It was the same way in regard to machinery. After all, what better
illustrates the supreme purpose of the All Wise than such a thing as
the dynamo or the reciprocating marine engine or the pictures in the
Scientific American?

Then, too, if a man has had the opportunity to travel and has seen
the great lakes spread out by the hand of Providence from where one
leaves the new dock at the Sound to where one arrives safe and
thankful with one's dear fellow-passengers in the spirit at the
concrete landing stage at Mackinaw--is not this fit and proper
material for the construction of an analogy or illustration? Indeed,
even apart from an analogy, is it not mighty interesting to narrate,
anyway? In any case, why should the church-wardens have sent the
rector on the Mackinaw trip, if they had not expected him to make
some little return for it?

I lay some stress on this point because the criticisms directed
against the Mackinaw sermons always seemed so unfair. If the rector
had described his experiences in the crude language of the ordinary
newspaper, there might, I admit, have been something unfitting about
it. But he was always careful to express himself in a way that
showed,--or, listen, let me explain with an example.

"It happened to be my lot some years ago," he would say, "to find
myself a voyager, just as one is a voyager on the sea of life, on the
broad expanse of water which has been spread out to the north-west of
us by the hand of Providence, at a height of five hundred and
eighty-one feet above the level of the sea,--I refer, I may say, to
Lake Huron." Now, how different that is from saying: "I'll never
forget the time I went on the Mackinaw trip." The whole thing has a