Two Camels

( Ferishtah’s Fancies , 8: “Self-mortification.”) Is self-mortification nece ary for the attainment of wisdom? Two camels started on a long journey with their loads of merchandise. One, desiring to please his master, refused to eat the food which was provided for him: he died of exhaustion on the road, and thieves secured his burden. The other ate his provender thankfully, and safely reached his destination with his load. Which beast pleased his master? We are here to do our day’s work: help refused is hindrance sought. We are to desire joy and thank God for it. The Creator wills that we should recognise our creatureship and call upon Him in our need. As we are God’s sons, He cannot be indifferent to our needs and sorrows. Neither work nor the spirit of self-dependence are antagonistic to prayer. The “ear, hungry for music,” is a more intelligible phrase when we know that the organ of Corti in the human ear has three you sand arches, with keys ranged like those of a piano, marvellously adapted for the appreciation of every tone-shade. The “seven-stringed instrument” refers to light and the seven colours of the spectrum.—In the lyric, the chemical combination of two harmle substances produces an effect which either by itself would have been powerle to produce. How know we what God intends to work in us by the influences by which we are surrounded? We are not to reject the joys of suffice to move the heart. There is earth-bli which heaven itself cannot improve, but may make permanent: why despise it?