Lectures in Cans
At this place the lecturer exhibits a glass jar more than half-filled with small white beans and a few walnuts.
Let us try that right on the platform. Here is a glass jar and inside of it you see two sizes of objects—a lot of little white beans and some walnuts. You will pardon me for bringing such a simple and crude apparatus before you in a lecture, but I ask your forbearance. I am discovering that we can hear faster thru the eye than thru the ear. I want to make this so vivid that you will never forget it, and I do not want these young people to live thirty years before they see it.
If there are sermons in stones, there must be lectures in cans. This is a canned lecture. Let the can talk to you awhile.
You note as I shake the jar the little beans quickly settle down and the big walnuts shake up. Not one bean asks, "Which way do I go?" Not one walnut asks, "Which way do I go?" Each one automatically goes the right way. The little ones go down and the big ones go up.
Note that I mix them all up and then shake. Note that they arrange themselves just as they were before.
Suppose those objects could talk. I think I hear that littlest bean down in the bottom saying, "Help me! Help me! I am so unfortunate and low down. I never had no chance like them big ones up there. Help me up."
I say, "Yes, you little bean, I'll help you." So I lift him up to the top. See! I have boosted him. I have uplifted him.
See, the can shakes. Back to the bottom shakes the little bean. And I hear him say, "King's ex! I slipped. Try that again and I'll stay on top." So I put him back again on top.
The can shakes. The little bean again shakes back to the bottom. He is too small to stay up. He cannot stand prosperity.
Then I hear Little Bean say, "Well, if I cannot get to the top, you make them big ones come down. Give every one an equal chance."
So I say, "Yes, sir, Little Bean. Here, you big ones on top, get down. You Big Nuts get right down there on a level with Little Bean!" And you see I put them down.
But I shake the can, and the big ones go right back to the top with the same shakes that send the little ones back to the bottom.
There is only one way for those objects to change their place in the can. Lifting them up or putting them down will not do it. But change their size!
Equality of position demands quality of size. Let the little one grow bigger and he will shake up. Let the big one grow smaller and he will shake down.