Chapter C: C. Abbot writes in the New York Sun (6)

“She isn’t their daughter--not any relation; not even a friend
or a friend’s daughter, just a poor girl who had been sick so
long and suffered so terribly that the doctors themselves had
made her a victim of the opium habit. And they have undertaken
to try to cure her. They have given up their home--their very
lives--to it. They don’t say a word about it. I just found it
out--with the help of the doctor.”

The visitor rose suddenly, almost unceremoniously. For a moment
the hostess looked troubled and aghast. Had she spoken too
sharply, discourteously, even? Her mind fled back over the
interview as she faltered: “You are not going yet? You--oh, you
aren’t offended at anything I’ve said?”

“Yes, I’m going. Offended--I? I’m going round to see all our
ladies, every single one of them!”

“And tell them?--”

The minister’s wife held her breath for the answer. One may be
very bold, but it sometimes means a great deal to offend “the
ladies.”

“And tell them,” said the caller, gathering her wraps about her,
“that beautiful ‘other side!’”

“Oh!” breathed the minister’s wife gratefully. “And tell them,
won’t you, that there always is another side, always, always!
And it is our Christian business to try and find it.”--ANNA
BURNHAM BRYANT, _Zion’s Herald_.

(2280)

OTHERS, CONSIDERATION FOR

Among the regular announcements printed each week in the calendar of the Temple Baptist Church, Los Angeles, Cal., when the Rev. Robert J. Burdette was pastor, was the following:

Out of Christian consideration for others, the women will please
remove their hats before the beginning of the sermon.

There was general conformity with a request so courteous and so
Christian. In a large audience of several thousand there will,
of course, be occasional transgressors. When the number of
transgressors was exasperatingly large, the startled ears of the
offenders were in danger of being greeted with a pronunciamento
from the pastor, ordinarily the gentlest of men, usually in this
spoken form:

“If the lady with the becoming hat will kindly notice how hard
the man behind her is dodging, trying to see the preacher, she
will undoubtedly be obliging enough to take down her millinery,
postpone her halo, and conform to the customs of this church.”
The effect is generally satisfactory to the audience, and the
wearer’s self-respect is preserved in a trying episode. (Text.)

(2281)

=Outcome=--See DIRECTION.

=Outlawry=--See LAWLESSNESS.

=Outstripping Danger=--See AHEAD OF CIRCUMSTANCES.

=Overcoming Obstacles=--See ENERGY, INDOMITABLE.

=Overdoing=--See COMPARISONS, APT.

OVERDOING DANGEROUS

On all sides we may see that the stern laws which are necessary
to our development may become exhaustive and destructive,
passing beyond a given limit, as in athletics a man may be
overtrained. And all this is just as true of our moral as it
is of our physical and intellectual nature. A fair share of
hardship develops heroic qualities, but when existence becomes
too hard it breaks the spirit; the child cruelly treated becomes
cowed; men and women bred in misfortune’s school become timid,
nervous, cowardly. So, if heaven did not temper life, the finer
qualities could never be developed in us. Burdens too heavy
to be borne would break our heart; temptations too fiery, or
protracted, wear out our patience; sorrows too acute drink
up our spirit. Overborne by unmitigated pressure, we should
lose all faith, courage, hope; nothing would be left to us but
atheism, cynicism, despair.--W. L. WATKINSON, “The
Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(2282)

OVERLOADING

A horse drawing a load of freight was going down the grade on
Seneca Street (Buffalo). The weight of the load sent it forward
on the animal’s heels. The driver pulled up the horse to steady
him. The load slid forward still faster--the horse slipt and
fell.

A little crowd gathered. The horse was unhitched as it lay
panting on its side with its fore-legs skinned from the knee
down from contact with the ice. The animal struggled to rise,
but could not gain a foothold. Then some one placed a folded
blanket under the horse’s fore-feet, and he got up and stood
shivering from the strain.

Just a common street scene.

But it has a moral in the opinion of the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is, “don’t overload.”

“I do wish that teamsters and owners of work-horses could be
brought to understand that it does not pay to overload their
wagons,” said Miss Jessie C. Hall, office secretary of the
society.

“Just now the overloading of wagons is causing no end of trouble
and complaints are pouring in every day. If drivers would take
smaller loads it would pay in the end. Only this morning an
agent of the society was called to Broadway and Gibson Street
where a horse had fallen down. It was so badly hurt that it had
to be destroyed.”

(2283)

OVERPLUS OF DUTY

This testimony by an expert should interest particularly those just starting in life:

Andrew Carnegie, in a recent address before a graduating class
in New York, said:

“There are several classes of young men. There are those who do
not do all their duty, there are those who profess to do their
duty, and there is a third class, far better than the other two,
that do their duty and a little more.

“There are many great pianists, but Paderewski is at the head
because he does a little more than the others. There are
hundreds of race-horses, but it is those who go a few seconds
faster than the others that acquire renown. So it is in the
sailing of yachts. It is the little more that wins. So it is
with the young and old men who do a little more than their duty.
Do your duty and a little more, and the future will take care of
itself.” (Text.)

(2284)

=Overproduction in Nature=--See DESTRUCTION NECESSARY.

=Overshadowed=--See LIVING IN THE SHADOW.

OVERSIGHT

Many a good plan has failed through oversight of some forgotten or neglected factor.

Two years after Mr. Cassatt became general manager of the
Pennsylvania Railroad, Robert Garrett walked into the office of
George B. Roberts, then president, and exclaimed gleefully: “Mr.
Roberts, we have secured control of the Philadelphia, Wilmington
and Baltimore Railroad. We are not disposed, however, to disturb
your relations with the property, and you need not give yourself
any uneasiness on that score.”

This road, owned by New England capitalists, extended from
Philadelphia to Baltimore, and had been operated in the
interests of the Pennsylvania. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,
always on the lookout for an open path to New York, coveted
the small but important stretch of track and resented the
Pennsylvania’s control of it.

President Roberts was amazed and not a little discomfited by the
easy assurance of Mr. Garrett. As soon as the exultant Baltimore
and Ohio man had gone there was a conference between President
Roberts and Mr. Cassatt.

“Garrett says they’ve got the P. W. & B.,” said Mr. Roberts.

“Oh, no, they haven’t,” replied the general manager.

That night there was a meeting of Pennsylvania Railroad
directors in New York. Mr. Cassatt was the presiding genius.
He told them where he could lay his hands on a block of P. W.
& B. stock that would put the control forever in the hands of
the Pennsylvania Railroad. Before the directors rose from their
chairs a check was drawn for $14,949,052.20. It hangs in a frame
now on the walls of the treasury of the Pennsylvania Railroad,
canceled to show that the money was there waiting when it was
presented. At the time it was written, it was the largest
check ever recorded. The Garretts were completely routed. They
couldn’t understand how they had come to overlook that block of
stock, and they were equally at a loss to know how Cassatt had
discovered it and negotiated the purchase over night.

(2285)

=Ownership Settled by Sheep=--See TESTIMONY, A SHEEP’S.

OWNERSHIP, THE SOUL’S

Thomas Traherne, a poet whose works became known only after his death, wrote this verse:

My infancy no sooner opes its eyes
But straight the spacious earth
Abounds with joy, peace, glory, mirth,
And, being wise,
The very skies
And stars do mine become.

(2286)

P

=Pace=--See SLOWNESS.

=Pagan Conception of Death=--See DEATH, CHRISTIAN VIEW OF.

=Pagan Kindness=--See GENEROSITY.

PAGAN THOUGHTS

On Stanley’s first trip through Africa he came to the King of
Uganda, who most cordially asked, first of all, for the health
of Queen Victoria and of the German Emperor. Then he somewhat
disconcerted the great traveler by asking him, “What news do
you bring me from above?” This heathen king had a perfect right
to expect that his visitor was one in heart and idea with that
greater explorer, David Livingstone. But as Stanley proceeded
westward he could tell the character of those with whom the
natives were acquainted. The first question put by the natives
nearer the West Coast was, “Have you any gin?”

(2287)

PAIN

You eat the heart of life like some great beast,
You blacken the sweet sky--that God made blue,
You are the death’s-head set amid the feast,
The desert breath that drinks up every dew.

And no man lives but quails before thee, Pain!
And no man lives that learns to love your rod;
The white lip smiles--but ever and again,
God’s image cries your horror unto God.

And yet--oh, terrible! men grant you this:
You work a mystery. When you are done,
Lo! common living turns to heavenly bliss;
Lo! the mere light is as the noonday sun!

--MARGARET STEBLE ANDERSON, _The Century Magazine_.

(2288)

=Pain, Cry of=--See BIRD NOTES.

PAIN IN ANIMALS

In dealing with animals it is necessary to consider carefully
what signs may be depended upon as proofs of their suffering.
Certainly their struggles and cries are not always true
indications. All wild animals struggle under restraint. With
many, cries indicate fear rather than pain. A hare when shot
rarely cries; when closely pursued by dogs it often does.
Animals when trapped rarely cry until some one approaches the
trap. Frogs will cry out loudly on the appearance of anything
at all resembling a snake; when injured with stones or cut by
the scythe in mowing they rarely do so. Every gamekeeper knows
that it is a common thing for a rat or rabbit, when caught
by the leg in one of the ordinary steel-traps, to gnaw off
its limb and so escape, while other animals when kept short
of food will readily eat their own tails. Another proof that
animals are less sensitive to pain than man is their comparative
freedom from shock after severe injuries. When a man meets with
a severe injury of any kind, a train of symptoms follow which
are collectively known by the name of shock. A striking pallor
takes the place of the natural color, the skin becomes covered
with a clammy moisture, the eye loses its natural luster, and
the extremities become deadly cold, and while the ear may detect
the fluttering action of the heart, the pulse at the wrist is
often quite imperceptible. All these symptoms point to a great
disturbance of the nervous system, whereas the lower animals
often sustain the severest injuries without exhibiting any of
the symptoms of shock.--W. COLLIER, _Nineteenth
Century_.

(2289)

PAIN, LEARNING BY

The gipsies of Transylvania, according to a writer in
_Blackwood’s Magazine_, teach young bears to dance by
placing the animal on a sheet of heated iron, while the trainer
plays on his fiddle a strongly accentuated piece of dance-music.
The bear, lifting up its legs alternately to escape the heat,
involuntarily observes the time marked by the violin. Later
on the heated iron is supprest, when the animal has learned
its lesson, and whenever the gipsy begins to play on the
fiddle the young bear lifts its legs in regular time to the
music.--_Public Opinion._

(2290)

=Pain Relieved=--See PATIENCE.

PAIN STRENGTHENS

When the little girl told her music-teacher that it hurt her
fingers to practise on the piano, the teacher answered: “I know
it hurts them, but it strengthens them, too.” Then the child
packed the philosophy of the ages into her reply: “Teacher,
it seems that everything which strengthens hurts.”--F. F.
SHANNON.

(2291)

PAIN, THE ANGEL OF

When Theodosius was put upon the rack he suffered very great
torture at the first. Somebody asked him how he endured all that
pain on the rack. He replied: “When I was first put upon the
rack I suffered a great deal; but very soon a young man in white
stood by my side, and with a soft and comfortable handkerchief
he wiped the sweat from my brow, and my pains were relieved. It
was a punishment for me to get from the rack, because when the
pain was all gone the angel was gone.” (Text.)

(2292)

PAINSTAKING

In spite of his continual need of movement, his passionate love
of sport in all its forms, and especially of motoring, his
expansive, rather mad, but very attractive youthfulness, Alfonso
XIII, even in his flying trips, never loses the occasion to
improve his mind. He is very quick at seizing a point, possesses
a remarkable power of assimilation, and, altho he does not read
much, for he has no patience, he is remarkably well informed
regarding the smallest details in matters that interest him. One
day, for instance, he asked me, point-blank:

“Do you know how many gendarmes there are in France?”

I confess that I was greatly puzzled what to reply, for I have
never cared much about statistics. I ventured to say, off-hand:
“Ten thousand.”

“Ten thousand! Come, M. Paoli, what are you thinking of? That’s
the number we have in Spain. It’s more like twenty thousand.”

This figure, as I afterward learned, was strictly accurate.

As for business of State, I also noticed that the king devoted
more time to it than his restless life would lead one to
believe. Rising, winter and summer, at six o’clock, he stays
indoors and works regularly during the early part of the
morning, and often again at night. In this connection, one of
his ministers said to me:

“He never shows a sign of either weariness or boredom. The
king’s ‘frivolity’ is a popular fallacy. On the contrary,
he is terribly painstaking. Just like the queen mother, he
insists upon clear and detailed explanations before he will
sign the least document; and he knows quite well how to make
his will felt. Besides, he is fond of work, and he can work
anywhere--in a motor-car, in a boat, in a train, as well as in
his study.”--XAVIER PAOLI, _McClure’s_.

(2293)

* * * * *

Any one, says a writer in _The Atlantic Monthly_, can hold
out a dumb-bell for a few seconds; but in a few more seconds the
arm sags; it is only the trained athlete who can endure even to
the minute’s end.

For Hawthorne to hold the people of “The Scarlet Letter”
steadily in focus from November to February, to say nothing of
six years’ preliminary brooding, is surely more of an artistic
feat than to write a short story between Tuesday and Friday.

The three years and nine months of unremitting labor devoted to
“Middlemarch” does not in itself afford any criterion of the
value of the book; but given George Eliot’s brain power and
artistic instinct to begin with, and then concentrate them for
that period upon a single theme, and it is no wonder that the
result is a masterpiece.

“Jan van Eyck was never in a hurry,” says Charles Reade of the
great Flemish painter, in “The Cloister and the Hearth,” and
therefore the world will not forget him in a hurry. (Text.)

(2294)

=Painting the Living=--See MOTIVE, MERCENARY.

=Palliatives=--See MUSIC AS AN ANESTHETIC.

PALLIATIVES VERSUS PREVENTION

The principle indicated in the extract will some day be adopted by Christianity in its treatment of the moral life. Mere palliatives are insufficient:

The aim of reasonable people should be to keep themselves in
health rather than to be always straying, as it were, upon
the confines of disease and seeking assistance from drugs in
order to return to conditions from which they should never
have suffered themselves to depart. The various alkaline
salts and solutions, for example, the advertisements of which
meet us at every turn, and which are offered to the public as
specifics, safely to be taken, without anything so superfluous
as the advice of medical men, for all the various evils which
are described by the advertisers as gout or heartburn, or
as the consequences of “uric acid,” do unquestionably, in a
certain proportion of cases, afford temporary relief from some
discomfort or inconvenience. They do this notwithstanding
persistence in the habit or in the indulgence, whatever it
may be, the overeating, the want of exercise, the excessive
consumption of alcohol or of tobacco, which is really underlying
the whole trouble which the drugs are supposed to cure and
which at the very best they only temporarily relieve, while
they permit the continuance of conditions leading ultimately to
degeneration of tissue and to premature death. (Text.)--_The
Lancet._

(2295)

PANIC THROUGH FEAR

The New York _Evening Post_ thus describes the condition of panic on our ships at the beginning of the Spanish War:

Almost any officer who served in the fleet before Santiago
could relate not one, but a great many incidents that occurred
where the men of our ships would have slaughtered each other if
the good little angel that sits up aloft (and our exceedingly
bad marksmanship at that time) had not protected us from the
mistakes (incomprehensible to landsmen) which caused our
ships to fire at each other, at colliers, dispatch-boats,
torpedo-boats, and at nothing at all--and all this in the clear
atmosphere of the tropical seas.

Such was the effect of the long, nervous tension that thousands
of shots were fired at pure fantoms of the imagination. The
broadsides of powerful battleships repeatedly burst into a
furious cannonade that was arrested only with the complete
annihilation of the supposed enemy. For one of our ships to
approach the fleet at night was to run a grave risk. The sea
was alive with Spanish torpedo-boats. Signals, lights, etc.,
were misunderstood or disregarded. The enemy might have obtained
possession of them and displayed them for our confusion. There
were many narrow escapes. Several of our vessels were struck
by shells, but the luck that followed us throughout the war
prevented a disaster. I could mention the names of officers who
have never been able to comb their hair down flat since the
particular night on which they came within an ace of sinking
a friend--with whom they have never since ceased to exchange
congratulatory drinks. (Text.)--New York _Evening Post_.

(2296)

=Panoply=--See ARMOR.

=Paper, Invention of=--See ANTIQUITY.

=Papers, The Opinions of=--See REPORTS TO ORDER.

=Paralysis=--See SALVABILITY.

PARADOX

Nature is full of paradoxes. The water which drowns us as a
fluent stream can be walked upon as ice. The bullet which, when
fired from a musket, carries death, will be harmless if ground
to dust before being fired. The crystallized part of the oil
of roses, so graceful in its fragrance--a solid at ordinary
temperatures, tho readily volatile--is a compound substance,
containing exactly the same elements and exactly the same
proportions as the gas with which we light the streets. The
tea which we daily drink with benefit and pleasure produces
palpitation, nervous tremblings, and even paralysis if taken in
excess; yet the peculiar organic agent called “thein,” to which
tea owes its quality, may be taken by itself (as thein, not as
tea) without any appreciable effect--VYRNWY MORGAN,
“The Cambro-American Pulpit.”

(2297)

* * * * *

Joseph Hart, the hymnist, wrote “The Paradox,” as follows:

How strange is the course that a Christian must steer!
How perplexed is the path he must tread!
The hope of his happiness rises from fear,
And his life he receives from the dead.

His fairest pretensions must wholly be waived,
And his best resolutions be crossed;
Nor can he expect to be perfectly saved.
Till he finds himself utterly lost.

When all this is done, and his heart is assured
Of the total remission of sins;
When his pardon is signed, and his peace is procured,
From that moment his conflict begins.

(2298)

PARASITES

Society has too many members who are willing to live on the labor of others, like the shoveler duck described in this extract:

One of the ducks has learned a convenient trick for getting his
dinner. Some of the diving brotherhood who feed under water stir
up a great deal that floats, and the shoveler, preferring to
take his provision from the surface, follows his diving neighbor
to the feeding-place, and while the feeders below stir up the
inhabitants, he swims around on the surface and catches whatever
floats.--OLIVE THORNE MILLER, “The Bird Our Brother.”

(2299)

PARASITISM

Some of the intruding insects that come from oak galls are not
harmless. They are the ones called parasites. They live in the
houses not for the sake of the protection or the food furnished
by the house, but in order to eat the actual dwellers in the
house. Often and often not a single real gall-insect comes out
in the spring from many of the little houses, but only a little
swarm, or sometimes just two or three, or even one, of these
insect-devouring parasites that has eaten up the rightful owners
of the house.--VERNON L. KELLOGG, “Insect Stories.”

(2300)

PARDON

In the Isle of Man is an old, gray, ruined tower in which was
formerly hanged one of the best governors the island ever
possest. He had been accused of treachery to the king during
the time of the civil wars, and received sentence of death.
Intercession was made for him, and a pardon was sent; but the
pardon fell into the hands of his bitter enemy, who kept it
locked up, and the governor was executed.

(2301)

=Pardon, Conditional=--See MERCY, LIMITATION OF.

PARDON FOR A CHILD’S SAKE

The following incident is related by Mrs. Pickett, widow of General George E. Pickett, of the Confederate Army, of her first meeting with President Lincoln after the war:

I was in Richmond when my Soldier fought the awful battle of
Five Forks, Richmond surrendered, and the surging sea of fire
swept the city. The day after the fire, there was a sharp rap at
the door. The servants had all run away. The city was full of
Yankees, and my environment had not taught me to love them. With
my baby on my arm, I opened the door, and looked up at a tall,
gaunt, sad-faced man in ill-fitting clothes. He asked: “Is this
George Pickett’s home?”

With all the courage and dignity I could muster, I replied:
“Yes, and I am his wife, and this is his baby.”

“I am Abraham Lincoln.”

“The President!” I gasped. I had never seen him, but I knew the
intense love and reverence with which my Soldier always spoke of
him. The stranger shook his head and replied:

“No; Abraham Lincoln, George’s old friend.”

The baby pushed away from me and reached out his hands to Mr.
Lincoln, who took him in his arms. As he did so an expression of
rapt, almost divine tenderness and love lighted up the sad face.
It was a look that I have never seen on any other face. The baby
opened his mouth wide and insisted upon giving his father’s
friend a dewy infantile kiss. As Mr. Lincoln gave the little one
back to me, he said:

“Tell your father, the rascal, that I forgive him for the sake
of your bright eyes.”

(2302)

=Pardon through Intercession=--See SACRIFICIAL MEDIATION.

=Parentage=--See LIFE, SOURCE OF.

PARENTAL CAUTION

On the plain of Troy are dotted many Turkish villages. Thousands
of storks make their nests on the roofs of the cottages.
When Dr. Schliemann was digging in the ruins of the hill of
Hissarlik, and discovering the remains of cities, he had two
comfortable nests made for storks on the roof of his hut. But
none would take up their abode. The hill was too cold and stormy
for the little storks and the parents instinctively knew it.

(2303)

=Parental Mal-influence=--See POLITENESS.

=Parental Religion=--See RELIGION, FAMILY.

PARENTAL SACRIFICE