Reading and Knowing
All of us are Christopher Columbuses, discovering the same new-old continents of Truth. That is the true happiness of life—discovering Truth. We read things in a book and have a hazy idea of them. We hear the preacher utter truths and we say with little feeling, "Yes, that is so." We hear the great truths of life over and over and we are not excited. Truth never excites—it is falsehood that excites—until we discover it in our lives. Until we see it with our own eyes. Then there is a thrill. Then the old truth becomes a new blessing. Then the oldest, driest platitude crystallizes into a flashing jewel to delight and enrich our consciousness. This joy of discovery is the joy of living.
There is such a difference between reading a thing and knowing a thing. We could read a thousand descriptions of the sun and not know the sun as in one glimpse of it with our own eyes.
I used to stand in the row of blessed little rascals in the "deestrick" school and read from McGuffey's celebrated literature, "If—I-p-p-play—with—the—f-f-f-i-i-i-i-r-r-e—I—will—g-e-e-et —my-y-y-y-y—f-f-f-f—ingers—bur-r-r-rned—period!"
I did not learn it. I wish I had learned by reading it that if I play with the fire I will get my fingers burned. I had to slap my hands upon hot stoves and coffee-pots, and had to get many kinds of blisters in order to learn it.
Then I had to go around showing the blisters, boring my friends and taking up a collection of sympathy. "Look at my bad luck!" Fool!
This is not a lecture. It is a confession! It seems to me if you in the audience knew how little I know, you wouldn't stay.