WHY were the seven particular churches chosen that are mentioned? For the reason, doubtless, that in the names of these churches, according to the definitions of the words, are brought out the religious features of those periods of the gospel age which they respectively represent.
FOR these reasons, we understand by "the seven churches," not merely the seven literal churches of Asia which went by the names mentioned, but seven periods of the Christian church, from the days of the apostles to the close of probation.
"THE Source of blessing." "From Him which is, and which was, and which is to come," or is to be,—an expression which signifies complete eternity, past and future, and can be applicable to God the Father only. This language, we believe, is never applied to Christ. He is spoken of as another person, in distinction from the being thus described.
"THE seven spirits." On the subject of the seven spirits, Thompson remarks: "That is, from the Holy Spirit, denominated the seven spirits, because seven is a sacred and perfect number; not thus named as denoting interior plurality, but the fullness and perfection of his gifts and operations."
"AND from Jesus Christ." Then Christ is not the person who, in the verse before, is designated as "Him which is, and which was, and which is to come." Some of the chief characteristics which pertain to Christ are here mentioned. He is
"The Faithful Witness." Whatever he bears witness to, is true. Whatever he promises he will surely fulfill.
"THE First Begotten of the dead." This expression is parallel to 1 Cor. 15: 20, 23; Heb. 1: 6; Rom. 8: 29, and Col. 1: 15, 18, where we find such expressions applied to Christ, as, "the first-fruits of them that slept," "the first-born among many brethren," "the first-born of every creature," and "the first-born from the dead." But we do not think that these expressions denote that he was the first in point of time to be raised from the dead; for others were raised before him. That would be a very unimportant point; but he was the chief and central figure of all who have come up from the grave; for it was by virtue of Christ's coming work and resurrection that any were raised before his time.
"THE Prince of the kings of the earth." The highest names named in this world, are the princes, kings, emperors, and potentates of earth. But Christ is placed far above them. He is seated with his Father upon the throne of universal dominion (Rev. 3: 21), and ranks equally with him in the overruling and disposition of the nations and affairs of earth.
IN a more particular sense Christ is to be Prince of the kings of the earth when he takes his own throne, and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, when they are given by the Father into his hands, and he comes forth bearing upon his vesture the title of "King of kings, and Lord of lords," to dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Chap. 19: 16.
"UNTO Him that loved us." We have thought that earthly friends loved us, a father, a mother, brothers, and sisters, or bosom friends, but we see that no love is worthy of the name compared with Christ's. And the following sentence adds intensity of meaning to the previous words: "and washed us from our sins in his own blood." What love is this! "Greater love," says the apostle, "hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." But Christ has commended his love to us in that he died for us while we were yet sinners. But more than this—"hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father."
"HE cometh with clouds." Here John carries us forward to the second advent of Christ in glory, the climax and crowning event of his intervention in behalf of this fallen world. Once he came in weakness, now in power; once in humility, now in glory. He comes in clouds in like manner as he ascended. Acts 1: 9, 11.
"EVERY eye shall see him;" that is, all who are alive at the time of his coming. We know of no second coming of Christ that shall be as the stillness of midnight, or take place only in the desert or the secret chamber. He comes not as a thief in the sense of stealing in stealthily and quietly upon the world, and purloining goods to which he has no right. But he comes to take to himself his dearest treasure, his sleeping and living saints, whom he has purchased with his own precious blood; whom he has wrested from the power of death in fair and open conflict; and for whom his coming will be no less open and triumphant too. It will be with the brilliancy and splendor of the lightning as it shines from the east to the west. Matt. 24: 27. It will be with a sound of a trumpet that shall pierce to earth's lowest depths, and with a mighty voice that shall wake the sainted sleepers from their dusty beds. Matt. 24: 31, margin; 1 Thess. 4: 16. He will come upon the wicked as a thief, only because they persistently shut their eyes to the tokens of his approach, and will not believe the declarations of his word that he is at the door.
"EVEN so, Amen." Though this coming of Christ is to the wicked a scene of terror, it is to the righteous a scene of joy. "When the world's distress comes, then the saints' rest comes." That coming which is with flaming fire, and for the purpose of taking vengeance on the wicked, is to recompense rest to all them that believe. 2 Thess. 1: 6-10. Every friend and lover of Christ will hail every declaration and every token of his return, as glad tidings of great joy.
FOR the view that by "Lord's day" is meant the first day of the week, a view by far the most generally entertained, we inquire for the proof. What evidence have we for this assertion? The text itself does not define the term Lord's day; hence if it means the first day of the week we must look elsewhere in the Bible for the proof that that day of the week is ever so designated. The only other inspired writers that speak of the first day at all, are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul; and they speak of it simply as the first day of the week. They never speak of it in a manner to distinguish it above any other of the six working days. And this is the more remarkable, viewed from the popular standpoint, as three of them speak of it at the very time when it is said to have become the Lord's day by the resurrection of the Lord upon it, and two of them mention it some thirty years after that event.
BY Lord's day is meant the Sabbath of the Lord. And this of itself is susceptible of the clearest proof: 1. When God gave to man in the beginning six days of the week for labor, he expressly reserved the seventh day to himself, placed his blessing upon it, and claimed it as his holy day. 2. Moses told Israel in the Wilderness of Sin, on the sixth day of the week, "To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord." We come to Sinai, where the great Lawgiver proclaimed his moral precepts in awful grandeur; and in that supreme code, he thus lays claim to his hallowed day: "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." By the prophet Isaiah, about eight hundred years later, God spoke as follows: "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on MY HOLY DAY, . . . then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord," etc. We come down to New Testament times, and He who is one with the Father, declares expressly, "The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Can any man deny that that day is the Lord's day, of which he has emphatically declared that he is the Lord? Thus we see that whether it be the Father or the Son whose title is involved, no other day can be called the Lord's day but the Sabbath of the great Creator.
ONE more thought, and we leave this point: There is in this dispensation one day distinguished above the other days of the week as the Lord's day. How completely does this great fact disprove the claim put forth by some that there is no Sabbath in this dispensation, but that all days are alike. And by calling it the Lord's day, the apostle has given us, near the close of the first century, apostolic sanction for the observance of the only day which can be called the Lord's day, which is the seventh day of the week.
"THE Son of man." The central and all-attractive figure of the scene now opened before John's vision, is the majestic form of one like the Son of man, representing Christ. The description here given of him with his flowing robe, his hair white, not with age, but with the brightness of heavenly glory, his flaming eyes, his feet glowing like molten brass, and his voice as the sound of many waters, cannot be excelled for grandeur and sublimity. Overcome by the presence of this august Being, and perhaps under a vivid sense of his own unworthiness, John fell at his feet as dead; but a comforting hand is laid upon him, and a voice of sweet assurance tells him to fear not. It is equally the privilege of Christians to-day to feel the same hand laid upon them to strengthen and comfort in hours of trial and affliction, and to hear the same voice saying unto them, Fear not.
BUT the most cheering assurance in all these words of consolation, is the declaration of this exalted One who is alive forevermore, that he is the arbiter of death and the grave. "I have," he says, "the keys of hell [the grave] and death." Death is a conquered tyrant. He may ply his gloomy labors age after age, of gathering to the grave the precious of the earth, and gloat for a season over his apparent triumph. But he is performing a fruitless task; for the key to his dark prison-house has been wrenched from his grasp, and now rests in the hands of a mightier than he. He is compelled to deposit his trophies in a region over which another has absolute control; and this one is the unchanging Friend and the pledged Redeemer of his people. Then grieve not for the righteous dead; they are in safe keeping. An enemy for a while takes them away; but a friend holds the key to the place of their temporary confinement.—Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation.
The Bottomless Jug.
I SAW it hanging up in the kitchen of a thrifty, healthy, sturdy farmer, in Oxford County, Maine—a bottomless jug! The host saw that the curious thing caught my eye, and smiled.
"You are wondering what that jug is hanging up there for, with its bottom knocked out?" he said. "My wife, perhaps, could tell you the story better than I can; but she is bashful, and I ain't, so I'll tell it.
"My father, as you are probably aware, owned this farm before me. He lived to a good old age, worked hard all his life, never squandered money, was a careful trader, and a good calculator, and, as men were accounted in his day and generation, he was a temperate man. I was the youngest boy; and when the old man was ready to go—and he knew it—the others agreed that, since I had stayed at home and taken care of the old folks, the farm should be mine. And to me it was willed. I had been married then three years.
"Well, father died—mother had gone three years before—and left the farm to me, with a mortgage on it for two thousand dollars. I'd never thought so much of it before; but I thought of it now. I said to Molly—my wife—'Molly,' says I, 'look here. Here's father had this farm in its first strength of soil, with all its magnificent timber, and his six boys, as they grew up, equal to so many men, to help him; and he has worked hard—worked early and late—and yet look at it. A mortgage of two thousand dollars! What can I do?' And I went to that old jug—it had its bottom in then—and took a good stiff drink of Old Medford rum from it.
"I noticed a curious look on the face of my wife just then, and I asked her what she thought of it; for I supposed, of course, she was thinking of what I'd been talking about. And so she was. Says she: 'Charles, I've thought of this a good deal; and I've thought of a way in which I believe we can clear this mortgage off before five years are ended.'
"Says I, 'Molly, tell me how you'll do it.'
"She thought for a while, and then she said, with a funny twinkling in her blue eyes—says she, 'Charles, you must promise me this, and promise me solemnly and sacredly: promise me that you will never again bring home for the purpose of drinking for a beverage at any one time, more spirits of any kind than you can bring in that old jug—the jug that your father has used ever since I knew him, and which you have used since he was done with it.'
"Well, I knew father used, once in a while, especially in haying time, and in the winter time when we were at work in the woods, to get an old gallon jug filled; so I thought she meant that I should never buy more than two quarts at a time. I thought it over and after a little while I told her I would agree to it. 'Now mind,' said she, 'you are never—never—to bring home for a common beverage more spirits than you can bring in that identical jug.' And I gave her the promise.
"And before I went to bed that night I took the last pull at that jug. As I was turning it out for a sort of night cap, Molly looked up and says she, 'Charley, have you got a drop left?' There was just about a drop. We'd have to get it filled on the morrow. And then she said, if I had no objection, she would drink that last drop with me. I shall never forget how she brought it out—'t at last drop!' However, I tipped the old jug bottom up and got out about a great spoonful, and Molly said that was enough. She took the tumbler and poured a few drops of hot water into it, and a bit of sugar, and then she tinkled her glass against mine, just as she'd seen us boys do when we'd been drinking good luck, and says she, 'Here's to the old brown jug!'
"Sakes alive! I thought to myself that poor Molly had been drinking more of the rum than was good for her, and I tell you it kind of cut me to the heart. I forgot all about how many times she'd seen me when my tongue was thicker than it ought to be, and my legs not quite so steady as good legs should be; but I said nothing. I drank the sentiment—'The old brown jug!' and let it go.
"Well, I went out after that and did my chores, and then went to bed; and the last thing I said before leaving the kitchen—this very room where you now sit—was, 'We'll have the old brown jug filled to-morrow.' And then I went off to bed. And I have remembered ever since that I went to bed that night, as I had done hundreds of times before, with a buzzing in my head that a healthy man ought not to have. I didn't think of it then, nor had I ever thought of it before; but I've thought of it a good many times since, and have thought of it with wonder and awe.
"Well, I got up the next morning and did up my work at the barn, then came in and ate my breakfast, but not with such an appetite as a farmer ought to have, and I could not think more then that my appetite had begun to fail me. However I ate breakfast and then went out and hitched up the old mare; for, to tell the plain truth, I was feeling the need of a glass of spirits, and I hadn't a drop in the house. I was in a hurry to get to the village. I got hitched up and came in for the jug. I went for it in the old cupboard and took it out, and—
"Did you ever break through the thin ice, on a nipping cold day, and find yourself in an instant over your head in freezing water? Because that was the way I felt at that moment. That jug was there, but the bottom was gone. Molly had been and taken a sharp chisel and a hammer, and with a skill that might have done credit to a master-workman, she had clipped the bottom clean out of the jug, without even cracking the edges or the sides! I looked at the jug and then I looked at Molly. And then she burst out. She spoke—oh, I never heard anything like it! no, nor have I ever heard anything like it since. Said she:—
"'Charles, there's where the mortgage on this farm came from! It was brought home in that jug, two quarts at a time! And there's where your white, clear skin, and your clear, pretty eyes are going! And in that jug, my husband, your appetite is going also. Oh, let the bottom stay out forever! Let it be as it is, dear heart! And remember your promise to me!'
"And then she threw her arms around my neck and burst into tears. She couldn't speak more.
"And there was no need. My eyes were opened as though by magic. In a single minute the whole scene passed before me. I saw all the mortgages on all the farms in our neighborhood; and I thought where the money had gone. The very last mortgage father had ever made had been to pay a bill held against him by the man who had filled his jug for years! Yes, I saw it as it passed before me—a fitting picture of rum!—rum!—rum!—debt!—debt!—debt!—and, in the end—death! And I returned my Molly's kiss, and said I: 'Molly, my own, I'll keep the promise, I will, so help me Heaven!'
"And I have kept it. In less than five years, as Molly had said, the mortgage was paid off; my appetite came back to me; and now we've got a few thousand dollars out at interest. There hangs the old jug—just as we hung it on that day; and from that time there hasn't been a drop of spirits brought into the house for a beverage which that bottomless jug wouldn't have held.
"Dear old jug! We mean to keep it; and to hand it down to our children, for the lesson it can give them—a lesson of life—of a life happy, peaceful, prosperous, and blessed."
And as he ceased speaking, his wife, with an arm drawn tenderly around the neck of her youngest boy, murmured a fervent, Amen.—W. C. T. U. Bulletin.
The Home Circle.
THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE.
To weary hearts, to mourning homes,
God's meekest angel gently comes;
No power has he to banish pain,
Or give us back our lost again;
And yet in tenderest love, our dear
And heavenly Father sends him here.
There's quiet in that angel's glance;
There's rest in his still countenance;
He mocks no grief with idle cheer,
Nor wounds with words the mourner's ear;
But ills and woes he may not cure
He kindly trains us to endure.
Angel of patience! sent to calm
Our fev'rish brows with cooling palm;
To lay the storm of hope and fear,
And reconcile life's smile and tear;
The throbs of wounded pride to still,
And make us own our Father's will.
O thou who mournest on thy way
With longings for the close of day,
He walks with thee, that angel, kind,
And gently whispers: "Be resigned;
Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell
The dear Lord orders all things well!"
—Sel.
A Night on Sinai.
By Isabella Bird Bishop
I LAY with my head on a stone till sunrise, bitterly cold, I confess, but thinking much of Jacob at Bethel and Elijah's fast near this same spot. The brief, majestic narrative of Sinai takes complete possession of one here. "The mount" which "burned with fire" might have trembled at the divine presence but yesterday; it is also unchanged, so silent, so indescribably sublime.
In the still, starry nights there are strange noises, rumblings, and rushings as of distant avalanches or earthquakes, which the Bedaween say are sounds made by the imprisoned and tormented spirits of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, but which are possibly avalanches of sand or the descent of masses of rock, gradually detached by the action of frost. These nocturnal sounds do not detract from the solemnity of the surroundings.
Oh, how infinitely it exceeds all my dreams and anticipations! It stands alone; I cannot compare it with anything; it does not remind me of anything. "This is Mount Sinai in Arabia," is all one can say; and as I think of the awfulness of the giving of the law, in the still night the sound of the cymbals of the convent, changed by the echoes of the desert valley into the sweetest of unearthly music, as it floats up to my tent in this Easter week, speaks at the foot of Sinai of Him who came not to destroy but to fulfill the law, himself "the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."
Somehow the exquisite sweetness of those chimes had made me revert to my old belief that the monks who dwell under the shadow of Sinai must be holy men who were cultivating an exalted piety in these sublime solitudes, but I was soon disenchanted.—Isabella Bird Bishop.
Elasticity
ELASTICITY is not necessarily accompanied by compressibility, but seems to be due to a tendency in the particles to rearrange themselves after having been forced out of their relation to each other. India rubber is one of the most elastic substances known, but it is slightly, if at all, compressible. When immersed in water and submitted to a pressure of 1,000 pounds to the square inch, it is absolutely unchanged in bulk. Steel, which is very elastic, cannot be compressed by any pressure yet attainable.—Sel.
Health and Temperance.
By J. B. Finch
A Just Comparison.
WHENEVER you force the beer advocates in this country to first principles they always disavow their connection with the fruits of the traffic, and preface their statement with, "I am a temperance man." Why do they not say, "I am a beer man; I would rather have a boy who would get drunk; I would rather have a wife who would get drunk!" Why do they not stand by their business instead of sneaking and crawling?
Comparisons bring out colors. Compare the traffic with other trades. The liquor men will admit that a minister is as good as a saloon keeper as long as he behaves himself as well. Then write with the propositions already stated, the principle of political economy taught us when we were boys at school: that there are but three ways of getting money or wealth—make it, have it donated to you, steal it. Some would say find it, but you cannot base a principle of political economy on chance. Change the form and it is in this shape: without making it or having it donated to him, any man who obtains wealth is a thief. In honest business every man is bound to render a fair bargain. Although it may be unpopular doctrine in this country, I say I have no sympathy for the accursed thing called sharpness, which justifies lying to a man in a trade and then laughs about the trick; it is no better than stealing. I would respect a man who would steal twenty-five cents from my pocket-book; as much as I would a man who would lie to me in a trade and get it in that way. When I have taken a man's word it hurts my faith in humanity to find my trust betrayed.
You hire a minister, you pay him (that is, I suppose you do). . . . I call the minister up and say to him, "You get money; now, sir, tell the people what you give them for the money they pay you; show them what you give them. Mr. Minister, they do not pay you alone for preaching, although it is pleasant and instructive to listen. They do not pay you to run revivals, though it is a good thing to take the minds of the people away from this world to the future. . . . But, Mr. Minister, you are not living for to-day, for to-morrow, for next week, for next year; will you come up here now and defend your work? We do not want you to defend it by boys or by middle-aged men; we want you to come here by the death-bed of the Christian and tell us, sir, if you will defend your faith there." Would not he come and say, "That is the test I want. I do not want you to try Christianity by the sunshine Christians who work for the Lord on Sunday and the devil the rest of the week; nor by the people who are in the church as an insurance society to keep them from burning after they get on the other side; but I am willing Christianity shall be judged by the record and life work of people who have loved God and kept his commandments. By that test I am willing to be judged." My friends, it matters not how far we may have drifted upon the sea of doubt and unbelief, we must accept such a test and say to the man of God: "Any person who teaches morals and smooths the pathway to the grave, thereby lighting up the dark future, is entitled to a world's gratitude. You earn your money, stand aside."
We want to examine another trade, and we call the school teacher. "What do you give the people for what you receive? They pay you and they expect that you will return value received. What do you give back?" The teacher would come, and calling up the educated merchant, doctor, lawyer, and tradesman, would say: "This is the result of my work." "Universal education is the foundation of liberty." Then reaching his hand to the teacher of morals—the minister—would say: "Educated conscientiousness and educated intellect—a dual unit—is the only safe foundation for a Government of the people, by the people, and for the people." Let me say to you, if I may say it in a temperance talk, that I believe, in this country, any system of education that does not educate the morals as well as the intellect, is a fraud and a failure. . . . To make a symmetrical man or woman, the moral nature must be developed, side by side with the intellectual, or the student becomes an intellectual monstrosity.
Therefore we say to the teacher, "Take your place with the world's workers who fairly earn the compensation they receive."
We want to test another trade, and we shout out to the blacksmith. We say: "You get money, come up here, and bring specimens of your work." He would come, and, holding up a horseshoe, would say: "Here is my work. Every time I put a shoe on a man's horse he is better off, and I am better off, if he pays me." Place him beside the minister and teacher. And . . . now we have tested these, we want to test the man of the dram-shop by the same standards. "Come up, sir. You said a minute ago the minister was as good as the saloon keeper, if he behaved himself as well. If the minister is as good, you must get into the same scales of political economy where we have weighed him. Do not plead the baby act, but come. You dare not come? Do you hesitate? You get money, you toil not, neither do you spin, and yet few workmen can wear such clothes as you do. What are you giving for what you get? Come up here, sir; bring a finished specimen of your work; hold it up here for the crowd to see, and show us its fine points!"
What would he bring? What does the dram-shop manufacture? What has it always manufactured? It has always manufactured drunkards, first, last, and all the time. A dram-shop keeper is as distinctly a drunkard-maker as a man that makes shoes is a shoemaker. That is all he ever did make, that is all he ever will make. Show me a first-class sample of dram-shop work. Could you induce a liquor dealer to come up here and hold it up? What does he say? You say to him, "You make drunkards." His very first excuse is, "I will not have any old drunkards hanging around me." If it is a good thing to make a drunkard, a drunkard must be a good thing after he is made. Suppose, ladies and gentlemen, the minister should come here and give you, as a reason why his church should be indorsed, that he did not have any old Christians hanging around his prayer-meetings. Would not that be a good advertisement for the Christian religion?
I saw by the papers that at the Des Plaines camp-meeting they called together on the platform all the old men and women who had been in the Christian service fifty years, and there was a crowd gathered around the platform to hear their testimony; the papers stated that the feeling pervading the audience was wonderful. Why do not the drunkard-makers come up here and call up a number of their veterans—a number of men they have worked on for ten, fifteen, or twenty years, with red noses, bleared eyes, ragged clothes, toes creeping out of their shoes? Bring them up here and then stand up and exhibit them, opening the Bible—let the liquor seller now act as interlocutor—open the Bible and read: "No drunkard shall enter the kingdom of Heaven," and then call on them to testify. By their evidence we are willing to stand or fall. Why will not the drunkard-makers do it? Is their business so mean, so low, so devilish, that when they have broken down a man who has stood by them through thick and thin, when he has given his money, character, everything, they kick him out and say, "We do not want any old drunkards around us!" The business is afraid to meet its record. Such is the evidence of the case.
THE GOOD HOUSEKEEPER.
HOW CAN I tell her?
By her cellar,
Cleanly shelves and whitened wall.
I can guess her
By her dresser;
By the back staircase and hall.
And with pleasure
Take her measure
By the way she keeps her brooms;
Or the peeping
At the "keeping"
Of her back and unseen rooms;
By her kitchen's air of neatness,
And its general completeness
Where in cleanliness and sweetness
The rose of order blooms.
—Good Housekeeping.
Home of the Orange.
The southern slopes of the great Himalayan mountain range, extending eastward from the Sikh country—a region watered by the northern tributaries of the Ganges—constitutes the original habitat of the orange. This conclusion is drawn from botanical considerations and from traditional or historical accounts. Botanists have ascertained that this region is the home of wild varieties of the orange family which have served as types from which the cultivated varieties have sprung. The wild citron of Northern India is believed to have been the source of our cultivated varieties of the orange. The orange tree made its appearance in Europe in the fourth century, but it was not widely diffused until the fourteenth century. According to Gallerio, oranges were brought by the Arabs from India by two routes—the sweet ones through Persia and Syria, and thence to the shores of Italy and the south of France; and the bitter, called in commerce Seville oranges, by way of Arabia, Egypt, and the north of Africa, to Spain. Thus all the old orange groves at Seville and Cordova, planted by the Moors, are of the bitter-fruited variety; and to this day the bitter orange predominates in the south of Spain.—Sel.
A Courteous Cat.
A MEMBER of the Zoological Society says: "I once had a cat who always sat up to the dinner table with me, and had his napkin round his neck, and his plate and some fish. He used his paw, of course, but he was very particular, and behaved with extraordinary decorum. When he had finished his fish I sometimes gave him a piece of mine. One day he was not found when the dinner bell rang, so we began without him. Just as the plates were put round for the entree, puss came rushing upstairs and sprang into his chair, with two mice in his mouth. Before he could be stopped he dropped a mouse onto his own plate, and then one onto mine. He divided his dinner with me as I had divided mine with him."—Manchester Times.
Proposed and Accepted.
MANY of the customs of the Friends are very beautiful; and while their home-life is almost without reproach, their love-making is not always even as vehement as the following conversation suggests:—
“Verily, Penelope, the spirit moveth me and urgeth me wonderfully to beseech thee to cleave unto me until death us do part. Doth thine heart incline unto me, and peradventure do I find favor in thy sight?”
“Truly, Obadiah, thou hast wisely said; and forasmuch as it is written, ‘it is not good for man to be alone,’ and because my spirit doth incline unto thee, verily I will sojourn with thee henceforth and forever.”
Such sentiment is of the kind that lasts.—Youth’s Companion.
SECULAR.
—A $60,000 addition is to be built to the Salt Lake penitentiary.
—Herr Most’s paper has again made its appearance in New York, and defies the authorities.
—During the recent cholera epidemic in Japan, there were 10,000 deaths in Tokio.
—Severe storms have recently swept over Spain and numerous wrecks are reported.
—Harvard College celebrated its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary on the 8th inst.
—Of the 78,405,000 acres of land in Germany devoted to agriculture, 1,986,597 are planted to tobacco.
—It is stated that the condition of affairs in Burmah is such that the civil law is inadequate to restore order.
—The strike of the 25,000 employes of the Chicago packing houses and stock yards was likely to be protracted indefinitely, owing to the determination of the packers to employ none but non-union men, but has been ordered off by Grand Master Powderly.
—Southern society is very much agitated over the fact that Mrs. Cleveland has twice refused to meet the daughter of Jefferson Davis.
—The public debt decreased $13,201,619 during the month of October. The total debt less the available cash items, is $1,354,347,947.
—Recent advices from China state that General Fong has been defeated by the insurgents in Hainan, which is in a very disturbed state.
—The local Government Board of London states that the number of paupers in that city is twenty-two to every thousand of the population.
—November 10, Prince Waldemar, son of the king of Denmark, was unanimously elected to the Bulgarian throne. He has declined the honor.
—Hon. James A. Whitney, of New York, has been employed by the San Francisco Socialists to assist in the defense of the condemned Anarchists of Chicago.
—A state of siege has been declared in Guatemala, and a number of prominent citizens of that Republic have been exiled, despite the protests of the papers.
—The only oleomargarine factory in Connecticut—that of Easterbrook & Co., of New Haven—suspended operations November 1, because of the Federal tax.
—The loss of the British bark, Sarah Anderson, en route from Coquimbo to England, has been confirmed. All hands, including the captain and his wife, were lost.
—Two trains were wrecked on the 7th inst. by a collision on the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Two men were killed and several others more or less seriously injured.
—The Afghanistan General sent out to subdue the Thilzai rebels has sent ten car loads of human heads to Cabul as a token of the victory which his forces had won.
—A conflict between Mexicans and Americans recently occurred on the Mexican border. Several men were killed. The Americans are greatly incensed and declare that they will have vengeance.
—On the 12th inst. enormous tidal waves on the Mediterranean Sea did considerable damage in the vicinity of Nice. Quays and promenades were swept away, and several persons were carried out to sea by the waves.
—The New York Observer, of November 4, says: “Twelve out of the twenty-four men elected aldermen of New York City last Tuesday, are liquor dealers, some of them keepers of the most notorious dens in the city.”
—There is a great drought in the Kwantung provinces, China, and the second crop of rice has been almost completely ruined in consequence. There is sure to be appalling distress during the coming winter.
—Three wholesale liquor houses have failed in Baltimore within a few weeks, while all the distilleries in Washington County, Maryland, have ceased operations. The proprietors attribute their failure to the temperance agitation.
—The fire in the Standard coal mines at Mt. Pleasant, Pa., is still burning. Acres of coal are on fire and the flames are making their way toward some abandoned cells which are full of fire-damp. A terrible explosion is feared.
—The population of Japan is about 37,000,000, and the number of criminals punished in Japan during the past year was 117,520, being an increase of 10,743 by comparison with the previous year. Of the number 149 suffered capital punishment.
—Sunday, November 7, a sensation was caused in La Crosse, Wis., by the enforcement of the Sunday laws. Not only were saloons closed, but telegraph and telephone companies were required to suspend operations; and even milk and baker wagons were stopped.
—The New York Post, of November 10, says that fully 20,000 men, women, and children were employed in knit goods mills throughout New York State, which the owners have closed against all Knights of Labor. The contest, it says, has “become an open war” upon the Knights.
—A dispatch from Rome, Italy, under date of November 11, states that the rivers Po and Adige have overflowed and submerged the country along their courses. At Albenga the high waters of the Po dislodged a railway bridge while a train was crossing, precipitating the cars and passengers into the river. Five persons were drowned.
—It is said that in the immediate vicinity of Healdsburg, Cal., from 600 to 1,000 tons of grapes went to waste the past season for want of a market.
—The Dantzic Zeitung (Berlin) predicts terrible distress during the coming winter. It says that trade is paralyzed and that work is failing everywhere; that the authorities of the State dock-yards discharge men weekly, and that in the arms factories there are also many hundreds idle.
—Sergy Dark Smolianoff, a Russian resident of San Francisco, claims to be the inventor of a new death-dealing shell in which nitro-glycerine may be used with absolute safety. If the shell is as perfect as its inventor claims it to be, it will make a great change in methods of modern warfare.
—An unsuccessful attempt was made on the 11th inst. to blow up a passenger coach on the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburg Railroad. On the arrival of the train at Du Bois, Pa., the car inspector discovered three dynamite bombs and caps fastened under the springs of the rear coach. The bombs were carefully removed.
—A prominent Russian Nihilist refugee, in Berne, recently said to the New York Sun’s correspondent: “Nihilism is at present depressed, and unity in the direction of effective work is lost.” It is said, however, that “the precautions taken to protect the Czar have been redoubled, and have now reached a stage that is simply astonishing.”
—A resident of Sydney, Australia, has brought under the notice of the Governor and Sir Alfred Stephen, an electrical machine-gun invented by him, which he claims is capable of firing 120 rounds every few seconds, from any position and to any direction. The gun is stated to be easily portable, and is attested by experienced officers to be an invention of the greatest value.
—There is said to be great distress among even skilled workmen in London owing to the discharge of employes by many firms. The socialists are advocating that one free meal a day in the boarding schools be given to children who desire it. It appears from a report published by the Daily Telegraph that over 30 per cent. of the children who compulsorily attended school last winter were there without having had food.
—Immediately after the great earthquake at Charleston, S. C., certain scientists announced that the disturbance was caused by “the settling of that part of the earth’s surface;” indeed, we were gravely told that a large part of the Atlantic Coast had “slipped toward the ocean.” But now the whole theory is completely upset by the statements made by residents of the Georgia coast that “since the earthquake the islands have grown and the land is perceptibly higher above the sea level.” It would, indeed, be a phenomenon worth observing, were half the Atlantic Coast to “slip” uphill.