Chapter C: C. Abbot writes in the New York Sun (4)

There is no more exceptional educational institution in America
than the Berry School for mountain whites, near Rome, Ga., and
yet the whole work grew out of a little Sunday-school that Miss
Martha Berry established in the mountains near Possum Trot, Ga.,
less than ten years ago. At that time Miss Berry was residing
on an estate which was all that was left of the fortune of the
Southern family to which she belonged. In taking her walks she
was imprest by the desolate condition of the mountain children.
Their parents were too poor to supply them with anything more
than the barest necessities of life, and they were growing up
in utter indifference to everything pertaining to education. To
remedy this to a small degree, she invited a number of them to
meet her every Sunday at a little cabin she owned, and there
undertook to teach them a few of the things they most needed to
know. At the time Miss Berry had no thought of establishing a
permanent school. Instead of being a temporary affair, however,
the school soon made itself an institution, practically without
any effort on her part. So far as the children of the “poor
whites” were concerned, they not only crowded her cabin to more
than its full capacity every Sunday, but they finally came to
her with the request that a day-school be added. For a time
it looked as if the movement had come to a point beyond which
it could not go, but finally Miss Berry screwed up sufficient
courage to make a trip to the North that she might tell some of
the rich philanthropists about her “poor white” boys and her
mountain school. It was an interesting story that she had to
tell, and she told it so well that she went back to her pupils
with funds sufficient not only to maintain the school, but to
enlarge it. To-day the school has one thousand acres of land,
much of it under cultivation, and several fine buildings, in
which fifteen teachers are kept busy instructing the one hundred
and fifty pupils, not only in the studies of the ordinary
school, but in the useful trades as well.--_Human Life._

(2172)

NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE CULTURE

The lesson of the following poem, by T. Berry Smith, is that if we cultivate the good diligently the evil will thereby be weeded out:

Two fields lay side by side. Only a hedge
Which ran athwart the plain dissevered them.
In one my title lay, and he who owned
The other was my brother. Each alike
Had generous part of one ancestral lot,
And each alike due diligence displayed
On that he called his own. At early spring
Each with a shining share upturned the soil
And gave it to the sun, the wind, the shower.
Thenceforth we rested not. Busily we wrought
And wiped our briny brows ’neath burning suns,
Biding the time of one far-off event.

At summer’s end we each one came at last
To find our recompense. Each had his own,
The end for which he’d toiled. Through all those days
My only thought had been no weeds should grow,
But he had plowed ’mid rows of waving corn
And in so doing killed the cumbering weeds
That grew between. And now at summer’s close
Behold! my field was verdureless and bare,
While his was clad in vestiture of gold.
How vain my toil! His recompense how full,
Who reaped so much, yet plowed no more than I!

(2173)

NEGATIVE DISCIPLINE

A little boy went to school, and the teacher asked, “What is
your name?” He replied, “Johnny Dont.” He had never heard his
mother call him anything else and supposed that was his real
name. There are too many parents who bring up their children on
“don’ts.”

(2174)

NEGATIVE TEACHING

Professor Estabrook, the well-known educator, once told
this story to teachers for the purpose of showing them the
discouraging results that attend the negative form of command.
A mother once sent her little boy to buy some eggs. “Take this
basket,” she said, placing it in his small hand, “and don’t
spill one or drop the basket. And don’t fall down.” As he was
passing through the gate, she called after him, “Don’t be gone
long and don’t break the eggs.” After the little fellow had his
order filled and started home all he could think about was not
breaking or spilling the eggs. A vivid picture of broken shells
filled his mind. With a fearful looking into the basket as if
afraid they would jump out of themselves, he did not notice the
large stone in his path and naturally fell over it, spilling and
breaking the contents of the basket.

Our human tasks are done most safely and effectively not while we are concerned with the task, but while we keep in mind the exemplary Way by whose guidance all tasks are made plain.

(2175)

* * * * *

The writer, some years ago, heard an educational worker at a
teachers’ institute tell the story of the mother who, on going
away from home for a while, called her children for a few final
precautionary prohibitions. Her conference with the children ran
as follows:

“Children, you are not to go up-stairs while I am away. But if
you do go up-stairs, you are not to go into the back room. But
if you do go into the back room, you are not to play with the
beans piled there. But if you should play with the beans, do not
put any into your noses.”

There is no need to finish the narrative for any persons
who know child-life. The physician eventually succeeded in
preventing the nasal cavities from becoming vegetable gardens.

The story seemed to have been made to order. But it is not at
all improbable. The writer knows of kittens having been put
“into the Baltimore heater,” and of little pigs having been
run through a windmill after thoughtful parents had enjoined
upon their children not to do these things. Thus does the law
operate, as any fireside will abundantly verify.--A. B. BUNN
VAN ORMER, “Studies in Religious Nurture.”

(2176)

NEGLECT

Men were once engaged in driving a railway tunnel under a large
river. While they were pushing the shield of the tunnel on its
submarine journey a defective steel plate broke. All escaped
except one man, who stumbled and fell. Before he could regain
his feet the water engulfed him. It was the defective plate that
did it. Far away somewhere, the makers of that plate failed to
do their duty, and through their failure this man’s life was
lost.

(2177)

See DECAY; INDIFFERENCE TO THE GOOD.

NEGLECT, CONSEQUENCES OF

The cause of an epidemic of typhoid fever among the 1,000
inhabitants of Three Oaks, Mich., was discovered when a member
of the Board of Health climbed to the top of the waterworks’
stand-pipe and found the bodies of several thousand young
sparrows covering the surface of the water. Immediately the
mayor gave instructions to empty the stand-pipe, scrub and paint
it.

Hundreds of sparrow nests have been built on a ledge that runs
around the summit of the stand-pipe and the young birds are
supposed to have fallen in while trying to fly. The cover made
for the stand-pipe when it was constructed was never put on. The
result was twenty-one cases of typhoid in the town.

(2178)

=Neglect in Church Attendance=--See CHURCH SERVICES.

NEGLECT OF DUTY

John D. Rockefeller had for some months an expert greenhouse superintendent named Potts, who knew a good deal about greenhouse management. A recent visitor at the Rockefeller house missed Potts, and inquired for him. Then, according to _The Saturday Evening Post_, this conversation took place:

“Oh, Potts,” said Mr. Rockefeller. “Yes, he knew more about
greenhouse plants than any man I ever saw.” “But where is he?”
“Well, he’s gone. It was wonderful, his knowledge of plants.”
“You must have hated to part with him.” “Yes, I did. But it had
to be. You see, he kept coming later and later every day and
going home earlier and earlier.” “Well, a man of his ability
might have been worth retaining even on short hours.” “Perhaps,
perhaps. First he came and stayed eight hours, then six, then
four; then he got down to two.” “But two hours of such a man’s
time was worth having.” “Yes, yes,” answered Mr. Rockefeller
slowly. “Of course. I hope I appreciated Potts. I didn’t object
to two hours’ service. But he got so he didn’t come at all--just
sent his card; then I dispensed with him.”

(2179)

NEGLECT OF GENIUS

W. J. Dawson tells us in “The Makers of English Poetry” that
Burns was sick, poor and in debt. The last letter he ever wrote
was a pathetic appeal to his cousin to lend him ten pounds,
and save him from the terrors of a debtor’s dungeon. It would
not have been much to expect from that brilliant society of
wealth and culture in Edinburgh that some help might have been
forthcoming to soothe the dying hours of the man it had once
received with adulation. But no help came. There he lay,
wasted by fever, his dark hair threaded with untimely gray;
poor, penniless, overwhelmed with difficulties, but to the last
writing songs, which won him no remuneration then, but which are
now recognized as the choicest wealth of the nation which let
him die uncomforted.

(2180)

See UNREWARDED INVENTION.

NEGLECT OF OPPORTUNITY

James Buckham is the author of the following:

The day is done.
And I, alas! have wrought no good,
Performed no worthy task of thought or deed.
Albeit small my power, and great my need,
I have not done the little that I could.
With shame o’er forfeit hours I brood,--
The day is done.

I can not tell!
What good I might have done this day
Of thought or deed that still, when I am gone,
Had long, long years gone singing on and on,
Like some sweet fountain by the dusty way,
Perhaps some word that God would say--
I can not tell!
(Text.)

(2181)

NEGLECT OF THE LIVING

On the 13th of July, 1816, occurred the funeral of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Many noblemen were present to pay a tribute to his extraordinary talents.

What a strange contrast! For some weeks before his death he was
nearly destitute of the means of subsistence. Executions for
debt were in the house; he passed his last days in the custody
of sheriff’s officers who abstained from conveying him to prison
merely because they were assured that to remove him would cause
his immediate death! And now, when dead, a crowd of persons, the
first in rank and station and opulence, were eager to attend
him to his grave.... His death had been rapidly accelerated by
grief, disappointment, and a deep sense of the neglect he had
experienced.

(2182)

=Neglect Overcome=--See RANK, OBSEQUIOUSNESS TO.

NEGLECTED LIVES

What is sadder than a ruined house and a deserted farm? Last
summer, in Maine, I looked upon such a one. The gate was broken
down, the entrance was a mass of thorns. Weeds had ruined the
roses, for ten years the apple trees had gone unpruned, the curb
at the well had fallen in, the windows were out, the ceilings
were wet, vermin crept under the floor. Decay was everywhere.
Wild growths had sprung up in meadow and pasture and ruined the
fields. Desolation was everywhere. At the gate one might have
written this legend: “A place where man has ceased to work with
God.” Sadder scene there is not than a ruined rose-garden and a
deserted house, given over to mice and rats, where once there
was laughter and the shouts of children, and good talk between
brave men. One thing alone is sadder--the deserted spiritual
life. Lift up your eyes and look around on men. You find the
multitudes who are neglected harvest-fields. Selfishness in them
is rank. Self-aggrandizement is an unpruned growth. Pleasures
run rampant. Like the green bay-tree, they flourish. And yet,
their prosperity is a sham, their happiness an illusion, their
influence a bubble.--N. D. HILLIS.

(2183)

NEGLECTING THE HARVEST

It seems a very strange proceeding when a farmer plows and
plants and cares for his crop through the summer and then lets
it stand all winter in the fields, to be eaten by mice, pelted
by storms, and go to waste; and yet he is quite as wise as the
pastor who toils hard to persuade people to give their hearts to
God and come into the Church, and then allows the converts to
lapse into religious ruin through neglect.--_Western Christian
Advocate._

(2184)

NEGRO EXCELLING

Estelle E. Gibbs, a negro girl, fourteen years old, living with
her parents at No. 512 First Street, Hoboken, received to-day
(Feb. 4, 1910), the first prize, a gold medal, at the graduating
exercises of the Hoboken public school pupils, in the Gayety
Theater. She had the highest average of any public-school
scholar in the city--99⅓ per cent. in six subjects. The medal
was presented by Mayor Gonzales.

There are 10,000 white pupils in the schools and only 15
negroes. Only eleven negro families live in Hoboken. Estelle
is the daughter of a Pullman car porter on the Lackawanna
Railroad. She is the only negro girl who has carried off such
honors in Hoboken, and the only one to be graduated from the
grammar school to the high school.

In all but one of her studies the girl was rated at 100. In
geography she made 96. The five branches in which she reached
the maximum were history, civics, spellings, arithmetic and
grammar.

Eighteen questions were posted at the geography examinations,
and the pupils had the privilege of selecting ten to answer. The
teacher who conducted the examination says that Estelle picked
out the ten hardest. The girl is rather small for her age, but
can stand a lot of work.

While she was standing the final examination Estelle was so
absorbed that she did not go home to lunch, but spent all the
time, from nine o’clock until three, working on the questions.

(2185)

NEGRO “MAMMY” REMEMBERED

The praises of the faithful black nurses of the South have long
been sung, but it has remained for Texas to be the first State
to formally recognize their worth. The citizens of Galveston
have inaugurated a movement to erect and dedicate a monument
to the old negro “mammy” of the South. It is planned to build
a marble monument of appropriate design to cost $500,000,
nearly half of which is already pledged. Resolutions concerning
the plan pay this tribute: “Rapidly passing from the stage of
events in the South are the few remaining representatives of
one of the grandest characters which the history of the world
records. Indeed, so high above all chronicles of pure, unselfish
and unfaltering devotion, noble self-sacrificing and splendid
heroism do they stand that they may be almost denominated a race
in themselves.” This is all much to the credit of Galveston and
Texas. But would it not be better to erect, not a monument of
marble, but an equally enduring memorial in the form of some
splendid philanthropic institution for the uplift of the black
race? Or a great hospital to care for suffering blacks? The
tribute would then be both beautiful and useful.--_Christian
Work._

(2186)

NEGRO PROGRESS

The Rev. Charles Edward Stowe, the son of Harriet Beecher Stowe, returning from a trip through the South, where he had been studying the industrial conditions, said:

“Do you realize that the cotton crop is 1,000,000 bales a year
bigger than it was in the old slave days, and that as far back
as 1884 the negroes owned 1,000,000 acres of land in Georgia?
I saw a big negro shuffle into an Atlanta bank and say: ‘Boss,
ah wondah of ah has dat fahm of mine paid foh yet?’ The banker
looked up the darky’s account and found that he had not only
paid for his land by his remittances, but that he had $700 to
his credit.”

(2187)

* * * * *

Since the time the shackles were struck off the slaves,
the negroes of the United States have had to their credit
two Senators and seventeen Congressmen, besides scores of
representatives in the diplomatic service and in official life,
municipal, State and national. Negroes have won championships
as pedestrians, bicycle-riders, and prize-fighters. As evidence
of the intellectual endeavor and capacity of the race there are
to-day (1908) 1,200,000 black children in the public schools,
30,000 in the higher institutions of learning, and 200 in
northern and European colleges and universities. Over 2,000
have been graduated from colleges, and the professions show
30,000 school-teachers and professors, 2,000 lawyers, 1,500
doctors, dentists and pharmacists, and over 23,000 ministers
of the gospel. In addition to all this, the negroes have taken
out 500 patents, have published 400 books, composed numerous
songs, and now own and edit 12 magazines and 300 newspapers. In
a material way the negroes have also made noticeable progress.
Besides many industrial establishments, they own and manage
26 banks, own 2½ per cent. of the total valuation of the farm
property, produce six per cent. of the total farm products
of the United States, and own $900,000,000 worth of real and
personal property.--WILLIAM A. SINCLAIR, “The Aftermath
of Slavery.”

(2188)

* * * * *

Booker T. Washington, writing on “Negro Homes” in _The Century_, says:

The first negro home that I remember was a log cabin about
fourteen by sixteen feet square. It had a small, narrow
door, which hung on rusty, worn-out hinges. The windows were
mere openings in the wall, protected by a rickety shutter,
which sometimes was closed in winter, but which usually hung
dejectedly on uncertain hinges against the walls of the house.
Such a thing as a glass window was unknown to this house. There
was no floor, or, rather, there was a floor, but it was nothing
more than the naked earth. There was only one room, which served
as kitchen, parlor and bedroom for a family of five, which
consisted of my mother, my elder brother, my sister, myself and
the cat. In this cabin we all ate and slept, my mother being the
cook on the place. My own bed was a heap of rags on the floor
in the corner of the room next to the fireplace. It was not
until after the emancipation that I enjoyed for the first time
in my life the luxury of sleeping in a bed. It was at times, I
suppose, somewhat crowded in those narrow quarters, tho I do not
now remember having suffered on that account, especially as the
cabin was always pretty thoroughly ventilated, particularly in
winter, through the wide openings between the logs in the walls.

Probably there is no single object that so accurately represents
and typifies the mental and moral condition of the larger
proportion of the members of my race fifty years ago as this
same little slave cabin. For the same reason it may be said that
the best evidence of the progress which the race has made since
emancipation is the character and quality of the homes which
they are building for themselves to-day.

(2189)

NERVE

Altho almost completely paralyzed, Fred J. Daniels, an engineer
on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, managed to save passenger train
No. 2, which he was running, from colliding with the rear end of
a freight train. The train was near Maxwell, Pa., when, leaning
out of his cab window, Daniels saw the rear lights of a freight.

At the same time a bolt dropping from the locomotive struck the
driving-rod and was hurled at him. It hit his forehead and drove
him backward. His neck struck with great force against the brake
lever, and he fell to the floor helpless. Despite the blow,
however, he reached for the lever as he fell and in some manner
threw it into a notch which set the safety-brakes, and the train
stopt a few yards from the rear end of the freight.

When the fireman reached Daniels he was helpless, unable to
move, and is now but little better.--Baltimore _American_.

(2190)

=Nerve Essential in Christian Work=--See MISSIONARY ADAPTATION.

NERVOUSNESS

Of the physical limitations under which Herbert Spencer worked
many interesting glimpses are given. When writing his last book,
“Facts and Comments,” published a short time before his death
and the result of two years’ work, he was able to produce only
ten lines a day. Even when a young man he was afflicted with
a nervousness from which he sought relief in playing quoits
and rackets. Each of these games he would play in some court
attached to a house or pavilion, and after playing about twenty
minutes would retire to cover and resume his writing until the
nervousness returned, when he would play again. (Text.)

(2191)

NEW AND OLD

A professor of mathematics from America was visiting a college
in North China. To a native professor there he said, “There
is a new method in mathematics being taught in America. It is
called the ‘short cut,’ and is a method of casting out the
nines.” Imagine his surprize when the Chinese scholar replied,
“The Chinese have been practising that method farther back than
recorded history goes.” And he called a pupil up to prove it.
Sure enough, it was the “short cut,” the casting out of the
nines.

New things are not so new, and old things are coming to light. (Text.)

(2192)

See SAFETY VALVES.

NEW, APPETENCY FOR THE

Botanists tell us that when the tree ceases to make new wood it
begins to die. Indeed, the only real live part of our northern
trees is the part just under the bark. It may be even rotten
and hollow on the inside, so long as the sap courses vigorously
on the exterior the tree lives, grows and is young. So the mind
begins to die when it loses its appetite for things new, when
the heavenly hunger for variety ceases. (Text.)--VYRNWY
MORGAN, “The Cambro-American Pulpit.”

(2193)

NEW BIRTH

Perhaps you have seen the earth dry and dusty, with her fields
brown and her streams low. That night a storm-cloud walked
across the face of the sky, and in torrents broke over all
the land. The next morning when you went forth there were the
same fields and streams, but it was not the same earth, for a
new earth greeted you; and so it is when the life, light and
energy of the Holy Spirit is let into a man’s life; he is still
the same creature, formed in the likeness of his Maker, but
he is not the same. He is a new man; he has been born again.
(Text.)--ULYSSES G. WARREN.

(2194)

NEW FAITHS

When the simple conch is built its tenant adds a larger disk
from the material provided in the sea; but after a time “the
outgrown shell” is altogether left by “life’s unresting sea” and
we find that empty shell cast on the shore. When the old temple
has become obsolete humanity finds a spiritual home in new
faith. (Text.)

(2195)

NEW, THE

To market old remedies that have gone out of fashion, or fallen
into discredit, clever manufacturers give them another name and
a new wrapper. Purchasers who go by the label, and they are in
the majority, think that they have found a godsend, and take up
the concoction eagerly.

One is occasionally tempted to have recourse to such a trick, in
the interest of certain old practises, excellent in themselves,
but disqualified by abuse.--CHARLES WAGNER, “The Gospel
of Life.”

(2196)

=New Year=--See COURAGE OF HOPE; FORWARD; IMPROVEMENT; STRENGTH.

=New York’s Growth=--See CITY, GROWTH OF A GREAT.

=Newness Discloses Ignorance=--See DROUGHT, RESPONSIBILITY FOR.

NEWNESS OF EACH SOUL

Perhaps they laughed at Dante in his youth,
Told him that truth
Had unappealably been said
In the great masterpieces of the dead.
Perhaps he listened, and but bowed his head
In acquiescent honor, while his heart
Held natal tidings: that a new life is the part
Of every man that’s born--
A new life never lived before,
And a new expectant art,
It is the variations of the morn
That are forever, more and more,
The single dawning of the single truth:
So answers Dante to the heart of youth.

--WITTER BYNNER, _The Century_.

(2197)

=Newspaper Reporting=--See CLASSICS, STUDY OF; REPORTS TO ORDER.

NEWSPAPERS AND MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE

You can teach the missionary boards and secretaries a little
sense as to the news value of missionary items. I know these
missionary boards and officials; they are altogether respectable
and useful members of society, but they do regard a reporter of
the secular press as a nuisance. Of course many of them do not;
there are a few here. But they usually say, “No, we have no news
to-day.” I have been in the office when a representative of a
newspaper came in. “Anything new?” “No.” And I knew that there
was the best sort of a newspaper story right there; but it went
into the drawer and stayed there three weeks until the whole
matter was sent down to the monthly paper of the Church and
buried. Anything that is of human interest is news. A man said
to me, “I am going to quit _The Globe_ because it is giving
out all this slush of the Torrey-Alexander meetings.” We gave
from two to five columns a day to those meetings, and that man
objected. I said to him, “Put up any sort of a meeting in that
hall, and if you will fill that hall, afternoon and evening,
I will give you from three to five columns.” Those things
that have human interest the people want and need.--J. A.
MACDONALD, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

(2198)

=Next Thing All Important=--See DEFEAT.

=Night Activities=--See LIGHT.

NIGHT FOR REST

Between the days, the weary days,
He drops the darkness and the dew;
Over tired eyes his hands he lays,
And strength and hope and life renews.
Thank God for rest between the days!

Else who could bear the battle stress,
Or who withstand the tempest’s shocks,
Who tread the dreary wilderness
Among the pitfalls and the rocks;
Came not the night with folded flocks?

The white light scorches and the plain
Stretches before us, parched with the heat;
But, by and by, the fierce beams wane;
And lo! the nightfall, cool and sweet,
With dews to bathe our aching feet!

For he remembereth our frame!
Even for this I render praise.
O, tender Master, slow to blame
The falterer on life’s stormy ways,
Abide with us--between the days!

--_The British Weekly._

(2199)

NIGHT, GOD’S PRESENCE IN THE

James Church Alvord writes these prayerful verses:

Not for to-morrow, Lord, I lift my eyes
Up through the darkness which between us lies;
Not ’gainst to-morrow’s terror, toil or woe;
Not for to-morrow’s joy or glad surprize--
Just for to-night.

When the day breaks and far the shadows flee
Strength for the conflict still shall come from Thee,
I all Thy grace shall prove, Thy comfort know.
O, let me feel this deep security--
Just for to-night.

Peace--’tis the gift Thou givest, peace and rest.
Come, bid me droop my head upon Thy breast!
Speak to me, Master, murmur soft and low,
Flood all my soul with Thy communion blest--
Just for to-night.

Nay, I’ll not shun to-morrow’s wild alarms:
Storms when Thou sendest, I’ll not ask for calms.
Yet, I grow weary on the way I go:
Put underneath the everlasting arms--
Just for to-night.
(Text.)

(2200)

=Nightfall=--See GOD, SLEEPLESS CARE OF.

NO MAN’S LAND

There is a peculiar propriety in the name “No Man’s Land,”
which has been applied to the group of rocky snow-clad islands
four hundred miles to the north of the North Cape of Norway,
once spoken of as East Greenland, and appearing on all modern
maps as Spitzbergen. Wintering on these islands is practically
impossible to civilized man. There are myriad petrels and gulls
and wild geese in summer.

For two centuries the whalers and sealers--Swedes, Danes, Dutch,
Norwegians--frequented these islands in summer months. The right
whale disappeared. The seals became fewer. Visits to the islands
became less frequent. Now coal has been discovered in such beds
as to justify civilization in taking cognizance of “No Man’s
Land.”

The United States accepted the invitation of Norway to take
part in an international conference, at Christiana, to consider
the government of Spitzbergen. Russia, Great Britain, Sweden,
Germany and Denmark were invited. There is not much doubt that a
form of government will be devised and a full agreement reached.

This is a significant movement toward extending law in some form to every bit of territory on the earth’s surface. A century hence it will perhaps be impossible to find a square foot of earth that can be called “No Man’s Land.”--Brooklyn _Eagle_.

(2201)

=Nobility, Obscure=--See SPIRITUAL NOBILITY.

=Noise, Vain=--See PRETENSE.

=Nomenclature, Absurd=--See ABSURDITY IN NOMENCLATURE.

=Non-Christian Religions=--See INADEQUACY OF NON-CHRISTIAN
RELIGIONS.

NORMAL, THE, ARE THE HIGHEST

In the valley the sequoia is twenty feet in diameter, and
this is natural. Now, climb the sides of the mountain, and
the diameter drops to ten feet, to five feet, to two feet
six inches, and finally you get an army of average six-inch
sequoias. But don’t say now that because the average on this
rocky soil and these storm-swept peaks is six inches, that the
great tree in the valley is abnormal. On the mountain side, with
the thin soil, roots that cling to rocks, snows that bite, winds
breaking the boughs, thunderbolts that burn and blacken, the
average tree is small.

But this stunted tree is abnormal and unnatural. Your Plato is
the natural man in the intellect. Shakespeare is the normal man
in imagination. Wendell Phillips is the ordinary speaker. The
men you call supreme and extraordinary represent man as God made
them.--N. D. HILLIS.

(2202)

=North Pole Conquest=--See CONQUEST, COMMONPLACE.

=Nose, the Human, Deteriorating=--See DETERIORATION BY DISUSE.

NOTE, A FALSE

Some friends were one evening sitting together in a happy
circle listening to a phonograph as it reproduced the voices
of a quartet of famous singers. Some of the listeners had ears
sensitive to musical sounds and they shuddered at one point
when a false note occurred. As often as the record returned the
discordant jarring of that false note came in with repellent
effect. In the midst of the beautiful strain this spoiled the
harmony at each recurrence. It is so with character. A false
moral concept unless corrected goes on forever producing
falsehood in the life. (Text.)

(2203)

See SELF-CONFIDENCE.

=Nothing Lost in the Universe=--See CONSERVATION.

NOTORIETY

Only persons of cheap character would be likely to resort to such a device as the following:

With more than 10,000 persons intently watching proceedings,
George Lenfers and Miss Ora D. Williams were married on the top
of the gas company’s new giant smoke-stack, 222 feet from the
ground, at high noon the other day. The streets and alleys for
five blocks in every direction were jammed and high roofs were
dotted with spectators as far as the eye could reach.

Thomas Englehard, the builder of the huge pile of concrete and
steel, clasped a belt about the bride’s waist and tied a rope
to a ring in it. The other end of the rope he tied about his
own waist and proceeded with the girl up the ladder. The groom
followed with Rev. C. J. Armentraut, pastor of the Emanuel
Presbyterian Church. (Text.)

(2204)

NOURISHMENT FROM BENEATH

The soul that has its roots struck deep in the soil of God’s providence will live and flourish in the most hostile moral climates of this world.

Did you ever see a watercress-pond in the midst of winter? It
is a very attractive sight. With the thermometer far below the
freezing-point, and with deep snow covering the ground and
the branches of the trees, the patch of watercress stands out
in striking contrast--a spot of vivid green like a carpet on
the surface of the pond. That the plants are able to grow and
flourish under such apparently impossible conditions of weather
is due entirely to the warm springs which feed the pond. The
water welling forth from the warm heart of the earth saves them
from freezing. (Text.)--LOUIS ALBERT BANKS.

(2205)

NOVELS GOOD AND BAD

To so affect a reader that his course of life becomes altered,
must prove that the moving influence of fiction is strong
indeed. With a weapon of such power placed in our hands, it
rests with us to say how it shall be employed. If it has been
used, carelessly so that low, selfish thoughts have been
developed, it is our duty and joyous privilege to so write that
lofty, noble sentiments shall rise and grow, tearing out all
evil from the heart, as a growing tree splits a rock that once
held it as a tiny seed in its moss-lined crevice. If the novel
has inspired doubts as to the value, the grandeur, and joy of
living, fostering that slow, insidious canker of pessimism which
like the poisoned arrows of the Indian permeates the system
with its virus, the novel must now be made to bring calm peace
by presenting noble lives of heroism, self-forgetfulness and
service by a high ideal consistently followed.--_Book Chat._

(2206)

See TIME, PRECIOUS.

NOVELTY, THE PASSION FOR

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.

They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gipsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they’re always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.

--ROBERT W. SERVICE, “The Spell of the Yukon.”

(2207)

NOW, DO IT

When you’ve got a job to do, do it now! If it’s one you wish
was through, do it now! If you’re sure the job’s your own, just
tackle it alone; don’t hem and haw and groan--do it now! Don’t
put off a bit of work, do it now! It doesn’t pay to shirk, do
it now! If you want to fill a place, and be useful in the race,
just get up and take a brace, do it now! Don’t linger by the
way, do it now! You’ll lose if you delay, do it now! If the
other fellows wait, or postpone until it’s late, you hit up a
faster gait--do it now!--_Intelligencer._

(2208)

=Numbers, Courage of=--See COWARDICE.

=Numbers Without Meaning=--See BIGNESS.

=Nurse, Florence Nightingale as a=--See LIFE, A DEVOTED.

NUTRIMENT OF THE SOUL

Last summer I went to an agricultural college. I had been
under the delusion that black clods turned to strawberries,
and that red clay ripened apples and wheat shocks. One day the
professor handed me a large microscope to study two blades of
corn, growing in a little pot of earth. Now there was something
lacking in the soil. The little stock was yellow, sickly, and
come to the moment of death. It throbbed a little, but the pulse
beat low. What was the matter? All it needed was nitrogen.
Nitrogen? Why there were billions of tons of nitrogen in the
air, forty miles thick. When a man has pneumonia he dies, not
because there are not billions of tons of oxygen above him,
but because he can not absorb the oxygen. The soil could not
help the dying corn plant. The rain could not help it--poor
little plant that pants and pants, because it can not get that
invisible nourishment in nitrogen. So we took a little liquor
that held a few nodules from a nitrogenous alfalfa root, and
poured it about the dying blade of corn. In a single hour the
pulse began to beat true and firm; another morning came and
the sickly yellow had changed to green. In a week the corn was
growing like a weed. Out in the field were two acres of corn,
sown broadcast. One acre was in the starved soil and yielded
nine hundred pounds of fodder; the other acre yielded over ten
thousand pounds, through that rich invisible food.

Not otherwise is it with the soul.--N. D. HILLIS.

(2209)

NUTRITION, PROPER

“With the exception of carbon, the food of plants comes from the
soil and it is dissolved in the soil water. If the soil does
not contain food enough, the plant can not grow well, even tho
they have everything else they need. The ideal soil must have
sufficient plant food in a form that can dissolve in water to
supply the needs of crops grown on it.”

There must be religious nutriment in the soil of education and
training in order to proper moral growth. (Text.)

(2210)

O

OASES

Among the African deserts are some fertile spots. They are
occasioned by springs which arise in little dells and moisten
the ground for some distance around them. They are islands of
verdure and beauty and refreshing in an ocean of desolation.
Some of them are very extensive and contain a considerable
population. One of these is called the Great Oasis, consisting
of a chain of fertile tracts of about a hundred miles in length.
Another is the Oasis of Siwah, which has a population of eight
thousand souls.

Is not life dotted with just such oases that gladden the desert expanse that surrounds so many pilgrims of earth? (Text.)

(2211)

OATHS

The primary idea of taking an oath is that we call upon the
Deity to bear witness to the sincerity or truth of what we
assert, and so, as it were, register our oath in heaven.
When Abraham, for example, raised his hands to heaven while
swearing an oath to the King of Sodom, he pointed to the
supposed residence of the Creator. Afterward, when men set up
inferior deities of their own, they appealed to the material
images of symbols that represented them, whenever an oath
was administered. The most usual form of swearing among the
ancients was, however, by touching the altar of the gods. Other
rites, such as libations, the burning of incense and sacrifices
accompanied the touching of the altar. Demosthenes swore by the
souls of those who fell at Marathon. Anciently, too, mariners
swore by their ships, fishermen by their nets, soldiers by their
spears, and kings by their scepters. The ancient Persians swore
by the sun, which was the common object of their adoration,
while the Scythians pledged themselves by the air they breathed
and by their simitars. Descending to more modern times, the
Saxons pledged themselves to support their homes and privileges
by their arms; and the punishment for perjury or non-fulfilment
of an oath was the loss of the hand that had held the weapon at
the compact. The Spartans were wont to assemble around a brazier
of fire, and, pointing their short swords to the sky, call upon
the gods to bear witness to the compact. Swearing by the sword,
in fact, retained its significance down to comparatively modern
times, tho in a slightly modified form. Thus, while the pagans
extended the point of the weapon toward the supposed residence
of the gods, the warriors of Christianity after kissing it,
directed the hilt--the true emblem of their faith--to heaven.
A later form of oath was the pressing of the thumb upon the
blade. Gradually, however, the practise became obsolete; and
the kissing of the hilt, accompanying the words, “By this good
sword!” was handed down almost to the time when the wearing of a
sword by gentlemen was abolished, as one of the strictest codes
of civil honor.--London _Standard_.

(2212)

OBEDIENCE

When the Duke of Wellington received a very intrepid battalion
returning from a bloody campaign it was observed that he said
nothing of their courage, praising only their discipline
and subordination to command. Civilians were surprized. The
field marshal’s reason was ready--Englishmen are expected to
be brave, but obedience is a higher honor. War itself, as a
science of slaughter, is not a lofty kind of work, as the
most courageous warriors in later days always admit. Yet the
military profession is an elevated one in civilized countries,
because it is a discipline of character in the principle of
authority.--BISHOP HUNTINGTON, _The Forum_.

(2213)

* * * * *

Hon. Richmond P. Hobson, in relating some of his experiences after he and his men were captured by the Spanish, tells the following story:

The next day, when it seemed uncertain whether or not a remnant
of the Inquisition was to be revived, when the enemy did not
know whether it was his fault or ours that a ship had been sunk,
and rather inclined to the belief that he had sunk an American
battleship and that we were the only survivors out of several
hundred, the men were taken before the Spanish authorities
and serious and impertinent questions put to them. Remember,
they did not know what it might cost them to refuse to answer,
Spanish soldiers of the guard standing before them, making
significant gestures with their hands edgewise across their
throats. Our seamen laughed in their faces. Then a Spanish major
questioned Charette, because he spoke French, and asked him this
question: “What was your object in coming here?”

And so long as I live I shall never forget the way Charette
threw back his shoulders, proudly lifted his head and looked him
in the eye as he said:

“In the United States Navy, sir, it is not the custom for the
seamen to know, or to desire to know, the object of an action of
his superior officer.”

Obedience to the right, is an all too rare virtue, yet upon it depend the foundations of society and the spread of God’s kingdom. We are privileged to know and also to obey.

(2214)

* * * * *

The Princess of Wales, according to _The Youth’s
Companion_, has trained her children so carefully in habits
of obedience and veracity that they are nearly models of what
children should be in those particulars. Upon one occasion,
however, they were sorely tempted. This was when their loving
and beloved grandmother, Queen Alexandra, brought them a big box
of bonbons. But when the sweets were offered to them, one child
after another reluctantly but firmly declined to take any.

“We like them, but mother has forbidden us to eat them,”
explained the eldest prince.

“You can have the sugar-plums if I say you may,” said the
indulgent Queen. “I will tell mama all about it when she
returns.”

Prince Eddie wavered momentarily, then reiterated his refusal.

“We’d like them,” he sighed, “but that’s what mother said.”

The Queen was slightly annoyed by this opposition.

“But if I say you may--” she said.

Prince Eddie stood his ground, a hero between two fires--the
wishes of his adored mother and those of his equally adored
grandmother. His sisters and his brothers followed his lead.
When the Queen went away she put the bonbons on the nursery
table and there they stayed for months untouched, a handsome
monument to the thoroughness of the princess’s training and the
respectful love and devotion of her children. (Text.)

(2215)

OBEDIENCE, A TYPE OF

Admiral Dewey served through the Civil War, and had the fortune
to get always into the thickest of the fight. When in command
of the _Dolphin_, he exhibited his ideas of obedience. One
of his “Jacks” refused to obey an order of his lieutenant and
was reported to Dewey. “What!” said Dewey, “you refuse? Do you
know this is mutiny?” The man still remained stubborn. Thereupon
Dewey told the captain to call the guard. He stood the obdurate
seaman on the far side of the deck, and ordered the marines to
load. Then he took out his watch and said, “Now my man, you have
just five seconds to obey that order,” and began to count the
seconds. At the fourth count the man moved off with alacrity to
obey the order. The admiral was a man to be trusted implicitly
to carry out orders, which fact had become a byword at the
Navy Department, and he won fame from the custom he had formed
of doing the thing expected of him.--JAMES T. WHITE,
“Character Lessons.”

(2216)

OBEDIENCE AND GREATNESS

The moon calls to the Atlantic and the mighty seas lift
themselves in great tidal waves as they follow their mistress
round the globe. It calls with equal insistence to the wayside
pool and this passing reminder of yesterday’s shower yields not
an inch. The dust speck dances in the sunlight impudently or
ignorantly defiant of the law which holds the earth with a grip
of steel as it goes bounding along through a wilderness of stars
held steady by the same hand. Be it big enough and noble enough,
it knows how to obey.--JOHN H. WILLEY.

(2217)

OBEDIENCE IN SPIRIT

It is told of an Eastern king how, planning to visit a remote
part of his kingdom, he sent ahead a trusted minister to build
for his royal master a suitable palace to live in. When the
royal courier reached the end of his journey he found a plague
raging and the people dying by thousands. So instead of building
the contemplated palace, he took the money and spent it in
medicine and bread for the poor sufferers, dug graves and buried
the dead, and bought clothing to protect the living. When the
king came on and found what was done, instead of punishing his
minister he commended him, saying, “Oh, faithful servant, you
have builded for me a palace in the hearts of my people--built
it out of the tombstones which you have erected over the graves
of the dead; jeweled it with the tears you have wiped away, made
it echo with songs out of the sobs which you have stilled.”

These servants followed the spirit of the king’s command, not the letter. Will not God be well pleased with a similar obedience from His children? (Text.)

(2218)

=Object-preaching=--See SERMON, SAVING A.

OBJECT-TEACHING

Many men could be brought to abandon their evil habits if they could have them as plainly pictured as the man did in the following incident:

A rich profligate kept two monkeys for his amusement. Once he
peeped into his dining hall where he and his friends had been
enjoying themselves in wine, and found his pets mimicking the
recent party. They mounted the table, helped themselves to the
wine, and gestured and jabbered as they had seen their master
and his guests doing. Soon they got merry and jumped all about
the room. Then they got to fighting on the floor and tearing
each other’s hair. The master stood in amazement. “What,” he
said, “is this a picture of me? Do even the brutes rebuke me?”
Ever afterward he was a sober man.

(2219)

=Object-teaching, Successful=--See WARMTH, LOST.

=Objection Overcome=--See TACT.

OBLIGATION

George William Curtis exhibited an unusual honesty. Not only had
he a fine sense of obligation where there was no legal or moral
responsibility, but he considered himself bound by obligations
made by others, in which he had no part. Upon his father’s
death, Curtis assumed his liabilities, amounting to $20,000,
which took many years of personal deprivation for him to pay;
and later, upon the failure of a firm in which he was merely
a special partner for only a small amount, and having no part
in the management, he refused the immunity allowed under the
law, and gave up almost his entire fortune to pay the firm’s
indebtedness.--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”

(2220)

OBLIGATION TO THE CHURCH

There are some people who seem to think they have a through
ticket on a vestibule train for heaven. Having paid their
pew-rent, taken a seat in the church for a pleasing Sunday
service, feeling no obligation to do anything to move the
church onward spiritually, they consider themselves at liberty
to find fault with the minister and the choir, just as the
critical complaining passenger, who, having paid for his ticket
and secured his berth, looks upon the train officers and all,
as bound to be simply subservient to his individual fancy and
pleasure. Is it not time that those who are divinely commended
to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling got rid
of the passenger notion of getting to heaven? (Text.)--_The
Living Church._

(2221)

OBLIGATIONS, MEETING

No chapter in Mark Twain’s life gave more basis for the great
love of his countrymen than that of his unsuccessful business
affairs, his simple, uncomplaining facing of them, and his
honest fulfilling of his debts to the last farthing. Coming
upon him when sixty years of age, and with disheartening
completeness, the failure of his publishing firm might well
have bowed down a stronger man; and there can be no doubt but
that his cheerful humor saved him, in bearing up under the
disappointment, as it enabled him to pay his obligations in a
financial way.

The firm of C. L. Webster & Co. was organized in 1884, and Mark
Twain became president and chief stockholder. As head of the
concern his essentially literary and unbusinesslike leanings led
him to oversee only the broadest lines of the publishing policy,
leaving the administrative details to other hands. Owing to the
character of some of the works which the company put out, its
ventures were more than ordinarily large; the memoirs of Gen.
Grant netted between $250,000 and $300,000 in royalties alone to
the general’s widow.

On April 14, 1894, after several reverses, the firm made an
assignment for the benefit of its creditors. Mark Twain had
already put in more than $65,000 of his own money in an attempt
to save the company; he had also lost heavily in trying to
develop a type-setting machine. Liquidation showed liabilities
of $96,000. Sixty years old, with a wife and three daughters to
provide for, Mark Twain voluntarily gave up all his personal
assets as a partial satisfaction of his debts and accepted the
burden of those remaining. He said, splendidly:

“The law recognizes no mortgage on a man’s brain, and a
merchant who has given up his all may take advantage of the
law of insolvency, and start free again for himself; but I am
not a business man, and honor is a harder master than the law.
It can not compromise for less than one hundred cents on the
dollar.”--New York _Evening Post_.

(2222)

OBSCURANTISM

Literal fogs may be very detrimental, but it would be more valuable to clear away the fogs of ignorance and prejudice from human minds.

Fogs are not only disagreeable, but very expensive, especially
in fog-bound London, where they are often the cause of great
loss to merchants. During the week preceding Christmas in a
recent year it is estimated that as a result of foggy weather
at least $50,000,000 was lost in that city, business being
paralyzed for the time being. This being the case, the invention
of some means for clearing the air of fog would mean to the
British merchant a very material increase of prosperity. The
problem is one of such serious importance that experiments
are now being carried on with a view of finding practical
means for dispelling the dense atmospheric conditions.--W.
RAYMOND, _The American Inventor_.

(2223)

OBSCURITY, LITERARY

Thomas Scott, the Biblical Commentator, once wrote a commentary
on “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” He gave a copy of it to an old
woman. Some time after he called to see her. “Have you been
reading the book I gave you?” he asked her. “Yes, sir.” “Do you
understand it?” “Well, sir,” she said, “I can understand what
Mr. Bunyan wrote, and I think that some day by the grace of God
I may be able to understand your explanation of it.”

(2224)

OBSERVATION, KEENNESS IN

Numerous mistakes in life, in literature and in science are due to imperfect or erroneous observation. The following story from the _Penn Monthly_, which is quite apropos, is related of Agassiz, and it is sufficiently characteristic of this remarkably accurate observer to have the merit of probability:

Once upon a time the professor had occasion to select an
assistant from one of his classes. There were a number of
candidates for the post of honor, and finding himself in a
quandary as to which one he should choose, the happy thought
occurred to him of subjecting three of the more promising
students in turn to the simple test of describing the view
from his laboratory window, which overlooked the side yard of
the college. One said that he saw merely a board fence and a
brick pavement; another added a stream of soapy water; a third
detected the color of the paint on the fence, noted a green mold
or fungus on the bricks, and evidences of “bluing” in the water,
besides other details. It is needless to tell to which candidate
was awarded the coveted position.

(2225)

=Observation Profitable=--See INSECT, A MODEL.

OBSERVATION, VALUE OF