Wise Emptiness.
In Waltham, Mass., the famous watch town, they completed and shipped to England the biggest watch in the world. It went, appropriately, to the biggest city in the world, London, where it was hung in front of the American Waltham Watch Company's building.
Its case is of aluminum finished in gold, and it is five feet in diameter. Its dials—for it has two, one on either side of the watch—are four feet across. One dial is fitted out with Roman numerals and the other with Arabic.
But—and this is why I am telling you about the monster timepiece—inside, it is empty! It has no watch movement at all,—only a simple mechanism connecting its hands with one of the best timepieces the Waltham Company could make, which is kept inside the building, and is electrically connected with the hands on the outside watch.
Well, why shouldn't it be empty? It is hollow, but it isn't a "hollow mockery." It tells the time, and tells it accurately; what more do you want of a watch?
Indeed, it tells the time far more accurately than it would were the works inside it. You have all observed how unreliable are clocks exposed to the weather. Now the sun beats hard upon them. Now the sleet cakes upon them. Now the winds shake them. Now the mists creep into them. No wonder they often get too fast or too slow. No wonder they often stop altogether.
But the timepiece within doors is protected against all this, and the electric current does not mind it at all, so that our Waltham watch will move regularly and steadily on, and all London will set its watches by it.
Brethren, you see the point, do you not? For in our lives, those things of space and time, an empty watch-case, with the right connection, is better, far better, than a case filled with independent works. "Empty yourselves," the preachers exhort; and they mean just this. Be content to be nothing, or next to nothing,—just moving hands and a speaking face,—if only Christ will be all in all within you. Let the electric throb of divine control direct you, and you need no wisdom or power of your own, no wisdom or power besides. Men will look up to you, and by you will even regulate their lives.
Self-Fillers.
My fountain pen is not of the self-filling sort. I must hunt up my glass-tube-rubber-bulb combination every time my pen runs dry; and if the glass tube isn't broken and the rubber bulb isn't cracked, I can get my pen to running wet again.
But there are fountain pens that are self-fillers. When they run dry, you have only to insert the pen end in the bottle of ink, and then pull out a piston rod, or rotate a screw, or press a bulb in the side, and lo! the reservoir is full again, ready for another quire of wisdom or folly.
It is convenient, undoubtedly. It must already have saved the recording angel many an entry of profanity. To say nothing about ink on the fingers and the table-cloth and the carpet. I wish my pen were a self-filler.
Better still, and more to the point, I wish I were a self-filler.
For sadly much of my filling I am indebted to others. Can't fill up my reservoir of good cheer without their help. Or of courage and faith. Or of practical wisdom. Must hunt them up,—some book, some friend, some circle of friends,—or my life is a distressful blank, meaningless as white paper.
I want to be independent of other folks in a matter so important as my soul reservoirs, just as I would not depend on them for my dinner, or for my daily measure of fresh air. I want to include within my own being all necessary instruments, facilities, and powers. I do not want to be at the mercy of broken glass tubes and cracked rubber bulbs.
Of course, I am not forgetting that the source of supply must always be outside me, as it is outside my friends upon whom I am depending. I realize, too, that no fountain pen, be it the very latest patented "self-filler," can fill itself. Always a Hand must pull the rod, rotate the screw, or press the bulb. But I would be in personal touch with the source of supply. I would not depend upon an intermediary. In this sense, I would be a self-filler.
And if I want to be, and want it hard enough, I, unlike my fountain pen, can be.
Why Chairs?
A lecturer at the Harvard Medical School has deplored the use of chairs.
The chair is a comparatively modern institution. Early man had no need of chairs. Orientals to this day do not use them.
Our dependence upon chairs has weakened our back muscles, with consequent weakening of the many functions depending upon them.
Chairs seldom fit the back, and a poorly fitting chair deforms the back while it pretends to aid it.
Chairs hold us in one position and prevent the free movement that nature intended.
Sitting on the floor without a back to lean against strengthens our spines and the muscles of the legs as well as those of the back. Rising to our feet still further develops our muscles.
So run the arguments of the physiologist. They sound reasonable, but what is one to do? Try to sit on the floor or on a bench without a back, and before many minutes you will have ample evidence of your dependence upon the cabinet-maker and the upholsterer. Many decades of subservience to chairs on the part of us and our parents have made us their permanent slaves. Only a long-continued course of gymnastics with this aim definitely in view can put stamina into our backs and ransom us, at least in part, from this slavery.
In this matter, as in so many others, we come to the stern principle that man is strong in proportion as he is independent of things. Learn to be self-sufficient. Learn to do without. Learn to be satisfied with what God has placed within your immediate reach and undisputed possession. Do not allow your happiness or comfort on earth to be bound up with anything that is not readily and easily and everywhere obtainable. This is a wise rule; it is a Christian rule as well. It is a part of that emancipation from this earth which has so large a share in fitting us for heaven.
Our grandmothers took pride in sitting bolt upright, their backs at no point touching the backs of their chairs. In this matter, as in many others, we cannot do better than imitate them.