Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/613

 PURIFICATION BY PRESSURE

The man in narrow circumstances, or prest severely with many cares may be purified by such pressure like the water described in this extract:

The best water is that which has gone deepest in the earth, where there is the tightest pressure, atmospheric and telluric. Continued and intensified filtration has refined it; but it is here, and not in its open-air exposure, before or after, that the water gets effective oxidation. The remarkable fact that water absorbs oxygen in something like a geometrical ratio to the increase of pressure, coupled with the other equally important fact that under a certain pressure and temperature organic germs cease to exist; both these conditions, protracted for the water by a long detention in the depths of the earth, secure the rarest refinement and also vitalization of the element.—The Sanitary Era.

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PURITANISM, POETRY OF

How is it, then, that out of the hard soil of the Puritan thought and character, out of the sterile rocks of the New England conscience, have sprung flowers of poetry? From those songless beginnings have burst, in later generations, melodies that charm and uplift our land—now a deep organ peal filling the air with music, now a trumpet blast thrilling the blood of patriotism, now a drum-beat to which duty delights to march, now a joyous fantasy of the violin bringing smiles to the lips, now the soft vibrations of the harp that fill the eyes with tears. What is it in the Puritan heritage, externally so bare and cold, that makes it intrinsically so poetic and inspired?—

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PURITY

A pastor visiting in the home of a laundress exprest admiration of the whiteness of the linen hung out upon the lines. They gleamed in beautiful purity as compared with the dark slates on the roof of the house behind them. But presently snow fell and quickly covered the roofs and streets with an absolutely unsullied mantle, and now the linen clothes seemed actually to have lost all their whiteness. The preacher said to the laundress that the clothes did not look anything like so white as before. She replied, "Ah, sir, the clothes are just as white as they were, but what can stand against God Almighty's white?"

It is a fact that the whitest sheet of paper looks yellow and dingy when placed on freshly fallen snow. So looks the morality of ordinary man beside the sinlessness of Jesus. (Text.)

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The ermine, whose fur is so famed for its perfect whiteness, has been taken as the emblem of the integrity and incorruptibility that should characterize the judiciary. Thus a judge is spoken of as wearing the ermine. The dainty little creature makes it the business of its life to keep clean. So strong is this instinct that it will suffer capture or welcome death rather than defilement. Knowing this, trappers and others seeking its fur will smear the paths it might take to escape, and it keeps itself unspotted, tho it yields its lift. (Text.)

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See.

PURITY OF ASSOCIATIONS

Most people would like to be reckoned with the good and true of earth, but they often overlook the necessity of a change in their moral conditions before that which they hope for can come to pass. A mother, speaking on this point, says:

As a companion for my children there was brought into the family a little lamb, to which, in its helplessness, our hearts went out in love. We were about to take it in our arms to love and cherish when we discovered it was alive with what are commonly called "ticks." Horrified, I ordered the lamb tied to a tree, and forbade the children, or any one, in fact, to go near it until it could be cleansed. I stood with my children on the piazza, watching it with mingled emotions. Its pathetic bleatings made us long to take it in our arms and caress it, "mother" it, in its separation and loneliness. But I and my children were clean. The lamb was not. Far from being clean, it was alive with filth. The standard of approach to me, as to all cleanly people, was cleanliness. Much as we yearned over the lamb and longed to care for it, until purified with a cleansing wash, communication could not be established. When the conditions were fulfilled, children and lamb,