PRESUMPTUOUS DARING by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 28, 1902

PRESUMPTUOUS DARING.

By Editor

FROM the statements brought out in the latest edition of “The Marvel of Nations,” it appears that something has given the people of the American nation prestige in comparison with other people, which enables Americans to take the lead in great enterprises in engineering, or in those of an agricultural or financial nature, by which they give an object lesson to the world of what men possessed of the requisite skill and enterprise can do in these directions.

The matter of bridge building, in which Americans take the lead of all nations, and bear away the honors of the heaviest contracts, furnishes an incident in point; and one of the illustrations given in the book shows what is included in some of the engineering enterprises in question, and justifies the heading placed as a caption to these lines.

The illustration is on page 183, copied from McClure’s Magazine, and represents the construction of a bridge across Niagara River just below the Falls, and shows what perilous undertakings men of this country will engage in to carry out some engineering enterprise, and to maintain their prestige as willing to encounter any obstacles that stand in the path of their progress. It represents the addition of another length to the longest arch-span of an iron bridge yet constructed in the world, and over the most dangerous chasm; namely, Niagara River.

The workmen on a narrow scaffolding suspended by wires, as the ponderous iron beams are swung up, perforated for the bolts that are to hold them in place, catch in metal buckets the rivets heated white hot, and by a dextrous movement insert them in their respective places, and then with heavy bridge hammers rivet those beams tightly in place, one after another, till the whole structure is completed. By the skill of the engineers it is all calculated nicely just what strain it can bear, and the weight it can sustain. The work of putting it together must require most rapid movements, steady hands, quiet nerves, and the faculty of maintaining an equilibrium on an uncertain footing, and in face of the most trying conditions; for the least false move would inevitably hurl the workmen to an unavoidable fate. Think how suddenly a quick and unexpected displacement of their frail footing, the least loss of self-possession, unsteadiness of nerve, or the failure of a steadily balanced brain, would plunge them into the torrent roaring and surging at a dizzy distance right beneath their feet, which would be inevitable death.

How men under such conditions can maintain their coolness and equable temper, is more than some of us can imagine. We would certainly become “rattled,” and fall a prey to our irrepressible and uncontrollable fears.

But to carry out a desirable enterprise the work has to be done; it can be done in no other way; and it is no wonder that the country that can furnish the men to carry through the work successfully, should be in demand everywhere where such enterprises are found to be desirable. It seems not only like presumptuous daring, but like flying in the face of providence to undertake to carry out such feats under such conditions. But the men who can do this must inevitably take the lead of all their fellows in enterprises of this kind.

It is this feature of the American character, we think, that tends to raise it in the world’s work, and prepares it to fulfill its place in prophecy, and do its part toward hastening the great consummation. EDITOR.