In an essay on sticking doggedly to the task at hand and being undistracted by rumors and rabbits, F W Boreham shares this illustration:There is a famous scene in the Old Parliament House at Connecticut, when the sudden darkness seemed to some of the members to foreshadow the approaching end of the world.
It was suggested that the House should adjourn. And then, as Whittier tells us:
“All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport.
He rose, slow, cleaving with his steady voice
The intolerable hush. 'This well may be
The Day of Judgement which the world awaits;
But, be it so, or not, I only know
My present duty, and my Lord's command,
To occupy till He come. So at the post
Where He hath set me in His providence,
I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face.
Bring in the candles.”
F W Boreham, ‘The Bloodhound of the Hedgerow’, The Golden Milestone (London: Charles H Kelly, 1915), 209.
Image: ‘Bring in the Candles’.
