WILLINGNESS to share the glory of Jesus is not necessarily willingness to share his cross. There are thousands of men and women who would gladly become disciples of Jesus, if to begin the Christian life were to enter at once into the complete delights of the heavenly kingdom. But to deny one's self, to take up the cross and bear it for many a weary mile, to follow Jesus in his humiliation, rather than in his exaltation—that indeed seems hard for flesh and blood, which yearn for the delights of this life.
And it is hard; but there is no other way of following Jesus. He who would wear the heavenly crown must first bear the earthly cross. He who would sit down to the joyous feast in the land that is not very far off, must first follow his Guide over hill and valley, through desert places and through storms of the night. And this is the test for the false and the true followers of Jesus. He who loves Christ simply for the crown and the feast of rejoicing, will not follow the Lord when his path leads into dark valleys and into dwelling-places of pain. Into these abodes of gloom and sorrow only he follows who loves his Master, not for the promised reward, but for what he knows the Lord to be in himself. To one who knows the Master so, Jesus, thorn-crowned and crucified, is a better portion than all the kingdoms of this world, with all their splendor and glory and joy, but without the Man of Sorrows, beneath whose bitter cross every sore, stricken heart may find rest and shelter, and the power of an endless life.—S. S. Times.
Missionary Work in the New Hebrides.
REV. J. G. PATON, of Aniwa, who has been a missionary for twenty-seven years, gives the following summary of the work in the New Hebrides Islands, in the Home and Foreign Record of the Church of Scotland:
"God has granted wonderful success to our mission, begun thirty-seven years ago among naked savages, without a written language. Then, war was the common state of society, and all killed in it were eaten by the warriors. They were all cannibals; infanticide was common; aged and sick parents were often destroyed by their children, and widows were strangled at the decease of their husbands; and all the horrors of heathenism were delighted in by the whole population. Now, of the twenty different languages spoken on the group, ten have been reduced to a written form; and the Bible, in part or in whole, is now translated into, printed, and read by the natives of those ten languages. Six missionaries were murdered, and two of them and many native teachers were eaten by the savages; many others died in beginning the work; but now we have fifteen islands occupied by missionaries, eight thousand islanders under Christian instruction, and seventy thousand beyond, all waiting, ready, and pleading for the missionary and the gospel. The whole field is white to the harvest. Among the eight thousand natives worship is regularly conducted, morning and evening, in every family, and God's blessing is asked on all food. . . . The Christian natives, without help, build their own schools and churches, and are nobly trying to pay for the printing of the Bible in their own languages; and to carry the gospel to the surrounding heathen tribes and islands. The blessed effects of the gospel teaching on the islands we occupy have led the whole group now to long and cry for its light and blessings."
Come.
It is said that in the desert, when the caravans are in want of water, they are accustomed to send on a camel with its rider some distance in advance; then, after a little space, follows another, and then at a short interval another. As soon as the first man finds water, almost before he stoops down to drink, he shouts aloud, "Come!" while the nearest again takes up the cry, "Come!" until the whole wilderness echoes with the word, "Come!"
So in that verse of the Scripture the Spirit and the bride say, first to all, "Come!" and then, "Let him that heareth say, Come! And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."—Sel.
Responsibility for Our Talents
A SENSE of responsibility to God is a sense of responsibility for the use of talents which have been universally distributed, although not in equal measure. The least endowed cannot escape on the plea that no talent has been given; the loftiest must not vaunt as if anything that he possesses were his own. They stand upon the one platform of responsible service,—each to make the most of what he has, in the great market of life, and to render his account to the absent, but not unmindful, Lord.—Sel.
A Golden Rose.
By Marie B. Williams
“HERE, Kate!” said Capt. Will Adair to his niece, Kate Vaughn, a pretty girl about seventeen years old. “Here is a growing cutting of the very handsomest rose I ever saw in my life. We had left the vessel, and taken a trip to Damascus. I was strolling through the city, when I came across this rose. It was growing against a wall, and I snipped off a piece without saying, By your leave.”
“What color is it, Uncle Will?”
“A bright yellow. Looks like a golden rose in the sunlight. I had trouble enough with it on board ship; but my sailors nursed it as if it were a delicate infant, and you see how green and flourishing it is. Take good care of it, give it plenty of sunshine, and you’ll have the finest rose to show at your grand exposition that the folks around here have ever seen. I do believe it’s as large as this breakfast plate, and such a perfume!”
Kate was delighted. She had always been fond of cultivating plants for the mere love of flowers; but of late ambitious dreams had made her more attentive to her floral pets than ever before. She wanted her flowers to take the first prize at a grand exposition to be given at L— that summer. There was a great deal of competition in the floral department, and some of Kate’s most intimate friends had entered the lists also.
Kate’s carnations and roses were very fine; but she had heard that Sophia Wilson had a Baroness Rothschild rose, before whose glory all others must pale. So this acquisition of a new and magnificent species filled her soul with joy, and never was rose watched and tended as this Damascus treasure.
“I wish, Kate, the exposition was over and done with, and then maybe you’d be yourself again,” her friend Louise Grant had said to her. “You don’t seem to have a single thought beyond that rose; and it may turn out to be nothing remarkable, after all. Do you know, old Mary Elwood heard this morning that her son had died somewhere in Florida. Poor old soul! he was the only support she had. How is she going to get along without him? Such a person as she is too! Mamma is sick, and she has sent me to see her; but I’m afraid to go alone. Do, Kate, come with me, won’t you?”
“Of course I will,” Kate said, promptly. “What a pity that Mrs. Elwood is such a cross, perverse old woman. She never has accepted help or sympathy from any one since she first came here, and she’s so hard and harsh in her manner that I don’t suppose she gets much sympathy now in her trouble.”
Mary Elwood met the girls with a deeper frown on her forehead than usual. She was a sharp-eyed, erect, little old woman, who seldom opened her lips without cross words. She seemed always bristling with defiance from head to foot against some invisible foe, and to the poor, unhappy old woman every human being she met seemed an enemy. No one knew where she came from, or what misfortunes had befallen her before she took up her abode in L—, ten years before. Her son Lemuel came with her, a young man about twenty; but he went to Florida, and people knew that from time to time he forwarded her money. But now he was dead.
“I suppose you have come round to see how I stand Lemuel’s death,” she said, harshly. “I’ve had other visitors on the same errand, but they didn’t get much satisfaction out of me. They keep on a-tellin’ me I’m bound to be resigned. As for being resigned, a woman that’s lost four sons, one after the other, don’t well know what they mean by ‘resigned.’ If it means shakin’ hands with sorrow, and knucklin’ down to it, I ain’t that sort. I ain’t got nothing more to lose, and that’s all the comfort I’ve got.”
The woman spoke fiercely; but Kate, looking closely at her, saw the tight lips quiver and the hard gray eyes dim with a mist of tears. She laid her hand gently on the wretched woman’s shoulder.
“O Mrs. Elwood, if you would only understand how sorry I am for you!” she said, with a sob.
“Keep your sorrow for them that need it,” was the sharp reply; but Kate noticed that the voice had softened a little. “I s’pose you think now Lemuel’s gone, I’m likely to starve. I don’t say I won’t; but I’m not goin’ to be beholden’ to anybody for charity. The world’s gone hard with me from first to last, and I ain’t got no use for it.”
“Mamma told me to ask you if there was anything you needed, anything she could do for you,” Louise Grant said, timidly.
“Yes, there’s one thing she can do for me—let me alone;” and, walking into her house, Mrs. Elwood shut the door behind her, a forcible hint to the intruders, who hurried off.
“What an awful old woman!” said Louise. “How she treated us! And I don’t think she’s got a bit of feeling. She isn’t grieving for her son, is she, Kate?”
But Kate did not answer. Her observant eyes had seen the repressed anguish, the tears which were kept down by affected anger.
“Poor creature!” she thought. “Her heart is breaking, and she will never accept help from any one. If I only could do something for her!”
Had Kate been like many girls of her age, her kind wishes would have evaporated in useless pity. But she was tenacious of impressions, and followed up her ideas with perseverance. She did not see how she could help an obstinate old woman who refused to be helped; but she watched and waited, and never forgot her. Every day she stopped a minute or two at Mary Elwood’s cottage, or rather at the door, for she never entered it. She would ask how she was, say a pleasant word or two, and pass on. After a while the woman seemed to watch for her coming, and her harsh voice softened a little when she answered her. Kate sometimes brought her work, a comfort to be quilted, or some plain sewing; but there were few things the poor creature could do, though she was eager for work.
“She will never get through the winter,” Kate thought, when one day, having at last been invited into the room, the cupboard door swung open, and she saw the shelves were empty. “I don’t really believe she’s got a mouthful of food in the house. I see a few potatoes in the corner, and that’s all.”
“That’s a beautiful rose,” the woman said, suddenly, as she noticed a rose that Kate was wearing.
“Isn’t it?” and Kate handed her a fine Marechal Neil. “Are you fond of flowers?”
“Well, I used to be,” in a strangely gentle voice. “My girl Susy died when she was ‘bout your age; she loved ‘em so much. Her pa used to say she liked her posies better than her dinner. I mind me of the very day she died, makin’ me bring her a white rose that grew up her window; and she says,—
“Ma, I wonder if the roses up there’ll be sweeter than this one. Anyway they won’t fade.”
“Ah me! I planted that rose on her grave, and I reckon it’s a growin’ and a bloomin’ in that Mississippi graveyard.”
“She loves flowers,” thought Kate, triumphantly, as she looked at the tears in the woman’s eyes. “Well, I’ve something to work on now in the effort to help her.”
“I wish we knowed for certain about another world,” Mrs. Elwood went on dreamily. “Susy seemed to be sure ‘bout it.”
“Susy was right,” said Kate, gently.
“Perhaps. Ah, I’ve not had much comfort in my troubles! They came upon me so thick and fast, I got just numb like. First Susy died; then my husband was killed in a quarrel ‘bout some land. Then James, my eldest son, took up his pa’s cause, and shot at the man that killed him, and hurt him bad. They put James in jail, and he died there in a month. Alf and Bob, went off next summer with congestive fever, and now Lem’s gone.”
Kate’s tears were falling fast at the despair in Mary Elwood’s face. “I don’t know what made me tell you this,” the woman said. “Seein’ that rose, I s’pose, made me think of Susy. I can’t cry like some, because my heart aches so I think it dries up the tears. You’ve been good to me though, and I don’t mind talkin’ to you.”
“I’m going to bring you a rose-bush next time I come, Mrs. Elwood,” Kate said as she left. “I’ll tell you all about it when I come again.”
Yes; Kate had made up her mind that morning that her treasured Damascus rose should pass into Mary Elwood’s keeping. She had thought out a plan to assist her in spite of her stubborn independence. The prize offered for the handsomest rose was a gold bracelet or twenty-five dollars. Mrs. Elwood could not object to money made in that way. But she would be cautious, and say nothing about the exposition until the rose bloomed. The following morning she carried the pot containing her treasure to the woman’s cottage.
“My uncle says it’s a splendid rose,” she said, trying to speak indifferently. “I’m sure you will take better care of it than I do. It’s full of buds, you see, and we’ll soon see what it’s like.”
“Thanky,” said Mrs. Elwood, more warmly than any one had recently heard her speak. “I don’t take favors; but a rose-bush ain’t much for you, I reckon, with a yard full of them.”
“If she only knew! If she only knew,” thought Kate, keeping down a pang which would rise whenever she thought of her rose. “But then, it’s the first time in my life I ever had a chance of doing anything for any one! May be the rose may not turn out very fine after all; but I’ve given my best, and in a good cause.”
For a week before the exposition opened, Kate was detained in the country, where she had gone on a visit.
On her way to the exposition she stopped at Mrs. Elwood’s, who came to the gate to meet her as she descended from the carriage.
“I heard you were sick, Miss Kate,” she said, with real solicitude. “I was very uneasy, and you do look white. O Miss Kate, the rose is out! I don’t think anybody ever saw such a splendid rose before! Come and look at it!”
The rich perfume reached Kate before her eager eyes fell on the flower. She held her breath in an ecstasy before the beautiful rose. It was of immense size, double, and the intense yellow of the petals darkened toward the center.701And such a perfume! Kate closed her eyes, and the fragrance of Eastern gardens seemed wafted to her in every breath she drew. “It’s too beautiful,” she exclaimed. “And now, Mrs. Elwood, I’m going to ask a great favor of you. Let me take this rose to the exposition? I think it will win a prize. It shall be returned safely to you.”
“But I didn’t raise it,” and she shrunk back. “It was a big bush when you gave it to me.”
“That’s nothing! You own it, and you’ve cultivated it for some time. My roses are injured this summer by rust, and if I had kept that one at home, I might have lost it. You can’t hide such a flower as that, Mrs. Elwood. You’ll let me take it, won’t you?”
“Of course you’ll do as you please ‘bout it,” she said.
The Damascus rose was the great feature of the floral department of the exposition.
“O Kate!” cried Louise Grant, “isn’t that your rose you made such a fuss about? Did you really give it to that cross old thing?”
“Hush,” whispered Kate. “The rose has conquered her crossness, I think. Please don’t say a word against her here. I have good reasons for it. Don’t the people seem charmed over the rose! I think that it will take the prize.”
It did. More than that, the story of the poor old owner was told by Kate, and whispered about, and the roses on the bush, eight in all, sold for two dollars and fifty cents apiece. The spirit of charity seemed abroad, and had there been twenty blooms, they would have found a ready sale.
There could not have been a happier girl than Kate when she entered Mary Elwood’s cottage that evening.
“Your rose has taken the prize,” she cried, as she put the money into the astonished woman’s hands. “And I really think we could have sold all the roses at five dollars apiece. Mrs. Green says she’ll give you five dollars if you’ll root a cutting for her, and other people say the same thing. But you must give me the first, remember. I tell you what we’ll do. You’ve got plenty of room for a flower-garden. I’ll bring you some of my finest roses this fall, and you’ll cultivate them, and root cuttings, and sell them to the people round here. The rich ones won’t mind giving fancy prices for a rare rose. O Mrs. Elwood, I’m so glad for you!”
Mary Elwood could not answer, but she looked at the bright face of the girl before her, and suddenly burst into tears. When she recovered herself, she took Kate’s hand and kissed it.
“If the world was as hard and as bad as I thought it was,” she said, in a choked voice, “you’d make it good to me.”
That was all. No thanks, no profuse gratitude, but Kate felt in her inmost soul that recompense had come to her.
“It was really a golden rose,” Kate said to her uncle. “It has made a despairing life better and kinder, and it has given bread to starving lips. And, uncle, it’s taught me so many things.”
“What are they, my dear?”
“Well, you see when I first began to take an interest in Mary Elwood, I had grand ideas about what I’d do for her. I thought I’d talk to her, and reason with her, and make her better. And then when she had got mild and penitent, and willing to be helped, I was going to get papa to fix up her house, and give her money, and help her in every way. But if it hadn’t been for that rose, I think she would have starved to death, and not changed a bit. The rose was the way to her heart. It’s a very little thing to do such a great work, isn’t it?” —Marie B. Williams, in Youth’s Companion.
The Home Circle.
COMPENSATION.
THE truest words we ever speak
Are words of cheer.
Life has its shade, its valleys deep;
But round our feet the shadows creep,
To prove the sunlight near.
Between the hills those valleys sleep—
The sun-crowned hills!
And down their sides will those who seek
With hopeful spirit, brave, though meek,
Find gently flowing rills.
For every cloud a silvery light—
God wills it so.
For every vale a shining height;
A glorious morn for every night;
A birth for labor's throe;
For snow's white wing a verdant field;
A gain for loss;
For buried seed the harvest yield;
For pain a strength, a joy revealed;
A crown for every cross. —Sel.
Sleeplessness.
SLEEPLESSNESS is the result of over bodily or mental effort. When a man works beyond his strength, or thinks or studies more than rest can restore, then, sooner or later, comes that inability to sleep soundly, that wakefulness, which is more wearing even than bodily labor, and which feeds the debility which first gave rise to it. The result is, a man is always tired, never feels rested, even when he leaves his bed in the morning; hence he wastes away, and finds repose only in the grave; if, indeed, insanity does not supervene. It is too often a malady, remediless by medical means. Avoid, then, as you would a viper or a murderer, all over-effort of mind or body; it is suicidal. Whatever you do, get enough sleep; whatever you do, take enough rest to restore the used energies of each preceding twenty-four hours; if you do not, you may escape for a few months, and if possessing a good constitution, years may pass away before any decided ill result forces itself on your attention; but rest assured the time will come, when the too often baffled system, like a baffled horse, will refuse to work; it will not take prompt and sound sleep; it will not be rested by repose, and that irritating wakefulness will come upon you, which philosophy cannot conquer, which medicine cannot cure; and wasting by slow degrees to skin and bone, rest is found only in the grave.—Hall's Journal of Health.
Making a Happy Home
There are some things that cannot be accomplished by machinery, and the making a happy home is one of them.
Health and Temperance.
Benefits of Prohibition.
It is a poor time to decry prohibition when it is working so successfully in Maine and Canada and the West and the South. Maine has given it a full trial, and is so well satisfied with it that it puts the principle in its constitution by the handsome majority of nearly 50,000; and as the years pass and the law gets firmer grip of the traffic in the cities and larger towns, this majority will grow. Every day proves prohibition to be the great conservator of peace and prosperity. Similar testimony is coming already from Iowa. When the State adopted prohibition a year or two ago, some of the wiseacres predicted that business would decline and prosperity take wings. The saloon, they contended, helps business, and makes trade move. There would be vacant shops and houses, silent mills and deserted villages, as the result of driving out the enterprising saloons. How is it in the capital city? Let the Iowa State Register answer:—
“Let any man who scoffs at prohibition and its material good, go about Des Moines to-day, even this early, and locate the former sites of saloons—sites then occupied by old shanties, and rented by saloon-keepers who employ no clerks and no help, and who robbed laboring men and their families daily of their earnings—and then compare the same properties, their value to the city and to society, with the large brick blocks erected on them in the last two seasons, or since the prohibitory law went into effect, and inspect the business now being carried on on the same sites, the character of the business, the amount of capital invested to carry it on, adding so largely to the taxable wealth of the city, and the value of better-paid employment, and then let him answer the question himself, which is best for the city, these brick blocks and the new stores, and the large employment given by the new stores, or the old, rotten shanties and the saloons in them that used to be?”
This material improvement is the least of the benefits Des Moines is receiving from the closing up of the saloons. More than half of the temptations to crime and immorality have been removed with the rum-shop, and nobody can tell how much domestic happiness has been increased in hundreds of families. Prohibition is coming, and it is coming to stay. Let distillers, brewers, and dealers take notice, and betake themselves to honorable employments.—N. Y. Independent.
How Drunkards Are Made.
At a meeting in Philadelphia, during the week of prayer, one of the speakers related this incident:—
A lad was approached by one of those dispensers of that which deprives men of their property and destroys both body and soul, who solicited him to come into his place of destruction and take a glass of lemonade. The boy hesitated, but on being assured that he would get nothing but a glass of nice, sweet lemonade, he was induced to go in. Sure enough, he was offered what had been promised him, and nothing more. This was repeated several times, till at length, the trap having been set, it was now time to spring it. Accordingly, the rumseller began his work by dropping into the glass of lemonade one drop of strong liquor, increasing it so as imperceptibly to form in the lad a taste for it. As the boy never paid for his drinks, one of the old customers of the place asked the landlord why he so favored him. He replied by saying, "Do you see that fine mansion upon the hill yonder? That belongs to the boy's father, and will probably soon belong to him, and then in turn it may belong to me."
Fiendish! Horrible! A long-headed, deep-laid scheme to ruin a family and rob them of their property: for certainly such a scheme, if successful, could be looked upon as nothing less than downright robbery, and as much a penitentiary offense as any other kind of robbery. But are not all rumsellers alike in this respect? They do not care who is hurt, who comes to grief, who suffers the pangs of hunger and cold, who goes to a home of sorrow and wretchedness, whose children cry for bread, or whose wife is abused, or beaten, or murdered, so they but fill their own coffers and live on the fat of the land.—Sel.
A Deadly Serpent.
By Philadelphia Methodist
SOME time ago a party of sailors visited the Zoological Gardens. One of them, excited by the liquor he had taken, and as an act of bravado to his companions, took hold of a deadly serpent. He held it up, having seized it by the nape of the neck in such a way that it could not sting him. As he held it, the snake unobserved by him, coiled itself around his arm, and at length it got a firm grasp, and wound tighter and tighter, so that he was unable to detach it. As the pressure of the snake increased, the danger grew, and at length the sailor was unable to maintain his hold on the neck of the venomous reptile, and was compelled to loose it. What did the snake then do? It turned right around and stung him, and he died. So it is with the appetite for strong drink. We can control it at first, but in a little while it controls us. We can hold its influence in our grasp for awhile, so that it shall be powerless, but afterward "it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder."—Philadelphia Methodist.
The Growth of Liquor Consumption
The consumption of liquor in the United States has far outstripped the growth of population. The number of gallons of liquor consumed yearly has increased as follows: 1840, 71,000,000; 1850, 94,000,000; 1860, 202,000,000; 1870, 293,000,000; 1880, 506,000,000; 1883, 655,000,000. While the population has only trebled in the last forty years, the consumption of liquor is ten times greater than it was then; and the amount of money expended in its purchase shows a still greater proportional increase, being annually in excess of $900,000,000.
SECULAR.
—About 450,000 boxes of raisins have been cured in California this season.
—Ten men lost their lives by an explosion in a mine at Silver Cliff, Col., November 13.
—At Tacoma, W. T., twenty-six persons were recently indicted for intimidating Chinese.
—The Princess Royal, a vessel carrying a cargo of furs valued at $1,000,000, was wrecked in a recent gale on Hudson's Bay.
—China is making preliminary surveys for a telegraph line from Teintsin to Seoul, the capital of Corea, a distance of about five hundred miles.
—Servia has declared war on Bulgaria, and active hostilities have begun. The Servians have invaded Bulgaria at three points, driving the Bulgarians before them.
—In a speech at Edinburg last week, Gladstone advocated the making of concessions to Ireland. He said: "I am confident that England will never repent giving perfect equality to Ireland."
—The steamer Algonia, of the Canadian Pacific Railway, was wrecked on Lake Superior on the morning of November 9. There were over fifty persons on board, of whom only fifteen were saved.
—October 6, a terrible cyclone passed through Dallas, Perry, and Bibb Counties, Ala., destroying everything before it. Up to the 9th inst., thirteen persons had been found killed, and forty or fifty dangerously wounded.
—J. E. Buttler's ranch, in El Dorado County, Cal., was visited by a cyclone, November 7. A chicken house, a part of his dwelling-house, and two big barns were entirely demolished. This is a new experience for California.
—On the 13th inst., a fire devoured over fifty blocks of the city of Galveston, Texas. The district burnt over is about 100 acres in extent, and the money loss is over $2,000,000. The actual loss, however, is much greater, as over 600 residences, occupied by about 800 families, were consumed. A large number of the residences burned were the finest in the city.
—Governor Stanford proposes to donate $20,000,000 for the founding of a university in California. Of this sum $5,300,000 is in real estate, the Governor's fine ranches in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, on which the university buildings are to be erected. It is believed that if this princely gift is wisely used, California may possess a college which will successfully rival the older institutions of the East, including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
—Late dispatches state that England is about to make war on King Theebaw, of Upper Burmah, whose acts of brutal cruelty have made him so infamous. The latest report is that he has ordered the extermination of all the Englishmen in his kingdom, and this bloody order may already have been carried out. Burmah will no doubt be added to England's possessions in India. French papers declare that the British expedition to Burmah is really aimed at France.
—General A. C. Jones, for six years United States Consul-General to Japan, arrived in San Francisco November 7. He thinks Japan has a splendid future before her. She has magnificent resources. Her people have the ability and the character to receive and retain improved methods, and their intercourse with Europeans will bring about such a change in Japanese ideas and habits as will make the empire of the Mikado the most prosperous and civilized of the Oriental countries.
—The Interior Department has been investigating Brigham Young's land transactions, and finds that frauds were perpetrated on a large scale. Families would erect temporary houses on sections of Government land, occupy them a few days, sow a few handfuls of grain, and then swear to the necessary statements to obtain a title. This title they would turn over to Brigham Young. The "prophet" thus secured possession of 37,000 acres of land in the fertile703Cache Valley. After his death, the church took possession of this land.
—One of the large English war vessels, the Resistance, is to be coated with India rubber to a considerable thickness, to see how the material will repel projectiles.
—A company of Americans and Peruvians has been formed for the purpose of supplying electric lights to the cities and towns of Peru, under exclusive grants from that Government.
—The experiments of Dr. Louis Pasteur, the French scientist, for the cure of hydrophobia by means of inoculation, have been pronounced successful by the Academy of Sciences.
—Diamonds are now found in Australia to such an extent that a company has been formed to work the deposits, and machines similar to those used in the African diamond fields have been ordered. Two or three parcels of stone have already been shipped to England. It is claimed that the stones are finer and more valuable than those from the Cape.
—William Manson has invented a very useful well-boring apparatus, with which he has lately sunk two wells for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad to the depth of 2,000 feet each. He is now boring wells in San Bernardino, Cal., where one well was sunk 100 feet in a day and a half. The apparatus is worked by a ten-horse power engine, and will bore through any soil or bowlders.
News and Notes.
By Editor
RELIGIOUS.
—The Lever, a temperance journal published in Chicago, says that the "Prohibition party seems not unlikely to take on the character of a Christian party."
—Says a religious paper: "A small church in Pennsylvania, whose pastor recently resigned to accept a call to a larger field, but who has not yet removed, has already enrolled eighty applicants for the vacant pulpit."
—The American mission at Sanda, Japan, on its tenth anniversary, received a gift of $500 and a chandelier, from a former daimio. This is believed to be the first gift from a Japanese noble for direct evangelistic work.
—According to General Booth, the Salvation Army now flies its colors in seventeen different countries. It numbers 1,050 corps of soldiers and 2,650 paid officers. Twenty papers, reaching half a million readers a week, are published under its auspices.
—A cable dispatch from Madrid states that our Government has given Spain to understand that if her sovereignty over the Caroline Islands is recognized, the American Protestant missions in those islands must be permitted to enjoy religious freedom.
—The Romanists have recently sent forty missionaries to the Congo Valley, where they already had a strong force. One feature of the work which these missionaries are expected to develop is the purchase of pagan children to be educated for the work of the church. Quite a large fund has been raised for this purpose.
—The woman-suffrage movement in Boston has taken a new turn the present year. Last year only 271 ladies registered as voters. But this year a Roman Catholic Priest advised the women of his charge to go to the polls and vote. As a consequence, about seven times as many registered this fall, the majority of whom are Romanists, under the dictation of the priests.
—It is said that the worst-paid working girls in London are those engaged in the work of sewing and binding Bibles. A London journal remarks that "for every heathen abroad who can be induced to use the sacred volume for anything else than gun wadding, a dozen of these girls are driven to perdition at home." It is to be hoped that this is very much exaggerated; yet if it is true it is not the fault of the Bible, but of the unscrupulous men who make haste to get rich.
—Says the Christian Union: "An almost incredible story of clerical intolerance comes from Little Leigh, in Cheshire, England." The resident Baptist minister reports that since coming to Leigh he has been unable to obtain a house in which to live; and on deciding to build, he found that his attempt to purchase land of Lord Leigh was met with a protest from the Established Churchmen. "The rector admits the truth of these charges, and declares that he but keeps his ordination vows, having sworn to do all in his power to prevent the spread of schism."
—In Mercer County, Pa., Judge Mehard has given a decision involving the use of the Bible in the public schools, which is important, as it is likely to be quoted extensively in future suits. He holds that citizens may be taxed to support institutions in which the Bible is used, because it is to the interest of the community to teach morality as a means to safety and stability; that the Bible is admitted to be in the front ranks of books which may be used for moral instruction; that some English version of the Bible must be used in schools where English is spoken, and the most generally accepted version may be chosen.
—The Christian Weekly, an active and vigilant supporter of the Sunday-law movement, has been investigating the subject of Sunday labor in Massachusetts in the light of facts brought out in the sixteenth annual report of the Massachusetts Bureau of the Statistics of Labor, and the conclusion it arrives at is, that Sunday labor on street-cars, railroads, and in many other places where personal service is required, is performed because the public demand it, and in many cases it is the Christian public that demand it. The Weekly says: "It is curious, and at the same time sad, to note in this connection that both the Sunday railway train and the horse-car service, in Massachusetts at least, had their origin mainly in the desire of church people to attend public worship somewhere else than in their place of residence!" And it adds: "In most of these cases, as it appears from this report, these so-called privileges were granted reluctantly by the authorities of these several roads." Hence opposition to Sunday labor can be successfully made only by educating public opinion. The people are the power behind the throne, and laws can be made and executed only as they will it. This is what the prophet saw. He heard the beast "saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live." Rev. 13:14.