Nor is this only the day-dream of a poet. The summers and flowers that
last alway are a very immediate treasure which one has only to perceive,
to grasp, to recognize, and to realize. "Surely," exclaimed the
Psalmist, "goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever." This dwelling in
"the house of the Lord" is by no means a figure of speech. Nor is it to
be regarded as some ineffable privilege to be--possibly to be--enjoyed
after that change we call death. Its real significance is here and now.
One must dwell in "the house of the Lord" to-day, and every day. The
"house of the Lord" is a beautiful figurative expression for that
spiritual atmosphere in which one may perpetually live, and in which it
is his simple duty both to live and to radiate to all around him.
In these summer days of 1903, in this golden dawn of the twentieth
century, the world is echoing with wonder in the discovery of a new and
most mysterious force in nature,--radium. Science is, at this date,
powerless to analyze or explain its marvellous power. The leading
scientists of the world of learning--Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver
Lodge, and Professor Curie (who, with Mme. Curie, has the honor of being
its discoverer)--believe that in radium will be found the true solution
of the problem of matter. Radium gives off rays at the speed of one
hundred and twenty thousand miles a second, and these rays offer the
most extraordinary heat, light, and power. Yet with this immense
radiation it suffers no diminution of energy; nor can any scientist yet
discern from what source this power is fed. A grain of it will furnish
enough light to enable one to read, and, as Professor J. J. Thomson has
observed, it will suffer no diminution in a million years. It will burn
the flesh through a metal box and through clothing, but without burning
the texture of the garments. The rays given out by radium cannot be
refracted, polarized, or regularly reflected in the way of ordinary
light, although some of them can be turned aside by a magnet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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