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6 ? r. ?? | __ THE WEAVEP. i I stood in the rcom of a weaver. Then watching the shuttles fly, And the colors as they blended, j Like a rainbow in the sky. ! His eyes were fixed on the pattern 1 | As he wrought the figure fine, So wonderful in its beauty, 1 i So marvelous in design. t How earnestly he is looking; a nc turns hoc 10 gaze away i\ From the figure he is weaving, I c Or the shuttles in their play. * I He knows if a thread is broken, i Or a color be misplaced. It would mar the costly fabric, j And could uever be effaced. s I watched, and watched, nor graw weary, J And these thoughts came to my mind: That we. all of us, are weavers, ?. And God has made the desijrn: Has drawn a beautiful pattern, For us to work by each day; Is helping us with the shuttles. Is guiding them in their play. } But there oftentimes come moments When we tir?, and listless stand; t Grow forgetful of the pattern, And seek not the helping hand. Only a moment we turn back, s Then cry out with grief and pain. "O, Father! see the broken threads 9 We cannot make whole again." a When our weaving is all finished, And our looms stand idly by; When our work, its imperfection, i Is seen by the Master's eye, May we hear these words, rejoicing: "Though many threads are riven, ? And mars and stains thy fabric beax's, For these, thou art forgiven " P ?Home Magazine. ? COUSIN CASSANDRA. J BY HELEN FCF.BEST GRAVES. f, The March winds were blowing their < trumpets down Shegauk Valley, as only y March winds know how to blow, and the p daffodil glow of sunset lay over the C brown fields, streaked here and there in shady corners with bars of late lingering 0 snow, as Patty Greer came to the kitchen << door to shake the crumbs off the table- ai clotb. n "How pretty it looks down the valley!" she thought. "I'm glad Grand- o lather Greer built this house just here, si instead of under the rocks. One gets such a view! I do believe the maples si along the edge of the swamp are begin- I ning to redden already. And there," with a flush on her cheeks which almost tc rivaled the red of the maple copse, "is si iP^M^AjpsLTcrnplc?at least, I think it's he? si coming by Old Mill I I shouldu't a bit it wonder if he were coming here." She stood a moment, watching the ft black speck against the daffodil shine; a moment more, her lips apart,her brown B Ru>"; eyes strained! la "Patty!" called her mother. "Why tc on airth don't you shut that door? The b: cold draught comcs in like a hull pack tl o' wolves!" tl VI?I?was?only looking," said p Patty, as she closed the door with a n V', sigh. The black speck had disappeared; it fi ^ did not reappear again. " "I thought so," said Cousin Cassandra, ri a lean, high-shouldered woman, with a ti tuft of 6canty flax-colored hair, hair- o pinned on the top of her head, and a o checked cape drawn across her narrow <t gj^^a?4]M*riders. c< She spoke so closc to th3 girl's car ai that Patty gave a little jump. li "Thought what?" said she. a ! "That he'd gone into Lewis Ilibbard's p etore," nodded Cassandra. uThe young h fellers they're all dreadful partial t> c 3H Lew's store sencc they putin the billiard tables. Dear me! dear mc! I do wonder C what this world is comin' to!" The red in Patty Greer's cheeks was w genuine peony color now. d tlI don't see what harm it is," she re- 3 torted, "if he has stopped in for a min- ri ute." "I do!" said Miss Cassandra. "Anv. al thing but a dissipated young man!" I "He isn't dissipated!" cried Patty. s' "Well, p'r'aps he ain't," said Cassan- i! dra. "I'm sure I hope so. But there n ain't nothin' would induce rac to marry a man as there "was the least doubts of!" "What a comfort it is that you have y ncrcr been tempted in that way!" stud Fatty, vindictively, as she folded the tablecloth in a series of jerks and put it into the closet. L nd then Patty went up to her own room and had a good cry. w jl do think," she said to herself, "that CtWsin Cassy is the most spiteful creature I ever knev! But, all the same, Arad ti might have come here to-night. He knew I was expecting him." When her eyes were dried at last and C her new frill satisfactorily adjusted, t' Patty came down stairs. a But the wistful glance she cast into si the room was unrewarded. No one was there but her mother, piecing patch- C work, on one side of thechimncy-corncr, and Cousin Cassandra, knitting a pre- b TiACf OrAllcl rr 1*1.???? ' * J?vw vvi VUOIJ UlUU \ttI Llj 11 ? ".-! the other. ~~*Aud the sabjcct of conversation had apparently remained unaltered, for Cousin Cassandra was still hammering away on ^ Lewis llibbard and ihe new billiard . tables. "It's what I call a snare for souls?" groaned she. "Them balls a-clickin1 about and the doors always opened wide, t< for every loafer in Shegauk to stray into! ' I allays did despise Lew llibbard?a lazy, shiftless crectur', like all the Hib- c bards afore him! They do say he druv . his first wife into her grave, and his ^ second only lived two j'tar, out of pure grit. Parson Poolev he says, if the j, women o' Shegauk would only take a jj stind?Oh, Patty, is that you 2 Well, ^ I've put the dried apples in soak for the sass to-morrow, and the meat is ready to ?Chop for mince pies." r Fatty had seated herself at the table ^ and listlessly taken up a book. . "I don't want to chop incut to-night," j. said she. "To-morrow morning will do just as well." "Disapp'inted!" whispered Miss Cassandra, behind her hand, to Mrs. Greer, j who was slightly deaf. "Suit 'o calc'latcd on Arod Temple bein' here to- a night. Wal, mebbe it's just as v.-ell. t Arad he's too partial to Lew Hibbard's <1 place." ji Patty could have murdered Cousin o Cassandra. She jumped up and went to o the door to let the cat in. t "Why, Arad!" she exclaimed, as I pussy darted in, and a tall figure ap t ^ peared in the background. t Cousin Cassandra opened the inuer t door and craned her neck forward. a "Well, I never I" said she. "It's you, \ arter all, ain't it? We sort o' reckoned, j me and Patty, that you'd found your way t to that new store o' Lew Hibbard's." "I did stop in there," said Ared, cooly. Miss Cassy shook her head. "I knew it," saii she, "jest as well's f I'd seen ye with my own eyes." Mrs. Greer lighted the fire in the best oom, with true maternal solicitude. "What's that for?" asked Miss Cassy. 'Ye don't s'nose. do tc. that they'll hev tnything to say that we can't hear jest's veil's not? I wouldn't let Patty keep :ompany with auy mail that goes to Lew libbard's place, cf I was you, Sarah; t's a reg'lar well of iniquity!" "I guess Arad Temple's a pretty steady rouug man," said Mrs. Greer, timidly, as be adjusted the best duplex lamp ou the able, and set the big family Bible and he new photograph album straight. Cousin Cassandra stalked grimly out if the room. "Don't say I didn't warn you!'' said he. Patty came to her mother that night ust as the big kitchen clock was strikng eleveu. "Mother," said she, "Arad Temple las asked me to be his wife." Mrs. Greer looked quickly up. "What did you tell him, Patty?" said lie. "I?said?yes! Oh, mother, why houldn't I? He is so good, so nice? nd he loves me so dearly!" "But your Cousin Cassandra thinks?" "Mother," whispered Patty, nestling ier head down on her mother's shoulder, 'I did say something about Lewis Ilib ard's store. I made believe I was anry, mother, and he looked so hurt, and e let my hand fall so, mother" (with a retty little piece of pantomine), "and he aid, 'If you can't trust me in every(ring, Patty, don't trust mc at all!' And said I'd trust him, mother, to the very ad. Did I do right?" "Well," said Mrs. Greer, tenderly ensldiug Patty with her loving arms, 'it's just the answer I should have made our father, Patty, when eve kepi comaay; that's all I know. And your ousin Cassandra?" "Oh, let Causin Cassandra mind licr wn business!" said Patty, coloring up. She always was a medding, prying, disgreeable" old maid, and I think she rows worse every year." Miss Cassandra Greer heard the news f the engagement with an ominous jake of the head. "It's a dreadful resky thing," said ic. "I wouldn't run the chauce, that know i" r Patty had it on the tip of her tongue ) retort that it was extremely unlikely ic would be called upon to hazard any ich danger, but she thought better of and didn't, She was so happy that she could af>rd to be magnanimous! "Me and Mrs. Squire Rudder and Mis3 etsty Hall and some other of the church idies," said Miss Cassy, "we're gwine > try and get that placc of Lewis Hibard'sshut up! And I don't thiuk none' * * 1 m 1. it- more 01 Arau muipii; iwi mo *ere so much. But law! Patty's comletely infatuated with him, and there's o use talking' to her 'bout it!" "Patty," said young Temple to his* ancee, the week before the wedding, you have trusted me, aud ycu've done ght. But I dou't like to see the oubled look ou your face whenever that Id meddler gives tongue on the subject f Hibb.ird's store. I have bceu there a nod deal lately, but I've never spent a ant. I've been earning money instead, t my trade, putting up a new barn and ne of sheds at the rear?and that was iv business there! But I wouldn't lease Cousin Cassy so much as to tell er that. Isn't it strange that people im't mind their own business?" "Oh," said Patty, laughing, "Cousin assandra never could!" Patty was sewing the last fleurette of hite ribbon on the unpretending weding gown of snowy albatross, when Iiss Cassandra came in, rather fluried. ""White may do very well for you," lie said; "but for a woman o' my years, sort o' think dove color would be more uitable. IIow many yards d'ye think ; would take, Patty, for a dress for le?" The girl opened her eyes very wide. "Wily, UOUSia ^assy, saiu nuc, .uc ou going to be married?" Miss Cnssy gave a spasmodic giggle. "Why, yes," said she, "I am." "To Parson Pooley?" gasped Patty. Miss Cassandra shook her head. "He's too bigoted," said she. "I rouldn't hev him!" "Peleg Rudder!" "La\ no! He's poorer'n Job's nrkey." "Who is it, then":" "He's a good, well-to-do widower, "said 'assandia; "end a man that has buried tvo wives will know how to take care of third; aud in his business he needs a lirria', active helpmate." "But you haven't told me who it is; 'ousiu Cassy?" persisted Patty. "Hain't I? La' me, how forgetful I c!" simpered Miss Cassandra. "Why? ;'s Lewis Ilibbird?"?Siturday Niyht. Coolies iu Peru. The Chinese coolies in Peru have renewed useful service, the railway system ciug in greater part the work of their ands. Owing, however, to ttae oaruarus treatmeut which they have received, nd still receive ou certain properties, lie Chinese Government has prohibited migration to I'eru, and the supply ofoolie labor is thus at an cad. On some states the coolies are compelled to work i irons to prevent their running away, 'hey are also looked up at night, and ndergo cruel tortures when punishment s exercised. The truck system prevailtig, the poor coolie is always in debt to is master, who often makes a profit ven upon the opium retailed in part paylent of wages. To the credit of the 'cruvians, however, it should be said 1 liat the estates in Peru chiefly conspicuus for the maltreatment of the Chinese iborers arc owned and managed by forigners.? Kate Field's Wathuigtvn. Dentistry in China. Dr. Duly remarks that Chinese teeth re much more easily extracted thau lir>?r> of the Europeans. The native lentists arc sai'\ to possess a wonderful lowder, which is rubbed on the gum vur the affected tooth; after an interval T about five minutes the patient is told o sneeze, whereupon the tooth falls out. )r. Daly has offered a reward of $100 o any one performing the operation in his way in his prcsencc on condition hat lie is allowed to choose the tooth ,fld examiue the mouth before and afterward. So far no one will consent to jerform the operation on these condiions.?British and Colonial Druggist. WOMAN'S WORLD ' PLEASANT LITERATURE FOR FEMININE READERS. I 5IARTIIA WASHINGTON 111 YEARS OI.D. The ladies of Trinity A. M. E. Zion Church, Lorn? Branch, N. J., recently pave a Martha Washington tea party. The feature of the party was the impersonation of Martha Washington by Aunt Judy Cummins, who is 111 years old. Mrs. Cummins is spry and enjoys good health. She surprised the young folks by the case and grace with which she led the grand march.?New York Sun. A NECKLACE CREATES A SENSATION. fAn Empress's necklace has been creating quite a sensation in Madrid for its beauty and its great value, as well as for its historic associations. The necklace belonged to the Empress Eugene and was a nresont from Ismael, the Viceroy of Egypt,who sent it to the Empress in 1869 on the occasion of her visit to open the Suez Caual. A few years ago all the Crown diamonds and jewels were put up to auction by the Republic. Among the buyers was a jeweler from Madrid, who bought the necklace because the Empress Eugene was a Spaniard by birth. The necklace consists of great pearls of singular beauty and is priced at $75,000.?San Franctico Examiner. SUICIDES BT LITERARY WOMEN'. Froken Minna Telenius, from Finland, who the other day committed suicide at a Copenhagen hotel, is the third authoress who within some two or three years has taken her own life in the D.in.ish capital. The two others were Fru T _i. Al_ 1! 1 Victoria ueaeaictssou, wc ncu^uuwu Swedish lady writer,better known under her nom de plume as Arn3t Ahlgren, and the young Danish lady, Froken Adda Roonkilde. Literature not having brought them the fame or the success they expected, they were unable to bear the disappointment. None had, however, shown more determination than the young Finnish lady who ended her life the other day. She had arranged everything with wonderful coolness and dressed herself in white before taking the deadly poison.?Chicago Post. CArES FOR SPRING WEAR. The cape3 for spring wear arc made quite long. Many of them arc finished without a yoke,the fulness being adjusted in a neck-band,to which the Medici collar is fastened. By some ingenious method the cape is slightly raised on the shoulders, and there is a pretty hood lined with a color, which gives style to what would otherwise appear a common-place and somewhat childish garment. The cape is lined throughout with silk, and ribbons to match fasten it at the throat. At present light colors are most favored, and are likely to remain popular. The Henry IV. cape is one among the many revivals of the modes of past centuries. It becomes youthful women who are tall and slim, but it is not by any means a garmeut suited to mature people, and on a short stout figure, though the wearer be young, the cape is dccidedly unbecoming.?New York Post. HAIR, HAT AND SIIOS OF 1SXGI.I3H GIRLS. One of the funuicst sights iu London at the present is found iu the hats worn oy inc younsj WUIIIUU. i\.t >aui;u^ UU1L3 the hat of the New York female has dwindled to humorously small proportions, but never has it faded to the atomic size of this present hint of head covering now fixed upon the head of feminine London. An abundance of hair is also fashionable at just thi3 time, and, with the small, butter plate arrangement slapped at a sharp angle precisely on the front of a great bush of frizzled locks, the young women seen about are better than anything in the current burlesque. Another peculiar feminine fashion of the day is that of the low shoe. The choicest girls in Mayfair wear only tho low shoe in the sloppiest and coldest weather. The sensible walking slibe of the British maiden is one of the myths that are so plentiful in the records of the English, for she makes a saddening attempt to utilize the high French heel and pointed toe, which, considering the national failing, is a very largo job for her to successfully accomplish. The hair, the hat and the shoe of the West End beauty are the only conspicuous distinctions that exist between her and her American cousin. Her garments are similar to, and as attractive, as those worn by the belles of Murray Hill.?Chicago Herald. USING VELVET ECONOMICALLY AND WELL. The judicious use of velvet enriches a gown, is universally becoming, and is the one material that ?au be used with lace, silk, wool, cotton, ctc. Ribbon velvet and grosgrain ribbon having a satin edge, are the favorite trimming ribbons, which arc put on skirts in cros3 and lengthwise rows, as bridle bows, binding on the edge of the drapery whether it be slashed, in tabs, or plain; trim panels, hold a bit of drapery here and there in a rosette, edge the basque ending in rosettes back and front, hold the lapped basquo fronts with rosctte3, trim collars in one-pointed tab on each side, form bretelles, trim the wrists,hold the fullness of sleeves in tight little bows on the outside of the arm. and trim the front of the basques irregularly, as three straps on one side and two or four on the other, coming diagonally across the front. The cabbage-rosettes spoken of are r.sed on ladies' and children's dresses and hats. They must be loose and fluffy to be a success. If made of ribbon take thirty inches of No. 12 or No. 115 ribbon, gather along one edge and pull it up to form the loose rosette, catching it lightly here and there in place. If made of piece silk or velvet, cut a bias strip two inches and a half wide when doubled, gather the two raw edges as one, draw the fulness up and form the rosette as described for the ribbon, and take a strip the width of the velvet.?Ladits Home Journal. CHICAGO WOMEN LATVTER3. Chicago is especially kind to women who practise luw, and some of them hold high places in the profession. Judge J. B. Bradwell presided at the recent dinner of the Illinois Bar Association, and his ideas on the subject may be gathered from the fact that his wife, Mrs. Myra Bradwell, has been for over twenty years the editor of the Chicago Legal News, and his daughter, Mrs. Bessie B. Helmer, has studied law, and has assisted her father in editing twelve volumes of the Appellate Reports of Illinois. The Legal News is a prosperous o.ad well-arranged journal. Mrs. Helniir, Judge Brad well's daughter, was married not long ago to a young lawyer. She is President of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. Mrs. Mary A. Ahrens, another female lawyer of Chicago, answered to the toast "Woman in the Learned Professions" at the banquet of the State Bar Association. Governor Fifer and Judge Lyman Trumbull had preceded her as speakers, but she had sufficient self-confiaence to make a graceful though modest speech. A few sentences of her speech were: "Wo man in the learned protessiou3. as a preacher, we know that she is eminently qualified to stand by the coffin and speak to those who sit broken-hearted and mourning by the side of their beloved ones; we know that out of her heart she will speak word3 of comfort and cheer; we know from the past that she no longer shrinks at the sight of blood; she is able to bind up the wound, yea, 9trong enough to use the knife and cut out that part which is infectious, and if not removed is death. In the profession of law she comes last, but she will not be the least: she comes among her learned brethren with humility enough to make her a willing pupil."?Neio York Tribune. WOMAN NOT THE WEAKER VESSEL. Arm?ng savages the woman is just as healthy as the man. Considered as an animal from a physiological standpoint, a woman is capable of more hard work, of enduring more hardship, deprivation, and disease than a man. A woman will "" i"'" a man will succumb and break down entirely. She is not naturally the weaker vessel, and certainly in some respects a woman is constitutionally the superior. Out of an equal number i of male and female infants there will be I found at the end of the first year of life : a larger number of girls alive than boys, I according to statistics. This discrepancy I continues up to the age of fifteen or sixteen, when the mortality becomes greatest among the girls. At the age of forty, or fifty the death rate is about equal in both sexes, and, finally, the oldest inhabitant is always a woman, thus showing that her constitutional fund of vitality is naturally greatest. It is sometimes argued that a woman is naturally weaker and inferior because the average weight of her brain is from lour to six 0U11CC3 les3 than that or tne average man, and that thus her intellectual quality is less as well as her physical. But when the size of a woman's brain is 1 considered in comparison with the weight | of her body, it is evident that a woman | has more brain per pound than a man; 1 and if that be a proper standard of com! parison, then woman is the superior, i There is no physical reason why a wo; man should be more feeble or diseased | than a man. Stanley was furnished with , two hutidred African women to carry his stuff into the interior of Africa, and he found them the best porters he had em! ployed, although he felt very doubtful j about accepting their services when first i proposed. The Mexican Indian womau j is able to carry her household goods on her back with two or three babies on top wheu a change of location is desirable. Meanwhile her husband trudges bravely ' along carrying his gua. On the contii nent of Europe most of the heavy work is done by women. In Vienna, women and dogs are frequently hitcheJ together, and sometimes a woman is yoked with a cow to draw a load of produce to i the city. Many of these peasant women : will carry upon their heads a load of I vegetables that few Americau men could ! easily lift. These women have the mus| clos of the waist and trunk thoroughly : developed. Despite their hardships, ; they do not suffer from the backache or ! ether ailments which the women who 1 dress fashionably are constantly afflicted I with.?Phrenological Journal. FA3HI0H NOTES. Mourning paper has a black corner only. The corslet i%becoming to almost any figure. Satin has made a great advance in favoi of late. Black dotted veils arc at the height ol fashion. A new shade of violet verging toward gray is called petunia. Small boys are to be seen in regulai man-o'-war suits this spring. On some of the spring goods the spots are as large as a small orange. The brim of a black straw hat 13 square in front and the crown is only lace. A cloak of Russian sable of the best qualitv could cost scarcely less than ?25,000. ' j Causia is the name of new soft shaggy ninth. much resembling French camel's hair. Very large plaids and wide stripes bid fair to be more popular than for many years. Undersleevcs of chiffons are put in all silk gowns aud robes made with hanging I or augel sleeves. The new perfumes and pewdcrs are ' fiut up in r;ch cut-glass bottles of unique j I shape, having silver tops. Venetian and Watteau cffccts are omJ ployed at wedding?, making them more brilliant pageants than ever. Bridesmaids' dresses for children from ten to fourteen are made in white clotlip with an abundance of stitching. The sailor hat bobs up serenely among spring head coverings, and although it cannot be heard it is sure to make itself felt. Tne new i< renca siiks are snowa iu corded grounds strewn with figures in brocaded or shot cflects, or striped with satin. Chiffon lans are novel, though costly aud fragile. They can be made to match any evening gown, but in white they arc very dainty. Tho new colors in silks for evening comprise laurel-pink, a clear rose color; rose de Noel, a pale old-rose, and bright Bengal-rose. Of all this novel boas tho most unique is the rose leaf, made by threading rose leaves on a pink cord. Violets and other held dowers ure treated iu the same way. Neat little spoons conic from Salem, which from their ornamentation of witche9 and pins are called "witch spoons." Those made for eating oranges are lined with gold and are shaped like scoops with pointed cuds. A biscuit-colored clo h was the going away dress of a recent bride. It was trimmed with black velvet and jet and rrnlil rrulnn Thfl hat WHS nf r?lr?fli linod ? , with black velvet. The coat was made or black velvet with blue and black j ' matelesse sleeves. > r ,; i -, 'Ll^J' REV. DITTALMAGE. | THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUNDAY SERMON. Subject: "The Plague of Bad Books." Text: 'And the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt." ?Ex. viii., 6, 7. There is almost a universal aversion to frogs, and yet with the Egyptian they vera honored, thoy were sacred, and they were objects of worship -while alive, and after death they were embalmed, and to-day their remains may be found among the sepulchres or meoes. .ineso creatures, so attractive once to the Egyptians, at divine behest bocame obnoxious and loathsome, and they went croaking and hopping and leaping into the palace of the king, ana into the bread trays and the couches of the people, and oven the ovens, which now are uplifted above the eart fa and on the side of chimneys, but then were small holes in the earth, with sunken pottery, were filled with frogs when the housekeepers came to look at them. If a man sat down to eat a frog alighted on his plate. If he attempted to put on a shoe it was preoccupied by a frog. If he attempted to put his head upon a pulow it had been taken possession of by a frog. Progs high and low and everywhere; loathsome irogs, slimy frogs, besieging frogs, innumerable frogs, great plague of frogs. What made the matter worse the magicians said there was no miracle in this, and they could by sleight of hand produce the same thing, and they seemed to succeed, for by sleight of hand wonders may ba wrought. After Moses had thrown down his staff and by miracle it became a serpent, and then he took hold of it and by miracle it again became a staff, the serpent charmers imitated the same thing, and knowing that there were serpents in Egypt which by a peculiar pressure on the neck would become as rigid a3 a stickof wood, they seemed to change the serpent into the staff, and then, throwing it down, the staff became the serpent. So likewise these magicians tried to imitate the plague of frogs, and perhaps by smell of food attracting a great number of them to a certain point, or by shaking them out from a hidden placs, the magicians sometimes seemed to accomplish the same miracle. While these magicians made the plague worse, none of them tried to make it bettfer. "Frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt, and the magicians did so with their enchantment, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt." Now that plague of frog3 has come back upon the earth. It is abroad to-day. It is Emitting this nation. It comes in the shape of corrupt literature. These frogs hop into the store, the shop, the office, the banking house, the factory?into the home, into the cellar, into the garret, on the drawing room table, on the shelf of the library. While the lad is reading the bad book the teacher's face is turned the other way. One of these frogs hops upon the page. While the young woman is reading the forbidden novelette after retiring at night, reading by gaslight, one of these frogs leaps upon the page. Indeed they have hopped upon the news stands of the country and the mails at the postoffice Bhake out in the letter trough hundreds of them. The plagu6 has taken at different times possession of this country. It is one of the most loathsome, one oftho mast frightful, one of the most ghastly of the ten plagues of our modern cities. Therrf is a vast number of books and newspapers printed and published which ought never to see the light. They are filled with a pestilence that makes the land swelter with a : moral epidemic, i ue greatest messing tu.it ! ever caine to this nation is that of an ele| vated literature, and the greatest scourge | has been that of unclean literature. This last has its victims in all occupations and departments. It has helped to fill insane asylums and penitentiaries and almshousss and dens of shame. Tho bodies of this infection lie in the hospitals and in the graves, while their souls are b?ing tossed over into a lost eternity, an avalanche of horror and despair. The London plague was nothing to it. That counted its victims by thousands, but this modern post has already shoveled its millions into the cliarnel bouse of the morally dead. The longest rail train that ever ran over the Erie or Hudson tracks was not long | enough nor large enough to carry the beast] liness and the putrefaction which have been , gathered up in bad books and newspapers of this land in the last tweuty years. Tho literature of a uanion decides the fate of a nation. Good books, good morals. Bad books, bad morals. I begin with the lowest of all the literature, that which does not even pretend to be respectable?from cover to cover a blotch of leprosy. There are many whoso entire business it is to dispose of that kind of literature. They display it 'oeforo the schoolboy on his way home. They get the catalogues of schools and colleges, take tho names and po3tofflce addresses, and seni their advertisements, and their circulars, 1 4-1 ! ? onrl f Krtftlrc f A Off/irTT ailU UKU paUIIJUlCU, auu uuiiu bvvBu WW w * v ? ^ od8 of them. In the possession of these dealers in bad literature wero found nine hundred thousand names and postoffice addresses, to whom it was thought it might be profitable to send these corrupt things. In the year 1873 there were one hundred and sixty-five establishments engaged in publishing cheap, corrupt literature. From one publishing house tkere went out twenty different styles of corrupt books. Although over thirty tons of vile literature have been destroyed by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, still there is enough of it left in this country to bring down upon us the jast anger of an aroused God. In the year 1868 the evil had become so great in this country that the Congress of the United States passed a law forbidding the transmission of bad literature through the United States mails, but there were large loops in that law through which criminals might crawl out, and the law was a dead failure?that law of 1863. But in 1873 another law was passed by the Congress of the United States against the transmission of corrupt literature through the mails:?a grand law, a potent law, a Christian law? and under that law multitudes of these scoundrels have been arrested, their property confiscated and they themselves thrown into the penitentiaries, where they belonged. Now, my friends, how are wj to war against this corrupt literature, and how are the frogs of th:s Egyptian plague to be Blain? First of all by the prompt and inexorable execution of the law. Let all good postmasters, and United States district attorneys, and detectives, and reformers concert in their action to stop this plague. When Sir Rowland Hill spent his lifo in trying to secure cheap postage not only for England, bu?; for all the world, and to open the blessing of the postoffice to all honest business, and to all messages of charity, and kindness, and affection, for all healthful intercommunication, he did not mean to make vice easy or to fill the mail bags of the i United States with the scabs of such a leprosy. [ It ought not to be in the power of every bad man who can raise a one-cent stamp for | a circular or a two-cent stamp for a letter to blast a man or destroy a home. The postal service of this country must be clean, must be kept clean, and we must all understand j that the swift retributions of the United States Government hover over every violation of the letter box. There are thousands of men and women in this country, some for personal gain, some through innate depravity, some through a spirit of revenge, who wish to use this great avenue of convenience and intelligence for purposes revengeful, salacious and diabolic. Wake up tho law. AVake up the penalties. Let every court room on this subject b3 a Sinai thunderous and aflame. L.-t the convicted offenders be cent for the full term to King Sing or Harrisburg. | I am not talking abjut wh it cannot ba J T ii.;?nK/Mit 'flinf. ]'< hpinur UOI.'C. i am iaiMiiQ- ?uvuv , 0 dona, A ereat many o.. the printins presses that gave themselves entirely to the publico tion of vile literature have been stopped <y have gone into business less obnoxious "What has thrown off, what has kept oft' th> rail trains of this country for some tiim back nearly all the leprous periodicals Those of us who have been on thts rail traini [ havo noticed a great change in the last fen months and the last year or two. Why liuvi nearly all those vile periodicals been kept o3 the rail trains for some time back? Who effected it? These societies for the purificatioi < of railroad literature gave warning to th? | publishers and warning to railroad compam i les, and warning to conductors, and warn- ! lng to newsboys, to keep the infernal stull j i off the trains. ! Many of the cities have successfully pro- | i hibitod the most of thatliterature'even from J i < - .. SjgjfcJf! going on the news stands. Terror has seized upon the publishers and the dealers in impure i literature, from the fact that over a thousand arrests have been made, and the a^gre- I gate time for which the convicted have been i sentenced to the prison is over one hundred I and ninety years, and from the fact that | about two millions of their circulars have I been destroyed, and the business is not as t profitable as it used to be. t How have bo many of the news stands of 1 our great cities been purified? How has so ' much of this iniquity be3n balked? By I moral suasion? Oh, no. You might as well ' go into the jungle of the East Indies and pat a cobra on the neck, and with profound ar- ' gument try to persuade it that it is morally ' wrong to bite and to going and to poisan : anything. The only anf <ver to your argu- ? tnent would be an unliftad head and a hiss < and a sharp, reeking tooth struolc into your I arteries. The only argument for a cobra is . a shotgun, and the only argument for these * dealers in impure literature is the clutch of ,i the police and the bean soup in a peniten- ( tiary. The law! The law I I invoke to consummate the work so grandly begun I . Another way in which we are to drive back this plague of Egyptian frogs is by : filling the mindp of our young people with a healthful litert ,ture. I do not mean to say > that all the bool's and newspapers in our ( families ought to be religious books and l newspapers, or that every song ought to be t sung to the tune of "Old "Hundred." I have i no sympathy with the attempt to make the young old. I.would rather join in a crusade to keep the young young. Boyhood aud girl- t hood must not be abbreviated. But there t are good books, good histories, good biogra- l phies, good works of fiction, good books of all styles with which we are to fill the minds . of the young, so that there wiu be no more room for the useless and the vicious than j there is room for chaff in a bushel measure i which is already filled with Michigan wheat. ? j "Why are fifty per cent, of the criminals in J the jails and penitentiaries of the United i States to-day under twenty-one years of ] age? Many of them under seventeen, under j 3irteen, under fifteen, under fourteen under ? thirteen. Walk along one of the corridors j of the Tombs prison in New York and look ? for yourselves. Bad books, bad newspapers c bewitched them a3 soon as they got out of ? the cradle. Beware of all those stories g which end wrong. Beware or on mosa g books which make the road that ends in < perdition se9m to end in Paradise. Do not i glorify the dirk and the pistol. Dd not call the desperado brave or tne libertine gallant, j Teach our young people that if they go down a into the swamps and marshes to watch tho r jack-o'-lanterns dance on the decay and e rottenness they will catch the malaria and * death. t "Oh," says some one, "I am a business j man, and I have no time to examine what my children read. I have no time to inspect the books that come into my household." If t your children were threatened with typhoid t fever, would you have time to go for tho doo- _ tor? Would you have time to watch th9 progress of the disease? Would you have time for the funeral? In the presence of my t. Gcd I warn you of the fact that your chil- ^ dren are threatened with moral and spirit- 5 ual typhoid, and that unless the thing ba . Btopped it will be to them funeral of body, J: funeral of mind, funeral of soul. Three ? funerals in one day. ? My word is to this vast multitude of young people: Do not touch, do not borrow, do n not buy a cormpt book or a corrupt picture. P A book will decide a man's destiny for good 11 or for evil. The book you read yesterday 7 may have decided you for time and for eternity, or it may be a book that may come 0 into your possessions to-morrow. 11 A good book?who can exaggerate its ? power? Benjamin Franklin said that his ^ reading of Cotton Mather's "Essays to Do ? Good" in childhood gave him holy aspiratlnns for all the rest of his life. George Law ^ declared that a biography li3 read in child- r hood gave him all his subsequent prosperi- 7 ties. A clergyman, many years ago, passing . to the far west, stopped at a hotel He saw " a woman copying something from Dodd- u ridge's "Rise and Progress." It seemed that ? she had borrowed the book, and there were some things she wanted especially to re- c oaember. ^ The clergyman had in his sachel a copy of f, Doddridge's "Rise and Progress." and so he j made her a present of it. Thirty years v passed on. The clergyman came that way, ^ and he asked where the woman was whom he had seen so long ago. "She lives yonder f in that beautiful house." Ke w^nt there and c said to lior, "Do you remember me?" She c said, "No, I do not." He said, "Do you re- jj member a man gave you Doddridge's 'Ri3e E and Progress' thirty years ago?" "Ob, yes; j, I remember. That book saved my soul. I 0 loaned the book to all my neighbors, and , they read it and they wera converted to God, { and we had a revival of religion which swept j through the whole community. Wo built a ( church and called a pastor. You see that ? spire yonder, don't you? That church j was built as the result of that book you gave ( me thirty years ago." Oh, tho nower of a t good book! But, alas! for the influence of a ( bad book. 1 John Angel James, than whom England never bad a holier minister, stood in his pulpit at Birmingham anl said: "Twenty-five years ajo a lad loaned to me an infamous book. He would loan It only fifteen minutes, and then I had to give it back, but that book has haunted me like a specter ever since. I have in agony of soul, on my knce3 i before God, prayed that he would obliterate from my soul the memory of it, but I shall carry the damage of it until the day of my ' death." The assassin of Sir William Russoll declared that he got the inspiration for , his crime by reading what was then a new J and popular novel, "Jack Sheppard." Homer's "Iliad" made Alexander tho warrior. Alexander said so. The story of I Alexander made Julius Caesar and Charles XII. both men of blood. Have you in yout Eocket, or in your trunk, or in your desk ar \ usiness a bad book, a bad picture, a bad T pamphlet? In God's name I warn you to de- , stroy it. * Another way in which we shall fight back this corrupt literature and kill the frop of I *- -- 1 111 *-1 4-U? f'gypb 13 uy ruuiug UVOi tuo.u OHO VU1?VM?U c printing press, which shall give plenty of healthful reading to all adults. All these c men and women are reading men and women. What are you reading? Abstain from * all thoso books which, while they had some good things about them, had also an admix- n tureofevil. You have read books that had If two elements in them?the good and the bad. Which stuck to you? The bad! The heart of most people is like a sieve, which let3 the c small particles of gold fall through, but v keeps the great cinders. Once in a while , there is a mind like a loadston?, which, J plunged amid steel and brass filings, gathers t up the steel and repels the brass. But it is generally the opposite. If you attempt to plunge through a fence of burrs to get one c blackberry, you will get more burrs than v blackberries. c You cannot afford to read a bad book, however good you are. You say, "The influence is insignificant." 1 te!l you that the scratch of a pin has sometimes produced lock- jj jaw. Alas, if through curiosity, as many do, you pry iiuo an evi! uous, tuiwanj ? as dangerous as that of the man who would l| take a torch into a gunpowder mill merely f| to see whether it would really blow up or not. In a menagerie a man put his arm through the bars of a black leopard's cage, si The animal's hide looked so sleek and bright 0 nA hAAilt.ifiil Ha inat ?trnl.-a<i it rwinft Th? ' monster seized him, and he drew forth a hand 1 torn and mangled and bleeding. o Oh, touch not ths evil even with the faint est stroke! Though it may be glossy and beautiful, touch it not lest you pull fortb T your soul torn and bleeding under the clutcb jt of the black leopard. "But," you say, "how ? can I find out whether a book is good or bad without reading it?" There is always some- tithing suspicious about a bad book. * I nevei knew an exception?something suspicious in . the index or style of illustration. This ven* " oinous reptile almost always carries a warn- tl ing rattle. ^ The clock strikes midnight. A fair form * bonds over a romance. Tho eves flash j flro. Tin breath is quick and irregular. Occasionally the color dashes to tho check, and then dies out. The hands tremble as though a guardian spirit were trying to " shake the deadly book out of tho grasp. Hot a] tears fall. She laughs with a shrill voica i,that drops dead at its own sound. The i sweat ou her brow is tho *pr.?y dashed up s from tho river of death. Tho clock strikes four, an I the rosy dawn soon alter begins to fa look through tho lattice upon the pale form j that looks like a detained specter of the night. Soon in a madhouse she will mistake *!l her ringlets for curling serpaauts, aud thrust fji tier whito hand through the bars of tho 0| prison, anil smite her head, rubbing it back is though to push the scalp from th? skull, shrieking: "My brain! ray brain!" Oh, -i stand off from that! Why will you go 10 sounding your way amid the reefs and warn- ai ug buoys, when there is such a vast ocean bn which you may VQifUte.ftll.9fcU set? ^ . . ' We soo so mac/ books we do not understand what & book is. Stand it on end. Measure it?the height of it, the depth of it, the length of it, the breadth of it You cannot do it Examine the paper and estimate the progress made from the time of the impressions on clay, and then on the bark of Tees, and from the bark of trees to papyrus, ind from papyrus to the hide of wild beasts, ind from the hide of wild beasts on down intll the miracles of our modern paper manufactories, and then see the paper, white and Dura as an infant's soul, waiting for God's inscription. A book! Examine the type of it Examine ;he printing of it and sae the progress from ;he time when Solon's laws were written on >ak planks, and Hesiod's poams were written >n tables of lead,and the Siniatic commands vere written on tables of stone, on down to Joe's perfecting printing press. A book I It took all the universities of the )ast ail the martyr fires, all the civilizations, ill the battles, all the victories, all the de'eats, all the glooms, all the brightness, all ;he centuries to make it possible. A book I It is the chorus of all ages; it is he drawing room in which kings ana queens ind orators and posts and historians oome >ut to greet you. If I worshiped anything t >n earth I would worship that If I burned ncense to any idol I would build an altar to hat Thank God for good books, healthful >ooks, inspiring books, Christian books, >ooks of meD, books of women. Book of God. 11s with these good books that we are to tvercome corrupt literature. Upon the frogs woop with these eagle3. I depsnd much for he overthrow of iniquitous literature upon he mortality of books. Even good books lave a hard struggle to live. Polybius wrote forty books; only five of !hem left Thirty books of Tacitus have jerished. Twenty books of Pliny have pershed. Livy wrote one hundred and forty jooks; only thirty-five of them remain. auschylus wrote one hundred dramas; only seven remain. Euripides wrote over a hunired; only nineteen remain. Vatro wrote ;he biographies of over seven hundred great [tomans. All that wealth of biography baa jeriahed. If good and valuable Books have tuch a struggle to live, what must be the 'ate of those that are diseased and corrupt md blasted at the very start 1 They will me is the frogs when the Lord turned back the ilague. The work of Christianization will jo on until there will be nothing left but ;ood books, and they will take the supremacy >f the world. May you and I live to see the llustrlous day! Against every bad pamphlet send a good >amphlet; against every unclean picture send in innocent picture; against every scurilous sons send a Christian song; against very bad book send a good book; and then t will be as it was in ancient Toledo, where he Toletum missals were kept by the saints n six churches, and the sacrilegious Romans lemanded that those missals be destroyed, ,nd that the Roman missals be substituted; ,nd the war came on, and I am glad to say hat the whole matter having been referrea o champions, the champion of the Toletum aissals with one blow brought down the hampion of the Roman missals. So it will be In our day. The good litera* lire, the Christian literature, in its chamionship for God, and the truth, will bring own the evil literature in its championship or the devil. I fe?l tingling to the tips of ly nngere ana carouga bu sne norves 01 my ody, and all the depths of my soul, the ertainty of our triumph. Cbe9r up, oh, len and women who ara toiling for the urification of society! Toil with your faces i the sunlight. "If God be for us, who, rho can be against us?' Lady Hester Stanhope was the daughter f the third Earl of Stanhope, and after her earest friends had died she went to the far ast, took possession of a deserted convent, hrew up fortresses amid the mountains of ,ebanon, opened the castle to the poor, and he wretched, and the sick who would coma a. She made her castle a home for the unortunate. She was a devout Christian poman. She was waiting for the ooming of he Lord. She expected that the Lord would escend in person, and she thought upon .it intil it was too much for her reason. In the aagniflcent stables of her palace she had two torses groomed and bridled and saddled and aparisoned and all ready for the day in rhich her Lord should descend, and be on ne of them and she on the other should start jr Jerusalem, the city of the Great King, t was a fanaticism and a delusion; but there ras romanc?, and thera was splendor, and here was thrilling expectation in the dream I Ah, my friends, we' need no earthly palreys groomed and saddled and bridled and aparisoned for our Lord wbea He shall ome. The horsa is ready in the eqaerry of 5 XU-. {mmainaI 10 rairiv fv* Leaven, tuiu oua xw^cucu aount.* "And I saw, and behold a white lorse, and he that sat on him had a bow; ,nd a crown was given onto him; and he rent forth conquering and to conquer. And he armies which were in heaven followed Jim on white horses and on His vesture and >n His thigh were written, King of kings, ind Lord of lords." Horse men of Heaven, nount! Cavalry of God, ride on! Chargel ,'harge! until they shall be burled back oa ;heir haunches?the black horse of faming ind the red horse of carnage, and the pale lorse of death. Jesus forever 1 . CURIOUS FACTS. Artificial eggs are being made. The cashmere shawl industry is declining. The word "milliner" owes its origin to Milan. The bodyguards of Queen Victoria, of England, are called Beefeaters. The sister-in-law of a pauper in the Ji* )00r house at Glasgow, Scotland, has jequeathed $7d,O0O for church purposes. A Michigan iurv was locked UD 9 vhole week before they could determine vhetheror not two men set fire to a laystack. A quaint clock, owned by Louis 'hilippe, of France, when he taught . ; chool in Boston, Mass., is to be seen in ine of the shops of that city to-day. In fencing in the 17,000 acre sheep arm in Botetourt County, Virginia, 100 aill of fencing will be necessary, the arm being divided into 3000-acre lots. A man in Birmingham, England, reviving a letter February 6th, 1891, - v rhich had been po3ted iD Stafford in 'uly, 1856, a period in transit of-almost : hirty-five years. A big idea in New York City is to onvcrt Castle Garden into an aquarium, irhich shall be, a$ nearly- as possible, a omplete exemplication of animal and egetable life in the sea. An Indian father drew the body of is dead child on a hand-sled thirty-3ir liles across the upper eDd of Lake Mich- "?jau in order that it might be buried rom the Catholic Church. There is a curious grapevine at Haberaarn Park, Ga. It grows from a large ak tree about live feet from the ground, 'lie tree is perfectly sound aud uo roots f the viae are discernible. The City Council of San Antonio, cxas, is said to be seriously contemplatlg the creation of the office of City eronaut and the selection of a compe>nt balloonist for the place. Iced oysters on the half shell are enrely obsolete. People have learned lat the process eliminated the flavor, ow the thing is to keep them on ice ntil time to open and serve them. It is said that Dauiel Webster was the rst editor of tae first college paper pubshed iu this country, the initial numbei jpearing at Dartmouth in 1809. These urnals now number 190 in the United fates. The ancostral homo of the Washington iniily is Sulgrave, au insignificant viige in Northamptonshire, England. Th? irnily lineage has been traced back aj ir r.s Sir William de Ilertfurn, a knight i the twelfth century. ^ A telephone line about five milei t ng has bean established in Iceland, id is regarded as a great curiosity, jing the first ever established on th? land. - - - "