How long the Hebrews enjoyed peace and independence after the death of Joseph is only conjecture. But it was left to Rameses II., the Sesostris of the Greeks,—the third monarch of the nineteenth dynasty,—to earn for himself, especially, the evil distinction of the oppressor of the Hebrews. The first chapters of Exodus imply that the facts they recount took place under kings who reigned in peace, for had they had defensive wars on their hands they could not have oppressed the Hebrews, lest they should join the enemy. Rameses was undisturbed by any troubles in Egypt, or by any invasion, though his wars with the great Hittite Empire of Western Asia lasted from the fourth to the twenty-first year of his reign, and ended in a treaty gladly made on both sides, after a struggle in which each was equally exhausted.
From this time peace reigned on the Nile, and Rameses was free to carry out his policy of repression towards the Hebrews and their related fellow-settlers of the northeast of Egypt—at once to utilize their labor and to break their spirit. Such a period of quiet did not recur under his successors, who were disturbed by internal commotions, and thus, as has been said, Rameses seems marked out specially as the Pharaoh of the oppression.
That he is rightly thought so, seems further established by the fact that the incidents related in the beginning of Exodus demand the long continuance of a single reign. Not only must the successive persecutions of the Hebrews have required a number of years, but Moses, on his return to Egypt after his residence of forty years in Midian, found the same king still on the throne. No Pharaoh, however, of the nineteenth dynasty, held the scepter thus long but Rameses II. The son of one who was not of pure royal blood, he had been regarded as the true king, through his mother, even from his birth, and had hence, from childhood, been associated on the throne with his father; though he dates his reign only from Seti’s death, when he himself was eighteen or twenty years of age. Yet he lived to wear the crown for sixty-seven years, in wonderful accordance with the statement that “after a long time the king of Egypt died.” His reign therefore answers precisely the conditions required by the Bible narrative.
The monuments of this great king still cover the soil of Egypt and Nubia in almost countless numbers, and show him to have been the greatest builder of all the Pharaohs. There is not, says Mariette, a ruin in Egypt or Nubia that does not bear his name. Two grand temples at Ipsamboul, hewn out of the hills, with four colossal human figures, sixty-five feet high, at the entrances, were intended to perpetuate the memory of his victories over the negroes and the Syrians. At Thebes, the great temple of Amenhotep III. was finished, and adorned with two huge obelisks in granite, one of which is now in Paris. The second huge porch or pylon of the great temple of Amon at Karnak was covered with tableaux, representing the wars with the Hittites or Kheta of Western Asia. The temple of Gournou, begun by Seti, was finished and consecrated. The Ramesseum of Thebes, another great temple, is covered with sculpt-
ures also commemorating the Hittite wars. The temple of Abydos, built in honor of Seti, shows that king sitting on the throne in the midst of the gods, a club in one hand, in the other a scepter. Gods sit on each side, and in rows behind him, while Rameses offers homage, in front, to his father, as to one of their number. Everywhere,—at Memphis, at Bubastis, at the quarries of Silsilis, and at the mines of Sinai, similar memorials occur. The porch of the temple of Ptah, at Memphis, had a porch built by him at its entrance, at the sides of which were placed statues nearly fifty feet high, of himself and his queen. In the land of Goshen he restored and beautified the vast temple of Zoan-Tanis, neglected by the sovereigns of the eighteenth dynasty; the city itself being, besides, well-nigh rebuilt. He founded towns, dug canals, and filled the land with colossi, sphinxes, statues, and other creations. Of the thirty-two obelisks which yet exist in Egypt or elsewhere, twenty-one were either in whole or in part due to him; and of the eight temples which still remain in the ruins of Thebes, there is only one which he did not complete or build entirely. He also erected a chain of fortifications along the entire northeast frontier of Egypt, for 160 miles, to defend it from the invasions of the Syrians and Arabs. Cities which were endangered by the yearly inundations he protected by huge earthen dikes, and he intersected the entire region between Memphis and the sea with channels of irrigation so wide and so numerous, that it became henceforth impracticable for cavalry or war chariots, for which it had before been especially adapted. Herodotus further tells us that he marked off, in square blocks, the land thus reclaimed, and distributed them among his Egyptian favorites, treating the Delta as a new province, now, for the first time, incorporated with the rest of the kingdom.
But with what an expenditure of human misery must all this have been attended! It fills the mind with horror to think of the thousands of prisoners of war, of forced laborers and workmen, who must have died under the blows of the drivers, or under the weight of privations and toil too great for human endurance, in raising these innumerable creations. When slaves could not be had in sufficient numbers, after the close of the Syrian wars, great slave-hunting razzias to Ethiopia were organized, to harry the far South and drag off thousands of negroes and others, in chains, to toil in the brickfield, the quarry, or the temple precincts. All the foreign tribes of Semitic origin who had settled in the Delta were oppressed by forced labor. Even the native population had to suffer. A letter of the period is still extant, which tells how “the tax-collector arrives (in his barge) at the wharf of the district, to receive the Government share of the crops. His men, armed with clubs, are with him, and his negroes, with batons of palm-wood, cry out, ‘Where’s your wheat?’ and there is no way of checking their exactions. If they are not satisfied, they seize the poor wretch, throw him on the ground, bind him, drag him off to the canal at hand, and throw him in, head first, the neighbors running off, to take care of their own grain, and leaving the poor creature to his fate. His wife is bound, and she and his children carried off.” The numbers of prisoners taken in wars were, indeed, far too small to meet the demand for labor on such vast and countless works as Rameses undertook, for in the records of each campaign the returns, carefully given, are singularly insignificant, men preferring death to the horrors of slavery. He could only procure the toil required for works more numerous than those of all the235other kings of Egypt for 2,000 years, by driving off to them, as forced laborers, all the population he could venture to enslave, the Hebrews among them.
The tasks to which they were set included all that the plans of Rameses demanded. They were doubtless marched in gangs to the quarries to hew out huge blocks of granite and limestone, and then set to drag them to their respective destinations, or to ship them on rafts and pilot them down the Nile. They would be employed in digging canals; in making bricks and mixing mortar for the countless erections always in progress; in painfully raising the Nile waters into the canals for irrigation and their circulation over the land, as we still see it along the banks of the river, where the peasants, naked under the burning sun, work through the day, like pieces of machinery, drawing up the buckets of water from the stream, to the fields above. "All manner of service in the field," in short, would be exacted from them, besides all their other labor, which they put upon them with rigor.
"It is very hard to make the smooth road on which the colossus is to slide along," says an inscription of the period, "but how unspeakably harder to drag the huge mass like beasts of burden." There was no machinery then; little mechanical help; the strain lay almost wholly on human thews and sinews. "The arms of the workman," continues the inscription, "are utterly worn-out. His food is a mixture of all things vile; he can wash himself only once in a season. But that which above all is wretched is when he has to drag for a month together, over the soft yielding soil of the gardens of a mansion, a huge block of ten cubits by six." Egypt in all ages has been so marked by the oppression of its toiling thousands, that one of the crimes from which an Egyptian had to clear himself before the judge of the soul, was cruelty to them. Thirty thousand men died in this very century in digging out the Mahmoudieh Canal with their hands, without picks, or spades, or wheel-barrows—falling, worn-out with toil exacted from them by the blows of their pitiless taskmasters; and the monuments show similar misery to have been inflicted from the remotest ages. Doubtless the Hebrews suffered in the same way, and their groans and murmurs may well have taken the shape of those of the wretched fellahs of our own day, whose songs have such refrains as, "The chief of the village, may the dogs tear him, tear him, tear him;" "They starve us, they starve us;" "They beat us, they beat us"—"But there's someone above who will punish them well, who will punish them well."
The Bible statement, that the Hebrews "built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses," is strangely corroborated in the case of the latter by contemporary documents, which mention the Israelites under the name of Aperiu or Aberiu, the Egyptian pronunciation of their own way of naming themselves, as the "Iberim," or, as we say, Hebrews. In the first, a scribe called Kaonisar writes to his superior, the scribe Bekemptah, thus: "For your satisfaction I have obeyed the command you gave me, saying, Deliver their food to the soldiers, and also to the Aperiu who transport the stone for the great Bekhennu—depots and fortified magazines—of the king Rameses, the lover of Amon, which are under the charge of Ameneman, the chief of the Mazai, or gendarmerie. I give them rations each month according to your excellent instructions." The second document is from another scribe to his superior Hius, high official, of Rameses II. "I
have obeyed," says he, "your command to give provision to the Egyptian soldiers, and also to the Hebrews who transport the stones"—great blocks dragged from the other side of the river—"for the Sun-temple of Rameses-Miamun, on the southern part of Memphis." Mazai, or gendarmerie, a corps of foreign mercenaries drawn from Libya, and thus in no danger of sympathy with the oppressed, filled the hateful office of the under taskmasters, who punished the wretched gangs.—Hours with the Bible.
Note.—For the necessity and design of this bondage see article on page 227 of this paper entitled "Design and Necessity of the Bondage in Egypt."
SAN DIEGO.
By William M. Healey
WE have our tent pitched in this city; and began meetings April 1. The people here are much occupied with the affairs of the present time. Speculation is the one all-absorbing thought of most of them.
For the past year this city has been having what they call a "boom." But notwithstanding this general excitement there are some who seem to have a desire to know the will of God. The attendance at the meetings has averaged something over one hundred.
Our company of workers consists of Brethren Philip Kent, L. A. Scott, S. McElhaney, and myself and wife. The city has a population of ten or twelve thousand, having doubled its size in about a year, which gives us all plenty of work. We expect to see good results from the work, believing that God has a people here to whom he is sending his truth. Pray for the work in San Diego.
W. M. HEALEY.
San Diego, April 6, 1887.
Gifts Without Money and Without Price
We hear so often that if a man would acquire the things which are valued among men, he must pay the price of them, that we are apt to forget the worth of the things which are not acquired, and for which we do not pay a price. Who could pay for the bright sunshine, the sweet, cool air, the bubbling sound of brooks, the scent of flowers, or the songs of birds? Above all, who could pay for the high gift of life, for the dowry of reason, and for the salvation of the soul? These are the gifts which God bears in his right hand; and they are given without money, and without price.—S. S. Times.
BASIS OF FAITH.
(Sabbath, April 30.)
1. WHAT are Paul's words about the impossibility of pleasing God without faith?
"But without faith it is impossible to please him." Heb. 11:6.
2. What are the first two essential features of faith?
"For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Heb. 11:6, last clause.
3. What does the apostle say that faith is?
"Now faith is the ground, or confidence of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Heb. 11:1, margin.
4. Is faith exercised before the blessing is received, or after?
"Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." Mark 11:24.
5. How were the heavens and the earth made?
"By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He gathereth the waters of the sea together as a heap; he layeth up the depth in store-houses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast." Ps. 33:6-9.
6. How do we know that this is so?—Because God's word says it is so. Heb. 11:3, first clause.
7. What kind of reasoning does faith discard?
"Casting down reasonings, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." 2 Cor. 10:5, margin.
8. What made Abel's offering more acceptable than Cain's?—Abel's offering showed faith in the blood of Christ, to be shed according to God's promise. Heb. 11:4.
9. What was the difference in the two offerings?
"And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering." Gen. 4:3, 4.
10. What was the basis of Noah's faith in the coming flood?—Faith in God's word. Gen. 6:13, 14.
11. How did Noah show that he believed what God had said?
"By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." Heb. 11:7.
12. For how long a time was Noah required to exercise this faith?
"And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years." Gen. 6:3.
13. To what are the days of Noah likened?
"But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Matt. 24:37-39.
14. Were any saved in the ark except those who believed that a flood was coming?
15. What shall we then conclude respecting those who will be saved when Christ comes?
"So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." Heb. 9:28.
False Prophets and How to Detect Them
By Editor
A SUBSCRIBER asks an explanation of Matt. 24:11: "And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many." The text seems so plain as scarcely to need any explanation. The time when it applies is undoubtedly near the end; for the Saviour is speaking of the end, in the immediate connection. False prophets have existed in all ages of the world (2 Pet. 2:1), but we have reason to believe that they will be more numerous, and do more wonderful works, near the end than at any other period. This is expressly stated in Matt. 24:23, 24.
But that which troubled our correspondent the most, was to know how false prophets might be known, and their false utterances detected. The Bible gives an infallible rule, by following which no one need be deceived. In Deut. 13:1-4 we read:—
"If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him."
By this we learn that false prophets are those whose teaching contradicts the Bible. That book is the standard by which all teachers are to be judged. "To the law, and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Isa. 8:20. No matter how many miracles a man performs, nor how flowery and sublime his teaching may be, if he in any degree contradicts the word of God, he is not to be listened to.
This will also answer those who wonder why the Lord allows the devil to deceive men by personating their dead friends, leaving them a prey to false doctrines. The truth is, he has provided his people with ample safeguards against all deceptions. If they throw away the shield which he has given them, they offer themselves as a prey to the enemy. Let it be remembered that the word of God is absolute truth, that everything which contradicts it is falsehood, and that no number of miracles can make falsehood become truth, and you are fortified against the delusions of false prophets.
The Duty of Mental Work
It is just as foolish to expect to have a sound mind without doing mental work, as it is to expect to have a healthy body without taking physical exercise. If God has given you a mind that is capable of doing anything, it is as much your duty to use it as it is to exercise your muscular powers. A man who has a mind and will not use it for some useful purpose, is as much a sluggard as one who lives in poverty because he will not work with his hands to procure the necessaries of life.—Selected.
WHAT HAS BECOME OF ALL THE LITTLE GIRLS?
By Editor
We look in vain into many pleasant homes, or into the streets, cars, or steamers, for what was once a common sight—and was then, and ever must be, the sweetest object in nature—a simple, artless little girl, with all the pretty, unaffected ways and manners of unsophisticated childhood, fresh and beautiful, about her. There is no lack of small beings, dressed in such a marvelous style that Darwin himself would be puzzled to make out the class to which they belong; but we find nothing to remind us of the little girls we used to know, either in dress or manners.
In former times a pretty muslin bonnet, or a simple, close-fitting cottage straw, we thought the most appropriate covering for a little head—protecting the bright eyes from too intense light, and shielding the rosy cheeks from the sun's too fervid kisses. But now we see something placed on the sunny curls—leaving eyes and cheeks entirely unprotected—which is elaborately trimmed with bows, feathers, a flower-garden, or perhaps a mingling of both; for, although it is too small for even a good-sized doll, the milliner, with an ingenuity which would have been praiseworthy if exercised in a more sensible manner, has contrived to pile up trimming enough to hide even the faintest suspicion of a bonnet. But, what is sadder than the lack of true taste and good common sense in this stylish affair, we see no semblance of child-like simplicity in the wearer. And the bonnet is but the beginning of this unfortunate change which we mourn. The pretty "baby waist," the plain white dress, the neat muslin or merino, so appropriate, which little girls used to wear, are supplanted by incomprehensible garments—the fac-simile of the grand dame's attire—flounces, fringes, bows, and double skirts looped and festooned in an astounding manner; the child's—no, we mean the young lady's height, there are no children in these days—is less than her circumference. This dress is put on over a hoop, and the "mite" who is made to carry such an incongruous burden, totters about on high-heeled boots. This tiny specimen of womanhood, hardly weaned from her mother's breast—or, more probably, a wet nurse's—shakes out her redundant robes, bending and twisting her small body in grotesque imitation of the women spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, with haughty mien, "walking and mincing as they go." See how the little ape looks over her shoulder, as she tottles about, to be sure that her hoops give her dress and figure the correct wiggle her sharp eyes have observed in the stylish mother and her fashionable friends. It is lamentable that all the simplicity and beauty of babyhood and childhood should be destroyed by fashion.
Added to the absurdity of the dress, these little women attempt to discourse on the "latest style." With their companions or dolls you will hear them imitating the discussions on this subject that they daily hear in the parlor or nursery, from their mother; or, still imitating, with a contemptuous toss of their little heads, they will inform their listeners that they "couldn't think of 'sociating with those girls, because they are not stylish!"
A few days since as we passed out of a store on Broadway our attention was arrested by the conversation of two little figures seated in a fine carriage, waiting, doubtless, for mamma to finish her shopping. They were dressed in a style positively overwhelming. Their hats were wonders of skill, their gloves had the orthodox number of buttons with bracelets over them, a dainty handkerchief suspended from a ring attached by a chain to another ring on the little doll-like fingers. The dress was simply indescribable. The elder was speaking to the younger, who, scarcely more than a baby, sat demurely by her side. "Oh, mercy! just look at that horrid little girl who is crossing the street! She has no hoops on, and not a single flounce—no trimming at all on her dress! And, oh! see her gloves! why she has only one button! Pshaw! she's nobody, not a bit of style!"
The youngest lisped a reply, which we lost as we passed on; but it was painful to think of the training they must have received which enabled them at that early age to judge a child of their own years so quickly by the rules of fashionable dress, and because her attire was not in exact accordance with that week's style, turn from her with contempt as something too low for their notice.
Then, again, how soon a child taught by daily precept and example learns to watch her little companions with envious or exultant feeling, as the case may be. How quickly she begins to grow hollow-hearted and deceitful; receiving, as she sees her elders do, a companion with open arms, or a welcoming smile, expressing the greatest affection, but the moment she leaves begins to criticise or make unkind remarks.
"I don't like Nellie one bit, mamma; she's such a proud, stuck-up thing! I suppose she thought I should feel bad cause her dress had more trimming and was a little newer style than mine. I didn't let her know that I noticed it. But I do think it real mean, mamma, that she should have nicer things than mine. Papa is twice as rich as her father. It made me mad to see her show off her dress; and she kept looking at mine and sister's in such a way."
"I hope, my dear, you were polite to Nellie."
"Oh, yes! But, mamma, I was awful glad when she left—though I was just as smiling and pleasant as could be to her face."
That's a good girl. You must always be very polite and cordial to your companions, you know. But I must say I think Nellie was quite vain; and you must never show that you are proud of your clothes. I shall go out to-morrow and get you that pretty dress you teased so for, I think!
"Oh, mamma! I am so glad! And as soon as it is made I'll go right over and call on Nellie. Won't she feel bad when she sees my new dress! It will be ever so much prettier than hers."
And the mother smiled complacently, with never a thought of the improper and wicked feelings she was cultivating. Oh, mothers! how can you be so blind! Both by precept and example you are teaching your children to make dress their idol, and to know very little of anything but that which pertains to fashion; to be envious or contemptuous of their little friends and companions according as they are dressed better or worse than themselves. Can you ever reflect that God did not commit such treasures to your keeping without meaning some day to call upon you to render up the account of your stewardship? What can you say, when asked how you have trained the young souls given to your care? Can you reply, We have been instant in season and out of season in teaching them—what? To work for the good of others, to learn to do right, in all simplicity to love and obey the Saviour, who, taking a little child in his arms, said, "Of such is the kingdom of Heaven." Of such! Ah, no! Not of those children that you are training to avoid—not evil communications—but unfashionable companions, to look on the outward adorning, and not on the heart.
But it is not alone the worldly-minded, who make no pretense to any higher law than their own selfish gratification, who bow the knee to fashion. Christian mothers, are you guiltless? Think of the time, the health and strength, given to dress, the bondage which compels you to pervert all real taste, to do violence to your own natural instincts of neatness and true elegance, and accept the absurdities of fashion, simply because the ruling style requires it. If you are thus influenced and beguiled, do you flatter yourselves that your children will not, from their earliest years, regard such bondage as important? We do not think it wrong to dress neatly and in as good taste as possible. We blame none for giving so much thought to their own dress and their children's as to provide those articles that are appropriate and becoming to the different styles of face, figure, and complexion. It is natural, and we think right, for a mother to dress her darlings as neatly and prettily as she can without unnecessary waste of time and strength; but we do think it sin to spend money and time lavishly in following the dictates of fashion, and not of good taste and common sense. No one pretends to believe that there is either of these in the present style of dressing. It is utterly destitute of grace—is ridiculous to the last degree, but fashion compels, and women—Christian women—obey, and teach their little daughters like obedience! Oh, the money, time, and strength, given to destroy, by the absurdities of fashionable dress, every vestige of beauty and grace which God gave you in your little ones! Take the week through, hour by hour, do you not give more time and thought to your own and your children's dress than you can spare for your Master's service? Do not your children gather from your daily walk and conversation that to be fashionably dressed is of more importance than loving and serving the Saviour who died for them and you? Judging by your daily conversation, which will they think of the greatest importance, the service of God, or devotion to fashion? To which do they see you giving the largest part of your time—the adorning of their little bodies, "the plaiting of the hair, the wearing of gold, and putting on of apparel"—or in teaching them that which is not changeable, "not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is, in the sight of God, of great price"? What can you say, fashionable Christian mother, when He calls you to give an account of your stewardship?—Christian Union.
The Home Circle.
LITTLE WORRIES.
THOUGH many ills may hamper life
When fortune turns capricious,
The great but nerve us for the strife—
The small ones make us vicious.
Fierce griefs are soon outstripped by one
Who through existence scurries;
It's harder far a race to run
With nimble "little worries."
A button bids your shirt good-bye
When late for dinner dressing;
You have a kite you cannot fly,
And creditors are pressing.
You run to catch—and lose—a train
(That fatalest of hurries);
Your newest hat encounters rain—
Life's full of "little worries."
From day to day some silly things
Upset you altogether;
There's naught so soon convulsion brings
As tickling with a feather.
'Gainst minor evils let him pray
Who fortune's favor curries;
For one that big misfortunes slay,
Ten die of "little worries."
—Selected.
Govern Your Thoughts and Tongue
Govern your thoughts when alone, and your tongue when in company.—Selected.
EFFECT OF ALCOHOL ON THE STOMACH.
By James Gray Jewell, M. D.
We frequently read in the daily press accounts of a sudden death, after drinking a quantity of liquor—say a pint of whisky. Dr. Taylor relates the case of a man who died in half an hour, after drinking a bottle of gin—something over a pint. Dr. Seaverns speaks of a child which died in twenty-four hours, after swallowing one ounce of rum. A few ounces of strong alcohol—say six ounces—taken into the stomach, and absorbed into the system, will kill a very strong man, in a very short time. Where these facts are known people wonder why Smith, Brown, and Jones do not die, as they are very hard drinkers. It is because alcoholic liquors, used as a beverage, are composed of alcohol very much diluted with water. Ordinary good whisky or brandy, if there can be anything good in that which is bad, contains about forty per cent to fifty per cent of alcohol, i. e., they are about half water. But notwithstanding they are so much diluted, so powerful is the poison of alcohol that when taken into the stomach, even in this diluted state, congestion of the coats and vessels of that organ almost immediately ensues.
How do we know that this action occurs? I answer, from experiments made in many cases by eminent authorities, but especially by Dr. Beaumont, of the United States Army, in 1822, through an opening in the stomach, made by a gunshot wound, in the left side of a Canadian lad, named Alexander St. Martin, tearing away the integuments and muscles, perforating the stomach, leaving an aperture two and one half inches in circumference, through which the whole process of digestion, and the action of liquids and solids, could be studied. Thus it was proven by experiments, that when alcohol, in any form, was taken into the stomach, it produced congestion, by acting as an irritant. If there be food in the stomach when alcohol is taken, as was proven also by Dr. Monroe, of London, digestion is immediately stopped, until the alcohol is absorbed. The alcohol, being antiseptic, stops fermentation, hence stops digestion. And thus it is that an habitual user of alcoholic beverages must become a dyspeptic. The walls of the stomach become hardened, thickened; the peptic glands, which secrete the gastric juice, become atrophied, are rendered inactive, and the supply of the gastric juice, which is so essential to digestion, is materially diminished. It does more—it precipitates the pepsin from the gastric juice, and renders that fluid useless.
In nearly all cases of chronic alcoholism we will find inflammation of the stomach, resulting in foul ulcers, and cancerous diseases of that organ. The functions of the stomach, in cases of this kind, are entirely suspended. The power to digest food, and every process of waste and repair, is weakened. The patient does not willingly take food; may not have taken any for days and weeks. If food is forced upon him the stomach rejects it. Nausea and vomiting are present. He cannot even retain water, except in very small quantities. Sometimes a large quantity of clotted blood is ejected. If the patient dies with delirium tremens a post-mortem examination will generally reveal the stomach black with mortification.—James Gray Jewell, M. D., resident physician Home for Inebriates, S. F., Cal.
Health and Temperance.
By Christian Statesman
THE SALOON SYSTEM.
THE saloon system is ever expanding, and broadening, carrying lawlessness with it. It fits up saloons with the greatest elegance and taste. It pushes out into new communities. A dozen families cannot dwell together but the hideous monster will sit down among them and demand a tribute of human souls. The father of the saloon system invaded our earth and cursed it. He sends this evil into every community. Were there 200,000 drinking-places in this nation one hundred years ago? No; not one-tenth of that number. But the business has kept pace with the population. It means to do so. It demands sons. It demands daughters. It is no better than the old arena with its lion, fierce and roaring, and thirsting for blood, let loose upon some noble, but captive victim. It is no better than the heathen ruler who rides his powerful horse over the backs of prostrate victims, grinding flesh and bones into the dust. Yes, the saloon system is aggressive. But behold the highway of its progress! On either side it is lined with graves, and through the midst is a stream deep with human blood, and filled with bones and skulls, the whole washed on with floods of tears! It is like a river bursting its banks and spreading havoc and ruin in its path of desolation and death.—Christian Statesman.
PERSEVERANCE AND THOROUGHNESS.
NOTHING, in the long run, commands a higher reward in the world than perseverance and thoroughness. Here is an incident in point:—
A young lad in Pennsylvania who was supporting himself as a stenographer, studied in his leisure time the art of photography. Photography has been a craze for years past with American boys, and tens of thousands of young lads are going about with their cameras taking pictures. Most of them, however, grow tired of the pursuit in a short time, and give it up, without, probably, having made a single creditable picture.
But this boy was as anxious and careful with the amusement as if his livelihood depended on it, and studied not only the practice, but the theory, of the art. An exhibition was given in Philadelphia a few years ago of all electrical discoveries and machinery. Among the exhibits was the photograph of a storm. This boy discovered that no one had ever succeeded in photographing a flash of lightning. He resolved to attempt this scientific feat, which was pronounced impossible.
The lightning must paint its own likeness, hence the photograph must be taken at night. For two years whenever there was a storm he put on a waterproof and carried his camera to the roof of the house. The prepared plate was put in, and turned to the quarter of the sky from which the flash would probably come. But the lightnings, no more tamed than in the days of Job, will not come at our bidding, and say unto us, "Here we are."
The lad watched in the drenching rain upon the house-top through every stormy night for two years, and spoiled one hundred and sixty plates in attempting to catch the evanescent flash. But on the hundred and sixty-first plate there appeared the black sky, riven by a dazzling stream of electric light! For the first time in the history of the world there was a true picture of a flash of lightning.
Copies of this picture are now to be found all over the world, and the boy received letters from all scientific men of Europe congratulating him on his success.
Audubon, the ornithologist, spent hours every day standing up to the chin in the waters of the bayoux of Louisiana, studying a certain moth. His wife complained that he had thus brought on congestion of the lungs, and permanently injured his health.
"Possibly," he said, with indifference. "But there can be now no doubt as to the species of that moth!"
We hear much complaint among young men entering life that there is no room for them in any business or profession. There is room in each for zeal and thoroughness, and they never fail to command success and recognition, even in the making of a picture or the study of a moth.—Youth's Companion.
The Folly of Tight Lacing
A FASHIONABLE doctor has startled the public in England by asserting that tight lacing is a public benefit. He takes the ground that it causes the fools among the women to die young. Unfortunately, they do not always die before they have brought into the world some sickly specimens of humanity as monuments of their folly.
Raft Timber and Dry Rot
According to the English Mechanic, it is found that timber which has floated in water for some time (raft timber) is no longer liable to dry rot. The water slowly dissolves out the albumen and salts, thus depriving the fungus of the nutriment needful for its development.
HOW LONG TO SLEEP.
By The Lancet
PRACTICALLY a man should sleep till he is refreshed. The mistake many persons make is in attempting to govern what must be a matter of instinct by volitional control. When we are weary we ought to sleep, and when we wake we should get up. There are no more vicious habits than adopting measures to "keep awake," or employing artifices, or, still worse, resorting to drugs and other devices to induce or prolong sleep. Dozing is the very demoralization of the sleep function, and from this pernicious habit arises much of the so-called sleeplessness—more accurately wakefulness—from which multitudes suffer. That day is not the time for sleep is evident upon the face of the fact that nature has provided the night, wherein no man can or ought to work.
The difficulties about sleep and sleeplessness—apart from dreams—are almost uniformly fruits of a perverse refusal to comply with the laws of nature. Take, for example, the case of a man who cannot sleep at night, or rather who, having fallen asleep, awakes. If he is what is called strong-minded, he thinks, or perhaps reads and falls asleep again. This being repeated, lays the foundation of a habit of waking in the night and thinking or reading to induce sleep. Before long the thinking or reading fails to induce sleep, and habitual sleeplessness occurs, for which remedies are sought and mischief is done. If the wakeful man would only rouse himself on waking, and get up and do a full day's work, of any sort, and not doze during the day, when next the night came round his sixteen or twenty hours' wakefulness would be rewarded by a sleep of nine or ten hours in length; and one or two of these manful struggles against a perverted tendency to abnormal habit would rectify the error and avert the calamity.
The cure for sleeplessness must be natural, because sleep is a state of natural, rhythmical function. You cannot tamper with the striking movement of a clock without injuring it, and you cannot tamper with orderly recurrence of sleep without impairing the very constitution of things on which the orderly performance of that function depends.—The Lancet.