Chapter M: B. Banks writes a missionary lesson after the style of “Mother (1)

Goose”:

Little Jack Horner
Sat in a corner
Eating a very queer pie;
He saw in a trice
It held everything nice
From the lands where the mission fields lie.

From Ceylon came the spice,
And from China the rice,
And bananas from African highlands;
There were nutmegs and cloves
Sent from Borneo’s groves,
And yams from the South Sea Islands.

There were nuts from Brazil
All the corners to fill,
And sugar and sago from Siam;
And from Turkey a fig
That was really so big,
Jack’s mouth thought, “It’s larger than I am.”

There were pomegranates fair
Grown in Persia’s soft air,
And tortillas from Mexico found there;
And there did appear
Grapes and grains from Korea,
And all of the things that abound there.

A Syrian date
Did not turn up too late;
He need not for tea to Japan go;
Tamerinds were not few,
There were oranges too,
And from India many a mango.

“Now,” thought little Jack,
“What shall I send back
To these lands for their presents to me?
The Bible, indeed,
Is what they all need
So that shall go over the sea.”

(1282)

=Gospel, Spread the=--See STORY, POWER OF THE OLD.

GOSPEL SUCCESS

Mr. Nagota, Japanese pastor of the Episcopal Church in Tsu,
gives the following account of his conversion to Christianity:
A colporteur was trying to persuade a soldier to buy a gospel.
He was rebuffed by gross insults and most uncalled for anger.
The colporteur bore the indignity with so much meekness that Mr.
Nagota, who chanced to be passing by, was amazed, and bought
the gospel for the sake of the maligned man. He took the little
volume home and read it carefully, and through reading, became a
Christian.

(1283)

GOSPEL, TRANSFORMING POWER OF THE

A striking illustration of this is found in the history of the noted African chief, Africaner, notorious in his day until reached by the gospel:

In 1819, finding it necessary to go to Cape Town, Moffat
determined to take Africaner with him, attired as his attendant.
The chief was an outlaw, with a price of one thousand
rix-dollars upon his head, but finally agreed tc go. As they
passed through the Dutch farms on his way, Moffat found that he
was supposed to have been long before murdered by Africaner.
One man told him that he had seen Moffat’s bones. Moffat told
a farmer that Africaner (the chief being still in disguise) he
knew to be a truly good man. This the man could not credit, and
said that his one wish was to see that terror before he himself
should die; whereupon Moffat turned and said quietly, pointing
to his mild attendant, “This, then, is Africaner.” The farmer,
looking at the Christian man before him, exclaimed: “O God, what
a miracle of Thy power! What can not Thy grace accomplish!”

That which Africaner exhibited of the power of the gospel in character, is shown by a host of redeemed ones, such as Jerry McAuley, who through their careers, have magnified the power that saved them.--“Gloria Christi.”

(1284)

=Gospel Truth Written in Faces=--See FACE, THE, REVEALING THE
GOSPEL.

=Gossip=--See OTHER SIDE, THE.

GRACE

Grace in human agents is manifested in doing the good we are under no just obligation to do:

The Plymouth Congregational Church, of Cleveland, Ohio, years
ago built themselves a beautiful church edifice. The contractor
drew the money due for work done, and instead of paying his
workmen, left for parts unknown, carrying the funds with him.
These workmen had not a shadow of a claim upon the trustees,
and expected nothing from them. But thirteen hundred dollars
were due them from the absconded contractor, and they needed the
money. The pastor, Rev. Mr. Collins, said to his people: “True,
we do not owe these men a farthing; still, let us make an effort
to give them what their dishonest employer owes them, and never
let it be said that unrequited toil went into the rearing of
this temple of the Most High.” And all the people said, Amen.
The laborers went that night to their homes rejoicing, carrying
their lost and found pieces of silver with them.

(1285)

See LAW AND GRACE.

GRACE, NOT GROWTH

Touch a piece of black coal, and flaky soot falls off; fuse that
coal with fire, and nature makes it impossible for the carbon to
throw off blackness, but only light and heat. One of the biggest
facts in human experience is this, that a new heart is possible
for bad men. Salvation is a gift. Once a bitter orange, growth
and culture only increases the size and flavor of the bitter
orange. The husbandman grafts, as a free gift, the new sweet
fruit into the old root. Every tree in the modern orchard
represents a twig cut from a tested apple, and grafted into the
wild root. Education, the passing years, simply increase the
size of the selfish man, the avaricious man, the pleasure-loving
man, but the new impulse is an exotic from heaven, grafted
into life. Not growth, but grace saves us. (Text.)--N. D.
HILLIS.

(1286)

GRACE, PERSEVERING

Polycrates, a prosperous prince of the Egean shore long
centuries ago, to ward off misfortune, caused a very valuable
signet ring which he kept among his treasures, set in gold and
of exquisite workmanship, to be carried far out to sea in a
fifty-oared galley fully manned, and cast overboard. He saw it
sink, to rise, as he supposed, no more. A few days afterward a
fisherman plying his profession on that coast, caught a fish of
extraordinary size and beauty, and took it to Polycrates, who
was amazed to discover, on opening the fish, his own precious
ring.

It is just as hard to lose divine grace and love which we are so apt to throw away, but which persists in returning to us.

(1287)

GRACE SUFFICIENT

An eccentric divine preaching from “I will run in the way of thy
commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart,” began, “Well,
David, what is your first remark? ‘I will run.’ Run away, David!
What hinders you? What is your next word? ‘In the way of thy
commandments.’ Better yet, David. And what next? ‘When thou
shalt enlarge my heart.’ No thanks to you, David. We could all
run as well as you with such help.”

(1288)

GRACIOUSNESS IN WOMEN

Some club women interested in civic reform were gathered in
the office of a city executive waiting for an interview. They
were charming, clever women, well drest, and at ease in any
surroundings. As they waited they chatted of various things, and
one told that her little son had been quite badly burned a few
days before. The others spoke sympathetically. On the opposite
side of the office sat a poor, battered wreck of womanhood,
there on an errand widely different from theirs.

“The next time your little boy gets burned you put linseed-oil
and lime-water on it. You ought to keep it handy. There ain’t
nothing like it to take out the fire,” said the poor creature.

It was her assertion of sisterhood in the common trials of
humanity.

Most of the women froze instantly, indignant that she had dared
address them in a familiar way. But the one faced her frankly.
“Yes,” she said, “that is good. It is just what the doctor told
me to use. It is kind of you to tell me about it.”

There was no familiarity in her manner, nor was there a hint of
superiority. She, too, recognized the universal sisterhood, and
spoke to the woman across from her on that level.

She was one of the women who always do the gracious thing
because of an abiding grace within. There are too many women who
appear charming in their own circle, but who must snub those
they consider inferior. Manners at their best are but a poor
substitute for the real graciousness that comes from the heart
that has kindly thoughts for all.--_The Housekeeper._

(1289)

=Gradualness of Evil=--See DESTRUCTIVENESS.

=Graft Rebuked=--See CHARACTER NOT PURCHASABLE.

GRAIN

The burning pen of inspiration, ranging heaven and earth for
a similitude, to convey to our poor minds some not inadequate
idea of the mighty doctrine of the resurrection, can find no
symbol so expressive as “bare grain, it may chance of wheat
or some other grain.” To-day a senseless plant, to-morrow it
is human bone and muscle, vein and artery, sinew and nerve;
beating pulse, heaving lungs, toiling, ah, sometimes overtoiling
brain. Last June, it sucked from the cold breast of the earth
the watery nourishment of its distending sap-vessels; and now
it clothes the manly form with warm, cordial flesh; quivers
and thrills with the five-fold mystery of sense; purveys and
administers to the higher mystery of thought. Heaped up in your
granaries this week, the next it will strike in the stalwart
arm, and glow in the blushing cheek, and flash in the beaming
eye; till we learn at last to realize that the slender stalk,
which we have seen shaken by the summer breeze, bending in the
corn-field under the yellow burden of harvest, is indeed the
“staff of life,” which, since the world began, has supported
the toiling and struggling myriads of humanity on the mighty
pilgrimage of being.--EDWARD EVERETT.

(1290)

GRATITUDE

A young girl in Scotland was in danger of perishing in a storm,
when the stream was in flood. She vowed that if God would save
her life and help her in the future, she would build a bridge
over the dangerous chasm. Her prayer was heard. She lived to
build the bridge, and to leave an endowment for the poor of the
parish. On the keystone of the bridge were written these words:
“God and We.” That was the secret of success in her life-work.

(1291)

* * * * *

A missionary in China met an aged man who was measuring with the
length of his body a pilgrimage of one hundred miles. He would
kotow; that is, bump his head three times upon the ground, then
prostrate himself full length; get up, repeat, and still repeat.
When asked why he was doing this he said: “My son was very
ill. I prayed and vowed to the god of health that if he would
spare my son, I would measure with my body every mile of this
pilgrimage to the tombs of my ancestors. He was spared to me. I
must keep my vow. No one can help me. I must go alone.”

Was he not presenting his body a living sacrifice, mistaken, of course, in form, but faithful in spirit?

(1292)

* * * * *

Out of gratitude to the girl who saved the lives of his three
children when fire occurred at his home in Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, William Landsberg cheerfully submitted himself to
physicians at the Long Island College Hospital and allowed them
to take forty square inches of skin from his body in order that
it might be grafted upon the burned body of Miss Elsie Wobetta,
who had been employed as a domestic at his home.

Landsberg agreed to the operation when he learned that it was
necessary in order to save the girl’s life. Earlier in the
morning the physicians had already taken twenty square inches
of skin from the unburnt portions of Miss Wobetta’s body, but
this was not nearly enough to cover her frightful burns, and her
condition was too precarious to submit her to another shock.

Landsberg was notified, and he immediately quit work and went
to the hospital, where he placed himself at the disposal of the
surgeons.

“It is the least I can do for the girl who saved the lives of my
little ones,” he said calmly, when the doctors told him that the
test would be a severe one.

He was placed on the operating table and the operation of
removing the skin was performed. Strips of skin an inch wide and
five inches long were taken from Landsberg’s body.

The operation brought to light the heroic act on the part of
Miss Wobetta that should entitle her to a Carnegie medal. Some
time ago fire broke out in the Landsberg home. The upper part of
the house was soon in flames and during all the excitement--it
was early in the morning--no one seemed to think of the three
children of Landsberg except this young domestic, who fought
her way through the stifling smoke and flames until she reached
the nursery. There, altho her own clothing was aflame and she
was almost stifled by the smoke, she rescued the three small
children and helped carry them to a place of safety.

She was frightfully burned on the arms, breast, side and back,
and it was not thought for a long time that she could survive.
For several weeks she lingered and the surgeons agreed that all
that could save her life would be the grafting of new skin on
the burned places that would not heal.

(1293)

See INVESTMENT RETURN; RESCUE; UNSELFISHNESS.

GRATITUDE, UNCALCULATING

Henry Van Dyke, in _The Outlook_, expresses the spontaneous nature of true gratitude:

Do you give thanks for this, or that? No, God be thanked,
I am not grateful
In that cold calculating way, with blessings ranked
As one, two, three, and four--that would be hateful!

I only know that every day brings good above
My poor deserving;
I only feel that on the road of life true Love
Is leading me along and never swerving.

Whatever turn the path may take to left or right,
I think it follows
The tracing of a wiser hand, through dark and light,
Across the hills and in the shady hollows.

Whatever gifts the hours bestow, or great or small,
I would not measure
As worth a certain price in praise, but take them all
And use them all, with simple, heartfelt pleasure.

For when we gladly eat our daily bread, we bless
The hand that feeds us;
And when we walk along life’s way in cheerfulness,
Our very heart-beats praise the Love that leads us.

(1294)

=Gratuities=--See RIDICULE, APT.

GRAVITATION AND ICEBERGS

The hundreds of thousands of icebergs that every spring and
summer terrify our ocean steamers are simply detachments from
the glaciers that perpetually cover the face of northern lands.
As far as can be learned, the interior of Greenland has a
surface of tall hills and deep gulches, with an elevated range
rather on the eastern side, running from north to south. Hence,
if the climate of the interior of Greenland were mild, this
extended range would serve as a watershed diverting streams to
the sea on both sides. But the temperature some distance inland
is nearly always below the freezing point, so that the almost
constant snowfall and the brief midsummer rains remain on the
surface, accumulating year after year, till there are formed
thousands of square miles of blue compact ice, some of it over
1,500 feet thick. This enormous body of ice, like water, is
subject to the laws of gravitation, and is eternally on the
march to the sea. But its rate of travel is so slow as to be
in most places imperceptible to the eye. So deep is this mass
of inland ice that after a couple of days’ march from the sea
there are no longer any hills visible, the entire landscape
being white and naked. The ice from the higher ground is being
constantly forced into the valleys and most of these valleys
terminate toward the sea in very deep fjords. These fjords
are in reality the launchways for most of the ice-floes and a
great many of the bergs. You might lie for hours in your boat
by most of the glaciers where they enter the sea, and not be
aware that they were moving; but each one pushes constantly,
and at a regular rate of speed, outward and outward into the
sea, till the buoyancy of the water under it causes it to break
at the shore, and sets it free to rove the ocean for thousands
of miles, till it melts in Southern latitudes.--EDMUND
COLLINS, _Harper’s Weekly_.

(1295)

GRAVITATION, LAW OF

Time after time astronomers have found seeming irregularities
in the planets’ motions, which they could not explain by, nor
deduce from this law of Newton’s (law of gravitation). In every
case, however, later investigations showed the fault to lie in
the imperfections of their methods; their calculations, or their
assumptions in regard to the number and size of the planets
were in error, not the law of gravitation. A discrepancy of
only two minutes between the observed and theoretical places of
Uranus led to the discovery of Neptune, and possibly the minute
discrepancy in the motions of Mercury may lead to important
discoveries regarding the properties or distribution of matter
in the neighborhood of the sun.--CHARLES LANE POOR,
“The Solar System.”

(1296)

GRAVITATION, MORAL

When the strata of the earth forms, the heaviest elements work
down to the bottom, the next heaviest fall on these, and so on
to the top, where the lightest will be found.

The same is true of men. You do not have to do anything to men to put them down or lift them up. Every man sooner or later goes “to his own place.”

(1297)

GRAVITY

Shiel told Moore of a good thing said by Keller, an Irish
barrister. Keller, meeting some judge, an old friend of his,
a steady, solemn fellow who had succeeded as much in his
profession as Keller had failed, said to him: “In opposition
to all the laws of natural philosophy, you have risen by your
gravity, while I have sunk by my levity!” (Text.)--CROAKE
JAMES, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

(1298)

GREAT MEN SHOULD BE PROVIDED FOR

We can not secure the great man’s arrival, but when he has come
we can show that we know him and appreciate him, as the bees
know and appreciate the one who is, of all others, most valuable
to the hive. When “Dexter,” the famous race-horse owned by
Robert Bonner, was found drawing a clay-cart, and the signs of
speed in him were unmistakable, what a world of excitement there
was! No harness was too fine, no stable too good for him. He had
valets to attend his most delicate wants--watchers by night and
by day. I do not say there was the slightest unappropriateness
in this. I merely ask if the man of wonderful possibilities is
not of as much account and deserving of as much care as the
wonderful horse. The great man, or man of genius, will forego
yachts and palaces and the muniments of wealth, tho he could
enjoy them. What he needs at once is that sure provision which
shall give him subsistence and leave him free from worldly toil
and worry, as a prerequisite to prosecuting his work.--JOEL
BENTON, _Lippincott’s_.

(1299)

GREAT MEN’S BEGINNINGS

The parents of Isaac Barrow, the celebrated English divine,
conceived so mean an opinion of his temper and parts when he was
a boy at the Charterhouse School, that his father used to say,
if it pleased God to take from him any of his children, he hoped
it might be Isaac, the least promising. Adam Clarke’s father
was equally uncomplimentary to his own flesh and blood when he
proclaimed his son to be “a grievous dunce.” Poe, at West Point,
was a laughing-stock to his schoolmates. Sheridan’s mother
presented him to a new tutor as “an incorrigible dunce.” Byron,
at Harrow, was in no wise distinguished above his fellows.
Napoleon and Wellington in their schooldays were distinguished
only for dulness.--_Lippincott’s Magazine._

(1300)

=Great, The, and Little Contrasted=--See SINS, ACCUMULATED.

=Greater, The, Controlling the Lesser=--See MASTER-MIND, THE.

GREATNESS

Homer makes his hero, like Saul, a head and shoulders taller
than the soldiers around him. And Egyptian artists paint their
conquering monarch twenty times as tall as the pigmy enemy whom
he is destroying at a single blow.

True greatness is more than stature.

(1301)

* * * * *

Upon his return to Washington, Grant made preparations to leave
immediately for the West, but at the close of a consultation
with the President and the Secretary of War, he was informed
that Mrs. Lincoln expected his presence the same evening at
a military dinner to be given in his honor, at which twelve
distinguished officers, then in the city, were to be present.
Frank B. Carpenter, who was then at the White House, working on
his celebrated painting, “Lincoln and His Cabinet,” says Grant
turned to the President and said that it would be impossible
for him to remain over as he must be in Tennessee at a given
time. The President insisted that he could not be excused, and
here we have another manifestation of Grant’s independence and
willpower. He said to Lincoln: “But the time is very precious
just now, and really, Mr. President, I believe I have had enough
of this show business.”

So, while the man of deeds--indifferent to blandishments and
caring nothing for receptions--was speeding on his way to
Nashville to meet Sherman and talk over the momentous business
of trying to end the war, the twelve “distinguished” officers
were banqueted without a guest of honor. But perhaps in the
feasting and the merrymaking of the night, they could not but
ponder over the strange things which had come to pass that
day--a general so devoted to his duties in the field as to have
no time or desire to be received by Congress or banqueted by
the wife of a President; a man who had been out of the position
of a common store-clerk hardly three years, given command of
all the Union forces on land and sea; a great load lifted from
the long-burdened heart of Lincoln; the bells of time ringing
in a better day for the cause of the Union.--Col. NICHOLAS
SMITH, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”

(1302)

GREATNESS APPRECIATED

Mr. Moore, writing in _The Congregationalist_ on “The Benediction of a Statue,” says:

The man was only one of the thousands that have stopt for a
moment or two at least in front of the Phillips Brooks statue
during the past week. He was a working man of about fifty, with
a strong, square-jawed, bronzed face. He had evidently come over
to look at the statue during the noon hour, for he had on his
blue flannel shirt and carpenter’s overalls. He gazed a moment
and then brushed his eyes rather furtively.

“How do you like the statue?” he was asked.

“It’s fine, but isn’t quite Phillips Brooks. It’s a strong face
like his, but I sort of miss the light in the eyes. It isn’t as
kind-looking as Phillips Brooks.”

“You knew him, then?”

“Yes, I knew him well. I have talked with him many times. He
always spoke to me on the street. He used to always ask about
the wife and baby, and now--the wife has gone on beyond, too.”

He took a last look at the statue and then hurried away, for it
was almost one o’clock. Just then a colored man of about forty
joined the group.

“Know him? Why, I knew him as well as I know my wife. I used
to be charman of a house just a few doors away from his on
Clarendon Street. He always said, ‘Good-morning, John,’ to
me when he met me, as he was going over to the church in the
morning. Of course, when I knew him he was older than the statue
shows him. He never spoke to you like he was saying, ‘I’m the
rich Mr. Brooks.’ He treated you just like you was as good as
him.”

Two messenger-boys stopt for a moment. “Who’s that man?” one
asked the other.

“Why, that’s a great preacher that used to preach in that
church. They say he was an awfully good man. They say he could
preach like anything, and yet he was just as common with folks
as anybody.”

An intelligent, rather elderly Hebrew was criticizing the statue
very severely to several people, but he said: “I used to go to
school with him. He was certainly a wonderful preacher and a
very, very good man. He surely deserved the best statue Boston
could ever put up for him. But I dislike the background and the
other figure in this very much.”

(1303)

GREATNESS CALLED FORTH

At every great call for great deeds the right man comes out of the common crowd to do it, this is the truth Sam. Walter Foss enforces in these verses:

Men seem as alike as the leaves on the trees,
As alike as the bees in the swarming of bees;
And we look at the millions that make up the state,
All equally little and equally great,
And the pride of our courage is cowed.
Then fate calls for a man who is larger than men,
There is a surge in the crowd--there’s a movement--and then
There arises the man who is larger than men--
And the man comes up from the crowd.

The chasers of trifles run hither and yon,
And the mean little days of small trifles go on,
And the world seems no better at sunset than dawn,
And the race still increases its plentiful spawn,
And the voice of our wailing is loud.
Then the great deed calls out for the great man to come,
And the crowd unbelieving, sits sullen and dumb--
But the great deed is done, for the great man is come--
Ay, the man comes up from the crowd. (Text.)

(1304)

GREATNESS DISCOUNTED

Daniel Webster in the very height of his fame, just after
his famous Bunker Hill speech, took a run down to his native
village which he had not visited in so many years that he found
himself quite unrecognized by his former cronies. Accosting an
old friend of the Websters, he gradually, after due discussion
of the weather and the crops, turned the conversation upon his
own family. Thereupon his companion burst out into enthusiastic
encomiums upon the virtues and abilities of Daniel’s elder
brother Ebenezer, who had died young and whose early death
he fittingly deplored. Daniel slipt in a modest query as to
whether there was not a brother named Dan. “He never was much
account,” said the old gentleman, with a shake of his head.
“I believe he went up to Boston and became some kind of a
lawyer.”--_Lippincott’s Magazine._

(1305)

GREATNESS, HEROIC

A truly great soul is the man described by Sarah Knowles Bolton in the verse below:

I like the man who faces what he must
With heart triumphant and a step of cheer;
Who fights the daily battle without fear;
Sees his hopes fail, yet keeps unfaltering trust
That God is God; that somehow, true and just,
His plans work out for mortals; not a tear
Is shed when fortune, which the world holds dear,
Falls from his grasp; better, with love, a crust
Than living in dishonor; envies not,
Nor loses faith in man; but does his best,
Nor even murmurs at his humbler lot;
But with a smile and words of hope, gives zest
To every toiler; he alone is great
Who by a life heroic conquers fate.

(1306)

GREATNESS, HUMAN, A BAUBLE

Having strayed by some odd eddy of circumstance into the House
of Lords, when the King was present, John Wesley draws a
picturesque little vignette of him.

“I was in the robe-chamber, adjoining the House of Lords,
when the King (George II) put on his robes. His brow was much
furrowed with age, and quite clouded with care. And is this
all the world can give even to a king, all the grandeur it can
afford? A blanket of ermine round his shoulders, so heavy and
cumbersome he can scarce move under it! A huge heap of borrowed
hair, with a few plates of gold and glittering stones upon
his head! Alas, what a bauble is human greatness!”--W. H.
FITCHETT, “Wesley and His Century.”

(1307)

GREATNESS IN MEN

Edwin Markham describes a noble type of man in the following poem:

Give thanks, O heart, for the high souls
That point us to the deathless goals--
For all the courage of their cry
That echoes down from sky to sky;
Thanksgiving for the armed seers
And heroes called to mortal years--
Souls that have built our faith in man,
And lit the ages as they ran.

Made of unpurchasable stuff.
They went the way when ways were rough;
They, when the traitors had deceived,
Held the long purpose, and believed;
They, when the face of God grew dim,
Held through the dark and trusted Him--
Brave souls that fought the mortal way
And felt that faith could not betray.

Give thanks for heroes that have stirred
Earth with the wonder of a word.
But all thanksgiving for the breed
Who have bent destiny with deed--
Souls of the high, heroic birth,
Souls sent to poise the shaken earth,
And then called back to God again
To make heaven possible for men. (Text.)

--_The Independent._

(1308)

GREATNESS OF GOD

The following verse from “The Marshes of Glynn,” by Sidney Lanier, shows how a reverent poet can see symbols of God and His care in a marsh:

Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea?
Somehow my soul seems suddenly free
From the weighing of life and the sad discussion of sin,
By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn.

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free
Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!
Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun,
Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won
God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain
And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.

As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God;
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies
In the freedom that fills all the space ’twixt the marsh and the skies:

By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod
I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God;
Oh, like the greatness of God is the greatness within
The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.

(1309)

GREATNESS SERVING

A mother and daughter were traveling through a forest. Overcome
by the long journey, the mother fainted and fell by the wayside.
As soon as consciousness was partly restored to her she sent her
little child to seek out a minister. The little daughter went
weeping on her way. She soon met a stranger riding a horse. The
man inquired of her why she was weeping. She asked him if he
were God’s minister, and he said that he was. She led him to the
side of her dying mother. His bodyguard soon arrived. Reverently
did they uncover as they found the King of England kneeling in
prayer for the dying peasant. The greatest among them was their
servant. (Text.)

(1310)

GREATNESS, TRUE, OF A CITY

What makes a city great and strong?
Not architecture’s graceful strength,
Nor factories’ extended length,
But men who see the civic wrong
And give their lives to make it right,
And turn its darkness into light.

What makes a city full of power?
Not wealth’s display nor titled fame,
Not fashion’s loudly-boasted claim,
But women, rich in virtue’s dower,
Whose homes, tho humble, still are great
Because of service to the state.

What makes a city men can love?
Not things that charm the outward sense,
Nor gross display of opulence,
But right, that wrong can not remove,
And truth, that faces civic fraud
And smites it in the name of God.

This is a city that shall stand,
A light upon a nation’s hill,
A voice that evil can not still,
A source of blessing to the land;
Its strength not brick, nor stone, nor wood,
But justice, love and brotherhood.

--_Author Unknown._

(1311)

=Greatness Unrecognized=--See HELP, UNEXPECTED.

GREED

The large families in this country to-day are to be found only
in the industrial centers. Greedy men have considered this their
opportunity, and have located great stocking and silk factories
in these places for the sake of employing the children of these
families.

I saw in the ill-ventilated rooms of these silk-factories girls
by the dozen under fourteen years of age. More than once I saw a
stoop-shouldered, anemic girl, apparently not more than eleven
years of age, standing all day before her machine so fatigued
that she stood on one foot while she rested the other by holding
it against the leg on which she was standing. To my inquiry as
to her age the reply was, “The affidavit said she was fourteen.”

A girl in whose machine the silk by chance became tangled was
approached by a foreman with the jaw of a bulldog and a face
whose every feature indicated brutality, and who poured out
a stream of profanity as he threatened to dismiss her if it
occurred again. These girls were the daughters of coal-miners or
of a coal-miner’s widow.

We are pretty generally agreed that society owes to every one
equal treatment with his fellows in an effort to get a living
and an equal protection in using the opportunities that exist.
When one looks into the hollow cheeks and sunken eyes of
veritable children to whom in so many cases the home was never
the holy of holies, and where instead of the gentle voice and
loving hearts of teachers there is the brutal taskmaster, one
feels the need of some new Declaration of Independence.

A railroad that owns and operates mines in this region, last
year, in addition to an already fat dividend on its stock,
declared a stock dividend of fifty per cent. Would that it were
possible to print on every share of that dividend a description
of the existence that is called life in this section of our
land! (Text.)--JESSE HILL, _Christian Endeavor
World_.

(1312)

See DISHONESTY; GAME OF GREED.

=Greed, Commercial=--See CRUELTY.

GRIEF, EXPRESSING

Great griefs can seldom be borne in silence; nor is it well
that they should be. Just as the cry of pain springs to the
lips of a child when it is hurt, so the wounded spirit longs
for utterance to ease its sorrow. Far from being a rebellious
and unnatural desire, this longing to somehow unburden the
soul in words is a merciful gift of God, who, even when he
chastens, would fain temper the wind to the shorn lamb. See
how the noblest souls have sought and found, not only a balm
for sorrow, but sorrow’s own deeper meaning in uttering their
heart’s profoundest cry. Think of that magnificent memorial poem
in which Tennyson gathered up, as in a sacred urn, the fragments
of his broken heart. Was his sorrow for Hallam the less, that
he thus robbed it of its bitterest sting, the sting of helpless
silence and hopeless brooding? Was Cicero less noble, less
heroic, because, after the death of his beloved daughter Tullia,
he wrote a treatise, on consolation to alleviate his sorrow?
No; utterance sanctifies the grief whose pang it softens. God
does not will that we should suffer in white-lipped silence. He
never drives the barbed arrow into the human heart.--_Zion’s
Herald._

(1313)

GRIEF, REVEALED

Clinton Dangerfield discounts in this poem the stoicism of the age that refuses to reveal its griefs and evils:

Sad hearts are out of date. We laugh and jest,
When we take wounds as well as when we strike.
One can not tell the conquerors on Love’s field--
Victors and vanquished look so much alike!

But sometimes when the mask unguarded falls
One sees the actor’s self behind the part,
And half holds those the wiser who, of old,
Washed, unashamed, with tears a broken heart. (Text.)

--_The Delineator._

(1314)

GRIEVANCES

A man strikes me with a sword, and inflicts a wound. Suppose,
instead of binding up the wound, I am showing it to everybody,
and, after it has been bound up, I am taking off the bandage
constantly and examining the depth of the wound, and making it
fester--is there a person in the world who would not call me a
fool? However, such a fool is he who, by dwelling upon little
injuries or insults, cause them to agitate and influence his
mind. How much better were it to put a bandage on the wound and
never look at it again!

(1315)

* * * * *

I once said to a woman who had suddenly lost her best friend
after years of the closest intimacy, without a quarrel or scene,
and for no apparent reason, “every time he thinks of you he will
be filled with remorse.” She replied, “Remorse? Not at all. He
is quite sure that all the fault lies on my side. In retrospect,
he has created imaginary grievance.” I indignantly protested,
ready even to pity her the more. She smilingly silenced me by
putting her finger on my lips, saying: “Do not pity me, I might
have had grievances, but I have none; in spite of everything,
mine is the better part.” And she was right.

Grievances are like a double-edged sword that wounds on one
side the heart it enters, on the other the heart that sends
it forth, and the most unhappy heart always holds the weapon,
for the point that pierces sinks into depths from whence it
is difficult to draw it from the wound. In reality everybody
is a victim to grievances; they that harbor as well as they
who create them, and for this reason frank explanations are
never resorted to. And the saddest thing of all is, that the
causes are often so slight and the suffering so great, as in
the case of the Neapolitan, who, having never read the works of
Tasso and Ariosto, fought seventeen duels on their respective
merits.--DORA MELEGARI, “Makers of Sorrow and Makers of
Joy.”

(1316)

GRIP

“He seems to have lost his grip,” said one man to another in
talking of an acquaintance who had not been long in the ranks of
the “middle-aged.” They both felt that their friend had talents;
they longed to see him apply them with judgment and success.
The term “grip” was an expressive one. Whatever one’s work may
be, it can not be properly done unless the worker has firm hold
of his tools. Lack of grip may often be resolved into lack of
incentive, and, therefore, whoever imparts to his comrade a
sufficient motive for holding fast, is doing him service of the
most effectual kind.--Providence _Journal_.

(1317)

=Growing Old=--See OLD, HOW TO GROW.

GROWING TOO FAST

It is said that during the wars of Frederick II of Prussia
men became so scarce that they actually enrolled schoolboys.
If there happened to be a child that was growing too fast
the parents would be heard to say, “Don’t grow so fast or
the recruiting officer will catch you.” Do not rush into
responsibility. (Text.)

(1318)

=Growth=--See ASSIMILATION; FAITH IN GOD.

GROWTH, CAUSE OF

Carbon from the air entering the cells of plants comes in
contact with a substance called chlorophyll resident in the
cells. A wonderful change at once takes place. When the sun is
shining, the carbonic acid and water contained in the cells are
decomposed; _i.e._, separated into the parts composing
them. These, with the carbon, then unite again and form a new
substance very different from either the carbon or the water,
viz., starch or like substance, which, with some of the mineral
matters supplied through the soil water, serves as food for the
protoplasm of the cells, so that the latter increase in number
rapidly and thus cause the plant to grow.

There is real growth of the soul of man only when the divine
spirit unites with the human powers. (Text.)

(1319)

=Growth, Curious=--See OBSTACLES, UNEXPECTED.

GROWTH, EVIL

Educators make much of growth, nor can we over-emphasize the
importance of the principle. But if the thing that is increasing
is bad, then growth is a curse immeasurable. Given a spark
and growth means a conflagration that ruins a city. Given a
gipsy-moth in the parks of New England and growth means the
devastation of the forests of a State. Given a disease, and
growth means death. Given any form of sin, and growth means
the wreckage of character and destiny. (Text.)--N. D.
HILLIS.

(1320)

=Growth in Educational Work=--See NEEDS, MEETING CHILDREN’S.

GROWTH IN NATURE

Once, a half-century ago or more, a farmer and his men came down
from the pastures, and for purposes of their own cut a ditch
straight through the middle of the bog to the open water. The
hundreds of scrawny night-herons, sitting on pale blue eggs in
scraggly nests in the cedar swamp, must have heard the cedars
laugh as this went on. It was the swamp’s opportunity. Where the
farmer and his men with incredible labor cut and tore away the
marsh-grass roots the cedars planted their seeds, and called
upon the alders and the swamp-maples and the thoroughwort, the
Joe Pye weed, and a host of other good citizens of the swamp to
help them.

So vigorous was the sortie and so well did they hold their
ground, that you may trace the farmer’s wide ditch to-day only
as a causeway down which the swamp has come to build a great
wooden area in the midst of the bog, accomplishing in half a
century what it might not have done in five times had it not
been for human aid.--WINTHROP PACKARD, “Wild Pastures.”

(1321)

=Growth, Spiritual=--See SPIRITUAL PERTURBATION.

=Growth Through Struggle=--See STRUGGLE AND GROWTH.

GROWTH, UNCONSCIOUS

Moses, when he came down from the mountain, “wist not” that his face shone. So in much of our spiritual life, we are unconscious of the fact of growth. As a writer upon life in the fields likening the spiritual life to that of the seed says:

But all the winter through, tho it was hidden by frost and
snow, the seed was growing beneath the earth; the difference
is that now we can see it. And so it is with the growth of the
soul. The soul is growing, tho we do not know it, in its winter
weather, when all is dead and cold and dark; when the Spirit has
convinced us of sin and we say, “I seem to have no part and lot
with the saints, no joy nor peace; I only feel the burden of my
iniquities; I question whether I am a living soul.” Ah, but the
seed sown by the hand of God is growing through all those wintry
days; if a man can feel and lament his weakness, his deadness,
his barrenness, he is a living soul. (Text.)

(1322)

=Growths, Undesirable=--See BARRIERS.

=Guardian Friends=--See PLEDGE-KEEPING.

GUARDS OF THE SOUL

As there is a silence that thunders, so there is a severity that
is the inflection of pity and love. That is not the kindest
surgeon who refuses to make the wounded soldier suffer. That
is not the truest mother who lets the child work its own will
and riot in selfish pleasures. It is not a little thing for
a pilgrim to make his way across a dark continent. Are there
serpents and wild beasts in the jungle? Then on either side of
the path through the forest let thorn-bushes be planted that
they may scourge the child back into the path. Is the chasm
deep? A veritable abyss? Then, when the bridge is strung across
the gulf, let a railing be placed on either side, with sharp
prongs of iron to hold the child back from the edge of the
bridge, lest in a careless mood he fall and be crusht upon the
cruel rocks beneath. It is a dangerous journey that man makes
through the wilderness. And God has planted on either side of
the way the Ten Commandments like ten thorn-bushes, buttresses
and guards, that the pilgrim may be confined to the path that
leads to prosperity, safety and peace--N. D. HILLIS.

(1323)

=Guest Surprized=--See TACT.

=Guidance=--See SAFETY FROM WATER-BROOKS; TRUST.

GUIDANCE, GOD’S

In the stern of a sea-going vessel,
At morning, at noon and at night,
I saw there a sturdy old boatswain
Who stood and uplifted his sight
To the mast that was towering above him,
While pendulant hung from his lip
The whistle whose shrill intonations
Determined the course of the ship.

And I wondered at what he was gazing
Till, stepping behind him, I stood
And followed his angle of vision
High up on the pillar of wood;
And there, far above the attraction
Of body of iron or steel,
Was fastened a compass whose needle
Corrected the man at the wheel.

O wonderful lesson of science,
That crystaled in parable there,
And brought in its transparent vision
The meaning and purpose of prayer!
I, too, am adrift on the ocean,
My compass, the spirit of man,
And with hand on the wheel of life’s rudder,
I only can steer as I can.

But, praise to God’s infinite goodness,
Thy compass above I can see--
The needle of truth that Thy spirit
Holds true for the spirit of me.
Unswerved by earth’s baser attraction,
It points to the glories that shine;
I read it at morning and evening,
And reckon my bearings from Thine. (Text.)

(1324)

* * * * *

Thomas F. Porter, in the Boston _Globe_, expresses in these verses the confidence of faith in God’s guidance:

It matters not what course my ship may go,
That leaves the port ’neath skies so calm and clear;
Tho later threatening winds may wildly blow,
Of harm I have no fear.

The storm may beat in fury ’round my bark,
The ocean’s spray up to the masthead leap,
The way be long, the night be starless dark,
Secure my course I keep.

It matters not how swift may be the tide,
Tho lightning cleave with lurid flame the sky;
But that my ship will every storm outride,
On this I can rely.

Nor does it matter when the goal I gain,
Nor if the ship be stript of every mast,
My heart no lips will murmur nor complain,
When safe the anchor’s cast.

Why, there is such a flood of hope in me,
To doubting hearts this much I will reveal:
The Hand that launched my bark on life’s great sea
Is ever at the wheel.

(1325)

=Guidance, Spiritual=--See SPIRIT, WINDS OF THE.

GUIDANCE EVILWARD

A story is told of certain mariners who followed the direction
of their compass, believing it to be infallibly right as
a guide, till they arrived at an enemy’s port, where they
were seized and made slaves. The secret was that the wicked
captain, in order to betray the ship and to beguile them into
obliquities, had hidden a large loadstone at a little distance
on one side of the needle. (Text.)

(1326)

=Guide and Traveler=--See CONFIDENCE.

GUIDE, THE PERFECT

Once I was out with a guide climbing a mountain, and the guide
himself lost his way. He was compelled, greatly chagrined, to
beat about for quite a while till he found it. This could never
happen to Christ.

Sometimes a guide in the Alps, in spite of all his care, loses
the life of a traveler. The unfortunate man may slip and the
rope may break; or, if the rope holds, he may be heavy enough to
drag down his guide with him into the crevasse.

When a traveler hesitated to place his foot in the hand of a
guide who asked him to step upon it out over a precipice when
rounding a perilous turn, the guide reassured him by saying,
“This hand never lost a life.” That was true of the guide, but
it did not prove that he never would lose a life.

Of Christ’s hand stretched out to help us it may be said truly: “This hand never lost a life, and never can lose one.”--AMOS R. WELLS, in _The Christian Endeavor World_.

(1327)

=Guides=--See EXPERIENCE, VALUE OF.

=Guides and Prayer=--See BLESSING THE ROPES.

GUILT

The only thing needed to show guilt or innocence is sufficient light:

Aaron Burr once defended a prisoner charged with murder, and as
the trial proceeded it became too manifest to him that the guilt
of the murder lay between the prisoner and one of the witnesses
for the prosecution. He accordingly subjected this witness to
a searching and relentless cross-examination; and then, as he
addrest the jury in the gathering dusk of evening, he brought
into strong relief every fact that bore against this witness,
and suddenly seizing two candelabra from the table, he threw a
glare of light on the witness’s face, and exclaimed, “Behold the
murderer, gentlemen!” Alarmed and conscience-stricken, the man
reeled as from a blow, turned ghastly pale, and left the court.
The advocate concluded his speech in a tone of triumph, and the
jury acquitted the prisoner. (Text.)--CROAKE JAMES,
“Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

(1328)

H

HABIT

Says Jeremiah, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to evil.” The last chapter in the biography of habits is its enthronement, its tyranny over the will. The tragedy of every habit is that instead of being an aid to the will, it becomes its master. Donald Sage Mackay, in “The Religion of the Threshold,” says:

Henry Drummond once told of a man who had gone to a London
physician to consult about his eyes. The physician looked into
the man’s eyes with a delicate ophthalmoscope, and then said
quietly to the man. “My friend, you are practising a certain
sin, and unless you give it up, in six months you will be
blind.” For a moment the man stood trembling in the agony of
discovery, and then, turning to the sunlit window, he looked out
and exclaimed, “Farewell, sweet light, farewell!”

(1329)

* * * * *

A man named Patch, having been charged with murder, his
solicitor carefully examined the premises and situation, and
came to the conclusion that the murderer must have been a
left-handed man. The solicitor informed Sergeant Best, in
consultation, that he had noticed Patch, when taking his dinner,
using his knife with the left hand. In a conference before the
trial, the sergeant prest the prisoner to say whether he was
not left-handed, but he protested he was not. When the prisoner
was arraigned at the bar on the day of trial, and was called
on to plead, he answered, “Not guilty,” and at once, of course
unconsciously, held up his left hand.--CROAKE JAMES,
“Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

(1330)

Slowly and insidiously do the evil habits grow until they become
as gnarled crooked trees which none may straighten; little by
little the gossamer thread becomes a cart-rope which none may
break; imperceptibly does the film of ice spread over the river,
holding the waters before long in a grasp which Niagara could
not burst. The character is stereotyped; the life moves in
deep downward grooves. Says the modern determinist, “By habit
the mind is reduced into servitude.” Says the apostle, “We are
sold under sin.”--W. L. WATKINSON, “The Transfigured
Sackcloth.”

(1331)

See ROUTINE.

HABIT AUTOMATIC

If a sleeping-plant is placed in a dark room after it has
gone to sleep at night, it will be found next morning in the
light-position, and will again assume the nocturnal position
as evening comes. We have, in fact, what seems to be a habit
built by the alternation of day and night. The plant normally
drops its leaves at the stimulus of darkness and raises them at
the stimulus of light. But here we see the leaves rising and
falling in the absence of the accustomed stimulation. This is
the characteristic par excellence of habit. When a series of
actions are compelled to follow each other by applying a series
of stimuli they become organically tied together, or associated,
and follow each other automatically, even when the whole series
of stimuli are not acting.--_The Scientific American._

(1332)

HABIT, BREAKING

A story is told of an English minister who offered a prize to
the boy who would write the best composition in five minutes on
“How to Overcome a Habit.”

At the expiration of five minutes the compositions were read.
The prize went to a lad of nine years. The following is his
essay:

“Well, sir, habit is hard to overcome. If you take off the first
letter, it does not change ‘a bit.’ If you take off another, you
still have a ‘bit’ left. If you take off still another the whole
of ‘it’ remains. If you take off another, it is wholly used up;
all of which goes to show that if you want to get rid of habit
you must throw it off altogether.”

(1333)

HABIT IN WORK

All his life Mark Twain was an inveterate smoker, and one of the
most leisurely men in the world. An old pressman, who was once
printer’s devil in an office where Mark was editorial writer,
tells this anecdote of his habits of work. “One of my duties was
to sweep the room where editors worked. Every day Mark would
give me a nickel to get away from him. He would rather die in
the dust than uncross his legs. One day he gave me a nickel to
dot an ‘i’ in his copy for him. He certainly did enjoy life,
that man did.”--New York _Evening Post_.

(1334)