"Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned." Hos. 7:8.
THIS is a very forcible figure, describing the condition of the people of God at the time these words were written. There are many other expressions used by this prophet which show that they had indulged in sin and formed habits of disobedience until they had no power to turn from their evil ways and maintain principles of righteousness.
The love of God is the same in every age of the world, but there can be nothing stereotyped in the manifestation of that love in laboring for the salvation of those for whom Christ died. The children of Israel, whom the prophet designates as Ephraim, had sinned against God; they had been reproved, and had some desire to serve God, and yet their ways were so set, that there was with them no conforming to God's work unless they could do it in their own way. They could not change their habits of doing evil and learn to do well; they were like the cake unturned—baked brown on one side, but uncooked upon the other. They could serve God in their way, but not in God's way. If God could conform to them and to their evil course, they could be very valiant and devoted in his cause, but if it was necessary for them to change their habits, they were unable to be so.
Another expression is, "Ephraim is also like a silly dove without heart." There are many people to-day very similar to Ephraim, some apparently very good men. They desire to do well, but they have no strength of purpose. They desire to give themselves to the cause of God; they wish to enter the canvassing field or to labor in some other department, but they have formed such characters in their youth, and the circumstances under which they have lived have so moulded them that they cannot adapt themselves successfully to the work of God. They are Christians if they are not interfered with; they can serve God if circumstances are just so favorable; but change the circumstances to bring inconvenience or disappointment, and, seemingly on account of another's sins, they will go to ruin simply because they have no stability of purpose to do God's will, no disposition to conform to his work under varied circumstances. If they go out to canvass they always have a hard field, in fact they can never find an easy field if it is not in harmony with their old ways and old habits.
The servant of God must adapt himself to the needs of the people, those for whom he labors, but individuals who have habits formed so that they cannot conform to circumstances, even though souls may be in the balance and deciding for eternity, will be counted unfaithful servants. Whatever the result, they must retire at a certain hour; they must have things surround them in just such a manner; they cannot sacrifice their own ways, and be moulded according to the will of God and the force of circumstances. When this is the case it is impossible for them to see the worth of the soul and feel its importance.
Others are entirely different; the only question with them is, What is God's will concerning me? How can I best glorify God? Can my labors be accepted? And it is their highest ambition to have their service accepted of God. They have meat to eat which the world knows not of. They will have an interest in the cause of God to that extent that they will forget their own selfish interests. May God give us more such men and less of those who are like Ephraim,—the cake that is not turned.
S. N. HASKELL.
The Missionary.
By Stephen Nelson Haskell
Report from New England.
THE cause of truth is evidently rising in this part of the country. It will be remembered that the camp-meetings in New York and three of the New England States, were held in large cities. In Worcester, Mass., where one was held, a number of our friends have been visiting from house to house, holding Bible-readings, selling publications, and doing other missionary work. The results of this labor have been very encouraging. Some twenty or twenty-five have embraced the Sabbath of the Lord, and decided to keep all of his commandments. In the city of Portland, Maine, where another camp-meeting was held, twelve or fifteen have taken their stand. In the city of Boston, also, quite a number have thus decided to serve God.
The recommendation of the International Society respecting "Sunshine at Home" and the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, by which persons buying the book at the regular price will receive the SIGNS three months, has been taken hold of by our friends in New England, and over one thousand subscriptions have been taken. This was largely accomplished within thirty days after the proposition was made to combine this book and periodical.
We have held two general meetings in Maine, which we trust were not only encouraging to the friends there, but profitable to the cause. The State Tract Depository has been moved from South Norridgewock to Portland, and connected with the mission at that place. The friends in Maine are manifesting a special interest to carry forward the work. The Spirit of God is moving upon hearts, and urging persons to take advance steps. The present prospect is that the cause in New England will rise, and occupy a position far in advance of what it now sustains. Erelong we shall see a harvest of souls such as we have not before witnessed.
The general meeting held in South Lancaster, Mass., commencing Jan. 9, was one of unusual interest. Elder Canright, from the West, and the leading preaching brethren from Vermont, Maine, and the New England Conference, were present, and much time was spent in consultation respecting future labor. The New England Tract Society held its regular quarterly meeting at this time, and the reports showed that the labor performed during the past quarter had exceeded that of any previous quarter since the organization of the society. The society numbers about four hundred members, yet it has taken about seventeen hundred copies of the SIGNS during the year 1884, and has now found it necessary to increase the number to twenty-five hundred, some of which, however, are used in other Conferences. The International Society also receives a club of one thousand copies at this place, making thirty-five hundred copies which are sent out from this depository to different parts of this and other countries. Quite a number of persons present at the meeting had recently become interested in the truth, as the result of Bible-readings and other missionary labor in the cities of Worcester, Boston, and Portland. Some of these accepted the truth and took their stand with the people of God. The religious interest in the meetings, especially among the students of South Lancaster Academy, was good. At the beginning of the fall term there were some twenty-six or twenty-seven who had not made a public profession of religion. Of these, twenty-two were baptized during these meetings, and two who had expressed a determination to serve God returned home before the baptism. The number baptized included a son and daughter of Elder J. G. Matteson, missionary in Norway.
Sabbath and Sunday, Jan. 17 and 18, Elder Goodrich spent in Worcester, and Elder Burrill in Boston, and we learn that others embraced the truth at these meetings. It might properly be said that our quarterly meeting extended over two Sabbaths, although the winter term of the Academy opened during the intervening time. The baptism did not take place until Sunday, the 18th. Judging from what we see of the results of the meeting, and the plans which were laid for the advancement of the cause in this part of the field, we consider it one of the most profitable meetings ever held in this Conference. S. N. HASKELL.
To the T. and M. Workers of California Conference.
By William Ings
WE have reason to be thankful for the prospering hand of God in blessing our efforts for the year that has just closed, and can we not reasonably expect a continuance of this blessing if we are faithful in our duties? Active measures should be taken to accomplish a great work before the present year closes.
Much depends on the librarians. And they should be men and women of faith and activity, for if they move forward, others will follow their example. They should see that their cases are well filled with a good assortment of tracts; work cannot be done without such helps. To secure them will cost something, but with a very little effort on the part of the members, the expense can be met, and a good supply kept constantly on hand.
Some societies are increasing their clubs of SIGNS. This speaks well for them, and I trust others will imitate their example. There may be those who are isolated and cannot well attend missionary meetings. I ask all such to join in the work by taking individual clubs of the SIGNS. Arrangements are being made to furnish all the societies in the Conference with addresses. Individuals desiring names can obtain them by addressing Anna L. Ingels, SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Oakland, Cal. Societies will order them through their librarians.
Experience has taught us that it is well to concentrate our work by selecting some particular portion of country to which to mail the SIGNS. This plan has worked well in Humboldt and Siskiyou Counties, and good results have followed. Other counties will be selected, and all will have a chance to act their part in preparing the way for the living preacher.
There is a great work before us. Soon arrangements will be made to obtain addresses of those living on the islands of the Pacific, and we shall have to extend the work in that direction to a greater degree than we are now doing. While the providence of God is preparing for the work there, we must push the work at home. "In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good." This is no time to slacken our diligence, but each year should find an increasing interest in the salvation of men.
Our Conference is far behind many others in obtaining subscribers for the SIGNS. This is not as it should be. If God has planted the publishing house in our midst, we certainly ought to lead out in the canvass for "Sunshine at Home," with the SIGNS. The inducements offered91to engage in the work are all that could be asked. Then why not take hold of the work at once? The "Sunshine" is a popular work, and it takes but little skill to present its merits, and by clubbing the SIGNS with it, subscribers can be readily obtained. Some have entered heartily into the work. One sister took fifty subscriptions in a few days; others are equally successful for the time spent. Canvassers ought to penetrate everywhere, and continue until every house in the Conference has been visited. Each society ought to have one or more representatives in the field. Are there not young sisters who are consecrated to the work, who could spend their time, or a portion of it, at least, in this branch of the work? In order to gain an experience we must launch out, and prove our gifts. One brother in a distant field obtained 400 subscribers for the SIGNS. Who will make the trial here?
The angels of God are interested in the success of this message, and if we are in earnest, and have a burden for souls, then these heavenly beings will second our efforts. May our actions be such that men can say of a truth that these people are in earnest, and we thus show to the world that ours is not a dead faith, but a living reality. WM. INGS.
Business and Beneficence.
By Editor
THE conviction that the times are "hard"—which is another way of saying that the people generally are feeling the effects of business depression in the way of shortened incomes and diminished revenues—is becoming general; and nearly every other man one meets (especially if asked for a contribution) shakes his head and begins to remark that "the bottom is falling out," and so on to the end of the chapter. Now we suppose there is some truth in this. But it ought to be taken with a good many grains of salt. It is true that a good many factories have stopped for the present, and a large number of operatives are temporarily out of employment. This is particularly hard for the operating classes; and we have no desire to overlook this fact or underrate the suffering which arises therefrom, especially where bread for hungry mouths is not forthcoming as regularly and in as great plenty as when everything was flourishing in the manufacturing quarters.
But we are especially interested in making a little inquiry into the extent of the hard times as they are supposed or believed to affect the upper and middle classes of society. As a matter of fact the hard times mean, to most business men and manufacturers, that they are not making such enormous profits as in some former years; they are not growing rich at such a rapid rate. That there is widespread ruin or bankruptcy does not appear. We will suppose that, in some cases, there are business men who, in former years, have grown rich upon large sales and large profits, who are not at this present time making money, or, in other words, adding to their fortunes. Well, what of it? It does not appear that they are suffering, for the reason that they have money, more or less, laid up from former "years of plenty," and are abundantly able to wait for the turn in the tide of business to bring them profit again. In a few cases some small merchants are suffering, and some salaried men are compelled to take reduced pay for their work; but there is no general distress.
No one can walk the streets of New York, and look at the enormous stock of elegant goods displayed in the shop windows, and observe the surging crowds of shoppers who are fairly struggling to buy, and yet feel that the times are distressingly hard. . . .
There is one place, however, which shows that the times are hard. That is the collection plate and the subscription books which are opened and presented for the beneficence of the people. Here you are convinced that the times are hard, and that business is dull, and the people have scarcely enough to make ends meet.
This offers some food for thought. It suggests that the beneficence of a large number of people is not so much a gift based on principles of worship and high moral obligation, as that it is a religious luxury, which can be indulged in when it does not involve any self-denial. In other words, if hard times are to be met with economical habits, the "luxury of giving" must first be cut off. No doubt, there are other places where retrenchment has taken place; but it is safe to say that the first luxury which seven-tenths of the people dispense with is their contribution to religious and charitable work. It is not first the cigars, the ice-cream, the new bonnet or hat; not the new winter wrap for the ladies, or overcoat for the gentlemen. Such curtailments may come along by and by, but not until the experiment of withholding the whole or part of the usual gift to the Lord has been tried. We have heard many say within a few days: "It is Christmas-time, you know, and times are hard; and so we cannot give as we would like to." We have failed to hear many say: "It is hard times now, and as we must not begin to cut down the Lord's work, so we will have to make less expensive presents, or give remembrances instead of gifts." It is not the table, but the collection box which suffers. . . .
"I cannot give my usual subscription this year," said a well-known man, living not a thousand miles from New York. "Why so?" queried his pastor. "Because, owing to business depression, I have more than two hundred thousand dollars for which I can find no safe investment. The consequence is that it is lying idle in the bank, and I am getting no interest for it." But the pastor had not heard of that same man dispensing with butter from his table or doing without horses or carriages till times improved. An inspection of his parlors revealed a new picture which was worth twice or ten times as much as his subscription to the object in question had ever been. The pastor wondered how he could afford to buy it when "times were so hard," and learned that his parishioner had been enabled to buy it very cheaply owing to the hard times—although his two hundred thousand was not returning any interest. That little interview was another side light upon the subject of the relation of business to beneficence.
Another parishioner who was not nearly so well off, and who was actually losing a great deal of money, doubled his usual subscription. The explanation in this case was: "If business goes on at this rate I may not have anything to give another year; so I thought it best to give while I had something left. That, I know I will not lose, whatever happens." Which was the wiser, not to say the more Christian, of the two men? Let us not belie our profession by saying in effect, "The time has come when economy must begin at the house of God;" but rather remember that it is "judgment" that begins at the house of God, and God may judge us in the matter, and bring in a verdict something like this: "I have blessed you with years of plenty; but because I have tried you with one or two years of diminished property, you have replied by 'robbing me in tithes and offerings.'"—N. Y. Independent.
Gilroy, Santa Clara Co., Cal.
By E. A. Briggs
I HAVE been holding meetings here for several weeks; and fourteen have resolved to obey God's law. I expect to baptize several next Monday. The principal of the school in which I am preaching will, together with his wife, unite with our church. Bitter opposition and unreasonable slanders against our people are opening the eyes of thoughtful persons to the fact that fairness and Scripture are not found with our adversaries. May God grant that this company may be thoroughly converted to the meek and lowly Jesus. E. A. BRIGGS. Jan. 22, 1885.
North Pacific Conference.
By Charles L. Boyd
A COMMENDABLE interest is being awakened in the colporter and canvassing work. Some are preparing for labor and others have already entered the field. One sister, alone, has sold upwards of 250 copies of "Sunshine at Home," to as many different families, during the past few months. The SIGNS has accompanied those sold since the General Conference. Reports returned show that members of two of these families have commenced to observe God's Sabbath.
Our ship and missionary work is producing a radical change in the minds of the people. Ministers are among those who approach our agents and inquire for our publications. May God bless all who read.
I have recently held meetings with the churches at Salem, Beaverton, and East Portland. A degree of union and harmony prevails, which shows plainly that the Spirit of God is working in our midst. At the last named place, the new church, built a little more than a year since, is so soon found too small to accommodate the increasing congregation, and is now being enlarged.
Brethren and fellow-laborers, the long-promised end is fast approaching. Is each family throughout the long line of our Conference to hear the truths of the Third Angel's Message before the decree goes forth? Then it is high time for us to awake and gird on the armor.
CHAS. L. BOYD.
Salem, Or., Jan. 19.
The Record of Each Day
LET every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun to you as its close; then let every one of these short lives leave its record of some kindly thing done for others, and knowledge gained for yourself.
Religion in the Home.
By Rev. S. E. Eastman
THE words "house" and "household," usually the rendering of the same word, are used in the Bible to express the organic religious unity of the family, and this religious unity of the family appears plainly in Scripture to be primary both in time and in importance, while the church is an after-growth, a divine expedient for public benefit, that there may be in the community an organic religious unity like that of the family. The divine ideal church is an organization, not of religious individuals, but of religious families, —"households."
Under the error that children must grow in sin and unbelief and then be converted, a fatal mistake has been made. Christian parents have turned over to the church this work of converting their children. Let us learn again that this responsibility for the conversion, instruction, and Christian nurture of children rests primarily upon the parents, and that this very responsibility gives, or would give, if it were not rolled upon the church, definite aim and stimulus to the religion of the home.
Christian parents to-day wait for their children to be converted in the prayer-meetings of the church, or in the young people's meetings, rather than expect their conversion around the home altar, at the fireside. They seem to think the pastor's study a more suitable and safe place for the child to learn to pray than at the mother's knee. They look to the Sabbath-school for the Christian instruction of their offspring, not to the daily lesson at home in the Bible and catechism, by religious family conversation and prayer. And the zest is taken out of family religion. Family worship becomes a hollow form in which we expect nothing, as a family, and get as little as we expect. Many Christian parents have left this work of Christian training to the church, to their own sorrow and disgrace; for God has not honored their idleness and shirking, and their children remain unsaved.
The home should be to the church as the conservatory to the garden. The new life-germ, the infant soul, sheltered from the cold winds and frosts outside, and subjected to the warm, genial temperature of Christian faith, fervent Christian hope, and deep Christian love, expressed in prayer, conversation, and example, takes root, and grows until it can thrive in the colder temperature of the church, and is then transplanted into the outer garden.
It is not only our duty to uphold the services of the sanctuary, to call upon God in the prayer-meeting; not only our privilege to sit together as church members in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, but our more urgent duty to walk with God in the monotonous and beaten tracks of daily toil and care, our privilege to find God at home our high tower, our "Fount of every blessing." For old and young, religion is a matter of home cultivation and growth. You cannot take spiritual breaths long enough nor deep enough on the Sabbath to sustain you through six days of worldliness and worldly work. You grow in grace and in knowledge by means of spiritual food—the word; and spiritual air—prayer; and spiritual exercise—good works; and these used regularly and constantly.
The aim of home religion is also the conversion, instruction, and Christian nurture of the children. This is held up to Christian parents in Scripture, by law, by promise, by precept, by every kind of encouragement and inducement, and also by warnings and threatenings. It would be interesting, were there time for it, to go through the Bible and see how everywhere and in every conceivable way this aim is presented to believing parents, and also that the responsibility of the result is laid upon them, and nowhere upon the church.
How shall we judge whether our home religion has this for its aim? Is the life of the household arranged with a definite purpose to secure this result? Do the children feel that the supreme wish of their parents is that they be Christians? What is the manifest anxiety on the part of parents and elders as the child matures without deciding for Christ? If he passes his fifth year giving no evidence of change of heart, is there little concern? Perhaps it is not expected so early. But does the tenth year of the child's life find the father and mother often in earnest prayer to God for the soul of the child? Is not now the expectation and prayer for some future conversion?
The boy enters the high school, and at fifteen are his parents more anxious that he graduate with honors than that he give his heart to God? Is it not true that unless our children annoy us, bring us into disgrace by noticeable and outbreaking sins and follies, we do not feel much concern that they be changed in heart? If our daughters are loving and amiable, does it not blind us to the fact that they are unsaved? Of a child wild and willful, and bringing its home into disgrace early, a friend said, "Nothing but conversion will save that child." It was meant, of course, that nothing else would save her from earthly woe and disgrace. Do we not know that nothing but conversion will save our obedient and amiable children?
Perhaps at twenty, parents realize that their son is a man of the world, and then they fall back upon the promises in reference to their children, and look for future conversion in some revival movement of the church—promises made to them upon condition that this aim of their child's conversion be the daily supreme motive from the birth of the child unto the accomplishment of it in the life of the child.
Study the old covenant with Abraham, trace it through the history of the children of Israel, follow it in its change into their new covenant, and note how the writer to the Hebrews includes and emphasizes the place of the children of believers under the covenant, and urges the begetting and nurturing of a godly seed. Yea, follow the history of Christianity into the last century, and mark how great a proportion of converts during any great crisis in the church have been of Christian parentage, whereby it is seen that revivals are spasmodic efforts of the church to get back her own children lost by neglect of religion in the home. Mark, also, how for generation after generation certain holy families have been powerful forces in the kingdom of God, and you will conclude with me that for establishing a kingdom of righteousness on earth the "propagation of a holy seed" is the primary method in the purpose of God; and the conversion of the heathen, and of those born in sin, his secondary method. If in any Christian community the separate families would use faithfully and devoutly God's primary method; if, that is, religion in the home were vital and influential, exerting converting and nurturing power over the souls born into the home, the church would need no revival crises in her history, but would be in a continuous exercise of spiritual power.
As Bushnell has forcibly said, "If the church were unfolding the riches of the covenant at her firesides and tables, if the children were identified with religion from the first, and grew up in a Christian love of man, the missionary spirit would not throw itself up in irregular jets, but would flow as a river."
You can do almost anything you please with a little child under six years of age, provided that submission to parental authority has been taught during the second and third year of the child's life. The failure is in that we do not begin early enough to mould the yielding clay placed in our hands. But Satan loses no early opportunity, and when we waken, we find the mould fixed and hard.
As parents, we have no time to lose. Our children grow up and away from us almost before we are aware. Other impressions are being made. The child yields to evil impressions as well as to good. Let us not be half-heartedly doing our work, saying that our children yield more easily to evil than to good. That is not true. Let us see to it that sincere, whole-hearted, unmixed good is given them in our homes before we charge God foolishly. A tile from an ancient temple has been found bearing very faintly the seal of the king, and very plainly the imprint of a dog's foot. The foot of the passing animal made a deeper impression than the king's seal. Our little ones are in our keeping to put upon them the name of our king. We must impress deeply for eternal endurance when they are in early years, for soon they will go outside, and the cloven foot of the great dragon will be upon them. It is for us to determine now which shall outlast, the seal of our King or the imprint of the dragon.
Home religion can never be concealed when it is present within the walls of a house, nor can it be put on for state occasions. It is an atmosphere. Is it not the presence of the infinite Spirit, securing the blessings vouchsafed to families that forget not God?
Christian parents, we must go back again to God's plan, and do our own appointed work. The church, with its Sunday-school, its Society of Christian Endeavor, and its evangelists, cannot do it, was never intended to do it, and is failing—or, at best, but partly succeeding—in the unnatural effort.
"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."—Rev. S. E. Eastman, in Christian Union.
The Home Circle.
By Mrs. M. E. Sangster
PATIENCE.
TAP, tap, along the pavement, tap,
It came, a little crutch.
A pale-faced lad looked up at me;
"I do not mind it much,"
He answered to my pitying look;
"It might be worse, you know;
Some fellows have to stay in bed,
While I quite fast can go.
"Oh yes, I used to run about,
Perhaps I may again;
The doctor says it's wonderful
I have so little pain;
It hurts me now and then, of course,
Well—ever since the fall,
But I'm so very glad, you see,
That I can walk at all."
Tap, tap, the little crutch went on;
I saw the golden hair,
The brown eyes wide and all aglow,
The noble, manly air;
And somehow tears a moment came,
And made my vision dim,
While still the laddie's cheerful words
Were sweet as sweetest hymn.
"I am so very glad, you see,
That I can walk at all."
Why, that's the way for us to feel
When troubles may befall,
There's always blue sky somewhere, friend,
Though clouds around you meet,
And patience will the Master send,
If sought at his dear feet.
—Mrs. M. E. Sangster.
Education.
By Sel.
Do you ask what will educate your son? Your example will educate him; your conversation with your friends; the business he sees you transact; the likings and dislikings he sees you express,—these will educate him. The society you live in will educate him; your domestic circle will educate him; above all, your rank, your situation in life, your home, your table, will educate him. It is not in your power to withdraw from him the continual influence of these things, except you were to withdraw yourself from them also. What these have a tendency to make your child, that he will be. Education goes on at every instant of time; you cannot stop it, you can direct its course.—Sel.
Economy.
Young people of to-day are apt to be very wasteful of little things, and know nothing of the economy practiced by some of the wisest and noblest men in former times. The founder of Phillips Academy at Exeter, who gave several thousand pounds to the institution, was very saving of candles, which were extremely scarce in those early times. At family worship in the evening, he would read the chapter by the light of a single candle, and then blow it out as the family knelt to pray. As his prayers were somewhat lengthy, quite a small fraction of the candle would be saved. Jonathan Edwards, when he lived at Stockbridge among the Indians, wrote a great part of one of his most famous books upon odds and ends of paper. In the British Museum there are preserved many famous manuscripts, and among them are several which show that the authors used paper which had been used before. Portions of Pope's translations of Homer were written upon backs of letters, the creases of which can still be discerned.—Congregationalist.
Roy's Temptation.
Roy had begun his student-life in the academy at A., resolved to improve to the utmost the advantages that he was now to enjoy.
Here was a new field of trial to him, where new temptations met him. Two hundred and fifty youths were crowded into the institution, and among this number were found, of course, some wild, thoughtless, and even vicious boys, who took delight in leading others into mischief.
Roy's room-mate, though he did not belong to the class we have mentioned, was a smoker, and the first day that Roy made his acquaintance he met the temptation of a cigar.
"Have a smoke?" said his companion, at the same time offering him a cigar.
"Thank you, I never smoke," Roy answered after hesitating a moment.
"Have you never tried a cigar?"
"Never, and I don't mean to try one."
"I think you'd enjoy a good cigar. Almost all the fellows here smoke," replied his room-mate. "You'd better begin."
"Well," answered Roy, "a poor fellow like me couldn't afford such an expensive habit, to say nothing about the evil of it. How much does it cost you annually for cigars, if I may ask?"
"I don't know; I never reckoned."
"Well, how much a day, should you think?"
"Twenty-five cents, when I buy them by the quantity," was the reply.
"Three hundred and sixty-five quarter dollars in a year; let me see how much that amounts to. Ninety dollars annually; enough to pay a good part of my school expenses. I think I will not form the habit at present."
His room-mate expressed some surprise at the amount, adding, however, "But I enjoy it."
"And I enjoy being entirely free from the habit," returned Roy. "It is a real pleasure to me to think that I am not a slave to tobacco."
"Do you think it is wrong to smoke?" asked his room-mate, who was a member of the church.
"It would unquestionably be wrong for me on account of the expense," replied Roy. "But aside from that, as a useless indulgence, which the majority of physicians agree, I believe, in regarding as injurious to health, I do think that smoking is wrong. And I think that professed Christians, such as you and I, should set a good example in this as in everything else."
"Do you call smoking setting a bad example?"
"If smoking is a bad habit, then the practice of it must set a bad example," replied Roy. "I think that Christians ought to avoid all evil habits. If they don't, how can they expect that irreligious men will avoid them?"
"Sure enough," answered his room-mate, "I think you are right; but it is very difficult to be consistent."
"I don't agree with you exactly," replied Roy. "It is easier for me to abstain from smoking on principle and be consistent, than it would be to smoke and try to make it appear consistent. The latter is very difficult indeed."
His room-mate laughed good-humoredly, but went on with his cigar. In a month from that time, however, he had renounced smoking. Roy's resolute stand against the habit set him to thinking, the end of which was his emancipation from tobacco. He became a more active Christian also, Roy's earnest spirit and consistent life leading him to draw nearer to Christ.—Sel.
Disappointed Hopes.
DEAR GIRLS: I am a middle-aged woman now, and commonplace. The fact has been lately forced upon me, and, trust me, there can be no moments in a woman's life more humiliating, no disappointments more bitter.
My old school-mate, Laura P., has a voice that is admired and enjoyed by all who hear it; my girlhood's friend, Mary S., writes for Harper and receives one hundred dollars for a single story; and little Lily M., so many years my junior, is such a charming, delightful conversationalist that her company is eagerly sought by the most intelligent and cultivated in our midst. While I—I am just plain, unaccomplished Mrs. H. The realization came suddenly, forced upon me by a remark from a stranger. I had played "Valse Sentimentale" for her, and when I finished she exclaimed, "Oh, how beautifully you must have played once." It rushed over me as the tide over the drowning, "she is putting me in the past tense," and as if the surges were singing a dirge over me the thought continued. The best of me does belong to the past. Youth, its possibilities, its untried strength, all belong to the past. I am but the grave of what might have been."
Yet I had been as full of hopes and dreams and plans as the brightest among you; and they had not fled. I still intended to make something of myself, to be somebody above the slow and dull. Now, I found it was too late—I was already middle-aged and commonplace. I had frittered away the best years of my life.
If I could only keep you girls from the same rude awakening! If you would but each cultivate your talent—and even though it scarce be called a talent, if you would but devote the best that is in you to one thing, and by indomitable will and energy make yourself proficient in it, and a success at something. Trust me, there must be a recompense for all the labor, in the satisfaction and gratification obtained, and as surely comes the disappointment to those who but dream away the precious, unreturning hours, days, years.
The end of man is an action, and not a thought, though it were the noblest.—Christian at Work.
Woman's Wit.
A WOMAN'S advice is generally worth having; so if you are in trouble, tell your mother or your wife or your sister all about it. Be assured that light will at once flash upon darkness. Women are commonly judged inexperienced in all but pure womanish affairs. No philosophical student of the sex thus judges them. Their intuitions or insights are the most subtle, and if they cannot see a cat in the meal there is no cat there. I advise a man to keep none of his affairs from his wife. Many homes have been saved and many fortunes retrieved by men having full confidence in their wives. As a general rule, the wives confide the minutest of their plans to their husbands. Why not reciprocate? The men who succeed best in life are those who make confidants of their wives.—Sel.
THE YOUTH'S INSTRUCTOR.
By Editor
AN ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY PAPER FOR YOUTH AND CHILDREN, DEVOTED TO MORAL, MENTAL, AND RELIGIOUS CULTURE.
THIS paper is not devoted to insipid stories and religious fiction, but is filled with a great variety of that kind of reading which tends to the healthful development of the youthful mind. Its pages are made bright by the choicest illustrative pictures, and its columns are always full of useful information.
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Superintendent Medical and Surgical Sanitarium, Battle Creek Mich.; Member State Board of Health, and of the American Public Health Association, the American Society of Microscopists, the State Medical Association, the Association for the Advancement of Science, etc., etc.
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