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I 'VV REY. DR. TALMAGE. THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUNDAY SERMON. Subject: 4,Too Much Ado About Small Things." Text: "F? blind guides, which strain at ? gnat and swallow a cameir?Matt, xxiii, 34. A proverb is compact wisdom, knowledge in chunks, a library in a sentence, the elec! ticity oi many clouds discharged in one bolt, river put through a mill race. When Christ quotes the proverb of the text He means to et forth the ludicrous behavior of those who make a great bluster about small sins and have no appreciation of great ones. In my text a small insect and a large quadruped are brought into comparison?a gnat and a camel. You have in museum or on the laftor a ffpoof. ?wtwfll'd. WOC4 V WV-U kuu UtVWl I M VMV ? sprawling: creature, with back two stories high, and stomach having a collection of reservoirs for desert travel, an animal forbidden to the Jen's as food, and in many literatures entitled "the ship of the desert." The gnat spoken of in the text is in the grub form. It is born in pool or pond, after a few weeks becomes a chrysalis, and then aftor a few days becomes the gnat as we recognize it. It is in its smallest shape, and yet iuhabits the water?for my text is a misprint, and ought to read, "Btrain out a gnat." My text shows you the Prince of inconsistencies. A man alter long observation has formed the suspicion that in a cup of water he is about to drink there is a grub or the grandparent of a gnat. He goes and gets a sieve or strainer. He takes the water and pours it through the sieve in the broad light. He says: "1 wouia ratner ao anyiumg unuuu than drink this water until this larva be extirpated." This water is brought under inquisition. The experiment is successful. The water rushes through the-sieve and leaves against the side of the sieve the grub or gnat. Then the man carefully removes the insect and drinks the water in placidity. But going out one day, and hungry, he de'vours a "ship of the desert," the camel, which the Jews were forbidden to eat. The gastronomer has no compunctions of conscience. He suffers from no indigestion. He puts the lower jaw oader the camel's fore foot, and his upper jaw over the hump of the camel's back, and gives one swallow and the dromedary disappears forever. He strained out a gnat; ne swallowed a camel. While Christ's audience were yet smiling at 1 '? ! ? COS appcwiWllt'ss auu mi ui u13 miunuuiuii? (or smile they did in church unless they were too stupid to understand the hyperbole? Christ practically said to them: "That is you." Punctilious about small things; reckless about affairs of great magnitude. No subject ever withered under a surgeon's knife more bitterly than did the Pharisees under Christ's scalpel of truth. As an anatomist will take a human body to pieces and put them under a microscope for examination, so Christ finds His way to the heart of the dead Pharisee and cuts it out and puts it under the glass of inspection for all generations to examine. "Those Pharisees thought that Christ would flatter them and compliment them, and how they mast have writhed under the redhot words as hesaid: "Ye fools, ye whited sepulchres, ye blind guides, which strain out a gnat aud swallow a camel." There are in our day a great many gnats strained out and a great many camels swallowed, and it is the object of "this sermon to sketch a few persons who are extensively engaged in that business. First I remark that all those ministers of the Gospel are photographed in the text who are very scrupulous about the conventionalities of religion, but put no particular stress upon matters of vast importance. Church services ought to be grave and solemn. There is no room for frivolity in religious convocation. But there are Illustrations and there are hyperboles like that of Christ in the text that will irradiate with smiles any intelligent auditory. There are men like those blind guides of the text who advocate only those things in religious service which draw the corners of the mouth down, and denounce all those things which have a tendency to draw the corners of the mouth up, and these men will go to installations ana to presbyteries and to conferences and to associations, their pockets full of fine sieves to strain out the gnats, while in their own churches at home every Sunday there are fifty people sound asleep. They make their churches a great dormitory, and their somniferous sermons are a cradle, and the drawled out hymns a lullaby, while some wakeful soul in a pew with her fan keeps the flies off unconscious persons approximate. Now, I say it is worse to sleep in church than to smile in church, for the latter implies at least attention, while the former implies the indifference of the hearers and the stupidity of the speaker. In old age, or from physical infirmity, or from long watching with the sick, drowsiness will sometimes overpower one; but when a minister of the Gospel looks off upon an audience and nnds drowsiness, it is time for him to give out the doxology or pronounce the benediction. The great fault of churcji services to-day is not too much vivacity, but too much somnolence. The one is an irritating gnat that may be easily strained out; the other is a great, sprawling and sleepy-eyed camel of the dry desert. In all our Sabbath-schools, in all our Bible classes, in all our pulpits, wo need to brighten up our religious message 'with such Chnst-like vivacity as we find in the text. I take down from my library the biographies of mini.-ters and writers of pest ages, inspired and uninspired, who have done the most to bring souls to Jesus Christ, and I And that without a single exception, they con; gpcrated their wit and their humor to Christ Elijah used it when he advised the Baalites. as they could not mako their God respond, telling them to call loader, as their God might be sound asleep or gone a hunting. Job used it when he said to his self-conceited comforters: "Wisdom will die with you." Christ not only used it in the text, but when He ironically complimented the putrefied Pharisees, saying: "The whole need not a physician," and when by one word He described the cunning of Herod, saying: ''Go ye, and tell that fox."' Matthew Henry's commentaries from the first page to the last coruscated with humor as summer clouds with heat and lightning. John Bunyan's writings are as full of humor as they are of saving truth, and there is not an aged man here who has ever read " Pilgrim's Progress" who does not remember that "while reading it he smiled as often as he wept. Chrvsnstom. G?orco Horbert. Robert South. John Wesley, George Whitefield, Jeremy Taylor, Rowland Hill, George G. Finney and all men of the past who greatly advatKied the kingdom of God consecrated their wit and their humor to the cause of Christ. So it has been in all the aces, and I say to these young theologi'.-al students, who cluster in these services Sabbath by Sabbath, sharpen your wits as keen as cimeters, and then take them into this holy war. It is a very short bridge between a smile and a t?ar, a suspension bridge from eye to lip, and itfis soon crossed over, and a smile is sometimes jiist as sacred as a tear. There is as much religion, and I think a little more, in a spring morning than in a starless midnight. Religious work without any humor or wit in il/is a banquet with a side of beef, And that -raw, and no condiments, and no dessert succeeding. People will not sit down at such a banquet By all means remove all frivolity and all bathos and all lightness and all vulgarity?strain them out through the <ieve of holv discrimination; but, on the >ther hand, beware of that monster which overshadows the Christian church to-day, conventionality, coming up from the Great Sahara desert of ecclesiasticism. having on its back a hump of sanctimonious gloom, and vehemently refuse to swallow that camel. Oh, how particular a great many people are about the infinitesimals while they are auite reckless abont the magnitudes. What aid Christ say? Did he not excoriate the people in His time who were so careful to wash their hands before a meal but did not wash their hearts? It is a bad thing to have unclean hands; it is a worse thing to tiavo an uoclean heart. How many people mere are in our uiiih wno are very anxious that after their death they shall be buried with their feet toward the east, and not at all aiixions that during their whole life th.-y should face in the right direction so that they shall como up in the resurrection of the just whichever way they are buried- How many there are chiefly anxious that a minister of the Gospel shall come in the line of apostolic succession, not carina so much whether he joraes from Apo3tlo Paul or Apostle Judas. They have a way of measuring a gnat until it is larger than a camel. Again: My subject photographs all those who are abhorrent of small sins, while they are reckless in regard to magnificent thefts. You will tind many a merchant who, while he is so careful that he would not take a yard of cloth or a spool of cotton from the counter without paying for it, and who, if a bank cashier should make a mistake and send in a ! ! roll of bills $5 too much, would dispatch a i messenger in hot haste to return the surplus, j | yet who will go into a stock company in ! which, after a while, he gets control of the j stock, and then waters the stock and makes | j $100,000 appear like $^00,000. He only j ' stole $103,000 by the operation. Many of | the men of fortune made their wealth in that ! way. One of those men, engaged iu such un- j righteous acts, that evening, the evening of j the very day when he watered the gtock, will j find a wharf rat stealing a newspaper from i ; the basement doorway, and will go out and | catch the urchin by the collar, aud twist the i jollar so tightly the poor fellow cannot say j j 'hat it was thirst for Knowledge that led him j to the dishonest act, but grip the collar J tighter and tighter, saying: " I have been j looking for you a long while; vou've stole my ; I paper four or five times, haven't you?? j I you miserable wretch." And then the old ; J 1. ns.'tli a Trrvirvo tllAV PflTl hftAr i j MULIi ?aiXlUiCJ , ntvu ?.? . V..WJ , j three blocks, will cry out: "Police, police!" j j That same man. the evening of the day in ' which he watered his stock, will kneel ! ; with his family in prayers and thank j j God for the prosperity of the day, j then kiss his children good night with ! ! an air which seems to say: "I hope you | I will all grow up to be as good as your j ! father." Prisons for sins insectile in size, but palaces for crimes dromedarian. No mercy for sins animalcule in proportion, but great leniency for mastodon iniquity. A poor boy slyly takes from the basxet of a market woman a choice pear?saving some one else from the cholera?and you smother ! him in the horrible atmosphere of Raymond i Street Jail or New York Tombs, while his cousin, who has been skillful enough to steal I $50,000 from the city,- you will make him a i candidate for the New York Legislature! i There is a great deal of uneasiness and net i vousness now among some people in our I ****** rer\ffx?n iinrifrhtAnnQ fnrfcllTlftS. I bliuo IA/ ? 0 , , a great deal of nervousness about dynamite. I tell them that God will put under their nn- ! righteous fortunas something more explosive I than dynamite, the earthquake of his omnipotent indignation. It is time that we learn in America that sin is not excusable in proportion as it declares large dividends and has outriders in equipage. Many a man is riding to perdition, postilion ahead and lackey bo hind. To steal one copy of a newspaper is a gnat; to steal many thousands of aollars is a camel. There is many a fruitdealer who would not consent to steal a basket of peaches from a neighbor's stall, but who would not scruple j j to depress the fruit market; and as long as ; I can remember we have read every summer ( the peach crop of Maryland is a failure, and ; by tne time the crop comes in the mlsappre- : ! V.nncinn makoa a. difference of millions of dol- 1 lars. A man who would not steal one peach j basket steals 50,000 poach baskets. Go down I in the summer time into the Mercantile | library, in the reading room, and see the i newspaper reports of the crops from all parts : of the country, and their phraseology is very ! much the same, and the same men wrote ; tbem, methodically and infamously carry- ! ing out the huge lyinjr about the grain crop ' from year to year and for a score of years. | After a whife there will be a 'corner" in | I the wheat market, and men who had a j | contempt for a petty theft will bur- ; glarize the wheat bin of a nation and commit larceny upon the American corn j crib. And some of the men will sit in ! churches and in reformatory institutions try- : j ing to strain out the small gnats of scoundrelJ ism, while in their grain elevators ant their i storehouses they are fattening huge camels which they expect after a while to shallow. | Society has to be entirely reconstructed 011 , ! this subject. We are to find that a sin is iuI excusable in proportion as it is great. I know in our time the tendency is to charge j religious frauds upon good men. They say: ; ! "Oh, what a class of frauds you have in the ! Church of God in this day, and when an j elder of a church,or a deacon,or a minister of the Gospel, or a superintendent of a Sabbath- 1 school turns out a defaulter, what display heads there are in many of the newspapers. Great primer type. Five line pica. "Another; Saint Absconded;'' "Clerical Scoundrel- j ism;" "Religion at a Discount;" "Shame on the Churches;*' while there are a ; thousand scoundrels outside to where j there is one inside the church, and . the misbehavior of those who never see ' the inside of a church is so great it is enough 1 to tempt a man to become a Christian to get i out of their company. But in all circles, j religious and irreligious, the tendency is to J excuse sin in proportion as it is mammoth. , Even John Milton in his " Paradise Lost," j j while he condemns Satan, gives such a grand i description of him you have hard work to j suppress your admiration. Oh, this strain- j ing out of small sins like gnats and this gulp- < ing down great iniquities like camels! This subject does not give the picture of ; i one or two persons, but is a gallery in which thousands o*f people may see their likenesses. For instance, all those people who, while they | would not rob their neighbor of a farthing, j appropriate the money and the treasure of I the public. A man has a house to sell, and I he tells his customer it is worth $20,000. ! Next day the assessor comes around and ' the owner says it is worth $1">,000. The j j government of the United States took j ! off the tax from personal income, among ; j other reasons, because so few jwople i would tell the truth, and many a man with j , an income of hundreds of dollars a day made i | statements nutiu neeuieu vj iiujjij h? nua ! about to be handed over to the overseer of J I the poor. Careful to pay their passage from ; : Liverpool to New York, yet smuggling in J their Saratoga trunk" ten silk dresses from ' : Paris and a half dozen watches from Geneva, ! ; Switzerland, telling the custom-house officers ' on the wharf:. "There is nothing in that | trunk but wearing apparel," and putting a five-dollar gold piece in his hand to punctuate i , the statement. Described in, the text are all those who are ' particular never to break the law of gram- ' | mar, and who wunt all their language an ele; gant specimen of syntax, straining out all j the inaccuracies of speech with a fine sieve of ! I literary criticism, while through their con- : ; rersation go slander and innuendo and pro| fan>ty and falsehood larger than a whole caravan of camels, when they might better ! tracture every law of the language i | and shock intellectual taste, and better let t every verb seek in vain for its nominative, and every noun for its government, and : J ever}- preposition lose its way in the sentence, j and adjectives and participles and pronouns ; ' get into a grand riot worthy of ttao Fourth | ' Ward on election day, than to commit a i moral inaccuracy. Better swallow a thou; sand gnats than one camel. i Such persons are also described in the text who are very much alarmed about the small faults of others, and have no alarm about j their own great transgressions. There are in every community and every church watch dogs, who feel called upon to ke.?p their eyes j on others and growl. They are full of suspi- j oinn?J Thar u-rtnHflr if that: man 4a rtio. I honest; if that man is not unclean; if there is i not something wrong about the other man. j They are always the first to hear of anything ; wrong. Vultures are always the first to smell i carrion. They are self appointed detectives. I ; lay this down as a rule wi thout any exception. that those people who have the most faults ; themselves are most merciless in their watch- i ing of others. From scalp of head to sole of foot they are full of jealousies and hypercriti-1 cisms. They spend their life in hunting for , muskrats and mud turtles, instead of hunting for Rocky Mountain eagles, always for something mean instead of something grand. > J They look at their neighbors' imperfectaj through a microscope and look at their ow. j imperfections through a telescope upside I down. Twenty faults of their own do not hurt them so much as one fault of somebody else. : Their neighbors' imperfections are like gnats and they strain them out; their own imperfections are like camels and they swallow them, j But lest some might think they escape the scrutiny of the text, I have to tell you that i we all come under the divine satire when we make the questions of time more prominent ; than the questions of eternity. Come now, let us all go into the confessional. Are not all temnted to make the question: Where shall I live now? greater than the question: I Where shall I live forever? How shall I get 1 more dollars here? greater than the question: How shall I lay up treasures in heaven? the : question: How shall I pay my debts to man? greater than the question: How shall I meet my obligations to God? the question: How Fhall I gain the world? greater than the question: What if 1 lose my soul? the question:! Why did God let sin come into the world? greater than the question, How shall I get j it extirpated from my nature 1 the question: j What shall I do with the twenty or forty or i | seventy years of my sublunar existence ? | greater than the question: What shall 1 do I ii'i'fli MilliAna f\P ftf mv nnofc fnrroL'. I i trial existence ? Time, how small it is! ' Eternity, how vast it is! The former more j insignificant in comparison with tho latter j than a gnat is insignificant when compared ! with a camel. We dodged the text. We 1 said: uThatdoesn'tmeanme, and that doesn't! mean me," and with a ruinous benevolence j we aro giving the whole sermon away. But let us all surrender to the charge, i What an ado about things here. What poor . preparation for a great eternity. As though j a minnow were larger than a behemoth, as i though a swallow took wider circuit than an j albatross, aa though a nettle were taller iban , a Lebanon cedar, as thongh a gnat were greater than a camel, as though a minute were longer than a century, as though time were higher, deeper, broader than eternity. | So the text which flashed with lightning of wit a3 Christ uttered it, is followed by the crashing thunders of awful catastrophe to those who make the questions of time great r than the questions or the future, the oncoming, overshadowing future. 0, eternity! eternity I eternity! RELIGIOUS READING. Sorrow. Upon my lips she laid her touch divine, And merry speech and careless laughter died; 01 a 1 mnl.nnlinlll DTA9 ("In TTlinfl OHO 11AUU UOi lUDiuiivuvi^ ~ And would not be denied. I saw the west wind loose its cloudlets white, In flock careering through the April sky; I could not sing, though joy was at its height. For she stood silent hy. I watched the lovely evening fade away? A mist was lightly drawn across the stars; She broke my quiet dream?I heard her say, "Behold your prison bars! Earth's gladness-shall not satisfy your soul, This beauty of the world in which we live; The crowning grace that sanctifies the whole, That I alone can give." I heard and shrunk away from her afraid. But still she held me and would still abide, Youth's bounding pulses slackened and obeyed, With slowly chilling tide. "Look thou beyond the evening sky," she | said, *m ' a?? r\f tho I "XHjyUUU. LUy {JLI tWJ& i-U? D?S4Ol?l&VA0 V* V?v day, Accept the pain, the weariness, the dread, Accept and bid me stay I" I turned and clasped her close with sudden strength, And slowly, surely, I became aware Within my arms God's angel stood,at length, White-robed and calm and fair. And now I looked beyond the evening star, Beyond the changing splendors of tne day, Knowing the pain He sends more precious far, More beautiful than they. What It Ih to be n Christian. A son who had fallen by intemperance, writes to his father: "I think I will join the church as I know it will be a great help to me in trying to do right. I hope that, sometime, I may be able to tell you that I am a Christian. That is what I want to be." The father replied: "I do not wish to say anything to discourage or retard your joining the church, only to urge that the step be well considered and taken from right motives. The true idea of the church, in my thought, is that it is, or ought to be composed of Christians?Christ's friends and followers and servants; not professing or claiming to be better than others, but. confessing themselves to be sinners, even as others, who have felt their need of being saved from their corrupt and depraved selves?from their sin, as well as from its consequences?and who accept, believe on, on/-! omhMM .Tocna Christ as the onlv. the God-given, almighty, and loving Saviour of sinners condemned, lost, unable to save themselve but by His grace and help; and who, thus accepting and closing in with Him, yield themselves wholly to Him in gratitude and love, to be His entirely, to be kept by Him .to live by faith in Him, with Him, and for Him now and forever; and who, in so embracing Him, receive and en- ; joy as His free gift, His offered pardon and grace; and all this by the light and life-giving grace and work of the Holy Spirit." So the loved and loing Apostle John writes of Him (1: 12, 13): "As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the 6ons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." So one may not properly enter the church merelv as an infirmary or hospital or school, to be nelped and cured and educated, but as Christ's, redeemed by His blood; to confess Him, follow, love, obey and revere Him in ** J * :? -5 \nTra me sincere uevuuuu ui ^tamuuu uui* <u?v. You "want to be a Christian." See what it is. Leaves and Lives. " We all do fade as a leaf."?Isaiah. There seems to have been a tinge of melancholy in the heart of the prophet when he wrote these words?a kind of giving way to sadness and despair. Perhaps he was just in that frame of mind which comes to us all at times, when frost seems to rest upon the soots of life that are usually so ereen and iresn; ana, tne atmospnere or our surroundings is changed, we hardly know how, until we feel its chilliness. When we are in such moods the autumnal season of nature chimes in most harmonious ly. Its decay ana aeatn ueip 10 ueepen mo sadness and gloom of lifo, and so in our prayers and hymns of praise we mingle the song of a fading leaf. In this way many who look upon tho darker side of life come to dread the approach of the season of autumn, for all through the days of sunshine or of storm, as the leaves come quivering from the branch and the flower withers on the stem, they are brooding over life's short ai^ fleeting days. But do we wisely thus to allow nature to minister only to a morbid taste?to keep alive a thought of decay and death? Is there not a higher and nobler view of life that the fading leaf may teach us and inspire to reach after There is no season of the year that opens to us such varied contrasts of life and death ns the season just preceding its winter. To take a general survey of tho forests and fields we are struck with tho rich and gorgeous coloring from the deep green to the bright frellow?all shades and varieties; some of the eavo3 clinging to life and retaining their greenness even after the cold November winds have shaken them from the trees, while others are turning purple, and crimson and yellow. These varied tints give a warm slow to the forest, and remind us that though ontninap is noct ?nH Nntnta.is nrfinarlnfr * for her winter's sleep, there is still beauty in autumn fruitage and the fading leaf. Let js pause to seo how we may ''fade as the '.eaf," and yet like the leaf remain a thing of beauty. "When the green leaf fades it merely gives up its blue while it retains its yellow. The yellow, or golden coloring of the leaf, is its more enduring tint. The blue tones djwn the yellow, making it pleasant to the sight in the glaring sunshine of the summer days, but when the autumn haziness comes the light is not so intense and penetrating, and the blue, being no longer needed, fades away. Leaves fade in their season when fully ripe. Are there not two colors entering in to make up the greenness of our lives? the spiritual and the natural? The spiritual answers to the yellow in tho leaf, is j ii periinnont coior and gives a goiaen nnisu U? the inner life. The natural answers to the blue in the leaf, and gives freshness and ivMfity to the outward life. Where the nutural and the spiritual natures of man are harmoniously blended we have life's b( autiful summer greenness. But in life's autumn there comes a fading of the natural and the spiritual shines more brightly. To fade, then, like the leaf, is to br.'ng to view more prominently that which is most enduring, and the aim of life should be to I mingle most beautifully, in its season, the blue and the yellow coloring, so when that which is green begins to fade it may be to a more golden tint. The words of the prophet still ring in our ears, " We all do fade as a leaf." We may chant thom in the ears of the dying; we may ciuote them with a saddened look to the aged man, whose silvered locks and tottering step whisper the near approach of the Aneel of Death; or we may try to arrest, the ardent aspirings of youthful ambitions by its doleful music, but after all, is our fading like tho leaf? Is thero something underneath and making a part of tho greenness of our lives that is eternal and unfading? If the rays of God's moral sunlight have fallen into our hearts,and we have separated each ray into its varied tints and have found a thread of golden virtue twining itself into the very network of our being, then can wo surely feel that though the greenness and tho freshness of our lives fade away, it shall bo like the fading leaf in the autumn of tho year?growing more beautiful by tho outshining of its golden coloring.?(,II. \V Treadway. Mr. Anders II. Berg, a Methodist, has been allowed to preach Yil temperance and Good Templar sermons in Lutheran state churches in Sweden during tho past year, the government giving bim a free pass over the railroads to advance the temperance cause. AGRICULTURAL TOPICS OF INTEREST RELATIVE TO FARM AND GAJIDEN. At Milkinjf-Time. So! so! pretty Brownie, tome let it down! I'll give the more milk foyour bossy brown I You know well enough in yonder stall Your bossy's the prettiest bo6S of them all, With its dark-brown coat and the star on its brow. What's this? You insist you must lick it nowThere! ICiss vunr little mm- nnw ho still! Not yet can the bossy drink its fill! Madame calls it Pollux; you know the name; 'Tis the Latin for Bullock?it's all the same! ?Queen of lioumunia, in Independent. 'The Disposition of Animals. The temper of a farm animal as an element in determining its value is not often given the consideration it merit9. The value and usefulness of a farm animal depends almost as much upon the mental characteristics of the animal as upon its physical characteristics. A horse may be muscular and active; but ifit !!>.<?? itu Tmi?rhr>a nnrl ahnnra its n#?+.ivitv by kicking the other horses, by running away with the wagon or plow whenever the opportunity offers, or by getting over the best fence on the farm, it is of less value than a horse with less muscle and activity and more religion. And the mental part of other domestic animals is of scarcely less importance. Yet we go ! on giving our attention to the color of the hair or the size of the ear or horn, ! and altogether neglect the disposition of the animal. ? Westtrn Plowman. 1 Winter Care of Toolg. ^ Did any one ever see a farm with too much shed room! Vehicles, tools and] implements accumulate 011 every farm I homestead, and storage room has to be ! . continually increased, or else something j i must be left out in the weather. Shea | 1 room is too valuable to be filled up with I trash, and this is a good time to do a | ] little sorting. If an implement is worth ! j keeping at all, it is worthy of shelter; if j not worth a place under cover, it should 11 be divided between the wood-pile and I t the box or heap of old iron. As winter approaches it is true economy to overhaul the farm machinery, clean it * up and see that all is properly housed. 1 Running a wagon, a mower or a harrow ' out into the sun, on some fine morning in 8 November or December, let a dry clean- j ' ing ue nrsi ju orucr. mis can ne aone j very well with the stump of an old ' c broom, although there will be corners j 1 and cracks iu which the mud or dust must be scraped with a sharp stick or old ! c case-knife. This done, it will cftcn ; c appear that a thorough washing will; better clean both wood and metal; if so, j j wash by all means, and give time to ;. fully dry. Kvery implement thu^ cleaned ^ should be well toa'.cd with oil before final storage for winter. When oiled the parts should be quite dry, and a j sunny day is preferable. The"cheapest j 1 and most satisfactcry oil for this purpose f k Iiphvv frnrln rv#?f rrtlon m "WitVi <x nnf ' ' of this oil and an old pa'nt brr.sh coat: every portion of both wood and metal, i All rust is arrested, and the oil is, almost equal to a < oat of paint for the ' woodwork of farm tools. In this and numerous other ways "I find crude petroleum very useful on the farm, and j always like to have It on hand. Bought; by the barrel it can be got for seven to j nineteen cents a gallon, freight in- \ eluded, plus the barrel, which can be | used, when empty, in so many ways that ! it is well worth all it costs.?American J CuVirator. j Feeding Hogs. _ j It is the fact that it is as productive of, evil results to feed swine too much as it is to feed them too little. Some people ] seem to entertain the idea that the only I purpose to be sought in fattening animals or in feeding them for growth is to stuff \ them, though a moment of thought will j n show plainly enough that stuffing means j t a demoralization of tlxe digestive ap-! t paratus. It is a rule often laid down j and it is a good one that animals should c uevcr be fed more than they will eat up i clean; and if feeding always received the ; attention that it should, that would always be the plan. But our imperfect * ideas and systems are very apt to be the j. result of thoughtlessness. Starting with c the idea that corn makes fat, and that .. the more corn we feed the more fat we J will get, we shovel the corn before the x hog and let it gorge itself. It is true t that the more corn we feed kthc more fat v we will have, provided the digestive, functions take care of it. If thev do not, the stomach is overloaded, and an over- . loaded stomach means trouble to a greater ' or less degree. It i? to prevent this that j r we should always aim, whether we are * feeding for fat or bone and muscle. 'T Profit in moat production means cconomy j1 in feeding. If we lose an car of corn ! ' either b.v having it trod under foot and ; c into the dirt, in consequence of s feeding more than the hogs will j I eat, or if w.; waste it by overloading the v Stomach, destroying or impairing diges- jc tion, and thus preventing the system s from utilizing what is consumed, it is so ' much of! the profit, and while one ear of * corn may not amount to much a good many cars amount to a great deal. Col- ! I umns have been written to show how the r price of corn may be raised by feeding \ twine, and it is always interesting read- t|! ing to trio swine ureuer ana iecuer. liut 1 it is no troublf at all to figure out the j ^ profit and loss of profit of a bushel of 8 corn that is was'ed. |' The herd should be carefully watched a all through the fattening period. The 9. rule so often laid down by the A'"ay/and 1 S'.odmn-i we again state: Do not feed l' too heavily when the fattening process is ^ begun, and, by the way, that ouyht to S have been begun, and generally has been '' before this time. Feed lightly ut first 8 and gradually increase the amount; and ? when the hogs have become accustomed 6 to full feed, feed them all they will eat * and no more. Give them good, clean F food, and feed on a clean floor. Never | *act upon the notion tlint the hog is nat- i v urall.v filthy. The animal will eat filth, j f but it likes clean food as well as any ani-;i mal.? M'e-fn'ii Iinrul. |f' Kvlerininat lug the Potato Bug, The Colorado potato beetle appeared ^ oa 11 potato lield at Malitxcli, Torgau, Germany, on .July 8 last, being the tirst instance of the kind on '.lie Continent. ; The clTfctivc measures that were taken to exterminate the pest and with apparent success, are a striking cxamp c of how similar measures might effect a great saving in this c ountry from attacks of new insocts. A? ?/??.? ?ts <lir? ut+<wlr umw (liQpAvnrnd XXr* r,UU" i4i1 lMI' ...... . ...,,,V ? V 1 V??, 'J the whole surrounding country for six and a quarter miles was quarantined, and nil fields inspected by specially ap-1 pointed surveyors. Placards with col- ; n ored illustrations of the inaects were dis- j s trihuted everywhere, in order to put the n inhabitants on their guard. A thorough investigation disclosed that nine small potato plantations lying close together e and covering about six and a half acres 7 were attacked. Tho quarantine was limited to this district, and the eggs, lame and beetles were gathered under the strictest supervision. Then the soil was removed from about the plants, being carefully searched for larva) and chrysalides. The plants and roots were then carefully gathered and placed in a pit about four feet deep in layers four inches thick, each layer beingthoroughly saturated with raw benzine oil, which, in a short time, destroyed the plants and any beetles adhering to them. After piling up five such layers the pits were completely covered with earth. ine infested helds were tnen ptowea ten or twelve inches deep, careful men following each plow and collecting any larvie, cnysalides or beetles that were turned up. This plan was followed when the land was harrowed, and the harrowing was repeated. After all this search the land was saturated with raw benzine oil at the rate of 105 pounds to forty-seven square feet, and the fields were then shut up. The fields will not be cultivated next year, but will be strictly examined from time to time, small groups of potatoes being planted to attract whatever insect' may survive. Raw petroleum is equally as efficacious ns the other oil, and was used in some cases. This is a good example of the thoroughness practiced in German farming.?New York Herald. Farm and Garden Notes. Turnips are standard good food foi sheep. This is the season to feed sunflower seeds to fowls. Water animals in their stalls during severe weather. Take your choice; kill the lice or let them kill the calves. Feed the crops on the farm and get kV* A ^iill m ft iiiu i nit uinixk^t aw* "Wouldn't it pay to look n little into :he fertilizer question this winter? A good steer is worth more than an indifferent bull, and keeps with half the trouble. Before putting up new pork it is imlortant lo make 6ure that the barrel is jcrfectly sweet. Bloody meat or blood from the slaugher house, rubbed upon the trunks of rees, will repel rabbits. Clear up dead vines, old stakes, bean >oles, etc., burn the rubbish and store vhatever is worth keeping. Crushed oats steeped in boiling water ind fed cool but not cold is said to fatten logs quickly and make fine meat. F. D. Curtis thinks a farmer does not :ome up to his privileges who fails to lave a small flock of mutton sheep. Provide, without fail, for the dust bath luring the winter season, when the fowls illlUUl 3L1UHJU 111 tui; upun giuuuu, Don't think the cow will be insulted f you give her a friendly pat every time rou are within reach of her. Such pats ire returned in pats of butter. Professor Storer thinks a ration of hirty pounds of pumpkin per cow daily vill increase the flow and improve the juality of milk. Pumpkin seeds should ie removed before feeding. Mr. T. D. Carter, good authority, says rood silage, properly fed, is nourishing, eliable, and produces good results. The nilk is sweet and rich, and it improves he churning quality of the cream. A dairyman says he would prefer to ipend all the proceeds of the dairy for eed during February, March and April, or instance, and look to the rest of the rear for profits, than to slack up on feed, ivc:i with dry cow3. Farmers are beginning to find out that t is not paying them to husk, grind and nix fe d for stock; that the corn that is ed on the farm should never be separited from the stalk on which it grew, mt fed together, and save at least one .1- -r 4.1? 1-1 !?;} f^. OUriU Ul II1U liiuui aim txic uuuiutu l\ji xpenses of husking anil grinding. A mixture of half n bushel of lime, a lalf pound of ooppera* and one pouud >f clieup glue has been found effectual is a paint applied to the stems of young roes to repel rabbits in winter. Sliiko he lime, and whcn*it cools add the copicras, glue and sufficient water to make >f proper consistency. Apply with a >rush. An English writer condcmus corn fed >ork as a compound which does not ommend itself to the tastes of those who lave an opportunity of enjoying pork ompounded from oatmeal, wheat meal, >ea meal and potatoes. Dun cm V Mug'zine says: Crowding corn, and nothing ?ut corn, into hogs'from the time of birth o the time of slaughter is unnatural and m reasonable. A Sccnp in Borneo. Had I to introduce my readers to the nast un-European scene I know of, ] hink I should nsk him to take a seat vitk me in a native canoe and paddle - '--1 ?!-.1! il.. ip me grucciui wmuiujjs 01 me menu>un river. At its mouth the huts, built >n scaweed-covcred piles, form each a leparatc island. The floors arc raised a >are threet feet above the level of the vatcr, and oue needs not better evidence f the fact that here at least wo are in tormlcss seas. On the palm-stem platorms in front of the entrance the naives squat, wlrle around arc playing ifllf a dozen naked little Cupids, now dunging into the water, now paddling aces in miniature canoes. A little furherand we enter the river, whose water s so clear and pure and bright that ono ongs to tumble in, clothes and all. 'lose to the bank lies the market place, picturesque jumble of ponies," ripe ananas, red sarongs, palm leaf stalls, ,nd flashing speara. Beyond, the seagoing praus are hauled up on shore, heir unwieldy sterns a mass of quaint arving. Then through a tiny reach ordered by the Nipa palm, whose graceful fronds, thirty or forty feet in ength, spring directly from the stream, nd we find ourselves in a sort of upper own, where the houses are built with ceming indifference either in or out of he water. The place is the absolute terfection of beauty and untidiness. )verheadthe eye rests on a wealth of erdure?bamboo, banana, durian, jackruit, and the arrowy betel palm, with ts golden igglike nuts. In these happy limes man's needs grow at his very loor. Cold and hunger, misery and irant. are words without a meaning. civilization is far oil indeed, nnd for the nomcnt, nt least, we have no desire for t. ? Cruise of the ifurc'iaa. A Necessary Precaution. "Mary," said a lady to her maid, "1 in going to take the train to-morrow norning at six o'clock.'* "All right, ma'am. "Yes. Audi shall want you, cotise ;ucntly, to wake inc up at five o'clock.' "Ycs'm. But, I?s'posc?" "What do you suppose, Mary?" "I s'posc you'll ring the be.l for me, iia'am, about a quarter to five, so I'll be ure to be awake to call you at five, aa'am."?Youth's Companion. The peculiar odor of Russia leather is Aused by birch bark tar, the use ol rhich ia a professional secret. ' ; ' k I /TEMPERANCE The Drunkard's Home. I saw two children playing In a tenement old and mean, One was ragged and dirty, The other was neat and cleau. On the floor there lay a baby, Only two months old, ...r Rolled up in a small bit blanket, iv. Shivering with hunger and cold. On the wall there hung a picture Of a girl mo>t wondrous fair; TTof fa rwi woo a morval A# ?i f-tr Without line of sorrow or care. I was making that picture my study, When one of the little ones said: " Dat is me own dea mama, Before papa and she were wed. " She be not like dat any more Cause papa is doin' wildHe turns home ev'y evenin' dunk And beats dear mama and child. ' " Yes, beats dat little baby, And stikes dear mama's head; Last night he stik'd her wid de poker, And now she's lyin' dead." The little one lifted a blanket, Beneath, there lay in blood The wife of that wretched drunkard, The wreck of Mistress Flood. The brow had now lines of sorrow, The face was a picture of careHow chang'd from the pictur'd girlhood! And the face so wonarously fair! The first, the picture of an angel, The second, the wife of a sot; Yet her soul it was unblemished And has gone where the sot's cannot. ?D. S. MePherson. Science Against Alcohol. AUU iVUUTTlilg ai U OVUIO Vt l/UO IDVWV UCOI'l" monies against alcohol, collated by the Irish Temperance League Journal from the "Proceedings of the Society for the Study of Inebriety r Suacks and philanthropists had sought for had proclaimed that they had found magic potions to charm away inebriety. All these nostrums, from alcoholic extract of frog to the "bark cure," had been found useless. There was no royal road to temperance. There were certain indications of sound treatment. The first was the unconditional withdrawal of the poison, which might be immediate with alcohol, chloral, ether and chloroform.?Nor man Kerr, M. D. The drinking parent bagets a child with a degenerated type of organization, rendering the latter liable to inebriety, as to convulsions or imbecility. Therefore, if such a congenitally weak child drinks at all he cannot resist the narcotic power of alcohoL While inebriety is primarily the result of voluntary drinking in most case3, there being some control in the earlier stages, if persisted in from year to year until parmanent tissue changes are established, the inebriate is no longer able to exercise self control.? N. S. Davis, M. D. The families of intemperate parents are the recruiting ground for asylums; the children, if not idiots or epilectics, are liable to growup with querulous, explosive tempers, feeble, self-guiding powers, weak in temptation, unf f n Klrt nnIP Trini/Mio fltl/) ll T'cfn rinol OMiUlO, Z*UlL~iJll4Ui?OUUf ViViVTlA^J auu Hj ovoi iwai, -C. H. Hughes, M. D. Fifty per cent, of the idiots and imbeciles of great cities are the children of notorious drunkards, and the majority of the children of constitutional drunkards are weak in soma way or other. We may therefore safely assume that science recognizes throughout the world the abuse of alcohol, not only as the Greatest and most direful cause of insanity nown to the race, but that it recognizes alcoholism in its various forms as a distinct type of insanity.?Clark Bell, President | Medico-Legal Society, New York. A'.cohol is a source of terrible moral and physical deterioration. The disease of inebriety is transmitted hereditarily, causing insanity, epilepsy and idiocy, or a proclivity to crime.? K C. Mann, M. D. Alcohol is no respector of tissue, though it is more aeaujjr m eueci uji buiiib sirutvuin than on others. It is specially injurious to the cerebrospinal centres. Epilepsy is a neurosis duo to alcohol. About oue in fourteen in several hundred cases were due to alcohol as the exciting cause.?Lewis D. Mason, M. D. Alcoholism in Belgium has augmented with frightful rapidity and calls for immediate and thorough action. The alcoholized man has lost his will, is no longer free and no more responsible.?Dr. Petitham, Liege. A few glasses of an intoxicant may promote to a hasty blow, and a few more to murder of a kind and compassionate host. Truly aro we told in Proverbs iv. 17 of the "wine of violence." How can this latent homicidal and suicidal tendency be prevented from development? Only by total abstinence at all times from all intoxicants-?Surgeon Major Pringle, M. D. "I have observed in some children born after parental addiction to drink, a tendency to drunkenness easily provoked by small doses of an intoxicant. In children of the same parentage, before the intemperance | habit had begun, I have seen no such ten. tc>ni:y * * * ine only sareiy ior luose uorn i of inebriate parents or with inebriate ten- I dencies is a total-abstinence from all forms of intoxicating: liquors.? Alfred, Carpenter, M. D., M. R. C. a. "Americans and Englishmen are both far more susceptible to narcotic action, from their increasing nervous tension, Xhe inheritor of the neuropathic constitution, before the actual development of the disease of inebriety, generally exhibits phenomena of j nervous exhaustion, etc. Moderate drinking | of alcohol may induce these symptoms | through brain failure, irresolution, and inde- ! cision.? E. C. Mann. M, I). Drunkenness and Labor Troubles. | Mr. Powderly, in a recent interview in the New York Herald, is reported ar saying: "There is no disgrace deeper and more marked than the disgrace that hovers around the drunkard. They impose upon us in the j Order. They bring on trouble between em- I ployers and honest workingmen. They go to I work drunk, are discharged, and, sobering up, they appear before their assemblies and present their grievances. But one side is heard,and the complainant seems to be a much abused man. Are we justified in keeping such impostors with us? Can we excuse men who wilfully neglect their duty as employes and as wilfully delude their brother workmen? Yet I myself am called upon fre' " ? * 41.. quentiy to taice a nana in me soiucment of labor troubles attributable to this cause. Recently I had occasion to interfere in a dispute of large proportions,wherein the hands sought to sustain one of their number who had been discharged. He had represented himself as a bally treated man, and had so worked upon the feelings of his fellows that they supported him at a sacrifice 1 of work and pay. What did he do to cause a discharge.' Ho went to the workshop drunk. He hung his hat up in a strange place, and it fell down into a tub of valuable liquid, spoiling it. Was that a case to make a fight on? I think not.'.' . . . "As I have said before, the mm habit is one of our greatest enemies, and until we get it under control we will have an uphill struggle to sustain our principles. I deny that 1 am an outocrat, but in one thing I wish to be. If my word should be law then* would be no more intemperance, and with no more intemperance there would be fewer labor troubles." Temperance News and Note*. Rev. Sam Jones says: "'inered signs or tne bar rooms are more dangerous than anarchists and communists." Mrs. Mary Clement Lcavitt reports the organisation of the Woman's Christian Temperance Unions in India. A witness in a case tried lately in August j Ua., tesnnea cnac ne iinnict iu mi j . day's 'bender'" from sixteen to twenty-three j quarts of beer. T!.e National Temperance Society, New York, gave a reception recently to John Tay lor, President of tho National Temperance League, Great Britain. Mr. S. Rufus Mason, of Nebraska, tells the j Gerraantown Telegraph that when the re- | spectable class set such an oxamplo as will ! mako it a disgrace to be drunk, to drink, to ( tipple, or to use it in any way, the crops now i raisod upon the earth will support twice tho I population. Mrs. Moffat, assistant National Superinten- |, dent of work among soldiers and sailors, has i devi.'ed an ingenious way of enlisting old I soldiers in the temperance work. It is a raus- ' ter roll to organize temperate veterans, em- j < bodying a pledge of total abstinence and alle- I gianco to the temperance cause. It is hoped I that out of this movement may grow a f>er- | manent and splendid organization of total j abstainers, local, State, and National. POPULAB SCIENCE. K N.*?v . ?? The higher of the two peaks of Kflit n^njaro, the loftiest mountain in Africa, has just been ascended by Dr. A. Meyer, of Leipsic, who places its height at nearly 20,000 feet. A great deposit of gypsum recently discovered in Humboldt County,-Neb., has been sold to a syndicate of English capi* A-t f n /\/\ A Ti f. ..i? i . 3 it A luiiois iur uuu. n is estimated taas it will yield 10,000,000 tons. In English collieries, roburitc ha* proven equal or superior to gunpowder in blasting effccts, while absolutely free from the flame that renders gunpowder so dangerous in the presence of explosive gases. Probably the largest private collection of meteorites is that of Mr. George F. Kunz, the well-known mineralogist of New York city. The collection contains over one hundred specimens, one-third of which are unbroken. From an examination of 100,000 persons, Prof. Erismann, of St. Petersburg, finds that those engaged in textile.manufactures, especially spinners, are inferior to other working men in stature, chest measurement, bodily weight and muscular strength. * . . Professor Von Hippel has shown to the Ophthalmological Society of Heidelburg, Germany, his second success in grafting the rabbit's cornea into the human eye. The patient's visual power with the new eye is about one:tenth of thn nrvm>al_ unH maraf> nrint tnnv h? According to Mr. E. G. Ravenstein, the English foot is used as the standard of length by countries having 471,000,000 inhabitants, the metre by 847,091,000 people, and the Castilian foot by 5,003,000. Denmark and Russia are the only countries in Continental Europe which have not adopted the metre. A vessel in use in the upper Thames owes its motive power to the explosive % force of petroleum. The boat is started by lighting a lamp, and the lamp must be extinguished to stop the engine. The fuel costs less than coal, while the omission of the boiler saves much space and the expense of a fireman and working engineer. The craft is of American - , < origin. A novel and ingenious application of electricity, permitting the services of waiters to be dispensed with, has lately been introduced into some of the Paris dining rooms. The new waiter consists of a small electric tram car, running on rails fitted to the dining room table and leading into the kitchen. The current is supplied from accumulators and by means of a switch located near each ornp?f tlifi pnr is under nnmnlete control. and plates, dishes, etc., aie'brought and removed with silence and rapidity. An atmospheric phenomenon was observed in San Francisco the other evening, and is referred to by the Chronicle: About 11 o'clock a thin band of light, of the consistency of a cloud, and extending across the zenith from east to west, was seen skirting the heavsns. The sky , 4 was almost perfectly clear and there was no fog. At first it appeared like a thin band, but gradually expanded until it was about two feet wide. The light emitted from it was considerable. It continued to be visible for about an hour, and, after flashing like an aurora, finally disappeared. During the continuance of the phenomenon an electric disturbance was produced and many of the telephone wires failed to work. .arji "No Man's Land." A Washington correspondent writes to the New York Herald, as follows: There is a tract of land lying south of J. Kansas and Colorado, and between the Indian Territory and New Mexico, which has been known for many years as "No Man's Land." It has this name because by errors in surveys, by exclusions in acts of Congress, fixing boundaries and general neglect and inadvertence it lies outside of any organized State or Territory of the United States. It is really a "No Man's Land," for no courts have inrisdiction within its bounds; no laws extend over or apply to it: its lands cannot be owned, because Congress has not authorized their sale. ''No Man's I.and" is simply a spot on the map. A tolerably large spot, for it contains 3,G87,300 acres, being 167 miles long by 34} wide. It is fertile, well watered, has valuab'e deposits of coa1, a fine climate. and, being almost all good hind, a (Tovornment rcDort says that it has the raw material for 23,000* farms of 100 acre* each. It was for years a huge cattle run. It contains at present 10,000 Amcricaa formers, who have sent one of their numbei1, Mrr O. G. Chase,here to ask Congress in their name to give them a Territorial government, with the laws and protection of the flag which they are so totally and singularly without. They have agreed to call their Territory Cimarron, from its principal river, and if Congress is as kind to them as their good conduct deserves the present winter will see established the Territory of Cimarron. These ten thousand Americans went into No Man's I.and, knowing that the land they settled on and cultivated they could get no legal title t& unless Congress would act for their protection; knowing nn mo nnt pvpn murder,committed in No Man's Land could be punished, becausc no courts, no law officers, no laws, look cognizance of what was done in No Man's Land. They had no authority to form a government; no power to levy taxes for the simplest or most necessary purposes; do power to make maa/9 laws WI11CI1 auy luiutuuaut ucm vuv;. Chaos was their enforced condition. Yet these ten thousand have founded towns, built schoolhouses and. churches, and are supporting them. They have made the few simple regulations requiied to maintain peace .and order and "the gcueral consent." The good sense and Christian spirit which animates Americans have enabled thpm to found a commonwealth which continues to exist only by the general sufferance, but which now appeals, and ought not to appeal in vain, to Congress to give it the shelter of United States laws. An Alpine Lakelet. In a little basin of the Alps, 7,700 leet above sea-level, and five miles from the end of the great Alctsch glacier, is the unique little lake known as the Marjalcu Sea. This is fed by mountain stream " * * -? I " 1 1- l.~ lets, us waters Doing nciu u.iuu uj wc ice of the groat glacier itself. An English geologist mentions having 6een it in 1838 as a body of water 300 yards wide and three times as long, with a maximum depth of ninety-seven feot. But the next day it had vanished. The ice-dam had yielded sufficiently to allow, the p3nt-up water to escape beneath the' glacier and plunge into the valley below, devastating the fields, and considerably raising the level of the Rhone. These discharge* take place at irregular intervals, though reputed to occur every seven years. The latest outbreak was in, September last, since which it lias becu proposed to lessen future damaged by providing an artificial outlet to reduce the lake's capacity onc-lm'f.