THIS all happened forty years ago or more, and the little boys, of seven and nine perhaps, wore very short jackets and long, baggy trousers, like all the other little boys of those days. They were deacon's sons, and well-trained, good boys, too. But temptation came to them very much as it does now to boys in shirt waists and knee pantaloons.
It was after tea one pleasant evening in May. Arthur and Rufus had seen four or five bigger boys go by together as if something was up; and Tom Bradford, the minister's boy, coming along just then, these three little fellows hurried down Pearl Street, too, and stole quietly around Cummings' shop after them.10
The carpenters had gone and the door was locked. The boys went in and out among the piles of boards, and there, behind the shop, were all the big boys whom they were looking for, and Hen Prince was smoking a stub of a cigar. How smart he looked to them! It was no first time with Henry. He could hold the cigar quid in his mouth, put his hands in his pockets, and straddle, and blow the smoke right out of his nose without choking. But the tobacco twist was about used up now, and getting hot for his lips and nose.
He had to throw it away, but he said as he did so: "Look here, now; let's have a whole one to-morrow night, and all try it. Here! what you here for, sissies?" cried Hen, spying the three little boys peeking from behind the boards. "Don't you go now and tell, or we'll give you the worst licking you ever got in your life. I tell you what," he went on more pleasantly, "you come down here to-morrow night after supper, all three of you, and you shall have a blow. You can learn. You're big enough. They won't be telling now," said Hen to his mates, with a knowing look.
Not a word did Arthur and Rufus say to each other about their invitation as they went to bed, nor the next day either. But when Tom Bradford happened around about sunset next night, they just concluded all at once to go down by Cummings' shop.
The big boys, ten or twelve years old, were there, and Hen was just coming over a back fence. He pulled out of his pocket a large, rank cigar, and some matches, too. (What would Mr. Cummings have thought if he had known?) Henry knew just how to start it, and he pulled at it lustily, while the others looked on and admired. Then John Serve took it and puffed a little, and Wood Pinckney, too, till it almost went out. But Henry worked it up again, and got it in good order.
"Now you try, boys." And he held it out to the little fellows. "Come, don't be afraid," he said, as they hesitated.
And the others chimed in with, "I wouldn't be a sissy. He thinks his mother will spank him. Give him a sugar plum."
"What did you come down here for, if you did not mean to try it?" said Henry with a coarse sneer.
This was a clincher, and each little boy in turn took the cigar.
They had watched to good purpose, and Arthur succeeded so well in "making it go" that he was quite proud of his success, and also determined that Rufus and Tom should do as well. The cigar grew smaller as boy after boy took his turn, and with more or less skill blew the smoke or knocked the ashes, when suddenly Rufus said, "Arthur, let's go home."
Something in his voice drew Henry Prince's attention to him. He gave a great "hoarse laugh."
"Sonny's sick, I guess; look at him!"
"Two sonnys, I'll bet," said another, "or three; why, where is Tom?"
And a chorus of jeers from the more hardened reprobates followed our youngsters as they crept off around the board piles.
A deadly paleness had crept over Arthur's fair skin, and an ashy look was creeping over Rufus' darker face as the two boys staggered into their yard. By good luck they reached their attic chamber without being seen, and threw themselves on their trundle-bed.
Ding-a-ding-a-ding! The baby was in her crib, the other little ones abed too, and now the bell rings for the two oldest boys. Arthur and Rufus hear it with a groan.
"I wish we hadn't gone down there, Arthur."
"So do I."
"Mother always says Hen Prince isn't a good boy to play with."
"Well, we know that ourselves. I don't see what we went with those fellows for any way."
"I feel awful sick."
"So do I."
"Do you suppose we are going to die?"
And both little heads went sobbing down to their pillows. They were only little boys.
And just as Mrs. Chase was thinking that she must ring that bell again, she heard a feeble voice over the attic banisters, saying, "Mother, please come up here."
"Why, the boys are upstairs and abed," she said to the deacon. "When did they come in? Something must be the matter. I'll go up and see."
Yes, something was the matter,—two little boys deathly sick and full of penitence! Their sin had found them out, and punishment had followed quickly on the pleasant wrong-doing. Between the qualms of nausea and conscience together, they told the tale of their temptation and fall. They clung to their mother while the pains of death got hold upon them. They begged her with tears to pray for forgiveness, and finally gave up their supper. With consciences and stomachs relieved, they were soothed off to sleep, and Mrs. Chase went downstairs and told the deacon all about it.
"They thought they were going to die, and I let them think so," she said grimly.
And did it do any good?—Yes, indeed, it did. To Arthur, as a boy and young man, the smell of tobacco brought up such a vision of that sick night as to destroy the force of the temptation, and now as a man in the fifties, he loathes it still. With Rufus the purpose "to let the thing alone" never faltered in circumstances where thousands of good purposes broke down, for he enlisted at twenty-one. But never again, even through an army experience from Sumter's fall to Lee's surrender, did he touch tobacco, or alcohol either, in any form. He is a deacon himself now, with boys of his own. I wonder how and where they have settled the tobacco question. Not behind Cummings' shop, for that has been gone five and twenty years or more.—Congregationalist.
Signs of the Coming Distress
“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; . . . men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.”
WHICH IS THE "BETTER CLASS"?
By William N. Glenn
THE men who are endeavoring to have their ideas of the Christian religion crystallized into the civil law of this country show a most unchristian disregard of the rights of those who do not support their schemes. This is particularly illustrated in the fact that they deem it a sufficient justification of their course to show that some infidel or other non-professor of religion is opposed to it. In the contest over the proposed religious amendment to the Constitution, now pending in Congress, the National Reformers have tried to uphold the amendment on the ground that some non-religionists had appeared against it, just as if such men had no rights which the government was bound to respect. Another autocratic feature of their intolerant purpose is shown in their efforts to cast ignominy and reproach upon Christian men, because, in their defense of equal rights for all, they happen to be in harmony with the views of some non-religious people on the same subject. These overzealous "reformers" would have joined those of old who maligned Christ because he ate with publicans and sinners.
Here we are confronted with two classes of men; one class makes no profession of religion, but stands for all civic purposes on the broad platform of equality before the law, civil and religious liberty, as enunciated by the Declaration of Independence and nominally guaranteed by the Constitution, while the other class would compel all, regardless of conscientious scruples or natural, God-given rights, to conform to certain religious dogmas or be branded as outlaws and enemies of society. Altho the latter class are loud in their profession of Christianity, they persistently ignore the standard of Christian life laid down by Christ,—"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."
With which class is it safer to trust our civil institutions? In whose company is it the more creditable to walk in the discharge of the civil duties or social relations of life? It is well to beware of that fast-increasing element who always hold themselves up as the "better class of society" because of their religious profession. The Lord has pronounced judgment against that class of professed disciples who walk "after their own thoughts,"—"which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou." Regarding this class he continues: "These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day. Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom, your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together." See Isa. 65:1-7. W. N. G.
A BETHLEHEM CELEBRATION PROPOSED.
"The Missionary Review for January, 1896, opens with a vigorous article, entitled 'The Outlook; Some Signs of the Times,' from the editor-in-chief, Dr. Arthur T. Pierson, which is like a stirring bugle call to more earnest missionary effort everywhere. Dr. Pierson finds the special occasion for this appeal in the circumstance, as he regards it, that this new year is not 1896, but 1900, of the Christian era, and thus 'marks the closing year of the century.' He observes that the familiar letters 'A.D.' do not originally stand for Anno Domini, but for Æra Dionysii, the Roman abbot, to whom is to be traced the method of reckoning the Christian era, which has been generally in vogue since the eighth century. Later and more careful computations, however, lead many scholars to the conclusion that an error of four years has occurred in the Dionysian era, and that the Incarnation must date back at least as early as the year 749 from the founding of Rome, or 4 B.C.
"And Dr. Pierson goes so far as to ask why a correction of the calendar of Christian nations could not be made even at this late day—if Pope Gregory XIII. could reform the calendar in 1582, taking out 10 days in October, and if Britain could, after 170 years' delay, adopt the new style and count September 3 'September 14.' In the event of such a correction, Dr. Pierson suggests that a magnificent celebration of the birth of Christ should be kept by all followers of our Lord, as the passing of the year 1896 completes full nineteen centuries since the angels sang the nativity chorus.
"Nativity week he would have observed at Jerusalem, and Christmas day itself at Bethlehem—the whole festival season being marked by the erection in Bethlehem of some permanent memorial, such as a home for common worship for all true believers, a halting place for pilgrims to and from mission fields, and a center for missionary operations. On successive days of the celebration there might be gathered together devout assemblies of believers of many names, presided over by representatives of the different branches of the church of Christ. 'What a fit way,' continues Dr. Pierson, 'to usher in the twentieth century, with prayers and praises in Him who was born in Bethlehem in the days of Herod the king! What an incentive to a united and earnest effort to push the lines of holy occupation to the very outermost ends of the earth!' Whatever may be thought of Dr. Pierson's chronology, which is not his more than it is that of many scholars, his zeal for evangelism is undoubted; and there is certainly great force in his appeal for increased activity this new year along the already multitudinous lines of missionary work carried on by the church of Christ, as well as in the inception of new evangelistic enterprises. The argument is that, if we are on the verge of the twentieth century of the Christian era, the outlook for missions is commensurately extensive and important, and that it accordingly becomes believers in Christ to look about them and study anew their conditions, to look back and review their course, and to look ahead and 'be ready for new risks and new duties.' History, as Dr. Pierson truly says, is big with great possibilities when hours and even moments witness stupendous changes and miracles of transformation. The chance is now, in a larger sense than it has ever been before. Is the church of Christ awake to its opportunity?"
Back to Heathen Times.
The Niagara Falls Gazette of March 17 has the following notice:—
"On Friday night there will be a meeting of the presidents of the various societies of Christian Endeavor in this city at the home of Miss Alice Wimer, on Niagara Avenue, to arrange for a union sunrise prayer meeting on Easter Sunday morning. At the meeting Friday night the church will be selected at which the meeting will be held on Easter morning, if the idea is favorably thought of, and it will probably be also decided whether the Christian Endeavor Union, comprising the members of the societies belonging to the different churches in the city, shall be continued or not."
And why not return to Mithraism, or sun worship? It is in perfect harmony with Easter celebration. The above is not the first instance of the kind in this generation. See also Eze. 8:15, 16.
Sons and Daughters of Promise
"That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth, that our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace."
THE "MOTHER'S ROOM."
By Harper's Young People
I'm awfully sorry for poor Jack Roe.
He's the boy that lives with his aunt, you know;
And he says his house is filled with gloom,
Because it has got no "mother's room."
I tell you what, it is fine enough
To talk of "boudoirs" and such fancy stuff,
But the room of rooms that seems best to me,
The room where I'd always rather be,
Is mother's room, where a fellow can rest,
And talk of the things his heart loves best.
What if I do get dirt about,
And sometimes startle my aunt with a shout?
It is mother's room, and, if she don't mind,
To the hints of others I'm always blind.
Maybe I lose my things—what then?
In mother's room I find them again.
And I've never denied that I litter the floor
With marbles and tops and many things more;
But I tell you, for boys with a tired head,
It is jolly to rest it on mother's bed.
Now poor Jack Roe, when he visits me,
I take him to mother's room, you see,
Because it's the nicest place to go
When a fellow's spirits are getting low.
And mother, she's always kind and sweet,
And there's always a smile poor Jack to greet,
And somehow the sunbeams seem to glow
More brightly in mother's room, I know,
Than anywhere else, and you'll never find gloom
Or any old shadow in mother's room.
—Harper's Young People.
TEMPER AND TONGUE.
A London merchant had a dispute with a Quaker about a bill; the merchant said he would go to law about it; the Quaker tried all means to keep him from doing so. One morning the Quaker resolved to make a last attempt, and he called at the merchant's house and asked the servant if his master was at home. The merchant heard him, and, knowing his voice, called out from the stairs, "Tell that rascal I am not at home." The Quaker, looking up at him, calmly said, "Well, friend, God grant thee a better mind." The merchant was struck with the meekness of the reply, and he looked into the disputed bill and found that the Quaker was right and he was wrong. He called to see him, and, after confessing his error, he said—
"I have one question to ask you, How were you able so often to bear my abuse with patience?"
"Friend," said the Quaker, "I will tell thee. I had once as bad a temper as thou hast; I knew that to yield to this temper was sinful, and I found that it was unwise. I noticed that men in a passion spoke loud, and I thought that if I could control my voice, I should keep my passion. I have therefore made it a rule never to let my voice rise above a certain key, and by carefully observing this rule I have, by God's help, mastered my temper."—Ex.
MODERN PROVERBS.
A FOOL learns from no one. A wise man learns from everybody.
Do the best you can, and God and his angels will want to help you.
To have no aim in life is to sooner or later fall into the ditch.
No man can be made rich whose happiness depends on money.
Joy has a new meaning when we have learned what sadness is.
Keep out of the crowd where vulgarity passes for wit and humor.
A day spent in bad company is a long step taken toward the pit.
It costs a great deal more to be proud than it does to be generous.
A word to the wise is enough, when it happens to be the right word.
The man who minds his own business will always have something to do.
No rich man was ever happy unless he used a part of his money to make others so.
When the wolf puts on sheep's clothing, he is pretty sure to have mutton for dinner.—Selected.
WHAT EVERY GOOD GIRL MAY BECOME.
By Youth's Companion
THE change which forty years has brought in American social and domestic life is nowhere more marked than in the position which a young girl to-day occupies in her home. Her mother at twenty was almost sure to have been skillful with her needle, and ready and able to help her mother in the management and control of the household.
The young girl of to-day is rarely in the old, simple housekeeping sense the "daughter of the house." She may attend a scientific course of cooking, or know how much farinaceous food each person should eat daily, or possibly be a member of charitable or scientific associations, but she is not fitted to take command in the kitchen and send up a savory dinner if the cook takes an abrupt departure. Does she know how much coal the family use in a winter? Can she doctor an aching tooth, or dress a burn?
In the struggle and triumph of the opening of wider careers for women, there is danger that the coming generation will overlook the fact that the old occupations are after all the most useful to the world, and the noblest. A girl may or may not be qualified to be an artist, a scholar, or to enter business life, but nature fitted every woman to be a daughter, a wife, a mother, and a home-keeper. Outside of this destiny many women do lead helpful, noble lives, but they are not less exceptions to a universal law.
Let the girl who reads this sing, or paint, or write, or teach, if God has given her the ability to do it; but he always gives her the ability to make the house in which she lives a happy home, and to widen its tender, holy influence.—Youth's Companion.
MORPHINE.
In a trial in this city the counsel, cross-examining a medical witness, read a statement from a work of Dr. Da Costa, of Philadelphia, which said that one-sixth of a grain of morphine could cause death if kidney trouble existed, even if this disease was latent, so that the patient did not know that he had it. He read from another work, by Prof. Alexander S. Taylor, a statement that "some persons have a peculiar intolerance for morphine, and may be killed by an ordinary medical dose, which would not harm an ordinary person." The witness admitted it.
One of the greatest allopathic physicians said: "If I were convinced that I would die without morphine I would take it; not otherwise. If I were convinced that a patient would die without it, I would administer it; not otherwise." Yet it is actually used as a domestic medicine by many families. One of our pastors had the melancholy duty to conduct the funeral services of two children, whom he believed, without being able to prove, were unintentionally killed by their mother, who administered morphine because she could not bear to see them in such pain. The physician who was called in one of the cases was strongly of that opinion, but, not being certain, shrank from having a legal investigation. An error in administering it to one of our ministers, an alumnus of Wesleyan University, drove him into a wild delirium, in which he dashed his head against the wall of his room, with fatal result.
Many popular soothing syrups have in them the potency of death, and soothe the unconscious infant out of life, or, if it survives, leave it with a nervous system which becomes a real Pandora's box.—N. Y. Christian Advocate.
The Nearest Duty
"Do THE duty which lies nearest to you. Every duty which is bidden to wait, returns with seven fresh duties at its back."
The Noise of Empty Bottles
The less water there is in a bottle, the more noise it makes coming out. Some men are like bottles.—Anon.
THE JERUSALEM CHRISTIAN UNION MISSION.
By Mrs. Agnes Ben-Oliel
By MRS. AGNES BEN-OLIEL.
A Review of the Past Year.
WITH thankful hearts we raise our Ebenezer for the blessings of the past year. In looking back over it I am forcibly reminded of the text that came as if whispered to me, as I opened my eyes on last New Year's morning: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." I had been weak and ill for some days, and it came with the assurance of strength to be renewed for God's service. The expression "they shall mount up with wings as eagles" conveyed to me the thought of being kept above one's troubles; and this has indeed been our blessed experience this year, amid worries and vexations from without.
I am sure our friends will be gratified to hear that my dear husband seems much younger and brighter than he has for at least two years, and day after day God's ceaseless fatherly care of us and our precious children, many of them far away from us, has given us constant cause for thankful praise; and we feel that he is showing his approval of our work by supplying our needs, and the increasing ones of the mission. In my last paper I urged my desire to give my poor "mothers" warm dress skirts instead of jackets this year, and very soon unusual donations came in, which have enabled me to do so.
Satan has been very busy in trying both to hinder the work and to prevent the means coming to carry it on, but the Lord has been overruling all for his own good purposes, and has granted us the happiness of seeing the very persecution give strength and courage to confess more boldly the faith in Jesus which had been steadily growing for three years or more. One convert, who has suffered much for persisting in coming to the mission house, was baptized on October 27 by the Rev. Curtis E. Long (Presbyterian) in the upper room after morning service, in presence of several ministers of different denominations, from the United States.
A week or two ago we paid a visit to a Moslem bey and his wife, our near neighbors. Mr. Ben-Oliel was received downstairs by the bey and his male friends, and my daughter and I were conducted upstairs by a woman to the apartments of his wife. There we were taken into a room with divans and sofas almost all round, and handsome Turkish carpets covering the center. Soon after we were seated, cigars were brought in and offered us, which of course we declined, but the lady of the house took one, which her maid brought her ready lighted. It was amusing to notice how the women servants clustered round the open door to see and hear all that passed. It reminded me of when Joseph wanted to make himself known to his brethren. He said, "Cause every man to go out from me." Yesterday the bey's wife returned our visit, her husband having called on Mr. B. a few days ago—husbands and wives never go out together. She came with a group of ladies and children, handsomely dressed in brocaded silks and furs and bright colors.
The Christmas Tree.
Our daughters prepared a Christmas tree, and we invited the bey's little girl to come and see it lighted up on Christmas day. She came, and was so pleased that the next day she came again. Some Jewish friends were also invited to spend the evening; some came, but many were deterred by the very urgent threats of the rabbis against all persons going to the mission house. They are threatened with excommunication, that is, their dead would not be buried, their young would not be married, nor their sons circumcised, nor would they get any help if sick or poor.
One young man who ventured to come is the son of the friendly rabbi, our former neighbor, who invited us one year, with a number of ministers and students, to witness the Passover at his house. He was so kind as to pause occasionally in his recital of the Passover service to allow Mr. Ben-Oliel to translate and explain to our friends the meaning of different parts of it. On coming out these gentlemen made the remark that Mr. B. was evidently "the right man in the right place." This son told my husband on Christmas day that he only wished the rabbis would question him about coming here, as they have done to others, and he would tell them, "Only go yourselves once, and you will want to go again, for you will hear explanations of our own Scriptures which will make you want to hear more." He comes nearly every Saturday.
The New Year's Fête, 1896.
The New Year's fête for Spanish Jewesses attending this mission was on a much larger scale this year, as our work has expanded and the numbers increased. On January 1 seventy gathered in the large hall upstairs, or, as Mr. Ben-Oliel likes to call it, the "upper room," the tree I have before mentioned being lighted at one end, and the presents and prizes for the girls being arranged on tables on either side; another table was covered with kindergarten work, embroidery, lace, etc., made in the school. Evangeline's children were arranged to the left, the girls and young women of Miss Volty's class in front, and, behind, the mothers of my mothers' meeting, with a few of their children, and one or two mothers of the girls, who had been admitted to hear their children recite and witness their enjoyment.
First they sang some hymns in Spanish, and then, the tiny ones beginning, they all recited, generally two together, hymns and texts in Spanish, French, and English, and then the first class stood up together and repeated a selection of texts from the Old Testament in Hebrew prophecies referring to Christ, giving chapter and verse, and following each passage with its translation in Judeo-Spanish. Mr. Ben-Oliel, who presided, was delighted and surprised to find what progress they had made since the last season of recitation. We all felt that they did their indefatigable teacher great credit.
This over, some of the young women of the dressmaking school repeated together some texts they had been taught by Evangeline in their own language, which was followed by some kindergarten action songs, which gave great satisfaction and amusement to all. The little ones, standing in a ring, gave "Pussy's in the Well;" the middle class, "I'm a Good Musician," with trumpet, violin, and drum, imitated by the little ones, who declared they were "all good musicians." Then the first class did the scarf drill, to the delight of all, after which came the giving of presents. Each one was called up to receive a dress, an orange, a cake, and some sweets, and for the little ones there were dolls and toys, and some warm scarfs, etc. The girls who had made most progress in reading received Pentateuchs in Hebrew, and others got work-boxes for good conduct.
Our warm thanks are due to the kind friends who have by their gifts enabled us to give so much pleasure to these poor people.
Jerusalem, Jan. 6, 1896.
A PITIFUL LETTER FROM TURKEY.
[Translated from the Armenian for the Christian Cynosure.]
SHOPIK, Turkey, Dec. 31, 1895.
BELOVED FRIENDS: We were attacked by a Kurdish chief with 400 armed followers, altho we paid them 100 Turkish pounds ($450) as ransom. They forced us to give up our other valuables and our weapons. They also took our grain and cattle. They then ransacked our houses and at nightfall went away.12The next morning the Turks from the surrounding villages attacked us and threatened to kill us if we did not leave our houses. So we went outside, and they entered and plundered. For eight days they burned the houses as they emptied them. Only ten or twelve of the poorer houses were not burned, but the doors and windows were carried off. After this they rushed upon the women and children, and took off their shoes and clothing. On the eighth day, as they had finished their work, they came to us, who were on the banks of the stream. They killed Brother Baghdo's son and Pastor Nelcon, because they would not change their religion.
It became night; darkness was upon us; but they came with lanterns and selected forty-five of the young men, saying that the government wished them. Knowing what would befall them, the men asked for an hour's grace. They prayed and sang; they asked forgiveness of each other; they kissed the hands of their parents, and parted with tears, with the expectation of never again seeing each other. Taking them to a desolate place half an hour distant, they were taken apart two by two and threatened with death if they would not change their religion. They all with one voice agreed in saying boldly: "We will not deny our religion. We are ready to die for our Saviour's love." Only five succeeded in making their escape, but the remaining forty became martyrs for the love of Jesus. My son Samuel was among the forty-five, but he escaped with four others and hid in a cave for ten or twelve days. My youngest son, twenty-two years old, was killed.
How heartrending was the sight! A week before we were in our homes, comfortable, having made every preparation for the winter, having our friends about us; but, like Job, we were deprived of everything, dwelling-house, furniture, beds, food, clothing. With heads uncovered, feet bare, little clothing upon us, we passed from rock to rock, from mountain to mountain, with great wailing and lamentation, to find our children. "Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not."
After wandering for several days, we went to the city of Arabkir for help, but in vain. The government twice gave us grain for bread, but less than a pound for each person, and this to last ten or twelve days. The wheat was burned and weavel-eaten, so that it was too bitter to eat. Our whole village is now crowded into the ten houses which were not destroyed. There are no doors, windows, bread, money, beds, or even earthen dishes in which we could cook if we had anything. Ten of us have died from cold, exposure, and hunger.
K. OF SHOPIK.
Sowing Beside All Waters
"Blessed are they that sow beside all waters."
AWAKE.
By A. R. Wilcox
BY A. R. WILCOX.
AWAKE, from sleep awake,
While hours of time are thine;
To dream, O linger not;
Arise, arise, and shine!
On thee has light come down
In precious golden rays.
Reflect the living light
Through all the fleeting days,
To distant realms that lie
In heathen darkness yet;
To souls undone and lost
If we our trust forget.
Neglect it not, but pray;
Of earthly treasure give;
And go before the world;
In truth and virtue live.
