Earlier text: PERILS IMMINENT AND OMINOUSTHE COST OF MODERN WARS.
By C. P. Bollman
(C. P. Bollman in the Gospel Herald.) “DURING the last century,” says Robert Gordon Butler in the Home Magazine, “the art of war has ‘shared in all improvements. But improvements in ‘the art of war have not reduced the cost to those ‘indulging in it.” “This fact, tho,” adds Mr. Butler, “has not ‘lessened the number of wars in the nineteenth century. No other ten decades of history cover so ‘many great conflicts.” “What have the wars of the warlike nineteenth century cost?” asks the writer whom we quote. Only an estimate can be made, and even in making that, certain narrow limits of work must be marked out. For example, the indirect cost of only a few wars can be found; therefore the indirect cost must be left out of consideration. Again, the cost of the army and navy of a country in peace must not be included in the cost of war. With these as rules, some sort of estimate may be made of the expenditure on warfare during the last century. The direct cost of the principal wars of the century is then given, as follows:— Napoleonic wars ................................ $3,289,000,000
Turco-Russian war ............................... 100,000,000
Algerian war .................................... 190,000,000
Civil wars, Spain and Portugal .................. 250,000,000
Canadian rebellion .............................. 11,000,000
Seminole war .................................... 27,000,000
Mexican war ..................................... 57,000,000
Revolutionary wars in Europe .................... 50,000,000
Chinese wars .................................... 44,000,000
Kaffir war ...................................... 10,000,000
Crimean war ..................................... 1,520,000,000
Italian war ..................................... 253,000,000
American civil war .............................. 5,000,000,000
Abyssinian war .................................. 43,000,000
Schleswig-Holstein war .......................... 75,000,000
Franco-Mexican war .............................. 75,000,000
Austro-Prussian war ............................. 330,000,000
Brazil-Paraguayan war ........................... 240,000,000
Franco-German war ............................... 2,500,000,000
Ashantee war .................................... 4,500,000
Central-Asian wars .............................. 225,000,000
Turco-Russian war ............................... 1,210,000,000
Afghan and South African wars ................... 85,000,000
Soudan war ...................................... 21,500,000
Madagascan war .................................. 85,000,000
Italy-Abyssinian war ............................ 115,000,000
Spanish-American-Filipino war ................... 1,000,000,000
Boer war ........................................ 800,000,000
Soudan war ...................................... 12,000,000
Chinese-Japanese war ............................ 300,000,000
$17,922,000,000 The reader will of course keep in mind the fact that this enormous sum does not include the vast expenditure for standing armies and navies. In this estimate no account is taken of the fact that so many hundreds of thousands of men are withdrawn from the arts of peace to learn the art of war; that instead of being producers, thus adding by their industry to the wealth of the world, they are only consumers, involuntary leeches on the body politic. Unquestionably the indirect cost of war is very much greater than the direct cost. But let us consider for a little the magnitude of the sum given—$17,922,000,000. Again we quote Mr. Butler’s words:— Just how much is a billion? It is one thousand millions; but that fact is not expressive. There are only 3,155,673,600 seconds in a century—that is, six dollars have been spent on war for each second of the century. If we take Archbishop Usher’s chronology, and consider the world to be 5,904 years old, we find that the nations have spent on war during the nineteenth century at the rate of six dollars a minute since the creation. The population of the world is estimated at 1,500,000,000; the money spent on war between 1861 and 1900 would give to each man, woman, and child alive to-day more than $13 as pocket money. If a man counted 200 a minute for ten hours a day, six days a week, he would have counted one million in 8 days, 3 hours, and 20 minutes. At the same rate he would need 8,333 days, 3 hours, and 20 minutes to count one billion, or 26 years, 195 days, 3 hours, and 20 minutes, not counting Sundays. To count twenty billions would take 532 years, 150 days, 6 hours, and 40 minutes. By far the larger part of this sum, vast as it is, has been spent in wars between “Christian nations,” and yet we wonder why the heathen are so slow to see and to acknowledge the great benefits of Christianity. Civilization is not Christianity, tho it is often mistaken for it. Christianity is Jesus Christ in the daily life, and He neither need nor sanctioned the use of carnal weapons. “For the weapons of our warfare ‘are not carnal,’ says the apostle, ‘but mighty ‘through God to the pulling down of strongholds.” THE UNSETTLED CONDITION.
By T.
The war that is growing closer and stronger between capital and labor will soon unsettle every manufacturing and commercial interest. These great manufacturing and business enterprises, many of them so extensive in their proportions as to almost fill one with amazement, are, at the present time, furnishing employment to whole armies of men, and women, and children. There are a great many men whose father and mother before them worked in the factory. They were born and raised to factory life. They know nothing else, and are in turn training their children to look upon the shop or factory as their only means of support. The factory is their little world, and to look outside of it seems dark; they dread to think of the possibility of ever being compelled to try any other field in which to gain a livelihood. Neither are all of this dependent-employe class in shop or factory. Many of them clerk in stores, work for the railroads, in the mines, or in some other place where they must always look to others to supply them with work. What will these do when the industries and commercial interests of the world are broken into chaos? Have they given any serious thought to this problem? You who are in the employ of some one else, and have never given a serious thought to making employment for yourself,—you who have always looked to others to “give” you a job, rather than to make profitable work of your own,—you who are thus dependent, what will you do when the crisis comes? What will be your lot when every business interest is broken to pieces? You may say that no crash is coming. You may say that such a thing is absurd. But in this you are deceived. A revolution lies right in front of us that will unsettle everything in the world, and place every commercial activity in such a state of uncertainty that no man can depend upon the security of his job. When we say this, we are not expounding a theory about something that may possibly come; we are telling what we know to be just ahead of us. And knowing these things, we desire to help as many of our fellow-men as will be persuaded to prepare for the gathering storm. We are having a “tidal wave of prosperity” just now, but when the wave recedes, in a little time from this, it will reveal the wreckage in every quarter. This prosperity of the present should be taken advantage of by all to fit themselves for the adversity that will suddenly follow. The rich men of the land are able to run their shops and factories now, but there is a muttering of discontent among the masses that will inevitably bring reversal. The voice of history ought to enable even the skeptic to see this, and all who know and believe the Bible have this unmistakable voice of prophecy to cause them to understand the things that are coming upon the earth. In view of the whole situation in these times, every one, unless duty’s call is otherwise, should begin to cast about for an opportunity to get out of the shops, the stores, and the factories, and settle himself on a piece of ground somewhere in the country. All may not be able to do this without help, but the effort should be made, and the old proverb says, “Where ‘there is a will, there is a way.” Now, do not brush this aside as an unimportant matter. There is trouble ahead of us in this old world, and those who can have little homes in the country, and who are independently producing their own living from the soil, will have much less of this trouble than any others. And besides, the independent country life is the most satisfactory any way. The man in the little country home is his own master. He is not required to come and go at the bidding of masters who prescribe his hours of toil, some of these masters saying they will discharge him unless he works ten or twelve hours a day, and others threatening to boycott him if he does. But in his own country home he can arrange his work as he himself thinks best. If men continue to allow themselves to be dependent upon the wills of other men, looking to them for employment continually, they may expect nothing but trouble when the break comes. The bright hope that should be woven into every man’s mind is the sure promise of the soon coming of Christ. There will be very turbulent times for a little while, but this turbulence will be ended in that not-far-distant day when Jesus comes. And while the elements are gathering, we should do all we can to urge men to get into the places that will promise the greatest security and peace. T. In a recent speech in New York, Justice Jerome said:— I attended a meeting of the bar in New York at which it was openly charged that a justice of the Supreme Court was a tout for an insurance company in which —— is interested. The accused Justice was present, but he said nothing in answer to the charge. Justice Jerome also stated that it is a time of danger for the dignity of the bench when a judge will sit in silence in the face of such a “libelous charge.” Occurrences of this kind remind one of the scripture which says:— “Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity can not enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey; and the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no judgment. And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His arm brought salvation unto Him; and His righteousness, it sustained Him. For He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon His head; and He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak. According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay. . . . When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” Isa. 59:14-19. The manner in which justice is turned aside through bribes and other evil influences is one of the most striking characteristics of these times. And it shows the corruption with which the criminal use of money is flooding the world. The Lord has made it manifest in more than one instance that when men so flagrantly pervert justice, He will take10 things into His own hands, and mete out that which men have refused. The outbreaking deeds of the present must soon provoke the divine interference. STANDARD OIL'S 480 PER CENT.
The Standard Oil directors have just declared another dividend of 12 per cent. In March last they declared a dividend of 20 per cent. Thus far in this current year 1901, they have thus divided profits of $32,000,000, on their $100,000,000 of alleged invested capital. The record of this leviathan among trusts discloses the following amazing facts: Up to June, 1899, the capital of the Standard Oil concern was only $10,000,000. On that amount it had been paying for eight years dividends ranging from 12 per cent. up to 33 per cent. per annum. In June, 1899, its capitalization was increased—by a stroke of the pen—to $100,000,000 of common stock, and $10,000,000 of preferred stock. Since that date it has paid dividends as follows on the new capitalization of $100,000,000, of which 90 per cent. was inflation:— In 1899, 33 per cent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $33,000,000 In 1900, 48 per cent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48,000,000 In 1901, 32 per cent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32,000,000 Total dividends in two years . . . $113,000,000 It is not yet quite two years since the directors of this combine came together and voted to multiply by ten its then alleged capital investment of ten millions, and make it one hundred millions. And within these two years it has already paid $113,000,000 as profits on the $100,000,000 of capital investment thus created by the process of dilution. If the original capitalization of $10,000,000 had not been thus deluged with water, the dividends actually declared upon it in the past two years would have been 333 per cent. in 1899, 480 per cent. in 1900, and for 1901—with nearly seven months of it yet to come—320 per cent. Yet are there people who hug the delusion that Standard Oil's monopoly has immensely cheapened the price of oil. How much cheaper would it be if the Standard Oil dividends were 7 instead of 480 per cent. per annum on its actual capital invested?—New York World, May 10. The great tin-can trust is capitalized at $88,000,000. The Federal Salt Company, a trust, has absorbed the entire product of the Carmen Salt Works, in Lower California, and already has within its grasp about ninety-five per cent. of all the salt works of the United States. It was reported recently that American capital had secured control of the facilities of passenger traffic in the city of Paris. The following week an American capitalist announced that he had secured control of the London underground passenger traffic. Eight men recently put through an enterprise which brings under one management seven great railway and steamship systems, operating continuously from Europe across the Atlantic, the United States, and the Pacific, to the shores of Asia. The American Smelting and Refining Company, which is a trust, is seeking to gain control of all the silver-lead producing mines in the country. The course of procedure by which the trust intends to gain its ends is to charge such exorbitant rates for smelting and refining the ores that the small mine-owners will have to sell out or go out of the business. The capital of the great steel trust recently formed now stands at $1,404,000,000, and is rapidly absorbing other great steel interests. At its present rate of growth, and absorption of other interests, this mammoth organization will soon be in absolute control of the steel industry of this continent, and in partial control of many other industries connected with the production of steel. The mercantile community has been appalled by the magnitude of the American steel combination, headed by J. P. Morgan. The enormous mass of capital under single control has created the impression in the iron trade and general business circles that American competition is far more serious than German rivalry. The truth is perceived that immense masses of capital can not be concentrated in Germany as in the United States, for cheapening all processes of production and distribution. The United States steel corporation is frankly described by financial journals like the Statist as the biggest industrial monopoly ever known, and as capable of making, at smallest cost, as much steel as all the steel manufacturers of Great Britain put together.—London cablegram to N.Y. Tribune, March 3. Within the past one hundred years the national debts of the chief nations of the world have increased from $3,500,000,000 to $31,000,000,000, which is the aggregate of the national debts of the world at the present time. Last year the Standard Oil Company paid in dividends the enormous sum of $48,000,000. The dividends paid in 1899 amounted to $33,000,000, and in 1898 they amounted to $30,000,000. The company has paid to its stockholders since 1895 more than twice the amount of the par value of the capital stock. A report from New York City states that the sum annually paid by gamblers and the promoters of other kinds of vice for protection from police raids in that city is $5,600,000; and this vast sum of money goes into the hands of men who are paid by the city for the very purpose of protecting its inhabitants against law-breaking, and every kind of vice. The following extract from an article in the Neuste Wiener Tageblatt, an influential Austrian journal, will show something of the way sentiment is being formed in European nations against the influence and power of the United States: “America is the common enemy of all; an enemy so formidable that each European country must succumb, unless leagued with the rest of Europe. Even united Europe will have a hard fight.” The writer of the article from which this is taken was advocating the formation of a European customs league against the United States. This matter is becoming a live question among Europeans, and is a direct outgrowth of the grasping spirit of American capitalists. It is reported that J. P. Morgan is now engaged in arranging for the establishment of a great Anglo-American bank, with a capital of one billion dollars. It is proposed to abolish all the principal financial agencies now transacting bank business between America and Europe, and make this new money trust the principal agency for carrying on such business. It is said that this financier has had in mind for a long time the creation of a single great institution, which would dominate not only the banking business passing to and fro between America and Europe, but would practically dictate the financial operations of the world. Thus is trust piling upon trust, and thus are the finances of the world being more securely gathered under the control of a few men The yearly coinage statement of the director of the mint shows that the total coinage of the mints of the United States during the year was $137,599,401, of which $99,277,942 was in gold, and the rest silver and minor coins. The largest gold fund in the world, $550,000,000, is owned by the United States. France comes next with $442,000,000; Russia third, with $345,000,000; Austria-Hungary fourth, with $184,000,000; England fifth, with $162,000,000, and Germany sixth, with $120,000,000. The street-car system of Scranton, Pa., was recently tied up by a strike of all its motormen and conductors. A report from Russia states that 40 men were shot to death and 150 others wounded in a conflict between soldiers and strikers at Alexandrovsky, on May 20. Seven thousand iron-workers went on strike recently in San Francisco, owing to the refusal of their employers to yield to the demand for a nine-hour day with increased rate of pay. The iron-workers are adding their strength to that of the machinists who are on strike. The St. Petersburg strike has been practically crushed through the stern measures taken by the military. Many have been injured in the rioting incident to the suppression of the strike. Of the employes of one institution alone, 250 men have been placed under arrest. More than 3,000 troops were on duty during the street-railway strike at Albany N. Y.; but even these were powerless at times to protect from injury, the company's property, or the men who were operating it, and many persons were injured by sticks, stones, clubs, and firearms. Serious disturbances are reported from Southern Italy and the Island of Sicily. The peasants in several provinces are in open revolt, and conflicts with the police are of daily occurrence. In some sections gardens and fields are lying waste. The municipality of Pioulles has suspended payment, strikes are extending throughout Southern Italy, and general misery prevails. A movement is said to be now on foot for the consolidation of all the labor unions in this country. If this plan is carried out as proposed, it will mean the placing of all labor unions in one great organization, which will be able to bring the entire force of union labor against any proposition that may arise. The power and danger of such a consolidation it is not hard to realize. A great strike of machinists is now in progress throughout the United States. In many places the employers have acceded to the machinists’ demands, and in such shops strikes have not occurred. A great many shops, however, have refused to yield to the demands of the machinists, and about 50,000 were out on strike on May 21. Some of these have now returned to work, but others still have joined the ranks of the strikers. A great many and serious strikes have occurred in France since the close of the great exposition. The strike at Calais caused considerable loss of life, and the loss of a vast amount of money to local industry and to the laborers themselves. The strike at Marseilles cost the city in the neighborhood of $8,000,000 a week. The coal miners of the great Northumberland district, England, have had to submit to a reduction in their wages amounting to 21 per cent., and one of England’s great iron companies has reduced the pay of its employees 13 per cent., while the number of the unemployed is increasing. The force of rebels now in the field in Colombia is said to number about 14,000. It is reported that Chile has opened a pass into Argentina at every strategical point in the Andes. Argentina is much worried over this apparent hostile move on the part of Chile. A London despatch states that the English Government has decided to lay upon the mines of the Transvaal $250,000,000 of the cost of the war, or practically one-half the burden. England is preparing to outdo all her rivals in navy building. Next year she will build three 18,000-ton battle-ships, which will be 3,000 tons larger than any war-ships now afloat. The Russian Government has issued an order for a loan of $84,800,000 to meet the expenditures for the current year. This great loan is made necessary by the heavy expenses of the Russian War preparations. Sweden is proposing greatly to increase her army and navy expenditures. The proposals of the Riksdag Committee are to the effect that the army expenditures shall be increased to $10,500,000, and the navy expenditures to $3,270,000. This means a tax of nearly $3 for each man, woman, and child in the little kingdom for these expenses alone; or comparing it with the United States on a basis of population, it would be equivalent to an appropriation by the latter country of about $225,000,000 solely for war preparation. It can be seen from this that the spirit of preparation for war is permeating the smaller countries as well as the larger. The new five-inch naval guns for the cruisers of the Denver class were given a trial at the Indian Head proving-grounds on April 5. These guns developed a muzzle velocity 65 per cent. greater than guns of this size have made heretofore. The present naval strength of Russia amounts to 23 battle-ships of the first class and 23 cruisers of the first class, 16 coast-defense ships, together with a large number of second and third class cruisers, gunboats, torpedo-boats, destroyers, and transports. The Ordnance Board of the War Department has adopted a new magazine pistol for the army. This weapon is capable of discharging 116 shots per minute, as against 40 by the best Colt revolver, which has heretofore been the standard pistol in the army. A Swedish army officer has patented a new contrivance of the nature of an aerial torpedo, which is propelled through the air by the escape of a gas generated within the torpedo. The Swedish Government has granted the inventor a subsidy for conducting experiments with this instrument. Fearing the encroachments of Russia, Sweden and Norway have decided upon an elaborate reorganization of the army, and the erection of a line of fortifications in the northern part of the Scandinavian peninsula. These two countries are said to be able to put 500,000 men into the field if necessary. The British Government has been compelled to borrow another 60,000,000 pounds ($292,200,000) on account of the great expenses incident to the South African war and the military operations in China. These expenses have entailed a large deficit, which has caused the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ask for an appropriation of $913,621,740 for the present year. The new Naval Appropriation bill calls for an expenditure of $77,016,635, the largest amount ever reported to the House by the committee on naval affairs. The bill authorizes the building of two first-class battle-ships and two first-class armored cruisers, each of which is to have a displacement of 14,000 tons, with the most powerful armor and armament. It is proposed, according to the new British naval estimates, to have 154,575 men available to man the fleet, of whom 118,625 should be on the active list, and 35,950 on the reserve list. The government will ask for $43,830,000 to be appropriated for the building of new war-ships. It is proposed to have the entire fleet renovated, and a new type of boiler substituted for the old. Statesmen of Europe are again agitated over the possibility of an outbreak among the Balkan States. Speakers in the Italian Senate declare that the trouble in Macedonia may precipitate a surprise at any moment. They believe that Austria is fomenting discord in that quarter, and these senators are throwing out broad hints to Austria that Italy must be reckoned with in any difficulty which may occur there. These utterances, taken in connection with the recent speech of Count Goluchowski, of Austria, show that trouble is believed to be imminent in Southwestern Europe. The War Department is now having constructed at the Watervliet, New York, arsenal what will be the largest gun in the world. The gun will weigh 130 tons, and will throw a projectile weighing 2,370 pounds a distance of 21 miles. The bore of this great weapon will measure 18 inches in diameter, while the entire length of the gun will be 49 feet. Each shot will consume a charge of 576 pounds of smokeless powder. If this gun proves a success, 40 will be built, of which number it is said 8 will be placed in New York harbor, 10 at San Francisco, 8 at Boston, and 4 at Hampton Roads. Mr. Hudson Maxim has sold to the United States Government the secret of the explosive invented by him, known as Maximite. The explosive has gone through a series of successful experiments at the Sandy Hook proving-grounds, and the reports of the test indicate that it is a more powerful explosive than lyddite. A shell loaded with this explosive can be fired through a twelve-inch harveyized nickel-steel armor plate; and having passed through it, will explode upon the other side with sufficient power to destroy everything within a wide range. These tests are regarded as demonstrating that there is no war-ship of any navy capable of withstanding its destructive effects. It is but another step in the preparations for the battle of the nations, which is soon to be. A recent report at the State Department at Washington tells a dreadful story of the wholesale suicide of women in China. When a Chinese matron is abused by a white man, she notifies her own family and that of her husband that on a certain date she will take her own life. No remonstrance is made, and invariably the woman carries out her plan. If she did not commit suicide, she would be ostracized by her people, and be compelled to change her mode of life completely. The fate of an unmarried woman is the same, only that instead of her committing suicide, her relatives are permitted to put her to death. So extensive have been the crimes of white soldiers that in many villages and small towns the women have practically disappeared. What a terrible record so-called civilization is leaving of its doings in the land of the heathen. NEARLY a hundred years ago, a stout, freckle-faced, awkward boy of eighteen years, dressed in a ragged waistcoat and short breeches, without stockings or shoes, rapped one evening at the door of an humble cottage in northern England, and asked to see the village schoolmaster. When that person appeared, the boy said very modestly,— “I would like to attend your evening school, sir.” “And what do you wish to study?” asked the teacher roughly. “I want to learn to read and write, sir,” answered the lad. The schoolmaster glanced over the boy’s homely face and rough clothes scornfully, and said, “Very well, you can attend; but a bare-legged laddie like you would better be doing something else than learning his letters.” Then he closed the door in the lad’s face. If that “bare-legged laddie” had said to the schoolmaster, “I mean to become a great inventor, to be the friend of rich and powerful men, to hold conversation with kings, and to write my name among the great ones of the earth,” it is likely he would have called the boy a fool to cherish such wild dreams. Yet this poor, ignorant lad, who did not know the alphabet at eighteen, accomplished all these things before he died. He did it by hard work and because he made up his mind to do the best he could. He kept pegging away. His ignorance was a misfortune and not a fault. His parents were too poor to send him to school. He was the son of the fireman of a pumping-engine in a Northumberland colliery. His birthplace was a hovel with a clay floor, mud walls, and bare rafters. When he was five years old, he began to work for his living by herding cows in the daytime and barring up the gates at night. As he grew older he was set to picking stones from the coal, and after that to driving a horse which drew coal from the pit. He went half-fed and half-clothed, but for “a” that he had a man’s brave soul in his sturdy little body. For several years he was assistant foreman to his father; then he was made fireman himself. Subsequently, at the age of seventeen, he was plugman of a pumping-engine, a post superior to his father’s. But all the time, though ignorant of books, he had been studying his engine. Gradually he acquired so complete a knowledge of his machine that he was able to take it apart and make any ordinary repairs. The “bare-legged laddie” was smarter than he seemed, and this fact the teacher was not long in finding out after he began to teach him. At the end of two years, by attending evening school, he had learned all that the village schoolmaster could teach him. This brought his school life to an end, but he still kept on studying. He bought books on engineering and mechanics, and spent his leisure in learning what they taught and in experimenting. At last he began to think about making better engines than those around him. Meanwhile he had secured the appointment of enginewright at one of the great collieries of northern England, and he gradually applied his plans for an improved locomotive. He was not entirely successful at first, but he was not discouraged. He saw his mistakes and corrected them. Before he was thirty-five years old he had constructed several locomotive steam-engines, and five years afterward he had become known as a successful and energetic engineer, and was called upon to build long and difficult lines of railway. But his locomotives were too slow; he wanted them to run faster. He proposed to build one that would run at the rate of twelve miles an hour. Everybody laughed at him. Some thought that he was going crazy. One gentleman who considered himself very wise, said to him,— “Suppose you invent an engine capable of running nine or ten miles an hour, and suppose while it was running, a cow should stray upon the track, would not that be a very awkward circumstance?” “I should think it might be awkward indeed—for the coo,” he replied in broad Northumberland dialect. Well, he succeeded in making his locomotive, and at a trial which took place near Liverpool it attained the unprecedented speed of fourteen miles an hour. By making certain improvements, this same engine, the Rocket, was made to attain the speed of thirty miles an hour. People laughed no longer, but admired. He was invited as a consulting engineer to foreign countries, and wealth flowed upon him. Philosophers sought his friendship. His king offered him knighthood, but he refused a title, preferring to remain plain George Stephenson.—The Presbyterian. I met him on a street corner—a bright, black-eyed lad of perhaps fourteen summers. I had seen him there evening after evening, and wondered whether there was no one who knew the temptations he encountered. I made friends with him, and won his confidence. Then I questioned him kindly in regard to his spending so much time in the streets. “I know,” he said, looking up at me in such a frank, winning way, that I could not help thinking what a noble man he might make, “the street is not the place for a boy, but you see there's no place for me at home.” I was surprised and pained at the answer. “Well, I have two grown-up sisters, and they entertain company in the parlor every evening. They give me to understand that I am ‘a third ‘party,’ and not wanted. Then papa is always tired, and he dozes in the sitting-room, and does not like to be disturbed. It's pretty lonesome, you see; so I come down here. It was not always so,” he went on. “Before grandma died, I always went up to her room, and had a jolly time. Grandma liked boys.” There was a quaver in the voice that told of a sorrow time had not yet healed. “But your mother!” I suggested. “O, mama!—she is only a reformer, and has no time to spend with me. She is always visiting the prisons and work-houses, trying to reform men, or writing articles on how to save the boys.” “And her own boy in danger?” “Yes, I am not half as good as I was before grandma died. I am getting rough, I am afraid. There does not seem to be any one to take an interest in me, so it does not much matter.” It was hard, bitter truth; and yet I knew that this was not the only boy who needed a wise, gentle hand to guide him through the dangerous period. Mothers, make home the brightest spot on earth for your children. Take an interest in their sports; make yourself young for their sakes. I think the saddest, most hopeless thing I ever heard from a boy's lips was that sentence: “There is no place for me at home.”—The Household. FOREVER the sun is pouring its gold
On a hundred worlds that beg and borrow;
His warmth he squanders on summits old,
His health on the homes of want and sorrow;
To withhold his largess of precious light
Is to bury himself in eternal night—
To give is to live. The flower shines not for itself at all,
Its joy is the joy it freely diffuses;
Of beauty and balm it is prodigal,
And it lives in the life it freely loses;
No choice for the rose but glory or doom,
To exhale or smother, to wither or bloom,
To deny is to die. He is dead whose hand is not opened wide
To help the need of a human brother;
He doubles the length of his life-long ride,
Who gives his fortunate place to another;
And a thousand million lives are his
Who carries the world in his sympathies—
To deny is to die. Men who are not for sale. Men who are all sound to the heart’s core. Men who fear the Lord and hate covetousness. Men who will stand by the right tho the heavens fall and the earth reels. Men who tell the truth, and look the world and devil right in the eye. Men who neither swagger nor crawl. Men who have courage without whistling for it. Men careful of God’s honor and careless of the world’s applause. Men too large for sectarian limits, and too strong for sectarian bands. Men who know their message, and tell it. Men who know their place, and fill it. Men who are not too lazy to work nor too proud to be poor. Men who know in Whom they have believed. Men whose feet are on the everlasting Rock. Men who are strong with the divine strength, wise with the wisdom that cometh from above—loving with the love of Christ—men of God. Reader, are you such a man?—Anon. The following from Lucia Ames Mead in the Congregationalist presents a feature in the training of American children that parents would do well to consider:— “In many American homes lack of manners is fast becoming something akin to lack of morals. The grandmother and guest are frequently forced into a secondary position in conversation, the tea-table talk being monopolized by children’s chatter and clamor. Deference to age is conspicuous by its absence. The child is encouraged to think of himself first and others last, for fear that his ‘spontaneity’ will be checked. Among well-bred Europeans the American child is usually considered a nuisance, to be held up as a warning. Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer tells a good story of her experience in a German railway train, when a tiny Karl, who had committed some little rudeness, was reproved in a shocked tone by his mother. ‘My son,’ said she, ‘what shall I do with you? You behave just like an American child.’ Evidently nothing more crushing could have been said. The traveler who has once lived with foreign children and observed their sweet courtesies and absence of pertness, and has seen how happy children are in considering others, may well desire that our active, vigorous American children should add a new grace to the other charms which make them the light and joy of our homes.” A SCHOOL-BOOK 3,600 YEARS OLD.
PROBABLY the oldest school-book in existence is an arithmetic lately unearthed in Egypt. The papyrus of which it was made was in good condition; it dates back to about one hundred years before the time of Moses, or seventeen hundred before the birth of Christ, nearly three thousand six hundred years ago. This arithmetic proves that the Egyptians possessed a thorough knowledge of mathematics equal, if not superior, to our own. It is evident from the location of the great Pyramid that the Egyptians could “square the circle.” This arithmetic shows that subtraction and division were not then used as they are now, but correct results were secured. Equations were not then obtained as at present, but equations are to be found in the book. The book was headed, “Directions how to attain the knowledge of all dark things.” There were found numerous examples of various kinds displayed on the pages of papyrus.