Earlier text: Publishers' PageF. D. STARR
By F. D. Starr
The promise of God to Israel concerning the extinction of the heathen nations then occupying the land of promise, was, “By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.” Ex. 23:30. The same thing is stated in Deut. 7:22. Some things in the Lord’s work are done suddenly. See Mal. 3:1; Mark 13:36. Mighty convulsions have taken place by which his power has been manifested to the great surprise of all who were connected with the events that occurred; but sometimes his work is done in a more gradual, progressive manner. While our God does great things, yet he likewise sometimes does little things. Of the faithful martyrs who suffered during the Dark Ages, the years of pagan and papal persecution, it is said in Dan. 11:34: “Now when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help.” Helped with a little help! Is that the way God helps his people?—Yes, oftentimes that is his chosen way of working, just enough help to keep the head above water, so to speak; just enough to keep them from perishing. If that is our experience, let us not become discouraged and doubt God because he does not do for us what seems to us to be mighty things. A little help is just as much a sign of his working as a great help would be. In Rev. 3:8 are found these chosen words of courage and hope: “Thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.” A little strength? Would not that be a sure condition of defeat and disaster? Can we be satisfied without the consciousness that we have great strength? If a little strength helped the believers referred to in the text, so that they kept the word of God, and did not deny his name, will not a little strength be sufficient to enable you to do the same? By little and little is this work to be done. “Who hath despised the day of small things?” Notice the littles in the experience of those who were rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem at the time of the restoration, as noticed in Ezra 9:8: “For a little space grace hath been showed us from the Lord our God, to . . . give us a little reviving in our bondage.” A little season of grace, a little reviving in our bondage, are just as much tokens of the divine favor as the conversion of Nineveh, or the day of Pentecost, or some modern revival or religious movement of huge proportions. How so?—Because it is God working in either case, in the great and in the small. While desiring the great, shall we not be thankful for the small? “Here a little and there a little.” That is so often God’s way of working, and in his working he gives us an example of how we are to work. Notice carefully the final commendation: “Well, thou good servant: . . . thou hast been faithful in a very little.” A very little, can that be so? Another scripture gives it: “Thou hast been faithful over a few things.” Luke 19:17; Matt. 24:21. But, somehow, we do not like to work that way; we prefer to see the work done up all at once. We would not mind giving quite a large donation once a year, or once every quarter perhaps, or making an extra effort once in a while, but this continuous giving, and this unremitting labor,—do we not get tired of it? and may we not be exempt from it? These feelings arise, and because of this the exhortation is given in Gal. 6:9: “And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” “Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matt. 10:8); and we may say, Continually we have received, continually let us give. If even daily we have occasion to give to help the cause of God or needy humanity, let us not think the continual little acts of benevolence will wear the life out of us. No, if done with the right motive, they will put new life into us, and keep us fresh, like the waters of the mountain rivulet. “Give, said the little stream.” As an example of a protracted good work, which could not be all accomplished in a month, nor in a year even, we might mention the sale of that most excellent book, “Christ’s Object Lessons.” That work was not finished in the short time we set for it to be done in. But shall we become disgusted with the “little by little” way in which it has been done? If all who can do anything in that work will repeat the efforts of the past, these littles will all make a large total indeed. This is a lesson with an intended moral to it. The First Tent Meetings
By J. O. Corliss
The Experiences of Former Days—No. 10
Up to 1854 all the evangelical work done by Seventh-day Adventists was confined to private houses and district school buildings. During winter this method of labor was fairly successful, but in summer, when farmers were busy, and the evenings too sultry to meet in stuffy rooms, work was largely curtailed. This condition led to the consideration of more extended plans, by which work might be carried on throughout the year without interruption. In the spring of the year mentioned above, Elders White and Cornell were in Jackson, Mich., talking over the situation with Brother Dan R. Palmer. During the council Elder Cornell told of tent work having been done in New York State by the First-day Adventists. The year before, two of their ministers had been using a sixty-foot circular tent, and had drawn large audiences. But the two men having disagreed, the tent was likely to remain idle, it being at that time stored in Rochester, N. Y. Elder Cornell then ventured the suggestion that the tent might be purchased for about one half of its original cost. “But,” said Elder White, “we have no money with which to purchase it, so we may as well pass that suggestion by.” Brother Palmer, however, was not so settled in his convictions. He thought that they might raise money enough to procure the tent, and demonstrate the plan of holding tent-meetings in some of the populous towns in Lower Michigan. He said that his blacksmith business had been fairly remunerative, and that he had a little money laid by which he was willing to risk in the enterprise. He then went to another part of the house, and soon returned with a sum of money which was deemed sufficient to pay a man’s fare to Rochester and back, and pay for the tent. Upon seeing this, Elder Cornell, in his characteristic way,8 said: “Let me have it, and I will go right off now. I have just time to catch the eastern-bound train.” So saying, he took the money, and hurried to the station, arriving there just in time to swing on to the rear coach as the train was leaving the station. On arriving at Rochester a bargain was soon made for the abandoned tent, and in due time it arrived in Battle Creek. With some repairs it was soon ready for service, and it was decided to pitch it in Battle Creek, then a town of only a few hundred inhabitants. It was accordingly erected at the corner of Tompkins and Van Buren Streets, opposite the Nichols Hospital, on the lot afterward occupied by the residence of Mr. Neal, a shoe dealer. On this spot the tent stood for a short time,— just long enough to tell the message in condensed form, for in those days the messengers had not learned to dwell upon themes foreign to the message they felt commissioned to give the world. The work before them to be done in a single generation seemed so great that no time was lost upon non-essentials. So serious, indeed, did their task seem, that the next year the one tent was erected in almost as many towns as there were weeks with weather favorable for tent-meetings. The method adopted for that year was for the laborers to keep a horse and wagon with them, with which to remove the tent from place to place. Early in the week the tent would be erected in a small town or village, and meetings would begin Friday evening, and continue all day Sabbath and Sunday, and on Monday the tent would be taken down to be removed to another place, where the same number of meetings would be held, and the same topics dwelt upon. The question now would be what could be done in so short a time to get people to decide in favor of the truth? It is true that multitudes did not then receive the truth at any one point, but hardly a place was visited with the tent that year where some good, substantial persons were not left to live the message. Some of those who then received the truth are still alive, and have always been earnest burden-bearers in the message. To accept the truth in those days meant more than it does to many now. Sabbath-keepers of those days laid their all upon the altar, to be used for the Lord, and so were always ready to respond liberally to every call for means to build up the work. Were the Lord’s coming as imminent in the minds of brethren to-day as in those days, matters might be different from what they are. Should the same liberality be manifested now by the entire body of Seventh-day Adventists as was then seen among the few, the Lord’s work might go to all the world untrammeled, so far as funds are concerned. The Adolescent
By M. E. Kern
Young People's Work—No. 3
THERE is no question but that while this young people's work is one of the greatest importance, it is a very difficult work. The period of adolescence is one that is rarely understood, even by teachers and parents. It is a period of change and rapid development, a period of changing ideals, and often the period of doubt and irreverence and disrespect. While in the child, as one has suggested, the nerves are on the inside and the thoughts on the outside, just the opposite is true of the adolescent. The changing boy or girl often becomes non-communicative and distrustful of the leadership of others. Now, if ever, are needed wise and tactful leaders. While the majority of criminals in our penal institutions are adolescents, the majority of Christians date their conversion from the same period of life. The greatest decisions of life are made during this period. How important that the strongest and most well-directed efforts for their welfare be made at this time. The Question of Permanency
A serious problem that confronts our workers for young people is the question of permanency. It is often not difficult to move the young people. Their hearts are responsive, and they can be led to resolve to live for God and devote their lives to his service. But how to make those resolutions habitual is the problem. How to foster a steady growth in spirituality is a question of supreme importance. How to counteract the reaction from a revival effort is a serious question, and one that I fear we have not solved. Some may say there should be no reaction from a revival effort. Indeed, there should not be, but there is, and what shall we do to remedy the matter? Our young people are not often insincere in their resolutions, but the evil one comes and snatches away what was planted in their hearts. I fear that sometimes, in our efforts to place before them the great need of workers and the glory of a consecrated life, we sometimes get their minds fascinated with things afar off, and allow them to overlook those near at hand. They are ready to volunteer for some great work which they are unprepared to do, but they are apt to fail to see the field lying nearest them in the church, the Sabbath-school, and the Young People's Society. In other words, we idealize before them in our sermons, instead of showing them how to get to work. The natural result is that, having consecrated themselves for service, and not knowing how to proceed, they come to feel that their consecration was faulty, and so fall back. I feel very deeply over this question, and I fear we have made some serious mistakes along this line. One thing every worker knows, he is constantly confronted with the objection from the young people that they have started and fallen back so often that it is useless to start again. Would it not be a decided gain to spend the energy we use in trying to get young people to start anew, in holding them after they start the first time? How often after a refreshing revival, have we had cause to weep because so many soon give up what they had gained. Those who labor for the young in revival effort must remember these things, and plan for permanency. They must bind the young people, first of all, to their homes and to the work that lies nearest them. After the general worker has led them to a consecrated life, and has helped them to get started in earnest work for the Master, provision must be made by the appointment of wise local leaders that the work may be carried on. This work will require more nurturing and more patient effort than almost any other kind of work. But it is worth while. After an address by Horace Mann at the dedicatory exercises of a reform school, a gentleman asked him if it was not too great a waste of money to build such institutions, for, said he, “You may not save more than one boy.” Mann replied, “Not if it is my boy.” Jesus loves the precious youth, and for every one he gave his blood. He looks upon them as his boys and girls.9 It is a field, dear brethren, that is well worth working, and when the harvest is ended, we shall not regret the time and labor bestowed upon it. Wherever there are young people who know this message, and whose hearts are inclined toward it, there is a field well worth cultivating, worthy of our special efforts. Not only must companies be organized, but individual young people all over our conferences must be sought out and enlisted in the work for this time. I am glad the State secretaries are organizing what they call the State societies, and by this means are coming into touch with even the isolated ones. The reports from some of these lonely youth make our hearts rejoice. The world recognizes the value of the individual. Our mails are carried into the lonely frontier regions at great expense, schools of correspondence and circulating libraries are established to place before the most isolated individuals the blessings of civilization. We must not be less untiring in our efforts to bring the blessings of God and the joy of service within the reach of every young man and woman among us. Lending Means to the Lord
THERE is no investment of means comparable with that of lending it to the Lord. A Backslider’s Return
By W. A. Morris
THE Lord’s my shepherd and I’m his sheep.
He leads me by still waters deep,
He makes me lie in pastures green,
And by his hand he guides unseen. I wandered off on mountains far,
With neither light nor gleaming star;
He followed on, the lost to win
From wanderings drear, in paths of sin. Just listen to my story, pray:
I did not mean to stray away;
When I was cold and started back,
I found I’d lost the Shepherd’s track. “I’ll leave in safety the ninety-nine,
To search for one that’s lost of mine;
Soon, in the desert I heard its cry
Almost lifeless — ready to die.” With longing heart and bleeding feet,
He crossed through water, snow, and sleet;
And almost breathless, followed on,
To seek the one that’s strayed and gone. Soon, He returned through frost and cold,
And laid it safely in the fold;
The cry went up from all around,
“Rejoice with us, for the lost is found.” Ho! every one that wanders lone,
Come back to Father’s love and home,
There, wash away each guilty stain,
In Jesus’ precious blood again. Then, in green pastures you will feed,
Where hunger and thirst find every need;
O, starving lamb, return to-day,
And from your Lord no longer stray! Things Written for Our Admonition
By D. T. Bourdeau
Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, yet identifying himself, as a prophet, with Christians living in the last days, knowing that even the remnant church would need the instructions and warnings he gives, says, among other things: “Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them [the Israelites in the wilderness]; . . . neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples [“types,” margin]; and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” 1 Cor. 10: 7-11. If it be asked, How can there be danger of our becoming idolaters, since literal idolatry has become unpopular? we answer: Such a question would amount to a real objection to applying the words of the apostle to us if literal idolatry was the only kind of idolatry that existed in our day. But that is far from being the case. Whatever we love more than we love God is reckoned to us as our idol by him who searcheth the reins and the hearts of men. To love wealth, worldly pleasures, the gratification of appetites and passions, or worldly honor, or even the merest toy or object upon which supreme affections can be bestowed, more than we love God, is as truly real idolatry as was the act of bowing before and worshiping the golden calf, on the part of the Israelites. But of all the idols in the world, self is the most prominent, and that which is most generally worshiped. And just here comes the greatest of all dangers on the point of idolatry. Let us all stop right here, and see just how we stand with regard to self-worship. The worship of self underlies that of every other object that is loved more than God. How do we feel when self is crossed by an application of truths designed to reveal unto us the weak points of our character? Do we feel like humbling our souls before God in view of our imperfections? Do we give way to the entreaties of God’s truth and Spirit to thoroughly, heartily confess our sins and forsake them? Can we then with David say, from the heart, “Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities”? Ps. 141: 5. If such are our feelings and course when self is humbled by a manifestation of the defects of our characters, then may we know that, by grace divine, we are overcoming spiritual idolatry, which is the worst idolatry. Then may we know that the Spirit of God is doing a good work for us. But if, when we are reproved for our wrongs, and our weak points are brought to light, we give way to sensitiveness and to a spirit of self-justification, of rivalry, and to the desire to obtain the mastery over others; if then we begin to pity ourselves, to make prominent the idea that we are much abused, and to glory over the thought that others with whom we have differed have also been reproved, and that therefore we are right and are coming off victorious, then may we know it is self that is gaining the victory, that we are seriously guilty of spiritual idolatry and of rebellion against God, however high may be our profession, and however much we may pretend that we are believers in God’s words of warning and reproof to us, and are true to God, his cause, and his people. If we look over the history of ancient Israel in the wilderness and during the period of the judges and kings, we shall see that whenever rebellion broke out among that people, it was invariably characterized by this spirit of self-justification, self-exaltation, and by a disposition to abase those who brought messages of warning and reproof. In the wilderness those who rebelled claimed they were holy, and opposed the servants of God, who were beseeching them in the name of the Lord to amend their ways. They showed a spirit of rivalry, and sought for supremacy. They murmured against God’s servants, but God said that their murmurings were against him. And the same murmuring spirit will be manifested in the last days; for Jude, prophesying of the state of things that should exist in the last days, says of some who would separate from God’s work and people, that they shall “speak evil of dignities.” These things have been acted over again and again, even in the history of some who have for some time been connected with God’s people. Various apostasies have broken out among us, some under one place, others under another. But all of these, however beautiful and flattering may have been the garb in which they have appeared, have been characterized by this spirit of self-justification, self-exaltation, by this spirit of rivalry that leads to murmuring against, and to speaking evil of, dignities, and that has contributed to the fulfilment of these prophetic words: “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.” Isa. 54: 17. Again and again have we seen these words fulfilled in the history of those who have arisen in loftiness to stay the ship Zion, thinking they were doing God’s work, when they were actuated by the spirit of that being who first rebelled in heaven; for of the heart that is not transformed by the grace of God,—of the rebellious heart,—it is written: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins.” Jer. 17: 9, 10. I often used to hear Elder James White say, “Rebellion, when ripe, is incurable.” And that is true. In its first stages it may be removed from the soul and overcome; but when it has been strengthened by the long and continued resistance of the will to warnings of counsel and reproof, to the point that the Spirit of God has taken its final departure from the soul, then may it be pronounced incurable. How true are these words of the Lord, that were addressed to one who had once been small in his own eyes, but had given way to self-exaltation, and had rebelled against God, by making light of his messages borne to him to effect in him a reform: “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.” 1 Sam. 15: 23. As in the past, rebellion will break out; but it will not prevail. It will be defeated in all its future attempts to retard the work of God, as it was when one third of the heavenly host rebelled against God’s righteous government, and were cast out of heaven. In keeping truly humble we are safe; for rebellion can not exist in those who are characterized by genuine humility. Such will never be overcome by the wiles of Satan, nor by the spirit of rebellion. They will be intimate with God, and will find in him that grace and source of strength that will make them calm, hopeful, and courageous under all circumstances, and that will make them come off conquerors over every obstacle. A MOTHER in the household is called to a service of self-sacrifice. She has given of her life in the birth of her children. While they are young, she gives constantly of her time, thought, and strength to their needs. She bears patiently their complaints, and even injuries. As they grow older, she carries a heart-burden for them, and never ceases to be solicitous for their welfare. There is no love so pure and devoted as the disciplined love of a mother. Many women dislike motherhood on account of its confinement and self-sacrifices. It has, however, its peculiar blessing and reward. A mother has a blessing of God in herself. She is made perfect in moral and spiritual beauty by her self-sacrificing service. She might have become naturally a vain, hard, proud queen of society, but has gained humility, patience, gentleness, and other graces that make her a saint. Why do all children rise up to praise their mothers as the best women in the world? Motherhood has clothed her with peculiar grace. No one can receive, or expect to receive, such reverential and devoted love as a mother. All her brooding watchful, self-denying love comes back to her, and her memory is precious. There is peculiar tenderness in the esteem and love of children as they begin to realize and appreciate what a mother has done in life for them. Her love is rewarded in kind, in good measure, pressed down and running over.—The Watchman. The Romance of Light
By Fred Hovey Allen
THERE are few objects in daily use about which we stop to ask how they came to us, and through what stages of development they passed before arriving at that perfection which we now enjoy. Should we turn a retrospective eye toward “those good old times,” we should be amazed at the slow steps of progress, and the almost infinite struggles through which inventions came into acceptance. The connection between a burning fagot and an electrolier may seem remote, but every link in the chain is perfect. From the smoky rays of the first flaring brand of the cave-dweller, to the electric light, filling the most spacious halls with its glory and making the streets of our cities luminous as the day, the way has been paved with human effort and illumined by human genius. The pine torch was no doubt coeval with fire in the hands of men. The resinous knot was the first step in artificial illumination. Its use is found in every savage tribe and nation, while it is a necessity in the lives of all first settlers in new countries. When the nineteenth century dawned, the children of America were learning to read by the light of pine knots and the crackling of logs of an open fireplace; so closely are we related to what may seem the remote past. It is hard to believe that the world groped on to the thirteenth century without discovering even the tallow candle; yet so it is. The expression that “mankind was plunged in darkness during the early ages” is true in every sense. It was perhaps the accidental burning of a bit of fat of some slain animal that suggested its use as a luminant, while the hollow shell from the sea, a concave rock, or a mold of sun-baked clay held the fat, which was burned by placing a rush in the fat, with the lighted end projecting over the edge of the rude dish. Step by step the lamp was fashioned into a thing of beauty, though barely a joy forever. Thus came the first improvement in the art of domestic illumination. Admirable specimens of lamps in terra cotta, in stone, in brass, and in bronze have been found in sites of Hebrew cities and in the temples of Hindustan. From the tombs of Egypt, from the tumuli of Assyria and ancient lettered Babylon, from the opened graves of Chaldean sages, come examples of household lamps, revealing a general use many centuries before the Christian era. Herodotus speaks of a procession of lamps as a scene of imposing magnificence, and Homer sings of a torch borne upon a staff, its flame no doubt feeding upon the wax from the wild honey, and the resinous gums of the forest trees, nearly a thousand years before the Christ. So, from the fat of slain animals, the resinous products of the forest trees, and the wax of the wild bee came those lights which gleamed upon fair women and brave men at Belshazzar’s feasts, the revels of Dives, and the grand balls given by the first Napoleon in the palace of the Tuileries. When men discovered the art of extracting oil from the olive and other vegetable sources, the use of the lamp became very general among the wealthy and noble. Only they could enjoy the less offensive methods. Lamps wrought in cunning forms, of marble, silver, and gold, ornamented with precious stones, inlaid with curious handicraft and artistic workmanship, indicate a high position for this method of illumination. Even the terra-cotta specimens, used in cottages, are graceful in shape, with an elegance of finish which no art of modern times can surpass. Beautiful as indeed they were, of how little practical use! An eighteen-penny lantern of the eighteenth century, with its tin reflector and its bull’s-eye of third-rate glass, diffused a better light than any lamp of Rome or Greece in the days of their greatest glory. As they knew no method for refining oil, they made it a luxury by mixing with it the perfumes of the rose and of sandal wood. Although detracting from its burning properties, the fragrance was supposed to compensate for diminished light. The flame emitted an enormous amount of smoke, and fluttering in the slightest breeze, spluttered out altogether in a gust of wind. At the end of an evening conference a party of noble Romans would resemble a congregation of chimney sweeps. From Rome the oil lamp passed successively into Germany, Gaul, and Britain. In these countries, torches, rushes, dipped in grease and a very odorous fish oil, were the methods of artificial lighting until the Roman conquest. The rushlight of that day consisted in a notched wooden stick set in a wooden base. Stalks of the rush were peeled to the pith save for one strand of husk, and passed through hot grease. Sometimes three or more were twisted together, and when cold were placed in a notch of the standard, to be pushed up when the fire neared the wood. It11 emitted a strong flame and a similar odor. You may make one of these, and enjoy for an hour the ancient light of Britain, and that which to this day dispels the gloom of night in remote Irish cabins. The candle of the common people was the rushlight of our ancestors. It burned where candles made from wax were too dear, and before Chevreul and others found a way to refine a cheap candle grease from the fat of animals. The Picts and Scots, the Danes, and the tribes of Scandinavia had not advanced to the use of the rushlight at the time of the conquest. When torches were necessary, they stuck a bit of wood into the body of some fat bird, and supporting the stench as best they could, allowed this dismal sort of a candle to burn until the bird became a cinder. The lamp as brought from Rome continued in use without being greatly modified until well into the thirteenth century, when the invention of candles made an artificial light of comfort to those who could afford it. The curfew-bell, which tolled at eight o’clock, was no hardship to our ancestors, considering the badness of the lamps which lighted their houses or hovels as the case might be. Through all the medieval ages, men were supposed to rise at daylight, and retire soon after the sun had set. The first step toward the use of the modern candle was the invention of a tallow torch which came into use about the last of the twelfth century. This remained in use for about a hundred years, when the tallow candle, either dipped or molded, made its appearance, much as it now exists. The haughty barons who forced King John to sign the Magna Charta at Runnymede would have considered a bundle of tallow dips of almost as great value as the rights which they wrung from the unwilling hand of their sovereign. To have stolen one from the kitchen table would have incurred the noose without hope of pardon. Not until the fifteenth century were the burgesses and tradespeople able to purchase a tallow candle. At the opening of the nineteenth century they were sold singly for about twelve cents each. Flax being the wick, they burned rapidly. Cotton was more expensive than silk, and to use it for wicks was extravagant folly. Three pounds sterling was the price of a pair of cotton stockings one hundred years ago. Tapers made of wax had been in use in churches since the ninth century, but no one ever dreamed of using so expensive and sacred an article for domestic purposes. Toward the close of the fourteenth century they were timidly introduced in a few palaces and the homes of great noblemen. To offer a wax taper at a shrine was a princely gift, and absolution followed the presentation of a taper weighing one pound. To vow a taper to the Virgin Mary was like vowing a hundred doves to Venus, or a heifer to Juno. At a cost of four hundred crowns in gold, King Henry sent two wax tapers weighing twenty pounds each to Thomas a Becket, hoping thereby to appease the great primate of Canterbury. In the Cathedral of Pisa a ton of bronze slowly swings from the lofty dome. A keen-eyed student watches its regular oscillations as its hundred wax tapers flash upon a thousand worshipers engaged in evening prayer. The great candelabrum, almost a world’s wonder at the time, was weaving a message of light in Galileo’s brain, and from the cathedral he went away to startle the world with the story of its motion, and to reveal the secrets of the pendulum as a means for measuring time. Still swings the chandelier under the cathedral’s dome, with the same potent motion as when its flashing lights taught the old astronomer the deeper story of the world’s life. In the year of 1509 a few enterprising chandlers conceived the idea of mixing animal fat with the wax, but the deceit being discovered, the king by royal edict debarred every chandler of the realm from making and offering for sale any mixed substance or composite article in the place of wax. It was no doubt after seeing on his grocery bill that he was paying thirty-six shillings a dozen for candles that Oliver Cromwell, in the year 1654, blew out one of the two candles on his wife’s work-table, on the ground of unnecessary extravagance. Louis XV complained that he could keep a regiment, music and all, with what was spent in lighting the palace at Versailles. It is related of Voltaire, that, when dissatisfied with the salary afforded by Frederick the Great, he used to put in his pocket the wax candle ends of his royal master, and from them turned quite a pretty penny. The cost of lighting the Tuileries under the first Napoleon with wax candles was about what it would be were the electric lamps of the present day employed—namely, four thousand dollars per annum. When the emperor was giving magnificent fetes at Dresden, he often spent six hundred dollars for the wax candles of a single night’s carousal. When, however, wax and tallow had been sufficiently cheapened to allow their use in drawing-rooms and boudoirs, the oil lamp and the rushlight were relegated to the parlors and kitchens. No room in which costly paintings and gilded furnishings began to exhibit elegance and refinement could tolerate the smoky and greasy contrivances which remained without improvement through the centuries.—Fred Hovey Allen, in Scientific American. The Best Day
By William Hale
Do you ask, little maid, with the eyes half afraid,
The time that is fullest of cheer,
The month that's most fleet, the season most sweet,
The very best day of the year? Then listen, fair child, with the hair flying wild,
And I'll name the best day that can fall:
'Tis not one that's gone, 'tis not one unborn;
To-day is the best day of all. Would you know, dimpled sweet, the day most complete,
The very best day of one's life?
'Tis not one far away, but this very day,
Though it bringeth both sorrow and strife. Would you know the best way to make one's life pay,
And fill it with sunshine and song?
Then, dawn as it may, just let each brief day
Arise on a heart that is strong. Thus the blue sky keeps clear, and heaven draws near,
While swift the rich years flee away;
And your life and mine become quite divine
Merged into one well-spent To-day.
— William Hale. Inspiring Others to Bear Their Own Burdens
By Lubbock
THE best help is not to bear the troubles of others for them, but to inspire them with courage and energy to bear their burdens for themselves and meet the difficulties of life bravely.—Lubbock. Not half the storms that threatened me
E’er broke upon my head,
Not half the pains I’ve waited for
E’er racked me on my bed;
Not half the clouds that drifted by
Have overshadowed me,
Not half the dangers ever came
I fancied I could see. Somehow through every leaden sky
Some rift hath shown the light;
Somehow each valley with its gloom
Hath borne some flower bright,
And thus through life some loving hand—
Some Friend I could not see—
Hath sent amidst the darkest hour
Some blessing unto me. From an article bearing the above title, which appears in Cosmos (Paris, July 16), we learn that the new fashion of going without a hat is not limited to this country. According to the writer it has everything, hygienically, in its favor, and the arguments against it need only be stated to be refuted. He says:— “The mass of hair that covers the top of the head is a feature of the human race in both sexes, and appears to be one of its most stable physical characteristics. Nevertheless, long observation is unnecessary to prove that this characteristic is weakening, and that the vigor of the hair is decreasing in man. Now a question presents itself: Is this due to a transformation of the species, or must we attribute the fact to man’s habits? This second solution appears to be correct, which is consoling, since it allows us, to hope that the evil may be checked. This loss of hair that has become more striking from one generation to another by heredity is due, according to some scientists, to the habit of covering the head. “This habit must affect the hair injuriously in three ways: (1) By depriving it of the life-giving light of the sun, of free ventilation, and of the movement of the hairs by air currents; (2) by pressure on the small arteries of the scalp which bring nourishment to the hair; (3) finally, because all head coverings are an excellent culture medium for microbes, and facilitate their development. In fact, the hat, since it prevents the germicidal action of the sun’s rays and the movement of the air, and retains on the head the heat and moisture of the inclosed air, offers all the most favorable conditions for obtaining a culture of micro-organisms. Furthermore, it is well recognized that the chief causes of baldness are the microbian affections of the scalp, which destroy the sebaceous glands. “We may, then, suppose that it is the custom of covering the head that diminishes, little by little, the vigor of the hair. Although this is not absolutely proved, it is infinitely probable, and in any case it would cost nothing to try a change in the present fashion.”— Literary Digest.