Earlier text: The MissionaryThe Child King.
By Rose Terry Cooke
"Will you go over to Nankin with me to-morrow?" asked kindly Mrs. Brown of her tired and hard-working neighbor, Mrs. Peters. "You know the Association meets there, and husband's got to go, so I thought you would like to drive over and see your Aunt Betsey." "Oh, I should, ever so much; but Dell is going to go to a picnic to-morrow afternoon, and it'll take me the whole of the morning to iron her white dress. I've just got it washed and hung out; and there's biscuit to make, she wants 'em fresh. And"— "O mother!" The words came before the door flew open, and in bounced a young girl of twelve, with the assurance and poise of forty, dressed in a braided costume that implied a week's hard work from somebody, her light hair banged on her low forehead, cheap rings and bracelets shining on her fingers and arms, a gilt necklace around her sallow throat over a wide frill of imitation lace, her whole air pert, tawdry, and disagreeable. She barely nodded to the minister's wife, and went on in a loud voice, "Luelle says I ought to have some little pies and some cream-cakes besides the biscuit; so I ran home to tell you." Poor Mrs. Peters's face fell. "I don't really see how I can, Dell. It's quite a piece of work to make cream-cakes. I can make some pie crust and fix it up for the pies." "Oh, but I want the cream-cakes! If you make 'em to-night, the pies can wait till morning." "But, Dell, I've got to get the breakfast and wash the dishes and make the beds and sweep, and then iron your white dress, and you know there's sights of work on it, and you want the ruffles fluted, and"— "Oh, can't you get up real early?" Mrs. Brown was indignant. A wise proverb cautions us not to put a finger between the bark and the tree, but she did not remember it. "Why don't you make the cake yourself, Della?" she said. "When I was your age I could make cake. Can't you?" Della stared at her scornfully; Mrs. Peters put in her word at once. "Oh, I have never asked it of her, Mrs. Brown. Dell's delicate," "and she loves to go; children are children but once, and I want her to have a good time. I'll fetch it round somehow, Dell, dear. You tell Aunt Betsey, won't you, Mrs. Brown, that I wanted to see her; but I really couldn't get over. I thank you just as much." Mrs. Brown offered no further remarks. There was a tone of aggrieved motherhood in Mrs. Peters' voice that warned her to keep silence; she said good-by, and pursuing her walk up the street, rang the bell at a handsome house standing in a well-kept yard that told its own story of wealth within. She was admitted to the parlor, and warmly welcomed by Mrs. and Miss Vincent, a wife of middle age and her sister-in-law. But hardly had she begun to talk with her friends when the door opened, and in rushed four children of various ages, who, after nodding at the visitor, or reluctantly shaking hands, at once monopolized the conversation. In vain did Mrs. and Miss Vincent struggle to be heard. "O Mary!" said Mrs. Vincent, "I was trying to tell Mrs. Brown"— "Well, ma, I've got to go, I said I would, and"— "Oh, yes! You told Will Johns you'd go, and you've got to! Just like a girl! I'd"— "Milly, dear, I want to ask Mrs. Brown"— "Well, Aunt Sue, I must go if Mary goes, and there's that picnic, and"— So it went on, a perfect babel, which no present effort could silence, it had been so long the habit in this house for the elders to listen and the children to speak. Mrs. Brown made only a short call; she went but a few steps farther to the house of a desolate woman, a widow who had lost her two children a month since with diphtheria. Mrs. Tenny burst into tears as she came into the room, and Mrs. Brown put her arms about her tenderly. "My poor friend!" was all she could say. "O Mrs. Brown, I can't, I can't be reconciled to it! I miss them every second. Hal used to come in so bright from school—his first year to go, you know; and Susy was always at my knee or in my lap when she was awake; and in the lonesome nights I used to listen for their soft breathing; and put out my hand to feel Susy's little tender face in the crib, and thank God I had them still, if their father had left me." There was nothing to say to this; as of old, the mother wept for her children, and refused to be comforted. Mrs. Brown tried another course. "They were not both taken at once?" she asked. And the mother ceased weeping for the moment to answer her, and with the pathetic garrulousness of grief entered into details. "No. Hal came home from school one day, so tired, and said his head ached. And I tried to make him keep still on the sofa; but he was restless, and would go out in the sunshine to see the chickens. It was a hot day in May, and I couldn't make him keep a hat on; pretty soon he sort of crawled back into the kitchen, and said his 'float' was sore, and 'fings kep' goin' round an' round an' round.' Then I sent for Dr. Smith, and he gave me some medicine and a brush, and told me to put it on the inside of his throat, and rub some liniment on the outside. But Hally wouldn't let me, and he screamed and kicked so he choked up right away; I couldn't do it, it hurt him so, and he wouldn't let me if I'd wanted to. "I meant to send Susy away; but she never would stay with anybody but me—the little precious! I never could make her. So she sickened next day, and there couldn't be anything done for her; there wasn't a day between them. And now—now—my house is like a grave all the time." In the piteous burst of sobbing that followed, could Mrs. Brown speak the thought that filled her heart, and say, "My friend, you have fallen into the pit which you have digged; if your children had learned to obey you in health, they might have been with you to-day?"13 She could not, deeply as she felt it. The hour for counsel was past. She could only "weep with them that weep," and betake herself to the next call on her list; for Mrs. Brown was doing parish duty this afternoon. Mrs. Tibbetts was very glad to see her. "And how are you all to-day?" asked the minister's wife. "Oh, we're reasonably well, all but Nellie; she got thrown down at the rink, last night, and sprained her ankle badly. I've expected something like that would happen to her." "Don't you think it is a bad place for girls to go, anyway?" asked Mrs. Brown. "Land, yes! But all the young folks are possessed to go, and you can't stop 'em. All sorts of people go there, and they talk to everybody, and get familiar-like with folks you wouldn't have them know. There's about as much harm in a rink as there is in a rum-hole; but it makes about as much money; so you can't stop them; nobody can." "Why do you let your girls go there?" "Mercy! I can't help their going. Girls are as headstrong as pigs; the more you pull them one way, the more they go the other way. I've always wanted my children to have a good time while they were young; there's trouble enough ahead of 'em; so I've let 'em run, and 'tisn't to be expected that I can stop them now." There was no controverting that point, so Mrs. Brown said no more. The next house was Mr. Meeker's. Mrs. Meeker stood at the window, watching with anxious eyes her oldest son, who was experimenting with a new bicycle. "O Mrs. Brown," she said, looking over her shoulder, "come in, do; I can't go away a minute from the window. I'm so afraid Charley'll fall and hurt him. He's been crazy after a bicycle, and Mr. Meeker didn't know how to get one for him—they're real costly—and I begged and begged him not to buy one, for I knew well I shouldn't have a minute's peace while he was off with it; but the boy wanted it, and that's enough. What he wants, he's got to have. We're behind with the taxes, and I'm fixing over my old clothes rather than ask John for a cent; but Charley's got the length of his father's foot, as folks say, and I don't know why he shouldn't have. Boys must be boys, you know, and I never did believe in making images of them, to do just so and be prim and proper all their days. Oh, o-h, there! I thought he was off that time, but he wasn't. I do believe my nerves will be worn out with that bicycle. Don't go!" "I won't stay now, Mrs. Meeker. I know you want to watch Charley. I'll come some other time." So, quite unattended, Mrs. Brown found her way to the door, and went on to the next house, where Miss Sophronia Packard lived all alone and took in sewing. Mrs. Brown made the usual civil inquiries, and then Miss Sophronia opened the conversation. "I see you came from Mrs. Meeker's; well, I do pity that woman; she hasn't a minute's peace for those children. And here's Mrs. Bunnell, next door, is just as bad, though she hasn't but one; but her May is headstrong, now I tell you. Why, she goes all the time; if 'tisn't a dance, it's a picnic, or a ride, or a sail. She's as impudent as a bumble-bee, and as quarrelsome as a wren; but she isn't of any use in the world, as I see, but to plague her ma. Why, the other day Mrs. Bunnell found out that May was going over to Norwalk in a buggy with a young fellow, at eight o'clock in the evening, calculating to come home by moonlight between one and two in the morning, and naturally she set her feet down that May shouldn't go. She didn't know the fellow; but she knew very well that it was unseemly for a girl of fifteen to go off that way with any young man, and so she told May; but, if you'll believe it, Mrs. Brown, that piece just put on her sack and bonnet and walked out of the door, and off with her 'fellow'! If I'd been her ma, she'd got a locked door in her face when she came home." "O Miss Sophronia, do you think that would have helped the matter? A father's house ought never to be closed on a child, any more than our Father's, least of all when the child's faults are the result of the parent's folly and weakness." "Well, may be there's something in that; but it does seem to me that something ought to be done when a girl flies right in her ma's face like that!" "I'm afraid it is too late to do much at May's age, but pray for her." "Land! you don't suppose Mrs. Bunnell thinks May needs praying for? Why, she thinks she's just about perfection. If you should so much as hint about praying for her, I guess you'd raise a muss right off." Mrs. Brown tried to control her face, but found it hard. Miss Sophronia's air of fine scorn was irresistible. She changed the subject by saying, "I am sorry Mrs. Phelps has gone away. I meant to have called on her." "Well, you can if you want to; she is not gone," said Miss Sophronia, in an acrid tone. "Not gone! Why, she had wanted so much to see her sister, I thought nothing would hinder her." "I know it; she hadn't seen Mrs. King for three years; but Marian went and asked two girls and the brother of one of them to come this week and stay till after the Fourth, and Mrs. Phelps wasn't going to leave them there alone. Besides that, her hired girl is not competent to do for company; but that's the fashion, the children rule nowadays. I feel thankful every day that I haven't any youngsters a walking over me, and making a door-mat of me! Not but that I might be like Miss Perkins, to be sure, if I'd a nephew. I stepped in there the other day, and if that woman wasn't to going round the keeping room on all fours with her sister's boy astride of her back, and she a saying, 'Oh, do stop Sammy! I'm so tired,' and he a whipping her up and screaming, 'Go 'long hossy! Go 'long hossy!' And she did go 'long, till I picked him up with a jerk, and set him down hard on the nearest chair. My! didn't he yell, and wasn't she mad? But I'm glad I did it!" That night Mrs. Brown detailed all that she had seen and heard in her round of calls, to her husband, as they sat together by the study fire. His face clouded darkly; but he did not tell her what heavy thoughts pierced the future, and saw, as in a vision, impending trouble for the land and the people that he loved. All that he did when his revery was ended was to draw a deep sigh, and repeat in melancholy tones one text from the Scripture, that was his counsel for both lives, "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child." And let all the people say, Amen.—Rose Terry Cooke, in the Congregationalist. The Home Circle.
By National Baptist
'Twas carefully stowed in the attic away,
Where the grandchildren often resorted to play;
It afforded them joy, and 'twas pleasant to know
Other boys and girls played with it long, long ago.
And best of all treasures they looked upon there,
They knew grandma prized this, the little arm chair. Though quaint and old-fashioned, to her it was dear,
And often upon it she let fall a tear.
And the little ones oft would ask grandma to tell
Some tale of the past she remembered so well,
Of her own little children so cunning and fair,
Who sat by her side in the little arm chair. In fancy she sees them, the girls and the boys,
And hears the old homestead resound with their noise;
And babyhood's days have a charm ever sweet,
As she listens again to the dear little feet,
And the sweet childish laughter in which she must share,
As they take their first step by the little arm chair. With their book they sat in it while learning to read,
And watching their progress was pleasant indeed;
Or the girls with their dolls would play "come and see,"
Then for a short nap lay them down on her knee.
And she taught them to sew on their first patchwork square,
As they sat by her side in the little arm chair. She taught them to love and to honor the truth,
And sowed the good seed in their hearts while in youth,
And had in her soul an abundant reward,
When she saw it bear fruit to the glory of God;
And the baby lips uttered their first infant prayer,
As they knelt by her side at the little arm chair.
—National Baptist. Some Facts about Tobacco.
WHATEVER honest difference of opinion may exist about the ethics of the tobacco question, there can be no doubt that the consumption of the weed in its various forms lays an enormous burden on the people of this country in money expenditure. The report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue for the last year indicates that about 3,500,000,000 cigars, 1,000,000,000 cigarettes, and 170,000,000 pounds of chewing tobacco were consumed in the United States in the single year 1884. A writer in the Inter-Ocean, from which we take these statistics, calculates that it would take one man 40,000 years simply to count, one by one, the cigars smoked in that year. The estimate would allow twenty-four pounds of tobacco a year to every family. When we consider that a fifteen-cent cigar represents about two cents' worth of tobacco and one cent's worth of labor, and that the total tobacco bill of the country mounts up to nearly $500,000,000, it is not to be wondered at that the economist should exclaim in amazement at the waste, and wonder if the alleged "soothing and tranquillizing" influence is worth what it costs. A book has just been printed on this subject, in which the author, "Meta Lander" (Mrs. Margaret Woods Lawrence) has collected with great industry and thoroughness a mass of facts and opinions on the use of tobacco, in which arguments are brought to bear with great force against it from the financial, the social, the physical, the aesthetic, the intellectual, and the moral standpoints. Our readers may be interested in a few paragraphs:— "Some years since, the annual production of tobacco throughout the world was estimated at four billions of pounds. This mass, if transformed into roll-tobacco, two inches in diameter, would coil around the world sixty times; or, if made up into tablets, as sailors use it, would form a pile as high as an Egyptian pyramid. Allowing the cost of the unmanufactured material to be ten cents a pound, the yearly expense of this poisonous growth amounts to $400,000,000. Put into marketable shape, the annual cost reaches $1,000,000,000. This sum, according to careful computation, would construct two railroads around the earth, at $50,000 a mile. It would build 100,000 churches, each costing $10,000, or 500,000 school-houses, each costing $2,000; or, it would employ a million of preachers and a million of teachers, at a salary of $500. "What more effective, pathetic appeal to the head and the heart can be made than by these figures? Two millions of tons of tobacco annually consumed by smokers and snuffers and chewers; while from every part of the habitable globe are hands stretched out imploringly for the bread of life which must be denied for the lack of means to send it! "In Great Britain alone there are not far from 300,000 tobacco shops. England prohibits the culture of the weed, that she may secure larger imports, her annual receipts amounting to $40,000,000, a greater revenue than she gets from all the gold mines of Australia. "In Austria the duties from this source reach the same figures; while in France, where tobacco is a monopoly, they come up to $60,000,000. In most countries official statements show that it costs more than bread. "In the city of New York about 75,000,000 cigars are annually consumed, and at a cost of more than $9,000,000—enough cigars to build a wall from Empire City to Albany." "It is stated by Dr. Ritchie that in London fifty-three fires occurred in one year as the result of smoking. He adds: 'I have more than once seen a carpenter under a London station light his pipe and cast the half-burnt match among the shavings.' "What shall we say to the setting on fire of a forest near Lowell, Mass., by ministerial cigars? to the burning of several buildings in Fall River from juvenile cigars and matches? to the consuming of a church in Chicago from a carpenter's pipe? and to the destruction of three millions' worth of property in one of our cities from a half-smoked cigar, which a young man threw down?" "So infatuated are the devotees of the weed that, in spite of the strictest regulations, workmen sometimes persist in smoking even amid the most dangerous surroundings. "In a single day pipes and matches were found in the pockets of fifty-eight workmen as they were just entering the powder works at Hounslow. "The blowing up of a powder magazine in Mexico, and many houses near by, with the destruction of seventy lives, was caused by the dropping of a lighted cigar. "After the Blantyre explosion in 1879, resulting in the death of twenty-eight persons, the inspector of mines found matches and partly smoked pipes lying near the bodies. "Says an insurance agent: 'One-third or more of all the fires in my circuit have originated from matches and pipes. Fires in England and America are being kindled with alarming frequency by smokers casting about their firebrands or half-burnt matches.'" LITERARY MEN AND TOBACCO.
"Among the total abstainers on principle from tobacco as well as from spirits and wine, are Dr. Allibone, the Duke of Argyll, Robert and William Chambers, George W. Childs, Professor Fairbairn, Cardinal Newman, Keshub Chunder Sen, and M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire. "Of Gladstone it is affirmed that he 'detests smoking.' "Darwin: 'I have taken snuff all my life, and regret that I ever acquired the habit.' "Ernst Haeckel: 'I have never smoked.' "Philip Gilbert Hamerton: 'I shall certainly never resume smoking. I never use any stimulants whatever when writing, and believe the use of them to be most pernicious; indeed, I have seen terrible results from them. When a writer feels dull, the best stimulant is fresh air.' "John Ruskin entirely abhors the practice of smoking, his dislike of it being mainly based on the belief that a cigar or pipe will often make a man content to be idle for any length of time. "Charles Reade: 'I tried to smoke five or six times, but it always made me heavy and rather sick; therefore, as it costs money, I spurned it. I have seen many people the worse for it. I never saw anybody perceptibly the better for it.' "The case of a distinguished French savant, the Abé Moigno, editor of the Journal du Monde, is very striking. Temperate in his general habits, he became conscious of injury from his excessive use of snuff, many times giving it up only to resume it again. He was a noted linguist, knowing by heart some 1,500 root words in various languages; but, under the influence of the narcotic, these were all dropping from his memory. He felt this to be so great a trial that he finally renounced the habit. He writes: 'It was the commencement of a veritable resurrection of health, mind, and memory, and the army of words that had run away has gradually returned.'"—Christian Union. Hasty Conclusions
By Jeremy Taylor
HASTY conclusions are the mark of a fool; a wise man doubts; a fool rages and is confident; the novice says, "I am sure that it is so;" the better learned answers, "Peradventure it may be so; but I pray thee inquire." It is a little learning, and but a little, which makes men conclude hastily. Experience and humility teach modesty and fear.—Jeremy Taylor. THE idea of “respectable employment” is the rock upon which thousands split, and shipwreck themselves and all who depend on them. All employments are respectable that bring honest gain. The laborer, who is willing to turn his hand to anything, is as respectable as the draper store-tender.—Sel. A LEADING daily paper says: “The tax on tobacco is a discriminating one against a particular branch of agricultural production, and might better be removed or made only nominal.” Tobacco itself is a very heavy tax upon the soil which produces it, as also upon the victims of its use and their offspring, and ought therefore to be assessed heavy damages.—Sel. —A rebellion has broken out in Northern Mexico. —The volcano of Colima, in Mexico, is in a state of eruption. —During four months in 1885, 1,795 saloon licenses were issued in Chicago. —The decrease of the public debt during the month of December was $9,089,040. —The average age of the 1,400 inmates of the prison at Sing Sing, N. Y., is twenty-six years. —Lieutenant-General Stephenson, commander of the British forces in Egypt, completely routed the rebels in a recent battle near Kosch. —A severe storm on the Atlantic coast, December 21, wrecked several schooners and many small coasting vessels; but no loss of life is reported. —Senator Edmunds's anti-polygamy bill provides for the repeal of the act of the territorial legislature which gave the women of Utah a right to vote. —The captain of a Swedish vessel, who lately arrived in New York, says that twenty-two vessels and sixty lives were lost in the recent storm at Aspinwall. —On New Year's morning, a very destructive fire occurred in Detroit, Mich. The loss is estimated at over $1,000,000. One fireman was killed, and another badly injured. —Queen Christina took the oath as regent of Spain, December 30. Since her accession to the regency, she has granted amnesty to all political and press offenders in Cuba. —The Russians are trying to raise cotton in the Merv oasis, in Turkistan. Some seeds from this country have been sowed, and have produced cotton equal to the American. —One of the greatest drawbacks to the prosperity of Mexico is the difficulty of breaking up the great landed estates. Out of a population of 10,000,000, only 50,000 are land-owners. —A terrible explosion occurred in a mine near Pont-y-Pridd, Wales, December 23. Seventy-five dead bodies have been recovered from the pit, and it is feared that others are still buried in the debris. —Twenty-five years ago, Japan had not a single newspaper. Now it has two thousand,—more than either Italy or Austria, more than Spain and Russia together, and twice as many as the whole continent of Asia. —Germany has officially announced her intention to expel the German-Americans in Schleswig who emigrated to the United States before becoming liable to military service, and returned after being naturalized. —By the terms of the protocol drawn up by the International Commission on Balkan affairs, the Bulgarians were to evacuate Pirot, December 27, and the armistice between Servia and Bulgaria is to be prolonged to March 1. —The proposed German ship canal which is to connect the Baltic with the Elbe, is to be sixty miles long, and its estimated cost is $35,700,000. If ever completed, it will give Germany such command of the Baltic as she has never yet obtained. —A gentleman from Pittsburgh, Pa., who has had much experience in oil wells, has visited the oil field of California, and pronounces it "valuable territory." The oil region is in the Coast Range Mountains, and covers an area of two hundred miles. —A serious political riot occurred at Limerick, Ireland, December 26. Women as well as men took part in the melee; and sticks, stones, guns, and pistols were handled with savage earnestness. At least twenty persons, some of them women, were dangerously wounded. —A single train consisting of 141 loaded cars, was brought into New Orleans one day last month. The train, which was the largest ever handled in this way in the United States, was drawn by a single engine. It was over a mile long, and weighed 7,250,000 pounds. —In Japan a society has been organized whose object is the introduction of the Roman alphabet into that empire. Many of the members are princes and Government officials, and the Government warmly approves the plan. And it is a much-needed reform; for as the written language now stands, an ordinary public-school pupil is obliged to load his memory with not less than four thousand characters, and in the higher courses of study the number is doubled.15 —President Grevy has been re-elected by the French Chamber of Deputies. Premier Brisson has tendered his resignation, and M. De Freycinet has been called upon to form a new Cabinet. In view of the gravity of the political situation in France, De Freycinet hesitates, and has asked the President to grant him time to consult with his friends and the Republican leaders. —The Apaches are again active. In the vicinity of Silver City, N. M., they ambushed a small body of troops, killing five men and wounding two others. None of the Indians were injured. It is believed that they have committed numerous other murders. Everybody is leaving the country, even the cowboys and the ranchmen, and depopulation and desolation are met everywhere. —The World says: "The recent bitter election contest in Georgia over the local-option issue, which promises to leave Atlanta the most progressive of the Southern cities, and as free from liquor saloons as any town in Maine, has attracted attention to the almost phenomenal spread of the temperance movement in the South. Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and even Kentucky, are moving rapidly in the direction of absolute prohibition." —The Standard Oil Company of Pittsburgh, Pa., is making arrangements to supply Buffalo, Philadelphia, and New York, with natural gas. The manufacture of the pipe has been divided among several firms. It is the largest order ever contracted for, and will keep all the works busy for several months. The work of laying the pipe will be begun at once. This is said to be the "most gigantic enterprise of the age," and it will certainly afford employment for a large number of men. —It is rumored in London that Russia and Austria are secretly arming, and that both countries have sent orders to England for large quantities of stores for their respective armies. New Year's peace prospects are not bright. Krupp has supplied more guns in the last month than in almost the whole year previously. Turkey is still massing troops on the Macedonian frontier. The expense of keeping her immense force under arms all winter will be frightful. The attitude of Greece, showing no signs of an intention to disband, creates the greatest uneasiness. It is stated that very large contracts for cartridges have been placed in the United States. IT is surprising to know how many girls there are with aspirations toward the operatic stage. Not one in a thousand has the rare voice necessary to success, and it is always sorrowful to find a young person with ambitions far beyond his or her abilities. A little success in concert singing, a solo or two in a church choir, the flattery of people who cannot discriminate between good and bad voices, and the young singer must go at once to a conservatory of music, and thence to the operatic stage. This last misfortune, however, seldom befalls her, and in time she goes back home with much of the sweetness gone out of her life, as well as out of her poor little voice. She affects contempt for the sweet and simple little ballads she might sing so pleasantly; yet she really has no ability for anything greater. Perhaps she has appeared at a musicale, in a showy dress with an immense train, a part of which ought to have been around her bare arms, back, and shoulders. If this calamity has befallen her, she will ever after affect a mad passion for Italian music, and will sing in Italian only, although she knows less of the language than a two-year-old baby kicking up its heels under the blue sky of Italy. She becomes envious, jealous, satirical. Her life is often imbittered by the disappointments she is sure to meet. And of course it is hard for her to go back to her village or country home with all those golden imaginations coming to naught. It is hard to gather up all the bright hopes of one's life into the secret recesses of the heart, and sorrow and rebel over them. Fortunately, most of these disappointed operatic candidates are young, and to youth is given the blessed privilege of outgrowing and forgetting the failures and disappointments of early life. This disappointment might, however, be averted entirely if ambitious young singers would only think calmly and seriously of the mighty obstacles in the way of a successful public singer. When all is said, and when success is won, the laurel crowns an operatic singer may wear are not so beautiful as the crown of a pure, good, and noble womanhood spent in faithfully discharging the duties that come to every woman who really lives her life.—Youth's Companion. MEN admit that no man is equally great in all things. Yet they often do not see that a man's failure in one line of work is no reason why he may not succeed in a different calling. An incident which occurred some years ago in a London linen store illustrates this blindness. A young man whose bluntness was such that he was of no use as a salesman, was told that he did not suit and must go. Seeking the head of the house, the youth said,— "Don't turn me away; I am good for something." "You are good for nothing as a salesman," replied the principal. "I am sure I can be useful," continued the youth. "I don't know, sir; I don't know." "Nor do I," said the principal, laughing at the boy's eagerness and ignorance. "Don't put me away," continued the youth; "try me at something else. I know I can't sell; but I can make myself useful somehow, I know I can." Moved by his earnestness, the principal placed him in the counting-room. Immediately his aptitude for figures showed itself. In a few years he became the head cashier of the concern. Throughout the country he was known as an eminent accountant.—Sel. —The College of Cardinals at Rome consists of sixty-two members, of whom forty-two have been appointed by the present pope. —Dispatches from Rome state that at the Consistory in March the pope will appoint several new cardinals; and one or two of these will be Americans. A clergyman who has been examining statistics on the subject announces that the salaries of all the religious teachers in the country do not amount to so much as the sum spent annually in supporting dogs. —Queen Victoria has about 300,000,000 subjects. Of these 45,000,000 are at least nominally Christians; 68,000,000 are Mohammedans; 175,000,000 are Hindoos; 7,000,000 are Buddhists; and 7,000,000 are pagans under other names. —Fifty-five active men are engaged in selling the Scriptures in various parts of France. They have little faith in the usefulness of books that are given away, as they find that they are little valued, and are easily surrendered to the priests, to be torn up and burned. —About four thousand Poles, parishioners of a Catholic church in Detroit, Mich., dissatisfied because their favorite priest was removed by the bishop, gave vent to their dissatisfaction in a series of obstinate riots, December 25, 26. One man was killed. The rioters did not hesitate to attack the police, who were attempting to restore order. —The London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, the chief of the societies organized for that purpose, has an income of upwards of $175,000 a year, and works both at home and abroad. The missionaries report that in some respects their work during the past year has been more encouraging than in any previous year. —The Independent quotes from an editorial in the Catholic Mirror on the pope's Encyclical: "Impudent sects of heretics, infidels, atheists, claim to be treated by States on an equal footing with the one true church. How shall we view this deplorable and perplexing problem?" And adds: "This is strangely un-American. Does the Mirror think that, in our nation, other churches ought not to be on an equal footing with the Catholic before the law?" The position of the church, and the tone of the pope's Encyclical, seem plain enough on that question. —The General Conference of the German Missionary Societies held in Bremen in October, was a very important meeting. Besides the prominent ministers who attended, a representative of the German Government was present and took part in some of the discussions. The questions discussed had reference chiefly to missionary work in the German colonies. It was insisted that a fair recognition ought to be given of British, American, and other missionary enterprises in these colonies. The Conference also took strong grounds against the liquor traffic in these dependencies of the nation. —The citizens of Cambridge, England, are signing an address to the bishops and archbishops of the Church of England, asking that necessary reforms in the church be no longer delayed. "Among the reforms named are abuses in the sale of patronage, inequalities in the distribution of revenues, and difficulties in the removal of 'criminous and incompetent clerks.' It also asks for a more complete development of the constitution and government of the church, central, diocesan, and parochial; and especially the admission of lay members of all classes to a substantial share in the control of church affairs." —One of the live issues now before the people of England is the question of the disestablishment of the State church. Most of the leading bishops are vigorously opposing the separation of Church and State. Some of them go so far as to declare that it is wicked to discuss the question, or to meditate the breaking up of a union that has been established for three hundred years. But many of the most prominent non-conformist and denominational ministers are earnest supporters of disestablishment. They point out the deadening effect of connection with the State, on the spiritual life of the church, and assert that were it not for the numerous non-conformist churches throughout England, Protestantism would long ago have lost its firm hold of that country. MOORE.—Died of cancer in San Francisco, Cal., Dec. 28, 1885, Isabella Moore, aged nearly eighty-one years. In the early part of her life Sister Moore gave her heart to God, and became connected with the Methodist Church. In the summer of 1871 she attended a series of meetings held by Eld. Loughborough in a tent on Market St. S. F., where she accepted the views held by us as a people. She was one of the company by whom was effected the original organization of the San Francisco church, and at the time of her death her name stood at the head of the list of its members. Her Christian life has been exemplary. She came to the “grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.” Her last days were her best. She bore her sufferings with patience, and retained her faculties to the last moments of her life. The church as well as her friends mourn her loss, but not as those who have no hope. Soon the Life-giver will come and will, we trust, awake her out of her sleep, and bestow upon her everlasting life—the reward of the righteous. Words of comfort were spoken by the writer, from Rev. 14:13.