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Review and Herald, Vol. 40, No. 3.

Two Purses in One Family

Review and Herald

Jul 2, 1872

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 2, 1872

Two Purses in One Family.

By Chas. B. Reynolds

“THEREFORE all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets.”
There are men, who, admitting the binding force of the golden rule in their dealings with the world, utterly ignore its application to their own wives. Old bachelors and confirmed spinsters, frequently favor us with “Advice to Wives.” “Duties of Wives,” etc., but few men seem to consider that they need any instruction as to their duties as husbands.
A man having sought a woman and drawn her from the loving shelter of her home and family, to cheer and bless his life, has something to do besides providing a dwelling place, and supplying the cellar and buttery, meagerly or bountifully, as his own alimentiveness may prompt. There are mutual duties, mutual obligations; the man should come home, not only to be cheered, sympathized with, and made happy, but to cheer, sympathize, and make his wife happy. The same course of conduct he used to win, he should exercise to keep.
What is needed is mutual love, mutual forbearance, mutual confidence; and these will grow up into a better and purer love than the first. There is something very delightsome in love’s young dream; but dreams, however delightsome, do not last; the sweet and holy joys of married life, will.
Men generally seem to think they will lessen their dignity if they consult their wives as intelligent partners, and so treat them either as babies or as slaves. A man will unhesitatingly trust his life, honor, home, children, to his wife, yet refuse to trust her with a little money. In this respect the majority of wives are treated as little children. “Oh! but women don’t know the value of money!” “Women are so extravagant!” If so, why so? Who’s to blame? Woman by nature is quite as careful and economical as man. A good wife who is acquainted with her husband’s business and the condition of his purse, will spend money with more judgment, use more true economy, and have more to show for it, than her husband. How often has this been proved in cases of sickness or long absence from home on the part of the husband. But if kept in ignorance of her husband’s resources, she attributes the grumbling with which money is so grudgingly doled out to her, to lack of confidence in her, rather than lack of means; and so may sometimes make mistakes. I have heard women say the most painful thing they had to do was to ask their husbands for money; and I have seen men dole it out as if they were drawing teeth, even when they had abundance, and knew it was needed for absolute necessities.
It is a great mistake for a man to keep secret from his wife the state of his affairs, and have her ignorant of how to transact business. What will she do if left to widowhood? In case of sudden death of the husband, how much of loss, ruin, sorrow, and trouble, has resulted from this absurd course.
Some men seem to utterly forget or ignore the fact that the wife has helped to gain the property, and by every principle of right should have a voice in its disposal. Some, though I hope few, are even mean enough to keep entire control of their wives’ own property, instead of letting them use and enjoy what is their own in their own way. This idea that a woman and all she has belongs to her husband, and that she must never expend a dollar without his lordship’s permission, is a relic of the barbarous customs of the old world.
But a man and his wife should have but one purse between them says the husband, and he so closely guards and retains sole control of that one purse, that an occasional exterior view is all he allows his wife. Not only do men act in this matter ungenerously, but very unjustly. Here is Bro. and sister A—. They commenced married life with little or nothing. Together, by hard work, industry and frugality, they have now a handsome property. Systematic Benevolence is to be arranged. Bro. A puts down fifty dollars, about two-thirds what it should be. Sister A, nothing. Why? Says Bro. A, “I give for her and self too.” But sister A has as much love for and desire to aid the cause as her husband. She would like the delight of giving, herself, but she has nothing to give. She has often felt the urgent need of a few dollars; had to deny the really deserving objects of charity, because even for her necessities she dreads to ask for anything from their one purse, on account of the miserable spirit of parsimonious surliness with which it will be refused, or at best grudgingly doled out. She determines to obviate this; obtain a little funds for herself that she can control; raises poultry; it adds to her cares and burdens; but anything is better than to have to apply to our one purse; meets success. Bro. A takes the poultry to market for her. How glad and happy she feels to think she can now have, herself, the blessed privilege of giving, until Bro. A returns, and she finds he has confiscated the entire amount, and in answer to her expostulations, he growls out, “What can you want with the money? Wish women had the earning of the money, they’d learn the value of it! I want you to understand once for all, I don’t believe in two purses in one family!”
Many a man who would scorn to defraud or in any way wrong his neighbor is profoundly indifferent about cruelly wronging the woman he has chosen for his dearest earthly friend and companion for life. Now I do not believe in “Woman’s Rights” technically; but I do believe in woman’s rights to be considered with as much care and thought after marriage as before. I do not think men should be so mean as to obtain goods under false pretenses. Wonder if sister A would have said, Yes; if A had honestly asked her to become his drudge, the patient bearer of all his whims and caprices, share all his troubles and sorrows, be his hired girl for life, with only one purse between them, which means that he should save a hired girl’s wages and she should never have the privilege to control or spend a dollar as she desired, no matter how many she might earn?
Let every wife be helped so she may help herself in this matter. Let a certain amount be invested and the interest payable to her, or a stipulated sum allowed her regularly, or let her have the proceeds from the sale of the butter, or what poultry she can raise, or the small fruits, or a part of the orchard, or dried fruit; or in some way let her have a fund that by care and prudence she can increase, and let her have the whole, sole, and undisputed, right to use such means, just as she pleases. I greatly mistake if it does not result in the figures on S. B., of some of the wives shaming some husbands to making very considerable advance.
It is right, it is just, that the wife should have sole control of some little portion of her earnings. Why ignore the golden rule to wives and apply it to all others? Let us hear no more of “but one purse in the family” while you hold fast both ends. Put yourselves in the places of your wives and see how you would like it. Do to your wives as you would they should do to you, if your positions were reversed.
Let wives have the benefit of the golden rule, share in the responsibility of our stewardship, and in the delight of lending to the Lord. CHAS. B. REYNOLDS.

The Bible Excluded from the Schools of the State of New York.

It is announced, with great exultation, that the Superintendent of Public Instruction in the State of New York has decided against the use of the Bible in the public schools of the State. A violent conflict has been going on in the village at Hunter’s Point, opposite this city, on Long Island, for some months past, on this question, between the Romanists and Protestants. Violence has been resorted to, and the fight had become fearful. We gave full accounts of it at the time. Quiet has been enjoyed for some time, while the matter has been in the hands of the Superintendent. His decision is at length given, and we copy it in full in another column, from the New York School Journal.
By looking over this “Decision,” it will be seen that the Superintendent does not pretend to cite any law on which it is based. He refers to his own and former decisions “in this department,” and on these citations alone proceeds to say that “the action of the Board of Education of Long Island City in directing the reading of a portion of the Bible as an open exercise in the schools under their charge, &c., has been without warrant of law.” It would have been much more satisfactory had he given some citations to show that his own dictum was made with “warrant of law.”
Even by this decision the Board of Education are authorized to provide for the continued reading of the Bible at the usual hour. There is no “warrant of law” requiring them to commence the exercises of the school at 9 o’clock, and if they please to direct the teacher to read the Scriptures at 9 A. M., and to direct that all pupils whose parents do not wish them to hear the Scriptures shall come at 10 minutes past 9, the Superintendent cannot interfere. We think the Trustees are very unwise to expel any pupil for not attending at the reading, but it is plainly within the power of the Trustees, even under this decision, to continue the daily reading of the Bible, and we trust they will.
In regard to the great question that underlies this whole matter, our own opinion, often and freely given, is, that the Bible is not a sectarian book; that such portions of it as all good citizens unite in receiving may be read with profit, and that an order to exclude the Bible is an insult to God and to the moral character of the State. We would arrange the time and place of reading it, so that the children of parents unwilling to have their children hear it, may not be required to be present, and so remove any reasonable ground of objection. If the objection were sincerely made, it would be easy to obviate it by any one of various arrangements. But it is not a serious objection. It is a captious, popular argument used by the enemies of our public schools, who desire to break them up and to obtain the public money for sectarian schools and, therefore, for sectarian churches. It is part of the crusade which Roman Catholics, in the spirit of the Pope’s famous Syllabus, are waging against the education of the people. And as in this country the power is in the hands of the people, the Romanists are gradually succeeding in obtaining political influence to secure such action as this decision of the Superintendent. At first view it seems to be in defiance of the people. But upon second thought it will be seen that the political parties are so disposed toward the Roman Catholics, that unless we should elect a Legislature on this question, it would be impossible to reverse the fatal and fearful decision. Among mere politicians there is not courage and principle adequate to save the Bible for the schools of the country.
The demands of the Romanists will not stop here. As they have now an official decision that forbids the reading of the Ten Commandments or Christ’s Sermon on the Mount in school hours, they may next demand that the precepts of such lessons shall not be taught; and then that those who believe them to be of divine authority shall not be employed as teachers; and so from step to step downward we may go, until every element of moral power has vanished.
“What are you going to do about it?” For ourselves, we shall stand by the public school system, with all the imperfections and disadvantages its enemies may encumber it with. We do not attach any great immediate and direct value to the reading a few verses of Scripture in schools. It is a principle which we do not surrender, but which is torn from us by violence. We think the ultimate moral effect of making a portion of God’s word the daily food of a scholar’s mind is great, and as the State is bound to make good citizens, we would never give up the Bible. But if we are beaten down by politicians and Romish priests, and the Bible is by them thrust out of the school room, we still remain and will “fight it out on this line” to the end of life. We will re-double our efforts in mission and Sunday-school work, to reach the young with religious truth, and by voluntary outside efforts we will seek to inculcate in the youthful mind those principles of virtue which are essential to good citizenship. With God’s help we will never give up the children of this land to Romanism or Infidelity.
And if the exclusion of the Bible by State authority from our public schools should have the effect to supplement our secular school system with a plan for the moral and religious culture of the children, such as will reach the wild Arab races of the streets and slums, going beyond the present system and taking the ignorant and neglected for whom now “nobody cares;” we may yet see that Romanism has overleaped itself, when it hoped to doom the people to moral darkness by shutting the light of the Bible from the public school.—N. Y. Observer.

“ALL THINGS NEW.”

“He that sat upon the throne said, Behold I make all things new.” Rev. 21:5.
There's shadow on earth's fairest light, Of human guilt and human tears; She gropes her way through realms of night That once sang with the spheres. But not the sport of blinded chance, The heavenly record standeth true; She waits a full deliverance When God makes all things new.
The world is old with centuries, But not for these she bows her head, Close to her heart the sorrow lies— She holds so many dead! Sad discords mingle in her song, Tears fall upon her with the dew, The whole creation groans; how long Ere all shall be made new?
Yet brightly on her smiles the sun, A bounteous Heaven delights to bless; O, what shall be that fairer one Wherein dwells righteousness. O happy world! O holy time! When wrong shall die, and strife shall cease, And all the bells of Heaven chime With melodies of peace.
No place shall be in that new earth, For all that blights this universe, No evil taint the second birth, “There shall be no more curse.” Ye broken-hearted, cease your moan, The day of promise dawns for you, For he that sits upon the throne Says, “I make all things new.”
We mourn the dead—but they shall wake! The lost—but they shall be restored! Oh well our human hearts might break Without that Sacred Word! Dim eyes look up, sad hearts rejoice, Seeing God's bow of promise through, At sound of that prophetic voice, “I will make all things new.”
How long?—The ages falter, dumb, As on the threshold of new birth; The nations pray, “Thy Kingdom come, The new heavens and new earth!” Earth, turning, turning, nears that day, When all the angel-choirs anew, Shall sing, “Old things are passed away, God hath made all things new.”

A Japanese Sermon.

By Algernon Bertram Milford

Translated by Algernon Bertram Milford, Secretary of Legation in Japan.
Sermons in Japan are not delivered as part of a service on a special day of the week, but are preached in courses, the delivery occupying a fortnight, two sermons being given each day. In a great many cases the preachers are itinerant priests, who go from town to town, and village to village, lecturing. The locale is usually the main hall of a temple, or the guest-room of the resident priest. The audiences are composed of old people, who, finding themselves near their end, wish to make their peace with Heaven, and young girls, who attend doubtless with every intention of profiting, but forget, as soon as they get outside the door, everything they have heard within. There are, of course, no pews or benches. The congregation squat on the mats, the preacher being accommodated with a cushion at the upper end of the room. In front of him is a reading-desk, on which he lays his sermon, and he holds in his hand a fan, with which, from time to time, he raps the desk to emphasize his delivery, and wake the slumbering. Between the two sermons occurs an interval of ten minutes, introduced by the priest with the words, “Well, let’s take a puff” (of tobacco).
The following sermon is by a preacher of the “Shingaku” sect, which professes to combine all that is excellent in Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shintoism. The text is taken from the Chinese Classical Book, just as we take ours from the Bible. Jokes, stories, and pointed applications to members of the congregation, are as common in these sermons, as dry, rigid formality is with us.
Moshi says, “Benevolence is the heart of man, Righteousness is the path of man. How lamentable a thing is it to leave the path and go astray, to cast away the heart, and not know where to seek for it.”
The text is taken from the first chapter of Koshi (Chin.: Kao Tsu), in Moshi. Now this quality, which we call benevolence, has been the subject of commentaries by many teachers, but as these commentaries have been difficult of comprehension, they are too hard to enter the ears of women and children. It is of this benevolence that, using examples and illustrations, I mean to treat. A long time ago there lived at Kioto a great physician, called Imaoji—I forget his other name—he was called a very famous man. Once upon a time, a man from a place called Kuramaguchi, advertised for sale a medicine which he had compounded against the cholera, and got Imaoji to write a puff for him. Imaoji, instead of calling the medicine in the puff a specific against the cholera, misspelt the word cholera, so as to make it simpler; when the man who had employed him went and taxed him with this, and asked him why he had done it so, he answered with a smile, “As Kuramaguchi is an approach to the capital from the country, the passers-by are but poor peasants and woodmen from the hills; if I had written ‘cholera’ at length, they would have been puzzled by it, so I wrote in a simple way that should pass current with every one. Truth itself loses its value if people don’t understand it. What does it signify how I spelt the word cholera, so long as the efficacy of the medicine is unimpaired?” Now, was not that delightful? In the same way the doctrines of the sages are mere gibberish to women and children who cannot understand them. Now my sermons are not written for the learned. I address myself to farmers and tradesmen, who, hard-pressed by their daily business, have no time for study; with the wish to make known to them the teachings of the sages, and carrying out the ideas of my teacher, I will make my meaning pretty plain by bringing forward examples and quaint stories. Thus, by blending together the doctrine of the Shinto, Buddhist, and other schools, we shall arrive at something near the true principle of things. Now, positively, you must not laugh if I introduce a light story now and then; levity is not my object, I only want to put things in a plain and easy manner.
Well, then, the quality which we call benevolence is, in fact, a perfection, and it is this perfection which Moshi spoke of as the heart of man. With this perfect heart, men in serving their parents, attain to filial piety; in serving their masters, they attain to fidelity; and if they treat their wives, their brethren and their friends in the same spirit, then the principles of the five relations of life will harmonise without difficulty. As for putting perfection into practice, parents have the special duties of parents, children have the special duties of children, husbands have the special duties of husbands, wives have the special duties of wives. It is only when all these special duties are performed without a fault, that true benevolence is reached, and that again is the true heart of man.
For example, take this fan. Any one who sees it knows it to be a fan, and knowing it to be a fan, no one would think of using it to blow his nose in; the special use of a fan is for visits of ceremony, or else it is opened in order to raise a cooling breeze; it serves no other purpose. In the same way, this reading-desk will not serve as a substitute for a shelf; again, it will not do instead of a pillow. So, you see, a reading-desk also has its special functions, for which you must use it. So, if you look at your parents in the light of your parents, and treat them with filial piety, that is the special duty of children. That is true benevolence, that is the heart of man. Now, although you may think that when I speak in this manner, I am speaking of others and not of yourselves, believe me that the heart of every one of you is by nature pure benevolence. Now, I am just taking down your hearts as a shopman does goods from his shelves, and pointing out the good and bad qualities of each, but if you will not lay what I say to your own accounts, but persist in thinking that it is all anybody’s business but yours, all my labor will be lost.
Listen, you who answer your parents rudely, and cause them to weep; you who bring grief and trouble on your masters; you who cause your husbands to fly into passions; you who cause your wives to mourn; you who hate your younger brothers, and treat your elder brothers with contempt; you who sow sorrow broadcast over the world; what are you doing but blowing your noses in fans, and using reading-desks as pillows? I don’t mean to say that there are any such persons here, still there are plenty of them to be found—say in the back streets of India, for instance. Be so good as to mind what I have said.
Consider carefully; if a man is born with a naturally bad disposition, what a dreadful thing that is!
This perfect heart is called in my discourses “the original heart of man.” It is true that benevolence is also called the original heart of man, still there is a slight difference between the two. However, as the inquiry into this difference would be tedious, it is sufficient for you to look upon this original heart of man as a perfect thing, and you will fall into no error. It is true, that I have not the honour of the personal acquaintance of every one of you who are present, yet I know that your hearts are perfect. The proof of this is, that if you say that which you ought not to say, or do that which you ought not to do, your hearts within you are in some mysterious way immediately conscious of wrong. When the man that has a perfect heart does that which is imperfect, it is because his heart has become warped and turned to evil. This law holds good for all mankind. What says the old song? “When the roaring waterfall is shivered by the night-storm, the moonlight is reflected in each scattered drop.” Although there is but one moon, she suffices to illumine each little scattered drop! Wonderful are the laws of Heaven! So the principle of benevolence, which is but one, illumines all the particles that make up mankind. Well, then, the perfection of the human heart can be calculated to a nicety. So, if we follow the impulses of our perfect heart in whatever we undertake, we shall perform our special duties, and filial piety and fidelity will come to us spontaneously. You see the doctrines of this school of philosophy are quickly learned. If you once thoroughly understand this, there will be no difference in your conduct and that of a man who has studied a hundred years.
The duty of man has been compared by the wise men of old to a high road. If you want to go to Yedo or Nagasaki, if you want to go out to the front of the house or to the back of the house, if you wish to go into the next room, or into some closet or other, there is a right road to each of these places; if you do not follow the right road, scrambling over the roofs of houses and through ditches, crossing mountains and desert places, you will be utterly lost and bewildered. In the same way, if a man does that which is not good, he is going astray from the high road. Filial piety in children, virtue in husbands and wives, truth among friends; but why enumerate all these things which are patent? All these are the right road and good, but to grieve parents, to anger husbands, to hate, and to breed hate in others, these are all bad things, these are all the wrong road. To follow these is to plunge into rivers, to run upon thorns, to jump into ditches, and bring thousands upon ten thousands of disasters. It is true that if we do not pay great attention we shall not be able to follow the right road.
Certainly the harp and guitar are very good things in their way, but to attend to nursing their parents is the right road for children. Lay this to heart, and consider attentively where the right road lies. People who live near haunts of pleasure become at last so fond of pleasure that they teach their daughters nothing but how to play on the harp and guitar, and train them up in the manners and ways of singing-girls, but teach them nothing of their duties as daughters; and then very often they escape from their parents’ watchfulness and go wrong. Nor is this the fault of the girls themselves, but the fault of the education which they have received from their parents. I do not mean to say that the harp and guitar and songs and dramas are useless things. If you listen attentively, all our songs incite to virtue and condemn vice. In the song called “The Four Sleeves,” for instance, there is the passage, “If people knew beforehand all the misery that it brings, there would be less going out with young ladies to look at the flowers at night.” Please give your attention to this piece of poetry. This is the meaning of it: When a young man and a young lady set up a flirtation without the consent of their parents, they think that it will all be very delightful, and find themselves very much deceived. If they knew what a sad and cruel world this is, they would not act as they do. The quotation is from a song of remorse. This sort of thing happens but too often in the world.
When a man marries a wife he thinks how happy he will be, and how pleasant it will be keeping house on his own account; but before the bottom of the family kettle has been scorched black, he will be like a man learning to swim in a field, with his ideas all turned topsy-turvy—and, contrary to all his expectations, he will find the pleasure of housekeeping to be all a delusion. Look at that woman there! Haunted by her cares, she takes no heed of her hair, or of her personal appearance. With her head all untidy, her apron tied round her as a girdle, with a baby twisted into the bosom of her dress, she carries some wretched bean sauce which she has been out to buy. What sort of creature is this? This all comes of not listening to the warnings of parents, and of not waiting for the proper time, but rushing suddenly into housekeeping; and who is to blame in the matter? Passion, which does not pause to reflect. A child of five or six years will never think of learning to play the guitar for its own pleasure. What a ten-million times miserable thing it is, when parents, making their little girls hug a great guitar, listen with pleasure to the poor little things playing on instruments big enough for them to climb upon, and squeaking out songs in their shrill treble voices. Now I must beg you to listen to me carefully. If you get confused and don’t keep a sharp lookout, your children brought up upon harp and guitar-playing, will be abandoning their parents, and running away secretly. Depend upon it, from all that is licentious and meretricious, something monstrous will come forth. The poet who wrote “The Four Sleeves,” regarded it as the right path of instruction to convey a warning against vice. But the theater, and dramas, and fashionable songs—if the moral that they convey is missed—are a very great mistake. Although you may think it very right and proper that a young lady should practise nothing but the harp and guitar until her marriage, I tell you that it is not so; for if she misses the moral of her songs and music, there is danger of her falling in love with some man and eloping.
With regard to the danger of over-confidence, I have a little tale to tell you. Be so good as to wake up from drowsiness, and listen attentively. There is a certain powerful murex, the suryase, with a very strong lid to its shell. Now this clam, if it hears that there is any danger astir, shuts up its shell from within with a loud noise, and thinks itself perfectly safe. One day a snapper and another fish, lost in envy at this, said, “What a strong castle this is of yours, Mr. Murex, when you can shut up your lid from within, nobody can so much as point a finger at you. A capital figure you make, sir.” When he heard this, the murex, stroking his beard, replied, “Well, gentlemen, although you are so good as to say so, it’s nothing to boast of in the way of safety; still, when I shut myself up thus, I do not feel much anxiety.” And as he was speaking thus, with the pride that apes humility, there came the noise of a great splash, and the murex, shutting up his lid as quickly as possible, kept quite still, and thought to himself what in the world the noise could be. Could it be a net? Could it be a fish-hook? What bore it was, always having to keep such a sharp lookout! Were the snapper and the other fish caught? he wondered, and he felt quite anxious about them; however, at any rate, he was safe. And so the time passed, and when he thought all was safe, he stealthily opened his shell and slipped out his head, and looked all round him. There seemed to be something wrong, something with which he was not familiar. As he looked a little more carefully, lo and behold! there he was in a fishmonger’s shop, with a card marked sixteen cash on his back! Poor shellfish! I think there are some people not unlike him to be found in China and India. How little self is to be depended upon! There is a moral poem which says, “It is easier to ascend to the cloudy heaven without a ladder than to depend entirely on one’s self.”
This is what is meant by the text, “If a man casts his heart from him, he knows not where to seek for it.” Think twice upon everything that you do. To take no care for the examination of that which relates to yourself, but to look only at that which concerns others, is to cast your heart from you. Casting your heart from you does not mean that your heart actually leaves you; what is meant is, that you do not examine your own conscience. Nor must you think that what I have said upon this point of self-confidence applies only to wealth and riches. To rely on your talents, to rely on the services you have rendered, to rely on your cleverness, to rely on your judgment, to rely on your strength, to rely on your rank, and to think yourself secure in the possession of these, is to place yourself in the same category with the murex in the story. In all things examine your own consciences. The examination of your own hearts is above all essential.
Here the preacher leaves his place.

Lonely Workers.

MANY Christians have to endure the solitude of unnoticed labor. They are serving God in a way which is exceedingly useful, but not at all noticeable. How very sweet to many workers are those little corners of the newspapers and magazines which describe their labors and successes; yet some who are doing what God will think a great deal more of at the last, never saw their names in print. Yonder beloved brother is plodding away in a little country village; nobody knows anything about him, but he is bringing souls to God. Unknown to fame, the angels are acquainted with him, and a few precious ones whom he has led to Jesus, know him well. Perhaps yonder sister has a little class in the Sabbath-school; there is nothing striking in her or in her class; nobody thinks of her as a very remarkable worker; she is a flower that blooms almost unseen, but she is none the less fragrant. There is a Bible-woman; she is mentioned in the report as making so many visits a week, but nobody discovers all that she is doing for the poor and needy, and how many are saved in the Lord through her instrumentality. Hundreds of God's dear servants are serving him without the encouragement of man's approving eye, yet they are not alone—the Father is with them.
Never mind where you work; care more about how you work. Never mind who sees, if God approves. If he smiles, be content. We cannot be always sure when we are most useful. . . . It is not the acreage you sow; it is the multiplication which God gives to the seed, which will make up the harvest. You have less to do with being successful than with being faithful. Your main comfort is that in your labor you are not alone, for God, the eternal One, who guides the marches of the stars, is with you.—Spurgeon.

I Know he Is not Gone to Heaven.

I NEED not say a word about Scotland, so well known by you and most of your readers, but will give the following incident as it happened in that country. I cannot now remember the name of the city or the Scotch nobleman where it occurred, but his lordship was kind and affably disposed to all, but especially to those of his own household, not withholding in his daily associations that general good feeling to his servants who, in consequence, were much attached to him.
It would seem that his lordship was much in the habit of taking a sleep in the day-time. On one of these occasions, he, as usual, retired for a short nap. He slept pretty sound and quiet; the servants thought more so than usual, but would by no means disturb him; his doze was so long that it began to work upon their prolific imaginations, and brought out their varied sentiments upon the subject. The circumstance of second sight and trance phenomena, with dreams in sleep, is not unusual in Scotland; and they could not help supposing that his lordship was not merely sleeping. One said that he was in a trance, another, dreaming some significant dream, but not being able to discern his breathing, while another said he was dead. Then, as with one voice, they all said he had gone to Heaven. But one of his men-servants, not full of what is called wisdom or knowledge of things in general, being rather deficient in some things, but pretty good in the witty and humorous, his lordship noticed him a little above the rest. On hearing what the servants had to say about his lordship's nap, and that he was gone to Heaven, he quickly said, I know, and am sure, that he has not gone to Heaven.
They, looking with astonishment, asked him how he could think so—so good as he had been to everybody, especially to yourself. Well, says he, it is a long way and and a great journey to Heaven, and whenever his lordship had to go a journey, he would talk about and make preparations for it; talk about his luggage and have addresses upon it ready for the day of starting. But I have never heard him name Heaven, or make the least preparation for that journey; so I know and am sure that he has not gone there.—Golden Censer.

Gather up the Fragments.

A LATE statesman, one of the conspicuous names on our country's roll of honor, told me that he always carried in his pocket a small volume, now one author, and now another, which he took out and read while he was waiting for others. In this way he had used the little intervals of time through many years, and had (though without early educational advantages) made himself a learned man. Scarcely a day passes in which we have not to wait five, ten, or fifteen minutes, in office, parlor, or committee-room, for others to attend to our call. This waiting is done away from our own business-places, so that we cannot attend to our own business avocations, and so the precious moments are usually wasted. Suppose we have an average of fifteen minutes a day of such waiting. It will make in the business-days of the year, a total equal to seven and a half business days of idle waiting! Now, think of seven and a half days of careful reading in history—for example, seven and a half long days, of ten hours each.—Exchange.

The State of the Christian Church

We are rather surprised to find a fresh young newspaper like the Boston Globe, notwithstanding, as we are told, it has just come into its fortune, taking low and disparaging views of the present state of the Christian church. It tells us that “the worship of mammon is fast superseding the worship of God and Christ, in many of our most orthodox churches;” and the devil, in his purpose “of stifling the best instincts of the human heart, and of undermining every vital precept of Christianity, is getting along very well.” Moreover, the Globe goes so far as to say: “Swindlers occupy some of the best pews in our fashionable churches; mothers sell their daughters to the richest libertine who makes the highest bid for their innocent, maidenly offspring.”—Sel.

Extravagantly Dressed Children.

ONE of the crying sins of the age is the excessive dressing of children. In many a professedly Christian home the first lesson a child learns is to dress in the prevailing style.
It leaves the cradle admiring its fine clothes, and passes through hours of trial and torture with curling papers and crimping pins before it has learned to say, “Now I lay me down to sleep.”
Multitudes of these gaily dressed children of the church appear on our streets, and in our Sabbath-schools, bedecked and beplumed like the veriest butterflies.
No wonder that, in the midst of such a display of fluting, and flouncing, and frizzling, and sashing, that dress, in many of our Sabbath-schools, should be the one controlling thought of life. When children's hearts swell out with pride and vanity, there is little room for lessons of Jesus and Heaven.
And mothers would do well to remember that in thus extravagantly dressing their children, they are not only fostering feelings of pride and vanity that may ruin their children, but they are shutting the Sabbath-school doors against the children of the poor.
They cannot come into the presence of these gaily dressed children of fashion, and bear the scrutiny of their laughing, prying eyes, and they stay away.
And in many cases, the only door heavenward, the only window that would let in the light of truth, is darkened, and they are left to drift on in the slums of vice in which they find themselves, to drift down to ruin and death.
Vain mother! What answer will you make when the Judge of all the earth, in whose sight these poor, neglected ones, are as precious as the children of a king, requires their blood at your hands?
We beg you, as you value your own soul and the souls of the children committed to you, keep your frills and farbelows out of the Sunday-school and out of our public schools.
You can do more to damage the Sunday-school cause than all the workers and conventions can remedy. You can do more to overthrow our public school system, which is the chief corner-stone of the Republic, than the combined powers of the papacy.
Dr. J. W. Alexander, writing of the children of the church, says:
“As I grow older as a parent, my views are changing fast as to the degree of conformity to the world which we should allow in our children. I am horror-struck to count up the profligate children of pious parents, and even of ministers. The door at which those influences enter which countervail parental instruction and example, I am persuaded, is yielding to the ways of good society. By dress, books, and amusements, an atmosphere is formed which is not that of Christianity. More than ever do I feel that our families must stand in a kind and determined opposition to the fashions of the world, breasting the waves like the Eddystone Lighthouse. And I have found nothing yet which requires more courage and independence than to rise, even a little, but decidedly above the part of the religious world around us.”
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