments of the organ were saved. Well, let the poet’s brain be shattered, if you will; the poet himself can not be touched. The flaming star-wheels can not crush him, the maddened oceans can not engulf him, the black caves of night can not hide him, the scorching flames of hell can not destroy him. Man is a spark of divinity the image of deity, an “emotion of God flashed into time.”—F. F. Shannon.

(1955)

MAN MADE FOR ETERNITY

You can tell the difference between sea and land birds by the length and strength of their wings. The wings of the former are intended for long and sustained action in their sweep along the surface of the great ocean.

Man’s soul, in a similar manner, is not intended for this material world, but has long and strong wings of hope and affection wherewith to span the ocean of eternity.—Vyrnwy Morgan, “The Cambro-American Pulpit.”

(1956)

Man Not a Puppet—SeeMastery of Circumstances.

Man, Original—SeeOriginality of Man.

MAN POSSESSING NATURE

Thomas Traherne, a poet, whose worth was discovered only after he was dead, is the author of the following:

The orb of light in its wide circuit moves,Corn for our food springs out of very mire.Our fuel grows in woods and groves;Choice herbs and flowers aspireTo kiss our feet; beasts court our loves.How glorious is man’s fate!The laws of God, the works He did create,His ancient ways, are His and my estate.

The orb of light in its wide circuit moves,

Corn for our food springs out of very mire.

Our fuel grows in woods and groves;

Choice herbs and flowers aspire

To kiss our feet; beasts court our loves.

How glorious is man’s fate!

The laws of God, the works He did create,

His ancient ways, are His and my estate.

(1957)

MAN, SLOW DEVELOPMENT OF

Robert Loveman takes a wide view of man in this verse:

A thousand years doth nature planUpon the making of a man;She sweeps the generations through,To find the patient, strong, and true;She rends the surge of seven seas,Rearing an humble Socrates;She burns a hundred years of sun,Sealing the soul of Solomon.A thousand years doth nature planUpon the making of a Man;She sees the ages dawn apace,Ere Moses rouse his shackled race,Or Homer or sweet Shakespeare sing,Beside his deep eternal spring;The centuries rise in reverence whenBuddha doth come unto his men.A thousand years doth nature planUpon the making of a man;She fills his heart with fire and faith,She leaves him loyal unto death;She lights his lustrous, loving eyeWith flashes of immortality;She adds one more undying nameUpon the heated scroll of fame.—“Songs from a Georgia Garden.”

A thousand years doth nature plan

Upon the making of a man;

She sweeps the generations through,

To find the patient, strong, and true;

She rends the surge of seven seas,

Rearing an humble Socrates;

She burns a hundred years of sun,

Sealing the soul of Solomon.

A thousand years doth nature planUpon the making of a Man;She sees the ages dawn apace,Ere Moses rouse his shackled race,Or Homer or sweet Shakespeare sing,Beside his deep eternal spring;The centuries rise in reverence whenBuddha doth come unto his men.

A thousand years doth nature plan

Upon the making of a Man;

She sees the ages dawn apace,

Ere Moses rouse his shackled race,

Or Homer or sweet Shakespeare sing,

Beside his deep eternal spring;

The centuries rise in reverence when

Buddha doth come unto his men.

A thousand years doth nature planUpon the making of a man;She fills his heart with fire and faith,She leaves him loyal unto death;She lights his lustrous, loving eyeWith flashes of immortality;She adds one more undying nameUpon the heated scroll of fame.—“Songs from a Georgia Garden.”

A thousand years doth nature plan

Upon the making of a man;

She fills his heart with fire and faith,

She leaves him loyal unto death;

She lights his lustrous, loving eye

With flashes of immortality;

She adds one more undying name

Upon the heated scroll of fame.

—“Songs from a Georgia Garden.”

(1958)

Man, Superiority of—SeeSpeech.

Man, The Manly—SeeManliness.

Man the Product of Many Elements—SeeDiverse Influences.

MAN, VALUE OF A

Years ago a Mr. Campbell, a British subject, was held a prisoner by Theodore, King of Abyssinia. England demanded his release, sending an army of ten thousand men who marched seven hundred miles, to Coomassie, and all at a cost of twenty-five million dollars—just to rescue a single man. (Text.)

(1959)

Maneuvering by Birds—SeeStratagem by Birds.

MANHOOD

We need not more machinery or institutions. What the world needs is men, as Rudyard Kipling shows in this verse:

The peace of shocked foundations flewBefore his ribald questionings,He broke the oracles in twoAnd bared the paltry wires and strings;He headed desert wanderings;He led his soul, his cause, his clan,A little from the ruck of things.Once on a time there was a man.Thrones, powers, dominions block the viewWith episodes and underlings;The meek historian deems them true,Nor heeds the song that Clio sings,The simple central truth that stingsThe mob to boo, the priest to ban,Things never yet created things.Once on a time there was a man. (Text.)—Collier’s Weekly.

The peace of shocked foundations flew

Before his ribald questionings,

He broke the oracles in two

And bared the paltry wires and strings;

He headed desert wanderings;

He led his soul, his cause, his clan,

A little from the ruck of things.

Once on a time there was a man.

Thrones, powers, dominions block the viewWith episodes and underlings;The meek historian deems them true,Nor heeds the song that Clio sings,The simple central truth that stingsThe mob to boo, the priest to ban,Things never yet created things.Once on a time there was a man. (Text.)—Collier’s Weekly.

Thrones, powers, dominions block the view

With episodes and underlings;

The meek historian deems them true,

Nor heeds the song that Clio sings,

The simple central truth that stings

The mob to boo, the priest to ban,

Things never yet created things.

Once on a time there was a man. (Text.)

—Collier’s Weekly.

(1960)

MANHOOD RECOGNIZED

Jesus saw in the meanest man the possibilities of character. This is what Charles Wagner urges us to do in the following extract:

Maintain toward the poor man and the infirm a courtesy, an attentiveness; find in your heart and in your love a sign that makes him recollect that he is a man. His misery is like a tomb in which his self-respect sleeps buried. It is something to respect this tomb, to approach it with piety, to care for it and to keep a flower growing there; but each of these attentions is addrest to one that is dead, shows that you accept his death, and that you confirm it. Do more and do better. Remember that it is a living man that lies under the dust, slowly amassed, of days of suffering. Breathe upon this dust, disengage the human form; speak to Lazarus and make him come forth from the shrouds that surround him, from the night that covers him. (Text.)—“The Gospel of Life.”

(1961)

MANIFESTATION

Just as creation is the revelation of God—His avowal, as a poet has said—so in the same way the external life of man, when it follows its normal development, is the translation, in signs and symbols, of what he bears at the bottom of his being. It would be easier to keep the sap from mounting, the flowers from opening, the leaves from tearing apart their coverings, than human nature from manifesting itself. It is this need that gives man his distinction as a social and communicative being.—Charles Wagner, “The Gospel of Life.”

(1962)

MANLINESS

The world has room for the manly man, with the spirit of manly cheer; The world delights in the man who smiles when his eyes keep back the tear; It loves the man who, when things go wrong, can take his place and stand With his face to the fight and his eyes to the light, and toil with a willing hand; The manly man is the country’s need, and the moment’s need, forsooth, With a heart that beats to the pulsing tread of the lilied leagues of truth; The world is his and it waits for him, and it leaps to hear the ring Of the blow he strikes and the wheels he turns and the hammers he dares to swing; It likes the forward look in his face, the poise of his noble head, And the onward lunge of his tireless will and the sweeps of his dauntless tread! Hurrah for the manly man who comes with sunlight on his face, And the strength to do and the will to dare and the courage to find his place! The world delights in the manly man, and the weak and evil flee When the manly man goes forth to hold his own on land or sea! (Text.) —American Israelite.

(1963)

Manner, The Orator’s—SeeEarnestness.

Manners—SeeCircumstances, Taking Advantage of;Dual Character;Machine Testimony.

Manners, Teaching Bad—SeePoliteness.

MAN’S AGE ON EARTH

Some scientists reason that the Falls of Niagara must have been formed soon after the Glacial Epoch, and the time occupied in wearing the rock back to the present position therefore furnishes a basis for calculating the age of man on the earth, as he must have begun his career since that epoch:

In an address in Washington before the United States Geological Survey, Professor Gilbert gave the following interesting information regarding the recession of the ground under Niagara Falls: The estimate is that for the past forty-four years the falls have receded at the rate of twenty-four feet in a year. The Horseshoe Falls are at the head of the gorge and the American Falls at the eastern side, but the time was when both were together, before the little point called Goat Island was reached. The recession is more rapid at the center than on the sides. As the crest of the Horseshoe Falls retreats the water tends to concentrate there, and the time will probably come when the sides of the present falls will have become dry shores. The gorge is known to be 35,500 feet long. A calculation has shown that, on this basis, the falls began to wear away the rock of the escarpment near Lewiston about 7,900 years ago.—Public Opinion.

(1964)

MAN’S CONQUEST OF ANIMALS

Man-eating tigers have for so long been regarded by the natives of most parts of India as invincible, or else protected by the native religions, that they have had things pretty much their own way. One determined hunter for every fifty frightened, unarmed men would scarcely serve to intimidate any animal. Many tribes of North American Indians looked upon the bear with veneration; but for all that, any bear so courageous as to let himself be seen by them got an arrow between his ribs right away, and in time the whole tribe of American bears learned that the chances were against them, just as the wolves and cougars arrived at a similar conclusion. Those that turned man-eaters might for a few seasons hunt their prey successfully, and if gifted with unusual cunning get away unscratched for a while, but the vengeance of the tribe would be certain to overtake them before very long, and only the more cowardly ones of their species would survive to perpetuate the race.—Witmer StoneandWilliam Everett Cram, “American Animals.”

(1965)

Man’s Greatness—SeeSize not Power.

MAN’S IMPORTANCE

The world is one thing to a bird, or a fish, but quite another thing to Cuvier or Agassiz. Then man entered the scene. Stretching out his hand he waved a wonder-working wand. He touched the wood, and it became a wagon; he touched the ore and it became an engine; he touched the boughs and they became the reeds of an organ; he touched the wild animal, and it became a burden-bearer for his weary feet; while his intellect turned the stone into geology, and the stars into astronomy, and the fields into husbandry, and his duties into ethics. When the flint and steel meet, something beyond either appears—a tongue of flame. And when man and nature met, something new emerged—art, industry, ethics, cities and civilization. There is nothing great in nature but man. Take man out of this wondrous city with its cathedrals, galleries, and homes, and Broadway would become a streak of iron-rust. The earth wears man upon her bosom as the circling ring wears a sparkling gem. The bog puts forth a white lily; genius is a flower rooted in earth, but borrowing its bloom and beauty from heaven.—N. D. Hillis.

(1966)

Man’s Part—SeeEvangelization.

Man’s Part in Religion—SeeFaith.

MAN’S PREEMINENCE

When you approach a great city at night and see only its tens of thousands of lights, you do not for a moment attach importance to those mechanical contrivances, the lights. The unseen inhabitants in the tens of thousands of lighted homes are the real objects of interest and worth. So the worlds, and not the suns, are the objects of true worth and interest in the universe; the worlds, the lighted and glowing houses of God’s children, not the mechanical contrivances for making them comfortable. Upon these must center our thought and interest. What is the fire which warms the man and cooks his dinner, compared with the man himself? What is the light and fire, compared with the home? What is the sun, compared with the world? Just here we begin to get some breath of assurance. While the worlds in our system differ very greatly in size and glory, while some of the great suns doubtless have correspondingly great worlds circling about them, yet we may reasonably suppose that among the worlds of the universe our earth is somewhere near the middle of the scale. And we earth-dwellers, intelligent children of the Father, are no mean citizens in the kingdom of our God. If He has built such a mansion of light for us, and kindled such a hearth-fire as our sun, and made us lords and masters of such a world as this, why may we not lift up our heads in love and triumph? (Text.)—James H. Ecob.

(1967)

SeeSpeech.

MAN’S SIZE

How big is a man, anyway? Well, he is smaller than an elephant, and an elephant is smaller than a mountain, and a mountain is smaller than the world, and the world is a mustard-seed compared with the sun, and the sun itself is a mere mote in the dust cloud of spheres that stretches out through the universe beyond the reach of thought.

Coleridge said bigness is not greatness. So while mountains and worlds are bigger than men, man can remove mountains if not worlds. It is not mere size that counts, but power and worth. (Text.)

(1968)

MAN’S WORKS

Mabel Earle writes of a bridge flung across from a cliff to an opposite shore as a symbol of man’s service, improving natural formations:

The cliff stood waiting, silent and alone,After the rending shock which gave it birth;Age upon age the waters wore the stone,And the long shadows wheeled across the earth,Swinging from west to east. Through sun and snowIt kept God’s secret whispered long ago.Once from its topmost crag a cable swung,And a face laughed against its frowning strength,The life of man in splendid risk outflungFulfilling the slow centuries at length;On the bare rock to stamp his signet clear,God’s warrant witnessed by the engineer.Then, with a flash of fire and blinding smoke,A peal that shook the mountain, base to crest,The silence of the waiting eons brokeInto the thunder of that high behest,And on the steep where never foot had trodMen wrought a pathway for the will of God.God of the cliff, from whom the whisper fellOf hope and hope’s fulfilment yet to be,Make good Thy promise unto us as well;Yoke Thou our pride in love’s captivity;And, tho it come through fire and scar and throe,Give us the crown of service, Lord, to know.

The cliff stood waiting, silent and alone,

After the rending shock which gave it birth;

Age upon age the waters wore the stone,

And the long shadows wheeled across the earth,

Swinging from west to east. Through sun and snow

It kept God’s secret whispered long ago.

Once from its topmost crag a cable swung,And a face laughed against its frowning strength,The life of man in splendid risk outflungFulfilling the slow centuries at length;On the bare rock to stamp his signet clear,God’s warrant witnessed by the engineer.

Once from its topmost crag a cable swung,

And a face laughed against its frowning strength,

The life of man in splendid risk outflung

Fulfilling the slow centuries at length;

On the bare rock to stamp his signet clear,

God’s warrant witnessed by the engineer.

Then, with a flash of fire and blinding smoke,A peal that shook the mountain, base to crest,The silence of the waiting eons brokeInto the thunder of that high behest,And on the steep where never foot had trodMen wrought a pathway for the will of God.

Then, with a flash of fire and blinding smoke,

A peal that shook the mountain, base to crest,

The silence of the waiting eons broke

Into the thunder of that high behest,

And on the steep where never foot had trod

Men wrought a pathway for the will of God.

God of the cliff, from whom the whisper fellOf hope and hope’s fulfilment yet to be,Make good Thy promise unto us as well;Yoke Thou our pride in love’s captivity;And, tho it come through fire and scar and throe,Give us the crown of service, Lord, to know.

God of the cliff, from whom the whisper fell

Of hope and hope’s fulfilment yet to be,

Make good Thy promise unto us as well;

Yoke Thou our pride in love’s captivity;

And, tho it come through fire and scar and throe,

Give us the crown of service, Lord, to know.

(1969)

The last ten summers have witnessed greater changes than the previous 10,000, for man has learned to work with nature and God. The old manuscripts and the grains and fruits depicted in old frescoes, tell us that the ancient world had all our grains and fruits. Centuries passed, but the same sheaves and boughs were ripened. It could not be otherwise. The wheat had no feet, the flowers had no hands. The tulip needed man. One day man decided to work together with the fruit. He took the most brilliant colors and carried the plants into a glass house and sealed the room tight. Then he went one hundred miles and brought another tulip, being feet thereto, and pollenized the one flower with the seed of the other. When ten years had passed, lo, there were 5,000 new flowers, never seen before, brilliant in hue, and of an unwonted perfume, growing in the fields of Holland. In Minnesota, using similar methods, the scientists have produced 2,000 new kinds of wheat, and three of these wheats have added enormous wealth to Minnesota and Dakota. Out in Illinois a professor selected corn with reference to the increase of the oil that heats, makes muscle and builds tissue. He carried the percentage of oil in a grain of corn from four hundredths to six hundredths, and this added some five hundred millions to the wealth of the great corn States in a single year. And he did it by tying tissue-paper over the tops of his selected cornstalks, after which he journeyed several hundred miles, to bring pollen with which to fertilize the stalks.—N. D. Hillis.

(1970)

Manual-training and Culture—SeeComprehensiveness in Education.

Many Strings Required—SeeString, The Need of More than One.

Margin, The, and Character—SeeCharacter, Test of.

MARGINS OF LIFE

It is the little greater care of the extra hour, the additional effort that constitutes the margin of advantage of one man over another. President Garfield said:

When I was in college, a certain young man was leading the class in Latin. I couldn’t see how he got the start of us all so. To us he seemed to have an infinite knowledge. He knew more than we did. Finally, one day, I asked him when he learned his Latin lesson. “At night,” he replied. I learned mine at the same time. His window was not far from mine, and I could see him from my own. I had finished my lesson the next night as well as usual, and, feeling sleepy, was about to go to bed. I happened to saunter to my window, and there I saw my classmate still bending diligently over his book. “There’s where he gets his margin on me,” I thought. “But he shall not have it for once,” I resolved. “I will study just a little longer than he does to night.” So I took down my books again, and, opening to the lesson, went to work with renewedvigor. I watched for the light to go out in my classmate’s room. In fifteen minutes it was all dark. “There is his margin,” I thought. It was fifteen minutes more time. It was hunting out fifteen minutes more of rules and root derivatives. How often, when a lesson is well prepared, just five minutes spent in perfecting it will make one the best in the class. The margin in such a case as that is very small, but it is all-important. The world is made up of little things. (Text.)

(1971)

MARKING TIME

Too much of human effort consists of merely going through motions without ever getting forward:

Bicycle races without leaving the starting-place, which are said to be the latest craze in places of amusement in Paris, are described inPopular Mechanics. Says this paper: “The wheel is fixt in a frame fastened to the floor. When the rider begins to pedal, a belt from the rear wheel drives a small electrical generator. The current thus produced is conducted to a motor on wheels and carrying a flag. The track on which the motor travels is marked in distances, and each foot of track requires as much work by the rider as would have carried the bicycle one mile had it been free to run as under ordinary conditions of use.” (Text.)

(1972)

MARKS, COVERING

When the physician prescribed blisters to Marie Bashkirtseff to check her consumptive tendency, the vain, cynical girl wrote: “I will put on as many blisters as thee like. I shall be able to hide the mark by bodices trimmed with flowers and lace and tulle, and a thousand other delightful things that are worn, without being required; it may even look pretty. Ah! I am comforted.” (Text.)

(1973)

MARKS OF CHARACTER

Admiration is sometimes exprest about the peaceful faces of nuns, sisters of charity, and similar devotees of the secluded life. But if you polish a piece of stone and keep it in a cabinet it will be smooth. The same stone set into a foundation will soon show marks of the weather. So marks on the face, lines of care, traces of sorrow, usually show that one has been doing something; has been of some use; has been developing character.

(1974)

Marks, Removing—SeeReminders, Unpleasant.

MARRIAGE

Look at marriage as a divine plan for mutual compensation—each making up for the deficiencies of the other, somewhat as the two lenses of crown-glass and flint-glass combine in the achromatic lens. What one has the other has not, and so, by association, each gets the advantage of the other’s capacity, and finds relief from conscious lack and incompetency.—A. T. Pierson.

(1975)

Marriage and Divorce—SeeBirth-rate in France;Divorce.

MARRIAGE CUSTOM, BRUTAL

The marriage ceremony of the Australian savages consists often in the simple process of stunning a stray female of a neighboring tribe by means of a club, and then dragging her away an unresisting captive, just as the males of the larger species of seal are said to attack and temporarily disable their intended mates.—Felix Oswald,Good Health.

(1976)

MARRIAGE RACING

A writer in the New YorkCommercial Advertiser, describing certain curious marriage customs, says:

In some cases the ceremony takes the form of what is called bride-racing. The girl is given a certain start and the lover is expected to overtake her. An observer among the Calmucks assures us that no Calmuck girl is ever caught “unless she have a partiality for her pursuer.”Per contra, Mr. Kennan tells us of a bride-race among the Koriacks (northern Asia) which he witnest, where the girl went scampering, pursued by her lover, through a succession of compartments, called pologs, in a large tent. So nimble was the maid that she distanced her pursuer, but—she waited for him in the last polog! All of which goes to prove that the wise men of old knew what they were talking about when they said that the race is not always to the swift.

(1977)

MARRIAGE RELATIONS IN THE EAST

The third relation in Confucius’ teaching is that of “Husband and Wife.” Confucius expressly teaches that husband and wife are very “different” beings, which is in startling contrast to the teachings of Christ, whocalled the twain “one.” The husband of the East was carefully cautioned not to love his wife very much, as that showed an effeminate man. The kiss between husband and wife was wholly unknown, and when foreigners were first seen to show affection in this way, it was regarded as extremely funny. “Every time I see foreigners kiss, I catch a sick,” said a student who was trying to air his English.—John H. De Forest, “Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdom.”

(1978)

MARTYR SPIRIT

Bad things are said against the Japanese, with more or less truth. But yet, a nation whose history has so many moral heroes can not be bad at heart. Japan has produced one man who gave his life to save the people of his province from oppression and ruin. He was cruelly crucified, his innocent wife with him, and their children were barbarously executed before the parents’ eyes. Yet this man’s dying words on the cross were: “Had I five hundred lives, I’d gladly give them all for you, my people.” So far as I know, there is no other story in all history so closely resembling that of the crucifixion of Christ as this. The nation that can produce one such hero has the potency and promise of noble morality. This fearlessness of death in the face of duty runs all through the history of the people, which tells of wives who willingly died for their husbands, of children for their parents, of parents for their children, and of subjects for their lords.—John H. De Forest, “Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdom.”

(1979)

Martyrdom—SeeMissionary Martyrdom.

MARTYRS

They never fail who dieIn a great cause; the block may soak their gore,Their heads may sodden in the sun, their limbsBe strung to city gates and castle walls,But still their spirits walk abroad, tho yearsElapse, and others share as dark a doom;They but augment the deep and swelling thoughtsThat overpower all others, and conductThe world at last to freedom.—Byron.

They never fail who die

In a great cause; the block may soak their gore,

Their heads may sodden in the sun, their limbs

Be strung to city gates and castle walls,

But still their spirits walk abroad, tho years

Elapse, and others share as dark a doom;

They but augment the deep and swelling thoughts

That overpower all others, and conduct

The world at last to freedom.

—Byron.

(1980)

Masks—SeeEvil, Disguised.

MASSES, AMONG THE

Alexander Irvine, author and lecturer, speaking before the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, said in part:

Back to Index Next