It seems that the Thessalonians received the impression that the second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the end of the world, were events then near at hand. The apostle, in his second epistle to this church, corrects this impression, and exhorts these Christians not to be “soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.” He adds that this day will not come until after the occurrence of certain events which he predicts. Eighteen centuries have since rolled away, and that day is still future. It will, however, come, and then what the Bible says on this subject will be fulfilled. Christ’s coming to raise the dead and judge the world, as set forth in the word of God, is not uncertain, because it has not yet occurred.
Peter, in his second epistle, speaks of scoffers as appearing in the “last days,” as walking after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” His answer to these scoffers is in these words: “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”
This “day of the Lord” mentioned by Peter is the period mentioned by Christ himself, when he “shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him,” and when “all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” The second coming of Christ is no fable. The resurrection of the dead, both of “the just and the unjust,” at his coming is no fable. The judgment of the world by him is no fable. The dissolution of the present earthly system is no fable. All these great events have their date in what Peter calls “the day of the Lord,” which “will come as a thief in the night.”
That “day” is in the plan of God as a part of the history of the world. He has so declared in his word, and so it will be. We shall be in existence when that “day” comes, and all share in its events. Happy will it be for us if God in Christ shall then recognize9us as “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” This will make it to us a day of great joy, glory, and honor. Inconceivably ill will it be with us if our character on earth shall then consign us to the “perdition of ungodly men.” May God, by his all-sufficient grace, cause our names to be “written in the Lamb’s book of life,” and secure to us that “holy conversation and godliness” referred to by Peter, that will prepare us for “the day of the Lord,” whether it greets us as the risen dead, or those who are to be “changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.”—Samuel T. Spear, D.D.
PURITANISM
What Its Restoration Means.
“O for the reign of the Puritan!” “O for the breath of the Puritan!” “O for an Oliver Cromwell to lead our hosts!” are stock phrases among many of our modern national reformers and Christian citizens. The aim of these reformers is to put in office only Christian men, to elect Christian legislators, who can, we presume, present a duly authorized Christian citizenship certificate. Well, in brief, their aim is a Christian nation, Christian state, and Christian rulers by law.
This attempt is no new thing under the sun. It is Roman Catholicism, and the first centuries of the Christian era lived over again. Then they promised themselves that righteousness would be triumphant, swords would be beaten into plowshares, and peace would everywhere reign; but the Dark Ages followed. Puritanism in England aimed at the same thing. There were then as now many candidates for Christian legislators. “Pious” men were wanted; how could they be tested? Let Macaulay tell:—
“To know whether a man was really godly was impossible. But it was easy to know whether he had a plain dress, lank hair, no starch in his linen, no gay furniture in his house; whether he talked through his nose and showed the whites of his eyes; whether he named his children Assurance, Tribulation, Maher-shalal-hash-baz; whether he avoided Spring Garden when in town, and abstained from hunting and hawking when in the country; whether he expounded hard scriptures to his troop of dragoons, and talked in a committee of ways and means about seeking the Lord. These were tests which could easily be applied. The misfortune was that they were tests which proved nothing. Such as they were they were employed by the dominant party. And the consequence was that a crowd of imposters in every walk of life began to mimic and to caricature what were then regarded as the outward signs of sanctity.”
And what was the result of this effort for a “Christian nation” by law?—Again let Macaulay give the result:—
“But under this show, sensuality, ambition, avarice, and hatred retain unimpaired power; and the seeming convert has only added to the vices of a man of the world all the still darker vices which are engendered by the constant practice of dissimulation. The truth can not be long concealed. The public discovers that the grave persons, who are proposed to it as patterns, are more utterly destitute of moral principle and of moral sensibility than avowed libertines. It sees that these Pharisees are farther removed from real goodness than publicans and harlots. And, as usual, it rushes to the extreme opposite to that which it quits. It considers a high religious profession as a sure mark of meanness and depravity. On the very first day on which the restraint of fear is taken away, and on which men can venture to say what they feel, a frightful peal of blasphemy and ribaldry proclaims that the short-sighted policy which aimed at making a nation of saints has made a nation of scoffers.”
It will be no different now than then. “Righteousness exalteth a nation,” but righteousness can come only through personal faith in Jesus Christ; there is no other way. The righteousness of a nation is but the aggregate of its individual righteousness. It can not be put up in job lots. Political Christianity is the same essentially, breeding tyranny, hypocrisy, and persecution, whether it be called Catholic, Puritan, or Protestant.
WHAT THE SAGES AND THE PROPHETS HAVE SAID.
If the principle is once established that religion, or religious observances, shall be interwoven with our legislative acts, we must pursue it to its ultimatum.—United States Senate Report, 1829.
It is incumbent on the authors of persecution previously to reflect whether they are determined to support it in the last extreme. They excite the flame which they strive to extinguish, and it soon becomes necessary to chastise the contumacy, as well as the crime, of the offender. The fine which he is unable or unwilling to discharge, exposes his person to the severities of the law, and his contempt of lighter penalties suggests the use and propriety of capital punishment.—Gibbon, in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 37, par. 23.
Toleration is an important step from state churchism to free churchism. But it is only a step. There is a very great difference between toleration and liberty. Toleration is a concession which may be withdrawn. It implies a preference for the ruling form of faith and worship, and a practical disapproval of all other forms. . . . In our country we ask no toleration for religion and its free exercise, but we claim it as an inalienable right.—Dr. Philip Schaff, in Church and State in the United States, page 14.
Our Constitution recognized no other power than that of persuasion for enforcing religious observances. Let the professors of Christianity recommend their religion by deeds of benevolence, by Christian meekness, by lives of temperance and holiness. Let them combine their efforts to instruct the ignorant, to relieve the widow and the orphan, to promulgate to the world the Gospel of their Saviour, recommending its precepts by their habitual example. . . . Their moral influence will then do infinitely more to advance the true interests of religion than any measure which they may call on Congress to enact.—United States Senate Report, 1829.
Extensive religious combinations to effect a political object are, in the opinion of the committee, always dangerous. . . . All religious despotism commences by combination and influence; and when that influence begins to operate upon the political institutions of a country, the civil power soon bends under it, and the catastrophe of other nations furnishes an awful warning of the consequence.—United States Senate Report, 1829.
Every man is accountable to God alone for his religious faith.—Washington.
Let the national Legislature once perform an act which involves the decision of a religious controversy, and it will have passed its legitimate bounds. The precedent will then be established, and the foundation laid, for that usurpation of the divine prerogative in this country which has been the desolating scourge to the fairest portions of the Old World.—United States Senate Report, 1829.
Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecution, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.—Jefferson, in His Notes on Virginia, query-xxiii.
Keep the state and church forever separate.—U. S. Grant.
AN OBJECT LESSON.
By W. N. G.
The Armenian atrocities, and the futile attempts of the great so-called Christian nations of Europe to compel the Turkish Government to stop the noted outrages, have demonstrated one thing, namely, the utter impotency of human government as a protection to Christianity. The National Reform movement, with its numerous auxiliaries, is a movement for the protection and support of Christianity by the civil power. It is now a quite general plea in the nominal Christian world that all opposition to Christianity should be promptly resented and punished by the civil government. But the unreliability of such protection has been emphasized as never before in the case of Armenia. Civil governments never have attempted to protect anything but the apostate formalities of Christian profession; they never have been, and are not now, competent to protect any doctrine or practice clearly taught in the word of God. But in Armenia they have failed to protect even the degenerate forms that pose before the world as Christianity. But this feature of the subject is not the point to which we now call special attention. The Armenians are at least nominal Christians; they are persecuted by the Mohammedans because of that profession; for the purposes of Moslem hate they are recognized as Christians, and for the purpose of a feeble remonstrance on the part of the great so-called Christian governments of Europe, they are recognized as Christians.
Now note the ridiculous spectacle presented by the situation. For fifty-five years the Moslem government of Turkey has existed only by the consent and material support of the Christian (?) governments of Europe. It is to-day unable to stand alone. Yet all these great Christian powers combined are unable to stop the atrocities committed upon the Armenian Christians by the Mohammedans of Turkey. The people of these “great powers” hold mass-meetings, the authorities parade their navies, make diplomatic demands, exact promises of the sultan, and in various ways make a great show of relief and protection. But in the midst of it all the “sick man” sits and smokes, and the “great powers” finally acknowledge their inability to force him to keep his pledge to guarantee freedom of religion in his domain.
This pointed object lesson ought to convince any observing mind that human governments are neither designed nor fitted for the work of protecting Christianity. They are designed for the regulation of civil affairs only, and beyond this point “vain is the help of man.” The Lord knew what he was saying when, through the mouth of his servant David, he said: “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.” Ps. 146:3. “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.” Ps. 118:9. Again he tells us, “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.” Jer. 17:5. So we may know, when we see men clamoring for the help and protection of the civil government in matters of religion, that their heart is departed from the Lord. “Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.” Ps. 37:3. This was the principle upon which Christ and his apostles worked, and the Gospel cause was more powerful and more successful in their day than it ever has been since. From their day to this, civil government as a dependence of the church has been tried time and again, only to prove that such dependence was an evidence of spiritual declension, only to prove that such dependence was simply to lean upon a broken reed. Civil government as a support of Christianity has been often and thoroughly tested, and the test has shown it to be sadly wanting. “I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress; my God; in him will I trust.” Ps. 91:2. “He delighteth not in the strength of the horse; he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.” Ps. 147:10, 11. W. N. G.
THE KEEPER OF THE DOOR.
By Emily Huntington Miller
BY EMILY HUNTINGTON MILLER.
“Mama, I am completely discouraged.” Jennie pushed away her book, and looked up at her mother with an expression that was very much like despair, and yet not altogether that, for somehow her mother had a way of brightening up dark places that was helpful as well as comforting.
Her mother was rocking the baby, and she scarcely dared speak, lest the little tyrant should open his eyes for a new frolic; but she sent Jennie a smile that said just as plainly as words: “What is the trouble? Let us talk it over.”
“It’s about my faults, mama. You see we were talking last Sunday about striving against sin, and Miss Marston advised us to sit down and make an honest list, just for our own eyes, of our own special faults—the ones that made us most trouble—and then try, by God’s help, to overcome them. I made up my mind to try it, and had to write down ever so many things, but I truly thought that my tongue made me the most trouble.”
“Your tongue! O, yes, I understand!” said mama.
“Saying things, you know, mama, things I ought not to say; and I am so sorry about it afterwards; but that doesn’t seem to make it any better, because I go and do it again.”
“Well?” said mama, as Jennie paused.
“Well, I thought I’d just take aim at that one thing, and I did. I thought it would be a good plan to write down whenever I forgot, and so every night I put down in my little book the bad things I had said, and—and—mama, it is just horrid. The days don’t grow a bit better, and to-day is the worst of all.”
Jennie drew a deep sigh, and scowled at her little book. Then she said desperately, “I wish there was some way to just tie my tongue up, and keep it out of mischief.”
“You need a gatekeeper,” said her mother, laying down the baby and taking up her sewing. “When a city is in danger from enemies, they must do something more than put sharpshooters on the walls; they guard the gates, and keep sentinels at their post day and night, to give warning of the approach of danger.”
“I try to watch,” said Jennie. “I thought of it all the morning while I was dressing, and then when I came down and heard Rob fretting at Hatty for taking his sled, and at Norah because there was no toast, and even at baby for pulling his hair, I went to singing:—
‘Brother, thou wast mild and lovely,
Gentle as a summer breeze,’
though I knew perfectly well that always makes Rob madder than anything else. Then he threw his book at me, and papa sent him out of the room, and I just wanted to pound myself on the head for being so mean.”
“You must have a gatekeeper,” said her mother more seriously than ever; “and I would ask for one before I was an hour older. Your Father will give you one.”
“Papa!” exclaimed Jennie. “How can he?”
But the mother opened her Bible, and, turning over the leaves, gave it to Jennie with her finger on a verse in Psalms. “Read that,” she said; and Jennie read aloud: “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.”
There were tears in her eyes as she repeated the words, “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth.” “I never thought about that, mama; somehow I expected to take care of that sin myself; but I should like a keeper. Just think, mama, of an angel standing on guard to keep the door of my lips. Will he have a sword, I wonder?”
“I think so; the sword of ‘truth.’”
“And what will be the watchword?”
“‘Peace,’ I think, or ‘love,’—the love that ‘worketh no ill to its neighbor;’ at least, I would try that watchword to-day, and ask the keeper to challenge every word, and let nothing pass without the watchword.”
When Jennie went to her room that night, she found a little card pinned up over her dressing-table, with David’s prayer written upon it, and she added it very earnestly to her own petitions. In the morning it was again before her eyes, and she went down to breakfast repeating it to herself. The first thing she saw was Johnny tormenting her beloved white kitten by trying to drive it in harness.
“You mean, cruel boy!” was upon her very lips, but the keeper drew his sword and stopped the words.
At school Jennie’s temptations came thick and fast—first a temptation to evil speaking, then to unkind criticism, then to uncharitable judgment, then to tell a ludicrous story of a simple-minded old Christian, then to punish the self-conceit of Mamie Morris by repeating what a lady had said of her, and then to keep back a cutting reply to a most ungenerous taunt. It seemed to Jennie, as she reviewed the day, that it had been a specially hard one; and yet she was conscious that through it all the keeper had been standing at the door, and she could look back with gratitude, and not with shame.
“How about the watchman, Jennie?” asked her mother, when she came home.
“He stood at his post, mama; twice, I think, something slipped by without the watchword, but he killed it with his sword before it got far enough to do much mischief.”
Cousin Sue heard the story, and on Jennie’s next birthday sent her a lovely motto for her room—a wreath of daisies and wild roses, delicately painted as a border for the text, “Keep the door of my lips.”
“I think Cousin Sue might have sent that to me,” said Rob honestly; “I am sure I need a doorkeeper more than Jennie does.”
And Mamie Morris confessed to her dearest friend that she really did believe Jennie Wilder was a Christian, because she never said things to make folks uncomfortable.
“She’s so funny, and so smart to think of things, that I never used to open my mouth before her without expecting to be set down, but now I like her best of any girl in school.”—Scholar’s Magazine.
HIRING CHILDREN TO DO RIGHT.
As a general thing we do not believe in hiring children to do right, or to do those things which it is their duty to do. All children, even the very little ones, ought to have some part in the home-making, some special duties which they should be taught to render freely and gladly because it is the right thing to do, and is expected of them. To hire them to do such things destroys all the spontaneity of it, and it does not take long for the child to get the idea that he ought to be paid for every service he renders.
Also, as a general thing, we deprecate the giving of prizes for good behavior or good scholarship or excelling others in any way. In such cases the motive for studying or for “being good” is not the right one; and it is often, indeed almost always, the case that the most deserving, the one that has striven hardest, does not get the prize, while the exultation of the winner is no compensation at all for the hurts and disappointments and bad feelings of those who fail.
But all this is not saying that the child may not be rewarded for doing well. He often should be, but there is a wide difference between his doing well for the sake of the reward, and being unexpectedly rewarded after he has done well. Appreciation and encouragement judiciously administered are the very breath of a child’s life, and neither of them should be stinted. Give him his regular weekly or monthly allowance of pocket money, and then expect that he will do all that he is required to do at home willingly and obediently without asking or expecting to be paid except in approval and love.
But lately we came upon an instance which was so original and unique it seemed it might rightly be made an exception to the general rule. A mother, last fall, called her five little ones around her, and explained to11them some simple hygienic laws about taking cold—such as sitting in drafts, getting the feet wet, going suddenly from a heated room into the cold; about diet, overeating, eating improper food and at improper times; about the reason for going to bed early and getting sufficient sleep, etc. Then she told them that she would, when warm weather came, give a nice present to each one who had succeeded in going through the winter without getting sick. The children—not stimulated wholly by the prospect of the reward either—entered enthusiastically into the plan, and have been their mother’s warm supporters in all the hygienic rules she has made. They have willingly denied themselves many things which they liked and liked to do, and have willingly done things which they did not like to do; and at last accounts there was no healthier or happier set of children to be found than these five. So perhaps this instance may be the exception which proves the rule that, as a general thing, it is not wise to pay a child for doing right.—The Advance.
THE DIVINE LULLABY.
By Eugene Field
I hear thy voice, dear Lord;
I hear it by the stormy sea,
When winter nights are black and wild,
And when, affright, I call to thee;
It calms my fears and whispers me,
“Sleep well, my child.”
I hear thy voice, dear Lord,
In singing winds, in falling snow,
The curfew chimes the midnight bell.
“Sleep well, my child,” it murmurs low;
“The guardian angels come and go;
O child, sleep well!”
I hear thy voice, dear Lord,
Aye, tho the singing winds be stilled,
Thou hushed the tumult of the deep,
My fainting heart with anguish chilled
By thy assuring tone is thrilled,
“Fear not, and sleep.”
Speak on, speak on, dear Lord,
And when the last dread night is near,
With doubts and fears and terrors wild,
O, let my soul expiring hear
Only these words of heavenly cheer,
“Sleep well, my child!”
—Eugene Field.
SUGGESTIONS FOR BIBLE STORIES.
By Early Education
Many parents are perplexed to find interesting stories for their children. So they hunt here and there, in every story-book they can find, to get something simple and wonderful to attract the attention of their little ones.
Many suppose they must have some of Mother Goose’s rhymes, or the story of “Little Red Riding Hood,” or something of that sort; for, they say, the children can not understand very much, so we must get something easy. Do not be deceived. Give the children something worthy of a little mental effort. Of course they can understand but little, but give them lofty subjects to dwell upon. You will be surprised how much they will take in of Bible truth when told in a bright, cheery way.
Perhaps there is more demand for some interesting stories for Sabbath than for other days. The Bible will be found to be intensely interesting to even very small children. It is full of wonderful stories, of stories that will make the heart glad, stories that will make you weep, and stories that will hold the attention as nothing else will.
But you say, “They can not understand it.” Neither can you nor I understand it all. So the sooner we begin to study it the better.
—Early Education.
ARMENIA
Armenia, where the Turks have been massacreing Christians in unknown numbers, is one of the most ancient countries of the world. It lies in Western Asia, and is chiefly a country of plateaus, high mountains, and deep valleys. Mount Ararat, upon which the Bible says the ark rested after the flood, is in Armenia, and is a half mile higher than Pike's Peak.
The story of Armenia is very complicated, but it is necessary to tell the more important facts in order to arrive at an understanding of the present troubles.
Armenia was a great kingdom centuries before the birth of Christ. It was conquered first by the Macedonians under Alexander the Great, and remained for a long time under the rule of his successors. Then it fell under the authority of the Romans. In the course of time, when the power of the Romans was decaying and they began to draw in their boundaries, Armenia became an independent and powerful kingdom again. The Armenians meantime had been among the earliest converts of the Christian church. Through all changes of government and circumstances they have remained steadfast to their faith to this day. They constitute one of the branches of the Christian church, tho the Armenian church is inferior in numbers and influence to either of the three great branches—the Protestant, the Roman Catholic, and the Greek. They resemble the Greek Church more nearly than any other, and the highest official in their church is called the patriarch.
When the Armenians regained their independence, they found their position very dangerous. The Mahometan religion was beginning to spread all over western and central Asia, and the zeal and military prowess of its converts were so great that the Christians found it always difficult, often impossible, to withstand them. In the long war of centuries in Asia Minor between the Christians and the Mahometans the Armenians bore a great part. They were very warlike then, and for many generations they helped to beat back the Moslem hordes.
The other Christian nation in Asia was the Byzantine Empire, which was the eastern half, or what remained, of the Roman Empire, the western half having long since fallen before the Goths and Vandals and other people of northern Europe. Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantines, and was the greatest and richest city in the world. For nearly a thousand years the Mahometans tried to take it before they finally succeeded. First it was the Arabs, to which race Mahomet belonged, who founded the Mahometan religion. Then the Arabs declined, and the Turks took their place.
The Byzantines were a greater and more powerful nation than the Armenians, but the Armenians were more exposed to the attacks of the infidels. Nevertheless, they long held their own against vastly superior numbers. The mountainous nature of their country helped them. They were also at war sometimes with the Byzantines themselves. Had these two Christian nations remained in alliance, they might have eventually driven the Mahometans back into the depths of Arabia and Central Asia. But one of the Byzantine emperors invaded Armenia, overthrew its armies, and crushed its people. The consequences became manifest almost instantly, and were as fatal to the Byzantines as to the Armenians themselves. The Turks overran the devastated Armenian country, and, this barrier between them and the Byzantines being removed, pressed on towards Constantinople with greater force and enthusiasm than ever. Eventually they took Constantinople and overran all southeastern Europe, being stopped only under the walls of Vienna, the Austrian capital.
The Armenians have now remained for many centuries a subject nation, tho preserving all their race characteristics. Russia has taken a part of Armenia, and Persia a part, tho the larger share remains to Turkey. The Armenians in Russia and Persia are on the whole well treated, but in Turkey they are subjected to horrible persecutions.
The Armenians are supposed to number about five millions. They are very intellectual and have become the shrewdest traders in western Asia. Many have emigrated. There are forty or fifty thousand in this country.—New York World.
THE WORK IN VICKSBURG, MISS.
By James Edson White
BY J. E. WHITE.
This Sabbath (February 15) has been a good day for the little company at Vicksburg. Our Sabbath attendance has nearly doubled since our return from the north in December, and several new ones have taken their stand for the truth. At this meeting there was an excellent attendance, and after a short discourse we all joined in a praise meeting. The testimonies were short, intelligent, and right to the point. Five new ones took their stand, and signed the covenant to “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”
Dr. Kynett joined us in the work January 3, and his daughter came a month later. Their coming has been a great addition to our strength in council, in our meetings, in the schools, and especially in the medical missionary work. At the time of the arrival of Dr. Kynett it seemed that the enemy had completely hedged up all avenues for reaching the people. Many colored ministers had boycotted our work, and had forbidden their members to attend our meetings or to allow Bible readings in their houses, threatening expulsion from the church if they disobeyed.
Notwithstanding this we decided to begin a course of Sunday afternoon lectures, and to start a night school according to previous plan. At the first Sunday lecture but few attended outside our own people, and the first night school numbered only 35, and these almost entirely from our own company. The outlook was not encouraging, and we felt that the Lord must especially work or the enemy would triumph. We therefore instituted a workers’ council and prayer meeting, to be held daily, at the noon hour, at our rooms. We are thankful to say that in this the Lord turned our captivity, and the work has opened up in so many ways that we have been unable, at times, to attend to all the openings that have come to us.
For the use of our school we attached folding desks to the backs of the seats in the church, which easily converts it into a comfortable schoolroom. Our night school work is a pronounced success. The first night our attendance was 33; the second, 57; the third, 57; the fourth, 58; the fifth, 83; the sixth, 93; the seventh, 107; the eighth, 90; the ninth, 103; the tenth, 112; and the last, 133, which so crowds our room that it is scarcely possible to do any good work. As the school increased, we made more benches, and crowded the scholars in as closely as possible. On seats which should have no more than four we seated from six to eight, and yet every12available spot is occupied, even to the pulpit and singers’ seats.
The whole school is especially interested in the lessons in penmanship. We pass paper and pencils around, and then give the lesson to the whole school from the blackboard, teaching them the principles of letters first, and then combining them to make the different letters. The children’s classes are so crowded that they can hardly move, and on the front seats, where there can be no desk arranged, some sit on the floor and use the seat for a desk, and at the last school several of the boys took their papers on their books and lay flat on the pulpit floor, like young alligators, and in this position did their best to learn to write.
The school is an assured success, but we are perplexed to know what to do when the weather becomes settled and the rest turn out. Already we have employed three teachers from the public schools, as we have eleven classes, each one of which must have a separate teacher. Even then several classes should be divided, and we ought to have fifteen or sixteen classes.
The school proper holds from 7:30 to 9 o’clock on Monday and Thursday nights, and reading, spelling, penmanship, arithmetic, and grammar are taught. The scholars range from small children to old men and women, and nearly all who attend are anxious to learn, and are making good progress.
At the third session several young men, members of the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches, all but one of whom were trying to fit themselves for the ministry, requested that a Bible class might be started in the school, because they wanted to make that a special study. I arranged to take this class myself, teaching them grammar and arithmetic and penmanship with the rest of the school, and at the close of the school devote another hour with them to the study of the Bible. Our lessons have been on the word, obedience, and the importance of sound doctrine. And, altho the Sabbath has not been touched as a separate study, they have been able in our six lessons to grasp the trend of the matter, and to-day all but one of my class have taken their stand intelligently on obedience to God’s law, and have signed the covenant. Some of these young men wish to attend the Huntsville school as soon as it opens, that they may fit themselves to carry the truth to others.
Another night school has been opened in another part of Vicksburg, about a mile from our church school. Already the interest in this school is good, and there is every prospect of its growing as the one we are now conducting in the church has grown. As soon as the interest develops sufficiently, we expect to begin a course of lectures there. This new school is held in the house of Brother Grimes, who has recently taken his stand for the truth. He has placed at our disposal two large rooms that connect by folding doors, and which will accommodate nearly as many as our little church.
Our Sunday afternoon lectures are also well attended. On our steamboat we have a printing press and type, and before each lecture we issue nearly one thousand handbills, which are scattered by our people in many parts of the city. Our recent meetings have been well attended, but last Sunday the house was filled. About one hundred and forty were present, and we could not have seated two more if they had come. The best class of colored people of Vicksburg were present. All gave the closest attention, and I never spoke to a more orderly and intelligent congregation.
We are thankful to God that he has heard our prayer, and we are crying to him daily for wisdom that we may move aright in this work, which is opening so wonderfully before us. But what shall we do? This interest has developed during the inclement and most unfavorable season of the year. With the beginning of pleasant spring weather our church can not accommodate the people. It is probable that a temporary addition must be made to our present church, so that we may be able to accommodate those who come to us for the word of God.
HOW A LARK SINGS.
REV. J. G. WOOD, in an article on “The Wonders of the Spring,” says that the volume of sound produced by the skylark is most wonderful. “The lark ascends until it looks no larger than a midge, and can with difficulty be seen by the unaided eye, and yet every note will be clearly audible to persons who are fully half a mile from the nest over which the bird utters its song. Moreover, it never ceases to sing for a moment, a feat which seems wonderful to us human beings, who find that a song of six or seven minutes in length, tho interspersed with rests and pauses, is more than trying. Even a practised public speaker, tho he can pause at the end of each sentence, finds the applause of the audience a very welcome relief. Moreover, the singer and speaker need to use no exertion save exercising their voices. Yet the bird will pour out a continuous song of twenty minutes in length, and all the time has to support itself in the air by the constant use of its wings.”—Selected.
NOVELS
A YOUTH brought up on novels is pretty sure to have an overstimulated imagination and no common sense. To walk up the steps of marble palaces and to come into contact with heroes and heroines of phenomenal virtues and vices is apt to unfit a boy for splitting wood for the kitchen stove or doing chores about the house. After spending the evening in consuming the dime novel, and breathlessly following the fortunes of women with saintly faces and men with overgrown moustaches, everyday life seems a bit insipid, and it becomes hard to crawl out of bed at 5 o’clock in the morning, with the mercury at zero, and go to the office to sweep the floor for $2.50 a week.
Good, solid reading, which makes them feel that they are in their glory when they are burnishing the brass on the shop door, because it is the first step in the upward climb, is what they ought to have.—Selected.
Dubuque Brewery Defies Iowa Prohibition Law
“IN the face of a prohibitory statute and mulct law, a Dubuque Malting Company of Dubuque, Iowa, has erected and equipped a new brewery, at a cost of $350,000. This is one of the boldest acts in defiance of law and public opinion.”
The Attraction of Honest Truth
I HAVE always found that the honest truth of our own mind has a certain attraction for every other mind that loves truth honestly.— Carlyle.