"The obstacles in a man's way are determined by the gait he is going. Children walking on the street must move to the sidewalk out of harms way. An old man riding his bike down the road must get out of the way for all traffic that impatiently swerves to keep from hitting him. Slow moving vehicles will be passed by faster traffic in the left hand lane of busy city streets. But when the chief of the fire department comes speeding down the streets and highways of every town and city, everyone else pulls to the side of the road and gives him the right of way."
Many men fail to overcome sharp temptation because they have not by long previous habits acquired the momentum of right thought and right action. We can not fly unless we have learned to walk and to run.
"Any one who has ever watched a heavy bird rise from the ground," says the American Inventor, "has doubtless noticed that it runs along the ground for a few feet before it rises; the bird must acquire some momentum before its wings can lift its heavy body into the air. The natives in certain parts of the Andes understand this fact very well and by means of it catch the great Andean vultures, the condors. A small space is shut in with a high fence and left open at the top. Then a lamb or a piece of carrion is placed on the ground inside. Presently a vulture sees the bait and swoops down upon it; but when once he finds he has alighted on the ground inside he can not get out, for he has no running space in which to acquire the momentum that is necessary before his wings can lift him."
