Earlier text: THE SIN OF LYING“WHERE WEALTH ACCUMULATES.”
The poet Goldsmith writes in his “Deserted Village:” — “Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.” Every nation once prosperous has followed the same downward road. With prosperity came wealth, luxurious living, desire for more gain, commercial corruption, the lowering of conscience, the loss of business integrity, and the ruin of the State. Great examples of this course may be seen in Babylon and Rome. The destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of the Jewish nation was preceded by just such conditions against which God warns all future nations and ages. Listen to the words of only one of His prophets:— “Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape-gleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat; my soul desired the first-ripe fruit. The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men; they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net. That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up. The best of them is as a brier; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity.” Micah 7: 1-4. And that is the condition in this land to-day. Corruption is everywhere. The land teems with fraud. Business integrity is a scarce article. It has no place in the buy and sell of the world’s market. Just one instance of this. This government has an Interstate Commerce Commission for the purpose of regulating the internal commerce of the country, equalizing railway rates, preventing injustice to the interior and small dealers, etc. Yet from the very beginning the commission has found its way blocked, and the laws of the land transgressed by various companies composed of men of national and international reputation. At the present time the industries of production and manufacture are in the hands of a very few houses which act in conjunction with the railways. To stop these illegal relations seems to be beyond the power of the government, for its agent, the Interstate Commerce Commission, tells us that it has little or nothing to propose. Of the transportation of packing-house products, and grain and grain products, the commission says:— That the leading traffic officials of many of the principal railway lines, men occupying high positions and charged with the most important duties, should deliberately violate the statute law of the land, and in some cases agree with each other to do so; that it should be thought by them necessary to destroy vouchers, and so to manipulate book-keeping as to obliterate every evidence of the transactions; that hundreds of thousands of dollars should be paid in unlawful rebates to a few great packing-houses; that the business of railroad transportation should to such an extent be conducted in open disregard of law, must be surprising and offensive to all right-minded persons. The effect is to give them [the packing-houses] an enormous advantage over smaller competitors located at other points. Already these competitors have mostly ceased to exist. These disclosures afford a pregnant illustration of the manner in which secret rate concessions are tending to build up great trusts and monopolies at the expense of the small independent operator. The different lines, in an effort to obtain a share of the grain transportation business, deem it necessary to drive out of business the small buyer, and to operate their business through a single large concern. One effect of this is to put the miller out of the market as an independent buyer. This is but one of many evidences. As of Judea of old, so of this nation, “The day of thy watchmen and thy visitation [of wrath] cometh; now shall be their perplexity.” An insincere optimism will not save a nation where such things rule. Neither will the use of ill-gotten gain in building or endowing eleemosynary or educational institutions. Neither will a profession of religion, individually or nationally. God demands a living faith issuing in the keeping of the commandments of God. Rev. 14:6-14. THE MANIA FOR SPECULATION.
More than 247,000,000 shares of stock have been sold “on ‘Change’” in this city since Jan. 1. Two more business days will raise the year’s total close to a quarter of a billion shares. At $100 per share, the property thus sold is twenty-five billions. It is a sum inconceivably great, expressible only in comparisons. It is twenty-five times the total interest-bearing debt of the United States; it would dig 3,000 tunnels to Brooklyn at $8,000,000 each; it would build a $100,000 library for every 300 inhabitants of the whole country. Amazing total! Besides the speculation in bucket-shops, in the Consolidated Exchange, in the Produce Exchange, in land, this single mart of a single city has sold in a single year $1,666 in shares for every family in the United States! These enormous totals do not mean investment; the best dividend stocks are often least active in the trading. They mean that shares of uncertain future value have been sold over and over again in the mad mania for speculation. It is no wonder that a seat in the Stock Exchange is worth $50,000 when the brokers’ fees alone for the year have mounted to more than $30,000,000, and the “lambs” still come to the shearing-pen in droves.—New York World. RUSSIA'S EXPERIMENT IN TEMPERANCE REFORM.
By S.
RUSSIA has demonstrated what American municipalities are still unwilling to believe, that temperance can not be promoted by any kind of compromise with the liquor business. She has gone into the liquor business, and undertaken the supervision of the distribution and sale of the liquor, all in the interest of temperance. The government has 400 distilleries, from the product of which it estimates an income for the current year of $195,000,000. The government has direct control of every place where this liquor is sold. The temperance feature of the program is that the liquor must be sold in sealed bottles, and must not be drunk “on the premises.” This new “temperance measure” has been working long enough to have demonstrated whether it has a right to be called such. George Kennan, writing in an impartial way of the working of this system, has the following to say in The Outlook of January 11:— Correspondents of Russian newspapers, in all parts of the country, report that street-drunkenness has everywhere increased; that many of the tea-shops, libraries, and reading-rooms [places designed by the government to take the place of the saloon as a meeting-place for former frequenters of the saloon] reported to the central government, exist only on paper; that the temperance bureaus are inert, unwieldy organizations, into which the breath of life has never yet been breathed; and that private enterprises in the temperance field have been discouraged, if not completely paralyzed, by official red-tape, formalism, over-regulation, and suspicion. The government is making money out of the undertaking. It is also making drunkards, with the necessary result that it will make more money, and then more drunkards, and then more money, and so on ad infinitum. The Russian Government is greatly in need of money. It is fairly coining it now out of the appetites of its people. The measure seems to have been successful as a “business enterprise;” but as a temperance measure it has utterly failed, as it was bound to do. Regulation of a wicked thing will never make it righteous. Compromise with evil has always been the synonym for surrender of principle to “expediency.” Every compromise with the liquor traffic—call it license, high license, regulation, government supervision, or what you will—has been a distinct gain to the wicked business always, and always will be. The regulation of the rum business in Russia has demonstrated that temperance is not attained in that way; that its interests are not advanced by that method; but debauchery is the price which the community pays for the government's financial experiment in temperance reform. And it has been and will be just as true of any attempt at its regulation even by professed Christians in the professed interests of temperance reform through Sunday closing or any similarly delusive measure. S. IT IS NOT TRUE EVANGELISM.
The New York Tribune has this to say on religion in 1901:— Evangelism has made an unsatisfactory showing. Various twentieth-century revival movements were started at the beginning of the year, but not one of them fulfilled expectations. Even church-members appear to be out of sympathy with the purely emotional appeals to sinners that were once so potent. True evangelism, true revival work, is never based, in whole or in part, on the “purely emotional,” but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The emotionalism is incidental to the work, not an essential. It is a fruit, not the seed or tree. All those revivals based on emotional appeals and theatrical efforts will prove shallow and ephemeral. The true revival is based on God’s living Word, in which is doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. It lays a good foundation—Christ Jesus—and builds thereon the truth of God. War Rumors and International Affairs
Rumors are current in India of coming trouble from the direction of Afghanistan. It is alleged that Russia will utilize the winter months to mass troops upon the northern frontiers, in readiness to invade Afghanistan as soon as the snows melt on the mountain passes. Preparations, it is said, are being made on the British side. The Panjab maneuvers have been timed for the unusual season of February, and are to be on a war scale. The report states that regiments are being quietly massed, ostensibly to fight the Mahud Waziris, but in reality to be in readiness for graver complications. War may not come as the result of these movements, and it is possible that the rumors are not founded on fact; but they are “rumors of war,” and such were to be prevalent in the last days. A commercial war over bounties on sugar is now threatening Europe. France and England are demanding that Germany and Austria suppress the bounties on sugar, and also suppress the “Kartel” system, which seems to exist only for the purpose of providing subsidies for producers. The latter countries consider this an interference in their internal affairs, while France and England threaten to impose duties on sugar unless their demands are complied with. The treaty ceding the Danish West Indies to the United States was signed by Secretary Hay and Constantin Brun, Danish Minister at Washington, on January 24. The terms of the treaty will not be made known until the treaty comes up for discussion in the Senate. These islands comprise an area of about 127 square miles with a population of 32,000, of whom about 15 per cent. are white. The trade of the islands is mostly with the United States and England, and English is said to be most commonly spoken. The Allis-Chalmers Company, of Chicago, said to be the largest machinery company in the world, has been absorbed by the great steel trust. This company alone had a capital of $25,000,000. Thus goes forward the process of the gathering together of great wealth-producing concerns for the accumulation of still greater fortunes in fewer hands. The Allis-Chalmers company itself was the result of the combination of three wealthy concerns. The Prince of Wales visited the German capital on January 26 to represent King Edward at the birthday celebration of the German Emperor. His reception by the populace is reported to have been very cool, the great crowds making no demonstrations whatever when he appeared. This is but an echo of the animosity which has been stirred up between the two peoples over the recent criticisms in the press of the two countries. The threatened strike of all the railroad employees in Italy has aroused the government to the seriousness of such an occurrence, and the cabinet has announced its determination to prevent the strike, declaring that it will hold these employees responsible, as public servants, for such a calamity. But the government has also promised to take up the grievance of the men against the companies, and seek to have their demands acceded to. The latest report of the railroad commissioners of Massachusetts shows that not a passenger was killed on the railroads in that State during the past year by causes beyond his control, and the list of accidents in which employees were killed or injured was smaller than for previous years. This is due to the abolition of grade crossings, the adoption of automatic coupling devices, and general improvement in mechanism. Six persons were killed and scores more or less seriously injured by an explosion of dynamite in New York City on January 27. The front of the seven-story Murray Hill Hotel was ruined, and other buildings greatly damaged by the concussion and flying debris. The loss to the Grand Union depot alone is placed at $40,000, and the loss of the hotel building, if finally abandoned as unsafe, will be about $1,000,000. A report from The Hague states that the power of the Boers over Cape Colony is increasing daily; that the rebellion is spreading constantly, and that the colonists are joining the Boers in increasing numbers. There are no peace negotiations in progress between the opposing forces. Advices from South Africa state that the Boers are joining the British for the purpose of bringing the struggle to an end. It is reported from Washington that President Roosevelt has stated that canal legislation must be passed during this session of Congress for the sake of the interests of the party; that the country is demanding a canal, and will not brook further delay. Altho it has seemed that in the Senate the Panama project was in greatest favor, still prominent senators assert that the Nicaragua route will be the one chosen. Commandant Scheepers of the Boer army, who had been captured by the British, has been tried, sentenced to death, and shot. He was accused of extreme cruelty, and of shooting natives without justification. He denied responsibility for six of the seven deaths laid to his charge, and stated that the seventh of whose death he was accused was a spy who had been regularly convicted. The ministers of the powers in China have at last attained the object for which they have long been working, in having been received as representatives of sovereigns equal in rank with the Chinese Emperor. The influential viceroy of Pechili is seeking to induce the Chinese Government to employ distinguished foreigners to assist in placing the government on a firm basis. A Chicago man has invented a scientific “divining rod” to be used in the location of mineral-bearing quartz. The success of the rod is due to the fact that mineral-bearing quartz is a better conductor of electricity than is the ground. Several mines have already been located by the inventor, and a company has been formed to manufacture the rods. Much suffering has been occasioned in many of the western and central States during the week by extreme cold weather and blizzards. The cold winds in the Puget Sound country assumed practically the character of a tornado, and much damage was done to buildings and lines of communication. Stock has suffered greatly in the North and Middle West. The earth continues to tremble at Chilpancingo, Mexico. Official data show that 614 houses, not including the government buildings, were destroyed in the two earthquakes which occurred there. The people continue panic-stricken, and many are leaving to establish themselves in other towns. At Havana, Cuba, on January 23, there was a great demonstration in behalf of reciprocity with the United States. The leaders in this demonstration personally appealed to the governor-general as the representative of the United States, representing that the ruin of Cuba was certain unless reciprocity with this country should be established. A despatch from Africa states that telegraphic communication from the Cape to Cairo is almost attained. The companies working north have reached Lake Tanganyika. When the line has been completed to Albert Nyanza, connection will be made with the Soudanese and Egyptian lines, which are already working. In line with other transcontinental railways, the Canadian Pacific has announced its decision to expend a large sum in improving its road. Twenty millions is the sum to be thus expended, much of which will be used in laying a double track, adding new rolling stock, and improving the terminals. A great pipe line is soon to be laid from the new oil fields of Beaumont, Texas, to the principal cities of that State and also to New Orleans. The proposed line will be about 750 miles in length, and will greatly facilitate the marketing of the crude oil. The cost of the pipe line is placed at $5,000,000. Emperor William has given to the Harvard University a collection of several thousand casts and bronzes illustrating every phase of the plastic arts from the Romanesque period to the Renaissance. The entire cost of the collection is borne by the emperor, and will amount to about $125,000. The University of California has an expedition in Egypt, exploring the ruins of ancient burial places for relics illustrating the life and times of Egypt’s ancient dynasties. Many valuable discoveries have been made, some of which reach back to the earliest history of that nation. The Senate committee on the Philippines has decided to enter upon a thorough investigation of the entire Philippine question. This investigation will be undertaken for the purpose of enabling the committee to formulate a civil government for the islands. Turkish officials are now accusing Miss Ellen M. Stone of conspiring to aid her captors in keeping out of the clutches of the officials. A report from the scene of her detention states that the ransom money has been paid, and that she is about to be released. Action against the Northern Securities Company, the railroad trust of the Northwest, was begun in the Supreme Court at Washington on January 27, the attorney-general of Minnesota filing the complaint of the people against the corporation. The largest consignment of American harvesting machinery ever sent abroad is now in process of shipment from New York and Philadelphia to ports in Southern Russia. The shipment consists of 36,000 tons of reapers, harvesters, mowers, and rakes. Six women missionaries sailed from San Francisco for the Orient on January 30, going out under the auspices of the Women’s Methodist Mission Board. Two go to Burmah, one to Japan, and three to the continent of Asia. A report from Colombia states that in a battle between government troops and insurgents which occurred recently at Facatativa, the insurgents were defeated with a loss of 360 killed. The government troops lost 90 killed. Russia has completed the revision of her civil code, a work that has been in progress for the last fifteen years. Capital punishment and banishment for crime are entirely stricken from the new code. The annual report of one life insurance company of New York shows that during the past year this company alone has paid out to policy-holders or their heirs the immense sum of $21,722,305. A report from the island of Negros, P. I., states that the conditions there are very unsatisfactory. A fanatic named Papa Isio, with a band of 440 armed men, is terrorizing the inhabitants. The assessed valuation of real and personal property in the city of New York this year is placed at $6,600,000,000, being an increase of $237,000,000 over the valuation of last year. A report from Sydney states that Australia and New Zealand are much offended because England is now buying meat from Argentina for her troops in South Africa. An explosion of coal dust in the Lost Creek coal mine, near Oskaloosa, Iowa, on January 24, caused the death of 21 of the men employed in the mine. A furious gale is reported to have swept the Japanese coasts, and the fishing fleet has met with disaster. Two hundred fishermen are missing. Remarkable results are said to have been attained in London in the treatment of consumption by means of a high-frequency electrical current. The board of health surprised the town of East Boston on January 26, and vaccinated practically every inhabitant, 15,000 in all. The peach crop of Michigan is reported ruined by the cold weather which has prevailed during the present week. The Filipino leader in the province of Batangas is reported to have surrendered with his whole command. DIVISION WITHOUT CAUSE.
By G.
THE work of “reconstruction” after the Civil War in the United States, began in political circles the moment arms were laid down. In a few years the political machinery moved on as before. Even the soldiers who faced each other in deadly conflict long ago met each other in peace, and “clasped hands across the bloody chasm.” Not so the religious factions North and South. We still have the distinctively Northern and Southern Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians. Moreover, some of these religious divisions were made before the political crisis came over the same subject. Men were quicker to formally break friendship and united labor religiously than politically, and the religious breach is much longer in healing. Altho the cause of the existence of all these Northern and Southern “wings” (slavery) was removed nearly forty years ago, the prejudice lingers, despite many resolutions, joint committee reports, and such-like, in favor of union. This long-continued separation of Christians professing the same creed is brought to mind by the following item of current news:— The two Presbyterian Synods in Missouri, which are connected respectively with the Northern and Southern General Assemblies, met in joint session last week for the first time since the organization of the Presbyterian Church South, in 1861, and appointed a board of management, consisting of twelve members from each Synod, to have charge of Westminster College, which has heretofore been controlled by the Southern Synod alone. The divisions with reference to creed are not so strange, as there is always the tendency among men to draw away disciples after themselves, or to lead out in something new, besides true reformation that has come out from popular error, and found organization necessary for the dissemination of truth. But the continued conflict of persons of otherwise like belief, over a dead issue, seems like maintaining controversy for the love of it. The Lord’s prayer for His disciples is that they may be one, as the Father and Son are one. And His true disciples will always work to that end. G. THIS [National Reform] Association earnestly opposes everything of the nature of a union of Church and State, but maintains with equal earnestness that the separation of Church and State does not involve the divorce of the State from the Christian religion. The Church and the State are organisms; religion is a principle which should animate and control them both.—Christian Statesman. But the State is not and can not be controlled by the principles of the Christian religion; and for that reason it can not properly be united to the Church. The State is an institution designed to control people who will not be controlled by the principles of the Christian religion. If all could be controlled by those principles, there would be no need of a State government to enforce order and respect for men’s natural rights. The proper State government is one whose function is altogether civil, and the proper sphere of the church is in the realm of spiritual things. The kingdom of God is not of this world. When He is ready to set up His kingdom in the earth, He will dispense with all earthly governments. They will then have served their purpose, and will pass away. In my previous article on the growth of stones, I omitted to speak of one mineral, as I wished to speak of it more at length. That mineral is coal. I sit by my pleasant coal fire. It is a blustering New England winter evening. The north wind whirls around the corner of the house, but within all is warmth. It is dark without, but light within. The flames shoot up the chimney, and the smoke, after curling about in a fantastic manner, follows them. Whence come all this light and warmth?—From the dark prison under the ground. Yes, and even further than that—from the sun itself; for all this light is but sunlight after it has been bound in prison for hundreds of years, a prison deep under the earth. This coal, as I built my fire, was black and dirty, but once it was far different, beautiful tropical vegetation. From the coal scuttle at the side of the hearth, to the gorgeously verdant vegetation of the forest of mammoth trees, is certainly a long step. But yet just such a step as this has to be taken in going back to the origin of my warm fire. I have before spoken of the effects of the flood upon the crust of the earth as we now find it. It is almost entirely due to the flood and its action that the great coal beds of our present time exist. “At this time immense forests were buried. These have since been changed to coal, forming the extensive coal beds that now exist, and also yielding large quantities of oil. The coal and oil frequently ignite and burn beneath the surface of the earth. Thus the rocks are heated, limestone is burned, and iron-ore is melted. The action of the water upon the lime adds fury to the intense heat. As the fire and water come in contact with the ledges of rock and ore, there are loud explosions, and volcanic eruptions follow. These often fail of giving sufficient vent to the heated elements, and the earth itself is convulsed, the ground opens, and villages, cities, and burning mountains are swallowed up.” Prior to the time of the flood, the climate was not changeable as now, but was of a warm tropical nature, and, together with the rich, fertile soil, produced a very prolific vegetation. Some faint idea of the immense growth of plants and trees can be gathered from a statement of one writer upon this point. When speaking of our supply of coal, he says, “Were our present forests [in England] uprooted and overthrown, to be covered by the sedimentary deposits such as those which cover our coal seams, the amount of coal which would be thereby formed for use in some future age, would amount to a thickness of perhaps two or three inches at most, and yet in one coal field alone, that of Westphalia, the 117 most important seams, if placed one above the other in immediate succession, would amount to no less than 294 feet of coal.” I have spoken of the light and warmth which come from the coal, as the sunshine of ages ago. The grand old forests which lived before the deluge, were bathed in a flood of sunlight. It was the action of this sunlight on lofty tree and tiny flower that made possible my warm fire this cold winter’s evening. There are some kinds of animals in the sea, which, all their lives, are attached to rocks. The currents of water bring them their food. Just so do the currents of air bring to the tree its food. One of the constituent elements of air is carbon. While it is a very slight quantity, yet it is a very constant one. The under side of leaves is provided with little mouths. These mouths eat up the carbon food which the air so kindly gives them. But after a thing is eaten, to be of any benefit to the eater it must be digested. Here is where the sun does its beneficent work, for its light and heat are the powers which do the digesting and assimilating of this carbon food. The food, thus digested, goes to build up the body of the plant, be it large or small. “As a man eateth, so is he;” and so is a tree. The tree has eaten the carbon, and there are large quantities of it in its body. Carbon is easily burned, partly because it has used so much sunlight in being turned from its gaseous form in the air to the form in which we find it in the tree. But the body of the tree is not alone all that makes coal. Indeed, it may be but a small proportion. Any one who has ever visited a tropical forest has been impressed with the great growth of leaves. Many tropical plants which have small bodies have very large leaves. Now all these leaves have gone to make our coal. We find the process of coal-making going on to-day on the surface of the earth. This coal-making process occurs largely in peat bogs. They are found in all parts of the world, but nowhere in more abundance than in Ireland, where it is said there are some three million acres covered by them. Peat bogs, as their name indicates, are found in low, marshy places. One of these bogs in Ireland is between two and three miles wide and fifty in length. The peat varies from thirteen to as much as forty-seven feet in depth. These bogs are continually forming; for at their surface grow every year peat moss, rushes, horse-tails, and reeds of all description. This growth thrives upon the decaying ruins of not only last year’s growth, but all its ancestors. This vegetable formation undergoes certain chemical changes which make the peat, when cut and dried, valuable fuel. But the bogs do not consist of peat alone; for the trunks of trees are often found mingled with the decaying reeds and mosses. These tree trunks take on a decidedly coaly appearance. From the Bog of Allen, in Ireland, pieces of oak, known as bog oak, are often taken. No coal is blacker than are these, and they are so hard that they are used in the manufacture of ornamental objects. In a peat bog in Maine, a substance very similar to cannel-coal has been found. If all these peat bogs could be covered by great quantities of earth, as were the forests by the action of the flood, and thus subjected to great pressure and heat, coal would certainly be the result. There are several varieties of coal. They are commonly divided into hard and soft, but this is not a very definite division. The graphite or plumbago of our lead pencils is very closely related to coal, being a purer form of carbon. We can take the common coal, and, by sufficiently heating and subjecting it to pressure, convert it into a substance similar to plumbago. Next to graphite, anthracite coal is the hardest and most difficult of all coal substances to burn. The softer coals are called bituminous coals. They take this name from the nature of the chemicals which they contain. There are several kinds of these. They give a much brighter flame, and burn far more readily than does the anthracite coal, but do not have the same amount of heat per ton that it has. Coal has been known for ages. The Chinese early knew of it, and used it for baking their porcelain. So far as is known, it was first used to any extent in England, and this was only about one hundred and fifty or two hundred years ago, tho of course it had been known and used to a very limited extent long before this. Bituminous coal was first mined in Virginia in 1750, and around Pittsburg, Pa., about 1760. In 1762 anthracite coal was discovered near Wilkesbarre, Pa., but it came into use very slowly because it was so hard to burn. It took the colonists a long while to learn not to poke the fire when it was of anthracite coal. As an evidence of the rapid increase of the use of coal, it may be cited that from the Lehigh Valley in 1820 but 365 tons were sent to market, while in 1892, from this same region, 6,500,000 tons were shipped. But I have already made this article too long, and yet I have said nothing of the many interesting things which might be said concerning the mining and handling of coal; nor of the useful products of coal, such as gas, tar, oil, and many chemicals. You should certainly read further concerning this wonderful mineral. In every library are books or magazines containing many interesting facts about coal. It has undoubtedly been the greatest single factor in bringing about the progress and enlightenment of this time. By it the printing press, the steamship, and the railway train are driven,—all that the whole earth may be lighted with the glory of the Coming King. BREAKING HIS SPIRIT.
By Emma Churchman Hewitt
[Emma Churchman Hewitt, in Christian Work.] Mrs. Travers lay back in her chair, pale and exhausted. A voice startled her into a sudden sitting up which sent the blood surging to her head, and for the moment brought on a blinding headache. It was her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Allen, who had that peculiar “neighborly habit” of coming into the house at all hours of the day without announcing herself in any way. “My! how pale you look! You ought to take something! You look to me as tho you were going to be down sick! What can I do for you?” And Mrs. Allen bustled about in a manner tending in no way to allay nervous excitement. Mrs. Travers tried to conceal her feelings, but she could not help wincing a little at the strong voice and bustling movements. She shook her head gently, and replied,— “O no! There’s nothing special the matter with me. I’m just tired out a little. I’ve been having a tussle with Harry. They come just once in so often, and they always exhaust me.” “Why, every once in a while, not very often, but sometimes, Harry refuses to obey me, and then it is a question of who wins. Of course I am always victor in the end, but sometimes the siege is pretty long, and I grow very weary before it is over. But I have always had the strength to hold on.” Mrs. Allen sat straight up in her chair, her eyes snapping. “Well!” she exclaimed emphatically, “I’d like to see one of my children defy me! I always end the matter swift, sharp, and sudden. A good sound whipping always settles matters for the day.” Mrs. Travers opened her eyes. “For the day, Mrs. Allen! Why, when I settle matters it lasts for months. Sometimes six months go by before I run up against Harry’s obstinacy again.” “Well, that isn’t my way!” with tone and manner as tho the speaker regarded her dictum as settling all matters with which she came in contact. “I have no fight. Just the minute I see a sign of rebellion, I take the switch to ’em. The next day I try ’em on the same thing again; and if they grumble, down comes the switch. About three times generally settles it. I had to whip Mary three times the other afternoon for acting ugly about putting on her pink dress when she wanted to wear her blue one.” “Did it make any difference which one she wore?” “Not a bit; but I knew she liked her blue one best, so I told her to wear her pink one. You’ve got to break their spirit early, Mrs. Travers, or you’ll have trouble.” “It seems to me, Mrs. Allen, that you are having more trouble than I am. I only have a fuss about once in six months or so, and you have one every day,” said Mrs. Travers with a little smile. Mrs. Allen seemed a little taken aback by this presentation of the case. “Now, let me tell you, dear Mrs. Allen, that I think you are making the mistake of your life, and one that you will regret most bitterly later along. The trouble with Harry this morning was that he had taken a pencil from his father’s coat, and did not return it when I asked for it. Taking the pencil was disobedience, not returning it was defiance. His father wanted me to take it from him, and settle the matter; but I said, ‘No, he must give it to me. I have told him to do so.’ So for an hour and a half he sat on a chair with me beside him. All I did was to say in an even, firm tone, ‘Harry, give mama the pencil!’ At the end of that time he handed the pencil over, threw his arms around my neck, burst into tears and promised of his own accord to ‘be good.’ I shall not have any trouble with him for a long time again. To be sure, he is but two years old, but he understands.” Mrs. Allen was learning a few things. “And, dear Mrs. Allen, believe me, they really understand much earlier than one gives them credit for, if one only notices. And as to ‘breaking their spirit,’ O that is an awful thing to do! Imagine! why, you are eradicating all the determination out of them. Don’t you know you ought to thank God every day of your life for the obstinacy in your children? Don’t you know that that is what makes will power and determination later in life, if it be properly directed?” A light broke over Mrs. Allen’s face. “That must have been what my Cousin Mary meant one day. I forgot to ask her. Her mother was complaining of the second child as being so obstinate. ‘Now I never have the least trouble with Jack,’ Aunt Louise said, ‘he is very easy to manage. No matter what happens, he gives in right away; but as for Jennie, she is as obstinate as a mule when she takes a notion.’ ‘That’s just the trouble, mother,’ said Cousin Mary, with a worried expression on her face. ‘I’ve no fear about Jennie getting along in the world. Her obstinacy will carry her through. But Jack troubles me a good deal. To be sure he is only five now, but he is so easily governed that I fear for him. He will be easily led. Pray God he may learn to be firm as he grows older, or I fear there are bad days ahead of him.’ It struck me strangely at the time, but I think I see what she meant.” Mrs. Travers nodded and then replied eagerly,— “And then their tastes, Mrs. Allen! These should be consulted, or how can the children learn to form judgment? From the time I can remember, my mother always took me with her to buy my clothes, and selecting two or three pieces suitable in kind, price, and color, allowed me to choose one for myself. She also gave me a choice as to what I should put on, explaining why anything I selected was unsuitable. We never ‘fussed’ at home about anything, and we were all very close to mother.” There was a little silence, and then Mrs. Allen said, with a little quaver in her voice,— “I hope that after this my children, too, will become ‘close to mother,’” and she went away without another word, while Mrs. Travers lay back again in her chair, her face illuminated with a tender smile. A PRAYER FOR HELP.
By T. R. Williamson
Up to the throne of God I lift
My heart in fervent prayer,
The stormy skies without a rift
Of bright blue anywhere
Drop down upon the world their gloom,
Low-hanging, somber, deep,
Spirit of faith, come, quickly come,
My groping soul now keep. The battle is against me here,
My hand unclasp its hold;
Valor’s true weapon, Faith’s bright spear,
From my weak grasp has rolled;
The thongs and gyves of slavish fear
Are locking heart and arm.
Spirit of courage, hear, O hear!
And rescue me from harm. Spirit of hope, down through the night
Shine clear and bright and strong,
And, heavenward led by Thy true light,
I’ll march on with a song.
The gloom again shall yield to morn
Just as in all the past,
The skies in brightening grandeur burn;
No night can always last. Spirit of love, thy warmth enwraps
My senses chilled and weak;
New ardor mounts, new purpose shapes,
God’s promptings in me speak.
Spirit of Jesus, friend and guide,
Holy and pure and free,
Tower of strength, O let me hide
My frailty all in Thee. Oakland, Cal. T. R. WILLIAMSON.