Some years ago there came to Los Angeles, the great metropolis of Southern California, a so-called “human fly.” It was announced that on a given day he would climb up the face of one of the large department store buildings, and long before the appointed time, thousands of eager spectators were gathered to see him perform the seemingly impossible feat.
But slowly and carefully he mounted aloft, now clinging to a window ledge, anon to a jutting brick, again to a cornice. Up and up he went, against apparently insurmountable difficulties. At last he was nearing the top. He was seen to feel to right and left and above his head for something firm enough to support his weight, to carry him further. And soon he seemed to spy what looked like a gray bit of stone or discolored brick protruding from the smooth wall. He reached for it, but it was just beyond him. He ventured all on a spring-like movement, grasped the protuberance and, before the horrified eyes of the spectators, fell to the ground and was broken to pieces. In his dead hand was found a spider’s web! What he evidently mistook for solid stone or brick turned out to be nothing but dried froth!
Alas, how many are thinking to climb to heaven by effort of their own, only to find at last that they have ventured all on a spider’s web, and so are lost forever.