The Investment of Influence: A Study of Social Sympathy and ServiceHillis, Newell Dwight
Philosophy
The Investment of Influence: A Study of Social Sympathy and Service
Hillis, Newell Dwight
Conduct of life
blue." [1] Around it--the weak, wave-drifted mica flake--booms all the
artillery of storms, when electric arrows with blunted points fall back
from its front, as it lifts its might and majesty toward the enduring
stars.
If ages ago the sages said, God is not in the earthquake, nor in the
storm, but in the still small voice, now science reaffirms the
declaration that omnipotence is revealed not so much through awful
cataclysms and earthquake forces as through the silent agents and
hidden processes that make the plains to be fruitful and hillsides to
be rich in corn. In the past astronomy has been the favorite science,
emphasizing the distant stars and suns. The science of the future is
to be chemistry, emphasizing atoms and elements. Journeying outward in
pursuit of the footsteps of God, advancing upon his distant and dizzy
march, man's vision faints and falls upon the horizon beyond which are
indiscernible splendors. Journeying inward upon the wings of the
microscope, we shall find that there is another realm of beauty beyond
which the utmost vision of man cannot pierce. For before the
microscope "the last discernible particle dies out of sight with the
same perfect glory on it as on the last orb that glimmers in the skirts
of the universe." If God is throned in the clouds He is also
tabernacled in the dewdrop and palaced in the bud and blossom.
The history of nations and individuals teaches us that the greatest
gifts are poor and empty and the most signal talents worthless if the
small things be not done, the two mites be not given. For life is
marred by little infelicities and ruined by little errors. The broken
columns and marble heaps in lands where once were cities represent
destructions not so much through tornadoes and earthquakes as through
small vices and unnoticed sins. In modern life also, journeying
through city and forest and field, the economist returns to tell us
that life's chief wastes are through little enemies and foes. It is a
minute bug that steals the golden berry from the wheat; it is a tiny
germ upon the leaf that blights the budding peach and pear, it is a
rough spot upon the potato that fills all Ireland with fear of famine;
it is a worm that bores through the planks of the ship's hull and
alarms old seacaptains as approaching battleships could not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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