Earlier text: THE SIMPLICITY OF THE GOSPELWHAT THE GOSPEL ANTICIPATES.
By L. S. Wheeler
What the Gospel means to most people to-day is summed up in the “salvation of the soul,” and by the soul is meant what is left of man when he is dead—something intangible, “without form or substance.” If this is all the plan of redemption embraces, no wonder it is “losing its hold upon the masses.” But it is not. The substance of the Gospel is stated in the words of Christ, “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” This world came from the hand of God an Edenic creation, of which man was the head, the noblest work of God, clothed in light, and having access to the tree of life, which would perpetuate his existence. Gen. 1:26-28. By sin man was shorn of his glory, and doomed to just what he was before created. Gen. 3:19. The ground was cursed to bring forth “thorns and thistles.” Verse 18. It was cursed again because of Cain’s crime, and again by the deluge. Gen. 4:10-12; 8:21. The whole animal creation fell under the curse. The fear of man and of death which he brought on them is in their hearts; enmity reigns instead of love; and all that which God in its completion pronounced “very good” (Gen. 1:31) is undone. But redemption reaches all of this. Says Paul in Romans 8:— “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” Verses 22-24. Christ glorified man’s body through his resurrection, and every child of his is waiting for the same glory. Says John, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:2. And Paul says again, “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.” Phil. 3:20, 21. Herein is the triumph of the Gospel. “For,” says Paul, in the beginning of the passage before quoted from Romans 8, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to usward.” And the next verse adds: “For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of9the glory of the children of God.” Verses 18-21, R. V. The lost Eden and tree of life are sighted again through the Gospel. Rev. 2:7. “As in Adam all die, so even in Christ shall all be made alive.” 1 Cor. 15:22. “Whereof he [God] hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him [Christ] from the dead.” Acts 17:31. Redemption means the “restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” Acts 3:21. So it is said, “There shall be no more curse.” Rev. 22:3. And, as the realization of these things clusters about the second coming of Christ, it is called “that blessed hope” (Titus 2:13), “the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30). This is what the Appeal, an Afro-American paper, issued simultaneously in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Chicago, Louisville, St. Louis, and Dallas, says respecting Tennessee’s action concerning Seventh-day Adventists:— “Tennessee goes deeper and deeper in her course of injustice that she has chosen under her Sunday laws, in her treatment of the people. The authorities do not seek to compel them to do work on their day of rest by the ordinary methods, but they do threaten them with a longer term of imprisonment to make up for Saturdays as so much lost time. [This they actually did.] This course certainly gives evidence that the sympathies of the county authorities are with the prosecution, and the next thing we may expect will be some atrocious means adopted to compel them to violate their conscience by working on their Sabbath. “A young man by the name of Cathy, whose widowed mother is an Adventist, was convicted for cutting wood for his mother on Sunday. Hitherto he has not observed the Sabbath of the Adventists, but on July 20, which was Saturday, he refused to work, and was forthwith put in irons and fed on bread and water!!! Now as the Adventists, who conscientiously observe the seventh day as the Sabbath, are not required to work on that day, the next step for Tennessee, and a logical one, too, is for her to devise some method by which to determine whether this act was done in conscience. Now the rack and the thumbscrew were the inventions of former days by which to unveil the motives of men, and do these men have the hardihood to follow to the logical result? It certainly looks that way. Mr. R. R. Whaley, of Church Hill, Md., a Seventh-day Adventist, who has served two terms in the county jail for Sunday work in his own garden, is now under arrest, caused by a man who is a churchgoer, but stayed away from church in order to watch for evidence against the man, and secured the arrest!!! This is in America.” THE WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN MARY.
The Churchman of July 27 has an illustrated article on this subject, describing what every intelligent traveler to Rome sees, namely, the fact that the Latin Church seems wholly given over to Mariolatry. The most prominent places in the interior of St. Peter’s are occupied by inscriptions narrating the giving of the decree of the Immaculate Conception. (This decree was made in 1864, in the time of Pius IX.) These inscriptions contain the names of all the cardinals and bishops present at the time. In the galleries of the Vatican there is a great painting reaching from floor to ceiling. The lower part represents the pope and St. Peter surrounded by his court and his bishops, in the act of promulgating this decree, which had been ordered at the Vatican Council. The upper part of the picture is an authoritative setting forth of the present idea of the Latin Church. The virgin is represented in heaven with God the Father on her left hand, God the Son on her right hand, God the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove above her. She is represented, says the Churchman, as the most prominent person of the “quaternity.” We looked upon that picture in the Vatican and shuddered, not so much at its blasphemy as at the proof it offers of the liability of all human beings to go to a terrible extreme, whatever the true limitations of the germ of truth, beauty, or religion inhering in their original idea. Many years ago we took up the “Ursuline Manual,” an authorized Catholic book of devotion, and in it was the following:— “Heart of Mary, I adore thee;
Heart of Jesus, I implore thee;
Heart of Joseph, pure and just;
In these three hearts I put my trust.” —N. Y. Christian Advocate. Heaven's Satisfaction in God's Providential Dealings
By Rev. J. Mason
In heaven all God’s servants will be abundantly satisfied with his dealings and dispensations with them, and shall see how all conducted, like so many winds, to bring them to their haven, and how even the roughest blast helped to bring them homeward.—Rev. J. Mason. The Cost and Charity of Silence
“A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence, which costs us nothing.” The Devil and the Contribution Box
“THE devil guards a man's pocketbook with jealous care while the contribution box is being passed.” It is no longer a surprise to be confronted with the fact that the Sunday institution is a creature of the Papacy. It is now a matter of common knowledge, as shown by many comments of even the secular press. Here is a striking sample of such comments:— “The strict observance of the Lord’s day [Sunday] as the successor to the Jewish Sabbath is a Roman Catholic peculiarity which Protestants have retained. Indeed, when Rome, after the fourteenth century, began to relax the severity of the regulations she had previously enforced, forbidding not only servile work but amusement on Sunday, the Puritans of King James’ time adopted them without modification. No doubt it would horrify our straight-laced Sabbatarians to be told that their pet ideas are but cast-off ‘rags of popery,’ but so they are. There is not a blue law of the bluest dye that cannot be paralleled by the Sunday laws of the Roman Catholic rulers of England and of France from the sixth to the fifteenth century. Any one who doubts this may have his doubts removed by consulting Hessey’s ‘Sunday’ and Neal’s ‘Feasts and Fasts.’”—N. Y. Sun. Time was, not long ago, when such a statement startled Protestants, and set them to thinking. Many of them were ready to renounce the observance of Sunday if it could be shown to their satisfaction that the practice was an acknowledgment of a papal dogma. Some have returned to the observance of the true Sabbath on finding that God had not authorized any change in his law, while others allowed their misgivings to be calmed by the “majority” argument, the example of their “learned” leaders, and other like sophistries. But the fact that Sunday observance is not only a fruit of apostasy, but even the special “mark” of papal authority,—but the masses want it so, the laws of the land decree it to be so, there is no use of a few trying to stem the flood of the popular will, etc., etc. Thus Rome’s power and authority wax stronger and stronger; under the banner bearing her distinguishing “mark,” a debilitated Protestantism is marching on, picking up one by one her festal days, bits of her ritualistic service, her spirit of persecution, her craving for the support of civil law, and following in her footsteps to such an extent that the line of demarkation is fast becoming obliterated. Truly has the prophet said:— “A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so; and what will ye do in the end thereof?” Jer. 5: 30, 31. W. N. G. THE “CHRISTIAN STATE” ILLUSTRATED.
By W. N. G.
The kind of “conversion” which passes in diplomatic circles is illustrated by the following despatch from Rome regarding the infant Bulgarian prince:— “Prince Ferdinand has declared to the Vatican that he will never consent to the conversion of his son to the Orthodox [Russian] religion.” But for this protest of the father, says a London paper, “his infant son might have been officially converted without being conscious of it, and Russia would soberly have proclaimed its reconciliation with Bulgaria.” Another prominent instance is the case of the young empress of Russia, who is a princess of the royal family of Great Britain. Her marriage with the young emperor on his accession to the throne was altogether a political arrangement, and one of the conditions was her renunciation of the Church of England and confirmation in the Orthodox Church of Russia. It was hoped that Nicholas would inaugurate a more liberal policy than his predecessors, and it was expected that the English princess, as czarina, would wield a telling influence in that direction. Or, rather, it was thought that she would be the medium through which her royal relatives, the heads of Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, etc., would be able to influence Russian policy. But so far it seems that the emperor and his mother are disposed to run the government on the old lines, and the English princess, after being diplomatically forced upon the new emperor as his wife, and being diplomatically converted to the Greek Church, has no influence whatever in matters of state. These instances are fair illustrations of state religion. Yet, with the history of all the past and the existing condition of affairs in church and state countries to-day so conspicuously portrayed before us, we are confronted with a radical movement, permeating all the popular churches, urging more positive union of church and state in this country. The churches seem to have become so far separated from the word of God and its power that they are unable to appreciate any power but that of the state. Turning from the arm of the Lord, they seek to lean upon the arm of the state. Knowing that the present form of government is theoretically inimical to such a purpose, the aim is to so use the church influence that the state may be brought to a position of subservient support of the church in her fallen condition. History has shown us church and state union in two phases,—the church domineering the state, and the state manipulating the church. In either case it is the church depending upon the arm of man for support and power, and such dependence must of necessity lead to spiritual degradation on the part of the church, and political corruption in the state. W. N. G. French Expedition to Madagascar and Catholic Missions
We have a decided hint of what is expected from the French military expedition to Madagascar in a letter from Paris, printed in the Catholic Times of Philadelphia, which regards the expedition, from the Catholic point of view, “as most desirable.” It says: “The times are approaching when our missions will receive substantial support from that European power which, whatever the fault at home, has never failed to protect Catholic interests abroad. It is the fashion to speak of French policy in Madagascar as a check to England. It is nearer the truth to regard it as a check given to British Protestantism.” You see the elder had preached a most powerful sermon on Christian givin', in which he took what I call purty strong ground. Among other things, he said we'd ought to do as much for our religion as the old Jews did for theirs; an' while it was all right to lay up for a rainy day, an' get ahead if we honestly could, we should set apart at least one-tenth of our income as the Lord's money. “Now, I think the elder went a leetle too far,” says I to my wife, Huldy, as we was drivin' home from meetin'. “Givin' is well enough, but I get a' most tired hearin' these ministers forever a-dingin' about it.” “Wall, Lyman,” says Huldy, “why don't you try givin' a tenth?—try it for a year anyhow. Then I am sure,” with that queer little smile o' hern that she sometimes has, “it'll be real savin' to ye to go in systematically a-givin' yer tenth.” Now I hadn't any idee of doin' it an' keepin' a reckonin' of what I contribute—in fact, I thought that verse about lettin' yer right hand know what yer left was a-doin' was rather agin' it, but somehow Huldy has a cool way o' takin' things for granted, an', though the mildest of all women, she generally manages to carry her p'int. Next mornin' I see her makin' a book out o' some sheets o' paper, an' rulin' 'em off an' stitchin' onto 'em a pasteboard kiver, an' on the outside she writ in big letters, that was as plain to read as printin', “The Lord's Money.” This she handed to me an' said nothin'. That very week I got pay for my wheat; it was an uncommon good crop; it come to six hundred dollars. I was sittin' by the fire a-countin' it up with some satisfaction, when Huldy just stuck under my nose that book, “The Lord's Money.” “What's that for, Huldy?” says I. “Why, for the tenth,” says she. “Bless my soul!” says I, a-wrigglin' an' twistin', that would be sixty dollars; I can't stan' that. She didn't say anythin', but set a-watchin' me, an' I knew it wasn't no use a-dodgin' her, so I took six ten-dollar bills, all crisp an' new, and laid 'em in a pile. “Yis, yis,” says I, a-tryin' to screw my face into a smile, an' to act as if I'd been calkerlatin' all the way through to give 'em. Ye see there was a awful sight o' old Adam in me. I jest set there a-begredgin' that money. I most wished the wheat hadn't come to so much. Then I happened to remember what the elder had said in his sermon—that it would be a mighty hard wrench on us at first to give a tenth—that when the fingers had got crooked up a-graspin' this world's goods, it was hard to get 'em straightened out, but that when we'd become used to this way o' givin', we'd enjoy it an' be blessed in it as much as in prayin' an' readin' the Scriptures. A-thinkin' on that sermon, I made up my mind to double my subscription for the elder's support, an' that would just take the $60. As I harvested my crops, an' sold 'em, I was astonished to see how the pile grew, an' I had to think it over middlin' sharp to know where to invest it so 'twould do most good, an' I was gettin' over the wrench a little until my interest money come due. The year before old Uncle Nat died, an' most unexpectedly had left me $5,000. If the legacy had dropped down from the skies I couldn't have been more surprised. Now I had three hundred a-comin' in from it, an' it most killed me to take thirty on't an' put it aside for the Lord. I couldn't help whinin'. “Now, Huldy,” says I, “don't ye believe the old Jews deducted their taxes afore they laid by their tenth?” “I dunno,” says she; “we might read up Leviticus, an' Numbers, an' Deuteronomy an' see.” “Bless my soul, Huldy,” says I, “I'd rather pay the whole $30 than wade through all them books; an' then,” says I, a-thinkin' hard, “accordin' to what these agents that come around beggin' say, I suppose it would be a good pecooniary speckerlation to give to the Lord. They tell about throwin' out crackers an' comin' back loaves, an' show how them is blessed in their basket an' in their stores that bestow their goods on the poor. Anyhow, I've made up my mind to try it.” “Now, Lyman Tubbs, don't ye go into this tenth business with no such worldly motives. If ye do, ye'll be worse than Ananias and Sapphira, who was struck dead at once. Not but that the Lord has said, ‘I'll never leave thee nor forsake thee,’ but if yer undertake to drive a sharp bargain with him, ye'll find out that he'll get ahead of yer every time. No, he's given us all we have, an' I'm thinkin' he'll ask some mighty close questions about the way we've used it.” Huldy didn't very often preach, but when she did, her sermons were what I call p'inted. Time passed on, an' I got used to givin' my tenth. I didn't squirm over givin' it as I did at first; in fact, I got kinder raised, an' to feelin' liberal. I didn't sell so much as a turkey without puttin' aside tithes of it. It happened in the summer that my wife's cousin Silas and his family came to see us, an' I was a-braggin' about givin' my tenth, an' I supposed he'd never heard o' sech a thing, but Silas says, says he: “I've done it ever since I was converted. I earn $2.00 a day, an' every Saturday night I jest set apart $1.20, an' I pray over it; it's the Lord's money.” “Don't ye take yer livin' out o' it first?” “Yer what?” says Silas, amazed. “It's just so much I earn, an' the ability to earn it comes from the Lord, an' I joyfully give back to him the little part.” “But,” says I, “ain't that kinder risky? Ye might be took sick, or yer work give out; I should be a little fearsome.” “These are the promises,” says Silas, “‘My God shall supply all your needs,’ an', ‘Lo, I am with you;’ they are all yea an' amen.” Well, if I didn't feel small after that! I had simply given a tenth of all I'd sold, an' grumbled over it at that, an' there were all those broad acres that had fed us, an' those big trees in the woods that had kept us warm—blessin's that I hadn't counted, an' here was Silas with nothin' but his hands, an' yet so willin' hearted an' doin' so much. When I carried him an' his folks back to the city, I jest filled my wagon body full o' things, an' felt as if I was givin' directly to the Lord. One day the elder an' his family was over to our house, an' we was a-talkin'. His son Fred was a-playin' with my Thomas—they was awful good friends—an' says the elder, “If I had as much money as you have, Deacon Tubbs, I'd send Thomas to school, an' ask the Lord to make a minister out o' him.” “Well,” thought I, “that's the last thing I want him to be.” You see I had other plans for my boy, but I said nothin'. My next neighbor, old Mr. Hodges, had a son who went to the city, an' studied law, an' got to be a judge, an' comes home in his big carriage once in a while to visit the old folks, his wife an' children dressed to fits, an' seein' them I had a natural hankerin' for Thomas to turn out like that. I was sayin' this to Huldy when the elder's folk was gone. “Now, Lyman Tubbs,” says she, a-lookin' at me with them great, earnest eyes o' hers, “would you really like to have our Thomas jest like old Mr. Hodges' son?—a-breakin' the Sabbath, he and his boys, a-shootin' ducks, an' a-drinkin' an' playin' cards? Be you a deacon and a member of the church, an' not feel as if it was bigger business to persuade men to forsake their sins and to love the Lord Jesus Christ?” Ever since Silas was here my mind has been dreadfully took up with somethin' he was tellin' me. He said some good, Christian men had hired rooms in the worst part o' the city, an' made them bright an' attractive, an' was a-singin' hymns an' preachin' to the folks, all without money an' without price, and some sech work as that is what I'd been wishin' my boy could do, an' jest then Thomas came in an' stood beside his mother. He had the same hair as hers, an' the same brown eyes, an' somethin' told me that if he took to preachin' he'd be one o' the convincin' sort, for I must say that nobody's words ever took hold of an old sinner like me as Huldy's does. Well, my tenth money grew; half the time I didn't know what to do with it. I was over to the elder's one day an' he was a-tellin' of a school near by which he thought would be a good place to send our Thomas—he had noticed how crazy the boy was for books and learnin', an' the minister said he had a cousin a-livin' just out of the village, that would take good care of Thomas, an' board him, an' he would be under good Christian influences. “What do you say, Huldy?” says I, as soon as I got home. “I would like him to go,” says she, “an' for the elder's boy to go with him.” Sure enough he should, an' that would be a use for the rest of my tenth, an' Thomas an' Fred was awful good friends; they was like David and Jonathan. An' what do you think? there was a revival that jest like a big wave struck that school, an', in fact, the whole community, an' both the boys and girls was converted, and you can't think how I felt, so glad about it, an' kinder streaked too, for I knew it warn't none o' my doin', I'd been such a poor, good-for-nothin' Christian all my life, it was enough to set my Thomas agin' the Lord. We got the good news on Saturday mornin', an' in the afternoon was the covenant meetin'. It was just about a year from the time that Huldy handed me “The Lord's Money” book; I remember how I got up in the meetin' then, an' talked, not because I'd anythin' to say, but, bein' deacon, I felt as if I ought to, an' told the brethren I hadn't made11no progress, an' all that—jest what I commonly said. How could I talk that way now, when I'd a year o' sech uncommon blessin', an' with Huldy beside me a-cryin' for joy because our Thomas had been converted? No, I couldn't keep from breakin' down, an' thanking the Lord for his goodness to me and mine, an' I knew that givin' my tenth, though it had come so begredgin'ly, had been a help to me. I warn't such a small, waspish critter as I was afore. The next year I was man enough to divide my tenth with Huldy, an' sech good times as we had investing it. Now, Huldy was great on what we call the “inasmuch charities.”—“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one o' the least o' these,” etc. She was always a-findin' some bedrid old woman to help, or crippled child, or some other case o' need, while I couldn't hardly sleep o' nights a-thinkin' of the great west, with the foreigners a-comin' into it, an' of the poor freedmen of the south, or of the great heathen world that so needs the Gospel. We'd spend hours an' hours a-talkin' it over, an' as we did so, we'd get nearer to each other an' I trust nearer to the Lord. It's now been a good many years that we've been a-tryin' this tenth business, an' I wouldn't go back to the old helter-skelter way o' givin' fer anythin'. As I'm closin', I've got this much to tell you: If you want to be a happy Christian, you must let your prayin' an' praisin' an' givin' go together, an' I will say that Huldy, never did a better thing for me than when she gave me “The Lord's Money” book.—The Examiner. SILENT FORCES.
By G. W. Worthen
There is something dwells within us,
Not akin to joy or pain,
That revives our drooping spirits
As the flowers the gentle rain. 'Tis as silent as the waters
In the quiet of the sea,
Or the shadows swiftly fleeting
In the evening o’er the lea. What it is no tongue can utter;
Deep within the heart it dwells,
As the light from other’s center
Warmth imparts and gloom dispels. Silent forces are most potent—
Stars move on, the seasons roll—
All unseen the same Hand guides them
That controls the human soul. A NEW HEATHEN RELIGION IN JAPAN.
By Rev. J. B. Porter
The Tenrikyo is the name of a new religion that is becoming very popular among the peasant class of Japan. It is said to number now more than two million adherents, though it is not more than ten years since it began to attract any attention. It claims as its founder a woman who lived about forty or fifty years ago, named O Miki. She is supposed to have received a number of revelations, in fact, to have been a kind of incarnation of the deity. Their god, Tenrio, is a combination of ten divinities, among whom are the sun, moon, and a number of the old gods of Shinto mythology. Sun and moon are worshiped as supreme creators. There was a time when these were the only beings in existence. Their habitation was in the sea. When they decided to create man, they first discovered two beings, before unknown (how they came into existence is not told), a white dragon and a woman. From these the creators borrowed the model for the man's body. After this they were troubled as to how they could give him a soul, but finally struck upon the happy expedient of using 999,999,999 whitebait for the manufacture of one soul. Among the ignorant only this religion is spreading very rapidly. It teaches repentance and the forgiveness of sin, and has the reputation of being much more austere in its morality than either Buddhism or Shintoism. Its adherents claim that the Tenrikyo is very much like Christianity in its moral requirements, while it is superior to the latter in not requiring the rejection of all other faiths. They teach the defilement of sin and the necessity of spiritual purification. The most usual prayer to their god, Tenrio, is, “Ashiki wo harei” (Take away my sins). As they repeat this, the hands are turned palms outward, and pushed forward, as though pushing the sins away. Then the hands are reversed, palms inward, and drawn toward the breast, while the prayer, “Kigami tamae” (Make me clean), is repeated many times. The Tenrikyo (teaching of heavenly truth)12wins popularity by insuring good luck in the shape of deliverance from sickness, earthquakes, fires, and pestilence. It teaches a kind of faith cure. A poor woman recently came to one of the priests and said, “I am in great distress, because I have nothing to eat; please help me.” After expressing surprise that she had not come to him before, the priest prescribed a prayer, saying, “Repeat this prayer a certain number of times and you will be provided for,” telling her at the same time how the prayers of a man in Nagoya had been answered. While he was talking, another woman came with a sick child and implored his help. Promising to heal the child at once, he gave her a prayer to offer, and also handed her some kind of herb, which she was to boil till it was soft and then take as medicine. Both women went away satisfied and happy. Physicians claim that persons of this faith frequently die because they refuse to take proper remedies, relying upon the prayer of faith to save them. In their worship they rely a great deal upon noise, using the drum, fife, and samisen, accompanied by the dance. A year ago at an annual meeting there was said to have been an assembly of 20,000 persons, and from this meeting many hundred bags of rice were contributed for the poor believers throughout the country. The Tenrikyo is sanctioned by the government as a branch of Shintoism, but it has met with opposition and persecution from the Buddhist priests, whose prestige suffers on account of it.—Church at Home and Abroad. ALL over this broad world, in dark, out-of-the-way corners where we should least expect to find it, grows the wonderful plant, love, blossoming into kindly, helpful deeds that fill all life with their fragrance and beauty. The following incident furnishes a beautiful instance:— A ragged woman was crossing the corner of a public park in London where the children of the poor are accustomed to play, many of them barefoot. A burly policeman stationed on the corner watched the woman suspiciously. Half way across she stopped and picked up something which she hid in her apron. In an instant the policeman was by her side. With gruff voice and threatening manner he demanded:— “What are you carrying off in your apron?” The woman seemed embarrassed and refused to answer. Thereupon the officer of the law, thinking that she had doubtless picked up a pocketbook, which she was trying to make way with, threatened to arrest her unless she told him at once what she had in her apron. At this the woman reluctantly unfolded her apron and disclosed a handful of broken glass. In stupid wonderment the policeman asked:— “What do you want with that stuff?” A flush passed over the woman's face, then she answered simply, “If you please, sir, I just thought I'd like to take it out of the way of the children's feet.” There are many things, sharp and cutting as bits of glass, that get in the way of the wandering feet of God's children. Shall we not follow the example of this humble woman, and do what lies in our power to take away these obstacles and make the path safer and surer for their feet?—Young People's Weekly. Olive Oil as a Remedy for Poison Ivy
“If any person who is liable to poison with poison ivy will take pure olive oil after being exposed to it, he will feel no bad effects, and the oil will neutralize the evils of the poison if a few doses be taken after the poison has broken out.” SALIVA AS A MICROBE KILLER.
The following description of a natural antiseptic in the human system, and of its possible artificial use, is taken from Daheim, June 15: “It was already known that secretions of the mucous membranes, especially saliva, possess antiseptic properties under certain circumstances, which explains the reason why the germs which enter daily and hourly through the mouth do not reach a harmful development; but Edinger has now found the active material in potassium rhodanate, which is present in saliva. Potassium rhodanate is a compound of sulphur cyanogen, and potassium, and is, in large quantities, narcotically poisonous to warm-blooded animals; it is, like other rhodanates, fatal to bacilli. A quinolin rhodanate, lately produced, is said, in a solution of three parts to the thousand, to kill the cholera bacillus in a minute, and, in a solution of three times this strength, to kill the diphtheria bacillus in the same time. It was found by further researches that this rhodanate has the effect of carbolic acid and of corrosive sublimate, and at the same time is harmless to man. Saliva, especially that of fasting persons, plays a great part in popular medicine; and beasts, by licking, keep their wounds clean and bring them to a quick healing without suppuration.”—Literary Digest. There was an old decanter,
and its mouth was gaping
wide; the rosy wine had
ebbed away and left its
crystal side; and the
wind went humming,
humming, up and down
the sides it flew, and through
its reed-like, hollow neck
the wildest notes it blew.
I placed it in the window
where the blast was blowing
free, and fancied that
its pale mouth sang the
queerest strains to me.
“They tell me, puny
conquerors, the plague has
slain his ten and war his
hundred thousand of the very
best of men; but I—” ’twas thus
the bottle spake—“but I have conquered
more than all your famous
conquerors so feared and famed of yore.
Then come, ye youths and maidens all,
come drink from out my cup the beverage
that dulls the brains and burns the spirits up,
that puts to shame your conquerors that slay
their scores below, for this has deluged millions
with the lava tide of woe. Though in the path
of battle darkest waves of blood may roll,
yet while I have killed the body, I have
damned the very soul. The cholera,
the plague, the sword, such ruin
never wrought as I in mirth
or malice on the innocent have brought. And still I
breathe upon them and they shrink
before my breath; and year by year my
thousands tread the dismal road of DEATH!” There comes a wail of anguish
Across the ocean wave—
It pleads for help, O Christians,
Poor, dying souls to save;
Those far-off heathen nations
Who sit in darkest night,
Now stretch their hands imploring,
And cry to us for light! We have the blessed Gospel;
We know its priceless worth;
We read the grand old story
Of Christ, the Saviour’s, birth;
O haste, ye faithful workers,
To them the tidings bear—
Glad tidings of salvation
That they our light may share! Go plant the cross of Jesus
On each benighted shore;
Go wave the Gospel standard
Till darkness reign no more;
And while the seed you scatter,
Far o’er the ocean’s foam,
We’ll pray for you and labor
In mission fields at home. Girls Employed in British Public Houses
It is estimated that 70,000 girls are employed in the public houses and drinking bars of the United Kingdom. The Destructive Effects of Intoxicating Liquors
“INTOXICATING liquors destroy body and soul; they shorten the life by weakening the body; they lead to injuries and murder. Every disease has a new advantage over the one who habitually uses strong drink. Intoxicating liquors ruin the mind and destroy the soul. They take away the blessedness and usefulness of life here, and the hope of eternal life.” Korean women of the upper classes live a life of seclusion; they do nothing at all; they are totally uneducated, and they are allowed to see no one but their husbands, parents, and a very few female friends. A woman belonging to the upper classes never appears before strangers, and she never goes in the street exposed to view. How monotonous their existence becomes is known only to themselves, as they have not yet learned to complain. The horny-handed daughters of the soil are more to be envied, for they, at least, enjoy more liberty, although they are nothing better than human machines. Chastity in Korea seems only to be required of wives, and with them it must be absolute. Though the Korean women lay a great stress, as points of beauty, upon a small foot or hand, and regard them to an absurd extent as an index of good breeding, still they do not torture their feet into hideous deformities like their Chinese sisters, who could not hope to obtain the position of first or even second wife of a Chinaman of gentle birth unless they possessed those terrible terminations, more like sheep’s trotters than human feet. Nor do the Korean mandarins encourage their nails to grow into bird-like talons to show their lifelong immunity from work, though one can not but notice the exquisite care which is bestowed on the hands of both sexes. The ordinary well-cared-for hand of an English gentleman would look coarse and shapeless beside the pink and almond-shaped nails and soft, tapering, white fingers, of a Korean mandarin. When one lives among the Koreans, and knows the terrible bondage under which the women labor, one breathes a sigh on their wretched behalf. Besides her household duties and the bearing of children—which is her raison d’être—the Korean wife combines the duties of gardener, stable boy, and field laborer, and she must always be mindful that she has to wait personally upon her husband. It is not to be wondered at, then, that their youthful ugliness soon becomes a haglike hideousness. The male laborer, on the contrary, has a very good time. If he is fortunate enough to own a small patch of land, he need only help his beast of burden (wife) during the harvest season; the land is so fertile, and his demands on the luxuries of life are so moderate, that the rest of the year he may spend in idleness and smoke. There is no grace or elegance in the female dress, which in some respects resembles that of the Chinese. It consists of a loose pair of rough trousers reaching to the ankle, tied round the waist with a thick cord; on the top of this is worn a short petticoat reaching to the knees; and fitted to the shoulder is a yoke or shoulder cape, to which are attached long, loose sleeves; thus the whole of the body from the waist to the chest is exposed to view. This costume is the ordinary dress of the working woman; the coarse material is woven out of the fiber of the tall millet stem, which sometimes grows to be eight or ten feet high; or more often the entire costume is composed of a strong shirting, “made in Manchester.” —Pall Mall Gazette. VEGETARIANS OF CHINA; A DANGEROUS SOCIETY.
THE Vegetarians, so called because one of their cardinal points is abstention from all flesh meat, as well as from opium, is one of the numberless secret societies in China leagued against the present dynasty. Until recently this society was without prestige or power. Since the war with Japan, however, it has suddenly leaped to the front. Through the provinces to the north and west of Foochow its rapid rise in numbers and might has been most marked. In a number of instances the members have not hesitated to plunder and kill those who opposed their lawless demands. Vegetarians arrested for heinous offenses have repeatedly been released by their armed forces of fellows. So great have been their triumphs that recruits have crowded to their ranks, until at present they are a menace to the Chinese Government itself. Within the last year 5,000 members have been added to the society, which now numbers about 12,000. The oaths are of the most awful character, and the members are bound to implicit obedience to superior authority within the order. Their one aim is to harass and eventually to destroy the ruling line. To that end all means are employed. Their open declaration announces that they care not into what disaster they may plunge the nation, so long as that disaster involves the ruin of their emperor. For that reason they hailed the war with Japan as an occasion for extraordinary activity, the most fatal results of which appeared in the massacre at Kueheng, but which showed with even more significance politically in the mobs at Yamen and their victories there. The hatred of the masses for their rulers gives to the Vegetarians the cordial sympathy and secret support of the bulk of the natives. Hence the future of the society is fraught with imminent perils for their state, and incidentally for any Christian missionaries who may fall into their clutches.—Information.