The Taut Cord.
I was giving a stereopticon lecture. The operator, instead of handing me a stick to hammer on the floor when I wanted to change the picture on the screen, or a little electric button to squeeze in my hand, gave me a cord, and told me to pull it.
He showed me how that cord ran along the floor past the front seats, turned on a little flat pulley he had tacked to the carpet, and then ran down the main aisle of the church to-his leg! so that when I wanted a new picture, I was to pull on his leg!
I began my lecture by confessing to the audience my nervousness over the novel arrangement, and asking their co-operation in the way of stopping the operator if my over-zealous jerk should haul him down the aisle.
The operator told me that on one occasion he was using that same contrivance with a very excitable man, who, for fear, I suppose, of losing connection, pulled the cord taut all the time, so that his signal became confused, and the pictures became a jumble. The lecturer, quite unconscious of his mistake, thought a certain man in the front seat had his foot on the cord. In despair at last he called for the lights, adding, "There's an elephant has his foot on my signal cord!"
Then the long-suffering operator spoke up.
"Brother," said he, "you will get along all right if you will let up on the cord a little while yourself, and don't pull it taut all the time."
The lecture went more smoothly after that hint.
It is a hint needed by many folks that never get on lecture platforms.
Your influence ' over people, my brother, depends quite as much upon your silence as your speech, on what you do not say as on what you do say.
Do not try to be influencing people all the time. Let up on the cord. You know what nagging means. The nagger is the most un-influential man on earth. Speak a quiet word of advice at the right time, and then talk about something else for a month. Do not ask help unless and until you really need it. Do not issue a single command until you mean to be obeyed.
"Steady dropping wears away the stone" is the motto in which many folks delight.
A far better motto is this: "The rests are the life of the music."
Let Your Light Shine.
The French Academy of Sciences once received a report from Major Darget regarding some of the most remarkable experiments of recent years. It seems that every human body gives out rays of greater or less intensity. These rays, like the X-rays, are able to influence a photographic plate. Thus Darget placed on a man's forehead a photographic plate protected by triple covers. Within it was a paper printed on one side only, the white side being in contact with the sensitive plate. After this bundle had been held against the man's forehead for an hour it was found that the rays from the brain had printed the letters upon the photographic plate. The experiment was successfully repeated by others.
It was found that the sun itself, though the bundle of plate and envelopes was exposed to its most powerful rays, made no impression upon it. It was also found that the rays differed in their results, according to the health of the subject and his state of mind. Metallic plates placed between the forehead and the photographic plate changed the reproduction to images like those caused by electric discharges.
One is reminded at once of Christ's saying, "Ye are the light of the world," and His command, "Let your light shine." Just as truly as we seem to be giving out literal rays, we are certainly giving out rays of influence. Some day the wise men may be able to take snap-shots of us that will show just what we are thinking about and what we have been thinking about; but these rays of influence of which Christ spoke, this spiritual light, has always made itself visible. It is always necessary for us to make manifest to the discerning eye just what sort of men and women we are.
"If the light that is in thee be darkness," was Christ's warning, "how great is that darkness!" The wise men may be able some day to show us a coal-black picture, the horrible revelation of our inner dungeon, the prison house that we have made for our souls.
The Floors Below.
It is a five-story building in the heart of Boston. In the top story is the establishment of one of the city's leading photographers, with its reception room, its room for taking the pictures, and its rooms for developing and printing. In the latter, of course, is an abundant supply of water.
Last Saturday night (as I write) someone left a faucet open in the developing room, and then calmly went home. The janitor did not notice it; probably the janitor was not allowed in the room at all. No one came on Sunday, which speaks well for this photographer's establishment and for Boston. And then, when they came to open up on Monday morning, what a sight!
The water, running for thirty-six hours, had flooded the photographic establishment, damaging draperies, curtains and carpets. The third and fourth floors contain the rooms of a ladies' restaurant, one of the daintiest in the city. Here everything was soaked by the leak from above. On the second floor is a milliner's store, full of lovely ribbons, velvets, flowers and feathers. Drip—drip—drip—drip, all night, all day, all night again, and much of this expensive finery was destroyed. On the first floor is a shoe store, and the flood made inroads here into the delicate slippers and costly shoes. The damage in all amounted to thousands of dollars, and just because some careless worker opened a faucet, drew off some water, and then forgot to close the faucet again.
Ah, brothers, sisters! we are all living in tiers; one above another, one below another, individuals, families, neighborhoods, towns, States, countries! Sometimes you occupy the fifth floor, sometimes the fifty-first, sometimes the twentieth, for we are restless folks, and do not "stay put." May day, moving day, comes often.
Half the time you do not know who is just above you, or who is immediately below. No one knows who occupies the floors all the way down, or all the way up. Life is a vast office building, extending so far into the clouds as to make the Woolworth Building green with envy.
But, though you do not know the other folks, even those on the next floor, you know that they are there, and they know that you are there. Folks, folks, folks, packed in tiers, layer upon layer, layer below layer, endlessly!
Therefore, turn off the faucets! Therefore, be careful how you live! Therefore, take heed of what you fail to do as well as of what you do!
A little heedlessness—how it accumulates! How soon it becomes a flood! And then—drip, drip, drip—how soon and how far it leaks through! The life below, the life below that, and the life below that—why, no one knows when and where it will stop!
Your bad-temper faucet, running not water but acid. Oh, shut it off, shut it off! There are delicate fabrics below, lovely colors, beautiful bits of character that cost months to fashion, and your flood of bad temper will spoil it all.
Your worry faucet—a black stream, a stream of ink. Your base-thought faucet, running mud, an evil-smelling mud. Your malice faucet, giving forth hot water, blistering, scalding. Shut them off! Seal them up tight!
You don't care for the old carpets in your room of life? You don't mind living in a mess from a running faucet? There are folks on the floors below. They mind, if you do not. No one liveth to himself, that is, no one lives on the ground floor.
And you would be shocked if you realized who is suffering from your open faucet. You may not care about the person immediately below you, though you should—your sister, per haps, or your "best friend." But the minister, the grand and beloved Dr. Angel? Yes, and that distinguished Professor Sage? Yes, and Judge Law, in his position of great responsibility? Would you ever think them in range of your drip—drip—drip? Well, they are.
Get over this idea that you are living in a little bungalow, a one-storied affair, in the center of a ten-acre lot. Nonsense! You are in the Woolworth Building of the Universe, and you are on the ten thousand, three hundred and forty-first floor!