Chapter M: B. Banks writes a missionary lesson after the style of “Mother (13)

At Nashville, Tenn., there recently died an eccentric old lady,
known in the neighborhood as a miser of the most pronounced
type, tho possessing multiplied thousands. After her death the
premises were searched for the money, known to be hidden in
various places about the house. She had no confidence in banks,
and therefore employed this method of concealing her treasures.
For seventeen years she never left her home, lest some one get
her money. Was ever a life more completely misspent? The joy
she might have had by helping others, she missed because of her
miserly disposition. She preferred to be poor--really poor--in
the midst of her gold. She starved her soul that she might
worship at the shrine of Mammon.--_The Gospel Messenger._

(1950)

MAN A CREATOR

The fork, the knife, the graver, the spade, they are merely
steel fingers, iron hands, accumulating and prolonging the
energy of those members. The rudder which the hand holds, it is
in effect that hand itself, enlarged, and shielded from the wash
of the waves. The telescope, with its wondrous space-penetrating
power, the microscope, with its clear and searching lens,
in which seems almost an image of Omniscience, are yet only
adjutants and servitors to the eye, that more marvelous
instrument which no hand can fashion. The soul of man, invisible
itself, controls the eye. It creates the telescope, to be its
assistant. The locomotive steam-engine, with its connected
trains of cars, whose tread is like an earthquake traversing
the surface, whose rush outruns in noise and power the plunge
of the cataract--the soul has created that as a servant to the
body, to move this on its errands, and to carry its burdens.
The steamship flashing through night and storm, trampling the
riotous waves beneath it, and drowning the strife and uproar
of the winds, by its more measured and peremptory stroke, is
a similar instrument sent forth on the seas. Each began in a
thought. Each was born of the soul. And that which produced them
has the power to work with them, for any effects.--RICHARD
S. STORRS.

(1951)

MAN A TIMEKEEPER

There are many ways in which a man is like a watch, as this curious epitaph shows, which can be seen in the churchyard at Lydford, Devonshire, England:

Here lies in a horizontal position
The outside case of
George Routledge, watchmaker.
Integrity was the main-spring and prudence
the regulator of all the actions of his life;
Humane, generous and liberal,
His hand never stopt till he had relieved distress;
So nicely regulated were his movements that he never went wrong,
Except when set a-going by people who did not know his key;

Even then he was easily set right again.
He had the art of disposing of his time so well
That his hours glided away in one continued round of pleasure.
Till, in an unlucky moment, his pulse stopt beating.
He ran down Nov. 14, 1801, aged 57,
In hopes of being taken in hand by his Maker,
Thoroughly cleaned, repaired, wound up and set a-going,
In the world to come, when time shall be no more.

(1952)

MAN AS A TEMPLE

My God, I heard this day
That none doth build a stately habitation
But he that means to dwell therein.
What house more stately hath there been
Or can be, than is man? To whose creation
All things are in decay.

Since then, my God, Thou hast
So brave a palace built, O dwell in it,
That it may dwell with Thee at last!
Till Thou afford us so much wit
That, as the world serve us, we may serve Thee,
And both Thy servants be. (Text.)

--GEORGE HERBERT.

(1953)

MAN GODLIKE

An unidentified writer here points out the greatness of man even tho often overthrown:

Swarming across the earthly crust,
Delving deep in the yellow dust,
Raising his ant-hills here and there,
Scoring the soil for his humble fare,
Braving the sea in his tiny boat--
Tireless he struggles, this human mote.

Tempests scatter his ant-hills wide,
Vainly he braves the boiling tide,
Fire will ruin his busy mart,
Famine stilleth his throbbing heart,
Trembles the earth and prone he falls,
Crusht and tombed by his pigmy walls.

Heir of the kingdom ’neath the skies,
Often he falls, yet falls to rise.
Stumbling, bleeding, beaten back,
Holding still to the upward track;
Playing his part in creation’s plan,
Godlike in image--this is man!

(1954)

=Man Imitating Nature=--See IMITATION OF NATURE.

MAN INDESTRUCTIBLE

Some time ago a Philadelphia anatomist announced to the world
that the brain of Walt Whitman, through the carelessness of a
hospital employee, had been lost to science. The jar that held
the poet’s brain fell to the floor and was broken, so that not
even the fragments of the organ were saved. Well, let the poet’s
brain be shattered, if you will; the poet himself can not be
touched. The flaming star-wheels can not crush him, the maddened
oceans can not engulf him, the black caves of night can not hide
him, the scorching flames of hell can not destroy him. Man is a
spark of divinity the image of deity, an “emotion of God flashed
into time.”--F. F. SHANNON.

(1955)

MAN MADE FOR ETERNITY

You can tell the difference between sea and land birds by the
length and strength of their wings. The wings of the former are
intended for long and sustained action in their sweep along the
surface of the great ocean.

Man’s soul, in a similar manner, is not intended for this material world, but has long and strong wings of hope and affection wherewith to span the ocean of eternity.--VYRNWY MORGAN, “The Cambro-American Pulpit.”

(1956)

=Man Not a Puppet=--See MASTERY OF CIRCUMSTANCES.

=Man, Original=--See ORIGINALITY OF MAN.

MAN POSSESSING NATURE

Thomas Traherne, a poet, whose worth was discovered only after he was dead, is the author of the following:

The orb of light in its wide circuit moves,
Corn for our food springs out of very mire.
Our fuel grows in woods and groves;
Choice herbs and flowers aspire
To kiss our feet; beasts court our loves.
How glorious is man’s fate!
The laws of God, the works He did create,
His ancient ways, are His and my estate.

(1957)

MAN, SLOW DEVELOPMENT OF

Robert Loveman takes a wide view of man in this verse:

A thousand years doth nature plan
Upon the making of a man;
She sweeps the generations through,
To find the patient, strong, and true;
She rends the surge of seven seas,
Rearing an humble Socrates;
She burns a hundred years of sun,
Sealing the soul of Solomon.

A thousand years doth nature plan
Upon the making of a Man;
She sees the ages dawn apace,
Ere Moses rouse his shackled race,
Or Homer or sweet Shakespeare sing,
Beside his deep eternal spring;
The centuries rise in reverence when
Buddha doth come unto his men.

A thousand years doth nature plan
Upon the making of a man;
She fills his heart with fire and faith,
She leaves him loyal unto death;
She lights his lustrous, loving eye
With flashes of immortality;
She adds one more undying name
Upon the heated scroll of fame.

--“Songs from a Georgia Garden.”

(1958)

=Man, Superiority of=--See SPEECH.

=Man, The Manly=--See MANLINESS.

=Man the Product of Many Elements=--See DIVERSE INFLUENCES.

MAN, VALUE OF A

Years ago a Mr. Campbell, a British subject, was held a prisoner
by Theodore, King of Abyssinia. England demanded his release,
sending an army of ten thousand men who marched seven hundred
miles, to Coomassie, and all at a cost of twenty-five million
dollars--just to rescue a single man. (Text.)

(1959)

=Maneuvering by Birds=--See STRATAGEM BY BIRDS.

MANHOOD

We need not more machinery or institutions. What the world needs is men, as Rudyard Kipling shows in this verse:

The peace of shocked foundations flew
Before his ribald questionings,
He broke the oracles in two
And bared the paltry wires and strings;
He headed desert wanderings;
He led his soul, his cause, his clan,
A little from the ruck of things.
Once on a time there was a man.

Thrones, powers, dominions block the view
With episodes and underlings;
The meek historian deems them true,
Nor heeds the song that Clio sings,
The simple central truth that stings
The mob to boo, the priest to ban,
Things never yet created things.
Once on a time there was a man. (Text.)

--_Collier’s Weekly._

(1960)

MANHOOD RECOGNIZED

Jesus saw in the meanest man the possibilities of character. This is what Charles Wagner urges us to do in the following extract:

Maintain toward the poor man and the infirm a courtesy, an
attentiveness; find in your heart and in your love a sign that
makes him recollect that he is a man. His misery is like a tomb
in which his self-respect sleeps buried. It is something to
respect this tomb, to approach it with piety, to care for it and
to keep a flower growing there; but each of these attentions is
addrest to one that is dead, shows that you accept his death,
and that you confirm it. Do more and do better. Remember that
it is a living man that lies under the dust, slowly amassed, of
days of suffering. Breathe upon this dust, disengage the human
form; speak to Lazarus and make him come forth from the shrouds
that surround him, from the night that covers him. (Text.)--“The
Gospel of Life.”

(1961)

MANIFESTATION

Just as creation is the revelation of God--His avowal, as a
poet has said--so in the same way the external life of man,
when it follows its normal development, is the translation, in
signs and symbols, of what he bears at the bottom of his being.
It would be easier to keep the sap from mounting, the flowers
from opening, the leaves from tearing apart their coverings,
than human nature from manifesting itself. It is this need
that gives man his distinction as a social and communicative
being.--Charles Wagner, “The Gospel of Life.”

(1962)

MANLINESS

The world has room for the manly man, with the spirit of manly
cheer;
The world delights in the man who smiles when his eyes keep back
the tear;
It loves the man who, when things go wrong, can take his place and
stand
With his face to the fight and his eyes to the light, and toil with
a willing hand;
The manly man is the country’s need, and the moment’s need,
forsooth,
With a heart that beats to the pulsing tread of the lilied leagues
of truth;
The world is his and it waits for him, and it leaps to hear the
ring
Of the blow he strikes and the wheels he turns and the hammers he
dares to swing;
It likes the forward look in his face, the poise of his noble head,
And the onward lunge of his tireless will and the sweeps of his
dauntless tread!
Hurrah for the manly man who comes with sunlight on his face,
And the strength to do and the will to dare and the courage to find
his place!
The world delights in the manly man, and the weak and evil flee
When the manly man goes forth to hold his own on land or sea!
(Text.)

--_American Israelite._

(1963)

=Manner, The Orator’s=--See EARNESTNESS.

=Manners=--See CIRCUMSTANCES, TAKING ADVANTAGE OF; DUAL CHARACTER;
MACHINE TESTIMONY.

=Manners, Teaching Bad=--See POLITENESS.

MAN’S AGE ON EARTH

Some scientists reason that the Falls of Niagara must have been formed soon after the Glacial Epoch, and the time occupied in wearing the rock back to the present position therefore furnishes a basis for calculating the age of man on the earth, as he must have begun his career since that epoch:

In an address in Washington before the United States Geological
Survey, Professor Gilbert gave the following interesting
information regarding the recession of the ground under Niagara
Falls: The estimate is that for the past forty-four years
the falls have receded at the rate of twenty-four feet in a
year. The Horseshoe Falls are at the head of the gorge and the
American Falls at the eastern side, but the time was when both
were together, before the little point called Goat Island was
reached. The recession is more rapid at the center than on the
sides. As the crest of the Horseshoe Falls retreats the water
tends to concentrate there, and the time will probably come when
the sides of the present falls will have become dry shores. The
gorge is known to be 35,500 feet long. A calculation has shown
that, on this basis, the falls began to wear away the rock of
the escarpment near Lewiston about 7,900 years ago.--_Public
Opinion._

(1964)

MAN’S CONQUEST OF ANIMALS

Man-eating tigers have for so long been regarded by the natives
of most parts of India as invincible, or else protected by the
native religions, that they have had things pretty much their
own way. One determined hunter for every fifty frightened,
unarmed men would scarcely serve to intimidate any animal. Many
tribes of North American Indians looked upon the bear with
veneration; but for all that, any bear so courageous as to let
himself be seen by them got an arrow between his ribs right
away, and in time the whole tribe of American bears learned that
the chances were against them, just as the wolves and cougars
arrived at a similar conclusion. Those that turned man-eaters
might for a few seasons hunt their prey successfully, and if
gifted with unusual cunning get away unscratched for a while,
but the vengeance of the tribe would be certain to overtake
them before very long, and only the more cowardly ones of their
species would survive to perpetuate the race.--WITMER
STONE and WILLIAM EVERETT CRAM, “American Animals.”

(1965)

=Man’s Greatness=--See SIZE NOT POWER.

MAN’S IMPORTANCE

The world is one thing to a bird, or a fish, but quite another
thing to Cuvier or Agassiz. Then man entered the scene.
Stretching out his hand he waved a wonder-working wand. He
touched the wood, and it became a wagon; he touched the ore and
it became an engine; he touched the boughs and they became the
reeds of an organ; he touched the wild animal, and it became a
burden-bearer for his weary feet; while his intellect turned the
stone into geology, and the stars into astronomy, and the fields
into husbandry, and his duties into ethics. When the flint
and steel meet, something beyond either appears--a tongue of
flame. And when man and nature met, something new emerged--art,
industry, ethics, cities and civilization. There is nothing
great in nature but man. Take man out of this wondrous city with
its cathedrals, galleries, and homes, and Broadway would become
a streak of iron-rust. The earth wears man upon her bosom as the
circling ring wears a sparkling gem. The bog puts forth a white
lily; genius is a flower rooted in earth, but borrowing its
bloom and beauty from heaven.--N. D. HILLIS.

(1966)

=Man’s Part=--See EVANGELIZATION.

=Man’s Part in Religion=--See FAITH.

MAN’S PREEMINENCE

When you approach a great city at night and see only its
tens of thousands of lights, you do not for a moment attach
importance to those mechanical contrivances, the lights. The
unseen inhabitants in the tens of thousands of lighted homes
are the real objects of interest and worth. So the worlds, and
not the suns, are the objects of true worth and interest in
the universe; the worlds, the lighted and glowing houses of
God’s children, not the mechanical contrivances for making them
comfortable. Upon these must center our thought and interest.
What is the fire which warms the man and cooks his dinner,
compared with the man himself? What is the light and fire,
compared with the home? What is the sun, compared with the
world? Just here we begin to get some breath of assurance. While
the worlds in our system differ very greatly in size and glory,
while some of the great suns doubtless have correspondingly
great worlds circling about them, yet we may reasonably suppose
that among the worlds of the universe our earth is somewhere
near the middle of the scale. And we earth-dwellers, intelligent
children of the Father, are no mean citizens in the kingdom of
our God. If He has built such a mansion of light for us, and
kindled such a hearth-fire as our sun, and made us lords and
masters of such a world as this, why may we not lift up our
heads in love and triumph? (Text.)--JAMES H. ECOB.

(1967)

See SPEECH.

MAN’S SIZE

How big is a man, anyway? Well, he is smaller than an elephant,
and an elephant is smaller than a mountain, and a mountain is
smaller than the world, and the world is a mustard-seed compared
with the sun, and the sun itself is a mere mote in the dust
cloud of spheres that stretches out through the universe beyond
the reach of thought.

Coleridge said bigness is not greatness. So while mountains and worlds are bigger than men, man can remove mountains if not worlds. It is not mere size that counts, but power and worth. (Text.)

(1968)

MAN’S WORKS

Mabel Earle writes of a bridge flung across from a cliff to an opposite shore as a symbol of man’s service, improving natural formations:

The cliff stood waiting, silent and alone,
After the rending shock which gave it birth;
Age upon age the waters wore the stone,
And the long shadows wheeled across the earth,
Swinging from west to east. Through sun and snow
It kept God’s secret whispered long ago.

Once from its topmost crag a cable swung,
And a face laughed against its frowning strength,
The life of man in splendid risk outflung
Fulfilling the slow centuries at length;
On the bare rock to stamp his signet clear,
God’s warrant witnessed by the engineer.

Then, with a flash of fire and blinding smoke,
A peal that shook the mountain, base to crest,
The silence of the waiting eons broke
Into the thunder of that high behest,
And on the steep where never foot had trod
Men wrought a pathway for the will of God.

God of the cliff, from whom the whisper fell
Of hope and hope’s fulfilment yet to be,
Make good Thy promise unto us as well;
Yoke Thou our pride in love’s captivity;
And, tho it come through fire and scar and throe,
Give us the crown of service, Lord, to know.

(1969)

* * * * *

The last ten summers have witnessed greater changes than the
previous 10,000, for man has learned to work with nature and
God. The old manuscripts and the grains and fruits depicted
in old frescoes, tell us that the ancient world had all our
grains and fruits. Centuries passed, but the same sheaves and
boughs were ripened. It could not be otherwise. The wheat had
no feet, the flowers had no hands. The tulip needed man. One
day man decided to work together with the fruit. He took the
most brilliant colors and carried the plants into a glass house
and sealed the room tight. Then he went one hundred miles and
brought another tulip, being feet thereto, and pollenized the
one flower with the seed of the other. When ten years had
passed, lo, there were 5,000 new flowers, never seen before,
brilliant in hue, and of an unwonted perfume, growing in the
fields of Holland. In Minnesota, using similar methods, the
scientists have produced 2,000 new kinds of wheat, and three
of these wheats have added enormous wealth to Minnesota and
Dakota. Out in Illinois a professor selected corn with reference
to the increase of the oil that heats, makes muscle and builds
tissue. He carried the percentage of oil in a grain of corn from
four hundredths to six hundredths, and this added some five
hundred millions to the wealth of the great corn States in a
single year. And he did it by tying tissue-paper over the tops
of his selected cornstalks, after which he journeyed several
hundred miles, to bring pollen with which to fertilize the
stalks.--N. D. HILLIS.

(1970)

=Manual-training and Culture=--See COMPREHENSIVENESS IN
EDUCATION.

=Many Strings Required=--See STRING, THE NEED OF MORE THAN ONE.

=Margin, The, and Character=--See CHARACTER, TEST OF.

MARGINS OF LIFE

It is the little greater care of the extra hour, the additional effort that constitutes the margin of advantage of one man over another. President Garfield said:

When I was in college, a certain young man was leading the class
in Latin. I couldn’t see how he got the start of us all so. To
us he seemed to have an infinite knowledge. He knew more than
we did. Finally, one day, I asked him when he learned his Latin
lesson. “At night,” he replied. I learned mine at the same time.
His window was not far from mine, and I could see him from my
own. I had finished my lesson the next night as well as usual,
and, feeling sleepy, was about to go to bed. I happened to
saunter to my window, and there I saw my classmate still bending
diligently over his book. “There’s where he gets his margin on
me,” I thought. “But he shall not have it for once,” I resolved.
“I will study just a little longer than he does to night.” So
I took down my books again, and, opening to the lesson, went
to work with renewed vigor. I watched for the light to go out
in my classmate’s room. In fifteen minutes it was all dark.
“There is his margin,” I thought. It was fifteen minutes more
time. It was hunting out fifteen minutes more of rules and root
derivatives. How often, when a lesson is well prepared, just
five minutes spent in perfecting it will make one the best in
the class. The margin in such a case as that is very small, but
it is all-important. The world is made up of little things.
(Text.)

(1971)

MARKING TIME

Too much of human effort consists of merely going through motions without ever getting forward:

Bicycle races without leaving the starting-place, which are
said to be the latest craze in places of amusement in Paris,
are described in _Popular Mechanics_. Says this paper:
“The wheel is fixt in a frame fastened to the floor. When the
rider begins to pedal, a belt from the rear wheel drives a small
electrical generator. The current thus produced is conducted
to a motor on wheels and carrying a flag. The track on which
the motor travels is marked in distances, and each foot of
track requires as much work by the rider as would have carried
the bicycle one mile had it been free to run as under ordinary
conditions of use.” (Text.)

(1972)

MARKS, COVERING

When the physician prescribed blisters to Marie Bashkirtseff to
check her consumptive tendency, the vain, cynical girl wrote:
“I will put on as many blisters as thee like. I shall be able
to hide the mark by bodices trimmed with flowers and lace and
tulle, and a thousand other delightful things that are worn,
without being required; it may even look pretty. Ah! I am
comforted.” (Text.)

(1973)

MARKS OF CHARACTER

Admiration is sometimes exprest about the peaceful faces of
nuns, sisters of charity, and similar devotees of the secluded
life. But if you polish a piece of stone and keep it in a
cabinet it will be smooth. The same stone set into a foundation
will soon show marks of the weather. So marks on the face, lines
of care, traces of sorrow, usually show that one has been doing
something; has been of some use; has been developing character.

(1974)

=Marks, Removing=--See REMINDERS, UNPLEASANT.

MARRIAGE

Look at marriage as a divine plan for mutual compensation--each
making up for the deficiencies of the other, somewhat as the
two lenses of crown-glass and flint-glass combine in the
achromatic lens. What one has the other has not, and so, by
association, each gets the advantage of the other’s capacity,
and finds relief from conscious lack and incompetency.--A.
T. PIERSON.

(1975)

=Marriage and Divorce=--See BIRTH-RATE IN FRANCE; DIVORCE.

MARRIAGE CUSTOM, BRUTAL

The marriage ceremony of the Australian savages consists
often in the simple process of stunning a stray female of a
neighboring tribe by means of a club, and then dragging her
away an unresisting captive, just as the males of the larger
species of seal are said to attack and temporarily disable their
intended mates.--FELIX OSWALD, _Good Health_.

(1976)

MARRIAGE RACING

A writer in the New York _Commercial Advertiser_, describing certain curious marriage customs, says:

In some cases the ceremony takes the form of what is called
bride-racing. The girl is given a certain start and the lover is
expected to overtake her. An observer among the Calmucks assures
us that no Calmuck girl is ever caught “unless she have a
partiality for her pursuer.” _Per contra_, Mr. Kennan tells
us of a bride-race among the Koriacks (northern Asia) which he
witnest, where the girl went scampering, pursued by her lover,
through a succession of compartments, called pologs, in a large
tent. So nimble was the maid that she distanced her pursuer,
but--she waited for him in the last polog! All of which goes to
prove that the wise men of old knew what they were talking about
when they said that the race is not always to the swift.

(1977)

MARRIAGE RELATIONS IN THE EAST

The third relation in Confucius’ teaching is that of “Husband
and Wife.” Confucius expressly teaches that husband and wife are
very “different” beings, which is in startling contrast to the
teachings of Christ, who called the twain “one.” The husband
of the East was carefully cautioned not to love his wife very
much, as that showed an effeminate man. The kiss between husband
and wife was wholly unknown, and when foreigners were first seen
to show affection in this way, it was regarded as extremely
funny. “Every time I see foreigners kiss, I catch a sick,” said
a student who was trying to air his English.--JOHN H. DE
FOREST, “Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdom.”

(1978)

MARTYR SPIRIT

Bad things are said against the Japanese, with more or less
truth. But yet, a nation whose history has so many moral heroes
can not be bad at heart. Japan has produced one man who gave
his life to save the people of his province from oppression and
ruin. He was cruelly crucified, his innocent wife with him, and
their children were barbarously executed before the parents’
eyes. Yet this man’s dying words on the cross were: “Had I five
hundred lives, I’d gladly give them all for you, my people.” So
far as I know, there is no other story in all history so closely
resembling that of the crucifixion of Christ as this. The nation
that can produce one such hero has the potency and promise of
noble morality. This fearlessness of death in the face of duty
runs all through the history of the people, which tells of
wives who willingly died for their husbands, of children for
their parents, of parents for their children, and of subjects
for their lords.--JOHN H. DE FOREST, “Sunrise in the
Sunrise Kingdom.”

(1979)

=Martyrdom=--See MISSIONARY MARTYRDOM.

MARTYRS

They never fail who die
In a great cause; the block may soak their gore,
Their heads may sodden in the sun, their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls,
But still their spirits walk abroad, tho years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom;
They but augment the deep and swelling thoughts
That overpower all others, and conduct
The world at last to freedom.

--BYRON.

(1980)

=Masks=--See EVIL, DISGUISED.

MASSES, AMONG THE

Alexander Irvine, author and lecturer, speaking before the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, said in part:

Speaking for the mass of the laborers, the men and women of the
underworld, men and women not knowing or appreciating beauty
in any form, men who know only the whip and spur, I speak
feelingly, for I was one of them. I began work caring for the
horses of a rich man and I wondered then why a horse was of
more value than a man. I had then the ambition to have as good
a life as the horse. I quit and went to a coalpit and worked
for a shilling a day in merry England, and I saw there the same
disparity. I was a miner’s mucker, and the mules were better and
far more considered than the men. There was at the time a labor
leader trying to organize the men to work for better wages and
better hours. I tried to teach them the way to heaven. He was
doing the better work, as those workmen in the mines could not
have appreciated heaven.

In a lumber-camp I saw peonage at its worst. I was a peon
myself, under the whip and lash and the butt-end of the whip was
held in Wall Street, and the lash cut the backs of Anglo-Saxon
men. Could I find a magazine to print my story of what I saw? I
could not. The stocks of the magazine company were owned by the
capitalists.--Brooklyn _Standard Union_.

(1981)

MASTER HAND, LACKING THE

Some years ago I was chairman of a church committee to purchase
a new pipe-organ. We were an ambitious congregation, and nothing
but the biggest and the best would suffice. We purchased a
magnificent instrument--three manuals, tracker, pneumatic
action, 1,944 pipes, and all the necessary swells and stops;
cost $5,000. It was a “thing of beauty,” and we expected it to
be a “joy forever.” The congregation was pleased; the committee
was delighted.

But somehow things did not go well. Sister Jones, the old
organist, would not touch the new-fangled thing. “Too much
machinery and too much show,” she said. Of course, we were
adverse to going outside of the congregation for an organist.
So we tried Minnie Wright, the deacon’s daughter; but Minnie
could not manipulate the stops and swells. We next tried Josie
Grayson, an orphan girl, who really needed the place. Now, Josie
could play with her hands, but when it came to playing with
her feet also she could not do it. We next tried Seth McGraw,
who had been to college and who, in addition to his musical
ability, was able-bodied and strong. Seth put all the power on
the motor, pulled out all the stops, and kicked and pawed with
might and main. The organ shrieked and bellowed and roared.
As for noise, the bulls of Bashan were outclassed. But as for
music--well, it requires more than a big organ and a big man
to produce that. The congregation was disappointed, disgusted,
and fast becoming desperate. They said that the organ was too
big, too complicated, and that it had at least nineteen hundred
pipes too many. There were charges of mismanagement and even
fraud against the committee, and hints that “something might
be doing.” Now, Indiana lies in the north central portion of
the lynching belt of the United States, so the committee felt a
trifle uncomfortable.

To my way of thinking, there is a marked similarity between the
musical experience of this congregation and the educational
experience of many communities in this country. We have built
great schoolhouses and prepared elaborate courses of study,
with more manuals, stops, and swells than characterized the
great organ of Newtown. The old course of study, which was so
simple that even Sister Jones could play it by ear, has given
place to a new, elaborate, and highly organized course which is
difficult--entirely too difficult--for the Minnie Wrights and
Josie Graysons, no difference if the one is a relative of some
member of the school-board and the other is the daughter of a
poor widow. It requires more, too, than an able-bodied man to
get proper results from the course of study, even if he has been
to college and played fullback on the football team. He may make
a great ado about it, but the results will be very similar to
Seth McGraw’s music on the pipe-organ--calculated to incite a
riot.--J. W. CARR.

(1982)

MASTER MIND, THE

Jesus, as the Master mind of the world, rules in it by controlling many other minds, as the master clock in this account controls many other clocks:

“A German has invented a new clock system which has some
original features worthy of mention,” says _The American
Inventor_. “The system is that of a master clock which
controls electrically as many individual clock installations
as may be required. The clock, which is installed in the house
or place of business of the subscriber to the system, is
similar to the ordinary one, inasmuch as it has a face and two
hands; but the works are replaced by a couple of magnets and a
balance-wheel. The master clock is provided with a transmitting
apparatus designed to be operated by the movement of the hands.
An impulse is sent from the wires when the hands of the master
clock advance one minute on the face of the dial. This impulse
affects the magnets in the small clocks in such a way that the
hands are advanced the same amount as were the hands of the
master clock. This operation is kept up indefinitely, and, of
course, all of the small clocks keep exactly the same time as
the master clock.” (Text.)

(1983)

=Master Revealed=--See CAPTAIN, THE DIVINE.

=Master, Thinking About His=--See DUTY.

MASTERY

One of those strong currents, always mysterious, and sometimes
impossible to foresee, had set us into shore out of our course,
and the ship was blindly beating on a dreary coast of sharp and
craggy rocks.

Suddenly we heard a voice up in the fog in the direction of
the wheel-house, ringing like a clarion above the roar of the
waves, and the clashing sounds on shipboard, and it had in it
an assuring, not a fearful tone. As the orders came distinctly
and deliberately through the captain’s trumpet, to “shift the
cargo,” to “back her,” to “keep her steady,” we felt somehow
that the commander up there in the thick mist on the wheel-house
knew what he was about, and that through his skill and courage,
by the blessing of heaven, we should all be rescued. The man who
saved us so far as human aid ever saves drowning mortals, was
one fully competent to command a ship; and when, after weary
days of anxious suspense, the vessel leaking badly, and the
fires in danger of being put out, we arrived safely in Halifax,
old Mr. Cunard, agent of the line, on hearing from the mail
officer that the steamer had struck on the rocks and had been
saved only by the captain’s presence of mind and courage, simply
replied: “Just what might have been expected in such a disaster;
Captain Harrison is always master of the situation.”--JAMES
T. FIELDS.

(1984)

MASTERY BY INTELLIGENCE

The devil can always be beaten if we go about it seriously:

Morphy, the American chess-player, looking at the picture of
a youth playing chess with Satan, and, apparently, doomed to
inevitable defeat, studied the position, called for chessmen and
board in reality, and by one move won the hypothetical game.

(1985)

=Mastery Necessary to Progress=--See CONQUEST BY MAN.

MASTERY OF CIRCUMSTANCES

One of Mr. Ingersoll’s most eloquent chapters is on “Man as an
Automaton,” played upon by the blind forces of nature. A clot in
the brain explains Benedict Arnold’s treason. A foul taint in
the arteries that is like a fungus luring a merchant ship on the
rocks. Penury and vicious environment fill our jails and must
fill them. But the argument was born of a great man’s beautiful
sympathy for his fellow sufferers. It did not issue from logic
or nature or events. Indeed, all life and daily experience stood
up and shouted against his affirmation. What! Man a puppet with
whom nature plays an endless game of battledore and shuttlecock!
Man a victim of heredity and environment! Some years ago I met a
successful merchant, living in a beautiful house on one of the
best avenues in his great city. His mother was an evil woman,
his father a river thief, he was kicked around the river front
until he was eight, slept in the loft of a livery stable until
he was nine, killed a man when he was ten, taken home by one
of the participants in the trial, became the partner of his
benefactor and achieved universal recognition and honor.--N.
D. HILLIS.

(1986)

See COLLEGE OR EXPERIENCE.

MASTERY OF NATURE

Until a generation ago our great lakes of the north were closed
with the ice, which stopt all navigation until the thaw of
the spring came. Now there are ice-boats, made of steel with
powerful engines, that not only cut paths for themselves and the
heavy freight which they carry, but also make a path for less
powerful craft. They pound their way through the ice-fields,
and thus make all-the-year-round navigation possible. The ports
of northern Europe used to be locked with ice until these great
ice-breaking ships were brought into use. There is nothing short
of an iceberg which they can not overcome. Our lakes do not have
bergs, of course, and hence these great ice-cutting ships have a
marvelous mastery over the obstacles.

The mastery of the ice-fields by the hardy men and powerful ships of the north is another illustration of human genius and sovereignty. (Text.)

(1987)

MATERIAL FOR A GREAT LIFE

Do not try to do a great thing; you may waste all your life
waiting for the opportunity which may never come. To be content
to be a fountain in the midst of a wild valley of stones,
nourishing a few lichens and wild flowers or now and again a
thirsty sheep; and to do this always and not for the praise of
man, but for the sake of God--this makes a great life.--F.
B. MEYER.

(1988)

=Material, The, and the Spiritual=--See MYSTERY IN RELIGION.

MATERIALISM INADEQUATE

A machine can tell us something about its maker, but it can not produce another machine. The gospel of materialism is inadequate to explain the world.

“Give me matter,” said Kant, “and I will explain the formation
of a world; but give me matter only, and I can not explain the
formation of a caterpillar.”

The glory of the Creator has not descended to man and it will not. Matter, in all its inertia and helplessness but adds to the angelic refrain, “Worship God.”

(1989)

MATERNAL, GOD’S LOVE

The pagan Stoic poet, Cleanthes, who flourished B.C. 260, would seem to have caught a glimpse of the maternal quality of God. One of his prayers is:

“Merciful mother! bestow favor upon me, thy poor worshiper,
whatever evil I may be guilty of. Thou hast a maternal nature,
art gentle and patient, thou supreme one.” (Text.)

(1990)

=Maternal Love and Fiction=--See MOTHERS NOT IN FICTION.

MATURITY, SINS OF

Remember that the time is short, too short, to recover from
mistakes. An old man’s broken limb heals slowly. The butterfly
that tears its wing in the morning in August does not heal its
wound. The mature goldfish may tear the hook loose, but the hurt
can not be cured. The well-grown tree suffers grievously from
the gash of an ax. Sin injures youth much, but scars maturity
more. Saul pleased God in his youth, and lost his soul in his
maturity.--N. D. HILLIS.

(1991)

MEALS, SIMPLICITY IN

It is related of Count von Haseler, who for twelve years
commanded the Sixteenth German Army Corps at Metz, and enjoyed
a high reputation in other countries besides his own, that when
on a tour of inspection he arrived at a hotel where a sumptuous
meal had been prepared for him. To the proprietor’s infinite
disappointment he ordered a glass of milk and some bread and
butter to be taken to his room, whence he did not emerge for
the rest of the evening. This talented soldier, when nearing
his seventieth year, spent whole days in the saddle in all
weathers, and his untiring energy is still a favorite theme of
conversation in German military circles.--_National Review._

(1992)

MEAN, THE GOLDEN

In arctic regions plants, which under more genial conditions
would unfold themselves in a delightful perfection, remain
stunted and mean, exhausting their vitality in withstanding
the severities of the climate. The same is true of animal
life. The Newfoundland dogs of Kane, in the Polar seas, became
mad through the excruciating severity of the cold. The birds
come to a certain strength and glory through the necessity of
awareness, but there is often such a fearful blood-thirstiness
in the tropical forest, such a profusion of cruel hawks, owls,
serpents, and beasts of prey, that a bird’s life is one long
terror, and it forgets its music. And this applies equally
to man. He is all the better for a regulated conflict with
his environment, but all the worse if the conflict attain
undue severity. His conflict with nature may exhaust him.
(Text.)--W. L. WATKINSON, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(1993)

MEANING, LOGICAL

Take the English proverb, “Tenderden steeple is the cause of
Goodwin Sands.” We said, “How ignorant a population!” But, when
we went deeper into the history, we found that the proverb
was not meant for logic, but was meant for sarcasm. One of
the bishops had £50,000 given to him to build a breakwater to
save the Goodwin Sands from the advancing sea; but the good
bishop, instead of building the breakwater to keep out the sea,
simply built a steeple; and this proverb was sarcastic, and not
logical, that “Tenderden steeple was the cause of the Goodwin
Sands.” When you contemplate the motive, there was the closest
and best-welded logic in the proverb. So I think a large share
of our criticism of old legends and old statements will be found
in the end to be the ignorance that overleaps its own saddle and
falls on the other side.--WENDELL PHILLIPS.

(1994)

=Means and End=--See VALUES, STANDARD OF.

MEANS, LIVING WITHIN ONE’S

The man of five hundred dollars income is trying to live as
tho he were sure of a thousand. Of course he is in straits and
shallows. Instead of sailing on a fair sea, as he might within
his own range, he is doomed to struggle perpetually with his
head under water. To live generously is desirable when one has
the means; but to attempt a scale of expenditure beyond our
means is neither wise nor comfortable. How much more sensible
to live in a modest way, agreeable to our fortune and suited to
our condition! To follow this rule requires more courage than to
besiege a city or fight a battle; but it is attainment for which
we should aspire as a means of personal comfort and a guard
against temptation.--_Zion’s Herald._

(1995)

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

“How is it, Mr. Brown,” said a miller to a farmer, “that when I
came to measure those ten barrels of apples I bought from you I
found them nearly two barrels short?” “Singular, very singular;
for I sent them to you in ten of your own flour barrels.” (Text.)

(1996)

MEASUREMENT

Man’s power to solve the problems of the natural world is indicated by the feats of modern photography, of which O. H. Cloudy writes as follows:

Just think for an instant what the twelve-hundredth part of
a second really means. A railroad train going sixty miles an
hour, or eighty-eight feet per second, would move, in such an
interval, less than one inch. A bullet, with a muzzle velocity
of twelve hundred feet per second, would get but one short
foot from the muzzle before a twelve-hundredth of a second had
elapsed. Could two bells be rung, one twelve-hundredth of a
second after the other, the sound-waves given out by them both
would travel within five feet of each other, too close for any
human ear to distinguish that there was more than one sound. Yet
in this tiny bit of time the eye of the camera can record on the
sensitive plate everything in front of it, with sufficient force
to make a good negative. (Text.)--_The American Inventor._

(1997)

=Measurement of Morals=--See CONSCIENCE A MORAL MENTOR.

MEASUREMENT, SPIRITUAL

I must see your motives, your disposition, your loves and hates,
your aspirations and longings and hopes, before I can say I see
you. How tall are you? How much do you weigh? Six feet, you say,
and weigh a hundred and fifty pounds? Both of us are wrong. You
can’t measure the self by a foot-rule, nor weigh it in iron
scales. Every time you aspire and hope and love you escape the
body and live in the heights and distances. To estimate you
aright I must gather up all your hopes and aspirations and
faiths and loves; and if you have been wise enough to reach up
and lay hold of the eternal I must weigh and measure the eternal
in order to estimate you.--ROBERT MACDONALD.

(1998)

MECCA, INFLUENCE OF

The pilgrimage to Mecca is not only one of the pillars of the
religion of Islam, but it has proved one of the strongest
bonds of union and has always exercised a tremendous influence
as a missionary agency. Even to-day the pilgrims who return
from Mecca to their native villages in Java, India, and west
Africa, are fanatical ambassadors of the greatness and glory
of Islam. From an ethical standpoint, the Mecca pilgrimage,
with its superstitious and childish ritual, is a blot upon
Mohammedan monotheism. But as a great magnet to draw the Moslem
world together with an annual and ever-widening _esprit de
corps_, the Mecca pilgrimage is without a rival. The number
of pilgrims that come to Mecca varies from year to year. The
vast majority arrive by sea from Egypt, India, and the Malay
Archipelago. The pilgrim caravan from Syria and Arabia by land
is growing smaller every year, for the roads are very unsafe.
It will probably increase again on the completion of the Hejaz
railway from Damascus to Mecca. All told, the present number is
from sixty to ninety thousand pilgrims each year.--SAMUEL M.
ZWEMER, “The Moslem World.”

(1999)

MEDIATION

King Edward III, in 1347, besieged Calais and the French king,
very unwilling to lose his town, sought to come to the help
of his people, but in vain. King Edward refused to grant any
conditions of peace. The people were hunger-bitten because of
the protracted siege. The unrelenting king said, “You must give
up yourselves to be dealt with as I will. Let six of the chief
citizens of the town come to me with halters around their necks,
their heads and feet bare, and the keys of the town and castle
in their hands. With these I will deal as I please.” Accordingly
these six, led by the governor, came to the king. Dropping on
their knees before him, they implored him to spare their lives.
King Edward refused to grant them mercy and ordered their
instant death. His chief counselors and governor entreated him
to spare these brave and valiant men, but his purpose was fixt.
No merit that they might plead could cause him to change his
mind, until finally, his consort, Queen Philippa knelt before
him and said: “I pray you, sire, for the love that you bear me,
to have mercy upon the men.” Then the king relented, saying: “I
can not refuse the thing which you ask in this way. I give you,
therefore, these men to do with them as you please.” The men
were then taken to clean apartments to be well clothed and fed.
(Text.)

(2000)

=Medical Missionaries=--See GOD SENDS GIFTS; INDIA, MEDICAL
OPPORTUNITIES IN; MISSIONARIES, MEDICAL; SURGERY IN KOREA.

MEDICAL MISSIONS

Some of the best surgical work in the world is done by medical
missionaries, who often have the poorest kind of equipment in
the way of building and apparatus. Dr. H. N. Kinnear, at the
head of a hospital in Fuchau, used the sitting-room of his own
house for an operating-room, but in one year he performed over
eight hundred operations, with only his wife and untrained
natives for assistants. Of the nearly 18,000 patients treated
last year, several came from high-class families, and they were
most appreciative of what was done for them. A distinctive
feature of this and all mission hospitals is the person,
usually a native Christian, who acts as a kind of chaplain.
Many of the patients have never heard the gospel story, and
while they are being helped physically they listen willingly
to what is told them. Religious services are also held every
day in the room where people await their turn and receive the
bamboo tallies that decide the order in which they are to be
seen. Fees are ridiculously small, according to our American
standard, five cents being the maximum, except in special
cases, when the munificent sum of twenty cents is charged.
This allows precedence to men who wear the long gown of the
literati and object to waiting while laborers and women receive
attention. Dr. Kinnear is a resourceful man, and often uses
the Chinese queue to hold in place dressings of wounds about
the head or as a sling for the support of injured or diseased
hands and arms. He writes that he considers medical missionaries
the most favored of all workers. Yet his salary is far below
what he could earn as a surgeon in the United States.--Boston
_Transcript_.

(2001)

See MISSIONS; MISSIONARIES, MEDICAL.

=Medical Science=--See LIFE PROLONGED.

=Meeting of Friends and Foes=--See AMITY AFTER WAR.

MELODY FROM DRUDGERY

When you go into some great cathedral across the sea, to watch
the player on the keys, which away up in the tower are sounding
forth their wondrous chime, down there you hear only the clatter
of the wires, the deafening din of the reverberating bells, and
the clanging of the wooden shoes he wears upon his hands with
which to strike the keyboard, sending out away up there in the
belfry the silvery notes which he himself can scarcely hear.

Ah, but they are heard. Many a tired soul stops on the distant
hillside in his day’s toil to listen to those strains, and his
heart is filled with a strange gladness and peace. And amid the
din and tumult of your daily work, it may sometimes seem as tho
you were doing naught which was worth the doing; down there in
obscurity, unthought of and unnoticed by the great world, simply
beating out the allotted task upon the clattering keyboard which
the Master has set for you. But do it well. Do it as the violet
smiles, as the bird sings, as Jesus lived, and you shall send
out over land and sea music, which shall bless the generations
afar off.--GEORGE T. DOWLING.

(2002)

=Membership, Church=--See BADGES.

=Membership of Churches, Distribution of=--See CHURCH
STATISTICS.

=Memorial Day=--See DEAD, INFLUENCE OF; DECORATING SOLDIERS’
GRAVES; HONOR’S ROLL-CALL.

MEMORIAL OF LINCOLN

In the museum connected with the monument to Abraham Lincoln,
at Springfield, Illinois, among other relics suggestive of the
spirit and mission of the great emancipator, is treasured a
piece of the rich gown worn by Laura Keene, the actress, in
Ford’s Theater, Washington, on the tragic night when Lincoln
fell. After the fatal shot of the assassin, Miss Keene sprang to
the box and caught in her lap the head of the slain President,
while the blood from the oozing wound saturated a portion of her
garment. After the event, that blood-stained breadth was cut
from the gown, sent to Springfield and preserved as the speaking
symbol of the great sacrificial life which Lincoln lived even
unto death, on behalf of the redemption of the black slaves of
the South.--H. C. MABIE, “Methods in Evangelism.”

(2003)

=Memorial to Humble Helpers=--See NEGRO “MAMMY” REMEMBERED.

=Memorials of Genius=--See ECONOMY, DIVINE.

MEMORIALS OF PATRIOTISM

When the Paris Commune savagely threw down the Vendome column
all the civilized world felt a shock of disgust. Why? Certainly
not because all the world equally admired Napoleon, whose
triumphs the column recorded. Certainly not alone for the reason
that it was a noble work of art. It was because all intelligent
and unprejudiced people instinctively recognized that the column
had been reared as an emblem of patriotism. That column stood
for something higher than the fame of an individual conqueror,
and for something broader than any theory of government or
reaction of parties. It stood for the glory and dignity of
France. It typified the love of the native land--patriotism.
Take, as another instance, the great Washington shaft at
the capital. Long delayed, frequently jeered at before its
completion, it now lifts its finished strength toward heaven in
everlasting tribute to the great leader of the Revolution and
the founder of our nation.--New York _Star_.

(2004)

MEMORY

God’s precepts should be as thoroughly stamped on the memory as the landscape mentioned below was on the artist’s mind:

A publisher ordered from Gustave Doré a picture, sending him a
photograph of some Alpine scenery to be copied. The artist went
away without his model, and the publisher was much provoked;
but he was astonished when Doré appeared next day with the
desired picture, having made it from memory. A few seconds’
examination of the photograph had sufficed to impress on his
memory the slightest details and to enable him to reproduce them
with not a rock or a tree lacking. (Text.)--L. MENARD,
_Cosmos_.

(2005)

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