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T * t I KEY. DR. TALMAGE. THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUNDAY SERMON. Subject: "Our Need of Cleansing." Text: "If I wash myself with snow water, and should I cleanse my hands in alkali, yet shalt thou plunge me t?the ditch, and mine oivn clothes shall abhor me."? Job ix., 30, 31. Albert Barnes?honored be his name on earth and;in heaven?went straight back to the original writing of my text, and translated it as I have now quoted it, giving substantial reasons for so doing. Although we know better, the ancients had an idea that in snow water there was a special power to cleanse, and that a garment washed and rinsed in it would be as clean as clean could be; but if the plain snow water failed to do its work, then they would take lye or alkali and mixed it with oil, and under that preparation they felt that the last impurity would certainly be gone. Job, in my text, in most forceful figure sets forth the idea that all his attempts to make himself pure before God were a dead failure, and that, unless we are abluted by something better than earthly liquids and chemical preparations, we are loathsome and in the citch. "If I wash myself with snow water, and should I cleanse my hands in alkali, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." You are now sitting for your picture. I turn the camera obscura of God's word full upon you, and I pray that the sunshine falling through the skylight may enable me to take y6u just as you are. Shall it be a flattering picturet or shall it be a true one? You say: "Let it be a true one." The first profile that was ever taken was taken three hundred and thirty years before Christ, of Antigonus. He had a blind eye, and he compelled the artist to take his profile so as to hide the defect in his vision. But since that invention, three hundred and thirty years before Christ, there have been a great many proflies. Shall I to-day give you a one-sided view of yourselves, a profile, or shall it be a full-length portrait, showing you just what $ou are? if God will help me by His almighty grace, I shall give you that last kind of a picture. When I first entered The ministry I used to write my sermons all out find read them, and run my hand along the line lest I should lose my place. I haveliundreds of those manuscripts. Shall I ever preach them? Never; for m those days I was somewhat over-mastered with the idea I heard talked all around about, of the dignity of human nature, and I adopted the idea, and I evolved it, and I illustrated it, and 1 argued it; but coming on in life, and having seen more of the world, and ctudied better my Bible, I find that that early teaching was faulty, and that there is nodignifcv in human n/it.ure. until it is reconstructed by the grace of God. Talk about vessels going to pieces on the Skerries, off Ireland! There never was such a shipwreck as in the Gihon and the Hiddekel, rivers of Eden, where our first parents foundered. Talk of a steamer going down with five hundred passengers on board! What is that to the shipwreck of fourteen hundred million soub? We are by nature a mass of uncleanness and putrefaction, from which it takes all the omnipotence and infinitude of God's grace to extricate us. " If I wash myself with snow water, and should I cleanse my hands in alkali, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and my own clothes shall abhor me." I remark, in the first place, that some people try to cleanse their soul of sin in the snow water of fine apologies. Here is one man who says: "I am a sinner; I confess that; but I inherited this. My father was a sinner, my grandfather, my great-great-grandfather, and all the way back to Adam, and I couldn't help myself." My brother, have you net, every day in your life, added something to the original estate of sin that was bequeathed to you ? Are you not brave enough to confess that you have sometimes surrandered to sin, which you ought to have conquered? I ask you whether it is fair play to put upon our ancestry things for which we ourselves are personally responsible? If your nature was askew when you got it, have you not sometimes given it an additional twist? Will all the tombstones of those who have preceded us make a barricade high enough for eternal defenses? I know a devout man who had blasphemous parentage. I know an honest man whose father was a thief. I know a pure man whose mother was a waif of the street. The hereditary tide may be very strong, but there is such a thing as stemming it. Tne fact that I have a corminfc natnirp is no reason whv I should Yield to it. The deep stains of our soul can never be washed out by the snow water of such in- j sufficient apology. Still further, says some one:- "If I have gone into sin, it has been through my companions. mv comrades and my associates; they ruined me. They taught me to drink. They took me to the gambling hell. They I plunged me into the house of sin. They I ruined my soul." I do not believe it. God gave to no one the power to destroy you or xne. If a man is destroyed he is self destroyed, and that is always so. Why did you not break away from them? If they had tried to steal your purse, you would have knocked th&n down; if they had tried to purloin your gold watch, you would have riddled them j with snot; but when thev tried to steal your immortal soul, you placiclly submitted to it. Those bad fellows have a cup of fire to drink; do not pour your cup into it. In this matter of the soul, every man for himself. That those persons are not fully responsible for your sin, I prove by the fact that you still consort with them. You cannot get off bv blaming them. Though you gather up all j these apologies; though there were a great flood of them; though they should come down j with the force of the melting snows from Lebanon, they could not wash out one stain of your immortal soul. Still urtner, some persons apologize for their sins by saying: "We are a great deal better than some people. You see people all around about us that are a great deal worse than we." You stand up columnar in your integrity, and look down upon those who are prostrate in their habits and crimes. What of that,my brother? If I failed throughrecklessness and wicked imprudence for ten thou sand dollars, is the matter alleviated at all j by the fact that somebody else has j failed for Que hundred thousand dollars, and somebody else for two hundred thousand dollars? Oh, no. If I have the neuralgia, shall I refuse medical attendance because my neighbor has virulent typhoid fever? The fact that his disease is worse than mine?does that cure mine? If I, through my foolhardiness, leap off into ruin, does it break the fall to knowthat others leap off a higher cliff into deeper darkness? When the Hudson rivter rail train went through the bridge at Spuyten Duyvil, did it alleviate the matter at all that instead of two or three people being hurt there were seventy-five mangled and crushed! i Because others are depraved, is that any excuse for my depravity? Am I better than they? Perhaps they had worse temptations than I have had. Perhaps their surroundings in life were more overpowering. Perhaps, O man, if you had been under the same stress of temptation, instead of sitting here to-day. you would have *oeen looking through the oars of a Denitentiary. Perhaps O woman, if ycu hacl been under the same power of temptation, instead of sitting here to-day, you would be tramping the street, the laughing stock of men and the grief of the angels of God, dungeoned, body, mind and soul, in the blackness of despair. Ah, do not let us solace oursel ves with the thought that other people are worse than we. Perhaps in the future, when our fortunes may change, un less uvu prevums 11^ we way ue wui^o lhhm th9y are. Many a man after thirty years, after forty years, after fifty years, after sixty years, has gone to pieces on the sand bars. Oh! instead of wasting our time in hyper criticism about others, let us ask ourselves the questions, Where do we stand ? What are Our sins ? "What are our deficits ? What are our perils ? What our hopes ? Let each one say to himself: "Where will I be ? Shall I range in summery fields, or grind in the mills of a great night? Where? Where ?" Some winter morning you go out and see a snow "bank in graceful drifts, as though bv some heavenly compass it had been curved; and as the sun glints it the luster is almost insufferable, and it seems as if God had wrapped the earth in a shroud with white plaits woven in looms celestial. And you aay: "Was there ever anything so pure as the snow, so beautiful as the scow ?" But you brought a pail of that snow and put it upon the stove and melted it; and you found that there was a sediment at the bottom, and every drop of that snow water was riled; and you found that the snow bank had gathered up the impurity of the field, and that after all it was not 151 to wash in. And so I say it I I / I will be if you try to gather up these contrasts and comparisons with others, and with these apologies attempt to wash out the sins of your heart and life. It will be an unsuccessful ablution. Such snow water will never wash away a single stain of an immortal soul. But I hear some one say: "I will try something better than that. I will try the force of a good resolution. That will be more pungent, more caustic, more extirpating, more cleansing. The snow water has failed, and now I will try the alkali of the good, strong resolution."" My dear brother, nave you any idea that a resolution about the future will liquidate the past? Suppose I owed you five thousand dollars and I should come to you to-morrow and say: c'Sir, I will never run in debt to you again; if 1 should live thirty years, I will never run in debt to you again;" will you turn to me and say: "If you will not rim in debt in the future, I will forgive you the five thousand dollars." Will you do that? No! Nor will God. We have been running up a long score of indebtedness with God. U for the future we should abstain from sin, that would be no defrayment of past indebtedness. Though you should live from this time forth pure as an archangel before the throne, that would not redeem the past. God, in the Bible, distinctly declares that he "will require that which is past"?past opportunities, past neglects, past wicked words, past impure imaginations, past everything. The past is a great cemetery, and every day is buried in it. And here is a long row of three hundred and sixty-five graves. They are the dead days of 1SS8. Here is a long row of tnree Hundred and sixty-five more graves, and they are the dead days of 1887. And here is a long row of three hundred and sixty-five more graves, and they are the dead days of 18S6. It is a vast cemetery of the past. But God will rouse then* all up with resurrectionary blast, and as the prisoner stands face to face with juror and judge, so you and I will have to come up and look upon those departed days face to iaca, exulting in their smile or cowering in their frown. "Murder will out," is a proverb that stops too short. Every sin, however small, as well as great, will out. In hard times in England, years ago, it is authentically stated that a" manufacturer was on the way, with a bag of money, to pay off his han ds. A man infuriated with hunger met him on the road, and took a rail with a nail in it from a paling fence and struck him down, and the nail entering the skull instantly slew him. Thirty years after that the murderer went Taack to that place. He passed into the grave yard, where the sexton was dieting a grave, and while he stood there the spade of the sexton turned up a skull, and, lo ! the murderer saw a nail protruding from the back part of the skull; and as the sexton turned the skull it seemed with hollow eyes to glare on the murderer; and he, first petrified with horror, stood in silence, but soon cried out. "Guilty! guilty! O God!" The mystery of the crime was over. The man was tried and executed. My friends, all the unpardoned sins of our lives, though we may think they are buried out of sight and gone into a mere skeleton of memory, will turn up in the cemetery of the past and glower upon us witn their misdoings. I say all our unpardoned sins. Oh, have you done the preposterous thing*of supposing that good resolutions for the future will wipe out the past? Good resolutions, though they may be pungent and caustic as alkali, have no power to neutralize a sin, have no power to wash away a transgression. It wants something more than earthly chemistry to do this. Yea, yea. though "I wash myself with snow water, and should I cleanse my hands in alkali, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." You see from the last part of this text that Job's idea of sin was very different from that of Eugene Sue, or George Sand, or M. J. Michelet, or of any of the nundreds of writers who have done up iniquity in mezzotint, and garlanded the wine cup with eg-> lantine and rosemary, and made the path of the libertine end in bowers of ease instead of on the hot flagging of eternal torture. You see that Job thinks that sin is not a flowery parterre; that it is not a tabletend of fine prospects; that it is not music, dulcimer, violoncello, castanet or,r\ Pontoon YttrtAC all mftlHnor milSlf* together. No. ^He says it is a ditch, long, deep, loathsom i, stenchful, and we are all plunged into it, and there we wallow and sink 1 and struggle, not able to get out. Our robes of propriety and robes of worldly profession are saturated in the slime and abomination, and our soul, covered over with transgression, hates its covering, and the covering hates the . soul until we are plunged into the ditch, and our own clothes abhor us. I know that some modern religionists caricature sorrow for sin, and they make out an , easier path than the "pilgrim's progress" that John Bunyan dreamed of. The road they travel does not stop where John's did, at the city of Destruction, but at the gate of 1 the university; and I am very certain that it will not come out where John's did, under the shining ramparts of the celestial city. No repentance, no pardon. If you do not, my brother, feel that you are down in the ditohr what do you want of Christ to lift you out? Jf you have no appreciation of the fact that you are astray, what do you want of him who came to seek and save that which was lost? Yonder Is the City of Paris, the swiftest of the Inmans, coming across the Atlantic. The wind is abaft, so that she has not only her engines at work, but all sails up. I am on board the Umbria of the Cunard line. The boat davits are swung around. The boat is lowered. I get into it with a red flag and cross over to where the City of i Paris is coming and I wave the flag. The captain looks off from the bridge ana says : " What do you want ?" I reply : 411 come to take some of your passengers across to the other vessel: I think they will be safer and happier there." The captain would look down with indignation and say: ' 'Get out of the way, or I will run you down." And then I would Dact oars, amiast tne jeering 01 two or three hundred people looking over the tatfrait. But the Umbria and the City of Paris meet under different circumstances after a while. The City of Paris is coming out of a cyclone; the life boats are smashed; the bulwarks gone; the vessel vapidly going down. The boatswain gives his last whistle of despairing command. The passengers rim up and down the deck, and some pray, and all make a great outcry. The captain says: "You nave about fifteen minutes now to prepare for the next world." "No hope!" sounds from stem to stern and from the ratlines down to the cabin. I see the distress. I am let down by the side of the Umbria. I push off as fast as I can toward the sinking City of Paris. Before I come up people are leaping into the water in their anxiety to get to the boat, and when I have swung up under the side of the City of Paris, the frenzied passengers rush through the gangway until the officers, with ax and clubs and pistols, try to keep back the crowd, each waiting his turn to come next. There is but one life boat, and they all want to get into it, and the cry is: "Me next: me next!" You see the application before I make it. As long as a man going on in his sin feels that all is well, that ne is coining out at a beautiful port, and has all sail set, he wants no Christ, he wants no help, he wants no rescue; but if under the flash of God's convicting spirit he shall see that by reason of sin he is dismasted and wateri ?_,i ?:? J ? iU56CVA1 ?"*** IXXiAJ VHXJ UUUgUUi J the sea where he cannot live, how soon he puts the sea glass to his eye and sweeps the horizon, ana at the first sign of help cries out: "I want to be saved. I want to be saved now. I want to be saved forever." No sense of danger, no application for rescue. Oh, that God's eternal spirit would flash upon us a sense of our sinfulness! The Bible tells the storjr in letters of fire, but we get used to it. We joke about sin. We make merry over it. What is sin? Is it a trifling thing? Sin is a vampire that is sucking out the life blood of your immortal nature. Sin? It is a Bastile that no earthly key ever unlocked. Sin? 1$ is expatriation from God and heaven. Sin? It is grand larceny against the Almighty, for the Bible asks the question: ""V\ ill a man rob God?" answering it in the affirmative. This Gospel is a writ of replevin to recover property unlawfully detained from God. In the Shetland Islands there is a man with leprosy. The hollow of the foot has swollen until it is flat on the ground. The joints begin to fall away. The ankle thickens until it looks like the foot of a wild beast. A stare unnatural comes to the eye. The nostril is constricted. The voice drops to an almost inaudible hoarseness. Tubercles blotch the whole body, and from them there comes an exudation that is unbearable to the beholder. That is leprosy, and we have ail got it unless cleased bv the grace of God. See Leviticus. See II Kings. See Mark. See Luke. See fifty Bible allusions and confirmations. The Bible is not complimentary in its lanL. f \ guage. It doss not speak mincingly about our sins. It does not talk apologetically. There is no vermilion in its style. It does not cover up our transgressions with blooming metaphor. It does not sine about them in weak falsetto; but it thunders out: "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." "Every one has gone back. He has altogether become filthy. He is abominable and filthy, and drinketh in iniquity like water." And then the Lord Jesus Christ flings down at our feet this humiliating catalogue: "Out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornication, murders, thefts, blasphemy." There is a text for your rationalists to preach from. Oh. the dignity of human nature! There is an element of your science of man that the anthropolocist never has had the courage yet to touch; and the Bible, in all the ins and outs of the most forceful style, sets forth our natural pollution, and represents iniauity as a frighthil thing, as an exhausting tning, as a loathsome thing. It is not a mere bemiring of the feet, it is not a mere befouling of the hands; it is going down, head and ears under, in a ditch, until our clothes abhor us. My brethren, shall we stay down where sin thrusts ns? I shall not if you do. "We cannot afford to. I have to-day to tell you that there is something purer than snow water, something more pungent than alkali, and that is the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanseth from all sin. Ay, the river of salvation, bright, crystalline and heaven born, rushes through this audience with lowy tide strong enough to wash your " ?? completely and forever away. Oh, Jesus, let the aam that holds it back now break, and the floods of salvation roll over us. Let the water and the blood, From thy side a healing flood, Be of sin the double cnre, Save from wrath and make me pore. Lot us get down on both knees and bathe in that blood of mercy. Ay, strike out with both hands and try to swim to the other.shore of this river of God's grace. To you is the word of this salvation sent. Take this largess of the divine bounty. Though you have gone down in the deepest ditch of libidinous desiro and corrupt behavior, though you have sworn all blasphemies until there is not one sinful word left for you to speak, though you have been submerged by the transgressions of a lifetime, though you are so far down in your sin that no earthly help can touch your case? the Lord Jesus Christ bends over you to-day, and offers you his right hand, proposing to lift you up, first making you whiter than snow, and then raising you to glories that never die. "Billy," saia a Christian bootblack to another, ltwhen we come up to heaven it won't make any difference that we ve Deen DOOiDiacKS nere,ior we snail gee in, not somehow or other, but, Billy, we shall get straight through the gate." Oh, if you only knew how full aad free and tender is the offer of Christ, this day, you would all take Him without one single exception; and if all the doors of this house were locked save one, and you were compelled to make egress by only one door, and I stood there %jd questioned you, and the Gospel of Christ had made the right impression upon your heart to-day, you would answer me as you went on, one and all: "Jesus is mine, and I am His!" Oh, that this might be the hour when you would receive Him! It is not a Gospel merely for footpads and vagrants and buccaneers; it is for the highly polished and the educated and the reiiued as well. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'' Whatever may be your associations, and whatever your worldly refinements, I must tell you, as before God I expect to answer in the last day, that if you are not changed by the grace of God, you are still down in the ditch of sin, in the ditch of sorrow, in the ditch of condemnation; a ditch that empties into a deeper ditch, the ditch of the lost. But blessed be God for the lifting, cleansing, illustrating power of His Gospel. The voice of free grace cries, Escape to the mountain; For all that believe, Christ has opened a fountain. HaUelujah! to the Lamb who has bought us our pardon: We'U praise film again when we pass over Jordan. mniriM^n i AT n H IMfMAJNtii. THE BAR. 5Vhy call it a bar? Say, whence it derived This name for a depot of spirits of evil? Was the name by some sly friend of virtue contrived, Or, like the thing named did it come from the devil? I'll tell you what it means?'tis a bar to al good, And a constant promoter of everything evil; Tis a bar to all virtue?that's well understood? A bar to the right and a fort for the devil. Tis a bar to all industry, prudence and wealth, A bar to reflection, a bar to sobriety; A bar to clear thought and a bar to sound health, A bar to good conscience, to prayer and to piety. A bar to the sending of children to school, To clothing and giving them good education; A bar to the observance of every good rule, A bar to the welfare of family and nation. A bar to the hallowed enjoyment of home, A bar to the holiest earthly fruition; A b?r that forbids its frequenters to come To the goal and rewards of a virtuous ambition. A bar to integrity, honor and fame, To friendship and peace and connubial love, To the purest delights the*, on euTtli we may claim, A bar to salvation and heaven above! ?Chicago Sun. BEER AND I.N TEMPERANCE. Rev. J. C. Allen, pastor of the Hanson Place, Brooklyn (M. E.) Church, spoke on a recent evening at ti e Greenwood Baptist Church, in that city. Speaking of the use of beer, he said: "In 1S30 the famous beer act in England was passed with the view of deceasing intemperance by encouraging the use of beer in the place of more ardent liquors. Lord Wellington boasted that the securing of the passage of that act was one of his greatest victories. It was not many years before Parliament was compelled to repeal the act because beerdrinking had become so extensive. If we look among the statistics of the drinking classes we will find that there are 600,000 male habitual drunkards, 1,500,000 male tipplers; the drinkers spend annually $900,000,000; they consume 75 000,000 gallons of beer; there are used 27,000,000 bushels of grain, which, if ground into flour, would make 5,500,000 barrels. The money spent for drink, if strung out in rows of dollar bills, would make 473 belts for the globe."' SIGNIFICANT FIGURES. In 1SS0 there were 3152 places in the United States where liquors, distilled, malt and vinous, were manufactured. These manufactories had an invested capital of $118,037,729; they employed 33,G9S persons; they paid in wages $15,078,579; they used material to the value of $S5,921,374, and their manufactured products were estimated at $144,291,241. In the same year (1S80) there were 20,303 places where agricultural implements, boots and shoes, including custom work and repairing, but not including rubber goods, were made. These establishments employed a capital of $118,65$, 333, about the same as the liquor business; they employed 178,219 persons; they paid in wages $87,711,736; they used material to the value of $154,073,915; and their manufactured products was worth $276,028,389. By making a comparison we find that $118,000,000 employed in the manufacture of intoxicating liquors gave employment to 33,608 persons against 17S,219j when employed ifi the manufacture of agricultural instruments, boots and shoes, ijhe same sum invested in the former paid to labor $15,078,579 again-.t $67,711,736 when employed in the latter. The same sum employed in the former bought of the farmers and other producers of material in the TJnited States, materials to the value of $85,921,374 against $154,073,915 worth of materials, when engaged in the latter. So we see that $118,000,000 employed in the manufacture of agricultural implements, boots and shoes, employed five and one-third times as many persons, paid four and one-half times as much in wages, and bought of the farmers and other producers about twice as much material, and its manufactured products were worth twice as much money as the same amount of capital invested in the manufacture of liquors. And besides the former was distributed to 20,000 localities, while the liquor industry was confined to 3000 localities, mostly large cities. Tested in this way, the liquor industry cannot stand a comparison with that of tlje manufacture of agricultural implements, boots and Bhoes, t RELIGIOUS READING. SIN BLOTTED OUT. "I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember tljeir s'n no more," Jer. 31:34. '"I, even I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins," Isa 43.25. I was sitting al:ne in silence, For my heart was hushed and sad. As I thought that my conscience pointed To the records my Father had Then it seemed ihat he softly whispered? "I have blotted the records, child, And the page of the book is open Stainless and undefiled.' But I feared, for the tempter told me Some sins nr.d so det-p a dye That a trace of the rignteous record Still stood in tlw court on high. So aguin mv Father whispered? "I liave blotted the records all, Not a lingering stain remaining, Where my holy glances fall." Then I thought that the dead were rising, I thought the last da}' had come, I thought that I stood and trembled, Fearful, and cowed, and dumb. And the awful book was opened? But the judge in the silence read, "I have blotted out thy transgressions," In a moment my terror fled. Oh! since He has kindly whispered, I surely may trust His word. And rest in the blessed message My listening ears have heard. So I will not think of the record, For the record has pass d and gone, 'Tis blotted out now and forever, And the page from the volume torn. ?William Luff. THE FREE GIFT. We need not attempt the explanation of Christ's p .wer to overcome our weaknesses and subjugate our wills; it is sufficient to know that He can do all this for the believer bocause it is of grace. That power by which we become the sons of God at conversion is not merited in any sense by us; it comes as a free gift. In the subsequent life of the Christ an, even to the end, all that he receives is unmerited. He cnn boast of nothing. He who thinks that he can indicate the secret grounds of righteousness, upon which he may claim anything for Himself, is wholly astray. If he should tnink at any time that ho is deserving, because of earnestness in Christ's work, he at once depreciates the gift of grace. In that hour he builds upon a sandy foundation. Who w 11 care to fix limits to this power which is who ly a gift? Who will say, UI despair of deliverance from my weakness," when we know that deliverence is not through finite strength, but of infinite grace? Well may we wonder how omnipotent strength can be proffered to every one who will receive, even to those who have nothing A J J.r X. T lo recuinm-uu meui iaj uiviuo icgmu. x*\j a. around. Behold the multitude of witnesses ready to own the excellency of th s plan of salvation. Take, for example, those who have been in bondage to timidity. Grace fr m God only could set them at liberty. He has spoken, and now a'l is changed. That "fear of man which brinjreth a snare" is gone; that diffidence which is very often the minifestation of self or pride has given place to hi ly boldness; that hesitating tone in spiritual matters has risen to clear and emphatic utterance. What spiritual progress would there be among God's people were all to accept fully this "eternal lire" that is declared to be "without money and without price! Think, also, of the many who are being comforted amid their earthly sorrows. Does it not enhance the consolation to remember that it is bestowed as a favor, not through personal merit? Our heavenly Father is saying: "I know your need; I witness your tears; I will not wait; I cannot le ive you comfortless." So He corn s to the lowliest, and says: "I will rest you;" "Do not think of being either worthy or unworthy;" "You have only to think of me and of mf help;" "My grace is sufficient without any preparation on your part." Oh, the matchless gift! Oh, how this thought is amplified in St. Paul's epistles! He tells us that victory in the dying hour is given to us. And the open window in the Apocalypse discloses the celestial multitude, having their golden harps all attuned to the melody of grace. SABBATH COMMUNION. Do we sometimes find it difficult to withdraw ourselves from worldly affairs and fix our thoughts upon eternal interests? Under such circumstances there is no surer way of relief than to select some portion of the Holy Scripture, making this the tberae of earnest study. It is not best to wait for the impulse of feeling before beginning the exercise. Open the Bible at nny page. Remember that every passage contains within itself a sacred deposit of truth. More than this, consider that the divine Word possesses for the sincere soul a self-revealing energy, a power of interpretation, as well as if application to the conscience. Divine revelat on is infinitely superior to all human composition in this particular. It was on a Sabbath morning, after a week of unusual distrac ion, that a Christian man sought to free himself from engrossing cares. He realized the importance of laving aside these burdens before engaging in" the public services of God's house. He found himself utterly at the mercy of inlrudiug worldly thoughts. The spirit that rules in all marts of trade would rush in unbidden. He knew very well that to yield himself to this clamor from without in the early morning hours of the Sabbath would mar the sacred privileges of the entire day. Finally, without any unu ual religious emotion, but chiefly from a conviction of duty, he opened his Bible, as was his habit, before attending church. His eyes rested on theso words: "It is by the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. Th.' Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in Him. The T ? ? J "J +V?ntvi 4 lint. for Him Jboru 15 guuU U1IIAJ luvrn u?'?w .W. to the soul that seeketh Him. It is pood that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." His attention -was arrested bj- the delightful melody of *hese verses. It was not long before the compassion of hi - Heavenly Father bep;an to dawn upon him in a new way. With a seuso of great indebtedndss, his heart grew warm in love toward God. It was impossible that the worldly spirit should henceforth displace tfle devotional, having gained through tho living Word the knowledge of Divine things. We live in a 1 ime when the Christian is often sorely tried. Questions of public finance, questions relating to civil policy and th" right method of removing great social evils, will likely invade his hours of devotion. No ordinary means will avail. He needs supernatural assistance. Tho spell binding biin to earth eannot be broken, only as the eternal principles of righteousness are revealed: ami then not in mere intellectual pe! ceptions, but in the powerful unfoldings of tiuth in his soul.?Thi Christian Advocate. Have you ever done anything for Christ that has scarred your heart or your body? ' If a man keop my saying, he shall never see death;" when we come to die, our eyes will so really see Jesus Himself that we | shall not see death.?/', i?. Hctvcrgal. Thote who live in the love of Christ should never be melancholy, for they have a thousand sources of jov of which others know nothing.?Mrs. Ellis. God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to them who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we hnvo 110 right by anything that we do or neglect to involve them in unnecessary pennlties, or deprive them of benefits wh ch it was in our power to beaueath.?John lluskin. TOE MECCA OF MALT AND ROM. These are hard times for saloon keepers? outside of New York State. There's the Saloon Keepers' Association of Cincinnati for instance, which has resolved that its members must keep open on Sunday, and that it will fine them $10 each if they don't. And Philadelphia fines them if they do. If they don't like it, they may come to New York. There are still a few, a very few, choice corners here which are not occupied by saloons, and the people of the State seemed, when last heara from at the polls, to think that we haven't saloons enough. The $10 may bo made payable to the police.?New Ytrk Press. It is charged that at least six members of the Chicago Common Council are always drunk in their seats when there isa session. THE CABINET. PEN PICTURES OF THE PRESIDENT'S ADVISERS. Sketches of the Eight Men Who Administer the Departments of the Government?How They Dive and How Tliey Work. A tour of the possible Presidents is an interesting pastime nowadays, says the Washington correspondent of Philadelphia Eecord. By possible Presidents, I mean, of course, the eight members 01 the Cabinet, who are by act of Congress in the line of promotion upon the death or disability of the President or VicePresident. It is not certain that the Secretary of Agriculture, the baby of the Cabinet, is in this line of promotion, for he is not mentioned, of course, in the "Presidential Succession act" because his office had not then been created. But I suppose that under the general terms of the act creating the eighth Cabinet place its incumbent is given all the powers and privileges of his colleagues. But, at all events, uUncle Jere" is a member of the Cabinet and a good fellow, and so we will call on him, too. Blaine's department occupies the southern wing of the new Stanawar?State, navy and war?building, which stands just west of the Executive mansion, on the site of the old war and navy buildings. Secretaries Blaine, Proctor and Tracy, who control it, have adopted somewhat more stringent rules for the admission of visitors that are prescribed in other departments. Unless you are a Senator or a representative of a department official you can only see them personally at twelve o'clock on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays?newspaper men being, of course, excepted here as everywhere. Blaine is the latest member of the Cabinet for getting down to his office, 1J ! ! iJI t A _ 1 XT seiuom arriving until ?\j o ciocii, tut; hour at which he begins to receives Senators and Representatives. But this is not because he gets up late, for he is a light sleeper and an early riser. It is because he takes time at his desk in his comfortable rooms at the Normandie to read the morning newspapers, which he does like an old newspaper man; dispose of some of his private correspondence, and pass, with the assistance of Walker Blaine, upon some of his public business, so that Walker is apt to carry a portfolio full of papers to and fro for his father every day. When he: can the Secretary of State walks the few blocks by way of Lafayette park from his hotel to his department. His hair and beard are entirely white, his face is more deathlike than ever, but his form is straight and his step is springy. At a distance his age would not be at all apparent to a casual observer. The office of the Secretary of State, having been finished and furnished several ysars Tsefore the others, is faded compared with those of the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy. Still it is a handsome room, with a fine wood floor covered with rugs, elaborate frescoes, a great square mahogany desk for the Secretary in the centre, a smaller one for his private secretary in one corner, bookcases, cabinets and a fine globe scattered around, and a number of portraits on the wall. But we must not keep the Secretary of State waiting. He stands up to receive, sitting down and tilting back in his chair, with his lflfrs crossed. if hfi settles down to a good talk with you. He takes your hand with his old fervor, and his eye still dances and sparkles?as I believe it will when he is dead. He always says something pleasant when he can, and, if possible, something clever, too; and so with a smile and a bow you are dismissed. From 10 to 12, like all the Secretaries in this building, he receives Senators and Representatives on all days except Thursday, which is reserved for members of the diplomatic corps exclusively. On Mondays there are not so many Senators and Representatives calling as to take all of the two hours, so that he does not lose the whole morning. At 12, except on Cabinet days (Tuesday and Friday), when he must be getting over to the White House, he receives the public ufitil 1 or 2, as business will permit. Then, on his return from the Cabinet, he works away on official business until 5 o'clock, when he drives down the avenue to a private gymnasium, and either takes some prescribed exercise or a massage treatment. Hiii physician has told him that he must take from four to six hours' exercise every day. Before he went into the Cabinet he walked several miles each day. But now he considers himself fortunate when he is'noi detain at his office after 5, and can get an hour s exercise before dinner. He dines with his family in their private dining-room at 7 and then works most of the evening at official business if he does not go out to dinner. Mrs. Blaine is superintending the reconstruction of the Seward mansion on Lafayette square, which they have leased for ten years, and which they will occupy in the fall, so that the Secretary is relieved largely of that. He has a great deal of private business;, though, with his real estate here, and Ills railroads there, and his mines far out in the West. Altogether he has too much work to do and gets too little exercise, and he will be very glad to get a little rest after a while. William Windom, Secretary of the Treasury, comes next in order on the list. To see him we cross over through the Whitp House grounds, in front or in rear of the White House, and walk up to the second floor of the Greek temple known il. _ m 1 !1Jli TTT* J1 1 lis uie ireasury ounuing. vvmuom iiub changed the office of.the Secretary of the Treasury from the southeast comer, where Manning and Fairchild had theirs, to the centre of the south side, where he uses Assistant Secretary Thompson's old room as his main office, and the chief clerk's old room, opening out of it, as his consultation cabinct and real working den. Windom, like George "W. Childs, whom he so much resembles, looks just the same as he did twenty-five years ago?face as unwrinkled, hair and Whiskers as dark. It is his sunny nature which keeps him young. He is never ruffled, but is always 6miling. He walks over to his department from Hotel Arno, on Sixteenth street, just north of the White House, with an easy moving step so as to get to his office by 9 o'clock. He ^ees everybody who comes at all hours of every day when he is in his office and his work will permit. Most of the time from 9 till 3 or 4 o'clock he is standing on his feet listening to the office-seeker and his friends. Between callers he signs papers or eats his simple luncheon. After 2 or 3 or 4 o'clock, when the last caller goes, he buckles down to work, and by 6 has pretty well cleared his desk and made up the work he will do at home. For after fir _ ' . . dinner he goes at it again and works till bedtime. His offices are plainly but solidly furnished, well carpeted, gorgeously frescoed and adorned with oil portraits of Sherman, Folger*and others of his predecessors. Everybody leaves Windom with regrer, ior ne is a very agreeaDie nosi. l'He always was so pleasant," might with' truth be written on his tombstone. He stands this strain so well, though he gets so little exercise, that it is hard to connect him in this world with a tombstone. Next in the line of promotion comes the Secretary of War, the veteran Governor, Redfield Proctor, of Vermont, the richest man in the Cabinet. To see him we must go back to the Stanawar, where his office is a splendid room on the west side of the same floor as Blaine's. Proctor, gray with years and bent with work, looks quiescent and even phlematic. But he is the most nervous man in the Cabinet. He always walks as he talks. He does not mean to shake you off; he is unaffectedly courteous to you, but he must walk. He walks up and down when he is dictating to his stenographer; he walks up and down when he eats his luncheon. He walks over to the Department from the Arlington and back again when the weather will let him. Like most millionaires who have made their millions, if not themselves, he is an early riser, and usually anticipates his clerks at the office. He has very few officeseeking callers, and has been able to learn more about his office than any of his colleagues, except the Secretary of the Navy. The Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin F. Tracy, of Brooklyn, comes next. His office is that of his predecessor on the eastern side of the same floor and directly in line with Secretary Proctor's. Tracy uses the little inner room more constantly than Whitney did, giving up the long show office with its costly woods and intra and fpssroes and the oil nortaits of his predecessors to Lieutenant T. B. M. Mason, his naval secretary; Henry W. Raymond, his private secretary, and their clerks. He is a gray-haired, graywhiskered man, with a benevolent expression, a clever tongue and a pleasant laugh. He is very apt to have his callers brought in one at a time into his inner office, where, on the famous Monitor desk, he does most of his work. He gets over to his office from the Arno a little after 9, goes back for luncheon at 2 and gets away finally at 6 o'clock, working often, however, in the evening at the rooms. For, like all the rest, he has too many callers just now to permit him to do all his day's stint at his office, and, like all the others, he dislikes to let it go over from day to day. The Postmaster-General comes next. To see him we must ride all across the business part of town to the crowded small-roomed postoffice department on Seventh street. There is not a goodsized room in this department, nor one which is handsomely furnished, and the Postmaster-General's is no exception. In contrast with the magnificent offices we have just left, the newest and finest in Washington, his rooms seems shabby. But they seem to be the most attractive rooms in Washington. From the time the doors are opened in the morning until the time they are closed in the evening his callers are coming and going. There is a little ante-room where his typewriter works off behind a screen the letters he has taken in shorthand from the Postmaster-General's dictation. It is small, and usually full of waiting visitors. Then there is his fonnil office, which is not much larger, and is pretty well filled by his big desk, two leather-covered sofas, several leather-covered chairs and a cabinet. What space is left is also usually filled. The Postmaster-General may be found here, sitting in a tilting chair behind his desk or standing leaning on the mantel-piece where Benjaipin Franklin sits solemnly surveying his successor. Or he may be in his inner office, about the same size, and just beyond, where his faithful private secretary, Mr. Jones, writes neat notes all day long. As likely as not that inner office is filled, too, although usually it is not, since he reserves it for confidential conferences. Portraits of his predecessors look down from every wall. The Postmaster-General gets down to his office in the official rattle-trap, called by courtesty a coupe, any time between 7:30 and 8:30, having already, after breakfast and prayers, accomplished some work. He does a good deal before 9 o'clock, when the visitor first gets in, unless he has a special engagement with the Postmaster-General, and then Mr. Wanamaker gets in his work in the interstices of interviews until 4 o'clock, when the outer doors are closed and no office-seekers are admitted. By 5 most of them are gone, and between that and 7 he can get in two solid hours of work. After dinner he goes at it again. If he is not careful he will break down. A temperate, methodical man can. do wonders of work, but there is a limit to every man's powers. Still, I do not think he wastes work, and perhaps the postoffice department and a great business cannot be successfully ruu in any other way. The Postmaster-General is very agreeable, even if he does look at you rather peremptorily through his eyeglasses now and them. He is rapidly learning vvasningron -ways as weu us Washington men, and will be more proficient every day. He did a very wise thing when he bought the FrelinghuysenWhitney house. In fact, and by tradition, it is one of the most attractive houses in Washington. The PostmasterGeneral will not feel fully settled here until his wife and daughters join him in the fall. Then he will probably give up his weekly trip to Bethany, and worship every Sunday in his pew at thfe Church of the Covenant. Right across F street north of the Postoffice Department stands another Greek temple kuown locally as the Patent Office, because the Patent Offip~ is in it. It is really the Interior Department, and contains most of the business of that de- i partment. Here in the large room which < has been occupied by all his immediate i predecessors Secretary Noble, next in the i line, sits at a handsome desk when he is i not standing up to greet or dismiss some j caller or conferring with him in his little < office at the side. Noble is a gentle, pa- i tient man, but quick enough to decision , and determined enough in his eonclu- i sions. He has Windom's tactful way of i putting a refusal so that it seems almost i like a favor. It is well, for he divides the \ honors of having the largest number of i callers with all the others. Noble works early and late at nights. His predeces- ? sors, especially Lamar, have often been j obliged to work all night to catch up with ] the enormous current of work. So far i he has not had to do this, but he may come to it yet, for his hours are all hcurs as it is. He takes his exercise In walking to and fro. The Attorney General closes the list of * ? "- 1 " " " 1 ' T-rf T * 'TT'i ^ possible Presidents, unless iwe take in tha Secretary of Agriculture, as I mean to do. We must go uptown again to see Williani Henry Harrison Miller. He sits up in the fine room which Benjamin Harrison Brewster decorated and furnished so elegantly on the second floor of what is commonly called the Freedmen's bank building, just north of the treasury, across the avenue. Down stairs, where the poor fieedmeni banked their money "forever and ever," sits the court of claims. Overhead, where me managers 01 tne xxeeamen s Dureau used to meet, sits the Attorney General in eastern luxury. He is a simple, matterof-fact, man, strongly resembling Garfield in his ways. Miller's hours are like those of most of the others. Here is biff own account of his day: Usually I put in an appearance at the office about 8:30 in the morning, and do not leave the department, save for a brief intermission for lunch, until about 6 o'clock in the evening. After taking dinner, 7:30 o'clock will find me back at my desk, for I do not carry any of my. work to my hotel. About 10 o'clock I shut down for the day and go to bed,' and it is not much trouble for me to go' to sleep. But I do not propose to keep* this up, for the strain is too great, anai ? would break a constitution of iron if persisted in. ! Living at the Riggs house, he has only a few steps to go between his room and his office. He treats his visitors at the department as though they were all' clients at his law office. He takes hir exercise voth the President almost every, day. It is in their walks and drives that they have their momentous talks which' people are always wondering about. Miller walks well with the President, being about his height, but Ms face is dark, and his hair and his beard are still mostly black. The Secretary of Agriculture, Governor Jere Rusk, father of Blaine D. Rusk, ( is far separated from all his Cabinet con- . freres. His department is away over toward South "Washington, beyond the mall which George Washington wanted to run between the White House park and the Capitol. Rusk's building is a gingerv ?J I :?i? 4-v.wvn. vreau turau ui UIXUDJS UI iwu ui MUOO colors, with various gaudy decorations and mansard roof. However, he flies his flag every day in the week, and signs his name right heavily with the only gold pen in the Cabinet. Busk is the taUesfr man in the Cabinet, I should think,with a great shock of white hair, and a farmerlike, straggling white beard. He is a bluff, hearty, loud-voiced Westerner, who wants to please as many people as possible. He has to disappoint a lot every day, for places in the Agricultural Department are greatly sought after since many of them are below the limit of the classified service. 4 'Uncle Jere," as everybody familiarly calls him, works as hard hero as he did at home, gets up with the chickens and goes to bed with the owls. He lives at the Ebbitt House and rides over and back in the very respectable office carriage which Dr. George B. Loring bought for the Department of Agriculture when he was commissioner. He would do better to walk, for the distance would just give him needed exercise. The Backing Horse. Most persons who have witnessed the vicious and acrobatic antics of the "bucking bronco" in Buffalo Bill's and other wild Western shows have supposed that the animals were merely acting a part to which they had been trained, like the trick-mule of &e circus. The fact is that these traits are in the nature of the beast; and what the horses do on exhibition is as nothing to the diabolical contortions which they go through when , endeavoring to unseat a cowboy rider on their native prairies. The broncos of the. Southwest, like the cross-bred Indian and cayuse ponies of Montana, are not usually broken until they are four or five years old, and then their training is of the rudest and most impromptu character. Individual animals, like individual men, exhibit tempers and idiosyncrasies of their own; but even the best-tempered cow- T ponies will sometimes buck on a frcaty morning. Such "mavericks" are turned over to hands who make a specialty of conquering horses that are determined not to be ridden; for a great many thorough cowboys who are good horsemen in the sense of being able to get the best work out of their string of steeds in a round-up do not pretend to be able to sit a hard-pitching or vicious animal. The horse-tamer, with his wonderful lariat, brings the rebellions horse to the ground by a noose around one of the fore feet; then; he mounts, and pursues his dare-devil, anti-bucking tactics until the shaggy pon$ is dazed and cowed into meek submission. ?Frank Leslie's. Noted American Trees. The big tree of California. "Old Liberty Elm," at Boston. The "Burgoyne Elm," at Albany,, N. Y. The immense ash trees planted by General Washington at Mount Vernon and; now the admiration of visitors. The weeping-willow over the grave of Cotton Mather in Cop's burying-groundr near Bunker Hill, taken from a tree that' shaded the grave of Napoleon at St., Helena. The Cary tree, planted by the roadside in 1S32 by Alice and Phoebe Cary, is a; large sycamore, standing on the turnpike, from College Hill to Mount Pleasant, Hamilton County, Ohio. The "Washington elm still stands atCambridge, Mass. It is on Garden street,; a short distance from the colleges, and is a1 large, well-preserved tree. An iron fence is built around it, and on a stone in front is the following inscription: "Under this tree George Washington took command of the American armv, July 3, 1775." A Singular Freak. West Virginia offers a very singular specimen of liliputian humanity in thedaughter of John E. Miller, of Hampshire County. She is twenty-three years of age, cannot walk or talk and is but twenty-six inches tall. Always lying iir i little cradle, she is enabled to keep a sharp lookout on all that is going on; no one has yet been sharp enough to call for an article in the house that the little one could not point out. Her memory is most remarkable. A new song or poem repeated in her presence is never forgotten. If the same song or poem is again repeated or sung with the variation of but a single word the little prodigy will show her disapproval by yelling lustly and frowning a frown that cannot bo mistaken. IIow such a remarkable mem ory can find resting place in a neaa no larger than a teacup has long been the wonder of physicians and servants who have journeyed from far and near to test the remarkable gifts of the little wonder.) ? Washington Star. .. i