Chapter M: B. Banks writes a missionary lesson after the style of “Mother (9)

As my Soldier was riding toward Sailor’s Creek, a woman ran out
of a house and handed him something to eat. He carried it in
his hand as he rode on. Presently he came upon a soldier lying
behind a log, and spoke to him. The man looked up, revealing a
boyish face, scarcely more than a child’s--thin and pale.

“What’s the matter?” asked my Soldier.

“I’m starving, General,” the boy replied. “I couldn’t help it. I
couldn’t keep up, so I just lay down here to die.”

“Take this,” handing the boy his luncheon; “and when you have
eaten it and rested, go on back home. It would only waste
another life for you to go on.”

The boy took the food eagerly, but replied: “No, Marse George.
If I get strength enough to go at all, I’ll follow you to the
last.”

He did, for he was killed a few days later at Sailor’s Creek.

(1723)

KINDNESS, THE POWER OF

“Provo Canyon” is one of those grandly picturesque mountain
ravines which abound in Utah. In the solitude and sublimity of
this cañon a mountaineer named W. W. Ferguson lived a hermit’s
life. In the winter months his log-cabin was, in consequence of
the deep snow, shut entirely out from intercourse with human
beings. But he was not companionless, this mountain man--for
he made friends with the wild animals and birds. He was their
friend and they grew fond of him. They learned to recognize his
voice, and not to be afraid at his approach. They would eat food
from his hands, the pigeons and magpies flying from afar when he
called them--the little squirrels playing about him like tame
kittens.

A year ago a New York gentleman, on a pleasure trip, called at
Mr. Ferguson’s cabin, and seeing the mountaineer with his bird
and animal friends on such good terms, said:

“My friend, you have some power--some charm which these
creatures obey. If you will tell me the secret I will give you a
hundred dollars.”

The hermit, smiling, assured the traveler that the only secret
was the kindness with which he always treated them. “They have
learned,” he said, “that I am their friend, and I have never
betrayed their friendship.”

(1724)

KINDNESS TO ANIMALS

In the woods near Walden Pond, Henry D. Thoreau built a house.
It was a surprize to the raccoons and squirrels in the woods,
But after a while the news went round that there was among
them a man who would not do them any harm, and gradually they
came closer and closer, and there grew to be a beautiful
sympathy between him and the birds and animals. They would
come at his call. On taking a squirrel from the tree, the
little creature would refuse to leave him, and would hide in
his pocket. A woodmouse, whose hole was under his house, would
first run over his shoes, and at last became so tame that it
would run up his sleeve, and round the table when he was at
dinner. Such communion between man and beast has hardly been
equaled.--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”

(1725)

KINDNESS VIOLATING TRUTH

I am convinced that many glaring crimes and endless cankers
of the soul are due to lack of the trained will to face the
full light of truth, and even more to perplexed thinking. An
Irishman in my city, to help a stupid friend, very kindly passed
the civil service examination for him, swearing falsely, of
course, and forging his friend’s name. He was found out and
sentenced, but the body of public opinion among his set excused
and even commended him because his motives were kindly, and on
being released from jail he was banqueted and re-elected to the
Legislature. I think there was real confusion of thought in
this case, and that this confusion will continue to disgrace
our political life until we can bring the growing generation to
see that kindness to an individual is not to be put ahead of
truth or of loyalty to the laws of the nation.--ELLA LYMAN
CABOT, “Proceedings of the National Education Association,”
1909.

(1726)

KING, HONORING A

Apropos of the King’s (Edward VII) visit to Biarritz, an
incident is reported of a recent visit when his Majesty
witnessed the arrival of cross-country competitors at Villa
Machelon. Now, this villa belongs to a worthy and prosperous
Biarritz butcher, who had been requested by the committee to
place it at the King’s disposal. The butcher’s bosom friends
held the view that it was absolutely indispensable that the
master should do the honors of his villa to the King of England,
his guest. So the butcher fetched out his Sunday suit, arranged
his braces outside his knitted waistcoat which he invariably
wears, stuck his hat over his ears, and, freely perspiring under
the blazing sun, awaited his august visitor.

King Edward arrived and got down from his motor car. With fine
scorn for the conventions, the butcher boldly walked up to his
Majesty, tapped him on the shoulder and said in a drawling voice:

“Come in; don’t stop in the sun; go up to the salon.”

A friendly shove accompanied these words. The King grasped the
situation at a glance, smiled and obeyed, leaving the butcher to
chew proudly his penny havana on the doorstep. He had done the
honors of his home, had seen and spoken to his guest, the King.

(1727)

=Kingdom of God Composite=--See MOSAIC OF THE KINGDOM.

=Kingdom of God Within=--See LOYALTY.

KING’S KINDNESS

During one of King Edward’s visits to Marienbad in Austria, this incident occurred:

A little girl of thirteen named Vera Caro, who has always had a
great wish to see the King, was walking in the Kaiserstrasse,
when she suddenly came face to face with his Majesty, who was
seated on a bench. The little girl impulsively walked up to the
King, and curtseying presented to him a few roses which she was
carrying. The King took the flowers, shook hands with the child,
and thanked her. His Majesty then requested Colonel Ponsonby to
place the flowers in the carriage which was waiting near. The
little girl, radiant with joy at the King’s kindness, rushed
home to inform her parents of her good fortune.

(1728)

See LIKENESS OF GOD.

=Kingship of Christ=--See HOMAGE TO CHRIST.

KINSHIP

This poem has the ring of the right kind of sympathy. We do not know the author:

If you have a friend worth loving
Love him, yes, and let him know
That you love him, ere life’s evening
Tinge his brow with sunset glow--
Why should good words ne’er be said,
Of a friend, until he’s dead?

If you hear a song that thrills you,
Sung by any child of song,
Praise it. Do not let the singer
Wait deserved praises long;
Why should one who thrills your heart
Lack the joy you may impart?

If you hear a prayer that moves you
By its humble, pleading tone,
Join in. Do not let the seeker
Bow before his Lord alone;
Why should not your brother share
The strength of “two or three” in prayer?

If you see the hot tears falling
From a brother’s weeping eyes,
Share them, and by kindly sharing,
Win your kinship with the skies.
Why should any one be glad
When his brother’s heart is sad?

If a silvery laugh goes rippling
Through the sunshine on his face,
Share it. ’Tis the wise man’s saying,
For both grief and joy a place.
There’s health and goodness in the mirth
In which an honest laugh hath birth.

If your work is made more easy
By a friendly helping hand,
Say so. Speak out bravely, truly,
Ere the darkness veil the land.
Should a brother workman dear
Falter for a word of cheer?

Scatter, then, your germs of kindness,
All enriching as you go;
Leave them. Trust the Harvest Giver,
Who will make each germ to grow.
So, until the happy end,
Your life will never lack a friend.

(1729)

=Kissing in the East=--See HUSBAND AND WIFE, RELATIONS BETWEEN.

KNOWING AND DOING

The Rev. W. L. Watkinson says:

I read the other day in a paper that a Hindu will pass an
examination in science; he understands sanitary laws perfectly,
but some way or other he never seems to understand how to apply
them. He will go complacently into his own dirty compound and
break every sanitary law of which he is theoretically master.
But you need not go to India to find a thing of that kind. You
will find many men in this country who know the Lord’s will, but
who never dream of doing it.

(1730)

KNOWING BETTER

“I did the best I knew!” protested the dressmaker’s apprentice
sullenly, when she was sharply reprimanded for a piece of
ill-judged work that ruined a valuable dress and vexed a
valuable customer. “I don’t see what she’s blaming me for!”

“I’m not blaming you for doing the best you knew how!” said the
employer, overhearing and turning on her crisply; “I’m blaming
you for not knowing any better! You ought to--you’ve been here
long enough. You mean well, but good intentions aren’t enough to
carry on the dressmaking business.”

They are not enough in any business. It is an old proverb that good intentions pave a place of very disreputable character. “He meant well” is about the poorest thing one can say of a person, short of actual detraction; unless we except that other phrase of mild apology: “He did the best he knew how.” Whenever you hear either of these you know at once that it is a case of failure on somebody’s part to do the right thing at the right moment, and usually, if you look closely enough, there was fault behind the failure. To do the best we know how is not enough when we might know any better.--_Kind Words._

(1731)

KNOWLEDGE

Writing about Lincoln’s life in the Indiana wilderness Mr. James Morgan, in his life of Abraham Lincoln, says:

One day a wagon broke down in the road, and the wife and two
daughters of the owner stayed at the Lincolns’ until it was
repaired. “The woman had books,” as Abraham recalled in later
life, “and read us stories. They were the first I ever heard.”
There never had been a book or a newspaper in the house, and he
never forgot the sight of those pages nor the woman who, by the
chance of a breakdown on the road, opened to his mind the field
of printed knowledge.

(1732)

=Knowledge, Ambition for=--See MOTHER LOVE.

=Knowledge a Necessity=--See DIRECTIONS.

KNOWLEDGE APPLIED

At least one Riverhead (L. I.) little boy, Everett Brown, aged
about twelve years, son of Mr. and Mrs. Everett Brown, remembers
to advantage some of the physiology he has studied at school.

Saturday afternoon he and Frank Terry, about his own age, son
of Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Terry, went into the woods to build a hut
or something of that kind, and the ax that the Terry lad was
wielding cut a bad gash in one of his feet.

It bled profusely and the Brown lad was afraid his chum would
bleed to death, so he quickly got the shoe off of the foot and
bound his handkerchief tightly, closing the wound and largely
stopping the flow of blood until the wounded boy was gotten
home, which was some distance away.

“I learned that in my physiology,” said the Brown boy when Mrs.
Terry asked him how he thought of it.--Brooklyn _Eagle_.

(1733)

KNOWLEDGE BY INDIRECTION

One minister builded better than he knew, and one hearer learned more than was meant on the following occasion:

The preacher was showing that shade and light are both necessary
in differing conditions. Said he: “Roses, heliotropes and
geraniums need lots of sunshine, while fuchsias thrive best in
the shade.” “Oh, doctor,” said a good woman at the close, “I’m
so grateful to you for your sermon this morning. I never knew
before what was the matter with my fuchsias.”

(1734)

KNOWLEDGE, COMPARATIVE

A missionary’s son, born on the field, was making his first
visit to his parents’ home in a small Ohio town. One day a
neighbor burst into the yard with the great news. “The circus is
coming!”

“What’s a circus?” innocently inquired the young Korea-American.

“A circus! Don’t you know what a circus is? Haven’t you ever
seen a circus?” And scorn passing words filled the Ohio lad’s
voice, as he eyed in boundless contempt this queer visitor.

The boy from Korea was stung to the quick, and he retorted:
“Well, what of that? Did you ever see the Pacific Ocean? Were
you ever on a warship? Did you ever see Hongkong? Did you ever
see the diving boys at Colombo? Were you ever in India? Did you
ever see the pyramids? What do you know about London?”

Vengeance was complete. The devotee of the circus was silenced.
Before these bigger wonders his traveling tent show grew very
small indeed. Similarly, the man who follows the trail of the
missionary may lose his intimate contact with some of the
inconsequentialities of the day’s newspaper, but he will have
big and abiding compensations.--WILLIAM T. ELLIS, “Men
and Missions.”

(1735)

=Knowledge in Action=--See TEACHER, THE IDEAL AT WORK.

KNOWLEDGE, LIVING

Some one asked Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, why he continued to study
for his pupils “as tho he should not have enough to give them.”
“It is not,” was his reply, “because I fear I should not have
enough to give them, but because I prefer that they should be
supplied from a running stream rather than from a stagnant pool.”

“Stagnant pools” have been the ruin of many men in many walks of life.

(1736)

KNOWLEDGE, THIRST FOR

Thurlow Weed was so poor in boyhood that on a cold March day
he had to wrap pieces of cloth about his bare feet in place
of socks and shoes. Thus shod, he walked several miles in the
wintry cold to borrow a history of the Reformation.

(1737)

* * * * *

William Elbert Munsey was born upon a Virginia mountain farm,
which was so poor that a disturbance could not be raised upon
it, much less the articles of food which produce a thrifty
physical manhood. After toiling in the field all day, he would
carry wood upon his tired, youthful back for a mile, that his
widowed mother and five brothers and sisters might have warmth
from the evening fire; he went to school only twelve months
in his life, but he ate the heart out of every book that came
within his reach; while plowing he would keep his book at the
end of the furrow, and when he had plowed a “round,” he would
talk with his tongueless companion for a few moments, “and then
push on between the plow handles,” the great thoughts ringing in
his soul like the tolling of a cathedral bell.

Well, what kind of a man did he make? Let one who heard him
deliver his famous lecture on “Man” answer the question: “The
vast amount of scientific knowledge he had stored his mind with
was truly amazing.

He spoke as if he had been a professor in every branch of
science for a lifetime. Every technical term was at his tongue’s
end. Man was presented in spirit, soul and body as the most
wonderful trichotomy of the universe; was analyzed, synthetized,
exalted and glorified as the last and grandest work of God. He
soared amid clouds and lightning and thunder and tempests; he
was as familiar with anatomy as if he had been a Sir Charles
Bell; with mental phenomena, as if he had been a John Locke;
with mythology, as if he had been born a Greek and had lived
in Greece a thousand years.” At the conclusion of his sermons,
congregations have been so “bewildered as to rise up in an
unconscious way, facing each other, and not knowing for some
moments whether to remain or leave the room.” But how old was
this wonderful man when he died? Just a little over forty years
of age. Like David Livingstone in the African hut, William
Elbert Munsey was found dead upon his knees by the side of his
bed.--F. F. SHANNON.

(1738)

KNOWLEDGE THROUGH EXPERIENCE

A news item from Denver, Colorado, says:

Determined to learn at first hand where and how the homeless
and shivering men live who slept on the street, E. A. Brown,
cousin of President W. C. Brown, of the New York Central, and
himself independently rich, has been haunting the railroad and
stock-yards and the slums of Denver for weeks. Drest in shabby
and threadbare clothes, he has mingled with the unemployed and
shared their experiences. He will use this experience to aid in
securing the establishment of a municipal lodging-house, which
will shelter the homeless during the winter months.

This is the scientific method of the social student to-day. It was first, however, the method of Christ. “He came to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Text.)

(1739)

KNOWLEDGE, UNITY OF

The man who should know the true history of the bit of chalk
which every carpenter carries about in his breeches pocket, tho
ignorant of all other history, is likely, if he will think his
knowledge out to its ultimate results, to have a truer, and,
therefore, a better, conception of this wonderful universe, and
of man’s relation to it, than the most learned student who is
deep-read in the records of humanity and ignorant of those of
nature. (Text.)--THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY.

(1740)

KNOWLEDGE VALUES

All wealth is intelligence applied to raw material. The piece
of paper cost half a farthing, but Tennyson’s poem written
thereupon made it worth a thousand dollars. Just as a little
canvas, worth two or three francs, took on a value of $200,000
when Millet mixed the colors with his genius and spread them
over the waiting cloth. Civilization is a height on which
man climbs hand over hand up the golden rounds of wisdom and
knowledge.--N. D. HILLIS.

(1741)

KONGO PIONEER MISSIONARY WORK

Up the Kongo we went. One day Mr. Lapsley, my comrade, was sick
with fever. As we attempted to land, we saw women catching up
their babies and running to the jungle and men getting arrows to
shoot. I stood over Mr. Lapsley and called, “Don’t shoot! Don’t
shoot!” and asked them if we could sleep there for the night.
“To-morrow we go away,” I said. “No. Go away; go away,” they
cried. So we started for the other side and landed on the sandy
bank. We got out the tent and had Mr. Lapsley carefully moved
into his bed. Walking up and down the river bank we could hear
the excitement on the other side. At twelve o’clock at night it
still was going on. At two in the morning, those people had not
retired; nor had I. So we said, “In the morning something will
happen.” Coming outside early, as we looked across the river we
saw one of their war canoes filled with men starting up-stream,
and then another. I ran to the tent and said to Mr. Lapsley,
“Those people are coming; what shall I do?” He was there sick
with fever, with no chance of running away. He said, “There
is nothing that we can do.” He meant by this that the Master
could do something. I came outside. They had started in our
direction. I could hear their war-whoop. Just at this extremity
a hippopotamus came. We shot him. Then the thought came, why
not offer them this meat? They were crazy for meat. I waded
in the water to my waist and beckoned to them, calling out:
“Come this way, all of you. Don’t be afraid.” The nearest canoe
approached me as I was wading in the water, and I surprized the
first man by saying, “Leave your spear.” The next canoe load
that followed I turned the hippopotamus over to, and then they
began with their long knives to cut it up and fight over it. I
went into the tent and told Mr. Lapsley that we were saved. It
was no surprize to that servant of God. He was so near to the
Master always that he believed He would save us.--WILLIAM
SHEPPARD, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

(1742)

KOREA, WORK AMONG WOMEN IN

As I was going along a country road one day, I saw a woman
going along with a hoe, and behind her was a man with a burden
on his back; and this burden, as we drew closer, we saw to be
the form of a baby. It was wrapt up according to the custom.
They climbed the hill and put the burden on the ground, and the
mother threw herself upon the dead form of the child and cried
out her broken heart, while the father began to dig the grave.
We tried to comfort her the best we could, but her grief seemed
too deep, and she did not understand that Christ was the only
one who could comfort her. The following Sunday I saw in our
meeting one of our women who had been a Christian only about six
months, a woman who had been told by her neighbors that if she
became a Christian a very dangerous spirit would haunt her and
bring calamity to her. She did not falter, but by and by her
only child, a little girl, whom she dearly loved, was taken from
her. This Sunday, as she stood with the tears streaming down her
face, she told how the beautiful little girl had died, but that
she did not grieve so much, because, as she said, “I am going
to meet her there with Jesus.” I could not but think of that
other woman whom I saw heart-broken on the mountain-side just
a few days before.--LULU E. FREY, “Student Volunteer
Movement,” 1906.

(1743)

See DAUGHTER’S ESTIMATED.

=Korean, The, as a Giver=--See GENEROSITY.

L

LABELS, MISLEADING

Not long ago this country woke up to the fact that with a good
deal of our canned food we were not getting just what the
colored label on the outside of the can led us to suppose. It
was a shocking disillusionment to find that the label showed
luscious peach jelly, when the inside of the can contained only
some nicely prepared and flavored gelatine, quite innocent of
any relation to peaches. The country at once had indigestion,
and passed laws to keep the peaches and the labels in the
neighborhood of the same can.

The labels on persons are also misleading, because one can
see the label but not always the real person. The titles and
degrees are supposed to be descriptive of the owner’s brains,
and sometimes they are; but they are not always accurate, and
they never make brains. A university might confer a B.A. or an
LL.D. on a lineal descendant of Balaam’s beast of burden, and
yet it would not make him wise.--JAMES M. STIFLER, “The
Fighting Saint.”

(1744)

See ENVY GRATIFIED; NEW, THE.

LABOR

This song of labor is by Caroline A. Lord:

They are working, beneath the sun,
In its red-hot, blinding glare,
In the dust from the toiling teams,
In the noise of the thoroughfare
See them swing and bend, far down to the end
With the rhythm of the strokes they bear.

The cords of the sinewy arms
Stand out like the cable’s twist;
No blow shall miss and no stroke shall fail
From the grasp of the brawny fist,
As the shoulder swings when the pickax rings
And the hand springs firm from the wrist.

Let the feet of the dainty shod
Pass by on the other side,
Where the youth of the slender back and limb
Stands watching--the listless-eyed;
While with sweat and with pain and the long day’s strain
These toil--and are satisfied.

(1745)

=Labor, A Hero of=--See ENERGY INDOMITABLE.

LABOR, AVOIDING

“I like to sew where there is no thread in the machine, it runs
so easily,” said a little girl.

A good many people, I think, are pretty fond of running their
machines without thread.

When I hear a boy talking very largely of the grand things
he would do if he only could and if things and circumstances
were only different, and then neglecting every daily duty and
avoiding work and lessons, I think he is running his machine
without any thread.

When I see a girl very sweet and pleasant abroad, ready to do
anything for a stranger, and cross and disagreeable in her home,
she, too, is running her machine without any thread.

Ah, this sewing without thread is very easy indeed, and the life
machine will make a great buzzing! But labor, time, and force
will in the end be far worse than lost.--_The Friend._

(1746)

LABOR BY PATIENTS

Patient labor at the Elgin State Hospital (Illinois) has become
one of the most striking features in any of the seventeen
charitable institutions of Illinois.

Fiscal Supervisor Whipp, of the State Board of Administration,
has just returned from Elgin, where he has been investigating
the construction of buildings of cement blocks veneered with
granite.

Patients have already built a cold storage room and bath-house,
and now are at work on a cottage for the acute insane. They
make the veneered blocks in the basement of the institution in
winter. The process itself is comparatively new. It has been
employed no more than a year at Elgin, but has worked out with
remarkable success--Boston _Journal_.

(1747)

LABOR FOR THE COMMUNITY

The worker bee is never found loafing while the sun is shining.
Their work is wholly for the hive; for the community that is,
and they not infrequently work themselves to death gathering and
carrying pollen, with which they load themselves down heavily.

The work of the truly unselfish life is a willingness to work, and even if need be, to die for the good of mankind.

(1748)

LABOR IN VAIN

The Pyramids of Egypt are among the seven wonders of the world.
Cheops, said to be the largest of them all, covers an area of
over thirteen acres, is larger than Madison Square, New York,
and twice the height of Trinity Church spire. It contains enough
material to build a city as large as Washington, including all
its public buildings. Four hundred thousand men were employed
twenty years to build it. The purpose of its erection was that
it might be the tomb of kings.

How much better would have been the result if all this labor had
been spent to serve those who were alive and the then future
generations.

(1749)

LABOR, OPPORTUNITY FOR

The verses below carrying a helpful lesson, are by Ellen M. H. Gates:

If you can not on the ocean
Sail among the swiftest fleet,
Rocking on the highest billows,
Laughing at the storms you meet
You can stand among the sailors,
Anchored yet within the bay;
You can lend a hand to help them,
As they launch their boats away.

If you are too weak to journey
Up the mountain, steep and high,
You can stand within the valley,
While the multitudes go by;
You can chant in happy measure,
As they slowly pass along;
Tho they may forget the singer,
They will not forget the song.

* * * * *

Do not, then, stand idly waiting
For some greater work to do;
Fortune is a lazy goddess--
She will never come to you.
Go and toil in any vineyard,
Do not fear to do or dare;
If you want a field of labor,
You can find it anywhere. (Text.)

(1750)

LABOR-SAVING DEVICES

I have heard old men say that the mere easy use of
friction-matches saves every day for each active man and woman
ten minutes of life. I think that is true. You are not old
enough to remember the adventures of the boy called out of his
bed in the morning to go and fetch a pan of coals from the next
neighbor’s. The lad tumbles into his clothes, plows through the
snow, finds that Mrs. Smith’s luck has been better than his
mother’s, and the careful ashes of her hearth have preserved the
vestal fire. A glowing brand is given him in his warming-pan,
and he returns in triumph home. The alternative would have been
to strike flint against steel, not to say against knuckles,
till a reluctant spark fell on tinder equally reluctant, till
this was fanned by careful breath till it would light a match
which would light a candle. The journey to Mrs. Smith’s was, on
the whole, light in comparison. Does one trivial invention save
twenty minutes a day in each household, ten minutes to a man,
ten minutes to a woman? That is a saving for this nation of more
than twice the amount of work which Cheops put upon his pyramid,
and so much addition to the real resources of the world is made
by that one invention.--EDWARD EVERETT HALE.

(1751)

See PRECAUTION.

=Lad with Ready Answer=--See EARLY RELIGION.

=Lamb, The, Slain=--See CHRIST THE LAMB.

LANGUAGE, FORMATION OF

For three centuries after the battle of Hastings French was
the language of the upper classes, of courts and schools and
literature; yet so tenaciously did the common people cling to
their own strong speech that in the end English absorbed almost
the whole body of French words and became the language of the
land. It was the welding of Saxon and French into one speech
that produced the wealth of our modern English.--WILLIAM J.
LONG, “English Literature.”

(1752)

=Large-heartedness=--See FRIEND, THE ORPHAN’S.

=Larger, The, Extinguishing the Smaller=--See SUNLIGHT
AND STARLIGHT.

LAST RESORT OF A WOMAN

“I am not Mrs. Nation; I have no hatchet; I am not crazy.”

These words came from the lips of a Lewis woman, as she met her
husband face to face in a hotel barroom the other evening, says
the Lewis _Pilot_. They were directed to the bartender and
the loungers, as the former handed the woman’s husband a glass
of whisky.

She continued: “That man has not done a day’s work this winter,
and I am worn out trying to support him and the rest of the
family. I want to know if something can not be done to keep him
from destroying his own life and starving his family?”

The woman was thin and pale. Her lips quivered as she spoke.
Her frail body could hardly stand the strain of the unfamiliar
environment. As she finished the little girl by her side burst
into tears, the bartender took back the whisky, the abashed
husband stood with bowed head, one by one the loungers left
the room. Presently the bartender, gazing at the poor woman,
solemnly vowed that the man should not drink at his bar again.

It was a pathetic scene; it was the last resort of a desperate
woman. As she left the hotel with her husband and the little
girl there was a lesson too painful for any pen to picture.

(1753)

=Last Words=--See DEATH COMPELLING SINCERITY.

LATENT POSSIBILITIES

Beauty of character may be evolved out of the most unpromising material which only seems fit to be flung forth and burned. If a child cries we should try to make it laugh; if we meet melancholy folk, we should seek to cheer them; if they have to live in contact with evil tempers, we must endeavor to sweeten them.

At certain seasons of the year some great conservatories are
full of ugly plants, with terrible spines sticking out of
great, fat, succulent, selfish-looking leaves. These plants
are cacti. They wear only a frightful and repellent aspect.
Yet they are favorites of the horticulturist. He waters them
and nurtures them. And suddenly the whole place is ablaze with
their unspeakable loveliness. They have burst into glorious
efflorescence, and spectators come to look on them with joy and
wonder. Many of them bloom, especially in the night.

(1754)

See POSSIBILITIES, LATENT.

LATIN AMERICA AND THE GOSPEL

There are inhabitants of three hundred towns in the Philippine
Islands to-day who are stretching out their hands to America
for Christian missionaries, and there is not a single person to
go. Do they need us? I reply by telling you an incident. I sent
a man named Nicholas Zamora, one of our preachers, out about
four or five miles from the city. The man has a good voice; it
is like a bell, and you can hear it four or five blocks. They
were singing for about ten minutes, when a policeman came along
and rushed the whole company off to jail. We have a saying in
the Philippines that our converts do not have any backbone until
they have been in jail about three times. They did not have any
regular jail, using instead the lower floor in the policeman’s
house. When they arrived there, Nicholas said: “Well, we are
here; I guess we might as well do something”; and they began to
sing the first verse of “Nearer, my God, to Thee.” The policeman
came down-stairs and said that singing must cease, and went back
up-stairs. Nicholas said, “I guess we might as well have the
second verse,” and they began to sing it. The policeman came
down again in high dudgeon and berated them most vigorously;
and having cooled off, he went up-stairs again. Nicholas said,
“We will now have the third verse.” The policeman came down
again as they were starting in strongly on the third verse.
This was too much for the policeman, who said in anger: “Get
out of here, and go right back to America. I don’t propose
to have any psalm-singing Methodists in my jail.”--J. L.
MCLAUGHLIN, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

(1755)

LAUGHING PLANT, A

Palgrave, in his work on Central and Eastern Arabia, mentions
a plant whose seeds produce effects analogous to those of
laughing-gas. The plant is a native of Arabia. A dwarf
variety is found at Kasum, and another variety at Oman, which
attains a height of from three to four feet, with woody
stems, wide-spreading branches, and light green foliage. The
flowers are produced in clusters and are yellow in color. The
seed-pods contain two or three black seeds of the size and
shape of a French bean. Their flavor is a little like that of
opium, the taste is sweet, and the odor from them produces a
sickening sensation and is slightly offensive. These seeds,
when pulverized and taken in small doses, operate on a person
in a very peculiar manner. He begins to laugh loudly and
boisterously, and then sings, dances, and cuts up all kinds of
fantastic capers. The effect continues about an hour, and the
patient is extremely comical. When the excitement ceases, the
exhausted individual falls into a deep sleep, which continues
for an hour or more, and when he awakens, he is utterly
unconscious that any such demonstrations have been made by
him.--_Scientific American._

(1756)

LAUGHTER

Albert J. Beveridge, United States Senator from Indiana, believes that the direction of his career was completely changed by a careless laugh. A writer in _Success_ quotes him as saying:

When I was a youth in Illinois I heard that the Congressman
from our district intended to hold an examination to determine
what young man he should appoint to West Point. I pitched in
and studied hard for that examination, and found it easy when I
came to take it. Most of the other fellows seemed to be still
struggling with it when I had finished, and I was so confident
that I had made few mistakes that I was in a pretty cheerful
frame of mind. This is why I laughed when one of the strugglers
asked a rather foolish question of the professor in charge.
The latter evidently felt that the dignity of the occasion had
been trifled with, for he scored one per cent against me. When
the papers came to be corrected this loss caused me to fall
one-fifth of one per cent below the boy who stood highest on the
list. He is a captain in the army now, where I suppose I should
be had it not been for that laugh. I believe in the power of
cheerfulness. Looking back, I am rather glad that I laughed.
(Text.)

(1757)

LAUGHTER AS A VENT

It might be said of Lamb, as of Abraham Lincoln, “laughter
was his vent”; if he had not laughed, he would have died of a
frenzied brain or of a broken heart. With Lamb the maddest mood
of frolic was a rebound from the blackest mood of melancholia;
a fact which Carlyle, who did know Lamb’s history, might have
remembered before he used the phrase “diluted insanity,”
which, in view of that sad history, is nothing less than
brutal.--W. J. DAWSON, “The Makers of English Prose.”

(1758)

LAUGHTER, PERILS OF

There is certainly no harm in a good laugh, and truly it is
not forbidden to a jester to speak the truth. Yet the laugh
must have the right ring to it. Socrates laughed, and Voltaire
laughed, as Thomas Erskine remarked; yet, as he said, what a
difference in the laugh of the two! And the man who laughs all
the time will not know what to do when the hour of weeping
comes. The laughing philosopher is a very shallow philosopher or
else a very shallow laugher. An awful gravity which comes from
a man taking himself too seriously is a thing which irresistibly
invites a tweaking of the nose; but a ridicule which beats and
splashes on all sides and at all times, fixing its pasquinades
nightly on the statues of our national heroes, smirking in the
presence of names and thoughts that ought to be shrouded in
sacred reverence, is one of the things that no right soul can
abide.--_Christian Union._

(1759)

LAUGHTER, PROVOKING

The doctor who could not laugh and make me laugh I should put
down for a half-educated man. It is one of the duties of the
profession to hunt for the material of a joke on every corner.
Most of them have so esteemed it. Garth, Rabelais, Abernethy,
and a hundred or so more too near to be named, what genial,
liver-shaking, heart-quickening, wit-waking worthies they were
and are! To the son who loves her best, nature reveals most
her tricks of workmanship. He knows there is a prize in every
package of commonplace and sadness, and he can find it--not only
the bit of fun shining to the eye of a connoisseur like an unset
jewel, but the eccentricity, the resemblance, the revelation,
countless signs and tokens of the evanescent, amusing,
pathetic creature we call the human.--A. B. WARD,
_Scribner’s_.

(1760)

LAUGHTER, VALUE OF

To what a dreary, dismal complexion should we all come at last,
were all fun and cachinnation expunged from our solemn and
scientific planet! Care would soon overwhelm us; the heart would
corrode; the river of life would be like the lake of the dismal
swamp; we should begin our career with a sigh, and end it with
a groan; while cadaverous faces and words to the tune of “The
Dead March in Saul,” would make up the whole interlude of our
existence. Hume, the historian, in examining a French manuscript
containing accounts of some private disbursements of King Edward
II of England, found, among others, one item of a crown paid
to somebody for making the king laugh. Could one conceive of
a wiser investment? Perhaps by paying one crown Edward saved
another. “The most utterly lost of all days,” says Chamfort, “is
that on which you have not once laughed.” Even that grimmest
and most saturnine of men, who, tho he made others roar with
merriment, was never known to smile, and who died “in a rage,
like a poisoned rat in a hole”--Dean Swift--has called laughter
“the most innocent of all diuretics.” (Text.)--WILLIAM
MATTHEWS, _Home Magazine_.

(1761)

LAW AND GRACE

One of the notable figures in the history of the American Navy is that of Admiral Porter. Wise in counsel and daring in execution, he has left his impression very deep upon its development and traditions. At one time he was in command of the Naval Academy at Annapolis when the following incident occurred:

General Grant was on a visit to the Academy. As he stood
watching the evolutions of the midshipmen, the general had his
ever-present cigar in his mouth. The marine on duty walked up to
the general and said, “General, I beg pardon, but it is against
the rules to smoke in the academy.” “All right,” replied the
general, and, with soldierly promptness, he proceeded to take
the cigar from his mouth. At that instant Admiral Porter stept
forward and said, “I abrogate that rule.” (Text.)

(1762)

LAW AND LOVE

A boisterous New-year’s eve reveler, by the name of Downey, was arrested on a Third Avenue elevated train in New York City:

After listening to the testimony Magistrate Cornell decided that
Downey’s New-year’s enthusiasm had been excessive, and that
he must pay ten dollars to the city treasury. Downey had used
all his available cash in celebrating, and he was about to be
led to the court prison, when his wife, who had been tearfully
listening to the evidence, fell in a faint. She was lifted up
by Callahan, the policeman who arrested her husband, and who
revived her and then inquired if she had any money with which to
pay the fine.

“Not a penny,” she replied, “and poor Jack will have to go to
jail. He’s such a good husband, too,” and the little woman wept.

“I won’t let him go to jail,” said Callahan, and he drew a
ten-dollar bill from his pocket and handed it to the clerk.
Thereupon the Downeys fell on his neck and wept for joy.

(1763)

* * * * *

Love is, in the spiritual world, what the powers of attraction,
resulting in beautiful harmonies of combination and
interrelation are seen to be in the physical. But the subject
of the law which claims love from moral beings must freely
accept its beneficent rule; while the crystal can not choose
another finish for its angles, or the star select for itself a
rule which will square it instead of rounding it.--RICHARD
S. STORRS.

(1764)

LAW ENFORCED

Violating a petty township ordinance on a hunting expedition
on Long Island, his friends were indignant when Garibaldi was
hauled before a local magistrate, as described in a recent
number of the _Century_. To the protests and condolences,
the patriot replied: “No, friends, these officers of the law
have done nothing more than their duty and I deserve the
correction. The Americans make and enforce the laws proper to
the regulating of their own communities, just as we hope some
day to do with ours in Italy.”

(1765)

LAW FOR THE TRANSGRESSOR

In certain places we see regulations like these placarded: “No
smoking allowed,” “No betting allowed,” “No swearing allowed”;
and we perceive at once the kind of place we are in, and the
kind of people who usually frequent them--that is sufficiently
clear from the prohibitory legislation. We never think of
putting up such regulations in a temple. So the commandments
of Moses assume this to be a sinful world; they are addrest
to sinners; there is in them the idiom of impeachment and
condemnation.--W. L. WATKINSON, “The Transfigured
Sackcloth.”

(1766)

=Law, Help=--See PROHIBITION AS A BENEFACTOR.

=Law, Impartial Enforcement of=--See IMPARTIALITY.

=Law in Earlier Times=--See PUNISHMENT, FORMER SEVERITY OF.

=Law, Invariable=--See GRAVITATION, LAW OF.

LAW, MORAL

We teach children that two and two are four, but not that it
is wrong to tell lies as a bookkeeper. We teach them that fire
burns, in science, but in morals we do not tell them that the
boy who tries to satisfy his hunger for pleasure with sin, is
one who eats red-hot coals when he is hungry. We tell the girl
that hot water scalds, but we do not tell her that there are
passions and pleasures through selfishness that blight the soul,
and do not satisfy, just as scalding water and boiling oil, and
carbolic acid will not satisfy thirst.--N. D. HILLIS.

(1767)

=Law More Than the Individual=--See IMPARTIALITY.

LAW, NATURAL

The laws of matter are simply the mode in which matter in
virtue of its constitution acts. Oxygen unites chemically with
hydrogen, in certain proportions, under certain conditions,
simply because of the qualities or attributes wherewith these
two gases are invested. It is not the law which determines the
combination, but the qualities which determine the law. These
elements act as they act, simply because they are what they are.

(1768)

LAW, OBEDIENCE TO

The world has no place in it for a lawless man. What we call
liberty is really a form of obedience to law, and whatever
you may achieve later in life will represent the discovery of
law and the instant acceptance thereof. The Indian obeys one
law--and can therefore swim the river. Obeying the law of fire,
he achieves a canoe, hollowed out with the flame. Obeying the
law of the wind, nature fills his sail, and releases him from
bondage to the oar; obeying the law of steam, nature gives the
man a ship. Obeying the law of electricity, his car doubles its
speed. Obeying the law of the air, the man spreads his wings
like a bird.--N. D. HILLIS.

(1769)

=Law Prohibiting Evil=--See COCAINE RESTRICTIONS.

LAW, SEVERITY OF ANCIENT

On February 9, 1810, Romilly, the great reformer, obtained
leave to bring in three bills to repeal the acts which punish
with death the crimes of stealing privately in a shop goods
of the value of five shillings, and of stealing to the amount
of forty shillings in dwelling-houses or on board vessels of
navigable rivers. In May that relating to shops was passed, the
two others were opposed by the Government. But on May 30 the
former bill was rejected by the House of Lords by a majority of
31 to 11. There were no less than seven bishops who voted for
the old cruel law. These learned Christian gentlemen devoutly
believed that transportation for life was not a sufficiently
severe punishment for the offense of pilfering what is of
five shillings’ value (dollar and a quarter).--EDWARD
GILLIAT, “Heroes of Modern Crusades.”

(1770)

=Lawless Business Men=--See MISERY AN EDUCATOR.

LAWLESSNESS

We see in the following incident how men who break law forfeit the right to secure the protection of the law:

A man in the preventive service on the south coast told this
history to Mrs. Norton, the authoress. He said he had once
been a smuggler. Desiring to reform he went to his smuggling
companions and demanded his share (one-third) of the boat, as he
wanted to leave the partnership. They refused, and laughed at
his demand; tho he offered to refer the claim to an arbitrator,
they only laughed the more. This exasperated him; so he went
out one night and sawed off a third of the boat. This did him
no good, but the expense to his companions would be more than
his share if they had peaceably given it to him. Mrs. Norton
made some comments on this method of redress, to which the man
rejoined: “Yes, marm, but you see they darn’t nor I darn’t
complain at law, ’cos it was a smuggling craft; and that’s how
it would always be, if there was no law, a man wud try and right
hisself, and if he couldn’t, he’d revenge hisself. That just
it.” (Text.)--CROAKE JAMES, “Curiosities of Law and
Lawyers.”

(1771)

LAWLESSNESS, SPRINGS OF

It was recently my good fortune to be invited to talk to a club
of Jewish boys. Among other matters I talked to them about
law and lawlessness, and tried to show that the spirit of
lawlessness, now so rife in this country, manifests itself at
first in little ways. I reminded them of the wanton lawlessness
of automobile drivers in exceeding speed limits, and then I
sought to bring the illustration close home to them by asking
if they ever saw a fellow at a ball-game, where scores of men
were standing in line waiting for their turn to get a ticket,
pass up to the head of the line and surreptitiously induce some
friend there, or even a stranger, to buy a ticket for him, and
thus take advantage of all those who had come before him. They
all recognized the illustration. It is a very common incident
in American life. Then I pointed out that such a proceeding
is a rank violation of the law of courtesy and fair play, and
that any one who would do that thing ruthlessly is sowing the
seeds of lawlessness, and may some day expect to reap the
consequences.--GEORGE W. COLEMAN, “Searchlights.”

(1772)

=Laymen, Opportunities of=--See PEW, IF I WERE IN THE.

LAZINESS, EXCUSE FOR

In the book of Proverbs is this verse: “The sluggard saith,
‘There is a lion without; I shall be slain in the street.’”
This means that a lazy man did not wish to go to work, and so
pretended that there was a lion in the street, and offered as an
excuse for not going to work that the lion in the street would
kill him if he went out.

It is a fact that every lazy boy and every indolent girl has
a lion; that is, some excuse for not doing what is asked. A
daughter is told to do her piano practising and exclaims: “Oh,
I can’t! It is so cold in the parlor” (lazy man’s lion). A son
is asked to run to the store on an errand and answers that his
shoe hurts his foot when he walks (lazy man’s lion). On Sunday
morning he can not go to church because it is rainy (lazy man’s
lion). He can not study his lessons because his eyes hurt him
(lazy man’s lion). She can not eat the crusts of her bread
because her gums are sore (lazy man’s lion). She can not get up
in time for breakfast because her throat pains her (lazy man’s
lion).

Look out for the lazy man’s lion, that foolish excuse for
not doing what we should do!--E. H. BYINGTON,
_Congregationalist_.

(1773)

LEADERSHIP, FAITHFUL

Sir Garnet Wolseley, in his Egyptian campaign against Arabi
Pasha at Tel-el-Kebir, selected a Scotch Highlander to lead his
force over the desert sands by the light of the stars, so timing
the silent march as to reach the point of assault at daybreak.
March and assault were successful, but the poor Highlander fell
mortally wounded. Sir Garnet, learning of this, went over to the
brave man, who, seeing his commander, said: “Didn’t I lead them
straight?”

Happy the Christian guide who in death can make a similar claim. (Text.)

(1774)

=Leaf, The Form of a=--See CREATION, A WITNESS OF.

=Leaners and Lifters=--See LIFTERS AND LEANERS.

LEARNING BY EXAMPLE

Prof. Lloyd Morgan made some interesting experiments in the
instincts of birds, by rearing chickens and wild fowl from an
incubator, so that they never could have learned anything from
their parents. He found that they needed to be taught almost
everything necessary to the proper conduct of their lives--not
only to distinguish what was good to eat, but even the very
acts of eating and drinking. They showed no fear of the human
race, and plainly did not understand the language of their own
mother when he placed them near her. The mothercluck of the hen
had no meaning for the incubator chick, who nevertheless came
promptly when he called. These experiments proved conclusively
that young birds are taught--or learn by imitation, which is
the same thing--to eat and drink, to understand their native
tongue, to recognize and procure their food, and to fear
mankind.--OLIVE THORNE MILLER, “The Bird Our Brother.”

(1775)

LEARNING PROCESS, THE

A young boy learns to play golf largely by taking the sticks
as he has seen some one hold them and whacking at the ball in
a haphazard fashion. Sometimes he hits it squarely, and then
he gets a satisfaction that tends to impress on him the memory
of the movement resulting in this satisfaction. He tries the
next time to reproduce this feeling and to locate the point
of difference, tho he is or may be conscious of none of these
efforts on his part. He keeps trying and trying until he
succeeds, noting meanwhile the ways other people stand, hold
their clubs, and swing, and comparing them with his way. An
old man, on the other hand, tries this method but makes no
such progress. He is not free to establish a dozen new ways
of getting a swing as the boy is. He has one or two already
established ways of turning on his feet and of swinging his
arms, but these unfortunately are not such as to help him
in his golf. He must, therefore, not merely recognize and
strive for the details of the right way, but he must more
or less consciously break up the old ways. His chances are
poor of success unless he is wisely directed; _i.e._,
taught.--STUART H. ROWE, “Proceedings of the Religious
Education Association,” 1907.

(1776)

=Learning Transformed Into Life=--See PRINCIPLES, MASTERING.

=Leisure=--See TIME, IMPROVING.

=Lessons, Class=--See ENCOURAGEMENT.

LETHARGY

In some parts of Africa the natives are attacked with
“sleeping-sickness.” The first symptom is drowsiness, and the
following days and weeks drift past in sleep. The sleep grows
deeper and heavier until the sufferer has passed out into the
unknown, to the sleep that knows no waking.