Earlier text: DANGERS OF THE YOUNGATMOSPHERES
By Theodore L. Cuyler
MANY residents in our cities return from the country every autumn with their health invigorated by breathing the pure country air. Some have been toned up by the oxygen that floats through the mountains; some by the ocean winds, that are full of saltness and strength. Others, again, light upon regions infested with miasma, and they bring back the subtle poison of the “malaria” in their bones. A good air inspires health; a bad air breeds disease and death. It is not necessary to cite the memorable case of the “Black Hole of Calcutta” to prove that nothing is more deadly than a foul, poisonous atmosphere. What is true as to physical health is equally true as to spiritual health. No one who observes human nature closely can fail to detect the prodigious influence of atmospheres, holy and unholy, upon character and the destiny of the soul. We are all members one of another. There is an influence that goes forth insensibly from every one of us; and each one feels the influence of his or her surroundings. “What a man is—the sum total of his beliefs, affections, tastes, and habits—is contagious in its tendency.” It photographs itself upon others. The parent communicates the moral contagion to the child; the teacher, to his pupils; the author, to his readers. We may be as totally unconscious of this emanation of good or evil from us as the person who communicates a scarlet fever or a varioloid; yet the fact remains. If we are full of holy light, we can make an atmosphere of cheerful radiance. If our souls are on fire with Christ-love, others will inevitably feel the warmth. A few frigid professors can freeze a prayer-meeting; a few fervid ones can kindle it into a glow. What a tremendous spiritual heat was engendered in a certain upper room in Jerusalem, when the Divine Spirit poured like a wind and a flame into one hundred and twenty hearts! The atmosphere became charged with spiritual power. Those early disciples carried that atmosphere with them, and three thousand souls were converted in a day. We observe the striking influence of atmosphere in certain schools. Dr. Arnold seemed to impress himself so distinctly upon the famous school at Rugby that the atmosphere became favorable to industry, truthfulness, and a high sense of honor. No one can visit the celebrated Mount Holyoke Seminary without detecting at once a subtle pervading influence that is fatal to fashion and frivolity, and yet quickening to spiritual life. The breath of Mary Lyon, its godly, courageous founder, still breathes through the institution; and hence has come that subtle inspiration which has sent over one hundred of its graduates upon foreign missions to India, Africa, and other regions of heathendom. I have known a careless, irreligious boy to enter a school in which religion was made attractive and pervading. Without being either scolded, or rebuked sharply, or even being exhorted, he has soon become changed in character by his surroundings. The steady, prayerful, and godly atmosphere of the school seemed to penetrate and mold his character, as a tonic air gives vigor to the lungs and purity to the blood. Such a school is a means of grace to a boy or girl, and affects those whom even sermons fail to touch. Nowhere is this subtle influence of moral atmosphere so potent as in the home, which God intended to be the primary training-school for the commonwealth and the church. Let me feel assured of a family altar and the pervading influence of God’s word in every household, and I should feel no tremor of anxiety for the future of our Republic. Puritan homes made Puritan character. Out of many a lowly New England farmhouse, with a rag carpet on its floor and a few godly books on its table, have gone the Goodells, the Spauldings, and the Mills to our early foreign missions. They have given its best blood to the American pulpit and the American state. It was the religious atmosphere of the home that penetrated the very core of character. This atmosphere of the household—which either converts to Christ or perverts to fashion, folly, and impiety—is commonly created by the parents. They are responsible for it. If the whole trend of household talk, and thought, and ambition, runs toward money-making, or social convivialities, or general godlessness of any kind, it is the father and mother who give the pitch. Nowhere is it so difficult to make the best preaching or the best Sunday-school teaching effective on character as in the malarious air of such a home. As soon expect to rear oranges in Lapland or grow sugar-cane in Labrador as to rear plants of grace in so godless an atmosphere. The parental influence penetrates through the house with as subtle a poison as escaping gas from an ill-built furnace. As Doctor Bushnell has pithily said, in his incomparable book on “Christian Nurture,” “Whatever fire the parents kindle, the children are found gathering the wood. They help as either apprentices or accessories.” If the father begins the Sabbath with some secular newspaper, the family will help him read it. If the parents go irregularly to God’s house, the children will hardly care to go at all. “If the mother is a scandalmonger, she will make her children tattlers and eavesdroppers. If she directs her servants to say at the door that she is ‘not at home,’ the children will learn to be polite liars.” If the father puts a decanter on his table, the boys will soon begin to practice with the fatal glass. That rich father who disinherited a son for drunkenness, and in the same will bequeathed his wine-cellar to certain heirs, gave a very palpable proof of the home atmosphere which had poisoned the poor boy. Parental provocations and ill-temper sour the very air of many households, so that the children can hardly escape being cross, snappish, and irritable. How can piety breathe in such an air? How can a family be trained up in the knowledge of God’s word, when the Book of books is seldom opened, and the spirit of its instructions is no more known than in the house of a Mussulman? Even in the families of many professors of religion I do not look for any conversions, for I know that the influence of the most faithful discourses will be destroyed by the malaria of the home. It was the atmosphere of Elkanah and Hannah’s godly house that produced a Samuel; it was the wretched air of Eli’s house which ruined Hophni and Phinehas. This subject has a wide sweep. There are sudden changes in circumstances that affect character as powerfully as changes in climate affect bodily health. The rapid accumulation of wealth is carrying some Christians now up into a rarified atmosphere, where it is very hard to maintain their humility, their spiritual-mindedness and self-denial. Their new associations endanger their piety; but they need not destroy it. Some Christians grow rich and grow in grace at the same time. Some civilians go into the foul atmosphere of politics, and preserve their Christian purity, as Theodore Frelinghuysen preserved his in the American Senate, and as Wilberforce, Gladstone, and Lord-Chancellor Cairns have preserved theirs in the British Parliament. . . . Daniel was prime-minister in idolatrous and voluptuous Babylon. Prayer was his protector. So may a true child of God go into the heated atmosphere of trade, or the highly rarified air of wealth, or the sin-polluted air of city life, or anywhere else, safely, if he only carry Christ in his heart, and keep the honor of Christ ever before his eyes. Jesus does not mean to take his disciples out of the world; but he is able to keep them from the world’s contaminations.—Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D., in Independent. AN AGE OF DOUBT TO PRECEDE OUR LORD'S SECOND COMING.
By D. T. Taylor
“I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8. OUR Lord foresees and warns us of a period of infidelity, a faithless age, to be in full development at the instant of his last coming. Such a period is now upon us—already it is here. A wave of skepticism is rolling over mankind. From all quarters comes the loud alarm. False science, spiritualism, the death of conscience by the perverted use of intoxicants, the rejection of the fact and nearness of the advent, etc.,—all these have assisted to bring upon the church these sad days. There is danger of a general frenzied outbreak of the forces of evil, such as followed the general atheistic era in France, 1789–93. The existence of a time like the present forewarns the church to be on her guard. The Judge is at the door. Read the following array of testimony; and yet, but a third of what I have is here presented. Theodore Monod, of France, said in September, 1870, “We are surrounded by an atheistic, skeptical, and superstitious population. Materialistic atheism has shown what it is capable of;” i. e., ruining Paris.—Letter from Paris. DeWette says there is in Europe “a widespread, daring, fundamental unbelief; a more and more conscious hatred of the Divine; even in the better classes of spirits a deep, gnawing skepticism that undermines the lowermost foundations of divine and human truth and authority.”—Christian Union, Sept. 13, 1871. Count Z. Mamiani, of Rome, declares there is in all Italy but “superstition in the lowest populace, indifference in the other classes, and infidelity in the greater part of the thinkers and writers.”—Christian Union, Sept. 20, 1871. The Evangelical Christendom said, eight years ago, “A spirit of destructive infidelity has gone forth among the masses, and is possessing them.”—Christian Union, Jan. 1, 1872. Archbishop Manning, of England, in lectures on the “Evils of the Day,” said these many evils would culminate in a great atheistical apostasy and the Antichrist. And the Christian Union of Jan. 10, 1872, in which I find this statement, says, “One thing is clear, the atheistic element has very great power in Christendom, and is preparing for a conflict more fearful than most Christians anticipate.” “The infidel movement in religion is no longer hampered by poverty. Its organization extends throughout the United Kingdom, and touches the colonies.”—Edinburgh Scotsman, Jan. 13, 1872. President McCosh, of Princeton, said in the New York Observer, in April, 1872, “Infidelity, great at all times, is now worse than ever,” and he quotes 2 Pet. 3: 3, 4 as now fulfilled. “There is in England a rapid growth of skepticism of the worst kind going on. It is of a very aggressive character. Nothing but the gospel can save us from anarchy.”—British Messenger, March 1, 1872. Prof. Taylor Lewis declared: “The positive, aggressive character of irreligion is the peculiar feature of our age. An atheistical party is rising in this country. It can no longer be disguised that atheism, blank atheism, with all its desolating horrors, is becoming the characteristic of modern unbelief.”—Christian Statesman, Feb. 15, 1872. “The science of our age is intensely skeptical. It throws more and more doubt upon accustomed religion.”—H. W. Beecher, Aug. 23, 1871. Merl D’Aubigne, in a letter in 1872, declared: “There are now in Christendom two adversaries which menace the religion of the gospel,—Romanism on the one hand, Infidelity and Rationalism on the other. The latter is in the midst of us, intra muros, and it shows itself with increasing energy.” The Primitive Methodist (Eng.), in March, 1873, said: “We issue in England annually 3,000,000 Bibles, but then the Sunday newspapers number 26,000,000, while the issue of the prize-ring paper, The Sporting Life, numbers 26,000,000 more. The mischievous publications of our country amount to 42,000,000; while the number of publications morally beneficial is not more than 28,900,000, and infidelity is leavening the masses.” George D. Boardman said: “This is the age pre-eminently, of skepticism. It is the age of rationalism, of the authority of reason, as distinguished from, and opposed to, the authority of Scripture, and of the Giver of the Scripture.”—Baptist Quarterly, p. 182, 1873. Froude said in 1863: “At this moment a general doubt is coming up, like a thunder storm against the wind, and blackening the sky.”—Scribner, August, 1873. Later still, in 1878, this able English historian has said that there exists a general drift into infidelity, a disbelief in revelation and God. The Lord Bishop of Winchester declares that “doubt is everywhere,” and Prime Minister Gladstone, in a speech, Dec. 21, 1872, referred to “the extraordinary and boastful manifestations in this age of ours, of the extremest forms of unbelief.”—Scribner, August, 1873. “The truth of the gospel history is now more widely doubted in Europe than at any other time since Constantine.”—Anthony Froude. The Duke of Somerset says: “Skepticism pervades the whole atmosphere of thought, leads the most learned societies, colors the religious literature of the day, and even mounts into the pulpit.”—Scribner, August, 1873. Rev. Dr. Duff, of Scotland, in his great address in 1873, said: “Skepticism of every form, and complexion, and degree, has been naturalized in society. Of the infidel, material, and impure literature, there is a swarming shoal. I have secured two hundred of these scandalously infidel and impure publications. [Charles Bradlaugh’s.] The very names of some of them are replete with blasphemy.” He quotes Mr. Knight, the Fleet-street publisher, as saying in 1850 that the yearly circulation of infidel, impure, and pernicious newspapers reached the number of 28,000,000. Rev. A. P. Peabody, in the Baccalaureate sermon at Harvard, June 14, 1874, said: “In no age has there been so much skepticism as in this. There is skepticism in the air. We must grapple with this question.” The reports of the Evangelical Alliance held in New York, Oct. 2–12, 1873, show an increase of infidelity and atheism in all civilized countries. Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, France, Scandinavia, England, and Europe in general, are leavened with the spirit of rationalism and doubt. Rank infidels, free-thinkers, positivists, rationalists, atheists, neologians, are plenty and rampant, shouting, “No personal God, Creator or Judge!”—Tribune Extra, No. 12. Rev. A. Strittmatter says of China, that most of the ungodly foreigners, from all countries, are immoral, rapacious, Sabbath-breakers; they sneer at the missionaries, dishonor God, are skeptical, deny or doubt the inspiration of Scripture, the divinity and miracles of Christ, future punishment, and all their influence is in opposition to mission work and Christianity.—Missionary Advocate, December, 1874. “That Romanism and infidelity are making progress, we cannot deny.”—New York Observer, Nov. 23, 1876. Of the American Association for Science (numbering several hundred), met at Indianapolis, Aug. 20, 1871, a correspondent said: “I have met with theists and deists enough. . . . But very few men of mark here are Christians in the sense of believing in the vicarious atonement of Christ.” He said that these men were evangelical, but were moralists, shaky, and not sound in theology.—World (N. Y.), Aug. 24, 1871. The Independent says that “in our best schools, by our best scientific authorities, almost without exception, it is taught that man was, so far as his physical structure is concerned, evolved from irrational animals.” We are then cited to the principal colleges and a host of professors in our country who hold this form of evolution,—a belief which Christians generally regard at variance with, and opposed to, the history of the creation of man as given by Moses in Genesis.—N. Y. Independent, Dec. 18, 1879. Of India, Rev. G. Hall at Madras, says: “The unbelief of the philosophers of Europe is coming in like a flood upon India. Our young men now study Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Newman, Mill, Colenso, and Bradlaugh, and the opinion is widely spread among the best educated natives that Christianity is an antiquated superstition, believed in by very few, even in England, who are well educated.”—Missionary Advocate, January, 1875. Hon. John Jay, LL. D., writes of the forces that oppose Christianity: “The first is infidelity in every shape, from the forbidding atheism of Paine and Voltaire to the poetic allusions of pantheism, the varied forms of rationalism, and the subtle and shallow reasonings of scientists who say in their hearts that there is no God.”—Independent (N. Y.), Nov. 15, 1877. Charles Bradlaugh, the vile British atheist and infidel, says the sale of his immoral pamphlet is 130,000. This man publishes a paper which has a circulation weekly of 250,000. He publishes over 200 vile pamphlets, tracts, and books. There are no accurate statistics of atheism and infidelity. Prof. Christlieb, of Germany, says they number “millions.” The Internationalists, whose creed is “No God,” claim to number 7,000,000. The spiritualists, an infidel and blasphemous sect, claim from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 of followers. To these must be added the organized atheists of the Old and the New World, the Socialists of Germany, the Commune in all countries, and the Nihilists of Russia, whose hordes of followers would count up millions more. Socialism in Germany alone counts half a million of voters and fifty newspapers. All of this forebodes a fierce and terrible coming conflict!—D. T. Taylor, in Messiah’s Herald. THE WORLD'S GOLD.
By Wm. Penniman
“The Ural Mountains, Australia, and the United States are the most productive sources of gold supply, the first yielding $20,000,000 annually, the second $37,000,000 and the third $35,000,000. Prior to the discovery of the rich mines of the United States, the total production was only $68,000,000 per annum. The fever of gold-hunting, which was excited by the finding of the great mines of the Pacific coast, rapidly increased the yearly production until, in 1850, it reached over $120,000,000, and five or six years later gold bullion was mined to the extent of the enormous sum of nearly $185,000,000. This was the largest yield of any one year, and the production has since gradually fallen away, and seems to have finally reached an equilibrium of about $100,000,000 per annum, nearly all of which is found in the three regions named. “Now, if this represented the actual yearly increase in the volume of gold which is used as the basis of the currency of gold-using countries, it might serve, unassisted, as a standard. But the fact is, this production does little more than supply the place of that which disappears from circulation as money annually by loss and wear, or metamorphosis into articles of commerce. A few years ago some English statistician, after a careful investigation, estimated the yearly loss of gold coin to the British Treasury was at least £5,000,000 sterling, and, calculating from this basis, the loss to the world must amount to nearly the total production, and therefore little addition to the bulk of gold in the treasuries of all nations can be expected. It is true that new mines may be found. It is not to be supposed that there are no undiscovered regions rich with auriferous deposits. But against this are the uncertainties of discovery with an almost certain decrease of the present production. That there has been a large increase of the stock on hand during the past quarter of a century, cannot be denied; but this is due principally to the remarkable discoveries in the United States, which in a few years doubled the store. Thirty years ago the entire stock of gold coin was only a little more than $3,000,000,-000; At present it is $705,500,000,000. But the increase was made during a few years, and the past decade has added little to the stock.” The foregoing, from the Pittsburg Dispatch, will be of interest to those who are watching the signs of the times. This great accumulation of riches reminds one of James 5:3: “Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.” The prophet Isaiah, also, speaking of the time that immediately precedes the setting up of Christ’s kingdom, says, “Their land is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures.” Formerly men were considered rich who could count their thousands; now they must have millions to be thought wealthy. Think of the increase of $702,500,000,000, in thirty years, or during a few years! GOOD THOUGHTS.
By Bishop Beveridge
Whatsoever comes from God, being a talent to be improved to him, I cannot but think good thoughts to be as precious talents as it is possible a creature can be blessed with. But, let me esteem them as I will, I am sure my Master will reckon them amongst the talents he intrusts me with, and for which he will call me to an account; and, therefore, I ought not to neglect them. The Scripture tells me, I am not sufficient of myself to think anything, as of myself, but that my sufficiency is of God. And if I be not sufficient to think anything, much less am I able of myself to think of that which is good, forasmuch as to good thoughts there must always be supposed a special concurrence of God’s Spirit; whereas to other thoughts there is only the general concurrence of his presence. Seeing, therefore, they come from God, how must I lay them out for him? Why, by sublimating good thoughts unto good affections. Does God vouchsafe to send down into my heart a thought of himself? I am to send up this thought to him again, in the fiery chariot of love, desire, and joy. Doth he dart into my soul a thought of holiness and purity? I am to dwell and meditate upon it till it break out into a flame of love and affection for him. Doth he raise up in my spirit a thought of sin, and show me the ugliness and deformity of it? I must let it work its desired effect by making it as loathsome and detestable as that thought represents it to be. But good thoughts must not only be improved to produce good affections in my heart, but likewise good actions in my life; so that the thoughts of God should not only make me taken with his beauty, but more active for his glory; and the thoughts of sin should not only damp my affection for it, but likewise deter and restrain me from the commission of it. And thus every good thought that God puts into my heart, instead of slipping out, as it does with some others, without regard, will be cherished and improved to the producing of good actions: these actions will entitle me to the blessing of God, and that to the kingdom of glory.—Bishop Beveridge. THE USES OF AN ENEMY.
By Rev. Dr. Deems
ALWAYS keep an enemy in hand, a brisk, hearty active enemy. Remark the uses of an enemy. 1. The having one is proof that you are somebody. Wishy-washy, empty, worthless people never have enemies. Men who never move, never run against anything; and when a man is thoroughly dead and utterly buried, nothing ever runs against him. To be run against is proof of existence and position; to run against something is proof of motion. 2. An enemy is, to say the least, not partial to you. He will not flatter. He will not exaggerate your virtues. It is very probable that he will slightly magnify your faults. The benefit of that is twofold—it permits you to know that you have faults, and are, therefore, not a monster, and it makes them of such size as to be visible and manageable. Of course, if you have a fault, you desire to know it; when you become aware that you have a fault, you desire to correct it. Your enemy does for you this valuable work which your friend cannot perform. 3. In addition, your enemy keeps you wide awake. He does not let you sleep at your post. There are two that always keep watch, namely, the lover and the hater. Your lover watches that you may sleep. He keeps off noises, excludes light, adjusts surroundings, that nothing may disturb you. Your hater watches that you may not sleep. He stirs you up when you are napping. He keeps your faculties on the alert. Even when he does nothing, he will have put you in such a state of mind that you cannot tell what he will do next, and this mental qui vive must be worth something. 4. He is a detective among your friends. You need to know who are your friends, and who are not, and who are your enemies. The last of these three will discriminate the other two. When your enemy goes to one who is neither friend nor enemy, and assails you, the indifferent one will have nothing to say or chime in, not because he is your enemy, but because it is so much easier to assent than to oppose, and especially to refute. But your friend will take up cudgels for you on the instant. He will deny everything, and insist on proof, and proving is very hard work. There is scarcely a truthful man in the world who could afford to undertake to prove one-tenth of all his truthful assertions. Your friend will call your enemy to the proof, and if the indifferent person, through carelessness, repeats the assertions of your enemy, he is soon made to feel the inconvenience thereof by the zeal which your friend manifests. Follow your enemy around and you will find your friends, for he will have developed them so that they cannot be mistaken. The next best thing to having a hundred real friends is to have one open enemy. But let us pray to be delivered from secret foes.—Rev. Dr. Deems. NEVER complain of your birth, your employment, your hardships; never fancy you could be something if you only had a different lot and sphere assigned you. God understands his own plan, and he knows what you want a great deal better than you do. The very things you most deprecate as fatal limitations or obstructions, are probably what you most want. What you call hindrances, obstacles, discouragements, are probably God's opportunities; and it is nothing new that the patient should dislike his medicines, or any certain proofs that they are poisons. No; a truce to all such impatience. Choke that envy which groans at your heart, because you are not in the same lot with others; bring down your soul, or rather bring it up to receive God's will, and to do his work, in your lot and sphere, under your cloud of obscurity, against your temptations, and then you shall find that your condition is never opposed to your good, but consonant with it.—Selected. Faith and Works in the Christian Life
—Faith and works are as necessary to the spiritual life of a Christian as soul and body are to our life as men; for faith is the soul of religion, and works, the body.—Colton. I SAT and thought and queried,
And my thought was sorely vexed;
For the more I reasoned to make it clear,
The more I was perplexed. I had promised my chosen Master
To live and to work for him;
But the way of his will was all confused,
And my apprehension dim. My heart held a secret longing:
Was it in his will or no
That I should cherish a tempting thought
Of the thing I longed for so? Could it be his own true giving,
And the longing but a sign
That in his time I should have and hold
The coveted thing for mine? I said, If a voice from Heaven
Would but speak and make it plain,
I would joyfully follow my Lord’s command,
Nor ever question again. I opened the blessed pages,
If haply a word might be
A hint I could take for yea or nay,
Of his will the golden key. And many a faithful promise
To the striving heart I saw,
With counsels broad as a life might reach,
Out of his holy law. But touching the strait that bound me
I found no answering word;
The way of his will was hedged about
With silence all unstirred. I bowed with a bitter weeping;
It seemed too heavy to bear:
But to say, I will leave it all with him,
Had never been in my prayer. Then something softly taught me—
’Twas the lesson of my strait—
The way of his will is the way of faith;
And faith can trust him and wait. So I set my hand to labor
In that where I knew his will,
For the rest, I could only bide his time:
And I’m trusting and waiting still. MORAL TRAINING.
By Eliza H. Morton
THE fact that children have a moral as well as an intellectual nature is too often overlooked by educators. The improvement of the memory and the development of the perceptive and reasoning powers too often overshadow the higher and nobler work of heart-culture. The influence of first impressions in childhood cannot be estimated. The sensitive souls of youth are keenly alive to whatever examples surround them. It is natural for children to imitate the words and ways of those older than themselves, and the teacher is to the child an “oracle of wisdom.” His example and influence tell upon the whole afterlife of his pupils, and whoever occupies this responsible position should be a person of great moral worth, a person whose soul overflows with love to God and genuine love for the children. Parents can bestow upon their children no nobler legacy than careful moral training. The choice of teachers for the young is a matter that requires thought and study, and Seventh-day Adventists especially should give the subject attention. Believing in the soon-coming of Christ, and knowing that infidelity in every form is woven into human lives, introduced into text-books, and brought prominently before the young, how can parents neglect to use every means in their power to counteract the blighting influences of Satan? A few dollars spent in placing a child where good influences will be brought to bear upon him, may save a soul from death. Battle Creek College, Mich. THE PALM IS NOT GAINED WITHOUT THE DUST OF LABOR.
This old motto is wonderfully solemn, and yet set in language which suggests picture after picture. First of all, what that is useful does not the palm tree furnish? Even away off here, it comes in the form of fruit (the date), and in rattans, from which are made innumerable pretty things in the way of baskets, chairs, etc. But to the dwellers in tropical countries, where it grows, it gives wood for their houses, thatch for the roofs, mats for the floors and ceilings, and all sorts of fancy articles, such as bags, baskets, umbrellas, and hats—these being made from the leaves. Then the different species yield various fruits, and food in the form of starch, sugar, and oil. The form of the palm is most remarkable. Its trunk often stands 80 and 100 feet high, bearing all the foliage at the top, as if it were able and glad to stand alone, trusting to strength within rather than outward adornment; yet wearing above, its crown of fruit and of leaves, which never lose their verdure. How truly “the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree”! The Christian life may often seem rough and barren, but if it grow right upward, it shall surely blossom gloriously above. From the earliest times the palm has been a symbol of victory. The victors in the old Greek games came covered with “the dust of labor,” but bearing palms, as emblems of what they had won. And who does not recall Christ’s last coming into Jerusalem, when the people took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, crying, Hosanna! Blessed is the King of Israel, “that cometh in the name of the Lord”! Little did they know how glorious a victory was soon to be won over sin and death by Him whom they so ignorantly worshiped. This is a very long text for a very short sermon to “our girls.” Girls have a wonderful amount of imagination that runs to waste in the building of air-castles, which are not only empty, but too frail to be worth putting anything good into. Many wise elderly people propose to smother these bright young fancies; but is it not better to turn them into proper channels than to destroy them root and branch? Lack of healthful work is what leads our girls into vain and sentimental dreaming. So let us give them work, and the dreams will not do any harm. Any subject, however prosaic, can be beautified by a little dreaming of the right sort, and the dullest work becomes bright if we can dream ourselves into the future and see its far-reaching results. A great poet has said, “Cherish the dreams of your youth.” Yet let not these dreams take the place of work, but make of them wings which shall bear you up through “the dust of labor” to the palm beyond.
—Christian at Work. A rumseller in Grafton, had a son, a bright promising boy, whom he regarded with pride and affection. For a long time the father kept his son away from the bar. But at length in the pressure of business, love and prudence gave way to avarice, and the son was made bar-tender. The father took his son behind the bar, and pointing to a long row of bottles, said, “Do you see those bottles?” “Yes,” said the son. “Well, there's poison in every one! There is poison in every one! Don't you ever drink a drop—not a drop!” But the influence of the bar proved too strong for the father's counsel. Example is mightier than precept. The son drank, and went down, through descending sin and shame, till he died a miserable drunkard. Thus it is that the crime of the rumseller recoils upon his own family, and his iniquity is visited upon his own children.—The Morning. BATTLE CREEK COLLEGE.
By Editor
NEVER in the history of this institution have its friends felt a greater satisfaction at its general success than at present. Though it has never had special agents in the field to solicit support, yet its attendance is large, and but a trivial indebtedness remains. It sustains a good reputation for thoroughness in its methods of instruction as well as in discipline. It has demonstrated to the satisfaction of its patrons that a rigid, healthful discipline can be maintained even in this age of youthful folly and insubordination, and that, too, with a growing regard on the part of the students for the government of the College. Moral young men and women will choose the right every time, if they are properly instructed in the same. One reason why so many young people err in conduct and opinion is because they have been accustomed to see good principles harnessed up with an undue zeal for the right, and all misdirected by a rash, impatient temper or an unbalanced judgment. Probably there is not another body of 350 students on the continent, so free from profanity, intemperance, tobacco, or any other filthy and debasing practices, as the students of Battle Creek College. Hundreds of parents are looking to this institution as the place best adapted for the care and proper instruction of their children, and the Trustees and Faculty are determined to make this school of such a character, in respect to the advantages for acquiring true culture, that it will not disappoint the expectation of its patrons. Already, in respect to thoroughness of methods, wholesome discipline, and general morality of our students,—indeed, in respect to all the essentials of a true education,—we acknowledge no superiors. This institution does not claim to be an educational hot-bed, in which an ignorant, uncultivated youth can in a few short months be transformed into a remarkable type of educated manhood. We have known mushrooms and toad-stools to become fully developed in a single night, only to wither with the morrow's sun. But the work of educating and training the human mind is a gradual, laborious process, one which167 requires long-continued patience and perseverance. It is thoroughly educated men and women of mature and solid growth that the world needs,—men and women who would not stoop to sham, nor be content with but the name. To produce such is our highest aim. May Heaven bless the effort.—College Record. IS COFFEE NOTHING BUT LEATHER SOUP?
The following I copy from the annual report of agriculture for 1869: “Milk and coffee taken separately, not to interfere with each other in the stomach, are excellent; but, what is remarkable, when mixed and taken together they constitute a new composition which is absolutely indigestible.” From the explanation that follows the above I copy the following: “Now, the infusion of coffee is rich in tannin, hence its mixture with milk has the immediate result of transforming the gaseous part and the albumen that it contains into a kind of leather, indecomposable and indigestible, like that made in a tan-pit. The composition thus produced remains in the stomach until new aliments come to displace and force it through the lower orifice of the stomach into the intestines.” “Women especially, from their delicate organization, suffer in the consumption of coffee with milk. To dissuade them from its use it would be well to make them understand that café au lait is nothing in reality but leather soup.” The above is a startling revelation. Have I all these years been running a little “tan-pit,” or drinking “leather soup?” What think you? Also, what is the opinion of the scientific mind generally? OLD FARMER. Answer.—You doubtless observed that the statement in question was credited to the report of the French Agricultural Society, and did not originate in our own Agricultural Bureau at Washington, though of late “startling” statements have become quite common from that Department. Possibly there may be some truth to the statement, though scientists differ. We shall be glad to get the opinion of any scientific mind on this question.—Inter-Ocean. Mrs. L. H. Tuthill, a lady who wrote several charming books for young women, once said, in speaking of good manners, that “human nature resented the imperative mood.” Think of this, girls. If you ask a child to wait on you, say, “Please.” Be polite to servants and inferiors. Be courteous even to the cat. Why push her roughly aside, or invite her claws? If kindness, good-nature, and gentleness ruled in every house, what sunlight would home enjoy! A great deal depends upon the girls,—the sisters, the daughters.—Christian at Work. It is said that the well-known Gen. Butler was, in his youth, destined by his mother for a Baptist minister; and she sent him to Waterville College for preparation. Mr. Bland, a new biographer, relates that one of the professors delivered a sermon in the chapel, in which he said: “1. None but the elect can be saved; 2. Of so-called Christians, probably not more than one in a hundred will be saved; 3. Heathen people will have more consideration of the Almighty in future life than men of Christian nations, who hear but do not profit by the word of God.” After hearing this sermon, young Butler petitioned the faculty to relieve him from further attendance upon preaching, upon the ground that, according to the proposition stated, not above six persons in the college could possibly be saved; and as there were nine worthy professors, all of whom were doctors of divinity, it would be presumptuous for him, a poor student, to hope for even the remotest chance of salvation; hence in attending church, he was only making his damnation more certain and terrible.