- ing. Pumps are not living things, but they,
too, suffer exhaustion. Must you give it up, and dig a new well? Oh, no. The well is all right, and has given abundant and sweet water for a generation. You look it over, and find that the old leather valve is dry and worn out. Pour in a pitcher of water to wet it, and the wheezing is cured. Put in a new valve and the old pump is good for years to come. God's supply of living water is abundant as ever. It is only your connection with it that failed.—Franklin Noble, "Sermons in Illustration."
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CONQUEST BY MAN
These vehement elements, of air and water,
demand to be wrestled with and patiently
mastered, by the vigorous soul, in order that
they may administer to our happiness. There
is the wax. In the soul is the seal, designed
to impress it. There are the materials, upon
which and with which the spirit is to operate.
But no implements, even, are given it for
its use. It must forge them, as it wants
them. They are not found ready fashioned
to the hand, as ornamental stones are, in
the caverns and rock-rifts. They must be
conceived by our skill, and completed by our
labor. But the moment we begin, all is
ready for our progress.—Richard S. Storrs.
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CONQUEST, COMMONPLACE
Even the conquest of the North Pole takes on an aspect of the commonplace, especially after many years of hard work. The New York Times quotes this entry from Peary's journal:
The pole at last! The prize of three centuries,
my dream and goal for twenty years,
mine at last! I can not bring myself to
realize it.
It all seems so simple and commonplace. As Bartlett said when turning back, when speaking of his being in these exclusive regions which no mortal had ever penetrated before:
"It is just like every day!"
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Conquest, Peaceful—See Emigration, Conquest by.
CONQUEST, SEVERE
Death Valley is the most barren part of
the Great American Desert. More men have
died in its arid wastes than on any other
equal area of the world's surface, barring
the great battle-fields. It lies, a great sink in
the sandy plain, about 250 miles north and
east of Los Angeles, Cal., and within the
boundaries of that State. The valley received
its sinister name owing to the fact
that in the early fifties a party of emigrants,
some hundred and twenty in number, traveling
overland by wagon from Salt Lake City,
Utah, to Los Angeles, perished in its awful
solitudes, barely a man escaping.
In the Wide World Magazine is given the story of a man who, alone and unaided, conquered Death Valley in the hottest month of the desert year. The tale of awful suffering endured by this man, H. W. Manton, of Rhyolite, Cal., is told for the first time in his own words.
For almost a week Manton was lost in the heart of Death Valley. In three days he tramped eighty miles over sands so hot that he could scarcely walk on them, tho shod with heavy shoes. During those never-ending days he had no food, and but one drink of water.
When he staggered up to Cub Lee's Furnace Creek ranch, more dead than alive, his tongue was swollen to such a size that his mouth could no longer contain it. His lips and eyelids were cracked open; his clothing was in tatters, and his shoes were coated with a heavy incrustation of borax and other alkalines, which had eaten great holes in the leather.
At first he could not drink, and the touch of water was as fire to his parched lips and tongue. Kind-hearted ranchmen and miners forced the precious fluid into his mouth with a straw, with a spoon—any way to get him revived. And eventually he spoke, telling the strange story of his crossing the dread pit; of how he had wandered therein for many days, with no companions save the lizards and the snakes of the barren sands.—Boston Transcript.
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CONSCIENCE
There is an ingenious instrument used in
testing the condition of railroads whereby
every slight deviation in the width or levelness
of the track, every defect of the rails,
and even the quality of the steel and manufacture
are registered.
Is not a well-instructed and carefully
cultivated conscience just such a dyno-*graph?
(537)
"Conscience makes cowards of us all." The following rather amusing in-
