Man-eating tigers have for so long been regarded by the natives of most parts of India as invincible, or else protected by the native religions, that they have had things pretty much their own way. One determined hunter for every fifty frightened, unarmed men would scarcely serve to intimidate any animal. Many tribes of North American Indians looked upon the bear with veneration; but for all that, any bear so courageous as to let himself be seen by them got an arrow between his ribs right away, and in time the whole tribe of American bears learned that the chances were against them, just as the wolves and cougars arrived at a similar conclusion. Those that turned man-eaters might for a few seasons hunt their prey successfully, and if gifted with unusual cunning get away unscratched for a while, but the vengeance of the tribe would be certain to overtake them before very long, and only the more cowardly ones of their species would survive to perpetuate the race.—Witmer Stone and William Everett Cram, "American Animals."
(1965)
Man's Greatness—See Size not Power.
MAN'S IMPORTANCE
The world is one thing to a bird, or a
fish, but quite another thing to Cuvier or
Agassiz. Then man entered the scene.
Stretching out his hand he waved a wonder-working
wand. He touched the wood,
and it became a wagon; he touched the ore
and it became an engine; he touched the
boughs and they became the reeds of an
organ; he touched the wild animal, and it
became a burden-bearer for his weary feet;
while his intellect turned the stone into
geology, and the stars into astronomy, and
the fields into husbandry, and his duties into
ethics. When the flint and steel meet, something
beyond either appears—a tongue of
flame. And when man and nature met,
something new emerged—art, industry,
ethics, cities and civilization. There is nothing
great in nature but man. Take man out
of this wondrous city with its cathedrals,
galleries, and homes, and Broadway would
become a streak of iron-rust. The earth
wears man upon her bosom as the circling
ring wears a sparkling gem. The bog puts
forth a white lily; genius is a flower rooted
in earth, but borrowing its bloom and beauty
from heaven.—N. D. Hillis.
(1966)
Man's Part—See Evangelization.
Man's Part in Religion—See Faith.
MAN'S PREEMINENCE
When you approach a great city at night
and see only its tens of thousands of lights,
you do not for a moment attach importance
to those mechanical contrivances, the lights.
The unseen inhabitants in the tens of thousands
of lighted homes are the real objects
of interest and worth. So the worlds, and
not the suns, are the objects of true worth
and interest in the universe; the worlds, the
lighted and glowing houses of God's children,
not the mechanical contrivances for making
them comfortable. Upon these must center
our thought and interest. What is the fire
which warms the man and cooks his dinner,
compared with the man himself? What is
the light and fire, compared with the home?
What is the sun, compared with the world?
Just here we begin to get some breath of assurance.
While the worlds in our system
differ very greatly in size and glory, while
some of the great suns doubtless have correspondingly
great worlds circling about them,
yet we may reasonably suppose that among
the worlds of the universe our earth is somewhere
near the middle of the scale. And we
earth-dwellers, intelligent children of the
Father, are no mean citizens in the kingdom
of our God. If He has built such a mansion
of light for us, and kindled such a hearth-fire
as our sun, and made us lords and masters
of such a world as this, why may we not
lift up our heads in love and triumph?
(Text.)—James H. Ecob.
(1967)
See Speech.
MAN'S SIZE
How big is a man, anyway? Well, he is
smaller than an elephant, and an elephant is
smaller than a mountain, and a mountain
is smaller than the world, and the world is
a mustard-seed compared with the sun, and
the sun itself is a mere mote in the dust
cloud of spheres that stretches out through
the universe beyond the reach of thought.
Coleridge said bigness is not greatness.
So while mountains and worlds
are bigger than men, man can remove
mountains if not worlds. It is not mere
size that counts, but power and worth.
(Text.)
(1968)
