Four hundred years ago Jim Balboa climbed a mountain peak on the Isthmus of Panama, and looked on the boundless Pacific and said: "I have this day discovered you, and henceforth the geographies will perpetuate this great event." Little did Jim think that by 1914 ships of twenty thousand tons would sail through the impassable mountains. Jim knew he had discovered something great, but little did he dream of the real greatness of the world's future. Little did he dream that the vast new continent on whose neck he stood was to hold the greatest nation of the twentieth century. Gold, new territory for kings, new fields for the church--were the magnets which drew early navigators like Balboa to the land in the West across the Atlantic. Those early adventurers little thought of exploiting their discoveries for the benefit of mankind. It is a long time and a far cry from Capt. Balboa to Colonel Goethals, from the discoverer to the constructor, and it is our good fortune to see and enjoy a work beyond the wildest dreams of Columbus, Balboa, Cortez and the other wanderlust adventurers. Not only that, but the Panama Canal, now opened to the world, was for years deemed a chimerical dream and an impossibility, by the world as well as by most Americans. Every ditch digger, including the great De Lesseps, proved a failure, so to Yankee grit in the person of Goethals belongs the credit for the completed work which is now called the "Eighth Wonder of the World." The Pyramids, the hanging gardens of Babylon, are wonders, but we have a Yankee contractor who can duplicate them if anyone puts up the money for the job. We do not build pyramids or hanging gardens because they serve no useful purpose. The Panama Canal is a greater wonder and is a most practical benefit to mankind. It doubles our navy; it enables us to move supplies of every kind from one coast to the other quickly and less expensively. It shortens the world's highway between the oceans and helps every human being. Balboa's name will live in geographies as the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean, but Goethals' name will be remembered as the man who made most use of that discovery for the benefit of mankind. The shades of Balboa and De Lesseps likely stalk around Panama at midnight and rub their eyes in amazement. TODAY The One Time in Our Keeping As I walk on the old Santa Fe Trail each morning through Penn Valley Park in Kansas City, the marks of time are plainly visible. Erosion of water and wind have bared the sedimentary rocks and exposed the layers in well defined pages so I may study this great rock-paged geology book, and indeed it's a pleasure to me. Back of all is the grand plan of the Universe of which this earth is an atom. That plan is ruled by a Divine law and power.