Earlier text: The Teacher.Preliminaries to the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's.
At the news from Vassy the Huguenots rose in arms, and for ten years all France was filled with civil discord; the factories were closed, the seats of industry sunk into decay, and the vigor of the nation was wasted in a useless warfare; the duke of Guise, fierce, ambitious, full of physical and mental power, fell, in the opening of the contest which he had begun, by the hand of an assassin. His death was charged upon Coligny, who denied the accusation, but scarcely condemned the act. The war raged with new violence, and the Huguenots repaid, with dreadful retaliations, the savage deeds of their foes. Frequent truces were made; the nation sighed for peace; and even Catherine herself would have consented to grant toleration to reform, would have aided in giving harmony and prosperity to France. But the pope and the Italian faction still ruled in the divided nation, and saw without a sentiment of pity or regret the horrors they had occasioned, the fierce passions they had aroused, the holy impulses they had stifled forever. They called incessantly for the total extermination of the Huguenots; they lamented every truce as impious, denounced every effort toward conciliation; they inculcated a merciless cruelty, an undying hatred. Paul IV., maddened with strong wine and the insanity of a corrupt old age, had instigated the latest persecutions that had led to the civil wars of France. His successors, Pius IV. and V., fanned the fires of strife, and called incessantly for blood; they aimed the assassin's dagger, or roused the evil passions of devout Catholics, by insisting upon the duty of repressing heresy by force; nor can there be found in history, except, perhaps, among their own predecessors, three sovereigns who have so increased the sum of human misery—three potentates, in any age, who have less deserved the name of Christians. The teachings of the popes and the violence of the Catholic faction led to the massacre of St. Bartholomew's. Catherine de' Medici, weary of incessant civil war, guided, perhaps, by her malignant star, had resolved to gratify the court of Rome, the Guises, and the Parisians by a total extermination of all those eminent and generous chiefs who had so long defied the armies of their Catholic foes. Within her dark, inscrutable breast had been matured a plot of singular efficacy for drawing into her toils the leaders of the Huguenots; and the lessons she had learned in the school of Macchiavelli were exemplified with matchless power. It is impossible, indeed, to believe that St. Bartholomew's571 was not premeditated; it seems certain that a rumor of the approaching horror had filled the extreme faction of the Catholics with secret joy. A hollow pacification had been arranged. Catherine proposed to Jeanne d'Albret and the Huguenot chiefs to complete the union of the two parties by marrying her daughter Marguerite with young Henry of Navarre. Catherine's son, Charles IX., consented to the match, and pressed it in spite of the opposition of the pope; and in the summer of 1572 the ominous wedding was celebrated at Paris with rare pomp and boundless ostentation. Young Henry of Navarre, at nineteen, frank, generous, a Huguenot in faith if not in practice, was brought up by his mother, Jeanne, queen of Navarre, to be married to the daughter of her bitterest foe, and to mingle with a society and a court whose profligacy and corruption she had ever shrunk from with disdain. It would have been well for the austere queen had she still repelled the advances of her rival. But Jeanne seems to have yielded to the arts of Catherine, and to have believed that some trace of womanly tenderness lingered in the breast of the new Medea. She consented, for the sake of the oppressed Huguenots, to suffer her son to marry the child of the house of Valois, and ventured to come up to Paris, the citadel of her foes. Her death soon followed. Whether premature age filled with sorrows and doubts had weighed her down, sudden disease, or secret poison, the annalists of the period could not determine; but among the Huguenots, shocked at the suddenness of their loss, arose a dark suspicion that their favorite queen had died by the Italian arts of Catherine. It was said that the mother of the expected bride had poisoned the mother of the bridegroom by presenting her with a pair of perfumed gloves, prepared with a deadly powder; it was believed that the austere and spotless queen of Navarre had been lured into the Circean circle of the French court to be made away with the more securely. Yet Jeanne d'Albret died, as she had lived, a stern reformer, an example, and a warning. The corrupt ladies of Catherine's court, who visited her in her last hours, saw with wonder that the courageous queen needed none of the customary ceremonies of the papal church. She asked only the prayers of the Huguenot pastors and the simple rites of the apostolic faith. Meantime Paris was filled with a throng of the bravest and noblest of the reformers, who had been lured into the center of their foes. Coligny, loyal, and trusting the word of his king, rode boldly into the fatal snare. Wise and faithful friends had warned him of his imprudence; a devoted peasant woman clung to his horse's rein and begged him not to trust to the deceivers; but no entreaties or warnings could shake his resolution. He was followed by his companions in arms, the heroes of many a brilliant contest. But it was noticed that as the Huguenots entered the city no cheer of reconciliation arose from the bigoted citizens; that the streets were filled with menacing faces; that every eye was averted in hatred and gloom. Henry of Navarre and his cousin, the prince of Condé, came to Paris in the first days of August, and were lodged in the palace of the Louvre. Coligny and his followers occupied an inn or hotel on the street of Bresse. The king, Charles IX., Catherine, and the young duke of Guise received their victims with eager civility, and Charles welcomed Coligny almost as a father. The city rang with revelry; the young princes, Henry, Condé, the dukes of Anjou and Alençon, and Charles IX., joined with ardor in the revels and sports; and Catherine, surrounded by a corrupt train of beautiful women, inspired the dreadful hilarity. Paris, in the sixteenth century, possessed few of those attractions that have made it, in the nineteenth, the most magnificent of cities. It was renowned chiefly for its narrow and filthy streets, not paved or lighted, the perpetual haunt of fever or plague; for its sordid and often starving population; and for the fierce superstition of its monks and priests. Several grand hotels of the nobility, each a well-garrisoned fortress, arose amidst its meaner dwellings. The new palace of the Louvre, lately built by Francis I., was the residence of the court; but the Tuileries was unfinished, and the Palais Royal did not yet exist; and high walls, pierced by lofty gates, shut in the medieval city from the free air of the surrounding plains. Yet in the hot summer of 1572 its streets were filled with a brilliant multitude come up to witness the marriage of Henry and Marguerite, of the Protestant and the Catholic, and every eye was fixed with curiosity and expectation upon the preparations for the splendid ceremony. Henry, the generous son of the mountains, was already renowned for his courage and his manly grace; Marguerite was known only as the child of the corrupt Catherine. Her life had been passed in ceaseless terror under the iron sway of her mother, the enmity of her brother of Anjou, and the doubtful favor of Charles. Yet she had wit and talent, a pleasing manner, a graceful person, a natural duplicity encouraged by her early training; and few of the virtues of her namesake, the elder and purer Marguerite, had descended to her luckless grandniece. But the young pair were still in the bloom of youth when all Paris attended their nuptials. The wedding was celebrated on the 18th of August, beneath a pavilion richly adorned, in front of the church of Notre Dame. It was performed with neither Protestant nor Catholic rites. Henry, attended by the king, Charles IX., and the two royal dukes, all dressed alike in yellow satin, covered with precious stones, and followed by a long array of princes and nobles, attired in various colors, ascended the platform; the king led in his sister, who was robed in violet velvet, embroidered with the lilies of France and glittering with pearls and diamonds. Catherine de' Medici followed, surrounded by a fair, frail circle of maids of honor. A bright summer sun shone on the gay pageant and gleamed over the towers of Notre Dame. The ceremony was performed by the Cardinal Bourbon; but no sooner was it ended than the bride left her husband to witness mass in the cathedral, while Henry turned sternly away from the unscruptural rite. In the evening a grand entertainment was given in the Louvre; maskers and royal and noble revelers filled its wide saloons, and for several days afterward Paris was a scene of strange merriment, and of feasts and tourneys, upon which the wiser Huguenots looked with grave disdain. But the dreadful day was near when the secret purpose of the wild revels was to be perfectly fulfilled. The week which had opened with the wedding-feast and carousal was to close in more than funeral gloom. Charles and Catherine had constantly assured the pope that the marriage was only designed to insure the destruction of the Huguenots. Orders were sent to the governor of Lyons to allow no couriers to pass on to Rome until the 24th of August. It was intended that the news of the wedding and the massacre should reach the holy father at the same moment. The Huguenots, unconscious of danger, still remained in Paris. On Friday, the 22d, they were startled from their security by the first deed of crime. Coligny was shot at by order of the young duke of Guise, and was borne back to his inn wounded, though not mortally, amidst the rage of his companions and the secret joy of his foes. In the hot days of August, amidst the noisome streets of Paris, the admiral lay on his couch, surrounded by his bravest followers in arms. He was surprised by a visit from the king, who came to express his sympathy for his suffering friend—his rage at his treacherous foe. But with him came also Catherine, who wept over the wounded Coligny, and the duke of Anjou, apparently equally grieved, but who were only spies upon the impulsive king. They feared that the wise and good Coligny might succeed in awakening the better element in the nature of the unhappy Charles. From this moment a gloom settled upon the crowded city, and its Catholic people, no doubt, felt that the hour of vengeance drew near. On Saturday, the 23d, the Huguenots could scarcely go into the streets without danger. They gathered around the bedside of Coligny, or in the chamber of Henry of Navarre, but seem never to have thought of escape. They breathed out threats against the assassin, Guise; yet they still trusted to the professions of Catherine and the word of the king. Nor does Charles seem to have been altogether resolute in his horrible design. He wavered, he trembled, he was weary of bloodshed. His feeble, imperfect intellect seems to have turned to his friend Coligny for support, and Catherine saw with secret rage that some traits of humanity and softness still lingered in the breast she had striven to make as cold and malevolent as her own.—Historical Studies. A MISSIONARY told us the other day a very affecting little incident. He had been preaching a mission sermon in Scotland, and telling of the condition of the poor women of India, and he observed that many of the audience seemed quite affected by his account. A few days afterwards, the pastor of the church where he had preached, met on the street one of his parishioners, a poor old woman, half blind, who earned a precarious livelihood by going on errands, or by any other little work of that kind that came in her way. She went up to him, and with a bright smile put a sixpence into his hand, telling him that was to go for the mission work in India. Her minister, knowing how poor she was, said, "No, no, Maggie; that is too much for you to give; you cannot afford this." She told him that she had just been on an errand for a very kind gentleman, and instead of the few coppers she generally received, he had given her three pennies and a silver sixpence; and, said she, "The silver and the gold is the Lord's, and the copper will do for poor Maggie." How many lessons do God's poor teach us! "Poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom!"—At Home and Abroad. The Steadying Power of Burdens
By S. S. Times
We worry under our burdens, and we sometimes think that it would be so pleasant to have nothing to uphold, or to feel the weight of. But it is our very burdens which enable us to stand firmly, and to walk securely. It is the empty car which jumps and jolts along the track; the loaded car moves steadily. It is the vessel with no cargo, or with a short one, that rolls and pitches fearfully; the full-freighted craft is steadiest, in calm or storm. Even a trained acrobat must have a balance-pole in his hands, to enable him to walk a tight rope safely. So in every sphere of life, a fitting burden is a steadying, and so a saving, agency. The only question is, What burden shall we bear? not, Shall we bear a burden? This is that which gives force and point to the words of our Lord: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And how will he give us rest? "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; . . . and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." If our burden is one that we ought to bear, it is always easier to go on with that burden, than it would be to go on without it. If the Lord has provided your burden, there is nothing you have more reason to be grateful for than your burden.—S. S. Times. "I HATE and abhor lying; but thy law [O God] do I love." Ps. 119: 163. A Plea for the Babies.
By Mrs. Alma H. Fisk
AN eminent physician, upon being asked how early a child's training should begin, replied: "With the first moment of life." Another, whose observation of children has been very large, says: "The habits formed during the first three weeks of life exert a controlling influence over the whole period of infancy." There is both philosophy and sound sense in these statements. If their truth and wisdom could be realized by all mothers, how much of the anxious care of later years might be avoided, and how much more of success and happiness might be secured for their children. There seems to be a strange delusion, even among sensible people, about this matter of educating children. Ten-year-old Jennie must, of course, be obedient, polite, and thoughtful; the same conduct is expected from six-year-old Harry; but surely obedience cannot be expected from the winsome little two-year-old, the baby. Yes, dear, doubting mother-heart, expect just that, not in the same degree, but still obedience. Sit down in the home nest, and watch this wee birdling as she flits about, gladdening every home with her dainty ways, and sweet baby talk; all is well till your will conflicts with hers, then behold a transformation; the clouded face, the pouting lips, the defiant attitude, all reveal to you the existence of a distinct individuality in this little baby form. She is your baby, but she is not you; she has her will, her tastes, her strong points and her weak ones, just as certainly as you have. You cannot make her nature, but you can direct and control it, and thus secure the highest good for her future life. "Sow an act and you reap a habit." Teach the little ones the act of obedience, and it soon becomes a habit; teach them from the first to be polite and tidy, and stubborn, dirty-faced, sticky-fingered children will seldom annoy us. An intelligent, well-bred childhood ought not to be looked for after an untrained, willful babyhood. Canon Farrer says: "Sacrifice is fruitful, and there is nothing fruitful else." All true motherhood, as all noble life, must sacrifice, but the reward is ample. It takes time to talk with children about the pictures they study so intently; it takes money to buy them, and many parents think they cannot afford to spend so much on mere picture-books, but when it is a question of sashes and jewelry there is less hesitation. Many a child, whose body is bedecked with pinchbeck, and hampered by the "best dress," which mus'n't be wrinkled or soiled, is dwarfed mentally for lack of just such entertainment as well chosen picture-books give. Fathers and mothers, don't economize in the wrong place; buy the little ones picture-books, not highly colored daubs, but good, truthful representations of animal and domestic life such as they can comprehend, such as will interest and, at the same time, teach them. In this artistic age no child need lack for such. The investment will be a good one, and pay abundant interest in the quickness of observation and the refining influence thus developed. The hope of the world's future lies with the children of to-day, but it will be an unrealized hope, unless there is wise parental instruction, and a well educated youth. Mothers, love your babies, thank God for them, but do not forget to teach them. Childhood is the best time for the acquisition of knowledge, for then the brain is most active, and the memory most retentive, the impressions then made leave an indelible stamp upon maturer years; the habits then formed are never quite effaced, no matter what after life may be. The child allowed to use such expressions as "ain't" "had ought," and the like through the first half-dozen years, will, more likely than not, continue to use them through life, even though a classical graduate. If good seed is sown on the fertile soil of a child's heart, a bountiful harvest may be hoped for. "Sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny."—Mrs. Alma H. Fisk, in Christian at Work. MOTHER, WATCH THE LITTLE FEET.
MOTHER, watch the little feet
Climbing o'er the garden wall,
Bounding through the busy street,
Ranging cellar, shed, and hall.
Never count the moments lost,
Never mind the time they cost,
Little feet will go astray;
Guide them, mother, while you may. Mother, watch the little hand
Picking berries by the way,
Making houses in the sand,
Tossing on the fragrant hay.
Never dare the question ask,
" Why to me this weary task?"
These same little hands may prove
Messengers of light and love. Mother, watch the little tongue
Prattling eloquent and wild,
What is said and what is sung
By the happy, joyous child.
Catch the word while yet unspoken,
Stop the vow before 'tis broken!
This same tongue may yet proclaim
Blessings in a Saviour's name. Mother, watch the little heart
Beating soft and warm for you,
Wholesome lessons now impart,
Keep, oh, keep that young heart true,
Extricating every weed,
Sowing good and precious seed,
Harvest rich you then may see,
Ripening for eternity.
—Sel. I SAW a sparrow perform a feat the other day which entertained me greatly. He had found in the road a long strip of cotton cloth which his intelligence seemed to tell him was excellently adapted for purposes of nest building. Confidently, then, he seized one end of it in his beak, and flew away with it. Soon, however, the wind blew the long streamer about his wings, and brought him tumbling into the dust. He picked himself up, shook himself, and, seizing the rag by the other hand, made a second attempt, which resulted as disastrously as the first. Then he seized the strip by the middle, but this time he was entangled more quickly than before, and brought to earth before he had risen to the height of a yard. He then squatted down, panting, regarding the rag malevolently, yet apparently determined. Presently his appearance changed; an idea had evidently struck him. He hopped briskly up to the cloth, and with claws and bill rolled it up into a compact ball. Then he drove his beak into it, shook his head once or twice to assure himself that the ends were secure, and flew briskly away, reaching his distant box in safety. If ever a bird reasoned, this sparrow did, and I have no doubt that they all do reason, and rather profoundly, too, at times.—Sel. Thoughtlessness Hurts Others
Persons should respect the feelings of others, if they wish their own feelings to be regarded. It is often the case that with the measure a man metes, in this respect, it is measured to him again. Many persons through thoughtlessness unintentionally hurt the feelings of others. The assurance of this fact, while it removes a sense of intentional wrong, does not always remove the sore. Thoughtlessness, when another's feelings are concerned, is scarcely excusable.—Sel. "Had a good sermon, Jacob?" my wife asked me last night, when I came home from church. Rachel was poorly, and couldn't go to meeting much, so she always wanted me to tell her about the sermon, the singing, and the people. "I'm sure I couldn't tell you." "Many people out to day?" "Why, Jacob, what's the matter? What were you thinking about?" "I don't think there was any. I didn't hear it." "I declare, Jacob, I do believe you slept all the time." "Indeed I didn't. I was never more wide awake." "What was the subject, then?" "As near as I can remember, it was me." "Yes ma'am. You think it is a poor subject. I'm sure I thought so, too." "Who preached? Our minister?" "No; he didn't preach—not to me at any rate. 'Twas a woman—a young woman, too." "Why, Mr. Gay! You don't mean it, surely. Those woman's right folks haven't got into our pulpit?" "Well, not exactly. The minister preached from the pulpit, but I could not listen. I was thinking about my sermon. I will tell you about it. You know that young woman at the post-office, Mrs. Hyde's niece. She and I were the first ones at meeting, and we sat by the stove, warming. I have seen her a good deal in the post-office and at her aunt's, when I was there at work. She is pleasant spoken, and a nice, pretty girl. We were talking about the meetings. You know there's quite a reformation going on. She was speaking of this one, and that one, who was converted. There was quite a silence, and then she said sort of low, and trembling in her voice, and with a little pink blush on her cheek, and the tears just a starting:— "Oh Mr. Gay, some of us were saying at the prayer-meeting, last night, that we did so want you to be a Christian." "Her cheeks flushed redder, and the tears fell. I knew she felt it, and it was a cross to say it. I never was so taken back in all my life." "Why, bless your soul," I said, "my child, I have been a member of the church forty years." "My tears came then, and I guess my cheeks would have been redder than hers, if they war'nt so tanned." "Do excuse me, Mr. Gay," she said. "Excuse me for hurting your feelings, but I didn't know you were a Christian. I never see you at prayer-meeting or Sabbath-school, and I have never noticed you at communion. I'm sorry I've hurt your feelings." "Tut, tut, child," I answered. "No harm done. I'm glad you thought about an old man. I'm a member, as I said, but I haven't worked at it much, I'll allow. I don't go to prayer-meeting or Sunday-school because—well—I made the excuse to myself and other folks that Rachel was poorly, and needed me to stay with her, but I'm afraid the Lord wouldn't accept it." "Just then the people began to come, and I took my seat, but the looks and words of that young woman went to my heart. I couldn't think of anything else. They preached to me all the meeting time. To think that some of the young folks in Wharton didn't know I was a member, and were concerned for the old man. I said to myself, by way of application, 'Jacob Gay, you've been a silent partner long enough. It is time you woke up and worked for the Lord; time to let your light shine so that the young folks can see it.'"—Golden Rule. Health and Temperance.
By Rev. A. Sims
"Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Matt. 7: 12. SHOULD all other arguments fail to produce a reformation in the conduct of tobacco consumers, there is one which is addressed to good breeding and benevolence, which, for the sake of politeness and humanity, should prevail. Consider how disagreeable your custom is to those who do not follow it, an atmosphere of tobacco effluvia surrounds you wherever you go. Every article about you smells of it; your apartments, your clothes, and even your breath. Nor is there a smell in nature more disagreeable than that of stale tobacco, arising in various exhalations from the human body, rendered still more offensive by passing through the pores, and becoming strangely impregnated with the noxious matter which was before insensibly perspired. "Some of the most disagreeable things relative to the practice against which I have been writing, are still behind the curtain, and designedly detained there; and it is there alone where I wish every persevering smoker to seek for a certain vessel named the spitting dish, which, to the abuse of all good breeding, and the insult of all delicate feeling, is frequently introduced into public company. May they and their implements, while engaged in this abominable work, be ever kept out of sight."—Dr. A. Clarke. The annoyance and insult to which railway travelers and others are frequently subjected, shows that the acquirement has not mended their manners. The very presence of heavy smokers in a crowded and heated assembly, with nature at work to expel the nicotine from their insulted bodies, makes the whole company suffer from the loathsome nuisance. Smokers are (most of them) selfish and disagreeable; they have but little regard for the comfort of others. They have only to remember their own unpleasant feelings when learning to smoke, to be convinced how disgusting the weed is to those who do not use it; yet the average smoker will puff his abominable fumes under your very nose, with an air of indifference as sublime as if he were diffusing the aroma of roses. The unseemly pipe and cigar, the sucking and puffing, the selfish insolence of the smoker in forcing the poisonous smoke, after having been in his dirty mouth and diseased lungs, into the clothes, food, and drink, into the apartments, faces, mouths, and lungs, of clean persons, ladies and children especially, may be fashionable, but, to say the least, it is not in harmony with the golden rule thus to insult society. Why are these sickening presentations viewed with so little manifestation of disgust, even by the refined? Mostly because we are used to them—they are popular and fashionable. "Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
That to be hated needs but to be seen;
But seen too oft familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." Why are not these unclean persons put aside from society for the same reason that dead animals are removed from the sidewalks in our cities? Instead of tobacco-using tending to make one more sociable, it operates in just the other way; "it is, on the whole, an enemy to good fellowship;" for, in the first place, it is a pleasure that the husband rigidly confines to himself. What minister would like to see his wife with a pipe in her mouth? But if it be a good thing for the husband, why should it not be so for the wife? Women have to endure more physical suffering than men, and why should not they fly to the consolation (?) of the pipe as well as their husbands? In all respectable society, however, smoking by women is considered an indecency. But we contend that if the husband really believes smoking to be a beneficial habit, he ought to teach the woman whom he has sworn to love, honor, and respect, to contract the habit! What right has he to confine the enjoyment to himself? Why should not his wife share it with him? But no; if she, poor creature, were to attempt such a thing, he would abuse her as "low," "vulgar," and "a disgrace to her sex!" In this respect the habit does not unite, but separates. And there is another aspect of this question, to which fidelity compels us to advert. Look at the large sum of money annually spent on tobacco by thousands of working men, and others in humble circumstances! Money that could be usefully spent in providing the household with the comforts of life. And let me ask, What sublime development is there of the social principle in a man's thus robbing his wife and children of what would do much to add to their comfort? This is not society, but selfishness. Besides, our everyday experience shows us that the pipe divides instead of unites society. In company the smoker is an abomination, who must be turned into a separate room. He must seek a retreat in some obscure nook, where his nauseous fumes will not offend the nostrils of the other members of the party. And when he returns from his banishment to the general circle, the stench that he brings with him makes many keep at a distance from him. And yet if he were compelled to pass a whole afternoon and evening without a pipe or quid, he would be moody and restless, and one would be scarcely able to get a civil answer from him! Wherever we go we are reminded that smoking is the foe of good fellowship. In places of public amusement, how often does the announcement "No smoking allowed!" meet the eye. On some railways they provide cars for the principal trains, into which the smokers may be turned as a sheep into a pen, and such cars are accordingly labeled "For smokers!" Thus everywhere the poor smoker goes about, Cain-like, with the brand of "a pest to society" written on his brow.—Rev. A. Sims. The Dangers of Beer Drinking
By Scientific American
THE use of beer is found to produce a species of degeneration of all the organs; profound and deceptive fatty deposits, diminished circulation; conditions of congestion and perversion of functional activities, local inflammations of both the liver and kidneys are constantly present. Intellectually, a stupor amounting almost to paralysis arrests the reason, changing all the higher faculties into a mere animalism—sensual, selfish, sluggish, varied only with paroxysms of anger that are senseless and brutal. In appearance the beer drinker may be the picture of health, but in reality he is most incapable of resisting disease. A slight injury, a severe cold, or a shock to the body or mind, will commonly provoke acute disease, ending fatally. Compared with inebriates who use different kinds of alcohol, he is more incurable and more generally diseased. The constant use of beer every day gives the system no recuperation, but steadily lowers the vital forces.—Scientific American. The Deception of Bologna Sausage
SOME who know better than to taste of sausage will eat bolognas. "Oh yes; bolognas are made of beef; they are good." We will relate a fact. We spent some weeks in Ohio where there was living a "bologna-maker." His neighbors informed us that he bought up all the old, worn-out, and diseased oxen and cows he could get in all that section, to make into bolognas. We inquired why they permitted such a thing; why they did not enter complaint and stop such outrageous proceedings. Very coolly they said that it did not particularly concern them; he never tried to sell any of his bolognas there—he sold them all in Cincinnati! "Such is life," but we do not wish to live the life of a bologna-eater.—Pacific Health Journal. ANOTHER great mistake that many of our girls are making, and that their mothers are either encouraging or allowing them to make, is that of spending their time out of school in idleness or frivolous amusement, doing no work to speak of, and learning nothing about the practical duties and serious cares of life. It is not only in the wealthier families that girls are growing indolent and unpracticed in household work; indeed I think that more attention is paid to the industrial training of girls in the wealthier families than in the families of mechanics and people in moderate circumstances, where the mothers are compelled to work hard all the while. "Within the last week," says one of my correspondents, "I have heard two mothers, worthy women in most respects, say (the first) that her daughter never did any sweeping. Why, if she wants to say to her companions, 'I never swept a room in my life,' and take comfort in it, let her say it; and yet that mother is sorrowing over her shortcomings for that very daughter. The other said she would not let her daughter do anything in the kitchen. She did it herself instead." Poor deluded woman! The habits of indolence and helplessness that are thus formed are not the greatest evils resulting from this bad practice; the selfishness that it fosters is the worst thing about it. How devoid of conscience, how lacking in a true sense of tenderness or even of justice, a girl must be who will consent to devote all her time out of school to pleasuring while her mother is bearing all the heavy burdens of the household. And the foolish way in which mothers themselves sometimes talk about this, even in the presence of their children, is mischievous in the extreme. "O, Hattie is so absorbed in her books or her crayon or her embroidery that she takes no interest in household matters, and I do not like to call upon her. As if her daughter belonged to a superior order of beings, and must not soil her hands or ruffle her temper with unnecessary housework. The mother is the drudge; the daughter is the fine lady for whom she toils. No mother who suffers such a state of things as this can preserve the respect of her daughter, which no mother can afford to lose." The result of this is to form in the minds of many gifted girls not only a distaste for labor, but a contempt for it, and a purpose to avoid it as long as they can live by some means or other. There is scarcely one letter I receive which does not mention this as one of the errors in the training of our girls at the present day. It is not universal, but it is altogether too prevalent. And allowing yourself to grow up with such habits of indolence and such notions about work, you are preparing for yourself a miserable future.—St. Nicholas. Thoughtfulness for Others
WE were walking from church in the rear of two young ladies. A piece of brush partly obstructed the sidewalk. They turned and passed it. One of them stopped, took the obstruction and threw it aside. She did it naturally, without an officious air, and as if it were hers to do it, as a matter of course. It was an incident. It was a small thing. Nothing special was done or intended. Yet the action signified something. It showed that, by instinct or training, this particular person was careful, painstaking, and thoughtful of the convenience and comfort of those who were about to follow, more than her companion was. It was a good sign. It indicated a sympathetic nature, a helpful soul, a wish to prevent harm, a purpose to serve the good of others. It indicated a good disposition, a kindly sentiment, and an unselfish will. To be thoughtful for others is the essence of all good manners, if not of all good morals, and of religion itself.—Pacific.