Chapter IV: Preface (4)

Why shouldn’t we work with two hands just as we walk with two
feet? It seems ridiculous that the human family should have
been using but one hand, either left or right, when nature
provided two good hands with no apparent reason why they should
not both be used. This oversight, or neglect, is being remedied
at a school in Philadelphia, where the pupils are learning to
use either hand with equal facility. The boys and girls are
taught to draw with the right and left hand at once, and it is
marvelous with what ease, after a little practise, the pupils
can draw a design on the blackboard, using the right hand for
the right side of the picture and the left hand for the left
side, completing the entire design in a few minutes, the two
hands working with perfect coordination. Compared with the old
method of drawing laboriously and slowly with one hand, the
ambidextrous system is infinitely superior.

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ATHEIST’S GIFT TO MISSIONS

In the year 1877, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll made an extended
tour of the Pacific coast. He spoke in several of the larger
cities, and at length arrived at Portland. There was in the
city a certain missionary to the Chinooks. He could not afford
a ticket to the lecture, and was greatly disturbed at what he
read concerning it. Yet he felt a strong desire to meet Colonel
Ingersoll, and a common friend procured a meeting between them.

There was a moment of restraint, relieved by the greater ease
of Colonel Ingersoll, who began the conversation by inquiring
concerning the work of the missionary. A little mirthfully he
questioned him about the advisability of exporting religion,
of which there might not be any surplus at home, and inquired,
somewhat doubtfully, about the wisdom of a man giving his life
to a hopeless task in attempting to teach a small and vanishing
tribe things of which we ourselves have perhaps less knowledge
than we suppose.

The answers of the missionary, however, interested Colonel
Ingersoll. He inquired about the “Chinook jargon,” that mongrel
speech, made of English, Canadian French, Chinook and other
Indian words, picked up from several tribes, and all softened
and modified to suit deficiencies of pronunciation; the _r_
changed into _l_, after the Chinese manner, and the grammar
“made by chopping up words with a tomahawk.”

How could a man preach in a language where one word had to serve
as noun, verb and adjective? How could a man of education make
himself understood in a language with only four parts of speech
and some fragments? How could he tell the story of Peter’s
denial in a language which, having only one word for all manner
of feathered things, and no verb for the act of crowing, made
it necessary for the speaker to imitate the act and sound? How
could he tell that Peter swore, in a language that had no verb
“to curse,” but had plenty of oaths inherited from traders in
various tongues? How could he impart any idea of sacred things
in a polyglot of slang?

The missionary told him the story of his work--how he preached
as best he could in the poor, meager speech of the people,
meantime teaching the children English, encouraging them in
useful arts, fighting the vices of civilization as they made
inroads among the people, and doing what he could for them as
adviser and friend. It was hard work, and not very encouraging,
but it was worth doing, and he was happy in it.

In telling his story thus, encouraged and led on by a man
trained and skilful in cross-examination, the missionary
unconsciously disclosed many of the hardships and privations
which his work entailed upon him. Possibly, and indeed probably,
he had not thought of them seriously as hardships, and therefore
he related with telling simplicity the stories of long journeys
by canoe and on horseback, of nights in the open, of poor and
sometimes revolting food eaten in savage company. There was no
word of complaint, nor even the least expression of regret,
except for books and papers and magazines missed.

When the missionary rose to go, Colonel Ingersoll took his
hand warmly, and said, “I thank you for coming to see me. This
interests me very much. It’s good work you are doing, it’s good
work. And here, take this. I am not a frequent contributor to
missionary work, but I like this.”

Into the missionary’s hand he dropt a bright twenty-dollar gold
piece.--_Youth’s Companion._

(160)

=Atmosphere=--See IMPURITIES.

=Atmosphere, City=--See TESTS.

=Atmosphere, The, and Light=--See LIGHT-BEARERS.

=Atmosphere, The Christian=--See HOSPITALITY IN CHURCH.

ATOM, THE, A WITNESS TO GOD

Not only “day unto day, uttereth speech,” but, according to science, there are innumerable voices in the world that also speak of God. A writer finds such in the atom of matter:

How then came they to be what they are? These “myriad types of
the same letter”; these unhewn blocks from an unknown quarry;
more indestructible than adamant; the substratum of all the
phenomena of the universe; and yet, amid the wreck of all things
else, this infinitude of discrete atoms alone is found incapable
of change or of decay. Who preserves to them their absolute
identity, notwithstanding their infinite variety? Who endowed
them with their inalienable properties? Who imprest upon them
the ineffaceable characters which they are found to bear? At
what mint were they struck, on what anvil were they forged, in
what loom were they woven, so as to possess, as Huxley declares,
“all the characteristics of manufactured articles”?

(161)

ATONEMENT

All the theological interpretations of atonement look back to the Old Testament Hebrew terms _kaphar_ and _kasah_ “to cover.” We are saved by an atoning sacrifice; that is, by a sacrifice which covers us.

A fire on a gentleman’s estate in England destroyed his mansion.
It spread to a plantation near by, and trees and bushes were
burned and charred. The gentleman next day heard the chirping of
little birds in a blackened thicket close by him. He searched
among the charred branches and discovered a nest, on which was
lying, with outstretched wings, a dead robin. Under her were
three fledglings, safe and sound. The mother bird had covered
her young, saving them at the cost of her own life. (Text.)

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ATONEMENT COMPELLED

There is a Spanish story of a village where the devil, having
made the people excessively wicked, was punished by being
compelled to assume the appearance and habit of a friar, and to
preach so eloquently, in spite of his internal repugnance and
rage, that the inhabitants were completely reformed. (Text.)

(163)

See SIN WITHOUT ATONEMENT.

ATROPHY

Professor Dawson, in his book “The Child and His Religion,” says:

I once saw a little girl of three years who was unable to walk,
or even stand alone. She would make no attempt to do either,
and seemed to have absolutely no interest in getting up on
her feet or walking. The child seemed perfectly well, and her
parents had become very anxious about her. Inquiry revealed the
fact that when she was nine months old the little girl had been
injured by a fall, and had been kept very closely confined for
six months; at first in her crib, and later in a high chair,
never being allowed to stand on her feet. When she was at last
put upon the floor, she began her creeping just as she had been
in the habit of doing six months before. Nor did she show any
disposition to do otherwise than creep, even after her strength
had been fully recovered. It required several months of careful
attention on the part of the parents, in exercising her in
standing and walking, to awaken any interest whatsoever in these
activities. This law of atrophy through disuse undoubtedly
operates throughout the entire range of human interests, not
only in those interests more closely related to organic life,
but also in the intellectual, moral, and religious interests. It
is manifestly of great concern to parents and others who have
the care of children that all normal interests be given a chance
to function at the right time and in the right way. (Text.)

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ATTACHMENT REWARDED

In order to secure some token by which to remember a great-aunt
to whom she had been much attached, Mlle. Bertha Chevanne, a
young French woman, of Paris, attended a sale of the old lady’s
effects. The girl was poor and most of the articles were beyond
her purse. A shabby old book--a book of devotions--was, however,
put up. Nobody bid for it except Mademoiselle Chevanne, and she
bought it for next to nothing. In turning over the leaves she
came across a folded paper. It was a will bequeathing her the
whole of her great-aunt’s estate, valued at $80,000.

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ATTACK, DISCRETION IN

As with a fortress, so with many fortified evils. It is often better to flank them than to exhaust strength by direct attack.

To let a fortress go, so far from being disgraceful, is
often one of the best things a general can do. If MacMahon
had let Metz go, the Germans could not have got round Paris
without tremendous losses and months of fighting. If Lee had
abandoned Richmond in 1862 the war might have been protracted
indefinitely. The greatest mistake Osman Pasha made in 1877 was
holding on to Plevna too long. Napoleon let Genoa go in spite of
the fine defense of Massena, but he soon recovered it after he
had defeated the Austrians in the field. In the American civil
war Burnside was compelled by the press to advance, with the
result of the failure at Fredericksburg and the loss of 12,000
men. A field army should never be risked for a fortress.--Dr.
MILLER MAGUIRE, London _News_.

(166)

See AGGRESSION; SALOON, FIGHTING THE.

=Attainment by Abandonment=--See HIGHER, THE.

ATTAINMENT, SUPERFICIAL

There are men who attempt to rise in the social scale without any apparent fitness for the larger place aspired to. Many start off on a course, but lack ability, patience and pluck to persevere and so fail of their goal, as the following somewhat humorous illustration suggests:

Attorney William S. Barnes, of San Francisco, has a new office
boy. The last boy with whom he was associated resigned a few
days ago because the law business did not suit his peculiar
temperament.

“How long have you been here?” asked Barnes, when the small boy
made known his intention to engage in a different vocation.

“Six months,” replied the boy.

“And you don’t like the law business?”

“Naw. It’s no good, and I tell you straight, I’m mighty sorry I
learned it.”

(167)

=Audience Attracted=--See PROVIDENTIAL INTERPOSITION.

AUDIENCE, INSPIRATION FROM

“When a singer is up before an audience, he or she can tell
whether the effect of the voice is pleasing or not by watching
the countenances of the listeners,” says Thomas A. Edison in
_Popular Mechanics_. “When, however, one sings into a
dead instrument like the phonograph, without the slightest
recognition as to whether the voice is properly tuned and
pitched, the singer becomes rather nervous. I know some very
capable singers who can sing splendidly before an audience, but
when it comes to getting their voice into the phonograph, they
are dumb. I have brought people of great note out to the works,
and paid them handsomely for their vocal efforts, only to find,
when I came to reproduce these attempts on the phonograph, that
the records were utterly worthless. One must have, indeed, a
regular phonograph voice in order to make a good record. Some
people can sing well into a phonograph who could not get up
before an audience to save their lives; and again, as I have
said, some people can sing before persons, but they can not
perform before a phonograph.”

(168)

=Audiences=--See FITNESS; OPPORTUNITIES IMPROVED.

AUGURY

The apostle who said “I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able, &c.,” had a far better assurance than the philosopher who trusted in a meaningless omen.

Rousseau, in his celebrated “Confessions,” records that he was
one day sitting in a grove, meditating whether his soul would
probably be saved or lost. How could he settle the question? A
supernatural voice seemed to suggest an appeal to a singular
kind of augury. “I will,” said he, “throw this stone at that
tree. If I hit the tree, it shall be a sign that my soul is to
be saved. If I miss it, it shall indicate that I am to be lost.”
Selecting a large tree, he took the precaution of standing near
to it, and threw his stone plump against the trunk. “After
that,” naively says the philosopher, “I never again had a doubt
respecting my salvation.”

(169)

=Author Encouraged=--See Good, SEEING THE.

AUTHORITY UNCONSCIOUSLY SOUGHT

The child finds the world so complex and varied with so many
unpleasant and pleasant experiences that he soon discovers
the usefulness of his elders in providing him with pleasant
experiences or in warning or guarding him against the unpleasant
whenever he feels uncertain in a new situation. That is, the
child tends to fall back on the authority of the older person
and automatically to accept, up to a certain point, the dogmatic
verdict of his elders as to the desirability or undesirability
of a course of action. Neither the child nor the grown person
is, as a rule, conscious of his acceptance of the thought of
another as his own, but examples of it are evident enough in the
spheres of religion, politics, precedent (in law), fashion, and,
in fact, all of life’s activities.--STUART H. ROWE,
“Proceedings of the Religious Education Association,” 1907.

(170)

=Authority=--See RISK SHIFTED.

AUTHORS, WORK OF

George Eliot is said to have worked harder on “Romola” than
on any of her other books. In her own words: “I began it a
young woman--I finished it an old woman.” And yet but about
seventeen months were consumed in the work. Some authors have
lived long. Alexander von Humboldt lived to be over eighty.
Goethe was over eighty-one when he died. Kant lived his quiet
life for just eighty years, the quietest and most uneventful
life known to a man of genius. Titian died at the age of
ninety-nine. Michelangelo lived to be more than eighty. Among
the royal persons who have become known as authors are Queen
Victoria, King Oscar II, of Sweden; Dom Louis, of Portugal;
the Shar Nasr-ed Deen, of Persia; Queen Elizabeth, of Rumania;
Prince Nicholas, of Montenegro; Dom Pedro II, of Brazil; King
Louis II, of Bavaria, and several others. The novelists are
at present dominant among us, so far as popular acceptation
and remuneration go. It has been lately ascertained that Mr.
Tennyson made four thousand pounds a year by his poetry. Walter
Besant, who was seduced from the career of a college don by
the fascinations of the novelist’s art, earns more for any one
of his romances than Carlyle earned in the first ten years of
his literary career. Charles Reade averaged, we believe, five
pounds per page for his writings. Herbert Spencer’s remuneration
scarcely exceeded five shillings per page. Matthew Arnold’s
imaginative powers earned him an income at least four times
smaller than Wilkie Collins’ imagination could command. A
shoemaker’s son, a few years ago, wrote a short comic story
which tickled the public taste; his success was so immediate
that the public--represented by the publishers--afterward
paid him one thousand pounds a year for whatever he chose to
write.--_Christian At Work._

(171)

=Autograph Diplomacy=--See ASKING, BOLDNESS IN.

AUTOMATIC EXPERIENCES

Man early acquires automatic tendencies and abilities quite
beyond the compass of his natural equipment. Man is gifted
natively with a brief and fleeting form of attention, but by
exercise and wise guidance its effectiveness may be greatly
increased both as to direction and span. Imagination and memory
may be natively vigorous in a desultory and disorganized sort
of a way and yet be comparatively helpless when confronted with
a situation requiring the organization of details into a system
or unit. For example, children may get a great deal of pleasure
out of fairy stories long before they understand much from the
various disconnected and often incorrect interpretations they
make of the words they have heard. This tendency is shown also
in childish explanations of things. One young man notices that
leaves, sticks, and stones left standing some time on the pond
where he skated gradually sink into the ice. He notices, also,
that slight scratches and flakes of snow gradually disappear.
Such data led him to explain to himself the phenomenon as
due to the fact that the water worked through the pores of
the ice and froze on the top. It is evident that he had not
heard of radiation from dark as compared with light surfaces,
but it illustrated an automatic tendency to explain things
fairly well developed which was quite beyond the power of
man naturally.--STUART H. ROWE, “Proceedings of the
Religious Education Association,” 1907.

(172)

AUTOMATIC LEARNING

Nature has provided plants, animals, and man with many ways of
adjusting themselves to their environment, but only animals
and man organize their experiences so as to make them of use
to them in future situations. Some kinds of mice can learn
to go to a little house with a blue-colored front because it
suggests food to them as they have always found it there, and
not in a similar one with a red front. Another kind of mouse
(the Japanese dancing mouse) does not learn this difference,
either because it is color-blind or, much more likely, because
it has not sufficient intelligence to organize its experiences
of blueness by making it suggest food to him. It has been said
bees can distinguish colors and associate them with sweetened
water. These animals, and, in fact, animals in general, have the
ability, as we say, naturally to do thousands of appropriate
things whenever the appropriate stimulus presents itself.
Given the newly hatched chicken and the attractive piece of
corn within easy range, and with a quick dive of the head
the corn has been snapt up by a series of muscular movements
quite complicated in their totality but all coordinated or
organized from the first. The chicken does not have to learn
this accomplishment. A young child also can perform many kinds
of action without learning, as, for example, movements of head,
limbs, and other parts of the body.

Compare the difficulty a year-old child able to walk has in
picking up something with his hands. He makes many motions,
sometimes overreaching, sometimes falling short, in the end
probably falls flat. The child has to learn both to walk and to
pick things up, but he learns both without realizing that he is
learning them. It is done spontaneously.

There are, then, some things that man and animals can do without
learning, and some things they have to learn, but that they
learn automatically. Beside these easier tasks there are many
others that man may learn, but only through definite thinking or
direction with a distinct aim in view, rather than automatically
without any consciousness of his learning. The child may
recognize his father’s authority instinctively even without
learning. He may by imitation think of some things as right or
wrong without being taught. There are others he must be taught
and learn with a definite purpose and effort or he will not
make the distinction.--STUART H. ROWE, “Proceedings of
Religious Education Association,” 1907.

(173)

=Auxiliary Strength=--See REENFORCEMENT FROM WITHOUT.

=Auxiliary Workers=--See SUPPLIES, BRINGING UP.

AVARICE

When you can put out a fire by throwing oil on it, then, and
not till then, can you extinguish avarice by feeding it with
millions.--N. D. HILLIS.

(174)

See GREED; MONEY, GREED FOR.

AVERAGE LIFE

Many an enthusiastic tourist has sacrificed morning sleep to
witness a sunrise from some summit, and suffered disappointment.
The splendor extended over too wide an area; it lacked
concentration--accentuation. The sunrise of the short horizon,
seen from the average altitude, appears brighter as well as
narrower. It requires no wide ranging of the eye, no shifting of
the point of attention. It is not weakened by its own diffusion.
You may carry this principle over into the philosophy of life.
The short horizon--which is, for the most part, the average--has
its distinct advantage. You will doubtless get more out of
life at the average altitude than if you live always in some
extraordinary height.

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B

BABIES, NAMING

In Japan a curious custom is in vogue with respect to the naming
of babies. The new-born is taken to the temple, when it has
attained the age of two weeks, and to the priest who receives
him the father of the little one suggests three names deemed to
be appropriate. The priest writes these three names on slips of
paper. He holds these slips of paper for a few minutes, and then
throws them over his shoulder, sending them as high in the air
as possible. The slip that reaches the ground last contains the
name that is conferred on the waiting baby.

The next step in the process is for the priest to copy the name
on a piece of silk or fine paper, which is handed to the proud
parent, with these words:

“So shall the child be named.”--_Harper’s Weekly._

(176)

=Baby, Captivated by a=--See CHILD, SAVED BY A.

=Baby’s Thinking=--See THINKING, HOW COORDINATED.

BACKBONE

Any good quality needs backbone to make it effective. The little
boy who read aloud, “Now Daniel had an excellent spine in him,”
when the letters spelled “spirit,” was not so far from the truth
after all. All of God’s servants need spine.--JAMES M.
STIFLER, “The Fighting Saint.”

(177)

BACKGROUND OF LIGHT

There is often great advantage in a position of obscurity from which to look out on the world. The lace-weavers of Nottingham founded a great industry in caves, as described below:

This great (lace) industry here began in this way: There is, or
was, originally, a long, high bank of very soft sandstone on the
north bank of the river Trent, pointing to the sun. In this soft
sandstone the early Britons dug caves. They dug them deep and
wide and wonderful in construction. It is said that even now the
city of caves under the ground is almost as large as the broad
and populous city on top of the ground. In case of invasion or
conquest these cave-dwellers would retreat underground and defy
pursuit. It is the boast of the people of Nottingham that their
ancestors were never really conquered by any one. The weaving
of laces came about here in this way: The half or wholly savage
women sitting at the mouths of these caves and holding their
threads against the sun with the darkness behind them could
see the fine threads better, and so could do finer and better
work than any other women in western Europe. And their immunity
from conquest and consequent interruption in their peculiar
industry fastened it here and kept it well forward.--JOAQUIN
MILLER, _The Independent_.

(178)

=Backslider Regained=--See WARMTH, LOST.

=Bacteria=--See CLEANSING, DIFFICULTY OF.

BADGES

Everywhere on the streets one meets men, from the gray-haired
veteran to the half-developed beau, all parading on breast
or coat lapel some distinctive mark of membership in some
association. There are medals with ribbons, medals without
ribbons, and ribbons without medals. There are buttons; big
buttons and little buttons; silk buttons and metal buttons.
There are pins, gold and silver and plated; every imaginable
kind of pin. And these are worn by ladies and misses of all
rank and quality, down to the little silver cross of the King’s
Daughters, so familiar everywhere. Nobody seems ashamed to
own membership in these various societies and alliances. Men
parade the streets under banners and flags, with uniforms, and
distinctive feathers in their caps, and are not ashamed to
acknowledge their favorite organizations. And yet there are
many persons who seem to be ashamed to own their Lord and to
confess His cause. (Text.)--_The Mid-Continent._

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=Bad Company=--See COMPANIONS, EVIL.

=Bad to Worse=--See DOWN GRADE, THE.

BADNESS IN BOYS

“He is a bad boy” may mean so many things. In the eyes of some
teachers a boy is “bad” if he talks repeatedly to his neighbor.
The boy who has a fight with another boy is “bad.” The boy who
does not study his lessons is “bad.” The boy who goes to a
moving-picture show is “bad.” The boy who throws ink across the
room is “bad.” The boy who “answers back” is “bad.” The boy who
rifles the teacher’s desk is “bad.” The boy who disobeys school
rules is “bad.” “Give a dog a bad name and hang him” should now
read, “Give a boy a bad name and ruin him.”

All school types of “badness” need classification. Many
of them under careful classification would no longer be
considered “bad.” A boy’s wrong acts are often due not so much
to deliberate choosing of wrong after he knows right, but to
the lack of any sense of right or wrong. Children’s so-called
“badness” is due to unmorality oftener than to immorality. Until
a boy’s moral nature has been roused and developed, it is absurd
to think that one can find the basis of appeal in theoretic
ethics or right for right’s sake. Who is to blame when blind,
unquestioning obedience to short-sighted, arbitrary school rules
is made the basis of a child’s conduct and reputation?

When children go through school learning nothing except what
can be given to hundreds simultaneously, in classes so large
that undue emphasis is laid upon order and quiet, who is to
blame if the majority leave school with morals that alarm those
interested? Go through the list of “bad boys” in your school or
your town. Classify their offenses. Is immorality or unmorality
responsible? If the latter, what share of the blame for this
condition belongs to the school? Why consider a boy hopeless or
degenerate because he commits a moral offense? Do we consider
him intellectually hopeless or defective because of his errors
in spelling or arithmetic?--JULIA RICHMAN, “Proceedings
of the National Education Association,” 1909.

(180)

BALANCE, A LOOSE

Many men think they can rely in a general way upon fate or fortune to square their moral accounts, but in the long run a man must face his record.

Mr. Moody tells of a young couple who on commencing to keep
house started to keep an account of their family expenses. After
a few months the young husband said to his wife: “Darling, I’ll
spend the evening at home to-night, and we will look over the
account together.” The young husband found frequent entries
like this: “G.K.W., one dollar and a half”; and a little later
on, “G.K.W., two dollars”; and after a little, “G.K.W., three
dollars.” Becoming a little suspicious, he demanded, “Who is
this ‘G.K.W.’ you have spent so much on?” “Oh,” said she, “I
never could make the accounts come out right, so I lumped all
together that wouldn’t balance, and called it G.K.W.--Goodness
Knows What!” (Text.)--LOUIS ALBERT BANKS.

(181)

BALANCE OF JESUS’ MIND

In our earth, the two hemispheres are balanced to a hair and
leaf! But what man save Jesus has balanced his radicalism that
was sound by a conservatism that is true?--N. D. HILLIS.

(182)

BALANCE PRESERVED IN NATURE

Since times prehistoric, ever since the human species developed
the sense of comparison and an eye for form, all spiders, with
a resemblance to the big, hairy, ugly creatures reputed to be
poisonous and now generally known by the name “tarantula,” have
been the victims of the crushing heel.

I think it can be said that there never has been one absolutely
authentic case of spider bite. The so-called spider bites
received occasionally, and generally in early summer, often in
bed, are inflicted by certain bloodsucking insects of several
species, large and small. The mandibles of the average-sized
spiders are hardly powerful enough to pierce the human skin, and
all of the poison contained in an arachnid’s glands, injected
into the flesh of a human being, will not make as much fuss
as a respectable bee-sting. Moreover, spiders are not mammal
blood-suckers, and wouldn’t bite if they could. So much for the
negative qualities of spiders.

If it were not for the spiders we should all promptly starve
to death. Perhaps this is a little startling; it is none the
less true. To enlarge upon it, certain spiders prey upon
certain caterpillars, regularly inhabit their abodes, and kill
so many of them that often whole colonies of the insects are
wiped out of existence. These caterpillars normally feed upon
the leaves of trees, bushes, and shrubs, frequently denuding a
plant entirely. If they were plentiful enough to exhaust their
common food they would turn to the weeds and grasses. Without
check of any kind they would overrun the earth and destroy
every green and growing thing. The spiders beautifully preserve
the balance of nature. Kill all the spiders and mankind is
doomed.--_Collier’s Weekly._

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BALLOT A DUTY

“Arrow,” in the _Christian Endeavor World_, reads this lesson to Christian voters:

“Well, I suppose it’s Alderman Smith to-day.”

“Alderman--nothing!”

“What? Do you mean to say Smith wasn’t elected?”

“Precisely. Lost it by forty-one votes.”

“Well, well, well! Why, I thought Smith was popular, such a
nice, clean fellow; and smart, too.”

“He is popular.”

“And I thought his opponent was a scallawag.”

“He is. The rummies were all for him, and he celebrated his
victory with a big free-for-all debauch. I guess our ward’ll be
open enough now, all right.”

“But what was the matter? I suppose Smith lay back and took it
easy.”

“No, sir! He got out and hustled for himself.”

“Then he probably had no machine to back him.”

“Ah, but he had; and some of the best politicians in the city
worked for him. Why, nearly all the strongest men in the ward
signed a paper in his interest, and every one got a copy a day
before the election.”

“But they couldn’t have known the issue at stake--between
decency and indecency, character and hoodlumism.”

“They did, if words could make it clear.”

“Then why, in the name of all that is reasonable, in that pious
ward of yours, wasn’t Smith elected?”

“Just because about sixty of the pious men stayed at home or let
their sons neglect to vote. We know the names of that many who
didn’t vote. Tried to get them to come out, telephone and all
that; but no good. Too busy. Or they ‘weren’t needed.’ And the
other side got out every man.”

“Those pious men go to prayer-meeting?”

“Well, I don’t know what you think about it, but I’d rather have
one X opposite Smith’s name on that ballot than ten years of
prayer-meeting eloquence without it.”

“Yes, most of them; and my! but they shine when the topic is a
patriotic one.”

“So’d I.” (Text.)

(184)

=Banks, Making, Useful=--See SAVING DISAPPROVED.

BAPTISM

Dr. R. F. Horton, in the _Christian Endeavor World_, tells the following story:

There is a scene in my earlier ministry that used to make the
best woman I ever knew laugh till the tears ran down her cheeks
whenever she recalled it.

A father, a tall and dignified man, with his wife, a gentle,
quiet little lady, had brought the baby to the font that Sunday
morning. As I read the opening words, the baby woke and began
to scream. For my own part I was imperturbable, nor was the
mother upset. But the tall, dignified man could not endure it;
and just as I was approaching the actual rite, and required the
baby, what the congregation saw was the father rapidly striding
to a side door, with the white clothes of the screaming infant
streaming behind in the haste of the flight. Happily parental
authority worked miracles in the corridor, and the infant,
vastly pacified, was brought back just in time to save the
service from being a fiasco. And the humor turns into a deeper
joy when now I see that child grown up into a beautiful girl,
the joy of her parents and of all who behold her.

(185)

BAPTISM INTERPRETED

At the Student Volunteer Convention in Toronto, Dr. Horace G. Underwood told the following incident:

A copy of the Book of the Acts fell into the hands of a Korean,
whose heart was touched by the truths. He gathered his villagers
together and taught them its contents and they sent for
missionaries to come to them. It was impossible for them to go
at once, but they sent copies of the Gospels. The eager Koreans
read and studied as well as they could alone, and noticing that
some “washing rite” was enjoined upon the believers in the Jesus
doctrine, they met to discuss how they should follow it out and
thus fulfil all righteousness. They prayed over it for a time,
and at last decided that each should go to his own home and
reverently should wash himself in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Ghost. (Text.)

(186)

BARBARISM

The missionaries to the Dyaks of Borneo, in making their calls
not infrequently are seated in a position of honor in a native
hut underneath a huge cluster of skulls, the war trophy of the
head-hunting Dyaks. Rev. H. L. E. Luering writes in the London
_Christian_ that the natives believe that the courage of
the slain enemy enters his victor’s soul if the head of the
dead man is in his possession. So the heads are cut off and
placed in loose rattan receptacles and smoked over a slow fire,
and polished and strung up like great bunches of grapes, and
guarded with a jealousy greater than is accorded any other
possession. They represent just so much of the owner’s self--his
own soul--and to lose a head would deprive him of just so much
strength and courage.

(187)

* * * * *

The late Bishop Taylor, of Africa, narrated the following in the _Missionary Review of the World_:

I saw a woman who had been accused of witchcraft and condemned
to death by exposure to ferocious ants. She was bound to a big
ant-hill ten or fifteen feet high. The victim usually dies in
two days, but this woman endured it for five days and was then
driven away because “she was too hard to kill.” She crawled in
a terrible condition to the mission station--the most pitiful
sight the missionary had ever beheld. After months of careful
nursing she recovered, and this woman, so terribly scarred and
disfigured, was converted at one of my meetings.

(188)

See CRUEL GREED.

BARGAIN DISCOUNTENANCED

It was proposed to the Duke of Wellington to purchase a certain
farm in the neighborhood of his estate at Strathfieldsaye. He
assented. When the transfer was completed, his steward, who had
made the purchase, congratulated him upon having made a great
bargain, as the seller was in difficulties, and forced to part
with his farm. “What do you mean by a bargain?” asked the Duke.
The steward replied, “It was valued at £5,500, and we got it
for £4,000.” “In that case,” said the Duke, “you will please to
carry the extra £1,500 to the late owner, and never talk to me
of cheap land again.”

(189)

BARGAIN-MAKING

A former queen of Spain once rode out in the country, when the
driver of the royal carriage became lost and spent two hours
vainly trying to find the way. The queen and the infanta were
somewhat alarmed.

All at once they came upon an old wood-cutter, who, with a bunch
of fagots upon his back, gathered laboriously from the stunted
bushes to be found here and there, had sunk down to the ground,
evidently for a moment’s rest.

“Ho, my good man!” the driver of the royal carriage called out.
“Will you tell us the road to Madrid?”

“No,” said the wood-cutter, “I will not, except on one
condition.”

“What’s that?”

“That you take me in and carry me back to the city.”

The coachman declined to do this.

“Very well, then; find the road yourself,” said the wood-cutter.

The queen here intervened. She ordered the coachman to let the
man tie his fagot at the back of the coach, and to take him upon
the driver’s seat and drive him home.

The man tied his rough fagot at the back of the royal coach,
mounted the box, and the road to Madrid was soon found.

When the royal carriage entered the city in this queer state,
there was a great sensation, as the people readily recognized
the equipage. The wood-cutter sat proudly on the box. When his
quarter was reached, he got down and unfastened his fagot. The
queen put her head out of the door.

“Go to the royal palace to-morrow,” she said, “and your service
will be rewarded.”

The old man, suddenly perceiving whose passenger he had been,
was overcome with humiliation. He stood bowing, rubbing his cap
between his hands, and uttering exclamations of astonishment
until the carriage was out of sight.--_The Christian
Register._

(190)

BARRIERS

In the West, the farmer’s boy makes a trap for prairie-chickens
and wild turkeys. Looking toward the corn, the bird pushes
against the tiny wooden bar that yields for admittance. But
having gotten in, the gate will not push out.

When it is too late, the youth who has played false, finds that
the way into sin was easy, and the way out hard. Strange that
there should not be a single barrier in the downward path, but
that when the transgressor turns to retrace his steps that
red-hot iron barriers are in the path!--N. D. HILLIS.

(191)

* * * * *

The water-hyacinth is a beautiful thing, so beautiful that some
years ago an enterprising gentleman decided to introduce it
in Florida. As it turned out, he not only introduced it, but
he made it a part of the country. It has outgrown all bounds,
formed impassible barriers in streams, caused the Government to
spend thousands to get rid of it, and is still an impediment to
navigation in many rivers all over the South.

The situation has become so serious in Louisiana that
it is proposed to import hippopotami. At first thought,
few will be able to see any relation between hippopotami
and water-hyacinths, yet there is. In fact, the ordinary
hippopotamus eats water-hyacinth from morning until night if he
can get it. It is evident, therefore, that were there plenty of
hippopotami in Louisiana there would soon be no water-hyacinth.
It is for this reason that the Government will be asked to
import the beasts, domesticate them, and turn them loose in
Louisiana.

The hippopotamus is not a dangerous brute--altho Mr. Roosevelt
has taken much credit to himself for having killed some of
them--his flesh makes excellent steaks, particularly if he has
fed on water-hyacinth, and he is altogether a desirable creature
to have about, we are told. We trust that the Government will
act quickly in this matter. Perhaps in addition to being fond
of water-hyacinth the hippopotamus may also have an appetite
for the boll-weevil. Let Louisiana have the beasts by all
means.--_Charleston News and Courier._

(192)

* * * * *

The conquering races were compelled to follow river-beds, and
could not penetrate the forests. It was not the warrior who
finally conquered English soil, but the farmer. The half-dozen
kingdoms, which were divided by vast forests, coalesced only
when the ax cut away barriers. Earlier races could not inhabit
any part of the earth except the coast lines. All their food
came from the sea; and the refuse still remains as the great
shell-heaps of the sea-coasts of Europe.

So to-day in the moral world one must cleave his way through barriers as with an ax to the open of a large place.

(193)

See DISHONESTY.

BARRIERS, SUPERNATURAL

During some recent work in West Africa, a certain native chief
was anxious to prevent my explorations of such creeks and rivers
as led to trading districts which he desired to remain unknown.
Finding verbal dissuasions unavailing, and not liking to have
recourse to physical force, he tried as a last and somewhat
despairing resort to place supernatural obstacles in my way;
so he directed that at the entrance to these forbidden creeks
a live white fowl (lowest and cheapest sacrifice) should be
suspended from a palm-stake. Consequently, I was frequently
surprized and pleased at what I thought was a graceful token of
hospitality posted at different points of my journey, and never
failed to turn the fowl to account in my bill of fare. After
this manner of disposing of the fowl-fetish had occurred several
times, and yet I remained unpunished for my temerity by the
local gods, the natives gave up further opposition to my journey
as futile and expensive. In talking this over on my return with
one of the more advanced chiefs of the district, my native
friend shook his head half humorously, half seriously over the
decay of religious belief. A white fowl, he said, was “poor
man’s juju”; a few years ago it would have been a white goat,
and in his father’s time a white boy (albino negro), spitted
on a stake to bar the way, and this last would have been a
sacrifice that might well have moved the local gods of wold and
stream to intervene.--H. H. JOHNSTON, _Fortnightly
Review_.

(194)

=Battle Against Frailty=--See BODY, MASTERING THE.

=Beating Process a Necessity=--See DISCIPLINE.

BEAUTIFUL, INFLUENCE OF THE

Every one is influenced to a greater or less degree by that which he sees about him, and those with whom he comes in contact.

A beautiful statue once stood in the market-place of an Italian
city. It was the statue of a Greek slave-girl. It represented
the slave as tidy and well drest. A ragged, uncombed little
street child, coming across the statue in her play, stopt and
gazed at it in admiration. She was captivated by it. She gazed
long and lovingly. Moved by a sudden impulse, she went home and
washed her face and combed her hair. Another day she stopt again
before the statue and admired it, and she got a new idea. Next
day her tattered clothes were washed and mended. Each time she
looked at the statue she found something in its beauties until
she was a transformed child.

This law of transformation through appreciation has its highest illustration in the changed life and character of men who have lived in communion with God.

(195)

BEAUTIFUL LIFE, SECRET OF

In the legend of the “Great Stone Face” Hawthorne tells us
how a great soul was formed by constantly looking at an ideal
head formed by rocks on the side of a mountain. Ernest had
been told by his mother that some day or other (so the people
in the valley believed) a man would grow up from among them
who would be the greatest man of his time, and that his face
would resemble the face outlined on the rocks of the mountain.
So Ernest waited, and finally a man who had become very rich
came back to the valley and built a palace, and people thought
for a time that the legend had been fulfilled in Mr. Grabgold,
but the man was hard and selfish. Another came who was famous
as a statesman, but ambition had killed his spiritual life. A
poet came, whose verses had been an inspiration to Ernest, who
often preached to the people of the valley, but the poet was
a sensualist. He admitted to Ernest that he had not lived the
beautiful life that he had depicted in his poetry, that he had
even doubted at times whether the beautiful things he had taught
to men were true. So at last, when Ernest had been almost in
despair about the great man who should come to the valley, he
went out one evening to preach to the people, and as the rays
of the setting sun lighted up his face, and also the Great
Stone Face of the mountain, the people shouted, “The legend
has been fulfilled; the faces are alike.” It was true. The boy
of the valley, by keeping his eyes on the noble face on the
mountain, had accomplished more than they all. It is the secret
of the development of the soul. A man must keep his eyes on
the face of Jesus Christ to-day, because there is none else so
noble.--C. F. J. WRIGLEY.

(196)

BEAUTIFUL, UTILITY OF THE

In one of the earlier chapters of his “Les Miserables,” Victor
Hugo tells how a good bishop answered his housekeeper once. She
expostulated with his lordship for giving a full quarter of his
garden to flowers, saying that it would be better and wiser to
grow lettuce there than bouquets. “Ah, Madame Magloire,” replied
the bishop, “the beautiful is as useful as it is beautiful.”

The ministry of beauty is one of the overflowings of the divine mind and heart, and serves God’s purpose in common with the utilities of His works.

(197)

BEAUTY

The sense of the beautiful extends to the animal creation.

Land-birds show fondness for decoration. A robin in Pennsylvania
made the whole nest of flowers and white stems of everlasting,
and it may now be seen in the Philadelphia Academy of Science.
Other birds have been known to build entirely of flowers. Miss
Hayward, an invalid who studied birds from her window, saw one
pair build a nest of the blossoms of the sycamore and sprays of
forget-me-not, and another--an English sparrow--cover its nest
with white sweet alyssum.--OLIVE THORNE MILLER, “The
Bird Our Brother.”

(198)

=Beauty and Utility=--See WORK AND ART.

BEAUTY, DECEIVED BY

Bates found on the Amazon a brilliant spider that spread itself
out as a flower, and the insects lighting upon it, seeking
sweetness, found horror, torment, death. Such transformations
are common in human life; things of poison and blood are
everywhere displaying themselves in forms of innocence, in dyes
of beauty. The perfection of mimicry is in the moral world,
deceiving the very elect. (Text.)--W. L. WATKINSON,
“The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(199)

BEAUTY FROM FRAGMENTS

May not God find ways to gather up the fragments of wasted lives and reconstitute them in His own image, as this great artist reconstructed the window:

In a certain old town was a great cathedral in which was a
wondrous stained-glass window. Its fame had gone abroad over
the land. From miles around people pilgrimaged to gaze upon
the splendor of this masterpiece of art. One day there came a
great storm. The violence of the tempest forced in the window,
and it crashed to the marble floor, shattered into a hundred
pieces. Great was the grief of the people at the catastrophe
which had suddenly bereft the town of its proudest work of art.
They gathered up the fragments, huddled them in a box, and
carried them to the cellar of the church. One day there came
along a stranger, and craved permission to see the beautiful
window. They told him of its fate. He asked what they had done
with the fragments. And they took him to the vault and showed
him the broken morsels of glass. “Would you mind giving these
to me?” said the stranger. “Take them along,” was the reply;
“they are no longer of any use to us.” And the visitor carefully
lifted the box and carried it away in his arms. Weeks passed
by; then one day there came an invitation to the custodians
of the cathedral. It was from a famous artist, noted for his
master-skill in glass-craft. It summoned them to his study to
inspect a stained-glass window, the work of his genius. Ushering
them into his studio, he stood them before a great veil of
canvas. At the touch of his hand upon a cord the canvas dropt.
And there before their astonished gaze shone a stained-glass
window surpassing in beauty all their eyes had ever beheld. As
they gazed entranced upon its rich tints, wondrous pattern, and
cunning workmanship, the artist turned and said: “This window I
have wrought from the fragments of your shattered one, and it
is now ready to be replaced.” Once more a great window shed its
beauteous light into the dim aisles of the old cathedral. But
the splendor of the new far surpassed the glory of the old, and
the fame of its strange fashioning filled the land.--_Grace
and Truth._

(200)

BEAUTY IN COMMON LIFE

I saw in an art gallery a group of well-drest people admiring
a picture of some Spanish beggars. The beggars were unkempt,
deformed, ugly, but the artist had seen beauty in the group, and
his imagination made the scene appeal strongly to the passer-by.
How many of those people, think you, would ever stop to look at
a group of beggars, not in a picture, but in life? Would they
have the imagination, apart from the artist, to feel the appeal
of real men and women in real need and see beauty and grace of
form beneath rags? And yet it is possible for all of us to be
artists and see common life transfigured with a beauty and grace
divine.--JOHN H. MELISH.

(201)

=Beauty, Insensitiveness to=--See INSENSITIVENESS TO BEAUTY.

BEAUTY PERVERTED

One of the most beautiful sights around Ispahan, in Persia, is a
field of poppies--those pure white flowers--stretching away for
miles. But the poppy is often the source of a curse and misery.
Before the poppy is ripe the “head” is scratched at sunset with
a kind of comb in three places; and from these gashes the opium
oozes out. Next morning it is collected before sunrise, dried
and rolled into cakes ready for use or market. Its growers are
enriched by the traffic, but the ground is greatly impoverished.
And the users of opium? Why, it is death to them.

Too often, as with the poppy, beauty becomes a curse, and blessing a bane. (Text.)

(202)

=Bed, Taking Up the=--See BIBLE CUSTOMS TO-DAY.

BEER, EFFECT OF

I was at a hospital when an ambulance came tearing to the door,
with a man whose leg was crusht from mid-thigh down. He was
placed upon the operating table, restless and moaning. “Oh,
doctor,” he said, “will it kill me?” and the good, blunt man
of science answered, “No; not the leg, but the beer may do you
up.” And it did. The limb was removed quickly and skilfully,
but the clean aseptic cut had really no chance to heal, because
the general physical degradation of beer no surgeon’s knife can
amputate. When life and death grip one another, beer stabs life
in the back.--JOHN G. WOOLLEY.

(203)

=Beggary=--See GIVING.

BEGINNING, RIGHT

R. H. Haweis gives this opinion about learning to play the violin, which applies equally well to all training of youth:

Ought young children to begin upon small-sized violins? All
makers say “Yes”; naturally, for they supply the new violins of
all sizes. But I emphatically say “No.” The sooner the child is
accustomed to the right violin intervals the better; the small
violins merely present him with a series of wrong distances,
which he has successively to unlearn.

(204)

See TIMIDITY.

BEGINNINGS DETERMINE ENDINGS

When the toper lies dead over his cups there is an invisible
line that runs back from his death to the first dram. When the
aged saint lies triumphant in his last sleep that victory is
related to his mother’s lullaby and to his own first prayer.
The broad estuary where the fleets of a nation float may be
traced back to its fountain among the green hills in which a
little child may wade or a robin rustle its feathers without
fear. The faith that overcomes the world is the consummation of
the faith when, in fear and trembling, the young convert first
placed his hand in the hand of God. The first step on the stair
is a prophecy of the landing. When we start right we have only
to keep on in that direction and the end will be more than we
longed for.

(205)

=Beginnings of Great Men=--See GREAT MEN’S BEGINNINGS.

BEING BEFORE DOING

“He that would hope to write well hereafter in laudable things,”
says Milton, “ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a
composition and pattern of the best and most honorable things.”
Here is a new proposition in art which suggests the lofty
ideal of Fra Angelico, that before one can write literature,
which is the expression of the ideal, he must first develop in
himself the ideal man. Because Milton is human he must know
the best in humanity; therefore he studies, giving his days to
music, art, and literature; his nights to profound research and
meditation. But because he knows that man is more than mortal
he also prays, depending, as he tells us, on “devout prayer
to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and
knowledge.”--WILLIAM J. LONG, “English Literature.”

(206)

=Belated Honors=--See DELAY.

=Belief not Destroyed by Mysteries=--See MYSTERY IN RELIGION.

=Belief Required=--See MYSTERY NO BAR TO BELIEF.

BELLS