Earlier text: CHRISTIAN SCIENCEThe greed for gold was never so great in this world's history as it is at the present time. At least there never was a time when so much of it was manifest. The cold clink of the dollar is to many sweeter music than the rippling laughter of children, and they allow it to drown the most piteous appeals of humanity in distress. Witness the raising of the price of rice in India, China, and the Philippines while the famishing people are starving in their bare huts, wasting away from day to day in sheer starvation; and witness the increase in the cost of coal throughout the eastern States in the dead of winter, while the poor are shivering and freezing in their fireless homes. But it is the harvest time of greed, and greed fattens on the miseries of the unfortunate. Opulent avarice grasping for the last hoarded pittance of the poor, and snatching from the hands of destitute children the pennies that would have provided them with flour for bread and fire to bake it, is a sorrowful commentary on the condition of our times. A gambling millionaire pays a jockey $10,000 a year to ride his horses, and pays his former employers $5,000 for releasing him, hoping thereby to win many times that amount through that jockey's ability to bring his horses first under the wire at the end of the race. Another gambler from a great eastern city flees to the Old World, fearing prosecution for his illegal acts, but managing to take with him $4,000,000 which his gambling institution had won for him. He pitted his greed and his ability as a gambler against the greed of his fellows and their ability in the same line. He piled up millions because so many are grasping for gold and care not how it comes. Seven great English and German steamship companies plying between Europe and South American ports have formed themselves into a trust, similar to the great Morgan steamship trust, for the purpose of reducing expenses and raising the price of freight and passage; in other words, to increase the earning power of the capital invested; and various banking firms and railroads of this country are combining or have combined already for the same purpose. In this country almost all the railroads have raised or are planning to raise their rates and at the same time to reduce cost of operation, that the money invested may have greater power to earn more money. At the same time the cost of living is increasing in all the civilized world, because greater margins are demanded wherever capital is invested. Something of the extent of this spirit of gold-getting may be realized when we consider the business passing through the clearing houses of London and New York in one year. The amount of business done by the London Bankers' Clearing-house for 1901 was forty-six and one-half billion dollars. The amount of business done by the New York Clearing-house for the same year was over seventy-seven billion. The figures for 1902 are not complete; but for New York they are estimated at more than ninety billion dollars. These sums are simply beyond the power of man to comprehend, and are another indication of the feverish haste of the world in the race for gold. Verily the spirit of these times is the spirit of heaping together treasure; and this spirit Inspiration points out as a sign of the last days. S. “PERPETUAL BINDING OBLIGATION.”
By G.
ONE of the resolutions adopted by the National Reform Conference at St. Louis is as follows:— Resolved, That the Sabbath is of divine authority and of perpetual binding obligation upon all individuals and peoples, and that its proper observance is absolutely essential to the permanency and moral life of any nation. Yes, “the Sabbath is of divine authority;” for after the six days of creation, God “rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because that in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” Gen. 2:2, 3. The Fourth Commandment is further evidence that “the Sabbath [the seventh day] is of divine authority.” And furthermore Jesus Christ testifies that “the Sabbath [the seventh day] was made for man,” and that He is the Lord of it. See Mark 2:23-28. Yes, the Sabbath is of perpetual binding obligation. The Lord calls the Sabbath (the seventh day) “a perpetual covenant,” a sign forever (Ex. 31:16, 17), even in the new earth (Isa. 66:22, 23). But the National Reform resolution contemplates not the Sabbath of the Lord but a man-made substitute—the first day of the week. Where is the precedent for proclaiming that such a Sabbath is either of “divine authority” or of “perpetual binding obligation”? or of any obligation at all? “Who hath required this at your hand?” Surely not the Lord. G. WORK OF THE SPANISH INQUISITION.
MORE and more apologists or semi-apologists for the Inquisition are coming to the front. Roman Catholics in general defend it, as is to be expected. The extenuators and apologists are among so-called Protestants. For instance, the Literary Digest of December 6 quotes Prof. Ernst Schaefer, of the University of Rostock, in a recent work, as saying:— An unbiased examination of the official documents pertaining to the Spanish Inquisition, shows that the current view held by Protestants on this matter is at least grossly exaggerated. While it is indeed true that Catholic scholars are mistaken in their effort to show that the Inquisition was the tool, not of the Church but of the State, it is equally true that the Protestant pictures of the illegal prosecutions practised by the Church leaders are at least overdrawn.
But what would our learned professor expect to find in these records of the actors in the dread tragedies of the Inquisition? Would he expect to find these records calling the tribunals irregular or illegitimate? What would the head of the clerk been worth who would so have recorded! Would we look for a true record of Christ’s trial before the Sanhedrin and Pilate? Would the record kept by His enemies record the proceedings as illegal or irregular? We have no expectation of ever finding a record of their work kept by religious prosecutors or persecutors, which will condemn that work. It is contrary to human nature. The course of Calvin and other Protestants working on papal principles seemed to them eminently just to all. They thought they were “doing God service,” and, of course, justified themselves in the work they did. Only in the records on high are the true histories of religious persecution recorded. AGAINST THE ZIONITE MOVEMENT.
By G.
THE “impossible dream” of colonizing the Jews in Palestine is likely to find its greatest difficulty in the disposition of the Jews themselves. As a people they rejected Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah, and as a people they never will accept Him. Those of them who are to be converted to Christianity will come in as individuals, just as other people do. So the bait that this same Jesus will come to rule over them in Palestine is not a very tempting one to the multitude. Nor is the monetary prospect (the Jew’s greatest inducement) for ten million people very flattering. The Jews prefer to make money, and Palestine is not a flattering field. These thoughts are suggested by a press report of a sermon by Rabbi Silverman, at Temple Emanu-El, in New York City, a few weeks ago. He is said to have “strenuously opposed” the Zionite movement for a congregation of the Jews in Palestine, and made a plea for their assimilation with the peoples of the countries where they live, in all things except their religion. In the course of his remarks he characterized the idea of the restoration of Jewish nationality as an “impossible dream.” Incidentally this prominent representative of Jewish thought discouraged the massing of his race, even in America. He exhorted Russian, Rumanian, and Galician Jews to remain where they are and insist on the rights to which they are entitled, instead of making a confession of weakness by flying from the evils which surround them. If the Jews come here he would have them “renounce every form of exclusiveness save their religion, give up their foreign languages, manners, and customs, and break down every obstacle possible that lies in the way of assimilation.” G. THE POPE ON THE SCRIPTURES.
By G.
It has been noted before that the pope has appointed a commission to inquire into the question of modern Biblical criticism, as it affects the Catholic Church. But it appears from comments of Catholic papers that the scope of the commission’s authority is quite limited. Quotations from the German ultramontane press say that nothing is to be done which will in any degree detract from the high authority of the Scriptures; nor is any question of criticism to be decided by mere scholarship. The pope says he “can not too often repeat that the Scriptures are not given to be the subject of private judgment, either of learned or ignorant persons. In all questions connected with the interpretation of Scripture the church alone is to be the guide and teacher. Furthermore, no member of the Catholic Church can be permitted to question this prerogative, which is the divine gift to the church—a prerogative on which her authority and her office as teacher rests.” Thus the Papacy assumes the prerogative of God, who has ordained that the Holy Spirit shall be the interpreter of truth to His people. John 14:26; 16:12, 13. The Spirit is accessible to all who ask for it in faith. Luke 11:9, 10, 13; Matt 21:22. And we get our instruction by studying the Word. 1 Cor. 2:9-13. G. A clergyman in Alma, Mich., speaking of the Alma College football team, said that under its present coaching a prayer has been offered for protection from injury for themselves and their opponents before beginning the game. The Menominee (Mich.) Evening Leader also tells us the clergyman in question remarked: “When football and other sports have come to be religious games, Christianity is certainly making progress, and its welfare is assured in the hands of the coming generation.” But this is nothing new. All the games of ancient times were played in honor of their gods. Duels and battles in both pagan and papal times were largely religious affairs. Present-day football is on a fair par with pugilism, less injury coming to devotees of the latter than of the former. The Spanish side of the late war was a religious war. So was China’s war. So also was the war waged by the Boers. It depends entirely on the religion. The cruelest wars, tortures, revenges of the past were religious, even tho some were called Christian. All is not Christianity, however, that is called such. The fighting, struggling, striving, of Christianity is of a different character. It has been matter of common knowledge for the past year that the liquor interests of this country were preparing their case against the anti-canteen law, and that in this effort they were being energetically seconded by a large and influential element in the army. Reports from military posts had been filed with that object in view, and congressmen had been importuned to repeal the law. One bill already has been introduced in Congress for the restoration of the canteen. But on January 15 the House Committee on Military Affairs, by resolution, decided to take no action at this session on the canteen question. There is no promise given, however, that they will not do so at the following session. In the meantime temperance workers may relax in their efforts to keep the canteen out of the army, and it is certain that the liquor interests will increase theirs to put it there. Church Membership and Salvation
The Christian Cynosure is optimistic regarding its persistent warfare on secret societies. It expresses the opinion that more people comprehend that certain leading orders, “by their burial services, sending men to heaven on the basis of lodge membership, belong to the religions of the world in which Satan is worshiped, and that they are rivals of the church of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Perhaps it is true that more people are now comprehending this fact, but it is also true that not only are the more prominent orders increasing in membership, but new ones are coming into prominence. The new are patterned after the old, and are, to a great extent, feeders for the old. And, sad to say, much of the new blood that flows into these sanctuaries of the world comes from the popular bodies purporting to be churches of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is sad to see how men, women, and children are being deceived by secret society evil; but while the lodge, by its funeral service, nominally sends men to heaven on the basis of lodge membership, we note also the absurdity of professed ministers of the Gospel sending people to heaven at death on the basis of church membership. We expect the lodge official to be ignorant in such matters; that is one reason why he is in the lodge at all. But the anti-lodge student of the Word of God ought to know better. May there be more who will comprehend this fact also. How Is It Leading?—A writer in the Baltimore American thinks that 1903 will be a bad year for the pessimist, because of its prosperity, its brotherhood, its charity, etc. For the matter of that, every year is bad for the pessimist, who sees nothing good in anything. But on the other hand it is foolish to close one's eyes to facts, full of vital importance to the race, to dangers which lurk to destroy, to tendencies which lure to everlasting destruction. We thank God for all the charity and the brotherhood in the world. But there are dangers, dangers which this very writer points out, for fear his prophecy may not prove true. Among these are rivalry in social extravagances, looseness in marriage and divorce matters, and the wrong life that many are leading in the constant separation of families. He quotes the prophecy, “a little child shall lead them,” and applies it to this young nation in leading the world. Not to argue over the application, How is this nation leading the world? Religiously America is leading the world from the powerful simple worship of the past, to the powerless medieval ceremonialism of the present. Socially she is leading the world in a mad scramble for wealth and tyrannous trust spoliation. Politically, she is leading the world back to the Church-and-State union of the Dark Ages. These are sad facts. Would God they were otherwise. The present winter is bringing much distress in various parts of the world. It is perhaps in Scotland and France that the greatest misery is found. Thirty thousand persons are famine-stricken in northern Sweden. The starving people are eating pine bark and Iceland moss. Crops have failed; there is an extreme scarcity of fish. The peasants are making pathetic sacrifices to avert the extermination of their hardy northern cattle. Provisions are being shipped to the stricken region, but the prospect is that thousands of persons will die of starvation during the winter, and others will be so weakened by hunger as to be an easy prey to disease, which has already begun its work among them. It will require millions of dollars to save the stricken district from extensive depopulation. Appeal is now being made to the world for relief for the starving fishermen of Breton, France. The fishing colony of this district numbers 150,000, and these are now plunged in misery on account of the sudden, complete, and unexplainable disappearance of sardines from the French coast. These people had grown prosperous, many of them, in the sardine business; now they are ruined, and the merchants who had extended them credit are ruined also, while their families are dying of hunger. Subscriptions have been opened for their relief. Through the blockade of Venezuela, bread has become scarce. Even in Caracas bakeries have been forced to close because of their inability to get flour, while in Guatemala flour has suddenly jumped from 32 cents to 60 cents a pound. There is much distress also in Russia, China, and Korea; while in the large cities of the world hunger, squalor, and cold are busier than ever now. Verily, we are yet in the land of the enemy. We look for a better country, and we know that its coming will be soon. Coal Scarcity and Corporate Greed
Coal is not only a “household word” just now, but it is the leading subject in many business and political circles. The great strike of coal miners in Pennsylvania started a scarcity of anthracite coal. This was made a pretext by the producers, the carriers, and the wholesale dealers throughout the Northern and Western States for holding back supplies, and putting up prices of all kinds of coal, when there was no reason for a plea of scarcity only the desire for gain. And most of the known great sources of coal supply are so owned and controlled by corporate combinations that such conditions can be brought about at any time the owners desire. The greed of speculation is the prime cause of the terrible suffering that is laid to the scarcity of coal. It is part of the process and of the effect of heaping treasure together for the last days, as prophesied by the apostle James. The full result is evidently not far in the future. In Chicago, where the Board of Health reports 2,000 persons suffering from disease consequent upon lack of fuel, a special grand jury has indicted forty men for conspiracy in keeping supplies down and prices up. In Omaha, where there was a complaint of scarcity, it was discovered that there was plenty of bituminous coal available, and a supply of anthracite sufficient for immediate needs. A man in Lancaster, Pa., was arrested for stealing a small quantity of coal, which he could not buy, in order to save his family from freezing. When arrested, he was promptly dismissed by the magistrate. More or less coal is stolen from every coal train that passes through the city. At Tuscola, Ill., citizens seized a coal train, and distributed the coal. The mayor and Board of Health justified the act, and the coal was paid for. At Detroit, Mich., complaint is filed by the prosecuting attorney against thirty local coal dealers, charging violation of the State Anti-trust Law. As an effectual remedy for the present stress, Congress has passed, and the President has signed, a bill removing the duty on coal. There is at least a germ of international trouble in North Africa at the present time. The sultan is finding it exceedingly difficult to cope with the situation, and in a number of engagements recently, his troops have suffered at the hands of the rebels led by the pretender. The sultan is preparing to abandon his capital at Fez and take refuge in the city of Rabat. It is reported that an insurrection against the sultan has occurred in the city of Fez, resulting in terrible scenes. Missionaries in that country have either departed or are preparing to depart. The rebellion seems as much a revolt against foreign influence as against the sultan. The inhabitants are Mohammedans, and bitterly oppose the work of the missionaries and the introduction of the railway, telegraph, and telephone, and other modern conveniences. The sultan has favored these, and thus has aroused the enmity of many of his own people. Naturally, the nations are interested; for many foreign interests are centered there. France now controls Algiers and Tunis, and territory surrounding Morocco, and would like to round out her North African territory by the acquisition of that country; but Spain has a colony at Ceuta and at Melilla on the mainland of Morocco, and Great Britain occupies Tangier. So neither of these powers is likely to look on placidly while France takes the country. The latter country, however, is massing her troops on the Algerian frontier, ready if occasion should offer, to invade Morocco and begin the subjugation of the country. There is much involved in such an act, and the nations are watching anxiously every move made. With the Trusts.—Congressmen are still laboring over the question of what legislation to allow upon the trust question. It is very doubtful if the bill introduced by Senator Hoar against the iniquities of the trusts will even be allowed consideration, the leaders deeming it unwise to permit to pass a bill which would so directly affect the combinations of capital which they profess a desire to curb. The administration, however, is anxious to see some anti-trust legislation, and leading senators have given assurance that something will be done in that line. There seems little belief, however, that any laws will be enacted that will curb the growing power of the trusts; and it is this growing belief that is giving heart again to some of the trusts proposed months ago, but held back from consummation through fear of adverse legislation. We learn this week of the consolidation of all the salmon packing plants of Southern Alaska; also of a gas and electric trust in the State of California with a capital of $15,000,000 and a bond issue of $10,000,000. Other trusts of smaller pretensions have been completed or work begun looking to their consummation. In Germany the trust question is a live issue at the present time; and word has just come of the formation of a great trust of locomotive builders in England. We may have anti-trust legislation, and they may have it in other countries; but the spirit which actuated the building of the trust is with us to stay, and that is the inordinate greed for gold. Affairs in China.—A few weeks ago it was announced that China would pay her indemnity instalments in silver. She was warned by the powers that if she persisted in her intention, grave consequences would follow—that meant another war. Now China has given the powers another problem. She has declared her utter inability to pay the indemnity in gold unless she be permitted to collect the customs receipts in gold. That means a virtual doubling of the customs charges at her various ports of entry. That question is now being seriously debated by the powers. If they refuse permission, there is a possibility of another war, in view of that government's authoritative declaration that it can not pay in gold while it collects customs receipts in silver. Driven to desperation, it is feared that China may choose war rather than further pressure, and this contingency is causing uneasiness. The Chinese “censors” have asked the empress dowager to abdicate in favor of the emperor, and strongly urge the necessity of such an act. Russia continues to pour immigrants into Manchuria, and gives no sign of an intention to relinquish her control of that province. A correspondent in the field states that there is no likelihood of any interruption of Russia's progress in the absorption of Manchuria by any power, European or American. Prosperity Has Come; But What About These Poor Women?
A decidedly optimistic daily paper has in a recent issue an editorial article with this heading: “Prosperity Has Come; But What About These Poor Women?” And then it goes on to say that Harrison R. Conley, director of charities in the wealthy city of Cleveland, Ohio, reports that by personal investigation he has found “that while the average cost of living for a working woman in Cleveland is $5.25 a week, the average wage of such woman is but $4.83. He tells us that out of thirty-eight women he questioned twelve were earning $3.00 and six were receiving but $2.00 a week. This, he assures us, is a fair representation of the general conditions.” How they live we do not know. Some become discouraged and sell body and virtue and everlasting hope. Cleveland is but a sample of many other cities. The paper in question remarks: “It is another illustration of the truth, which many are unwilling to admit, but which none can deny, that the industrial slavery of to-day is a worse condition of things than was the black slavery that existed in the South forty years ago.” There are myriads of such facts, that even prosperous optimists are forced to admit in their lucid moments of sober, serious observation. Discouraged are we? Not at all. God will bring good out of all the evil to every trusting soul. His lesson to those of means is that all such conditions are grand opportunities to bestow blessings and get greater in return. President Castro has yielded to all the demands of the powers, even to the payment of large sums of money before arbitration; but the powers which insisted upon this condition are now doubting his ability to do what they had demanded that he promise to do. United States Minister Bowen has been empowered by the government of Venezuela to represent its interests in the negotiations, and is now on his way to America to prepare his case for presentation to The Hague. Venezuela demands that the blockade shall be raised at the beginning of the arbitration proceedings, and the United States and Italy both give their support in this; but the latter government can not act without the agreement of Great Britain and Germany. In the meantime there is much distress in Venezuela, and a financial panic is reported at Caracas, while lawless soldiery are inflicting great hardships upon the people. On January 18 the German gunboat Panther began shelling Fort San Carlos. The fort replied and the despatches state that the Panther lost two men; that two explosions occurred on her deck which compelled her to retire. The Venezuelans are congratulating themselves over the outcome. The Progress of the Christian World
The Progress of the Christian World is a topic in an Eastern religious journal, which notes that “the disfigurement of the Gospel by the dogma of endless torment has been extirpated from the consciences, if not from the creeds of men.” But many people who have ceased to openly advocate eternal torment still cling to the doctrine of inherent immortality. Thus they are shut up to one of two conclusions—eternal torment or universal salvation. But neither conclusion is based on the Scriptures of truth; for it is written that “the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Eze. 18:4, 20. “The Lord knoweth the days of the upright; and their inheritance shall be forever. . . . But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.” Ps. 37:18–20. Genesis and the Rock of God’s Word
The Salt Lake Tribune prints, under a despatch from Chicago dated October 25, that “at the Temple of Israel last night Dr. Emil G. Hirsch declared his absolute disbelief in the first chapter of Genesis, and bade his congregation discard it as an article of faith.” But that does not affect Genesis 1. It only affects Rabbi Hirsch and those who may believe him instead of the Bible. The Rock of God’s Word has worn out many little hammers before Dr. Hirsch’s day, and it will not break before his puny blows. How truly Jesus said to the rabbi’s prototypes of old: “For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe Me; for he wrote of Me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?” John 5: 46, 47. A Color-Changing Solution and Pseudo-Science
The “Independent” remarks that “it is amazing that reputable journals should fill their columns with such announcements of pseudo-science and such a rehash of old novels as that which reports the discovery by Dr. Elmer Gates, of Washington, of a solution which, put into a bottle and breathed through, will change its color so as to register the feelings of the person, such as happiness or melancholia, and they anticipate that it will be perfected so as to make it useful in judicial trials!” But it is like many other nonsensical reports of what “Science” has done. PAUL'S VICTORY.
By Hart Hall
Paul flung his hoe over the fence and climbed upon the topmost rail and sat there. It was a beautiful day, yet oppressively warm, and hoeing was not the easiest of work. He mopped his brow with a red bandanna and sighed wearily; not on account of what he had done, but because of what lay before him,—a broad, blossoming potato field. The last hill of corn was just finished, and Paul felt a sense of satisfaction and pride as he looked at the long, clean rows with the loamy soil hoed well up about the stalks. But when he looked at the potato patch he positively groaned, and the cause of his uneasiness was, that to join an excursion party to the city that was to leave in the morning he must have the patch all hoed by night. “I can't do it, that's all,” he exclaimed in desperation. A sound of boyish laughter came to his ears wafted by the soft breeze across the pasture from the swimming pool down at the creek. The frown on Paul's face deepened as he listened. “They can go swimming,” he muttered, “and I have to work. It's been that way all the time. I wish they had to help me out on those potatoes, blast 'em.” His heart was so full of his wrongs that he had no eyes for the beauty of the scene before him, but it was one of those pictures that are indelibly fixed in our minds without our knowledge, one that is best seen in after years when, with eyes closed and weary of strenuous life, we indulge in reveries and vain regrets. Along the interspaces of the worn fence the red clover blossomed luxuriantly, and straggling branches of the wild rose, blooming heavily, and fragrant with perfume, clung to the oak rails. To the right of the potato patch a wheat field, like a sea of livid green, waved and rippled gently to and fro. Beyond the stone wall was the orchard, the high old apple trees nearly hiding the house, the long sloping roof with the queer gables alone discernable. Away to the left the barn loomed up, and through the large mow door the trapeze could be seen hanging, a place of amusement where many an hour before “chore time” had been hilariously spent with the boys. “O what is so rare as a day in June,
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.” Paul's eye caught sight of his father with a pan and stick in his hand coming along the stone wall toward the potato patch, and grunting an unintelligible thankfulness that he would not have to “shake bugs” he slid down off the fence, and grabbing his hoe he attacked the patch furiously. The dirt flew in clouds about him, and ten minutes later he was at the end of the first row. Before beginning the next he rubbed his back restfully and looked toward his father. He saw the old man leaning over the plants rapping the potato-bugs into his pan. An idea came to Paul's mind, but it evidently was not an honorable one, as the red blood flushed his tanned cheeks as he thought of it. “I'll do it,” he growled, “I can't miss that excursion.” Then the dirt flew again, but he was at the end of the next row in half the time. Desperation lent strength to his strong, young frame, and the rows rapidly diminished as the hours passed. Shortly before sundown he saw his father go toward the house and then the rows diminished faster than ever, and when he heard faithful Shep's barking, as he brought up the cows, the last row was just about finished. His father was not strong, nor well, and the last remaining payment on the mortgage Paul knew depended on their summer's crop. He was the main stand-by of the family, and the knowledge of others' dependence upon him had developed his manliness and hardihood, and rarely did complaint fall from his lips. But this excursion to the city, where he was to spend his two weeks' vacation before haying and harvest, had been looked forward to for so long, it really was the event of his life. He had carefully brushed and laid out his best clothes in readiness; his best shoes were already shined, and his necktie that had been given him for a birthday present, together with his celluloid collar, lay on the bureau. His white shirts he had had “done up” at the village laundry expressly for this trip. No, he could not miss it for anything. He hung his hoe in the tool-house, and after washing himself at the porch sink, took the milk pails from their pegs and set off for the barnyard. He was unusually silent during supper, and his mother inquired if he had finished his work, and when he replied that he had, she feared he had worked too hard. His father was discreetly absorbed in his paper, and said nothing. They retired early, as was their custom, and Paul tried hard to sleep, but tired tho he was, the drowsy Morpheus would not be wooed. The excitement of the coming day mingled with the uneasiness on his mind served to keep him wide awake. He could think of nothing but the potato patch and the bad work he had done on it; and as that was the “hilling up” process, the last work it was to receive, he knew it would cause vast difference in the yield, if nothing more. Finally he sat bolt upright in bed. The moon was shining almost as bright as day, and the rays streaming into the little room literally filled it with its silvery effulgence. He got up and went to the window. The night was gloriously beautiful; all the stars were out and everything was hushed in stillness, except the whippoorwill in the orchard calling to its mate, and from the marsh way down in the pasture came the musical chorus of the frogs. With a determined but unexpected purpose in mind Paul dressed hurriedly, and, shoes in hand, stole softly downstairs and out the kitchen door. Putting on his shoes he went quietly to the tool house, and finding the hoe he had hung there a couple of hours before, made directly for the potato patch. Beginning where he left off he worked hard and fast, hoeing deep and well. The afternoon's effort made the work somewhat easier than it would otherwise have been, but the ease of conscience was greater impetus than any physical rest. So he worked steadily with a grim determination spurring him on. As the hours went by and the work grew monotonous he got dreadfully sleepy; it seemed an age now before he finished a row, but he could see by the bright moonlight the unfinished part growing smaller and smaller. Finally when the last hill was done, and well done, he dragged himself to the house thoroughly tired out, but happy. Satisfying his thirst at the well, he pulled off his shoes and tiptoed up to his room, and kicking off his clothes in the middle of the floor was asleep about as soon as his head touched the pillow, so soon in fact, that he did not hear the kitchen door open and close again, and some one come slowly up the stairs a little later. “Paulie,” he heard his father calling, “you must get up if you are going to the excursion.” It seemed to Paul as tho he had just gotten into bed, but the sun was shining brightly into the room, and the birds were scolding and twittering about the eaves. Bounding out of bed he hurried into his clothes. “Mother an' I have been talking it over of late, Paulie,” said his father at breakfast, “and we have made up our minds that you can stay three weeks at the city; the clover will stand that long all right, and if the pertater crop is good, an' I guess it will be,” he added, his eyes twinkling, “we'll have you go to college after corn huskin'.” College was the dream of Paul's life, and this was a surprise that he had not anticipated. “O father!” he exclaimed, but the biscuit he was eating, or something, choked his utterance. HART HALL. 1420 Kearney Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. IS ANYTHING EVER DISCOVERED?
It was inevitable that Marconi’s splendid achievement should be challenged by lawsuits brought by alleged prior inventors. The Atlantic, however, has never before been crossed by ether-borne messages, and that tremendous practical success securely belongs to the Italian electrician. The first discoverer of communication by etheric waves, and the first to apply it over shorter distances, can not be certainly named. It is on record that sixty years ago Professor Morse, father of the electric telegraph, sent wireless messages across the Susquehanna River not far from Baltimore; also that in 1864 Clark Maxwell demonstrated that ether waves could be utilized over long distances for electrical purposes. Possibly, like the telephone, types and printing—and according to Wu Ting-fang the11game of ping-pong—wireless telegrams were known to China any number of centuries ago. Ralph Waldo Emerson says in one of his exquisite essays: “All machines in use have been invented and reinvented over and over; the mariner’s compass, the pendulum, glass, movable types, the kaleidoscope, the railway, the power-loom, etc., have been many times found and lost, from Egypt, China and Pompeii down.” For example, London is just now deeply interested in the discovery of a remarkable substance called electroid. Under its influence plants have an extraordinary forced growth, blossoming, coming to maturity, and fading away within a few minutes. But Papin, a seventeenth-century scientist, records in the Journal des Savants for 1685, a precisely similar discovery. Santos-Dumont and the other airship builders are supposed to belong to this and the last century, but the archives of Portugal hold a letter written to the king of that country in 1799, signed curiously enough by one Santos, who assures His Majesty that he has contrived a machine that will travel in the air more than two hundred leagues in a day and make the discovery of the North Pole easy. The ironclad ship was the child of American ingenuity in the Civil War—so we think. But in 1585, during the siege of Antwerp, the Dutch defenders built a large ship and plated it thickly with iron to protect it from a Spanish fire. Moreover, they built roomy platforms around its masts for sharp-shooters, thus anticipating by about three centuries the supposedly new fighting-tops of our battle-ships. The steam engine we credit to James Watt, George Stephenson and Robert Fulton, but one was certainly exhibited by Papin, already mentioned, to the English Royal Society in 1699. Three years later he fitted it to a boat and ran it so successfully on the Weser River, in Germany, that the alarmed boatmen wrecked and sank it. A century and a half earlier King Charles I. of Spain gave 50,000 crowns to a man who “amused him,” as the record says, by fitting up an old war-vessel with paddles worked by steam and running it at a speed of nine knots an hour. Being a normally dull King, it never occurred to him that the invention had any practical value. And the metal aluminum, first discovered in our own time, as most people believe, was known in the time of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, who ordered a workman named Faber beheaded for bringing to him a cup of silvery white metal much lighter than silver, which the Emperor feared might make silver itself valueless. Marconi’s performance will lose nothing in value if it shall be finally proved that wireless telegraphy is among the thousand and one arts and sciences that have been lost and found again.—N. Y. World. WHEN WINTER COMES.
By BENJ. PHILLIPS
When winter comes I hear thee cry,
Thy voice is, too, a plaintive sound,
E’er mourning for the days gone by,
When summer smiled, and sunshine found
Its way to fragrant nook and vale,
Where now the winds of winter wail, No bird flits through the clouded sky,
Nor warbles nigh the woodman’s trail—
Thus from our land the song-birds fly,
When winter comes. Thy friends, the birds, have left thee now,
The summer days so cherished gone!
Why fondle sorrow, or allow
The grin of Woe to lead thee on,
As tho no hope could e’en be born
When winter comes? Seiad, Cal. BENJ. PHILLIPS.