Chapter D: W. Whittle tells of a soldier who was posted in a forest to (5)

A captain’s little son had tried all day to make a boat, but at
night he had only succeeded in misshaping the wood. His father
saw the tears on the sleeping lad’s face, and took up the wood
and with the deft skill of experience soon changed the shapeless
block into a beautiful little boat. Then, leaving it on the
table by his son’s bed, he lay down to sleep. When morning
dawned and the boy saw the boat, so perfect in its shape and
style, he marveled how his own failure had been turned into
success. Will not God take our endeavors, poor and faulty tho
they be, and change them into triumphs? Let us do our best and
leave our work at nightfall, awaiting His hand to complete it.
(Text.)

(1020)

=Fairness=--See JUSTICE.

FAITH

The child lying at night in its little crib by its mother’s side
cries out because of the darkness its eyes can not penetrate,
and wants to get up. The mother says, “Lie still and wait till
daylight, child.” And the little one asks, “When will that be?”
The mother says, “It will be daylight after a while,” and taking
the tiny hand in hers the restless child calmly drops into
peaceful slumber, confident that at morning’s dawn light will
come. So with God’s grown-up children. Amid the impenetrable
gloom of limited knowledge we grow restless and uneasy because
we can not see Him face to face, but by faith, putting our hands
in His, we may confidently expect the dawning. (Text.)

(1021)

* * * * *

The Norwegian missionary Braadvedt once asked his native Zulu
teacher, “What is faith and what is unbelief?”

The Christian Zulu replied, “In Zululand strong men carry people
over the rivers when the water is high. Before these men go
through the river they tell those whom they carry to take a
firm hold. Those who have confidence in the carrier and obey
him safely reach the other side, but those who lose confidence
and let go their hold, perish in the water. That is faith and
unbelief. To have faith means to take hold of Christ and His
Word, to lack faith means to let go Christ and His Word.”

(1022)

* * * * *

A man stood upon a height, overlooking an estuary of the sea.
On the opposite shore was a bold headland. Wishing to cross
thither, he cast about to find a way, but the abyss of water
lay between. Then One who stood between him said: “The bridge
is safe; advance and fear not.” “But I see no bridge,” said the
traveler. “Take this glass and look,” said the One who stood at
his side. And the man took it and looked, and lo! a bridge was
spanning the great gulf of waters. Yet he saw but a small part
of that end that was nearest. He went forward courageously,
and, as he advanced, the bridge stretched out before him, tho
the farther end was still obscured. He marveled much at this
wonder, and inquired the reason. “This glass,” exclaimed the One
who had led him to look, “is Faith; it gives spiritual vision
and reveals that which is hid from the eye of flesh.” Advancing
more confidently, he saw the bridge now more clearly, as its
proportions were gradually disclosed. And he went on his way
across, singing and rejoicing, for he was glad at heart. (Text.)

(1023)

* * * * *

An English writer tells this incident and draws from it the lessons that follow:

The other day I was passing through a London square, and
noticed a little girl feeding some pigeons. Quite a number were
fluttering around her, some getting more, some less, of what she
had to give them. But one, bolder than the rest, had settled on
her wrist, and was getting his supply direct from the basin she
was holding in her hand. Needless to say, that pigeon got the
most of all.

Instinctively I thought of the verse: “Let us come boldly unto
the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to
help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). But there was something else
besides boldness that the bird possest; altho only a pigeon,
it certainly showed faith in the good will of the little girl.
Whether she had been there on the same errand before I can not
say, as I very seldom pass that way; but it was evident that it
regarded her as a child to be trusted, and one who would not
do a feathered friend any harm. Thus, while its companions got
comparatively little, this one, by reason of its faith combined
with boldness, received all it could appropriate in the time.
It had no need to plead with the pathetic look of its eye; it
simply realized its need, and recognizing the means of supplying
it, gladly availed itself of it.

(1024)

* * * * *

Faith is the standing-ground of the hopeful, the conviction of
facts unseen. Sam Jones used to illustrate it in this way. Out
West they have a place for watering cattle where the animals
have to mount a platform to reach the troughs. As they step upon
the platform their weight presses a lever, and this throws the
water into the troughs. They have to get on the platform through
faith, and this act provides the water. The steer that slips
round to the barnyard and looks into the trough will find it
dry, for it needs his weight on the platform to force the water
up. If you slide back you will find life barren and dry, but
if you step upon the platform of full assurance in God’s Word,
blessings will flow abundantly.

(1025)

* * * * *

Herman S. Reichard is the author of this:

I dreamed a dream
Of white-robed Faith; with words of cheer and love
She took me by the hand and led me on;
And by some magic art smoothed out the way
Until my lagging zeal was fired anew
By future visions of unmeasured bliss.
I saw beyond the wintry cold and snow
The days of springtime, full of flowers and song
To greet and satisfy the longing heart.

(1026)

* * * * *

The following incident is related of Rev. John Wilkinson and his Mildmay (London) Mission to the Jews:

On one occasion two American gentlemen sat at Mr. Wilkinson’s
breakfast-table and noted his opening of letters which brought
God’s supply for the day. “This is all very well, so far,” said
one of the gentlemen, “but what would you do, Mr. Wilkinson, if
one morning the expected supply did not come?” The answer is
clear in my memory, “That can only happen, sir, when God dies.”
(Text.)

(1027)

* * * * *

William J. Long, in “English Literature,” writes thus of Samuel Johnson:

Since the man’s work fails to account for his leadership and
influence, we examine his personality; and here everything is
interesting. Because of a few oft-quoted passages from Boswell’s
biography, Johnson appears to us as an eccentric bear, who
amuses us by his growlings and clumsy antics. But there is
another Johnson, a brave, patient, kindly, religious soul, who,
as Goldsmith said, had “nothing of the bear but his skin”; a man
who battled like a hero against poverty and pain and melancholy
and the awful fear of death, and who overcame them manfully.
“That trouble passed away; so will this,” sang the sorrowing
Deor in the first old Anglo-Saxon lyric; and that expresses
the great and suffering spirit of Johnson, who in the face of
enormous obstacles never lost faith in God or in himself.

(1028)

* * * * *

In the self-appointed task of educating the public to an
appreciation of the best in music, Mr. Theodore Thomas had a
long and up-hill struggle which would have broken a weaker man.
During those days he once said to an intimate friend, says the
New York _Herald_:

“I have gone without food longer than I should, I have walked
when I could not afford to ride, I have even played when my
hands were cold, but I shall succeed, for I shall never give
up my belief that at last the people will come to me, and my
concerts will be crowded. I have undying faith in the latent
musical appreciation of the American public.” (Text.)

(1029)

* * * * *

One day, at a little prayer-meeting, our deacon, Yi Chun
Ho, startled the Koreans, as well as the missionary, by the
suggestion that the natives should put up the new church without
foreign aid. I at once said: “You have raised twenty yen, and
believed that you had done all you could; it will take almost
one thousand yen to put up the church. Can you do it?” I felt
strongly rebuked by his quiet reply: “We ask such questions
as ‘Can you do it?’ about men’s work, but not about God’s
work.”--PIERSON, “The Miracles of Missions.”

(1030)

See ACHIEVEMENT; GUIDANCE, GOD’S; TRIUMPH IN DEATH.

FAITH, A CHILD’S

A child’s faith and good will are manifested in connection with
his idea of a personal, intelligent power in the world. In the
latter part of his fourth year, a little boy was awakened one
night by a violent thunder-storm. He was much frightened, and
called to his mother with trembling voice, “Mama, God won’t let
the thunder hurt us, will He?” When assured that the lightning
was governed by God’s laws, and that there was little or no
danger, he quieted down and slept soundly during the rest of
the storm. So far as was known, this child had never been told
that God protected him under such conditions. It was evidently
an inference drawn from his own thoughts about the personal
influence he felt to pervade the world. (Text.)--GEORGE E.
DAWSON, “The Child and His Religion.”

(1031)

FAITH AND POWER

When the soul of man is full of faith it is in a changed condition. The man is the same, but his state is not the same, and he in the new state develops new powers and new capacities. To be full of faith is to be full also of power of a new kind. For faith is spiritual dynamite.

Cold iron is precisely identical with iron heated in the fire;
but tho the metal is the same, the fire that has entered it
entirely transforms its condition and endows it with a new
potency. And the fire also by entering the iron takes upon
itself new action, making of the metal a vehicle of its dynamic
potency. So does the Spirit of God transfuse and transform and
vivify and fortify human nature. (Text.)

(1032)

FAITH AND PRAYER

As the _Lucania_ was in mid-Atlantic a young man came to
the purser and asked him to lend him £10, as he was without
money, and every hour was bringing him nearer to London. The
purser said he had made a rule not to lend money and suggested
that the young man should borrow from some friend on board.
“But I have no friend. The only person who would give me £10
is my mother, and she left London for New York the same day as
we sailed from New York.” The purser thought for a moment, and
then he said, “We may get into speaking touch with the vessel
on which your mother is, and then you could ask her to lend you
the money by wireless telegraphy.” The next night the young man
was roused from sleep with the news that the _Lucania_
was in communication with the boat on which his mother was a
passenger. She readily handed £10 to the purser on her ship, and
he authorized the purser on the _Lucania_ to give the young
man this sum. The vessels were many miles apart in the darkness
of the night, and yet the need on the one ship was met by the
love on the other. What a light that throws on the force of
prayer! “Ask and ye shall receive.” (Text.)

(1033)

FAITH AND SUPPORT

Mr. Tornvall, of the Ping Liang station, Central China, made a
test of a converted Taoist priest who wished to be a colporteur
for the Central China Tract Society. When starting out for a
distant city he asked the missionary for a few cents, as he
had no money. Mr. Tornvall pointed out to him from the gospels
the way in which Jesus sent out His disciples with no money in
their scrips. “All right,” said the colporteur, “I will also
make trial of that plan,” and off he started. A month later two
missionaries found him in a distant city preaching and selling
his books, and looking remarkably happy. He said that altho he
had not been feasting every day, yet he could give the same
testimony as the disciples: he had lacked for nothing. (Text.)

(1034)

FAITH BETTER THAN SIGHT

There is a true story of a man who crossed the river Usk, England, under circumstances where faith was far better than sight:

He had been absent on business for some time, and in the
meantime the bridge had been washed away, and a new one was
being constructed. While the buttresses were in place, he drove
up in his gig one very dark night, and gave the reins to his
horse, who, he knew, was well accustomed to the road. They
crossed safely over what he took to be the bridge, and came to
an inn near the river. The landlady asked him, being an old
acquaintance, what part of the country he had come in from.
“From Newport,” he answered. “Then you must have crossed the
river?” said the woman in astonishment. “Yes, of course. How
else could I have come?” “But how did you manage it, and in
the dark, too?” “The same as usual; there is no difficulty in
driving over the bridge, even tho it be dark.” “Bless the man!”
said the landlady, “there is no bridge to drive over. You must
have come along the planks left by the men.” “Impossible,” was
the answer; and nothing could persuade the traveler that night
that there was no bridge. But early next morning he went to the
river-side, and found, as he had been told, that the bridge was
gone. His horse had taken him safely over three planks, left by
the workmen, where one false step, to the right or to the left,
would instantly have plunged him into the swollen river beneath.
The man stood aghast at the dreadful danger he had gone through,
and so marvelously escaped. (Text.)

(1035)

FAITH CURE

Among the numerous applicants at the dispensary of the Johns
Hopkins Hospital, a few days ago, was a negro who confided
in awestricken tones that he was suffering from snakes. He
declared he felt them wriggling inside of him ever since he had
endeavored to quench his thirst by drinking from a garden hose
when, he believed, at least one or two had slipt down his throat.

Argument being in vain, the patient was turned over to one
of the physicians who, after hearing the story, pretended an
examination. Deeming it a case for faith cure, he told the negro
he would be all right as long as he would keep his mind off the
subject of the creeping things of the earth. With smiles of
gratitude he left the hospital.--Baltimore _Sun._

(1036)

FAITH ESSENTIAL TO ACTION

All great leaders have been inspired with a general belief. In
nine cases out of ten, failure is born of unbelief. Tennyson
sings, “Faith and unfaith can ne’er be equal powers.” To be a
great leader and so always master of the situation, one must
of necessity have been a great thinker in action. An eagle was
never yet hatched from a goose’s egg. Dante speaks in bitter
sarcasm of Branca d’Oria, whom he placed among the dead, when
he says, “He still eats and sleeps and puts on clothes.” In
a case of great emergency, it took a certain general in our
army several days to get his personal baggage ready. Sheridan
rode into Winchester without even a change of stockings in his
saddle-bags.--JAMES T. FIELDS.

(1037)

FAITH FULFILLED BY WORKS

A youthful owner of swine had a wealthy uncle. His uncle cribbed
corn for the market. One day he told his nephew that he could
have all the corn that he could carry in a basket from the
cribs, where the men were shelling, across the alley to the barn
where the swine were kept. To his uncle’s surprize and delight,
the boy took him at his word, and carried corn all day. The boy
did this because he had faith in his uncle’s word. The nephew’s
faith pleased him when he saw how much corn he had. If the boy
had profest belief in his uncle’s promise without acting upon
it, there would have been intellectual assent but no real faith.

This is a type of our relation to God. Faith takes God at his
word. “His divine power hath given us all things that pertain to
life and Godliness through the knowledge of Him who hath called
us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding
great and precious promises.” Every gift of God that we accept
and use for Him is a new proof of our faith.

(1038)

FAITH IN A MORAL UNIVERSE

Dr. George A. Gordon, in a sermon on “The Land of Pure Delight,” says:

The world of our ultimate and supreme concern, the world to
which we give the name heaven, paradise, eternity, is the world
of pure spirituality. I ask, what grounds have we for believing
in the reality of that world? The answer, the sole answer which
assumes many forms, is that we believe in the moral conception
of the universe in which we live.

Let me illustrate. Longfellow, in one of his beautiful sonnets,
speaks of being at Newport News after the war, and while there
he sees a nameless grave, over which there was this inscription:

“_A Union Soldier, Mustered Out!_”

That is all--“A Union Soldier, Mustered Out!” And Longfellow
said: “Here was a man who gave his all, his life, his name, that
I might live. He gave his all, his life, his name, and went into
oblivion that the Union might live.” On what basis did he make
his sacrifice? The sense of duty. He died because he felt that
it was his duty to die, because he felt that if he was true to
himself he could not withhold that sacrifice. If the universe is
worthy of that servant, will it let that soldier die forever?

Jesus gave himself on the cross for the world. Why did he do it?
Because his moral nature told him to do it. He believed in the
moral ideal of human life and died that men might be pure and
come to their best. He died for an ideal--that alone explains
His sacrifice.

(1039)

FAITH, INADEQUATE

A great many people’s faith is like the old woman’s trust. The
horse ran away with a wagon in which she was seated and she was
in imminent peril. But she was rescued, and some one said to
her: “Madam, how did you feel when the horse ran away?” “Well,”
said she, “I hardly know how I felt; you see, I trusted in
Providence at first, and when the harness broke, then I gave
up.”--JOHN B. GOUGH.

(1040)

=Faith in Christ=--See CHRIST, FAITH IN.

FAITH IN GOD

I pluck an acorn from the green sward and hold it to my ear;
and this is what it says to me: “By and by the birds will come
and nest in me. By and by I will furnish shade for the cattle.
By and by I will provide warmth for the home in the pleasant
fire. By and by I will be shelter from the storm to those who
have gone under the roof. By and by I will be the strong ribs of
the great vessel, and the tempest will beat against me in vain,
while I carry men across the Atlantic.”

“Oh foolish little acorn, wilt thou be all this?”

And the acorn answered, “Yes, God and I.”--LYMAN ABBOTT.

(1041)

FAITH IN MEN

A graphic account of how Adjutant S. H. M. Byers, of the Fifth
Iowa Infantry, carried to Grant before Richmond the news of
General Sherman’s advance through North Carolina on his march
to the sea in 1865 is told in _Harper’s Weekly_. After a
perilous trip, he finally reached Grant’s headquarters at City
Point.

“I ripped open my clothing, handed him my dispatches, and
excitedly watched the pleased changes on his flushed face while
he hurriedly read the great news I had brought from Sherman,”
says Mr. Byers. “General Ord happened in at the moment, and the
good news was repeated to him. Ord clanked his spurs together,
rubbed his hands, and manifested joy. ‘I had my fears, I had my
fears,’ he muttered. ‘And I, not a bit,’ said Grant, springing
from his seat by the window, ‘I knew Sherman--I knew my man.’”

(1042)

FAITH NECESSARY

If all the world did not trust all the world, we could not do
business for a single day. The amount of coin and bank-notes in
circulation is ridiculously inadequate to the needs of business.
By far the larger part of every day’s transactions of every kind
is conducted by means of promises to pay.

The National Monetary Commission has just reported an
investigation of this matter. About seventy per cent of the
daily bank deposits consists of checks. More than ninety per
cent of the payments in wholesale dealings is made by checks,
and even more than half of the retail business is conducted
in the same way, while the banks report weekly pay-rolls
aggregating $134,800,000, seventy per cent of which is settled
by checks.

This is a gigantic illustration of the principle of faith. We
have faith in the integrity of the average man. We have faith
in the business institutions of the country. We have faith that
the future will be as good as the past. And in this faith we
continue to accept bits of paper in return for most of our labor
and the goods we sell.

In exalting the principle of faith in our relations toward God
and the concerns of the next world, religion is merely applying
to the Owner of all things the same rules that we apply without
question to the petty properties of earth.--_Christian
Endeavor World._

(1043)

=Faith of Friends=--See DEPENDENCE.

FAITH, ROAD TO

Take the little “radioscope” in your hand--a tiny tube less than
an inch in length, closed at one end, with a small magnifying
lens at the other. In the closed end of the tube you observe a
small disk of paper covered with microscopic particles of yellow
crystals--sulfid of zinc. In front of the yellow crystals is a
small metallic pointer, like the second-hand of a very small
watch, and on the end of the pointer is--nothing, absolutely
nothing, so far as your eye can see. Look at it very carefully.
No! Nothing! Now, take the little tube, go into a darkened
room, and look into it through the lens end, and you will see
a sight incredible. The metal pointer does have a minute speck
of something on its tip, and between that tip and the yellow
crystals are leaping showers of sparks of light. Will the shower
stop after a few minutes? No. After an hour? No; nor after a
thousand hours, or a thousand years, or ten thousand years! The
calculation is that that all but invisible speck on the tip of
the pointer will keep that shower of sparks going day and night,
for thirty thousand years! For that speck is radium, which
actually seems as tho it were a hot fragment struck off from
God’s great white throne, so amazing is its radiant energy.

It operates, not merely by setting “waves” in motion, but it
throws off a stream of actual particles which move with an
inconceivable velocity (at the rate, some physicists allege,
of 200,000 miles a second), and without--and here is the
miracle--without any apparent diminution in the morsel of radium
itself. It can hurl these particles literally through six inches
of armor plate. It can and does send them right through your own
head while you are looking at them, just as if your brain were
a loose sieve, as perhaps it is, or a grove of trees quite wide
apart, and a bright, flashing bird, all crimson and gold, were
flying right through the trees, without even hitting his wings.

Now, what I want to say is that the modern discovery of such
marvels as these, as being real, actual, objective, demonstrated
facts, stretches the mind out into a thrilling series of
undreamed-of possibilities, and this is a preparation for faith.
This is the first step. This is the first lamp on the modern
road to faith.--ALBERT J. LYMAN.

(1044)

FAITH, STEDFAST

Unanswered prayers are no reason for abandoning our faith in God. This is the lesson Ella Wheeler Wilcox teaches in this verse:

I will not doubt, tho all my prayers return
Unanswered from the still, white realm above;
I shall believe it is an all-wise love
Which has refused those things for which I yearn;
And tho at times I can not keep from grieving,
Yet the pure ardor of my fixt believing
Undimmed shall burn.

(1045)

FAITH TAUGHT BY NATURE

Faith bids us be of good cheer. Long ago, that old Greek studied
the mental operations of a bee, with brain not as large as a
pinhead. Here is a little bee, that organizes a city, that
builds ten thousand cells for honey, twelve thousand cells for
larvæ, a holy of holies for the mother queen; a little bee that
observes the increasing heat and when the wax may melt and the
honey be lost, organizes the swarm into squads, puts sentinels
at the entrances, glues the feet down, and then with flying
wings, creates a system of ventilation to cool the honey, that
makes an electric fan seem tawdry--a little honey-bee that will
include twenty square miles in the field over whose flowers
it has oversight. But if a tiny brain in a bee performs such
wonders providential, who are you, that you should question the
guidance of God? Lift up your eyes, and behold the hand that
supports these stars, without pillars, the God who guides the
planets without collision. Away with fear! (Text.)--N. D.
HILLIS.

(1046)

FAITH WITHOUT WORKS

A story is told of three prisoners who were captured by pirates.
One of them was put in a boat without oars and pushed out into
deep water. The boat sped along safely at first, but when a
storm broke overhead, the frail craft was tossed upon a rock
and the man was drowned. The second man was placed in a boat
with one oar, but he made no progress. Finally, he drifted into
a whirlpool and was never seen again. The third man was given
a boat with two oars and he safely crossed to the other side,
where he was received by friends.

We are all sailors on the ocean of life bound for a harbor of
safety whether we arrive in port or not. The unbeliever is the
man in the boat without oars. The person who thinks that his
faith without works will save him is the man in the boat with
only one oar. But the man who believes in God, and works out his
salvation with fear and trembling, is the man in the boat with
two oars. (Text.)

(1047)

FAITHFULNESS

To the coolness and devotion to duty of John Binns, operator
of the “wireless,” and one of the actors in the shipwreck of
the _Republic_, was due the prompt assistance accorded
the stricken passenger-steamer by sister liners. As he himself
exprest it by wireless, Binns was “on the job” from the time the
_Florida_ crashed into the _Republic_ amidships until
the last passenger had been transferred to the colliding vessel.

It was a stretch of thirty hours, and every minute of that
time the telephone receivers, which are part of the wireless
apparatus, were strapped to his eager and listening ears. Seldom
has there been a more shining example of that calm courage that
goes hand in hand with a sound sense of business duty.

Almost until the _Republic_ went down Binns kept his ship
in touch with Siasconset and passing ships by the use of
accumulators, for the shutting down of the engines ended the
power of his electric dynamos that ordinarily give the power of
transmission to the wireless.

(1048)

* * * * *

According to dispatches from Hartford, Col. Jacob L. Greene, who
was the head of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company
from 1877 until his death a year ago, left a fortune of only a
little more than $50,000. The smallness of his estate created
comment from the newspapers and much surprize in insurance
circles. It was supposed that he had taken at least some little
advantage of the many opportunities for money-making which his
position gave him.

The settlement of his estate seems to show that, during all the
time he was in the insurance business, he conducted himself
in strict accordance with the axioms which he had laid down
for the guidance of insurance men and insurance companies in
general. One of these axioms was, “A mutual company ought not to
be mulcted for the benefit of the agents.” Another was, “True
mutuality in life insurance does not seek to favor a few at the
expense of the many, nor to give to a few what many have lost.”
(Text.)

(1049)

=Faithfulness Before Rulers=--See MAGNIFYING A SACRED OFFICE.

FAITHFULNESS UNTO DEATH

A little girl one day, whose mother had entrusted her with a
penny for some small purchase, was crusht in the streets. She
did not drop the penny. Recovering from a fainting fit, dying,
she opened her firmly-closed fist, and handed her mother the
humble penny, whose small value she did not realize, saying to
her: “I have not lost it.” (Text.)

(1050)

=False Estimate=--See WORK DESPISED.

FALSE INFERENCE

Rev. A. R. Macduff, in his book of anecdotes about missionaries
on the frontier force in northwestern India, says that India
is a land where, when a tale is once set going, it is no easy
matter “to nail the lie to the counter.” Rowland Bateman, the
celebrated cricketer, who went as a missionary to India, was
a stanch teetotaler, yet a rumor was started that he and his
fellow missionaries were worshipers of the whisky bottle. It
came about this way: Once, on a preaching tour, they spent a
night in a “rest-house” which had previously been occupied by
some carousing European travelers. Empty whisky bottles were
in evidence, and Bateman utilized a couple for candlesticks to
hold the lights for the evening Scripture reading. With good
conscience, Bateman gathered his little company around the
table on which stood the candles, and they knelt in prayer all
unconscious of the interpretation a spying native was putting
upon the service. In the morning he and his band were hailed as
whisky-bottle worshipers.

(1051)

FALSE LIGHTS

Young people, sincere people, impulsive people, and imaginative
people have all a common danger--that of being led astray by
false lights. Of these false lights there are many kinds--some
bewildering the intellect, others entangling the affections
in hopeless morasses, others again misleading the sympathies,
the imagination, the belief. But they all end in the same
thing--mischief, mistake, and a loss of way. To the young and
sincere--and the young are generally sincere, up to a certain
point--organized craft and falsehood are arts of which they do
not know the formula, foreign languages whereof they do not
understand the very alphabet. Appearances stand for realities,
and words are not so much symbols in themselves. They are able
to tell their own little white lies and act their own little
falsities, of a small and insignificant and, for the most part,
transparent kind; but they do not apply their own rules to the
grammar of their elders; and when those elders say so and so the
younger believe them, and when they show such and such lights
they follow them--in many instances to the same result as those
doomed ships which were deceived on the Cornish coast, at such
time as that, let us hope legendary, parson sent out his hobbled
horse on the cliffs in a fog, with a lantern fastened to his
fore-feet, to simulate the plunging of a ship in the sea. Then
said the sailing masters of those doomed and predestined ships:
“Where one vessel can go another may,” and so plowed their way
straight onto the rocks and into the hands of death and the
wreckers. So it is with certain false lights held out to the
unwary and ignorant.--London _Queen_.

(1052)

FALSEHOOD

A form of words that is strictly true may be used to state what is wholly false:

Daniel O’Connell was engaged in a will case, the allegation
being that the will was a forgery. The subscribing witnesses
swore that the will had been signed by the deceased “while
life was in him”--a mode of expression derived from the Irish
language, and which peasants who have ceased to speak Irish
still retain. The evidence was strong in favor of the will, when
O’Connell was struck by the persistency of the man, who always
repeated the same words, “The life was in him.” O’Connell asked:
“On the virtue of your oath, was he alive?” “By the virtue of my
oath, the life was in him.” “Now I call upon you in the presence
of your Maker, who will one day pass sentence on you for this
evidence, I solemnly ask--and answer me at your peril--was there
not a live fly in the dead man’s mouth when his hand was placed
on the will?” The witness was taken aback at this question; he
trembled, turned pale, and faltered out an abject confession
that the counselor was right; a fly had been introduced into
the mouth of the dead man, to allow the witnesses to swear that
“life was in him.” (Text.)--CROAKE JAMES, “Curiosities
of Law and Lawyers.”

(1053)

=Falsehood from Kindness=--See KINDNESS VIOLATING TRUTH.

=False Safety=--See DEATH, CHRISTIAN ATTITUDE TOWARD.

FALSITY, INNER

It takes the greatest cunning and a life of practical study to
know how long, how thick, and exactly where the soundbar should
be in each instrument. The health and morale of many an old
violin has been impaired by its nervous system being ignorantly
tampered with. Every old violin, with the exception of the
“Pucelle,” has had its soundbar replaced, or it would never
have endured the increased tightness of strings brought in with
our modern pitch. Many good forgeries have thus been exposed,
for in taking the reputed Stradivarius to pieces, the rough,
clumsy work inside, contrasting with the exquisite finish of
the old masters, betrays at once the coarseness of a body that
never really held the soul of a Cremona. (Text.)--H. R.
HAWEIS, “My Musical Memories.”

(1054)

FAME

Fame is the sound which the stream of high thoughts, carried
down to future ages, makes as it flows; deep, distant, murmuring
evermore like the waters of the mighty ocean. He who has ears
truly touched to this music is, in a manner, deaf to the voice
of popularity.--WILLIAM HAZLITT.

(1055)

* * * * *

The following anecdote of Björnson, the Norwegian poet, illustrates the peculiar turn that seized a mischievous delegation:

Björnson was once asked on what occasion he got the greatest
pleasure from his fame as a poet. His answer was:

“It was when a delegation from the Right came to my house in
Christiania and smashed all the windows. Because, when they had
thus attacked me and were starting for home again, they felt
that they ought to sing something, and so they began to sing,
‘Yes, we love this land of ours.’ They could do nothing else!
They had to sing the song of the man they had attacked.”

(1056)

FAME AND TIME

The crowning glory of the popular Japanese school was Hokusai, “The old man mad about painting,” who wrote of himself, in a preface to his “Hundred Views of Fuji”:

At seventy-five I have learned a little about the real structure
of nature--of animals, plants and trees, birds, fishes and
insects. In consequence, when I am eighty, I shall have made
still more progress. At ninety I shall penetrate the mystery of
things; at a hundred I shall certainly have reached a marvelous
stage, and when I am a hundred and ten, everything I do--be it
but a line or dot--will be alive. I beg those who live as long
as I do to see if I do not keep my word.

Hokusai died in 1849, at the age of eighty-nine, his work revealing a continual increase in power to the last. Of his work, Mrs. Amsden writes:

His fecundity was marvelous. He illustrated books of all
kinds, poetry, comic albums, accounts of travels--in fact,
his works are an encyclopedia of Japanese life. His paintings
are scattered, and countless numbers lost, many being merely
ephemeral drawings, thrown off for the passing pleasure of the
populace.

On his death-bed Hokusai murmured, “If heaven had but granted me five more years I could have been a repainter.”--DORA AMSDEN, “Impressions of Ukiyo-ye.”

(1057)

FAME, ILLUSIVE

A rather amusing illustration of the slender foundation on which literary fame rests is found in the following:

“Literary fame is not always highly regarded by the people,”
says William Dean Howells. “I remember when I was in San Remo,
some years ago, seeing in a French newspaper this notice by a
rat-trap maker of Lyons:

“‘To whom it may concern: M. Pierre Loti, of Lyons, inventor of
the automatic rat-trap, begs to state that he is not the same
person and that he has nothing in common with one Pierre Loti, a
writer.’”

(1058)

FAME, QUALIFYING FOR

Benjamin West’s picture of the death of Nelson is closely
connected with an anecdote of the great sailor. Just before
he went to sea for the last time, he was present at a dinner,
during which he sat between the artist and Sir William Hamilton.

Nelson was expressing to Hamilton his regret that he had not, in
his youth, acquired some taste for art and some discrimination
in judging it.

“But,” said he, turning to West, “there is one picture whose
power I do feel. I never pass a shop where your ‘Death of Wolfe’
is in the window without being stopt by it.”

West made some gracious answer to the compliment, and Nelson
went on. “Why have you painted no more like it?”

“Because, my lord,” West replied, “there are no more subjects.”

“Ah!” said the sailor, “I didn’t think of that.”

“But, my lord,” continued West, “I am afraid your intrepidity
will yet furnish me with another such scene; and if it should, I
shall certainly avail myself of it.”

“Will you?” said Nelson. “Will you, Mr. West? Then I hope I
shall die in the next battle!”

A few days later he sailed, his strangely exprest aspiration was
realized, and the scene lives upon canvas.

(1059)

FAME, SUDDEN

The name of “U. S. Grant, Nashville,” on the Lindell Hotel
(St. Louis) register was sufficient to spread the news of his
presence with almost the rapidity of wildfire throughout the
city. The Lindell lobby was soon thronged with people eager to
catch a glimpse of the little man who had won the battle of
Chattanooga. The streets which he paced in vain, time and again,
only five years before in search of employment, now resounded
with cheers in his honor.--NICHOLAS SMITH, “Grant, the
Man of Mystery.”

(1060)

=Fame Unsatisfying=--See UNHAPPINESS OF THE GREAT.

FAMILIARITY

Acuteness of the perceptive faculties characterized the
celebrated Maine steamship captain who, for more than twenty
years, is said to have regularly navigated his vessel in the
thickest fogs and darkest nights through the tortuous reaches,
thoroughfares, and channels of the “inside passage” along the
coast of Maine, without accident. When asked for an explanation
of his remarkable record, he replied, “I knew the bark of every
dog and the crow of every rooster on the line, and often steered
by them.”--SUMNER I. KIMBALL, “Joshua James.”

(1061)

FAMILY CIRCLE

In Korea the family exists, but not the circle. There is no
table around which they gather for meals, no reading nor music,
no evening parties which draw them together, no “At Homes,” no
family pew in which to sit on Sunday, no picnic excursions in
which all members join. The master eats by himself, the wife
by herself, the sons and daughters each separately and alone.
Because of this, our custom of conversing at table, and allowing
the talk and attention to wander all over the universe, while
semiconsciously engaged in the serious act of “eating rice,”
seems very absurd. “When you eat, eat, and when you talk, talk,
but why try both at one and the same time?”--JAMES S.
GALE, “Korea in Transition.”

(1062)

FAMILY OFFENSE IN STORKS

The following stories concerning storks seem to indicate that
they have views concerning the purity of their race and act
upon them: Bishop Stanley relates that a French surgeon at
Smyrna, being unable to procure a stork, on account of the
great veneration entertained for them by the Turks, purloined
all the eggs from a stork’s nest and replaced them with hen’s
eggs. Ultimately, chickens were hatched, greatly to the surprize
of the storks. The male stork speedily disappeared and was not
seen for two or three days, when he returned with a large
number of other storks, who assembled in a circle in the town,
without paying any attention to the numerous spectators their
proceedings attracted. The female stork was brought into the
midst of the circle, and, after some discussion, was attacked
by the whole flock and torn to pieces. The assemblage then
dispersed and the nest was left tenantless. A somewhat similar
case has been cited by the same author as having occurred in the
vicinity of Berlin. Two storks made their nest on one of the
chimneys of a mansion, and the owner of the house, inspecting
it, found in it an egg, which he replaced by one belonging to
a goose. The stork did not appear to notice the change until
the egg was hatched, when the male bird rose from the nest,
and, after flying around it several times with loud screams,
disappeared. For some days the female bird continued to tend
the changeling without interruption; but on the morning of the
fourth day the inmates of the house were disturbed by loud cries
in a field fronting it. The noise proceeded from nearly five
hundred storks standing in a compact body listening, apparently,
to the harangue of a solitary bird about twenty yards off. When
this bird had concluded its address it retired and another took
its place and addrest the meeting in a similar manner. These
proceedings were continued by a succession of birds until eleven
in the forenoon, when the whole court rose simultaneously into
the air, uttering dismal cries. All this time the female had
remained in her nest, but in evident fear. When the meeting
broke up all the storks flew toward her, headed by one--supposed
to be the offended husband--who struck her violently three or
four times, knocking her out of the nest. The unfortunate stork
made no effort to defend herself, and was speedily destroyed by
the troop, who also annihilated the hapless gosling and left
not a fragment of the contaminated nest.--_Popular Science
Monthly._

(1063)

FAMILY RELIGION

During a series of revival meetings in a town in Ohio a very
earnest and intelligent little boy was converted. Several nights
after he brought his mother to the meeting, and was solicitous
for her conversion. He spoke to one of the workers and asked
that his mother might be invited to seek the Lord. The woman was
approached, but said emphatically that she had been converted.
The little fellow was informed of his mother’s answer, that she
was converted, when with an astonished expression, he said:
“First I’d knowed about it.” Certainly if that mother had given
any evidence that she was a Christian her little boy would have
found it out. What a low conception of Christianity some people
have, and how poorly they exemplify it before their children and
neighbors. They are so far beneath the Bible standard, as well
as beneath the privilege, that no one even suspects that they
make a profession of Christianity.

(1064)

* * * * *

A great many people say there is nothing in the Christian
discipline of a household. Let us see. In New Hampshire, there
were two neighborhoods--the one of six families, the other of
five families. The six families disregarded the Sabbath. In
time, five of these families were broken up by the separation
of husbands and wives; the other, by the father becoming a
thief. Eight or nine of the parents became drunkards, one
committed suicide, and all came to penury. Of some forty or
fifty descendants, about twenty are known to be drunkards and
gamblers and dissolute. Four or five have been in state-prison.
One fell in a duel. Some are in the almshouse. Only one became
a Christian, and he after having been outrageously dissipated.
The other five families, that regarded the Sabbath, were all
prospered. Eight or ten of the children are consistent members
of the church. Some of them became officers in the church; one
is a minister of the gospel; one is a missionary in China. No
poverty among them. The homestead is now in the hands of the
third generation. Those who have died have died in the peace of
the gospel. (Text.)--T. DE WITT TALMAGE.

(1065)

FANCY, DECEPTIVE

It requires experience and love of reality to avoid the deceptions of life.

“During the conflagration at the Crystal Palace in the winter
of 1866–67, when the animals were destroyed by the fire, it
was supposed that the chimpanzee had succeeded in escaping
from his cage. Attracted to the roof, with this expectation in
full force, men saw the unhappy animal holding on to it, and
writhing in agony to get astride of one of the iron ribs. It
need not be said that its struggles were watched by those below
with breathless suspense, and, as the newspapers informed us,
with sickening dread.” But there was no animal whatever there;
and all this feeling was thrown away upon a tattered piece of
blind, so torn as to resemble, to the eye of fancy, the body,
arms, and legs of an ape!--EDWIN J. HOUSTON, “The
Wonder Book of Light.”

(1066)

=Fashion, Absurd=--See ABSURD NOTIONS.

FAST LIVING

The railroad has compelled us all to live fast. The pace of the
locomotive kills. Everywhere we see among our people an alarming
increase of serious diseases. People become anxious, irritable,
nervous and hurried. Something snaps, and the end comes quickly.
As an evidence that this intensity of experience is harmful, we
may notice the rapidly shortening hours of labor, the increase
of holidays, the lengthening of vacations, and the disposition
among the city people to spend more and more time in the country
during the summer. All these are defenses against the wear and
tear of city life--why? Because people and things can be moved
so fast that all business moves faster and faster, and for such
a killing pace we must have the relief of more rest and longer
vacations. The railroad has in all these directions changed our
social and business life so that we lead wholly different lives
from all the men who have gone before. On the other hand, it has
been of very great mental benefit. It is said that insanity was
at one time very common among farmers. The dulness and stupidity
of their lives drove them into mental collapse. The railroad now
brings the town to the farm, the city paper comes to the rural
fireside, and trips to town are cheap and easy. The appalling
monotony of country life is quickened by the rush of the train
through the quiet valleys and life seems more worth living,
because more interesting. Balancing one thing against another
we must conclude that there is a gain in all this.--CHARLES
BARNARD, _The Chautauquan_.

(1067)

=Fastidiousness=--See COOLNESS IN DANGER.

FASTING

The month of fasting was probably borrowed by Mohammed from the Christian Lent. There are many traditions that tell how important fasting is. Let one suffice:

Every good act that a man does shall receive from ten to seven
hundred rewards, but the rewards of fasting are beyond bounds,
for fasting is for God alone and He will give its rewards.
The chief Moslem fast is that of the month of Ramazan. The
fast is extremely hard upon the laboring classes when, by the
changes of the lunar calendar, it falls in the heat of summer,
when the days are long. Even then it is forbidden to drink a
drop of water or take a morsel of food. Yet it is a fact that
Mohammedans, rich and poor, spend more on food in that month
than in any other month of the year; and it is also true that
physicians have a run of patients with troubles from indigestion
at the close of this religious fast! The explanation is simple.
Altho the fast extends over one lunar month, it only begins at
dawn and ends at sunset each day. During the whole night it is
usual to indulge in pleasure, feasting and dinner parties. This
makes clear what Mohammed meant when he said that “God would
make the fast an ease and not a difficulty.”

The hours during which fasting is prescribed are to be sacredly
observed. Not only is there total abstinence from food and
drink, but bathing, smoking, taking snuff, smelling a flower,
and the use of medicine are prohibited. I have even heard Moslem
jurists discuss whether hypodermic medication was allowed during
the fast period. In eastern Arabia the use of an eye-lotion
even is considered as equivalent to breaking the fast. The law
provides, however, that infants, idiots, the sick, and the
aged are exempted from observing this fast.--SAMUEL M.
ZWEMER, “The Moslem World.”

(1068)

* * * * *

In a remarkable case, recorded by Dr. Wilan, of a young
gentleman who starved himself under the influence of a religious
delusion, life was prolonged for sixty days, during the whole
of which time nothing but a little orange-juice was taken.
Somewhat analogous are those in which all food is abstained
from while the person is in a state of trance or partially
suspended animation. This state may be prolonged for many days
or even for weeks, provided that the body be kept sufficiently
warm. The most remarkable instances of this character have been
furnished by certain Indian fakirs, who are able to reduce
themselves to a state resembling profound collapse, in which
all vital operations are brought almost to a standstill. In one
case, the man was buried in an underground cell for six weeks,
and carefully watched; in another, the man was buried for ten
days in a grave lined with masonry, and covered with large
slabs of stone. When the bodies were disinterred they resembled
corpses and no pulsation could be detected at the heart or in
the arteries. Vitality was restored by warmth and friction. It
is probable that the fakirs, before submitting to the ordeal,
stupefied themselves with bhang (Indian hemp), the effects of
which would last for some time, and the warmth of the atmosphere
and soil would prevent any serious loss of heat, such as would
soon occur in a colder climate, when the processes by which it
is generated are made to cease. (Text.)--ROBSON ROOSE,
New York _Review_.

(1069)

FATHER ANIMALS UNPARENTAL

In very few animals do the males ever attempt to protect the
females, even where the latter have their young to take care
of. When the hen with her brood of chickens is attacked, it is
not the cock that ruffs his feathers and defends them with his
spurs; it is the mother herself that defends them. The cock is
always found with hens that have no chickens, and only uses
his spurs in fighting with other cocks that have no notion of
injuring the females. In the entire animal kingdom the cases
where the male uses his great powers to protect the female or
the young, or to bring them food, are so rare that where they
are observed they are recorded as curious approximations to the
social state of man. (Text.)--LESTER F. WARD, _The
Forum_.

(1070)

FATHERHOOD

Dr. Cortland Myers, of Boston, relates the following story, as told by a ship’s surgeon: