Article April 3, 1920 Issue

The Mirage

JOHN R. HATTEN

The writer was much impressed with a picture entitled, "A Mirage on the Arizona Desert," which bears the following inscription: "In the deserts of Arizona and California the mirage is often seen, and in some locations it is visible nearly every day of the year. Broad lakes, surrounded by fields of green, herds of cattle, houses, and tree-bordered streams frequently appear not far distant amid the sands, and many a prospector or adventurer has been misled by the apparent oases, only at last to find that the spreading trees and the sparkling water evade him, the valley that looked so green is as dry and barren as the trail he left, and that he has been in pursuit of a mirage."

After studying this picture, the thought occurred of how well it represents our individual experience; for there comes a time when we, too, like the travelers in the picture, realize the need of something better to lead us than the evidence gained by the eye or any of the material senses. This need is being recognized by many and is being ushered in through our failures in life,—failures at least in so far as we have been following the material and therefore unscientific desert of reasoning, until we arrive at a place in a mental desert of sand where the only evidence of life is seen in the worthless cactus and where the ground at our feet is "sinking sand," reminding us of those who have preceded us along the same lines that we have been following.

There comes a time of awakening to the fact of a true sense of being and to the possibilities of a divine guidance. Thus we are made to see that we have been living on the fleeting hopes of the mirage, the alluring promises of which were the means of our being led farther into the desert of despair, where every hour of progress was only delaying our chances of a return to civilization; for the oasis seen in the western sky was but the reflection of the true sense of life that we had turned our backs upon, and not a something to be met with in our travels. It is well to be hopeful, but if our future happiness and success is to be built upon the delusion of the mirage, we had best be undeceived, even though we seem to suffer thereby. In the midst of any seem ing difficulties it is well to remember that good alone is real. Thus as Shakespeare has so well said:—

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