Earlier text: SanctificationTHE SANCTUARY, ITS SERVICE, ETC.
(Lesson 14.—Sabbath, April 10) 1. AFTER ascending from the earth, what position did our Saviour take? "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession." Heb. 4:14. See also Heb. 8:1. 2. What service does he perform there? "A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." Heb. 8:2. 3. How had this heavenly sanctuary been typified? "For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices; wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer. For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law; who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle; for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount." Heb. 8:3-5. Read also 9:1-5. 5. How many sacred apartments had this sanctuary? Heb. 9:1-3. 6. What did each of these apartments contain? "For there was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread; which is called the sanctuary. And after the second vail, the tabernacle which is called the holiest of all; which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; and over it the cherubim of glory shadowing the mercy seat; of which we cannot now speak particularly." Verses 2-5. 7. What similar things have been shown in the heavenly sanctuary? "After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in Heaven; and the first voice which I heard was as it were a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the Spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in Heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone; and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats; and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting; clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices; and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God." "And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne." "And the temple of God was opened in Heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament; and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail." Rev. 4:1-5; 8:3; 11:19. 8. What purpose was served by the worldly sanctuary? "Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience." Heb. 9:9. 9. What significance had the service of the priests in the worldly sanctuary? Heb. 8, last part of verse 4 and first part of verse 5. 11. By what ceremonies was it cleansed? Lev. 16. 12. Why was so much importance attached to the blood? Because it represented the life of the victim. Lev. 17:11. 13. What was signified by the sprinkling of the blood upon the mercy-seat? That the law beneath the mercy-seat demanded the life of the one who had transgressed it. 14. What were all these ceremonies meant to impress upon the minds of men? That by disobeying God, they had forfeited all right to eternal life; and their only hope of salvation was in the promised Redeemer, who would make an atonement for them. Eze. 18:4; 1 John 3:5; 2 Cor. 5:21. 15. Who bears the sins of penitent believers? "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed." 1 Peter 2:24. 16. How long will he continue to bear them? Till they are blotted from the books of record, and laid upon the head of Satan. 17. By what evidence are men to be judged? "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works." Rev. 20:12. Also see Dan. 7:9, 10. 18. What must constitute a part of the cleansing of the sanctuary? The blotting out of the sins recorded there. 19. What must take place before they can be blotted out? They must first serve their purpose in the Judgment. 20. What follows from this? That the cleansing of the sanctuary must include an examination of the books, to see who of those that have once entered the service of God are entitled to have their sins blotted out. 21. Whose names will be retained in the book of life? "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels." Rev. 3:5. 23. What will constitute the complete cleansing of the sanctuary? The blotting out of sins, and the subsequent laying of them upon the head of Satan, the antitypical scape-goat. 24. What will be done with the sin records that are not blotted out? They will be reserved, to be examined during the Judgment of the thousand years, that sentence may be rendered accordingly, and will confront the sinner when his day of perdition and execution comes. 2 Pet. 3:7; Rev. 20:12-15. A Short Talk with the Boys.
Now, my lad, if you have arrived at the age of sixteen, it is time you began to think of a trade or profession. This isn't a country in which you can live on your father's name or money for any length of time; and even if you are calculating on coming into a comfortable fortune at your majority you may see the day before you are forty that a trade would clothe and feed you. Ninety-nine out of every hundred young men of to-day must make their own future. What that future will be, depends first, how you start in. It is easy enough to answer that you intend to become a merchant, lawyer, doctor, editor, dentist, machinist, carpenter, watchmaker, and so on; but just wait a minute and examine yourself. Take your horse to the blacksmith shop and you may see the smith look over a hundred ready-made shoes before he gets one to fit. All are horseshoes, but a perfect fit is the question. Now, then, examine yourself and seek to discover what particular forte you have. You were born to fill a certain place in the world. It may be that of a carpenter or it may be that of a poet. Make no mistake in starting out. When you hear a man who has nothing in particular to work at wishing that he had learned a trade, he is talking nonsense. He had no fitness for one. Had he set out to learn any of the dozen trades you can name he would have been a failure. Every city has dozens of lawyers and doctors who live starvation lives, and more or less of preachers and artists who are seldom, if ever, mentioned by name. These men are mistakes. They have no heart to their professions, and never belonged there. I can name you carpenters, painters, blacksmiths, wagon-makers, and others who are out of work half the time, and the other half is mostly consumed in kicking and complaining against the times. It is their own fault. They are botch workmen. It is like putting an accordion under a piano and expecting it to play piano music. Had each learned the trade he was fitted for he would have excelled. You have the same idea of being a merchant that I had at your age. It was simply to buy and sell goods. That seems easy enough, but the merchant who hasn't a "knack" for the business is doomed to certain failure. Not one out of fifty clerks ever become merchants. Probably not more than three or four out of fifty are fitted to do business for themselves. A boy's idea of being a doctor is to visit the sick, cure them if possible, and collect fifty dollars; and the one who answers that he is going to make a lawyer of himself thinks of nothing but big fees and verdicts in favor of his clients. But, as I told you at the outset, if you have arrived at the age of fifteen or sixteen, it is time you looked matters squarely in the face and had some idea of your future. If you were to answer at once you would say that you would take a profession in preference to a trade. A profession means several years of hard study, quite a large cash outlay and then trials and rebuffs to get a start in business. It is one thing to graduate as a lawyer or a doctor, and quite another to pick up clients and patients. If you have fully decided on a profession be careful of your first move. If you have a large head your grandmother has doubtless many times exclaimed: "What a great lawyer this boy would make." Don't try to make one on the size of your head. We have any number of that class in the country now, and they can't pay their grocers' bills. If you can pull a sliver out of your finger without winking, it may be a sign that you would make a great surgeon. It may also be a sign that you are born to be a butcher. How will you know what to pursue? Your own feelings are the safest guide. If left to your parents and to circumstances you may be forced into a trade or profession which you can never make a success. When you come to realize that you must make your own way in life your particular forte will be apt to reveal itself. One of the best lawyers in Detroit was intended for the ministry; another served three years as a journalist, but all the time feeling that he was out of his element; another was forced by his father to learn the trade of harnessmaker. I know a machinist who at first studied medicine; of a watchmaker who tried to become a lawyer; of a carpenter who threw away three years of his life trying to become a dentist. After you have selected your profession or trade, what then? Strive to master it in all its details and to excel. If you become a carpenter, don't be satisfied when you can saw and plane and match. Don't be satisfied with $2 per day. Make yourself worth $3. Master details, and push yourself from carpenter to builder. Don't imagine that a man in search of a lawyer walks down the street and drops in at the first sign hanging out. It is the lawyer who has climbed above his fellows that he seeks out. If our friends are ill we want the best doctor. We want the man who has made himself the best by study and energy. The blacksmith who is content to mend old wagons will never iron a new one. The machinist who stands at the lathe to do about so much work in ten hours need not hope to be better off. It is the men who put their heart into what they do who succeed. I can name you scores of instances where skilled workmen have been taken as partners in large factories. The clerk who is capable, honest, and persevering, is bound to win a higher position. The joiner who does his work to last for years instead of months is never out of work. There are house painters who are satisfied to stand on a ladder or scaffold at $2.50 per day. There are other house painters whose energy and enthusiasm have made them sign writers and decorators and raised their wages to $40 per week. It is not so much what you do, but how you do it, that brings prosperity.—Christian Union. How BEAUTIFUL, how pleasant a thing is order! I do delight in it. I have heard that there is order in Heaven, and that is one reason why I want to go there. How pleasant to see a family where order prevails. They rise in the morning, and each one, parents and children, knows what is to be done before the morning meal. Each goes about his alotted work without confusion, and when it is done, quietly seats himself to attend to the reading of the word of God, and prayer. The breakfast eaten, they go about the business of the day, some to this and some to that, till the time of doing the evening chores. Each having done his portion of these, as the twilight comes on, they are again quietly seated, ready, without any special effort, for evening worship. A song of praise is sung, thanksgiving and prayer are offered, each taking a part; and then about an hour is occupied in family reading, different members by turn reading, while the rest listen, having no work on hand that will205distract the attention of any. When this is finished, useful employments are taken up, hand labor or studies, till time for retiring for the night, the young children, if there are any, dropping away at an early hour. This is no fancy sketch. Thank God that I have seen it nearly in perfection. Blessed are the eyes that witness it! It causes one to think of the future world as a most blessed home.—R. F. Cottrell. A HARD, close man was Solomon Ray;
Nothing of value he gave away;
He hoarded and saved,
He pinched and shaved,
And the more he had the more he craved. The hard-earned shillings he tried to gain
Brought him little but care and pain;
For little he spent,
And all he lent
He made it bring him twenty per cent. Such was the life of Solomon Ray.
The years went by, and his hair grew gray;
His cheeks grew thin,
And his soul within
Grew hard as the pound he worked to win. But he died one day, as all men must,
For life is fleeting, and men but dust.
The heirs were gay,
And laid him away,
And that was the end of Solomon Ray. They quarreled now who had little cared
For Solomon Ray when his life was spared;
His lands were sold,
And his hard-earned gold
All went to the lawyers, I am told. Yet men will cheat and pinch and save,
Nor carry their treasures beyond the grave;
All their gold some day
Will melt away
Like the savings of selfish Solomon Ray.
—Sel. Not long ago a little pamphlet was published, under the title of "Don't," in which girls are told what not to do. Some writer now furnishes the following advice in a positive form:— Do be natural; a poor diamond is better than a good imitation. Do try to be accurate, not only for your own sake, but for the sake of your sex; the incapacity of the female mind for accuracy is a standard argument against the equality of the sexes. Do be exact in money matters; every debt you incur means loss to some one, probably to some less able than you to bear it. Do answer your letters soon after they are received, and do try to reply to them with some relation to their contents; a rambling, ill-considered letter is a satire upon your education. Do, when you talk, keep your hands still. Do observe; the faculty of observation, well cultivated, makes practical men and women. Do attach as much importance to your mind as to your body. Do recollect that your health is more important than your amusement; you can live without one, but you'll die without the other. Do try to be sensible; it is not a particular sign of superiority to talk like a fool. Do put your hair-pins in so that they will stay; it looks slovenly, to say the least, to see them half dropping out. Do be ready in time for church; if you do not respect yourself sufficiently to be punctual, respect the feelings of other people. Do get up in time for breakfast. Do avoid causes of irritation in your family circle; do reflect that home is the place in which to be agreeable. Do be reticent; the world at large has no interest in your private affairs. Do cultivate the habit of listening to others; it will make you an invaluable member of society, to say nothing of the advantage it will be to you when you marry; every man likes to talk about himself; a good listener makes a delightful wife. Do be contented; "martyrs" are detestable; a cheerful, happy spirit is infectious; you can carry it about with you like a sunny atmosphere. Do avoid whispering; it is as bad as giggling; both are to be condemned; there is no excuse for either one of them; if you have anything to say, say it, if you have not, do hold your tongue altogether; silence is golden. Do be truthful; do avoid exaggeration; if you mean a mile, say a mile, and not a mile and a half; if you mean one, say one, and not a dozen. Do, sometimes at least, allow your mother to know better than you do; she was educated before you were born. Do sign your full name to your letters.—Sel. Understanding and Keeping God’s Law
"Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart. Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight."—Bible. Young America in Love with Tobacco.
THE writer has just met three small boys in the street, two of them hard at work smoking, and the other, a still smaller boy, receiving the favor of an occasional puff. If to-day a census could be taken of all boys who smoke, it would surprise, and ought to distress, our American people; for it is one of the facts that has to do with social, moral, and political degeneracy. We pass by, for the time, any question as to the effect of tobacco upon the mature man. It is enough for our present duty to inquire into the effects of the habit upon the growing child. Tobacco has no doubtful position in the list of toxics. No one need turn to the records of anti-tobacco journalism, or to the utterances of so-called reformers. The materia medica of the physician speaks plainly enough, and all the authors are in accord. It is a notable fact that the attention of the American, German, and French Governments has been directed thereto in the interests of those who are to do service for their respective Governments. Surgeon A. C. Gorgas, Medical Inspector United States Navy, in his article on the "Effects of Tobacco on Youth," gives us, in full, the facts which led to its prohibition from cadets in the Naval Academy at Annapolis, as it has since also been prohibited at the Military Academy at West Point. When the order went into effect at Annapolis, the class of diseases, such as headache, disordered digestion, malaise, diminished at least one-half in the next three months. The sympathies of the professors were in favor of its use, and Dr. Gorgas is himself a smoker, yet he bears testimony that the rescinding of the order, and the return to smoking for a year, had such unmistakable results "as that all the officers who had favored the plan of unrestricted permission to smoke, confessed that the experiment had proved a failure." Special observation of the effects of tobacco on thirty-eight boys, from nine to fifteen years old, have recently been made by Dr. G. Decaisne, a French physician. With twenty-two of the boys there was a distinct disturbance of the circulation, with palpitation of the heart, deficiencies of digestion, sluggishness of the intellect, and a craving for alcoholic stimulants. In thirteen instances the pulse was intermittent. Analysis of the blood showed, in eight cases, a notable falling off in the normal number of red corpuscles. Twelve boys suffered frequently from bleeding of the nose. Ten complained of agitated sleep and constant nightmare. Four boys had ulcerated mouths, and one of them contracted consumption—the effect, Dr. Decaisne believed, of the great deterioration of the blood, produced by the prolonged and excessive use of tobacco. The younger children showed the more marked symptoms, and the better-fed children were those that suffered least. Eleven of the boys had smoked for six months, eight for one year, and sixteen for more than two years. Out of eleven boys who were induced to cease smoking, six were completely restored to normal health after six months, while the others continued to suffer slightly for a year. We cannot do better than to quote still further from the testimony of Dr. Gorgas:— "The use of tobacco by youths can never be regarded as moderate. It is generally excessive in the literal sense of the term; but its effects, even when but little indulged in, are those which characterize excess in adults. The depressing effect of tobacco upon growth, by diminishing the forces concerned in tissue change, its effect upon the heart and pulsation, the disturbance of muscular co-ordinative power, and ability to concentrate the mind upon study, the dyspeptic troubles, impairment of vision," headaches, and the retardation of sexual development and disturbance of that function, are conceded by most observers and clearly demonstrated by many. . . . At this academy, instances of almost all the evil effects of tobacco have been brought to the notice of the medical officers. Many of the cases of irritable heart, supposed to be induced by gymnastic exercises, I believe to be caused by tobacco." Illustrative instances are given. The "tobacco heart" has come to be a term expressive of this condition. The effect of tobacco upon the nervous system of children is even more pronounced than that of alcohol. Indeed, the prevalent use of it by children means, not only personal evil, but race degeneracy. As a specimen of the derangement of muscular co-ordinate powers, and the ill effects of tobacco on effort at training for skilled work, Professor Oliver, head of the department of drawing, gives his testimony. He says:— "The effect of smoking, on muscular action, has come under my observation frequently, during a service of fourteen years. . . . The effect of smoking, on cadets learning to draw, is as unmistakable as it is held to be by trainers on men training for a boat-race. I have had occasion to challenge cadets on the use of tobacco in smoking, as evidenced by their work, and I have in no instance made a mistake." As regards drawing, tobacco has a specific effect on the co-ordinating faculty. Dr. Kestral, of the Austrian State Tobacco Manufactory, says that the workmen are subjected to many diseases, especially in the case of young women and boys. Dr. Tracy, of the New York Board of Health, several years since put on record some serious facts as to the effects of tobacco, and shows that it is very desirable to keep young persons from its use. So serious is the unmistakable effect of this habit, that it has not been found difficult in some of our Legislatures to pass laws against the sale of tobacco to minors. Besides the direct effect on impaired physical vigor, there is another view not enough considered: the power of choice, self-control, self-restraint. Will-power, in its best sense, is the greatest power beneath the sky. The freedom of the will is far more than a theological doctrine. It is the reserve hope of manhood, and not only decides individual character and destiny, but social and national destiny also. Our most outspoken quarrel with tobacco, as with other stimulants and narcotics, is this, that, indulged in so early, they so affect the brain and nervous system that habits become dominant and uncontrollable, which lead to a general loss of self-restraint. The stamina, the pluck, the true grit of life succumb to masteries that are ignoble. The one habit, if it does not lead to loss of this power in the individual, as it generally does, shows this loss marvelously in entailments. We hear much discussion as to whether intemperance is a disease. The real disease that is gaining ground is debility in self-restraint; and in producing that debility among the young, tobacco is the most threatening power. It leads often to intemperance, to a general yielding of self-control, and so to many an evil greater than that of physical infirmity. It is because we are profoundly impressed with this evil that we would earnestly draw attention to it. The cigarette is one of the most unfortunate toy pistols that has ever been put in the hands of American youth. Many are playing with it who not only acquire a habit evil to the body, but, through it, get an unmistakable breakdown of the noblest possession of manhood, which shows itself in the individual, or in his descendants, in various forms of physical, mental, and moral weakness. The peril to American youth and American life from the tobacco habit must not be lost sight of in our earnest devotion to other reforms.—Independent. Kitty had constructed a new swing for her doll's entertainment; but it proved unsatisfactory, for that wooden lady slipped from her perch and landed with considerable violence upon the table, overturning an inkstand upon a picture which Walter was copying. In an instant Walter sprang to his feet, snatched up the doll, and threw it into the fire, and marched out of the room, leaving Kitty in tears, and the table in confusion. In half an hour he returned, gay and sunny as ever, bringing a handsome doll to replace Kitty's loss. She was easily comforted, and was more sure than ever that Walter was the best brother in the world. "If a fellow is quick-tempered, why, he is; I suppose that's all there is of it," said Walter, more carelessly than penitently. "I do get angry in a giff, but it's all over in a minute or two." "Are you sure of that?" asked his grandfather, gravely. "O, yes. I'm not one of the sort to go sulking about over nothing; I flash up quick enough, but never bear malice." "But the consequences—can you be sure that they are all over in a minute or two? I never heard any one speak carelessly of that fault without recalling one scene in my boyhood. I was quick-tempered, too, Walter, and as you say, quick over it—flying into a rage one minute and ready to laugh at my own tempest of passion the next. I held a high place in my classes, and one day had spoken rather boastingly of my position and how long I had kept it; but that very afternoon, through some carelessness, I failed, and gave an answer so absurd that it was received with a burst of laughter. Mortified by my blunder, vexed at having lost my place, I passed an uncomfortable afternoon; and when school closed, I walked out moodily, inclined to speak to no one, and pretending to be whistling." "Here comes the infallible! Here's that fellow that never missed!" called a teasing voice of a school-mate in front of me, and then he mockingly repeated my absurd answer. "With all the force of sudden fury I threw my open knife at him. It just missed his head, and in an instant it was quivering in the tree beside him. The sight of it, and of his white, startled face, recalled me to my senses, and I sank down upon the ground, covering my face with my hands. The boys gathered about me kindly, even Charley, the one at whom I had aimed the blow, saying that the fault was more his own than mine. But I knew that only God's mercy had saved me from seeing my school-mate dead at my feet, and my whole life darkened with the stain of murder." "For weeks afterwards I lived it over in horrible dreams; and, to this day, Walter, ungoverned temper can never seem a light thing to me. Anger that is 'over in a minute' may be like a spark of fire on powder, and give you cause for shame and sorrow all your days."—S.S. Visitor. Opportunities to Work for the Master
To A MAN willing to work for the Master, the providence of God will bring ample opportunities. We need not waste our time in the market-place, saying, "No man hath hired us." If we are ready the work will come.—Methodist Recorder. —Last year dynamite outrages cost England $250,000. —Socialist meetings are reported as of daily occurrence in Berlin. —Recent advices from Athens state that the danger of war between Greece and Turkey is as great as ever. —March 22, a destructive fire occurred at Helena, Ark. Property to the amount of $290,000 was destroyed. —Hon. Geo. Hearst has been appointed United States Senator from California, vice Senator Miller, deceased. —The strike at the National Tube Works, McKeesport, Pa., is ended, and 4,000 men have resumed work at advanced wages. —A German schooner was recently lost off the coast of Ireland. The captain died from exposure, and the crew suffered terribly. —Information of the arrest at Hongkong of the Wickersham murderer has been received by the San Francisco police authorities. —The steamship Rapidan, which sailed February 2 from New York for Port Simon, a Central American port, has been given up as lost. —The New England bark Surprise, which sailed from San Francisco some months ago, was plundered by pirates off Madagascar, November 21. —The British troops in Burmah defeated 400 Burmese, killing thirty, besides making a large number of prisoners and taking some military stores. —The population of Sidney, New South Wales, has more than doubled in the last fifteen years. In 1870 it was 140,000; now it is estimated at 290,000. —The exodus of Jews from Russia and Poland has reached extraordinary figures. During 1885 no less than 20,150 left the country for America alone. —Abyssinian troops recently sent out by King John have had a battle with the Arabs near Kassala, Nubia. The Arabs were defeated with a loss of 500 men. —There is much suffering in the western part of Ireland on account of insufficient food and clothing. The Government has been appealed to for aid, which has been promised. —A case of disease closely resembling cholera is reported from Michigan. It is thought to have resulted from the use of raisins from one of the cholera infected districts of Spain. —Thomas E. Taylor, business manager of the Deseret News, the organ of the Mormon Church, was arrested March 24, on a charge of polygamy. His bond was fixed at $1,500. —The latest invention of interest to Southern planters is a sheet-iron covering for cotton bales. The cost will be about one dollar per bale, and the advantage claimed is protection against fire. —It is stated that Alderman Jaehne, of New York, recently arrested for bribery, has for many years been a receiver of stolen goods, but was let alone by the police on account of his political influence. —Crop reports from various parts of California show that the outlook is remarkably good. The acreage sown to wheat is much greater than in any previous year, and the crop will probably be the largest ever harvested in the State. —March 25, a quantity of dynamite was exploded under the residence of the manager of a colliery in Durham, England. The outrage is supposed to have been perpetrated by union miners who have been locked out from the colliery since January and whose places have been taken by non-unionists. —Serious complications have arisen between Uruguay, the Argentine Republic and Brazil. Warlike preparations for invading Uruguay are being made at Buenos Ayres. It is believed that Brazil will immediately interfere on proof that the Argentine Government is giving material aid to the movement. —Jay Gould has declared that there can be no compromise with the strikers on his road, and that he will bring suits for damages against the members of the Knights of Labor organization. He says: "We will show them that we intend to enforce all our legal rights, and we shall bring suits against the members of the order who have property on other lines of railroads in other States. We shall attempt to recover damages from every member who has property that we can attach. It is time that these things should be settled, and this is a favorable opportunity. I propose to fight it out on this line." —Dispatches from Belgium under date of March 27 state that a large amount of property has recently been destroyed by rioters and strikers in and around Charleroi. Houses have been burned, and factories pillaged, and a reign of terror prevails. Parties of Socialists and Anarchists are going through the country, stopping men from work, and burning and pillaging at will. The civil authorities are powerless, and the regular troops have been called out. In several cases, severe fighting has taken place, and a great many on both sides have been killed. In one fight, twenty of the rioters were killed and hundreds wounded. Great excitement prevails in Brussels, and a serious riot is feared there.207 —Salida, Col., had a $120,000 fire one day last week. —The removal of Governor Murray of Utah "is hailed with bonfires and rejoicing" by the Mormons. —Jacob Sharp is said to be hard at work in Albany, N. Y., trying to defeat the bill for the annulment of his charter for the Broadway Surface Railway. —A large number of settlers on the Maxwell land grant in New Mexico were arrested March 25 for refusing to obey the order of the Supreme Court and vacate the lands. —A bill appropriating $160,000 to pay damages inflicted upon the Chinese at Rock Springs and elsewhere has been prepared by the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. —The Carrollton, Miss., massacre, reported in our columns last week, is denounced by the Jackson Clarion (Democratic) as wholly unjustifiable and without mitigating or extenuating circumstances. —A rather sensational rumor comes from Washington to the effect that England and Germany are secretly backing China in her demands on this country for indemnity to Chinese subjects for losses sustained from mob violence in various parts of the United States. —The strike on the Missouri Pacific Railway still continues, and it is with great difficulty that any freight can be moved. The Governors of Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, have each issued a proclamation warning all persons engaged in unlawful acts in connection with the present strike, and calling on law-abiding people to assist in restoring order. At St. Louis the State militia are under arms, ready to sustain the police at a moment's warning. AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN AS SEEN IN EGYPT.
To CONVEY anything like an adequate idea of the effect of an eclipse on different minds the writer can hardly do better than describe the eclipse he witnessed in Egypt in 1882. On the banks of the Nile, about one mile north of the town of Sohaeg, a large concourse of spectators was assembled to witness the forthcoming spectacle. A small party of these spectators were gathered around a number of instruments, doubly protected from the injurious sand-winds by stockades of rushes and by tents. A space extending about 300 yards, and inclosed on the sides by the Nile and the outskirts of a grove of acacia trees, scarcely 200 yards away, was guarded by a body of Egyptian soldiery. Protection was only wanted from incursions of the curious; but had the natives been less informed of what was to take place, Egyptian soldiery, only a little less cowardly than the fellaheen, would have been small protection against any fanatical outbreak. The river was lined with steamers, dahabeahs, and smaller craft, while to the south of the encampment on the sloping bank were gathered a large concourse of the inhabitants of the neighboring villages, squatting on the sand in their peculiar eastern fashion. The eclipse began and made some progress before the unscientific spectators noticed that the sun was fast disappearing; but when they became aware of it, they gave vent to their feelings by a low moaning, the sound increasing in volume as the moon passed on. The alarm now spread to the feathered spectators, who, becoming at last cognizant of the rapidly waning light, rushed cackling hither and thither into steamboats, or into observatory, and in search of a place in which to roost. At last a thin streak only of light was left; it disappeared, and there was a sudden change from weak daylight to a dull violet, which threw on the neighboring scenery a weird, ghastly hue. At this moment a sudden shout arose from the crowd—a shout unheeded, scarcely heard, by the astronomers, who suppressed their excitement, and endeavored to make the most of the seventy seconds during which totality was to last. And yet even they were taken off their guard, for alongside the brilliant corona was seen a small but vivid cimetar-shaped coronet—a stranger unexpected and never afterward traced. Little wonder, then, if the regulation forbidding speech was for a moment disregarded. The short seventy seconds were soon over, the last observation made, and while one set of spectators were raising their thanks to Allah, the other had laid aside their calm reserve to join in mutual congratulations.—Cassell's Magazine. The Power of Prayer.
By Archdeacon Farrar
"Praying always." Eph. 6:18. The soul of man is like a kindled brand—so long as the air breathes on it, it will retain to the last its genial warmth and crimson glow; but let the air stagnate around it, and flake on flake the white ashes will gather over it, and the fire will die away within it, and under those ashes it will be left black and charred, a cold and useless log. What the breath of wind is to the glowing brand, prayer is to the soul. Let men and women live a prayerless life, and all the light and the fire and the glow, all the wisdom and generosity and love, will die away from them, because these are the result of spiritual grace from above; and covered with the dead, white embers of their own selfishness and pride, the heart will be cold and dead and hard—a useless thing, half consumed with impenitence and sin.—Archdeacon Farrar. God’s Righteous Judgments Endure Forever
"EVERY one of thy righteous judgments endureth forever." Ps. 119: 160.