But the very fascination of these things is their peril, for the tendency of any line of endeavor is to narrow and to restrict one’s life. One need not yield to this tendency, but the chances are that he will. Darwin reports spending several delightful years studying fish-worms, but while engaged in this absorbing task he lost all taste for music. Ericsson had a similar experience. Planning, with steel armor, to remake the navies of the world, he refused his soul all sound of blended tones, endeavoring to feed his whole nature on armor plate. It was not until Ole Bull, against Ericsson’s desire, entered his factory, and began playing his violin, that the great inventor became a weeping, willing captive, kneeling at the shrine of music, tearfully confessing that he had then found that which he had lost, and for which his soul had been craving. When a man, through the microscope, begins a life study of the infinitesimal, he is apt to get his own ego into the field of vision and magnify himself. On the other hand, considering only his own achievements in art or architecture, one is apt to exaggerate his own importance saying, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have builded?” However, when he begins to study the stars and comprehend something of the vastness of the plan upon which God has made the heaven and the earth, he will see his own littleness and exclaim with the psalmist, “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man?” No earth-made ceiling is high enough for a growing brain. Each individual must have a God-made sky in which to lift his head and think the thoughts of the Almighty. The earthly thing upon which we set our affection and which we think so essential may mean the wreck and ruin of the soul. It is easy to neglect the brain, and direct all one’s energies toward gaining earthly possessions, not for the opportunities afforded for benevolence, but that one may dress in style and enjoy a social life, not knowing that it is far better to be a great thinker than to be the best dressed man in Paris. Poverty may be infinitely better than wealth when the individual has a familiar sky above his head and a good book in his hand. How insignificant are earth’s greatest obstacles compared with the immensities of stellar space! Nothing can hinder the man who is accustomed to measure the distances between stars. With his eyes on the distant suns, poverty becomes a mole-hill; poor health, but a breath of mist; and success is within easy reach. It is good for one to till the sky until he learns the vastness of his Creator’s thoughts.