Chapter D: W. Whittle tells of a soldier who was posted in a forest to (1)

watch the approach of Indians. It was a position of peculiar
danger, three different men having been surprized and killed at
this post without having had time to fire a shot. The soldier
was left with strict orders to observe the utmost vigilance. In
a short time an object moving among the trees at some distance
caught his eye. He watched it, with gun ready; as it came a
little nearer, he saw it to be a wild hog. Another came in
sight. He satisfied himself it was a wild hog, rooting under
the leaves. Presently, in another direction, the leaves were
rustled and a third wild hog appeared. Being now used to these
creatures, he paid but little attention. The movements of the
last animal, however, soon engaged the man’s thoughts. He
observed a slight awkwardness in its movements, and thought
possibly an Indian might be approaching, covered in a hog’s
skin. If it was an Indian the safest thing was to shoot. If it
was not an Indian, and he should shoot, he would run no risk.
He raised his rifle and fired. With a bound and a yell, an
Indian leapt to his feet and fell back dead. The man had saved
his life, and prevented the surprize of the garrison by his
watchfulness. (Text.)

(794)

DISHONESTY

Once D. L. Moody was talking to a man who sold soap which he
claimed would do all kinds of remarkable things, including the
removing of spots caused by grease. The man was, nevertheless,
very perturbed, and at last he told Mr. Moody what his trouble
was. “The soap accomplishes all that I assert; but the truth is
that it also rots all the clothes which it washes. If I become
a Christian, I shall have to give up my business, and I can not
bring myself to do that.” The evangelist used to say that it was
only soap which stood between this man and a Christian life.
(Text.)

(795)

* * * * *

Henry Ward Beecher tells a story of a man in the Canadian
backwoods, who, during the summer months, had procured a stock
of fuel sufficient for the winter. This man had a neighbor
who was very indolent, and not very honest, and who, having
neglected to provide against the winter storms, was mean enough
to avail himself of his neighbor’s supplies without the latter’s
permission or knowledge. Mr. Beecher states that it was found,
on computation, that the thief had actually spent more time in
watching for opportunities to steal, and labored more arduously
to remove the wood (to say nothing of the risk and penalty of
detection), than the man who in open daylight, and by honest
means, had gathered it.

(796)

=Dishonesty Discovered=--See EVIDENCE, PROVIDENTIAL.

=Dishonesty in Business=--See BUSINESS CHEATING.

=Disillusionment=--See LABELS, MISLEADING.

=Disobedience=--See CONSCIENCE A MONITOR.

=Disobedience Approved=--See HIGHER LAW, THE.

=Disparity=--See MASSES, AMONG THE.

=Disparity in Punishment=--See INJUSTICE; DECAY.

DISPLACEMENT

A right once surrendered may be lost forever.

A story is told by the Kermanjis of Persia of how the jackals
came to inhabit the desert. In olden days the jackals were
the domesticated pets of Kerman, while the dogs dwelt among
the ruins outside the city walls. The wily dogs asked the
noble jackals if they would not exchange places for just three
days, in order that the invalids among the dogs might recover
their strength and health, at the same time enlarging upon the
beauties of the desert life. The generous jackals consented.
But when the stipulated period expired the dogs declined to
yield their place, saying, “No, thank you, we prefer to stay
where we are, and do not wish ever to return to the desert.” So
the outwitted jackals went howling away, and have been wailing
nightly ever since.

(797)

See PROGRESS BY DISPLACEMENT.

=Display, Vain=--See NOTORIETY.

DISPROPORTION

The number of small men in high places is far greater than of large men in low places. The latter do not remain long in cramped conditions.

The Hon. William E. Chandler, Secretary of the Navy under President Arthur, relates this incident of Assistant Surgeon Ver Mulen. The story, as printed in _Harper’s Weekly_, runs as follows:

That officer was 6 feet 4 inches in height, a fact that
occasioned him much discomfort when he was serving on the old
_Penobscot_, the height of the vessel between decks being
only 5 feet and 8 inches. As Surgeon Ver Mulen considered the
matter, he remembered that long letters to the Navy Department
were not always given that prompt attention he thought should be
afforded in the present instance, so he determined to approach
the authorities in a manner novel enough to impress them with
the gravity of the situation. So he addrest his superior officer
in this wise:

“The Honorable the Secretary of the Navy.

“Sir: Length of surgeon, 6 feet 4 inches; height of wardroom, 5
feet 8 inches.

“Respectfully,
“E. C. VER MULEN,
“Assistant Surgeon, U.S.N.”

Shortly after, the Navy Department detached Ver Mulen “until
such time as a more suitable ship could be found for his
assignment.”

(798)

* * * * *

Artists have a good many queer customers, and they have
advantages for observing what vague ideas it is possible for a
man to entertain respecting art and nature, too. An ex-soldier
went to the studio of D. J. Gue, of Brooklyn, one day, to
inspect a picture of Lookout Mountain that the artist had been
painting. The picture pleased him, and he evidently had thoughts
of purchase, but he was suddenly struck with a brilliant idea
that he communicated thus: “I was in that fight, mister, and
I’d like you to paint my picture on that. Let’s see. You could
paint me right here in this field, facing front, with my left
hand resting on top of the mountain.” The man was in thorough
earnest. He did not see that if drawn to scale his finger would
be about 5,000 feet high, and that he would have a reach of arm
that would enable him to grasp at an object six or seven miles
away. Mr. Gue precipitately declined the commission.--Brooklyn
_Eagle_.

(799)

DISPROPORTION OF PRAISE

The case of De Quincey in regard to opium-eating, is analogous
to the case of a painter who has no hands, and had learned to
paint with his toes. Many estimable artists might paint as well
with their hands; but it is natural that the man who paints with
his toes should be much more talked of, and attract a quite
disproportionate share of fame. The wonder is, to quote Dr.
Johnson’s phrase, not that the thing is done well, but that it
is done at all.--W. J. DAWSON, “The Makers of English
Prose.”

(800)

=Dissipation of Force=--See FRICTION DISSIPATING FORCE.

DISTANCE

As I came into your city to-night I saw your great structure
[Brooklyn Bridge] across the river here, binding the two great
cities together and making them one, and I remember that as I
came the last time into your beautiful bay down yonder, I saw
what seemed to be a mere web of gossamer, a bare hand’s breadth
along the horizon. It seemed as if I might have swept it away
with my hand if I could have reached it, so airy and light it
was in the distance, but when I came close to it to-night I
found that it was one of the greatest structures that human
intellect has ever devised. I saw it thrilling and vibrating
with every energy of our pulsating, modern life. At a distance
it looked as if the vessels nearest would strike it, full head,
and carry it away. When I reached it I saw that it was so high,
so vast, that the traffic of your great stream passed easily
backward and forward under it. So it is with some problems. They
may appear very small to you, ladies and gentlemen, or to us,
when seen at a distance--as tho merely a handsweep would get rid
of them; but nearer at hand they appear too vast to be moved
easily.--THOMAS NELSON PAGE.

(801)

See POINT OF VIEW; RETROSPECT.

=Distance and Nearness=--See RETROSPECT.

=Distinctions, Vain=--See SELFISHNESS.

=Distinctions, Unfair=--See DISCRIMINATION, UNFAIR.

=Disturbance=--See BAPTISM.

DISUSE

Moored off the famous White Tower of Salonica lay, year after
year, a small, dirty, uncared-for, antiquated gunboat, the
solitary representative of the Turkish Navy. It never moved. But
when Turkey awoke the gunboat was ordered to Constantinople to
join in the rejoicings. Steam was got up and preparations were
made to raise the anchor, but in vain. It had become wedded to
the solid rock. So the chain was cut and the anchor left in its
chosen resting-place.

(802)

See ATROPHY; DEGENERACY THROUGH DISEASE.

DIVERSE INFLUENCES

Man, after all, is not ripened by virtue alone. Were it so,
this world were a paradise of angels. No; like the growth of
the earth, he is the fruit of all seasons, the accident of a
thousand accidents, a living mystery moving through the seen
to the unseen; he is sown in dishonor; he is matured under all
the varieties of heat and cold, in mists and wrath, in snow and
vapors, in the melancholy of autumn, in the torpor of winter as
well as in the rapture and fragrance of summer, or the balmy
affluence of spring, its breath, its sunshine; at the end he
is reaped, the product not of one climate but of all; not of
good alone but of sorrow, perhaps mellowed and ripened, perhaps
stricken and withered and sour. How, then, shall we judge
any one?--how, at any rate, shall we judge a giant, great in
gifts and great in temptation, great in strength, and great in
weakness? Let us glory in his strength and be comforted in his
weakness, and when we thank heaven for the inestimable gift of
Burns, we do not need to remember wherein he was imperfect, we
can not bring ourselves to regret that he was made of the same
clay as ourselves.--LORD ROSEBERY.

(803)

DIVERSION BY SMALL THINGS

The story of the way in which John Wesley partly failed in an attempt to gain back certain seceders from his following is told by the Rev. W. H. Fitchett, as follows:

According to the Moravians themselves, the dramatic effect of
Wesley’s departure from the building was spoiled by a petty but
ingenious trick. As the persons present came into the room they
placed their hats all together on the ground in one corner;
but Wesley’s hat had been--by design--carried off. When he had
finished his paper and called upon all who agreed with him to
follow him, he walked across the room, but could not discover
his hat! The pause, the search which followed, quite effaced the
impressiveness of his departure, and, as Southey puts it, “The
wily Molther and his followers had time to arrest many who would
have been carried away in his wake.”--“Wesley and His Century.”

(804)

=Diversity Desirable=--See TALENTS DIFFER.

=Diversity in Work=--See HEADWORK.

=Diverting the Mind=--See OFFENDED FEELINGS.

=Divine Wisdom Best=--See PLAYTHINGS, EARTH’S.

DIVINITY

All things are mine; to all things I belong;
I mingle in them--heeding bounds nor bars--
Float in the cloud, melt in the river’s song;
In the clear wave from rock to rock I leap,
Widen away, and slowly onward creep;
I stretch forth glimmering hands beneath the stars
And lose my little murmur in the deep.

Yea, more than that: whatever I behold--
Dark forest, mountain, the o’erarching wheel
Of heaven’s solemn turning, all the old
Immeasurable air and boundless sea--
Yields of its life, builds life and strength in me
For tasks to come, while I but see and feel,
And merely am, and it is joy to be.

Lo, that small spark within us is not blind
To its beginning; struck from one vast soul
Which, in the framework of the world, doth bind
All parts together; small, but still agreeing
With That which molded us without our seeing;
Since God is all, and all in all--the Whole
In whom we live and move and have our being. (Text.)

--SAMUEL V. COLE, _The Critic_.

(805)

DIVINITY IN PHENOMENA

Not a planet that wheels its circle around its controlling
flame, not a sun that pours its blaze upon the black ether, not
one of all the constellated chandeliers that burn in the dome
of heaven, not a firmament that spots the robe of space with a
fringe of light, but is a visible statement of a conception,
wish, or purpose in the mind of God, from which it was born, and
to which alone it owes its continuance and form.--THOMAS
STARR KING.

(806)

DIVORCE

The growth of the divorce evil in recent years has been a
subject of wide comment, and many remedies have been advocated.
The diagrams and maps here shown indicate the increase and
present status of divorces in the United States as compared with
other lands.

This diagram affords a comparison between the divorce-rate in
the United States and in certain foreign countries.

This chart is based on the average annual number of marriages
per 10,000 adult unmarried population in the various States and
Territories.

This diagram is based on the average annual number of divorces
per 100,000 married population in the various States and
Territories.

(807)

See BIRTH-RATE IN FRANCE.

DOCILITY, SPIRITUAL

An argument for man’s spiritual docility ought easily to be seen in his ignorance. He is blind but presumptuous. Nature herself ought to teach him better. As one says:

Just as when the yellow fog broods over London, all the
illuminations devised by man can not penetrate it; just as in
the dark country road on the misty night, the brightest lamp is
of no more avail than a farthing rushlight; so no argument of
men can remove the mists which becloud the soul. We only do what
we have to do in the physical world--wait till the sun comes
back.

If man be so encompassed by ignorance in the physical realm, how can he walk in the spiritual. Let him humble himself, if he would really understand. Let him obey, that he may know.

(808)

=Dog as a Detective=--See ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE.

DOGMATISM, MISTAKEN

I had heard that nothing had been observed in ancient times
which could be called by the name of glass--that there had been
merely attempts to imitate it. I thought they had proved the
proposition. They certainly had elaborated it. In Pompeii, a
dozen miles south of Naples, which was covered with ashes by
Vesuvius eighteen hundred years ago, they broke into a room
full of glass; there was ground-glass, window-glass, cut-glass,
and colored-glass of every variety. It was undoubtedly a
glass-maker’s factory. So the lie and refutation came face to
face. It was like a pamphlet printed in London, in 1836, by
Dr. Lardner, which proved that a steamboat could not cross the
ocean; and the book came to this country in the first steamboat
that came across the Atlantic.--WENDELL PHILLIPS.

(809)

=Doing=--See FEEDING, TOO MUCH; SERVICE.

DOING AS AN INCENTIVE

A woman once came to me and asked if it were not possible to
give her husband something to do in the church. “He evinces but
little interest; just give him something to do, and I think he
will attend.” In support of her belief she recounted how her
husband, lacking interest in a lodge to which he belonged, was
made a very regular attendant. “He was elected,” she said, “the
high and mighty potentate of the eastern door. Now he attends
the lodge regularly every Thursday night.” Think of it--a
sensible man walking up and down in a closet-like room, and
challenging all who would enter. All this because he was given
something to do. There is much philosophy in this. Young people
need direction in the line of that in which they are interested,
and in which they particularly are best capable of doing. There
should be enough specific work to go around.--CHARLES
LUTHER KLOSS, “Proceedings of the Religious Education
Association,” 1904.

(810)

=Doing Things for Themselves=--See ADAPTABILITY.

=Doing Without Learning=--See AUTOMATIC LEARNING.

DOLL, PLACE OF THE, IN THE CHILD’S LIFE

The delight which a little girl sometimes experiences in getting
hold of a doll that belonged to her mother when she was a little
girl--a quaint, china-headed and china-haired little creature,
with low neck and short sleeves and very full ruffled skirt--is
a tame thing when compared with the feelings that any girl must
experience over a doll now in the British Museum. This doll is
almost three thousand years old.

When some archeologists were exploring an ancient Egyptian royal
tomb they came upon a sarcophagus containing the mummy of a
little princess seven years old. She was drest and interred in
a manner befitting her rank, and in her arms was found a little
wooden doll.

The inscription gave the name, rank and age of the little girl
and the date of her death, but it said nothing about the quaint
little wooden Egyptian doll. This, however, told its own story.
It was so tightly clasped in the arms of the mummy that it was
evident that the child had died with her beloved doll in her
arms.

The simple pathos of this story has touched many hearts after
thousands of years. The doll occupies a place in a glass case in
the British Museum, and there a great many children have gone to
look at it.--_Youth’s Companion._

(811)

=Dollar, His First=--See _Money, Earning_.

DOMESTIC HEROISM

There are all sorts of heroes and the domestic life knows them as well as some other more conspicuous fields of action. The little things of life afford a field for the exercise of the heroic as well as the larger. A news item, with a touch of the humorous, tells the following:

Some women were discussing over their afternoon tea the
statement that a man is no more a hero to his wife than to his
valet. There seemed to be no opposition to the idea that a man’s
servant did not appreciate him, but all stoutly maintained that
their husbands were heroic--in one way or another.

“My husband is very heroic,” said Mrs. Black. “For instance, he
will give up his visit to the club to play jackstraws with my
old mother, and she is his mother-in-law, you know.”

“I think I can beat that,” remarked Mrs. Gray. “When my
milliner’s quarterly bill comes in my husband smiles as he
writes a check, and never thinks of looking at the items.”

“I can give you a better example than either of those!”
exclaimed Mrs. White. “When the morning paper comes at
breakfast-time my husband always offers me the first reading of
it.”

An informal vote awarded the last speaker’s husband the medal of
heroism.

(812)

DOMINANT ELEMENTS

Every animate or inanimate structure responds to some chord
or note of music, called, I believe, the dominant. We have
all felt some building vibrate in unison with the pulsation
of some note of a musical instrument; we have felt “creepy”
shivers run through us as some musical chord is sounded. It
is well known that animals are strangely affected by certain
harmonies. Some day, when civilization has advanced, I believe
that these evidences of psychological structure will be better
understood. It will be recognized that vice and virtue are in
accord with different harmonies, and yield to the power of
different dominants; and, when once the classification is made,
and the disclosures of the dominant understood, then the extent
and influence of the dominant will be a psychological test to
define the character and ruling passions of men’s nature, and to
decide the fitness of men for the various pursuits of life, and
even for life itself. (Text.)--ARTHUR DUDLEY VINTON,
_American Magazine_.

(813)

=Dominion of Man=--See MASTERY OF NATURE.

=Doors, Opening Human=--See RECEPTIVENESS.

DOUBLE MEANINGS, DANGER OF

The last great martyr to the double meaning in our Constitution, mentioned below, was Lincoln. It was a clause that protected the most gigantic evil of history:

An American historian says of the Constitution of the United
States: “Our Constitution in its spirit and legitimate utterance
is doubtless the noblest document which ever emanated from the
mind of man. It contains not one word hostile to liberty.... But
yet ingloriously, guiltily, under sore temptation, we consented
to use one phrase susceptible of a double meaning, ‘held to
service or labor.’ (Article IV Section 2.) These honest words
at the North mean a hired man, an apprentice. At the South
they mean a slave, feudal bondage. So small, apparently so
insignificant, were those seeds sown in our Constitution which
have resulted in such a harvest of misery.”

(814)

DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS

Charles Wagner, in “The Gospel of Life,” remarks thus on the double nature of men:

Duplicity, rending apart, partition of the will and of the
heart, lamentable division--that is our life! It is not a
continuous chain; it is only links broken and dispersed. We are
peace-loving, just, truthful, sober, chaste, disinterested; but
we are also malicious, unjust, cunning, intemperate, impure.
We are like those ships that carry to the colonies, along with
the Bibles and religious tracts, cannon, alcohol, and opium; or
those poets full of contrary talents, who play turn by turn on
the sacred lyre and on the strident conch-shell.

(815)

DOUBT ISSUING IN PEACE

The peace of God descends more softly shed
Than light upon the deep,
And sinks below the tumult of my years
Deeper than dreams or sleep.

And somehow, as of dusk was born the star
Whose fire is on the sea,
Another star from doubt’s profounder dark
Is risen and shines on me. (Text.)

--HENRY FLETCHER HARRIS, _Harper’s Magazine_.

(816)

DOUBTS, DISSOLVING

Crossing the Atlantic, a vessel is often encircled by small
ice-floes, looking like a flock of white sheep on the blue
ocean. When they started on their course southward, those
ice-floes were great frozen masses. But the warm Gulf Stream
played on them beneath, and the sun melted them from above, till
they dwindled as they entered a warm atmosphere. A man’s doubts
at first seem large enough to freeze his faith, but let him go
steadily onward into the warm atmosphere of Christian love, and
gradually his doubts will no more impede his progress than the
ice-floes impede an ocean-liner.

(817)

DOURNESS

If I could present the picture of a Scotch Highland cow, with
her calf by her side, watching the approach of a tourist whom
she thinks is coming too near--could I depict the expression
of her face; that, I would say, would fairly represent what is
meant by “dour.” Not that the cow would take the aggressive,
but, if interfered with, I’ll warrant she would not be the one
permanently injured. Led by this trait a certain Scotchman
always stood up during prayers when others were kneeling, and
sat down when others stood to sing, because, as he exprest it,
the ordinary method was the only one used by the English and he
wasn’t going to do as they did.--JOHN WATSON.

(818)

DOWN GRADE, THE

The terrible crimes and miseries of the East End of London have
recently been brought into great prominence, and one of the
most distressing features of this subject is that considerable
numbers of these appallingly miserable characters were once
respectable and happy. They were the children of honorable
parents, they were trained in schools and sanctuaries, they were
members of rich and influential circles; then they chose the
down grade; they were first guilty of unbecomingness, then of
acts of graver misconduct; at length their friends lost sight
of them, they lost sight of their friends; then ever lower
lodging-houses, lower ginshops, lower pawnshops, until at last
those who had been tenderly nursed, educated in universities,
clothed in scarlet, were submerged in filth, crime, misery,
simply unutterable. All this dire catastrophe once seemed
impossible to them, as now it seems impossible to us; but
forget not that the doubtful ever passes into the bad, the bad
into the worse, the worse into the unspeakable.--W. L.
WATKINSON, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(819)

DREAM, VALUE OF THE

A pillow-dream is a night adventure of your subconscious self.
You wander without volition in a weird world and come back with
a tantalized and fleeting recollection of fantastic persons and
impossible situations. The metaphysical mystery of this sort of
dreams has never been cleared, but it is certain that the fruits
gathered in these sunless excursions are of doubtful flavor
and quickly perishable. Fortunately, we are capable of dreams
which are not pillow-dreams--dreams which are best dreamed when
the spine is vertical and every fiber of mind, soul, and heart
vibrant and vital. On these occasions we are in the clasp of our
best mood--the mood of concept and creation. The wine of this
mood is red like blood and the resultant intoxication is the
holiest experience of which we are capable. In its high hours
the soul is never maudlin or fuddled; it grips life strongly and
deals with it in divine fashion, whipping its fugitive elements
into orderly submission, compelling them to assume a useful
steadiness like that of the dependable planets which can be
found nightly at a given point in the heavens.--_Metropolitan
Magazine._

(820)

DREAMS

(“Behold, this dreamer cometh”)

They stript me bare and left me by the way
To pine forsaken in a lonely land;
They gave me to night-frosts and burning day
To griefs none understand.

They took my silver from me and my gold,
The changing splendors of my rich array;
Night’s silver rain of dew escaped their hold,
And the fine gold of day.

On the world’s highway in vain pomp they tread;
By paths unknown I stray and hidden streams;
They took all else and left me there for dead;
They could not take my dreams.

Still, morning comes with marvel as of old;
Still in soft rose descends the eventide;
Still in the castle of my heart, grown bold,
The sweet, swift thoughts abide.

Pass by, pass by, O clamorous folk and wild!
To this last fortress of the soul I cling;
Men gave me winter weather from a child,
But God has given me spring. (Text.)

--ROBIN FLOWER, _The London Spectator_.

(821)

See FULFILMENT DISAPPOINTING; IDEALS.

DRESS AFFECTING MOODS

Mrs. Bishop, in the _Chautauqua Herald_, says:

It may never have occurred to some of you that dress has any
reactionary influence upon the inner states, but so potent is
this influence that frequently we can change the mental states
by a change of dress. When tired, gloomy or fretful, a change in
apparel often means a change in mood. Many actors say that to be
drest for the part is a great help toward feeling the part. An
army general once declared that he could not fight without his
uniform, that an ordinary hat and coat took all the courage out
of him.

(822)

=Dress in the East=--See PROPRIETY, OBSERVING THE RULES OF.

=Drifting Avoided=--See DANGER, AVOIDING.

DRINK

“Many a good story is told of the old bonanza days,” said a San
Franciscan. “I liked especially a whisky story.

“A tenderfoot, the story ran, entered a saloon and ordered
whisky. Whisky in those days and in those parts was a very weird
drink. Queer effects were sure to follow it. The tenderfoot
knew he must expect something out of the common, but, for all
that, he was taken aback when the bartender handed him a small
whisk-broom along with the bottle and glass.

“Tenderfoot-like, he didn’t care to expose his ignorance by
asking what the whisk-broom was for, so he just stood there and
fidgeted. He didn’t drink. He waited in the hope that somebody
would come in and show him what was what.

“Well, in a few minutes a big chap in a red shirt entered. He,
too, ordered whisky, and he, too, got a broom.

“The tenderfoot watched him closely. He poured himself a
generous drink, tossed it off, and, taking up his whisk-broom,
went over into a corner and carefully cleaned, on the floor,
a space about 7 feet by 3. There he laid down and had a
fit.”--Detroit _Free Press_.

(823)

See ABSTAINERS LIVE LONG; BEER, EFFECT OF; ALCOHOLIC BAIT.

DRINK AND NATIVE RACES

Missionaries are constantly emphasizing the horrors consequent
on the drink traffic among the natives of Africa. Bishop
Johnson, one of its able native bishops, declared that “European
commerce, weighted as this commerce has been for many years
with the liquor traffic, has been as great a curse to Africa,
a greater than the oceanic slave-trade.” Even still more
effective was a statement made by a Christian negro speaking to
an audience in England, when he brought out of a bag an ugly
idol and said, “This repulsive object is what we worshiped
in times past,” and then he added, “Now I will show you what
England has sent to be our god to-day,” and produced an empty
gin-bottle.--JESSE PAGE, “The Black Bishop.”

(824)

DRINK, EFFECTS OF

I was standing on the sidewalk in a Southern city where at the
time I was engaged in evangelistic work. A physician who was an
active helper came along in his buggy, and, stopping his horse,
requested me to take a seat at his side.

“I want to take you,” he said as we drove off, “to see a most
deplorable and helpless case--a widow and her son. She is
totally blind; in fact, she has cried her eyes out. You have
heard of people who cried their eyes out, but now you will see
one of whom it is literally true. The son is only twenty-four
years of age, and a splendid machinist; but he got to fooling
with drink and wild young men, until now the habit is so fixt
upon him he is almost an imbecile. I have a commitment for him
in my pocket to send him to the asylum. It is the only hope for
him now.”

We arrived at the house, a poor little desolate-looking place,
in painful accord with the pitiful lives within. The woman rose
to greet us at the sound of the doctor’s voice. She was of
medium size, neatly drest, but plainly. Her white face, without
the slightest suggestion of color, was partly framed with
grayish-brown hair. Her eyes did not seem sightless to me, but
only a dull dark blue.

There sat the young man, his face buried in his hands, the
picture of misery, a life surrendered to the evil of drink,
and in ruins. “I have brought the minister,” said the doctor,
“because I knew you’d like to have him pray with you and talk
with your son.” She assented readily, and even with an effort
to smile; but the smile died upon her lips. The young man was
perfectly sane, and talked willingly of his condition. “I just
can’t help it,” he said. “I love mother, and I can easily take
care of her; but, when I get where whisky is, I can’t help
getting drunk. Then it looks as if I’d never get sober any
more. Yes, sir,” he said in reply to the doctor, “I’ll be glad
to go. I hate to leave mother,” nodding his head toward the
frail creature who sat silent while the tears literally rolled
down her face; “but I’m willing to do anything to get right.”

Months passed. I was there again. Meeting the doctor one day in
the street, I stopt him.

“Tell me about the poor woman, doctor, and her boy,” I asked.
“Get into my buggy, and we will take a drive, and you shall see
for yourself.” We drove along, talking as we went; but he did
not explain. He continued his drive out of the city, and finally
turned his horse’s head into what I saw was the cemetery.
Passing monuments and vaults and richly carved marble, we went
on to the very outer edge. “Now we will get out and walk a few
steps,” he said. I followed him, knowing now, of course, what it
meant; but I knew only in part. Stopping at two unmarked graves,
not a stone or board or flower, desolate in death as in life,
he pointed to one, and said: “That’s the son. He came back from
the asylum, and we thought he was cured; but he fell in with his
old companions, and a few days later his body was found in a
pond near the city, and a bottle half filled with whisky in his
pocket. And that’s the mother. She survived him only a few days.
When they brought his body into her little home, she sank under
her weight of grief, and never rallied. She had cried herself to
sleep.”--H. M. WHARTON, _Christian Endeavor World_.

(825)

DRINK, HERITAGE OF

The jovial, genial drunkard of the Anglo-Saxon times is a
rare personage nowadays, and tho there may be men as fond
of sack as Falstaff himself, they seem to have lost the
intense sociability which was the characteristic of the burly
knight. Nearly all the great men of the Napoleonic era were
drinkers--Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, Wellington himself. Napoleon’s
marshals had the soldier’s pet failing, and it is said of stern
old Blücher that he slept in his boots and went to bed in a
more or less pronounced condition of intoxication for thirty
years. Byron boasted of having drank a dozen bottles of wine in
a day, and his “Don Juan” was composed under the influence of
gin. Thackeray loved the bottle, so did Dickens. The children
suffer for the failings of their sires, and many of the nervous
symptoms and morbid cravings which perplex physicians in the
young men and women of to-day are in reality legacies bequeathed
by overbibulous ancestors. (Text.)--Baltimore _Herald_.

(826)

DRINK, PERIL OF

A number of years ago a certain firm of four men in Boston were
rated as “A1.” They were rich, prosperous, young and prompt.

One of them had the curiosity to see how they were rated, and
found these facts in Dun’s and was satisfied, but at the end
these words were added: “But they all drink.”

He thought it a good joke at the time, but a few years later two
of them were dead, another was a drunkard, and the fourth was
poor and living partly on charity.

That one little note at the end of their rating was the most
important and significant of all the facts collected and
embodied in their description. (Text.)

(827)

DROUGHT, RESPONSIBILITY FOR

When the electric trolley-cars were first set running in Seoul, a peculiar result manifested itself in the nation. We quote from _The Outlook_:

Little by little the heavens grew dry and the earth rolled up
clouds of dust; day followed day with no signs of rain, and
the caking paddy-fields grinned and gasped. What could be the
cause of it? The geomancers and ground-prophets were consulted,
and their answer was, “The devil that runs the thunder and
lightning wagon has caused the drought.” Eyes no longer looked
with curiosity but glared at the trolley-cars, and men swore
under their breath and curst the “vile beast” as it went humming
by, till, worked up beyond endurance, there was a crash and an
explosion, one car had been rolled over, and another was set on
fire, while a mob of thousands took possession of the streets
foaming and stamping like wild beasts.

(828)

DRUDGERY

It may be that even the work of “holystoning” the deck of a ship could become an act of devotion if done in the right spirit, notwithstanding this seaman’s aversion to it:

“This is what you call the sailor’s prayer-book,” a seaman said
bitterly as he kicked a holystone out of the way. “Why is it
called that? Well, in the first place, it is called that because
in using it, in holystoning the deck, the sailor has to kneel
down; and in the second place, because all holystoning is done
on Sunday. Don’t you know the chantey?

“‘Six days shalt thou work and do all that thou art able,
And on the seventh holystone the decks and scrape the cable.’

“The stone is called holystone because the first holystones
were bits of tombs stolen from cemeteries. It’s got a pious,
religious sound--holy, and prayer-book, and Sunday and all
that--but it is when he is using this stone that the seaman is
most profane.”

(829)

See BEST, MAKING THE.

=Drudgery as a Teacher=--See HUMDRUM DEVELOPMENT.

DRUDGERY RELIEVED

When Lucy Larcom was fourteen years old she worked in a
cotton-mill in Lowell, Mass. After she had been there a few
weeks, says _The Youth’s Companion_, she asked and received
permission to tend some frames which were near a window,
through which she might look out on the Merrimac River and its
picturesque banks.

After she had worked there a little while longer, she began to
make the window-seat and frame into a library. She pasted the
grimy paint all over with clippings of verse which she gathered
from such newspapers and magazines as fell into her hands.

So the little factory drudge secured for herself three
essentials for human happiness: work, the sight of nature, and
the beauty of the poet’s vision. No doubt the work was often
wearisome. Perhaps some of the poetry was not very good. But
the river and its meadows and hills must have been always
refreshing, and the spirit which so intelligently desired the
best in the world could not have faltered even on a toilsome
path.

(830)

=Drunkard’s Fate=--See DRINK, EFFECTS OF.

=Drunkards Saving Drunkards=--See PERSONAL INFLUENCE.

=Drunkard’s Soul=--See DEFACEMENT OF SOUL.

DRUNKARD’S WILL, A

It was written just before he committed suicide. “I leave to
the world a wasted character and ruinous example; I leave to
my parents as great a sorrow as in their weakness they could
possibly bear; I leave to my brothers and sisters as much
shame and dishonor as I could have brought them; I leave to my
wife a broken heart and a life full of shame; I leave to my
children poverty, ignorance, a bad character and the memory of
their father lying in a drunkard’s grave and having gone to
a drunkard’s hell.” This is typical. Decent men are becoming
sick at heart with this thing. We are now in the midst of a
war that promises to become world-wide, relentless until our
Christian obligation to the world is fully met. Since religion,
business, science, education and the State have taken the field
against drink there is certain promise of victory.--_Methodist
Recorder._

(831)

=Drunkenness, Disastrous=--See DEBAUCH, FATAL.

=Drunkenness, Safeguard Against=--See SAFEGUARD FOR DRUNKARDS.

DRUNKENNESS, THE TRAGEDY OF

A recent orator gives this incident:

I think the subject has been kept back very much by the
merriment people make over those slain by strong drink. I
used to be very merry over these things, having a keen sense
of the ludicrous. There was something very grotesque in the
gait of a drunkard. It is not so now; for I saw in one of the
streets of Philadelphia a sight that changed the whole subject
to me. There was a young man being led home. He was very much
intoxicated--he was raving with intoxication. Two young men were
leading him along. The boys hooted in the street, men laughed,
women sneered; but I happened to be very near the door where he
went in--it was the door of his father’s house. I saw him go
up-stairs. I heard him shouting, hooting and blaspheming. He had
lost his hat, and the merriment increased with the mob until he
came up to the door, and as the door was opened his mother came
out. When I heard her cry, that took all the comedy away from
the scene. Since that time, when I see a man walking through the
street, reeling, the comedy is all gone, and it is a tragedy of
tears and groans and heartbreaks. Never make any fun around me
about the grotesqueness of a drunkard. Alas for his home!

(832)

DUAL CHARACTER

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) who was certainly not the greatest
writer of his age, perhaps not even a great writer at all,
but who was nevertheless the dictator of English letters,
still looms across the centuries of a magnificent literature
as its most striking and original figure. Here, moreover, is
a huge, fat, awkward man, of vulgar manners and appearance,
who monopolizes conversation, abuses everybody, clubs down
opposition--“Madam” (speaking to his cultivated hostess
at table), “talk no more nonsense”; “Sir” (turning to a
distinguished guest), “I perceive you are a vile Whig.” While
talking he makes curious animal sounds, “sometimes giving a
half whistle, sometimes clucking like a hen”; and when he has
concluded a violent dispute and laid his opponents low by
dogmatism or ridicule, he leans back to “blow out his breath
like a whale” and gulp down numberless cups of hot tea. Yet this
curious dictator of an elegant age was a veritable lion, much
sought after by society; and around him in his own poor house
gathered the foremost artists, scholars, actors, and literary
men of London--all honoring the man, loving him, and listening
to his dogmatism as the Greeks listened to the voice of their
oracle.--WILLIAM J. LONG, “English Literature.”

(833)

DUALITY

The peculiarity of the chameleon here described recalls Paul’s description of the conflict between the natural and spiritual man:

Notwithstanding the strictly symmetrical structure of the
chameleon as to its two halves, the eyes move independently of
one another and convey separate impressions to their respective
centers of perception. The consequence is that when the animal
is agitated its movements resemble those of two animals, or
rather, perhaps, two halves of animals glued together. Each half
wishes to go its own way and there is no concordance of action.
The chameleon, therefore, is the only four-legged vertebrate
that is unable to swim; it becomes so frightened when dropt
into water that all faculty of concentration is lost, and
the creature tumbles about as if in a state of intoxication.
(Text.)--_The Scientific American._

(834)

=Duality of Human Nature=--See NATURE DUAL IN MAN.

=Duel by Mail=--See MAKE-BELIEVE.

=Dutch Trait, A=--See HUNGER, ENDURING.

DUST AND VIOLETS

O sister mine--hold on a space
In your dreadnaught campaign;
A few weeks more--the selfsame place
Will show more dust again;
Just take a sniff of springtime air
And let the cleaning wait;
For, “Dust will keep, but violets won’t,”
As some find out too late.

--ADA M. FITTS, _Unity_.

(835)

=Dust Particles=--See IMPURITIES.

DUTIES, CATCHING ONE’S

“Caleb Cobweb,” of the _Christian Endeavor World_, gives the following quaint advice:

Some workmen were repairing the Boston Elevated Railway. One
of them took a red-hot bolt in his pincers and threw it up to
another workman, who was to place it in the hole drilled for it.
The second workman failed to catch it, and it fell to the street
below. There it struck a truck-load of twenty bales of cotton,
a thousand dollars’ worth, that was passing at the moment. The
cotton instantly took fire, but the driver knew nothing of it.
The flames had made considerable headway when the cries of the
onlookers informed the driver of what was going on. He had only
enough time to leap out of the way of the flames and save his
horse. The Boston Fire Department was summoned and put out the
fire.

This is a fair sample of what happens every time one of us
workmen on the great edifice of human society misses a bolt that
is thrown to him. They are many--these bolts--and they come
thick and fast. They are red-hot, too, for they are duties that
are in imperative need of getting done. If they are not at once
stuck into the proper hole, and the top at once flattened out by
sturdy blows, they grow cool and useless. They can not be put
into the structure; or, if we go ahead and hammer them in, they
are not tight and they may bring about disaster.

No, there is nothing for it but to catch the bolts on the fly.
Let one fall, and some one gets hurt--or some thing, which in
the end, means some one. No one knows what will be hit when a
worker misses a red-hot duty that comes flying at him.

There is only one safety for the workman or for the rest of us:
Catch them!

(836)

DUTIES DISTRIBUTED

Here is a short sermon by a woman, tho not preached from a pulpit. It is a good one, and is pretty sure to hit your own case somewhere, whatever may be your age and circumstances:

The best thing to give your enemy is forgiveness; to an
opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a
good example; to your father, deference; to your mother, conduct
that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all
men, charity.--_The Interior_.

(837)

DUTY

There was a boy in Glasgow apprenticed to a gentleman who made
telegraphs. The gentleman told me this himself. One day this boy
was up on top of a four-story house with a number of men fixing
up a telegraph-wire. The work was all but done. It was getting
late, and the men said they were going away home, and the boy
was to nip off the ends of the wire himself. Before going down
they told him to be sure to go back to the workshop, when he was
finished, with his master’s tools. “Do not leave any of them
lying about, whatever you do,” said the foreman. The boy climbed
up the pole and began to nip off the ends of the wire. It was
a very cold winter night, and the dusk was gathering. He lost
his hold and fell, upon the slates, slid down, and then over
and over to the ground below. A clothes-rope, stretched across
the “green” on to which he was just about to fall, caught him
on the chest and broke his fall; but the shock was terrible,
and he lay unconscious among some clothes upon the green. An
old woman came out; seeing her rope broken and the clothes all
soiled, thought the boy was drunk, shook him, scolded him, and
went for a policeman. And the boy with the shaking came back to
consciousness, rubbed his eyes, and got upon his feet. What do
you think he did? He staggered, half-blind, away up the stairs.
He climbed the ladder. He got up onto the roof of the house.
He gathered up his tools, put them into his basket, took them
down, and when he got to the ground again, fainted dead away.
Just then the policeman came, saw there was something seriously
wrong, and carried him away to the hospital, where he lay for
some time. I am glad to say he got better. What was his first
thought at that terrible moment? His duty. He was not thinking
of himself; he was thinking about his master.--HENRY
DRUMMOND.

(838)

See GREATNESS; HIGHER LAW.

DUTY BEFORE PLEASURE

Dr. Johnson, himself a glutton in talk, complained to Patty
Wesley of her brother: “I hate to meet John Wesley,” he said.
“The dog enchants you with his conversation, and then breaks
away to go and visit some old woman.”

But for Wesley, the “old woman” represented duty. She was an
immortal spirit, as precious in the sight of God as Dr. Johnson
himself.--W. H. FITCHETT, “Wesley and His Century.”

(839)

DUTY, DEVOTION TO

The late Sir Andrew Clarke was once attending a comparatively
poor man who was so seriously ill as to need his constant and
assiduous attention. He was fighting death step by step, and
seeing his efforts meet with success. As he bent over and
watched his patient, a telegram was handed him asking him to
come over and consult some wealthy idler in the south of France,
offering a special train to Dover, a packet chartered to Calais,
another special train to Nice, and a fabulous fee. He looked at
the patient, folded the telegram, and said to his assistant,
“Reply that I am needed here and can not leave,” and turned to
tend the poor man again.

Much has been said in praise of this heroic self-abnegation.
But, after all, the doctor simply did his duty.

(840)

See FAITHFULNESS.

DUTY, FAITHFUL TO

Emperor William recommended the promotion of a private in his
army for the strict observance of orders while acting as sentry
at Swinemunde, Germany. The Emperor, accompanied by several
officers, the entire party in civilian dress and wearing Panama
hats, approached the entrance to the west battery, where the
sentry prevented their further progress. His Majesty, much
amused, again vainly tried to pass by. He said to the sentry:
“You must let me pass. Don’t you know me? I am the Emperor.”
The sentry then looked more closely at the Emperor, not quite
reassured, but evidently recognized his Majesty’s features, as
he presented arms and allowed him to pass.

The distinction of the sentry lay in the fact that, under every circumstance, he was faithful to his duty.

(841)

DUTY IN DEATH

At Gettysburg a soldier in an ambulance heard the sound of
battle. He arose to go. “Where are you going?” asked a comrade
in a tone of remonstrance. “To the front,” said the wounded man.
“What, in your condition!” “If I am to die,” he said, “I would
rather die on the battle-field than in an ambulance.” (Text.)

(842)

DUTY MORE THAN GLORY

The citizen on great occasions knows and obeys the voice of his
country as he knows and obeys an individual voice, whether it
appeal to a base or ignoble, or to a generous or noble passion.
“Sons of France, awake to glory,” told the French youth what
was the dominant passion in the bosom of France, and it awoke a
corresponding sentiment in his own. Under its spell he marched
through Europe and overthrew her kingdoms and empires, and felt
in Egypt that forty centuries were looking down on him from the
pyramids. But, at last, one June morning in Trafalgar Bay there
was another utterance, more quiet in its tone, but speaking also
with a personal and individual voice: “England expects every
man to do his duty.” At the sight of Nelson’s immortal signal,
duty-loving England and glory-loving France met as they have met
on many an historic battle-field before and since, and the lover
of duty proved the stronger. The England that expected every man
to do his duty was as real a being to the humblest sailor in
Nelson’s fleet as the mother that bore him.--GEORGE FRISBIE
HOAR.

(843)

=Duty Plus a Little More=--See OVERPLUS OF DUTY.

DUTY, SENSE OF

Calif Omar, with his venerable teacher, Abou-Zeid, walked forth
in the darkness of the night, far from his palace gate, where
he saw a feeble fire burning. He sought it and found a poor
woman trying to bring a caldron to the boiling-point while two
wretched children clung to her, piteously moaning. “Peace unto
thee, O woman! What dost thou here alone in the night and the
cold?” said the calif. “I am trying to make this water boil
that my children may drink, who perish of hunger and cold;
but for the misery we have to bear, Allah will surely one day
ask reckoning of Omar, the calif.” “But,” said the disguised
calif, “dost thou think, O woman, that Omar can know of thy
wretchedness?” She answered: “Wherefore, then, is Omar, the
calif, if he be unaware of the misery of his people and of each
one of his subjects?” The calif was silent. “Let us go hence,”
he said to Abou-Zeid. He hastened to the storehouses of his
kitchen, and drew forth a sack of flour and a jar of sheep’s
fat. “O Abou-Zeid, help thou me to charge these on my back,”
said the calif. “Not so,” replied the attendant; “suffer that I
carry them on my back, O Commander of the Faithful.” Omar said
calmly: “Wilt thou also, O Abou-Zeid, bear the weight of my sins
on the day of resurrection?” And Abou-Zeid was obliged to lay
the jar of fat and the sack of flour on the back of the calif,
who hastened to the woman by the fire, and with his own hands
did put the flour and the fat into the caldron over the fire,
which fire he quickened with his breath, and the smoke whereof
filled his beard. When the food was prepared, with his own
breath did he cool it that the children might eat. Then he left
the sack and the jar and went his way saying: “O Abou-Zeid, the
light from the fire that I have beheld to-day has enlightened me
also.”--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”

(844)

See FAITHFULNESS.

=Dying Like Ladies=--See PRIDE.

DYNASTIC NAMES