Review and Herald, Vol. 44, No. 26. (12/22/1874)

Review and Herald

Dec 22, 1874

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 22, 1874

“THE CUP OF DEVILS.”

By D. T. Taylor

RASCALITY REVEALED.

Before me, as I write, lie five printed works relating to the adulteration of alcoholic liquors. Two were written by able physicians, one by a colonel in the army, one by a Methodist clergyman, and one by a religious society in Philadelphia. All are of recent date. All are highly authoritative and crammed full of irrefutable evidence. The most damaging information they present is derived from the oral and printed testimony of the liquor men themselves. Analysis, fact, legal testimony, etc., complete the chain of damning evidence. These volumes tell a terrible tale of fraud, drugging, and poisoning by the whisky party. They reveal the astounding fact that over one hundred and fifty different drugs, chemicals, and poisonous substances, now enter into the composition of the various intoxicating beverages in universal use. And yet, these liquors are sent forth to each and every town in the Union as pure ardent spirits. Wholesale druggists make a specialty in that branch of importation for the use of the liquor trade. Chemists, first and second rate, prepare the recipes for mixing, and circulars, secretly printed and secretly circulated, state names, prices, and quantities. These are scattered over the land like the frogs of Egypt. Extracts, oils, ethers, flavors, etc., for immediately turning one drink into another, go out from the “Wholesale Liquor Dealer,” and that fraternal rummy is green who never heard of them.

In this kind a Philadelphia firm deals. One of their secret circulars with price-list, &c., is before me. On it I count one hundred and fifty-four kinds of such, used, says the circular, “in the manufacture of liquors, wines, cordials.” Remember that, to make these, all that is needed is common rectified corn whisky and drugs! And these fellows tell their customers that “liquors made according to these recipes” so closely resemble the genuine that they often cannot be distinguished.” Skillful swindlers, these. And now comes Professor Babcock, who in a late number of the Laboratory, tells us so skillfully are the spurious liquors prepared that it is about impossible to tell them from the genuine, even by chemical analysis. What next?

The “Table of Contents” of the Philadelphia man’s book is also on my table. By its aid I am fully initiated into the mysteries of the cup of devils. Ethers and flavoring oils of a powerful and deleterious kind are used. By their use, in a few minutes’ time, and at a cost of but a few dollars, I am shown how to convert forty gallons of common whisky into any and every kind of liquor to suit the taste of the million. Just one-half a pint of “liquor flavor” will complete the metamorphose. Any quantity of the best “French brandy” can be made for about one dollar a gallon. This is sold for $15 and $20 per gallon, at a profit of 1500 and 2000 per cent. Great is King Alcohol and drug poisons are his profit! These keen sharpers who send out their book to every part of the country, urge the retailers to buy it, and “we save hundreds of dollars which,” they add, “you are now paying to others for preparing whiskies, brandies, gins, &c.” Our clerical author (who knows) writes: “These circulars have been sent all over the country, and that, too, through many years; hence, we may safely infer that nearly all the dram-sellers make their own liquors.” The book was copyrighted in 1851, and has reached its fourth edition. For all that the people know, every retailer in Clinton County is to-day using similar receipts.

The author tells us that “all the most popular German, French, and American liquors can be made by these receipts.” No doubt of it. He also tells the ladies how to make a “perfect love cordial;” also, other cordials, by the use of such delectable substances as absinthe, prussic acid, and the like. He is very kind to the ladies. He gives receipts for restoring “flat wine, musty wine, or ropy wine, or sour wine.” No doubt this magician could take the 400 barrels (some 14,000 gallons) of colored slop ycleped wine, that passed through this Custom House to New York during the last week in September, and which had, as shown by actual test, an alcoholic strength of only two per cent, and transmute it into splendid Port or Madeira in a twinkling. As it was, it baffled the wisdom of the officers to tell what the stuff could be, that $6,000 duties were paid on, where it came from, or what use could be made of it. The whiskyites know. The red slop won’t have to stay but one night in the cellar and vats of a Gotham wholesaler before it will be resurrected sparkling and strong with the whisky spirit, and tasting as if a half a century old. These fellows will take new, raw, weak wine, and by adding to it fifty cents’ worth of their “age and body preparation,” noted in the “circular,” can quickly change its taste to that of rare old wine. Fifty cents’ worth changes forty gallons;—no grape juice is needed. The same with the liquors. Your memory, reader, will perhaps readily go back to those half dozen or more casks of beautiful imported French brandy, seized and detained by our officers a few years ago in transit over the Ogdensburgh railroad. How the owner claimed his property, and to save it, revealed his rascality, and when the case went to court, defended himself against the United States, and successfully proved there was not a drop of his wretched compounds imported; everything about it, barrels and all, were made in New York. Nevertheless, Champlain and Plattsburgh druggists, and experts, tasted the drugged water and pronounced it nice French brandy. Ah! the liquor man was ahead of you, gentlemen. You marveled. But he got his strychnine water back and chuckled over his sagacity. He should have gone to the penitentiary, and you should be posted on Beelzebub’s beverages.

Our whisky man in his private “circular,” frankly informs us of the existence of “a number of similar treatises,” “other books,” he calls them, like his own. Yes; we knew that before. We happen to know, and have corresponded of late with a talented legal gentleman, who owns, of different kinds, some forty works of this character. These forty volumes were privately got up, circulated everywhere, on the sly, and are written for the express purpose of showing the whisky men how to reduce, combine, imitate, drug and poison the whole brood of liquors. With their aid, wine can be made without grapes, and brandy without wine; every drink of our whisky is adulterated; corn and strychnine whisky, remember. Before me are the titles of some of these; for example, we have “The Brewer and Licensed Victualer’s Guide;” also, “Fermented Liquors;” and another, entitled, “The Liquor Dealer’s Guide;” both these last published in 1858. Then there is “The Wine Merchant’s Companion,” and again “The Complete Practical Distiller,” and still another, “Every Man His own Butler,” (no grape is needed.) And then there is “The Manufacture of Liquors, Wines and Cordials, without the aid of Distillation; Prepared expressly for the Trade.” This book contains no less than one hundred and thirty-five receipts. Chapter VI. tells how to take common, raw whisky and make it into “brandy, peach brandy, gin, rum, &c., at twelve cents a gallon.” All done, please observe, “without the aid of the still.” One more volume of this class of satanic literature I will notice. Its title is, “A Treatise on the Manufacture, Imitation, Adulteration, and Reduction of Foreign Wines, Brandies, Gins, Rums, etc., and all kinds of Domestic Liquors, based upon the French system: a Practical Chemist and experienced Liquor Dealer, Philadelphia, 1860.” It tells how to make one hundred and sixty-five kinds of intoxicating drinks, and whisky and cheap drugs is all that is required to do it! After this evidence, piled on the top of evidence, we may as well stop canting about pure liquors. There are none.

This last-named work of a little over 200 pages was published at $10, but in 1868 a whisky man in one of our Western cities offered the owner $109 for his copy. He did not know where to get another. I do n’t; neither do you. These villainous works are not printed, sold, or read openly. They are spread abroad as the filthy literature is that comes reeking with pollution out of the obscene press of that modern Babylon, New York city. Low-minded, hired minions, peddle these all about the land. The rum traffic has its secret pernicious literature; immorality also has its flood of evil books; one is as bad as the other.

In this town receipts for concocting spurious liquors have been sold, and down in dark cellars the stuff has been mixed like witches’ broth, and men have drank them until they died of slow poison. Some honest liquor dealers have been so astonished when these receipts were offered them and the various liquors made right before their eyes, that they at once abandoned the traffic forever. Of this class was Dr. R. B. Carswell, of East Weare, N. H. Honor to him. Others greedy, godless, and abandoned, buy at once and use them to make more profit. Only eight miles from me fifteen years ago a man commenced the manufacture of his own liquors with the aid of drug poison. His wife drank of them and became the first victim to their deadly effects. The wretched husband to his horror poisoned to death the companion of his bosom. Murdered for a little money!

The trade liquors are an imposition to the honest retailer; a huge fraud upon general public. Mr. V——, of Chazy, bought a quantity of a New York man. The bill was $600. He sold them out (so we have it) at retail; his customers drank them, but for some cause he failed to foot the bill. The New York man sued him for the pay. Our retailer employed as counsel, lawyer A. of P. The shrewd attorney understood the tricks of the trade, and subpoenaed as witnesses for his client the clerks in the establishment where the hot fluids came from, and putting them under oath, proved before the Supreme Court of the Empire State, that the entire lot was spurious. The New York man didn’t get the $600. He got six cents. He should be learning an honest, decent trade between some stone walls in a certain institution out west of the village of Plattsburgh. I always believed in 1 Timothy 1: 9, 10.

Makers and executors of law, are these things so? Is this traffic in poisonous drinking fluids wrong? If so, then, why not for God and humanity’s sake put away the Heaven-daring and soul-destroying evil? You punish a poor old woman if she adulterates a pound of butter by putting a little lard in it; why don’t you punish the criminals who adulterate with poisons and filth the daily drinks of forty-three millions of free people? You punish the man who counterfeits a true bank note, why don’t you punish the American Thugs, who are hourly and everywhere imitating with deleterious substances, the ardent spirits of commerce? Why?—D. T. TAYLOR, in Plattsburgh Sentinel.

Weighed in the Balance.

By C.

WEIGHING is a method by which we ascertain the quantity and value of certain articles or commodities. It may signify to ascertain the moral worth of a person,—what he is worth spiritually.

Now, in order to ascertain correctly the weight and arrive at the correct value of an article, the scales and weight by which we weigh must be correct. A false balance never gives the correct weight of anything. Many have a false balance in which they weigh themselves to ascertain their moral character and spiritual worth; and they fearfully overestimate themselves.

Some weigh themselves in the scale of ignorance. They do not try to ascertain the will of the Lord concerning themselves, nor inform themselves of the way of salvation. They never search the Scriptures to find out what they must do to be saved. No, never. They flatter themselves with the delusive idea that if they know nothing, nothing will be required of them; that a plea of ignorance, in the day of Judgment, will suffice, and all will be right with them. Poor, deluded soul, God will not judge you merely for what you do know, but for what you might know. You might know enough to be

saved, if you but would; and God will judge you accordingly.

Again, some weigh themselves in the scale of comparison with others who are more wicked, and then conclude that they (themselves) are pretty good fellows—good enough. The old Pharisee in the temple, when he compared himself with the poor, conscience-smitten publican, had an excellent opinion of himself. He was so very good that he was good for nothing. Now this class reminds me of a certain bird which will fly over a thousand head of living cattle and never light upon one; but passing on a mile or two, until he finds a carcass, he will light down upon it and glut his rapacious appetite on a meal of carrion, and then clap his wings and soar aloft and feel good on it. So will these men pass by a thousand good men and women, who are the light of the world and the salt of the earth, and light upon a hypocrite, and compare themselves with him, and then whirl upon their heel and say, “I am better than he,” and feel good on it. Stop, my dear friend; you may, for aught I know, be better than the hypocrite, but remember, you are not good enough for Heaven. Some, in the old world, were better than others; but all out of the ark perished.

Again, some weigh themselves in the scales of their conscience. They do certain things forbidden in God’s word, and leave undone others commanded to be done, because their consciences do not condemn them for doing the former and leaving undone the latter. Now conscience is not the judge in deciding moral action, and especially to those in an unsanctified state. If sanctified by the grace of God, they will greatly assist us. The word of God is the rule of moral action. What it enjoins must be done, what it forbids must not be done, whether conscience acquiesces or not. By the infallible word of Jehovah, you and I, my reader, will stand acquitted or condemned at his bar; and that unrighteous weight that we so frequently drop into the scales here will not be used in the day when the books are open.

Reader, come, let us go to the scales of divine revelation, to the balance of God’s sanctuary, and there weigh our moral character, and let us ascertain our spiritual worth. Throw away your false method of weighing. Be honest with yourself. May the Holy Spirit assist you. What is your spiritual character? Is it natural, or changed and renewed? one of guilt, or pardon of sin, or holiness? Is it the old or the new man? How important to know! God will weigh us all in the day of Judgment, in the scale of impartial justice, and the spiritual character of every man and woman will be correctly decided. The Judge of all the earth will do right. —C., in Relig. Tel.

SAVED BY HOPE.

Though the morning of life may be gloomy and clouded, The noontide in storms and tempests may rave; Though the evening in darkness, thick darkness be shrouded, And close, late and lowering the night of the grave: Yet the faithful, undaunted, with hope strong and cheering, Proceed through the dark vale not doubting nor fearing, With triumph they look for the glorious appearing Of Him who came lowly to seek and to save,

Though the world to the depths of affliction may leave us, And those whom we love stand aloof in our woe; Though foes with false friends may combine to deceive us, And darken the cloud that surrounds us below: Yet the day-star shall rise on the gloom of our sorrow, Though grief reigns to-night, yet joy comes to-morrow, From the fountain of life we may comfort still borrow, That earth and its pleasures can never bestow.

The Scientific Frog.

By Dr. E. O. Haven

A DISCONTENTED and curious frog, seeing a couple of men sitting under the shadow of a tree by the side of a stream of water, and engaged in conversation, hopped up to the bank, and seated himself before them to learn something from their conversation.

One of them was a scientific quack, and was just now warmly advocating “the development hypothesis.”

“We know nothing of God,” said he; “this stream flows on because water runs down hill; the wind blows because nature makes it blow; the sun shines and the plants grow all as the result of law. Who sees any design in it? A man is a fool to believe what he cannot see. What are we men? Only higher developments of some lower animals, such as fishes and frogs?”

And then the men departed. Thenceforth the frog was a philosopher. He held up his head with pride, and endeavored to hop only on his hind legs. He was not particularly proud of his ancestry, but entertained great expectations of his numerous family of pollywogs.

One of them at least he hoped would develop into a little man.

After this he determined to travel and enrich his mind by observation. The first place he visited was a saw-mill, of which he had often heard his father speak. He seated himself upon a log with his back toward a large revolving saw, and began to soliloquize.

“Now, the saw-mill,” said he, “my father told me, was designed by a higher power for the purpose of making boards. Nonsense! There is no such thing as design. The mill made itself. It was developed by nature and law. How foolish to believe in what you cannot see!”

In the meantime the miller let on the water, and the log began to glide smoothly and the saw to revolve; and while the frog was absorbed in meditation the saw reached him, and, presto! he was cut asunder, and that was the end of his travels and philosophy.

MORAL: It is not well for frogs or men to know too much, for excess of knowledge and stupidity are sometimes the same thing.—Dr. E. O. Haven.

The Fierce European Struggle at Hand.

THE following passages in some of the speeches at the great meeting against Ultramontanism in Glasgow show how observant thinkers foresee a great conflict to be impending:—

Colonel Macdonald, the chairman, said, We cannot forget that it was here we heard but a few months ago those remarkable utterances, which struck so sharply on the ear of Britain, from the present Premier. Speaking in this hall of what he called “the contest commencing in Europe between the spiritual and temporal powers,” he said: “I think we ought to be prepared. The position of England is one which is indicated, if dangers arise, of holding no middle course upon these matters. It may be open to England again to take her stand for the Reformation, which three hundred years ago was the source of her greatness and her glory; and it may be her proud destiny to guard civilization alike from the withering blast of atheism and the simoom of sacerdotal usurpation. If that struggle comes, we must look to Scotland to aid us. It was once, and I hope is still, a land of liberty, of patriotism, of religion.” Another statesman of modern days, as eminent as the present Premier—I mean Lord Palmerston—said, not many years ago, that the day would come when we should again hear of religious wars in Europe. It seems as if they were not far distant. The forces are arrayed on each side, and no quarter will be given or taken. The banners display on our side the principles of order, of justice; on the other of darkness, of error, of anarchy.

Rev. Dr. Begg said: “Great statesmen have lately hinted at the probability of approaching convulsions of intense magnitude in Europe. This has no doubt a reference to the probable struggle for the restoration of the pope to his temporal supremacy. There is every reason to believe that the late Franco-German war, following on the declaration of papal infallibility, arose from a desire to crush Protestantism in its mightiest continental stronghold. The result, however, was in the gracious providence of God the very reverse. France was conquered. Germany was triumphant, and the pope was ousted from his temporal dominion. The object of the Vatican is now to reverse all this, and so soon as there is a monarchy in France, or perhaps also in Spain, the restoration of the pope to his personal sovereignty will probably be attempted by force of arms. This will be resisted no doubt by Italy and Germany, and will probably thus end in a European war. The Romanists over Europe have made a league of St. Sebastian, ready to take part in the bloody fray.”

Dr. Manning seems to glory and exult in the prospect of all this. He is reported to have said, at a meeting held in Willis’ Rooms, London, on January 25, 1874: “The excited antagonism of the nations of Europe is founded on a fact [the temporal power of the pope] full of consolations. Instead of being alarmed, or scared, or discouraged, by the great sharpening of animosity, and the great massing together of antagonists, I look upon it as the most beautiful sign. Now, when nations have revolted, and when they have dethroned, as far as men can dethrone, the vicar of Jesus Christ, and when they have made the usurpation of the Holy City a part of international law, when all this has been done, there is only one solution of the difficulty—a solution, I fear, impending, and that is, the terrible scourge of continental war—a war which will exceed the horrors of any of the wars of the First Empire. I do not see how this can be averted.”

Rev. Dr. Wylie of Edinburgh said: “I have long felt and often said that when there would come the day of the Church of Rome’s extremity, would come the day of our peril. It was easy to enforce that, so long as she was permitted to retain her temporal sovereignty, and the pope was able to rank himself among the other crowned heads, that she would study to keep on something like good terms with the nations; but that, should she be stripped of all, and driven forth crownless and kingdomless, then woe to the nations; she would take a signal revenge. She may now be said to be stripped of all her temporal power, and brought down to what she was twelve hundred years ago, and now she plainly tells us the hour is come! For what? For wrapping her mantle gracefully around her and dying? No! She tells us that the hour is come for a stand-up fight, and that she will fight it out to the last. But you say that is madness. With what will she fight? she has neither army nor fleet. But the folly lies with those who believe in nothing that they do not see.”

Despite all the reverses that have overtaken her, the Church of Rome is still, as regards the sinews of war—as regards material force, the strongest confederacy on the face of the earth. If she can manage to raise Don Carlos to the throne of Spain, and the Prince Imperial to the throne of France, she will have the fleets and armies of at least two kingdoms at her service. But even failing in this, has she not the vast majority of the populations of these two kingdoms at her back? Has she not the majority even in Italy? Has she not fourteen millions in Bavaria; five millions in Ireland; millions more in Canada and the United States; millions more scattered up and down in Europe? Has she not, at a moderate calculation, some fifty millions which the doctrine of papal infallibility gives her the means of uniting into one phalanx, of setting in motion by a single hand, and of precipitating, like an avalanche, upon Christianity and liberty. Rome may well say to the Protestant, “Hast thou seen the treasures of the hail which I have reserved against the day of battle and of war?”

“We shall soon see,” says the Voce della Verita, the organ of the Jesuits, “all Christendom divided into two camps, on the one side the champions of Christ and his church; on the other, the servants of Belial. “We shall pass,” continues that paper, “through severe conflicts, but the history of eighteen centuries assures us of final victory.” I tell you, you have to do with a power capable of forming the boldest scheme—a scheme equal to the crisis that has come upon her, and which has the courage to execute it. You have to do with a power which slowly ripens her plans, bides her time, and then suddenly leaps out of the darkness to wrap cities in civil war, and kingdoms in revolution. It is a sudden and nameless peril of that sort that overhangs at this hour all Christendom, and our own country among others. All is now in peril; and though the fight may be a hard one, we cannot decline to save at the cost of accepting something harder still—of accepting revolution and ruin.—Signs of Our Times.

Alarming Military Preparations in Germany.

A NEW law for organizing the Landsturm has just been prepared in Germany. In other words, the whole able-bodied population, from the youth of seventeen to the man of sixty, are now to be trained to military service. The Times says upon this: “When Napoleon III. rashly plunged France into war in 1870, he had an army of three hundred thousand men; but the German forces were three times as numerous. The result was that the French army was driven in and crushed. But the German statesmen perceive that this advantage will not be obtained so easily a second time. One thing is beyond a doubt. The new French army is immensely larger than the old one. In fact, if the plans of the French government be carried out, and the finances of the country will bear the strain, no long time will elapse before France will have a national force equal to that of Germany in 1870. If Germany is to retain its present superiority, this new law may be a necessary measure, but it is an ominous sign that this is the first time in the present century that preparations have been made for organizing the Landsturm in time of peace.” The Daily Telegraph also regards it as a portentous event.

The organizing of these vast military hosts is in exact accordance with the prediction in Revelation 16:12–16, that at the present time “evil spirits should gather the nations to the war of Armageddon.” The result will soon be seen in the most tremendous battles, and “the time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time.” Daniel 12:1.—Signs of Our Times (London).

Where Shall our Children Spend their Evenings?

It is not of the marriageable portion of society we wish to speak. We allude to those half way between childhood and youth, a great increasing host; too big to be put to bed out of the way at sundown, full of animal spirits, warm with social instincts, longing to entertain and be entertained, interested in a thousand things that are foolishness in the eyes of maturity—pictures, games, romps—it is to these we would call attention, for these we put in a plea, when we ask, “Where shall our young folks spend their evenings?”

“Not in my parlor, I assure you,” exclaims Mrs. Fusabout. “I’m not going to have my young folks taking a crowd in there to soil, deface, and destroy—not I, indeed! And as to having them here where I am, I could n’t stand that no way; they would drive me crazy in a week with their endless chatter.”

“Mother can’t we go into the parlor?” We were two girls shivering in the damp air of an evening in September—two girls just budding into womanhood, that critical period when both soul and body need the tenderest care and vigilance. The woman addressed had come from the warmed and well-lighted church close by, and was ready to sleep on the sermon. Not so her daughter. That young brain was alive with busy fancies; no end of pleasant confidences were busy at her tongue’s tip to be transferred to the sympathizing heart beside her; her pulse throbbed high with youth and hope; she had no desire to shorten her days by a single hour. And what was her answer? “In the parlor, indeed! I think not! If it isn’t good enough for you out here on the steps, you can come in and go to bed.”

Those poor young things had shivered there an entire evening; but what did it matter? Perchance many an after pain and ache, which should by right have recoiled upon the parent, reached the tender frame of her woman child. So the precious parlor remained undesecrated, what did it matter? It mattered much, O wives and mothers, so quick to wipe away the least suspicion of a cloud on your window-panes, so indifferent to the clouded eyes of your offspring; so indefatigable in keeping stains from carpet or curtains, so careless of the one that may have crept into the soul of son or daughter; whose nerves are steady under sound of poker, hammer, scrubbing-brush, and broom, and entirely upset by the patter of childish feet, a game of romps, a whistle, drum, or crying doll; who with washing, ironing, baking, carpet rags, canning, and all various duties of the notable housewife, can “litter up” a room from daylight until bedtime, and take genuine satisfaction in it, too, yet can not endure a stray hat or apron, or a few scattered toys. We say such things matter much, since every

species of injustice, however small or trivial, shielded under whatsoever pretense, will some day, most assuredly, recoil upon the perpetrators thereof.

“I never have known any one who allowed their boys to occupy the parlor of an evening, or bring company in the house at all.” Such is the testimony of a lady who for several years has been a teacher in one of our public schools; and how many, many witnesses could set their seal thereto.

Walk out any time before ten, on a pleasant evening, almost anywhere in our large cities, and you will see dozens of young girls, mere children, of the most respectable parentage, strolling around the streets, or sitting on the steps, for the purpose of enjoying those social privileges denied them in their homes. These either go to school or to work during the day. Then comes the long evening. Youth very naturally desires recreation and the companionship of their own age. If home is not really a home, but only a place where they are allowed to eat, drink, and sleep, what is left them but to take to the streets, fraternizing with others equally as unfortunate as themselves?

Most people think boys take naturally to the streets; that is because they are not allowed to be boys in the house. With his mind always open to the wise and thoughtful supervision of parents whose law is love, a little roughing in the street never yet hurt a growing lad, but to leave him with no other recourse but stagnation or the street, is criminal.

The days are growing short, the nights cold; and rosy, rollicking girls will be obliged to remain indoors, and only the boys be left out. We shall see them clustering with their cronies around the store-windows, in a circle about the street lamps, anywhere where light seems to impart something of warmth and good cheer; we shall see them slapping their numb hands together and dancing about to keep life in their half-frozen bodies. Bright, brave boys most of them are, too, yet we tremble for their future, since their very presence is a living testimony to the fact that parents are too many, fathers and mothers too few; that while we build and adorn too many houses, homes are too few.

Fine furniture, overneatness, and nerves, put out the home fires of many a heart and hearth. We often feel like exclaiming, with some considerable change of the original text:—

“That furniture should be so dear, And these young souls so cheap?”

And we see no open door, no genial fireside, no home where our young folks, every one, can gather in, and spend their evenings, their gayety heightened, not checked, by the tender, sympathizing presence of older heads, until a condition of affairs so censurable no longer has tolerance inside of any four walls which a child calls home.—Christian at Work.

How the Millennium Is to Come.

By Dr. J. Seiss

PEOPLE think they see signs of promise in the movement of reform. They think to give the church a better shape, and the State a better government, and the world a freer Bible, and that thus the millennium will come. I have no confidence in any such hopes. I see more of promise in the darkest features of the time than in all these pious and patriotic dreams. The world is perhaps more wicked now than it has been since Noah’s flood—considering the light which it rejects. And yet in this very darkness, I read the promise of coming light. In this very misgiving, desperation, and gloom, I see the argument for the speedy springing forth of glorious and unfading hopes, not as human reason calculates, but as God purposes. I behold in it the rapid winding up of the present dispensation to give place to that better state of things of which the prophets all have spoken. Statesmen and churchmen see in it the unmistakable evidences of unprecedented changes, though they widely differ as to what these changes are to be.

I have read somewhere, in a very sagacious writer, that when happy changes are contemplated, most people erroneously turn to the quarters of light for the signs of its approach. This has ever been man’s mistake when looking for the fulfillment of God’s great purposes, and is the mistake of many now. People are looking for the setting up of Christ’s kingdom, and the introduction of millennial glory by reforming and rebaptizing present modes of effort and thought. But so it will not be. God’s method of progress is to make darkness the way to light, death the prelude to life, despair the introduction to salvation, and corruption and confusion the road to order and glory. It is not in what seems hopeful, but in what seems gloomy and untoward, that we are to look for the signs of the speedy forthcoming of God’s wonder-working goodness. It is the stirring upon the face of the dark waters that gives prognostics of the breaking forth of light, and life, and beauty. The bursting glories of spring come directly out of the bleak winter. It is from the corrupting seed that we obtain the harvest. The darkest hour is said to be that which immediately precedes the day. The period most hopeful is that when the apparent motives for despondency are most overwhelming. The stress of the controversy between hope and fear always falls upon the eve of triumph. Those dim hours of dismay to the scattered followers of Christ at his crucifixion were but the preludes to the bringing in of light and immortality for man. The bloody persecutions under the Roman emperors which threatened the extinction of Christianity were the immediate precursors of its victory over even the throne of the Cæsars. And so the Scriptures teach that it will be in the ushering in of the great consummation. The sun must darken and the moon withhold her light, and then shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings.—Dr. J. Seiss.

Telling Children Lies.

A BEAUTIFUL young mother sat by us during a three hours' ride in the cars, the other day, and in her arms she held what seems to us the fairest ornament a mother ever wears, her beautiful baby. The little fellow was very noble-looking; somewhere near his second birthday, we should fancy; sturdy and strong, with great blue eyes like wood violets, cunning little white teeth, even as kernels of corn, and rosy cheeks that kept dimpling into smiles. Naturally the confinement of his position made him restless. He grew tired of sitting still on his mother's lap; the cakes and apples she rather unwisely gave him lost their charm, and the bright flowers he kept begging with the prettiest pleading from the stranger by his side at last grew wearisome. Baby wanted to take a turn on the floor, and mamma was afraid to let him. What do you think she did, gentle reader?

Why, she looked her little wide-awake boy straight in his innocent face, and said, gravely:—

“Harry, if you don't sit still, I'll throw you out of the car window!”

In the plainest manner possible she gave her child a lesson in lying. No earthly power would have made her throw him out, and nothing would have been strong enough to tear him from her had danger menaced him; but she wanted to keep him quiet, and so she rushed to the resort of the weak—deception. If two or three years hence Harry shall tell her a lie, she will be exceedingly shocked and pained, and he will be punished and prayed for, and his mother will grieve at his deficiency of moral sense, quite oblivious of the fact that as she has sown she is beginning to reap.

The fact is, that half the babies are trained to tell falsehoods before they are able to walk and talk. The thousands of poor little unfortunates, who are dressed in muslin and lace, and given over to the care and companionship of ignorant hirelings, are so practiced upon and deceived and frightened, and, in short, lied to, that it is a wonder that after all most of them grow up tolerably truthful. We think it speaks well for that much-maligned thing, human nature. But servants are not the only nor the chief offenders. We charge mothers and fathers with being very culpable and wicked in their sins of commission in this regard.

“I have never deceived my child,” says Mrs. Laura Love, who is reading this number beside her baby's crib. When you pretended, dear lady, the other day, that you were not going out when you were, and when you tiptoed off with your bonnet hidden behind you lest baby should cry to go, what were you doing but deceiving him? When you pretended that the abominably tasting stuff you were about to give him out of a vial was good, smacking your lips as if you enjoyed it, what were you doing but acting a lie?

Children have very quick perception. Very young children learn to see through the ways that are dark and the tricks that are vain of their foolish elder companions. Still, as we look into their soft eyes, we seem to hear the solemn words that fell from the tenderest lips that ever spoke to man: “Take heed that ye offend not one of these little ones.”—Hearth and Home.

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