The Quicksand Basis.
It was the power plant of a cement company in New York. Suddenly one morning at six o'clock, as the night gang was about to be relieved, without a particle of warning the building, together with three acres of land around it, sank about thirty feet.
Three laborers were killed and eight were injured. One of the latter may die.
The company employs about seven hundred men, and the entire plant was thrown into idleness by this accident for about seven months.
A power plant placed on a quicksand!
Not often does this happen in the business world, but very often indeed it happens in the spiritual realm.
For every soul is a power plant-is, indeed, the essential element of every power plant in the material world. And if this spiritual power plant is based on self-conceit, or on selfishness, or on fear, or on infidelity, it is founded on a quicksand far worse than the one that engulfed that power plant in New York. It is sure to go down soon or late, and only supernatural force can ever lift it up.
Bo-O-Om! Bang!
"I am-a giant," said the big siege-gun. "I require thirty-six horses to drag me along the road."
"I," said the little airplane, "carry my horse-power as a part of myself, and can go where I please."
"I am firmly founded," said the big siege-gun. "I have a concrete base, while you have beneath you only the empty air."
"But my swift motion," answered the airplane, "gives me all the stability I need."
"I can hurl a shell for fifteen miles," the siege-gun bragged.
"I can carry a shell two hundred miles," the airplane responded.
"But my shell is enormous; it can smash the stoutest fortress."
"My shell is not so large," answered the airplane; "but it can kill your gunner, or your general."
The big siege-gun had no reply ready, so with an angry crash it sent a missile against a distant fortress, demolishing a massive wall.
Instantly the little airplane dropped a shell upon the big siege-gun, which destroyed its firing mechanism and made it as useless as a block of stone in the quarry.
Thus once more it was demonstrated that the battle is not always to the strong.
The Lack.
The automobilist sat disconsolately in his car by the side of the road.
"She won't go," he explained to the crowd that soon gathered.
"Battery played out," sententiously remarked a knowing individual.
"Piston broken," suggested a second of the same type.
"Needs paint," hinted a jocular chap; "ashamed to go any farther."
"What you ought to do, sir," said a business-like man, pushing his way forward, "is to get a new car. Now I am willing to take your old machine in part trade for a Riverton Rapid twelve cylinder sixty horse power seven-passenger self-starter—"
Just then the other automobilist came up with a quart of gasoline which he poured into the tank, and the car moved away swiftly, leaving the group of spectators with their mouths open.
Moral: What most plans need, when they get stalled, is simply power.
Tapping Power.
Camille Flammarion, that imaginative French scientist, had an inspiring plan. It is almost too millennial to be carried out, and yet stranger things than its accomplishment have happened upon this old earth during our lifetime.
M. Flammarion had been thinking about that hot—blazing hot, melting hot—interior of our globe. Edison„ when he looked on the tumbling waves of the Atlantic, said that it fairly drove him crazy to see so much power going to waste. M. Flammarion was similarly disturbed when he thought of all the heat going to waste in the interior of our earth.
What he proposed was a great well sunk down far enough to tap this heat. He suggested a well zoo meters (650 feet) in diameter. He would sink it five or six miles, or further, if possible—far enough to strike a heat that would be well worth while. He would use the armies of the world to dig the well—quite the best use ever proposed for an army. And then, when the well is dug, he would let down his buckets into it and draw them up brimful of heat, to run all the factories of the globe.
It is a glorious scheme. I'd like to dig a few hours on that well myself.
What interests me particularly in the plan is its recognition of one of the great underlying sources of power. Mankind has only scratched the surface of the rich deposits which God has locked up in the world for him. Running water at first. A little deeper, and there was steam. A little deeper still, and there was electricity. A little higher, and there was wireless telegraphy. Another probe, and lo! the X-ray. Yes, and still we are only skin-deep. Let the Flammarions marshal all the armies of muscle and of mind, and let us see what God has laid up for us in His creation!
Discoveries as surprising and as vast remain for us, I believe, in the realm of spirit. Even there we are living still upon the surface, while beneath us, and not so very far down, either, there are reservoirs of a power that will exceed our utmost hopes when we reach it in our probing. Jesus reached it, and promised that we should. Greater things than He did we might do, He declared. The faith that can remove mountains is within our reach, and the mountains tower yet on every hand.
Give me my spade! I am for the deeper things of life!
Fixing Nitrogen.
One of the greatest problems before the chemist is to devise an easy and cheap way of taking the nitrogen from the air and "fixing" it, that is, obtaining it in a liquid form, nitric acid, or in some of the solid nitrates. The impoverished soil needs it, to supply the matter taken from it by the growing crops. If we could put it back cheaply and abundantly, our food would be much cheaper and better.
There is, of course, an enormous amount of this nitrogen. Gas though it is, 33,800 tons of it lie above every acre of the earth's surface. Whoever can "fix" this boundless supply will be one of the world's greatest benefactors. As it is, the process is long and costly,—an electrical process requiring considerable power.
What interests me just now is the perfect analogy with the spiritual realm. For in the spirit world are foods and forces that dwarf all the supplies we mortals have yet obtained. The giants reach up into it and capture some of it for themselves and others, but it is not the common food and the common force that God designed it to be.
The shame of it is that it is all to be had for the asking. We have no costly process to conduct, no expensive factory to rear. We have only to seek and we shall find, only to reach out and to be filled. If the "fixing" of the material nitrogen would mean the wealth and health of the world, the "fixing" of the spiritual nitrogen in receptive human lives would mean for all men the wealth and health of the eternal life.
Using the Clutch.
The clutch of an automobile is the contrivance which connects the power of the engine on to the main shaft. This shaft runs through the car and by revolving, turns the rear wheels, thus propelling the car.
The engine may be going full speed, but if the clutch is not in operation, the car will not move.
If the car is moving rapidly and the clutch is thrown out, or disengaged from the main shaft, the car will run a while on its momentum, and will stop, because no fresh energy is transmitted to the wheels.
It was a long time after I began to drive an automobile before I learned how the clutch acts, and probably many other drivers are as ignorant; yet it is very easy to understand, and it is very necessary that a driver should understand it.
In brief, the engine operates a heavy flywheel, which it causes to revolve rapidly. This flywheel is dish shaped, and the end of the shaft is of the same shape, but reversed, so that it fits exactly into the flywheel. It is pressed against the flywheel by strong springs, and this is the contrivance which is called the "clutch."
When the clutch is pulled away from the flywheel by a lever worked by the driver's foot, the flywheel can have no effect upon the shaft. When the clutch is pressed against the flywheel by the springs, the friction of the wheel turns the clutch, and with it the shaft, which by its revolutions, turns the rear wheels, and the car moves.
The only connection between the clutch and the flywheel is friction. To increase this friction, one of the surfaces that rub together is covered with leather. This leather must be kept soft with oil, or it will fail to rub properly, and perhaps burn out with the rapid motion.
I have described the common form of clutch, called the "cone clutch" because of the shape of the shaft end which fits against the flywheel. There are other forms, but the principle is the same.
Why is the clutch necessary? Why not connect the motor directly with the shaft, as in a steam engine?
Because steam expands slowly or rapidly according to the work it has to do, and the piston rod communicates its energy gradually to the driving wheels; but on the contrary, a gasoline engine gets its energy from explosions, violent and sharp, which would break the shaft and its connections, if communicated suddenly to them while the car was standing still. Therefore this ingenious clutch was invented to set the shaft to revolving gradually faster and faster, even though the power comes in swift concussions.
Now you see the importance of the clutch. It must not be too oily, or it will slip; or have too little oil, or it will burn. The springs must not be too strong, or it will jerk; nor too weak, for then also it will slip. It must work just right, or the engine and the car will not work just right.
As I have meditated on the clutch—and much meditation on the clutch is forced upon an automobilist—I have come to see the value of a parallel contrivance in our life automobiles.
Many a young fellow fails to use his clutch wisely. He generates plenty of power. He can play ball with the best. He can yell like a Comanche Indian. He can row a boat all day. But he does not harness up his energy to the shaft of any useful occupation, and so the car of his life never gets anywhere.
Other young fellows take a sudden notion to go to work. In they throw the clutch, there is a big noise, their life cars give a jolting bounce ahead, and you would expect them to fly up the pike, distancing all competitors. But the sudden weight stalls the engine, if indeed it does not break some of the machinery, and they come to a dead stop.
Give me the chap who uses his clutch with common sense and discretion. He applies his energy—physical, mental, spiritual—with gradually and steadily increasing power. Every day betters the preceding day. Every day brings a slight gain in efficiency. He knows enough to throw out his clutch when he comes to a down grade, and to give his car rest and relaxation. He knows enough to throw in his clutch when he reaches again the upgrade of work. Thus he spins on swiftly, league after league, and turns a triumphant sweep into the garage at the end of the run.
Power is fine, and a beautiful car is fine, but unless the power is wisely and consistently applied to the car, of what use is the whole?