more than a billion and a half of men. Of course such a thing never happens, because so many of the young aphids get eaten by lady-bird beetles and flower-fly larvæ and other enemies before they come to be old enough to produce young.—Vernon L. Kellogg, "Insect Stories."
(1085)
FEEDING TOO MUCH
The apostle James puts the emphasis of
religion on doing, not hearing alone. The
one definition of religion we have in Scripture,
and that given by him, is suggestive
of the divine order—the best way to keep
oneself unspotted from the world is to be
occupied in ministry to others. A good deacon
once complained to Thomas Dixon that
his sermons placed too much emphasis on
doing and reminded him of Jesus' command
to Peter, "Feed my sheep." Mr. Dixon replied:
"That is what is the matter with
you; I have fed you until you are so fat
you can not walk."—Charles Luther Kloss,
"Proceedings of The Religious Education
Association," 1904.
(1086)
FEELING A FOUNTAIN
Feeling is a fountain that gushes life.
Emotions in the soul are like songs, pouring
forth from the birds in the thicket. Orange
groves and peach orchards exhale perfume,
and feeling is the soul's fragrance, rising toward
God and its fellows. The seas send up
their whitest mists, and the soul ought to
send up its emotions in whitest clouds of incense
toward the throne of God and toward
man's soul.—N. D. Hillis.
(1087)
FEELING AND PRINCIPLE
You know the difference between feeling
and principle. Yonder is an old sailboat out
in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and
when the wind blows, she travels ten miles
an hour, but let the wind lull, and she will
lie there two weeks, within a hundred yards
of where the wind left her. She doesn't go
anywhere. That is feeling. When the wind
blows, off she goes.
What is principle? Yonder is a grand old ocean steamer, and when the wind blows she spreads her sails and works her steam, and on she goes; and when the wind lulls, the engineer pulls his throttle wider open, and she goes at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, whether the wind blows or not. And that is the difference between principle and feeling.—"Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones."
(1088)
Feeling the Christian Spirit—See Consistency.
FEELINGS RESERVED
Among Scotch qualities, the deepest rooted,
apart from the fear of God, is sentiment.
And yet we do not receive credit for it because
we have not sentimentalism, which is
the caricature and ghost of sentiment. The
sentiment of the Scotch is of the heart and
not of the lips. If I saw a couple of Scotchmen
kissing each other good-by, I wouldn't
lend five shillings to either of them. It is
not an uncommon thing to see such an exhibition
among Italians. I do not blame
them. They are as God made them and so
they must be. People doubt whether we have
any sentiment at all. Some think we are
hard-hearted and cold-blooded. Our manner
is less than genial and not effusive. Our
misfortune is not to be able to express our
feelings. This inability is allied to our
strength; strong people conceal their feelings.—John
Watson.
(1089)
Fees—See Ridicule, Apt.
Feet Showing Character—See Character
Shown in the Feet.
Female Animals Unprotected—See
Father Animals Unparental.
FENCING OUT ENEMIES
Moral evils are kept out not by a thorn fence, but by holy ideals and loving activities. These are quite as effective for character as this Arizona device for excluding rattlesnakes:
Did you ever hear of a rattlesnake fence—not
one made of rattlesnakes, of course not,
but one made of prickly thorns to protect
one from the rattlers and keep them away?
That is what the Arizona campers build,
and the only way to keep these deadly poisoners
away is by building one of these
fences of oktea, a shrub covered with thorns
which grows on the desert.
As the tents have no doors and are not set much above the ground, it would appear easy for Mr. Rattler to effect an entrance. Imagine the sensation of crawling into bed some cold night to strike against the clammy skin of a snake, and this is just where Mr. Snake likes to snuggle, in among the warm blankets.
