Try for the Best.
An editor of experience was advising a young writer in regard to sending out manuscripts, and said: "If you have confidence in your work, send it first to the leading magazines, and not to your town paper. If it is a book, begin with the very best publishers." He cited the case of a young woman who was about to offer her first novel to a fourth-rate house. He advised her to send it to a certain honored firm which many considered to be at the head of the American publishing business, and the book was promptly accepted. The principle holds true of all effort. If a program is to be formed, try for the best speakers; you may have to come down to the second-best, but you may be surprised to find that the subject or the occasion particularly appeals to the speaker you had despaired of obtaining. Thus also if you are choosing an occupation, if you are making friends, if you are cultivating your mind, aim at the best, the most exalted, the thing that seems impossible. Do not conclude that God does not mean it for you till you have given Him a chance.
Altitude and Vision.
Balloons are wonderful things! How wonderful they are, the wise men are only beginning to find out. Here is one of their discoveries.
Dr. Daulnoy, an eye specialist of Paris, investigated the way the eye acts at a balloon altitude of six thousand feet. He was surprised to find how sharp the vision became at that splendid height. Flinging a bottle downward, he and the two others in the balloon could follow it in its flight to the lake into which it plunged, and could even make out the neck of the bottle as it disappeared in the water.
The doctor observed that the pupils of the eyes were dilated, and the sensibility of the optic nerve was increased. The arterial circulation in the retina was much more rapid than where the air-pressure is greater, and it is thought that medicines applied to the eye in certain severe and practically hopeless diseases of the precious organ would be far more efficacious if applied at such high altitudes.
At any rate, whether there is hope here for the blind and the half-blind or not, there is here a very noteworthy spiritual analogy. If you want to see things clearly, get up into the upper regions! Rise above the heavy atmosphere of earth's bargains and clamors and ambitions. The heart is more active there, the spirit is enfranchised, the vision is undimmed. If you want to see clearly both God and man, both duty and destiny, then for at least a few minutes every day mount your balloon, and rise into the upper regions of the soul!
"How Many Shingles?"
We were looking at a magnificent pine-tree. Its great trunk rose straight and proud, and carried a superb array of level branches. Masses of soft dark green stood out against a crimson sunset. All the rough strength of his woodland majesty was swathed in the tender glow. It was a corner of God's vast outdoor cathedral, a splendid shrine, full of awful beauty. Our voices were hushed, and our thoughts went heavenward.
But not the thoughts of all. For as we stood there, wrapped in silent delight, one of our number spoke out; and this is what he uttered:
"Say, how many shingles do you suppose that tree would make?"
It was the voice of America breaking in on the dreams of Europe. It was the marketman rudely jostling the artist at his easel. It was to-day impudently accosting eternity.
What are we to do with such incompetents, whose weazened lives have no room in them for loveliness or loftiness, but only for a pile of bank-notes and estimates?
We can do nothing with them; they are hopeless cases. But we can take care that we do not become like them.
We can see to it that some part of every day is consecrated to the imperishable, that our souls are fed daily with the sight of some noble picture, the words of some great poem, the sound perhaps of some worthy music, and always the authentic communion with the Lord of hosts, the Creator of beauty. We can refuse to tie ourselves to the lower levels of our lives. We can render our burdens detachable. We can recognize the transitory and cleave to the enduring. However severe our drudgery must be, we can save some little time from the shingles, and give it to the pine.
Firing at a Geometric Point.
Modern artillery men do not fire at an enemy in sight—at least, not very often. When they do so fire it is said that their aim is not so deadly as when they fire at an enemy whom they cannot see. The enemy may be over the brow of a hill or behind a forest; nevertheless, the guns will be fired directly at him and the shell will reach him.
This is brought about by the use of mathematics. The officer in charge takes his position on some high place, such as a church tower or hilltop. Or, he may remain on the level ground and may receive the reports of aviators who have scanned the entire country from the clouds. At any rate, he knows just where the enemy is.
Then he proceeds with "triangulation." He knows the distance to his gun and the two angles at this base line, and he can therefore direct the gunner how to fire if he does a little figuring.
Thus also in the battle of life we gunners often have to aim at an unseen mark. We cannot tell just where our goal is. We do not know just what to do or how to plan. But we do know what we want to accomplish in the end, and that ultimate purpose is the key to our success. There are principles of successful life, and they are as sure as the laws of mathematics. These life principles are truth and love and zeal and prudence and fidelity and industry and faith. They reach out into the unseen. They grapple with hidden enemies. They enable us to walk in the dark and fight in the dark and at last to win our victories. And it is safer to rest upon these principles, though they lead out into the unseen, than to live for lower aims that we can fully compass with our limited vision. For the triumphant life, now and eternally, is the life of high ideals.