Part 65

Reading books is an idle occupation unless you make your reading profitable to other human beings, and that you cannot do on a desert island.

The trouble with many readers is this: They read as though they WERE on a desert island. They sop up literature or facts as a sponge sops up water; then, like human sponges, do nothing with their wisdom. They read for themselves; they read to increase their egotism and self-approval, and for no other purpose. ----

But, after walking into an intellectual parlor above our station in life, it certainly does not become us to be finicky.

We'll tell as quickly as possible what it is that surprises us:

NOT ONE COOK COUNTY THINKER MENTIONS A BOOK ON ASTRONOMY.

A man on a desert island has a little sand, some goats and a few miles of ocean around him--nothing else in sight.

But above him, and on the low plains of the horizon, the great universe is spread out. Vega flashes overhead, beckoning to this little solar system that is rolling on toward her.

The old, benevolent stars look through cold space at our little sun that was not even hatched in their yesterday.

The Milky Way, that Mississippi of the sky, rolls across the thousands of billions of miles of space.

The messenger-boy comets go on their long, elliptical errands. The colored planets and moons, the nebular masses and the cold, dead worlds lying in the silent morgue of eternity tell the wonderful story of cosmic grandeur.

We should think that a man on a desert island, living constantly in contemplation of God's real work, would want to study that work.

The greatest book ON MEN that ever was written on this earth is but an analysis of the emotions of imperfect human minds. A good ASTRONOMY is a guide book of GOD'S kingdom.

Many Cook County litterateurs select Carlyle for a desert island companion. Have they not observed that Carlyle's mind was fixed on contemplation of the universe?--"the eternal silences" were his friends. And when he seeks monkeyfied human soldiers, booted and spurred, he asks, "What thinks Bootes of them, as he leads his hunting dogs across the zenith in a leash of sidereal fire?"

O, Cook County thinkers, inhabitants of a small corner of this small ant-hill, drop your alcohol-loving tentmaker--Omar--forget your half-hearted fondness for Milton. Buy "Ball's Story of the Heavens," or even some simpler astronomy; spend four dollars and four weeks finding out how grand is our real home, the boundless, beautiful universe.

THE MARVELLOUS BALANCE OF THE UNIVERSE--A LESSON IN THE TEXAS FLOOD

A tidal wave and hurricane combined have destroyed thousands of lives in one small corner of the globe.

After the first excitement and horror, the creditable outpouring of help, there should be thankfulness in the hearts of the many millions who live on safely.

Do you ever think of the wonderful protection, the marvellous precision in celestial mechanics that guard you as you travel through space? ----

The oceans, seas and lakes contain water enough to cover the entire surface of the earth to a depth of six hundred feet, if the earth's surface were actually round.

In huge reservoirs, which we call oceans, the earth's waters are stored for our use. Those vast volumes of water rest on the surface of a whirling sphere travelling through space at fearful speed. The slightest derangement, the slightest lack of balance in our motion round the sun, the slightest shifting of the poles, and mountains of water miles high would sweep over the continents and wipe out--not only one small city--but the entire human race. ----

Our existence here requires a precision so great that our minds can but feebly grasp it. Change the temperature of your body by but a few degrees and you die. But you travel through space safely, with a freezing ocean of ether about you. You travel in company with suns that throw out endless billions of degrees of heat. You are protected in a travelling hothouse, regulated exactly to suit your feeble strength and all your wants. ----

Did you ever see the small, black nose of a pug dog pressed against the window of a flying express train?

Have you ever seen that pug barking at the landscape whirling by?

Have you ever reflected on the utter inability of that pug to realize the marvellous intelligence and power that are whirling him along as he barks and wags his tail and enjoys himself calmly?

Kind reader, you and all of us, whirling along in this magnificently conducted express train called the earth--whirling onward to a destiny worthy of our habitation--are so many poor little pug dogs looking out at nature's marvels and looking out with less than pug-dog appreciation.

THE EARTH IS ONLY A FRONT YARD

The philosophers, political economists, lawmakers, editors, sociologists, and all the other would-be deep thinkers of this earth, are really engaged in a pretty small business.

We are like a swarm of human beings cast away on some desert island. This earth is our island, a little island in space, and it is a desert island and a badly arranged island in more ways than one. Many of us lack good dwellings, some of us lack food, all of us are worried about the future. The island is infested with mosquitoes and with diseases that we have not learned to conquer. There are many criminals on it that prey upon the honest people--criminals at the top and criminals at the bottom of society.