As NOTED in a previous issue, the people who favor a State Sunday law for California have announced a two-years' campaign, the purpose being to educate the people up to the point of making a strong plea before the next Legislature. Whether directly to this end or not, Bishop Moreland, of the Episcopal Church, delivered an address on the subject in Sacramento, on the 4th inst. We note some of his reported statements that were evidently intended as pointers:—
God's law of one day's rest in seven is rooted in the deepest needs of man's nature. When we consider the millions of toilers in this country, we perceive that a rest-day, secured and protected by law, is a social necessity. The government has no right to consider the matter from a religious standpoint. It can have no theories about the seventh day or the first day. Christians, Jews, atheists, have equal rights under our laws. But the State can say one day in seven—Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or any which the majority agree to select—shall be observed.
No man with a real argument at hand would have ventured such an incongruous plea. “God's law of one day's rest in seven is rooted in the deepest needs of man's nature.” Granted; but (1) “God's law of one day's rest” specifically designates which day, and the purpose for which He instituted the Sabbath forbade the change of the day. See Gen. 2:2, 3; Ex. 20:8-11. Furthermore, as the law could not be changed (Matt. 5:17, 18), the day of the Sabbath could not be changed. (2) “The deepest needs of man's nature” are spiritual needs. Therefore, the Sabbath day's blessing is spiritual, which can come only through obedience of God's Sabbath law—not through any human decree. What spiritual good can any law of man bring to the individual who will not heed the law of God?
The bishop claims that “a rest-day secured and protected by law is a social necessity.” But the very things that a majority of people choose as a social privilege, are just what a Sunday law is designed to prohibit. Therefore, the logic of such a law is to define what its advocates will deem proper social entertainment. They, by this means, would become the regulators of the people's “social necessity”—both as to character and time.
Again, we are told that “the government has no right to consider the matter from a religious standpoint. It can have no theories about the seventh day or the first day.” But the bishop is basing his plea on the demands of God's law, and that law is spiritual (Rom. 7:14); therefore it is religious, and therefore it can not legitimately be considered from any other than a religious standpoint; and therefore the State can not properly consider it at all. The State has no jurisdiction whatever in the realm of man's relation to God.
“Christians, Jews, Atheists, have equal rights under our laws,” says the bishop. But under a Sunday law they do not have equal rights. The Jew is taxed one day's labor out of every six working days for the privilege of conscientiously keeping the Sabbath of the Lord. The Atheist has not the right to choose his own manner of exercising his “social necessity.” The Jew is compelled to sacrifice one-sixth of his working time on the altar of religious tyranny, while the conscientious scruples of another class are enforced upon him by law. The Atheist is compelled to forego his own ideas of sociability, because other people have secured a law to enforce their ideas. And as to the State's right to name one day in seven to be observed, the bishop and his confreres would loudly resent the naming of any other day but Sunday, no matter what the majority might be. They would very quickly see, and rightly too, that equal rights are not secured by majority dictation. But those who base their argument for a Sunday law on “God's law of one day's rest in seven” should remember that God never submitted the construction or manipulation of His law to human majorities.
The bishop grows quite patriotic in the assertion:—
I have no sympathy with the furious fanaticism which would bind public liberty with petty restrictions.
But he stultifies this fine sentiment in the very next sentence, and shows that the making of “petty restrictions” is just the purpose of his proposed Sunday law. Here is his declaration of intention:—
I have less sympathy with the loose ideas of the foreign or California Sunday, from which God is banished, and which is spent in writing business letters or in sports and revelry.
Then he again stultifies his plea that the Sunday law is not a religious matter, when he says:—
No one can rise to the full benefit and glory of Sunday who does not keep it in a Christian spirit. This is what he misses who does not attend church. The most perfect rest, better than park, ocean, or country, is in the sanctuary of God.
But how can the State give the workingman this “full benefit and glory of Sunday”? Can it put a Christian spirit into him? The bishop says he misses this when he does not attend church. Then, if the workingman's “social necessity” were restricted to going to church, the climax would be reached, would it not? Then, how about the State's adding that grand possibility to the Sunday law? Such is the natural trend of such legislation, as indicated by the bishop's remarks, and as carried out in the past, wherever public sentiment would submit. Every step in that direction is a backward step in the matter of religious liberty. All history shows that the more men were inclined to tinker with the Sabbath day, and add to it their own traditions and restrictions, the more formal and oppressive was their religion. And all history demonstrates that the more the State tampers with religious dogmas and institutions, the more extensive are the restrictions to both civil and religious liberty. G.
CROWDING TOWARD THE CENTERS.
By S.
The last decade has witnessed a wonderful increase in the growing tendency to crowd into the great cities. The ratio of this increase has gone up by leaps and bounds. As these multitudes have crowded in, the multitudes already in have been crowded down, and the condition of the urban middle and poorer classes has become more difficult or more desperate, according to the relative condition which they had previously occupied. The sad part of it is that this migration toward the centers grows in volume as the conditions become more harrowing. This “submerged” class, composed of those who are apparently hopelessly down, has grown to such an extent that it is a real menace to the existence of municipal government. With no employment in sight, hundreds of these drift into the criminal classes, and become food for law courts and prisons.
Just recently London had opportunity to view what ought to be in Christian lands of plenty a most unique procession. It was poverty on parade. Day after day thousands of the unemployed marched the streets in solemn procession, carrying contribution boxes to receive alms from those who had to give. Regarding this demonstration of the unemployed the London Spectator says:—
“The processions of the unemployed bid fair to become a regular incident in our street life. They go on day after day,—orderly, on good terms with the police, and not in the least anxious to provoke a breach of the peace. Apparently they never have anything to do, or if they have, it is of that convenient order which can always be put off to some future season. Ordinarily they are composed of that hopeless type which has so long lost the will to work that it has by degrees lost the power also. Here and there again, are some of a lower class still,—men who have ceased to pay any minute attention to the dividing line between poverty and crime.”
The Spectator voices an obvious truth when it remarks that while “these processions may be harmless in themselves, they are not harmless in their consequences.”
This banding together of the worthy unemployed and the professional unemployed for the systematic collection of alms has a debasing effect upon all participants. The association itself is bad; the habit of the public solicitation of charity is demoralizing, and the temptation to many to “get a living” by a process easier than toil is a strong one, and one to which many of them will yield. It is a step downward, and leads to other downward steps. It is a result of the flowing of the tide of humanity toward the crowded centers of population. It is a result, but it is also a condition which has its own results—demoralization, depravity, crime. If there were a prospect of a turn in the tide we might have hope of better temporal conditions in the future, but there is no indication of such a turn. On the other hand the conditions which have made possible London’s “poverty parade” are rapidly developing in all other countries, and their results are already seen in the constant increase in all classes of crime. The exposures of crimes committed by men charged with the control of large cities, men who should be examples of uprightness before their fellow-men, show the utter hopelessness of any permanent municipal reform. With criminals in the highest offices of trust and responsibility in the gift of a city, there is little positive influence for good outflowing to those in humbler positions. And these conditions should make the child of God awake to his responsibility as an ambassador of heaven in the midst of these powers of darkness. S.
WHAT THE MORGAN INTERESTS CONTROL
By S. E. Moffet
In September, 1902, the Morgan interests controlled fifty-five thousand, five hundred and fifty-five miles of American railways, or more than the mileage of Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland combined. These lines have a capitalization of $3,002,949,571, which is more than three times the total9interest-bearing debt of the United States. In addition, the Morgan influence is powerful in almost all the other important railroad systems of the country. The direct Morgan interests include eighteen railroad systems, one monster steamship company, thirteen industrial combinations, seven banks, three telegraph and cable companies, seven great insurance companies, and innumerable smaller corporations of divers kinds. The total capitalization of these various combinations is $6,448,500,000,—an amount greater than the national debt of any country in the world, and twice the debt of Great Britain. The capital of a single one of the Morgan companies—the United States Steel Corporation—is equal to about twice the cost of the Boer War, and its net profits for the current year are estimated at one hundred and forty million dollars, a sum about equal to the annual cost of the British navy, and but little short of the total revenues of Spain. The aggregate net income of all the Morgan incorporations is probably nearly or quite equal to the public revenues of any of the great powers of Europe, and the taxes on those companies pay the entire cost of maintaining the executive departments of New Jersey.
But Mr. Morgan does not depend on the dividends of his stocks for the bulk of his income. His chief business, at present, is promoting on a gigantic scale. When he organized the underwriting syndicate that launched the United States Steel Corporation, the subscribers were pledged, if called upon, to pay in two hundred million dollars. They actually advanced only twenty-five million dollars, and that was returned in the final settlement. Their profit on this investment was fifty-six million dollars, or over two hundred per cent. The share of J. P. Morgan and Company was about eleven million dollars. Every company Mr. Morgan floats—and the number is large—yields profits proportionally. Often he has no need to advance money. The mere magic of his name floats a company, and his clients gladly pay him half a million, or a million, or five million dollars for the service. He has the knack of inspiring confidence. The people who trust him with their money—and he operates chiefly with other people's money, not with his own—do not try to tie his hands with contracts. They let him alone to use his brain in their behalf, satisfied that, in due time, checks for the profits will be forthcoming.—S. E. Moffet, in February "Success."
SUBSTANTIAL VICTORY IN A GOOD CAUSE.
In 1890 Mr. J. B. Watkins built the St. Louis Watkins and Gulf Railway from Lake Charles, La., to Alexandria, one hundred miles, purchasing and incorporating all the town sites along the line. But in all the deeds for lots sold was incorporated the following stipulation:—
That the said purchaser, his heirs or assigns, shall not at any time manufacture or sell intoxicating liquors upon said premises, except for medicinal, mechanical, or scientific purposes; and should this condition be broken, this deed shall immediately and ipso facto be and become null and void, and the title shall immediately and ipso facto revert to and vest in said vendor, and said vendor shall not be under any obligations to return any part of the purchase price.
During the thirteen years since that proviso began to be inserted in deeds to land along this railroad there is said to have been but one violation, or breach of contract. The penalty was greater than property-holders cared to risk. One, however, did take the risk, and he has lost his holding without recourse. The appellate court of Louisiana decided, on February 26, that the stipulation is legal; that property-holders whose deeds contain that provision can not sell liquor on their premises without forfeiting their title to that property.
Concerning this case Mr. Watkins says, in a personal letter to the SIGNS OF THE TIMES: “This is the only violation of the anti-liquor clause in the thirteen years, and there will not be another. This is real prohibition, and the only railway in the world along which liquor can not be sold.” If every railroad in the country would follow the example set by this one, what a vast amount of sorrow, want, misery, and crime of every kind would cease for want of that food on which they thrive. Mr. Watkins’ anti-liquor railroad is “the only one of its kind;” and much as we would like to see the country covered with them, we are forced to believe that this road will long enjoy the distinction of being “the only one of its kind.” The great world is money mad, and railroads (with this one splendid exception) are making money out of the liquor they sell both on their trains and in their eating houses and on premises which they own. They could be a mighty power for temperance if they would, as this one example has proved. Mr. Watkins deserves the thanks of the race for the example set, whether others choose to follow or choose to continue in partnership with the crime-fostering drink.
Labor Union Items
A London despatch says that the Taffvale Railroad Company has been awarded $115,000 damages against the Amalgamated Society of Railroad Servants. The complaint of the company was on account of malicious molestation, picketing, etc., during the strike of 1900. An extensive strike against the American Bridge Company has been declared by the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers. The reason given is that much of the work of the company has been sub-let to non-union men. Construction work in many places in the United States and Canada is stopped by the strike, and thousands of men are thrown out of employment. It is said that by May 1 more than 300,000 employees will be out on strike, and the employers are organizing to resist the movement. The strike of the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees against the Canadian Pacific Railroad is reported at an end, the men claiming to have won the recognition of their union. The railroad and steamship business at Vancouver, B. C., has been extensively hindered by the strike. At Waterbury, Conn., the strike of union employees of the electric street car company, has broken out afresh, accompanied by violence. On the night of the 8th inst., a policeman was killed, a non-union motor man was wounded and chased into a swamp, and another non-union man was beaten until insensible. The blacksmiths of Stockton, Cal., have won their strike against the big agricultural implement manufacturing establishments in that city, whose proprietors had to yield on account of pressing contracts. The strikers gained their point of recognition of the union and increase of pay of blacksmiths' helpers from $2.00 to $2.50 per day. The city council of Santa Cruz, Cal., passed an ordinance requiring the union label on all city printing. The supervisors of Santa Cruz County passed such an ordinance for the county printing, but afterwards rescinded it, and laid the matter over for further consideration, the district attorney having stated that it was unconstitutional. According to a decision of an English court, no labor union can contribute to the support of a striking union without unanimous consent of the members, which practically takes away the support of strikers from that source. The war between employers and union labor is waging fiercely over there. The employers have charged that they are losing control of markets, because the unions have enforced high wages and shorter hours, thus preventing the former from competing with the United States. Political warfare is the prospective result, as it is also gaining ground in this country. On the 2d inst. the Civic Federation of San Diego County, Cal., presented to the board of supervisors a memorial protesting against the resolution adopted by the board prescribing that the county printing and advertising be awarded by the heads of departments to only such newspapers and printing establishments as were entitled to use the Allied Printing Trades label. The memorial cites that the resolution is against a natural law, unconstitutional, and not consistent with the advice of the department attorney, and requested reconsideration of the action by the supervisors.
Trouble in China.
At the time the peace protocol between the Chinese Government and the allied powers was signed, there were predictions by those who best knew the situation that peace would not last long. Recent advices indicate that the Boxers are active in nearly all the provinces. The old Boxer leaders were not punished according to agreement, and were soon restored to favor. The latest news indicates that the whole of the Yang-tse Valley is fermenting in rebellion, as well as the northern and western provinces previously mentioned. Of course the uprising, which is called rebellion, as in the former troubles, is not so much against the government, as against the foreigners. There is hardly any doubt that the government is and always has been the real instigator of the Boxer movement. In the former trouble the government plead inability to put down the “rebels,” and now the same leaders who are at large because their sentences were not executed, are again at the head. A recent plot to pillage the city of Canton was frustrated through information given to the police by one who was in the secret. He was given a handsome reward, but was soon afterward killed. The men arrested for complicity in the plot were held a few days and released “for want of evidence.” A native correspondent of the Shanghai Mercury says that the governor of Kwangsi purposely allowed the Boxers to accumulate in his province and is on friendly terms with the famous Prince Tuan, who is known as a Boxer leader. It is also alleged that the reported defeats of imperial troops by Boxers were intentional on the part of government forces. Missionaries in several localities have petitioned the government for protection.
Turmoil in the East.
While it is impossible to predict the outcome of the present warlike conditions in the Balkans, it is very certain that the situation is a dangerous one. Austria and Russia had united on a program which they proposed the sultan should carry out in Macedonia. The sultan promptly refused to carry out the part of the program planned for him, and the program was changed. He agreed to it as changed, promising to carry out certain reforms for the benefit of the Macedonians. Upon this promise, Russia and Austria began to work for the suppression of the anti-Turkish sentiment in the Balkan States; but it now seems that Russia and Austria are unable to agree between themselves regarding this work, and Rumania has thought it necessary to inform the czar of Russia that she will not allow his troops to pass through her domain, that she will oppose them with force. Russia would thus find no mean obstacle to her progress if she attempted to invade Macedonia, as Rumania has an army of 170,000 men known to be the equals of any in war. The king of Rumania, in a recent speech, emphasized the seriousness of the situation. France and Italy are both watchful, and the latter has declared her determination, in the event of an outbreak, to see that her interests are adequately protected. Increasing numbers of the revolutionists are operating in Macedonia, and sanguinary encounters are occurring frequently between these and the Turkish soldiery. The inhabitants appear to be sheltering the bands and giving them information concerning the movements of the Turkish troops, thus enabling the revolutionists to evade pursuit. Telegraph lines are being cut by the latter, and they are opposing the troops wherever encountered. There have been considerable losses on both sides.
The Pope’s Jubilee
The Pope's jubilee, in commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his coronation, was celebrated at Rome on March 3, with gorgeous display, pomp, and ceremony. Nothing was lacking to impress the beholder with the greatness of Leo XIII. The papal guards in strikingly handsome uniform, with polished arms and measured tread, the high dignitaries of the church with gorgeous and costly robes, did all they could to make a god of the frail form seated in the papal chair. Speaking of this procession, one of the reports says: “From his elevation on the sedia gestatoria carried by twelve men in costumes of red brocade, flanked by the famous spreading feather fans and surrounded by a white and gold canopy, the pope appeared to be more than a human being.” And that was the purpose of the great demonstration. It is notable, however, that Jesus Christ, whose vicegerent the pope claims to be, allowed none of these things. The ceremony was a lengthy one, and it is reported that fully 75,000 persons were in attendance. There had been an unprecedented demand for tickets, and when the gates were opened the report states that “an almost indescribable rush occurred, in which all present forgot the rules of holiness, and strove hard with push of elbows and feet to reach the interior of the sacred edifice, while on all sides were heard cries of fear and imprecations.” This ceremony in laudation of the human, and this striving of the human for the best places are strikingly in harmony. How much better the true plan of God, and how much better the dignity of His true service!
Famine, Disease, and Accident
The practically complete failure of the rice crop last year in Japan has caused widespread distress in that country, culminating in famine in the northeastern provinces. An official report states that the number of starving is 147,688, with the possibility of these figures being greatly added to. The foreign element is now seeking to raise funds to alleviate the distress. Members of the Finnish relief society in New York have received samples of the food on which their starving countrymen are trying to sustain life. It is composed of the bark of pine trees, is almost as hard as stone, and no one would ever suspect that it could be eaten. A report from Alaska states that disease and privation are rapidly thinning out the Esquimo population along the Behring Sea. The natives have become greatly enfeebled through lack of food, and are unable to withstand the ravages of disease. The epidemic of typhoid at Ithaca, N. Y., is still counting its victims both among the Cornell students and the inhabitants of the town. Its origin is traced to one infected stream which helped to supply the town with water. The great storms of the past weeks have caused extensive suffering and thousands of deaths among the cattle on the western ranges from Colorado to Texas. In some sections the loss of stock is placed as high as 25 per cent. Nineteen workmen were drowned at Glens Falls, N. Y., on March 7, as a result of the capsizing of a small ferry boat.
The Trusts.
The great salmon trust of the Pacific Coast, which was capitalized at $13,250,000, has gone into the hands of receivers. The failure is said to be due to the light run of salmon; but an examination of the company's books shows that at least $10,000,000 of its stock was water, and that the assets of the company are worth not more than $3,000,000. The President has appointed two assistant attorney-generals whose business is to prosecute trusts for the violation of the anti-trust laws. A bill has passed both houses of the California Legislature, the purpose of which is to grant to corporations the legal right to combine, designed to apply to corporations outside as well as inside of the State. This bill expressly legalizes that absorption of one corporation by another, which is the essential element of the trust movement. The railway mergers were such acts and are now being prosecuted in the federal courts. This is an attempt to make legal what the laws now condemn and ought to condemn.
The Concentration of Wealth
The great nations of antiquity went down under the hand of the monopolists. Egypt went down when two per cent of the population controlled her wealth; Babylon when two per cent controlled her wealth; Persia when one per cent held her wealth; Rome, when 1800 persons owned the civilized world. In 1835 there were but six millionaires in the United States, while in 1902 there were 9,600. The national wealth is seventy billion dollars, and one-half of it is owned by 25,000 persons. In 1850 capitalists owned 37½ per cent of the nation's wealth. In 1870 they controlled 63 per cent, while in 1902 two per cent of the population owns seven-tenths of the entire wealth. These are stupendous facts for the sober thinkers.
A Universal System of Pronunciation Notation
Recently the Illinois State Teachers' Association, in a meeting at Springfield, Ill., passed the following resolution: “We petition these two societies of experts [the American Philological Association and the Modern Language Association] to take further action to secure the adoption among our ethnologists and lexicographers of a universal system of key notation for indicating pronunciation—a system which shall have for its basis a simple, thoroughly practical alphabet, adapted to common, every-day use, such as the alphabet of the American Philological Association seems to us to be.” This alphabet is that employed to designate pronunciation in the Standard Dictionary.
In Venezuela
In Venezuela.— The Venezuelans are much dissatisfied over the large export duties which are now being levied on all goods sent from Venezuelan ports. They claim that the export duties are working greater injury to them than did the blockade of the allies. Some of the merchants declare that they can not pay the duties, and this of course puts an end for the time to their foreign business. Reports indicate that the revolutionists are as busy as ever, and are again threatening the capital. To many of the members of the Venezuelan Congress the protocols with the powers are exceedingly distasteful, and it is feared that they may not receive the approval of that body.
The Senatorial Deadlock
The Senatorial deadlock in Delaware has at last been broken, and that State now has its two Senators. Mr. Addicks, who for years has been trying to buy his way into the national Senate, has withdrawn from the race; but many fear that this is but a skilful move to gain his object.
Senate Considers Canal and Reciprocity Treaties
An extra session of the United States Senate is now being held at the special call of the President. The purpose is the consideration of the Panama Canal Treaty and the Cuban Reciprocity Treaty.
IS OATMEAL HEALTHFUL?
SCOTLAND is the home of oatmeal, and the Scotch are a race of pronounced vigor, strength, and general health.
This would seem to answer the query, but it does not. Any article of diet, however healthful of itself, may be so prepared as to be unfit for food. So it is with oatmeal. Do not believe any pretension of manufacturers, who claim to have a preparation of oats requiring only “five minutes’ cooking.” You not only will not get any value from the oats, but11will ruin your stomach in the endeavor to digest them. The Scotch cook oatmeal until it may be drunk as a gruel. That is the secret of oatmeal. Get the coarse oatmeal, the coarser the better, and then cook it three hours in a double boiler. Cook until it is like custard. It then will make good muscle and blood, and will represent more nutriment than the ordinary white, wheat flour.—The Clinic.
THE HOME
By Mary Wood-Allen
BY MARY WOOD-ALLEN, M. D
Brothers and Sisters.
Who was that elegant young gentleman, Margaret?" asked a young girl of a friend who had just taken leave of a young man who lifted his hat in a most courteous manner.
"O, that is my brother."
"Your brother! why, he took off his hat to you!"
"Certainly, why not."
"But I never heard of such a thing as a brother showing such attention to a sister."
"I should think it very strange if either my brothers or my father did not pay such attention to me. They are all just as particular to tip their hats to mother or us girls as if we were strangers, and we are just as polite to them as if they were the brothers of some other girl. Indeed I feel more inclined to be polite to my own brothers than to strangers."
"Fred, who was that pretty girl that was entertaining you so charmingly at the concert last evening? I guess you've made a conquest, old fellow."
"O, that was my youngest sister, Dora. Isn't she pretty?"
"She certainly is, but I never before heard a fellow speak that way about his sister. I guess they nearly all feel as I do, that they'd rather be with any other girl than their own sister."
"Possibly you would, but I wouldn't. Of course I don't know your sister, but as you do, I'll have to accept your dictum that she is not agreeable or interesting."
"O, I don't mean that. Other fellows think she's nice, but it's rather poky to be devoted to one's sister, isn't it?"
"Not to mine. She is one of the most charming girls I know. We are great chums and have lots of fun together."
"The most fun I have with my sisters is to tease them. Whew! don't they get fiery tho when I play some practical joke on them!"
"Pardon me, but I should feel it very unmanly to tease a girl."
"O, I wouldn't tease any other girls, of course, but just my sisters, you know."
"Why should one not treat his sisters as politely as he treats other girls?"
"I don't know; but boys don't."
Unfortunately the statement of this young man is too true. Surely brothers and sisters, children of the same parents, growing up in the same house should be the best of friends, the most delightful comrades, and if they are not, something has been wrong in the home atmosphere. Ps. 133:1. If they have not learned as little children to be friends, when they arrive at years of discretion they should try to bring about the brotherly and sisterly affection. More especially should the older members of the family be kind to the younger.
I read yesterday an article by Rev. Edward Gallaudet in eulogy of his brother Thomas. When he was marching in cap and gown on the day of his graduation he saw his little brother watching him from the sidewalk, and holding out his hand said, "Come on, Eddie, and march with me." The little fellow in kilts, with a heart almost bursting with happiness, took the big brother's hand and marched with the seniors in cap and gown. It was an hour of ecstasy that was never forgotten, and who can measure the influence of that one small act of brotherly kindness?
The adolescent (boy or girl) is in great need of the sympathy of the older brothers and sisters. Too often he is snubbed, teased, or ignored, and his heart is sore and lonely. He may wander away into the paths of sin because he has missed the loving word from his own.
A young woman listened to a lecture in which the speaker alluded to the needs of the adolescent. This girl had a brother of fourteen whom she had thought a trial, but after the lecture she fell to thinking concerning her own lack of sympathy with him and determined to change.
She saw one evening that he was going out, but instead of sneering at him because he had taken unusual pains with his dress she said kindly, "Charlie, don't you want me to tie your cravat? I know a new way that is very fine."
"I shall never forget," she said afterwards, "the look Charlie gave me. So surprised, so incredulous, but seeing that I was in earnest he accepted my offer with thanks. The next day he seemed anxious to be kind to me, and I accepted his proffered favors with polite courtesy. In the evening I asked him to go out and make a call with me, and since then we have been the best of friends. He does not go out nights with the boys, for we have always some plan for the evenings, and father says he believes I have saved Charlie. I am glad of that, but it seems a shame that a girl had to learn from a stranger how to be good to her own brother."
Many a young man might find his mission in giving time and protecting care to the young sister who, in the ignorance of her life, is in danger of making serious blunders, but who would hear and heed his counsels because she feels sure of his sympathetic love. Christ is our elder brother, and the young girl in this impressionable period of her life may be led to take up the Christ-life because through her brother in the flesh she has learned of brotherly love.
What brothers and sisters may be to each other is illustrated in many lives. No one can read the pathetic story of Charles and Mary Lamb without realizing a brother's unselfish devotion; William and Caroline Herschel proved how a brother and sister may be united in the pursuit of science. The friendship of George Washington for his half brother Lawrence is a fine example of brotherly love, while the poets Phoebe and Alice Cary illustrate sisterly devotion.
The home can not be a unit unless all the members are working for the common weal. Selfishness can not rule if brotherly love is to continue. Sympathy of parents with children, of children with parents, and of children with each other is the essential of harmonious family life. This is the prophecy of Malachi which should find its fulfillment in every household (Mal. 4:6). "Let brotherly love continue."
CAMPHORATED OIL.
A SIMPLE, home-made liniment that is almost magical in its results is composed of kerosene, camphor gum, and sweet-oil. Into a quart bottle put a pint of kerosene, and add as much camphor gum as will dissolve, adding a little more day by day, and shaking thoroughly. Then add half a pint of sweet-oil, shake well, and it is ready for use. It should be well corked and kept out of the way of children. Use for burns, cuts, bruises, stiff neck, stiff joints, sore throat, bunions, and about all the ailments that flesh is heir to, as it will cure, and that right speedily, almost everything; and in our family it has gained the sobriquet of “cure-all.” To illustrate: A young girl severely scalded her entire hand with hot grease the day before her graduation. The hand was immediately swathed in soft cloths, which were kept saturated with the liniment, and by night the heat had been so completely drawn out that no trace of the burn remained except a slight redness. By the following evening that had completely disappeared.
My own hand was so severely scalded with steam that it felt as tho the flesh might be fairly cooked. It was at once wrapped up and the liniment applied, but so fierce was the heat that the liniment evaporated in less than a minute. Application after application was made until evaporation ceased. The accident occurred about nine o’clock in the morning. At tea time I unwrapped my hand, prepared the meal, and washed the dishes with apparently a well hand. It was, of course, a little tender, but not in the least painful, and so natural in appearance that no one would have imagined that it had been scalded.
A burn or scald of any kind will not blister or long remain sore if this oil be at once applied. Last spring, just as I began house-cleaning, I bruised my finger in such a way that the nail was torn half way back to the root, and the finger mashed until the blood came. It was immediately wrapped up in a cloth saturated with the liniment, and, instead of nursing a sore finger for days, I went to work the next morning with an entirely cured finger.
One suffering with a very severe “stiff neck” saturated a flannel cloth in the liniment, bound it about the affected part, went to bed and took a nap, and when she arose her neck was well.
A cloth saturated with the liniment and bound over sore bunions will soon cure them. I could fill this entire page with instances of its wonderful cures—but the above will suffice.—Exchange.
