life's deeper meanings.
33
them I see certain ones taking around oil-cans with
long, slender nozzles, and pouring in a little oil here
and a little oil there to prevent friction that might
finally stop all movement, and even produce disaster.
I look back upon myself and observe that this piece
of machinery of mine has been running fifty-four
years, and yet I have hardly been conscious of the
fact that I am in possession of it. It runs so noise¬
lessly, so smoothly. Even the engine within me,
that small but mighty engine, the heart, which is con¬
stantly forcing the blood to the extremities of the
body, does its work so easily and noiselessly that I am
hardly conscious of having a heart. The machinery
runs without friction, without the use of an oil-can.
Now, I might have been made differently. You
might have been made differently. We might have
been constructed like a clock or watch, that needs
winding with a key at stated and regular periods to
perpetuate motion, say every night just before re¬
tiring. Had this been the case, no one of us would
be here to-day. Long ago the earth would have been
depopulated; for some of us would have misplaced
our keys, some of us would have lost them, and some
of us would have forgotten to wind up before retiring,
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