"'Pears like" the affairs of life on this planet are dreadfully "higgledy-piggledy"; but in reality, there is a divine purpose, a use in it all. It is the soul's kindergarten. It is interesting to observe the curious and round-about ways Nature takes to insure the greatest good to the greatest number of her needy children. Long before the first nitro-glycerine "go-devil" was sent down, down, to the uttermost depths, to shatter the oil-bearing rock, and set free the wonderful deposit that was destined to mark a new era in the affairs of men, rang out the Biblical mandate: "Let there be light," and in due time the whole world was illuminated.

The sorcerers, who have abstracted vast wealth from this earth product have fancied it was for their special benefit and use, that nature had garnered up her stores to be thus liberated, and chemicalized into a thousand forms, by their sagacious work. Not so! Quite indeed, not so!

Came—at last—the kerosene lamp. How marvelous the light of its clear flame, after "tallow dips" and "pine knots"! How the little lamp of the first experiment grew, and grew into gorgeous centers of sun-like radiance, shining everywhere, illuminating hitherto darkened, impenetrable places, carrying the torch of civilization round the entire world. Alike in slum and palace, in homes of poverty, and set to shine in the gilded resorts of the noble and wealthy; blessing the student, and the vast army of enforced workers; lighting the paths of men, and the ways of the multitude; making vice and crime more difficult, by dispersing the darkness from hidden purlieus. Through primeval depths and mountain fastnesses, wherever the footsteps of men have wandered, the magic lamp has pioneered the way.

All war is horrible. Through what agonies of loss, and orgies of death, and tortures of the weak driven to the wall by unscrupulous men the war against material darkness on this planet has been carried on is utterly unimaginable and impossible ever to be known. The end has been reached, the great needs of humanity at large have been and are being served, and while superior sources of light have largely taken the place of the oil lamp, it still shines calmly on in the homes of the poor, and will, for ages yet to come.

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"As a man thinketh, so is he." This may be only measurably true, in consequence of the stress of circumstances; but sooner or later, the thought moulds the individual beyond the power of disguising the real character.