"Jesus therefore when he knew that they would come to take him by force and make him king, fled again into the mountain himself alone." John 6:15, Rheims Version.
WHY, my brethren, did Jesus depart from the people before whom he had worked a miracle?—It was because they conceived the idea of making him king. He would have us imitators of him by spurning the vain praises and glory of men. As an excessive attachment to these is the chief element of the corrupt world, our Lord brings down upon it the whole weight of his severest condemnation.
He warns us not to do our good works before men to be seen and praised by them, for if we do, he says that we shall have no reward from our Father in heaven.
Alas! does not our own experience teach us how fickle and deceitful the friendship of the world is, how unjust are its judgments, how vain are its promises? It amuses us with its flatteries, it deceives us even while caressing us, and promises much while it performs nothing. We have, perhaps, longed for some worldly distinction, and have had our desire satisfied, but have we found contentment? Even in its possession were we not troubled, in spite of ourselves, by the thought, how long will this glory last? If we reflect upon it, what can be more frivolous than reputation and the esteem of the world? If one person esteems me, another despises me; for who has ever had the approbation of the whole world? And if the multitude has a high opinion of me, what is, after all, the multitude but a crowd of blind people, who esteem me to-day, but are just as likely to spurn me to-morrow? But, even if their esteem were most sincere, would it make me really better or happier? If others applaud me when my own conscience condemns me, of what service is their praise to me? So, too, if I am satisfied with myself and think I deserve the good opinion of men, how does it all benefit me if God condemns me? I am, in truth, only that which I am in the judgment of God, and to seek the applause of the world with too much eagerness is often to incur the disapprobation of God. Oh, that you would cast yourselves at the feet of the Crucified and there learn in what the glory of God—the only true greatness—consists! Happier were you to-day had your past life been lived for God. What of those jealousies which made you troubled at the success of others? Why that slander which spared no one when there was question of establishing your own reputation? How account for that unbridled love of notoriety which so often caused you to dethrone God and place Baal in his stead? Whence came they?—From the desire of the world's esteem and from forgetfulness of God.
If you have been foolish in the past, let not the future find you thus. What will it profit you, at the hour of death, to have been regarded as clever, if you must soon appear, with empty hands, before the awful tribunal of God? Will you forsake an eternity of happiness for the vain enjoyment of a momentary esteem? God forbid that you should sacrifice the salvation of your soul for emptiness. Make good resolutions, then, while you have time. It is not necessary that you should quit your station in life, that you should leave the world. Salvation can be gained in every station of life; but live with the world instant265fear of its treachery; keep yourself in peace but not in alliance with it; shun its displeasure, but seek not its friendship. Should its commands be in opposition to virtue, hesitate not a moment in spurning them; should its practice be at variance with the gospel, try not to compromise. Think not of serving two masters; choose the One who can and will repay your attachment. "This therefore I say, brethren," exclaimed St. Paul, "the time is short; it remaineth, that . . . they that weep, [be] as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as if they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as if they used it not; for the fashion of this world passeth away."—Catholic News.
PRESUMPTUOUS SIN.
By Western Christian Advocate
WHAT a sad mistake men make who construe God's goodness into a license for sin, who imagine, because God does not inflict summary judgment on presumptuous sinners, that he is not displeased at sin, and that he will not punish sin at all!
This dreadful delusion some persons are hugging to their hearts and persisting in holding. A rude awakening awaits such self-delusion. God's holiness will compel him at last to visit iniquity so high handed. The terrible threatenings of God's word will find fulfillment.
This abuse of God's forbearance is a monstrous perversion of his goodness, which is intended to lead men to a better life. Words cannot depict its turpitude. To disregard the claims of divine justice is to be guilty of great sin. To refuse to repent when unspeakable love invites and urges men to repentance, is worse; but most criminal of all is it to misconstrue and pervert God's lenity and forbearance into presumptuous sinning.
There are some sins whose enormity defies description. A man who preys on the misfortunes of others, when they are powerless to resist him and to protect themselves, is justly abhorred for his utter depravity. When, a few years ago, the hungry flames were devouring Chicago, there were those who took advantage of the consternation and terror induced by the fire to plunder and rob, thus shocking the public sense by their awful greed. When the plague was decimating London, there were ghouls who preyed on the dead and who even robbed the sick and the dying.
Of like moral enormity is it when a man whom God has spared and preserved in life, so that God may thereby incite and assist him to reform, takes advantage of such infinite forbearance and love, and, instead of being made better by such amazing tenderness, perverts all this to evil uses, and goes on from bad to worse.
Language fails to describe the deep infamy thus displayed. Its enormity is unmeasured and immeasurable. God seeks by his forbearance to act upon men's moral nature, and to lead them to repentance. When this benevolent design is thwarted, what else can await them but utter, hopeless disaster? Their end is to be burned. The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever. When justice utterly fails, and even infinite love is spurned, resisted, and trampled underfoot, then only irremediable destruction awaits.
Though hand join in hand, though men encourage themselves in an evil matter, yet the wicked shall not go unpunished. It will still be found irreversibly true that "wickedness overthroweth the sinner." However right the way of sin may seem to the wrongdoer, "the end thereof are the ways of death."
The motive pressing Christians to hasten to the rescue of sinners so presumptuous and so imperiled, is seriously urgent.—Western Christian Advocate.
BE STRONG.
By Richard Montague
THE Apostle John writes to young men, because, as he says, they are strong. But when is a young man strong? Is he strong when he is held in clutch and shaken as a very reed by some base appetite? Is he strong when lust lifts the master's lash over his drooping head, and, like a cringing slave, he kneels at his ruler's feet in subjection? Is he strong when an ill-bred sneer turns him from his purpose of right and brings to his cheek a blush of shame? Is he strong when the breath of a woman, holding before him the cup of intoxication, can break the teachings of his home, the practice of his childhood, the purpose of his early youth? Is he strong when too cowardly to stand by his convictions of loyalty to Christ and virtue?—No, no! A thousand times I say it, No! There are spherical glasses so constructed that press them in one way and you think them firm and lasting. But merely touch them in a dozen other ways and they fall at your feet a powdered mass of dust. Youth may have an apparent strength of body and mind, and for a while it will seem to hold together, but if it be not stayed with the inward power of a courageous conscience, the first touch of temptation may shiver it to atoms.
The pages of history are filled with the records of contrasted moral courage and cowardice. I think of no instance more instructive than that of Charles Sumner and Lord Bacon. During the exciting contest that for weeks agitated the Legislature and community of Massachusetts pending the election of a successor to Mr. Webster, ballot after ballot seemed to offer no hope of a decision or even progress. From time to time committees waited upon Mr. Sumner urging him verbally to modify his views upon the tariff or to relax a little the vigor of his statements about the slavery question. Charles Sumner was of the stuff that heroes are made of. He told these committees, one and all, that he should abate none of his convictions; if he were elected to the Senate of the United States, he would be elected utterly unpledged. He said he would not step across the room to change a single vote in his favor.
Contrast with this conduct, which a dishonest life never tarnished, the sad confession of England's illustrious Lord Chancellor. Accused of bribery, the scholar, philosopher, and statesman at first protested his innocence, but at last, either in the cowardice of conscious guilt, or in fear of the court, said to the House of Lords: "I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of corruption and renounce my defense. I beseech your lordships, be merciful to a broken reed." The Lord Chancellor had trained his massive intellect; he had neglected his conscience. When the awful hour of test came, he fell, humiliated and broken-hearted. O young friends! there are wrecks of former men of honor and renown scattered all up and down our own country, simply because they lacked, in the hour of trial, the courage of a disciplined conscience! Be not ye followers of their unworthy examples. "Be thou strong, therefore, and show thyself a man."—Rev. Richard Montague, D.D.
Giving Before Spending
"They first took out their benevolences before they spent their money for anything." This is the explanation given by Mr. Jeffery, in a letter on another page, of the fact that the poor Christians in Madura give so much for Christian work. Is not this just the reverse of the prevailing custom among Christians? Are not benevolences ordinarily left till the last, to be regulated by what remains after other needs or luxuries are provided for? What a change it would make in the offerings for Christian work at home and abroad if a due proportion of income were first taken for benevolences, and other expenses were regulated by what remained!—Missionary Review.
WHY ADD OR DROP A DAY?
By Jennie M. Snow
BY JENNIE M. SNOW.
SOME people think it impossible to keep any definite day on a round earth, since a person traveling around the earth toward the east has to drop a day to his reckoning, while one going toward the west has to add one. This argument is often brought to bear on the seventh-day Sabbath, while the very ones advancing it find no difficulty in keeping the first day of the week.
If we can give a good reason for adding or dropping the day, as the case may require, we will then have established the fact that the round earth does not interfere with the observance of any day. Let us suppose that a man starts at the sunrise point "A," and traveling toward the east makes a complete circuit of the earth in 360 days. Since there are 360 degrees in the circumference of the earth, he passes over just one degree in a day.
At sunrise the second morning he is at point "B," and finds that it has been just 23 hours and 56 minutes since he witnessed the last sunrise. Thus we see that this man, by his motion in connection with the apparent motion of the sun, has made for himself a day 23 hours and 56 minutes long. When he has completed his circuit, he has seen the sun rise 361 times.
The day that God has made and marks for us by the rotation of the earth is 24 hours long, and in 360 days the sun rises 360 times. Then is it not proper for this man to drop one day from his reckoning, that it may be in harmony with that marked to us by Jehovah?
In traveling toward the west, the second morning would find him at point "C," and it then would have been 24 hours and 4 minutes since he saw the last sunrise. This man, by his motion in opposition to the motion of the earth, has made his day 24 hours and 4 minutes long. At this rate, in completing his circuit, he will have seen the sun rise 359 times. In reality it has risen 360 times. This man, then, should add the day he has made in consequence of his motion, and his time will then harmonize with that of those around him.
Now that we have seen why we add or drop the day, we can make our time agree with that God has given us, and still observe the definite seventh day.
Leon, Wis.
TOM'S TEMPTATION.
"MOTHER, mother darling, there are tears in your eyes; you can't hide them from me by working over that stove."
Tom pushed aside his cup of milk, and the tin plate whereon lay a slice of bread, and looked sorrowfully at the same scanty fare which was placed before his mother's chair. Arising from his seat, he approached the delicate little woman whose back at that moment was turned upon him. She wiped her eyes, and laid her cheek upon her tall boy's shoulder, as he placed an arm lovingly about her waist.
"No use trying to hide anything from those blue eyes of yours, Tom dear," she said, with a smile that made the worn face very sweet to the son who loved her so. "There is nothing you don't discover, and nothing that can make you thoughtless of my feelings."
"I rather guess not, little mother!" was Tom's reply, as he swallowed down a large lump in his throat. "I am very sure not. Why, what kind of a fellow would I be if I didn't care for you, the dearest and best of women in the world! Come, let the old fire go; those few little sticks won't do any good, and you must have your breakfast, you know, or I can't eat mine."
He cast a rather sarcastic glance toward the small, round, and rickety table which contained their morning repast, and continued with a half laugh, "'Breakfast' indeed! I wonder what those rich folk who really have a breakfast every morning would call a cup of blue milk and a slice of stale bread with no butter on it?"
His mother turned a surprised glance at his flushed young face.
"Why, Tom, dear, what a tone of voice!"
"Oh, I don't complain for myself," replied Tom, "but I can't bear to have you go hungry, and be as uncomfortable as you are day after day in this hole of a cellar, only half dressed, and growing so thin and so white, and—and I, a great fellow fourteen years old, just loafing about the streets and not helping you in the least! O mother, I can't bear it; I won't bear it!"
The boy's blue eyes filled with tears, and it was now the mother's turn to kiss them from his cheek, as he had kissed away her own.
"Tom, Tom, how can you be so unjust to my dear, good son?" she cried with an attempt at playfulness. "Who roams the street days, so patiently searching for odd jobs?"
"Your buttonhole business does more for us, mother, than all that," answered Tom. "Oh, dear! I wish a regular old-time fairy would come along some day and give a fellow a lift for his mother's sake."
"Dear boy, not the fairies indeed, but the 'Everlasting Arms' will give us the lift we desire, if we can only keep up our faith and trust, and be content to wait. Come, now, dearie, your milk was warm and nice, but now it is cold, and—"
"And so is yours, mother," Tom interrupted. "We'll heat it over again, and be thankful that at least a beggar may own a tin saucepan, shan't we?"
The scanty meal was finished at last, and after Tom had seen his mother seated at her daily and monotonous task of buttonholing flannel shirts, he gave his suspenders an extra hitch, pulled his cap over his curls of sunny hair, rolled up the rather frayed edges of his trousers, and started off to look for something to do that would put a few pennies in his pockets.
He had a new idea in his head this morning as he trudged along, with his mother's good-by kiss still warm on his lips, and the sweet tones of her voice still making music in his ears. He would beg, borrow, or buy on trust some sort of a broom and sweep street crossings, as some other fellows had done. Maybe he could do better in that way than by going into stores and asking for a job.
Fortune (which, after all, is Providence) favored Tom before very long, and he became possessed of the coveted broom, because just as he passed a house (where the spirit of house cleaning had seized the inmates), a rather shabby-looking affair which had once deserved the name of broom was flung out into the street by an energetic woman who seemed glad to get rid of the thing. Tom sprang for it, you may be sure.
"May I have this, ma'am, if you don't wan't it?" he asked.
"What's to hinder, if you like it?" was the question for answer, and the boy went on, whistling for the joy which the unexpected "find" brought him.
However, the finding of his broom did not bring him immediate good luck, as he had anticipated. He couldn't sweep this crossing, because, "You git! this ere's my place!" screamed a full-fledged street sweeper at him. He couldn't sweep that corner, because, "No ye don't! this ere's engaged! an' I'll give the feller wot meddles wid Mike O'Flatharty tall times, so I will!"
And so poor Tom was beginning to feel discouraged and almost tempted to fling his broom away. But he did at last succeed in obtaining a stand at a crossing in a quieter neighborhood, where perhaps he would be more apt to attract attention than in the busy crowd.
For a long time he waited without any greater reward than a penny or two, and once a nickle.
"Sweeping crossings is nothing, after all," thought he ruefully, "and there isn't another speck of dirt to sweep off this one, anyway."
There had been several rainy days, and, truth to tell, the little crowd of sweepers ought to have reaped a harvest, had pedestrians been grateful enough for the comfort of the cleanly-swept crossings. But, alas! not so; and to Tom came even less of success than to his rivals.
"Please, sir, a penny," said he to one pompous old gentleman at last, feeling that silence was not always golden, as the adage has it, and seeing how often his mere outstretched palm had been ignored.
The old gentleman frowned, and replied:—
"I did not tell you to sweep the crossing, did I, you scamp? Move out of my way." And that was all poor Tom got for his pains there.
"Please, ma'am, I've made the crossing so clean," he ventured to say to the next passer, an honest-looking market woman, who carried a fat purse in her hand.
"Bless me, so you have," she replied beamingly, "much obleeged, much obleeged, sonny, I'm sure." And so she went with no thought of Tom's waiting hand.
"Well, there, I'll just give the whole thing up," he exclaimed, "and try the stores again. I'll—there, what's that I wonder!" His roving eyes had caught a glimpse of a shining substance half concealed in the dark corner of a stone coping near by. Going closer to it, he picked up an old-fashioned heavy gold seal, which had no doubt been cherished as an heirloom, and was valuable also for its unique style and solid worth.
"Like as not it fell off that cross old fellow's chain," thought Tom, as his face broadened with a grin. "He'll never guess where he lost it, and a find's a find. I know where the fellows carry things they steal and find, too, and get cash for 'em, and the things are melted and fixed so the owners never would know them again. I can get a big pile for this, I'm sure."
All these thoughts were passing through Tom's brain as he looked at the seal and admired its beauty.
"I'll get a warm shawl for mother, I suppose; at any rate it'll buy her something nice to eat, and more than that beside, it'll get some coal for the stove, and that'll be better than those pieces of wood she tries to warm up with."
He slipped the seal in his pocket, leaned on his broom, and gave the matter serious thought.
"Of course it isn't mine to sell, but I don't know for sure that it was that old fellow's, either. It might have been lying there for days. My mother is poor and sick, and what I could get for this would buy things to make her glad. But—" here Tom's thoughts took a different turn—"I wouldn't like mother to know how I got the money to buy extras for her," 'cause that would sort of spoil her pleasure, I suppose, and so I'll have to sell it on the sly. It doesn't seem, though, as if the 'lift' would be a fair and square one." He took out the seal and looked at it again, his heart full of "mother" all the while, and the temptation to do wrong for her sake almost irresistible.
"Maybe the reason would make the wrong right," he thought again, having a private little argument with conscience, as everyone, even grown-up people, likes to occasionally.
Tom leaned harder on his broom, and held the seal in his palm inside the dark pocket that could tell no tales, but which had always held pennies and coin fairly earned, shabby though it might be. Meanwhile people passed by, and wondered why the sweeper stood so silent and absorbed in thought, without the least effort to get money from them. And so it was that at last a kind-faced man came along, who looked at Tom, saw his hand in his pocket, and drew conclusions therefrom.
"Here, my boy," he said, "you've an empty pocket, no doubt; take this nickel and drop it in."
Tom flushed hotly. "An empty pocket!" Ah, no; it was too full indeed, too full of a temptation which he was finding it very hard to carry there, because it was also weighing on his heart. The man turned into the office of a daily paper, and Tom, catching him by the coat, asked permission to speak a moment with him privately. And so he told the story of his strong temptation, showing the seal, and finally asking that it might be advertised.
Well, the seal was advertised, and Tom was set to work in the cellar of the building sorting and tying old papers, which "job" was to pay for the business of the seal. The lifting of the temptation had so lightened his heart that he was almost happy; he was glad that he had made a right resolve, and intended when267he went home to tell mother all about the matter, and that would be the end of it. But that was not the end of it at all.
Two days later Tom, who had given his humble address to the gentleman who advertised the seal, received a message from the office, and presented himself and his mother there as soon as possible after. There they met the grouty old gentleman who had repulsed Tom so unkindly, and also the kind-hearted donor of the nickel.
"I was rude to you, my boy," said the former gentleman, "because I had lost my seal, and was then returning from a store where I had believed it to have fallen from my chain. It must have dropped off, however, as I crossed the street on my way first to the store. I valued it highly, and grew irritable over its loss. This friend of mine has told me your story, temptation and all. I'm a cross old fellow at my best, but I do like a manly, honest boy, and appreciate a mother who knows how to train a son in such a way. So now, with no desire for better reference than your own two faces," turning from Tom to his mother, "I ask you, madam, to come and be housekeeper to me and my old-maid sister, and you, my boy, to help me in my office as general office boy, or what you will, and I shall place a fair salary at the disposal of each of you. What do you say?"
And now is there any need for me to continue this story just to repeat the answer to the old gentleman's question?—Certainly not. You will all feel the joy which filled the full hearts of both the widow and her son, and rejoice with Tom that conscience conquered his temptation at last.
THE TONGUE.
"THE tongue destroys a greater horde,"
The Turk asserts, "than does the sword."
The Persian proverb wisely saith,
"A lengthy tongue—an early death."
Or sometimes take this form instead,
"Don't let your tongue cut off your head."
"The tongue can speak a word whose speed,"
Says the Chinese, "outstrips the steed."
While Arab sages this impart:
"The tongue's great storehouse is the heart."
From Hebrew wit the maxim sprung,
"Though the feet should slip, ne'er let the tongue."
The sacred writer crowns the whole:
"Who keeps his tongue doth keep his soul."
—Selected.
CHOOSE YE.
A WEALTHY old gentleman residing in London on one of his birthdays invited his servants into the house to receive presents. "What will you have," said he, addressing the groom, "this Bible, or a five-pound note?" "I would take the Bible, sir, but I cannot read; so I think the money will do me more good," replied the hostler. "And you?" he asked the gardener. "My poor wife is so ill that I sadly need the money," responded the gardener with a bow. "Mary, you can read," said the old man, turning to his cook, "will you have this Bible?" "I can read, sir, but I never get time to look into a book; and the money will buy me a fine dress." Next was the chambermaid, but she had one Bible, and did not want another.
Last came the errand boy. "My lad," said his kindly benefactor, "will you take these five pounds and replace your shabby clothes by a new suit?" "Thank you, sir, but my dear mother used to read to me that the law of the Lord was better than thousands of gold and silver. I will have the good Book, if you please." "God bless you, my boy! and may your wise choice prove riches and honor and long life unto you." As the lad received the Bible and unclasped its covers, a bright gold piece rolled to the floor. Quickly turning its pages, he found them thickly interleaved with bank notes, while the four servants, discovering the mistake of their worldly covetousness, hastily departed in chagrin.—Selected.
HOW TO SHAMPOO THE HEAD.
A COLLECTION of dandruff upon the scalp, often to such an extent as to interfere with the growth of the hair, is a very common disorder, and many people try to remove it by washing with soap and water. This only makes the matter worse; the more the head is washed the drier the scalp will become, and the more dandruff there will be. Even careful rinsing will not prevent it. Everything of an alkaline nature should be kept away from the scalp. Alkalies remove the natural oil from the cuticle, and help to create dandruff. The very best lotion for the hair is pure, soft, unadulterated water, though if from any cause the scalp and hair are loaded with dirt, as coal cinders, dust, etc., a good plan is to beat up an egg (yolk and all) in a very little water, and rub the mixture well into the hair and over the scalp; this will involve the foreign matters, and they can then be rinsed out with pure tepid or moderately warm water. Rinse thoroughly, then dry well with a towel or linen cloth that is free from lint, fan the hair until thoroughly dry, and follow with rapid, but not rough, rubbing with the tips of the fingers. The object of this thorough rubbing is to establish a good capillary circulation in the scalp, which will stimulate the growth of the hair. Where the head is much exposed to dust and dirt, the scalp should be washed with pure soft water as often as once a week. Under ordinary circumstances, once a month should be quite sufficient to keep the scalp and hair in good condition.—"Sanitarian," in Demorest's Family Magazine for October.
THE GREAT MASTER.
By Bacon
"I AM my own master!" cried a young man proudly, when a friend tried to persuade him from an enterprise which he had on hand. "I am my own master!"
"Did you ever consider what a responsible post that is?" asked the friend.
"Responsibility—is it?"
"A master must lay out the work he wants done, and see that it is done right. He should try to secure the best ends by the best means. He must keep on the lookout against obstacles and accidents, and watch that everything goes straight, else he will fail."
"Well!"
"To be master of yourself you have your conscience to keep clear, your heart to cultivate, your temper to govern, your will to direct, and your judgment to instruct. You are master over a hard lot, and if you do not master them they will master you."
"That is so," said the young man.
"Now, I could undertake no such thing," said his friend; "I should fail sure if I did. Saul wanted to be his own master and failed. Herod did. Judas did. No man is fit for it. 'One is my Master, even Christ.' I work under God's direction. When he is Master all goes right."—Bacon.
GOOD DINNERS.
SOME wise person has said that good dinners help very materially toward making good people and, if you doubt this assertion, try the matter for yourself. For several days satisfy the wants of nature with good, wholesome food, well prepared, and daintily served, and see if you are not better mentally, morally, and physically than when your food is ill cooked and carelessly served.
Even the plainest food can and should be prepared palatably and wholesomely and served as daintily as the most elaborate fare.
Wholesome materials should always be used for cooking, fresh and sound vegetables and fruits, untainted meats, fish, flesh, or fowl, eggs whose freshness cannot be questioned. Never keep "cooking butter" in the house; always use as good for all cooking purposes as you would place upon your dining room table.
Always serve food as daintily as you possibly can. No matter how poor the table appointments may be, let them possess perfect cleanliness. Have the table linen in perfect order and the china perfectly arranged upon the table and you may be sure your table will be attractive.
A STRANGE ITALIAN TOWN.
Not long ago the inhabitants of the town of Salti, in the island of Sardinia, petitioned the Italian Government for separate municipal existence, it being a part of Budduso, which is forty miles away. A commission was sent to make inquiries, and this remarkable report was made:—
"Salti has no town council, no police, no clergymen, no physician. It possesses no post office, no church or chapel, no school, no registrar's office. On the maps of the kingdom, although it contains 1,200 inhabitants, it is not marked, yet the State receives taxes from the people, but sends no tax collector to receive them. The taxpayers journey sixty kilometers every eight weeks to pay taxes.
"Once a year, in May, all the children born during the year are taken to Budduso and there baptized. The dead are buried in the most primitive manner and without any trace of religious rites. Marriages are conducted on the same system, without any formality or ceremony, and are declared later on to the registrar or parish priest, sometimes long after they have been blessed with issue. Vaccination and medicine are only known from hearsay.
"Children grow up without schooling or instruction of any kind."—Selected.
THE RIGHTS OF ANIMALS.
By Ouida
It is granted as a general premise that animals have a nervous system of acute sensibility, rendering them susceptible of pain as great as that which human bodies feel. Even their scientific tormentors admit this, and no one can doubt it who has seen them suffer. Yet in actual fact scarcely anyone who has to deal with them remembers this, or is in any way influenced by it. Animals are usually treated as if they were without any feeling, mental or physical. They are sold from hand to hand, bartered from owner to owner, torn from their homes and from their habits, forced into alien and unnatural ways of existence, flogged, struck, chained, overdriven, often starved as well, and, unless in some cases of extreme cruelty, the law does not interfere; in many countries it does not interfere even then.
Societies for the defense of animals are ridiculed, and even where they exist in some force are almost useless through the apathy or reluctance of the tribunals to which they appeal for authority to act. Of the hundreds of thousands who use and profit by animals there is not one in ten thousand who cares how they are treated, or would incur a personal danger or a passing opprobrium to save them from suffering. The whole attitude of man toward the animal is mean and unworthy; it is simply the bullying brutality of the stronger over the weaker, or rather of the cunning over the frank, for the dominance of man over the larger animals is entirely obtained by the exercise of ruse and ingenuity. No kind of warfare is deemed too treacherous to use in pursuit of wild animals, and no usage too barbarous to be given to tamed ones, if the interests or pleasures of the human race are thereby promoted. This may be natural, it may be inevitable, but it is certainly ignoble; and the boastful self-admiration with which men speak of it is singularly out of place.
The whole attitude of that nineteenth century god, science, is surely most unscientific toward animals. Since man is to the scientist merely like all other forms of life, a thing of gases and of phosphates, alive a little while, to be blown out like a spent match in the dark, wherein does he differ so greatly from all other animals that these others should be sacrificed in tens of millions to him?—Ouida, in the Animals' Guardian.
India: A Sketch of Its History
By S. N. Haskell
INDIA. NO. 2.
A Sketch of Its History.
BY ELDER S. N. HASKELL.
EAST Indian history is traceable back to the descendants of Nimrod; and the wealth of the Indian people has been the prize of the East.
The descendants of Ham who settled in Egypt at an early date, carried arms to the Ganges and fitted out a fleet of four hundred ships in the Arabian Gulf to establish trade with India. The Persians explored the Indus through its entire length all the way to the ocean to secure this Indian trade. "The Turks founded Alexandria to rival Tyre, and it became the greatest trading city of the world, and for centuries the chief seat of commerce of India." The people of Tyre wrested from the Egyptians their harbor, to secure the trade of India. It was Alexander who proceeded to India, thence to the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates, to divert this commerce from Tyre. When the Romans conquered Egypt, the Alexandrian trade was increased.
Taylor, in his "Manual of Indian History," speaks of the manufactures of India at a very early date: "The country was thickly peopled and well cultivated, and each village formed a municipal community which was governed by means of its elders and village officers, who were hereditary. They were manufacturers of cotton and silk, of great beauty and costliness, and gold and silver ornaments were worn by men and women."
He further states that the Hindus were often richly clothed and were courteous and intelligent. "In science the Hindus had progressed beyond the Greeks; they were better astronomers and mathematicians; and in metaphysics they had displayed as profound thoughts. They had cultivated their language, Sanskrit, to the utmost perfection, and had rules for prosody, for poetry and prose composition." It was the expedition of Alexander that opened the intercourse with India by the Greeks, and opened out the Eastern stores of knowledge and traffic to the western nations.
The merchants of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Syrians, Persians, as well as the Greeks, resided in different parts of India. It was through the influence of the Buddhists and King Asota, who had embraced that faith about 300 B. C., that a great religious synod was held in India, and religious and political missionaries were dispatched to neighboring and distant countries; and as the result of this, "Thibet, China, Burma, Cambodia, Siam, Java, and Ceylon received the Buddhist missionaries with a strange and fervent ardor, so that millions of converts were made; nor is it improbable that Buddhism may have been preached in Britain as it was in Greece." Mr. Latham, in his "Ethnology," said: "With the creed went the alphabet; with the alphabet, the civilization. Hence it is to India that nine-tenths of the civilization of the eastern part of continental Asia was due. India also was the earliest civilization of the more civilized parts of the Indian archipelago." And there are traces of this Indian mould among the aboriginal inhabitants of the islands of Sumatra and the Philippine Islands, the Malayan peninsula, of Borneo, and even New Zealand.
He who supposes to meet a homogeneous class of people without any well-defined and systematic organized society in India, greatly mistakes the country and the people. It is a country peculiar to itself. It is a wonder how a country which is so old as India, and has preserved its well-defined customs and castes as that country has, could ever become the home of so many nationalities as now inhabit that country. But from its history it can also be seen how it comes about that these various Asiatic nationalities which have settled in India, each preserve their own individuality in habits and customs, both religious and political, also social.
It has become a country where the purely Asiatic and oriental religions, as well as the European, flourish without losing their identity, and in some respects is one of the most wonderful nations in the world. It is interesting because of its antiquity, and the marks of its age are born not only upon the people themselves, but their cave temples and their various forms and customs. It is interesting from the standpoint of those that are interested in proclaiming the gospel before many nations and kindreds and tongues; for there is no country in the world of the size of India, being about the same as that east of the Mississippi River in the United States, with its teeming 286,000,000, subsisting upon a soil yielding from two to three crops a year, that contains such a large number of Asiatic representatives.
Its internal history is also peculiar and interesting. Within a thousand years the "Buddhist, Brahmin, Mongol, and Turk, Portuguese, French, and English have controlled her dominion." The Mohammedan dynasties reached from 1001 A. D. to 1857. In 1497 the Portuguese touched India and remained in prominence and power till the 16th century. The Dutch appeared in 1594, the English in 1600, the Danes in 1616, and the French in 1688. France led the contest for supremacy with England for one hundred years. In the wondrously interesting century between the battle of Plassey, 1757, and the great mutiny of 1857, the vast Indian empire of England was acquired—built up from a factory to a governor-generalship, a vice-royalty, and ultimately to the recognition of Victoria as empress of India.
IN the Missionary Review there is an interesting extract in which the Rev. W. H. Ball reports what he saw in India of the effect of the preaching of native Christians. More than one hundred and fifty Brahmins listen, many of them with tear-filled eyes, to the story of the cross, the people evidently convinced as well as moved by the eloquence and zeal of their countrymen. In another village a young man was won for Christ, who came out from the multitude and confessed the Saviour, though to him it meant the loss of a fortune of $100,000, and, worse still, banishment from his mother, who would nevermore acknowledge him. Mr. Ball speaks of the native preachers in connection with the Church Missionary Society, as "a band of truly converted men. They are men," he adds, "of wonderful eloquence, and I make bold to say that ninety per cent. of the baptisms are won by the natives themselves." In this fact we have the ground of hope for India. The country will never be evangelized by foreigners.