XVIIL
 

^^■"^^T^jHE Apostle uses the destructive and progressive force of
Sifire as an apt illustration of the power of the tongue for
 

J evil. Passing by the useful application, I use the fllustra-
l^/^^® tion as the foundation of the tribute to the firemen of our
city. Man found fire already upon the earth when he became its
possessor ; found it lurking in the wood of the forest, or blazing in
the cone of the volcano. When the wind of the evening chilled him
the blaze was a genial friend, but when it seized upon the twigs and
leaves which formed his dwelling, it became his ruthless enemy.
Thus an antagonism was inaugurated, and human ingenuity and
power.alike have been taxed to devise means by which to overcome
the flames. We care little for methods; the man applying them is
the object of our thoughts.

When Brooklyn was a stripling, like the generality of urchins, it
fell into the unwholesome practice of playing with matches. Other
urchins would content themselves bystriking matches on the outside of
a kerosene-oil can, and sticking the lighted end inside to see where
the smell came from, and then would make a brand-new skylight in
the roof, and float heavenward in periods, and save the expense of
funerals, and put papas and mammas into mourning—and the street
at the same time. This, of course, would be disastrous to one family,
but when Baby Brooklyn played with his little match, he went down
to the thickest-settled portion of the vicinage, scratched the sulphur