Earlier text: Teaching the WordHow MANY ways the Lord works to bring the honest to see the light of present truth! I will mention a case of a person who recently left Chicago to visit a sister in Humboldt County, Cal. Just before leaving that city she felt impressed one Sunday morning to visit a certain park, and as it was not her custom to spend her time at such places on that day, she thought it so strange that her mind should be thus exercised; but she had no peace of mind until she went. She took her Bible with her, and, on reaching the park, she found five of our young sisters there holding a Bible-reading on the second advent; she joined them and became interested in the subject. They treated her kindly and invited her to the mission rooms, where she obtained a supply of our reading matter to bring with her. She reached Eureka the last day of our good camp-meeting, and heard one sermon on the doctrine of immortality of the soul. This was not congenial to her feelings, but at the close of the sermon, as she saw the minister so earnest in appealing to the people to accept of truth and discard error, she thought in her heart, surely that was a man of God; her prejudice gave way and her visits to the meetings that followed the camp-meeting, have led her into all the truth. Sprinkling is no longer considered baptism, and next Sunday, the Lord willing, she will be planted in the likeness of Christ's death. I will also relate another item of encouragement to those who have given of their means to sustain the distributers. During our camp-meeting at Eureka, a sailor, born in Sweden (who had a devoted mother whose prayers are now answered), left the sea because he could not keep Sunday as strictly as his conscience demanded. Having left the ship at Eureka, he stopped at one of the hotels where our distributer was placed; from it he supplied himself with reading matter, and saw in one of the SIGNS a notice of our recent camp-meeting. While he was out seeking a retired spot to pray, he found our camp, and attended our meeting. He became interested, saw the truth and embraced it, was baptized, and now he can see why he quit the sea at Eureka. Two others were brought to the meeting in the same manner, and one, a Dane, who also was a sailor, has embraced the truth. By these circumstances we can see that our efforts in reaching out after souls, are not lost. So let us sustain every enterprise put forth to advance the Third Angel's Message. Persecutions of the Huguenots.
At Meaux, the birthplace of reform, fourteen persons were burned alive in the market-place. In the south of France two Protestant towns, Cabrières and Merindol, were razed to the ground; every house was destroyed, and the unoffending people were murdered in the streets. Four or five hundred women and children, who had taken refuge in a church, were butchered at once; twenty-five women, who had hidden in a cave, were smothered by a fire kindled at its entrance by the papal legate. At Paris, on the night of Sept. 4, 1537, a congregation of Protestants were gathered in secret at a private house in the suburbs. Many of them were refined and pious men and women from the cultivated classes of society; some were noble and connected with the court. But, united by a common piety, they celebrated the communion and listened to the exhortations of a faithful pastor. They were startled by the cry, outside the door, of “Death to the Lutherans!” A wild mob of papists surrounded the house and besieged all night the terrified women, who were guarded alone by the swords of the gentlemen who attended them. In the morning the police arrested the whole Huguenot congregation and dragged them through the streets to the filthy dungeons of the Châtelet, where they had room neither to lie nor sit down. By the strict law their lives were forfeited. They were offered pardon if they would go to mass. But not one consented. A long and terrible imprisonment passed away before they were brought to trial. Among the captives, the fate of Philippa de Lunz—a refined and high-bred woman, only twenty-two years old; a widow, possessed of wealth and influence—is singularly illustrative of the papal theories. She was examined, and refused to recant. She was next led out for execution. In the gay city of Paris, in September, 1558, a throng of papists assembled around a pile of fagots in the Place Maubert, dancing, singing, and calling for the victims. The king, it is said, looked on from a distance; the courtiers were not far off; the priests were, no doubt, all present. At length a cart drove into the square, on which were seen Philippa and two Huguenot companions. Their tongues had already been cut out. But Philippa had laid aside her widow's weeds, and was dressed in her best attire. For she said, on leaving prison, “Why should not I rejoice? I am going to meet my husband.” She witnessed the horrible convulsions of her two friends as they expired amidst the flames. She was lost in fervent prayer. The executioners roughly seized her, tore off her outer dress, and held her, with her head downward, in the fire. Her feet had already been burned off. She was then strangled. Several others of the prisoners were executed But their fate now awakened the attention of Europe. Calvin wrote to the survivors a letter of encouragement; at his entreaty the princes of Germany interceded for them. The younger prisoners were carried to monasteries, from whence they were afterward allowed to escape; others were pardoned upon making an apparent recantation; and it is possible that even the French king and court were satisfied with the woes already inflicted upon the pious congregation of Paris. But the pope was enraged at the lenity shown to the Huguenots, and denounced the faint trace of toleration on the part of the king. He complained, he remonstrated. He was discontented because every prisoner had not been hung with his head downward in the flames, and strangled, like Philippa de Lunz. I have sketched the fate of the Protestants of Paris as an illustration of the Roman doctrine of employing force in preserving religious unity. The popes and the Italian priests still defend that theory of persecution by which Philippa de Lunz was strangled; by which every country of Europe has been filled with woe; by which, if honestly accepted, every devout Roman Catholic might be converted into an assassin. Silenced and overpowered, their congregations broken up, their pastors driven from France, the Huguenots still expressed their religious impulses by a singular expedient. Music came to their aid. Clement Marot translated the Psalms of David into French verse, and soon the inspired songs of the Jewish king were chanted in every city of the realm. They resounded in plaintive melodies from the caves and forests where the Huguenots still ventured to assemble; they made their way into the palace and the castle; and Francis, Henry II., Catherine de’ Medici, and Henry of Navarre, had each a favorite psalm. Catherine, with some propriety, selected, “O Lord, rebuke me not;” Diana of Poitiers, the mistress of Henry II., delighted in the De Profundis. The Huguenots sung the psalms as a substitute for divine worship, and often, as throngs of Parisians were walking on summer evenings in the pleasure-grounds of Pré aux Clercs, some daring reformer would strike the key-note of a psalm of Marot, and the strain, caught up by innumerable voices, would swell over the gay assemblage. The king and queen of Navarre often went to the fashionable walk to hear the singing. But the priests at length procured an edict forbidding the practice, and the voice of sacred melody was finally hushed in the horrors of St. Bartholomew.—Historical Studies. Nebraska Camp-Meeting.
By H. Shultz
THE camp-meeting held at Kearney, Neb., August 12-18, was in many respects the best one ever held in our Conference. The spirit of peace and joy that prevailed among our brethren and sisters was encouraging to all. The good Spirit of God came into our midst, and its gentle influence was felt by all. Through the preaching of the word, and the aid of the Holy Spirit, it pleased God to save souls for whom Christ died. The preaching of the word was plain and practical; backsliders were reclaimed and sinners were converted to God. Sabbath afternoon was a time that will long be remembered. Many sought the Lord, with tears, and from their testimony we have reason to believe, found him precious to them. Monday afternoon twenty-eight were baptized. The good work continued, and Tuesday morning two more were baptized. Sunday was mostly occupied in presenting doctrinal subjects to the multitudes that gathered from the city and its surroundings; during the entire day the gathering of the people not of our faith, was large, especially so in the evening; the large tent could not hold the people. It was estimated that about thirteen hundred were present from the city. Through the entire meeting the best of attention was given to the word spoken. Many of the citizens of this place expressed regret that the meeting should close so soon. Quite a number of citizens were among those who were converted. On Tuesday morning our good camp-meeting closed. At our parting meeting the Spirit of the Lord came very near to us, and its gentle influence was felt among us. This meeting will long be remembered by all that were present; this week of meetings seemed to us as though it were but one day, so quickly had its hours passed away. From this meeting the people of God went home rejoicing in the love of God and present truth. May they continue to so live, that they may be able to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty. I believe we shall yet see greater blessings than we have ever yet seen. Truly the Lord is good, and on the giving hand. To his dear name be honor, power, glory, and dominion forever. H. Shultz. John Robinson's Charge to the Pilgrims
HERE is a part of John Robinson’s famous charge to the Pilgrims as they started for America. It will never grow old:— “He charged us, before God and his blessed angels, to follow him no further than he followed Christ; and, if God should reveal anything to us by any other instrument of his, to be as ready to receive it as ever we were to receive any truth by his ministry. For he was very confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of his Holy Word. Here, also, he put us in mind of our church covenant, or, at least, that part of it whereby we promise and covenant with God, and one with another, to receive whatever light or truth shall be made known to us from his written word. But, withal, he exhorted us to take heed what we receive for truth, and well to examine and compare it, and weigh it with other scripture of truth before we receive it. For, saith he, it is not possible the Christian world should come so lately out of such thick anti-Christian darkness and full perfection of knowledge break forth at once.” THE best in a man is often that which is most condemned by those who have not attained to his goodness.—Adela Cathcart. Winter Life in the Land of the Eskimo.
By Lieut. Frederick Schwatka
The winter life of the American Arctic native, or Eskimo, is much more interesting than his summer existence, which partakes so much of the general life of savages, with a few uninteresting changes, while in the winter time we have a mode of life so radically different from that of any other people, by their peculiar environment, that the first travelers among them to describe these strange details were looked upon as Munchausens of the greatest breadth of imagination. Houses of ice and snow, the very last thing in the world that a person would take to make a comfortable abode anywhere, were reputed to be their winter habitations. They lived on raw frozen meat in a temperature where it would be agony to anyone else not to have their meal hot and steaming; and so on through all the social economy, leading a perfect life of polar paradoxes. By most ethnologists it has been claimed that this strange nation found itself in its frigid land as a result of national weakness, “crowded to the wall” as it were by superior races, and that wall a wall of ceaseless ice. I am a firm believer in the opposite, or that the Eskimo finds in the North his most congenial clime, and we find to corroborate this the perfect contentment of the people with their country, their hesitation in leaving it for however short a visit, their longings to return when absent; many other reasons show that they are naturally natives of the north land by their own choice and not that of others. They are no more held to the rim of the cheerless Arctic Sea by other races than are the musk-oxen by the buffalo, or the polar bear by the grizzly. That they are more than satisfied with their cold country and its phenomenal low temperatures is amply shown, I think, in their preference for their winter life over that of the summer, although their struggle for an existence is much harder then, as viewed from our point of hardships, in the terrible exposure and oft-recurring famines, for which they seem to care but little. Now let us take a look at that winter life in the light of one who has lived as an Eskimo for over two years among them, for everyone will admit that some additional light is needed, so little do they have in the winter season. A few premonitory frosts commence in the Arctic fall, generally followed by a blustering northern storm of snow and sleet, and then with a sharp snap the thermometer sinks to the minus twenties and thirties, and the Arctic winter is upon them, and as the school-boy dialect would have it, “for keeps too.” This varied from early September to late October in my travels, occurring on King William’s Land at the former time in 1879, and in North Hudson’s Bay at the latter in 1878. This sudden onslaught of the winter does not drive them at once into their peculiar houses of snow, glad as they would be, however, to avail themselves of such an abode; for the first snows that fall are not of the right texture for this Arctic architecture. Fully forty degrees below zero must have been reached, and a number of fierce gales must have “packed” down the autumn snow, before it is of the proper consistency, or see-tu-w-ad-lo (heavy), as the Eskimo call it, to be cut into the curious blocks or huge bricks of snow of which they make their snow houses (igloo of the Eskimo), looking with their oblate shape so much like the old-fashioned pictures of bee-hives. Their skin tents are altogether too cold to live comfortably in them long before that time comes around, and the Arctic carpenter is driven to another curious material for building to keep out the bitter cold, and that is the pure ice from the many fresh-water lakes and ponds with which their country abounds. When it is about six inches thick, they cut out slabs about the size of an ordinary house door, put them upright on their ends, joining them edge to edge, making a little circular pen of ice about ten or fifteen feet in diameter, over which they put the summer tent for a roof. These houses of ice are as transparent as glass, if clear ice has been formed, and when finished, one can look through and see what his or her neighbors are doing without the trouble of getting down on his hands and knees and crawling in to find out. These glass-like houses thus completely kill all incentive to gossip, as an essential element thereto, ignorance of the person talked about, is wanting. I am pleased to add, however, that the malicious variety of this trait is wholly unknown among these distant people. The house of ice, while warmer than a skin tent, will not compare with one of snow, and as soon as this material is of proper texture, an igloo, or snow house, is constructed. I will not dwell on the construction of the igloo to any great extent, further than saying that it is the shape of a half egg cut perpendicular to its axis, and about six to eight inches thick in the blocks, which are about thirty inches long by half as wide. The most common errors regarding the Eskimo snow house are, that these big blocks are laid flat, when they are really on their longer edge, and that they form one course above another, as we build a brick building, when, in fact, there is but one course, spirally twisting around from bottom to top. While the blocks are but six to eight inches thick, the igloo is often made four to five or even eight to ten times as thick during very cold weather, by a banking of loose snow thrown over it. Of course the temperature cannot get above freezing in these homes of hard snow, or the structure will commence melting and eventually tumble in; but it must be remembered that a person can soon get used to a temperature just a few degrees below freezing, and even be quite comfortable. I must say that after a person has got thoroughly acclimated to the outdoor winter life of the Arctic, a temperature of 20° to 32° Fahrenheit is every bit as comfortable as one of 70° to 80° to a person coming into the house from a temperature well below freezing. I distinctly remember one curious effect on the white men of my party during the cold of the first incoming winter. Everyone has probably felt the loss of managing power in the fingers when numbed with cold, an inability to write, or button or unbutton a coat or other garment, or to do anything requiring considerable manipulation and play of the fingers, and we, of course, were at first no exceptions to the rule. Being constantly in this temperature, however, and almost as constantly exercising our fingers under these disadvantageous circumstances, I was greatly surprised to see how rapidly these functions of the fingers were restored, until by the time winter was over they were actually as perfect as ever in any temperature, however cold, and this too, despite the fact that there still remained, as before, the disagreeable sensation of cold in them at times. It seemed as if the motor and sensory nerves could be made absolutely independent of each other; and this benefit, which allowed me to thread a needle and sew below freezing, to use a sextant for observations at minus 40° Fahrenheit, or clean and insert cartridges in a magazine gun at even 20° lower, with ungloved hands, I believe I still, to a certain extent, retain, although all others accruing from Arctic acclimatization have disappeared in my five years away from that zone. If a comfortable house made of ice or snow seems singular during intense cold, how absurd an enjoyable bed made of the same material must appear; and yet their bedsteads are made of snow, the mattresses of many layers of musk-ox and polar bear robes and undressed reindeer skins, while the sheets are dressed reindeer robes, and the covers of the same material, their pillows being their reindeer clothing rolled in a bundle at the head of the snow bed. Here, stark naked, with only one reindeer skin over them, they will sleep as soundly as a farmer in more favored climes after a hard day’s work, and that with the temperature out-of-doors so low that every breathing thing is enveloped in a cloud of its own making. The amount of cold these northern nomads can endure borders on the phenomenal. I have seen the little babies, two and three years old, play, perfectly naked, for hours at a time, on the reindeer robes of the bed in the igloo, the temperature, as I have said, being constantly below freezing; and in the fall, I have seen them naked, playing and splashing in a pond of water, long needles of ice forming on the quiet places. I once saw an Eskimo baby boy taken from his mother’s hood, and, naked, made to stand on the snow until she found its reindeer-skin clothing from the sledge, a fairly strong wind, sufficient to drift the loose snow along with it, blowing at the time, the thermometer minus 38°, the only protection it had being a sledge loaded about three feet high, around and over which the wind poured. Its exposure thus was a good minute, and to appreciate this, one must take a watch in his hand, and see that length of time drag by, a time that a not unconscientious but sensational writer might readily jot down as five or ten minutes. I have known a naked man, surprised asleep in his igloo by a polar bear, hastily grasp a gun and pursue his enemy two or three hundred yards in the snow, the thermometer fifteen or twenty degrees below zero, and slay him. These Eskimo rub slushy snow dipped in water on the bottom of the runners of their sledges with the open palms of their hands until it becomes solid ice, the thermometer being from zero to seventy below, when I have known it to be done. I have seen an Eskimo traveler throw himself on the snow and rest comfortably for half an hour, the thermometer seventy-one degrees below zero, or one hundred and three degrees below freezing; and probably doing some light work with ungloved hands. The Kinnepetoo Eskimo, who seldom build even the small fires of the native stone lamp in their igloos during the very coldest weather of winter, are probably the hardiest of all these boreal tribes in withstanding low temperatures, and sit around in their cold, cheerless snow houses with only their under garments on (the Eskimo has two suits of reindeer skins, the outer with the hair turned outward, and the inner with the hair turned toward, and resting against, the body), their arms withdrawn from their sleeves and resting on their bare bodies across their breast, chatting all the while pleasantly about various matters, the thermometer often being below zero; in fact, the only warmth the snow house has, is that given off by their bodies.541 In fact, I might say that I have been naked myself in a temperature of minus 68°, during the short time it took to undress, roll my reindeer coat into a bundle for a pillow, and crawl into my sleeping-bag; but my movements partook more of the character of a small boy going to a base-ball match than one sawing wood. Their most efficient method of keeping warm seems to be in the enormous quantities of fat they devour, and especially during the winter season, and of which so much has been written that I will leave the subject for others not so well understood. Their clothing, made of reindeer skins throughout, I have sufficiently, though very briefly, described above in parenthesis. Persons looking at pictures of polar people clad in these swathy furs, think from their bulky appearance that they must be quite heavy, but I think they are lighter than our winter suits at home. They are certainly lighter than any other clothing in the world called upon to protect its owners from such intense cold. A most peculiar fallacy of Eskimo winter life is that, when they are living in these odd little snow houses, and wrapped in furs and subsisting on fats, their lives are a sort of hibernation, as near as human beings can be supposed to hibernate. On the contrary, the very reverse seems to be the case, and it is by far their liveliest season, despite the fact that their days are much shorter, and all conditions, as we would view them, much more unfavorable for any great amount of active out-of-door life. I do not believe I exaggerate when I say, that for every mile they travel in summer with their kiaks (little skin canoes), or on foot over the land, they can show from a dozen to a score in the winter with their dogs and sledges. They kill more game in this season, and their long evenings are by far the most lively in their acrobatic and superstitious exercises. A book could be written without exhausting the winter life in Eskimo-land, but I have tried in my small space to give some of the most interesting themes thereon, and, above all, something new and beyond the hackneyed subjects of other polar travelers.—Lieut. Frederick Schwatka, in the N. Y. Independent. The Home Circle.
By Mary Barker Dodge
Thank God for labor, ye who press
Life's path of rose and rue;
Thank God for need's impelling stress
The tiresome task to do. Thank God for rest to heart and brain
His least co-worker finds,
Though chilled and chafed by labor's chain—
That frees, the while it binds. Thank God, with every breath, that so
Compelled to do and dare,
No seed within your soul shall grow
Of idle-born despair. True, true, perhaps on lofty dreams
Life's tyranny may frown;
Yet, still, thank God for light that streams
On toil's accomplished crown. Of honest work, thank God, the rays
Reach to the very skies,
And call the morning stars to praise
The peace that in them lies. —Mary Barker Dodge, in S. S. Times. As a business nation, we occasionally make very grave mistakes, not in the matter of mere dollars and cents, though a good deal may even be said on that subject; but in our endeavors to stand in the front rank as merchants and politicians, we draw too heavily on the bank of nature, and, in consequence, become bankrupt. An honest business man will hesitate before expending more than he earns; in fact, his prosperity is based on the maxim that receipts should greatly overbalance outlays; but in everything concerning health this judicious axiom is forgotten, and, as a result, we die of the American disease—nervous prostration. Man, in struggling against nature, has an opponent who makes no allowances for mistakes, an antagonist without spite, but also without pity. If moderation be observed, the antagonism is healthful, is productive of decent ambition; but the moment humanity rushes into excesses, it finds itself opposed by a power against which it is vain to struggle, over which it is impossible to triumph. We boast of our energy, and with some reason, for we have no medium, even in trifles. As we destroy sleep by brooding over vast financial schemes, so we destroy health in the interest of real estate. We cannot eat a sandwich like the rest of the world, but gulp it down without mastication, for fear of losing a minute or two of valuable time. When an overworked stomach protests, when a weary brain gives unmistakable signs of exhaustion, the lesson is not read aright; the overburdened animal is not rested, but is forced into fresh activity by means of alcoholic poisons. Another law is, that we must never be seen without a cigar or drugged “fine cut” tobacco in our mouths. Moderation even in this luxury is discarded, and our blood, like our clothes, is tainted with nicotine. Perhaps it is impolite to refer to the quantity of saliva daily lost by a shrewd business man; but what society ignores, nature takes a strict account of, as evidenced in sunken cheeks, dry lips, and lack-luster eyes. We have read in novels that the rich East Indian uncle is compelled to stimulate his liver with curry to keep his digestion alive. The quantity of high-spiced articles consumed in this country would cause astonishment in the breast of even a Brahmapootra owner of a white elephant. If Peter Piper picked and ate a peck of pickled peppers, he would still in this respect be far behind the average American school-girl. Knowing the life of our business men, it is not astonishing that so many die of nervous exhaustion, but the wonder is that any should be alive to tell the tale. The artificial requirements of American civilization are so many that, perhaps, some of our excesses are excusable; but that we should earn money we can never use, that we should struggle for positions we can hardly ever reach, or, if reached, at the expense of health, perhaps life, are problems that will tax even ingenuity to explain. Posterity is none the better for our gains, for it follows in the same footsteps, becomes afflicted with the same disease, dies the same death. Infants are inoculated with the mania for being “smart,” and learn book-keeping before they know the difference between right and wrong; youths become acquainted with the mysteries of tobacco and the intricacies of gambling before they are aware that they have either heart or brains. We are a fast nation in every sense of the term. Like the puff-ball, we grow from almost nothing to gigantic size in one night; and, like the puff-ball, having reached maturity, are good for nothing but to die. With amusements surrounding us on every side, we really do not know what enjoyment means; theaters are bores, only to be tolerated because they give us the opportunity of drinking brandy between the acts; ball-rooms are used as exhibition markets for our marriageable daughters, but have no other inducements for celibate elders; our very household fires are surrounded with only vacant chairs. A feverish nervousness, begotten of our routine labors, makes us fretful, ill-natured, and dyspeptic. Everything is regarded from a business point of view; everything which has no direct bearing upon business is looked upon as of trifling value. We marry as a speculation, live for money, and die that our names may be used as synonyms of remarkable business tact. All is sacrificed for business; life itself is only another name for rise and fall in stocks; and so we go on, day by day accumulating money, day by day burning away our physical energy, day by day deadening our nervous sensibility, until exhaustion and a tombstone complete the unity of the tragedy. We have already lost many of our distinguished citizens through the American disease, and unless we are content to live more moderately we shall lose many more. As it is, life is short enough, and pleasures few and far between. If we cannot all be great, we can at least be indifferently sensible, and not willfully burn out the candle of life by lighting it at both ends.—Boston Globe. ABOUT twenty years ago, a young New York inventor spent every dollar he was worth in an experiment which, if successful, would introduce his invention to public notice and insure his fortune, and—what he valued more—his usefulness. It failed. The next morning the daily papers heaped unsparing ridicule on him. Hope for the future seemed vain. He looked around the shabby room where his wife, a delicate little woman, was preparing breakfast. He was without a penny. He seemed like a fool in his own eyes; all these years of hard work were wasted. If he were out of the way, she could return to her friends. He went into his chamber, sat down and buried his face in his hands, with a desperate resolve to end it all. Then, with a fiery heat flashing through his body, he stood erect. “It shall succeed,” he said, shutting his teeth. His wife was crying over the papers when he went back. “They are very cruel,” she said. “They don’t understand. I’ll make them understand,” he replied, cheerfully. “It was a fight for six years,” he said afterwards. “Poverty and sickness and contempt followed me. I had nothing left but the dogged determination that it should succeed.” It did succeed. The invention was a great and useful one. The inventor is now a prosperous and happy man. “Be sure you’re right,” he says to young men, “then never give up.”—Youth’s Companion. A Man's Pride Shall Bring Him Low
“A MAN'S pride shall bring him low.” “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.” “She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children rise up, and call her blessed.” Prov. 31: 10, 27, 28. 1. CULTIVATE an equable temper; many a man has fallen dead in a fit of passion. 2. Eat regularly, not over thrice a day, and nothing between meals. 3. Go to bed at regular hours. Get up as soon as you wake of yourself, and do not sleep in the daytime, at least not longer than ten minutes before noon. 4. Work always by the day, and not by the job. 5. Stop working before you are very much tired, “fagged out.” 6. Cultivate a generous and accommodating temper. 7. Never cross a bridge before you come to it; this will save you half the trouble of life. 8. Never eat when you are not hungry, nor drink when you are not thirsty. 9. Let your appetite always come uninvited. 10. Cool off in a place greatly warmer than the one in which you have been exercising. This simple rule would prevent incalculable sickness and save millions of lives every year. 11. Never resist a call of nature for a single moment. 12. Never permit yourself to be chilled “through and through;” it is this which destroys so many every year, in a few days’ sickness from pneumonia, called by some lung fever, or inflammation of the lungs. 13. Whoever drinks no liquids at all will add years of pleasurable existence to his life. Drinking at meals induces people to eat more than they otherwise would, as anyone can verify by experiment; and it is excess in eating that devastates the land with sickness, suffering, and death. 14. After fifty years of age, if not a day laborer, and sedentary persons after forty, should eat but twice a day, in the morning and about four in the afternoon. Persons can soon accustom themselves to a seven hours’ interval between eating, thus giving the stomach rest; for every organ, without adequate rest, will “give out” prematurely. 15. Begin early to live under the benign influence of the Christian religion, for it “has the promise of life which now is, and of that which is to come.”—Journal of Health. One Secret Weakness.
By J. Brown
I BELIEVE the greatest weakness of the church to-day is her accursed worldliness. What is not done by them who bear the name of Jesus Christ now? What are not some of our sanctuaries coming to? As a minister of the gospel, I say it with the deepest regret, my sorrowful conviction is this, that some ministers are leading in these things. I long for the time when the church shall take her proper place—and her place is “outside the camp, bearing the reproach.” While we have members of our churches who sit at the Lord’s table on Sunday, and go to the theater on Monday, without solemn protest from the minister in his pulpit; whilst the world is creeping more and more into our congregations, and the clear line of demarkation between Christ and Belial is gradually being effaced, how can the church improve? We shall never win the people by meeting the world. May we have grace to take our place by the crucified Christ. The world does not like him more than it did 1850 years ago. Be true to him, and the world will not like you any more than it liked Christ. Stand by Christ and say to the godless world, “As you treat my Saviour, so shall you treat me. I will not accept your smiles whilst you frown on my Redeemer. If you spit in his face, it is as if you spit in mine, for I am one with my Lord and Master.” May God baptize the church with Holy Ghost power and Holy Ghost living, so that we may live lives of a sublime creation; and so that, going forth to Jesus outside the camp, the church may take her proper place, the place of testimony and witness-bearing until he come.—Rev. J. Brown. HOW OFTEN is this remark made whenever the question of doubtful popular amusements is being discussed! Dancing, testing the speed of blooded stock, boat-racing as ordinarily practiced, games at billiards and cards,—these, and numerous other amusements, are sometimes justified on such grounds alone. If it be urged that, under the circumstances, these things are inexpedient, and ought to be avoided, the reply is, “Oh, these are innocent in themselves.” The error lies in assuming that certain actions and words may stand alone, and, separated from all others, may have nothing to do in moulding the character. But can we conceive of such isolation? Every moment our influence touches other souls. Whatever may be the cause or even the occasion of evil is to be carefully avoided. There is no law more plainly written than this. Personal influence, rightly considered, has no place for the doctrine, “This is innocent in itself.” Life is profoundly serious, because each part holds a necessary relation to every other part. In all our estimates of the guilt or innocence of human action, this view ought to be ever present with us.—Sel. No SHIP drifts into harbor. The ocean of life has many a hidden current, many a sudden storm; and he who would win port at last must stand to his helm, while his ship drives on through opposing currents and against contrary winds. The perils of the voyage are very real; the sailor sails on a sea that is strewn with wrecks. Here drifts a battered hulk which was once a gallant ship; but now, helm and compass lost, she is driven on by wind and waves to the terrible shores, from whose cruel rocks and savage breakers she shall not escape. There float the spars and cordage of a richly laden bark—too richly laden—which has sunk into the depths in the very midst of her course. In this sea, nothing drifts except to the shores of destruction; and few ships come into port which have not battled long with angry head winds. Pleasant weather there may be in the voyage of life, but never weather so pleasant that the hand may leave the helm, or the eye the compass. Where there is least peril of storm, there may be most peril of being carried away from the right course by an unnoticed current. Keep, then, the eye upon the compass, the hand upon the rudder. That is the only sure way of arriving at the desired haven. To let go the helm and to allow the ship to drift before the winds and the waves, may seem to be the easiest, the most natural, even the most enjoyable, thing to do; but a voyage which is conducted on that mistaken principle is sure, sooner or later, to end on the cruel rocks, on the treacherous sands, or in the devouring sea.—S. S. Times.