Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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TAIMAGE'S StRMOri. an eloqi:f>t i>iscorx>r uv tiik BUIH)K I. \ .\ Ui VIM-.. Subject"Rounding Up Tlir Ceuiury." Text: "Amen; Alleluia?Revelations xLr., 4. The Nineteenth century is departing. After it has taken a few more steps, if each year be a step, it will be gone into the eternities. In a short time we sbn" H the last decade of this century, auutes the solemn est dook outside tne isioie tne almanac, and the most suggestive and the most tremendous piece of machinery in all the earth the clock. The last decade of this century upon which we shall soon enter will be the grandest, mightiest and most decisive decade in all the chronologies. I am glad it is not to come immediately, for we need by a new baptism of the Holy Ghost to prepare for it. That last ten years of the nineteenth century, may we all live to see them I Does any one sav that this division of time is arbitrary? On, no; in other ages the divisions of time may have been arbitrary, but our years date from Christ. Does any one say that the grouping of ten together is an arrangement arbitrary? Oh, no; next to the figure seven, ten is with God a favorite number. Abraham dwelt ten years in Caanan. Ten righteous men would have saved Sodom. In the ancient tabernacle were ten curtains, their pillars ten and their sockets ten. In the ancient temple were ten lavers and ten candlesticks and "ten tables and a molten sea of ten cubits. And the commandmaits written on the granite of Mount Sinai were ten, and the kingdom of God was likened to ten virgins, and ten men should lay hold of him that was a Jew, and the reward of the greatly faithful is that they shall reign over ten cities, and in the effort to take the census of the New Jerusalem the number ten swings around the thousands, erring " ten thousands times ten thousands." So I come to look toward the closing ten years of the Nineteenth century with an intensity of interest I can hardly describe. I I have also nnfcir**! that t.Vio fnvnri+.? Hmn in many of the centuries for great events vras i the closing fragment of the century. Is America to be discovered, it must be in the last decade of the Fifteenth century, namely, 1492. Was free constitutional government to be well established in America, the last years of tho Eighteenth century must achieve it.Were three cities to be submerged by one pitch of scoriae, Herculaneum and Strabiee and Pompeii in the latter part of the First century must go under. The Fourth century closed with the most agitating ecclesiastical war of history, Urban the Sixth against Clement the Seventh. Alfred the Great closes the Ninth century and Edward Ironsides the Eleventh century with their resounding deeds. The Sixteenth century closed with the establishment of religious independence in the United Netherlands. Aye, almost every century has had its peroration of overtowering achievements. As the closing years of the centuries seem a favorite time for great scenes of emancipation or disaster, ana as the number ten seems a favorite number in the Scriptures, written by divine direction, and as we are soon to enter upon the last ten years of the Nineteenth century, what does the world propose? What does the church of Christ propose? What do reformers propose? I know not; but now in the presence of this consecrated assembly I propose that we make ready, get all our batteries planted and all our plans well laid in what remains of this decade, and then in the last decade of the Nineteenth century march up and take this round world for God. When I say we, I mean the five hundred million Christians now alive. But, as many of them will not have enough heart for the work let us copy Gideon, ana as he had thirty iwy uioubu.nu men in ms army to ngnL une Midianites but many of them were not made of the right stuff and he promulgated a military order saying; "Whosoeveris fearful ana afraid let him return and depart early from Gilead," and twenty-two thousand were afraid of getting hurt and went home and only ten thousand were left and God told them "that even this reduced number was too large a number, for they might think they had triumphed independent of divine help, and so the number must be still further reduced and only those should be kept in the ranks who in passing the river should be so in haste for victory over their enemies, that though very thirsty, they would without stopping a second just scoop up the water in the palm of their right hand and scoop up the water in the palm of their left hand, and only three hundred men did that and those three hundred men with the battle shout: "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon," scattered the Midianites like leaves in an equinox, so out of the five hundred mil nun uuuiuiai <^ui iilia.m> ua ix>-uuy leu tin unbelievers and cowards go home and get out of the way. And suppose we have only four hundred million left, suppose only two hundred million left, suppose only one hundred million left, yea, suppose we only have fifty million left, with them we will undertake the divine crusade, and each one just scooping up a palm full of the river of God's mercy in one hand and a palm full of the river of God's strength in the other, let us with the cry, "The sword of the Lord an*' Gideon," the sword of the Lord and of John Knox, tho sword of the Lord and of Matthew Simpson, th? sword of the Lord and of Bishop Mcllvaine, th-i sword of the Lord and of Adoniram Judson, the sword of the Lord and of Martin Luther, go into the last dccade of the Nineteenth century. Is it audacious for me to propose it ? Oh, no: a captive servant in the kitchen of , Naaman told the commander-in-chief where he could get rid of the blof ches of his awful leprosy and his complexion became as fair as a babe's. And didn't Christ in order to take the ophthalmia out of the eyes of the blind man use a mixture of spittle and dust ? And who showed Blueher a short cut for his army, so that instead of the regular road by which he would have come up too late, he came up in time to save Waterloo and Europe? Was it not an unknown lad, who perhaps could not write his own name'/ And so I, "who am less than the least of all saints," propose a short cut to victory and am willing to be the expectoration on some blind eye and tell some of the brigadier generals of the Lord of host how this leprosied world may in the final decade of the Nineteenth century .have its flesh come again as the flesh of a little child. Is there anything in prophecy to hinder this speedy consummation? No. Some one begins to quote from Daniel about "time, times and a half time," and takes from Revelation the seven trumpets blowing them all at once in my ear. But with utmost reverence I take up all the prophecies and hold them toward heaven ana say God nehas and never will stop consecrated effort" and holy determination and mag-:ficent resolve, and that if the church of God will rise up to its <vn .?i? t.?;~t?_ a uu ??u* a iv \xui uuiivc i-'aaiei & tuxio twenty years and his half time ten years. Neither Isaiah, nor Ezokiel, nor Micah, nor Malachi, nor Jeremiah, nor any of the major or minor prophets will hinder us a second. Suppose tne Bible had announced the millennium to begin the year 3889, that would be no hindrance. In one senso God never changes His mind, being the same yesterday, to-day and forever. But in another sense He does change His mind and times without number ?very day, and that is when His people pray. Didn't He change His mind about Nineven? ."By God's command Jonah, at the top of his .voices while standing on the steps of tne merchants' exchange and thepalatial residences of that citv, cried out: "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Was it overthrown in forty days? No. The people gave up their sins and cried for mercy, ana though -lonah got mad because his whole course of Tmons had been spoiled and went into a disaceful pouting, we have the record so >lime I cannot read it without feeling a vous chill running through me. "God their works that they turned from their way and God repented of the evil that <ad said He would do unto them, and He not." God is a father, and some of us what that means, and some time when I ( : we have promised chastisement and the child ' deserved it, the little darling has put her | arms around our neck and expresses such ' sorrow and such promises of aoing better , that her tears landed on the lips of our j kiss, and we held her a half hour after on onr knee and would as soon think of slapping an ! angel in the face as of even striking her with i the weight of our little finger. God is a father, and while He has promised this world scourgings, though they were to be for a thousand years or five thousand yearg, He I would. if the world repented, substitute bono[ diction and divine caress. God changed I His mind about Sodom six times. He had determined on its destruction. Abraham asked Him if He would not spare it if fifty righteous people were found there; and, narrowing down the number, if forty-five people * * -e found there: if forty people; if thirty people; 11 twenty people; u ten peopie were found there. Ana each of the six times the Lord answered yes. Oh, why didn't Abraham go on just two steps further and say if five be found there and if one be found there, for then for the sake of Lot, its one good citizen, I think Sodom would nave been spared. Eight times does the Bible say that 6od repented when He had promised punishments and withheld the stroke. "Was it a slip of Paul's pen when he spoke of God's cutting short the work in righteousness ? No, Paul's pen never slipped. There is nothing in the way of prophecy to hinder the crusade I have proposed for the last decade of the Nineteenth century. The whole trouble is that we put off the completion of the world's redemption to such long and indefinite distances. The old proverb that "what is everybody's business is nobody's business," might be changed a little and be made truthfully to say what is the ;;ospel business of all the ages is the gospel business of no age. We are so constituted we cannot 'get up much enthusiasm about something five hundred years from now or a thousand years from now. We are fighting at too long a range. That gun called the "Swamp Angel " was a nuisance. It shot six miles, but it hardly ever hit anything. It did its chief destructive work when it burst and killed those who were setting it off. Short range is the effective kind of work, whether it be for worldly or religious purpose. Some man with his eyes half shut drones out to me the Bible quotation: "A thousand years are as on? day;" that is, ten centimes are not long for the Lord. But why Tin you not quote the previous sentence, which says that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years? That is, He could do the work of ten centuries in twenty-four hours. The mightiest obstacle to Christian work is the impression that the world's evangelization is away off. And we take the telescope and look on and on through centuries until WA qpa trwrn tiaot* o?/?h nfkar ar?H we strain oar vision and guess what they are, and we call great conventions to guess what they are, and we get down our heaviest theological works and balance our telescope on the lid and look and look and finally conclude that they are two beasts that we see, and the one has hair and the other has wool and we guess it must be the lion and the lamb lying down together. In that great cradle of postponement and somnolence we rock the church as though it were an impatient child and say: "Hush, my dear, don't be impatient! Don't get excited by revivals! Don't cry! Your Father's coming! Don't get uneasy ! He will be here in two or three or ten or twenty thousand years." And we act as though we thought that when ATacauley's famous New Zealander in the far distance Is seated on a broken arch of London bridge stretching the ruins of St. Paul's his grandchild might break in and jolt his pencil by asking him if he thought the millenium ever would appeal-. Men and women of the eternal God! Sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty! We may have it start in the decade that is soon to commence and it will be done if we can persuade the people between now and then to get ready for the work. What makes me think it can be done? First, because God is ready. He needs no long persuasion to do His work, for if He is not willing that any should perish. He is not willing that any of the people of the next decade shall perish; and tne whole Bible is a chime of bells ringing out "Come, come, come," and you need not go round the earth to find out how much He wants the world to come, but just to walk around one stripped and bare and leafless treo with two branches, not arched, but horizontal. But He is waiting, as He said He would, for the co-operation of the church. "When we are ready God is ready. And He certainly has all tne weaponry ready to capture this world for the troth, all the weapons of kindness or devastation. On the ono hand the Gospel and sunshine and power to orchardize and gardenize the earto, and fountains swinging in rainbow, and Chatsworthian verdure and aromas poured out of the vials of heavens, while on the other hand he has the weaponry of devastation, thunderbolt and conflagration and forces planetary, solar, lunar, stellar, or meteoric, that with loose rein thrown on the neck for a second would leave constellations and galaxies so many split and shivered wheels on the boulevards or heaven. And that God is on our side, all on our side. Blessed be His glorious name! Blessed was the hour when through Jesus Christ my sinful soul made peace with Him I If 70U continue to as> me why I think that the world can be saved in the final decade of the Nineteenth csntury, I reply because it is r.ot a grtat undertaking, considering the number of workers that" will go at it, if once persuaded it can be done. We have sifted the five hundred million of workers down to four hundred million and three hundred million and two hun dred miLlion and one hundred million and to fifty million. I went to work to cipher out now many souls that number could oring to God in ten years, if each one brought a soul every year, and if each soul so brought should bring another each succeeding year. I found out, aided by a professor in mathematics, that we did not need anything like such a number of workers enlisted. You see it is simply a question of mathematics and in geometrical progression. Then I gave to the learned proiessor this problem: How many persons would it require to start with if each one brought a soul into the kingdom each year for ten years and each one brought another each succeed' :0 :ar, in order to have fourteen hundiv ? million people saved or the population of the v"thatpresent? His answer was two million ^ 1 hundred and fifty-four thousand three h.. d and seventy-five workers. So you seel.- vhen I sifted the five hundred million i. nal Christians of the earth down to fifty ml . ou and stopped there, I retained for this w< . forty-seven million people too many. The . it is in glorious mathematics, quoderat < .lonstrandum. Do you tell me that. God <" "5 not care for mathematics? Then you h.. >. never seen the Giant's Causeway where ' d shows His regard for the hexagonal in hole ranges of rocky columns witn six siae. id six angles. Then you have not studied ; geometry of a bee's honeycomb with si> des and six angles. Then you have not 120: iced what regard God has for the square; the altar or the ancient tabernacle four square, the breastplate four square, the court of the temple in Ezekiel's vision four square, the New Jerusalem laid out four square. Or you have not noticed his regard for the circle by making it his throne, "sitting on the circle of the earth," and fashioning sun and moon and stars in a circle and sending our planetary system around other systa:ns in a circle and the whole universe sweeping around the throne of God in a circle. And as to His regard for mathematical numbers, He makes the fourth book in His Bible the Book of Numbers, and numbers the hosts of Israel, and numbers the troops of Sennacherib, and numbers Solomon's hewers in the forest, and numbers the spearsmen,aud numbers the footmen, and numbers the converts at Pentecost, and numbers the chariots of God rolling down the steps of heaven. So I have a right to enlist mathematics for the demonstration of the easy possibility of bringing the whole world to God in the coming decade by simple process of solicitation, each one only having to bring one a year ; although I want to take in forty thousand and I know men now alive who, I think, by pen or voice, or both, directly or [ indirectly, -will take hundreds of thousands each. So you ssa that that will discharge some of the 2,75-i,3*'o from the necessity of taking any. Another reason why I know it can be done is that we may divide"the work up among the denominations. God does not ask any ono denomination to do the work or any dozen denominations. The work can be divided and is being divided up. not ^eographica11y, but according to the temperaments of vho human family. We cannot say to one denomination. You take Persia, and another. You take China, and another. You rake India, because there are ail styles of temperaments in ail nations. And some denominations are especially adapted to wor* with people of sanguine tempsrament. or plegmatic temperament or choleric temperament or bilious temperament oi- nervous temperament or lymphatic temperament. The Episcopal Church will do its most effective work with those who by tasto prefer the stately and ritualistic. The Methodist church will do its best work among the emotional and demonstrative. The Presbyterian church will do its best work among those who like strong doctrine and the stately service softened by the emotional. So each denomination will have certain kinds of people whom it will especially affect. So let the work be divided up. There are the seven hundred and fifty thousand Christians of the Presj bvterian Church, North, and other hundreds . I of thousands in the Presbvterian Church, | South, and all foreign Presbyterians, more es. pecially Scotch, English and Irish, making, I guess, about two million Presbyterians; the Methodist Church is still larger; the Church of England on both sides tho sea still larger; and many other denominations as much, if not more, consecrated than any I have mentioned. Divide up the world's evangelization among these denominations after they are persuaded it can be done before the Nineteenth century is dead, and the last Hottentot, the last Turk, the last Japanese, the last American, the last European, the last Asiatic, tho last African will see the salvation of God before he sees the opening gate of the Twentieth century. Again, I feel tho whole world can be saved in the time specified, because we have all manner of machinery requisite. It is not as though we had to build the printing presses; . they are all built and running day and night, those printing religious papers (925 of those religious papers in this country), those printing religious tracts ana those printing religious books. And thousands of printing presses now in the service of the devil could be brought and set to work in the service of Cod, Why was the printing press invented ? To turn out billheads and circulars of patent medicines and tell the news which in three weeks will be of no importance ? Prom the old-time Franklin printing press on up to the Lord Stanhope's press and the WMhinctan nress and the Victory press to Hoe's perfecting printing press that machine has been improving for its best work and its final work, namely, the publication of the glad tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. We have the presses, or can have them before the first of January when the new decade is to begin, to put a Bible in the hand of every son and daughter of Adam and Eve now living, and if such person cannot read we can have a colporteur, an evangelist or missionary to read it to him or her. But this brings me to the adjoining thought; namely, we have the money to do the work. I mean the fifty million of Christians have it. Aye, the two million seven hundred and fiftyfour thousand Christians have it; and the dam which is beginning to leak will soon break and there will be rushing floods of hundred and millions ana billions of dollars in holy contribution when you persuade the wealthy men of the kingdom of God that the speeay conversion of the world is a possibility and that Isaiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and St. John will not stand in the way of it but help it on. I have no sympathy with this bombardment of rich men. We would each one be worth five million dollars if we could, and by hard persuasion might perhaps bo induced to take fifteen million. Almost every paper I take up tells of some wealthy man who has endowed a college or built a church or a hospital or a free library, and that thing is going to multiply until the treasury of all our denominations and reformatory organizations will be overwhelmed with munificence if we can persuade our men of wealth that the world's evangelization is possible and that they may live to see it with their own eyes. I have always cherished the idea that wnen the world is converted we would be allowed to come out on the battlements of heaven and sea the bannered procession and the bonfires of victory. But I would like to see the procession closer by and just be permitted myself to throw on a fagot for a nigger bonfires. And if you persuade our men of wealth that there is a possibility for them to join on earth in the universaT glee of a redeemed planet, instead of laborious beseeching for funds and arguing and flattering in order to get a contribution for ChriOTian objects our men of wealth will stand in line as, at a postoffice window or a railroad ticket office, but in tins case waiting for their turn to make charitable deposit. The Gentiles are not long going to allow themselves to be eclipsed by Mr. Hirsch, the Jew, who has just given forty million dollars for schools in Franco. Germany and Russia. I rejoice that so mucu of the wealth of the world is coming into the possession of Christian men and women. And although the original church was very poor, and its members were ma UUttlCl a Uii tuo uauao ui uamocj uuu uuu only such stock on hand as they could take in their own net, today in the hands of Christian. ?nen and woman there is enough money to print Eibles and build churches and support missionaries under God in ten years to save the world. Again, I think that the world's evangelization can be achieved in the time specified because we nave already the theological institutions necessary for this work. We do not have uo build them; they are built and they arefiiicd wi'.h tens of thousands of young men and there will be three sets or students who will graduate into the ministry before the close of this century, and once have them understand that instead of preaching thirty or forty years and taking into the kingdom of God a few hundred souls, right before them is the Sedan, is the Armageddon, and these young men, instead of entering. the ministry timid and with apologetic air, will feel like, David who came up just as the armies were set in array and he left his carriage and shcuted for the battle and cried: "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?" and with five gravel stones skillfully flung sent sprawling the bragging ten footer, his mouth into the dust and his heels into the air. My friends, what but such a consummation could be a fit climax to this century? You notice a tendency in history and all about us to a climax, xne creanon ween rising from herbs to fish and from fish to bird and from to bird to quadruped and from quadruped to immortal man. The Mew Testament rising from quiet genealogical table in Matthew to apocalyptic doxology in Revelation. Now, what can be an appropriate rjimax to this century, tAich has heard the puff of the first steamer and the throb of the first stethoscope-and the chcb of the first telegraph and tie clatter of the first sewing machine, and saw the flash of the first electric light and the revolution of the first steam plow, and the law of storms was written, J and the- American Bible society and American Tract society were born; and instead of an audience laughing down Dr. Carey for advocating foreign missions, as was done at Northampton in England in the last century, now all denominations vying with each other as to who shall go the furtherest and the soonest ' into the darkest of the New Hebrides; j and three hundred thousand souIb have been born to God in the South Sea ( Islands, and Micronesia and Melanesia and Malayan Polynesia have been set in the crown of Christ, and David Livingstone has j unveiled Africa and the last bolted gate of ' barbaric nations has swung wide open to let the Gospel in. What, I ask, with a thousand ^ interrogation jxunujjiii1*511, v^m uo u nu, <ui appropriate and sufficient climax except it -be a world redeemed ? , Yea, I believe it can be done if we get prepared for it, because the whole air and the whole heaven is full of willing help. "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth?' We make an awful mistake if we calculate only on the forces we can see. The mightiest army is in the air. My hrethern, so much of selfishness ana pride end rivalry and bad motives of all kinds get into our work here that we are hindered. 'But tho mighty souls that have gone up to the flying armies of the sky have toft all imperfection behind; and these souls are with us ard without a fanlt and with perfect natures are on our side. You cannot make me believe that after toilins here for long years fbr the redemption of the world until from exhaustion some of them fell into their graves they have ceased their interest in the stupendous conflict now raging, or that they are going to decline their help. Irenseus Prime I Honored on earth, but now glorified in heaven, have you forgotten the work toward which you gave for more than half a century your gracious life, your loving voice and your matchless pen? No! Then come down and help. Alexander Duff! Have you forgotten the millions of India for whosa salvation you suffered in Hindoo jungle and thundered on missionary platform? No! Then come down and help. David Brainardl Have you forgotten the aborigines to whom you preached and for whom you prayed until you could preaoh and pray no more, lying down delirious amid the miftflmas of the swamp? No! Then come down and help. Moncrieff and Freeman and Campbell! Have you forgotten Lucknow and Cawnpore? No! Then come down and help. I rub out of my eyes the stupidity and unbelief, and I, the servant of these great Elishas in the Gospel, see the mountains all round about are full of horses of fire and chariots of fire; and they head this way. Hovered over are we by great clouds of witnesses and helpers! Clouds of apostles in the air led on by Paul! Clouds of martyrs in the air led on by Stephen! Clouds of prophets in the air led on by Isaiah! Clouds of Datriarchs in the air led on by Abraham! Clouds of ancient warriors in the air led on by Joshua, and that Bible warriorat whose pravers astronomy once halted over Ajalon and Gibeon seems now to lift one hand toward the descending sun of this century, and the other hand toward the moon of the last decade, saying: " Stand thou still till the church of Goa gets flia flnol "rriMwrrr f" Then let us take what remains of this decade to get ready for the final decade of the Nineteenth century. You and I may not live to see that decade or may not live to see its close, but that shall not hinder me from declaring the magnificent possibility. I confess that the mistake of my life has been, not that I did not work hard?for I could not have worked harder and lived, as God knows and my family know?but that I have not worked under the realization that the salvation of this world was a nearby possibility. But whether we see it, the beginning or the closing of that decade, is of no importance, if only that decade can get the coronation, and then all decades shall kneel before this enthroned decade, and even the gray grown centuries will cast their crowns before it and It will be the most honored decade between the time when the morning stars sang together as the libretto of worlds was opened and the time when the mighty angel, robed in cloud and garlanded in rainbow, shall, with one foot on the sea and the other on the land, swear by Him that liveth forever and ever, that time shall be no longer. Alleluia! Amen! SrEDICAL USE OF ALCOHOL. The undoubted fact that medicinal drugs, In three or four repititions of the dose, have often proved sufficient to initiate the alcohol habit, is as grave on argument against the prescription of such stimulants as is the <rircumstance that a single dose of the same liquors is almost sure to rekindle the latent passion of a reformed drunkard, and thrust nim back into the whirlpool of misery, like a shipwrecked mariner pushed down from the saving rocks which he had reached only by force of utmost efforts. But the cogency of that argument is still strengthened by the testimony of eminent physicians who have found that alcohol, even for the direct purposes of its medical use, is not only a dispensable but a pernicious drug. Dr. Andrew Clark, of London, court physician of the royal family and a specialist in the cure of nervous and digestive disorders, admits that "alcohol is not only not a helper of remedial work, but a certain hinderer, and | every man who comes to the front of the profession is sore to come to a similar conclusion." "Tho banishment of alcohol," says the editor of the Boston Journal of Chemistry, "would not deprive us of a single one of the indispensable agents which modern civilization demands. Neither would chemical science bo retarded by its loss. In no instance of disease in any form is it a medicine winch might not be dispensed with ana other agents substituted." The belief in the value of alcohol as a digestive tonic is exactly analogous to the popular fallacy which mistakes a process of irritation for a process of invigoration, and which in this case accepts the effect of a digestive poison-fever as an evidence of restored health. In its effort of self-preservation, the vital organism works with feverish energy to expel a fife-endangering poison, but that task once accomplished, the abnormal activity of the system yields to a torpor of exhaustion, which in its turn has to be relieved by a more reckless application of the spur, tfll tho repetition of the outrage ends in a total collapse of vital vigor. It is equally certain that the alleged antipyretic, or fever-preventing effect of alcohol, is founded merely on the circumstance that the animal organism can rarely attend to more than one discaso at a time. A severe burn will, for a time, confer immunity from the tortures of a bad toothache. A severe catarrh will "break" a spell of obstinate asthma. A sick headache will give way to the effects of a sprain, though after a reduction of the swelling, the former trouble is apt to reappear. For similar reasons malaria may postpone its attack upon a system surcharged with tho poison of alcoholic drugs. The (transient) effect of a serpent-bite may actually be neutralized by brandy (though other drugs will answer tho same purpose as promptly, and with less collateral risk), but unlike tne virus administered by the snapbite of a rattle-snake, malaria can afford to bide its time, and is sure to repeat its attack, too often with the result of forcing the surrender of a citadel weakened by an assault from another side. ' Onlv a few weeks asro Mr. Archibald, the I Mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, published a memorandum to demonstrate the advantage of total abstinence habits in resisting tho contagion of yellow fever, and Dr. Livingston has left a record of his experience in testing that principle under climatic conditions that defied all other precautions. "From my own knowledge," says the author of "Tropical Diseases," "as well as from the observation of others, I am convinced that those who drink nothing but water, or make it their principal drink, are but little affected by the climate, can undergo the greatest fatigue without inconvenience, and are less subject to contagious or dangerous diseases." Even in the higher latitudes, tho contagiousness rf summer diseases assumes its deadliest forms in alcoholized communities. "The use of alcoholic drinks," says Dr. R. E. Adams, "I have found to be a great disposing cause of malignant disorders. So strong is my opinion on this point, that, were I given authority and power, I would placard , every spirit-shop in town with these words: 'Cholera sold here!' "?Dr. Oswald, in the Voiee. A CYCLONE OP PBOHIBITION'. "A cyclone of prohibition," says the New York World, has burst upon Kansas City, Kan., to its sudden and thorough cleansing. A.t the last election Joseph Fife was chosen County Prosecutor with the understanding that he would suppress the notorious dives defying the law. His vigorous action at once resulted in sending a dozen liquor dealers to prison for long terms, besides imposing on . - a * m/V. 1 ? chrrma encn u nuc ui fiw iux o?wj v* ?v*vu0 drink of the sale of which he had been convicted. One man was tried far setting twentythroe glasses of beer and was found guilty on every count. He was accordingly sentenced to pay $2300 and to spend 090 aays in lafi. Thirty-five others were m prison a few days ago awaiting trial. Protestor Fife's unusual music reeerae hearty encores from the citizens and a grand ri earing out of tb? "joints" is prophesied I A CHINESE EXECUTION I ? | HORRIBLE FEATURES OP ORII ENTAL JUSTICE. Canton'3 Execution Ground?Slicing a Criminal to Death?Strangulation and Decapitation. Three coolies carried rue in a chair from the court in Canton to the execution ground and I had a chat with the executioner, writes Frank G. Carpenter, nu: TT^ nuiii vuuui. XLt; wiia a uuobjr, i?VLiyf j blood-thirsty looking fellow, with hair an inch long standing out like bristles over the front of his head and about his cue. He had not been busy for several days, and he took delight in explaining to me the use of the heavy sword and the scientific cuts which he made with it. The sword was about four feet long. It has a blade as sharp as a razor and it is about a quarter of an inch thick at the buck and more than two inohes wide. He used both hands in swinging it about, and he told me that my neck would be an easy one to slice off but that he would not like to have to cut up my thin frame by the slicing process. This execution ground of Canton is used as a crockery factory, and the making of pots goes on when executions are not in progress. It is a narrow court between two high walls, on the banks of the Canton River, and the heads are cut off in the open air. Upon my asking what was done -with the heads of the criminals, he told me, through my interpreter, that they were often thrown into jars of quicklime, and that he would take one out and show me for the sum of 10 cents. In the interest of your paper I subscribed this amount, and he pulled out a half eaten skull by the pigtail and showed its ghastly ugliness to me. There were ab:>ut a dozen of these earthen jars, at the back of this exec a- j tion ground. They were of the size of: a twenty-gallon keg and weie covered j with paoer. They were full of heads \ and probably represented a year's executions. As soon as the head is taken off it is carried up to the magistrate or officers in charge and shown, and it is often exposed in a cage or on a pole as a warning to others. The cages in which the heads are put are of the size of little bird cages, and when the heads are tied to trees or poles they hang down by the cue. At the back of this execution ground j stood half a dozen wooden crosses. If you -will take a piece of telegraph pole eight feet long and set a similar pole five feet lone into it at right angles two feet from the top you will have the Chinese cross. It is upon these crosses that the criminals are bound when they are to undergo the punishment of Ling Chi or slicing to death, which is the sentence for all who murder a brother, a parent, a teacher, a husband, or an uncle. The criminal is stripped and his feet are raised upon a brick or stone. His cue is tied up to the cross and his arms are stretched out upon its arms. A British naval officer, whom I met at Hong Kong, described an execution of this kind which he witnessed a few weeks ago. , "It made me feel very green at first," said he; "but after it was begun I could not keep my eyes off of it. I have had the experience over again three times in my dreams and I -would not want to see it again. I had the best guide in Canton, and we saw the execution from the roof of one of the buildings beside the execution ground. There were two criminals and it took about thirty minutes to cut eaoh of them to pieces. The first cut sliced off the cheeks and the second the ; eyebrows. After these a man held a fan before the faces of the prisoners and all we could see of them was the blood running down upon their bodies. The next cut was of the flesh between the hand and the elbow, and the arteries were first bound above the places cut so that the man would not bleed to death before the ceremony was completed. Then the ; shoulders were cut off; then the flesh of the thighs, and after this the calves of the legs. The seventeenth cuts removed the hands, and the last cut took the head from the body. "*In both cases the men did not faint away. The pain was too terrible. They could not cry out, as they were gagged, and their writhings were horrible. The last cut killed them. It was not a very j safe place for myself and my friend. There were several hundred Chinese present, and a more hardened-looking Bet I- have never seen. They caught sight of us, and the boys among them began to yell at us and to take their fingers and draw them around their throats, pointing at us as though they would cut our heads off. Our guide got frightened, and he took us down and put us in the cellar of the house through a trap door, where we stayed for a counl? nf Tinnrs until the crowd had dis persed. They were very threatening, and the bloodthirsty sight had roused their passion to such an extent that if they had caught hold of us our lives would not have been safe." Mr. Cheshire, the Chinese Secretary of our Legation at Peking, and one of the ablest of our representatives in China, pursued his studies of the Chinese language in Chinese clothes, living in a Chinese house and wearing a cue. He went into all parts of the Chinese cities and into the most out-of-the-way places. He described to me two executions which he witnessed?one by strangulation and the other by decapitation. " The Chinese," said he, "prefer to be strangled rather than to have their heads cut off. The man who is beheaded ; can only come to earth again to fill the : office of executioner, and this is the ; vilest of Chinese occupations. Strang- ! ling is a respectable method of taking : off. It is inflicted on kidnappers and ' on all thieves who steal articles of more than five hundred dollars in value. The 1 prisoner is fastened to a cross, and a < strong piece of twine is tied around his neck and fastened at the uppei- jmrt of j the perpendicular bar. Such deaths are ] slow, and another method is twisting the ; cord until the man dies. The agony I ( cannot describe, but I shall never forget i the strangled man's face." 1 "The man I saw decapitated,"contin- ,1 ued Mr. Cheshire, "was forced to kneel, i His hands were tied behind him, throw- i ing his neck to the front, and the exe- i outioner pulled the head further out by | holding on to the man's cue. One blow j; of the sword severed the neok, and the ! i executioner ran with the head to the magistrate. At this execution half a j dozen prisoners were brought to the ex / ..V . * ^ # *' ? ^ ecution ground, but only one of them was belieaded, the sentence of the others1^ being commuted at the last moment. Before the execution took plaoe I "walked among the prisoners, smoking. One of them asked me for a cigar and I gave it to him. He lighted it and smoked with gusto. It was this very man who was picked out of the half dozen to have his head cut off. Curious, wasn't it?" I might fill another column with the stories I have heard of Chinese punishments and crime. The bamboo, which grows to the height of fifty feet and upward, gets its entire growth in a few weeks. I have heard of prisoners tied over plants and of these growing through them. For certain offenses prisoners are buried up to their necks and those who go by them are expected to add a clod to the pile. They do not, I am told, hesitate to do this, and this Chinese civilization, founded upon Buddhism, Confucianism and so-called literary culture, is productive of such men and audi scenes. Do you wonder that there is room for missionaries? I don't. . Fbank G. Cabpekteb. An Amusing Nautical Yarn. Captain Crosby, of a Nova Scotian bark, is a jolly old sea dog, well knowiL as a veteran of the coasting trade. About \ lilty years of a^e, broad-shouldered, and j heavily built, his face thickly covered with a black beard, the Captain is easily the ideal skipper of the sea. "On a recent voyage to New York," said the Captain, "I carried a cargo con! sisting in part of some 500 bags of hagel nuts. When we made port "the owner of the cargo came on board. I assured him of its safety, and together we went J through the ship. Everything was right until we came to the nuts. Imagine our surprise to see the bags torn and ' the nuts lying scattered in- neaps here and there. A small hole had been gnawed in the end of each nut and the Treat extracted as clean as a whistle. Tl:e work of rats, of course. "The next day a sallow-faced chap , wearing his hair down to hie shoulders came on board, said he was a professional rat-catcher, and offered to dear the ship for $3. I engaged his services on the spot. Descending into the hold with no visible implements but a large bag and a dark lantern, the hatches were closed, and after a lapse of saveral hours the fellow reappeared, his bag fall of rodents. I paid over the money and he left the ship. When upon the dock he turned, leered at me and deliberately let fall the bag. The rats bounded forth, and every one of them made for the ship they had so lately left A carious sight it was, too, I assure you. "Before I could make a move the fellow took to his heels, stopping only long enough to bawl out that he'd do the work over again for another $5. If I only had him here," continued the irate Captain, warming up under the recital of his wrongs, ''I'd make him walk the plank," A result of the loss of the nuts was to develop a curious point in nautical law. The ciwner of the cargo sued to recover the value of the nuts, but as Captain Crosby proved that he kept a cat on board the ship during the voyage the Court held that he had taken reasonable precaution and disirtissed the suit. S* Captain John Ericsson's Diary; A characteristic incident in the life of Capt. John Ericsson was one which has not appeared in any of the newspaper sketches of the great inventor's career. For nearly 50 years Capt. Ericsson had kept a diary, or a series of diaries, in which he every evening covered a full page with the history of the day?the work he had accomplished, that which he proposed doing on the folio wing day, suggestions made by and to him, and his opinions concerning the character of work done and in progress. Added to these entries were frequently oirinions of other men's ideas and tneir work which had been brought to his notice, and in many years these volumes increased to a very large number. In the whole period of time mentioned there were only 20'days?in 1856? wlien tms daily custom was aepartea from, and then only because Capt. Ericsson had had his hand disabled by machinery and was unable to "write. No one ever was permitted to read this daily history, and the volumes were always kept in the Captain's own room. About two and a half years ago, when Froude published his "Life of Thomas Carlyle" and his "Eeminiscences," Capt. Ericsson -was much disgusted by the publication of letters and other documents by Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle, which he thought never should have been put into print, and the night after he had finished these works he called his private secretary, Mr. Taylor, into his room, und commanded him to take the volumes of his diary away and de-^ stroy them. There were many things r in the diarv, he said, that he shouiak. i A J TVisil never tu seu me ugui ui u?>, wu tlie surest way to prevent such a thing was to destroy every volume. Mr. Taylor put the leaves of the big book under a cutting machine and cut them into millions of pieces. The only thing now left of this valuable record consists of the pasteboard covers of the volumes, which Mr. Taylor has preserved. French Journalistic Enterprise. There seems to be considerable enterprise among the French, judging by the following incident, told by a French reporter: There had been a fearful mur der in tne country, anu mw euiwi som me down to form a theory, and, if possible, get ahead of the police in arresting the murderer. Three days later I returned and reported progress, and three officers armed themselves and set off with me, and about eleven o'clock we reached the spot where the suspiciouslookincr nerson had been in the habit of loitering about. Suddenly, as we turn- I ed a corner, we almost ran against a pal? and haggard-looking man, nnsweringrjJ the description I had received. "That'll the man! I cried. The wretch starta^H to run, but was instantly secured, bounVa and dragged to the station. The Con^J missaii'e questioned him?and let hii^H ?*o. He wasn't the man. "Well, whe^^| you found you had been instrumental iflH causing the arrest of an innocent manj^H what did you then?" "Secured him a^H a subscriber to the paper, of course, Texas Siftings.