Earlier text: We Would See JesusNorth Pacific T. and M. Society.
By Mrs. C. L. Boyd
REPORT FOR QUARTER ENDING MARCH 31, 1886.
|
|
|---|
| No. of members |
198 |
| " reports returned |
98 |
| " members added |
9 |
| " letters written |
332 |
| " visits made |
531 |
| " pp. of tracts and pamphlets distributed |
26,385 |
| " " " given away |
15,657 |
| " " " sold |
7,315 |
| " periodicals distributed |
4,788 |
| " SIGNS taken in clubs |
113 |
| " new subscribers obtained |
36 |
| Received on donation and membership |
$ 31 26 |
| " " sales |
69 44 |
| " " periodicals |
123 93 |
| " " five thousand-dollar fund |
65 00 |
| " " educational fund |
175 00 |
| " " foreign missions |
353 50 |
| Total receipts |
$ 818 13 |
MRS. C. L. BOYD, Sec’y.
Per WM. POTTER. NOTES ON THE INTERNATIONAL LESSON.
The interview of Jesus with his disciples after feeding the multitude, in which they had received much precious instruction, was interrupted by those who had been searching for him. As the people began to flock about him, bringing their sick and afflicted, he repaired to the synagogue. While he was teaching there, many of those who had left him on the other side of the lake came to the synagogue, and were surprised to see Jesus and his disciples there before them, knowing that there was no boat by which he could pass to the other side. They began to inquire how and when he had crossed the sea. They were astonished when the disciples related to them the events of the preceding night. The fury of the storm and the many hours of fruitless rowing against the fury of adverse winds, the appearance of Christ walking upon the water, the fears thus aroused, his reassuring words, the adventure of Peter and its result, with the sudden stilling of the tempest and landing of the boat, were all faithfully recounted to the wondering crowd, amid frequent interruptions and exclamations of amazement. As soon as the discourse of Jesus was ended, they gathered around the Saviour, questioning him, hoping to receive from his own lips a fuller account of his mighty work of the previous night. But Jesus did not gratify their idle curiosity. He was also beset by the Pharisees, to show them a sign from Heaven that he was the Son of God. They asked an evidence of his miraculous power, such as had been given on the other side of the sea. They importuned him to repeat his wonderful works before them. Jesus declared to them that they did not seek him from any worthy motive; that they did not desire to learn how to please God in their daily lives; but they asked him to work miracles, sometimes in a spirit of unbelief, and sometimes because they hoped to be benefited by temporal favors which he might thus bestow upon them. He bade them not to labor for the meat which perishes, but to seek for spiritual food, that wisdom which endures unto everlasting life. This the Son of God alone could give, for he has the seal of the Father. With solemn earnestness he sought to impress upon them that temporal favors are of little consequence compared with the heavenly grace offered by the Son of God. “Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. They said therefore unto him, What sign showest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from Heaven to eat.” It was Christ himself who conducted the Hebrews in their travels through the wilderness. It was he who had daily fed them manna from Heaven; yet they blindly referred him to this miracle, wrought for their fathers, in a spirit of caviling unbelief. Jesus declared to them that as God had given them manna to preserve their lives, so he had sent to them this gift of his Son, that through him they might eat of the bread of life and become immortal. “Then said Jesus unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from Heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from Heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from Heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, ever more give us this bread.” Jesus used bread as a figure to illustrate the vitalizing power of his Spirit. The one sustains physical life, while the other satisfies the heart, and strengthens the moral powers. Said he: “I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not.” Those who experience the spiritual union with Christ never hunger for higher enjoyment. All uncertainty is gone, the weary soul finds continual refreshment in the Saviour. The feverish thirst for wealth and honor is gone. He is in them a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Jesus assured the Jews that they had seen him and his works yet believed not. He did not refer to their seeing him with their natural eyes; but he meant that their understanding had been convinced, while their proud and stubborn hearts refused to acknowledge him as the Messiah. The Saviour had been doing in their midst works that no man had ever done. The living evidences of his divine power had been before them day after day; yet their hard and caviling hearts asked for still another sign of his divinity before they would believe. Had this been given them they would still have remained as unbelieving as before. If they were not already convinced of his Messiahship by what they had seen and heard, it was useless to show them more marvelous works. The dignity of God’s holy Son was not to be compromised to gratify a questioning crowd. Unbelief will ever find cause to doubt and reason away the most positive proof. The Jews stood constantly upon guard, lest they should be forced by overwhelming evidence to yield their prejudice and unbelief. Though their understanding was convinced, they refused to surrender their pride and self-righteousness, admitting that they, who had boasted of their wisdom over all the rest of the world, themselves needed a teacher. The Jews had assembled to celebrate the passover. In eating the flesh of the lamb, they were to remember that it represented the Lamb of God, and their protection when the first-born of their enemies were slain in Egypt. The blood that the Hebrews were commanded to have upon their door-posts, and which was a sign of safety to them, also represented the blood of Christ, which was to be shed for the sins of the world. The Saviour has power to finally raise from the dead all those who, by faith, eat of his flesh and drink of his blood. This spiritual food gives to the believers a well-founded hope of the resurrection to immortal life in the kingdom of God. These precious truths Jesus declared to the incredulous multitude, saying, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from Heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” He spoke of his future sacrifice, in these words: “And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” He offered his salvation to all who would accept him, clothed in humanity, as their Redeemer, having access to the Father, and being invested by him with divine authority. But the Jews were displeased that Jesus should claim to be the bread of life come down from Heaven. “And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from Heaven?” They so clung to their bigotry and pride that it now seemed impossible for them to believe evidence that was plain as the noonday sun. Their jealousy was aroused that this man of humble birth was able to work wonders that they could not explain away, and teach truths that could not be contradicted. So they endeavored to awaken the prejudice and unbelief of the people by referring scornfully to the lowly origin of Jesus, and by reason of his mysterious birth, insinuating that he was of doubtful parentage. They contemptuously alluded to his life as a Galilean laborer, and to his family as being poor and lowly. They declared that the lofty claims of this uneducated carpenter should be at once repudiated. But Jesus heard their murmurings and reproved them. He again, in more forcible language, declared his connection with the Father, and the necessity for the heart to be enlightened by the Spirit of God before it can feel the need of a Saviour. “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.” He here refers to the prophecy of Isaiah: “And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children.” This was not a new doctrine which Jesus taught. It was the fulfillment of prophecy, which, as expounders of the word, the priests and elders should have thoroughly understood. In declaring that none come to him unless the Father draws them, the Saviour wished them to understand that God would never appear in person to teach them concerning the way of life. Humanity could not endure the vision of his glory for a moment; only through the Son could they come to him. In seeing and hearing the Son, they saw and heard the Father. He is Mediator between God and his disobedient children. The Jews claimed God as their teacher, but Christ declared such profession vain, for, said he, “Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.”—Mrs. E. G. White, in “Great Controversy.” I KNEW a little boy whose heart was touched by a sermon on the words, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” My mother said to him when she noticed that he was anxious, “Robert, what would you say to any one who knocked at the door of your heart if you wished him to come in?” He answered, “I’d say, ‘Come in!’” She then said to him, “Then say to the Lord Jesus, ‘Come in!’” The next morning there was a brightness and joy about Robert’s face that made my father ask, “Robert, what makes you look so glad and joyful to-day?” He replied joyfully, “I awoke in the night, and I felt that Jesus Christ was still knocking at the door of my heart for admittance. I said to him, ‘Lord Jesus, come in!’ I think he has come into my heart. I feel happier this morning than I ever was in all my life. How ungrateful and wicked in me to keep him waiting outside so long!”—Sel. Tom’s Bible Verses.
By Maud Lincoln
“I don’t see the use of learning so many Bible verses,” said Tom. “Why,” said his imaginative sister Amy, “suppose you were cast on a desert island with no Bible. Think how many verses and whole chapters you would have in your head.” “But I’m not going to be cast on a desert island,” objected Tom. “I don’t ever go sailing.” “And suppose,” continued Amy, “you were called to see some poor sick man, and he wanted you to say some verses to him?” “I’m not ever called to see sick men,” declared Tom. “I go to see sick boys sometimes, and they never ask for verses. They want to hear about base-ball, and what’s going on at school.” “Not if they were dying?” “If they were dying, I wouldn’t be let in to see them anyhow,” said Tom, triumphantly. “What I want to know is what’s the use of me, a boy, learning so many verses. I’m not going to be a minister.” While Amy was trying to find another answer to Tom’s question, Cousin Madge laid down her book and entered into the conversation. “I suppose you can say ever so many verses, Tom?” “Oh, heaps, whole chapters. The twelfth chapter of Romans and the fourteenth and fifteenth of John, and the chapter on charity, lots of chapters in Proverbs, Psalms, heaps of ’em,” said Tom, with a boastful air. “Do you see any use in it, Cousin Madge?” “I haven’t seen the use of it yet,” said Madge. “But then I have been here only three days.” Tom stared. “What difference does that make?” “Why, I don’t know you very well yet.” “But what’s that got to do with my learning verses?” Cousin Madge smiled as she asked, “Would you like me to tell you in a day or two?” “I’d like you to tell me now,” answered Tom, all athirst for knowledge. But his desires could not be satisfied just then, for Madge was called away, and Tom was left to ponder the problem by himself. Cousin Madge was present the next morning before breakfast, when Tom rattled off his verses to grandma. After breakfast there arose a great disturbance in the yard which Cousin Madge’s window overlooked. Presently she tapped on the window to Tom, who was in the thick of the disturbance. Tom looked up at the window. “Tom, can you come up here a minute before you go to school?” said Madge, pleasantly. It was full ten minutes before Tom found it convenient to obey the summons, and then he clattered up-stairs more noisily than usual, which is saying much, and burst into his cousin’s room and slammed the door after him with such force that two fans and a photograph were jarred off the mantelpiece. Tom’s apology for his violence was this:— “Well, I don’t care. It’s just the meanest thing I ever heard of.” “What is the meanest thing?” inquired Madge, innocently. “Why, that old Barney, that comes here to do chores. He went to fooling with my rabbits, and he’s let the very prettiest one, the white one, get away, and she’s got out of the yard, and I bet I’ll never see her again.” “Is that the very meanest thing that ever happened?” asked Madge. “Yes, it is, to me,” declared Tom. “And the meanest thing that ever happened to Amy happened yesterday when you lost two of her white mice,” pursued Cousin Madge, calmly. Tom looked slightly confused. “Yes, but that was an accident. I told her I didn’t mean to, and she ought to believe me.” “Then Barney meant to lose your rabbit?” “He said he didn’t; but I don’t believe him. He’d no business to meddle with them.” “Did he give any reason for doing so?” “Yes, he said one of the slats in the hutch was loose, and he was trying to fix it; but I don’t believe a word of it.” Cousin Madge looked steadily into the flushed face and said gently, “Why should Amy believe Tom if Tom doesn’t believe Barney?” “Well”—stammered Tom, reduced to his last argument. “What were your verses this morning?” asked Cousin Madge. Tom looked surprised at this sudden change of subject, but hurriedly repeated: “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his own spirit than he that taketh a city.” “The discretion of a man deferreth his anger, and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.” “What was the use of your learning those verses?” asked Madge. “I don’t see,” replied Tom, stubbornly. “And yet, if grandma had known you were to be subjected to a severe temptation this morning, she could not have selected better verses for you.” “Temptation!” said Tom, puzzled. “Yes, the temptation not to defer your anger, and not to pass over a transgression.” “Is that the good of learning verses?” asked Tom, going at once to the point. “That is what I think,” said Madge. “But sometimes when I see you and Amy together, I should think you were a boy who had never heard of the twelfth chapter of Romans, which you say you have learned.” “So I have,” affirmed Tom. “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another,” quoted Madge. “And there is a verse in the same chapter which says, ‘Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath.’ And yet I heard you say, ‘I’ll fix him, I know a way to pay him up.’ Barney, I suppose you meant.” “Well,” said Tom, dodging, as he thought, the main question, “that verse says, ‘Dearly beloved,’ and that don’t mean me.” “Doesn’t it? Are you not one of Christ’s dearly beloved?” “No, I’m not,” said Tom, hastily. “Do you mean that Christ does not love you?” “I don’t mean that,” said Tom, slowly. “Perhaps you mean that you do not love him.” Tom did not want to say that, so he said nothing. Presently he spoke with more confidence. “What I mean is that all those verses are for Christians, and I am not a Christian.” “Would you not have felt better yesterday if Amy had deferred her anger and passed over your transgression?” “Yes, and I should have felt more sorry, too. But she made me so mad scolding me that I didn’t care if the old mice were lost.” “Perhaps Barney felt that way,” said Cousin Madge, softly. “So it seems that people who are not Christians could practice some of these verses with good effect. But I don’t see why you should not be a Christian, Tom, a boy who has to learn so many Bible verses and wants a good reason for doing it. Reciting anything isn’t always learning it. What would be the use of learning all the rules in the arithmetic if you could not do the examples under the rules?” “Well, that reminds me,” said Tom, after a short pause, “I must hurry, or I shall be late to school.” He went out and closed the door very softly behind him. Cousin Madge had put a new thought into Tom’s mind, and as he is a boy that is wont to keep a new thought and turn it over and consider it well, it may be that something will come of it. Something generally does come of Tom’s thoughts.—Maud Lincoln, in Watchman. THE LITTLE MAID'S AMEN.
By Gospel Expositor
A rustle of robes as the anthem
Soared gently away on the air—
The Sabbath morn's service was over,
And briskly I stepped down the stair;
When close, in a half-illumined corner,
Where the tall pulpit stairway came down,
Asleep crouched a tender, wee maiden,
With hair like a shadowy crown. Quite puzzled was I by the vision,
But gently to wake her I spoke,
When, at the first word, the small damsel
With one little gasp straight awoke.
“What brought you here, fair little angel?”
She answered with voice like a bell:
“I tam, too; I've dot a sick mamma,
And want 'oo to please prayer her well!” “Who told you?” began I; she stopped me:
“Don't nobody told me at all;
And papa can't see 'cause he's cryin',
And, sides, sir, I isn't so small;
I've been here before with my mamma,
We tummed when you ringed the big bell;
And ev'ry time I's heard you prayin'
For lots o' sick folks to dit well.” Together we knelt on the stairway,
As humbly I asked the Great Power
To give back her health to the mother,
And banish bereavement's dark hour.
I finished the simple petition,
And paused for a moment—and then,
A sweet little voice at my elbow
Lisped softly a gentle “Amen!” Hand in hand we turned our steps homeward,
The little maid's tongue knew no rest;
She prattled, and mimicked, and caroled—
The shadow was gone from her breast;
And lo!—when we reached the fair dwelling—
The nest of my golden-haired wife—
We found that the dearly loved mother
Was past the dread crisis—and safe. They listened amazed at my story,
And wept o'er their darling's strange quest,
While the arms of the pale, loving mother
Drew the brave little head to her breast;
With eyes that were brimming and grateful
They thanked me again and again—
Yet I know in my heart that the blessing
Was won by that gentle “Amen.” It is not generally known that the first meeting-house bells made in this country were cast in the town of Abington, of which Rockland was formerly the eastern part. About 1769 a deserter from the British Army, named Gallimore, reached the town in the course of his wanderings. He was a bell founder by trade, and was employed by Col. Aaron Hobart in this business. The air furnace in which the bells were cast was in what is now South Abington. The first bell made was used at the old Congregational Church, which was located where Hatherly Hall now stands. The bell weighed nearly one thousand pounds, and when it was being cast Mr. Hobart tossed fifty silver dollars into the melting mass to give tone to the bell. After years of service the old bell cracked and was recast. Mr. Hobart also began the manufacture of cannon and cannon balls about the commencement of the Revolutionary War, and was the first person in the country who introduced and conducted the business. Owing to lack of experience and the practice of moulding in sand instead of clay, he was unsuccessful at first, and sustained considerable loss. In the course of time, however, the business was better understood, and he then carried it on largely and profitably. The cannon were cast hollow, and afterward bored to make the inner surface true and smooth. They are now cast solid.—Sel. It was only a word dropped from the lips of a young girl, as she looked after the figure of an old lady trotting briskly down the street; only a word and a laugh to the merry companion at her side, but I couldn't forget it. I wanted to talk to those young girls, and all other young girls, upon the subject of old ladies, and old-fashioned ones in particular, and I take this opportunity to do it. Yes, she was old-fashioned in her dress. That was evident. She was old-fashioned in her manner, or she wouldn't have smiled a greeting as she passed you, because of the love of her dear old heart for all young people. Now, I like old ladies when they keep their heart of youth. It is something they have put on when they were young, and never taken off, and, like the garments they wear, is very old-fashioned indeed. I like to find them out; to smile back at them greetings that will light up their eyes and warm their hearts with smiling remembrances of their young days. Only try it, and see what you will get in return for it. What warm hand-clasps, and what kind invitations to their own old-fashioned houses, where certain surprises await you, if you go. There are old-fashioned chairs that woo you to their comfortable depths; there is old-fashioned comfort written everywhere, and, above all, there is the dear old-fashioned hospitality, the like of which can only be found in such houses and among such people. It has a wonderful power to win even young people, again and again, to bask in its warmth. Old-fashioned old people are like old china, somewhat rare, but rarely beautiful, and much to be prized when we find them. Don't miss the finding! Give a little of your own sweetness to win theirs; and if you are fond of the beautiful treasures that belong to the past, you will be repaid in your new-found ones, even more richly than in your old affections. Give them your confidence and win theirs. Watch the old faces brighten, and the old hearts grow young again, as they tell of their long past youth. But you will forget to do this; you will be so interested, you will forget yourself; you will live over again, with all the old pleasures, the old treasures of old hearts spread out for your young hearts to feast upon, and when you come back to your to-day, as you must, and leave their old yesterdays to them, to hear the old voices say: “Come again, girls; I have had such a good time,” I can imagine your own hearty response. Oh, if to grow old is to grow sweet and gracious, to keep fires, love-lit long years ago, bright and glowing—though rains have fallen and snows of wintry wind have laid bare hopes cherished and dear—I pray that I may grow old, that I may keep the smiles of love for such as love the smiles of the old, and if this heart of grace shall have stamped itself upon the outer man, and left there such impress as may win me the love of the young as well as the old, then although the fashion of it be an old one, I should like to be old-fashioned.—Interior. Peculiarities of a Tornado.
A RESIDENT of Minnesota, who has seen several tornadoes, says that their most peculiar feature is the singular sucking movement. Buildings are sucked up into the clouds entire, and soon come down in fragments. After the great Rochester tornado, a farmer twelve miles from the town found an uninjured marble-top table in his field. Another found a very large sheep that had come from no one knew where, and had been deposited in his yard unhurt. The Minnesota man further said that he had seen a board into which wheat straws had been driven until they stuck through on the other side. Also, he saw a plank driven through a big tree, and a piece of pine moulding driven through a small butternut tree.—Sel. Who pays the bills? Who feeds the drunkard's hungry children? Who provides for the drunkard's broken-hearted wife? Who supports the beggarly tramps who, having wasted their money in drink, wander about the country? Who repairs the losses caused by the failure of intemperate merchants and reckless and half-intoxicated business men? Who makes good the damages caused by the blunders of drunken workmen, and the hindrances of business caused by sprees of intemperate employés? Who pays for the railroad wrecks caused by drunken conductors and engineers? Who builds the asylums where crazy drunkards are kept? Who supports the idiotic children of drunken men? Who pays the attorneys and juries and judges who try drunken criminals? Who pays the expenses of trials and commitments and executions occasioned by the crimes of drunken men? Who pays for the property destroyed and burned by drunken men? Who builds and supports almshouses, which but for drink might remain unoccupied? Who endures the sufferings and losses and brutality, which are due to the recklessness and insanity of drunken husbands and fathers? Who pays for the inquests held on drunkards found dead by the wayside? Who pays for a pauper's coffin and for digging a drunkard's grave in the potter's field, when the last glass had been drunk? Who pays the bills? The drunkard cannot, for he has wasted his substance in his cup. Will the rumseller pay them? The fact is, you and I, and the sober and industrious toiling portion of the community, must meet all these bills. The drunken rowdy, wounded in the street fight, is cared for in the city hospital at our expense; the drunken beggar is fed from our table; his hungry children come to our doors for bread; and we cannot refuse assistance to his suffering wife; and when at last, having “wasted his substance in riotous living,” he comes to the almhouse, the asylum, the hospital, or the prison, honest, sober, temperate men pay the bills for supporting him there. There is no escaping it. We may protest, we may grumble at taxes, and find fault with beggars, but ultimately and inevitably we must foot the bills.—New England Evangelist. Necessity of Food for Students.
The notion that those who work only with their brains need less food than those who labor with their hands has been the cause of untold mischief. Students and literary men have often been the victims of a slow starvation from this ignorance of the fact that mental labor causes a greater waste of tissue than muscular. According to careful estimates, three hours of hard study wear out the body more than a whole day at the anvil, or on the farm. “Without phosphorus no thought,” is a German saying, and the consumption of that essential ingredient of the brain increases in proportion to the amount of labor which the organ is required to perform. The wear and tear of the brain are easily measured by careful examination of the salts in liquid secretions. The importance of the brain as a working organ is shown by the amount of blood it receives, which is proportionately greater than that of any part of the body. One-fifth of the blood goes to the brain, though its average weight is only one-fortieth the average weight of the body. This fact alone would be sufficient to prove that brain workers need more food and better food than mechanics and farm laborers.—Journal of Chemistry. “Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.”—Solomon. STRONG drink is, in a sense, the weakest of all drinks in its fruits, and the most prodigal also of that which is not only the strength but the glory of man. It enfeebles his body and hurls the mind from the loftiest and most brilliant eminence, and lays it prostrate in the dust of inert imbecility or driveling idiocy. It squanders the money, and leaves families in squalor and discomfort who would otherwise be well clothed and happy. The landlord’s pleasant greeting is hollowness itself, rendered even more hollow still by the mercenary inspiration which prompts it. We do not light the fire for the herring’s comfort, but to roast him. “But, doctor, I must have some kind of a stimulant,” cried an invalid, earnestly. “I am weak and it strengthens me. I am cold and it warms me.” “Precisely,” came the old doctor’s truthful answer. “See here; this stick is cold,” taking up a stick of wood from the box beside the hearth and tossing it into the fire—“now it is warm. But is the stick benefited?” The sick man watched the wood first send out little puffs of smoke and then burst into flame, and replied:— “Of course not; it is burning itself.” “And so are you when you warm yourself with alcohol. You are literally burning up the delicate tissues of your stomach and brain. Every time you are taking it to give you strength, you are becoming weak. And the stronger the liquor, the weaker it makes the drinker.”—Sel. A Brisk Woman.
By Elizabeth Cole
I ONCE knew a brisk woman who used to loosen her carpets in the last of February, so that she might take advantage of the first warm day, and whisk them out before the gaze of an astonished world. There was a tradition in her family that all carpets should be up, and stoves down, by the middle of March, and unless positively frozen up and snowed under, she fought it out on that line. She and her family are long since dead, as might be expected, sacrificed not by cleanliness, but by a silly pride and an insane desire to be more “forehanded” than her neighbors. I have noticed that these women who are so forehanded with their house-cleaning are apt to be forehanded in their deaths. They seem to fancy there is some merit in thus forcing the season, and they plunge into the good work with all the enthusiasm of the ancient martyrs, laying up coughs, and colds, instead of treasures in Heaven. So many women clean house according to tradition, instead of common sense. They learned in their youth that spring begins in March, and in March they will clean house if they kill themselves and their families in the attempt. They pay no attention to good advice, nor do they heed the roar of the awful avalanche of dust, and dirt, and carpets, and stoves, and soot that they bring down on their devoted heads; on they rush, and down from the cold, damp shades of their fireless, sunless parlors, comes the last faint echo of their cries.—Elizabeth Cole, in Good Housekeeping. The places of judicature I have long held in this kingdom, have given me an opportunity to observe the original cause of most of the enormities that have been committed for the space of nearly twenty years; and by due observation I have found that if the murders and manslaughters, the burglaries and robberies, the riots and tumults, and other enormities that have happened in that time, were divided into five parts, four of them have been the issue and product of excessive drinking—of tavern and ale-house drinking.—Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice, England, about 1670. —Mount Ætna is in a state of eruption. —Doctor Dio Lewis died at his home in Yonkers, N. Y., May 21. —Fears are entertained of an uprising of Indians in Washington Territory. —May 21 a conflict occurred on the frontier between Greek and Turkish troops. —May 17, the Royalists of Spain were made glad by the birth of an heir to the Spanish throne. —Sunday, May 15, five persons were arrested by the police in San Francisco for delivering socialistic harangues and for obstructing the streets. —The seizure of American fishing vessels by the Canadian authorities has stirred up considerable ill feeling in this country, especially in the New England States. —An artesian well of six-inch bore, sunk 515 feet, has a good flow of water secured on the barren plains south of Tucson, A. T. This is likely to work a revolution in that locality. —May 16, an attempt was made to burn the East St. Louis approach to the St. Louis Railroad bridge. —The Canadian Pacific Railway is making active preparations for opening the line for traffic to British Columbia. —The Grand Jury at St. Louis has found indictments for conspiracy against fifty-nine of the late railroad strikers. —Jaehne, the ex-alderman recently convicted of bribery in connection with the Broadway Surface Railway, has been sentenced to nine years and ten months in Sing Sing. —A bill has been reported by the House Committee on Electoral Count, which provides for an amendment to the Constitution creating the office of second vice-president. —At Salt Lake City, May 15, Judge Zane denied two applications for naturalization papers because the applicants declined to promise obedience to the laws against polygamy. —Seventy-five men employed on a canal at Merced, Cal., struck, May 18, for higher wages. They were all paid off and discharged, and the next day new men were employed. —Mrs. Pendleton, wife of Hon. George H. Pendleton, United States Minister to Germany, was thrown from her carriage in Central Park, New York, May 20, and instantly killed. —A cyclone at Eagle Rock, Idaho, May 19, demolished the Union Pacific round-houses, and seriously injured several men employed in and around the building. A number of buildings were unroofed. —May 18, four children, the oldest twelve and the youngest four years of age, perished in a burning building near Akron, Ohio. In attempting to rescue them, their uncle received injuries which may prove fatal. —The chief of police of St. Louis has been instructed to disperse all assemblages of Anarchists when resistance to the law is advocated, and arrest any and all violators of law who utter incendiary speeches or incite to riot. —Two dynamite explosions occurred at Orangeville, Ont., May 17. No lives were lost, but the office and residence of Police Magistrate Monroe were wrecked. The cause of the outrage was the strict enforcement of the temperance law. —May 17, another New England fishing schooner was seized by the Canadian authorities for alleged violation of the fishing laws. There is considerable excitement over the action of the Dominion Government relative to vessels owned in this country. —Intense excitement still continues in England over the question of home rule for Ireland. It is thought that if Gladstone’s measure is defeated he will dissolve Parliament and appeal to the people. The masses are thought to be favorable to the measure. —May 17, a desperate fight took place in the streets of Martinsville, Va., in which forty shots were fired. One man was killed, and at least three were fatally wounded. The parties engaged in the shooting were some of the leading business men of the town. —A little girl six years of age was killed and eaten by hogs near Thomasville, N. C., one day last week. The child was feeding the animals pieces of bread when one of them bit her hand. The smell of blood infuriated the swine, and the little girl was at once attacked and devoured. —On the 15th inst., Captain Hatfield with a troop of cavalry surprised a party of Apaches in southern Arizona, capturing all their stock and the camp outfit. The next day the Indians surprised Hatfield’s command, killed two of his men, recaptured all their stock, and took all the Government horses. —May 20, the entire force of planing-mill hands in St. Louis, Mo., went out on a strike, and twenty-two mills are idle. May 1, the men were granted a reduction from ten to eight hours, but were refused a ten per cent. increase in wages, which they also demanded. The present strike is against a return to the ten-hour system. —In delivering his charge to the Grand Jury at Chicago, May 17, Judge Rogers said: “It is only your province to deal with crime which has been committed. The principles of law inculcate the doctrine that men who teach riot, who incite unlawful gatherings to incendiary acts, are responsible for the effects of these rantings. The red flag is a public menace. It is an emblem that no quarter will be given. The police have a right to suppress these people to prevent the commission of crime.”319 —A legislative committee is investigating alleged brutalities committed in Louisiana under the present convict contract system. —Several Mormon missionaries had a narrow escape from a mob of country people in Washington County, Penn., recently, who objected to their proselyting. —A dispatch from Tombstone, A. T., under date of May 20, says: “The death roll of persons murdered by Apaches within gunshot of Nogales, A. T., during the past four weeks has now reached forty-two. The boldness and size of the bands committing the recent raid leave no doubt that they have been recruited from the discharged scouts.” —In Lyons, France, May 9, a mob of glass-factory strikers sacked the house of an artisan who had resumed work, severely beat the man and his wife, and threw their furniture into the Rhone. The mob then made an attack upon the factory, the owner of which kept up a continuous fire with shot-guns upon the rioters until they were forced to withdraw. Thirty were wounded. —April 12, the German gunboat Albatross arrived at Sydney, Australia, and reported about a dozen engagements with natives of New Britain and New Ireland, in which at least forty-five natives were killed. Eight of the crew of the Albatross were wounded in the first engagement. The attack on the natives was made in punishment for the murder of white traders. And thus the work of Christianizing(?) the islands of the South Pacific goes bravely on. —At noon, May 17, the remaining property of the New Orleans Exposition was sold at sheriff sale. The property sold very low. The main building, which cost over $500,000, contains 10,000,000 feet of lumber, and has acres of glass roofing, brought only $90,000. This is the largest building in the world, covering an area of 905x1,378 feet, or over 28 acres. The Government building brought $4,100, and sundries, $16,680. A junk dealer was the purchaser. The sale was on one year’s credit at 5 per cent. interest. —William Weber, a Chicago Socialist, recently stated that on the evening of the bomb throwing in that city, there were twenty Socialists armed with bombs. The bomb throwers were selected by lot. In speaking of it Weber said: “I know that twenty men received their bombs. The meeting was almost through Tuesday night when the police ordered the Anarchists to disperse, and it is presumed that the other nineteen men had started for home or were injured by the discharge of the police revolvers, which immediately followed the throwing of the first bomb. The Anarchists are not subdued yet, and you need not be surprised if another outbreak comes.”