A Gifted minister was once asked to explain how he held the attention of his audience. "First," he said, "I light a match, and then I build a bridge." This beloved man was thus pointing out the quick response of the human heart to the promise of greater good, and its ready interest whenever this possibility is linked with its own experience.
The illustration is apt, but its value increases immensely when one perceives that by implication it also discloses one of the most deep-seated misconceptions of the human mind—belief in its own self isolation from good. The human being mostly believes himself separated not only from God, from his heavenly Father, but to a great extent also from his fellow man.
Indeed, the human sense of self may be likened to life on a tiny island separated from the mainland, from which everything must be brought to sustain and amplify its existence. Food, clothing, shelter, and warmth—all must be unceasingly carried to this tiny island even to sustain life upon it. And as for the concepts called education and human enlightenment, which somewhat enrich and brighten life on the island, making it more habitable and civilized, these also are externals brought to the human sense of self laboriously and slowly, in sadly varying degree. And all the while the shadow of time is gradually casting its chill darkness over the island.
