Concerning Three Articles in this Number of McClure’s, and a Coincident that May Set Us Thinking.
[Editorial in McClure’s Magazine for January.]
HOW MANY of those who have read through this number of the magazine noticed that it contains three articles on one subject? We did not plan it so; it is a coincidence that the January McClure’s is such an arraignment of American character as should make every one of us stop and think. How many noticed that?
The leading article, “The Shame of Minneapolis,” might have been called “The American Contempt of Law.” That title could well have served for the current chapter of Miss Tarbell’s “History of Standard Oil.” And it would have fitted perfectly Mr. Baker’s “The Right to Work.” Altogether, these articles come pretty near showing how universal is this dangerous trait of ours. Miss Tarbell has our capitalists conspiring among themselves, deliberately, shrewdly, upon legal advice, to break the law so far as it restrained them, and to misuse it to restrain others who were in their way. Mr. Baker shows labor, the ancient enemy of capital, and the chief complainant of the trusts’ unlawful acts, itself committing and excusing crimes. And in “The Shame of Minneapolis” we see the administration of a city employing criminals to commit crimes for the profit of the elected officials, while the citizens—Americans of good stock and more than average culture, and honest, healthy Scandinavians—stood by complacent and not alarmed.
Capitalists, workingmen, politicians, citizens—all breaking the law, or letting it be broken. Who is left to uphold it? The lawyers? Some of the best lawyers in this country are hired, not to go into court to defend cases, but to advise corporations and business firms how they can get around the law without too great a risk of punishment. The judges? Too many of them so respect the laws that for some “error” or quibble they restore to office and liberty men convicted on evidence overwhelmingly convincing to common sense. The churches? We know of one, an ancient and wealthy establishment, which had to be compelled by a Tammany hold-over health officer to put its tenements in sanitary condition. The colleges? They do not understand.
There is no one left; none but all of us. Capital is learning (with indignation at labor’s unlawful acts) that its rival’s contempt of law is a menace to progress. Labor has shrieked the belief that the illegal power of capital is a menace to the worker. These two are drawing together. Last November when a strike was threatened by the yard-men on all the railroads centering in Chicago, the men got together and settled by raising wages, and raising freight rates too. They made the public pay. We all are doing our worst and making the public pay. The public is the people. We forget that we all are the people; that while each of us in his group can shove off on the rest the bill of to-day, the debt is only postponed; the rest are passing it on back to us. We have to pay in the end, every one of us. And in the end the sum total of the debt will be our liberty.
A VOLCANIC AND SEISMIC YEAR.
[From the Chicago Tribune, Dec. 29, 1902.]
The year 1902 bids fair to be known in the records of time as the volcanic and earthquake year, and this continent has had its full share of the disastrous results of these convulsions. The disturbances began last May, and from that time to this there has not been a month in which they have not been active. In South America, Central America, the islands of the Caribbean Sea, Guatemala, Mexico, and Alaska there have been violent eruptions of volcanoes, involving large loss of life and widespread destruction of property, while many volcanoes, long supposed to be extinct, have made sympathetic efforts sufficiently threatening to cause general alarm in their vicinity. The eruption of Mont Pelée and Mont Suffrière were the most violent, burying the country for miles around in ashes, and destroying 45,600 lives. To these must be added 7,625 more lost at other places, making a total of 53,225 victims of volcanic fury.
Volcanic eruptions have been accompanied by seismic disturbances in various parts of the world. Upon this continent, Mexico and Guatemala have been the chief sufferers, 1,300 lives having been lost in those two countries. Few disasters from this cause have occurred in Europe, but Turkestan, in western Asia, has been shaken up three times. In February 5,000 lives were lost at Shamakar, in the Caucasus region; in September, 1,100 in the same region; and in December, 5,000 at Andijan, which is in the eastern part of Turkestan. In addition to these last, ten times their number have been left homeless. The entire number of lives lost from this cause is 12,437.
Not satisfied with volcanic disturbances and earthquakes, nature has been busy with its storms in the shape of cyclones, typhoons, and hurricanes every month in the year. They count 4,592 victims. Nature has also let loose floods, sweeping away 8,032 victims; China, as usual, being the principal sufferer. Fire, that other element of nature, claims a long list of victims, tho it is hardly fair to charge to nature what clearly is attributable to human negligence and carelessness, as was shown, for instance, three times in this city when the St. Luke's hospital, the glucose works, and the Lincoln Hotel burned, involving the loss of thirty-seven lives. This year 1,593 persons have been reported as having lost their lives in this country by fire, but the real number must have been greater. In large fires in Europe 1,007 lives have been reported as lost. The number of casualties of this kind in Europe is much smaller than in this country, as they build more securely over there, and consequently have fewer destructive fires. The general trend of fire waste in this country is in the direction of increase, and the saddest feature of it all is that the loss of life by fire also increases every year.
From all other causes a little more than 80,000 persons have perished in 1902. While this is not as large a number of fatalities as have occurred in some other years, the destruction is phenomenal, in that nearly two-thirds of it has been occasioned by volcanic and seismic disturbances.
AS HONEST AS OTHER MEN.
The Independent of January 15 publishes an article by a patrolman on the police force of New York, entitled “From the Policeman’s Point of View.” He avers in closing that “New York policemen are just as honest as any other set of men.” He tells how as a clerk he obtained a place on the police force. First he paid a politician $300—all he had saved—to secure a position. The politician deposited it with a saloon-keeper who put it in his safe, and the young man got neither position nor return of money. Then $300 more was demanded. He applied to the civil service commission, and found that physically he could not meet the requirements. But the politician told him he could get around this by hiring a substitute to meet the physical tests for him, costing all told $1,000. He threw off on the politician, took athletics, passed the civil service examinations, and received his appointment. But the politician had to be bought off, and was for $200 more. He tells us that a “patrolman who insisted on enforcing all the laws would be an idiot. He would not last a month. There isn’t any reason why a patrolman should enforce the foul laws about gambling and excise. They’re against nature, and he knows it, and has no sympathy with them.” He further says:—
Every man on the force knows that the people don’t want the laws enforced. The [reform] mayor concedes that, and promised a “liberal enforcement,” which means no enforcement. That’s the way that we patrolmen look at the matter, so we go with the tide, taking what comes, and not seeing any more than is good for us.
He tells us that all the way from $1,000 to $10,000 is paid for a captaincy on the force; in some precincts a man can make from $20,000 to $50,000 a year. He describes how one of a pair of pickpockets is induced to betray his fellow, and two policemen pluck the9fellow $75 each. Of course the first one is “fixed,” in other words the police shares with him. And all this is in the “REFORM” administration of New York. And it is like all other reform which leaves Jesus Christ out of the equation of personal righteousness.
“THE BETTER DAYS.”
By Editor
What Are the Prospects?
Let those who dream of a millennium of peace and safety read McClure’s Magazine for January,—read “The Shame of Minneapolis,” where a moral leper was elected mayor of the city four times, where thieves, gamblers, prostitutes, and blacklegs of all sorts gathered and thrived by the connivance and contrivance of the city government itself, till the thieves in office lost the legendary honor among themselves, and one brave man at the head of a grand jury, by means not wholly honorable, succeeded in breaking the ring, and bringing some of the leading criminals to justice. Had these city officials been as shrewd and cool as the Standard Oil directors, told about by Miss Tarbell in another article in the same magazine, they might have been exploiting Minneapolis to the present.
Of the great magnate of the Standard Oil Company Miss Tarbell says (italics and bold face ours):—
Mr. Rockefeller was “good.” There was no more faithful Baptist in Cleveland than he. Every enterprise of that church he had supported liberally from his youth. He gave to its poor. He visited its sick. He wept with its suffering. Moreover, he gave unostentatiously to many outside charities of whose worthiness he was satisfied. He was simple and frugal in his habits. He never went to the theater, never drank wine. He was a devoted husband, and he gave much time to the training of his children, seeking to develop in them his own habits of economy and of charity. Yet he was willing to strain every nerve to obtain for himself special and illegal privileges from the railroads which were bound to ruin every man in the oil business not sharing them with him. Religious emotions and sentiments of charity, propriety and self-denial seem to have taken the place in him of notions [principles] of justice and regard for the rights of others.
And this is typical of trade methods widely prevalent down even to the corner grocer. But both of these are tolerable compared with the unnatural, satanic cruelty set forth in Mr. Ray Stannard Baker’s article on the “Right to Work.” Mr. Baker was sent by the editor of McClure’s to make an “impartial investigation” “of the conditions under which the seventeen thousand non-striking [coal] miners worked,” and to report. Mr. Baker has not tried to tell all he found, only a very small part, and this composed of typical cases. But vividly indeed does his story show how the cherishing of wrong principles turns men into monsters and friends into fiends. We can only say, as we said last week, Let our readers obtain McClure’s Magazine for January, and read the typical stories of corruption in municipal governments, illegal methods in money trusts, and cruelty in labor trusts; and then read in Isaiah 59 and 2 Tim. 3:1–5, a few of the divine predictions of these things, and know that this age is nearing its end, and Christ the King of Justice is about to come.
Following this is an editorial from the magazine quoted above.
The Year 1902.
The Literary Digest of January 10 informs us that the year 1902 is “regarded as so remarkable from a physical standpoint by Messrs. Lagrange and Van der Broeck, two Belgian physicists, that at a recent meeting of the Belgian Geological Society they proposed that a scientific commission should be appointed to study the phenomena of the year and their interrelations.” The proposition, we are told by the Revue Scientifique (December 6), was very favorably received. The study is to be extended in these directions: “(1) Seismic phenomena; (2) volcanic phenomena; (3) meteorologic phenomena; (4) magnetic phenomena; (5) solar physics;” and the relation and interrelation of these, if such exists. If this commission shall be appointed, it will not be a surprise to the prophetic student if the year of investigation shall exceed the year investigated in all these phenomena. The earth is “waxed old.”
The Venezuelan Crisis and the Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine is being tested as never before. The impetuosity of Germany in bombarding the Venezuelan fort and town of San Carlos has caused the deepest anxiety in diplomatic circles. England became allied with Germany in the matter of collecting bills from Venezuela, but is far from disposed to follow up hostilities as far as Germany would like to go. It is now claimed by Venezuela that Germany has been secretly backing the rebellion in that country. The German commodore who bombarded San Carlos claims that his ship was first fired upon from the fort. It looks as tho both parties were a little presumptive,—the Venezuelans because they expect the United States to keep Germany in check, and the Germans because they count on English co-operation. The United States has a strong naval force in Caribbean waters taking note of all operations. Italy is also an ally in the matter of collecting debts, and is also an ally offensive and defensive of Germany in Europe, but is somewhat nervous over the extreme stage of the affair caused by the bombardment. It is said that officers of the German army and navy are anxious for war somewhere; but Italy is in no shape for war anywhere, and Great Britain is especially anxious for peace just now, most of all in any direction that might involve hostility with the United States. The government of Washington sincerely regrets the bombardment, because it will probably complicate the arbitration in which U. S. Minister Bowen is acting for the Venezuelan Government.
Plague Conditions in Mazatlan
The bubonic plague is one of the terrible scourges of the earth. Reports of the plague in Mazatlan, Mexico, have been bad enough, but Americans who have recently come away from there in a chartered vessel say that conditions are worse than reported. Mr. George B. Clark, of St. Louis, who has been exploring in Sinaloa, tells a press correspondent that in the poorer sections of the afflicted city there are no sanitary conditions at all to speak of. And many of the people fleeing from the place drop by the wayside. “In villages some miles away from Mazatlan several cases have been reported, but they are probably due to unsanitary conditions favoring the development of the disease, rather than to spread of infection from Mazatlan. Business has been suspended, drug stores are closed on account of the scarcity of clerks and, to make matters worse, the ignorant and superstitious refuse medical aid and threaten those who attempt even to proffer it. More men than women have fallen victims to the plague, and the dead are buried by prisoners. The latter have been guilty of mutilating the dead. The government authorities are now burning houses in which deaths from plague have occurred and are adopting other hygienic methods. The atmosphere of the whole city is laden with the odor of disinfectants. The people of Mazatlan are greatly in need of help. Many doctors have left the city, and the poor who flee to nearby villages are repulsed.”
Coal and Crime.
A press despatch from Toledo, Ohio, says that “the work-house board has issued an order setting at liberty all prisoners held for stealing coal from the railway yards and tracks. The order includes directions to the superintendent to receive no more prisoners from any court sending them in for petty coal thefts. It is said that no prosecutions for coal thefts will be recognized by the board during the coal famine.” As this whole so-called “coal famine” has been the result of lawlessness, it would seem rather inconsistent to punish the victims for the lesser grades of crime to which they are driven by suffering, while those who instigated the trouble and those who persistently maintain its vicious consequences are treated with such marked consideration by the powers that be. Yet it seems rather anomalous to see such conditions in a wealthy and prosperous nation, a professed “Christian nation,” that law officers find it expedient to condone crime for charity’s sake. But such is human rule, and may it be short. May He soon come who will rule in righteousness. 2 Peter 3:13; Rev. 22:20.
Opposing the Forty-Hour Cattle Bill
By Editor
One of the bills before Congress, H. R. 12002, is for the purpose of amending section 4386 of the Revised Statutes, which prohibits railroad companies and other parties transporting cattle, sheep, swine, or other animals from one State to another, “confining the same in cars, boats, or vessels of any description for a longer period than twenty-eight consecutive hours, without unloading the same for rest, water, and feeding for a period of at least five consecutive hours, unless prevented from so unloading by storms or other accidental causes.” The amendment proposes to change the word “twenty-eight” to forty. To say nothing of the fact that such treatment of animals designed for food renders them wholly unfit for such purposes, the amendment in its end is horribly cruel. Every Congressman, unless basely interested, should be expected to vote it down. New York’s law provides only twenty-four consecutive hours of passage with ten hours of rest. John P. Haines, president of the A. S. P. C. A., Madison Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street, is applying for help to defeat the bill. We hope he will succeed.
Prohibition in Danger
The liquor traffic is one of the adjuncts of King Capital in this country, and, withal, is one of the king’s most powerful ministers. Notwithstanding the efforts at temperance reform, the sale of intoxicants continually increases, and the profits are liberally applied to political purposes. The one purpose of the liquor interest that is most persistently pursued is to undermine prohibition laws. That is the only form of temperance legislation that the traffic really fears. So it is not surprising to find the following item in the Springfield, Mass., Republican: “The new governor of New Hampshire announces the failure of prohibition in that State—such having been the conclusion of the republican convention which nominated him; and the Legislature is expected to take steps looking to the substitution of a high-license, local-option system of regulating the liquor traffic. It might as well, New Hampshire has been even more negligent than Maine and much more than Vermont in enforcing the prohibitory law. In the Maine Legislature the attack on prohibition has been renewed with a noteworthy accession of strength, while the Vermont voters are soon to pass upon the question of accepting a license substitute for the present policy. Here, in these three States, are the last strongholds of prohibition, as they were the earliest, in the whole country, and that policy is at the moment in great danger of being driven from all of them.” It is a great pity.
United States-Colombia Canal Treaty
A treaty between the United States and Colombia has been signed, by the terms of which the United States agrees to make a cash payment of $10,000,000 in gold to the Colombian Government, and after the expiration of nine years, to pay a rental of $250,000 per year. The lease of the strip of land to be used for the canal and for canal purposes is practically made perpetual, the provision on this point being that the first lease shall be for 100 years and renewable thereafter at the pleasure of the United States. The strip is to be ten kilometers or six miles in width, and over this territory the United States is given police and sanitary jurisdiction, altho it is explicitly specified that Colombia does not surrender sovereignty over it. The United States is to have the privilege of free importation of vessels and material to be used in the construction of the canal. It also is given the right to improve, use, and protect harbors at both the Atlantic and the Pacific ends of the canal. The grant is made exclusive to the United States, and no taxes or rentals are to be charged in addition to the gross sums of $10,000,000 cash and $250,000 annually.
Progress of Wireless Telegraphy.
Press despatches announce that Marconi is now ready to establish direct wireless communication between Italy and Argentina, countries 6,000 miles apart. He said to-day that this would be his next undertaking. He is going to Italy and to Argentina to select sites for two stations. The 6,000-mile-wireless system is to be backed by the Italian Government, and there is no question in the minds of Marconi and his friends and business associates here but that direct communication between Italy and Argentina will be as successful as it is now between Cape Cod and Cornwall. The distance over which a wireless message may be sent depends only on the amount of power, and the power used to send that message from President Roosevelt to King Edward the other day was not more than half the power required to operate an ordinary electric automobile.
A “Pipe-Dream” of Peace.
During the decade 1890-1900, the population of this country increased not quite 25 per cent, while consumption in cigars alone increased 50 per cent. According to the report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue there were consumed in the United States in the year 1902 6,905,749,968 cigars, almost 19,000,000 a day for 365 days in the year, at an expense of $346,000,000. It is simply awful. But besides this there were consumed 2,658,176,130 cigarettes, and used in addition 315,719,475 pounds of tobacco and snuff. Think of it! Can we wonder at the startling increase of insanity and nervous diseases? And yet stupefied, dreaming, in the reeking narcotizing fumes of tobacco professed watchmen of God tell us that the world is drifting on toward a millennium of peace, and the “people love to have it so;” but “what will ye do in the end thereof?”
Necrology
Two noted newspaper correspondents have recently passed away: January 18, Henri Georges Stephane Adolphe Blowitz, for many years correspondent of the London Times in Paris, in his 71st year. He was admired and feared by ruler, statesman, and diplomat. He received from the Times $50,000 a year. In this country it was a young man, aged nearly 50, Julian Ralph, of New York, who died January 20. He was a prolific magazine writer and author of several books. Abram S. Hewitt, former member of Congress, and mayor of New York, a well-known national character, died January 18, at the age of 80.
China
China.—Despatches via Victoria, B. C., report that late news from China is to the effect that unless the revolution in Kansu, led by Tung Fu Hsiang is checked there will be a bigger revolt than two years ago. Missionaries are leaving the province; and they say that the government is behind the “rebels.” The rebellion in Kwangsi is more serious than even known. The rebels numbering 40,000, armed with modern rifles, have taken possession of many towns and districts.
Arthur Lynch Sentenced for Treason
Col. Arthur Lynch, an Irish-Australian, who had aided the Boers in the South African war, and was afterward elected to Parliament, has been convicted of treason in an English court and sentenced to death. Mr. Joseph Devlin, a member of Parliament, and now in America, expresses the opinion that “the question of one's right to throw off his allegiance to his government was settled by the arbitrament of war between this country and Great Britain in 1812.” He also avers that “in the war of the Revolution thousands of Irishmen, while subjects of Great Britain and Ireland, came to this country and aided the fathers of this country, fought against the British and returned to their homes after freedom had been acquired, and were not prosecuted by the British Government. The opinion of the attorney-general of that time was that no treason had been committed.” It is believed in many circles that the sentence will be commuted to a term of imprisonment.
The Leading Inducement
The people of the Old World, and most who visit there from the New, are prone to indulge in gambling. So extensive is this inclination that governments encourage it as a drawing enterprise. But as an industry designed to give idlers something to do, it is a significant sign of the times. A current news item says: “The Italian Government is considering plans for the upbuilding of Naples. That city has a population of 500,000 inhabitants, but having no staple industry, about 150,000 of these are unemployed. Much distress, therefore, prevails. The government’s plan is to make the city attractive to European tourists. To this end it is proposed, in the first place, to erect a large gambling casino which shall rival that of Monte Carlo, and to erect a series of magnificent hotels along the shores of the beautiful bay.”
A Proposed Atlantic-Pacific Canal Route
along the shores of the beautiful bay.
There is still another route proposed for an Atlantic-Pacific canal, and it is said to be preferable to either of the others. It would connect the two oceans from the Bay of Mandingo in the Gulf of San Blas on the Atlantic side with Pearl Island Harbor in the Gulf of Panama on the Pacific side. It would be but 29½ miles long, as against 49 miles for the Panama route and 183 for the Nicaragua. It would be a sea-level canal without locks. Under all conditions of tide and weather it is said that 288 ships could be sent through in a day, whereas the number able to go through the other canals would depend on the rainfall. Like many another trader in the world's mart Uncle Sam may find after he has paid his money that he might have done much better; and this will hurt his Yankee shrewdness and conceit.
Victim of Hypnotist.
Mrs. Mamie Byrnes, a wealthy lady of Des Moines, Iowa, died recently at a hospital in St. Louis. A lady friend of hers says that the deceased was for months under the constant influence of a hypnotist who said he was a healer, and that she followed him to St. Louis. At her death she showed the greatest fear of him. It would be a good thing if people would be afraid of hypnotic influence in the beginning, and have such fear of it as to have nothing to do with those who exercise it. It is of the devil, and whoever yields the mind to its influence simply gives place to the devil, and will hardly ever again be able to shake him off. The first effects are sometimes flattering to the unwary, as Satan is a great deceiver, but they are none the less fatal.
Drought and Cannibalism
The steamer Miowera which arrived at Vancouver, B. C., January 23, brings news of the murder of several white men by the natives of New Guinea. A drought has been experienced for some time on the island, and it is thought that as a result of the shortage of food the natives have reverted to cannibalism. Murders are reported from several places. One report tells of the killing of two European prospectors, who were eaten by the blacks, and a Dutch constable is reported to have been kidnapped and eaten. Several blacks were also murdered. Many of the natives have no food and are subsisting on roots and herbs.
Stromboli again Active.
A press despatch dated Rome, January 25, says that, after a brief spell of inactivity, the volcano Stromboli is again in eruption. Great quantities of lava and stones are being thrown up and to an immense distance from the crater. The cone of the volcano is capped with a thick cloud of smoke. The eruption affords a magnificent spectacle at night, the flames rising from the crater illuminating the sky.
A Brilliant Bow in the Sky
UNDER date of Dec. 31, 1902, 10 o’clock P.M., a friend writes us from Winston, N. C.: “There is now over the city of Winston-Salem in the sky a segment of a circle, like a rainbow in brilliant colors. It is not raining, but misty except where the bow is, and there it is clear. All can see it and many are seeing it.” This is one of the many “wonders” which God hangs out in the sky for His children to contemplate.
Philippine Church Property Dispute
GOVERNOR-GENERAL TAFT has decided that the dispute between the Catholics and the Independent Catholics over the ownership of church property in the Philippines must be decided by the courts of the islands, and has warned the governors of all the provinces to take sides with neither party, and to intervene only when the peace is disturbed.
Volcano and Earthquake Reports
Persons in Guatemala who live near the Volcano Santa Maria are fearful that it will soon be in eruption again, and are leaving the country. January 25 an earthquake was felt in southern United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It took the earthquake wave one hour to cross the continent.
ADOLESCENCE
By Mary Wood-Allen
BY MARY WOOD-ALLEN, M. D.
III. Religious Significance.
Students of adolescence have in the last few years brought to light some very significant facts. They have discovered that the majority of criminals in our penal institutions are in the adolescent period; that the average age of so-called incorrigibles, both boys and girls, is sixteen. One of the dailies in Detroit lately noted the fact that within the preceding two weeks twelve girls had been reported missing from their homes in that city, and that the ages were between fifteen and seventeen. Observation in all phases of life elucidates the fact that youth is particularly susceptible to evil influences, and as we see how young they are easily led into sin we become discouraged and depressed. But we have looked upon only one side of the subject if we stop here. It has at last dawned upon statisticians to investigate the susceptibility of youth to good influences, and a wonderful discovery is made. The majority of Christians date their conversion to the same youthful years wherein are found the majority of criminals. Between sixteen and twenty-one are the years when most conversions take place. Eccl. 11:9; 12:1; 2 Chron. 34:3.
This is not the deduction from a few isolated cases, but the accumulated evidence from hundreds of cases found in all grades of social life.
What does this prove? Only that adolescence is the time when the individual is most susceptible. Whether he shall choose one course of conduct or another depends largely upon the character of the influences which surround him. That there are more Christians than criminals indicates that youth tends more naturally to good than to evil. The adolescent youth is reaching out after something, he hardly knows what. He feels in his heart undefinable desires and aspirations. These, wrongly directed, become purposes, while rightly guided they grow into noble impulses. Lam. 3:27.
If there is any special time in life in which there should be wise Christian training it is in adolescence. But the teacher must remember that this is also the natural time of skepticism, simply because the youth is beginning to think for himself, and very often the only way in which he can prove his power to think is to express a doubt of the beliefs entertained by those about him.
If, instead of sneering at him, or censuring him because he dares to question, his doubts were patiently heard and lovingly answered, he might readily be led into the faith his deepest being longs for.
The boy that seems so aggressive, so skeptical, is being stirred in the very depths of his nature by the touch of the Spirit. It is a pathetic time in life. He is cutting loose from the restricting bonds of childhood and endeavoring to walk alone. The path is new, the loneliness is intense. He is trying to find and realize himself, he is reaching out after something greater and stronger than himself. He does not realize all this. He only knows that he is restless, that nothing pleases, nothing satisfies. Old things are passing away, and he does not know what are the new things that are to appear. Is it any wonder that he should show evidences of this upheaval of his nature in conduct that is rather erratic?
It would seem as if God had chosen this time of life to turn the human heart most strongly towards Himself. Prov. 8:17; Hosea 11:1. In the silences he calls, but the child untaught in spiritual truths does not understand the voice.
A beautiful illustration of how God does speak to each heart is illustrated in the life of Helen Keller, that wonderful girl, who, blind, deaf, and mute, is yet a profound student, not only of facts, but of abstract truths. Her teacher had felt that it would be impossible to teach her of the great and all-loving infinite Spirit. It was a subject impossible to explain to one whose only sense was that of touch. But when Helen was about fourteen the teacher felt that she must make an effort to give her some glimpse of spiritual truth, so she tried to tell her of God, His infinite love and protecting care. With her sensitive fingers placed on the lips and throat of her patient teacher, Helen followed the words with a face that began to glow and shine more and more until the lesson was ended. Then with a sigh of relief she said, “O, I am so glad you have told me His name, for He has often spoken to me.”
Hellen Keller is shut out from the world of sight and sound, but not from the world of infinite Spirit, and the same voice that spoke to her is speaking to every youth. She in the stillness and silence of her life heard the voice, and felt its joy. The youth who lives in the world of material things is deafened and bewildered and does not clearly hear, and so he blunders and falls.
Just here does youth need the most patient, tender guidance. Religion should come naturally into his life, and this he should be made to know. It is not a strange and inexplicable mystery, it is simply knowing that God is All-Father, and that just now when the youth is seeking to liberate himself from the life of childhood in the flesh he need not be orphaned or unguided, for he is a child of God and needs only to know this fact and arrange his life in accordance with it to realize the blessed freedom that comes with the knowledge. John 8:32; 16:13.
EARLY LIFE OF DR. ADOLF LORENZ.
Dr. LORENZ, the famous surgeon who so recently visited this country to operate at so great a price by “bloodless surgery” on the daughter of Mr. Armour of Chicago, and who has operated on so many poor children for nothing during his stay here, began life under unfavorable conditions. This is what he said in a lecture in Philadelphia:—
Forty-four years ago I was a little and very poor boy. One day, wandering along the street, I found a single glove. I put it on. It was much too large and contrasted harshly with my feet, which were bare. Proud and happy I walked to my home and showed my treasure to my mother.
“My dear boy,” she said, “you will have to work very hard to find the other glove.”
In the many hardships of later life I often remembered the significance of those words. But at the age of thirty, after many struggles, I had overcome all obstacles as a student, and arose to be first assistant to the late Professor Albert. I taught general surgery, and the dream of my life was to become a famous surgeon—to rummage in the interiors of fellow-mortals.
But the dream never came true. I contracted a peculiar form of eczema. I could not follow my chosen work. I thought that the other glove was gone forever, and I could scarcely resist the temptation to blow out my brains. In complaining of my lot to Professor Albert, he said to me:—
“If you can’t get along with wet surgery, try dry surgery!”
So it was not by love but by necessity that I became a dry surgeon. But necessity is the mother of invention, and after twenty years of hard work I found at last the other glove. And it has brought me the esteem and appreciation of the profession and the grateful thanks of many a mother.
Like other truly great men, he does not feel lifted up. His heart seems to be as large as his strong, muscular frame. His life is a lesson of courage to poor, struggling boys.
The Delicious Bivalve.
The oyster is probably eaten to a greater extent than any other shell-fish. It used to be considered especially wholesome, or at least easy of digestion. But it is a notable fact that it is peculiarly subject to disease, and to the spread of disease. For instance, that great authority, the Medical Record of New York, thus begins an article: “There have been, of course, numerous cases of typhoid fever which have been directly traced to the consumption of infected oysters. The fatalities at Winchester, England, a short time ago, following the eating of contaminated oysters, was a notable case in question, and has drawn the attention of medical men everywhere, and especially of bacteriologists, to the matter.” In the London Lancet of December 6, 1902, another outbreak in Essex, England, is noted. Frequently oysters feed and thrive on the sewage of cities, at the river mouths, or on the offal of the sea. Because of these things, and, doubtless, also from the very nature of shell-fish, the Lord gave this instruction concerning them: “And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination11unto you: they shall be even an abomination unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcasses in abomination. Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.” We can not conceive that the nature of the creatures has been so changed since as to render them anything other than an abomination still.
