A FRIEND of mine, the son of a most eminent Congregational minister, was visited, when a young man, by John B. Gough. The visit was made at the request of the young man's mother, who thought Mr. Gough might succeed in winning her dear son to Christ.
The great orator found the young fellow stuffed full of skeptical notions, impervious to argument, and, seemingly, well satisfied with himself.
Finally Mr. Gough asked young A. if he would promise to make one prayer, just one, for light.
"But," the young man replied, "I do not know anything perfect to whom or to which I could pray."
"How about your mother's love," said the orator, "isn't that perfect? Hasn't she always stood by you, and been ready to take you in and care for you, when even your father had really kicked you out?"
The young man choked with emotion, and said, "Y-e-s, sir, that is so."
"Then pray to Love—make a prayer to Love—and though that seems an abstraction, if you will kneel to-night and do that, it will help you. I know it will," said the old veteran to his young friend, and he added, "Ed, will you promise?"
The young man hesitated a moment, and then faintly, but earnestly, replied, "I will."
The young man told me the rest after this fashion.
He said: "That night I retired to my room, and before going to bed, kneeled down, closed my eyes, and, struggling a moment, uttered the words, 'O Love!'"
"Instantly, as by a lightning flash, the old Bible text came to me, 'God is love,' and I said brokenly, 'O God!'"
"Then another flash of divine truth, and a voice said, 'God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son'—and there, instantly, I exclaimed, 'O Christ, thou incarnation of infinite, divinest love, show me the light and truth!'"
"It was all over. I was in the light of the most perfect peace. I ran downstairs and told my mother, 'I am saved, I am saved!'"
That young man is to-day an eloquent, consecrated minister of Jesus Christ.
As an unbeliever, stubborn and willful, he had to do something—some little thing, some one thing. He did it, and learned, how quickly, that "if any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine."
"Human things must be known ere they are loved. Divine things must be loved ere they can be known."
One little step, humbly taken, and all others come along logically enough. Readers out of Christ, will you do something for him?—Epworth Herald.
COST OF IRRIGATION.
By Herbert M. Wilson
MANY great irrigation works have already been constructed in this country, and their total cost, so far as it can be determined, offers a fair index to the magnitude of the expenditures involved in irrigation construction. According to the returns of the eleventh census, the aggregate length of the greater canals, those over fifteen feet in bed width, is about 9,000 miles, while they have nearly double that length of laterals and distributaries. These works cost over $27,000,000, and irrigate about 2,000,000 acres, while they command an even greater area to which water can be supplied when the demand may require it.
In California alone about $13,000,000 have been spent on irrigation works to date, and in Colorado $15,000,000; much of this outlay, however, was for the acquirement of land for right of way or for purposes of investment. Numerous single irrigation projects have cost from one to two millions of dollars apiece, and within the next two or three years the money involved in the construction of these works will probably reach the enormous sum of fifty millions of dollars. In India $360,000,000 have been expended on irrigation works, of which one single canal system, that of the Great Ganges Canal, cost $15,000,000 for construction; and several others have cost over ten millions of dollars apiece.—Herbert M. Wilson, in the Independent.
Keeping Love Alive
By Peter Robinson
LOVE is a fire, but you have to keep putting on fresh chips to keep it going. If you don't, somebody else will.
God Goes Before His People
By Matthew Henry
THEY that make the glory of God their end, and the word of God their rule, the Spirit of God the guide of their affections, and the providence of God the guide of their affairs, may be confident that the Lord goes before them as truly as he went before Israel in the wilderness, though not so sensibly.—Henry.
CAUGHT ON THE CLIFF.
By Rev. Edward A. Rand
OH, how the blue mountain tops rose up about the valley in which nestled the little red schoolhouse! And back of the building—this educational sugar box—sat on a little rise of ground two boys. School was out, and they were at liberty, Mill Janvrin and Arthur Hamilton. So they watched the calm, shadowy mountain tops, and waited for Job Dennett, a third boy, who was expected to come along a path leading round Gray Mountain and along the crest of "the Cliff," and then down to the schoolhouse. It was Mill Janvrin who had an appointment with Job Dennett, but he had not yet told Arthur the nature of the expected interview. The two watchers patiently eyed the slope of Gray Mountain, and one would occasionally say, "Do you see that Job Dennett yet?" The other would reply, "Not a sign of him yet."
Mill Janvrin had a singular interest in Arthur Hamilton. Mill was a warm-hearted boy, but his manners had needed refining, his dress was untidy, his spirit without ambition, when one Monday morning Arthur Hamilton appeared at the little red building as a scholar. He had come from the outside world to pass a few months with his uncle, the miller in this little mountain world. Arthur was a new and fascinating leaf in the book of life, whose pages Mill had been turning. He was a handsome boy, gentlemanly, neat, generous.
"I like that boy," Mill told himself.
Why, he could not say. It is the hardest thing in the world at times to say why we like some people, while others attract us as little as icebergs. They may interest us; we never love them.
It was singular to notice how Arthur silently influenced Mill. Arthur had a set of neat although inexpensive neckties; very soon Mill's bare red throat blossomed out in a brilliant bow. Mill's hair sometimes had suggested a haystack just turned up by a pitchfork; one morning he showed a head that was in as tidy a condition as Arthur's carefully brushed locks. Arthur wore shoes brightly polished; Mill got down to shoe reform finally, having begun with what one boy called his "upper works," and Mill's shoes were no longer red but black.
Mill's changes that began on the outside worked within. He saw that Arthur sometimes read his Bible in school; it was not very long before Mill slyly began to look within the dusty covers of his Testament. Singular, is it not, how silently we influence one another?
There was a boy in school, though, who was very differently influenced by him, and that was Job Dennett, the boy now expected any moment by way of that path along the crest of the Cliff.
"The upstart!" said Job, eyeing Arthur.
"Dandy!" "Ristercrat!" "Chap in store clothes!" were some of the titles with which Arthur was labeled by Job.
Criticism did not stop here. It became very annoying. Arthur, though, kept something which is lost very easily,—his temper. He took Job's banter and sneers good naturedly, and sometimes turned the laugh on Job very dexterously.
Milton Janvrin—did I say that his first name in full was Milton? He always had written it "Mill Janvrin," but since knowing Arthur Hamilton he would sometimes write it out "Milton." Then he remembered that this had a preface, "John;" and how grand that looked, "John Milton Janvrin," carefully expanded on the old school slate. I too am feeling the influence of Arthur, and let me say Milton.
Milton was indignant to see and hear Job in his treatment of Arthur.
"I'll tell you what, Arthur, give that boy a thrashing. It will take the nonsense out of him," declared Milton, "and make him behave."
Arthur only laughed.
"Never mind, Mill. I will get ahead of him yet, and it will be better than a thrashing." But how, when, where?
The days slipped by. Arthur was not "getting ahead," apparently.
"I can't wait any longer," Milton told himself. "I'll lick that boy, and it will do him good."
He had therefore invited Job Dennett to a "fight" at night behind the schoolhouse.
"I'll come," promised Job. "I must go up to my pasture first to start the cows home."
"I'll wait for you. It is all on account of Arthur Hamilton, the way you've treated him."
"I'll be there," said Job, grinning.
But why did not Job appear? It was tiresome, this waiting behind the schoolhouse.
Milton preferred to wait alone, but he could not seem to get rid of Arthur. He wondered if Arthur could possibly know of the intended "fight."
"Anyway, he shan't stop it," resolved Milton.
The two boys were sitting on the thick grass with which the ground was upholstered, when Arthur suddenly sprang to his feet, and shouted: "Look, look! Over there, on the side of the Cliff!" Then he leaped away, and was soon crossing the road, beyond which was a pasture stretching up to the Cliff.
"Oh! I see," said Milton, looking one moment. "It is Job. He—he—he is below the top of the Cliff, and he is waving his red cap. Yes, that is Job. He wants us. What is to pay? I can't lick him up there."
Then he sped down into the road, sprang across it, and proceeded to make just as good time as possible across the pasture.
Yes, Job Dennett did want those two boys. He was in a very perilous situation.
The Cliff was a precipice with an almost perpendicular face. Directly, vertically, up and down its stony side, no climber ever had gone. A number of sure-footed boys had, however, diagonally scaled it, starting at a lower or left-hand corner, creeping along several shelves projecting from the Cliff, supported by bushes growing here and there, and then went crawling up, up, and across to a right-hand corner. No boy, though, had ever been known to start at that upper corner, and then work his way down across the face of the Cliff to that left-hand lower corner.
It is sometimes said that "what goes up must come down," but no venturesome and successful cliff-scaler had ever attempted to prove the truth of the saying in this case. This going down the Cliff was too dizzy an experiment, the boys had said. However, Job Dennett thought he would attempt it, and, making a "short cut" to the pasture below, save a little time in his journey to the fight behind the schoolhouse. He had gone but a short distance when he looked down, grew dizzy, and would have fallen headlong had he not caught at the limbs of a stout bush.
At the same time he swung over upon his back. There he lay, clinging for life to that bush, his feet just touching a slight projection in the side of the cliff. That foothold afforded him some support. He dared not trust his entire weight to it; for he could feel a suspicious movement, as of yielding rock, beneath his feet. He did not dare to change his position; for to what could he change?
What could he possibly do? Was Mill Janvrin behind the schoolhouse? If Job, clinging with one hand, should wave his red cap with the other, then, he argued, "Mill may see it."
The waving of the red cap had been noticed.
Soon Job heard steps. Someone was hurrying over the path up the slope of Gray Mountain, and then was running along the top of the Cliff. There came a very friendly voice: "Job? Job? Here, let me get hold of your hand. Oh, dear, I can't reach it! Wait a minute; I'll stand by you."
How long a minute that was! Stretched upon the ground, Arthur, looking down, called again: "Here, Job, I've made a big knot in the sleeve of my jacket. There, that will reach you. Don't be afraid!" Other steps were now heard.
"Good! Here comes Mill Janvrin. All right, Mill. Job is clinging to my jacket sleeve I let down to him. He grips good. Now, Mill, take hold of this other end of my jacket. Together, now! Pull, boy! I've got my feet all right—don't worry about me; get them round that pine behind me. I'll work back after we have pulled. That's it. Now, all-to-gether!" While Milton Janvrin was tugging furiously away, he turned a pitifully appealing face up to the blue sky stretched above the mountains, thought of his Testament in the red schoolhouse, said several prayers, and kept pulling. Slowly Job Dennett came up into a safe place. There was no fight behind the schoolhouse that afternoon. None was needed to "make Job Dennett behave;" for if ever a boy acted as if he had received a very beneficial thrashing, it was Job.
"Arthur has done what he said," thought Milton Janvrin. "His way was better."—Sunday School Times.
THE BARLEY CAKES.
By Wm. N. Burr
BY WM. N. BURR.
"Drudgery, drudgery all the day!
The grassy-green mountains, the breeze-swept lakes,
The fair, sweet flowers among the brakes,
The birdies that flutter about the trees,
The flocks on the hillsides—none of these
Gladden my life. I must throw away
My life's best days on the homely care
That falls to the lot of the housewife. Bare
As the rocks of Hermon the life of one
Who from dawn of day to the setting sun
Does nothing grander than sweep or bake
In the ashes the little barley cake!"
"Drudgery, drudgery, . . . ah, to-day
My lad goes into the desert to keep—
(My shepherd boy brave)—his father's sheep!
He must not know that my heart is faint,
Or catch the gloom of my sad complaint.
And shame to me that I've dared to lay
Across my threshold this bit of rue,
Forgetful that palm trees about me grew,
Fruitful and fair as the sixty and ten
That shaded the waters of Elim. When
I think of my boy 'tis with joy I make
For his lunch in the desert the barley cake."
The mother toiled on in her home that day.
But the Master came to the desert place,
And the multitude followed him, quick to trace
The steps of the miracle worker, who
Dropped blessings into their lives, like dew
That brightened the flowers beside the way.
A multitude hungry—and whence the bread
With which these thousands must now be fed?
O mother, bound close to a lowly task,
What "grander work" could your fond heart ask?
The Master receives from your boy, and breaks
With blessing, your five little barley cakes!
—Advance.
A Sleeping Congregation
A PREACHER not far from Boston found himself at one time in a sad dilemma. He stopped in his sermon and said: "If I speak softly, those of you who are in the rear can not hear me; if I speak loudly, I shall certainly wake up those who are close to me."
—Selected.
"MOTHER, MOTHER."
WHAT word in all the language is so sweet? What name among all on earth has so many tender and hallowed associations? From childhood to old age its sweetness is never lost. And the mother's love to the child—oh, it is all but infinite! However many years may pass, or though continents may intervene, and even though the child may become a prodigal, a mother's love is deathless. And what son or daughter, worthy of the name, does not reciprocate this maternal affection? Wander where we will, and come what may, especially in the dense shadows of loneliness, or in the dark hours of adversity, the lonely and chastened soul goes back to mother, especially if she be the Christian mother of a Christian son. Except the sacred tie that binds the loving and trusting soul to God, none remains so unbroken.
But what shall be said of that son so lost to filial affection that he does not honor, or love, or obey his mother? No words can express the perverseness of his nature; no uninspired man can foretell the doom which may await him. Solomon, by the Spirit, foreshadowed it when he wrote this prophecy: "The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it;" for the Mosaic penal code declares: "He that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death."
A touching incident is related by an American lady, writing from Cairo. Soon after a skirmish, in which several men were wounded, she visited the hospital and afterwards gave an account of it. Here is the substance of it, in her own words:—
"The three hours we could stay were full of work for heart and hand. One young soldier from a Highland regiment especially excited my interest. He had lost a limb and could not, the doctor said, live through the night. I stopped at his side to see whether there was anything that I could do for him. He lay with closed eyes, and, as his lips moved, I caught the words, 'Mother, mother.' I dipped my handkerchief in a basin of iced water and bathed his forehead, where the fever flush burned.
" 'Oh, that is good!' he said, opening his eyes. Seeing me bending over him, he caught my hand and kissed it. 'Thank you, lady,' he said; 'it minds me o' my mother.'
" 'Can I write to your mother?' I asked.
" 'No,' he said; 'the surgeon had promised to write; but could I sing to him?'
"I hesitated a moment, and looked around. The gleam on the yellow water of the Nile, as the western rays slanted down, caught my eye, and suggested the river the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God. I began to sing in a low voice the gospel hymn, 'Shall We Gather at the River?' Eager heads were raised around us to listen more intently, while base and tenor voices, weak and tremulous, came in on the chorus:—
" 'Yes, we'll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river;
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God.'
"When the song was ended, I looked into the face of the boy (for he was not over twenty), and said, 'Shall you be there?'
" 'Yes, I'll be there, through what the Lord Jesus has done for me,' he answered, his blue eyes shining, while a 'light that never was on sea or land' irradiated his face.
"The tears gathered in my eyes as I thought of the mother in her far-off Scottish home, watching and waiting for tidings of her soldier boy who was breathing away his life in an Egyptian hospital.
" 'Come again, lady, come again,' I heard on all sides, as we left the barracks. I shall go; but I shall not find my Scottish laddie, for by to-morrow's reveille he will have passed away."—Our Banner.
MARKETING IN CALIFORNIA.
THE Eastern housewife must needs go forth to do her marketing,—to the grocery with eggs and butter, to the market with meat and vegetables, to the fruit store with fruit and berries. "John" (in California) brings fruit and berries and all manner of vegetables, known and unknown, to one's doorstep.
It is very tempting.
The asparagus is so young and fresh, and tied in such dainty bunches. The peas squeak when you touch them; spinach, that discouraging mess of tumbled leaves and stems, is in little bunches too, with the pink root ends sticking out most sweetly. Everything is in clean sacks of foreign appearance, shaded and guarded from the dust.
He opens each and beguiles you with vague accents—names that need the visible object to illustrate; but the object is there—and you buy it! You cast discretion to the winds; you resolve to get the crisp pink and white and green and cream and orange beauties, cost what it may. "Yes," you nod to him violently; "yes"—some peas, some palagus, some callot, some onion (you are newly set up here and must lay up for the future—it may snow!), some "spinny-chee," some celery,—no more, no more!—but he throws in some lettice that breaks if you touch it, and the fattest, reddest little radishes, that fairly kick they are so fresh.
He bring it all in, and you cast about hastily for some sufficient receptacle. The biggest dishpan offers itself, and he piles it up.
How much?
"Two bits," says John. Two bits is $.25—a "quarter." He sees your amazement, and hastens to justify himself. "Fi'cent" for this and "fi'cent" for that; and these others, it appears, are thrown in out of sheer profusion and good will.
He smiles bashfully and repeats, "Two-bit," evidently thinking you find him extortionate. So you produce the two bit and he goes cheerfully away, with the invariable, "Good-by!"
You are left to revel in your stores; and before they are gone—or are as wilted as the "store vegetables" of Eastern cities, lo! he is with you again—twice or three times a week the whole year round, and always with fresh vegetables.—From The "Vegetable Chinaman," in Housekeeper's Weekly.
THE LIBBY PRISON WAR MUSEUM.
Of the many attractions outside of the World's Fair in Chicago there are but few in which there is so much interest centered as there is in the Libby Prison War Museum. In 1889 this celebrated prison was removed from Richmond to Chicago and converted into a War Museum. The project was undertaken by a syndicate of the best known business men of the city, whose enterprise was conceived in a commercial spirit, but has attained a national reputation. A project such as this was never before heard of. To move a brick and stone building the size of Libby more than a thousand miles, across rivers and mountains, was an enterprise that many of the best known contractors in the West refused to undertake at any price. But the move was made with success. Then the famous old structure was filled with war material that represents the work of a lifetime and the expenditure of half a million dollars. The great collection is conceded to be second to none in the country and includes much of the most valuable material that the greatest civil war the world has ever known has left to posterity. The collection includes thousands and thousands of relics of every description, many of which form important links in the history of the nation. The old building itself is fraught with interesting memories, and the story of the celebrated tunnel escape of Feb. 9, 1864, never fails to interest the visitors. One hundred and nine Union officers made their escape through that tunnel, which formed one of the most thrilling events in the history of the war.
A CHEERFUL FACE.
NEXT to the sunlight of heaven is the cheerful face. There is no mistaking it—the bright eye, the unclouded brow, the sunny smile, all tell of that which dwells within. Who has not felt its electrifying influence? One glance of this face lifts us out of the mists and shadows into the beautiful realms of hope. One cheerful face in the household will keep everything warm and light within. It may be a very plain face, but there is something in it we feel, yet cannot express, and its cheery smile sends the blood dancing through the veins for very joy. Ah! there is a world of magic in the plain, cheerful face, and we would not exchange it for all the soulless beauty that ever graced the fairest form on earth. It may be a very little face, but somehow this cheery face ever shines, and the shining is so bright the shadows cannot remain, and silently they creep away into dark corners. It may be a wrinkled face, but all the dearer for that, none the less cheerful. We linger near it, and gaze tenderly upon it, and say: "God bless this dear, happy face! We must keep it with us as long as we can; for home will lose much of its brightness when this sweet face is gone." And even after it is gone, how the remembrance of the cheerful face softens our way!—Commonwealth.
TOBACCO AND DIGESTION.
EXPERIMENTS made on healthy persons, conducted for some days without smoking, and then the same number of days with the use of twenty-five cigarettes each day, give important results.
1. Tobacco increases the gastric juice, but diminishes its digestive quality. This produces indigestion and flatulency.
2. Tobacco injures the activity of the rennet properties of the gastric juice, and so delays or destroys digestion.
3. Both chewing and smoking interfere with the normal processes of the stomach. Hence indigestion and dyspepsia are common among tobacco users, and the frequent resort to tobacco for dyspepsia is contrary to science and experience.
The logic of science denounces tobacco in the treatment of deranged stomachs. In all cases where men wish to keep the healthy digestive organs in a normal condition, both chewing and smoking must be avoided. These facts would be heeded by thousands if they were not held in the slavery of a vicious appetite.—Selected.
Education and the Liquor Problem
By Jewish Messenger
THE liquor problem can be effectively and permanently solved by only one means—that of education. The child must early learn self-control and self-restraint, that his appetites be held under check and properly guided. If he be properly taught, his manhood will be self-controlled and self-restrained. He may not be a total abstainer; but he will be temperate in all things.—Jewish Messenger.
Italy’s Wine Production and Exports
ITALY's annual production, in round numbers, is 697,000,000 gallons of wine, while France and Spain yield each 608,000,000 gallons. Spain is the chief exporter, getting about £12,000,000 for the 200,000,000 gallons which she sells abroad. France gets about the same sum for her 56,000,000 gallons, while Italy gets only £2,800,000 for the 45,000,000 gallons annually exported.
STRANGE MIXTURE OF CHRISTIANITY AND SUPERSTITION IN RUSSIA.
By Thomas Stevens
BY THOMAS STEVENS.
A FOREIGNER visiting Russia for the first time is always deeply impressed by the outward and visible signs of religion that confront him at every turn. Long before he reaches St. Petersburg the golden domes of its splendid churches and cathedrals, twinkling brightly in the sunlight, have been visible from the deck of the steamer or from the windows of the train. He admires from afar these costly evidences of the religious character of a great nation, and they are among the first places he visits after his arrival.
St. Isaac's and the Kazan Cathedral, of St. Petersburg, and St. Saviour's, of Moscow, each in turn, dazzles and bewilders you by the splendor and wealth of gold altars, icons [images] all ablaze with diamonds and every variety of precious stones, priceless paintings, columns of malachite, millions on millions lavished on marble and granite.
The izvoshchik who drives you about the city is forever removing his hat and crossing himself as the drosky passes a church or a holy image in a shrine. The throngs of people in the streets, merchants, soldiers, sailors, peasants, clerks, truckmen, officers, gentlemen, ladies, boys, nursemaids, the whole heterogeneous population of a city, follow your coachman's example. Passing in and out of the churches are never-ceasing streams of people going or coming on errands of devotion. Before the principal shrines on the street corners a throng is never absent.
Hung up like a picture in one corner of your room at the hotel, not always in St. Petersburg, but always in the provinces, is a holy icon, and if you are the guest of a Russian family uncorrupted with European influence, a little icon very likely will be fastened to the head of your bed. In short, you have arrived in Holy Russia; Russia, the Orthodox; Russia, the home and the champion and defender of the only true Christian religion.
As for you, whatever else you may be, Catholic, Protestant, Hebrew, Moslem, or nothing in particular, you are, in the eyes of these holy people—whose government, after looking over its blacklist to make sure that you are not an active champion of liberty or enlightenment, has permitted you to cross the frontier—a heretic. Since nobody troubles to reproach you, however, nor to convert you from the errors of your own religion, you can easily assume the attitude of a non-belligerent, and set about fathoming, without bias or prejudice, the depth or shallowness of the sweeping claims of the Orthodox.
That the Russians are strict observers of the outward forms of religion there is no room for dispute; but are they really a religious people? The first doubt probably finds its way into your mind through the medium of the extremely pious coachman, who has been driving you about to visit the gorgeous cathedrals. Though he has removed his perky ivoshchik's hat twenty times and made twenty crosses with every mark of reverence during the hour of his engagement, when you come to pay him off, he will not unlikely assure you that you engaged him not one but two hours ago, and all but literally pick your pocket. The smile of roguish enjoyment that comes into his face is in no way abashed by the sign of the cross which he immediately makes, and if he has swindled you to his heart's satisfaction, he will very likely jog along to the nearest shrine and make several signs of the cross.
Though this happens at a very early stage of your investigations, a glimmer of light begins to break over your understanding and awakens a suspicion that all this show of holiness springs less from fear of God than fear of the devil. This idea grows upon you in proportion to the length of your stay in the country, and increases with the growth of your acquaintance with the people. And if you stay long enough and investigate the subject as thoroughly as may be, your first suspicion is very apt to be confirmed.
The educated Russians may be dismissed from the subject of religion sans ceremonie. As a class they represent the extreme section of atheism, free thought, "advanced ideas," etc., of the age, and of those who bare heads before churches and icons, one-half do it as a matter of policy and the others because it is less trouble to drift with the stream than to stand still in it, and altogether too much of a strain to think of swimming against it.
Apart from this Voltarian fringe the mass of the Russian people are passing through much the same moral and religious transformation that Western Europe passed through in the Middle Ages. Allowing for a difference in social conditions, the empire of the czar presents a similar picture of splendid religious edifices towering over the habitations of squalid poverty, of large monasteries full of treasures of gold, silver, and jewels, rich abbots, and fat monks, standing in the midst of the broadest and fairest portions of the land. The Russian moujik of to-day is about as full of superstitions and the dread of the evil one as was the villein of the West 600 years ago, and his conceptions of religion are leavened, as those of the villein were, with the lingering remains of paganism.
His creed is largely composed of superstition and demonology. To him the holy image that is never absent from his humble abode is a mysterious, living thing, representing the saint after whom it is patterned, not only in form, but in spirit and power.
St. Nicholas is the moujik's favorite saint, and a "Nicholai icon" is to be found in nearly every peasant's house in Russia. It consists of a small picture of the saint, a figure holding in one hand a church and in the other a sword, set in a deep, box-like frame, and gaudily decorated with brass, silver, tinsel, or wax flowers. The peasants burn tapers before it, and place offerings of food, etc., before it, much as the Hindu ryot of India does before his household idol. And the place that the icon holds in the Russian moujik's mind seems to me to differ very little indeed from that of the idol in the ryot's.
One day, in the province of Kursk, while drinking kvass in a peasant's house, I asked the housewife why she kept a taper burning before the Nicholai icon. She immediately made the sign of the cross. The icon had been very good to them that summer, she said, the crops were good, and the eldest son, who had been away several years in the army, had returned and brought home thirty roubles. I asked her if the icon was a living thing, capable of influencing the affairs of the family. She seemed almost frightened at the question, as some good old soul in America, who from infancy had lived and prayed in simple faith, would if suddenly challenged to prove the existence of God. Again she rapidly made the sign of the cross, but gave no answer. I asked her the question in another form. She shook her head.
"Such things are not for ignorant people like me to say," she replied. Determined to corner her if possible, I then asked her how many rubles she had paid for it, and where she had bought it. But it was a family heirloom, inherited from her husband's people.
Although Christianity has been the religion of Russia for more than eight centuries, the customs and superstitions of old pagan times continue to exercise considerable influence on everyday life and the surroundings of the peasantry. With all their church ceremonies and outward observance of the official religion, and their self-denomination of "the orthodox," the superstitious moujik is only a half-converted heathen. So much is this the case that it is sometimes difficult to define where paganism ends and Christianity begins in his creed.
For instance, not only does he regard the Christian icons much as his ancestors of the old pagan days did their idol, but he enthrones them in precisely the same place in his house that they used to occupy. In the home of the pagan Slavs the household idols used to stand on a bench or shelf in what was and is still known as the "upper corner," the further right-hand corner from the door, and facing the big stove, which occupies the central part of the house, and around which the rooms are built. Then, as now, this was the sacred corner of the house, and the holy icons of the present day have merely dethroned the pagan images and occupy the same shelf in the same corner.
This corner is referred to as the "great corner," or the "beautiful corner," and no member of the family thinks of crossing the threshold to enter the room without making towards it the sign of the cross.
Near this corner is set the family dinner table, another custom that connects the present with the past, when the heathen Slavs used to transfer the idols from the shelves to the table during meal times. The moujik of to-day does not place the icons on his dinner table, but he believes the souls of his ancestors, and of any members of the family who have died, are hiding behind the icons, and bread or little saucers of food are often placed on the shelf where the holy pictures stand. Small loaves of holy bread, made of fine white flour, purchased from the monks in the monasteries, are favorite articles of food to keep on the icon shelves. To make these loaves more acceptable to the departed, inscriptions are sometimes written on the smooth white crust with pen and ink, by the monks or the village priests.
In religious matters the more ignorant of the Russian peasants still waver, so to speak, between the devil and the deep sea. They are afraid to make themselves too familiar with the village priest lest they give mortal offense to the old pagan gods, which have now taken the form of various mischievous and malignant spirits; and, on the other hand, to protect themselves from the evil designs of these, they are eternally making the sign of the cross and spending their scant earnings on candles to burn before the shrines of protecting saints.
Though centuries of time have naturally modified this fear, it would seem to be a matter of doubtful credit to the "only true12church" that its children and chief supporters, the very orthodox, on whose patient shoulders it rests, still shy at its priests, lest the angels of the evil one be offended. In many instances the peasants have transferred, in a foggy way, the attributes and functions of their ancient gods to the saints of the Christian church, or, to reverse the transformation, have simply bestowed the names of the saints on their old pagan deities. In transferring their allegiance from the old faith to the new they have not always escaped getting matters seriously muddled. Thus the prophet Elias has succeeded to the office of Perun, the ancient god of thunder. St. Elias is now the Russian peasants' "clerk of the weather." He it is who gives or withholds the rain necessary to the growing of their crops. And when it thunders and lightens it is St. Elias driving in his chariot across the heavens.
A Russian peasant will not harm a pigeon nor would he think of eating one, even if suffering for want of food. All through Russia, and particularly in the lower forest zone south of Moscow, the country is full of pigeons, that enjoy complete immunity from molestation. In the country they are as tame as the semi-domestic pigeons owned by breeders in American cities.
The pigeon has always been a sacred bird in Russia. In the old pagan times it was consecrated to Perun, the god of thunders, just mentioned. When the missionaries of the cross invaded the country and prevailed against Perun and his associates, the lucky pigeon lost nothing of its sacred character by the new order of things. The converts, by some occult process of reasoning, came to associate it with their idea of the Third Person of the Trinity. The sacred character of the pigeon, like the office of "weather clerk," has been brought over from the old religion to the new and consecrated to the Third Person of the Trinity, which the majority of the peasants think to be St. Nicholas.—New York World.
ANYWHERE, EVERYWHERE.
By Robt. M. Offord
BY ROBT. M. OFFORD.
PREACH the gospel as you go,
Anywhere, everywhere.
Let the lost and guilty know
How the blood of Christ did flow,
Souls to save from death and woe,
Anywhere, everywhere.
Sow the seed, the blessed seed,
Anywhere, everywhere.
Tell how Christ can meet each need,
How the hungry he doth feed,
That he is a friend indeed,
Anywhere, everywhere.
You shall find some fruitful ground
Anywhere, everywhere.
Only let your toil abound,
Faithful to the end be found,
Soon shall harvest songs resound
Everywhere, everywhere.