CYCLOPEDIA OF
ILLUSTRATIONS
FOR PUBLIC SPEAKERS

I remember a lesson in brevity I once received in a barber’s shop. An Irishman came in, and the unsteady gait with which he approached the chair showed that he had been imbibing of the produce of the still run by North Carolina moonshiners. He wanted his hair cut, and while the barber was getting him ready, went off into a drunken sleep. His head got bobbing from one side to the other, and at length the barber, in making a snip, cut off the lower part of his ear. The barber jumped about and howled, and a crowd of neighbors rushed in. Finally, the demonstration became so great that it began to attract the attention of the man in the chair, and he opened one eye and said, “Wh-wh-at’s the matther wid yez?” “Good Lord!” said the barber, “I’ve cut off the whole lower part of your ear.” “Have yez? Ah, thin, go on wid yer bizness—it was too long, anyhow!”—Horace Porter.

Lord Bacon says that “natural abilities are like natural plants that need pruning by study.” Conversely untrained talents are like wild plants that degenerate when left to themselves.

Mr. Edmund Driggs, of Brooklyn, gives a motto that came into his life like an influence, and greatly helped him toward success. At the age of fifteen he left home to engage with an older brother in the freighting business on the Hudson River. The first duty he performed on the vessel was to go aloft to reef the pennant-halyards through the truck of the topmast, which was forty feet above the top of the mainmast, without any rigging attached thereto. When the sailing-master had arranged the halyards over his shoulder, with a running bowline under his right arm, he ordered him aloft. The new sailor looked at the sailing-master and then aloft, and then asked the question, “Did anybody ever do that?” “Yes, you fool,” was the answer. “Do you suppose that I would order you to do a thing that was never done before?” The young sailor replied, “If anybody ever did it, I can do it.” He did it. That maxim has been his watchword through life. Tho he is now over seventy years of age, he is still engaged in active business life, and whatever enterprise he undertakes the watchword still is, “If anybody ever did it, I can do it.” (Text.)—Wilbur F. Crafts, “Successful Men of To-day.”

Plutarch says that a traveler at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedæmonian, “I do not believe you can do as much.” “True,” said he, “but a goose can.”

A Canadian farmer, noted for his absent-mindedness, went to town one day and transacted his business with the utmost precision. He started on his way home, however, with the firm conviction that he had forgotten something, but what it was he could not recall. As he neared home, the conviction increased, and three times he stopt his horse and went carefully through his pocketbook in a vain endeavor to discover what he had forgotten. In due course he reached home and was met by his daughter, who looked at him in surprize and exclaimed, “Why, father, where have you left mother?”—Leslie’s Weekly.

A wise man will step backward off a porch or into a mud-puddle, a great philosopher will hunt for the spectacles that are in his hand or on his forehead, a hunter will sometimes shoot himself or his dog. A working girl had been feeding a great clothing knife for ten years. One day she watched the knife come down slowly upon her hand. Too late she woke out of her stupor with one hand gone. For a few seconds her mind had failed, and she sat by her machine a temporary lunatic and had watched the knife approach her own hand. A distinguished professor was teaching near a canal. Walking along one evening in summer, he walked as deliberately into the canal as he had been walking along the path a second before. He was brought to his senses by the water and mud and the absurdity of the situation. He had on a new suit of clothes and a new silk hat, but, tho the damage was thus great, he still laughs over the adventure. Our mail collectors find in the iron boxes along the streets all sorts of papers and articles which have been put in by some hand from whose motions the mind has become detached for a second. A glove, a pair of spectacles, a deed, a mortgage, a theater ticket, goes in, and on goes the person, holding on to the regular letter which should have been deposited. This is called absent-mindedness, but it is a brief lunacy.—Public Opinion.

The Italian mothers get for nurses the most beautiful persons, because they believe that by constantly looking into such faces the infant will unconsciously take on some of the beauty of the nurse.

The anecdote is a familiar one in the history of painting, of the artist employed upon the frescoes of a dome, who stept back to see from a better point of view the work which he had done, and became so absorbed in comparing the scenes which he had depicted with the forming idea as it lay in his mind, that still proceeding backward he had reached the edge of the lofty scaffolding, when a pupil, observing his instant peril, and afraid even to shout to him, rushed forward and marred the figures with his trowel, so calling back and saving the master. The mind, engrossed in its own operation, had forgotten the body, and was treating it as carelessly as the boy treats the chip which he tosses on the wave.—Richard S. Storrs.

An interesting investigation was conducted by the Associated Prohibition Press in April, 1909, as to the causes of death in the city of Chicago of all men who had reached the age of sixty years and over, and whose death was reported during that month. Every death reported in Chicago during this month of April was carefully investigated for the purpose of securing an accurate memorandum of the age, nationality, and cause of death.

Out of 155 men concerning whose deaths this data was obtained, it was found that 73 had been total abstainers, 75 moderate drinkers, and 4 were said to be heavy drinkers. The age ranged from 60 to 92 years.

On the basis of the facts secured in this investigation, the drinking men, by their use of alcoholic poison, shortened their lives nearly four years.

In the aggregate, therefore, by means of its subtle poison, alcoholic liquor helped to deprive these 79 victims of a total of more than 334 years of active life which their abstaining contemporaries had lived to enjoy.—“American Prohibition Yearbook.”

There was a certain ancient colored gentleman who was addicted to the habit of excessive drink. When asked why he didn’t quit he replied:

“It’s dis here way, boss. Jus’ as long as I kin quit when I wants ter I ain’t in no danger. Jus’ as soon as I fin’ I kain’t quit I’s gwine t’ swar off.”

There are numbers of drinking men who keep right on because they think they can stop when they want to. They frequently find out too late that they can not quit.

I stumbled upon an English book of etiquette the other day. In it I found this curious statement: “A gentleman may carry a book through the streets if it is not wrapt, but if it is done up in wrapping paper it becomes a parcel and must be carried by a servant.” The wrapping-paper makes a wonderful difference. And so absurd are the fashionable ideas of refinement and gentility.—Obadiah Oldschool, The Interior.

All who have seen the ancient maps of North Carolina will remember Win-gin-da-coa as its name. This was the first thing said by a savage to Raleigh’s men. In reply to the question, “What is the name of this country?” he answered, “Win-gin-da-coa.” It was afterward learned that the North Carolina aborigine said in this phrase, “Those are very fine clothes you have on.” And so North Carolina carried a fashion-plate label to unsuspecting readers.—Edward Eggleston.

Argand, the inventor of the famous lamp which bears his name, had been experimenting for some time in trying to increase the light given out by his lamp, but all to no purpose. On a table before him one night lay an oil-flask which had accidentally got the bottom broken off, leaving a long-necked, funnel-shaped tube. This Argand took up carelessly from the table and placed—almost without thought, as he afterward related—over the flame. A brilliant white light was the magical result. It is needless to add that the hint was not lost by the experimenter, who proceeded to put his discovery into practical use by “inventing” the common glass lamp-chimney. Hundreds of discoveries which have been heralded to the world as the acme of human genius have been the result of merest accident—the auger, calico printing and vulcanization of rubber being among the number.—St. Louis Republic.

Protogenes, the Greek painter, was an impatient man. In painting a picture of a tired, panting dog, he met with satisfactory success except that he failed in every attempt to imitate the foam that should have been seen on the dog’s mouth. He was so much provoked over it, that he seized the[4] sponge with which he cleansed his brushes, and threw it against the picture with the intention of spoiling it. It happened to strike on the dog’s mouth, and produced, to the astonishment and delight of the painter, the very effect that he had labored so persistently to imitate.—Frank H. Stauffer, The Epoch.

According to an estimate made by Mr. Frederick L. Hoffman, of the Prudential Insurance Company, the annual rate of fatal accidents in American cities is between 80 and 85 in each 100,000. On a basis of 80,000,000 population, this would mean a yearly loss of about 65,000 lives. By the same authority it is calculated that 1,664,000 persons are badly injured every year, and that some 4,800,000 receive wounds of a less serious character. We have a yearly list of fatalities somewhere between 64,000 and 80,240, and of serious maimings of 1,600,000; whereas two great armies, employing all the enginery of warfare, could succeed in slaughtering only 62,112 human beings yearly. (Text.)

According to a story told by Rev. J. Ed. Shaw, of Hammonton, N. J., a man should always adapt himself to local conditions if he wants to slip along without falling over his feet.

Some time ago, Mr. Shaw said, a little colored congregation over in Jersey invited a preacher friend of his to occupy their pulpit at the coming Sunday evening service, and the good dominie, wishing to encourage the colored brethren, readily complied.

Reaching the church where he was the only paleface present, the preacher delivered a sermon full of helping advice, made an eloquent prayer, and then announced that the service would be closed by singing the hymn, “Wash Me and I Shall Be Whiter Than Snow.” At this point one of the darksome congregation rose to his feet.

“Look heah, pahson,” said he impressively. “Yo’ will hab to ’scuse me, but I rise to a point ob ordah.”

“What is it?” asked the preacher, with large symptoms of surprize floating over his features.

“It am dis way,” replied the parishioner. “Yo’ hab ebidently made a mistake in de crowd. Dis am a cull’ed congregashun, an’ s’nce all de pump watah an’ sof’ soap in de county can’t make de words ob dat hymn come true, I jes’ wish dat yo’ would change her to some uddah tune.”—Philadelphia Evening Telegraph.

Among the influential public men who were wild in their unreasonable prejudice against Grant and cried aloud for his dismissal, was Col. Alexander K. McClure, of Philadelphia. He could not see how the President could sustain himself if he persisted in retaining Grant. So he went to Washington to counsel with Mr. Lincoln, and urge him in the name of the people to remove Grant without delay. I will let the Colonel tell in his own way the result of his visit to the President:

“I appealed to Lincoln for his own sake to remove Grant at once, and in giving my reasons for it I simply voiced the admittedly overwhelming protest from the loyal people of the land against Grant’s continuance in command.... When I had said everything that could be said from my standpoint, we lapsed into silence. Lincoln remained silent for what seemed a very long time. He then gathered himself up in his chair and said in a tone of earnestness that I shall never forget: ‘I can’t spare this man; he fights.’ That was all he said, but I knew that it was enough, and that Grant was safe in Lincoln’s hands against the countless hosts of enemies.”—Col. Nicholas Smith, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”

When Numerius, governor of the Narbonnoise Gaul, was impeached for plunder of his province, he defended himself, and denied the charge and explained it away so skilfully that he baffled his accusers. A famous lawyer thereupon exclaimed, “Cæsar, who will ever be found guilty, if it is sufficient for a man to deny the charge?” To which Julian retorted, “But who will appear innocent, if a bare accusation is sufficient?” (Text.)

The story of the Kansas farmer, who, with a scraper and a pair of mules, is building a fifty-mile railroad, would indicate that the supply of courageous men is not entirely exhausted.

The farmer who is tackling this tremendous job alone and who is serenely indifferent to all the jeers of his neighbors, scorned to admit defeat when he could not interest any one with capital in the road which he deemed necessary. He went to work with such material as he had at hand and, somehow, even without seeing the man or knowing aught of his project, one can not help sharing the farmer’s belief that he is to “carry the thing through.”

Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, was kind and courteous to his army, both to officers and soldiers. He shared the toils and hardships of those who were under his command. He gave them, too, their share of the glory which he acquired, by attributing his success to their courage and fidelity. At one time, after some brilliant campaign in Macedonia, some persons in his army compared his progress to the flight of an eagle. “If I am an eagle,” replied Pyrrhus, “I owe it to you, for you are the wings by means of which I have risen so high.”

If we could prove by statistics the number of acquaintances a man had fifty years ago, and those which the modern man has, the difference would be enormous. The tendency is everywhere to enlarge one’s circle—ambitious people with discernment, but the foolish, blindly, without any interest or inclination to guide them. I once heard a woman announce with pride, “I have 2,000 visits to make this winter.” She flaunted this fact before her less favored friends, who had only 1,000 names on their visiting lists. Could there be anything more futile than this thirst for increasing one’s bowing acquaintances? What useless ballast are these interminable lists, in which no place is left for an hour’s intelligent or affectionate intercourse. The habit of going from drawing-room to drawing-room gives certain persons a style in conversation that is as flat as a well-drest stone, not one spontaneous word in it, not an angle, not a defined form!—Dora Melegari, “Makers of Sorrow and Makers of Joy.”

Each branch of a vine is bound to a certain point of its wall or its conservatory. It is not growing just where and how it would spontaneously and naturally choose, but is affixt there contrary to its natural bent, in order that it may catch the sunbeams at that point and cover that spot with beautiful foliage and luscious fruit.

Sorrow is like the nail that compels the branch to grow in that direction; inevitable circumstance is like the rough strip of fiber which bends the branch, and pain is like the restraint which is suffered by the branch which would have liked to wander at its own will. We are not to murmur or repine at our lot in life, but are to remember that God has appointed it and placed us there. (Text.)

“I visited the forge-room” (said he), “where a class of twenty-five young blacksmiths were shaping and welding various models of iron bars and iron blades. It was an inspiring scene. No man, however indolent or indifferent to the world’s work, could have looked on without having his ambitions revived. The glowing metal yielded to the hammer blows of these youthful artizans, because interest in their work and a desire to become producers directed their bare and brawny arms. I walked about unnoticed. They felt no interest in commissioners of education. At one of the anvils I noticed a particularly fine, well-built young fellow. He was wholly absorbed in his work, so when I picked up the book he had partly hidden under his cap on his toolbench[6] it did not attract his attention. What book do you think it was? Oh, no, not a treatise on tool-work in iron; that would have been fine. It was something even finer than that. The book was a copy of Vergil’s ‘Eneid’ and the marginal notes on the pages show that he was as ambitious to acquire a taste for good literature as for the possession of technical skill.”—New York Press.

My greatest triumph as Desdemona was not gained with the audience, but with Henry Irving! He found my endeavors to accept comfort from Iago so pathetic that they brought the tears to his eyes. It was the oddest sensation, when I said, “Oh, good Iago, what shall I do to win my lord again?” to look up—my own eyes dry, for Desdemona is past crying then—and see Henry’s eyes at their biggest, luminous, soft, and full of tears! He was, in spite of Iago and in spite of his power of identifying himself with the part, very deeply moved by my acting.

I have seen ten years of young men who rush out into the world with messages, and when they find how deaf the world is, they think they must save their strength and get quietly up on some little eminence from which they can make themselves heard. “In a few years,” reasons one of them, “I shall have gained a standing, and then I shall use my power for good.” Next year comes, and with it a strange discovery. The man has lost his horizon of thought. His ambition has evaporated; he has nothing to say. The great occasion that was to have let him loose on society was some little occasion that nobody saw, some moment in which he decided to obtain a standing. The great battle of a lifetime has been fought and lost over a silent scruple. But for this the man might, within a few years, have spoken to the nation with the voice of an archangel. What was he waiting for? Did he think that the laws of nature were to be changed for him? Did he think that a “notice of trial” would be served on him? Or that some spirit would stand at his elbow and say, “Now’s your time?” The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed time. And the compensation for beginning at once is that your voice carries at once. You do not need a standing. It would not help you. Within less time than you can see it, you will have been heard. The air is filled with sounding-boards and the echoes are flying. It is ten to one that you have but to lift your voice to be heard in California, and that from where you stand. A bold plunge will teach you that the visions of the unity of human nature which the poets have sung were not fictions of their imagination, but a record of what they saw. Deal with the world, and you will discover their reality. Speak to the world, and you will hear their echo.—John Jay Chapman.

A little schooner reached Seattle recently from Nome, on Bering Sea. She had made the voyage down during the most tempestuous season of the year in the North Pacific, and had survived storms which tried well-found steamships of the better class. Yet there was not a man on board, from the captain down, who had ever made a voyage at sea, save as passengers, on a boat running to Alaska. There were no navigating instruments on board save a compass and an obsolete Russian chart of the North Pacific.

These men wanted to come out for the winter, and there was no other way within their means to accomplish the trip. They got hold of the schooner and they started with her. They were not seamen or navigators, simply handy men who were accustomed to doing things for themselves. This was out of the routine, but they did it.

The men who made the voyage down from Nome in a little schooner without any previous knowledge of seamanship probably[7] saw nothing remarkable in the feat. They were used to doing things that had to be done with the material that came to hand, whether they knew anything about how it should be done or not.—Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The colonel of a volunteer regiment camping in Virginia came across a private on the outskirts of the camp, painfully munching on something. His face was wry, and his lips seemed to move only with the greatest effort.

“What are you eating?” demanded the colonel.

“Persimmons, sir.”

“Good heavens! Haven’t you got any more sense than to eat persimmons at this time of the year? They’ll pucker the very stomach out of you!”

“I know, sir. That’s why I’m eatin’ them. I’m tryin’ to shrink me stomach to fit me rations.”

Numerous are the animals that, escaping persecution, have adapted themselves to the altered conditions. Was this adaptation unconscious on their part? There was room and to spare when it was in progress, and did not choice enter into the problem? Or was it mere chance that they stayed near or even in habitations, and with no more volition than the autumn leaves that now filled the air?

It may be mere coincidence, but the skunk that lived under the doorstep yet gave no sign of its presence; the raccoon that occupied a clothes-line box and was not suspected; the opossum that lived in a hollow tree within ten feet of the house and was discovered only by accident—all suggest to me that they considered the several situations, and realizing their advantages in the matter of food supply, were willing to take the chances; yet a fine bit of primitive woodland was not fifty yards away.—C. C. Abbott, New York Sun.

“The greatest surprize to the agriculturist,” said Mr. David G. Fairchild, “and one which will throw into confusion the calculations of the economist, will come through the utilization of what are now considered desert lands, for the growing of special arid-land crops requiring but a fraction of the moisture necessary for the production of the ordinary plants of the eastern half of the United States, such as corn and wheat.

“We are finding new plants from the far table-lands of Turkestan and the steppes of Russia and Siberia, which grow luxuriantly under such conditions of aridity that the crops of the Mississippi Valley farms would wither and die as tho scorched by the sirocco.”—The Technical World.

The postulate that any portion of the Scripture is as serviceable as any other portion for the purpose of stimulating and nourishing the moral and religious growth of children, regardless of their age—the Bible itself refutes this postulate. In 1 Peter 2:2, “As new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the word.” We have a very plain assertion of the need of different food for different stages of growth in the spiritual life, the assertion clothing itself in terms of the food for the several stages of the physical life. In 1 Cor. 3:2, “I have fed you with milk and not with meat,” we have the same truth set forth by another writer, who employs the same physical analogy. When we turn to Hebrews we find the author employing in more detail the same analogy to teach the same fact—Heb. 5:12–14. Here we really have granted, embryonically, it may be, the principle that is striving to-day for recognition at the hands of the religious teaching world.—A. B. Bunn Van Ormer, “Studies in Religious Nurture.”

Such is the pace at which we live to-day that, while millions of people in this country have not yet got up to the stage of “civilization” represented by the use of gas, but when they encounter it casually employ it suicidally, other millions have outgrown and discarded it, and will have none of it even for a curling-iron or a chafing-dish, let alone for lighting. To put it briefly, the use of electricity for lighting in New York State alone has increased over 2,000 per cent in ten years, and the use of electricity for power, also from central stations, has increased in the decade nearly 1,200 per cent. And yet the electricians are inclined to think they have only just started in. (Text.)—The Electrical World and Engineer.

The English are a ballad-loving people, and few singers could sing a ballad like Antoinette Sterling. She sometimes, but rarely, sang classical music. She knew where she was the strongest, and she wisely kept in that direction, with the result that she shared the same popularity which the English people extended to Sims Reeves, the favorite tenor balladist. It was enough to insure the success of a new song to have it sung by Madam Sterling, and success in London means heavy royalties to singer as well as composer. (Text.)—Chicago Tribune.

Tourists along the shores of the Mediterranean express their surprize at the insipidity of the fishes served up for food. This flavorless quality is easily accounted for. The fish around the shores of Spain, Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor are mostly caught in the quiet lagoons or calm waters of protected bays and gulfs, where they swim lazily and slowly, or bask indolently in the quietude. How different is the life of battling with storm and tempest on the part of the creatures that inhabit the rough waters around the Orkneys, the Shetlands, and the Hebrides of Scotland! Fish caught there is always delicious. (Text.)

There is an apprenticeship to difficulty, which is better for excellence sometimes than years of ease and comfort. A great musician once said of a promising but passionless young singer who was being educated for the stage: “She sings well, but she lacks something which is everything. If she were married to a tyrant who would maltreat her and break her heart, in six months she would be the greatest singer in Europe.”—James T. Fields.

The modern advertisement is worth looking at, whether it is the sounding proclamation of some big corporation, with facts and figures both weighty and impressive, or the light eye-catching notice of some simple trade or contrivance. All forms of literary composition find place in the advertising pages: history, story, verse. Many advertisements measure up to the test of good literature. In truth, there is often an uncommon amount of character in them. A word here or a phrase there is often singularly vivid as “local color,” and behind many an advertisement it is possible to see a vigorous personality. Nor are there lacking in this new literature qualities of humor, both intentional and unintentional. One generation[9] writes an epic, another an advertisement; who shall say that one manifestation is not as important as the other.

Going into a green field surrounded by beautiful trees, we were once shocked by seeing painted upon a large rock the injunction, “Prepare to meet thy God.” This was the work of some ardent religionist who was entirely unconscious that this was a holy place. God was there, altho he knew it not, else he would not have intruded in that sacred place with his vulgar application of a venerable injunction.—The Christian Register.

Any patent medicine, however worthless, will make its advocate rich if he will only persist in advertising it. The dear public succumb in the long run. They can not stand up under the continuous force of his big-lettered suggestions. They rather enjoy being humbugged. What splendid advantage the big stores take of this weakness on our part! All they need do is to keep offering suggestions of cheapness or of the supposed worth and imagined usefulness of their wares, and multitudinous innocent ones, whose sole interests the advertiser seems to have at heart, take hold of the tempting bait.—Robert MacDonald.

We were so sure in the Philippines that we could not get too much light that we built our houses to admit it in floods, and contemptuously disregarded the English and Dutch experience of two centuries. We called people lazy if they hid themselves at midday, and we bravely went abroad in the full glare of the light. Even the heavily pigmented Filipinos darkened their houses, and were astounded at our foolishness in doing what they did not dare to do. Collapse always came in time—if not a real collapse, at least a degree of destruction of nervous vigor which demanded a return to darker climates to escape chronic invalidism or even death.—Major Charles E. Woodruff, Harper’s Weekly.

Andy McTavish was “no feelin’ juist weel,” so he went to the doctor and stated his complaints.

“What do you drink?” demanded the medico.

“Whusky.”

“How much?”

“Maybe a bottle a day.”

“Do you smoke?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“Two ounces a day.”

“Well, you give up whisky and tobacco altogether.”

Andy took up his cap and in three steps reached the door.

“Andy,” called the doctor, “you have not paid for my advice!”

“Ahm no’ takkin’ it,” snapt Andy, as he shut the door behind him.

He presents one of the finest examples in history of effort concentrated on a single object, of failure after failure borne with courage, of refusal to give up, of final triumph.

He has had a career which in the case of most men would have been regarded as sufficiently full of honor many years ago. He served in the American civil war as a cavalry officer on the Union side, becoming an intimate friend of the late Carl Schurz, and when he returned to Europe he took part in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

As late as 1907 such words as these could be written about Count von Zeppelin and generally regarded as describing him: “He has sacrificed half a century of time, his wealth, his estates, his reputation, his happiness, his family life, in a futile attempt to solve the problem of flying. It is practically certain that after fifty years of unexampled perseverance Count Zeppelin is doomed to complete failure. There is something unspeakably tragic in the fate of this high-minded aristocrat.”

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His failures continued for some time after this verdict was written, but at length the world was startled by the splendid flights made by his dirigible “No. 4,” and when that vessel was wrecked in August, 1908, the German Government and the German people combined to aid the old patriot and inventor to make good his loss.

At some famous pottery works a visitor selected for purchase an exquisite model of Dante and Beatrice. The price was, however, far greater than he anticipated, being treble what had been asked for some other specimens of the potter’s handiwork. “Why is this so much more expensive?” he asked. “Because it has passed more often through the furnace,” was the reply.

God sends His children sometimes through repeated furnaces of affliction in order that their characters may attain a rare and priceless perfection. (Text.)

On a recent evening during a severe hailstorm we opened our door to observe the progress of the storm, and were surprized to find the air laden with the odor of nasturtiums. There were porch-boxes containing nasturtiums, geraniums and other flowering and foliage plants. Beds of nasturtiums were by the street’s side and at the side of the lawn, and into these the hail had fallen, beating down and breaking the vines until the porch floor and the ground beneath the boxes and the vines were covered with ends of broken sprays, leaves and bright bits of yellow and gold, scarlet and maroon of the mangled flowers. But the air was full of the sweetness of the crusht and wounded vines. They were returning good for evil in the misfortune that had come upon them. For every wound that the hail had made they were giving out the fragrance of a beautiful spirit. Tho bruised and broken, they were filling the whole atmosphere with an aroma which was in beautiful contrast to the adverse rain of hail that still rattled on the roofs and walks and fell among the prostrate vines. Blest is that life which can yield its sweetest fragrance when the storms are at their highest. We have all known men and women who, when lacerated with pain, prostrate under the hand of God, have made the very atmosphere of the sick-room redolent with the incense of Christian hope and trust.

The waters go out over the fields, leaving a waste, where pasture and corn-field had been, and then gradually subside. What have the waters done? Have they ruined the labors of the year? They who do not know Egypt might think so indeed, but the peasants know that to that yearly flood they owe the fertility of the land, that it is that which makes the crops grow and enables them to gather in the harvest. So it is with the river of the grace of God: the waters at times overflow their banks, and one seems to be overwhelmed; the soul is borne down by the flood, all her fruitful land is covered by the waters—waters of desolation, bereavement, affliction. “I am overwhelmed, undone; God has smitten me; my life is all wrong; I shall never smile again.” Nay, the flood which terrifies thee is the water of the river of God. The water is washing away the impurity of thy soul, giving thee fertility; the fruits of love, patience, charity, shall grow now; it is not a flood of desolation, but of blessing and fruitfulness. (Text.)

The structural provisions of the living organism are not built on the principle of economy. On the contrary, the superabundance of tissues and mechanisms indicates clearly that safety is the goal of the animal organism. We may safely state that the living animal organism is provided in its structures with factors of safety at least as abundantly as any human-made machine.

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The moral drawn from these facts is that to govern the supply of tissue and energy by means of food, nature indicates for us the same principle of affluence which controls the entire construction of the animal for the safety of its life and the perpetuation of its species. In other words, we should eat not just enough to preserve life, but a good deal more. In such cases safety is more important than economy.—S. J. Meltzer, Science.

“There are in the suburbs of Rome,” says Cosmos, “two farms where antique medals are made in large quantities. This would seem to be a singular agricultural product, yet nothing is more exact. The people who devote themselves to this odd industry cause to be swallowed by turkeys coins or medals roughly struck with the effigy of Tiberius or Caligula. After remaining for some time in the bodies of the fowls, the little disks of metal become coated with a remarkable ‘patina.’ If this coating were only the result of the gastro-intestinal voyage, it would be easy to secure it by treating the coins to be aged with dilute hydrochloric acid, for instance. But the mechanical action of the tiny stones contained in the gizzard is added to the purely chemical action of the gastric juice, partially effacing the figures and toning down the hardness of the features. It is to be feared that some of the specimens in our public collections have been obtained by this curious process.”

We make a great mistake in America when we lay our older men on the shelf, while they are still in their prime as counselors. Benjamin Franklin was sent to France as a minister when he was seventy years old, and the best work he did for his country, he did between his seventy-first and seventy-eighth years. The State of New York had an absurd statute which removed Chancellor Kent from the bench because he was sixty-five. After that time he wrote and published his “Commentaries,” a book recognized as one of the most important books in the study of our jurisprudence. So much good did the country gain from one of the frequent absurdities of New York legislation. In England, Lord Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone are recent instances, well remembered, of the force which statesmen gain, almost by the law of geometrical progression, from their memory of the experiments which fail, from what I call organic connection with the national life of the last two generations.—Edward Everett Hale, The Chautauquan.

See the old man with slow and dragging steps advancing from the door behind the platform to his seat before that sea of eager faces. The figure is shrunken. The eyelids droop. The cheeks are as parchment. Now that he sits, his hands lean heavily upon his staff. We think, “Ah, it is too late; the fire has flickered out; the speech will be but the dead echo of bygone glories.” But lo! he rises. The color mantles to his face. He stands erect, alert. The great eyes open full upon his countrymen. Yes, the first notes are somewhat feeble, somewhat painful; but a few minutes pass, and the noble voice falls as the solemn music of an organ on the throng. The eloquent arms seem to weave a mystic garment for his oratory. The involved sentences unfold themselves with a perfect lucidity. The whole man dilates. The soul breaks out through the marvelous lips. Age? Not so! this is eternal youth. He is pleading for mercy to an outraged people, for fidelity to a national obligation, for courage and for conscience in a tremendous crisis. And the words from the Revised Version of the Psalms seem to print themselves on the listener’s heart: “Thou hast made him but little lower than God, and crownest him with glory and honor.” (Text.)

Nature shows how the weakness of God is immeasurably stronger than men; so does history with equal clearness. The oft-quoted saying, “Providence is always on the side of the big battalions,” is one with an imposing sound, but it is disproved by history over and over again. Some of the decisive battles of the world were won by the small battalions. More than once has the sling and the stone prevailed against the Philistine army. Battles are won by the big brain; and wherever that may be, slight weapons and resources are sufficient for splendid victories. Now the all-wise God sits on the throne of the world, and we are often filled with astonishment at the insignificant agents with which heaven smites its foes, and causes victory to settle on the banners of right and justice. The world’s Ruler defeated Pharaoh with frogs and flies; He humbled Israel with the grasshopper; He smeared the splendor of Herod with worms; on the plains of Russia, He broke the power of Napoleon with a snowflake. God has no need to dispatch an archangel; when once He is angry, a microbe will do. (Text.)—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

The rain fell in buckets, the thunder racketed terribly, and the lightning drew zigzag lines of bright gold upon the violet sky.

“So you, too, don’t know what an inch of rain is exactly,” said the weather clerk, as he looked at his rain-measuring instrument. “Very few people do, it seems. I’ll explain it to you.

“An acre is 6,272,640 square inches. An inch of water on an acre is therefore 6,272,640 cubic inches. That amount, at 227 cubic inches to the gallon, equals 22,000 gallons, or 220,000 pounds, or 100 tons.

“An inch of rain is, in other words, rain falling at the rate of 100 tons to the acre.”

In a more recent number of Robert L. Taylor’s magazine, a leading article speaks of Admiral Farragut, at Mobile. The Brooklyn hesitated to go forward. “What’s the matter?” asked the Admiral. “Torpedoes,” replied the captain. “D——n the torpedoes,—full speed against the enemy!” He meant no profanity, but it was a time for action of the most pronounced sort. The best protection against the enemy’s fire is a well-directed fire from our own guns.

General Grant in the civil war of 1861–65 said, “The best defense of Washington is an army before Richmond.” These epigrammatic maxims are the best accepted fighting rules known to warfare to this day.

The Federal strategy in the last year of the war, with Grant in command and Sherman his lieutenant, stands out in marked relief to the disjointed, partial, and complicated operations of the previous years.... Grant seems to have been the first to recognize that, as von Moltke puts it, the true objective of a campaign is the defeat of the enemy’s main army.... General Sheridan’s summing up of the handling of the Army of the Potomac, before Grant took command, is to the point: “The army was all right; the trouble was that the commanders never went out to lick anybody, but always thought first of keeping from getting licked.” Grant, like Moltke, was always ready to try conclusions.

We donned bathing-suits and took a surf ride. This is the national sport and, being at all times sufficiently thrilling, must be taken in a high surf, a tremendous experience. The boats are long, deep and[13] very narrow canoes, with an outrigger at one side to keep them from tipping.

Two natives, and they must be skilled, usually operate these canoes. Three or four passengers at a time are taken out, the natives rowing with broad paddles a quarter or half mile from the shore, where they wait for a large wave. With the nicest precision they keep ahead of it, just as it breaks, and are carried smoothly in, poised on its crest. I sat facing the stern, and the experience was something to remember, the swift bird-like swoop of the canoe, with the white, seething wall of water behind it, apparently just about to engulf us. After we were safely on shore again they told us stories of how the wave, if the rowers miscalculate, will break over the canoe, driving it to the bottom.—“Smiling ’Round the World.”

The total value of farm products in the United States from $2,000,000,000 in 1880 to nearly $8,000,000,000 in 1900.

Washington Irving tells a story of a man who tried to jump over a hill. He went back so far to get his start for the great leap and ran so hard that he was completely exhausted when he came to the hill, and had to lie down and rest. Then he got up and walked over the hill.

A great many people exhaust themselves getting ready to do their work. They are always preparing. They spend their lives getting ready to do something which they never do.

It is an excellent thing to keep improving oneself, to keep growing; but there must be a time to begin the great work of life. I know a man who is almost forty years old, who has not yet decided what he is going to do. He has graduated from college, and taken a number of post-graduate courses—but all along general lines. He has not yet begun to specialize. This man fully believes he is going to do great things yet. I hope he may.—O. S. Marden.

“And he that walketh in the darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.” What a picture comes into the mind as by the aid of the imagination we read these words. I think of a vast forest, with its winding trail, its deep shadows, its tangled underbrush, its decayed trunks here and there. I think of myself at the end of a long day’s tramp. No[14] opening in sight. The sun has gone down. The light coming through the openings above growing less and less. The sky overcast. Soon it is dark. I miss the trail. I get down on my hands and knees to feel for it. Presently no sound but the cracking of the underbrush. Suddenly it dawns upon me that I am lost in the woods. All sense of direction is gone. Any way I turn may be the wrong way. I am utterly aimless. Jesus says the end of the selfish man is utter aimlessness. That as a man in the woods wanders without aim so the selfish man wanders in the moral universe without aim, not knowing whither he goeth.—Robert McLaughlin.

It is told of Professor Huxley that once, when the British Association met in Dublin, he arrived late in the city; fearing to miss the president’s address, he rushed from the train to the station platform, jumped on a jaunting-car, and said to the Celt in charge, “Drive fast; I’m in a hurry.” Cabby whipt up his horse and proved to be another Jehu. Suddenly it flashed upon the passenger, bounding about the vehicle in a most undignified way, to shout to the driver above the rattle of the car, “Do you know where I want to go?” “No, yer honor,” was Pat’s laughing rejoinder, “but I’m driving fast all the while.”

Attention has been called to some curious effects of rarefied and of condensed air on human respiration. On high mountains some persons experience distressing shortness of breath, one result of which is that they are unable to whistle. Precisely the same effect is sometimes produced by the condensed air in caissons and diving-bells. Laborers working in comprest air frequently find, however, that their powers of exertion are increased as long as the atmospheric pressure is not more than double that of ordinary air; but beyond that point unpleasant effects are experienced after the men have left the working shafts and returned into the open air. On the other hand, high atmospheric pressure in the case of persons not doing manual labor has been found to act as a mental stimulus, increasing the impulse to talk.—Harper’s Weekly.

In May, 1880, on Platt River, in Benzie County, Michigan, an old man was showing an Indian named Pokagon how to catch pigeons in their nesting-place. He led him to an open pole-pen which he called his bait-bed, where he scattered a bucketful of wheat. While the two watched in ambush the pigeons poured into the pen and gorged themselves. “Come on, you redskin,” said the old man to Pokagon, and they caught about a hundred fine birds. “How did you do it?” asked the Indian in surprize. With one eye half shut and a sly wink with the other, the old man replied: “That wheat was soaked in whisky.”

A distinguished jurist once sat down to a course dinner. He had been waited on by one servant during two courses. He had had the soup. Another servant came to him and said, “Sir, shall I take your order? Will you have some of the chicken soup?” “No, sir; I have been served with chicken soup, but the chicken proved an alibi.”—George M. Palmer.

The Judas-tree, so-called, is a remarkable plant. Its blossoms appear before its leaves, and are a most brilliant crimson. The flowers flaming forth, attract innumerable insects. The bee, for instance, in quest of honey, is drawn to it. But searching the petals for nectar, it imbibes a fatal opiate. Beneath this Judas-tree the ground is strewn with the victims of its deadly fascination.

The Venus fly trap is small and shaped as if you placed your two open palms side by side. Its surface is plastered with honey and the other palm has sharp needles pointing outward. The “silly fly” yields to the attraction of the sweets and is immediately shut in as the two palms close upon him. He is instantly stung to death by the needles.

In the old days a father built a home for his family. It was complete in every part, but the altar around which they gathered in prayer was not yet set in place. The mother wished it in the kitchen; there she was perplexed with her many cares. The father wished it in his study: God seemed nearer to him among his books. The son wished it in the room where guests were received, that the stranger entering might see that they worshiped God. At last they agreed to leave the matter to the youngest, who was a little child. Now the altar was a shaft of polished wood, very fragrant, and the child, who loved most of all to sit before the great fire and see beautiful forms in the flames, said, “See, the fire-log is gone; put the altar there.” So, because one would not yield to the other, they obeyed, and the altar was consumed, while its sweet odors filled the whole house—the kitchen, the study, and the guest hall—and the child saw beautiful forms in the flames.—David Starr Jordan, “The Religion of a Sensible American.”

There is in Cambridge, Mass., an elm-tree of moderate size, which has, according to the estimates of Professor Gray, a leaf surface of 200,000 square feet. This tree exhales seven and three-quarter tons of water every twelve hours. A forest of 500 such trees would return to the atmosphere nearly 4,000 tons in the same time.

Good men are not meant to be simply like trees planted by rivers of waters, flourishing in their own pride and for their own sake. They ought to be like the eucalyptus trees which have been set out in the marshes of the Campagna, from which a healthful, tonic influence is said to be diffused to countervail the malaria. They ought to be like the Tree of Paradise, “whose leaves are for the healing of nations.”—Henry Van Dyke.

An old gentleman in New England told me of a case he once observed. Noticing a little flock of chewinks or towhee buntings who came about the house for food that was thrown out, he saw that one was larger than the others and that they fed him. To satisfy his curiosity, he threw a stone with such accuracy that his victim fell, and on picking him up he was surprized to see that the bird’s mandibles were crossed so that he could not possibly feed himself. The inference was obvious; his comrades had fed him, and so well that[16] he had grown bigger than any of them.—Olive Thorne Miller, “The Bird Our Brother.”

A gentleman, while reading the newspaper, feeling bothered by the buzzing of a wasp about his head, beat it down. It fell through the open window and lay on the sill as if dead. A few seconds afterward, to his great surprize, a large wasp flew on to the window-sill, and after buzzing around his wounded brother for a few minutes, began to lick him all over. The sick wasp seemed to revive under this treatment, and his friend then gently dragged him to the edge, grasped him round the body and flew away with him. It was plain that the stranger, finding a wounded comrade, gave him “first aid,” as well as he could, and then bore him away home. This is one of many cases in which the law of altruism is traceable in the world of living things below man. How much more should intelligent man exercise this spirit of helpfulness in the rescue of his fallen brother.

The flower does not live for itself. Beautiful, fragrant-making, the tree an incense-holder, hang the apple-blossoms for a day; to-morrow they have let go their hold upon the tree and are scattered over the ground in order that the fruit may grow. The fruit guards the seed until it is mature, then the fruit goes to decay that the seed may be released; the seed gives up its life that a new tree may come. What a glorious parable is this: life for life, the old dying for the new; every tree in the orchard, every grain-stalk in the corn-field, every dusty weed by the roadside living for others and ready to die for others. The doctrine of unselfish love and of sacrifice comes to us fragrant with the odor of ten thousand blossoms and rich with the yellow fruitage of ten thousand harvests. Self-preservation is no longer the first law of nature. The first law seems to be preparation for that which is coming next.—John K. Willey.

Beloit College has been coeducational for about fifteen years. The following list of what its women alumni are doing is given in a current number of the college paper:

Eighty-eight are teaching.

Fifty-four are married.

Nineteen are at home.

Three are librarians.

Four are graduate students.

Two are college instructors.

One is supervisor of domestic economy.

One is vice-president of a bank.

One is a nurse.

One is an editor.

One is an assistant postmaster.

One is a visitor of Associated Charities.

One is superintendent of north-west district of United Charities in Chicago.

Two are high-school principals.

One is a student in the Baptist Missionary Training School, Chicago.

One is the industrial secretary of the Y. W. C. A., Detroit.

One is a bookkeeper in a bank.

One is a teacher in North China Union Woman’s College, American Board.

One is nursery visitor of United Charities in Chicago.

One is a private tutor.

The minister must be something as well as do something. He must consistently make an impression upon everybody he approaches that he is in something unlike the ordinary run of men. I do not mean that he should be sanctimonious, for that repels; it must be something in his own consciousness. My father was a clergyman. One of the most impressive incidents of my youth occurs to me. He was in a party of gentlemen, when one of them used a profane word unthinkingly. With a start he turned to my father, and said, “I beg your pardon, Dr. Wilson.” My father said, very simply and gently, “Oh, sir, you have not offended me.” The emphasis he laid upon that word “me” brought with it a tremendous impression. All present felt that my father regarded himself as an ambassador of someone higher; their realization of it showed in their faces.—Woodrow Wilson, The Churchman.

When William the Conqueror was born his first exploit was to grasp a handful of straw, and to hold it so tenaciously in his little fist that the nurse could scarcely take it away. This infantile prowess was considered an omen, and the nurse predicted that the babe would some day signalize himself[17] by seizing and holding great possessions. And he did.

Glenn H. Curtiss, by his successful and spectacular flight of 150 miles from Albany to this city (May 29, 1910), has jumped into the first rank of aviators.

Curtiss began life as soon as he was of a workable age as a newsboy. He is still remembered as a lad always ambitious in sport, particularly if there were any mechanical contrivances to be worked out that might add to his triumph. His ambition was to “arrive” in anything he undertook, and to do this he was not content to accept the suggestions of others, but sought to work out his own original ideas.

When about ten or eleven years old he was very much perturbed over the fact that one of his chums owned a hand-sled that always coasts down-hill faster than his own. Curtiss set to work to construct a sled that would outdistance his rival’s, and after weeks of quiet work had the satisfaction of leaving his rival far behind.

From sleds he turned his attention to bicycles.

“Why not attach a gasoline engine to it?” he asked one day, and immediately he went to work, using the model of an old gasoline engine to work on, and was soon able to amaze his neighbors by chugging through the country on his hand-made machine. The fever of the motorcycle was right on him, and that early success led him to establish a bicycle shop which soon grew from a mere repair shop to a plant for the manufacture of motor-cycles, and the success of the improved Curtiss motor was what gave him his first real fame.

In 1907 he took one of his machines to Ormond, Fla. It was built solely for speed, for it was Curtiss’ aim to go faster than any one else. The judges, greatly to the disappointment of the inventor, pronounced it a freak and not eligible, with the orthodox machines. It was a big disappointment, but Curtiss announced that he would make an exhibition mile trial, and, to the amazement of the experts, he covered the distance in the remarkable time of 0:26 2/5, the fastest mile that had ever been traveled by a man.

From making motors for bicycles it was an easy step to try the construction of light gasoline motors for flying purposes. Captain Thomas S. Baldwin was the first to see the possibilities of the Curtiss motor for balloon purposes, and at his suggestion Curtiss built one for Baldwin’s dirigible airship. This was successful, and others were built.

Then followed the success of the Wright brothers with heavier-than-air machines and the craze for the heavier-than-air type abroad. Curtiss’ little shop at Hammondsport became the headquarters for the aeronautical students of this country and aerial flight received its first big impetus, next to that given by the Wrights when Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, in November, 1907, organized his Aeronautic Experiment Association, and Curtiss was one of its six members.

By the sheer force of his ambition Pope won his place, and held it, in spite of religious prejudice, and in the face of physical and temperamental obstacles that would have discouraged a stronger man. For Pope was deformed and sickly, dwarfish in soul and body. He knew little of the world of nature or of the world of the human heart. He was lacking, apparently, in noble feeling, and instinctively chose a lie when the truth had manifestly more advantages. Yet this jealous, peevish, waspish little man became the acknowledged leader of English literature.—William J. Long, “English Literature.”

For ages upon ages this mighty microorganism has waged a cruel destructive war upon the human race. After fifty years of observation and study of its ghastly doings, I can say that I would rather have the power to cause the tears shed on its account to cease than to be the greatest official or the greatest owner on the earth.

In the hour when for the first time I stood before the cataracts of Niagara, I seemed to see a vision of the fears and hopes of America. It was midnight, the moon was full, and I saw from the suspension bridge the ceaseless contortion, confusion, whirl, and chaos which burst forth in clouds of foam from that immense central chasm which divides the American from the British dominion; and as I looked on that ever-changing movement, and listened to that everlasting roar, I saw an emblem of the devouring activity, and ceaseless, restless, beating whirlpool of existence in the United States. But into the moonlight sky there rose a cloud of spray twice as high as the falls themselves, silent, majestic, immovable. In that silver column, glittering in the moonlight, I saw an image of the future of American destiny, of the pillar of light which should emerge from the distractions of the present—a likeness of the buoyancy and hopefulness which characterize you both as individuals and as a nation.—Arthur Penrhyn Stanley.

The meaning of the name Amerigo has been often discust, the only thing certain being that it is one of those names of Teutonic origin, like Humberto, Alfonzo, Grimaldi, or Garibaldi, so common in northern Italy, which testifies to the Gothic or Lombard conquest. Americ, which occurs as early as 744 A.D., is probably a contracted form of the name Amalaric, borne by a king of the Visigoths who died in 531. A Bishop Emrich was present at the Council of Salisbury, in 807, and an Americus Balistarius is mentioned in the Close Rolls (thirteenth century). It has been conjectured that the stem is im, from which we get the name of Emma. The meaning of this is not known with certainty, tho Ferguson thinks it may denote “strife” or “noise.” Since, however, the name is probably of Gothic origin, and since the Amalungs were the royal race of the Ostragoths, it is more likely that the stem is “amal,” which was formerly thought to mean “without spot,” but is now more plausibly connected with the old Norse “aml,” labor, work. The suffix “ric,” cognate with rex, reich, and rick, means “rich” or “powerful,” and, therefore, the most probable signification of Amerigo is “strong for labor.”—Isaac Taylor, Notes and Queries.

A young Irishman who settled in Chicago forty years ago, and found his first employment as driver of a baker’s wagon, has just retired from business a millionaire. An Italian, then aged sixteen, who reached Trenton, N. J., thirteen years ago with barely sufficient money to set up in business as a bootblack, now owns twenty-three houses, and announces his intention to take up real estate. Both these passages of contemporary biography are recorded in the same newspaper. Probably they will attract little attention or remark. That is to be explained by the happy circumstance that such progress from poverty is no exceptional thing in this country, and any community could match the stories with many that are equally striking.—Boston Transcript.

Suppose you are a father, and you have five children. One is named Philip, and Philip says to his brothers and sisters: “Now, John, you go and live in the small room at the end of the hall. George, you go and stay up in the garret. Mary, you go and live in the cellar, and, Fannie, you go and live in the kitchen, and don’t any of you come out. I am Philip, and will occupy the parlor; I like it; I like the lambrequins at the window, and I like the pictures on the wall. I am Philip, and, being Philip, the parlor shall only be for the Philipians.” You, the father, come home, and say: “Fannie, what are you doing in the kitchen? Come out of there.” And you say to Mary, “Mary, come out of that cellar.” And you say to John, “John, don’t stay shut up in that small room. Come out of there.” And you say to George,[19] “George, come down out of that garret.” And you say to the children, “This is my house. You can go anywhere in it that you want to.” And you go and haul Philip out of the parlor, and you tell him that his brothers and sisters have just as much right in there as he has, and that they are all to enjoy it. Now, God is our Father, and this world is a house of several rooms, and God has at least five children—the North American continent, the South American continent, the Asiatic continent, the European continent, and the African continent. The North American continent sneaks away, and says: “I prefer the parlor. You South Americans, Asiatics, Europeans, and Africans, you stay in your own rooms; this is the place for me; I prefer it, and I am going to stay in the parlor; I like the front windows facing on the Atlantic, and the side windows facing on the Pacific, and the nice piazza on the south where the sun shines, and the glorious view from the piazza to the north.” And God, the Father, comes in and sends thunder and lightning through the house, and says to his son, the American continent: “You are no more my child than are all these others, and they have just as much right to enjoy this part of my house as you have.”—T. Dewitt Talmage.

“The attitude of the United States that she was not warring with China in 1900 and that she recognized no spoils of war; the attitude that made her give back to China the large quantity of silver which fell into her possession at Tien-Tsin; that made her give over to the Chinese Government, unmolested, the treasury and its treasures in the Forbidden City; that caused her, without compulsion, to cancel the Boxer indemnity fund, is an attitude too deep, too broad, too high for word expression. Does not this attitude reveal a strong current of sisterly good will, when it is able to sweep away the heavy weights of financial gain? This attitude is not one of spontaneity; the seed was brought over in the Mayflower; it was planted in the virgin soil of liberty, where it rooted, and was watered with treasured dew-drops; was nourished into being in love’s tenderness; was sustained in truth’s fortitude. This is the story of our country’s attitude.”—“Letters from China.”

News of an international event of no little pathos comes from Port Arthur. Around the great fortress were buried thousands of Russians who fell in the siege, and whose graves were unmarked. The Russian Government asked permission to gather these remains in one place and erect a tomb for them which should be a suitable monument to their heroism. The Japanese Government replied by asking for permission to engage in this sad duty as a token of honor to the Russian dead. In this Russia readily acquiesced, and the tomb, which is of noble proportions and Etruscan in design, was recently dedicated. At these solemn services the old foes met once more. General Nogi, the hero of Port Arthur, was by special order of the Emperor the representative of Japan. Russia sent two generals and an admiral, who were supported by many Russian officers who had fought over that very ground. Regiments of Japanese troops stood on guard, as did also representatives of the Japanese navy. These latter, at the moment of unveiling, bore a worn and battle-torn flag to the tomb, and reverently lowered it as a tribute of respect. The religious ceremonies were in charge of the Bishop of Peking, of the Russian Church. (Text.)

Mrs. A. B. Sims, of Des Moines, winner of the woman’s whist championship of the United States, stood before an audience of 4,000 at Winona Lake and told why she burned up the forty decks of cards that she had at her home.

“It was not uncommon for me to play whist from 10 A.M. to 11 P.M.,” said Mrs. Sims. “After that I saw what I was really doing. I burned up all the pasteboards, and I should like to speak in every church to the women and tell them what card-playing led me to, and what it will lead them to. It was undermining our church. The whist and euchre parties were sweeping the women of the congregation and the church was sinking because of their neglect. The card craze as it prevails among women is the most serious competitor the Church has to-day.”

The destructive influence of ancestor worship far outweighs its benefits. It is a ruthless and voracious land-grabber; the best of the hills are for the dead. The living may go to Jericho, or may huddle together down in the malarial flats, while the ancestral shade rests in the high places on the hill. The exhilarating surroundings of the trees and green sod are for the dead, the living are left to the dust and heat and smells of the market-place.

Ancestral piety forbids the digging of the hills for gold or silver or any other treasure. What are the living and what is yellow gold compared with the sweet repose of my father’s ghost? Away with all sordid visions and leave the hills in peace!—James S. Gale, “Korea in Transition.”

It was the custom of the primitive Romans to preserve in the halls of their houses the images of all the illustrious men whom their families had produced. These images are supposed to have consisted of a mask exactly representing the countenance of each deceased individual, accompanied with habiliments of like fashion with those worn in his time, and with the armor, badges, and insignia of his offices and exploits; all so disposed around the sides of the hall as to present, in the attitude of living men, the long succession of the departed; and thus to set before the Roman citizen, whenever he entered or left the house, the venerable array of his ancestors revived in this imposing similitude. Whenever, by a death in the family, another distinguished member of it was gathered to his fathers, a strange and awful procession was formed. The ancestral masks, including that of the newly deceased, were fitted upon the servants of the family, selected of the size and appearance of those whom they were intended to represent, and drawn up in solemn array to follow the funeral train of the living mourners, first to the market-place, where the public eulogium was pronounced, and then to the tomb. As he thus moved along, with all the great fathers of his name quickening, as it were, from their urns, to enkindle his emulation, the virtuous Roman renewed his vows of respect to their memory, and his resolution to imitate their fortitude, frugality, and patriotism.—Edward Everett.

Every ship has an anchor, and there are times when the safety of the ship depends on its right use of its anchors. When I was a boy in Constantinople, an American captain visited our house. He told us that his ship was anchored in an exposed harbor in one of the islands of the Ægean, when a violent storm broke upon them. Both of the anchors which they had down began to drag, and it was only a question of time when they would be cast ashore. They had one little anchor still unused, and tho they did not hope much good could come from dropping it they took the chance. To their great surprize and equal delight, tho the two larger anchors would not hold, the smaller one held, and they rode out the storm in safety. When they came to weigh the anchors, the two large ones came up easily, but the smaller one came with great difficulty. When at last it appeared above the surface of the water, lo and behold, the fluke of the anchor had caught in the ring of a large man-of-war’s anchor that had been lost there long before! The man-of-war’s anchor had been embedded in the soil, and this accounted for the fact that the little anchor held.

To the student of architecture it may be surprizing to learn that the arch, until recently supposed to have been unknown to the ancients, was frequently employed by the pre-Babylonians of more than 6,000 years ago. Such an arch, in a poor state of preservation, was, a few years ago, discovered in the lowest stratum, beneath the Babylonian city of Nippur. More recently an arched drain was found beneath the old city of[21] Fara, which the Germans have excavated in central Babylonia. The city, altho one of the earliest known, was built upon an earlier ruin, and provided with an arched drain constructed of small, plano-convex bricks. It measures about one meter in height, and has an equal width.

While delving among the ruins of the oldest cities of the world, we are thus finding that at the time when we supposed that man was primitive and savage, he provided his home and city with “improvements” which we are inclined to call modern, but which we are only reinventing. (Text.)—Prof. Edgar James Banks, The Scientific American.

A cobbler at Leyden, who used to attend the public disputations held at the Academy, was once asked if he understood Latin. “No,” replied the mechanic, “but I know who is wrong in the argument.” “How?” replied his friend. “Why, by seeing who is angry first.”

The camel has one very bad fault. He likes to “pay back,” and if his driver has injured him in any way he will not rest till he has got even.

The Arabs, people who wander about the desert, and so use the camel a great deal, know about this fault of his, and have a queer way of keeping themselves from getting hurt.

When a driver has made his camel angry, he first runs away out of sight. Then, choosing a place where the camel will soon pass, he throws down some of his clothes, and fixes them so that the heap will look like a sleeping man.

Pretty soon, along comes the camel, and sees the heap. Thinking to himself, “Now I’ve got him,” he pounces on the clothes, shakes them around, and tramples all over them. After he tires of this and has turned away, the driver can appear and ride him away without harm.

Poor, silly camel! He has been in what we call a “blind rage,” so angry that he can’t tell the difference between a man and a heap of clothes.

A simple-minded Irish priest I have been told of, having heard that we were descended from monkeys, yet not quite grasping the chronology of the business, recently visited a menagerie, and gave particular and patient attention to a large cage of our alleged poor relations on exhibition there. He stood for a long time intently scrutinizing their human-like motions, gestures, and expressions. By and by he fancied that the largest of them, an individual of a singularly grave demeanor, seated at the front of the cage, gave him a glance of intelligence. The glance was returned. A palpable wink followed, which also was returned, as were other like signals; and so it went on until his reverence, having cast an eye around to see that nobody was observing him, leaned forward and said, in a low, confidential tone: “Av ye’ll spake one w-u-r-r-d, I’ll baptize ye, begorra!”—Joseph H. Twichell, D.D.

An English hunter tells the story of a tigress that was known all over India as the man-eater, who once had given her whelps a live man to play with. She carried off the man from an open hut in the forest where some wood-cutters were sleeping. His companions took refuge in trees, and from their place of safety saw her take the man alive to where the whelps were waiting close by, and lay him down before them. As the man attempted to crawl away the whelps would cling to his legs with teeth and claws, the tigress looking on and purring with pleasure. (Text.)—Louis Albert Banks.

Jeff Clarke, a farmer of Wabash township, owns a mule that plays the part of an alarm-clock every morning with such regularity that Clarke has about discarded the little alarm-clock that hangs on the bed-post and firmly refuses to part with the animal.

Promptly at 4 o’clock this mule kicks the side of the barn four times in succession. At first Clarke thought the animal was ill, and for several mornings he got up and investigated. He took note, however, that the gong of the alarm-clock started buzzing when the mule started kicking.

He put two and two together, and reached the conclusion that the mule knows the hour when the Clarke household should arise and begin the day’s work.

The criminal classes of Moscow, Russia, are beginning to believe that the police dog “Tref” is possest of an evil spirit.

It was rumored recently, in the night shelters and criminal dens of Moscow, that “Tref” and his keeper were on the track of certain robbers, and were about to scour the town.

It transpired that a number of bank-notes and other valuables had been stolen from a Moscow gentleman named Pokrofsky. “Tref’s” services were immediately requisitioned. He was put on the scent of the thief, and, after taking a circuitous course, entered a night shelter and made straight for an old coat belonging to a house-painter who was known under the name of Alexander. The sum of five hundred rubles, which had been stolen from M. Pokrofsky, was found in one of the pockets of the coat.

“Tref” then left the night shelter, and, still hot on the scent, went to the shop of a second-hand dealer named Gussef, and here a number of silver articles stolen from M. Pokrofsky were discovered. A cabman drove up at this time, and complained that he had just been robbed of a fur coat and an ordinary overcoat. “Tref” was at once taken to the scene of the theft, and within a few minutes found the clothing concealed in the courtyard of a neighboring house.—Philadelphia Record.

St. Clair McClary, a miner, buried deep in a snow-slide, at Seward, Alaska, owed his life to the keen scent of his dog. The snow-slide swept down the mountain. Four men at work on the property were caught without warning and buried under several feet of snow and débris. Two escaped without serious injury. So deep was the slide, however, that difficulty was experienced in reaching the others. The dog led the rescuers to a place several yards distant, where, after hard digging, they came on the men, who had been buried eight hours. Thomas Coales was dead under the icy weight. McClary was barely alive when taken out.—The Associated Press.

A tiny mouse recently solved the problem of getting an electric wire through a pipe 197 feet long at the Vinery Building (Norfolk, Va.). There were several bends in the pipe, and modern methods, such as blow-pipes, failed to produce results.

A mouse was caught and a thread tied to its leg. A tape was tied to the thread, and the wire to the tape. The mouse was given a start, and went through the pipe in a hurry. Liberty was its reward.—Philadelphia Record.

A seamstress whom I know was sewing in the home of a wealthy woman in one of the aristocratic suburbs of Boston. She was there every day for nearly a week, when finally her patience became exhausted and she left the house never to return.

She said she could stand being fed on crackers and milk every day at the noon meal, but when she heard the mistress of the house at the telephone ordering half a chicken for her pet dogs she could withhold her wrath no longer.

Of course, the good woman of the house was sweetly unconscious of the absurd comparison between the dogs’ food and the food for the seamstress. Had she had any sense of the meanness of her conduct, she never[23] would have telephoned that message within the hearing of the seamstress.

The truth of the matter was that her heart—as much as she had left of it—was all wrapt up in her pet dogs, and her interest in human beings had become as a matter of habit, simply a question of the amount of service they could render her. She is probably whining to-day about the seamstress who didn’t know her place and who was jealous of people who had means.—George W. Coleman, “Searchlights.”

It is hard for children to resist the feeling that a summer shower comes with a sort of personal benevolence to water the dry flowers and grass. A little girl of four years illustrated this feeling on a certain occasion. There was a thunder-shower after a long dry spell. The rain was pattering on the sidewalk outside the house. The child stretched forth her hands toward the rain-drops and said: “Come, good rain, and water our plants!” Flowers and trees have individuality for most children, if not for all. Ruth’s mama found her sitting among the wild geraniums, some distance from the house. “What are you doing, Ruth?” “I’m sitting by the flowers. They are lonesome and like to have me with them, don’t you know?” At another time she said: “Mama, these daisies seem to look up at me and talk to me. Perhaps they want us to kiss them.” On one occasion she said to her brother, who was in the act of gathering some flowers she claimed for herself, “I don’t think it nice to break off those poor flowers. They like to live just as well as you do.” The boy thus chided by his sister for gathering her flowers was generally very fond of plants and trees, and felt a quite human companionship in them. He could not bear to see flowering plants hanging in a broken condition, or lying crusht upon the sidewalk. Even at the age of ten years, he would still work solicitously over flowers like the violets, bluets, and crowfoots, with evident concern for their comfort.

A drunken carter came into a Greenock (Scotland) train and sat opposite a clergyman, who was reading his paper. Recognizing the profession of his vis-a-vis, the carter leaned forward and in a maudlin way remarked, “I don’t believe there’s any heaven.” The clergyman paid no heed. “Do you hear me?” persisted the carter. “I don’t believe there’s any heaven.” Still the clergyman remained behind his newspaper. The carter, shouting his confession loudly, said, “I tell ye to your face, and you’re a minister, that I don’t believe there’s any heaven.” “Very well,” said the clergyman; “if you do not believe there is any heaven, go elsewhere, but please go quietly.” (Text.)—London Graphic.

Spiritual manhood has put away childish thinking. What, for instance, does a child think about God? Professor Street publishes some first-hand illustrations of childish conceptions of God. He says that children “completely anthropomorphize God, making Him subservient to time, space, and passions, just the same as they themselves are.” I recall an example or two: When a girl was told that the stars were God’s eyes, she at once asked where His legs were. Another saw, for the first time, a cupola on a barn. Gazing at it she asked, “Does God live in that little house?” A boy asked some one if God made the river running back of his house. On receiving an affirmative answer, he promptly replied, “He must have had a big shovel.” When another boy refused to say his prayers, he was asked for the reason. He answered, “Why, they are old. God has heard them so many times that they are old to Him, too. Why, He knows them as well as I do myself.”—F. F. Shannon.

In a little parlor down-stairs of Mencci’s house in Staten Island were three large altar-candles in the Italian colors of red, white and green which, Mencci told us (says a correspondent of the Century) he and Garibaldi had amused themselves at making in a leisure hour “to illuminate the Campidoglio of Rome when the Italian army should enter the Eternal City and make it the capital of United Italy.” When Rome was recovered, three other candles in the Italian colors were actually sent to Garibaldi there. (Text.)

It seems absolutely incredible that Peter the Great, the father of the Russian navy, should shudder at the sight of water, whether running or still, yet so it was, especially when alone. His palace gardens, beautiful as they were, he never entered, because the river Mosera flowed through them. His coachman had orders to avoid all roads which led past streams, and if compelled to cross a brook or bridge, the great emperor would sit with closed windows, in a cold perspiration. Another monarch, James I, the English Solomon, as he liked to be called, had many antipathies, chiefly tobacco, ling, and pork. He never overcame his inability to look at a drawn sword, and it is said that on one occasion when giving the accolade, the king turned his face aside, nearly wounding the new-made knight. Henry III of France had so great a dislike for cats that he fainted at the sight of one. We suppose that in this case the cat had to waive his proverbial prerogative, and could not look at a king. This will seem as absurd, as extraordinary to lady lovers of that much-petted animal, but what are we to say of the Countess of Lamballe, of unhappy history, to whom a violet was a thing of horror? Even this is not without its precedent, for it is on record that Vincent, the painter, was seized with vertigo and swooned at the smell of roses. Scaliger states that one of his relations was made ill at the sight of a lily, and he himself would turn pale at the sight of watercresses, and could never drink milk. Charles Kingsley, naturalist as he was to the core, had a great horror of spiders, and in “Glaucus,” after saying that every one seems to have his antipathic animal, continues: “I know one (himself), bred from his childhood to zoology by land and sea, and bold in asserting and honest in feeling that all, without exception, is beautiful, who yet can not after handling and petting and examining all day long, every uncouth and venomous beast, avoid a paroxysm of horror at the sight of the common house-spider.” (Text.)—Cassell’s Family Magazine.

A well-known officer of Her Majesty’s army, who has proved his strength and courage in more than one campaign, turns pale at the sight of a cat. On one occasion, when asked out to dinner, his host, who was rather skeptical as to the reality of this feeling, concealed a cat in an ottoman in the dining-room. Dinner was announced and commenced, but his guest was evidently ill at ease; and at length declared his inability to go on eating, as he was sure there was a cat in the room. An apparently thorough but unavailing search was made; but his visitor was so completely upset that the host, with many apologies for his experiment, “let the cat out of the bag,” and out of the ottoman at the same time.—Cassell’s Family Magazine.

Sven Hedin has furnished additional evidence of the Chinese invention of paper. On his recent journeys he found Chinese paper that dates back to the second half of the third century after Christ. This lay buried in the sand of the Gobi desert, near the former northern shore of the Lop Nor Sea, where, in the ruins of a city and in the remnants of one of the oldest houses, he discovered a goodly lot of manuscripts, many of paper, covered with Chinese script, preserved for some 1,650 years. The date is Dr. Himly’s conclusion. According to Chinese sources, paper was manufactured as early as the second millennium before the Christian era. The character of the Gobi desert find makes it probable that the making of paper out of vegetable fibers was already an old art in the third Christian century.—The Scientific American.

I had eight acres of land to sell, and there was one landowner in the district, whom I will call Mr. Robinson, who was very anxious to secure this particular piece of land because it adjoined his own estate. He had already attempted to acquire it by private arrangement, but the negotiations had fallen through.

Being engaged at the funeral of a relative on the day of the sale, he left very definite instructions with his butler, who had only entered his service a day or two before, to attend the sale and buy the land at any price. The butler duly came to the sale and took up his station in the old chimney-corner, out of sight of every one excepting myself. It so happened, however, that Mr. Robinson was back from the funeral earlier than he expected, and, going to the sale and failing to observe his butler, began the bidding with an offer of $2,500. Up and up went the price, the landowner and the butler bidding against one another like Trojans, until at last the field was knocked down to the latter at $7,500. The feelings of Mr. Robinson and the amusement of the company may be easily imagined when the purchaser remarked in a quiet voice, “For Mr. Robinson. Here’s his check for you to fill in for the deposit.”

Fortunately, Mr. Robinson was anything but a poor man, and he had benefited to the tune of $200,000 in the loss of his relative, so the few extra thousands he paid did not hurt him.

The Hon. W. P. Fessenden unintentionally made a remark against Seward, which was considered to be highly insulting. When Fessenden was informed of the construction placed upon it, he went frankly to Seward, and said, “Mr. Seward, I have insulted you, but I did not mean it.” Mr. Seward was so delighted with the frank apology that he exclaimed, “God bless you, Fessenden! I wish you would insult me again.”—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”

“After the Czar’s morning bath it is his habit to meditate an hour before dressing himself.”—London Times Correspondence.

(Viewing himself in the pier-glass.)

Naked, what am I? A lank, skinny, spiderlegged[26] libel on the image of God! Look at the waxwork head—the face, with the expression of a melon—the projecting ears—the knotted elbows—the dished breast—the knife-edged shins—and then the feet, all beads and joints and bonesprays, an imitation X-ray photograph! There is nothing imperial about this, nothing imposing, impressive, nothing to invoke awe and reverence. Is it this that a hundred and forty million Russians kiss the dust before and worship? Manifestly not! No one could worship this spectacle, which is Me. Then who is it, what is it, that they worship? Privately, none knows better than I: it is my clothes. Without my clothes I should be as destitute of authority as any other naked person. Nobody could tell me from a parson, a barber, a dude. Then who is the real Emperor of Russia? My clothes. There is no other. (Text.)

When Governor Bowdoin, a tall, dignified man, reviewed the troops assembled at Cambridge, in 1785, he was drest in a gray wig, cocked hat, a white broadcloth coat and waistcoat, red small-clothes, and black silk stockings. John Hancock, thin in person, six feet in stature, was very fond of ornamental dress. He wore a wig when abroad, and a cap when at home. A gentleman who visited Hancock one day at noon, in June, 1782, describes him as drest in a red velvet cap lined with fine white linen, which was turned up two or three inches over the lower edge of the velvet. He also wore a blue damask gown lined with silk; a white stock, a white satin embroidered waistcoat, black satin small-clothes, white silk stockings, and red morocco slippers. Washington, at his receptions in Philadelphia, was drest in black velvet; his hair was powdered and gathered behind in a large silk bag. His hands were encased in yellow gloves; he held a cocked hat with a cockade on it, and its edges adorned with a black feather. He wore knee and shoe buckles, and at his left hip appeared a long sword in a polished white leather scabbard, with a polished steel hilt. Chief-Justice Dana, of Massachusetts, used to wear in winter a white corduroy surtout, lined with fur, and held his hands in a large muff. The judges of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts wore, till 1793, robes of scarlet, faced with black velvet, in winter, and black silk gowns in summer. At the beginning of this century powder for the hair became unfashionable, tying up the hair was abandoned, colored garments went out of use, buckles disappeared, and knee-breeches gave place to trousers.—Youth’s Companion.

Dr. Bernardo, of London, the great philanthropist, was standing at his front door one bitter day, when a ragged urchin came up to him and asked to be admitted to the Orphans’ Home. “How do I know what you tell me is true? Have you any friends to speak for you?” asked Dr. Bernardo, assuming a tone of severity. “Friends!” echoed the little fellow—“friends! No, I ain’t got no friends. But if these ere rags,” holding up his tattered garments, “if these ere rags won’t speak for me, nothing else will.” (Text.)

In the superior court this evidence was produced and a somewhat vivid claim made of prima facie evidence of guilt by the prosecuting attorney. During all this time Mr. Thompson was silent. When his turn came for the defense he arose and said:

“Michael Dougherty, take the stand.”

And Mike, with big red nose, unshaven face, bleared eyes, and a general appearance of dilapidation and dejection, took the stand.

“Michael Dougherty, look upon the jury. Gentlemen of the jury, look on Michael Dougherty,” said Mr. Thompson. All complied. Mr. Thompson himself silently and steadily gazing at Mike for a moment, slowly and with solemnity turned to the jury and said: “Gentlemen of the jury, do you mean to say to this court and to me that you honestly and truly believe that Michael Dougherty, if he had a pint of whisky, would sell it?”

It is needless to say Mike was acquitted. (Text.)

An officer of a Cunard steamer remarked that there is “a vast difference between the appearance of steerage passengers returning to Europe and those coming to America. On the western voyage the faces of the immigrants are bright with expectancy. You can see that they have been inspired by the roseate visions painted for them by their friends who have succeeded on this side of the water. Those who go back are not many. You can pick them out by their dejected looks. They have not succeeded. They have found that hard work is just as necessary to get along in the States as in Europe.”

It is the custom in European, if not in all American, prisons to shave the head and face of criminals in order to have the full force of the moral expression furnished by the contour of one and the outlines of the other. A profusion of hair may disguise the head whose shape often reveals a degree of turpitude. A luxuriant mustache may hide a mouth about which lurks the evidence of the basest instincts. (Text.)—San Francisco Chronicle.

A boa-constrictor woke up hungry from a three months’ nap and caught a rabbit, which he bolted whole in the usual way. This did not satisfy the cravings of his capacious stomach, and so he went a-field in search of further victuals, and presently came to a rail fence, which he essayed to get through. But the lump caused by the defunct tho undigested bunny stopt him, like a knot in a rope, when his head and a few feet only of his body had passed between the rails. Lying in this attitude, he caught and swallowed another rabbit which had incautiously ventured within his narrow sphere of action. Now, what was the state of affairs? He could neither go ahead nor astern through the fence, being jammed by his fore-and-aft inside passengers, and in this embarrassing position he was slain with ease.

The reckless extravagance that has brought Princess Louise, of Belgium, into such trouble with her royal relations is far from being due entirely to selfishness, and Brussels now is discussing, half in admiration, half in despair, the latest story showing the utter inability of the princess to realize the value of money or the things it buys. When in Paris, a few weeks ago, she happened to be in her room in her hotel when a little work-girl from one of the shops in the Rue de la Paix called to deliver a gown. Princess Louise was struck with the girl’s charm of face and manner, and, keeping her for a few minutes in conversation, chanced to admire a small silver medal she was wearing around her neck.

“It is a medal of the virgin of Prague,” said the girl. “Perhaps your Highness will accept it.”

Princess Louise thanked her warmly; but, insisting on giving the girl something to replace the trinket, handed her a rope of[28] pearls. The girl supposed they were only imitations, but the whole story came out in a few days when, on taking them to a jeweler to have the clasp tightened, she was cross-questioned as to how the pearls had come into her possession. They proved to be worth more than $11,000.—New York Press.

The owner of a small country estate decided to sell his property, and consulted an estate agent in the nearest town about the matter. After visiting the place, the agent wrote a description of it, and submitted it to his client for approval.

“Read that again,” said the owner, closing his eyes and leaning back in his chair contentedly.

After the second reading he was silent a few moments, and then said thoughtfully: “I don’t think I’ll sell. I’ve been looking for that kind of a place all my life, but until you read that description I didn’t know I had it! No; I won’t sell now.”

A shipping merchant said to a boy applying for work, “What can you do?” “I can do my best to do what you are kind enough to let me try,” replied the boy. “What have you done?” “I have sawed and split my mother’s wood for nearly two years.” “What have you not done?” “Well, sir,” the boy replied after a moment’s reflection, “I have not whispered in school for over a year.” “That is enough,” said the merchant. “I will take you aboard my vessel, and I hope some day to see you her captain. A boy who can master a wood-pile and bridle his tongue must have good stuff in him.”—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”

An infinite joy is lost to the world by the want of culture of the spiritual endowment. Suppose that I were to visit a cottage and to see its walls lined with the choicest pictures of Raffael, and every spare nook filled with statues of the most exquisite workmanship, and that I were to learn that neither man, woman, nor child ever cast an eye at these miracles of art, how should 1 feel their privation; how should I want to open their eyes, and to help them to comprehend and feel the loveliness and grandeur which in vain courted their notice! But every husbandman is living in sight of the works of a diviner Artist; and how much would his existence be elevated could he see the glory which shines forth in their forms, hues, proportions, and moral expression!—William Ellery Channing.

One afternoon, after he [President Lincoln] had issued his call for troops, he sat alone in his room, and a feeling came over him as if he were utterly deserted and helpless. He thought any moderately strong body of Secessionist troops, if there were any in the neighborhood, might come over the “long bridge” across the Potomac, and just take him and the members of the Cabinet—the whole lot of them. Then he suddenly heard a sound like the boom of a cannon. “There they are!” he said to himself. He expected every moment that somebody would rush in with the report of an attack. But the White House attendants,[29] whom he interrogated, had heard nothing. Nobody came, and all remained still. Then he thought he would look after the thing himself. So he walked out, and walked and walked until he got to the arsenal. There he found the doors all open, and not a soul to guard them. Anybody might have gone in and helped himself to the arms. There was perfect solitude and stillness all around. Then he walked back to the White House without noticing the slightest sign of disturbance. He met a few persons on the way, some of whom he asked whether they had not heard something like the boom of a cannon. Nobody had heard anything, and so he supposed it must have been a freak of his imagination. It is probable that at least a guard was sent to the arsenal that evening. (Text.)

To illustrate the extraordinary argumentativeness of the Scots there is a story of a Scotchman who lay dying in a London hospital. A woman visitor wanted to sing to him some hymns, but he told her that he had all his life fought against using hymn tunes in the service of God, but he was willing to argue the question with her as long as his senses remained. I say that when a man in the face of death is willing to stand for the truth as it has been taught to him, it is out of such stuff that heroes are made. (Text.)—John Watson.

It is common to find in American novels such expressions as “great families,” “best society,” “long descended,” and we also hear of the “exclusiveness” of the “fastidious” American aristocracy, who think as much of their positions as the haughtiest vieille noblesse in Europe. “A patrician crush” is, according to one writer, the synonym of what another calls “a tony gathering.” These crushes and gatherings have, however, little of the aristocratic element in their composition. They are, for the most part, but fashionable circles in which prevails “the milliner’s estimate of life.” It is into this society that the young lady makes her “dew-bew,” as debut is startlingly pronounced in America. In no other English-speaking community do the plebeians stickle so for the titles of “gentleman” and “lady.” I was told by an Irish-American laundress that “the lady what did the clear-starching got twelve dollars a week.” And I have heard of a cabman who asked, “Are you the man as wants a gentleman to drive him to the depot?” During an investigation concerning the Cambridge, Mass., workhouse, one of the witnesses spoke of the “ladies’ cell.” And a newspaper reporter writing of a funeral had occasion to say how “the corpse of the dead lady” looked. The plebeian who, by dint of hard work, has accumulated wealth, often aspires to patrician distinction. Tiffany, of New York, is said to have a pattern-book of crests, from which the embryo nobleman may choose an escutcheon emblematic either of his business or of some less worthy characteristic. A shirt-maker of Connecticut, having made a fortune by an improved cutting-machine, announced his intention of getting a coat of arms. An unappreciative commoner asked him if the design would be a shirt rampant. “No,” he gravely replied, “it will be a shirt pendant and washerwoman rampant.”—Harold Brydges, Cosmopolitan.

Speaking of my past I condemn myself unreservedly, for all my faults and errors were the natural result of my aristocratic birth and training, which is the worst thing that can befall a man, as it stifles every human instinct. Turgenef wrote to me: “You have tried for many years to become a peasant in conduct as well as in ideas, but you nevertheless are the same aristocrat. You are good-hearted and have a charming personality, but I have observed that in all your practical dealings with the peasants you remain the patronizing master who likes to be esteemed for his benefactions and to be considered the bounteous patriarch,” in which he was very right.

The comparative exemption of the United States from great military burdens may be inferred from the chart below. The cost proportionately of maintaining the army in this country is far greater than in Europe. The table below shows the cost of maintaining the armies of some of the principal countries.

The king-crab, found in the Indian and American seas, is armed with a sword-like weapon at his tail and his head is protected by a sword-shaped helmet, so he is well armed for the battle of life. Since he and his ancestry have assisted in purifying the sea, we can see the wisdom which preserved them from age to age.

In the age-long battle against spiritual enemies, Paul urges the Ephesian Christians to “take unto them the whole armor of God”; “and having done all to stand.” (Text.)

Mr. W. T. Stead thinks that armor is certainly about to be revived in the military forces of Europe. A bullet-proof substance has been discovered; and if it be used as a breast-plate like a steel cuirass, it will put a different face on modern warfare. The French Government has tested the new armor, and reports that it has four or five times the resistance of chilled steel, and is invulnerable to rifle bullets. The equipment is not heavier than a cuirass and costs half as much. Of his own observation in this matter, Mr. Stead writes as follows in the London Daily Chronicle:

“I have myself witnessed experiments which go to prove that the soldier provided with this new armor can expose himself to the fire of modern rifles, at a distance of one hundred yards, and suffer as little from their fire as if he were being assailed by pea-shooters. The regiment arrayed in this armor of proof, and marching up to within one hundred yards of the enemy, suffers no more damage from a mitraille of steel bullets than if it were marching through an ordinary hailstorm.”

Old Peter Cartwright was a famous preacher and circuit-rider many years ago.

The exhorter was holding a camp-meeting in Ohio. There was a great number of campers on the field, and the eccentric speaker addrest vast concourses at every service, but he thought too few were being converted. He felt that something should be[31] done to stir the sinners to repentance, so he prepared a strong sermon on the second coming of Christ. He told how the world would go on in its sin and wickedness, and at last Gabriel would sound his trumpet and time would come to an end. He described the horrors of the lost and the joys of those who were saved. The sermon grew in intensity, and he brought his people up to a grand climax, when suddenly the sound of a trumpet smote the ears of the anxious throng.

There was a great sensation, and many fell upon their knees in terror and began to repent and pray. Women screamed and strong men groaned. Pandemonium was let loose for a few minutes. After the terror had somewhat ceased the preacher called to a man up a tree, and he descended with a long tin horn in his hand. The speaker then turned in fierce wrath and upbraided the people. He cried out in stentorian tones that, if a man with a tin horn up a tree could frighten them so, how would it be in the last great end when Gabriel’s trumpet sounded the knell of the world! The sermon had a great effect upon the vast audience, and many hundreds flocked to the front and were converted.

It is not infrequent to find a really great mind sunk in apathy for want of a compelling thought, a dominant idea, a commensurate ambition. Then something rouses such a mind, and at the touch of a magic wand its slumber is broken. Some hint drops like a seed into its prepared soil, and the mind becomes so renewed and vitalized that henceforth it scarcely seems the same. This was precisely the history of Gibbon’s intellect. The moment when his imaginative sympathy was touched with the thought of the past glory and present degradation of Rome, was the moment that freed all the latent powers of his genius, as ice is thawed by the sudden burst of summer warmth. And in that moment, also, his years of wide and irregular study bore fruit.—W. J. Dawson, “The Makers of English Prose.”

As long as a family thought itself comfortably furnished with a chest or two, a wardrobe, a box-bedstead, a dozen earthenware pots of different sizes, and three or four vessels of pewter or copper, each one of these objects of utility might become a vehicle for a good deal of artistic thought. The piece would be handed down from mother to daughter, from father to son. At all events, it would be made with that possibility in mind. It was made to last, and in an artistic community it would be the object of a good deal of careful consideration as to its form and as to the little adornments that might be added to it. Now, however, when the poorest family requires two hundred utensils of one and another kind, and finds, moreover, that these utensils are furnished at an incredibly low price by great companies which make them by the thousand and force them upon the customer with favorable opportunities for immediate delivery and gradual payment, the possibility of having the common objects of life beautiful has gone.—Russell Sturgis, “Lubke’s History of Art.”

The steamer was anchored in Glacier Bay, and he [R. Swain Gifford] was alone on the beach near Muir inlet, sketching. He was making a sketch of the Muir glacier, which was 250 feet above water and two miles wide. Suddenly he noticed an enormous mass of ice breaking away from the glacier. It was several hundred yards long, and Gifford quickly realized that he was witnessing something few men had seen. He saw his danger if he stayed on the beach, but he wanted a picture of that huge detached mass of ice. He had his camera with him; he quickly adjusted it and took a snap-shot. He didn’t lose a minute then in collecting his tools and running as fast as he could to the high ground.

[32]

He escaped none too soon. The great mass of ice dropt into the water, and then came a return wave that would have swallowed the artist if he hadn’t been on high ground. (Text.)

The enterprising manager of a Paris theater once called upon Meissonier and asked him to paint a drop-scene for a certain theater and name his own terms. “You have seen my pictures, then?” asked Meissonier. “Oh, yes,” exclaimed the manager; “but it is your name—your name I want; it will draw crowds to my theater.” “And how large is it you wish this curtain to be?” inquired the artist. “Ah, well, we will say fifteen meters by eighteen.” Meissonier took up a pencil and proceeded to make a calculation. At last he looked up and said with imperturbable gravity, “I have calculated and find that my pictures are valued at 80,000 francs per meter. Your curtain, therefore, will cost you just 21,600,000 francs. But that is not all. It takes me twelve months to paint twenty centimeters of canvas. It will, therefore, take me just one hundred and ninety years to finish your curtain. You should have come to me earlier, monsieur; I am too old for the undertaking now. Good-morning.”—Art Amateur.

“Clear articulation, not loudness in speech, is what the deaf desire. Remember this, and not only will the deaf hear, but they will be spared the physical pains and embarrassing discomfort occasioned by shouting,” advised Dr. C. J. Blake in a lecture at the Harvard medical school during which he discust hearing and speech.

“People thoughtlessly shout at those who are afflicted with deafness, little realizing the real pain they are causing,” said Dr. Blake. “If you would be thoughtful and considerate of these unfortunates, put emphasis on the articulation. Again and again have deaf persons said to me, ‘How I wish people would not shout at me so,’ and there is a pathetic note in the voice which long suffering creates.”

It was brought out that the so-called drumhead is tough enough to sustain a column of mercury twelve inches high and of its own diameter; but is, nevertheless, delicate enough to record sound waves vibrating 50,000 times a second.

The ordinary human voice, he explained, is vibrating about 152 times, and should be perfectly understood by an ordinary healthy individual. Consonant sounds, he said, are the retarding factor in speech, hence it is the duty of every person to cultivate the habit of clear articulation.

I once discovered a mother cuckoo in charge of an infant, evidently on his first outing. Drawn by his insistent demand for food, I came unexpectedly upon the pair in a retired spot in the woods. At sight of me the mother instantly left her clamorous offspring and flew to the lowest limb of a tree near by, where she treated me to a series of theatrical postures, bows, feathered displays, and acrobatic performances wonderful to see, keeping up at the same time a low cry which had instantly silenced the baby cries I had heard. Never for an instant taking her eyes off me, nor interrupting her remarkable demonstrations, the anxious mother very gradually, almost imperceptibly, moved away, a twig at a time, while I followed, fascinated and far more interested in her dramatic efforts than in finding her youngling. When she had thus drawn me several feet away from the dangerous spot, presto! she took to her wings and was gone.—Olive Thorne Miller, “The Bird Our Brother.”

There is a pleasant story of a lawyer, who, being refused entrance into heaven by St. Peter, contrived to throw his hat inside the door; and then, being permitted by the kind saint to go in and fetch it, took advantage of his being fixt to his post as doorkeeper to refuse to come back again. (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

A congregation in Connecticut had lost their pastor, and were desirous of filling his place. But their last minister had been self-taught, and the aristocracy—to wit, the deacons, etc.—stipulated that the new minister should have a classical education. In order to be sure of their man, the deacons agreed to let applicants preach a sermon on[33] trial. At last a Welshman heard of the vacancy, but he was less learned than the one who had left; still, he determined to try. The day was arranged, the appointed minute arrived, and the candidate mounted into the pulpit. He got well on in his sermon, when he suddenly recollected that he was expected to show his learning.

“My friends” he said, “I will now quote you a passage in Greek.”

With a solemn look he repeated a verse in his native tongue. The effect was marvelous; approving nods and smiles were exchanged among the deacons. Thus encouraged, he followed up his advantage by saying:

“Perhaps you would also like to hear it in Latin?”

He then repeated another passage in Welsh; this was even more successful than before. The preacher cast his eye over his flock, and saw that he was regarded with looks of increasing respect. Unfortunately, there was also a Welshman in the congregation; he was sitting at the back, almost choked in his efforts to stifle his laughter. The minister’s eye fell on him, and took in the whole situation at a glance. Preserving his countenance, he continued:

“I will also repeat it in Hebrew.”

He then sang out in his broadest Welsh: “My dear fellow, stop laughing, or they will find it out.”

The other understood, stifled his laughter, and afterward dined with his successful countryman.—Tit-Bits.

The black shadow of asceticism spread over the sky of the Puritan Fathers. Given two coats, they chose the ugliest one. Given two colors for the woman’s garb, they chose the saddest and somberest. Given two roads, they chose the one that held the most thorns and cutting rocks. Given two forms of fear and self-denial, they took both. The favorite text of asceticism is “deny yourself.” The favorite color of asceticism is black; its favorite music, a dirge; its favorite hour is midnight; its favorite theme is a tombstone. The mistake of asceticism is in thinking that pain by itself considered has a moral value.—N. D. Hillis.

Macaulay said that “the Puritans hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.” I once knew a man of this type who rooted up his wife’s flower-bed on the ground that attention to flowers was a wicked waste of time that ought to be given to the study of the Bible.—W. C. S.

“I heard about a countryman who was in the city for the first time. He went into a restaurant and made up his mind to have something fine, whatever the cost. He saw a man at the next table put a little mustard on his plate, and he said ‘that must be fine and expensive, he has so little, but no matter what it costs, I will haf some.’ So he told the waiter to bring him a dollar’s worth of that stuff. A plate was brought. He took a big spoonful: it bit him; he spit it out and did not want any more. So, we ask for things that if our Father should give them to us we would only be bitten by them and be glad to get rid of them.” (Text.)

The story is told in the Springfield Republican that Andrew Carnegie asked a young man who was about to become a student at Jena to get for him an autograph of Professor Haeckel. When it arrived it read thus: “Ernst Haeckel gratefully acknowledges the receipt from Andrew Carnegie of a Zumpt microscope for the biological laboratory of the Jena University.” Mr. Carnegie made good, admiring the scientist more than ever. (Text.)

Tsavo is 133 miles from Mombasa, and during the construction of the line no less than twenty-nine Indians were eaten there by lions. The work was threatened, and a party of three young men—Hubner, Parenti and Ryal—took a car and lay in[34] wait at night for a bold man-eater, who had stalked up and picked up a man on an open railway truck as the train slowed down into the station. Parenti lay on the floor, Hubner was in an upper berth, and Ryal was on the seat of the carriage, with his rifle. Ryal was on guard, but unfortunately he fell asleep. At 2 o’clock in the morning the man-eater they were hunting entered the carriage, picked up Ryal, jumped through the window, and fled to the forest, where the unfortunate man’s whitened bones were long afterward found.—Peter MacQueen, Leslie’s Weekly.

“He died climbing” is the simple inscription on a monument to an Alpine guide, who perished when attempting the ascent of a peak. That record is a noble tribute to a hero. His attitude should be ours—looking upward and pressing forward. He was pressing on in the pathway of duty. Many a splendid career, intercepted at the critical juncture, might be described by the same sententious record. “He died climbing” may be said of many a young and ardent enthusiast—of Mackay, soon cut off in Uganda; of Bishop Hannington, reaching the border of the same land and martyred there; of Patteson, soon slain in Melanesia by islanders who mistook him for a slave-catching captain; of Henry Martyn, who did not live to see any of the results of his mission; of Wyclif, who sent forth the Bible in English but was not permitted to see the beginning of the Reformation. All these “died climbing.” (Text.)

The alfalfa plant is a rank species of grass that grows in the western sections of our country. It is valuable for horses[35] and also for enriching waste land. It thrives in a soil where other plants would fail because of its power to find water. Roots in search of moisture have been found that were eighteen inches in length. The stalk makes heavy drafts on the surrounding air for nitrogen. Its powers of assimilation are remarkable. Its rapid and sturdy growth is a result of its habit of drawing upon all the surrounding air and the soil to build itself up.

In an address at the Royal Dental Hospital, London, Dr. Osler, as reported in The Hospital (London), asserted that the public may be divided into two great groups, the bolters and chewers. Says this paper: “He maintains that it is the business of dental students to endeavor to convert the overwhelming percentage of bolters into a select group of chewers. This is their mission of utility; but Professor Osler also affirms that they have a mission to beautify the race. He holds that if there is one thing more beautiful than another under heaven it is a beautiful set of teeth. To promote these missions he would have attached to every elementary school a dental surgeon to inspect the mouths of the children; and total abstainers will learn with a shock, that he considers the question of teeth more a national problem than that of alcohol. If people generally had good teeth instead of bad, the chewers would be many and the bolters few, and a potent cause of human suffering and physical deterioration would be arrested.”

There are localities in Switzerland where the canary is caged with a nightingale so that it may catch the sweetness and breathe into its notes that harmonious melody that delights all tourists in Europe. It is a demonstration of the power of association. This canary-bird had been trained by a nightingale.

My father remembered the last clergyman in New England who still continued to wear the wig. At first it became a singularity and at last a monstrosity, and the good doctor concluded to leave it off. But there was one poor woman among his parishioners who lamented this sadly; and waylaying the clergyman as he came out of church, she said, “Oh, dear doctor, I have always listened to your sermon with the greatest edification and comfort, but now that the wig is gone all is gone.”—James Russell Lowell.

A gentleman had in his bird-room a deformed blue jay, who was reared from the nest and never associated with his kind. In the room was also a cardinal grosbeak, one of the finest singers of his family. The young blue jay learned the song of the cardinal so perfectly that the gentleman could not tell it from the cardinal’s own. “Even when hearing the two performers almost together, I could distinguish only a slight difference, which was not in the cardinal’s favor.”—Olive Thorne Miller, “The Bird Our Brother.”

Jean François Millet in the middle of the last century was engaged on his early pictures. As they appeared one after another they astonished and delighted all lovers of art throughout the world. What were the subjects of these wonderful paintings? They were all deeply[36] religious—the “Angelus,” the “Sower,” the “Man with the Hoe,” the “Winnower,” the “Gleaners.” These masterpieces were not only spiritual, but were replete with beauty, pathos, power, and with all the works of the highest genius. Now, the theory had been popular that an artist must revel in fleshly and voluptuous presentations of life. But Millet hated the salaciousness of Greece, and Rome was abhorrent to him. He was a lifelong lover of his Bible, and his life was one of devotion and purity. (Text.)

One was ready for the departure, and filled with assurance and peace, so partaking of the paschal lamb. The other was restless and fearful lest the death angel would not pass them by. “Is the blood sprinkled?” she kept asking anxiously, reproaching her confident sister for being so unconcerned. “Oh, is it sprinkled?” “Why, yes,” said the sister, “the blood has been sprinkled, and we have God’s word that when He sees the blood He will pass over.”

Why shouldn’t we work with two hands just as we walk with two feet? It seems ridiculous that the human family should have been using but one hand, either left or right, when nature provided two good hands with no apparent reason why they should not both be used. This oversight, or neglect, is being remedied at a school in Philadelphia, where the pupils are learning to use either hand with equal facility. The boys and girls are taught to draw with the right and left hand at once, and it is marvelous with what ease, after a little practise, the pupils can draw a design on the blackboard, using the right hand for the right side of the picture and the left hand for the left side, completing the entire design in a few minutes, the two hands working with perfect coordination. Compared with the old method of drawing laboriously and slowly with one hand, the ambidextrous system is infinitely superior.

In the year 1877, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll made an extended tour of the Pacific coast. He spoke in several of the larger cities, and at length arrived at Portland. There was in the city a certain missionary to the Chinooks. He could not afford a ticket to the lecture, and was greatly disturbed at what he read concerning it. Yet he felt a strong desire to meet Colonel Ingersoll, and a common friend procured a meeting between them.

There was a moment of restraint, relieved by the greater ease of Colonel Ingersoll, who began the conversation by inquiring concerning the work of the missionary. A little mirthfully he questioned him about the advisability of exporting religion, of which there might not be any surplus at home, and inquired, somewhat doubtfully, about the wisdom of a man giving his life to a hopeless task in attempting to teach a small and vanishing tribe things of which we ourselves have perhaps less knowledge than we suppose.

The answers of the missionary, however, interested Colonel Ingersoll. He inquired about the “Chinook jargon,” that mongrel speech, made of English, Canadian French, Chinook and other Indian words, picked up from several tribes, and all softened and modified to suit deficiencies of pronunciation; the r changed into l, after the Chinese manner, and the grammar “made by chopping up words with a tomahawk.”

How could a man preach in a language where one word had to serve as noun, verb and adjective? How could a man of education make himself understood in a language with only four parts of speech and some fragments? How could he tell the story of Peter’s denial in a language which, having only one word for all manner of feathered things, and no verb for the act of crowing, made it necessary for the speaker to imitate the act and sound? How could he tell that Peter swore, in a language that had no verb “to curse,” but had plenty of oaths inherited from traders in various tongues? How[37] could he impart any idea of sacred things in a polyglot of slang?

The missionary told him the story of his work—how he preached as best he could in the poor, meager speech of the people, meantime teaching the children English, encouraging them in useful arts, fighting the vices of civilization as they made inroads among the people, and doing what he could for them as adviser and friend. It was hard work, and not very encouraging, but it was worth doing, and he was happy in it.

In telling his story thus, encouraged and led on by a man trained and skilful in cross-examination, the missionary unconsciously disclosed many of the hardships and privations which his work entailed upon him. Possibly, and indeed probably, he had not thought of them seriously as hardships, and therefore he related with telling simplicity the stories of long journeys by canoe and on horseback, of nights in the open, of poor and sometimes revolting food eaten in savage company. There was no word of complaint, nor even the least expression of regret, except for books and papers and magazines missed.

When the missionary rose to go, Colonel Ingersoll took his hand warmly, and said, “I thank you for coming to see me. This interests me very much. It’s good work you are doing, it’s good work. And here, take this. I am not a frequent contributor to missionary work, but I like this.”

Into the missionary’s hand he dropt a bright twenty-dollar gold piece.—Youth’s Companion.

How then came they to be what they are? These “myriad types of the same letter”; these unhewn blocks from an unknown quarry; more indestructible than adamant; the substratum of all the phenomena of the universe; and yet, amid the wreck of all things else, this infinitude of discrete atoms alone is found incapable of change or of decay. Who preserves to them their absolute identity, notwithstanding their infinite variety? Who endowed them with their inalienable properties? Who imprest upon them the ineffaceable characters which they are found to bear? At what mint were they struck, on what anvil were they forged, in what loom were they woven, so as to possess, as Huxley declares, “all the characteristics of manufactured articles”?

A fire on a gentleman’s estate in England destroyed his mansion. It spread to a plantation near by, and trees and bushes were burned and charred. The gentleman next day heard the chirping of little birds in a blackened thicket close by him. He searched among the charred branches and discovered a nest, on which was lying, with outstretched wings, a dead robin. Under her were three fledglings, safe and sound. The mother bird had covered her young, saving them at the cost of her own life. (Text.)

There is a Spanish story of a village where the devil, having made the people excessively wicked, was punished by being compelled to assume the appearance and habit of a friar, and to preach so eloquently, in spite of his internal repugnance and rage, that the inhabitants were completely reformed. (Text.)

I once saw a little girl of three years who was unable to walk, or even stand alone. She would make no attempt to do either, and seemed to have absolutely no interest in[38] getting up on her feet or walking. The child seemed perfectly well, and her parents had become very anxious about her. Inquiry revealed the fact that when she was nine months old the little girl had been injured by a fall, and had been kept very closely confined for six months; at first in her crib, and later in a high chair, never being allowed to stand on her feet. When she was at last put upon the floor, she began her creeping just as she had been in the habit of doing six months before. Nor did she show any disposition to do otherwise than creep, even after her strength had been fully recovered. It required several months of careful attention on the part of the parents, in exercising her in standing and walking, to awaken any interest whatsoever in these activities. This law of atrophy through disuse undoubtedly operates throughout the entire range of human interests, not only in those interests more closely related to organic life, but also in the intellectual, moral, and religious interests. It is manifestly of great concern to parents and others who have the care of children that all normal interests be given a chance to function at the right time and in the right way. (Text.)

In order to secure some token by which to remember a great-aunt to whom she had been much attached, Mlle. Bertha Chevanne, a young French woman, of Paris, attended a sale of the old lady’s effects. The girl was poor and most of the articles were beyond her purse. A shabby old book—a book of devotions—was, however, put up. Nobody bid for it except Mademoiselle Chevanne, and she bought it for next to nothing. In turning over the leaves she came across a folded paper. It was a will bequeathing her the whole of her great-aunt’s estate, valued at $80,000.

To let a fortress go, so far from being disgraceful, is often one of the best things a general can do. If MacMahon had let Metz go, the Germans could not have got round Paris without tremendous losses and months of fighting. If Lee had abandoned Richmond in 1862 the war might have been protracted indefinitely. The greatest mistake Osman Pasha made in 1877 was holding on to Plevna too long. Napoleon let Genoa go in spite of the fine defense of Massena, but he soon recovered it after he had defeated the Austrians in the field. In the American civil war Burnside was compelled by the press to advance, with the result of the failure at Fredericksburg and the loss of 12,000 men. A field army should never be risked for a fortress.—Dr. Miller Maguire, London News.

Attorney William S. Barnes, of San Francisco, has a new office boy. The last boy with whom he was associated resigned a few days ago because the law business did not suit his peculiar temperament.

“How long have you been here?” asked Barnes, when the small boy made known his intention to engage in a different vocation.

“Six months,” replied the boy.

“And you don’t like the law business?”

“Naw. It’s no good, and I tell you straight, I’m mighty sorry I learned it.”

“When a singer is up before an audience, he or she can tell whether the effect of the voice is pleasing or not by watching the countenances of the listeners,” says Thomas A. Edison in Popular Mechanics. “When, however, one sings into a dead instrument like the phonograph, without the slightest recognition as to whether the voice is properly tuned and pitched, the singer becomes rather nervous. I know some very capable singers who can sing splendidly before[39] an audience, but when it comes to getting their voice into the phonograph, they are dumb. I have brought people of great note out to the works, and paid them handsomely for their vocal efforts, only to find, when I came to reproduce these attempts on the phonograph, that the records were utterly worthless. One must have, indeed, a regular phonograph voice in order to make a good record. Some people can sing well into a phonograph who could not get up before an audience to save their lives; and again, as I have said, some people can sing before persons, but they can not perform before a phonograph.”

Rousseau, in his celebrated “Confessions,” records that he was one day sitting in a grove, meditating whether his soul would probably be saved or lost. How could he settle the question? A supernatural voice seemed to suggest an appeal to a singular kind of augury. “I will,” said he, “throw this stone at that tree. If I hit the tree, it shall be a sign that my soul is to be saved. If I miss it, it shall indicate that I am to be lost.” Selecting a large tree, he took the precaution of standing near to it, and threw his stone plump against the trunk. “After that,” naively says the philosopher, “I never again had a doubt respecting my salvation.”

The child finds the world so complex and varied with so many unpleasant and pleasant experiences that he soon discovers the usefulness of his elders in providing him with pleasant experiences or in warning or guarding him against the unpleasant whenever he feels uncertain in a new situation. That is, the child tends to fall back on the authority of the older person and automatically to accept, up to a certain point, the dogmatic verdict of his elders as to the desirability or undesirability of a course of action. Neither the child nor the grown person is, as a rule, conscious of his acceptance of the thought of another as his own, but examples of it are evident enough in the spheres of religion, politics, precedent (in law), fashion, and, in fact, all of life’s activities.—Stuart H. Rowe, “Proceedings of the Religious Education Association,” 1907.

George Eliot is said to have worked harder on “Romola” than on any of her other books. In her own words: “I began it a young woman—I finished it an old woman.” And yet but about seventeen months were consumed in the work. Some authors have lived long. Alexander von Humboldt lived to be over eighty. Goethe was over eighty-one when he died. Kant lived his quiet life for just eighty years, the quietest and most uneventful life known to a man of genius. Titian died at the age of ninety-nine. Michelangelo lived to be more than eighty. Among the royal persons who have become known as authors are Queen Victoria, King Oscar II, of Sweden; Dom Louis, of Portugal; the Shar Nasr-ed Deen, of Persia; Queen Elizabeth, of Rumania; Prince Nicholas, of Montenegro; Dom Pedro II, of Brazil; King Louis II, of Bavaria, and several others. The novelists are at present dominant among us, so far as popular acceptation and remuneration go. It has been lately ascertained that Mr. Tennyson made four thousand pounds a year by his poetry. Walter Besant, who was seduced from the career of a college don by the fascinations of the novelist’s art, earns more for any one of his romances than Carlyle earned in the first ten years of his literary career. Charles Reade averaged, we believe, five pounds per page for his writings. Herbert Spencer’s remuneration scarcely exceeded five shillings per page. Matthew Arnold’s imaginative powers earned him an income at least four times smaller than Wilkie Collins’ imagination could command. A shoemaker’s son, a few years ago, wrote a short comic story which tickled the public taste; his success was so immediate that the public—represented by the publishers—afterward paid him one thousand pounds a year for whatever he chose to write.—Christian At Work.

Man early acquires automatic tendencies and abilities quite beyond the compass of his natural equipment. Man is gifted natively with a brief and fleeting form of attention, but by exercise and wise guidance its effectiveness may be greatly increased both as to direction and span. Imagination and memory may be natively vigorous in a desultory and disorganized sort of a way and yet be comparatively helpless when confronted with a situation requiring the organization of details into a system or unit. For example, children may get a great deal of pleasure out of fairy stories long before they understand much from the various disconnected and often incorrect interpretations they make of the words they have heard. This tendency is shown also in childish explanations of things. One young man notices that leaves, sticks, and stones left standing some time on the pond where he skated gradually sink into the ice. He notices, also, that slight scratches and flakes of snow gradually disappear. Such data led him to explain to himself the phenomenon as due to the fact that the water worked through the pores of the ice and froze on the top. It is evident that he had not heard of radiation from dark as compared with light surfaces, but it illustrated an automatic tendency to explain things fairly well developed which was quite beyond the power of man naturally.—Stuart H. Rowe, “Proceedings of the Religious Education Association,” 1907.

Nature has provided plants, animals, and man with many ways of adjusting themselves to their environment, but only animals and man organize their experiences so as to make them of use to them in future situations. Some kinds of mice can learn to go to a little house with a blue-colored front because it suggests food to them as they have always found it there, and not in a similar one with a red front. Another kind of mouse (the Japanese dancing mouse) does not learn this difference, either because it is color-blind or, much more likely, because it has not sufficient intelligence to organize its experiences of blueness by making it suggest food to him. It has been said bees can distinguish colors and associate them with sweetened water. These animals, and, in fact, animals in general, have the ability, as we say, naturally to do thousands of appropriate things whenever the appropriate stimulus presents itself. Given the newly hatched chicken and the attractive piece of corn within easy range, and with a quick dive of the head the corn has been snapt up by a series of muscular movements quite complicated in their totality but all coordinated or organized from the first. The chicken does not have to learn this accomplishment. A young child also can perform many kinds of action without learning, as, for example, movements of head, limbs, and other parts of the body.

Compare the difficulty a year-old child able to walk has in picking up something with his hands. He makes many motions, sometimes overreaching, sometimes falling short, in the end probably falls flat. The child has to learn both to walk and to pick things up, but he learns both without realizing that he is learning them. It is done spontaneously.

There are, then, some things that man and animals can do without learning, and some things they have to learn, but that they learn automatically. Beside these easier tasks there are many others that man may learn, but only through definite thinking or direction with a distinct aim in view, rather than automatically without any consciousness of his learning. The child may recognize his father’s authority instinctively even without learning. He may by imitation think of some things as right or wrong without being taught. There are others he must be taught and learn with a definite purpose and effort or he will not make the distinction.—Stuart H. Rowe, “Proceedings of Religious Education Association,” 1907.

When you can put out a fire by throwing oil on it, then, and not till then, can you extinguish avarice by feeding it with millions.—N. D. Hillis.

Many an enthusiastic tourist has sacrificed morning sleep to witness a sunrise from some summit, and suffered disappointment. The splendor extended over too wide an area; it lacked concentration—accentuation. The sunrise of the short horizon, seen from the average altitude, appears brighter as well[41] as narrower. It requires no wide ranging of the eye, no shifting of the point of attention. It is not weakened by its own diffusion. You may carry this principle over into the philosophy of life. The short horizon—which is, for the most part, the average—has its distinct advantage. You will doubtless get more out of life at the average altitude than if you live always in some extraordinary height.

In Japan a curious custom is in vogue with respect to the naming of babies. The new-born is taken to the temple, when it has attained the age of two weeks, and to the priest who receives him the father of the little one suggests three names deemed to be appropriate. The priest writes these three names on slips of paper. He holds these slips of paper for a few minutes, and then throws them over his shoulder, sending them as high in the air as possible. The slip that reaches the ground last contains the name that is conferred on the waiting baby.

The next step in the process is for the priest to copy the name on a piece of silk or fine paper, which is handed to the proud parent, with these words:

“So shall the child be named.”—Harper’s Weekly.

Any good quality needs backbone to make it effective. The little boy who read aloud, “Now Daniel had an excellent spine in him,” when the letters spelled “spirit,” was not so far from the truth after all. All of God’s servants need spine.—James M. Stifler, “The Fighting Saint.”

This great (lace) industry here began in this way: There is, or was, originally, a long, high bank of very soft sandstone on the north bank of the river Trent, pointing to the sun. In this soft sandstone the early Britons dug caves. They dug them deep and wide and wonderful in construction. It is said that even now the city of caves under the ground is almost as large as the broad and populous city on top of the ground. In case of invasion or conquest these cave-dwellers would retreat underground and defy pursuit. It is the boast of the people of Nottingham that their ancestors were never really conquered by any one. The weaving of laces came about here in this way: The half or wholly savage women sitting at the mouths of these caves and holding their threads against the sun with the darkness behind them could see the fine threads better, and so could do finer and better work than any other women in western Europe. And their immunity from conquest and consequent interruption in their peculiar industry fastened it here and kept it well forward.—Joaquin Miller, The Independent.

Everywhere on the streets one meets men, from the gray-haired veteran to the half-developed beau, all parading on breast or coat lapel some distinctive mark of membership in some association. There are medals with ribbons, medals without ribbons, and ribbons without medals. There are buttons; big buttons and little buttons; silk buttons and metal buttons. There are pins, gold and silver and plated; every imaginable kind of pin. And these are worn by ladies and misses of all rank and quality, down to the little silver cross of the King’s Daughters, so familiar everywhere. Nobody seems ashamed to own membership in these various societies and alliances. Men parade the streets under banners and flags, with uniforms, and distinctive feathers in their caps, and are not ashamed to acknowledge their favorite organizations.[42] And yet there are many persons who seem to be ashamed to own their Lord and to confess His cause. (Text.)—The Mid-Continent.

“He is a bad boy” may mean so many things. In the eyes of some teachers a boy is “bad” if he talks repeatedly to his neighbor. The boy who has a fight with another boy is “bad.” The boy who does not study his lessons is “bad.” The boy who goes to a moving-picture show is “bad.” The boy who throws ink across the room is “bad.” The boy who “answers back” is “bad.” The boy who rifles the teacher’s desk is “bad.” The boy who disobeys school rules is “bad.” “Give a dog a bad name and hang him” should now read, “Give a boy a bad name and ruin him.”

All school types of “badness” need classification. Many of them under careful classification would no longer be considered “bad.” A boy’s wrong acts are often due not so much to deliberate choosing of wrong after he knows right, but to the lack of any sense of right or wrong. Children’s so-called “badness” is due to unmorality oftener than to immorality. Until a boy’s moral nature has been roused and developed, it is absurd to think that one can find the basis of appeal in theoretic ethics or right for right’s sake. Who is to blame when blind, unquestioning obedience to short-sighted, arbitrary school rules is made the basis of a child’s conduct and reputation?

When children go through school learning nothing except what can be given to hundreds simultaneously, in classes so large that undue emphasis is laid upon order and quiet, who is to blame if the majority leave school with morals that alarm those interested? Go through the list of “bad boys” in your school or your town. Classify their offenses. Is immorality or unmorality responsible? If the latter, what share of the blame for this condition belongs to the school? Why consider a boy hopeless or degenerate because he commits a moral offense? Do we consider him intellectually hopeless or defective because of his errors in spelling or arithmetic?—Julia Richman, “Proceedings of the National Education Association,” 1909.

Mr. Moody tells of a young couple who on commencing to keep house started to keep an account of their family expenses. After a few months the young husband said to his wife: “Darling, I’ll spend the evening at home to-night, and we will look over the account together.” The young husband found frequent entries like this: “G.K.W., one dollar and a half”; and a little later on, “G.K.W., two dollars”; and after a little, “G.K.W., three dollars.” Becoming a little suspicious, he demanded, “Who is this ‘G.K.W.’ you have spent so much on?” “Oh,” said she, “I never could make the accounts come out right, so I lumped all together that wouldn’t balance, and called it G.K.W.—Goodness Knows What!” (Text.)—Louis Albert Banks.

In our earth, the two hemispheres are balanced to a hair and leaf! But what man save Jesus has balanced his radicalism that was sound by a conservatism that is true?—N. D. Hillis.

Since times prehistoric, ever since the human species developed the sense of comparison and an eye for form, all spiders, with a resemblance to the big, hairy, ugly creatures reputed to be poisonous and now generally known by the name “tarantula,” have been the victims of the crushing heel.

I think it can be said that there never has been one absolutely authentic case of spider bite. The so-called spider bites received occasionally, and generally in early summer, often in bed, are inflicted by certain bloodsucking insects of several species, large and small. The mandibles of the average-sized spiders are hardly powerful enough to pierce the human skin, and all of the poison contained in an arachnid’s glands, injected into the flesh of a human being, will not make as much fuss as a respectable bee-sting. Moreover, spiders are not mammal blood-suckers, and wouldn’t bite if they could. So much for the negative qualities of spiders.

If it were not for the spiders we should all promptly starve to death. Perhaps this is a little startling; it is none the less true.[43] To enlarge upon it, certain spiders prey upon certain caterpillars, regularly inhabit their abodes, and kill so many of them that often whole colonies of the insects are wiped out of existence. These caterpillars normally feed upon the leaves of trees, bushes, and shrubs, frequently denuding a plant entirely. If they were plentiful enough to exhaust their common food they would turn to the weeds and grasses. Without check of any kind they would overrun the earth and destroy every green and growing thing. The spiders beautifully preserve the balance of nature. Kill all the spiders and mankind is doomed.—Collier’s Weekly.

“Well, I suppose it’s Alderman Smith to-day.”

“Alderman—nothing!”

“What? Do you mean to say Smith wasn’t elected?”

“Precisely. Lost it by forty-one votes.”

“Well, well, well! Why, I thought Smith was popular, such a nice, clean fellow; and smart, too.”

“He is popular.”

“And I thought his opponent was a scallawag.”

“He is. The rummies were all for him, and he celebrated his victory with a big free-for-all debauch. I guess our ward’ll be open enough now, all right.”

“But what was the matter? I suppose Smith lay back and took it easy.”

“No, sir! He got out and hustled for himself.”

“Then he probably had no machine to back him.”

“Ah, but he had; and some of the best politicians in the city worked for him. Why, nearly all the strongest men in the ward signed a paper in his interest, and every one got a copy a day before the election.”

“But they couldn’t have known the issue at stake—between decency and indecency, character and hoodlumism.”

“They did, if words could make it clear.”

“Then why, in the name of all that is reasonable, in that pious ward of yours, wasn’t Smith elected?”

“Just because about sixty of the pious men stayed at home or let their sons neglect to vote. We know the names of that many who didn’t vote. Tried to get them to come out, telephone and all that; but no good. Too busy. Or they ‘weren’t needed.’ And the other side got out every man.”

“Those pious men go to prayer-meeting?”

“Well, I don’t know what you think about it, but I’d rather have one X opposite Smith’s name on that ballot than ten years of prayer-meeting eloquence without it.”

“Yes, most of them; and my! but they shine when the topic is a patriotic one.”

“So’d I.” (Text.)

There is a scene in my earlier ministry that used to make the best woman I ever knew laugh till the tears ran down her cheeks whenever she recalled it.

A father, a tall and dignified man, with his wife, a gentle, quiet little lady, had brought the baby to the font that Sunday morning. As I read the opening words, the baby woke and began to scream. For my own part I was imperturbable, nor was the mother upset. But the tall, dignified man could not endure it; and just as I was approaching the actual rite, and required the baby, what the congregation saw was the father rapidly striding to a side door, with the white clothes of the screaming infant streaming behind in the haste of the flight. Happily parental authority worked miracles in the corridor, and the infant, vastly pacified, was brought back just in time to save the service from being a fiasco. And the humor turns into a deeper joy when now I see that child grown up into a beautiful girl, the joy of her parents and of all who behold her.

A copy of the Book of the Acts fell into the hands of a Korean, whose heart was touched by the truths. He gathered his villagers together and taught them its contents and they sent for missionaries to come to them. It was impossible for them to go at once, but they sent copies of the Gospels. The eager Koreans read and studied as well[44] as they could alone, and noticing that some “washing rite” was enjoined upon the believers in the Jesus doctrine, they met to discuss how they should follow it out and thus fulfil all righteousness. They prayed over it for a time, and at last decided that each should go to his own home and reverently should wash himself in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. (Text.)

The missionaries to the Dyaks of Borneo, in making their calls not infrequently are seated in a position of honor in a native hut underneath a huge cluster of skulls, the war trophy of the head-hunting Dyaks. Rev. H. L. E. Luering writes in the London Christian that the natives believe that the courage of the slain enemy enters his victor’s soul if the head of the dead man is in his possession. So the heads are cut off and placed in loose rattan receptacles and smoked over a slow fire, and polished and strung up like great bunches of grapes, and guarded with a jealousy greater than is accorded any other possession. They represent just so much of the owner’s self—his own soul—and to lose a head would deprive him of just so much strength and courage.

I saw a woman who had been accused of witchcraft and condemned to death by exposure to ferocious ants. She was bound to a big ant-hill ten or fifteen feet high. The victim usually dies in two days, but this woman endured it for five days and was then driven away because “she was too hard to kill.” She crawled in a terrible condition to the mission station—the most pitiful sight the missionary had ever beheld. After months of careful nursing she recovered, and this woman, so terribly scarred and disfigured, was converted at one of my meetings.

It was proposed to the Duke of Wellington to purchase a certain farm in the neighborhood of his estate at Strathfieldsaye. He assented. When the transfer was completed, his steward, who had made the purchase, congratulated him upon having made a great bargain, as the seller was in difficulties, and forced to part with his farm. “What do you mean by a bargain?” asked the Duke. The steward replied, “It was valued at £5,500, and we got it for £4,000.” “In that case,” said the Duke, “you will please to carry the extra £1,500 to the late owner, and never talk to me of cheap land again.”

A former queen of Spain once rode out in the country, when the driver of the royal carriage became lost and spent two hours vainly trying to find the way. The queen and the infanta were somewhat alarmed.

All at once they came upon an old wood-cutter, who, with a bunch of fagots upon his back, gathered laboriously from the stunted bushes to be found here and there, had sunk down to the ground, evidently for a moment’s rest.

“Ho, my good man!” the driver of the royal carriage called out. “Will you tell us the road to Madrid?”

“No,” said the wood-cutter, “I will not, except on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“That you take me in and carry me back to the city.”

The coachman declined to do this.

“Very well, then; find the road yourself,” said the wood-cutter.

The queen here intervened. She ordered the coachman to let the man tie his fagot at the back of the coach, and to take him upon the driver’s seat and drive him home.

The man tied his rough fagot at the back of the royal coach, mounted the box, and the road to Madrid was soon found.

When the royal carriage entered the city in this queer state, there was a great sensation, as the people readily recognized the equipage. The wood-cutter sat proudly on the box. When his quarter was reached, he got down and unfastened his fagot. The queen put her head out of the door.

“Go to the royal palace to-morrow,” she said, “and your service will be rewarded.”

The old man, suddenly perceiving whose passenger he had been, was overcome with humiliation. He stood bowing, rubbing his cap between his hands, and uttering exclamations of astonishment until the carriage was out of sight.—The Christian Register.

In the West, the farmer’s boy makes a trap for prairie-chickens and wild turkeys. Looking toward the corn, the bird pushes against the tiny wooden bar that yields for admittance. But having gotten in, the gate will not push out.

When it is too late, the youth who has played false, finds that the way into sin was easy, and the way out hard. Strange that there should not be a single barrier in the downward path, but that when the transgressor turns to retrace his steps that red-hot iron barriers are in the path!—N. D. Hillis.

The water-hyacinth is a beautiful thing, so beautiful that some years ago an enterprising gentleman decided to introduce it in Florida. As it turned out, he not only introduced it, but he made it a part of the country. It has outgrown all bounds, formed impassible barriers in streams, caused the Government to spend thousands to get rid of it, and is still an impediment to navigation in many rivers all over the South.

The situation has become so serious in Louisiana that it is proposed to import hippopotami. At first thought, few will be able to see any relation between hippopotami and water-hyacinths, yet there is. In fact, the ordinary hippopotamus eats water-hyacinth from morning until night if he can get it. It is evident, therefore, that were there plenty of hippopotami in Louisiana there would soon be no water-hyacinth. It is for this reason that the Government will be asked to import the beasts, domesticate them, and turn them loose in Louisiana.

The hippopotamus is not a dangerous brute—altho Mr. Roosevelt has taken much credit to himself for having killed some of them—his flesh makes excellent steaks, particularly if he has fed on water-hyacinth, and he is altogether a desirable creature to have about, we are told. We trust that the Government will act quickly in this matter. Perhaps in addition to being fond of water-hyacinth the hippopotamus may also have an appetite for the boll-weevil. Let Louisiana have the beasts by all means.—Charleston News and Courier.

The conquering races were compelled to follow river-beds, and could not penetrate the forests. It was not the warrior who finally conquered English soil, but the farmer. The half-dozen kingdoms, which were divided by vast forests, coalesced only when the ax cut away barriers. Earlier races could not inhabit any part of the earth except the coast lines. All their food came from the sea; and the refuse still remains as the great shell-heaps of the sea-coasts of Europe.

During some recent work in West Africa, a certain native chief was anxious to prevent my explorations of such creeks and rivers as led to trading districts which he desired to remain unknown. Finding verbal dissuasions unavailing, and not liking to have recourse to physical force, he tried as a last and somewhat despairing resort to place supernatural obstacles in my way; so he directed that at the entrance to these forbidden creeks a live white fowl (lowest and cheapest sacrifice) should be suspended from a palm-stake. Consequently, I was frequently surprized and pleased at what I thought was a graceful token of hospitality posted at different points of my journey, and never failed to turn the fowl to account in my bill of fare. After this manner of disposing of the fowl-fetish had occurred several times, and yet I remained unpunished for my temerity by the local gods, the natives gave up further opposition to my journey as futile and expensive. In talking this over on my return with one of the more advanced chiefs of the district, my native friend shook his head half humorously, half seriously over the decay of religious belief. A white fowl, he said, was “poor man’s juju”; a few years ago it would have been a white goat, and in his father’s time a white boy (albino negro), spitted on a stake to bar the way, and this last would have been a sacrifice that might well have moved the local gods of wold and stream to intervene.—H. H. Johnston, Fortnightly Review.

A beautiful statue once stood in the market-place of an Italian city. It was the statue of a Greek slave-girl. It represented the slave as tidy and well drest. A ragged, uncombed little street child, coming across the statue in her play, stopt and gazed at it in admiration. She was captivated by it. She gazed long and lovingly. Moved by a sudden impulse, she went home and washed her face and combed her hair. Another day she stopt again before the statue and admired it, and she got a new idea. Next day her tattered clothes were washed and mended. Each time she looked at the statue she found something in its beauties until she was a transformed child.

In the legend of the “Great Stone Face” Hawthorne tells us how a great soul was formed by constantly looking at an ideal head formed by rocks on the side of a mountain. Ernest had been told by his mother that some day or other (so the people in the valley believed) a man would grow up from among them who would be the greatest man of his time, and that his face would resemble the face outlined on the rocks of the mountain. So Ernest waited, and finally a man who had become very rich came back to the valley and built a palace, and people thought for a time that the legend had been fulfilled in Mr. Grabgold, but the man was hard and selfish. Another came who was famous as a statesman, but ambition had killed his spiritual life. A poet came, whose verses had been an inspiration to Ernest, who often preached to the people of the valley, but the poet was a sensualist. He admitted to Ernest that he had not lived the beautiful life that he had depicted in his poetry, that he had even doubted at times whether the beautiful things he had taught to men were true. So at last, when Ernest had been almost in despair about the great man who should come to the valley, he went out one evening to preach to the people, and as the rays of the setting sun lighted up his face, and also the Great Stone Face of the mountain, the people shouted, “The legend has been fulfilled; the faces are alike.” It was true. The boy of the valley, by keeping his eyes on the noble face on the mountain, had accomplished more than they all. It is the secret of the development of the soul. A man must keep his eyes on the face of Jesus Christ to-day, because there is none else so noble.—C. F. J. Wrigley.

In one of the earlier chapters of his “Les Miserables,” Victor Hugo tells how a good bishop answered his housekeeper once. She expostulated with his lordship for giving a full quarter of his garden to flowers, saying that it would be better and wiser to grow lettuce there than bouquets. “Ah, Madame Magloire,” replied the bishop, “the beautiful is as useful as it is beautiful.”

Land-birds show fondness for decoration. A robin in Pennsylvania made the whole nest of flowers and white stems of everlasting, and it may now be seen in the Philadelphia Academy of Science. Other birds have been known to build entirely of flowers. Miss Hayward, an invalid who studied birds from her window, saw one pair build a nest of the blossoms of the sycamore and sprays of forget-me-not, and another—an English sparrow—cover its nest with white sweet alyssum.—Olive Thorne Miller, “The Bird Our Brother.”

Bates found on the Amazon a brilliant spider that spread itself out as a flower, and the insects lighting upon it, seeking sweetness, found horror, torment, death. Such transformations are common in human life; things of poison and blood are everywhere displaying themselves in forms of innocence, in dyes of beauty. The perfection of mimicry[47] is in the moral world, deceiving the very elect. (Text.)—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

In a certain old town was a great cathedral in which was a wondrous stained-glass window. Its fame had gone abroad over the land. From miles around people pilgrimaged to gaze upon the splendor of this masterpiece of art. One day there came a great storm. The violence of the tempest forced in the window, and it crashed to the marble floor, shattered into a hundred pieces. Great was the grief of the people at the catastrophe which had suddenly bereft the town of its proudest work of art. They gathered up the fragments, huddled them in a box, and carried them to the cellar of the church. One day there came along a stranger, and craved permission to see the beautiful window. They told him of its fate. He asked what they had done with the fragments. And they took him to the vault and showed him the broken morsels of glass. “Would you mind giving these to me?” said the stranger. “Take them along,” was the reply; “they are no longer of any use to us.” And the visitor carefully lifted the box and carried it away in his arms. Weeks passed by; then one day there came an invitation to the custodians of the cathedral. It was from a famous artist, noted for his master-skill in glass-craft. It summoned them to his study to inspect a stained-glass window, the work of his genius. Ushering them into his studio, he stood them before a great veil of canvas. At the touch of his hand upon a cord the canvas dropt. And there before their astonished gaze shone a stained-glass window surpassing in beauty all their eyes had ever beheld. As they gazed entranced upon its rich tints, wondrous pattern, and cunning workmanship, the artist turned and said: “This window I have wrought from the fragments of your shattered one, and it is now ready to be replaced.” Once more a great window shed its beauteous light into the dim aisles of the old cathedral. But the splendor of the new far surpassed the glory of the old, and the fame of its strange fashioning filled the land.—Grace and Truth.

I saw in an art gallery a group of well-drest people admiring a picture of some Spanish beggars. The beggars were unkempt, deformed, ugly, but the artist had seen beauty in the group, and his imagination made the scene appeal strongly to the passer-by. How many of those people, think you, would ever stop to look at a group of beggars, not in a picture, but in life? Would they have the imagination, apart from the artist, to feel the appeal of real men and women in real need and see beauty and grace of form beneath rags? And yet it is possible for all of us to be artists and see common life transfigured with a beauty and grace divine.—John H. Melish.

One of the most beautiful sights around Ispahan, in Persia, is a field of poppies—those pure white flowers—stretching away for miles. But the poppy is often the source of a curse and misery. Before the poppy is ripe the “head” is scratched at sunset with a kind of comb in three places; and from these gashes the opium oozes out. Next morning it is collected before sunrise, dried and rolled into cakes ready for use or market. Its growers are enriched by the traffic, but the ground is greatly impoverished. And the users of opium? Why, it is death to them.

I was at a hospital when an ambulance came tearing to the door, with a man whose leg was crusht from mid-thigh down. He was placed upon the operating table, restless and moaning. “Oh, doctor,” he said, “will it kill me?” and the good, blunt man of science answered, “No; not the leg, but the beer may do you up.” And it did. The limb was removed quickly and skilfully, but the clean aseptic cut had really no chance to heal, because the general physical degradation of beer no surgeon’s knife can amputate. When life and death grip one another, beer stabs life in the back.—John G. Woolley.

Ought young children to begin upon small-sized violins? All makers say “Yes”; naturally, for they supply the new violins of all sizes. But I emphatically say “No.” The sooner the child is accustomed to the right violin intervals the better; the small violins merely present him with a series of wrong distances, which he has successively to unlearn.

When the toper lies dead over his cups there is an invisible line that runs back from his death to the first dram. When the aged saint lies triumphant in his last sleep that victory is related to his mother’s lullaby and to his own first prayer. The broad estuary where the fleets of a nation float may be traced back to its fountain among the green hills in which a little child may wade or a robin rustle its feathers without fear. The faith that overcomes the world is the consummation of the faith when, in fear and trembling, the young convert first placed his hand in the hand of God. The first step on the stair is a prophecy of the landing. When we start right we have only to keep on in that direction and the end will be more than we longed for.

“He that would hope to write well hereafter in laudable things,” says Milton, “ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and most honorable things.” Here is a new proposition in art which suggests the lofty ideal of Fra Angelico, that before one can write literature, which is the expression of the ideal, he must first develop in himself the ideal man. Because Milton is human he must know the best in humanity; therefore he studies, giving his days to music, art, and literature; his nights to profound research and meditation. But because he knows that man is more than mortal he also prays, depending, as he tells us, on “devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge.”—William J. Long, “English Literature.”

We have given up announcing the miracle of transubstantiation or putting to flight storms and demons or managing exorcism by bell, book and candle, but bells as sweet as the Angelus still ring over our English fields and woodlands on Sunday. The passing-bell in a country churchyard is full of pathos and memory, breaking the stillness and arresting for a moment the busy hay-makers as they pause to listen, and remember some old comrade who will no more be seen in their ranks. The solemn bell at our midnight services, now so customary on the last evening in each year throughout the land, is also charged with hallowed thoughts; indeed, I know few things more thrilling than that watch-night bell, which seems as the crowd kneels within to beat away on its waves of sound the hopes and fears, and tumultuous passions of the dead year when its echoes have ceased those kneeling crowds feel that one more chapter in the book of life has been written, that ringing voice has sealed the troubled past and heralded in with its iron, inexorable, tho trembling lips the unknown future. What with the dinner-bell, safety yard bell, school, factory and jail bells, small cupola spring-bells, safety electric bells, not to forget baby’s coral and bells, bell-rattles, last reminiscence of the extinct fool’s cap and bells, and fool’s wand, with its crown of jingling baubles, we seem never to hear the last of bells. Bells are the landmarks of history as well as the daily ministers to our religious and secular life. The bell’s tongue is impartial and passionless as fate. It tolls for the king’s death “Le roi est mort.” It rings in his successor, “Vive le roi.” The cynical bells rang out as Henry VIII led wife after wife to the altar, the loyal bells rang out for the birth of Charles I, and the disloyal ones tolled again for his execution. The bells of Chester rang a peal for Trafalgar, alternated with a deep toll for the death of Nelson, and some of us can[49] remember the tolling of St. Paul’s bell as the Iron Duke’s funeral passed up Ludgate Hill. The long green bell which announced to the Pisans that the wretched Ugolino, starved to death in the bottom dungeon, had at length ceased to breathe, still hangs in the famous leaning tower of Pisa.

At the ringing of the Sicilian Vespers in the Easter of 1282, 8,000 French were massacred in cold blood by John of Procida. The midnight bells of Paris gave the sign for the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day, August 24, 1471, when 100,000 persons are said to have perished. The great towers of Christendom have all their eloquent bell tongues, and as we pass in imagination from one to the other we not only catch the mingled refrain of life and death as it floats upward from the fleeting generations of men, but we may literally from those lofty summits contemplate all the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them.—H. R. Haweis, English Illustrated Magazine.

A fine sculpture in the Boston Public Garden is a marble group representing the Good Samaritan helping the man who had fallen among thieves. But more beautiful than the fine work of the sculptor is the inscription showing how the monument was erected to commemorate the earliest use of anesthetics in surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital, with these texts from Scripture appended:

“Neither shall there be any more pain.”

“This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.”—Franklin Noble, “Sermons in Illustration.”

Because of the opposition of his parents to the operation, surgeons of the County Hospital of Chicago were compelled to obtain an order from the court directing the amputation of the arm of a fourteen-year-old boy recently. Gangrene following a fracture made the operation necessary, but neither the boy nor his parents would consent.

Kosciusko, the famous Polish patriot and general, was very benevolent. Sending a messenger on a hurried errand, he bade him ride his own horse. But the man was long gone, and returning said that next time he must take another horse, for that one insisted on stopping at every poor hovel and with every beggar by the way, as if he had stopt to give alms at every wayside call. Even a horse can learn the way of giving.—Franklin Noble, “Sermons in Illustration.”

One of Baron Rothschild’s peculiarities was to conceal his benevolence. He gave away a great deal of money, but if the one who received it ever mentioned the fact so that it came back to the baron’s ears, he never got any more. His contributions to general benevolence were always anonymous or passed through the hands of others. His name never appeared upon any benevolent list.

Drudgery is the gray angel of success.... Look at the leaders in the professions, the solid men in business, the master-workmen who begin as poor boys and end by building a town to house their factory-hands; they are drudges of the single aim.... “One thing I do.”... Mr. Maydole, the hammer-maker of central New York, was an artist. “Yes,” he said, “I have made hammers for twenty-eight years.” “Well, then, you ought[50] to be able to make a pretty good hammer by this time.” “No, sir,” was the answer. “I never made a pretty good hammer; I make the best hammer made in the United States.”—William C. Gannett.

There is perhaps no book whose style is more suggestive and more instructive, from which you learn more directly that sublime simplicity which never exaggerates, which recounts the greatest event with solemnity, of course, but without sentimentality or affectation, none which you open with such confidence and lay down with such reverence: there is no book like the Bible. When you get into a controversy and want exactly the right answer, when you are looking for an expression, what is there that closes a dispute like a verse from the Bible? What is it that sets up the right principle for you, which pleads for a policy, for a cause, so much as the right passage of Holy Scripture?

Primarily the Bible is a handbook setting forth the way of God with individuals. When an inventor sells his sewing-machine, or car, he accompanies the mechanism with an illustrated handbook describing each wheel, each lever and hidden spring. Now the Bible is an illustrated handbook that accompanies the mechanism of the soul, with all its mental levers and moral springs. Having first stated the facts about life and duty and destiny, the Bible goes on to illustrate these facts. (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.

This book is a lamp, but lamps are not to be pulled in pieces; lamps are to be read by. When you go down into the valley and the shadow, you will need a light. In that long journey down into the darkness of death you will travel alone. And here is a lamp that will light your path and bring you out of the chill and the damp and the dark into the morning, and the dawn shall be followed by day and the day shall deepen into high noon, the noon of God’s heaven. (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.

For years Mr. Nott had been translating the Gospel of Luke into Tahitian, assisted by Pomare and while the book was in press the natives often constrained Mr. Ellis to stop printing to explain to them what they read. The missionaries wished to bind the books before they were distributed, but the impatience of the people constrained them to give up waiting for proper binding materials. The natives, however, did not suffer these precious books to remain without proper protection; dogs and cats and goats were killed so that their skins might be prepared for covers, and the greatest anxiety was manifested to obtain these new copies of the Word of God.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

Rev. Jacob Chamberlain, of India, went to a native city where the name of Jesus had never been heard. He began to explain to them the first chapter of Romans, that chapter which describes the heart of man wandering away from God and into sin, and conceiving evil conceptions of God, until at last, “Tho they know the judgment of God—that they which do such things are worthy of death—not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” The most intelligent man in the audience, a Brahman, stept forward and said to Dr. Chamberlain, “Sir, that chapter must have been written for us Hindus. It describes us exactly.”

A famous Swiss guide was once interviewed. He was a man who had never suffered an accident. Invariably he had brought his parties successfully through the most ambitious undertakings. The man who interviewed him spoke of the failures of other guides. His reply to that was, “There are guides and guides. One takes you up and trusts to luck. He is ready for anything, but he does not know what is coming. He guesses where he is when you ask him, ‘Where is the top?’ I never do that. Before I start on a new track, or one I have not made before, I study it thoroughly. I watch it through the glass until I know it. I make a map of it. When I say, ‘Go,’ then I can see what is before me. On the mountain I must always know where I am. If you come to me for science, it is no good; but I must carry my map with me and point, ‘We are here.’ I never start without my compass, my thermometer, and my aneroid; so that when you come to me at any moment and ask, ‘Where are we?’ I can say, ‘Here! and it is so many feet to the top.’”

Every ship has a compass. No captain would dream of going to sea without a compass, for there are times when neither sun nor stars appear and steering must be done by the compass alone. So every man should have a compass. The Bible is the Christian mariner’s compass, and by it he must steer.

A year ago in Austria a Bible was baked in a loaf of bread. Some wicked men came into the house to find the Bible and burn it, but the good woman of the home, who was just going to bake bread for her family, rolled up her Bible in a big loaf and put it in the oven. When the intruders went away she took out the loaf, and the Bible was uninjured.

How far away the Bible seems to us when it tells of sack-cloth and ashes, and about Jacob and Mordecai and Isaiah, who marked their desolation by these signs! In Korea sack-cloth is still such a mark, and with hair unbound and their persons wrapt about with these coarse folds of bagging they sit like Job and cry, “Aigo, aigo.” “And the mourners go about the streets.” From the writer’s house we look out on one of the main thoroughfares of the city; and frequently, as the sun goes down, there comes a procession bearing lanterns and a long line of mourners in sack-cloth following the dead with mournful wailings. Is there not a thought and a providence underlying the oneness of these things with all the settings of the Scripture?

“Take up thy bed and walk,” seemed to the writer in his boyhood days as a most extraordinary expression. He pictured a four-posted bed being tugged out of a bedroom by one poor man only just recovered of his sickness; but when he came to Korea, he understood it all. The bed was just a little mattress spread out on the floor of the living-room, and to roll it up and put it away was the common act of every morning when the sleeper awoke. Morning light and consciousness had come into the life of the poor invalid, so he would roll up his sleeping-mat and walk off to where it was put for the day. So, in many of the common acts of life in Korea we were in touch with the days of our Lord on earth.

Then there is the footgear or sandals. Neither China nor Japan so markedly reflects Scripture in this respect as Korea. Here are the strings tied over the instep, here the humble servant is called to bow down and unloose them. As in Judea, they are never worn indoors, but are dropt off on the entrance-mat.

The expression, “Girt about the breasts with a golden girdle,” is never quite clear to a young Bible reader at home, and China and Japan cast no special light upon it; but in Korea there was the long white robe down to the feet, and round the breast the embroidered girdle. It remained until after the missionary arrived, and then in the changes of the new century the girdle was swept away. The white robes, too, find their corresponding part in Scripture, and the expression,[52] “So as no fuller on earth can whiten them,” often came to mind in the old days, when out of the little squalid huts came forth coats that shone like polished marble.—The above four illustrations from James S. Gale, “Korea in Transition.”

The Rev. E. W. Burt, of the Baptist mission in Shantung, says that three men came from a distant village in the hills begging the missionary to visit them. He expected to find some lawsuit at the bottom of their eagerness, but instead found a chapel built and everything ready for a splendid work in their midst. Three years before a colporteur of the British and Foreign Bible Society had sold them Bibles, and without any human instruction they had come to believe in Christ.

At a large dinner given in New York, Mrs. Margaret Bottome, for a long time head of the King’s Daughters Circle, sat beside a German professor of science. In the course of conversation, Mrs. Bottome said quite naturally for her:

“The Bible says so and so.”

“The Bible,” remarked the professor. “You don’t believe the Bible!”

“Yes, indeed, I believe it,” replied Mrs. Bottome.

“Why, I didn’t suppose that any intelligent person to-day believed the Bible!”

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Bottome said, “I believe it all. I know the Author.”

Certain parts of the Bible appeal with unexpected force to various races, and to men in different stages of civilization, who read the Scriptures with other eyes than ours. We may illustrate this point by a few actual examples.

When Dr. Kilgour was translating the Old Testament into Nepali (India), he found it an arduous, not to say a tedious, task, to render the long chapters of ritual regulations in Leviticus; he was surprized, however, to discover that his Nepalese assistant considered these chapters to be among the most interesting and important in the whole Pentateuch.

So, again, the Chinese, who lay enormous stress on reverence for ancestors, are profoundly imprest by the first chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel, because it begins with the genealogy of our Lord, which, as a colporteur wrote last year, “goes back to our Chinese Hsia dynasty.”

In Egypt, Moslems are attracted by the Book of Genesis, which they call “the history of the creation of the world.” In the south of Europe the Book of Proverbs is often purchased eagerly by Freemasons, who look back to King Solomon as the legendary founder of their craft.

In heathen countries it is by no means uncommon for the missionaries, who are translating the Old Testament, first to make a version of the Psalter and perhaps of Genesis, and then to translate the Book of Jonah before attempting any other of the prophets. They realize—what we sometimes forget—that Jonah is the one thoroughly missionary book in the Old Testament, and they find that its message comes home to their converts with peculiar power.—The Lutheran.

One day a Chinese scholar named Ch’u paid a visit to an old friend, Chang, who was priest of a Buddhist temple among the mountains of Shansi. As he looked over the library his eye fell upon a book of unusual appearance lying on a dusty shelf, and he inquired of the priest what book it was. “Ah,” replied his friend, “that is a strange book I picked up on a journey—a foreign classic. You will not think much of it.” It was a copy of the Gospel of Mark, and Ch’u became interested in some things he read in it. He had never heard of Christ before, and now that life so simple and sublime laid hold on him. He came again and again to the temple to read that little book until he knew it almost by heart. But no one else could tell him more, for no Christian had ever penetrated to that lonely mountain. Could all this story about Jesus be true? If so, when did it happen? Where were His followers whom He told to preach His gospel? Could Jesus help men now? At length, after long waiting and much inquiry, he learned that there were some Christians in a town three days’ journey away, and he set off to seek them. There he met Pastor Hsi, a Chinese evangelist, who was able to tell him that Jesus Christ was alive and he could[53] trust Him. Once again he visited the Buddhist temple, this time to tell his old friend of the grace of Christ, and Chang also became a believer. When some years later a Christian missionary went to this place, there was a community of saved men and women, and a little church gathered together through the agency of the message of that one little book.

At one time I gave a Mohammedan a New Testament on condition that he would read it. He was a Turkish official, but he promised that he would do so. I saw him a year later, when he came to me like Nicodemus by night. I said to him, “Have you read the book I gave you?” He replied, “Yes, I have read it through four times, and it gets hold of me every time right here”—putting his hand upon his heart. “I believe that is the religion which must ultimately be accepted by the world as the true religion; it seems to me that it is the only religion.” He went out and away and he is to-day an official of the Turkish Government. He is a representative of a great class in the Mohammedan world who are beginning to have an intelligent knowledge of Christianity.—James L. Barton, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

A laboring man had come up from the country for a holiday in London. He seemed strong and active, tho his hair was gray; and standing in the Roman Gallery, he looked wonderingly at the long line of statues and busts of the Roman emperors. As I pointed out one and another to a friend with me, he stept forward and said, “Have they got Julius Cæsar here?” I at once told him that the bust stood at the end of the gallery and he walked toward it, but soon came back again, evidently not quite satisfied. I asked him if he had found it.

“No,” he said, “I couldn’t see him.” So I took the old man back to where it stood, and pointed it out.

“You are interested in these things?” I inquired.

“Yes,” he replied, “and now I can tell folks when I go home that I’ve seen him. Which is the one that was alive when Jesus Christ was crucified?” I soon showed him Tiberius Cæsar, and then Augustus, telling him how God had through his means set the whole Roman world in motion, in order that according to prophecy Christ might be born in Bethlehem. And then I asked him if he knew the Lord Jesus Christ. With a bright, satisfied look lighting up his fine old face, he said, “Ah, yes! one gets to know summat of Him in a lifetime.”

There were many things to be seen in London, but evidently the British Museum stood first and foremost in his estimation, because he could there see portraits of those about whom he read in the Bible.—Ada R. Habershon, “The Bible and the British Museum.”

A preacher, one day, resting under a beech-tree, pondering on the divine wisdom that had created it, saw a squirrel running round the trunk and up the branches, and he said to himself, “Ah! little creature, this beech-tree is much more to you than it is to me, for it is your home, your living, and your all.” Its big branches were the main streets of his city and its little boughs were the lanes. Somewhere in that tree he had his house and the beechnuts were his daily food.

A trader passing a converted cannibal in Africa, asked him what he was doing. “Oh, I am reading the Bible,” was the reply. “That book is out of date in my country,” said the foreigner. “If it had been out of date here,” said the African to the European, “you’d have been eaten long ago.”

A New York City missionary, accustomed to speak in the lowest sections of the city, was going to hold an open-air meeting in Paradise Park. Before he began to preach he heard a man in the crowd say, “Damn the Bible, anyhow.” He mounted his barrel and announced, “My text to-day is ‘Damn the Bible, anyhow.’” That made that man and every other man eager to hear what he was going to say next. Then he told why the devil wanted the Bible damned: because it closed up all liquor stores and brothels,[54] cleaned men’s lives and taught truth and salvation.

The Bible continues to be the most popular of books, as shown by the report of the American Bible Society for 1909. The total number of issues amounted to 2,826,831, of which 1,427,247 came from the Bible House in New York, and 1,399,584 from the society’s agencies abroad, in Turkey, Syria, Siam, China, Japan, etc. These issues consisted of 327,636 Bibles, 545,743 New Testaments, and 1,953,452 Scripture portions. The number of volumes was 673,803 in excess of the issues of a year ago, and 590,076 in excess of any year in its history.

Recent dispatches from Denmark tell of remarkable experiments, carried on in the sound between Denmark and Sweden, for the purpose of testing the seaworthiness of a vessel built according to the dimensions of Noah’s Ark, as given in Gen. 6:15. According to the Copenhagen Daily Dannebrog, Naval Architect Vogt, who has experimented for a long time with the dimensions of Noah’s Ark as given in the Bible, has recently completed a model of that ancient craft. It measures 30 feet in length by 5 feet in width by 3 feet in height, the actual measurements of the ark of Noah being 300×50×30. The model is built in the shape of an old-fashioned saddle-roof, so that a cross-section represents an isosceles triangle. When this queer craft was released from the tugboat which had towed it outside the harbor and left to face the weather on its own account, it developed remarkable sea-going qualities. It drifted sideways with the tide, creating a belt of calm water to leeward, and the test proved conclusively that a vessel of this primitive make might be perfectly seaworthy for a long voyage. It is well known that the proportionate dimensions used by modern ship-builders are identical with those of the diluvian vessel. (Text.)

Often I have been made ashamed of the littleness of my love by the devotion of these Indians and their love for the Bible. One of our Indians came with his son from the distant hunting-grounds to fish on the shores of our Great Lakes, gathering their supplies for the winter. “My son,” said the father, “we leave for home to-morrow morning early; put the Book of Heaven in your pack.” So the young man put it in, and after doing so, an uncle came and said, “Nephew, lend me the Book of Heaven that I may read a little. I have loaned mine.” So the pack was opened and the Bible taken out, and the uncle put it on the blankets after finishing with it, instead of into the pack. The next morning the father and son strapped on their snow-shoes and walked thirty-five miles toward home, dug a hole in the snow at night, cooked some rabbits, had their prayers and lay down and slept. The next morning after prayers they pushed on thirty-five miles more, and made their home. That night the father said, “We are home now in our wigwam. Son, give me the Book of Heaven, that the mother and the rest may read the word and have prayers.” They searched for the book, but it was not in the pack and the son told of his uncle’s request to borrow it. The father was disappointed, but said little. The next morning he arose early, put a few cooked rabbits in his pack and started off. That day he walked seventy-five miles, found his precious book and returned the whole distance the following day, having walked in snow-shoes one hundred and fifty miles through the wild forest of the north-west to[55] regain his copy of the Word of God! (Text.)

Years ago when Bibles were scarce in Mexico, a man chanced upon one, and it seemed to him interesting and of good moral tone, so he told his son he might read it. The boy read and read and was delighted. He memorized large portions of it, and came to love it dearly. He thought it was the only book of its kind in the world, and when he was twelve or fourteen he carried his book as a proud possession to school to show it to his teacher. What was his consternation when the teacher threw up his hands in horror and cried, “Ave Maria, boy, where did you get that book? Don’t you know it is one of those accurst Protestant books? Give it to me this instant?”

He seized the volume and carried it to the priest. The boy went home inconsolable and wept most of the night. The next day he met the priest, who told him the book was a dangerous teacher of false doctrines and that he had burned it. From that day the boy lost interest in everything. He led a careless, dissolute life, wandering from place to place. At length he was working in El Paso, Texas, and was invited by a man to attend a gathering in a near-by hall. As he entered, a man was standing on a platform at a desk reading from a book. Instantly the boy recognized some of the words he had memorized from the Bible and in a trice he was down in front of the reader, demanding, “Sir, have the kindness to give me back my book. That is my book that you are reading from. They took it away from me years ago, but it is mine.” As he stretched out his hand toward the preacher to receive his treasure he said, “I can prove to you that it is mine—I will tell you what it says.” And he began and repeated passages that he had learned years before. They gave him “his book,” as he truly thought it was—and it changed his life. He became an honored doctor in the city of Mexico and a member of an evangelical church.

By act of Parliament in 1579 every Scotch householder with $2,500 to his credit had to provide, under penalty of $50, “a Bible and Psalme buke in vulgare language in their houssis for the better instruction of thame selffis and their famelijes in the knowledge of God.” The condition of the times gave added value to such a regulation. Books were few and the Bible was a treat. Being compelled to buy it may have been a financial hardship, but having it and next to no other book at all made opportunity for good intellectual and spiritual delight.—Northwestern Christian Advocate.

Some of the Indians are huge fellows, over six feet tall, and they pride themselves on their stature. As they talked about their height, I would say, “Listen, I have a book that tells about a man as tall as if one of you were seated on the shoulders of the tallest among you.” “Oh, what a story; what talk is that, missionary?” “Well, come and listen.” Then I talked to them about Goliath, and got them interested, and the gospel follows. In my work among these people I found one reason, at least, why those stories were in the Bible. Benjamin would not listen, but he became interested in the stories, and then he listened to the gospel.—Pierson, “Miracles of Missions.”

In the district of Allahabad some conversions had taken place among the women and girls which had greatly stirred up the opposition of the men. The reading circles in the zenanas had to be stopt and the missionaries were prohibited from visiting the women. One old woman, explaining the situation, said: “Our men say you come and take us away. It is not you who take our women away and make them Christians; it is your Book. There are such wonderful words in it; when they sink into the heart nothing can take them out again.”

When the armies of King Philip of Spain were seeking to crush liberty and life out of the people of the Netherlands, an evangelist named Philippe de Marnix was flung into prison by the Spaniards. The captive acted as did Luther in the castle of the Wartburg, and as did John Bunyan in Bedford jail, for he at once commenced the translation of the Bible into his native Dutch language. And just as Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible became the regenerating agency in Germany,[56] so did the version of Marnix prove to be the corner-stone of the Dutch republic.

Whitefield had to sail for Georgia, and he summoned Wesley to leave London and come to Bristol to take up the strange work begun there. In the little society in Fetter Lane that call was heard with dread. Some dim sense of great issues hanging upon the answer to it disquieted the minds of the little company. The Bible was consulted by lot, and repeatedly, in search of a text which might be accepted as a decision. But only the most alarming passages emerged. “Get thee up into this mountain and die on the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered to thy people,” ran one. When one chance-selected text proved disquieting in this fashion the lot was cast again and yet again, but always with the same result. There was a quaint mixture of superstition and simplicity in the Bibliomancy of the early Methodists. If the text which presented itself did not please, it was rejected, and the sacred pages were interrogated by chance afresh, in the hope of more welcome results.—W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”

Some years ago at a meeting of Congregationalist ministers in Windham County, Conn., one of their number arose and proposed that arrangements be made for a great convocation of all the ministers and churches in all that county and vicinity. He expatiated largely upon the importance of such an assembly, tho without giving any very definite evidence as to the value of the results that might be attained; and closed by recommending the project to the favorable consideration of the brotherhood.

An old and well-known and somewhat eccentric preacher, Thomas Williams, arose in his place and spoke in substance as follows:

“A man once said: ‘If all the iron in the world were made into one ax, what a great ax that would be! And if all the water in the world were poured into one pond, what a great pond that would be! And if all the wood in the world were made into one tree, what a great tree that would be! And if all the men in the world were made into one man, what a great man that would be!’ And then,” drawled out the speaker, “if that great man should take that great ax, and fell that great tree into that great pond, what a great splosh there would be!”

The old man sat down, and nothing more was heard of the “great splosh” or the great meeting.

Thomas Jefferson was fiercely assailed by the Federal party, including nearly all of the clergy of the country, as not only depraved in heart and life, but as a blatant infidel, for whom the yawning abyss of wo, with its eternal torments, was none too severe a doom. Not long since a man died at Rhinebeck who, when an infant, was taken into the Reformed Dutch Church in that town to be baptized. After the clergyman had received the child in his arms the father gave the name to be applied as “Thomas Jefferson,” who was then President. “It would be blasphemy,” said the minister, “to call that name in the house of God; this child’s name is John,” and he finished the christening, the boy bearing the name thus given to the day of his death.—New York Journal of Commerce.

Most of our song-birds have three notes expressive of love, alarm, and fellowship. The last call seems to keep them in touch with one another. I might perhaps add to this list the scream of distress which most birds utter when caught by a cat or a hawk—the voice of uncontrolled terror and pain which is nearly the same in all species—dissonant and piercing. The other notes and calls are characteristic, but this last is the simple screech of common terrified nature. (Text.)—John Burroughs, Country Life in America.

The bird is not only our brother—he is far more. He is our benefactor, our preserver, for the simple reason that he alone is able to hold in check the most powerful race on earth—the insects. It is well known to scientific men that the insect tribes, unchecked, would control the earth. Innumerable, multiplying with a rapidity that defies figures and even comprehension, devouring everything that has, or has had, life, from the vegetable to the man, and living but to eat, these myriads would soon, if left to themselves, reduce our planet to a barren wilderness, uninhabitable by man or beast.—Olive Thorne Miller, “The Bird Our Brother.”

On the birth of a Parsee child a magian and a fire-priest, who is always an astrologer, are called in to predict the future life of the babe. The magian, drest in a strange robe of many colors, a pointed cap with jingling bells, and armed with a long broom made of beresma twigs (which is thought to have the power of putting evil spirits to flight), enters the chamber of the Parsee mother and babe and setting the end of his broom on fire dances around, exorcising the evil spirits; finally he flourishes his firebrand over the mother and child and in all the corners of the room. This done, the fire-priest draws a number of squares on a blackboard; in one corner of each square he draws a curious figure of bird, beast, fish or insect, each of which stands for some mental, physical, or spiritual characteristic, together with its appropriate star or planet. The magian then proceeds by means of spells and incantations to exercise any evil spirit that may be lurking unseen in the blackboard. Next the fire-priest begins to count and recount the stars under whose influence the child is supposed to be born, and then with closed eyes and solemn voice he predicts the future life of the babe. Next he prepares a horoscope or birth-paper and hands it to the father. Then, placing the babe on his knees, he waves over it the sacred flame, sprinkles it with holy water, fills its ears and nostrils with seasalt to keep out the evil spirits, and finally returns the screaming infant to its mother’s arms.—Mrs. Leonowens, Wide Awake.

There is no doubt whatever that the French people are rushing to suicide. If they continue on this course, the French nation, those of French stock, will have lost a fifth of their number before the expiration of the present century and will absolutely have vanished from Europe by the end of the twenty-second century; that is, in two hundred years. It is now twenty years ago that we first stated this frightful fact. So far we have been a voice in the wilderness. While people are eternally discussing the advantages of secular education and the beauty of the income tax, and all the grand democratic reforms that are to come, amid all the fine speeches of sophistical cranks, the French people are gradually committing suicide. They are tightening the cord about the national neck; the breath of life is becoming feebler and now is but a gasp which must soon end in silence.

People still marry in France almost as frequently as in other countries. But this does not result in the multiplication of children. In 1909 marriages to the number of 307,954 were celebrated, which amounted to 7.85 for every thousand inhabitants, a slightly less proportion than during the years immediately preceding.

If the marriage-rate remains normal in France, divorces are becoming more and[58] more common. There were 12,847 divorces in 1909, against 11,515 in 1908; 10,938 in 1907; 10,573 in 1906, and 7,157 in 1900. Thus in eight years divorces have increased at the rate of 80 per cent. Taking into consideration the facility with which a divorce may be obtained from the courts, the number of those who ask for and gain this release is sure to increase rapidly. After a short time divorce will be common in rural districts, which so far have rebelled against it, and doubtless the number will grow to 20,000 or 30,000, if not more, per annum.

When we come to the birth-rate of France here we find the hurt, the deadly hurt, from which our country suffers. The birth-rate in France has been declining for a century. This decline has become so accelerated during the past ten or fifteen years that, as I feel bound to repeat, we stand confronted by an impending suicide of the nation.

During the first thirty years of the nineteenth century France recorded more than 30 births per thousand inhabitants; from 1835 to 1869 the birth-rate oscillated between 30 and 26 per thousand. Leaving out the depopulating years of the Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71, and years succeeding, which suffered from this scourge, we find that from 1876 to 1900 the birth-rate was on the decline and ranged from 26 to 22 per thousand. In 1900 it had sunk to 21, and by the latest statistics it is at present only 20 per thousand inhabitants.

If ten homes do not contain among them more than fifteen children to take the place of twenty parents, there is no reduction in the death-rate which can prevent the final diminution of the national population.

A celebrated Parisian belle, says the Popular Science News, who had acquired the habit of whitewashing herself, so to speak, from the soles of her feet to the roots of her hair, with chemically-prepared cosmetics, one day took a medicated bath, and on emerging from it she was horrified to find herself as black as an Ethiopian. The transformation was complete; not a vestige of the “supreme Caucasian race” was left. Her physician was sent for in alarm and haste. On his arrival he laughed immoderately and said, “Madame, you are not ill, you are a chemical product. You are no longer a woman, but you are a ‘sulfid.’ It is not now a question of medical treatment, but a simple chemical reaction. I shall subject you to a bath of sulfuric acid diluted with water. The acid will have the honor of combining with you; it will take up the sulfur, the metal will produce a ‘sulfurate,’ and we shall find[59] as a ‘precipitate’ a very pretty woman.” The good-natured physician went through with his reaction, and the belle was restored to her membership with the white race.

Every summer, at the beginning of the climbing season in the Swiss mountains, a solemn service is held among the guides, many of whom are godly men, who know they take their lives in their hands when they ascend the Alps. So they bring their ropes with them and lay them at the foot of one of the mountains. Old and new ropes are piled in a heap, and then they are “blessed” by the pastor. Prayer is offered that the old ropes may still bear the strain safely, and that the new ropes may prove equal to all the stress placed upon them. The guides are commended to the mercy of God that in their daily ascents they may be kept safely and that they may succor the travelers who trust in them. (Text.)

The naturalist reminds us how the furious eagerness of the winged insects, which seem to be the agents of death, is frequently a cause of life. By an incessant persecution of the sick flocks, enfeebled by hot, damp airs, they insure their safety. Otherwise they would remain stupidly resigned, and hour by hour become less capable of motion until they could rise no more. The inexorable spur of the furious insects knows, however, the secrets of putting the flocks on their legs; tho with trembling limbs, they take to flight; the insect never quits them, presses them, urges them, bleeding, to the wholesome regions of the dry lands and the living waters where their afflictions cease.

I have read of a blind lamp-lighter. This poor man had mastered the long street in his city, and obtained the position of lamp-lighter. He would go up and down the street, opening the gas key and lighting the flame.[60] Tired men went home from work in the light that he had lit. The blind man found the street dark; he left it a blaze of light for the tired multitudes. And yet, when he had lighted all the lamps, he felt his own way back home. Oh, pathetic scene! telling us how science looks down at the clods, works over iron and ore, matter and force, and stumbles forward in the very moment when the whole world is a blaze of light.—N. D. Hillis.

Fanny Crosby, in the eighties, has fulfilled the vow which she made at eight, and has never mourned over the fact that she is blind. What an impressive lesson of trust and resignation is her declaration that her blindness has proved not a deprivation, but a real blessing!

If the gift of sight were offered her now she has said that she would elect to remain as she is. For she says cheerfully:

“If I had not been deprived of sight, I should never have received so good an education, nor have cultivated so fine a memory, nor have been able to do good to so many people.” (Text.)

Mr. W. H. Levy, who is blind, says in his book, “Blindness and the Blind,” that he can tell when he is opposite an object, and can perceive whether it is tall or short, slender or bulky. He can also determine whether it be a solitary object or a continuous fence; whether a close fence or an open one, and sometimes whether a wooden fence, a stone wall, or a hedge. None of the five senses has anything to do with this perceptive power, but the impressions are made on the skin of his face, and by it transmitted to the brain. He therefore names this unrecognized sense facial perception. The presence of a fog interferes with facial perception, and makes the impressions faint and untrustworthy; but darkness is no impediment. A noise which distracts the attention interferes with the impressions. In passing along the street he can distinguish stores from private houses, and doors from windows, if the windows consist of a number of panes, and not of a single sheet of glass. A remarkable fact, bearing on the subject of an unrecognized sense is mentioned by Mr. Levy. A naturalist extracted the eyes of several bats and covered the empty sockets with leather. In this condition the bats flew about the room, avoiding the sides and flying out of the door without touching the door-case. In flying through a sewer which made a right angle, they turned at the proper point. They flew through threads suspended from the ceiling without touching them, tho they were only far enough apart to admit the passage of the bats’ extended wings.—Youth’s Companion.

Convex spectacles are made for the use of patients who have undergone the operation of removal of a cataract. A cataract is merely the crystalline lens of the eye become opaque. The convex lens of the spectacles supplies the place of the crystalline lens. But the patient is obliged to learn distances and dimensions after sight is thus restored, and during this experience he often suffers illusions.

There came a day when, in her solemn assembly, France voted to cast off the recognition of Almighty God. She lifted up instead[61] the Goddess of Reason, and in her delirium the multitude placed a daughter of pleasure in a chariot, crowned her with flowers, and determined to worship the body, instead of the Angel of Duty. But smashing the telescope does not put out the stars. Voting not to have any sun does not annihilate the summer. The microscope may show the germs of death in the reservoir, but breaking the microscope will not cleanse the springs.—N. D. Hillis.

The Arabs have a belief that over the grave of a murdered man his spirit hovers in the form of a bird that cries, “Give me drink! Give me drink!” and only ceases to cry when the murder is avenged by the death of the murderer. (Text.)

A Bedouin horseman riding along a desert track, seeing the sign of blood on the side of the road, will instantly dismount and cover it with earth “to lay the mâred” (the avenger of blood). The idea is that the spirit of him who died by an act of violence, the victim of man’s hate, the mâred, calls for vengeance on him who has taken the life of his fellow man.—“The Witness of the Wilderness.”

Henry M. Stanley, in his work “Through the Dark Continent,” describes the warrior chief Mirambo, the Mars of Africa, whose genius for war Stanley likens to that of Frederick the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte. He was a formidable adversary, and Stanley was very anxious to convert him from a foe into an ally. By skilful management he did accomplish this, and to make the alliance an unbreakable one, the covenant of brotherhood was sealed by an interchange of blood between the African hero and the American hero, an incision being made in the right leg of each for this purpose. The same blood now flowed in the veins of both Stanley and Mirambo, and they thereafter vied with each other in proofs of their unselfish fidelity. Abraham and Abimelech made such a covenant and the literal translation is “they cut a covenant.” Jacob and Laban also “cut a covenant.” An Oriental could as soon commit suicide as slay a covenant brother, for it would be shedding his own blood.

I had been addressing a large midday congregation in Leeds, and a deep seriousness pervaded the atmosphere. The closing hymn appointed began, “Sin-sick and Sorrow-laden”; and by some inconceivable oddity of my own mind I gave it out, quite deliberately and distinctly, “Seasick and Sorrow-laden.” I perceived what I had done in a second. I literally trembled, for it was impossible to recall the slip without calling attention to it. I feared that there would be an awful titter, or even an explosion of laughter. Wonderful to say, it was as if no one but myself noticed the blunder, and I was awed into gravity, not only by the occasion, but by my fear of what might happen.

I think of the delicacy and perfection of much of R. L. Stevenson’s work—just the kind of writing which a man might plead could not be done except in moments of inspiration and in favorable conditions. Then I remember how that delicate style was attained by years of severe drill, and when the instrument had been perfected, it was used with conscientious diligence in face of every conceivable hindrance. When, after hemorrhage, his right hand is in a sling, he writes some of his “Child’s Garden of Verses” with his left hand; when the hemorrhage has been so bad that he may not even speak, he dictates a novel in the deaf and dumb alphabet. He writes to George Meredith: “For fourteen years I have not had a day’s real health. I have written in bed, written in hemorrhages, written in sickness, written torn by coughing, written when my head swam for weakness; and for so long, it seems to me, I have won my wager and recovered my glove. The battle goes on—ill or well is a trifle, so as it goes. I was[62] made for contest, and the powers have so willed that my battle-field should be this dingy, inglorious one of the bed and the physic-bottle.” No wonder that he could say: “I frankly believe (thanks to my dire industry) I have done more with smaller gifts than almost any man of letters in the world.” And yet this man declared that he labored only for art, and that the end of art was to give pleasure! If such a motive can command such devotion, what is not possible for us who serve the Savior, for us whose end is the salvation of men and the redemption of the world!—W. W. B. Emery, Christian World Pulpit.

The human body is a marvelous machine with a storage of power. It is estimated that if all the beats of the heart in a single day could be concentrated in one huge throb of vital power, it would be sufficient to throw a ton of iron 120 feet into the air. An electrical engineer has affirmed that this expended heart-energy is equal to a two-candle power of an incandescent electrical lamp; or, if converted into cold light, this amount of power would represent forty candles. If a man had some such organ as a firefly has he could surround himself with light enough to live by without artificial lighting.

A scientific writer, speaking of the human body in its marvelous mechanism, calls it an epitome of all mechanics, of all hydraulics, of all machinery. It has all the bars, levers, pulleys, wheels, axles and buffers known to science. All the more than three hundred movements included in modern mechanics are simply modifications and variations of those found in the human body—adaptations of processes and first principles employed in the human organism.

The strength of some of the spiders which build their webs in trees and other places in Central America is astounding. One of them had in captivity, not long ago, a wild canary.

The ends of the wings, the tail and feet of the bird were bound together by some sticky substance, to which were attached the threads of the spider, which was slowly but surely drawing up the bird by an ingenious arrangement. The bird hung head downward, and was so securely bound with little threads that it could not struggle and would soon have been a prey to its great ugly captor if it had not been rescued.

All around us are men being bound by the arch enemy of souls, that he may devour them. At first, he tempts them with little sins that charm and fascinate, and as they yield, he binds them with threads of filmy texture. Temptations multiply. The reward of sin is greater sin. As they become more submissive, he binds them so fast that finally they are unable to make further resistance. (Text.)

I can still remember plainly the circumstances under which I finished it. (“Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”) I had got well into the second volume. It was Thursday. Sunday was looming up before me, and at the rate at which I was going there would not be time to finish it before Sunday, and I could never preach till I had finished it. So I set myself to it and determined to finish it at once. I had got a considerable way into the second volume, and I recommended my wife to go to bed. I didn’t want anybody down there. I soon began to cry. Then I went and shut all the doors, for I did not want any one to see me. Then I sat down to it and finished it that night, for I knew that only in that way should I be able to preach on Sunday.—Henry Ward Beecher.

It was always with a sigh of relief that Macaulay turned aside from public duties to the companionship of books, and he said that he could covet no higher joy than to be shut up in the seclusion of a great library, and never pass a moment without a book in his hand. And this confession declares the man. To acquire information was the real passion of his life. He was not interested in the study of human nature, and had no[63] love or aptitude for meditation. A man with genial interest in his fellows, and in life as a whole, would not have walked the streets of London with a book in his hand; and a man with any faculty of meditative thought would scarcely have employed a long starlit night on the Irish Sea in a recitation of Milton.—W. J. Dawson, “The Makers of English Prose.”

Browning would never write for a magazine. He wrote: “I can not bring myself to write for periodicals. If I publish a book, and people choose to buy it, that proves they want to read my work. But to have them to turn over the pages of a magazine and find me—that is to be an uninvited guest.”

A gentleman in India went into his library and took down a book from the shelves. As he did so he felt a slight pain in his finger like the prick of a pin. He thought that a pin had been stuck by some careless person in the cover of the book. But soon his finger began to swell, then his arm, and then his whole body, and in a few days he died. It was not a pin among the books, but a small and deadly serpent.

We are capable of believing, not only that we love books which we do not love, but that we have read books which we have not read. A lifelong intimacy with their titles, a partial acquaintance with modern criticism, a lively recollection of many familiar quotations—these things come in time to be mistaken for a knowledge of the books themselves. Perhaps in youth it was our ambitious purpose to storm certain bulwarks of literature; but we were deterred by their unpardonable length. It is a melancholy truth, which may as well be acknowledged at the start, that many of the books best worth reading are very, very long, and that they can not, without mortal hurt, be shortened. Nothing less than a shipwreck on a desert island in company with Froissart’s “Chronicles” would give us leisure to peruse this glorious narrative, and it is useless to hope for such a happy combination of chances. We might, indeed, be wrecked—that is always a possibility—but the volume saved dripping from the deep would be “Soldiers of Fortune,” or “Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.”—Agnes Repplier, “Compromises.”

Boorishness is a product of selfishness far more than a product of ignorance; or at least a product of that ignorance which is in itself a product of selfishness. I was once at a wedding breakfast in a rural community in the West. The groom ate in silence the food that was set before him, dispatched his meal before the rest of us were more than half through, pushed back his plate, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and turning to his bride, said, “Well, Sally, you may as well get used to my way at the beginning, and I always leave the table when I have got through with my meal!” With these words he went out to pick his teeth on the door-steps, leaving his bride with a flushed face and a pained heart, the object of our commiseration. The man was a boor, you say. True! What made him a boor? The fact that he selfishly thought of his own comfort. It never entered his head to inquire whether his conduct would be agreeable or painful to his bride.—Lyman Abbott, The Chautauquan.

A wag has declared that there is one borrower set down in every neighborhood; that she either “leavens the whole lump” (being of the fomenting class) or speedily moves away. But he is mistaken; sometimes the borrower gets converted. Here is the way one woman managed it:

“Ma wants to know if you will loan her a cup of sugar?” asks Mrs. B.’s little girl.

“Why, certainly! But be sure to tell her not to return it,” was the cheerful response of Mrs. Neighbor.

The next day the child reappeared with the[64] sugar, but she was promptly sent home with it. Mrs. N. was “glad to let her have it, and it was too small a matter to be repaid.”

This caused Mrs. Borrower to gasp and to wait a while before despatching the child for a cup of lard. This was given also, and when no return was allowed Mrs. B. realized the situation and was too proud to ask for further loans. She resented her neighbor’s attitude, but her mouth was shut, especially as Mrs. N. continued as friendly as ever when they met. The result was that she was simply forced to exercise a little more head-work thereafter in her household affairs, ordering supplies sufficiently in advance of her needs, and soon she had broken herself of the borrowing habit.—Lee McCrae, Zion’s Advocate.

It was in the pursuit of a mission that Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., went to Thompsonville. He might have found a more showy position, for he had name and influence. He might have found plenty of things to do that would at the start have brought him more money. For that matter, he had enough of his own so that he need not bother with work; and had he been like some young men, he would never have been seen in overalls or any other uniform of the toiler. But he went to the carpet mill, and he did what he was told. He began at the bottom. He has worked hard. And now we may understand what he did it for. Announcement is made that he is to go West as manager of one of the Hartford Carpet Company’s Western houses. It is for a purpose that he has been learning the business in all its details. He could not manage without that knowledge.

It is an old lesson, but never was there an instance better showing it than does this of the son of the former President. If he could afford to begin at the bottom, others can. If he must, others must. If with his brains and education he needed to do that, nearly any young man does. If his prospective position is the reward of that sort of sacrifice, it is a sacrifice that any young man can afford to make.—New Haven Register.

Mark Twain tells a story of how a bootblack saved a king. The king was sick; his trouble defied the skill of all his doctors, and it seemed as if he must die. The little bootblack knew a peculiar but a sure remedy for the disease; but how to get the king to take a prescription from a bootblack was a problem. He might have gone to the palace doors and pleaded till he was hoarse without any one listening. So he told his remedy to the ash-boy, who was older than himself, and the ash-boy told it to the butcher, and the butcher told it to his wife, and she told it to some one else, and so on it went, a little higher each time, until it reached the king’s doctors. The king would have nothing more to do with them, so they told it to the favorite page, and since the king was very fond of the page he tried the remedy just to please him. The king was cured by the bootblack’s remedy.—James M. Stifler, “The Fighting Saint.”

When Edward VII was a boy of ten, he was with his mother, Queen Victoria, at Balmoral Castle in the Highlands of Scotland. At that time the Queen was quite a skilful painter in water-colors and spent many days by the waterfalls and in the glens making pictures.

One day she was sitting at her easel on a sandy beach of the river beneath a waterfall. Young Edward was playing around her. The little Prince suddenly caught sight of a Highland lad in kilts. The lad was making a sand castle and adorning it with sprigs of heather and “chucky-stones.”

The Prince advanced to him with royal hauteur and asked for whom the sand castle was being built.

“For bonnie Prince Charlie,” was the playful reply of the boy, who stood with his hands on his hips to see the effect of a thistle on the top story. The lad had no idea that his interlocutor was any different from any other boy.

The young Prince, however, determined to make it clear that he—and not Prince Charlie—was to be King some day. He kicked over the sand castle.

The Highland boy glared at him and said:

[65]

“Ye’ll no dae that again!”

It was a challenge. The lad rebuilt his sand castle very deliberately. The Prince waited until the thistle was stuck on the top story, then kicked it over as deliberately as it had been built.

“Ye’ll no dae that a third time!” challenged the little Scot, beginning to rebuild with even more deliberation.

The Queen had been noticing the affair. She set aside her brush and palette, but said nothing; only watched with a firm, studious expression on her maternal face.

A third time Prince Edward kicked over the Highland lad’s sand castle. No sooner was it done than its kilted builder closed his fists and lowered his head. In another moment the two boys were hammering one another.

The Queen sat there and never interfered by word or act. The little Prince presently returned, weeping, bruised, and bloody-nosed, while the rebel Gael stood apart, himself considerably frayed, waiting to see if any further service were needed in the training of royal children.

To the little Prince’s plea for speedy justice and vengeance, the motherly Queen merely replied, as she wiped the blood from the future King’s nose with a pocket handkerchief:

“It served you right!”—New York Times.

Pages, messenger boys, newsboys and bootblacks have a champion in a member of Congress who never lets pass an opportunity to help them along. If a messenger boy should happen to drop into the office of Representative William J. Cary, of Milwaukee, in the House office building, he would get as much consideration as a member of the United States Senate.

Mr. Cary is the friend of the little chaps because he knows from experience what it means to get out and hustle for a living when some of your pals are off playing baseball in the back lots, and whenever he gets a chance to give a youngster a boost he boosts hard.

Mr. Cary was left an orphan when he was thirteen years old, together with five younger brothers and sisters who were placed in an orphan asylum.

In chasing around Milwaukee as a messenger boy he became acquainted with the political leaders of the city and by the time he was old enough to vote he was a full-fledged politician. Machine methods do not appeal to him and he would rather mix up in a fight with the Cannon organization than to take a cruise to Europe.—Boston Journal.

I was talking once with an East Side boy, one of the keenest and quickest fellows I have ever met. He told me the story of his early years. There was no good reason why he should have been a newsboy; his father was a fairly prosperous tailor; but he loved the adventure of it, and used to play hookey from school and from home to sell papers. Union Square was his center, and from there down to Washington Square he ranged. He was the quickest and the most fearless of the newsboys in the neighborhood, and soon became a leader among them. His brightness and wit won him entrance into most of the saloons and restaurants thereabouts, when the other boys were excluded; and in many of these the waiters or the barkeeper would save the dregs of drinks for him. He stole when he could, just for the excitement of the thing; and with great glee he told me how he once had picked the pocket of Mr. Robert Graham, the general secretary of the Church Temperance Society, as that gentleman stood talking at the window of the society’s coffee-van in the square. At the time he told me this, he and I both belonged to a company of the Church Temperance Society which claimed Mr. Graham as its adjutant commander. His story was not all of such proud recollections, however. For after a pause he said, rather slowly, “The boys I used to go with around here, my gang, have all gone to the devil, and mighty fast.” “Well, John,” I asked, “how is it that you didn’t go to the devil, too, with them?” “Well, I’ll tell you. I belonged to a boy’s club down near my house. It wasn’t much of a club; we used to steal and have rough house all we pleased. But I was there every night.” And then he added, with a momentary seriousness I shall not soon forget: “Mr. Bartlett, if you want to save the boys, keep them off the streets at night.” It was expert testimony; he knew whereof he spoke. And what he said puts in a nutshell the whole philosophy of the[66] boys’ club, secular or spiritual, on its negative, but a most important, side. If the club simply keeps the boys off the streets at night, it does much more than enough to pay for all it costs.—George G. Bartlett, “Proceedings of the Religious Education Association,” 1904.

Eight boys in a Sunday-school class in one of our churches, following the suggestion of their teacher, decided to send Christmas remembrances to eight boys in a mission church in the far Northwest. They set aside five cents each week for seven weeks and purchased knives of much greater value than thirty-five cents each, through the kindness of the merchant who was informed of their purpose. Each boy wrote a personal letter to the boy who was to receive his gift. The eight knives went on their way before Christmas to the care of the minister of the mission, who wisely required his eight boys to write personal letters acknowledging their gifts and telling something about themselves, before they received the knives. So eight choir-boys, close up to the Canada line in the Northwest, received these Christmas gifts. The letters received here were said to have interfered for a Sunday or two with the regular lessons. With their accounts of hunting rabbits, etc., they made Newark boys feel that all the advantages of life are not found in New Jersey. The plan here described was suggested incidentally by the work of the Church Periodical Club, which has done a great deal to brighten the lives of our missionaries and their people.—The Newark (N. J.) Churchman.

Boycotting did originate in America, but it was started long before the slavery troubles became annoying. The boycott originated with Thomas Jefferson. It will be remembered that by the embargo we boycotted every species of English goods; we neither bought of that country nor sold to her. The ships of New England were suffered to lie rotting at the wharves, and American foreign trade was at a complete standstill. The Hartford Convention was the result of that boycott, and the lukewarmness of the East in the war of 1812 may be traced to it. It was not a highly successful boycott, but it occupied a pretty big place in history.—Detroit Evening Journal.

Note has to be taken among the mammalia themselves, from the marsupials to man, of the presence or absence of one testing character, and that the chief—the perfect brain. This is found in one creature, occupying, as it were, the inner ring and core of the concentric circles of vitality, and in one alone. In the lowest variety of man it is present—present in the negro or the bushman as in the civilized European; and absent in all below man—absent in the ape or the elephant as truly as in the kangaroo or the duckmole. To all men the pleno-cerebral type is common: to man, as such, it is peculiar. And till we hear of some simian tribe which speculates on its own origin, or discusses its own place in the scale of being, we shall be safe in opposing the human brain, with its sign in language, culture, capacity of progress, as a barrier to Mr. Darwin’s scheme.

In all my travels through the countries of the two hemispheres, never have I seen displayed a spirit of womanhood that could be better in such an extreme than was that of the women of the Republic. When we of the Baltic met them, it was as they were being brought to our vessel in a tossing sea in[67] small boats after nearly a score of hours spent on the crowded Italian emigrant vessel, to which they had been taken from another wreck. Yet not only was there no whimpering, but they actually came aboard with smiling faces. They forgot that all their traveling possessions were doomed, forgot all the ordeal they had encountered, and showed themselves happy and contented because they thought, most of them, that in the face of disaster, all that the hands of willing men could do to help them had been done.

The May-fly, of which there are several varieties, lives at the longest but three or four days; some varieties but a few hours of one day. Yet they are delicately organized, and possess all the functions of insect lives.

The life of a perfect butterfly or moth is short. A few days after emergence from the chrysalis case, the female deposits her eggs on the leaves or stems of the plant that is to sustain the larvæ. Her work is now accomplished, and the few days more allowed her are spent in frolicking among the flowers, and sucking the sweet juices they provide. They soon show symptoms of a fast approaching end. Their colors begin to fade, and the beauty-making scales of the wings gradually disappear through friction against the petals of hundreds of flowers visited and the merry dances with scores and scores of playful companions. At last, one bright afternoon, while the sun is still high in the heavens, a butterfly, more weary than usual, with heavy and laborious flight, seeks a place of rest for the approaching night. Here, on a waving stalk, it is soon lulled to sleep by a gentle breeze.

Next morning, a few hours before noon, the blazing sun calls it out for its usual frolics. But its body now seems too heavy to be supported by the feeble and ragged wings, and, after one or two weak attempts at play, it settles down in its final resting-place. On the following morning a dead butterfly is seen, still clinging by its claws to a swinging stem.—W. Furneaux, “Butterflies and Moths.”

Two men saw a piece of jewelry on the sidewalk, they reached for it simultaneously, struck their heads violently; each arose to censure the other, when they found they were brothers and had not seen each other for a dozen years. It must not be forgotten that all competitions and rivalries to-day are[68] between brothers, and some day the vast brotherhood will be permanently organized.—Charles E. Locke.

A man preaching to the inmates of a prison made the remark that the only difference between himself and them was owing to the grace of God. Afterward one of the prisoners approached him and asked: “Did you mean what you said about sympathizing with us, and that only the help of God made you differ from us?” Being answered in the affirmative, the prisoner said: “I am here for life, but I can stay here more contentedly now that I know I have a brother out in the world.”

The story is told, as an instance of Oriental humor, of a little Chinese girl who was carrying her brother on her back. “Is he heavy?” she was asked. “No,” she replied, “he is my brother.”

The old Egyptians were better builders than those of the present day. There are blocks of stone in the pyramids which weigh three or four times as much as the obelisk on the London embankment. There is one stone the weight of which is estimated at eight hundred and eighty tons. There are stones thirty feet in length which fit so closely together that a penknife may be run over the surface without discovering the break between them. They are not laid with mortar, either. We have no machinery so perfect that it will make two surfaces thirty feet in length which will meet together as these stones in the pyramids meet. It is supposed that they were rubbed backward and forward upon each other until the surfaces were assimilated, making them the world’s wonders in mechanical skill.—The London Budget.

On a railway train running on a branch road from a great city to the suburb, a little incident in complete contrast was noted by eyes quick to see what happened on the road. A woman, evidently a foreigner and very poor, was encumbered by a baby in her arms,[69] while two older children tugged at her skirt. In addition she had several nondescript bundles. When the brakeman announced her station she was bewildered and greatly impeded in her efforts to leave the car. She was not quite sure of the place, and she could not easily manage the babies and the bundles.

A tall young fellow, conspicuously well drest, had been sitting near, apparently lost in a book which he was studying. He tossed the book aside, seized the heavy bundles and gave a hand to one little brown-faced child, assisted the whole party out of the car, first ascertaining that they were at the right point of their journey, lifted his hat to the mother as if she had been his own, and resumed his place and book as if he had done nothing uncommon. This incident was chronicled in the memory of one whom it made happier for a whole long day. (Text.)—Herald and Presbyter.

I see that the question of disposing of the dead in towers of masonry, or by cementation, is being discust. It is not new. Asiatic conquerors have built the living, after capture of their cities, into towers of masonry, using their bodies as blocks, and generally the adobe mortars of the desert plains for cementing them together. One of them built a pyramid or tower containing thousands of heads.

The city of New York inters in its Potter’s Field about four thousand bodies annually. Europe rents a grave site for a term of years—a short term—and then disinters the bones and packs them in a catacomb or a vault. Would not New York save money and treat its dead with greater respect if it embedded each body in a mass of Hudson River cement and sand (Beton Coignet)? I find that one-half a cubic yard of Beton Coignet will completely enclose the body of a man of six feet stature, weighing two hundred pounds. The average human being would require even less than thirteen cubic feet. At ruling prices such a sarcophagus would cost only two or three dollars. The name and date, a perpetual record and memorial of the dead, could be inscribed with letter-punches or stamps on the head or foot of the block or sarcophagus. Ranged alongside each other in contact, and in two rows, i.e., two blocks deep, these would build on any suitable plan a fourteen-foot wall, massive enough and strong enough to be carried to the height of one hundred and fifty feet.

Thus would be erected, at the rate of nearly two thousand cubic yards per year, a great temple of silence, a grand and everlasting monument to those who pass away. The designs for such a monument seem worthy of the study of our best architects. It might be a pyramid, a cone, a tower, or a temple, or a long gallery like those of the Italian city of Bologna, the most beautiful cemetery in the world.

Many years ago the London Architect published the proposal of an architect to erect by slow degrees and in successive courses a solid pyramid in which, in cells, the dead of London would be enclosed. But this made no provision for memorial inscriptions or visible records. The fourteen-foot wall does this.—Building.

Beethoven, when he had completed one of his grand musical compositions, was accustomed to test it on an old harpsichord, lest a more perfect instrument might flatter it or hide its defects.

In 1840 Worcester had thirty leading manufacturers of whom twenty-eight began as journeymen and two as sons of manufacturers. Of seventy-five manufacturers in 1850, six only were sons of manufacturers, only six of the one hundred and seven in 1860, and of one hundred and seventy-six manufacturers in 1878, only fifteen. The chance that the head of a manufacturing business will be reached by the son of an owner in Worcester for forty years has been pretty steadily about one in ten of the total chances of going to the head. As the sons of manufacturers in Worcester in 1840 could not have been, taking thirty manufacturers as the number, one per cent of the population, the chances of success for them was above the average, but not so far above as to discourage young men without this good fortune. The chance that property will stay two generations in one family seems also to be about one in ten in Worcester. Of the thirty manufacturers in 1840, fourteen of whom died or retired with property, only three in 1888 had left sons with money; of the seventy-five in 1850, the sons of only six survive now; and of one hundred and seven in 1860, eight only were represented by sons in the business world of Worcester twenty-eight years later. The business field at any given year is apt to look to young men as if all the leading places were filled by men whose sons were certain to enjoy the advantages of wealth and likely to take the places of their fathers. But there is not over one chance in ten that this will take place, and scarcely this that wealth will be left by those who inherit it. While of those in business on any date, one-fourth drop out in five years, one-half in ten, and two-thirds in fifteen years.

Nine places out of ten thirty years hence are therefore open to those who to-day have nothing.—Philadelphia Press.

Your prize-fighter has some honor in him yet; and so have the men in the ring round him: they will judge him to lose the match by foul hitting. But your prize-merchant gains his match by foul selling, and no one cries out against that. You drive a gambler out of the gambling-room who loads dice, but you leave a tradesman in flourishing business who loads scales! For observe, all dishonest dealing is loading scales. What difference does it make whether I get short weight, adulterate substance, or dishonest fabric?—unless that flaw in the substance or fabric is the worse evil of the two. Give me short measure of food, and I only lose by you; but give me adulterate food and I die by you.—John Ruskin.

Dr. Crafts asked a prominent business man of Chicago, who has been active in the very heart of its commercial life for sixteen years, to make a careful list of its one hundred richest men, and then tell him how many of them were church-members. His report was, “Seventy church-members, twenty-four attend church, and I think are not members; three I consider dissipated, and three are Jews, who are good citizens.”

Seated in a spacious office, this plucky little woman spends her time discussing with her clients the flotation of security issues and the financing of railway lines. Religious mottoes are posted on the walls, and a Testament and prayer-books occupy a conspicuous place on the desk.

“Yes, every morning after I arrive in this city,” said Mrs. Gaylord, “I spend a few minutes in Old Trinity to pray. That was a custom of my husband’s, who was one of the most godly men that lived. Before we begin business here we have a prayer-meeting in the office. I have a good many young men here to whom I am teaching the business. I conduct the services, assisted by my partner, Mr. Fletcher.

“We carry on our work here according to the teaching of the Scriptures. Even if I make only one-quarter of one per cent, that is enough. And business is coming in from every part of the country. It is perfectly wonderful. Only yesterday two loans came in—one for $3,000,000 and another for $2,000,000.

[71]

“The deals will be closed to-morrow. I believe the Lord has educated me in all this. I know He is helping me, and the money I make will all go to the Lord. I only want to provide for my grandchildren. All the rest will go to charity and missions.” (Text.)

Not very long ago a lawyer accompanied his wife to a Harlem market in New York, and while she made some purchases, he watched a woman beside him select meats for an unusually large order. So extensive were her purchases that he grew interested. Later he found himself forgetting quantity in admiration for the judgment and care she was exercising in her buying. After she left, his curiosity got the better of him. “Do you mind telling me,” said he to the clerk, “who that woman was? I think I never saw one who bought so well.”

“Not at all,” was the answer. “She’s Mrs. X, and she keeps a boarding-house on Y Street,” naming a number almost opposite the man’s home. “She personally inspects every piece of meat she serves on her table, and I tell you her boarders get the best. You can’t fool her.”

“I’ve found a place to take our meals in the next domestic crisis,” was the thought that flashed into the man’s mind. This kind of boarding-house keeper was not the sort he had known in the days of his bachelor wanderings.—The Evening Post.

In the summer of 1871, Rev. Robert W. McAll and his wife, visiting Paris at the close of the war with Germany, and led by a deep desire to reach workingmen with the gospel, were giving away tracts in the hotels and on the public streets, when a workingman said: “If any one will come among us and teach us not a gospel of priestcraft and superstition, but of truth and liberty, many of us are ready to hear.”

Mr. McAll returned home, but above the murmur of the waves and the hum of busy life he heard that voice, “If any one will come and teach us ... we are ready to hear.” He said to himself, “Is this God’s call? Shall I go?” Friends said, “No!” But a voice within said, “Yes.” And he left his English parish and went back, and in a district worse to work in than St. Giles in London he began to tell the old story of Jesus. Soon the little place was crowded, and a larger room became a necessity; and sixteen years later that one gospel hall has become 112, in which, in one year, have been held 14,000 religious meetings, with a million hearers, and 4,000 services for children, with 200,000 attendants.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

When summer is ending the wild bird in arctic zones responds to the call of the tropic winds and perfumes and plumes his flight for southern feeding-grounds. So the soul of man is drawn and responds to subtle and haunting attractions in the realm of holiness and heaven.

A source of offense (in the East) are calls formal in character. One can ruin his social standing by going to make this call in a wrong style of conveyance. A friend of mine had bought a Chinese sedan-chair with shorter handles than those of an ordinary sedan. It was loaned to a millionaire from New York to bring him up from the river, and it caused the greatest excitement that the city had ever known. People were laughing for years over it. Why? Because those shorter handles made of that sedan a spirit chair, in which the ghost is carried at funeral processions. It was just as appropriate as if Dr. Anderson, of the First Presbyterian Church up here, should receive a visiting clergyman in a hearse down at the station and bring him uptown in it. It is safe to[72] say that the sight of his guest looking out through the glass sides would not be forgotten. You have reached your place, and you desire to make a good impression; but you are in such haste that you leap down from your cart, or gharry. Well, if a lady should do this in China or India, she might just as well in America if she desired to make a good impression upon a new friend, approach this friend’s house skipping, or on the run; or a gentleman might just as appropriately vault a fence to get over into the yard, instead of entering by the gate where he was going to make a call.—H. P. Beach, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

It was an anxious moment, a moment on the decision of which the fate of the empire depended. Squadrons of cavalry, all mixt up, hussars, dragoons, uhlans, were streaming by the spot where the King, Moltke, and myself stood, and altho we had calculated that the Crown Prince might long have appeared behind the Austrian rear, no sign of the Crown Prince! Things began to look ominous. I confess I felt not a little nervous. I looked at Moltke, who sat quietly on his horse and did not seem to be disturbed by what was going on around us. I thought I would test whether he was really as calm as he appeared. I rode up to him and asked him whether I might offer him a cigar, since I noticed he was not smoking. He replied that he would be glad if I had one to spare. I presented to him my open case in which there were only two cigars, one a very good Havana, and the other of rather poor quality. Moltke looked at them and even handled them with great attention, in order to ascertain their relative value, and then with slow deliberation chose the Havana. “Very good,” he said composedly. This assured me very much. I thought, if Moltke can bestow so much time and attention upon the choice between two cigars, things can not be very bad.

Overbeck, the celebrated German painter, in one of his immortal canvases, represents the child Jesus at play in Joseph’s workshop. He is fashioning sticks and blocks into the shape of a cross, as if anticipating and rehearsing in his tender years the tragedy of Calvary. Child as he is, even in his play the serious work of his life looms up before Him.

A professor, addressing an academic audience, warned his hearers against cant. At the close, questions were invited and one of the students asked the professor, “What is cant?” “There is a kind of religion,” was the reply, “which is natural to an old woman, and there is another which is natural to a young man; but if the young man professes to have the religion of the old woman, that is cant.”

You do not preach to the acorn that it is its duty to become a large tree; you do not preach to the art-pupil that it is his duty to become a Holbein. You plant your acorn in favorable soil, where it can have light and air, and be sheltered from the wind, you remove the superfluous branches, you train the strength into the leading shoots. The acorn will then become as fine a tree as it has vital force to become. The difference between men and other things is only in the largeness and variety of man’s capacities.—James Anthony Froude.

You can limit the working of almighty power, and can determine the rate at which it shall work on you. God fills the water-pots to the brim, but not beyond the brim; and if, like the woman in the Old Testament story, we stop bringing vessels, the oil will stop flowing. It is an awful thing to think that we have the power, as it were, to turn a stopcock, and so increase or diminish, or cut off altogether, the supply of God’s mercy and Christ’s healing and cleansing love in our hearts. You will get as much of God[73] as you want, and no more. The measure of your desire is the measure of your capacity, and the measure of your capacity is the measure of God’s gift.—Alexander McLaren.

During the trial in court of a case involving the originality of a picture, an eminent counsel put this question to Gainsborough: “I observe you lay great stress on the phrase, ‘the painter’s eye’; what do you mean by that?” “The painter’s eye,” replied the artist in a smart repartee, “is to him what the lawyer’s tongue is to you.”

Among the old war pictures I remember one of a captain of artillery bringing his battery into action. His whole soul was in the effort to rally his men and guns on the line. You could hear the thunderous roll of the wheels, crushing over all unevenness and hindrance, the frantic straining of the horses, the fearless, intense resolution of the men, and above all, the captain waving his sword, shouting his commands—but shot dead just as the guns wheel into line. Our Captain died rallying us, but He rose again, and He still has His dying enthusiasm of love for each one of us.—Franklin Noble, “Sermons in Illustration.”

Every ship has a captain. Some captains are good, some bad. Years ago, I went by steamer from Quebec through the lower St. Lawrence and around the Dominion coast. Our captain was under the influence of liquor the whole way, and you can easily imagine that I was glad to get ashore safely. One of the ocean steamship lines once dismissed a captain who, tho thoroughly capable when he was sober, was given to drink. Another ocean line took him up, hoping that he had reformed. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Bringing his steamer across the Atlantic, and being under the influence of drink, he ran her too far north and on a winter’s night rushed his steamer on to the rocks. That night 532 people found a watery grave. Surely that is not the kind of captain with whom we would ever care to sail. On the other hand, there was in my earlier days a captain of the Cunard Steamship Company—Captain Cook by name—careful, capable, endlessly vigilant. The passengers felt safe while he was on the bridge.

A vessel lies at the wharf. Her timbers are sound, her masts are stanch, her canvas is bent. The tide coaxes her seaward; the winds plead with her to move. The ship itself strains at her moorings to be leaping over the ocean. But the vessel must wait, wait for the skipper’s will. Not best timbers or fullest tide can carry that ship to the distant port until the master reveals his mind to the vessel. The earnest expectation of the vessel waiteth for the revealing of the captain.

So, here is the world; the master-builder has fitted it with all things needful for its consummation; it is ready for its wonder purpose; but it must wait; something is needed for the accomplishment of that end. The earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God.—T. C. McClelland.

The postal-clerk must know the various mail routes as familiarly as he does the faces of his best friends. His car, with its tier over tier of pigeon-holes, and its ranks of yawning mail-bags, is to him no labyrinth of mysteries. His eyes are in his fingers, and the skilful musician’s touch is not more accurate than the aim of this wizard of the mail-car. The department rules are exacting, and if an occasional error results from the hurried manner in which the mail is thrown, in course of distribution, it is sure to be detected by the next clerk into whose hands the stray piece of mail falls, and a report of it is at once sent to the division superintendent to be charged against the clerk making the error. During a given year the number of letters and other pieces of[74] mail matter distributed was 5,329,521,475. The number of errors made in handling this vast quantity of matter was only 1,260,443. The number of pieces handled for each error committed were 4,228, thus making the percentage of correct distribution 99.98. All employees are required to attest their skill by frequent examinations, and for this purpose much of the leisure time of each is devoted to studying the mail schemes of the various States attaching to the division in which he is employed—John M. Bishop, Magazine of American History.

There are winter times with blight and cold and fruitlessness and storm for us all; times when we do not see that the wonder-workings of the divine care are on us. But they are on us, definitely, “all the days.” The sun was not only bringing the earth around all winter to a time when spring should break forth; but the coal you burned to expel the winter’s cold that same sun had caused to grow in ancient ages in its original vegetation; the wood that enclosed the comforts of your home and shut out the driving storm, that sun had caused to grow in recent years; day by day all the winter through the sun sent light to cheer your rooms while snows lay deep and winds were wild; and day by day the sun purified the air and sterilized germs of disease, and so made it possible for you to baffle sickness and nurse your loved one back to health. The sun was working for your good all the time. Even so our Lord is ever working in us and in our lives to will and to do of his good pleasure.—Monday Club, “Sermons on the International Sunday-school Lessons for 1904.”

The Baroness Burdette-Coutts inherited from her grandfather, of the Coutts Bank, a fortune of about $20,000,000. She managed it ably, but devoted it to great works of charity during her long and busy life. Not long before her death she said:

“I seem to be living in a transitional age. Every one is in such a hurry nowadays, and I don’t ever remember being in a hurry. The weather never depresses me. I don’t mind noise and rather enjoy the rush of the motor-busses past Holly Lodge. I don’t myself know what nerves are, and yet I’ve had to send Tip, my fox-terrier, to a restcure.” (Text.)

Down in the fire-room of a big steamer that was lying at the wharf in New York, a young man was told to do a certain piece of work in connection with the pumps. There were two pumps close together in the room—one for feeding the boiler and the other to use in case the ship should take fire. This latter one was capable of throwing a volume of water as large as a man’s body. The young man, who had been employed on the ship for three years, and who, when he concentrated his attention on it, knew all that was necessary concerning the work in hand, went to the wrong pump and removed the cap from the fire-pump. In a moment he discovered his error, but the force of the water was so great that he could not replace the cap on the pump. Without a word he ran to the deck, left the steamer, and took the cars for his home in another State. Before the accident was discovered the water had filled the hold of the vessel, and in spite of every effort the vessel sank, and many thousands of dollars of damage was done.—Louis Albert Banks.

The city of Butte, Montana, is built over a mine which has been on fire for seventeen years, not blazing out, but smoldering quietly, every effort being made to keep out the air, without which it can not spread very rapidly.

As to the origin of this fire the story is that a miner named Henshaw left his candle burning on a pine beam in the mine when he finished work one day seventeen years ago.

“Goin’ to leave the glim there, Bill?” his partner queried.

“Sure; what’s the difference?”

“Oh, nothin’, only there’ll be nobody round here for quite a while and I was just thinkin’ that if a fire started it might spread.”

“Well, we’ll take chances; let’s go!” was the glum response.

They went out, but the fire didn’t. A set of timbers caught and the flames spread quickly.

Since that time thousands of men have been engaged in fighting this fire without complete success, for it still burns, and a fortune has been expended in the conflict.

In the year 1877 two young men stood up with the rest of their class at Bowdoin University to receive diplomas. One was called Bob, the other was called Charlie. They were Maine boys, both of them, and of about the same age. Within the last few weeks those two boys, now grown into grizzled men in the early fifties, have been conspicuous in the news of the day.

One of them, Bob, went in for fame, and after devoting the best years of his life to wrestling with arctic storms, throwing dice with death, enduring the very limits of privation and hardship, more than once glad to chew tanned leather or bite into rancid blubber, he emerged the other day with a story of discovery which thrilled the whole world, and will send his name, Robert E. Peary, sounding down the ages to the end of time.

The other boy, Charlie, went in for fortune. He had already developed the knack of the money-maker, and he did not tie up his talent in a napkin. He sold candy. He sold ice. He sold lumber. He acquired banks and trust companies and juggled stocks and bonds until he amassed a fortune of twenty millions. Then something happened. On the day after New-year’s day of this year (1910), his money gone, his reputation destroyed, his liberty lost, he took the 10:43 train on the Southern Limited, escorted by a United States marshal and two deputies, on the way to the Federal prison at Atlanta, Ga., to which he had been sentenced for a term of fifteen years. Every legal device to save him had been tried, and had failed, and Charles Wyman Morse has now become convict Number 2814—that is all.—Current Literature.

Every ship has a cargo, or if no cargo it is seeking for cargo. Some cargoes are safe and some dangerous. In olden time they used to load grain in bulk, which was dangerous, for if the grain shifted in a storm it was apt to throw the ship on her beam ends. Cotton is a dangerous cargo, and many steamship lines advertise, “These ships carry no cotton.” Some years ago, an evil-minded man tried to ship an infernal machine on one of the steamers of a transatlantic line. His intention was that the clockwork in the machine should go off while the ship was in mid-ocean, and blow her to pieces. Fortunately, the clockwork went off while the infernal machine was on the dock. It blew off the stern of the steamer and killed thirteen men. Surely that would have been a dangerous cargo to carry.

The Brahman custom which prescribes for every man and woman the ceremonial bath every day also prescribes that during any illness the bath shall be omitted. A woman who is ill is banished to a little room and left to take care of herself unless a hired person is sent to be her nurse. I had under my care a young girl of high caste who was ill with an illness which had already carried off the mother and two sisters. The father was ready to make almost any concessions to me if I would only come and save his daughter’s life. I insisted that she be brought out into one of the main rooms of the home, and that she be given a cot to sleep upon. When she grew better she wanted me with her most of the time to sit beside her and hold her hand. I really thought she was succumbing before love. Finally, I told her that she was convalescent enough to have her ceremonial bath. The next morning her father met me with a munificent gift. I saw the girl arrayed in her beautiful dresses, but a great distance had been put between us, and when I held out my hand she refused it, saying, “Please don’t touch me; I have taken my bath.”

Probably few people outside the Catholic Church know what that body is doing for the evangelization of heathen lands. And if we are to believe the Catholic leaders and writers, their own people have shared to some degree this lack of information and interest, for the Catholic missionaries have had to struggle on with little support from home compared with the generous gifts the Protestant missionaries receive. A report has just been issued by Monsignor Freri, general director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, that is full of information on this subject. It is summarized in the New York Evening Sun and Post and many Catholic journals. Its figures afford some interesting comparisons. While an unmarried Protestant missionary receives about $600, the income of the Catholic missionary, who receives no stated salary, is less than $111. While the Northern Methodists of America alone last year subscribed over $2,000,000 in missionary funds, and all American Protestants more than $11,000,000, Catholics the world over contributed in all but $1,342,292.27.

Monsignor Freri’s report shows the actual receipts for 1909 to be $61,755.02 in excess of those of the preceding year. He directs special attention to the zeal of the Catholics of France, who, in spite of the extraordinary burdens imposed upon them by the confiscation of religious property and the separation of Church and State, contributed $630,688.51, almost half of the total.

The United States and its insular possessions hold the second place with the gift of $220,637.78. This is an increase of $27,583.38 over 1908. Germany gave $140,530.92; Belgium, $71,529.40; the Argentine Republic, $47,448.97; Italy, $46,898.74; Spain, $39,080.42; Mexico, $24,149.60; Switzerland, $18,532.74; Chile, $16,403.93, and the British Isles donated a trifle above $25,000, of which Ireland gave $15,478.92.

It is estimated that the number of Catholic missionaries in the foreign field, exclusive of converted natives who have taken up the work, is 54,000, of whom 10,000 are priests, 4,000 teaching brothers, and 45,000 nuns. In addition to their share of the general fund, the missionaries receive alms and contributions from various sources. Yet, to quote an address delivered by Monsignor Freri before the Catholic Missionary Congress:

“Including all these sources of income, and after consultation with many heads of missions, I think I am far within the truth when I say that the total contribution for missions, from all sources, is less than $6,000,000 a year. If we reckon 10,000 priests, 4,000 brothers, and 40,000 nuns, this would give an average of less than $111 per capita. With this they must support themselves, build churches, maintain schools, hospitals, asylums, colleges, pay the transportation of missionaries, etc.”

One of the chief missionary bands is that of the “White Fathers,” or Algerian missionaries, whose missions in Uganda Mr. Roosevelt visited in his African travels. According to the report, the total number of baptisms within the jurisdiction of this one organization during the year beginning July, 1908, was 10,000.

His (Edward VII) catholicity, the object of both praise and censure, was proverbial. An instance of this was given in a letter written by Archbishop Magee, in December, 1873. Speaking of a week-end visit to Sandringham, where Edward, then Prince of Wales, attended his services, he said: “Just returned from church, where I preached for twenty-six minutes (Romans, 8:28). The church is a very small country one, close to the grounds. The house, as I saw it by daylight, is a handsome country house of red stone with white facings, standing well and looking quietly comfortable and suitable. I find the company pleasant and civil, but we are a curious mixture. Two Jews, Sir A. Rothschild and his daughter; a Roman Catholic, Col. Higgins; an Italian duchess, who is an English woman, and her daughter brought up as a Roman Catholic and now turning Protestant; a set of young lords, and a bishop. The Jewess came to church; so did the half-Protestant lady. Dizzy (Disraeli) did the same, and was profuse in his praises of my sermon.”—New York Evening Post.

A few illustrations will suffice to make clear the instinct of causality in children. I draw first of all upon notes taken on the religious development of a boy between the age of three and six years. At the end of the third year, while visiting Niagara Falls with his parents, this boy showed his first[77] interest in the cause of things. While watching the water of the falls from Prospect Park, he said: “Mama, who pours the water over Niagara Falls?” We may imagine similar questions being asked by the American Indian ages previously, and answered in terms of “Gitchie Manitou, the Mighty.” From this beginning, the boy during the next three years seemed to be trying to make himself clear upon the question of where things come from originally, and who keeps the world going. “Who makes the birds?” “Who made the very first bird?” “Who fixt their wings so they can fly?” “Who takes care of the birds and rabbits in the winter when snow is on the ground?” “Who makes the grass grow?” “Who makes the trees?” “Who makes them shed their leaves and then get them back again?” “Who makes it thunder?” “Who put the moon in the sky?” “Who made the whole world?” “Who made people?” “Who made me?” “Does God make everything?” “Who made God?” “Was God already made?” “Is God everywhere?” Such were the questions asked again and again, with all sorts of comments in reply to the answers that were given him. The question of what is the origin of things was seldom or never asked. It was always who; and when the personal cause he was seeking was named “God” in connection with numerous objects, he finally generalized by asking if God makes everything.—George E. Dawson, “The Child and His Religion.”

A bitter fountain comes rushing down the mountain side, and drinking thereof, the people of the city are poisoned. Along comes a man who says: “I will build a lime factory just above the city, and pour a stream of lime-water into the bitter fountain.” Jesus’ method was simpler. Go higher up, into the mountain of God, and strike the rock, that sweet waters may gush forth, to flow through the land, carrying health and happiness to all that stand upon the banks of this river of water of life. Jesus reformed institutions by reforming human nature. He was a fundamental thinker. He dealt with causes.—N. D. Hillis.

Again and again this old poetic fancy of the earth as one great cemetery buried several times deep with dead men, women and children, has been refuted by figures. But great is the error and will prevail, unless the truth be well and steadily upheld. The population of the earth is now about 1,500,000,000. Suppose the human race to have existed for 6,000 years and you have sixty centuries. In each century you may count three generations of mankind, or one hundred and eighty generations in all, each being a generation of 1,500,000,000. Now, lay out a cemetery for one generation. It will be a huge estimate to give to every man, woman, and child a grave five feet by two, or ten square. You want for your graveyard, then, 15,000,000,000 square feet of ground. A square mile contains something less than 28,000,000 square feet. You want, then, a graveyard fifty-five miles long by ten wide for your whole generation. Now multiply this by one hundred and eighty and you have your burial-ground for 6,000 years of mankind. That is, a strip of land, 1,800 miles long by 55 miles wide will be ample. In other words, a cemetery containing 100,000 square miles would be sufficient for the entire human race to lie side by side. The estimate which I have given you of continuous population is obviously enormously large. The estimate of the size of each grave is very large. A strictly correct estimate would reduce the size of the required cemetery more than one-half. But enormous as it is, you could lay out your burial-ground for all men who have lived on earth, so that they could lie side by side in Arizona or in California, or you could lay it out in Texas large enough to accommodate the race of 6,000 years past, and also the race for 6,000 years yet to come, all sleeping in the soil of that one State of this Union. But some one says the race of man has been on the earth 100,000 years. That is a pure imagination and there is not, so far as I know, a fact on which to rest it. But suppose it is true, and suppose the population always what it is now, you have provided for 6,000 years of it. You want nearly seventeen times as large a cemetery for the generations of a thousand centuries. That is, you want 1,700,000 square miles in it. Lay it out whenever you please, 1,700 miles long by 1,000 miles wide. It is but part of the United States. And so enormously large have been the rough estimates thus far used, it is safe to say that if the human race has[78] been in existence 100,000 years, a separate grave could be provided for every individual of the race within a part of the United States east of the Mississippi River.—W. C. Prime, New York Journal of Commerce.

Some men have a Ptolemaic notion of life; their little earth is the center around which all things move. If I have been of that sort, I will remember that the age has outgrown that. It is time to reconstruct one’s life on the Copernican theory, admitting that ours is only a little earth in the great universe, and finding our true solar center in the great moral gravitation of the divine love.—Franklin Noble, D.D., “Sermons in Illustration.”

At Teschen, which town Stephen Schultz, missionary to the Jews, visited several times, he entered the store of a Jewish merchant to buy some articles. He conversed with one of the Jewish clerks on the necessity of an atonement for sin, when the Jew asserted that every man can atone for his own sins. Schultz made him agree to the statement that we are all become altogether as an unclean thing, and then asked him:

“How, then, can we pay our debts to God or atone for our sins?” “We must pray, fast, give alms, etc., for altho we dare not now offer any sacrifices, yet if we read over the institution and rites of sacrifices, it will be accepted.” Schultz, without paying any attention to this absurd statement at this time, asked: “How much do I owe for these articles I bought?” “Fifty-seven cents.” “Please write it down upon the counter, lest I forget it.” The Jew did so, and Schultz read ten times: “Fifty-seven cents,” and then walked toward the door as if he would depart. The clerk called him back, saying: “You have not paid me.” “What! Have not yet paid? Have I not read over ten times just what you wrote?” “Yes, but that will not pay your debt.” “And will you then deal so treacherously with God, and think to pay your debts to Him by repeating some prayers?” (Text.)—Missionary Review of the World.

David had twenty-four columns of marble around his banqueting room, and he chained a bandit and an old enemy to each column, and in the presence of his enemies feasted. Christ enables the soul to chain hate, envy, lying, avarice, gluttony, jealousy, evil-speaking, sloth, and then the soul exclaims, Thou hast spread me a table in the midst of mine enemies! (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.

The outburst of the matchless hymnic genius of Isaac Watts was the response to a challenge. When a youth of eighteen he complained to his father, who was a deacon in an Independent church at Southampton, England, of the poor quality of the hymns sung in the nonconformist services of the time. “Suppose you make a few,” said his father, with more than a suggestion of gentle sarcasm. Taking up the challenge, the poet retired; and soon, out from his seclusion where he had put on his “singing robes,” came the hymn: “Behold the Glories of the Lamb,” which was sung at an early meeting; and so began a career of hymn-writing which continued through the author’s life, and which later aroused to song a whole nest of singing-birds.

Patrick A. Collins, Mayor of Boston for a number of years past, believed that a boy’s word is worth listening to. One time complaint was made to him that a saloon was located too near a certain public school. The politicians and others interested in keeping the place open urged him not to interfere with the resort. The school authorities desired it closed and removed.

After the Mayor had listened to arguments from both sides, he said:

“Well, I’m going to let the boys of the school tell me what they think of the place. Send me,” he said to the principal of the[79] school, “half a dozen of your brightest boys. I’ll listen to them.”

The next day half a dozen of the boys, ranging from ten to fifteen years of age, called on the Mayor. Each boy gave some reason why he believed the saloon ought to be taken away, until it came to the last one, a youngster of twelve. He looked the Mayor squarely in the eye, and gave as his reason:

“My school gives me a chance to be Mayor of Boston some day; the saloon can’t. I think us boys ought to have all the show we can get to be Mayor. That’s all I know about it.”

The Mayor threw himself back in his chair and laughed heartily; then, straightening up, he said to the last spokesman:

“My boy, you have said more than did all the politicians and the teachers. You shall have the show to be Mayor. That saloon will have to quit business at once.”

The boys gave the Mayor a hearty cheer, and marched out of his office. They had conquered, and were consequently happy and triumphant.

Police captains find that if they change every man around to a different position about once in so often, it is good for the entire force. The managers of some business offices say that a good big jar is beneficial to almost everybody, and especially for those in danger of believing that they are indispensable. It is a most remarkable boy who is not improved, on occasions, by a genuine “calling down.”—James M. Stifler, “The Fighting Saint.”

The geologist tells us that ages ago vast and horrible creatures filled the air and waters—fierce and hideous monsters swarmed and fought in the primeval slime; but in due time God swept away mastodon, mammoth, megatherium, and filled the world with mild and beautiful forms of life.

Mr. John Morley said to a Presbyterian minister who was his guest: “How was it that your Church tolerated Drummond? His views were surely not those of the Free Church.” “No,” said the minister, “but we never took him seriously as a thinker. No one believed that he would shape the theological opinions of the Church. We regarded him rather as a religious influence.” “Ah, yes,” said Mr. Morley, “you are quite right; he wasn’t a thinker.” After some talk on other matters he returned to the subject: “You said a little while ago that Drummond was a religious influence. How did he show that?” “Well,” replied the minister, “for one thing, he cleansed Edinburgh University life for several years.” “Ah,” said Mr. Morley thoughtfully, “that’s better than being a thinker.” It is never easy for the Church to drive out heretics who are not thinkers, but who purify by love the sources of spiritual life in men.

As the light is rayed back from the flower and the wave, from the rock and the roadside, from all objects in nature and all ornaments of art, no matter from what center it emanated first, so the excellence of a character, when serenely and brightly exprest through life, attracts an immediate and instinctive response from all natures around it.—Richard S. Storrs.

Men might as well try to erect a skyscraper on a bog as to attempt to build a character on anything less enduring than Jesus. Every little while some one makes a new religion with Jesus omitted. These structures dot the plains of nineteen centuries. For a time they appear attractive. But, sooner or later, their tenants discover that there is something wrong with the underpinning. Happy they if they can succeed in moving out before the flimsy fabrics collapse and bury their misguided occupants beneath unseemly ruins.—Joel B. Slocum.

Skilled surgeons at St. Vincent’s hospital have transformed Harold Hurley, the bad boy, into Harold Hurley, the good boy.

A few days ago, Harold, aged twelve, who was slated for the Lancaster reform school, was taken to the hospital. To-day he was taken home, a changed boy, different in thought, acts, and even appearance.

Harold has been a problem to his mother and to the juvenile court officers for some time. Probation Officer Dilgart got a look at Harold recently and discovered a peculiar scar on the boy’s forehead. Inquiry developed that when five years of age Harold stumbled, and striking his head upon a stone, sustained a fracture of the skull. Gradually he became bad; but instead of being sent to Lancaster, he was removed to the hospital, where the pressure of a broken bone on his brain was removed.

After the operation the lad’s faculties gathered slowly. Dr. James Donnelly states that the pressure of the piece of bone upon the brain had gradually dulled all the higher sensibilities, and if it had gone on Harold would in time have become an utter degenerate. (Text.)

Said a young lady to her hostess: “I want to scent my lace handkerchief and I have no sachet with me.” The handkerchief was taken by the lady and placed inside a great rose-jar. “Your handkerchief will be scented in a few hours and the fragrance will never depart from it.” And it never did. The lady explained that the jar had been obtained in China and had been a rose-jar for generations. But when it came into her possession she spent a large sum of money on attar of roses to penetrate the inner glazing of the glass and her object was fulfilled. The fragrance would never depart from it and was communicated to any object placed in it for a few hours. Roman Catholic priests remark that if they can have charge of a child until he is ten years of age he will never depart from the faith. Certainly the pervasive influence of the moral atmosphere is a mighty power in determining character.

A Scotch nobleman, seeing an old gardener of his establishment with a very ragged coat, made some passing remarks on its condition. “It’s a verra guid coat,” said the honest old man. “I can not agree with you there,” said his lordship. “Ah, it’s just a verra guid coat,” persisted the old man; “it covers a contented spirit, and a body that owes no man anything, and that’s mair than mony a man can say of his coat.” (Text.)

About a year ago there came into my study in New York some one whom I had never seen, a stranger whose name sent in upon his card I did not recognize, and whose errand I could not divine. “Sir,” he said, “I am from such and such a part of the country. In that part of the country a very fierce political campaign is now in progress. One of your clergy is attacking from the pulpit the moral character and moral standards of a gentleman, a candidate there for a very high office, whom I represent.”

I said: “I have not got any clergymen out in that part of the world. I have no more jurisdiction there than you have.” He said: “Perhaps not in the sense you mean, but it is one of your men.” “Thank God for that,” said I. “As he came from here he believes in you, and he thinks that sort of talk is his duty.” “What do you want me to do?” I asked. “I want you to stop it,” said he, “and I am authorized by the distinguished gentleman whom I represent to say that if you will stop it he will make it worth your while.”

I felt like saying, “I will come high.” I got up and walked to the door. I opened it and stood there. He looked there a moment in some perplexity. I said: “Does it not occur to you, sir, that this interview is at an end.” He went out.

I mention that incident as a proof of the statement I have made here. Here was a person in a distant part of the country, a candidate for a very high position, who had not the smallest hesitation in sending an emissary to me with an intimation that if I were prepared to silence a speaker who was saying disagreeable things that money would be put to make it worth my while. I am saying that with that symptomatic you can not ignore the appalling significance of such a condition of things. (Text.)

I had sometimes caught a glimpse of the small scullery-maid at my boarding-house; but one day, slipping to the kitchen for a cup of hot water, I had a queer bit of a chat with her. She was scouring granite pots with a vim and vigor which were bound to bring results, and all the while her face was as shining as her finished work.

“Do you like them, Alice?” I asked.

“No, I hate them,” she replied emphatically.

“What makes you smile so over them, then?” I asked, curiously.

“Because they’re ‘character pots,’” the child replied at once.

“What?” I inquired, thinking I had misunderstood.

“‘Character pots,’ miss. You see, I used to only half clean them. I often cried over them, but Miss Mary told me as how, if I made them real shiny, they’d help to build my character. And ever since then I’ve tried hard, miss; and, oh, it’s been so much easier since I’ve known they were ‘character pots.’”

I said a word or two of encouragement, and went on my way, knowing that I had been rubbing up against a real heroine. Everyday life is brimful of disagreeable duties. Why not turn them every one into “character pots?”—East and West.

It is told of Antipater, an officer in Alexander’s army and a favorite in his court, that one day Philip of Macedon, placed in a position which required special vigilance, made his appearance at a late hour in the morning, with the apology: “I have slept rather late this morning, but then I knew that Antipater was awake.” And at another time, when some person exprest surprize that Antipater did not clothe himself in a purple robe, the badge of nobility and greatness, as the other commanders and ministers of state were accustomed to do, Alexander replied: “Those men wear purple on the outside, but Antipater is purple within.”

Distinctions of character are not seen, really, in the feet themselves, but in what the owner does with them. Sometimes it is[82] significant that their owner does not know what to do with them. He is vulgarly, defiantly self-sufficient and despises ceremony, so when he smokes a cigar he puts his feet on the mantel-piece, out of the way. Or he is a country-bumpkin, painfully self-conscious, so he stands on one foot and then on the other, and shifts them about, perplexed what to do with them, as ill-bred folks, when they sit idle and sociable, are perplexed by possessing a pair of hands. On the contrary, the fop—whose feet are clad without spot or speck, and regardless of expense—knows very well what to do with them; they are part of the exhibition which is his constant care. In general, it is a sign of vanity to thrust forward habitually a neat foot when one is at rest. A conceited man nurses a leg and admires a foot, which he twitches and twirls beneath his delighted eyes—quite unconsciously, and in a different manner from the fop; for the vain man thinks of the effect produced upon other people, but the conceited man is satisfied with himself, without any regard to the ordinary mortals who may chance to be observing him. Very different is the generous mind of the philanthropist, who thinks constantly of the rest of the world, and not of himself. There is nothing cramped about any of his ideas or of his possessions. He forgets such small matters as fashion and details of appearance. Except on state occasions, he considers neatness to be a hindrance; everything about him is large, from his benevolent schemes down to his well-worn shoes. His stand is not alert, but patient, well set on the ground; he is ready and steady; he waits to give what he can, and to do what he can, and while he thinks of weighty matters, personal details are forgotten. He may walk flat-footed in old shoes; insteps and heels are infinitely beneath his consideration, so his foot is not the type that the dancing-master believes to be the one thing necessary for a gentleman; but he has already flattened injustice under his feet, and the horror of the dancing-master shall never reach his ears.—Cassell’s Family Magazine.

A man once purchased a vacant lot on which stood a gigantic elm-tree.

So much did he admire the elm that when he erected his house he built it around the trunk. He did not care to mutilate it or cut it down, but desired that it should constantly exhale its aroma and moisture in his drawing-room. The silence of its growth and steady expansion would be a constant source of interest to himself and to his friends. The opening in the roof was capped to shut out the insect enemies and to shut in the fragrance. When a cyclone swept over the village and the lightning flashed around, the house had shelter and protection in the tree. Other houses might fall, but not that one.

We are all builders of character. Whether that character will stand the tests of life or not depends on whether we have built Christ into our character or not. If He is in us a real and living personality, we shall never fail. (Text.)

You can not read a man so well during his busy hours as by what he does after supper, or from the closing hour of business to bedtime. You can not gage his character so well by the money he spends for necessaries or the living of his family as by that little overplus of money which is left after the necessary expenses are paid. What does he do with his spare money, that margin left over from business and from living expenses? What he does with that margin will throw a wonderful light upon his character.

The largest part of every active life must be devoted to getting a living, attending to one’s affairs, and this is done by most people in a routine sort of a way. You can not tell much about the real man during these hours, because he has a system, his regular daily routine, and he does very much the same thing every day. But the moment he is free, he is quite a different man. Then his real propensities come out. People are not natural until they are free from restraint.

Watch the boy and the girl when they are free from their regular duties, and see how they spend their evenings, what society they keep, what companionships they form, what they do. This will be a pretty good test of their character.—Success.

A lovely flower came to us last week from the back yard of a home in the city. It was a white hyacinth, large and full, white as the driven snow, and sweetly perfumed. And it came not from the florist’s hothouse, nor from the fine plot at the front of a good home, but from the little yard at the rear. What a thing of beauty and fragrance to spring up in this homely place, common, soiled and trampled! It is a happy thought, not uncommon nowadays, to make the back yard, not often seen by other’s eyes, a place of beauty and sweetness, turning the common and the obscure into a source of pleasure and all that is wholesome and inspiring.

One may do well to look after the back yard of his own life. He has sometimes a front that all men see and admire. Toward his friends and neighbors he is careful to make a fair exhibition of good morals and courteous manner. He maintains a front with which no fault can be found. But can the rear, the small and commonplace, the every-day and out-of-sight part of character and conduct, bear the same careful inspection? Are there any fair and fragrant flowers that spring up where no man ever looks, and only God’s eye can see?

Mendelssohn once revealed his masterhand as a musician to the organ-keeper in Strasburg Cathedral by the way he made the instrument speak, just as Giotto, as an artist, did to a stranger on one occasion by drawing a perfect circle at a stroke.

Put a Chinaman into your hospital and he will get treated. You may lie awake at night drawing up reasons for doing something different with this disgusting Chinaman—who somehow is in the world and is thrown into your care, your hospital, your thought—but the machinery of your own being is so constructed that if you take any other course with him than that which you take with your own people, your institution will instantly lose its meaning; you would not have the face to beg money for its continuance in the following year. The logic of this, which, if you like, is the logic of self-protection under the illusion of self-sacrifice, is the logic which is at the bottom of all human progress. The utility of hospitals is not to cure the sick. It is to teach mercy. The veneration for hospitals is not because they cure the sick, it is because they stand for love, and responsibility.—John Jay Chapman.

It is reported that during the late disturbances in southern China consequent upon the French expedition to Tonquin, a small Wesleyan mission station at Fatshan was at the mercy of a riotous mob. The chapel was wrecked. The hospital for days was menaced and was hourly expected to fall, but here, for the first time, the rioters appeared to hesitate. Some of the sick were removed before their eyes; others, they knew, could not leave the building. They constantly threatened assault, but the blow never came, and amid their angry menaces the doctor was allowed to pass freely to and from the hospital. A finer touch than that which compelled a kindred feeling between this rabble and its foreign benefactors does not exist in nature. The Chinese mob probably did not include many acute controversialists in theology, but it did, as a whole, recognize[84] the presence of that charity which is rightly regarded as the essence of religion.—London Lancet.

Sailors who navigate the seas on the South Atlantic coast are always glad when they near the harbor of Savannah, for that means that they will pass within saluting distance of the “little lighthouse girl.” This is the officially accepted title of Florence Martus, who has for the last eleven years waved a friendly signal to every craft passing between the city and the sea. It is a hobby of this young girl to greet the ships that go and wish them a safe return, and greet the ships that come and congratulate them on their voyage.

The Martus dwelling is the only habitation on Elba Island. There is no landing wharf, and visitors arrive on an average once a year. The barks, the steamers, and the various other craft never get near enough for an exchange of greetings other than that most expressive form of good will, the waving of a handkerchief by day and of a lantern by night. And as the girl sends out her welcome, the seamen who know all about her, and who would resent the elimination of the ceremony which she so popularized, send back an answering salute, three “toots” of the steam-whistle. Then Miss Martus is as happy as a belle at a debutante party.

It is her desire that no vessel shall pass the lighthouse without receiving a salute. She never overlooks a sail in the daytime, and her handkerchief is ever ready for its service of cordiality. She says it is her ambition to signal every ship that touches at Savannah. She was asked her reason for signalling the passing sea throng, and she answered that it was to cheer the crew.

“That boy,” said the foreman in the machine-shop, “will make a good workman. He always whistles at his work.” (Text.)

The National Child Labor Committee was organized in 1904. Up to that time very little had been done toward preventing the employment of children in many industries, the worst of these being the work of coal-breaking in mines and long days of labor in textile factories. A summary of the work accomplished by the committee in six years will show the gains that are being made in saving children from the too heavy burdens of labor at a tender age, under which their growth is often stunted, and their education interrupted or prevented.

Eight-hour day for children under 16 established in 10 States and District of Columbia (in many or all industries).

Hours of employment for children reduced in 13 more States.

Child labor laws passed for the first time in 6 States.

Age limit of 14 years applied to factories and stores: In 1904, 12 States; in 1910, 19 States.

Also from factories and stores the limit in 1910 extends to offices, laundries, hotels, bowling-alleys, etc.

Age limit of 16 for work in coal-mines; 1904 none. In 1910 6 States fixt limit of 16 years; 18 States at 14, and 8 States at 12.

Employment forbidden during school hours: 1904 in 14 States; 1910 in 23 States.

Night-work prohibited: 1904 in 13 States, the age limit in some being as low as 12 years. 1910: 24 States with 16-year limit, 7 States with 14-year limit, 2 States with 12-year limit, 1 State (in certain industries) with 18-year limit. New York prohibited night work in messenger service 10 P.M. to 5 A.M. to all minors.

Compulsory education: Laws for the first time in 6 States. Age limit for attendance raised in 6 (more) States.

Child-labor laws now (1910) exist in every State except Nevada. They are being steadily improved.

A young mother who had lost her firstborn, sat fondling its icy hands, and amid her tears said, “If ever I get to heaven, it will be these little fingers that will pull me there.” (Text.)

There is a striking story of a certain missionary who was sent for on one occasion to go to a little village in an out-of-the-way corner of India to baptize and receive into church fellowship sixty or seventy adult converts from Hinduism.

At the commencement of the proceedings he had noticed a boy about fifteen years of age sitting in a back corner, looking very anxiously and listening very wistfully. He now came forward. “What, my boy? Do you want to join the Church?” “Yes, sir.” “But you are very young, and if I were to receive you into fellowship with the Church to-day, and then you were to slip aside, it would bring discredit upon this church and do great injury to the cause of Christ. I shall be coming this way again in about six months. Now you be very loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ during that time, and if when I come again at the end of the half year I find you still stedfast and true, I will baptize and receive you gladly.”

No sooner was this said than all the people rose to their feet, and, some speaking for the rest, said: “Why, sir, it is he who has taught us all that we know about Jesus Christ.”

And so it turned out to be. This was the little minister of the little church the honored instrument in the hand of God for saving all the rest for Jesus Christ.

Dr. George Grenfell, who did much to open up to civilization and to Christianity the hinterland of the Kongo, was traveling in the little steamer called the Peace up a great tributary of the Kongo which had never before been navigated by a white man. Suddenly the craft was stopt and surrounded by a crowd of canoes filled with natives. These were armed with spears and their attitude was hostile and malignant. Dr. Grenfell momentarily expected that some of the murderous weapons would be hurled at him. But by a happy inspiration he called to his wife who was in the cabin, “Show them the baby!” She rushed forward and held out the infant she was nursing. The savages, amazed at the sight of the first light-colored baby they had ever seen, and charmed with its smiles and its entire lack of fear, dropt their spears, smiled in their turn with delight, and at once became the sincere friends[86] of the missionaries. Thus once again was verified the prediction, “A little child shall lead them.”

A few days since, just after the recent snow-storm, I passed in the street a little fellow drawing a sled; a little, rosy-cheeked boy, who was so full of perfect happiness that his entire face was crinkled into a smile. He made a beautiful picture. That sled was his only responsibility, and that, along with the snow, made out for him a perfect heaven. I watched the lad and wished I were a boy again. It was a foolish wish, and yet not altogether foolish. There was something exquisite in the situation which one would have been not only foolish but stupid not to appreciate. He had no burden. His sled was unloaded, and slipt along over the frosty pavement almost of its own momentum. He had no anxieties. The little fellow’s heart is sometimes bruised, I suppose, but child bruises do not last as long as older bruises.

But I had not gone many steps past him before I revised my wish, and thought only how beautiful it would be to have the innocence of the boy and his simple trust, and along with that the mature equipment opening out into the vast opportunities that form the heritage of years that are ripe.—Charles H. Parkhurst.

Two hundred clubs of children on the New York East Side cooperate with the street-cleaning department in keeping clean streets in their respective neighborhoods. They hand prepared cards furnished by the city to every one seen throwing rubbish in the street, which read as follows:

Give your banana-peels to a horse. Horses like them. Orange-peels, peanut-shells, newspapers and other rubbish must not be thrown in the street. Keep yours and throw them in the receptacle placed at street corners for that purpose. You should sprinkle your sidewalk before sweeping. Don’t raise the dust, as it breeds disease. It is against the law to throw rubbish from the windows to the street. Don’t put paper, rags and other rubbish either in the ash-can or garbage-can.

A badge is given to each child to wear on which is inscribed the motto: “We are for clean streets.” Thus thousands of children are learning to take pride in their city.

Professor Hanna, head of the Department of Natural History of the Board of Education, New York, divided an open lot into some three hundred little garden plots, took boys from the Bowery district, and girls as well. Each child spaded up its own ground, planted its seeds, pulled out the weeds, and watched the ruddy vegetables grow. A thousand questions arose to these city-born children. Given a black clod and a drop of rain-water, and a few seeds, how does the same clod make a beet red, and a[87] carrot a golden hue? How could one clod condense the smells of a whole soap factory, into one little onion? How does a potato come to have starch in it? If one bunch of green weeds is worth ten cents for spinach, why doesn’t everybody in Wall Street go to farming? When some of the boys reached the Bowery Saturday night, the first question they asked their fathers was: “How much it would take to buy a ticket to Dakota.” Ah, Wordsworth, looking across the field, and writing, “My heart with rapture thrills and dances with the daffodils,” and Ruskin with his confession of what the fields and brooks did for his culture, throw a pathetic light on the lives of the little waifs of the tenement-house, starved for an outlook on the grass and the wave, and the shrub and the flower. Plainly the child has a right to its outlook upon the world of nature.—N. D. Hillis.

A friend once said to me: “So long as my children were little, I lived at peace with my faults and bad habits. Perhaps they were annoying to others, but they caused me no uneasiness. But since my children have grown up, I am ashamed to meet their eyes, for I know they judge me, observe my attitude, my manner of acting, and measure my words. Nothing escapes them; neither the little ‘white lie,’ nor my illogical reasoning; neither unjustifiable irritation, nor any of the thousand imperfections I formerly indulged in. I require now to be constantly on my guard, and what will finally happen is this, that, instead of my having trained them, my children will have formed my character.”—Dora Melegari, “Makers of Sorrow and Makers of Joy.”

When Lincoln, on his way by train from Washington to Gettysburg, was halted at a station, a little girl was lifted up to an open window of the car, and handing a bouquet of rosebuds to him, said: “Flowers for the President!” Mr. Lincoln took the rosebuds, bent down and kissed the child, saying, “You’re a sweet little rosebud yourself. I hope your life will open into perpetual beauty and goodness.”

No thoughtful man can watch the long processions of children which the sisters are teaching, and believe that Romanism is closing its career. She takes the utmost care of all the children she can obtain. In the great cities she has her foundling institutions. The arrangement for receiving foundlings is unique. It reminds one of the standard advertisements for stolen property, “No questions asked.” There is a rotary dummy in the side of the building above the sidewalk. This contrivance turns round instead of moving on pulleys. The outside is simply flush with the wall. Any one can turn it around. On the other side is a little bed. The waif is placed in this bed, the trap is turned back to its place, a bell is rung, a servant comes to the bed, takes out the waif, and no one is the wiser. The party depositing the child may be round the corner and gone in the darkness. The child is cared for, soon put to work, soon hired out, and becomes a source of income to the institution, and adds one more to the rolls of the church.

An old sexton in a cemetery took special pains with the little graves. When asked why, he said: “Sir, about those larger graves I don’t know who are the Lord’s saints, and who are not; but you know, sir, it’s different with the bairns.” (Text.)

I have often been asked how it is if I can trust a youthful burglar to go alone to a reformatory why can not I trust him to go alone to work?

The answer is that the individual is weak rather than vicious. He is strong enough to last over night, but not strong enough to last a month. He goes to the institution. He learns the trade of a carpenter or a stone-cutter—then he has some incentive in life. He gets out of the habit of being bad. When he comes out he is proud of his job, and as soon as we get him work he wants to show how well he can do it—the past is behind him forever.

This new children’s crusade started in 1900. We are now going on the theory that the law is not one-tenth of the problem. Psychology, for want of a better word, is the other nine-tenths. The solution of the problem of child delinquents lies chiefly in knowing how to get at truth, in getting loyalty to the state and to the law. Once you get a boy to go regularly to school the problem is solved. On the other hand, we do not want him to think that the court is a brute or dead easy.

A CHILD’S PRAYER

Please, God, grandpa has gone to you. Take good care of him. Please always mind and shut the door, because he can’t stand drafts.

A PRAYER TO THE DEVIL

A little child was seen to bury a piece of paper in the ground. On examination of the paper by a curious adult, it was seen to contain the following: “Dear devil, please come and take aunt. I can’t stand her much longer.”

MEN ARE GODS

Seeing a group of workmen, a child said:

“Mama, are these gods?”

“Gods? Why?”

“Because they make houses and churches, same as God makes moons and people and ickle dogs.”

A WRESTLE WITH OMNIPRESENCE

A girl who had been taught that God is everywhere said, one day:

“Mama, me don’t see God. I dess He’s don to take a walk.”

GOD POSSESSES A BODY.

A child who heard the expression, “this footstool,” used in a conversation, asked the man on whose knees she sat at the time the meaning of the expression. On being told that the earth is often spoken of as “God’s footstool,” she exclaimed:

“O-h-h! what long legs!”

Another child drew a picture of Jesus and of God, making God have very long arms.

HEAVENLY MAIL FACILITIES

A child whose grandmother had just died asked her mother if God had a street and a number. When asked why she wanted to know, she replied:

“Nothing, only I wanted to write a letter to Him to send grandma back again.”

A COWORKER WITH GOD

A three-year-old boy was with a woman whose home was a second home to him. They were in the flower-garden. Seeing a crocus in bloom, and remembering that the previous fall he had put the bulb into the ground (as one of his age so often does things, by the help of others), he asked, “Did I make that flower grow?” When told that God sent the rain and the sunshine which made it grow, he insisted that he had had a part in the process, and finally dropt the subject by saying:

“God and I make the flowers grow.”—A. B. Bunn Van Ormer, “Studies in Religious Nurture.”

They tell a story of President Sheffield, of North China College, and a great military official, who is his friend. I met the general once during the Chinese New-year holidays. He is a large, fine-looking man, very liberal and progressive, and much interested in Western customs. One day, when calling, he was discussing these. Suddenly he drew his chair very close to Dr. Sheffield and said in a confidential whisper: “Tell me, is it true that in your country the woman and not the man is the head of the household?” Dr. Sheffield drew a little nearer and answered in the same manner: “Well, I will tell you just how it is. Sometimes it is the one, and sometimes it is the other. It just depends on who is the stronger.” “Ah!” and the general leaned back with a sigh of relief. “That is just the way it is with us.”—Frances B. Patterson, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

The Rev. Dr. J. Walter Lowrie, returning to the field after a furlough prolonged by ill-health, writes in amazement that the changes that had taken place during his absence of twenty months were greater than had taken place during the preceding twenty years of his residence in China. Of course, there is commotion. You could not expect one-third of the human race to rouse itself from the sleep of ages without having more or less disturbance in various places. But the disturbances in China to-day are signs of progress. They mean that at last China is awake. We remember that of old, the dying Francis Xavier lifted up his hands and said: “Oh, rock! rock! when wilt thou open?” For nearly a hundred years Protestantism has been hammering upon that rock. Now it has opened.—A. Judson Brown, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

When Captain Moreu, of the Spanish cruiser Cristobal Colon, was in New York, he was interviewed by a reporter who, in the excess of his patriotism, put this rather indelicate question to the vanquished naval officer: “What do you think, Captain Moreu, of the chivalry of a nation whose women greet the admiral of a hostile power with kisses and flowers?” a reference to the way Admiral Cervera was lionized by American women on his way to a military prison. The bluff old captain of the Colon, who spoke English fluently, lifted his eyebrows, and, smiling indulgently, politely replied: “And what do you think of an admiral who could draw your brave Hobson from the water and kiss him in admiration of his courage? Remember, young man, chivalry is the monopoly of no nation.” (Text.)

Headly, in his book on “Life and Evolution,” instances our old friend, the ameba, which we have since childhood all agreed to be one of the most primitive forms of life. This microscopic creature, a unicellular morsel of protoplasm, undoubtedly has the power of choice. It exercises this power whenever it eats. Diatoms enveloped in flint are its favorite food. When an ameba comes in contact with one of these minute vegetables it swallows it through an aperture—a mouth—which it conveniently makes at whichever point an aperture is required. But when, on the other hand, the ameba comes in contact with a small grain of flint he leaves it severely alone; he does not treat it as he does the flinty envelop of the diatom.

There are Presidential candidates and aspirants who have an erroneous idea of the candidacy, similar to that of many persons on the subject of wines and cigars, who consider the oldest as the best; while the real connoisseur knows perfectly well that such commodities are not permitted to exceed a certain age without losing rather than gaining in quality. Some keep their Presidential aspirations constantly before the people—as, for instance, Blaine and Sherman[90] for several years. Others get up a drumming and fifing as soon as the year for the nomination comes on? If most of these people would poke their noses a little into the political history of this country, they would find that for a generation or more we have had no President whose reputation and “boom” was two years older than the hour of his election. When the Democrats nominated James K. Polk as their candidate, the politicians, surprized and disillusioned, inquired, “Who is James K. Polk?” The name of the Whig President, Zachary Taylor, was famous scarcely one year before the election. Pierce and Buchanan were absolutely less known than their rivals, Marcy and Cass, and before Lincoln’s nomination there was nowhere any talk about him; every one was thinking of Seward. Who, in 1862, would have prophesied that U. S. Grant would one day become General-in-chief and President of the Republic? Such an individual would have been regarded as fit subject of a lunatic asylum. Hayes owed his nomination to his hard-won victory of the year previous over the Democrat, Allen, in the gubernatorial campaign in Ohio; and no one had thought of Garfield two days before his nomination.—Der Deutsche Correspondent.

De choir will now sing dat beautiful piece, “We ain’t got long to stay heah,” after which dey will consider demselves discha’ged and will file out quietly, one by one. We’se gwine to hab con’gational singin’ heahaftah in dis yere chu’ch.

It is a dreadful thing to be choked. Those who have either by accident or design suffered partial strangulation tell us that it is one of the most dreadful experiences. It must, to the all-seeing eye of God, be a dreadful thing to behold so many of His children gasping for a breath of life, being choked by the evil weeds, thorns, and tares indigenous to the flesh or diligently planted there by the enemy of souls while they sleep. It is a sad thing to see the corners of a corn-field left unreaped during the harvest (because the grain growing there among the thorns is not worth reaping), afterward reaped down and bound in bundles and burned, the thorns and choked product of a good seed together. It is a sadder thing to behold the lives of not a few Christians all overgrown and choked with thorns and weeds just ripening for the fire of destruction, because they are shriveled and choked and not fit to be gathered into our Lord’s garner. (Text.)—The Independent.

Mr. Robert E. Speer met a poor blind Christian in Korea whose only knowledge of the word of God had come through the kindnesses of his friends, when they would read, translating out of a Chinese Bible and giving chapter and verse as they read. His knowledge of the life of Christ was wonderful, and when Mr. Speer asked him what incident he liked best of all in the gospel, he said, “I like best the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John, that tells the story of the blind man to whom the Lord restored his sight.” Mr. Speer asked the man what he looked forward to most, and he replied, “I look forward most to Christ’s meeting me at the gate of heaven. I wouldn’t dare to go up to see the Father alone, a poor blind man from Korea, but I shall wait at the gate, and He will find me out just as he did that poor blind man in the ninth of John, and He will lead me up to his Father and mine.”

In London City Temple, Dr. Joseph Parker was troubled by the absence of workingmen from church, and invited hundreds to lunch there. He said: “Bring your dinner buckets, and your pipes if you want to; I want to have a good talk with you.” Stepping out in front of them, he said:

“Men, why don’t you come to church?”

A leader among them said: “The Church is not for the likes of us, the Church is for the rich, and the Church is for the prosperous. You don’t want us there; that is what is the matter with the Church.”

Dr. Parker then said, “Men, what is the matter with Jesus of Nazareth?”

Instantly a working man swung his cap and said: “He is all right.” And a thousand or more working men kept swinging their caps and saying, “He is all right, He is all right.” (Text.)

An experiment in treating neurotic patients was tried in the Massillon State Hospital, Ohio, when a picture entitled, “Christ Knocking at the Door,” a copy of Hofmann’s masterpiece, was unveiled during the religious services. The painting was life-size, on cathedral glass, and illuminated by electric lights. The hope was that by flashing the lights suddenly on the picture a beneficial therapeutic effect would be produced on the minds of the inmates of the hospital. (Text.)

Recent science has enabled us to solve enigmas of the physical universe which once seemed forever impenetrable. Cholera has been, for example, through long ages “a pestilence walking in darkness.” There was no denying the plague; it demonstrated itself in the most awful manner, but none could divine its active principle, the secret of its power. But at last the cholera-germ has been tracked out, and the fatal pest never before seen by human eyes can now be studied under a powerful microscope, large as the human hand. The immense significance of this discovery to our race who may say?

To one who observed his sufferings and asked him if he suffered much pain, he said:

“Some time ago I should have thought it great pain, but now I am enabled to bear it.” His intellect was unclouded by illness. He could think and speak. Some one said to him, “You are dying as you have lived, great to the last.” The reply was, “I am dying as I lived, in the faith of Jesus.” Another said, “What a blessing your glorious intellect is unimpaired.” He answered, “Do not call intellect glorious; there is nothing glorious out of Christ!” Another said, “The great fortitude of your character supports you.” “No, it is not the fortitude of my character supports me, but my faith in Christ.” (Text.)

In an Austrian city there are twelve figures of Christ, each representing a different aspect. The country folk, crossing the bridge to the city in the morning, worship them as they pass. The stockmen pray to the image of Christ the Shepherd, the artizans to Christ the Carpenter, the market-gardeners to Christ the Sower, the ailing and infirm to Christ the Physician, the fishermen to Christ the Pilot, etc. “Enlightened minds will never forget that there is but one Christ, and yet to each follower the thought of Him that is born of a special need will always be the one that makes His image in the soul.”

A missionary was speaking with a Tibetan Lama about Christ. The Lama exprest himself charmed with the gospel story and then added, “Our saint Tsong K’aba was like Christ. He went about teaching and leading the people, and he was persecuted, too.” Then he added, “Even to-day it isn’t wise for a Lama to be too good!” (Text.)

I was in the pulpit before a great congregation, just ready to begin my sermon, when a stranger entered and passed slowly up the left aisle of the church, looking first to one side and then to the other, as tho silently asking with his eyes that some one would give him a seat. He had proceeded nearly half-way up the aisle when a gentleman stept out and offered him a place in his pew,[92] which was quietly accepted. I remembered his face wore a peculiarly serious look, as of one who had known some great sorrow. His bearing, too, was exceedingly humble, his dress poor and plain, and from the beginning to the end of the service he gave the most respectful attention to the preacher. To myself I constantly asked, “Who can that stranger be?” And then I mentally resolved to find out by going up to him directly the service was over. But before I could reach him he had left the house. The gentleman with whom he sat, however, remained behind, and approaching him I asked, “Can you tell me who that stranger was who sat in your pew this morning?” He replied: “Why, do you not know that man? It was Jesus of Nazareth.”

One had been present in the church for an hour who could tell me all that I so longed to know; who could point out to me the imperfections of my service; who could reveal to me my real self, to whom, perhaps, I am most a stranger; who could correct the errors in our worship, to which long usage and accepted traditions may have rendered us insensible. While I had been preaching for half an hour He had been there and listening, who could have told me all this, and infinitely more, and my eyes had been holden and I knew Him not, and now He was gone. And then I awoke, for behold, it was a dream. No, it was not a dream. It was a vision of the deepest reality, a miniature of an actual ministry. (Text.)

“I know Jesus Christ,” said Bushnell, “better than I know any man in the city of Hartford, and if He should be walking along the street and see me, He would say, ‘There goes a friend of mine.’” (Text.)

In the Doré Gallery in London is the artist’s last picture, left unfinished. It is entitled, “The Vale of Tears,” and was intended to illustrate the words, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.” Jesus is in the distance pointing to Himself. Over Him is a deep mist spanned by a rainbow whose light in varying degrees falls upon the multitude of faces and forms before Him, some just touched, others beaming and aglow with radiance.

Passengers from Europe to New York know that when the steamer reaches a point fifteen miles from Sandy Hook the pilot comes on board to superintend the navigation into New York harbor. The great steamer slows down and the pilot climbs on board. If this happens in the darkness of night the passengers looking down from the deck can see a lantern on the surface of the ocean where the pilot’s boat is lying. Presently he emerges from the blackness and is soon on deck. From that moment the anxieties of the captain and the officers are at an end. So when Christ is on board our life, the government is upon His shoulders. (Text.)

Outside one of the beautiful gateways of the magnificent mosque of St. Sophia, in Constantinople, there is a picture of an open Bible with this inscription: “The Lord said, I am the door; by me if any man enter in he shall be saved.” The Mohammedans left this inscription when they took the beautiful temple from the Christians; because they could see no reference in it to Jesus Christ. Everything else that suggested Christianity or the cross was obliterated. There is a twentieth-century spirit that would obliterate Jesus Christ and the necessity of His saving work. But meanwhile He, the strong Son of God, calmly waits for the world’s recognition. He has presented His proofs, and the responsibility is ours. There is no other gospel, no other road, no other Christ. For his own convenience man has invented a number of “short cuts.” But it remains as true to-day as when Jesus Himself spoke the words, that he who climbs up some other way is “a thief and a robber.”—Joel B. Slocum.

Jesus has, in reality, not vanished either from history, or from the life of Christianity. He lives at all times in millions of souls, He is enthroned as King in all hearts. The figure of Christ has not the cold splendor of a distant star, but the warmth of a heart which is near us, a flame burning in the soul of believers and keeping alive their consciences. Putting aside certain opinions, which, honored at the moment, may possibly be abandoned to-morrow, criticism had hoped to effect a complete demolition of the conception of Christ, but what criticism really demolished was merely irrelevant matter. The figure of Christ, after all the onslaughts of criticism, now stands forth more pure and divine than ever and compels our adoration.

High up on the old German church of Werden is carved the image of a lamb, concerning which the villagers tell this story. Many years ago, a mason was at work on the portion of wall where now this figure stands, when the cord by which his plank seat was suspended snapt, and he was hurled down to what seemed instant death, for masses of rough stone lay thick on the ground below, the building being under repair. He arose unhurt, for there among the stone-heaps a little lamb had been nibbling at scanty tufts of herbage, and on this animal he had fallen safe and softly, while the lamb lay crusht to death. The man so strangely saved had the monument erected in grateful, lasting memory of his deliverance from a cruel death, and of the innocent creature to whom he owed it. (Text.)

In the life story of Helen Keller, a picture of the governess and her famous pupil is shown with the blind girl leaning her head on her teacher’s shoulder. This is a fair representation of the way in which life with its deeper and hidden meaning unfolded itself to the child. She drew so near to her teacher that her hand could touch eye, ear and lip. Before her teacher came to her, existence seemed like a dense fog and a great darkness, while her very soul cried out, Light, light! But when her education began, the way grew clearer and the truth plain as the “light of the teacher’s love shone upon her.”

There are men who are spiritually blind. They are shipwrecked mariners at sea in a dense fog. They are without compass and have nothing stable from which they can take their bearings. But when Christ comes into their lives their heart-cry for light is answered. (Text.)

In the center of the canvas is the Christ, standing on a pedestal, bound with ropes, while on either side passes the heedless crowd. A prominent figure is a richly vested priest, proudly conscious of the perfection of the ritual with which he is starving his higher life. Over the shoulder of the priest looks a stern-faced divine of a very different type. Bible in hand, he turns to look at the divine figure, but the onlooker is conscious that this stern preacher of the letter of the gospel has missed its spirit, and is as far astray as the priest whose ceremonial is to him anathema. The startled look on the face of the hospital nurse in the foreground is[95] very realistic; so is the absorption of the man of science, so intent on the contents of his test-tube that he had not a glance for the Christ at his side. One of the most striking figures is that of the thoughtless beauty hurrying from one scene of pleasure to another; and spurning the sweet-faced little ragged child who is offering a bunch of violets. In rejecting the plea of the child we know that the proud woman is rejecting the Christ who has identified himself forever with the least of these little ones. The only person in the whole picture who has found time to pause is the mother seated on the steps of the pedestal with her baby in her arms, and we can not but feel that when she has ministered to the wants of her child she will spare a moment for the lover of little children who is so close to her. In the background stands an angel with bowed head, holding the cup which the world He loved to the death is still compelling the Christ to drink, while a cloud of angel faces look down upon the scene with wonder. As the visitor turns away he is haunted with the music of Stainer’s “Crucifixion,” “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?” (Text.)

A pastor tells of a talk he once had with an artist over the unsatisfactoriness of the pictured faces of Christ. In reply, the artist took up a crayon and rapidly sketched the picture of a woman with a broom in one hand and a lighted candle in the other, and a look of intense anxiety on her face.

“It is a fine representation of the woman seeking for the lost bit of silver,” said the pastor.

“You do not understand my picture,” was the quick response. “That is my conception of the Christ.”

Ah, what a conception! A searching Christ! Seeking in dark, dusty corners for His own!—Sophie B. Titterington.

A learned native of Saxony all his life long has attacked Jesus and His gospel. But in his old days he doubted if he had been right, and yet fought against his doubts and against Christ. Often he would stop before a picture of Jesus, and say, “After all, thou wast only a man!” Then, “What dost thou say? that thou camest from above? How terribly thou eyest me! oh, thou art dreadful! But thou art only a man, after all.” He would go away, then with faltering step return and cry out, “What! art thou in reality the Son of God?” That scene was often renewed until the unhappy man, struck by paralysis, died. (Text.)

Some of the creeping plants, it is said, such as the ivy, entwine themselves so intimately with the masonry to which they cling that it would be unsafe to try to remove them—the building would be injured by their being torn away. And so our Lord Christ, with reverence, be it said, can not endure the loss of one of His members: He would be injured, mutilated, by only one of them being taken away, so close is the union between Him and them. (Text.)

was written by Zinzendorf, whose culture and piety appear so conspicuously in the more than two thousand hymns which came from his pen. It was suggested by a picture in the Düseldorf Gallery, “Ecce Homo,” representing Jesus crowned with thorns. From the pathetic face above he turned to the legend beneath: “All this I have done for thee; what hast thou for me?” The vision and the question led him to adopt for his life motto: “I have but one passion, and that is He, and only He.” (Text.)

Cyrus, the Persian, loved Lysander, one of his great generals, so much that, it is said, he exprest his readiness to melt down his throne of massive gold and give it to him.

A Christian is an unfailing spiritual Niagara, not a cow-track pool to be drunk dry by a thirsty sunbeam.—F. F. Shannon.

A Chinese Christian ferryman, poor in money but rich in faith, one night ferried a man over the river. After throwing the cash for his fare into the bottom of the boat, the passenger departed hurriedly. The Christian went to pick up the money and found a magnificent pair of gold bracelets which the man had dropt. He tied up his boat and tried to find his passenger, but he was lost in the crowd. According to the Chinese law, he could keep the bracelets, but he did not feel comfortable in doing this. He went to the preacher and together they took the bracelets to the mandarin, and later it was found that a wealthy Chinese had been robbed and the man who dropt the bracelets was a thief. The owner received them very thankfully and gave the mandarin a small reward for the finder. The incident imprest the official very much. “I have never seen or heard anything like this,” he said. “Your religion must be a true religion and your God a loving God, thus to influence a poor man to give up wealth for conscience sake.” He praised the boatman, who went to his poor, damp, mud hut on the bank of the river with a contented mind.

The King has made himself dear to all his subjects, especially to those in the earthquake zone, by his prompt and personal aid in times of disaster. This makes plausible a story told by his companions to-day, who say that as the royal pair and the crowd surrounding them made their way through the ruins a man pinned under a great block of stone and supposed to be dead raised his head, repeated the cries of acclaim and dropt back dead. (Text.)

The Rev. John Fawcett, D.D., wrote the hymn, “Blest be the tie that binds”—perhaps the noblest hymnic expression of Christian brotherhood; and the author is himself one of the best examples of its sentiment. Brought to God by the Methodists, under the ministry of Whitefield, he joined that body, and became later pastor of a Baptist church in Bradford, England, and finally was settled at Wainsgate. Receiving a call to succeed the celebrated Dr. Gill in London, he had his goods packed ready for removal, when his loving people gathered, weeping, to say farewell, which so touched him and his good wife that he said, “I will stay; you may unpack my goods, and we will live for the Lord lovingly together.” This experience, it was, which led the author to compose the now popular hymn. (Text.)

In Livingstonia, an industrial mission in Africa, an engineering feat was accomplished in bringing a supply of pure water a distance of three miles across a valley 300 feet deep. The natives did not believe the water could possibly travel. They thought the Europeans were deceiving them when they talked of water running down one hill and up another. The two or three preliminary tests did not succeed, and this increased the natives’ incredulity. But one afternoon in January, 1904, a nozzle was screwed on to a hydrant, and the engineering staff awaited results with certainty. The screw was turned and, true enough, the water had climbed over the hill, for a jet of it rose in the air amid cheers. Think of the enormous benefit Christian civilization is in the dark places of the earth. (Text.)

I have had twenty-one years’ experience among the South Sea Islanders, and for at least nine years of my life I have lived with the savages of New Guinea. I have seen the semi-civilized and the uncivilized; I have lived with the Christian native, and I have lived, dined and slept with the cannibal. But I have never yet met a single man or woman, or a single people, that your civilization without Christianity has civilized. Wherever there has been the slightest spark of civilized life in the Southern Seas, it has been because the gospel has been preached there; and wherever you find in the island of New Guinea a friendly people, or a people that will welcome you, there the missionaries of the cross have been preaching Christ. (Text.)—Missionary Review of the World.

There is a humorous poem by John Godfrey Saxe about the four blind Hindus who went to see an elephant. They could not see the elephant, but they told what they had seen. One happened to lean against the elephant and declared it was much like a wall. Another got hold of his tail and described him as being like a rope. Another got his trunk and said he was like a serpent, and the fourth ran against his tusk and said he was shaped very much like a spear. The fact is that they had not seen the elephant at all.

Let the temperature of a lake fall to the freezing-point; apply a piece of ice to it and see the radiating lines of crystallization shoot singing from that center of force in all directions, while other rays start from their thousand nodes of maximum intensity, until the whole surface of the water becomes a solid sheet of ice. Just so the Roman empires, east and west, were subjected to a superficial crystallization of Christianity started in Judea by Jesus Christ.—J. P. Lesley, The Forum.

When, after many provocations, the crisis came, and notwithstanding oft-repeated warnings, there was drunken violence and uproar, the good Khama wore a stern face which always meant fixt purpose. He went and saw with his own eyes how his laws were trampled on, and then he said: “You despise my laws because I am a black man. Well, if I am black, I am chief of my own country, and I rule here and shall maintain my laws. Go back to your own country. Take all that is yours, and go. If there is any other white man who does not like my laws, let him go, too. I am trying to lead my people to act according to the Word of God, which we have received from you white people, and you, white people, show them an example of wickedness such as we never knew. You know that some of my own brothers have learned to like the drink, and that I do not want them even to see it that they may forget the habit; and yet you not only bring it and offer it to them, but try to tempt me with it. I make an end of it to-day. Go, leave my town, and never come back!”—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

In a sawmill in Canada, while the head sawyer was eating his dinner, a big bear came and sat on the log ready for sawing, and began to eat the sawyer’s dinner. As the log moved up the saw gave him a slight rub; he growled and went on eating. Presently the saw gave him another dig and he turned round and hugged it, and there was a bear sawed in two.

An unbeliever confronted a converted Fiji cannibal chief, saying, “You are a great chief, and it is really a pity that you have been so foolish as to listen to the missionaries. Nobody believes any longer in that old book called the Bible, or in that story of Jesus Christ. They have all learned better, and I am sorry for you that you have been So foolish as to take it in.”

The chief’s eyes flashed as he said: “Do you see that great stone over there? On that stone we smashed the heads of our victims to death. Do you see that native oven yonder? In that oven we roasted the human bodies for our great feasts. Now, if it hadn’t been for the good missionaries, and that old book and the love of Jesus Christ, which has changed us from savages into God’s children, you would never leave this spot. You have to thank God for the gospel, for without it we should have killed you, and roasted you in yonder oven, and have feasted upon you in no time.”

Vessels from Christian lands that touched at the Hawaiian group first introduced there the damnable liquid fires of alcohol, and their licentious crews first made the harbors of Hawaii the hells of the most abandoned and shameless vice. Sin was literally bringing forth death.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

Civilized man must often go a great distance for many of the things he needs. His wants are too diversified to be met within the small radius of his immediate dwelling-place. As heat and sunshine are unequally distributed over the earth, they produce differences of climate and consequently many varieties of vegetation. There is wheat in the temperate zones, cotton and rubber-plants of warmer regions. Some sections are also far poorer in useful rocks and minerals than others. Thus Holland has no building stone. Switzerland no coal and the United States much less sulfur than it needs. There must be a constant interchange of productions that each nation have its needs supplied.

Paul tells us that each man is the recipient of spiritual gifts differing in kind and degree from that of another. But it is all of the same spirit and all are members of one body. The Christianity of the future will be a brotherhood; it will be social. (Text.)

Geologists say that the Bay of Naples is in reality the crater of an extinct volcano. In the cycles of ages past it was a great, deep, roaring pit of fire and burning lava. The fires subsided and the lava ceased to flow. The great sea overflowed it and now the calm waters smile back in sunshine by day and in starlight at evening. Christianity is a great calm sea that is gradually quenching and covering the old volcanoes and roaring pits of barbarism. (Text.)

Peter Simpson had been chief of a cannibal tribe. Canoes were all drawn up on the beach on the Lord’s day, and not a sound was heard, save the hurrying of the whole population to the house of prayer. The admiral watched the incoming of throngs—here a notorious gambler, there a reclaimed drunkard, a lecherous leper, a defiant thief,[99] a widow snatched from the jaws of infamy, a murderer who had first slain and then burned his own wife—all converts to Christ and children of God.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

Every strong man wants to know what his opponent can say. He covets criticism, asks for investigation, welcomes analysis and contrast. Christianity has won its greatest victory through comparative religion. If you can only get the man with an ox-cart to put his vehicle beside the new locomotive; if you can only get the tallow candle and the gas flame into contrast with the electric light; if you can only get Buddha and Confucius side by side with Jesus—that is all that can be asked. The stickler for a little fire and a tallow candle will have nothing to say after you open the curtain and let the sunshine in.—N. D. Hillis.

A unique Christmas party was given Christmas eve by Mrs. Louis E. Fuller, organist at Brick Church, at her home, No. 105 South Fitzhugh Street. The novel part of the affair was that it was given for Mrs. Fuller’s two pet cats, Limit and Sir Gobelin, and the five dinner guests were all cat-lovers, and each guest who came brought a gift for the two cats of their hostess. The presents were adapted to the amusement and decorative side of the cats’ lives. There were dainty ribbon collars with great satin bows,[100] cunning little packages of catnip wrapt in tissue-paper and tied with ribbon, balls galore, tiny mechanical mice and teddy bears. The invitations were sent out in the name of the cats, and the place-cards were tiny cats, which served as souvenirs, being made of phosphorus and suitable for scratching matches. There was a Christmas tree, on which the gifts were hung.

There once lived a family in the South whose rigid rule sent the children to bed at sundown and made them rise after daylight. One of the boys grew to the age of seven years before he ever saw the stars, and when he was carried out one dark night and caught his first glimpse of the glorious constellations, he exclaimed rapturously to his mother: “Look! Look! Did you ever see anything so beautiful?”

A preacher visiting an infirmary, guided through the institution by a member of the medical staff, described various cases as the two passed along: “Anemic condition,” “creeping paralysis,” “nervous dyspepsia,” “locomotor ataxia,” etc. Having passed through all the wards, the minister said, “I have known a church with just such people in it. It took six hundred members a whole year to bring eleven souls to confess Christ. The prayer-meeting was affected by creeping paralysis and four-fifths of the men seemed to be suffering from locomotor ataxia of the soul.” The doctor replied, “And I one day remember seeing a very beautiful engine at an exhibition, but it was on a table, not on rails. It was only four feet long and about two feet high, and when I asked the man in charge what it was for he said it was not for use in any way, but was simply on exhibition. And,” added the doctor, “I have seen ministers and churches just like that.” (Text.)

There are no wrecks among the golden ships of the heavens, for a master hand keeps the movements of the fixt spheres in unison. An effort is being made to have unison among the movements of all ships at sea. The proposal is that the Eiffel tower be equipped with a wireless apparatus, powerful enough to send Hertzian waves completely round the world, that ships may not be wrecked by being confused as to the longitude. It is said that all ships in communication with Eiffel tower will harmonize in their movements. Noon and midnight will be indicated by a prearranged signal.

The Church is a ship of state with its members as the crew. Each church is commanded to keep in constant and direct communication with the great Head of the Church, the high tower of righteousness. (Text.)

A man in his Gethsemane utters words that burn themselves into your memory in letters of fire. The personal experiences of one’s friends are sacred; sacred forever the events of the household, when grief and repentance lay healing hands like angels upon a broken life. But recently I saw with mine own eyes, and heard with mine own ears, and received a charge. The house was a mansion on an avenue, and the man was approaching threescore years and ten. Beside us was the coffin of his dead daughter. On the other side sat his chum, his closest friend. Suddenly the sorrowing man broke into speech, and this was the substance of his soliloquy: “There is nothing in these things. You and I have been living for a good time and success. We have gotten everything we could during the week. We have been good poker-players on Saturday night, we have spent our Sundays in the automobile and[101] driving, and in social pleasures. We have put the club and the bank first, and my son has disgraced me with his shameless marriage, and my daughter is dead. I tell you,” he said, using his friend’s name, “there is only one place in which to bring up a family, and that is the Christian Church. There is only one way to use Sunday for children, and that is to take them to church. What with money, and wine, and poker, and pleasure, all day Sunday, and parties all Sunday night, my family has been ruined. People don’t know what the result of this kind of living will be until the end comes, but I know.”—N. D. Hillis.

“I believe in religion as much as you do, and I accept Christ as my Savior, but I will never join any church.”

“Doctor, you are pension examiner.” “Yes.” “How many applicants for pensions have you examined?” “I do not know, but hundreds.” “Doctor, how many of these received a pension who had never joined the army?” “Not one, not one. My wife and I will unite with the Presbyterian Church.”

They did. This man, seventy odd years old, who had never been at church once, became a devout Christian and died in the faith. (Text.)

Persia has well been called the land of “the Lion and the Sun.” The symbol of “the Lion and the Sun” originated in the days when the Zoroastrians were the inhabitants of the land. The sun, being the emblem of the fire-worshipers, was taken as their national badge. The lion was added later because Ali, the grandson of Mohammed, was called the “Lion of God.” The woman’s face in the sun was inserted some years later by one of the Persian kings as a tribute to his favorite wife.

Henry Ward Beecher was once about to take a ride behind a horse which he had hired from a livery stable. He regarded the horse admiringly, and remarked: “That is a fine-looking animal. Is he as good as he looks?” The owner replied: “Mr. Beecher, that horse will work in any place you put him, and do all that any horse can do.” The preacher eyed the horse still more admiringly, and then remarked: “I wish to goodness he was a member of my church!” (Text.)—Louis Albert Banks.

It is not enough to say that you can be a Christian outside of the Church; an occasional boy can be a scholar without going to school; an occasional vine can grow in a lane instead of a vineyard, and an occasional newsboy can sleep in a barrel, and survive, instead of a home. But don’t stand outside of the Church and then crawl out of your barrel, and later on ask for all the privileges of the household. Some men watched the great parade in 1865, and regretted that they had not been in the ranks for the grand review. And if you come to the end of your career, never having shown your colors nor had a part in the fight, you will never cease to feel the regret that you did not die on the battle-field, and were not carried home like the heroes upon their shield.—N. D. Hillis.

Recently, while on a visit to the old historic, picturesque city of Charleston, on a Saturday afternoon, I was taken for a sail around the harbor and a short distance out to sea. A friend took me to the forward deck and pointing to a light that glowed above the city in the distance, said: “That light is in the spire of St. Philip’s church. It is the harbor-light of Charleston. The channel here is an eddy channel, deep but narrow, and every vessel that enters this harbor must steer by the light in St. Philip’s spire.”

As I stood there in the deepening shadows,[102] I began to think of the many vessels, great and small, which through the long years, had entered the port. Merchantmen and men-of-war, freighters and pleasure-boats, yachts and schooners and excursion steamers, ships of adventure and of exploration, rakish blockaders, boats stript to their decks, grim and threatening, with all the paraphernalia and munitions of war; and ships gay, with bunting flying, with music and laughter resounding, and with decks crowded with merry throngs of pleasure-seekers. For all, the light in the church spire shone to show them a safe port and to guide the ship to its desired haven.

It seemed to me to tell the story of what the Church is for, to answer, in part at least, the question why Christ wanted a church. The light shining over Charleston harbor from St Philip’s spire, and far out to sea, is a picture of the mission of every church in the world.

The mission of the Church is to shine the harbor-light. It is to illuminate the darkness and, through the gathering gloom, to point the true way. It is to show voyagers on the sea of life how to reach the true haven. It is to tell wanderers how to find their Father’s house. It is to guide the soul to God. It is to shine out the harbor-light, so that souls in the offing may reach, in safety, life’s true destination. (Text.)

All of you feel the need of a church, which may be the outward manifestation of your faith and religious feeling, the vigilant custodian now and here of Christian doctrine and tradition. It sustains and keeps alive religion and individual activity, in virtue of that strong power of suggestion, which collectively always exercises on the individual.

“Sir,” exclaims Johnson, “it is a very dangerous thing for a man not to belong to any church!”

And this is true. How many of us would fall a thousand times were it not for this support!

From the various churches and religious denominations, into which you Christians are divided, there arises a new unifying element, a noble aspiration, restraining too great impulsiveness, leveling dividing barriers, and working for the realization of the one holy church through all the children of redemption.

A church is like the steps leading in to a beautiful mansion, but you do not sit down on the steps, you do not set up a tent on the steps, you do not live on the steps—the steps lift you to the level of the warm room, the blazing winter’s fire, the bower of home that receives you out of the driving rain or pelting snow. All the ordinances of the Church are steps that lead to the house of character, adorned with all those rich treasures, named truth, gentleness, meekness and justice and sympathy. The Church is a hostelry in which man stops for a night on his journey home. The end of the Church is character.—N. D. Hillis.

One of the papers in New York has been making a personal examination into the political morals of a certain New England State. It has been alleged that politically that State is rotten, that its voters are regularly bought and sold at every election. A detailed description of each of the most corrupt towns in that State was given, and this was the appalling fact brought out: The worst towns (some of them with a few hundred inhabitants), where bribery was most persistent, where illegal liquor-selling was most rampant, where immorality was most flagrant, were those towns in which there was no resident minister and where no Christian service was regularly held. For instance, in one town known as “darkest Exeter,” there were twenty years ago six churches; four of them are in ruins to-day, two are occasionally used, but there is no resident minister. The result is “darkest Exeter”—a New England farming town, once peopled by the sturdy sons of the Pilgrim, heir to all the noble qualities of a sturdy race.—“The Religion of the Threshold.”

The statistics and charts belonging with this illustration are taken from Bulletin 103 of the United States “Bureau of the Census” “representing conditions as near as may be, at the close of the year 1906.”

The general order or rank of the principal religious bodies in 1906 with respect to organization is presented in Table No. 1. (See page 104.)

The distribution of religious organizations by principal families and separate denominations in 1906, in comparison with similar figures for 1890, is given in Table No. 2. (See page 105).

The seating capacity of the churches is given in Tables No. 3 and No. 4. (See page 106.)

The value of church property, with gains by decades is shown in Tables No. 5 and No. 6. (See pages 107–108.)

The charts here shown exhibit at a glance (1) the comparative strength of denominations or families for 1890 and 1906 and (2) the relative size of the church and the unchurched population.

[Note.—The designation “not church-members” in diagram 2, p. 104, represents the difference between the number reported as communicants or members and the total population; it embraces, therefore, children too young to become church-members, as well as that portion of the population which is eligible to church-membership, altho not affiliated with any religious denomination.]

Of the total estimated population of continental United States in 1906, 39.1 per cent., or not quite two-fifths, were reported as church-members. The corresponding percentage for 1890 was 32.7, or somewhat less than one-third, showing that the church has gained faster than the population 6.4 per cent.

Mr. Beecher arose in his pulpit Sunday after Sunday for forty years with the invariable fortune of looking at a crowded congregation, tho the most eloquent political orator in the country can not draw the same people to hear him five times in succession. A country town of 3,000 people will support from five to ten churches when it will hardly pay the rent of an amusement hall. For centuries, against intellectual doubt and the weakness of the flesh, the Christian religion has more than held its own in Europe and America, and while the theater could attract only by a continually changing appeal to curiosity, the church has retained its power with slight change and with only enough flexibility to adjust its forms of government to the character of different people.—Kansas City Times.

If this world is ever taken for God and its sins overthrown it will be by the marching of all the hosts of God in solid column to attack. The sixteen kinds of Methodists will come under one wing, the ten kinds of Baptists[106] must come under another wing, and the seven kinds of Presbyterians under still another wing. After all the branches of each denomination have united then the great denominations nearest of kin will unite, and this absorption shall go on until there shall be one great millennial church, divided only for convenience into geographical sections and as of old it was the “Church of Laodicea” and the “Church of Philadelphia,” and the “Church of Thyatira,” so it shall be the “Church of America” and the “Church of Europe,” and the “Church of Asia,” and the “Church of Africa,” and the “Church of Australia.” Of that world-wide Church there will be only one article of creed—Christ first, Christ last, and Christ forever. (Text.)—T. DeWitt Talmage, Christian Union.

Jane Addams says that on a Sunday night in Chicago one-sixth of the entire population is packed into 466 places of entertainment. Churches? No—moving-picture shows! The churches on Sunday night in Chicago, and, we fear, in many other places, are not conspicuously crowded. The problem is this: If the Chicago churches had presented an up-to-date moving-picture show, instead of a sermon, would the crowd have followed the films? Inasmuch as the church admission is free and the theater admission is from five to twenty-five cents, it is a fair assumption that the churches would have been filled. Now, if the object of the Sunday-night service is primarily to reach the crowd on the street, and if, as has been shown, the moving-picture is a much more vivid and attractive way of reaching that crowd than is a sermon, why, in all seriousness, don’t churches give us the thrilling stories of the Old Testament, its beautiful tales of the New Testament, and its modern illustrations of Christian heroism in this and other lands, in the up-to-date form—in moving pictures? They may answer that they can not get hold of the films and the machine, but this answer is not a good answer. Excellent sacred pictures are shown in the present professional entertainments, and many illustrations of modern heroism, self-sacrifice, and virtue are in every program. Moreover, a demand for films for church use would enlarge the supply. Moving-picture machines are not expensive and can be easily operated. You can do it in your church. Why don’t you?—Woman’s Home Companion.

There is a Scandinavian tradition which tells of seven parishes of the Northland that lie buried under snow and ice, but whose church-bells are heard ringing clearly.

Most churches are religious cisterns instead of spiritual reservoirs. A cistern has all the trenches dug, the pipes laid, the roofs shaped to catch the showers of the favoring sky, and the water runs into it to be dipped out by the owner or occupant of the building, for the purpose of consumption. A reservoir has streams running into it, but all its trenches are dug and pipes laid in order that the water shall flow away from it, for the purpose of distribution.—Theodore S. Henderson.

Cigaret smoking is the most dangerous form in which tobacco can be used, because combustion goes on so near the mouth that all the products of burning are drawn into the mouth without change and are absorbed by the blood-vessels and carried to the brain. In the pipe and cigar many of the products from burning are condensed in the stem of the pipe and body of the cigar, and never reach the mouth. In the cigaret these poison products, small in amount, are constantly taken by the blood-vessels of the mouth and affect the senses. The sight, the smell and the hearing are all diminished and enfeebled, later the power of reason and muscular control. No form of tobacco is so cumulative in its action as the products from cigaret smoking; the quantity is small, the absorption is more rapid, and the resistance by nature is less active. The cigaret-smoker is slowly and surely poisoning himself, and is largely unconscious of it. In the young the poisoning is very acute and active; in elderly persons it is less prominent, but that it is equally dangerous, in the effects on the nerves, on the brain and on the senses, enfeebling them and destroying their activity, is beyond all question. The pipe- or cigar-smoker may not seem much worse for his addiction, but the cigaret-smoker is always markedly damaged by it.—T. D. Crothers.

From the experiments of Scharling, Gerlach, and others, it has been shown that appreciable quantities of carbonic acid gas are hourly exhaled by the skin. If this process of cutaneous respiration is absolutely interrupted, as by covering the skin with varnish, death follows very soon, the heart and lungs becoming gorged with blood, as in ordinary cases of asphyxiation. In ignorance of this physiological fact, certain monks in the middle ages gilded the skin of a young lad who was to represent an angel (angels being understood, it would seem, to have golden skin); but he did not live through the performance of the “mystery” or “morality” in which he had to play his angelic part. Even if the body be inclosed, all but the head, in a water-proof covering, asphyxiation follows. Some, indeed, present themselves in public gatherings, not within the walls of lunatic asylums, either, with the respiratory, circulatory, and perspiratory organs manifestly obstructed, and, in fact, with the whole economy of the body from head to foot hampered obviously to the eye by powder, paint, enamel, corset, tight gloves, tight shoes, and goodness knows what other contrivances for checking all the processes and movements for whose perfect freedom of action nature has carefully provided. These may, perhaps, be best explained as cases of reversion to the ways of savage progenitors.—R. A. Proctor, Syndicate Letter.

But among what uncongenial surroundings these new flowers have come! Gray, sunless skies, chilling winds, the frosts, the lingering traces of the snow—these are the things which the new flowers see with their opening eyes; courageous flowers indeed to creep forth into a wintry world like this!

One of the strangest stories of false imprisonment comes from France. A woman was sentenced to imprisonment for life for having caused the death of her husband and brother. The three had lived together at Malaunay, near Rouen, in a cottage. The lower part of it was used as a shop. When the woman was sent to prison, other people occupied the shop, but the new tenants suffered, the man from fainting fits, his wife from nausea, from which she died. Another couple tried their fortune, but they, too, were overcome by the “spell of the accurst place,” as they supposed. They were subject to fainting and loss of memory. At last a scientific examination of the premises was made. Then it was found that adjoining the shop was a lime-kiln. In a wall dividing it from the cottage were many fissures, so that whenever lime was burned monoxide of carbon escaped into the inn. This was the secret of the deaths for which the woman was suffering. She was brought out of prison after six years of servitude.

Genius levels mountains, spans rivers, causes wildernesses to blossom, links together with electric chains the ends of the earth. The gifted man cares not for difficulties; like a mountain torrent, he gains momentum from every obstacle; a master athlete, he throws the world. Masters of circumstance in many directions, but how soon we succumb to circumstance when it relates to character! He who is triumphantly strong in other directions is helpless here; he who heroically and magnificently succeeds in fortune ignobly fails in morals. He who successfully battles with circumstances to become a scholar is vanquished by fleshly desires; he who becomes rich in the teeth of circumstances is then mastered and degraded by his riches; he who surmounts circumstances to become great, immediately falls a victim to luxury and pride. Men make a grand fight with a circumstance in the kingdoms of nature and society, but a sorry light with circumstances as these menace the kingdom of the spirit; they fail most where it is exactly most desirable that they should succeed.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

The danger of circumstantial evidence is illustrated by the French trial of a maidservant for robbery of some forks from a citizen of Paris. At the trial the circumstances were so strong against her that she was found guilty, and was executed. Six months afterward the forks were found under an old roof, behind a heap of tiles, where a magpie used to go. When it was discovered that the innocent girl had been unjustly condemned, an annual mass was founded at St. John-en-Grese for the repose of her soul.—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

Leghorn received him with open arms, altho his appearance was marked by an amusing contretemps. He came on to the stage limping, having run a nail into his heel. At all times odd-looking, he, no doubt,[110] looked all the more peculiar under these circumstances, and there was some tittering among the audience. Just as he began, the candles fell out of his desk—more laughter. He went on playing; the first string broke—more laughter. He played the rest of the concerto through on three strings, but the laughter now changed to vociferous applause at this feat. The beggarly elements seemed of little consequence to this magician. One or more strings, it was all the same to him; indeed, it is recorded that he seldom paused to mend his strings when they broke, which they not infrequently did.

One morning not long ago, the young autocrat blew into the office, and, tossing his cap at a hook, exclaimed:

“Say, Mr. Blank, there’s a ball-game down at the park to-day and I am going down.”

Now, the attorney is not a hard-hearted man, and was willing the boy should go, but thought he would teach him a little lesson in good manners.

“Jimmie,” he said, “that isn’t the way to ask a favor. Now, you come over here and sit down, and I’ll show you how to do it.”

The boy took the office chair, and his employer picked up his cap and stept outside. He then opened the door softly, and holding the cap in his hand, said, quietly, to the small boy in the big chair:

“Please, sir, there is a ball-game at the park to-day; if you can spare me I would like to get away for the afternoon.”

In a flash the boy responded:

“Why, certainly, Jimmie; and here is fifty cents to pay your way in.” (Text.)

In writing of the Polish women, one author tells how they perform a man’s labor of sowing, tilling and reaping in the field. Their work is preferred to that of men because it is better and cheaper. They work for German land-owners and receive free transportation by the government. Altho they are said to frequently marry Germans, they do not lose their identity, nationality or character.

Every church-member should be a citizen of the kingdom of Heaven. He should make its interests his interests and identify himself so closely with Christ, and show forth His life so that all would know that his nationality was of heaven; and his character Christ-like. (Text.)

It would not be expected anywhere that New York would be called a holy city, and yet that is what it was recently called by a convert in one of its mission halls. A correspondent of the New York Tribune gives an account of a meeting he attended on a recent Sunday evening in a gospel mission hall at No. 330 Eighth Avenue. A man with a pronounced foreign accent told the story of his life at this meeting. At the age of eighteen, he said, shortly after his arrival at a German university, because of some fancied slight he was challenged to fight a duel with one of his fellow students. In self-defense he killed the man, and from that day had borne the sorrows of a homicide. Drink had the mastery over him and he was far gone in dissipation when he was shipped to Canada, where he still continued a life of dissipation. To improve his business chances he came to New York and took up residence in the Young Men’s Christian Association Building in Twenty-third Street. Said the speaker: “A good many talk about the wickedness of New York. I call it a holy city, because in that little room, No. 653, in the Young Men’s Christian Association Building, I lost the weight of sin which had been pressing my life out for years and entered a new life in which the past was blotted out.” Several months have passed and the speaker has been led into new evidences of divine favor and usefulness. This case illustrates the familiar fact that one can find what he is looking for almost anywhere, especially in a large city. If he is looking for a saloon or any form of evil he will have little trouble in finding it, but if he wants to find a church or some form of good, it will be found near at hand. A holy man is holy anywhere, and to him even New York is a holy city.—Presbyterian Banner.

The growth of population in the area now covered by Greater New York is shown thus in The Tribune:

The following interesting figures are given by the Washington correspondent of The Times:

New York now has a population greater than many of the countries of the world, for instance, Australia in 1908 had within its borders 4,275,306 persons, exclusive of the aborigines, while Ireland (1909) had a population of 4,374,158. Bulgaria in 1908 showed a census return of 4,158,409, and Denmark and Greece, respectively, had 2,659,000 and 2,632,000 subjects of their kings. Norway in the same year was populated by 2,350,786 persons, and Switzerland by 3,559,000.

The figures in the cut above exhibit fifty years of New York’s expansion.

It is said that one day recently a committee from a certain college investigated the Jacob Riis Settlement on the East Side of New York and made the criticism that civics were not taught. “I’ll show you how I teach them,” said Riis. “I noticed that the Jews and Irish did not get on together, so[112] I had a straight talk with the leaders and told them they must do something. In a short time this notice appeared on the bulletin board: ‘Come to the Meeting of the Young American Social and Political Club, Dennis O’Sullivan, President; Abraham Browsky, Vice-President.’ That,” answered Riis, “is my way of teaching civics.” And it is a way we should not neglect to follow. (Text.)—The American College.

A savage who had been shipwrecked in a river may note certain things which serve him as signs of danger in the future. But civilized man deliberately makes such signs; he sets up in advance of wreckage warning buoys, and builds lighthouses where he sees signs that such events may occur. A savage reads weather signs with great expertness; civilized man institutes a weather service by which signs are artificially secured and information is distributed in advance of the appearance of any signs that could be detected without special methods. A savage finds his way skilfully through a wilderness by reading certain obscure indications; civilized man builds a highway which shows the road to all. The savage learns to detect the signs of fire and thereby to invent methods of producing flame; civilized man invents permanent conditions for producing light and heat just whenever they are needed.—John Dewey, “How We Think.”

When the late Earl Cairns was a little boy he heard three words which made a memorable impression upon him, “God claims you.” Then came the question, “What am I going to do with the claim?” He answered, “I will own it, and give myself to God.” He went home and told his mother, “God claims me.” At school and college his motto was, “God claims me.” As a member of Parliament, and ultimately as lord chancellor, it was still, “God claims me.” When he was appointed lord chancellor he was teacher of a large Bible class, and his minister, thinking that now he would not have time to devote to that purpose, said to him, “I suppose you will now require to give up your class?” “No,” was the reply, “I will not; God claims me.” (Text.)

If I could have my way, every young man who is going to be a newspaper man, and who is not absolutely rebellious against it, should learn Greek and Latin after the good old fashion. I had rather take a young fellow who knows the Ajax of Sophocles, and who has read Tacitus, and can scan every ode of Horace; I would rather take him to report a prize-fight or a spelling-match, for instance, than to take one who has never had those advantages.—Charles A. Dana.

At Minot’s Ledge lighthouse all “bright work” must be cleaned every morning—lens, lamps, etc. So also all inside copper pots and tin-pans. The inspector comes every three months unannounced, and is handed by the keeper a white linen towel or napkin, and he goes over these bright things. Then he enters the item in his diary: “Service napkin not soiled.”

Simple washing with soap and hot water, with use of sand or marble dust, however energetically done, does not materially diminish the number of microbes; the mechanical purification is practically useless. Turpentine, benzoline, xylol, alcoholic disinfection, and various antiseptics equally fail to render the hands surgically clean. (Text.)

Sam P. Jones used to tell of a man down in the spring branch trying to clear the water, so that he could get a clear drink. This man was doing all he could to filter the water, when some friend called out to him: “Stranger, come up a little higher and run that hog out of that spring, and it will clear itself.”

There is a little limpet that is found clinging to the rocks along the coast; if you crawl up stealthily and hit one a heavy blow, you may detach it; but after you have struck the rock it is almost impossible to loosen the grasp of another limpet. These little limpets are good for nothing but to cling; but they do that with an awful tenacity. That’s what limpets are for—simply to cling. Oh, that we just knew how to cling to God by faith—nothing more, nothing less.—Bradford V. Bauder.

Recently a traveler in Scotland, standing upon a mountain cliff overlooking the sea, found himself in great danger. It seems that the gardener desired to beautify even the steep cliffs and precipices. Loading his double-barreled shot-gun with seeds of flowers and vines, he fired the seeds up into the crevices of the rocks.

Not otherwise, for men and women who have a few moments for rest between hour, has life become dangerous. To-day, one can scarcely turn round the street corner without running into the president of some new culture club, who straightway empties into the victim two volleys of talk about some wisdom, old or new. The old shot-gun is less dangerous than the new club.—Newell Dwight Hillis.

A great principle never forgotten by the spider is that she must always spin behind her a thread that will enable her to find again the points that she has left; this serves at once as her guiding thread for return, and as the road on which she travels. A consequence of this rule is that the starting-point, the center of the first operations, must be at the top of the web, and often higher still, so as to dominate the whole. From this point the explorer lets herself down, suspended from her inseparable thread, balances herself, and if she does not find the sought-for point, climbs back along the thread which she absorbs in ascending. (Text.)—Maurice Koechlin, La Nature.

One of the best laws ever enacted in New York State is the bill just signed by Governor Hughes which declares any person having cocaine upon his person, unless secured upon the prescription of a physician, and having a certificate from the druggist from whom he purchased the drug, guilty of a felony. This new law, which is directed against men who financially profit by the diseased appetites of victims of cocaine, will, according to health and police officials, sound the death-knell of the promiscuous sale of the most deadly of drugs. Chief Inspector Fuller, of the New York Health Department, says: “With this law on the statute-books I can promise that with the staff of inspectors I have at my disposal I will wipe out this most vicious evil. The jails are yawning for these criminals who are making fiends out of the New York boys and girls. This law will make possible the placing of those criminals behind the prison bars. Many a mother and sister will to-day rejoice, upon reading of this new law. It will perhaps mean the saving of their boy or girl from death itself. No one is more pleased with this law than myself and my inspectors, who have been fighting night and day to suppress the evil.”—Christian Work.

From Czenstochowa, the Mecca of Polish pilgrims, comes a story of coincidences. A pilgrim went to one of the priests and complained that some thief had stolen his purse[114] while he was in church, and asked for money. The priest replied that he had no money and that the best thing for the pilgrim to do was to try to find the thief. “I shall go into the church and steal money from somebody else,” said the pilgrim, “for I have nothing to go home with.” He went into the church and seeing a man in the crowd with a wallet on his back slipt his hand into it and pulled out his own stolen purse, with the exact sum he had left in it. He was so glad to find his money that he hurried off to tell the priest and the thief got away.

A beautiful young girl had been murdered, and suspicion fell on two soldiers, Ralph and Alfred, who were rival suitors for her hand. As both prisoners denied their guilt, and even torture failed to exact a confession from either, Prince Frederick William, the Kaiser’s ancestor, decided to cut the Gordian knot with the dice-box. The two soldiers should throw for their lives, the loser to be executed as the murderer. The event was celebrated with great pomp and solemnity, and the Prince himself assisted at this appeal to divine intervention, as it was considered by everybody, including the accused themselves.

Ralph was given the first throw, and he threw sixes, the highest number, and no doubt felt jubilant. The dice-box was then given to Alfred, who fell on his knees and prayed aloud: “Almighty God, thou knowest I am innocent. Protect me, I beseech thee!” Rising to his feet, he threw the dice with such force that one of them broke in two. The unbroken one showed six, the broken one also showed six on the larger portion, and the bit that had been split off showed one, giving a total of thirteen, or one more than the throw of Ralph. The whole audience thrilled with astonishment, while the Prince exclaimed, “God has spoken!” Ralph, regarding the miracle as a sign from heaven, confest his guilt, and was sentenced to death. (Text.)

Shortly after Robert Louis Stevenson published his curious psychological story of transformation, a friend of mine, called Mr. Hyde, was in the north of London, and being anxious to get to a railway station, he took what he thought was a short cut, lost his way and found himself in a network of mean, evil-looking streets. Feeling rather nervous he was walking extremely fast, when suddenly out of an archway ran a child right between his legs. The child fell on the pavement, he tript over it, and trampled upon it. Being, of course, very much frightened and not a little hurt, it began to scream, and in a few seconds the whole street was full of rough people who kept pouring out of the houses like ants. They surrounded him and asked him his name. He was just about to give it, when he suddenly remembered the opening incident of Mr. Stevenson’s story. He was so filled with horror at having realized in his own person that terrible scene, and at having done accidentally what the Mr. Hyde of fiction had done with deliberate intent, that he ran away as fast as he could go. He was, however, very closely followed, and he finally took refuge in a surgery, the door of which happened to be open, where he explained to a young man, apparently an assistant, who happened to be there, exactly what had occurred. The crowd was induced to go away on his giving them a small sum of money, and as soon as the coast was clear he left. As he passed out, the name on the brass door-plate of the surgery caught his eye. It was “Mr. Jekyll.”—Nineteenth Century.

A certain King of Scythia, wishing to make an enumeration of the inhabitants of his realm, required every man in his dominions to send him an arrow-head. The vast collection was officially counted, and then laid together in a sort of monumental pile. This primitive mode of census-taking[115] suggested to Darius the idea of his cairn in his march through Thrace. Fixing upon a suitable spot near his camp, he commanded every soldier to bring a stone and place it on the pile. Of course, a vast mound arose commemorating the march and denoting, also, the countless number of soldiers that formed the expedition.

Uncle Joe Cannon was in fine form to-day when he received twenty-five young men, representing the Intercollegiate League, now in session here. Uncle Joe complimented his callers on their advantages, but he told them that knowledge gained in college was of little value unless it was crossed by experience and courage.

Years ago, the Speaker said that he received a degree in a law college in Indiana. He started to Chicago to make his fortune, accompanied by his diploma and $6. He was put off the train in central Illinois when his money gave out and that was why he wound up at Danville, instead of Chicago.

Uncle Joe said that he hung up his diploma in his little law office and waited for clients. For six months he had little to do aside from looking at the diploma and twirling his thumbs. Finally, one day, in a fit of rage, he pulled down the diploma and destroyed it.

“The diploma in itself was of no use to me,” said Uncle Joe. “I kept my courage, however, and by and by began to make my way in the world.”

I have examined the educational record of the seventy foremost men in American politics—cabinet officers, senators, congressmen, and governors of national reputation—and I find that thirty-seven of them are college graduates, that five more had a part of the college course but did not graduate, while only twenty-eight did not go to college at all. As not more than one young man in five hundred goes to college, and as this one five-hundredth of the young men furnish four-sevenths of our distinguished public officers, it appears that a collegian has seven hundred and fifty times as many chances of being an eminent governor or congressman as other young men.

Men who never move, never run against anything; and when a man is thoroughly dead and utterly buried nothing ever runs against him. To be run against is a proof of existence and position; to run against something is a proof of motion.—Christian Standard.

The great cause of error is imperfect vision. One says, “It looks so to me,” and therefore he concludes that it is so. He acts as if it were so. And, if he is mistaken, it may be a fatal mistake. The color-blind engineer saw the red light, but it looked green to him. He thought it was a safety signal when it was a danger signal. He went on and wrecked the train. Was he to blame? Yes, for if he could not distinguish between red and green he had no business to run a locomotive. Like him is the man who, with his prismatic eye, sees certain dogmas in the Book which God has written. He has persuaded himself that this danger signal is not red, but green. He insists that it looks so to him. Is it so, therefore, and is he safe? When we hear men talk, as we often do, about how it looks to them, and what seems reasonable to them, we can not help thinking of that color-blind engineer who wrecked his train.

But what can we do with these “evil” prismatic eyes of ours? We can not change them into clear and perfect lenses by a wish, or by one earnest effort. It takes an optician a long time to shape and polish a lens. And we must be willing to work patiently and hard to undo the wrong we have done. If there is any suspicion in our hearts that our eyes are “evil,” we must not rest a moment. We must test the matter at once by a close and prayerful study of the truth.—The Interior.

Colors are emblematic; and in the middle ages were always used by the illuminators and church artists with regard to their significance. Red, blue and yellow, or gold, the primary colors; red, signifying divine love; blue, truth and constancy; gold, divine glory; when united, are supposed to be good emblems of the Holy Trinity. White, signifying light, purity, perfect righteousness, is to be used by the Church from Christmas eve to the octave of the Epiphany, symbolizing the purity of the Infant Savior; but it is not to be used on St. Stephen’s day, Holy Innocents, or Conversion of St. Paul. White, in an illuminated text, may be represented by silver. It is also the color for Maundy Thursday, Trinity Sunday, baptism, confirmation and marriage. Violet is the ecclesiastical color for mourning; it signifies passion, suffering and humility; therefore, martyrs are sometimes clothed in it. It belongs to advent, Holy Innocents (unless that feast falls on Sunday), Septuagesima to Easter eve, Rogation days, and Ember weeks. Red, the symbol of divine love and illumination (as flame) belongs to Pentecost; and as the emblem of blood shed for the Feast of the Martyrs on Whitsuntide. Blue signifies truth and constancy; when sprinkled with gold stars it signifies heaven. It is not an ecclesiastical color, but (as symbolical of heaven or truth) forms a beautiful and significant ground for a text. Green, the emblem of eternal spring, hope, immortality and conquest, is used on all Sundays. Gold or yellow signifies glory, the goodness of God, faith; it should be used on texts only for the divine name. Dingy yellow signifies deceit. Black is used only on Good Friday. It is symbolical of death and extreme grief. It is used also at funerals, frequently combined with white. Purple signifies royalty, love, passion and suffering. It is the color often worn by martyrs as well as by kings. After His resurrection Christ is sometimes represented in a purple mantle, as the symbol of His kingly power. Violet and blue are the colors of penitence, signifying sorrow and constancy. Gray signifies mourning, humility, and innocence unjustly accused.—The Decorator and Furnisher.

The classic world had clearly begun, as savages have begun everywhere, with an almost exclusive delight in red, even an almost exclusive attention to it, and for Homer, as for the Arabs, the rainbow was predominantly red; yellow had next been added to the attractive colors; very slowly the other colors of the spectrum began to win attention. Thus Democritus substituted green for yellow in the list of primary colors previously given by Empedocles. It was at a comparatively late period that blue and violet became interesting or even acquired definite names. The invasion of Christianity happened in time to join in this movement along the spectrum.

Yellow became the color of jealousy, of envy, of treachery. Judas was painted in yellow garments, and in some countries Jews were compelled to be so drest. In France, in the sixteenth century, the doors of traitors and felons were daubed with yellow. In Spain, heretics who recanted were enjoined to wear a yellow cross as a penance, and the Inquisition required them to appear at public autos da fé in penitential garments and carrying a yellow candle.

Mr. John Clerk, an eminent Scotch counsel, was arguing at the bar of the House of Lords in a Scotch appeal, and turning his periods in the broadest Scotch, and after clinching a point, added, “That’s the whole thing in plain English, ma lorrdds.” Upon which Lord Eldon replied: “You mean in plain Scotch, Mr. Clerk.” The advocate readily retorted, “Nae maitter! in plain common sense, ma lords, and that’s the same in a’ languages, we ken weel eneuch.” (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

A rich nobleman was once showing a friend a great collection of precious stones whose value was almost beyond counting. There were diamonds and pearls and rubies, and gems from almost every country, and had been gathered by their possessor at the greatest labor and expense. “And yet,” he remarked, “they yield me no income.” His friend replied that he had two stones which had only cost him five pounds each, but which yielded him a very considerable annual income, and he led him down to the mill and pointed to two toiling gray millstones.

In 1798 the entire business of the Post-office Department was conducted by the Postmaster-General, one assistant, and one clerk. In 1833 it required forty-eight hours to convey news from Washington to Philadelphia. In 1834 New York Saturday papers were not received in Washington until the following Tuesday afternoon. In 1835 the mails were carried between Philadelphia and Pittsburg daily in four-horse coaches, two lines daily, one to go through in a little more than two days, the other in three and a half days. In 1833 a contractor named Reeside carried the mail between Philadelphia and New York, ninety miles, in six hours, making fifteen miles an hour. The railroad, as a factor in the mail service, did not have a beginning before 1835. August 25 of this year the formal opening of the road between Washington and Baltimore took place. Amos Kendall, then Postmaster-General, at first objected to having the mails carried by rail over this road, since it would, as he feared, disarrange connections with existing lines of stages. In October, 1834, a writer in the Boston Atlas says: “We left Philadelphia on the morning of the sixth in a railroad car, and reached Columbia, on the Susquehanna, at dusk—a distance of eighty-two miles.”—John M. Bishop, Magazine of American History.

Many explorers have commented on the speed with which news travels among savage tribes, says Amateur Work. A curious observation as to a possible solution of the problem of their methods has been made by the Rev. A. Rideout, who, as a missionary among the Basutos, has noticed their method of sending messages from village to village by means of a signal-drum or gourd. This gourd, covered with the dried and stretched skin of a kid, gives out a sound which travels and can be heard at distances from five to eight miles. The transmission and reception of messages on these drums is entrusted to special corps of signalers, some one of whom is always on duty, and who beat on the message in what is practically a Morse alphabet. On hearing the message, says Mr. Rideout, the signaler can always tell whether it is for his chief or for some distant village, and delivers it verbally or sends it on accordingly, and it is thus carried on with surprizing rapidity from one village to another, till it reaches its destination. All that took place in the Boer War, victories and reverses in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, were known to us by gourd-line message hours before the news ever reached us by field telegraph. The natives guarded the secret of their code carefully. To my knowledge, messages have been sent a thousand miles by means of it. This is probably one of the earliest forms of wireless telegraphy.

Having discovered that we are immersed in the ether, and that it responds instantly, and to untold distances to electric vibrations, the daring inventor said, if I can set the[118] ether ajar with a certain kind of vibration by shooting up into it strong electric impulses, then I can plant yonder in the distance another instrument keyed to that particular kind of vibration, and it will pick out its own from the ether, quivering, as it is, with an infinite number of vibrations. Just as when you run the scale of the piano in a room, each object responds to its own note. When you touch D a certain lampshade will shiver in answer. That is its note. It knows its own vibration, and is silent to all others.

This, then, is what is transpiring now among men. A code of signals being arranged, one here sends up his request or prayer into the heavens, speaks into space. The whole hemisphere of ether is set quivering. Another yonder, a thousand miles distant, picks out of space the syllables of that prayer, one by one, and then throws back through space the answer. Nothing so marvelous as this, so near spiritual conditions, has ever before entered the heart of man. It is not surprizing that the air is full of prophecies, dreams and visions. One says we will yet be able to carry in a pocket, like watches, little vibrators, so that we can communicate with our distant friends without wires or towers, or skilled operators, as readily as we take out our watch and tell the hour of the day. Others, in this prophetic madness, say we may yet learn the vibration of the planets, and fling off into space our “All hail” to Mars and Venus.—James H. Ecob.

A board knocked from a dividing fence sometimes leads to pleasant associations, but they are possible with the boards all on. We can look over or through. And souls can thus, even without effort, live together while the bodies are kept apart. Fences, high and barbed, can not separate kindred spirits.—United Presbyterian.

A farmer’s corn was destroyed by the cranes that fed in his field. Greatly annoyed, he declared that he would find a way out of the trouble. A net was set in which the cranes were snared. There was also a beautiful stork among them who had been visiting with the cranes, and had come to them from a neighboring roof.

“Spare me,” plead the stork. “I am innocent; indeed I am. I never touched any of your belongings.”

“That may be true,” answered the farmer; “but I find you among them and I judge you accordingly.”

The only safe way is to keep out of bad company.

He was an ugly little brute, squat and humpbacked, with sand sticking to his thinly haired body. But he was fierce-looking for all his diminutiveness. Remember again that whether a thing is big or little to you depends on whether you are big or little. This dragon of the sand-pit was little to us. He is terribly big to the ants.—“Insect Stories.”

The Chinese call overdoing a thing, a hunchback making a bow. When a man values himself overmuch, they compare him to a rat falling into a scale and weighing itself.—Chambers’s Journal.

Judge Noah Davis, when asked by a company of American brother lawyers as to the comparative advantages of different periods of life, replied, with his usual calm simplicity of manner, as follows:

“In the warm season of the year it is my delight to be in the country; and every pleasant evening while I am there I love to sit at the window and look upon some beautiful trees which grow near my house. The murmuring of the wind through the branches, the gentle play of the leaves, and the flickering of light upon them when the moon is up, fill me with an indescribable pleasure. As the autumn comes on, I feel very sad to see these leaves falling one by one; but when they are all gone, I find that they were only a screen before my eyes;[119] for I experience a new and higher satisfaction as I gaze through the naked branches at the glorious stars beyond.” (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

Mongolian wolves are not so dangerous as Siberian ones. The reason is that, unlike the Russians, the Mongols keep such poor sheepfolds that a wolf can help itself to a sheep whenever it likes, and so is seldom driven by hunger to attack a man.—John C. Lambert, “Missionary Heroes in Asia.”

A pioneer farmer found after a storm that the lightning had cracked the wall of his cistern and his water-supply had leaked away, but a gurgling sound showed that the same stroke had split a rock and opened a hidden spring of living water.—Franklin Noble, “Sermons in Illustration.”

The one man who escaped the terrible eruption of Mt. Pelée was a prisoner who was in the jail at the time of the volcanic disturbance. He never imagined anything had happened until he missed receiving his meals and the visit of his guard. Then, escaping from the prison, he found himself in a city where thousands lay dead. God shelters his children behind many a strange rock. A prisoner—and yet saved! (Text.)

The difficulties which beset personal and family life are rich in compensation. We often speak of “keeping the wolf from the door,” and the majority find this a hard fight. What trouble the threatening animal gives us! If in the morning we are disposed for a little extra slumber, the ominous howl startles us from the pillow; if we are tempted to linger at the table, its fierce breathings at the threshold summon us straightway to duty; if we doze in the armchair, the gleaming eyes, the white teeth, the red throat at the window-pane, bring us to our feet. And yet how much the best of men, the most truly aristocratic families, owe to the wolf! Solicitude, fatigue, difficulty, danger, hunger, these are the true king-makers; and the misfortune with many rich families to-day is, that they are being gradually let down because they are losing sight of the wolf. The wolf not merely suckled Romulus; it suckles all kings of men. The wolf is not a wolf at all; it is an angel in wolves’ clothing, saving us from rust, sloth, effeminacy, cowardice, baseness, from a miserable superficiality of thought, life, and character.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

The tufts of feathers which distinguish the short-eared and long-eared owls, and are developed still more imposingly in the great eagle owl of northern Europe, are, of course, no more ears than they are horns; but the true ears of the owls are most remarkable organs. The facial disk of feathers, which gives them their most characteristic appearance, serves as a kind of sounding-board or ear-trumpet to concentrate the slightest sounds and transmit them to the orifice of the true ear, which is concealed in the small feathers behind the eye. Even in the barn-owl, which possesses the least complicated arrangement of this kind, the orifice of the ear is covered by a remarkable flap of skin; while in the other species there are striking differences in the size and shape of this orifice and its covering flap on the two sides of the head. The exact way in which owls utilize this elaborately specialized apparatus has still to be discovered; but it is a natural inference that two ears of widely different structure must give the owls which possess them a power of localizing sound which is of the greatest use to them when hunting small creatures in the dark. It is, therefore, all the more surprizing that the barn-owl’s ears have not this difference of structure, altho the power of instantly locating the rustle of the running mouse must be almost indispensable. For catching small birds, which are the especial prey of the wood-owl, keenness of sight rather than of hearing must be necessary, since they are chiefly caught when at roost; and the large nocturnal eye is developed in most of the owls almost as remarkably as the ear. In the short-eared owl, which is a day-flying species, the eye is correspondingly reduced. It has also a far less conspicuous facial disk; and this might also seem to be naturally explained as a result of its diurnal habits, with the consequent reduction of the need for acute hearing, if it were not for the marked difference in the structure of its two ears, which is even greater than in the case of the wood-owl. In the study of such complex problems, we are soon forced to realize how inadequate is even the most helpful and fascinating of single clues. The equilibrium of nature is no simple thing, like the balance of a pair of scales; it more resembles the complicated equipoise of an aeroplane among air-currents playing in three dimensions.—London Times.

Few have equalled Sir Joshua Reynolds in skill and graciousness of compliment. When he painted the portrait of Mrs. Siddons as the “Tragic Muse,” he wrought his name on the border of her robe, with the remark, “I can not lose this opportunity of sending my name to posterity on the hem of your garment.”

During a visit once with Queen Victoria, who had sent for him to her palace, the poet Longfellow was seating himself in a waiting coach at the close of the royal interview, when a working man, hat in hand, approached, and asked:

“Please, sir, yer honor, an’ are you Mr. Longfellow?” Said the poet, “I am Mr. Longfellow.” “An’ did you write ‘The Psalm of Life?’” continued the questioner. “I wrote the ‘Psalm of Life,’” was the answer. “An’ yer honor, would you be willing to take a working man by the hand?”

Instantly Mr. Longfellow responded with a warm hand grip. In telling the story later the poet said, “I never in my life received a compliment that gave me greater satisfaction.”

I recollect once standing in front of a bit of marble carved by Powers, a Vermonter, who had a matchless, instinctive love of art and perception of beauty. I said to an Italian standing with me, “Well, now, that seems to me to be perfection.” The answer was, “To be perfection”—shrugging his shoulders—“why, sir, that reminds you of Phidias!” as if to remind you of that Greek was a greater compliment than to be perfection.—Wendell Phillips.

The first time I ever stood in the pulpit to preach was in the meeting-house of the ancient Connecticut town where I was brought up. That was a great day for our folks and all my old neighbors, you may depend. After benediction, when I passed out into the vestibule, I was the recipient there of many congratulatory expressions. Among my friends in the crowd was an aged deacon, a man in whom survived, to a rather remarkable degree, the original New England Puritan type, who had known me from the cradle, and to whom the elevation I had reached was as gratifying as it could possibly[121] be to anybody. But when he saw the smile of favor focused on me there, and me, I dare say, appearing to bask somewhat in it, the dear old man took alarm. He was apprehensive of the consequences to that youngster. And so, taking me by the hand and wrestling down his natural feelings—he was ready to cry for joy—he said: “Well, Joseph, I hope you’ll live to preach a great deal better than that!”—Joseph H. Twitchell.

“What are these boys studying Latin for?” said an English visitor at a manual-training school as he looked in upon a class reading Cæsar.

“What did you study Latin for?” was my illogical but American response. “Why, I am a bachelor of arts?” was his prompt reply, with the air of one who had given a conclusive answer. “Perhaps these boys will be bachelors of arts by and by,” I added cheerfully. “Then, what in the world are they in a manual-training school for?” he exclaimed, with almost a sneer at my evident lack of acquaintance with the etiquette of educational values. I tried to explain my theory of an all-round education—and my practise of “putting the whole boy to school”—but he would not be convinced. He could not see the propriety of mixing utility and tool dexterity with culture—Calvin M. Woodward, Science.

All orbits, including the orbits of comets, are the result of compromises in gravities. Now you have got to get over the idea that because one body attracts another strongly it is likely to draw it smack into it. It doesn’t. I made an apparatus in my laboratory the other day to show my students about that.

I fixt up a little gun capable of shooting a steel ball quite a distance up an inclined plate of glass. The ball shot upward and then rolled directly back into the muzzle of the gun time after time. That was to show what a comet would do if just merely shot out into space to be uninfluenced by any other heavenly bodies after it got a start.

Then I put a powerful electric magnet under the plate of glass, quite a little distance away from the track of my steel ball. This time when it was shot upward instead of keeping on its straight path or swerving directly into the magnet, as some of my students expected it to do, it shot on past, curving its course toward the magnet, and then finally it swung around the magnet in very much the way the comet is swinging around the sun. On its return course it swung off in a new direction altogether. My students were quite delighted with the oval course taken by the steel ball. It was just such a course as they had seen mapped out for Halley’s visitor.—H. Jacoby, New York Times.

When Lord Hardwicke’s marriage bill was in the House of Commons, Fox, afterward Lord Holland, saying that one clause gave unheard-of power to parents on the marriage of minors, proceeded to lay open the chicanery and jargon of the lawyers, and the pride of their mufti, and drew a most severe picture of the Chancellor under the application of the story of a gentlewoman at Salisbury, who, having a sore leg, sent for a country surgeon, who pronounced that it must be cut off. The gentlewoman, unwilling to submit to the operation, sent for another more merciful, who said he could save her leg without the least operation. The surgeons conferred. The ignorant one said: “I know it might be saved, but I have given my opinion; my character depends upon it, and we must carry it through.” The leg was cut off. (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

It has been told of a modern astronomer that one summer night, when he was withdrawing to his chamber, the brightness showed a phenomenon. He passed the whole night in observing it, and when they came to him early in the morning and found him in the same attitude, he said, like one who[122] has been collecting his thoughts for a few moments:

“It must be thus; but I will go to bed before it is too late.” He had gazed the entire night and was not aware of it.

Crazy people never act together, says the superintendent of a large asylum for the insane, quoted in The Medical Times. “If one inmate attacks an attendant, as sometimes happens, the others would look upon it as no affair of theirs and simply watch it out. The moment we discovered two or more inmates working together we would know they were on the road to recovery.” It is on this account that there are so few concerted mutinies in insane asylums; so that the number of attendants does not have to be large.

“Vessels fitted unto destruction”—how many may be unconsciously so marked by their Maker! A vessel is condemned as unseaworthy; her sails are sold, her spars and rigging, and when all that can be moved is gone, the dismantled hulk is moored in some coaling station. There, black from stem to stern, with a great white number painted on her side, she floats until her timbers rot to pieces—

A learned counsel (Mr. Brougham, as some say), when the judges had retired for a few minutes in the midst of his argument, in which, from their interruptions and objections, he did not seem likely to be successful, went out of court, too, and on his return stated he had been drinking a pot of porter. Being asked whether he was not afraid that this beverage might dull his intellect, he replied: “That is just what I want it to do, to bring me down, if possible, to the level of their lordships’ understanding. (Text.)—James Croake, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

During the last years of his life a brain disease, of which he had shown frequent symptoms, fastened its terrible hold upon Swift, and he became by turns an idiot and a madman. He died in 1745, and when his will was opened it was found that he had left all his property to found St. Patrick’s asylum for lunatics and incurables. It stands to-day as the most suggestive monument of his peculiar genius.—William J. Long, “English Literature.”

First, What has the author attempted to do? Second, Is it worth doing? And, third, Has he done it well?

A notary public was convicted of forgery and sentenced to be hanged; and being asked if he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed, remarked that it was very hard that he should be hanged just for one line, considering the thousands of harmless sheets he had written in the course of his life. (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

One of the duties of the writer during the first days of his clerkship was to “lock up.” One morning in the very first week of his employment he found the door unlocked and a policeman standing guard. Had he forgotten[123] to lock that door? A hasty survey revealed that nothing had been taken away, and the policeman was dismissed. Should he confess the delinquency? It was almost sure dismissal. But he resolved to make a clean breast of it, and when his employer came in later he told all the circumstances, and bravely admitted that he must have failed to lock the door. While making this confession, the policeman walked in, to report finding the door unlocked. But his report had been forestalled, and, with an injunction to be more careful in future, the matter was dismissed. The confession forestalling that report was all that saved dismissal. But that confession won the confidence of his employer, and won a higher trust and esteem than existed before. This is one of the first lessons to learn. Confess instantly a fault, a loss, a mistake, and it is half retrieved.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”

Among the hard-working Labrador fishermen was a rich man who had opprest them, but whom they believed to be strong enough to defy them. Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, the medical missionary, who is also a magistrate, went to the offender and told him that he must confess his sin and pay back to the fishermen a thousand dollars. He curst the missionary. At the next church service, the doctor announced that a sinful man would confess his sin that night. They couldn’t believe that the rich sinner would yield. At the evening service, Dr. Grenfell asked them to keep their seats while he went after the sinner. He found the man at a brother’s house on his knees in prayer, with all the family.

“Prayer,” said the doctor, “is a good thing in its place, but it doesn’t ‘go’ here. Come with me.”

He meekly went, and was led up the aisle, where all could see him, and, after the doctor had described the great sin of which he was guilty, he asked, “Did you do this thing?” “I did.” “You are an evil man of whom the people should beware?” “I am.” “You deserve the punishment of man and God?” “I do.”

At the end of it all the doctor told the man that the good God would forgive him if he should ask in true faith and repentance, but that the people, being human, could not. For a whole year, he charged the people, they must not speak to that man; but if, at the end of that time, he had shown an honest disposition to mend his ways, they might take him to their hearts.

The man finally paid the money and fled the place.

Two men named Boven were convicted in a Vermont court, mainly upon their own confession, of the murder of a half-witted dependent brother-in-law. They even said that certain bones found were those of the supposed victim. But the brother-in-law was found alive and well in New Jersey, and returned in time to prevent the execution. He had fled for fear they would kill him. The bones were those of some animal. They (the Bovens) had been advised by some misjudging friends that, as they would certainly be convicted upon the circumstances proved, their only chance for life was by commutation of punishment, and this depended upon their making a penitential confession. These and many similar cases have satisfied English and American lawyers that confessions alone are unreliable as evidences of guilt. When it is known that one accused, especially one charged with a capital offense, intends to make a confession, it is the practise in our courts to delay the trial in order to give him ample time to decide whether or no he will pursue that course.—Boston Globe.

A sergeant was accused, once upon a time, by his brethren of the court, of having degraded their order by taking from a client a fee in copper, and on being solemnly arraigned for this offense in their common hall, it appears from the unwritten reports of the Court of Common Pleas, that he defended himself by the following plea of confession and avoidance: “I fully admit that I took a fee from the man in copper, and not one, but several, and not only in copper, but fees in silver; but I pledge my honor as a sergeant, that I never took a single fee from him in silver until I had got all his gold, and that I never took a fee from him in copper until I had got all his silver, and you don’t call that a degradation of our order!” (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

A prominent Christian who had bought some property for the mission confest that he had only paid eighty yen for the property, but had charged the mission five hundred yen. He sold his land so as to make restitution.

Another confest that he was proud and censorious, but this did not relieve him. A few days later he confest that he had stolen three dollars and a lamp. Still he failed to get peace. After a few more days of agony, he confest that during the war while he acted as manager of transport he had cheated the Japanese and Koreans out of two hundred yen. He made restitution and received blessing.

The leader of a robber band with some of his followers was converted in the great spiritual movement. He confest his sin, then went to the magistrate and delivered himself up. The official was so astounded that he said: “We have no such law that we can condemn a man without an accuser. You may have your liberty.” Here the Spirit of God was more effective than police and detective force. They needed not either to spend a term in the reformatory, for they were made new men in Christ Jesus.

A traveler, following his guide amid the Alpine heights, reached a place where the path was narrowed by a jutting rock on one side and a terrible precipice on the other. The guide passed over, and holding on to the rock with one hand, extended the other over the precipice for the traveler to step upon it and so pass around the jutting rock. He hesitated, but the guide said, “That hand has never lost a man.” He stept on the hand and passed over safely.

The medical missionary among the Afghans, Dr. T. L. Pennell, on one of his journeys came to a village across the border late at night. Many outlaws infested the village, but the chief to whose care he had entrusted himself took the precaution of putting his bed in the center of six of his men, fully armed, each of whom was to keep guard in turn. Dr. Pennell being very tired after a hard day’s work, soon fell sound asleep. This proved to be his safety. Some of the fanatical spirits wanted to kill him in sheer wantonness, but the others said, pointing to his prostrate form peacefully sleeping, “See, he has trusted himself entirely to our protection, and because he trusts us he is sleeping so soundly; therefore no harm must be done to him in our village.” His confidence disarmed their deadly impulse. (Text.)

Two men were once standing by a building on which a little boy had climbed who was afraid to get down. Looking up at him, one man opened his arms and, with a kind voice, said: “Jump, my little fellow, and I will catch you.” But the boy shrank back and would not jump. Then the other man opened his arms and said: “Come, my boy, jump, and I will catch you.” Instantly the little face cleared, a smile chased away the tears, and with a rush he jumped and was safely caught in the outstretched arms. Why was the boy afraid of one man and willing to trust the other? Because the first man was a stranger and the second man was his father. He knew his father would not let him fall.

“Well, General, I suppose you have left us enough men to garrison the forts strongly?”

“No, I can’t do that,” was the General’s quiet reply.

“Why not? Why not?” repeated the nervous Secretary.

“Because I have already sent the men to the front, where they are needed more than in Washington.”

“That won’t do,” said Stanton. “It’s contrary to my plans. I will order the men back.”

[125]

Grant maintained a quiet determination, and replied:

“I shall need the men there, and you can not order them back.”

“Why not? Why not?” cried the Secretary.

“I believe I rank the Secretary of War in this matter,” remarked Grant.

“Very well, we will see the President,” sharply responded the Secretary.

“That’s right; he ranks us both.”

Going to the President, Secretary Stanton, turning to Grant, said:

“General, state your case.”

But the General calmly replied:

“I have no case to state. I am satisfied as it is.”

When Stanton had given his view of the matter, Lincoln crossed his legs, leaned back in his chair, and like the wise philosopher that he was, said:

“Now, Mr. Secretary, you know we have been trying to manage this army for nearly three years, and you know we haven’t done much with it. We sent over the mountains and brought Mr. Grant, as Mrs. Grant calls him, to manage it for us, and now I guess we’d better let Mr. Grant have his own way.”

The winter of 1863 was a trying time for General Grant. It was a winter of floods in the South, and a winter of discontent among the people of the North. He could not move his army, and many began the old cry after Donelson, “idle, incompetent, and unfit to command in an emergency,” and again arose a clamor for his removal. It was a season of false alarm and sensational rumors.

But there were two men in the land from whence came words of cheer. One was listening quietly in a store in Cincinnati to a great deal of rambling and grumbling talk about the way General Grant was trying to take Vicksburg. When all others present had given vent to their feelings, this man said in a moderate tone: “I think he’ll take it. Yes, I know he’ll take it. ’Lis’ always did what he set out to do. ’Lis’ is my boy, and he won’t fail.”

The other man who believed in General Grant was in the White House. He was too good to be unkind, and too wise and prudent to err. While men of large political influence were urging General Grant’s removal for the good of the country, the philosopher at the White House said: “I rather like the man; I think we’ll try him a little longer.” By these thirteen words the fate of Vicksburg was sealed.—Col. Nicholas Smith, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”

When Alexander once was about to engage in battle with Darius, having completed his arrangements, he lay down to sleep. Next morning Tarmenio exprest surprize that he could sleep so soundly when such vast issues were impending. “You seem as calm,” said he, “as if you had had the battle and gained the victory.” “I have done so,” replied Alexander, “for I consider the whole work done when we have gained access to Darius and his forces, and find him ready to give us battle.” (Text.)

If a man can invest his hundreds of thousands of dollars on the ocean or in distant countries, where men can not understand the documents we write, it shows that there is trust between man and man, buyers and sellers; and if there is trust between them it is because experience has created the probabilities of truthfulness in the actions of men and all the concordant circumstances. If men did not believe in the truth of men, they never would send to China, Japan or Mexico their great properties and interests, with no other guarantee than that the men are trustworthy. The shipmaster must be trustworthy, the officers of the government must be trustworthy, and that business goes on and increases the world over is a silent testimony that, bad as men do lie, they do not lie bad enough to separate man from man.—Henry Ward Beecher.

I went to a bank president whom I knew, and who knew me. I remember perfectly how anxious I was to get that loan and to establish myself favorably with the banker. This gentleman was T. P. Handy, a sweet and gentle old man, well known as a highgrade, beautiful character. For fifty years he was interested in young men. He knew me as a boy in the Cleveland schools. I gave him all the particulars of our business, telling[126] him frankly about our affairs—what we wanted to use the money for, etc., etc. I waited for the verdict with almost trembling eagerness.

“How much do you want?” he said.

“Two thousand dollars.”

“All right, Mr. Rockefeller, you can have it,” he replied. “Just give me your own warehouse receipts; they’re good enough for me.”

As I left that bank, my elation can hardly be imagined. I held up my head—think of it, a bank had trusted me for $2,000! I felt that I was now a man of importance in the community.

Admiral Dupont was once explaining to Farragut the reason why he failed to enter Charlestown harbor with his fleet of iron-clads. He gave this reason and that reason and the other reason; and Farragut remained silent until he had got through, and then said, “Ah, Dupont, there was one more reason.” “What is that?” “You didn’t believe you could do it.”

Upon the side of the great entrance-hall of the Royal Museum in Berlin is painted a colossal picture of Kaulbach’s. It represents the last battle between the Romans and the Huns, which decided the fate of European civilization. The spirits of the slain, fierce and restless as before, rise from their bodies and continue the battle in the air. In the shadowy combat the forces are led by Attila, “the scourge of God,” borne aloft upon a shield, and by Theodoric, the Roman chief, with sword in hand and the cross behind.

Wherever all the world around is remarkably uniform in color and appearance, all the animals, birds, and insects alike necessarily disguise themselves in its prevailing tint to escape observation. It does not matter in the least whether they are predatory or defenseless, the hunters or the hunted; if they are to escape destruction or starvation, as the case may be, they must assume the hue of all the rest of nature about them. In the arctic snows, for example, all animals, without exception, must needs be snow-white. The polar bear, if he were brown or black, would immediately be observed among the unvaried ice-fields by his expected prey, and could never get a chance of approaching his quarry unperceived at close quarters. On the other hand, the arctic hare must equally be drest in a snow-white coat, or the arctic fox would too readily discover him and pounce down upon him off-hand; while conversely, the fox himself, if red or brown, could never creep upon the unwary hare without previous detection, which would defeat his purpose. For this reason, the ptarmigan and the willow-grouse become as white in winter as the vast snow-fields under which they burrow; the ermine changes his dusky summer coat for the expensive wintry suit beloved of British Themis; the snow-bunting acquires his milk-white plumage; and even the weasel assimilates himself more or less in hue to the unvarying garb of arctic nature. To be out of the fashion is there quite literally to be out of the world; no half measures will suit the stern decree of polar biology; strict compliance with the law of winter change is absolutely necessary to success in the struggle for existence. (Text.)—Cornhill Magazine.

You can get no water from your old pump. When you try you get only a painful wheezing.[127] Pumps are not living things, but they, too, suffer exhaustion. Must you give it up, and dig a new well? Oh, no. The well is all right, and has given abundant and sweet water for a generation. You look it over, and find that the old leather valve is dry and worn out. Pour in a pitcher of water to wet it, and the wheezing is cured. Put in a new valve and the old pump is good for years to come. God’s supply of living water is abundant as ever. It is only your connection with it that failed.—Franklin Noble, “Sermons in Illustration.”

These vehement elements, of air and water, demand to be wrestled with and patiently mastered, by the vigorous soul, in order that they may administer to our happiness. There is the wax. In the soul is the seal, designed to impress it. There are the materials, upon which and with which the spirit is to operate. But no implements, even, are given it for its use. It must forge them, as it wants them. They are not found ready fashioned to the hand, as ornamental stones are, in the caverns and rock-rifts. They must be conceived by our skill, and completed by our labor. But the moment we begin, all is ready for our progress.—Richard S. Storrs.

The pole at last! The prize of three centuries, my dream and goal for twenty years, mine at last! I can not bring myself to realize it.

It all seems so simple and commonplace. As Bartlett said when turning back, when speaking of his being in these exclusive regions which no mortal had ever penetrated before:

“It is just like every day!”

Death Valley is the most barren part of the Great American Desert. More men have died in its arid wastes than on any other equal area of the world’s surface, barring the great battle-fields. It lies, a great sink in the sandy plain, about 250 miles north and east of Los Angeles, Cal., and within the boundaries of that State. The valley received its sinister name owing to the fact that in the early fifties a party of emigrants, some hundred and twenty in number, traveling overland by wagon from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Los Angeles, perished in its awful solitudes, barely a man escaping.

In the Wide World Magazine is given the story of a man who, alone and unaided, conquered Death Valley in the hottest month of the desert year. The tale of awful suffering endured by this man, H. W. Manton, of Rhyolite, Cal., is told for the first time in his own words.

For almost a week Manton was lost in the heart of Death Valley. In three days he tramped eighty miles over sands so hot that he could scarcely walk on them, tho shod with heavy shoes. During those never-ending days he had no food, and but one drink of water.

When he staggered up to Cub Lee’s Furnace Creek ranch, more dead than alive, his tongue was swollen to such a size that his mouth could no longer contain it. His lips and eyelids were cracked open; his clothing was in tatters, and his shoes were coated with a heavy incrustation of borax and other alkalines, which had eaten great holes in the leather.

At first he could not drink, and the touch of water was as fire to his parched lips and tongue. Kind-hearted ranchmen and miners forced the precious fluid into his mouth with a straw, with a spoon—any way to get him revived. And eventually he spoke, telling the strange story of his crossing the dread pit; of how he had wandered therein for many days, with no companions save the lizards and the snakes of the barren sands.—Boston Transcript.

There is an ingenious instrument used in testing the condition of railroads whereby every slight deviation in the width or levelness of the track, every defect of the rails, and even the quality of the steel and manufacture are registered.

On one of Landseer’s early visits to Scotland the great painter stopt at a village and took a great deal of notice of the dogs, jotting down rapidly sketches of them on a piece of paper. Next day, on resuming his journey, he was horrified to find dogs suspended from trees in all directions or drowning in the rivers, with stones around their necks. He stopt a weeping urchin, who was hurrying off with a pet pup in his arms, and learned to his dismay that he was supposed to be an excise officer who was taking notes of all the dogs he saw in order to prosecute the owners for unpaid taxes. (Text.)

The religious ferment of the age made a tremendous impression on Bunyan’s sensitive imagination. He went to church occasionally, only to find himself wrapt in terrors and in torments by some fiery itinerant preacher; and he would rush violently away from church to forget his fears by joining in Sunday sports on the village green. As night came on the sports were forgotten, but the terrors returned, multiplied like the evil spirits of the parable. Visions of hell and the demons swarmed in his brain. He would groan aloud in his remorse, and even years afterward he bemoans the sins of his early life. When we look for them fearfully, expecting some shocking crimes and misdemeanors, we find that they consisted of playing ball on Sunday and swearing. The latter sin, sad to say, was begun by listening to his father cursing some obstinate kettle which refused to be tinkered, and it was perfected in the Parliamentary army. One day his terrible swearing scared a woman, “a very loose and ungodly wretch,” as he tells us, who reprimanded him for his profanity. The reproach of the poor woman went straight home, like the voice of a prophet. All his profanity left him; he hung down his head with shame. “I wished with all my heart,” he says, “that I might be a little child again, that my father might learn me to speak without this wicked way of swearing.” With characteristic vehemence Bunyan hurls himself upon a promise of Scripture, and instantly the reformation begins to work in his soul. He casts out the habit, root and branch, and finds to his astonishment that he can speak more freely and vigorously than before. Nothing is more characteristic of the man than this sudden seizing upon the text, which he had doubtless heard many times before, and being suddenly raised up or cast down by its influence.—William J. Long, “English Literature.”

The woodsman carries a box of safety matches protected against the rain and snow. In the arctic zone he knows that if he loses the match and the light he has lost life itself. Man can lose his health but not his conscience. But, if stumbling, the torch has fallen, and the light flamed low, snatch it up, and relight it, at the altars of God. So shall the light in thee wax into greater light, until conscience is a true pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, guiding thee into the summer land where man needs no light of the lamp, neither light of the sun.—N. D. Hillis.

I remember when a boy my mother had a beautiful vase. I was charged not to touch it. My fingers, however, boy-like, itched to touch it. I frequently went around it, and peered behind it. I wondered if there might not be some painting on the bottom of it, as there was on the sides. In lifting ii up, one day, when I had grown bolder, it fell to the hearthstone and broke into a thousand pieces. I knew I had wounded the mother heart in that moment. She heard the crash and came in. I knew that I deserved punishment. But she only said, “My dear boy; do you see what you have done.” It was burned into my memory then what it cost to disobey law, and in all the sixty years that have elapsed since then, when I have looked upon the treasures of others, I have heard her voice saying to me, “Do you see what you have done?”—Bishop D. A. Goodsell.

As the pressure of the outside air varies does it rise and fall, and by a beautifully delicate apparatus this rising and falling is magnified and represented upon the dial. Such barometers are made small enough to be carried in the pocket, and are very useful for measuring the heights of mountains; but they are not quite so accurate as the mercurial barometer, and are therefore not used for rigidly scientific measurements; but for all ordinary purposes they are accurate enough, provided they are occasionally compared with a standard mercurial barometer, and adjusted by means of the watch-key axis provided for that purpose, and seen on the back of the instrument. They are sufficiently delicate to tell the traveler in a railway whether he is ascending or descending an incline, and will indicate the difference of height between the upper and lower rooms of a three-story house. The unseen air in the aneroid is a mark of the rise or fall in altitude of the possessor of the instrument.

One of the most astonishing things in prison life is said to be the deficiency of conscience in criminals. Scenes of heartrending despair are rarely witnessed among them. Their sleep is broken by no uneasy dreams; on the contrary, it is easy and sound: they have also excellent appetites. They have a sense of self-righteousness, and feel, on the whole, that they have been wronged. Recently the newspapers told us of the execution of a grave-digger upon the Continent, who had been convicted of four murders, five robberies, eight cases of incendiarism, and other crimes. When he was informed that he would be hanged early next morning, he said that he deserved his fate, but he assured his judge that worse fellows than he were running about the world.

Mr. Crossley was conscience incarnate. While yet a poor apprentice he had got free admission to a theater through the connivance of a fellow workman who kept the door; but when, as a renewed man, conscience demanded reparation for this sort of robbery, he reckoned up the entrance fee he had evaded, and sent the theater company sixty pounds.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

A quiet, bashful sort of a young fellow was making a call on a Capitol Hill girl one evening not so very long ago, when her father came into the parlor with his watch in his hand. It was about 9:30 o’clock. At the moment the young man was standing on a chair straightening a picture over the piano. The girl had asked him to fix it. As he turned, the old gentleman, a gruff, stout fellow, said:

“Young man, do you know what time it is?”

The bashful youth got off the chair nervously. “Yes, sir,” he replied. “I was just going.”

He went into the hall without any delay and took his hat and coat. The girl’s father followed him. As the caller reached for the doorknob, the old gentleman again asked him if he knew what time it was.

“Yes, sir,” was the youth’s reply. “Good-night!” And he left without waiting to put his coat on.

After the door had closed the old gentleman turned to the girl.

“What’s the matter with that fellow?” he asked. “My watch ran down this afternoon and I wanted him to tell me the time, so that I could set it.”—Denver Post.

It is quite true that the tympanum of the ear vibrates under sound, and that the surface of the water in a ditch vibrates, too; but the ditch hears nothing for all that; and my hearing is still to me as blest a mystery as ever, and the interval between the ditch and me, quite as great. If the trembling sound in my ears was once of the marriage-bell which begun my happiness, and is now of the passing bell which ends it, the difference between those two sounds to me can not be counted by the number of concussions. There have been some curious speculations lately as to the conveyance of mental consciousness by “brain-waves.” What does it matter how it is conveyed? The consciousness itself is not a wave. It may be accompanied here or there by any quantity of quivers and shakes, up or down, of anything you can find in the universe that is shakeable—what is that to me? My friend is dead, and my—according to modern views—vibratory sorrow is not one whit less, or less mysterious, to me, than my old quiet one.

A Chinese preacher, whose wages were twenty-two dollars a month, refused the offer of the post of consul at fifty dollars, that he might be free to preach the gospel to his countrymen. His countrymen said of him: “There is no difference between him and the Book.” (Text.)

Mr. Justice Burroughs, of the Common Pleas, used to resort to the use of proverbs and parables in dealing with the juries. One day at nisi prius, much talk was made about a consequential issue in the case. He began to explain it to the jury thus: “Gentlemen of the jury, you have been told that the first is a consequential issue. Now, perhaps, you do not know what a consequential issue means; but I dare say you understand nine-pins. Well, then, if you deliver your bowl so as to strike the front pin in a particular direction, down go the rest. Just so it is with these counts. Knock down the first, and all the rest will go to the ground; that’s what we call a consequential issue. (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

A little girl in Kansas has recently given the telegraph companies a vast amount of trouble in a peculiar way. Her daily duty was to herd a large drove of cattle on a range through which passed the telegraph lines. For weeks, some hours nearly every day, these lines absolutely failed to work, and the trouble seemed to be in the vicinity of where this girl herded her father’s cattle; but it was a long time before they discovered the cause. Finally, they found out that in order to get a better view of the herd the girl had driven railroad-spikes into a telegraph-pole, and whenever she got weary watching the cattle from the ground she would climb the pole and seat herself on a board across the wires and watch her herd from that lofty station. Whenever the board happened to be damp it destroyed the electric current and cut off all telegraphic communication between Denver and Kansas City. (Text.)—Louis Albert Banks.

Under the iron law of conflict in the “survival of the fittest,” the world finds a shipwrecked[131] brother in its path and removes him without ceremony and covers him with scorn and contempt. Christ reverses this iron law.

Formerly when a war vessel discovered a derelict, the latter was immediately destroyed by dynamite. The government has now entered upon a new policy. Whenever it is possible, the abandoned vessel is towed into the nearest port. Recently two abandoned schooners were brought in, the value of the vessels and their cargo being estimated at more than sixty thousand dollars.

When Jesus finds a human derelict He does not destroy him. He cleanses him and rehabilitates him, and makes him valuable in the kingdom. (Text.)

The idea is prevalent that the red man is doomed to disappear from the earth at no distant day. But the census tables give no such indication. The first official count was taken about seventy years ago, and gave the number as 253,461. In 1880 the figures had risen to 256,127, in 1900 to 272,073, and now (1909), by actual count, the reservations are found to contain 284,000.

A bundle of wood is placed in our kitchen stove to kindle the fire. It is consumed. Its ashes represent what the tree took from the soil. Its carbon goes up the chimney, restoring to the air what some tree took from the air. Nothing was lost. The earth received again what it originally gave. To the air was restored its original contribution of carbonic acid gas, which the leaf manufactured into wood. And so God has made a universe of perennial youth, where nothing is lost nor can be lost.—E. M. McGuffey.

“Such a man dead at 40?” you ask. “Why, to what purpose is this waste?” Well, a man can make a match, but it takes God to make a sun. We know the match must go out, the sun never does, tho his shining face is often hidden from our eye. And so the sun of this man’s genius—of any man’s genius—can never go out. The flame is burning yet—in a few hearts still in the flesh, and in countless glorified spirits before the throne. There is not enough wind, loosed or unloosed, in the vast caverns of the universe to blow out that flame, nor enough blackness in the untenanted halls of space to swallow up its light! Do you tell me that the God who is so strict in the economy of His universe as to refuse a throb of energy to be lost, or an atom to be wiped out of existence, or a few pieces of bread to perish in the desert, will allow that genius, which is the breath of His own being, to be wasted without contributing wealth to the world, to the universe, to God Himself!

A man was in possession of a great farm. The abundant crops finally failed, and other calamities came, and at last the wife of the great landowner lost her reason. Nearly all had been lost, and the farmer was left with only a few feet of ground as his possession. I had not the courage to visit this man in his destitution. After a lapse of time, however, I went to his humble abode, and was amazed to see the little garden in the highest state of cultivation. And I exclaimed: “Why, how is this? How did you have the heart to do this, after you had lost all?”

“Why, what would you have had me do?” was the reply. “This is all I had, and I tried to make the best of it.”

There stands the false conservative, anchored to the past. Whatever is, for him, is right and good. He is constitutionally opposed to change. Wagon-wheels make a rut an inch deep across the prairie, but when this man is thirty he is in a rut up to his eyebrows. When he dies, at seventy, you can truly say, that his image is truth lying at the bottom of a well. He loves his father’s house because it is old; he loves old tools; old laws; old creeds. He stands at his gate, like an angry soldier, waving his hands and shouting warnings to all who approach. He has one injunction for every boy starting out to make his fortune: “Watch your anchor, my son; don’t cast off your moorings”; as if any Columbus, who spent all his time throwing out anchors, could ever have crossed the sea! As if any world voyage[132] could be made by a captain who never dared cast off his moorings! In the Arabian tale, when the sheik was lost in the desert, he took off the bridle, and committed the camel to God and his own instincts, trusting the beast to find its way to the water springs. But if the old sheik had been a false conservative, he would first of all have staked the camel down by a lariat, and then committed himself to God, like these church dignitaries and councils that stake the religious or political thinker down by a lariat, which they then label in a humorous moment, “liberty of thought,” and having made progress impossible, they commit themselves to the care of the God of progress.—N. D. Hillis.

A few days ago I was passing through a pretty, shady street, where some boys were playing at baseball. Among their number was a little lame fellow, seemingly about twelve years old—a pale, sickly-looking child, supported on two crutches, who evidently found much difficulty in walking, even with such assistance.

The lame boy wished to join the game, for he did not seem to see how his infirmity would be in his own way, and how much it would hinder the progress of such an active sport as baseball.

His companions, very good naturedly, tried to persuade him to stand at one side and let another take his place; and I was glad to notice that none of them hinted that he would be in the way, but that they all objected for fear he would hurt himself.

“Why, Jimmy,” said one of them at last, “you can’t run, you know.”

“Oh, hush!” said another—the tallest in the party; “never mind, I’ll run for him,” and he took his place by Jimmy’s side, prepared to act. “If you were like him,” he said, aside to the other boy, “you wouldn’t want to be told of it all the time.”

As I passed on I thought to myself, “That boy is a true gentleman.”

A certain mill-owner was an infidel. He ran his mill seven days in the week, yet on Sundays he stopt it for a short time in the morning and again at noon. At length some one ventured to ask him why he acted thus. His reply was, “It is because I know that Deacon B. will pass at a certain time on his way to church, and again on his way back. I do not mind the rest of you, for you do not properly live what you profess, but I tell you I do mind him, and to run my mill while he is passing would make me feel bad here”—putting his hand upon his heart.

Theosophy in its mystic theories includes the concept that the spirit within each individual forms a visible aura or halo around him, which can be seen by many who possess the faculty of discernment. The spirit of a true Christian is apprehended by those about him far more accurately than might be imagined. For the spirit inevitably impels the actions of the life.

A schoolboy in Brooklyn was asked: “What is the Constitution of the United States?” He replied: “It is that part in small print in the back of the book that nobody reads.”

An “electric handshaker” to shock unsuspecting friends, has been devised by a man in Paterson, N. J. The specification of the patent that he has secured reads, according to The Western Electrician: “It is intended that the cell or battery and coil be concealed[133] in the inside breast pocket or other convenient hiding-place on the person intending to operate the toy. The two wires are to be run down the sleeve of the operator and the ring slipt on one of his fingers, the two contact buttons being turned toward the palm of the hand. If now, the circuit through the induction-coil and battery being closed, the operator shakes hands or otherwise brings the two buttons on the ring into contact with another person, this person receives a most surprizing and effective electric shock. Owing to the small size and the ingenious method of concealing the apparatus, the recipient of the shock does not at once discover the source of the discharge, and the toy is productive of much amusement.” (Text.)

A party of young people were about to explore a coal-mine. One of the young ladies appeared drest in white. A friend remonstrated with her. Not liking the interference, she turned to the old miner, who was to conduct them, and said:

“Can’t I wear a white dress down in the mine?”

“Yes, mum,” was his reply. “There is nothing to hinder you from wearing a white frock down there, but there’ll be considerable to keep you from wearing one back.”

Mr. Hilditch, of the Sheffield Laboratory of Bacteriology and Hygiene, Yale University, has demonstrated that the average number of bacteria in each of twenty-one bills was 142,000, while by far the most common forms present were the varieties of the pyogenic staphylococcus. These organisms were not in possession of their full virulence, but merely produced a more or less local reaction, on guinea-pig injection, with swelling of the lymph glands of the groin. Their constant presence on money is certainly of greater significance than merely indicating the exposure to the bacterial contamination of the air; they clearly indicate that the money has been contaminated by handling and without regard to the virulence or the danger of infection to which these particular organisms themselves expose those who receive the money, they establish beyond question the most fundamental and significant fact for scientific demonstration, viz., that money is a medium of bacterial communication from one individual to another.—The Popular Science Monthly.

When we stopt at shacks on the roadside and asked for water it was furnished us in a coconut shell with the native’s thumb dipt in and the water so muddy one could not see the bottom, but down it went with some jest about a cool death.

There is a story of an old woman who was very uncomfortable in her temper. She was always fretting and worrying and complaining. Nothing ever went right with her, and everybody was tired of her continual crossness and grumbling.

At last, late in her life, there came a change over her, and this cross, crabbed old woman grew gentle, patient and amiable. She was so altered from her former self that one of her neighbors took courage to ask her how it was that she, who had always found life so full of prickles, now seemed to touch the smooth and pleasant side of everything.

“Well,” said she, “I’ll tell you how it is. I’ve been all my life a-struggling and a-striving for a contented mind, and now I’ve made up my mind to sit down contented without it.”

In nature as well as in poetry the sense of beauty is stimulated by contrast. If all women were pretty, how soon we should cease to admire lovely eyes and fair complexions and the thousand charms which make women in their weakness stronger than men are in their strength; if all men were handsome fine features would be disregarded. In climates which have months of perpetual drought and heat, the blue sky becomes hateful, and the sun, instead of being the best of friends, as in temperate lands, is regarded as an enemy. An Englishman finds cloudy days depressing because they are so frequent in his own land; his brothers in tropical lands welcome them because they are so few. In animal life, too, the same rule holds good, and I question if we should admire the exquisite shape of a gazelle or of a well-bred horse, and the superb plumage of the peacock and the secretary-bird, were it not for the contrast afforded by the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and the vulture.—Illustrated London News.

The late Prof. Henry Drummond was staying at the house of a friend whose coachman had imperiled his career more than once by drunkenness. “Do try and speak to him about it,” said the lady to Professor Drummond. Driving to the station, Professor Drummond sat beside the coachman. The carriage narrowly escaped collision through the carelessness of another driver. “Didn’t I manage that well?” said the coachman to Professor Drummond. “You did, indeed. How was it?” “Because,” said the coachman, “I understand the horses’ mouths exactly and they obey my slightest guidance.” Drummond seized the opportunity immediately. “I have only a minute,” he said, “but let me ask, Why don’t you throw the reins of your life to God, who understands[135] your mouth and is ready and willing to guide you?” The word went home to the coachman’s heart. (Text.)

The time has not yet come when man may plow the atmosphere for rain as he plows the soil for crops. If mines must be worked and towns built in arid regions, let promoters of these schemes be required to build aqueducts and bore wells sufficient in advance to supply the needed water, not waiting until droughts come and the people die. Every place on this globe has its rainy years and its dry years. Areas of cold and heat, wind and calm, rain and drought, appear and move and disappear in irregular succession. We must prepare for them and provide against disaster. We can not control the weather, but we may control ourselves.

Rev. J. Hawksley, a missionary among the Indians of the Klondyke, was one evening holding a service and using a magic lantern. He threw upon the screen a picture of Christ cleansing the temple. An inveterate gambler in the audience was so imprest with the attitude of Christ that the words in explanation went straight to his heart. “If Christ was so angry at those who did such things in His earthly temple, I am sure He would never let such a sinner as I am come into His holy temple above. I will give up my gambling and ask His pardon.” And the man kept his word.

Luther Burbank, the well-known botanist, finds in nature this renewing and generating quality. He can take a tree that shows distinct evidence of decay, that looks as if it were beyond recovery, and treat it, and treat it again, until he rescues it from its bad habits of many years’ standing. He directs its energies so that they flow in new channels and, as “if by the shock of recreation,” what was once blighted and blasted becomes beautiful, fragrant and fruitful. (Text.)

In 1855 some Hebrew Christians met in New York to observe the Passover. The meal being over, one after the other rose to testify to faith and love in Christ. One man sat with head dropt between his hands, then sobs shook his body, and those around saw that a mighty conflict was in progress in his soul. Suddenly he leapt to his feet and cried, “I will no longer deny my Lord! I will follow Him outside the camp.” God took that Polish Jew—for it was Bishop Schereschewsky—and through him gave the Mandarin Bible to the vast empire of China. The Passover had become the Supper of the Lord.

Like a ship becalmed in tropic seas, whose sails hang useless in the breathless air, whose sailors wearily, idly wander about the decks or lean listlessly over the bulwarks looking into the waveless, torpid sea, and over which the heavy gloom of despair and hopeless waiting hangs like a stifling air, so is many a soul arrested in the voyage of life. Its energies are like the useless sails, its thoughts like the listless sailors, the whole spirit of its life like the dull, weary scene of the idly drifting ship. And when at length the welcome wind comes rippling the sea’s dead calm, filling the drooping sails, lifting the ship onward in its course, what music in the rustle of its coming! what joy in the new force it brings to the forceless ship! what animation of life, revival of hope, fleeing of all the dull, dreary spirits which haunted the scene a moment before! So is a soul who has lived with no great, good purpose which gave progress, importance, and interest to life, when at length it seizes on the great Christian purpose of living unto God. (Text.)—W. R. Brooks, Baptist Examiner.

In the life of Charles G. Finney there is an account of the conversion of a prominent merchant. He went to hear Mr. Finney preach and was powerfully affected. Mr. Arthur Tappan, the eminent merchant, sat near him and noticed his agitation. In telling his experience afterward he said that as he arose to go, Mr. Tappan stept up and took him gently by the button of his coat and asked him to stay for prayer and conversation. He tried to excuse himself, but Mr. Tappan held on till he finally yielded. He said afterward, “He held fast to my button, so that an ounce weight at my button was the means of saving my soul.”

In a large iron factory one of the worst men in the place was converted. He had been a man of terrible temper, and could scarcely speak without swearing and blaspheming against God. After his conversion his comrades waited for his temper to break out as before, and to hear him give utterance to a string of oaths. But nothing of the sort occurred. So they prepared a trap for him, which they felt sure would cause his downfall. They heated a long bar of iron and tempered it so that it would look as tho it were cold. Then they laid it on the floor when he was absent, and waited for him to come in and pick it up. Presently he returned, and, stooping over, grasped the hot iron with both hands. His comrades now expected an explosion, for there was a badly blistered strip of flesh on each hand. But the man simply turned round and said quietly, “Men, I didn’t think you would do that.”

At these words, so different from what they expected, tears ran down the cheeks of those strong men; a revival broke out then and there, and many of those ironworkers found salvation, because that man had not lost his temper, but had shown the reality of his transformation.

You come away from your house leaving your inkpot with the sun shining upon it. You go back. Where is your ink? Why, if you look up into the sky to-morrow you will see it in the rainbow! Nature is absolutely full of cleansings, of refinements, of marvelous chemistries, upliftings, transformations, transmutations, transfigurations! And do you mean to tell me that in a world where you see every day the miracle of renewal, the miracle of transfiguration—do you mean to tell me that the only thing in it that can not be changed is the human soul, that which it is most desirable to change? (Text.)

Mr. C. T. Studd, a missionary to China, tells the following:

A white-haired old Chinaman, over fifty years of age, an old opium-smoker, came to us, and having learned of Jesus Christ, was converted, went home and took down his idols. The elders of the village came to him for a subscription to their heathen temples. “I now worship the true God and can not henceforth pay any money for idol worship,” said the old man. When his reply was known, his village and a neighboring village took counsel and decided that they would kill him. One day, as the old man sat in his chair, a mob surrounded his home yelling and cursing. He sat quietly praying. One of the six men who stood at the door ready to kill him shouted, “Now, old man, you come out.”

“No,” he replied quietly, “if you want me out, you must come and pull me out.”

A dispute arose among the representatives of the villages as to which should have precedence in this act of religious zeal, and the contention waged so high that neither one dared to kill the gray-haired old man. They dispersed to their homes, and after living peacefully a while longer, the old Christian passed quietly to his heavenly home in 1895.

The first conversion to Christianity by Halley’s comet was recorded to-day. As far as the available records show, this is the comet’s first convert.

At 4:30 o’clock yesterday morning a number of people who had shortened their matutinal slumbers to watch the great sidereal visitor from the roof of a Fourth Avenue apartment house were startled by a loud cry from one of their party. The man, a professional skeptic, was standing with arms outstretched to the heavens, weeping profusely.

“This convinces me that there is a God,” he said to his friends. “Hereafter I shall always live as a Christian. These stars could not be unless there is a God.”

The profound impression created on the man by the spectacle had not worn off to-day, and he assured his friends he meant to attend church regularly hereafter and to conduct himself as a Godfearing man should.

[137]

“I had never seen the heavens as I did then,” he declared this morning. “I did not realize what a wonderful world it is.”

The man’s name is withheld in order to save him from what his friends say would be embarrassing publicity. His agnostic beliefs have long been the despair of his well-wishers, who are elated over his curious conversion.—Brooklyn Eagle. (May, 1910.)

Last summer about forty per cent of the Colorado convicts were put to work outside their prison walls. A thousand were employed exclusively in road-building. The cost for each prisoner employed was thirty-six cents a day and the counties where the roads were built paid this amount, less the amount the State would have to pay to maintain them in the prison. The day’s work was eight hours, and for each month’s service there was a substantial subtraction from the term of imprisonment. No chains were attached, no stripes were worn and there was no armed guard to patrol the work camps; yet less than one-half of one per cent of those thus employed were lost by escapes.

The success of the method may be due largely to the tact and judgment of the warden. The road work is said to be the desire of every prisoner, but he must earn the privilege by good conduct. The warden personally has a talk with each prisoner before assigning him to this service and receives his pledge that he will be true and faithful to his trust. “The best effect of this,” he says, “is that every man who goes from prison to road work and keeps his word with me, has taken a long step toward reformation.”

This seems to be one of the best solutions of the two problems, how to get good roads and employ the inmates of our penal institutions in healthful labor, under conditions that appeal to their manliness and better nature. Of course, this method must be discriminatingly applied, but the proof that it is workable is a valuable contribution to penology.—Boston Transcript.

I once heard that if you take a bit of phosphorus and put it upon a slip of wood and ignite the phosphorus, bright as the blaze is, there drops from it a white ash that coats the wood, and makes it almost impossible to kindle the wood. And so, when the flaming conviction laid upon your heart has burnt itself out, it has coated the heart, and it will be very difficult to kindle the light there again.

Because their conviction for murder was based almost entirely on the animosity displayed against them by a trained monkey, Christopher Starr and his wife, Mamie, circus performers, are serving life sentences in State prison.

A movement has been started to obtain a new trial for them. During the circus season, James Ackerman, proprietor of a one-ring circus, was murdered while his show was playing at Devall’s Landing, La.

Mr. and Mrs. Starr, who had had a troupe of trained animals with the show, were arrested soon afterward, but there was little evidence against them, and they would have been released but for the actions of Scamp, a pet Himalayan ape, belonging to Mr. Ackerman.

Ackerman had been feeding the ape when he was slain, and when the animal, which was the only living witness of the crime, saw Starr, he flew into a terrible rage.

This action was repeated whenever Starr appeared, despite the fact that he formerly had been a friend of Scamp, and it was repeated when Mrs. Starr was seen.

The monkey’s actions caused husband and wife to be indicted, and when placed on trial the monkey was brought into court, and so imprest the jury that, altho the evidence was not over-strong, they were found guilty.

Lord Lyndhurst told a curious anecdote about a trial of a civil cause in which the jury would not agree on their verdict. They retired on the evening of one day, and remained till one o’clock the next afternoon, when, being still disagreed, a juror was drawn. There was only one juror who held out against the rest—Mr. Berkeley (M.P.[138] for Bristol). The case was tried over again, and the jury were unanimously of Mr. Berkeley’s opinion, which was, in fact, right—a piece of conscientious obstinacy which prevented the legal commission of a wrong. (Text.)—Greville’s “Memoirs.”

Many years ago in the city of New York there was an organized set of dishonest men known as the Tweed Ring. They stole $51,000,000 from the State and city, and everybody knew it. When they told Tweed that he was under arrest, he dared to say, “Well, what are you going to do about it?” There was a merchant in New York named William Sloane. They put him on the Grand Jury. Because of his large business interests and the tremendous demands upon his time, he said, “I can not serve.” But earnest men said, “Here is the bulwark of sin and here is the need of righteousness.” Immediately he said, “I will serve.” Now, certain men on the jury had been bought up by Tweed. One man in particular stood out. For twenty-three hours that jury sat in council. They could not come to an agreement; this one man would not yield. Finally, Mr. Sloane put his hand on this man’s shoulder and said: “Do you know, sir, that the people whom we represent know the character of this man on trial? They know that we have explicit, convincing evidence against him. And do you know that I will stay here until I die before I will go out and say that this jury does not agree?” The man yielded, Tweed was convicted, sentenced and committed to jail.

Whenever the Duke came, which at this momentous period was often, there was a low whisper in the ranks “Here’s the Duke!” and all was steady as on parade. No matter what the havoc and destruction might be, the Duke was always the coolest man there; in the words of an eye-witness of this bloody scene, the Duke was coolness personified.

Michael Henry Ryan, able seaman on the liner Philadelphia, would rather drown than be rescued by means of a rope which had a poorly tied sailor’s knot in it. Ryan proved this by risking his life in mid-Atlantic waves until he could retie the knot.

The rescue in itself was one of the most remarkable in the history of the American line. The captain from the bridge saw Ryan go over the side. It was too rough to launch a boat and the liner was stopt almost in its own length and sent astern so that it drifted down upon the struggling seaman. A line was lowered.

When Ryan caught the rope he examined the knot. The sea was smashing him against the side of the ship.

“Who tied this knot?” he called out to the men on deck. And then he calmly untied the knot and retied it in his own way. All the while he gave his opinion of the lubbers on deck and their inability to tie a knot. Then he put the loop under his arms and called out to those above to haul him up.—Chicago Tribune.

An old Norse legend tells of a departed spirit meeting his guardian angel in the other world, and commiserating him upon his forlorn and haggard looks, only to receive the reproving reply: “No wonder I am worn out. All your life I have been fighting in your behalf, and I never got a bit of assistance from you.” (Text.)

The farmer drops a seed into the ground and goes away and leaves it. It sprouts and grows, and by and by he reaps the harvest[139] of the sowing, and he says, “I have harvested, I have raised so many bushels of corn to the acre.” Oh, no, he has not. He has sown so many seeds, he has cultivated so many acres, he has put in his sickle or his harvesting machine, and he has gathered so many stalks. But he could not have done it if some forces of nature had not been at work perfecting that which he began. He and nature, as we say—he and God, as I say—have worked together to raise the harvest. (Text.)—Lyman Abbott.

It would never make an arithmetician of a boy at school if he merely copied the solution of arithmetic problems from his neighbor’s slate or paper, even tho the solutions thus copied should be the correct ones. To become an arithmetician the boy must himself learn to solve problems; and this means that he must understand thoroughly every step in the process of solution. The process must go through him, or through his intelligence, as well as that he must go through the process. He must know what he is aiming at, and why it is that he adds, subtracts, multiplies, and divides, every time that he does any of these. Merely to put down figures on his paper, even should they be the right figures by chance, unless he understands the why and the when, would do him no good whatsoever. And it would not make the matter one whit better if he imagined the schoolmaster would be pleased with seeing him put down right figures without understanding what he was doing, or why he was doing it. The whole would only show that he was far back in intelligence, and would hardly ever become an arithmetician. We can not become truly religious either by being mere copiers of the religion of others, or by fetish worship.—Alexander Miller, “Heaven and Hell Here.”

Drop a grain of California gold into the ground, and there it will lie unchanged to the end of time, the clods on which it falls not more cold and lifeless. Drop a grain of our gold, of our blest gold, into the ground, and lo! a mystery. In a few days it softens, it swells, it shoots upward, it is a living thing. It is yellow itself, but it sends up a delicate spire, which comes peeping, emerald green, through the soil; it expands to a vigorous stalk; revels in the air and sunshine; arrays itself, more glorious than Solomon, in its broad, fluttering, leafy robes, whose sound, as the west wind whispers through them, falls as pleasantly on the husbandman’s ear as the rustle of his sweetheart’s garment; still towers aloft, spins its verdant skeins of vegetable floss, displays its dancing tassels, surcharged with fertilizing dust, and at last ripens into two or three magnificent batons like this [an ear of Indian corn], each of which is studded with hundreds of grains of gold, every one possessing the same wonderful properties as the parent grain, every one instinct with the same marvelous reproductive powers. There are seven hundred and twenty grains on the ear which I hold in my hand. I presume there were two or three such ears on the stalk. This would give us one thousand four hundred and forty, perhaps two thousand one hundred and sixty grains as the product of one. They would yield next season, if they were all successfully planted, four thousand two hundred, perhaps six thousand three hundred ears. Who does not see that, with this stupendous progression, the produce of one grain in a few years might feed all mankind? And yet with this visible creation annually springing and ripening around us, there are men who doubt, who deny the existence of God. Gold from the Sacramento River, sir! There is a sacrament in this ear of corn enough to bring an atheist to his knees.—Edward Everett.

Athenian society decayed at last, not at all because its artists had reached the limit of human invention, or its philosophers the necessary term of human thought, but because the moral faculties and tastes which should have presided in that society were not developed in proportion to the esthetic and intellectual powers which added to its ornament. It was outwardly like the statue of Minerva in the Parthenon, of costly ivory, overlaid with gold; but it was wood within; and the wood rotted; that is all that can be said of it. Then the cunning of the ivory, and the splendor of the gold, fell and were broken, and the nations gathered the shining fragments.—Richard S. Storrs.

Knowing nothing of the planetary system, early man had to account in his own way for the apparent fixity of the earth, and as the[140] Greeks invented the giant Atlas, the Hindus contrived a huge turtle to bear the world upon its patient back. What sustained the giant or the monster, the ancient mind inquired not. To make everything out of anything and believe with implicit faith in his own creations was the happy faculty of early man, not entirely fallen from possession in these days of all-questioning. The first Egyptians knew that the heavens and the earth were formed by the breaking of the cosmic egg, an idea suggested by the resemblance of the skies to the half of an eggshell. That is as poetic and more agreeable than the Norse idea of a giant dashed to pieces to make earth, water, and starry firmament. The Mexican legend as to the creation of man resembles the Hebraic, clay and the breath of life admitted. But the North American Indians explain the mixt nature of man by declaring that the daughter of the Great Spirit, living in the wigwam, Mount Shasta, stole forth one day, was seized by a patriarchal grizzly, who took her home and wedded her to his son. Man was the result of this union. As a punishment for the sacrilege in contaminating the race of the Great Spirit, grizzlies were deprived the power of speech and made to wander ever after on all fours.—Chicago Inter-Ocean.

When your child throws away a piece of bread, make him pick it up again and tell him the history of that piece of bread. Tell him what has been requisite that that bread might exist. Tell him of the toils of the plowman and of the sower, under the sky, inclement and changeful; the obscure bursting of the seed in the ground, the long sleep under the snow, the awakening in the spring, when the green life along the furrows makes its orisons to the sun, source of life. Describe the hope of the farmer when the corn puts forth its ears, and his anguish when the storm rises on the horizon. Do not forget the harvester who wields his scythe in the dog-day heat, and that poor prisoner of the cities, pledged to nocturnal toil in overheated cellars, the baker. (Text.)—Charles Wagner, “The Gospel of Life.”

In the Newark, N. J., public library is a statue of Benjamin Franklin carved in Carrara marble. It embodies an incident in his life. When a lad he bought a whistle from a playmate, giving all the coppers he possest for it. He whistled all over the house, until his brothers and sisters told him he had paid too much for the whistle, laughing at him until he cried from mortification and chagrin.

The face of the veteran missionary, John G. Paton, was itself an inspiration to the beholder and a revelation to the triumphs of the grace of God in the man. Once when Principal Story was introducing him to an audience, he casually remarked that much of Doctor Paton’s life had been spent among savages and cannibals, and many a time he had been in danger of being killed and eaten, but had escaped unscathed. “But,” added Principal Story, “I do not wonder, for had I been one of those cannibals, one look at that benignant face would have been enough to make me a vegetarian for the rest of my days.” (Text.)

Only forty-seven per cent of our population of working age reside in the country districts; they furnish fifty-seven per cent of our successful men, while the cities, with twenty per cent of the population, furnish seventeen per cent.

A Chinese lived in Yokohama some twelve years ago. He was a house-painter by occupation, and went about wearing a very much bedaubed suit of clothes, caked here and there with white and green and yellow. He was a Christian and attended church regularly. When the leader said, “Let any one pray who will,” John never failed to take part. The gladness of his soul spoke itself forth in a kind of Cantonned Japanese, the[141] full meaning of which was known to himself and God only. When the Shinasan (Mr. Chinaman) prayed, many a face in the room became wreathed in smiles, and sometimes a hand was necessary over the mouth to help hold the hearer steady. John paid no attention; he cared not who laughed at his prayers, he was happy, God had forgiven him; and tho a Chinese, he said good-by to the world, and cut his cue off. One day a Korean friend met him and said, “Honorable sir from the great country, where is your cue?” “Cue? Cue belong no good, makee cut off.” “But you will not dare to go home, you have lost your country.” “Maskee country,” said John; “my country belong Htien-kuoa, Htien-kuoa” (“heaven, heaven”), pointing upward.—James S. Gale, “Korea in Transition.”

When a soldier ran crying to Pelopidas, “We are fallen among the enemies, and are lost!” “How are we fallen among them any more than they among us?” replied the undaunted spirit. And when the soldiers of Marius complained of thirst, being encamped where there was no water, he pointed to a river running close to the enemy’s trenches, and bade them take the drink which valor could give them in that direction.—James T. Fields.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century Professor Simson, of Glasgow, was on trial in the General Assembly for dangerous[142] heresy. He was convicted, and suspended from preaching and teaching. There were some who thought the sentence inadequate. Boston, of Ettrick, was one of them. He was a shy man. But no one else offering to rise, he rose, overcoming his timidity, to enter his dissent against the inadequate condemnation of Simson—to enter his dissent in his own name and in the names of all who would adhere to him, adding, amid solemn silence on the part of the assembly, “And for myself if nobody shall adhere.”

The Russians marched up to the gates and were just about to enter when the Boxers opened fire upon them. The army was withdrawn, the batteries were got out, and the general was just going to smash up the city when the Scotch missionary, Doctor Westwater (acting as interpreter) approached him and asked for a moment’s truce.

“I undertake,” he said, “to enter the city and to induce it to surrender without a shot being fired on one condition.”

“Which is?”

“That there shall be no destruction and no looting; none whatever.”

The general yielded, and mounting his pony, Doctor Westwater rode forward to the city alone.

Now, when you consider that the city was full of Boxers, you will realize that it was a pretty considerable act of courage for a minister, of all men, to ride unarmed through those seething streets. This was what Westwater did. The city was a roaring hive of armed Boxers, muskets peeping from roof and window, and the streets ringing with the noise of arms. At the missionary quarters Doctor Westwater was fortunate enough to find a Christian convert, who conducted him to a place where the merchant gild were holding a sort of cabinet council.

Westwater explained matters, appealed to the citizens to avoid bloodshed, and pledged his word that neither destruction nor looting should mark the Russian occupation of their city. The appeal was successful, and he rode quietly back to the Russian general.

The general was an awful brute, as bad as he could be, but Westwater’s action seemed to impress him, and his orders were very exact. During his occupation of the city there was no single instance of crime. Westwater’s gallant action, too, imprest even the Boxers. They named him the savior of the town, and when, some months later, he took his departure for home, he was made the honored guest of extraordinary banquets, and was accompanied to the railway station by all the grateful citizens, half of them waving flags and half of them banging musical instruments.

You are struggling with difficulties, your look is troubled and your good will as well. One of those painful moments of strife and discouragement, when man is no longer anything but the shadow of himself, is passing over. In these circumstances a newspaper falls into your hands. In it you read that, on such and such a day, in the heart of Africa, surprized by an ambuscade, surrounded by enemies in superior numbers, an officer, who does not speak your language and who is not fighting for your cause, has kept calm; that, the better to show his tranquil resolution, he has, at a moment like that, before his troops, hemmed in, lost, lighted his cigar, recalled in few words the memory of the fatherland and the duty of a soldier; and then marched toward the enemy and to certain death. It is all told in three lines. And when you have read it, you arise, you come out of your depression, you organize your resistance; you look your trouble in the face, you feel high spirits, virility, a certain generous ardor for the strife. And all this life, this precious elasticity of courage that animates you, you owe to those who are unknown to you, to the vanquished, and to the dead lying out yonder without burial and[143] without name. What a proof of what we can do for each other?

Mrs. George E. Pickett, wife of General Pickett, who led the fatal charge the last day at Gettysburg against the Union forces, writes of the tender memories she had of Grant. She called upon him with her husband while he was President. Grant knew that his old comrade of West Point had been made a poor man by the war, and he offered him the marshalship of Virginia. While sorely needing help, he appreciated the heavy draft made upon the President by office-seekers, and said: “You can’t afford to do this for me now, and I can’t afford to take it”; but Grant instantly replied with firmness, “I can afford to do anything I please that is right.”—Col. Nicholas Smith, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”

One day an infant was brought in suffering from membranous croup. The case was so far advanced that any delay would almost certainly result in death for the little one. Dr. Wood did not hesitate a moment. He began to work at once, carefully, fearlessly, promptly, and successfully. Five minutes later, and while both mother and patient were still in the room, the surgeon who should have had the case according to rule, walked in. The young doctor (Wood) explained, but would not apologize, as he was asked to do. He had done right, and he was not going to tell any man he was sorry for it, he said. The result was that he was first suspended, and then dismissed. And I call that courage. (Text.)

Charles W. Eliot introduced [at Harvard] a system of discipline based upon personal loyalty to college interests. It is related that at a faculty meeting shortly after he had been inducted into office, one of the faculty asked him with considerable severity the reason for this doing away with time-honored rules of discipline, when the young president replied, with great sweetness and courtesy, “The reason is, we have a new president.”—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”

The Brooklyn Eagle has an office boy whose name, let us say, is Joe. The other day Joe was present when the wife of a member of the staff called to see her husband. The latter, having just returned from lunch, deferentially greeted the lady by raising his hat. Joe contemplated this act of courtesy with that fine scorn which office boys feel for all obligations that are not compulsory. “Huh!” he remarked to a companion. “You’d think them two was strangers!”

Probably few people know it, but the institution of the bell-cord, by which the engineman is signaled to stop his train, was due to the courtesy of a conductor. A general passenger agent told the story the other day. Back in the fifties, when wood was still used for fuel in locomotives, the conductor on a local train rigged up a bell-cord so that he could let passengers off at will. The stop signal was given too often for the engineman, who finally became so annoyed that he cut the rope. At the next stop the conductor went forward to the engine cab.

“Jim,” he said, “I’m going to treat my passengers right. You tie up that bell-cord, and if you cut it again I’ll punch your head.”

The engineman cut the cord again, and the conductor, who valued his reputation for courtesy to passengers, went forward and delivered the promised thrashing. Conductors nowadays, tho, are not quite so primitive in their methods, and are not obliged to administer personal discipline to fellow employés.—Buffalo Evening News.

Dr. Edmondson describes regular assemblies of crows of the hooded species—“crow courts,” they are called—which are held at certain intervals in the Shetland Isles. A particular hill or field suitable for the business is selected, but nothing is done till all are ready, and consequently the earlier comers have sometimes to wait for a day or two till the others arrive. When all have come, the court opens in a formal manner and the presumed criminals are arraigned at the bar. A general croaking and clamor are raised by the assembly and judgment is delivered, apparently, by the whole court. As soon as the execution is over, the court breaks up and all its members disperse quietly. An Alpine tourist relates that, during an excursion in the Swiss mountains, he accidently came upon a small secluded glen, which was surrounded by trees, and became the unexpected witness of a singular spectacle. About sixty or seventy ravens were ranged in a ring around one of their fellows, evidently reputed a culprit, and with much clatter of tongues and wings, were engaged in discussing his alleged delinquencies. At intervals they paused in their debate in order to permit the accused to reply, which he did most vociferously and with intense energy, but all his expostulations were speedily drowned in a deafening chorus of dissent. Eventually the court appears to have arrived at the unanimous conclusion that the felon had utterly failed to exculpate himself, and they suddenly flew at him from all sides and tore him to pieces, with their powerful[145] beaks. Having executed their sentence, they speedily disappeared.—The Popular Science Monthly.

The English sparrow has been called pugnacious. He is nothing of the kind. He does not love a fight. Bird to bird, there is nothing too small to whip him. I have seen a chipping sparrow, which is the least among the pasture sparrows, send the poltroon scurrying to shelter with all his feathers standing on end. A cock bluebird, fighting like a gentleman, and like a gentleman fighting only when he must, will drive a half-dozen of them. The English sparrow has the true instincts of the browbeating coward, and loves to fight only when in overwhelming numbers he may attack a lone pasture bird without danger to himself.—Winthrop Packard, “Wild Pastures.”

If you ask an ordinary botanist the reason of the form of a leaf, he will tell you it is a “developed tubercle,” and that its ultimate form “is owing to the directions of its vascular threads.” But what directs its vascular threads? “They are seeking for something they want,” he will probably answer. What made them want that? What made them seek for it thus? Seek for it, in five fibers or in three? Seek for it, in serration, or in sweeping curves? Seek for it in servile tendrils, or impetuous spray? Seek for it in woolen wrinkles rough with stings, or in glossy surfaces, green with pure strength and winterless delight? It is Mr. Ruskin who asks these questions: and it is Mr. Ruskin who adds, “There is no answer.”

God’s heart must laugh a mighty laugh of joy every spring and summer time. Oh, man! don’t you think you would laugh if you could make a leaf—not a great big green oak or maple-leaf, but just a wee, modest, unpretentious leaf, and yet a real leaf? Now, wouldn’t you thrill with joy to the ends of your finger-tips if you could make just one leaf? And well you might, for never yet was born the man who could make a leaf without God doing the major part of the work.

And yet every spring God grows a million leaves and flowers out in the corn-fields, back in the forests, down in the meadows of earth. Why, truly God is right down here among us watching things grow, going through the corn-fields and laughing to the rustling music of the green blades of silken corn.—F. F. Shannon.

The author of that noble hymn, “The God of Abraham praise,” was Thomas Olivers, the Welsh Methodist evangelist, popularly known as “the cobbler of Tregonan,” but who became a signal instance of the power of grace to change the heart and to quicken genius. Left an orphan early in life, he grew up neglected in learning and morals, and became known as the worst character in all the country round. But a sermon by George Whitefield, at Bristol, entirely changed the character of the young man, and the current of his life. Of that change he himself said: “When that sermon began, I was one of the most abandoned and profligate young men living; before it ended I was a new creature. The world was all changed for Tom Olivers.”

It is natural to desire a few firm and unshakable beliefs. If we can only formulate the eternal verities and tuck them away in pigeon-holes ready to our hand when wanted, we feel a certain sense of security. To run[146] the fundamental principles into molds and have them forever after in cast-iron rigidity and indestructibility is surely, we imagine, a consummation devoutly to be wished.

But soon we encounter unexpected and vexatious and puzzling difficulties. Truth has a way of losing its trueness by the very act of being exprest. Exprest, or squeezed out, it does, indeed, too often become; and nothing but an empty husk, a hollow form, remains. How often one has the vaguely haunting and curiously baffling sense that, if one were to say a certain thing, that thing would immediately cease to be so; and, that if one had only refrained from a certain other utterance, the thought intended would not have lost, so unaccountably, its quality of truth! In other words, how many times does truth show itself to be of a nature quite too shy to be caught and tamed, too slippery to be grasped, too elusive to be held fast! To take a homely illustration, Mrs. Smith says to Mrs. Brown, “I am more polite than you,” and straightway an assertion that might have been true, if unuttered, becomes glaringly false. An able lawyer was once arguing a case in court when the judge interrupted him by declaring, “That is not the law.” “It was the law, your Honor, until your Honor spoke,” was the two-edged rejoinder. Some such ironical retort is constantly being flung back at us by the inscrutabilities that we attempt to fathom. We know not well (tho we are learning) the subtle ways they “keep, and pass, and turn again.”

“Outworn creeds” is a phrase familiar to all. But why have we so abundant a heritage of these cast-off garments? Is not their undurability owing to the fact that truth is dynamic rather than static? We must believe that at every instant of time something is true; but that the same thing, stated just so and no otherwise, is true for all time, is not so certain, and he who depends on a fixt creed, of elaborate pattern, to bear him up through all the stormy seas, is likely to find himself clinging to a very poor life-preserver.—The Christian Register.

In the days of bank burglaries—now much less frequent, owing to the protections that science has provided for money vaults—it was not often that a single robbery was reported; they “came in battalions.” This was not because the same gangs engaged in many different enterprises, but because a universal similar impulse permeated the minds of the criminal class devoted to these forms of guilt. A curious study might be made of the causes of epidemics of crime. In superstitious times all evils were attributed to the influence of adverse stars. This may have been an approach to scientific truth, or its advanced shadow. The causes of meteorological change must be the causes lying back of the pervading disposition at times witnessed to commit peculiar classes of crime. A suicidal atmosphere must have its origin in some of the secret springs of nature. Advanced speculation has recently attributed cyclones, earthquakes, and other terrestrial disturbances to great changes in the surface of the sun or in the superheated ether surrounding it. A theory quite as plausible as this might attribute epidemics of crime to similar influences, by which weak reasons are overthrown and murderous intents are kindled in excitable minds with destructive tendencies. There are causes for all things in life and nature, and no study of such causes is in vain.—Chicago Journal.

The cangue is a large square board that fits about the neck, and besides being very heavy and uncomfortable, is considered a great disgrace, for it has the prisoner’s name and crime pasted on it. In order to make the punishment more severe, the prisoner is often condemned to be taken to the place where the crime was committed and made to stand near the store or house where the nature of his crime, as well as his name, is plainly to be read by every passer-by. This is a terrible punishment, for the Chinese are very sensitive about being publicly shamed.—“Smiling ‘Round the World.”

Every week a host of young lads were hanged for theft, and the spectacle of a criminal riding through the streets to Tyburn, and getting as drunk as he conveniently could upon the way, was too common to attract attention. London was called the City of the Gallows, for from whatever joint you entered it, by land or water, you passed between a lane of gibbets, where the[147] corpses of felons hung, rotting and bleaching in the light. Nor was crime supprest by this stringency of the law. Highwaymen rode into town at nightfall, coolly tying their horses to the palings of Hyde Park, and executed their plans of robbery in the very presence of the impotent protectors of the public peace. London was infested by gangs of youths, whose nightly pastime was to bludgeon inoffensive watchmen, and to gouge out the eyes of chance travelers. Dean Swift dared not go out after dark, and Johnson wrote:

Ludgate Hill swarmed with mock parsons, and thousands of spurious marriages were celebrated every year.—W. J. Dawson, “The Makers of English Prose.”

“I have talked with murderers, train and stage robbers, burglars, pickpockets, hobos, yeggmen and others guilty of nearly every crime known,” says Griffith J. Griffith, “yet I never found a prisoner but could easily be convinced that a criminal career does not pay. A sane young man so convinced can be reformed.”

Dr. Parrachia has made a curious study of the differences between criminals and law-abiding citizens, as exhibited by their walk. He not only has shown how we may distinguish criminals in general, but has laid the beginning of the differential diagnosis between various evil-doers. He found that in criminals in general (obtained from the study of forty criminals) the left pace was longer than the right, the lateral deviation of the right foot was greater than that of the left, and the angle formed by the axis of the foot with the straight line was greater on the left side than on the right. It would thus seem that, in general, the gait of a criminal betrays a marked preponderance of power of the left foot over the right—a true sinistrality. This also agrees with the discovery of Marro that criminals are often left-handed.—Public Opinion.

The tracing of counterfeit bills back to the persons responsible for their issue is a curious and exciting employment. The experts assigned by the Government to this work are among the most skilful members of the Secret Service.

A bank clerk in Cleveland had detected a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill in the deposit of a small retail grocer. An expert was sent for and undertook the case.

He found that the grocer had received the bill from a shoe-dealer, who had it from a dentist, who had it from somebody else, and so on, until the Secret Service man finally traced the bad note to an invalid woman who had used it to pay her physician. When questioned, this woman said that the money had been sent her by her brother, who lived in New Orleans.

The sleuth looked up the brother’s antecedents, and soon became convinced that he was the man wanted. The brother, however, soon proved to the satisfaction of the Secret Service man that his suspicions were unfounded. Indeed, it appeared that the money had been received by the New Orleans man in part payment of rent of a house he owned in Pittsburg. While the sleuth was a bit discouraged, he couldn’t give over the case when he had gone so far, so he took the next train for Pittsburg.

The tenant of the house in Pittsburg proved to be a traveling oculist, who spent most of his time in the Middle West. The Secret Service man had the good luck, however, to catch him just as he had returned from a trip; and the man at once recognized the bad bill as one that had been given him by a patient in Cleveland, the very point whence the sleuth had started.

The patient was a boss carpenter. The Secret Service man got his address from the oculist and went right after the new clue. At this point he had a premonition that something was going to happen, and he wasn’t disappointed.

The carpenter, an honest old fellow, said that he had received the bill from a certain[148] Parker. The said Parker was the small grocer in whose bank deposit the counterfeit had turned up. The expert flew to the grocer’s as quickly as a cab would take him, and found it closed. He had left town.

Afterward it was shown beyond question that the grocer was the agent of an organized band of counterfeiters. His shop was a mere blind. That the bill which he gave the carpenter should get back into his own funds after traveling all over the continent was one of those miracles of chance for which there is no explanation.—Harper’s Weekly.

On the ridge of Leuthen, far up above the plain, Frederick the Great through his glass watched the gathering of the enemy’s hosts in overwhelming numbers. He only gazed on the terrible spectacle five minutes, and then he had thought out the magnificent combinations which arranged his plan of battle. Ruin fell on the foe and a new era in history was inaugurated; but this was only because Frederick had trained himself for years for the crisis.

A teacher of elocution from New Jersey went to hear Mr. Beecher, and when the sermon was closed he crowded himself up to the front and said, “Mr. Beecher, I am an elocution teacher from the State of New Jersey. I came over to hear the greatest American preacher, but I am disappointed, disappointed.” “What is the matter now?” said Beecher. “Well, sir, I counted eighty grammatical mistakes in your sermon.” Beecher replied, “Is that all? I would have wagered this old hat there were over eight hundred if you had not told me.” That is a philosophical way of looking at it, and treating deservedly a self-inflated and imposing upstart of a critic. Beecher could at times read human nature intuitively.

It is not necessary for a child to know all about the lenses of the eye in order to see its mother’s face, or to understand gravity in order to enjoy the summer’s day. We use, enjoy and are saved by food and drink and sun long years before we know anything about their laws. It is one thing to pick to pieces your faith, and another thing to reconstruct it. A thousand boys can take a watch to pieces, and not one can put the wheels together again.—N. D. Hillis.

If he is poor, he is a bad manager. If he is rich, he is dishonest.

If he needs credit, he can’t get it. If he is prosperous, every one wants to do him a favor.

If he’s in politics, it’s for pie. If he is out of politics, you can’t place him, and he’s no good for his country.

If he doesn’t give to charity, he’s stingy. If he does, it’s for show.

If he is actively religious, he is a hypocrite. If he takes no interest in religion, he’s a hardened sinner.

If he shows affection, he’s a soft specimen. If he seems to care for no one, he is cold-blooded.

If he dies young, there was a great future ahead of him. If he lives to an old age, he has missed his calling.—Christian Guardian.

It is an interesting study of human nature to watch a mixt crowd as they pass through a gallery of pictures. Some simply express admiration at everything; sure that they must be good, or they would not be there, they feel safe in giving indiscriminate praise. Others spice their approbation with occasional criticism. Some utter impulsively their first impressions; others, more timid, look silently upon all. The few who, being true artists themselves, are best qualified to judge, are usually the most reticent. Indeed, they seem more occupied in studying than in[149] judging, and more anxious to understand what they see than either to criticize or to flatter. Doubtless, however, the majority of these spectators are secretly conscious of their real incapacity to pronounce judgment, and the wisest of them will refrain from doing so, however willingly they may express whatever pleasure or preference they feel. They know they are there for their own gratification or improvement, not to pass sentence upon works which they can only dimly fathom. Yet as they pass out of the gallery into the world of living men and women how quickly is this respectful diffidence removed! He who would not presume to criticize a picture, of which he knows but little, will not hesitate to criticize a man or woman of whom he knows far less. Willing to admit his inability to estimate the work of the painter, he yet feels competent, without study or experience, to estimate the noblest and most complex work of infinite wisdom.—Philadelphia Ledger.

One of the most brilliant of our younger poets was descanting on the Chinook vocabulary, in which a Chinook calls an Englishman a Chinhog to this day, in memory of King George. And this writer says that when they have a young chief whose warpaint is very perfect, whose blanket is thoroughly embroidered, whose leggings are tied up with exactly the right colors, and who has the right kind of star upon his forehead and cheeks, but who never took a scalp, never fired an arrow, and never smelled powder, but was always found at home in the lodges whenever there was anything that scented of war—he says the Chinooks called that man by the name of “Boston Cultus.” You have seen these people, as I have seen them, as everybody has seen them—people who sat in Parker’s and discust every movement of the campaign in the late war, and told us that it was all wrong, that we were going to the bad, but who never shouldered a musket. They are people who tell us that the immigration, that the pope of Rome, or the German element, or the Irish element, is going to play the dogs with our social system, and yet they never met an immigrant on the wharf or had a word of comfort to say to a foreigner.—Edward Everett Hale.

It is said that two famous enemies of Christianity were once talking together of a plan for the reconstruction of religion. They believed only in the enjoyment of the life that now is. They talked of the building of a temple which would express the religious impulse and yet lay stress on the glory of the life that now is. And after they had talked of marvelous music, forever in the major key, they admitted that something was lacking in their scheme. “I know what it is,” finally declared one. “It is that hymn, ‘O Sacred Head Now Wounded.’ Without that there is a fatal lack of beauty and of power.” And this goes down pretty far toward the center. The compelling beauty of Christianity is in its doctrine of self-sacrifice. The cross sets the Christian teaching on high.—Francis J. McConnell.

Rev. Edward Payson Scott, Baptist missionary in Assam, was strongly moved to visit a wild hill tribe—the Nagas—three days’ journey from his station, whereas yet he had made only a start in the Naga language and had to take a Naga teacher along. He was strongly urged by the British resident officer not to run such risk, but he could not be deterred; and, when an escort of soldiers was offered him, he firmly declined, as it would defeat the very end in view, which was to go as a messenger of peace. A military escort would give a false impression of his whole spirit and motive.

So with a native companion he set out, and when they reached the base of the mountain ridge where the native village crowned the summit, and began the ascent, the alarmed villagers forming in battle-line, waved their spears in menace, the chief crying out, “Halt! we know you! You are the man of the British Queen, come to make us prisoners and carry off our children. Come no nearer!”

The missionary drew out his violin, and began to sing in the native tongue, “Alas, and did my Savior bleed!” When he had sung one verse, the chief and his warriors had already thrust their spears into the ground and broken ranks. As Mr. Scott sang[150] on, about the amazing pity, grace, love shown when the Maker died for the sin of the creature, the wild men began to creep down the hillside, nearer and nearer; and the chief cried out, “Where did you learn that? Sing us more; we never heard the like before.” The savages were subdued. The stranger was safe from their spears, and welcomed to their huts and best hospitality. The cross has never lost its charm. (Text.)—Missionary Review of the World.

My God, I have never thanked thee for my thorn. I have thanked thee a thousand times for my roses, but not once for my thorn. I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross, but I have never thought of my cross as itself a present glory. Thou divine Love whose human path has been perfected through sufferings, teach me the glory of my cross, teach me the value of my thorn.—George Matheson.

Matthew Arnold had a brother-in-law, Mr. Cropper, who lived in Liverpool, and attended Sefton Park Church, where Dr. John Watson (“Ian Maclaren”) ministered. Visiting Mr. Cropper, Mr. Arnold accompanied him to church one Sunday morning, which proved to be Arnold’s last Sunday on earth. Dr. Watson preached on “The Shadow of the Cross”; and the congregation afterward sang the familiar hymn, “When I survey the wondrous cross.” At lunch that day Mr. Arnold referred to an illustration which the preacher had drawn from the Riviera earthquake. “In one village,” said Dr. Watson, “the huge crucifix above the altar, with a part of the chancel, remained unshaken amid the ruins, and round the cross the people sheltered.” “Yes,” remarked Arnold in speaking of this, “the cross remains, and in the straits of the soul makes its ancient appeal.” (Text.)

One of the most magnificent ecclesiastical structures in the world is the mosque of Hagia Sophia, or “Holy Wisdom,” commonly known in our language as St. Sophia. This was originally the famous temple erected by Constantine in 325, as a Christian church. But it was destroyed by fire in 404 in a riot connected with the exile of Chrysostom. Rebuilt at once, in 530 it was again burnt to the ground, and the present edifice was reared by Justinian, and on Christmas day of 537 was dedicated as a Christian cathedral. In 1453 it was converted into a mosque. Jesus was put aside for Mohammed, the cross was supplanted by the crescent, and the Bible was dethroned by the Koran. Yet tho in many places the cross is wholly hidden under plaster with fine filigree work, here and there it can be perceived. (Text.)

The cross of Jesus Christ was to the Greeks foolishness and a stumbling-block of the Jews. They could not see its meaning; just as I have walked out on the porch of a north Georgia home two hours before day, and in the dim starlight I could see only the faint outline of mountain and hill. I could not tell what they were. It was an indistinct picture that had in it no meaning to me. I have gone back to my room and after a while have walked out on the porch again. The sun had risen on the scene and bathed hill and mountain and valley in a flood of light, and then I looked and saw hills and mountains and valleys and streams that mine eyes had never seen before.—“Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones.”

Gipsy Smith says: “My father was once preaching in the open air at Leytonstone. A coster in his donkey-cart shouted out, ‘Go it, old party, you will get ’arf a crown for that job.’ My father stopt his address for a moment, and said quietly, ‘No, young man, you are wrong; my Master never gives half-crowns. He gives whole crowns.’” (Text.)

“Why did you put your five-dollar goldpiece in the missionary collection, instead of some silver?” Davie was asked. “Because,” he replied, “as the congregation sang, ‘Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown him Lord of all,’ I imagined that I could hear his steps coming down the aisle to receive his crown, and I did not want Him to wear a copper crown, or a silver crown, but a gold crown.” A part of the missionary work is giving gold for Christ’s coronation.

Recently some professional procurers going the rounds of the cities of northern China buying girls for the brothels of Shanghai stopt here in their diabolical quest. They negotiated a sale with a mother living near us for her seventeen-year-old daughter. As this daughter’s feet were not small enough to command the sum desired, the mother arose at midnight while the children were sleeping and proceeded to beat the feet of the daughter in question to a pulp. The agonizing pain, the heartrending screams were of no avail. The feet were bound into a smaller compass by this process and a more advantageous sale expedited.

With my own eyes I have witnessed many of the most horrible examples of cruelty practised upon the poor natives in that country. I have seen natives with one hand cut off and I have seen them with both cut off, and in many cases the poor victims were children.

Dr. Leslie also said that much of the cruelty had been practised in order to impress upon the blacks the necessity of their bringing to market the rubber wanted by their persecutors, and to emphasize the dire results that would follow their failure to do so.

There is a cruel custom which prevails in some districts in South China in time of drought. A large collection of brass locks is made, and each is marked with a Chinese character. One iron lock is added to the pile, and duplicate slips are distributed among all the male population of the villages. The unfortunate man whose slip holds the same writing on it as the iron lock must have a slit made in the front of his throat and through this, the bar of the iron lock passed. He is considered to be in some way the cause of the drought and must wear this lock until rain comes. Blood-poisoning often carries the victim off before the drought is broken.

Rev. W. B. Simpson, missionary among the Tamil people, writes of a most inhuman sacrifice, which was being offered in a village near Kumbakonam. A goat is brought, and its mouth tied up to prevent its crying out. Nails are driven into its nostrils, its mouth, ears, eyes, and the other two openings of the body. Then a hand-beating on its poor body takes place, which must be kept up till death comes to free the animal. This, the people claim, is worshiping God according to the Vedas, altho there is no foundation for it in any of its pages.

A mother dove had been the target of some small boy. The bullet had passed through her breast, and had left her only strength enough to flutter homeward and reach the nest, where a half-grown fledgling awaited her coming.

Dying, she had snuggled up against her little one, her life-blood pulsing out over her own white breast and against that of her young. And there, with eyes staring wide, she breathed her last, and the fledgling starved, and then froze. The two were found with their heads prest together as in a last embrace.

The owner of the dove-house brought them down-town just as they rested in the nest, and the sight and the suffering of which it spoke were enough to melt the hardest heart.

The boy with the rifle may cause a like tragedy again, and many times.

Children are thrown with the baggage on the camels if unable to walk; but if they are five or six years of age the poor little creatures are obliged to trot on all day with bleeding feet. The daily allowance of food was sometimes a quart of dates in the morning and half a pint of flour, made into a bazeen, in the evening. None of the owners ever moved without their whips, which were in constant use. Drinking too much water, bringing too little wood, or falling asleep before the cooking was finished were considered almost capital crimes. No excuses were taken; the whip exacted a fearful penalty. Sometimes the little children would cry bitterly for water when the hot east wind was blowing; if they fell down, the Moors would haul them up roughly and drag them along violently, beating them incessantly till they had overtaken the camels.—“Heroes of Modern Crusades.”

A French physician contends that groaning and crying are two grand operations by which nature allays anguish; that those patients who give way to their natural feelings more speedily recover from accidents and operations than those who suppose it unworthy in a man to betray such symptoms of cowardice as either to groan or cry. He tells of a man who reduced his pulse from 126 to 60 in the course of a few hours by giving full vent to his emotion. If people are unhappy about anything, let them go into their rooms and comfort themselves with a loud boo-hoo, and they will feel one hundred per cent better afterward. In accordance with this, the crying of children should not be too greatly discouraged. What is natural is nearly always useful. (Text.)—American Homeopathist.

Almost always when you meet a fox in the woods he pretends not to see you, but changes his course casually, as if, perhaps, he had just heard a mouse over there among the stumps. He does not increase his speed in the slightest degree until he is behind some tree or rock; then away he goes at a tremendous rate, always keeping the tree between you and himself until well out of gunshot.—Witmer Stone and William Everett Cram, “American Animals.”

The catbird has the courage of his convictions, and one of these convictions is that he has the right to the satisfaction of an ungovernable and enormous curiosity. Bait your bird-trap in the woods with something which strikes a bird as a curiosity that courts immediate investigation and you will catch a catbird. Other birds might start for it, but the catbird would distance them.—Winthrop Packard, “Wild Pastures.”

When the child learns that he can appeal to others to eke out his store of experiences, so that, if objects fail to respond interestingly to his experiments, he may call upon persons to provide interesting material, a new epoch sets in. “What is that?” “Why?” become the unfailing signs of a child’s presence. At first this questioning is hardly more than a projection into social relations of the physical overflow which earlier kept the child pushing and pulling, opening and shutting. He asks in succession what holds up the house, what holds up the soil that holds the house, what holds up the earth that holds the soil; but his questions are not evidence of any genuine consciousness of rational connections. His why is not a demand for scientific explanation; the motive behind it is simply eagerness for a larger acquaintance with the mysterious world in which he is placed. The search is not for a law or principle, but only for a bigger fact. Yet there is more than a desire to accumulate just information or heap up disconnected items, altho sometimes the interrogating habit threatens to degenerate into a mere disease of language. In the feeling, however dim, that the facts which directly meet the senses are not the whole story, that there is more behind them and more to come from them, lies the germ of intellectual curiosity.—John Dewey, “How We Think.”

The waters of the Pacific are tempered for a certain width with a warm current flowing north from the tropics. The temperature of Alaska is affected by it, and the result of its genial influence is increased vegetation and civilization. But for this life-giving stream Alaska would be as destitute and uninhabitable as Labrador.

Sir Wyville Thompson and, later, Sir John Murray, unraveled some of the mysteries of the hidden depths of the sea, such as the Gulf stream and the waters that wash the Cape of Good Hope. They have found that there are currents flowing over one another in different directions, as in the case of air-currents above us. The aim is to be able to utilize these cross-currents, both of air and water, for the benefit of man.

Bishop Benzler used to be a great favorite of the German Emperor, but recently the bishop fell into one of those quarrels about burial-grounds that in Germany, as well as in England and Wales, seem to have a great power of making people forget Christian charity. The bishop, because a Protestant had been buried in this ground, went to the extreme step of declaring that the ground had been desecrated, and decided to curse it.

The Emperor was furious when he heard of this, and when the bishop was imprudent enough to demand an audience, he let loose upon the head of the unfortunate ecclesiastic a flood of eloquent wrath which submerged him. Here is the principal passage:

“Your Reverence,” said the Emperor, “has asked for an audience, and I have granted it because I, also, have a few words to say to you. Before leaving Alsace-Lorraine I must tell your Reverence that your attitude has greatly displeased me. You were represented to me as a mild and peaceable man; your actions prove the contrary. You have done worse things than the worst fanatic. You have curst a cemetery situated on German soil, the German soil over which I rule. Do not forget, your Reverence, that I, as German Emperor, will never tolerate that even one inch of German soil should be[154] curst—no, not one inch! It is a bishop’s duty to bless, and the moment you begin to curse you cease to be fit for your high position.” (Text.)

An efficient baseball player tries to get at the secret of the pitcher’s curves; and the player in the game of life will look well to the curves of the world. This is a good world, and the men and women in it are of royal lineage—we are of God; but the glorious gift of liberty makes possible temptation and sin.

Because you ought to do right it is possible that you may yield to temptation, and failing to overcome a world curve be compelled to give up your place at the homeplate.—T. E. Potterton.

Whether in architecture, or in education, or in dress, or in other affairs of life, custom rules in Korea. Custom explains everything.

“What about this absurdity?” “Oh, it’s custom.” “Yes, but see here, why are the dead propt up on sticks and not buried?” “Oh, it’s custom.” “Do you sometimes marry off children as early as nine years of age?” “Yes, that’s custom.”

The reader must learn this word if he would understand old Korea, and if he would read into much of the life of the East still The forefather may have been an imbecile, or may have walked in his sleep, but what he did has come down, down to the present, and custom maintains that it is the sane and right thing to do.

“Why do you feed all these idle tramps, who come calling at your door, and you a poor man?” I once asked of my host.

He replied, “It’s custom, and for my life I can’t get out of it.” “What about these dolmens set up all through these valleys here like tables of the gods; what do they mean?” “They were set up by the Chinese invader, thousands of years ago, to crush out the ground influence that brought forth Korean warriors.”

“You mean that they have stifled out the life of the nation for all these centuries?” “Yes.” “Then why don’t you roll them off and get back your lost vigor?” “Oh, that’s no use now, never do.” “As it was, is now, and ever shall be,” is the only reply.—James S. Gale, “Korea in Transition.”

In China there are customs which are more important than etiquette. I met a man who had been shaking from head to feet “You have had chills and fever, haven’t you?” I said sympathizingly. He came very near taking my head off, because there is a special god who runs chills and fever, and if he hears a man has chills and fever and is getting over it, he will give him another shake. I had gone against their deadly custom. Another incident of the same sort happened one day when a doctor of divinity saw a cheap sedan chair and bought it. A millionaire globe-trotter used it that day for sight-seeing, and when he reached the missionary compound, he exclaimed, “I have been outrageously treated by the heathen. The whole city was out laughing at me. As soon as I appeared, every man rushed out of his shop, and the streets were in an uproar.” The doctor of divinity asked his native teacher for an explanation. Now, a teacher is never supposed to smile from one day’s end to another, but that dignified teacher, glass, goggles, and all, doubled up with laughter when he saw the chair. “You really must excuse me,” he said, “but that kind of a chair is used only in funeral processions for the spirit of the dead to ride in.” It was as tho a man should ride through our city sitting up in a hearse.