something good for me. It will force on me the necessity of again asserting myself as an artist, and as soon as I possibly can. If I can produce only one beautiful work of art I shall be able to rob malice of its venom, and cowardice of its sneer, and to pluck out the tongue of scorn by the roots. (Text.)
(2587)
PUPILS OF CHRIST
It is customary for students who have
been attending colleges and academies to
return home during the summer vacation or
during the Christmas or Easter holidays,
when they will recount to their father their
trials and triumphs in the field of literature,
and express to him their gratitude for the
education they receive. They will gladly
listen to his counsel, and will sit once more
with joy at the family table.
We all are, or we ought to be, pupils of Christ, preparing ourselves during this life of probation to receive a diploma of sanctity which will admit us to the kingdom of heaven.—Cardinal Gibbons.
(2588)
PURIFICATION
Moral life is often purified by storms, as the air by a rainy day:
The health-giving properties of rain are
not appreciated by the general public. Rain
is an essential to physical vigor in localities
that have any extensive population. Man
and his occupations load the air with countless
and unclassified impurities. The generous,
kindly rain absorbs them, even as a
washerwoman extracts the dirt from soiled
clothes. The ammoniacal exhalations, the
gases resultant from combustion and decay,
are all quietly absorbed by a brisk shower.
People talk about a "dry climate," but it is a
snare and a delusion. There is nothing in
it. A very dry climate will never support a
large population, for it would soon become
so poisoned that it would be fatal to the
human race. A scattering few might inhabit
it, but not the multitude.—Colliery Guardian.
(2589)
The life of God, if allowed to sweep through the earth unhindered, would purify man's life, as ocean waves, described below, purify the lands they reach:
The air of the sea, taken at a great distance
from land, or even on the shore and
in ports when the wind blows from the
open sea, is in an almost perfect state of
purity. Near continents the land winds
drive before them an atmosphere always impure,
but at 100 kilometers from the coasts
this impurity has disappeared. The sea
rapidly purifies the pestilential atmosphere
of continents; hence every expanse of water
of a certain breadth becomes an absolute
obstacle to the propagation of epidemics.
Marine atmospheres driven upon land purify
sensibly the air of the regions which they
traverse; this purification can be recognized
as far as Paris. The sea is the tomb of
molds and of aerial schizophytes.—Public Opinion.
(2590)
Longfellow pictures life as a wave hastening to cleanse itself in the ocean:
Whither, thou turbid wave?
Whither with so much haste,
As if a thief wert thou?
I am the Wave of Life
Stained with my margin's dust;
From the struggle and the strife
Of the narrow stream I fly
To the sea's immensity,
To wash from me the slime
Of the muddy banks of time.
(2591)
God uses many unseen agencies to offset the moral poisons of the universe:
"A device has been perfected by the chemist
of the mechanical department of the Erie
Railroad," says The Railway and Engineering Review (Chicago), "by which all the
cars on the Chicago limited train are
thoroughly sterilized at Jersey City after
each round trip between Jersey City and
Chicago, a run of about 2,000 miles. Experiments
looking to this method of cleaning
cars so as to kill all disease germs and
destroy all bad odors have been in progress
for some time. A deodorizing apparatus has
also been devised which is placed under the
seats in the cars, out of sight of passengers,
and gives off an odorless gas, which combines
with the stale tobacco-smoke or other
offensive odors which may accumulate in the
cars, and serves to completely nullify them.
This treatment has been so effective that it is
expected it will be extended to all the passenger
cars in the Erie service."
(2592)
See Evil, Purging from.
