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. REV. DR. TALMAGE. I 3CHE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUNDAY SERMON. Subjecr. "Raw Recruits." Text: "Put on the whole armor of jGocl."?Ephesians vi., 11. ^ There is in t-hig tex,t a great rattle of ihields and helmets and swords. Soldiers are getting ready for battle. We have had recently in this church new enlistments, and I shall address myself to those in this an-? other churches who are putting on the armor oi won, ana wno may ieei memseives w oe as yet only raw recruits. "Masterly retreat" is a term often used in military circles, but in religion there is no such thing. It is either glorious advance or disgraceful and ignominious falling back. It would be a strange thing if all our anxiety about men ceased the moment they were converted. ? You would almost doubt the sanity of that farmer who, having planted the corn and seen it just sprout aboveground, should say: ?My work is all dona I have no more anxiety for the field." No. There is work for the plow, and the hoe, and there must be a careful keeping up of the fences, and there must be a frightening away of the birds that would pillage the field. And I say the entrance upon Christian life is only the implantation of grace in the heart. There is earnest, hard work yet to b3 done and perhaps many years of anxiety before there shall be hoard the glorious shout of "Harvest home." h The beginning to be a Christian is only putting down the foundation; but after that there are years of hammering, polishing, carving, lifting, before the structure is completed. It takes five years to make a Christian character; it takes twenty years, it takes forty years, it takes seventy years, if a man shall live so long. In other words, a man dying after half a century of Christian experience feels that he has only learned the **A B Cs" of the glorious alphabet. The next year will decide a great dead in your histoit. young Christian man. It will decide whether you are to be a burning and shining light of the church, or a spark of grace covered up in a barrel of ashes. I% will decide whether you are to be a strong man in Christ Jesus, with gigantic blows striking the iron mail or aarjcnes?, or a bklwarfed, whinning, grumbling soldier, that ought to be drummed out of the Lord's camp with the "Rogues' March." You have only just been launched; the voyage is to be made. Earth and heaven and hell are watching to see how fast you will sail, how well you will weather toe temptesfc, and whether at last, amid the shouting of anzels, you shall come into the right harbor. May God help me this morning to give you three or four words of Christian counsel, as I address myself more especially to those who have iust now entered the Christian life. r My first word of counsel is, hold before your soul a verv high model. Do not say, "I wish I could pray like that man, or speak like this man, or have the consecration of this one." Say: "Here is the Lord Jasus Christ, a perfect pattern. By that I mean, with God's grace, to shape all my life." In other words, you will never be any more a Christian than you strive to be. If you build a foundation twenty by thirty feet you Will only have a small house. If you build s foundation one hundred by one hundred feet you will have a large house. I-! you resolve to be only a middling Christian you will only be a middling Christian. If you have no hieh aspiration in a worldly direction you will never succeed in business. If you have no high aspiration in religious things you will never succeed in religion, i You nave a right to aspire to the very highest style of Christian character. From your feet there reaches ou: & path of Christian attainment which you may take, and I deliberately say that you may be a better man than was Paul <:<r David or Summerfield or Doddridge?a better# woman than Hannah More or Charlotte JKUizaDetn. vvny notr uia iney nave a monopoly of Christian grace? Did they have a private key to the storehouse of .God's mercy? Does God shut you out from the gladness and goodness to which they were introduced? Oh, no. You have just the same promises, just the game Christ, just the same Holy Ghost, iust the same offers of present and everlasting love, and it you fall short of what they were?ayo, if you do not come up to the point which they reached and go beyond it?it is not because Christ has shut you out from any point of moral and spiritual elevation, but because you deliberately refused to take it. 1 admit that man cannot become a Christian like that without a struggle; but what do you get without fighting for it? The fortresses of darkness are to be taken by storm. You may by acute strategy flank the hosts of temptation, but there are temptations, there are eviis in the way that you will have to meet face to face, and it will be shot for shot, gun for gun, grip for grip, slaughter for slaughter. The apostle Paul over and over again represents the Christiar life as a combat . "When tho war vessel of Christ's church comes in co glory bringing its crew and its passengers it will not come in like a North Kiver yactit, Deautuuuy pamwxi ana uuurueu, swinging into the boathouse after a pleasure excursion. Oh, no; it will be like a vessel coming with a heavy cargo from CJhina or India, the marks of the wave and the hurricane upon it?sails rent, rigging spliced, pumps all working to keep her afloat, bulwarks knocked away. 1 see such a vTsel coming and get out my small boat and push 'toward her, and I shout: "Ahoy, captain! :What are you going to do with those shivered timbers? That was a beautiful ship when you ?vent out, but you have ruined it." ^h." says the captain, "I have a floe cargo on board, and by this round trip I 1 have made ten fortunes." i So I believe it will be when the Christian soul at last comes into the harbor of heaven. It will come bearing upon it the marks of a great stress of weather. You can see by the ery looks of that soul as it comes into glory ithat it was driven by a storm and dashed dn tne hurricane, but by so much as the voyage is rough, will the harbor be blessed, 4,If ye sufferad with Hira on earth, ye shall ba glorified with Him in heaven." Aim high. Do not be satisfled to be like the Christians all around you. Be more than they have ever been for Christ. ' My second word of counsel to those who have recently entered upon Christian life is. Abstain from all pernicious associations, and take only those ioat are us if ul and beneficent. Stay out of all associations that would damage your Christian character. Take only tho<e associations that will help you. A learne 1 man said. "If i stay wita that man Fenelon any longer I shall get to be a Christian in spite of mysslf." In other words there is a mighty power in Christian associations. Now what kind of associations shall we. as younj Christians, s^ek aftar? I think we ourhtto get into company better than ourselves, never goiu? Into company worse than ourselves. If we cat into company a little better than ourselves and there are ten people in tnat company, ten chances to one we will be bettered. If we get into company a little worse tna'i oursslves, anl there be ten psopls in that company, tea chances to one we will be made worse than we ware before. I do not preteni to point oat any ev influences, but are there not some surrounding influences that are pernicious to your growth in grace? Stand back from that furnace in which so many young Christians have bean destroyed. In this church there is a large company of young men and youn^ women consecrated to Cnri3t. I know of no better than they are. Young convert, I invite you into their friendship. Contact with them will elevate you. All hail, youu* followers of Jesus Christ, my joy and inv pride! My heart thrills at every step of your advancement. I talked with you in that hour when you most tried to break from sin, and now I rejoice as I see you puttin; on tho armor of a conflict in which God will pive you present and everlasting victory. Stanl oX from all evil associations. A man is no bettar than the company he keeps. Go among those who ara better thaa you are and you will be made better. Go among thosa who ara worse than you are am you wui D9 raaae worse. My next word of counsel 13 that you be actively employed. I see a great many Christians with doubts and perplexities, and they seem to be proud of them. Their entire Christian life is made up of gloom, aud they seem to cultivate that spiritual despondency, when I will undertake to say that in niue case3 out of ten spiritual despondency is a judgment of God upon idleness. Who are the happy people In the church to-day? The busy people. Snow me the man who professes the religion of Jesus Christ and is idle, and I will show you an unhappy man. The very first prescription thit I give to a man when Iflaa him full of doubts and fears about his eternal interest is to go to work for God. Ten thousand voices are lifted up asking for your help. Oo and help. 1 have another word of counsel to give those who have just entered Christian life, and that is, be faithful in prayer. You might as well, business men, start out in the morning without food'and expect to be strong all that day?you might as well abstain from food all the week and expect to be strong physically, as to be strong without prayer. The only way to get any strength into the soul is br prayer, and the only difference between that Christian that is worth anything and that who is worth nothing is the fact that the last does not pray and the other does. And the only difference between this Christian, who is getting along very fast in the holy life, and this, who is only getting along tolerably, is that the first prays more than the last. You can graduate a man's progress in religion by the amount of prayer; not by the number of hours, per- | I haps, but by Che earnest supplication tbat he puts up to God. There is no exception to the rule. Show me a Christian man who neglects this kind of duty, and I will show you one who is inconsistent. Show me a man who prays, and his strength and his power cannot be exaggerated. Why, just give to a man this power of prayer and you give him almost omnipotence. This afternoon you will see two Sabbath school teachers. That one does not gain the attention of her class. This one does. What is the difference between them, their intellects being about equal. The first thought only of her own apparel. The other came from great prostration before God in earnest supplication, asking that God's mercy might come upon the scaool and that in the afternoon she might gain the attention of those five or six immortals that would be around her. The on? teacher has no control over her class. The other sits as with the strength of the Lord God Almighty. Another word of counsel I have to give Be careful in Bible research. A great many good books are now coming out. We cannot read half of them At every revolution of the printing press they are coming. They cover our parlor tables, and are in our sitting rooms and libraries. Glorious books they are. We thank God every day for the work of the Christian printing press. But I have thought that pernaps the followers of Christ sometimes allow tnis religious literature to take their attention from God's Word, and that there may not be as much Bible reading as there ought to be. How is that with your own experience? Just calculate in your minds how much relim'nnc fnra TTrtil Viorra raaH Hltrimr fhft year and tben how larze a portion of the Word of God you have read, and tnea contrast the two and answer within your own soul whether you are giving more attention to the books that were written by the hani of manor that written by the hand of God. Now, you go to the drug store and you get the mineral waters, but you have noticed that the waters are not so fresh or sparkling or healthful as when you get these very waters at Saratoga and Sharon?getting them right where they babble from the rock. And I have noticed the same thing in regard to the truth of the Gospel; while there is a good deal of refreshment and health of the Gospel of God as it comes through good books, 1 find it is better when I come to the eternal rock of God's Word and drink forth that fountain that bubbles up fresh and Eure to the life and the refreshment and the ealth of the soul. Head the Bible and it brings you into the association of the best people that ever lived. You stand beside ilosas and learn nis meekness, beside Jol? and learn his patience, beside Paul and catch something of his enthusiasm, beside Christ and you feel His love. And yet how strange it is that a great many men have given their whole lives to the assaulting of that book I cannot understand it Tom Paine worked against that book as though he received large wages and was inspired by the very power of darkness, confessing that all the time he was writing he did no% have the Bible anywhere near him. How m.'-py powerful intellects have endeavored to destroy it. Hume, Bolingbroke. Voltaire have bean after it. Tea thousand men now are warring against the truth of God's Word What do you think of them? I think it*is mean and will prove it. I will prove it is the meanest thing that has ever been done in all the centuries. There is a ship at sea and in trouble. The captain and the crew are at their wits' end. You are on board. You are an old seaman. You com j up and give some good counsel, which is kindly taken. That is all right. But suppose, instead of doing that, in the midst of all the trouble, you pick up the only compass that is on board ana pitch it over the teffrail? Oh, you say, that is dastardly. But is it as mean as this? Here is the vessel of the world going on with sixteen hundred millions of passengers, tossed and driven in the tempest, and at the time wa want help the infidel comes and he takes bold of the only compass and he tries to pitch it overboard. It is contemptible beyond everything that is contemptible. Have you any better light? Bring it on if you have. Have you any better comfort to give us? Bring it on if you have. Have you any better hope? Rrinir it nn if voti have, and then vou mav have this Bible and I shall never' want it again. But I can think of a meaner thing than that, and that is an old man going along on the mountains with a staff in one hand aad a lantern in the other. Darkness has come on suddenly, He is very old. just able to pick his way out amid the rocks and precipices, leaning on his staff with one hand and guiding himself with the light in the other. You come up and say "Father, you seem to be lost. You are a long way from home." *'Yes," he replies. And then you take him by the hand and lead him home. That Is very kind of you. But suppose instead of thac you should snatch the staff from his hands and hurl it over the roctcs, and snatcn , the lantern and blow it out? That would be dastardly, contemptible until there is no depth of contempt beneath it. If you have a better staff, give it to him. If you have a better light, give it to him. When God has out the staff of the Gospel in our hands and the lamp of God's Word to light our feet, are you going to take from us our only support and our only illumination? 1 love the sting of the wasp and the rattlesnake better than I do the man who wants to clutch the Word of God from my grasp. Cling to your Bible! If this Bible should be destroyed, if all the Bibles that have ever been printed should be destroyed, we could make up a Bible right out of this audience. From that Christian man's experience I take one cluster of promises, and frooi that old Christian man's experience another, I put them all together, and I think I would bavs a Bible. You see. my friend?. I have not tried 1 ma? tne ract inn l nave large expectation of you who have entered the Christian life. Do not be discouraged. Press on toward the prize; God beside you and heaven before you. Keep your courage up. Look in thirty years from now* upon this church. Another man in the pulpit. Other faces in the pews. Another man leading the song. Others carrying around the alms boxes of the church. All changed. Thirty years have gone and I look into tha faces of the people, and I say: "Why, it seems to me I have seen these people somewhere, but Ii&nnot exactly say where. Oh. yes. now I basin to chink. These were tha converts in 1894 and 189i). Why, how you hava change!!" "Oh, yes," they say, "of course we have changed. Thirty years makes a great change. I say "How many wrinkles tlnre are In your faces!'' "Oil. yes," they say. "thirty years makea great many wrinkles." "Have you kept the faith?' "Yes, we have kept the faith." "Where ara thos* people who used to sit in the pew with you?" "All gona"' "Than I say, "Well, I feel lonely; come, let us sing one of the old hymn* w.* ....... in 1 WO > n-l USa:i h'J SlUj^ ULLLll/jr JO?u <? ?vsf ?u ? -.??, .... communion day. A117 of you know the oM tune? Somj one bum it. Yes, that's it, that's it. Now. altogether, let us sing, jus: as wo did in 1892: ' Therj is a fountain flllel with bloc!, Drawn from Itn annuel'* veins; And sinner* plunge! ben-jath thai flood Lose all their guilty stains. HTbe dyin:;thie' rejoice 1 to sea TQa: fo jnttin In his 'lay: And tnero may T, thon~n vile aa he, Wash all my sins away." Some Englishmen seem to think that the passage of a law by Congress granting registers to forelgn> built steamships, owned by American aitizens, will lead to complications with Great Britain. If Great Britain can stand the complications the United States probably can. England is a husky little country with a powerful voice and a capaoious stomach, but it doesn't quite own the whole ocean. TEMPERANCE. - THE DRUNKARD. On feeble *nd unsteady legs He walks as if be trod on eggs. Whano'r ho h?a tr? civA rtP takn His hands, as with the palsy, shake. To meet your gaze he vainly tries With dull and bleared and bloodshot eyes. Compelled to bear the sign, he showa A swollen, coarse and crimson nose. His pimpled, blue and bloated face Of manliness has not a trace. All people near him shun like death His permeating, sickening breatb. With ruined health and shattered nerves He suffers tortures he deserves. Sad children and heart broken wife Through him endure a wretched life. . Abhorred and shunned by friends once known He wanders through the world alone. Soon losing self respect he goes In seedy, torn and dirty clothes. With raging, hot, increasing thirst Which can't be quenched he's ever cursed. in vain he takes the pledge to stop; With will Dower zone he has no DroD. Asylums, drugs, '"gold cures" he tries Make him insane?unless he dies. Down, down, he sinks until in time He in the gutter reeks with slime. From borrowing he bees until For drink he'll steal or even kill. Delirium tremens' horrid sights He sees. With imps and snakes he fights. At last with tramps bis doom is sealed, And then he goes to Potter's Field. And after that? Alas, who know3 Where any slave of liquor goes? They have their hell on earth, confessed? They can't have worse. So let them rest. ?H. C. Dodge, in Chicago Sun. W. e. T. U. AT THK WORLD'S PAIR. The building of the Women's Christian Temperance Union at the World's Fair is a superb edifice, thirteen stories high, and the cost of the building alone is $1,200,000. Says one writer: "Willard Hall, situated on the main floor, will seat upward of six hundred people. Here the incense of prayer will daily ascend for the downfall of intemperance and every form of vice, and for the establishment on earth of the kingdom of righteousness." Women are paying the bills by buying the stock, and it is to be hoped they will float the colossal scheme. As financiers ??... i ?? i ?u.:. MJLUtJ Uttvo 4UCaU?VUOli LUDU <?UU4VJ. W grand an idea as the edifice suggests cannot afford to be associated with mismanagement of dollars.?Mail and Express. THE RUM POWER IN CHICAGO. The city council of Chicago took its own measure the other day and put it on record. An ordinance had been introduced providing that a saloon should not be opened in a residence block without the consent of a majority of the property owners. Every reputable daily of the city had strongly approved the proposed ordinance as being every way right and reasonable. The right of people in a residence bloo'c to such protection from the intrusion of a liquor saloon was declared to be one which ought to be respected. When, however, it came to a vote, out of sixty-eight aldermen only seventeen voted for it. That is the moral attitude of the Chicago counciJ. The grogshop dominates everything. Citizens have no rights which the rum power need respect. Is this the kind of council that is to rule Chicago during the World's Fair? Here is a tremendously ominous fact which the Christian forces of the city will have to look square in the lace. A considerable number ot the councilruen are themselves saloon keepers, but all of them?the seventeen excepted?have snapp9dthe finjer in the faca of the public defiantly. That there is any necessity that this state of things should always continue, no one believes. The better and decenter order of things will come in when "good citizens" show by what they combine to do that they really are good citiwono ?.Arlunnoi. PROM FATHER TO SON. A few months ago I was present in Dr. Garnier's consulting room, watching the prisoners from the depot filing past. We were informed that a child had been brought by its parents to be examined. These people were shown ic; they belonged to the respectable working class, and were quiet, and well mannered. The man was driver of a dray beloneinsj to one of the railway stations, and had ail the appearance of a stalwart working man. The boy was scarcely six years old, he had an intelligent, rather pretty face, and was neatly dressed. "See here." said the father, "we have brought you our boy; he alarms us. He is no foof; he begins to Ifcad; they are satisfied with him at his school, but we canDot help thinking he must be insane, for he wants to murder his little brother, a child of two years old. The otber day he nearly succeeded in doingso. I arrived just in time to snatch my razor from his hands." Tne boy stood listening with indifference and without hanging his head. The doctor drew the child kindly toward him and inquired* "Is it true that you wish to hurt your little brother?" With perfect composure the little one replied: "I will kill him; yes, yea, I will kill him The doctor glanced at the father and asked in a low voice: TV* The wife exclaimed indignantly':. "He. <sir! Why, he never enter* a public house, and has never come home drunk." They were quite sincere. Nevertheless the doctor said "Stretch out your arm." The man obeyed; his hand trembled. Had these people told lies, then, in statin? that the maa had never come home the worse for drin ? No; but all through the day, whenever he had called to leave a package, the people of the house had given him something to drink for his trouble. He had become a drunkard without knowing it, and the poison that had entered his blood was at this moment Ailing the head of his little child with the dreams of an assassin.?Sacred Heart Review. TEMPERANCE NEWS AND NOTKS. It is said that om-tenth o? tbo many suicides in France can be tracai to alcohol. Massachusetts, it is said, sends mor?liquor to Africa than all the othar Stafri-s combined. One of th9 laborers in a St. Louis brewery is said to receive fifty glasses of beer as his daily allowance. Glasgow on Saturday ni~ht continues to offer temperance lecturers the best field in tTninvi Kinfdnm. In one of the great Paris hospitals, out oC eighty-three patients who suffered from epilepsy, sixty were found to bo children of drunken parent?. The National Carriage an 1 Harness Retail Dealers' Association have put themselves in the advance line by banishing intoxicants from their banquets. The Rev Dr. Vaughan, the ?ew Archbishop, of Westminister, is a total abstainer and a strong advocate of teraperauce. He is a man of phenomenal energy. The profits of drinking-saloons may be inferred from the fact that though the cost of a license in PhiladelDhia has been advanced this year from $500 t(> ?1000, the applications were more numer;u3 t&an a year ago. Miss Lillian Norfolk, a beautiful young lady, worth $100,000 in her own right, and a - - ? " favorite in tbo jsrootciyn *uu, strau^ou un self in her bath tub the other morning. Why she committed suicide is a mystery, out her physician says that she had "been drinking too much braudy. Mrs. L. M. A. Stevens, President of the Maine Woman's Christian Temperance Union, is attending every county convention in her State this year. This is not a small undertaking in a State of such distances, some of her engagements involving a journey of 125 miles by carriage. The Hawaiian Queen has lately testified her interest in tue Woman's Christian TernEerance Union, of Honolulu by paying the cense on their coffee house, something over $50. Her total abstinence principles are proved by the banishment of all sorto of lienors from her table and her receptions. 1 RELIGIOUS READING. WITHOUT MONEY AJfD WCTITOtTT PMCK. | Come to Jesus! Are you lonely? Solace sweek lie will afford, Lean on Jesus?Jesus only! Come, and find a loving Lord! Are your trials past the telling? Are your sins as crimson dye? Jesus sees your sad heart swelling 'Neath accusing memory. He is waiting; will you leave Him Pleading at your heart in vain? TTo ia r\h TTim! lie may never call again. He bath ne-ver yet forsaken One who trusts alone in God; He your life-long debt hath taken, And hath paid it with His blood. From your sins He waits to cleanse you? You?the slave by Satan bound! Messages of love He sends you: Where can such a Friend be found? Are you sick? His "Word can heal you. Are you weary with the strife? Are you hungry? He can till you With the heavenly Broad or Life. Now! it is the time to try it: Test Him by His Written Word. Come! for He will ne'er deny it; Come to Christ, the risen Lord! Do you fear His sharp reproving That you did not go before? Tbat you left Him?so unlovingWaiting long time ut your door; He will only smile and greet you, Chasing shadows from your brow; He will surely run to meet you, Saying "Thou art welcome now!" By still waters lie will lead you, In green pastures you shall rest; And the pierced hands that freed you Bear you on his tender breast. Come, oh, come this day and try it; Jesus' words are proved and true; Take Hia gift; you cannot buy it? He hath waited long for you. ? [Anna Sbipton. ' U UUU, Iltuu AUIJ1I u\JU. Every person has some god. The beatben have theirs?gods of gold and of silver, of wood and of stone. And those in Christian lands have theirs in various forms. It is a great and a blessed thing to be able to say of the living God, "Thou art my God." Those only can truly say tbis who love this God supremely, who make Him their trust, and who are cheerfully obedient to His will. They make choice of Him an their God in preference to all others, and in so doing He becomes their God. He is theirs in all His infinite and jflorious perfection, and infinitely blessed is their condition. They are rich for time and eternity. The God, in whom they trust, is infinite in power, and ' can do all things. He is able to take care of them, to defend ibem from all harm, to provide for all their wants, and to make them perfectly and everlastingly happy. He is infinite in" wisdom, and is competent to lay his plans in the wisest and best manner, and for the best interests of those that love him. And he is infinite in goodness, and will employ his power and wisdom for the well-being of all that make claim of him as their God. He is the everliving and the everlasting God, and he will never cease to ? be to bis friends all that they could des're. I Did the child of God realize the blessedness of his condition in having snch a God for bis God, be would be unspeakably hap?* y. He would rejoice in the Lord always, le would rejoice with a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. He would be happy in the midst of his trials; no afflictions would quench bis joy- They have not sprung out of the dust, nor have they befallen him by chance, but they are the appointrmnt of infinite wisdom and goodness, and therefore has he cause to say, "Though be slay me, yet will I trust In bim." And whatever events may be transpiring in the world, it is his God, still infinite in power and wisdom and goodness, that U permitting them, and controlling them, and overruling them for bis own glory and for the best interest of all that love bim. To all the wickedness and all the errors and delusions that abound and prevail, the God that reigns on high says: "Thus far sba t thou go, but no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." "The wrath of man shall praise thee; the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain." "The Lord on high is mightier than the noi.-e of many waters; yea, than the mighty waves of the sea." In the midst of all agitations and commotions, his people may stay their minds on bim and be in perfect peace. They may confidently say, "God is our refuge ana strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains bo carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling ther of."?fNew York Observer. rs IT TIMK TO AWAKK? The Japanese Government sent a commission to Great Britain to see about making the Church of England the state church of Japan; but, after careful investigation, an adverse report was rendered, on the ground rx f oatrA/4 I^n r*lan/4 Itiat 'tlinsiiaillt/ uau uirw ouTv.u Aiu?muvi from becoming a drunken nation." Alas I or has it saved England and America from making other nations drunken. Let Africa stretch out her bands to God and bear witness to the crimes of England and America, whose bottie9 of alcoholic poison are in many places the only coin in which Europeans pay for tbe rich products of that tropical region, debauching whole villages, and blotting out tribes by the whiskey-lighted fires of hell. There are seven million young men in America today, of whom over five million ever darken a church door. That is, about seventy-five out of every hundred of these young'men do not attend church. Ninetyfive out of everv hundred do not belong to the church, and ninety-seven out of every hundred do nothing to spread Christianity. But on the other hand, sixty-seven out of every one hundred criminals are young men, and young men are the chief patrons of the saloon, the gambling house,the haunt of infamy. It was noticed recently that Into a single saloon of Cincinnati, and within a single hour, went 252 men, 236 of whom?or all but 16?were young men. As a result the death rate steadily increases from fourteen to twenty-five years of age; their evil habits reporting themselves in deteriorated bodies ana cnsiempereu souis. iu the age when they should have attained their manly prime. The terrible statement [3 made that three-fourths of the convicts in the penitentiary of Ohio, which we women loved to call ''the Crusade State," were once Sunday-school scholars, and an . equally large proportion of them arc in prison because of crimes crowing out of their intemperate habits. If this statement is correct, we know that it is not essentially different from the showing that all our prisons make. Fifty-two Sundays in the year are devoted by the powers or darkness, through their emissaries, the 2.'i0,000 legalized saloons of the nation,to the production of intemperance. An exchange pertinently remarks: When a husband can render a good religious testimony in class-meeting, and his wife can endorse all he says,both are to be congratulated. At a social meeting in Boston the following occurred : Brother?"I want to thank God that 1 have passed through Kadesh-barnea, and am over in the laud of Canaan. I can live my religion at home as well as anywhere e se. I thank God for a salvationjthat I can live anywhere, and which takes out the kinks and snarls." Sister?"I want to sa** fkot Jliot maii'a tauHmrmv i? heCHIlSe I am his wife.*' Respectfully commended to all our brethren. Didn't Heed the Proverb. A farmer in Manchester, Me., la reflecting sorrowfully upon the maxim that "honesty is the best policy." Several years ago, in order to avoid paying some debts, he conveyed his farm, worth $4,000, to his wife. The wife died recently, and according to law the property goes to her children, the widower's right of dower excepted. The children refuso to re-convey the farm to their father. A friend In need Is a friend who generally strikes you for a Quarter. : *r*? - ': FLOOD AND FIRE. INCIDENTS OF THE GREAT DISASTER IN PENNSYLVANIA. A Poorly Constructed Dam Causes the Calamity?Heroic Work of "Jack" Mclaughlin, Tony Danbs and Others at Titusville. Assuredly, in the list of terrible calamities which have visited Pennsylvania the cif ies of Titusville and Oil City now stand second W \fi? Johnstown. As was ^ * V the case at Johnstown, faster at Titus* ""^e an(* ^il City was caused primarily by a ' <j^ " * broken darn; but in * the more recent catastrophe fire followed the flood, and scores of people who had escaped the rushing waters were burned to death. The bursted dam at Spartansburg converted Oil Creek into a raging torrent, and when an oil tank exploded the flames spread rapidly to oil refinery works and other establishments. The angry waters then became a sea of hissing flame. People were either drowned or burned to death by the score,in some instances whole families perishing. According to a New York World representative, who visited the scene of the disaster, the great lo3S of life and destruction of property in Titusville and Oil City resulted from a dam 30 badly, so cheaply constructed that the marvel is that it stood so long. The reporter drove to Spartansburg, eighteen miles distant, to investigate the causc of the break in the dam that lies 8* iii SCENE TN SEMKCA 9TEKET, OIT. CTTV, in the heart of the village of 8parcan3- < burg. Hills rise oa every side of the pond that is known as the beat fishing i ground in Western Pennsylvania. i The dam is 150 feet wide. It is what i is known as a wet dam. Pile3 were driven along for 120 feet; earth, rocks < and boards made it tight, and a shed i was built over it looking like a gable 1 roof. The remaining thirty feet had no 1 piles at all. It was filled in with earth I and rocks which had no particular sup- 1 port. It was very weak. < The dam was ten feet high and made < a pond, half a mile wide in its widest I r>orh thn+. hnnlcf>d uo .1 mile and a half. rt covered about 600 acres. Ju3t back < I of the dam, on a trestle, are the tracks < of the Western New York and Pennsyl- i vania Railroad. The pcnd had been rising steadily for days became of the < heavy rains, but there wa3 no cloud- ' I burst. i The raio poured down in such sheets t that night that the brooks on the hills 1 became torrents, and a great volume i flung itself over the falls. The looaely constructed part of the dam and the flume could cot stand the pressure. At '< 11 -.30 o'clock p. \r. the dam broke, and < ill WASHINGTON" STKERT, TITnSVlJ.LE, . the mighty volume of water leaped forth on its mission of death. It tore away every rock and stone of the loo3e earthworks and smashed the illy made flume. Spuns of thirty feet on one side and twenty feet on the other were clear for the great wall of water to sweep through. It rioted through the valley, spreading from hill to hill and making a sea of the airpark swollen stream. In two hour.4 it reached Titusville, causing' awful rioo .i and fire, and then aped to Oil City to repeat its work. There were 1500 people in the flooded district, and 1000 made their way to places of aafety. Three hundrei were snapped by brave men from the tire above and the water beneath, aod men never 1 fought greedier, fiercer, more implacable foes. Among the heroes John McLaughlin is perhaps entitled to first mention. Big I and brawny is "Jack" McLaughlin. He i has made a competency digging oil wells, i and exposure has reddcued t'ac tine face with its blue eyes. His red mustache i and red hair are sprinkled with gray. A I simple, patient, lovable man is "'Big I Jack," with quiet, sluggish ways, who ( has lived thirty-nine years unmindful of ; ohoffinnr 1 h wa* oond-natured ehaffinor. n o? for every one loved him. They dida't know Jack McLaughlin until the dood. , On Saturday night McLaughlin strolled < up to Church Rua to watcn the little i flood there. As he came back he crossed i Martin I'treet. He heard people were in danger ar.d he went down. A young man named Leiplein asked hun to help i bring out his mother and sifter. They < i V V ' -V bad been driven to tbc upper floor of the house, 1# which was sixty feet away, and the water was fire feet deep. McLaughlin waded out to the house. He climbed up a pile oi driftwood on to the shed. He took the sister out of the gable window and waded ashore with her. He returned for the mother. She is a large woman, weighing 200 pounds. Jack himself weighs 240 ponnds. The driftwood broke away under the great weight, and both were plunged into the water. They floundered about, but McLaughlin fouud his footing, and carried the woman ashore. Then ho waded out again to see if any one else wanted to be taken ashore, but the people refused to leave their bouses. McLaughlin followed up this deed of heroism by saving the lives of fifteen women and ohildren at imminent peril to himself. Abe Bartholemew is said to have saved Lizzie Lewis, his sweetheart, but he didn't. Lizzie saved herself by swimming. All the others in her family were drowned. A young man named Wetzel plunged into the swift current near the Dunkirk depot and saved a woman. The most active, earnest and successful worker among the women was a slender, black-eyed girl of nineteen, who for hour after hour rubbed stiff, chilled limbs and quickened the chilled blood. Men marveled at her endurance. The servants in the home were useless, and when the danger was over it was she who prepared food for the patients and comforted them. More than one might have died had it not been for the truehearted girl who worked steadily for twenty hours without re3t and vrho nassed fnrfcv-eiffht hours without sleeD. The fire and flood of Oil Creek will sound down the oorridcrs of time linked TEN KINUTBS BEFORE TITE FIRE. with the name of "Jack" McLaughlin, who bore on his owa broad shoulders seventeen people from the jaws of death, ind whose clear braiu made possible the saving of scores of others. A. famous fisherman is Tony Daubs, the ;hair-mender, a slender, black-haired nan. He had the only boat in Titusrille and in the midst of dame and flood ae poled back and forth, taking people from their burning houses and dodging :he debris. Seventy-five is the number if lives to Tony Daub's credit. Many )f these earned their passage by bailing :he leaky boat while Tony poled along. oeoasuan tiaeuae savea ais wiie ana :hildrca oa a rafc, which he constructed jf doors, tearing down the ceiling to get iaiU. The area of the wrecked district at Oil City is not so large as in Titusville. To the north of the city Oil Creek takes i bow-shaped turn to the west. When :he floods came down they did not follow the coarse of the stream, but cut icros3 the cur/e, making a segment of water over the Iowland3. It was there the majority of horns were swept away and Uve3 lost. They were the homes of the poor people of \8 it looked before toe pirk. the town. There isn't a city in the oil c >untry where the rich people do not live on the hills and the poor in the valleys or flats. The hills are the only places of safety when the oil begins to burn, and every oil town is some time , or other destroyed by fire. If the working people can reach the high ground in time they are fortunate. After taking the curve Oil Creek straightens out a bit and then empties into the Allegheny River. Most of Oil City is on the east side of the creek. On the west side, lesss than fifty feet from the bank, a bluff rises precipitately to the wooded hills. This is known as the Host Back. A narrow street skirts its base, ending at the north with a few oil wells, whicn were in active operation. The line of buildings along the street was completely wiped oat. Far up on the Hog Back the trees are brown ;ind J seared from the blazing oil. The dunes must have extended upward 200 feet. < The devastated district comprised this 1 narrow strip along the base of the Hog- ' back on the west and the segment on the east, which is about three-quarters of a mile long and a third of a mile wide it its broadest part. The nitrate combine in i^onaon uas ordered its managers in Chile to limit the autput to 17,000,1)00 quintals owing to the low price now prevailing iu the market. Several concessions for new railroads in Mexico have been granted to American capitalists. /. : -y v* 'vV????? ? MANGLED BY SHELLS. Horrible Tragedy at the Hard Island (Cal.) Nayy Yard, Thirteen Men of the Crniaer Boston Blown to Pieces, of the wont explosions ever known fa California occurred just before noon a few days ago, at Mare Island Government Navy Yard, by which thirteen men, belonging to the United States cruiser Boston were instantly killed, two fatally injured, and three severely wounded. The explosion took place in the shell room, and was suppossd to be due to one of the shells dropping as it was .. aing filled, bat this was mere theory, as none engaged in tha work were left alive to tell the story. The force of the explosion was so great that m03t people in the valleys believed it was an earthquake. In a moment the Mare Island navy fire bell bezanrin^ingand dense r\t emAlrA moa TVia oitnrvr>flJ f 1 on Vid utuuuo vi aiuv?n ivto? a uw oupj#vom*vu n<w that a fire had started. The navy yard is directly across a small stream from Vallejo. A reporter, who was among the first to cross on the ferry to the Nary Yard, behald a terrible scene. One of the strong; small house3 in which the work o! filling shells is ? carried od, was in ruins, while all about oa the hill, as though a great shell had burst among them, were scattered the mangled and bleeding forms of men wearing Uncle Sam's blue jackets. The ground looked as though it had beta plowed up by cannon bills, ar> 1 to add horror to the scene, flames started among the ruins filled with fragments of the human victims. Legs and arms were scattered about among the blackened heads and unrecognizable fragments of what had been only s few minutes before strong and actirs men. $ Lying near the door of one house was the body of Gunner Hettinger, of the Boston, while over on the other side was his head, Sjwder blackened and fearfully disfigured, n the beach near by, where they had beeo thrown by the terrible force of the explosion, were found two naval apprentices. Doth oC whom will die. A large squad of sailors and marines soon brought out the mangled remains of their comrades from the burning aneu nouses. When the fragments were laid together it was found that twelve men had lost their lives. Several of the bodies were cut clean in two, others had an arm or lag blown ol^ and veterans who had seen hard servioe in the Rebellion declared they never beheld s ghastlier sight than this. . The two young apprentices were blows clean across the beach into the water and wera picked up by a flreboat. They were terribly burn ad and mangled, and the doctors give no hope of their recovery. A visit to the naval hospital found Dr. Lewis at work over three men whose lives were despaired of. Dr. Lewis had Just taken a piece of wood six inches long and as: inch thick out of a Germon sailor's right side. Besides this, the bones of the left lac were shattered, and the cuticle burned off of the lower part of his body. One of the apprentices who was blows into the water was taken to the beach pill* fully asked of the sure eons: "Do you think we will get over this?"' Then he requested to be laid down, never again to get up. His companion's condition was equally bad. How the explosion occurred will never b? known. Fifteen men from the Boston wera sent down to prepare ammunition and fill shells for the snip. All were at work in tha filling room of the magazine under chargs of Gunner Heitinger. It is supposed one at ft iholl And thfl CQTXGQ3* sion caused the explosion. One of the first to go to the scene vu Or. Lewis of the Naval Hospital. Notwithstanding now and then the explosion of n shell, he braved the danger to save Hfe, bat the explosion had finished its work, and h? found only one body with any life in it besides the two apprentices. There were three magazine watchmen named Collins, Burns, and Damsted, on duty in the other parti of the grounds, and, although injured, they will live. ALDBIOH RE-ELECTED, To Serve Little Rbody Six Ye*rt More in the United States Senate KELSON vr. ALDRICB. Hod. Nelson Wilmarth Aldnch has bete re-elected United States Senator by the Rhode Island Legislature at Providmio* The vote was Aldrich, sixty four; David 8? Baker, Jr., thirty-nine. Mr. Aldrich was bom at Foster, R. ^November 0, 1841; was President of the ProvHnripp. R. I.. Common Council in 1871-78; was a member of the Rhode Island General Assembly In 1875-70, serving the latter year as Speaker of the Lower House; was elected to the House of Representatives of the Fortysixth Congress, and was re-elected to the Forty-seventh Congress; was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican, to succeed General Ambrose E. Burnside, and took his seat December 5, 1881; he was reelected in 18S'?, an 1 now gets the seat for another six-vear term, which will expire March 3. IS99. DEATH AT MASS. Fifteen Worshipers Instantly Killed by Liffhtning. Terrific thunderstorms prevailed in various parts of Spain and heavy loss of life by lightning is reported. At Slelias, in the province of Orense, the parish church was crowded with worshipers attending mas* when the storm burst. Not much attenaion wm paiu w wn ownu at first. Suddenly a blinding flash of lightning and a terrific crash of thunder caused the worshipers to spring to their feet in terror. For two or threo seconds after the flash it was impossible to see anything. Toe utmost confusion prevailed. When order was restored, the congregation was horrified to find that tan of their number had been struck by the lightning ami instantly killed, and that twentyeigut others iiai been seriously injured... \V ben this beciine generally known the people were panic-stricken and rushed from th? church iu the pelting storm. Many of them, men, women and children, sought refuge ia the open spaces near the church, fearing to enter a house; and there they remained, drenched to the skin, until the storm passed over. The church in the village of Mucientes, in the province of Valiadolid, was also struck by lightning. Five of the worshipers were killed and ton were injured. ' * * ~D?,Mrm/vi 1-kf At Burges, rapiuu ui mo i iwhumj ?u?. name, tue lightning displaced part of one of tne walls of th?- famous cathedral,one of tha oldest Lutlciings m Spain, and did ether damage. Nobody in the cathedral was hurt Thk annual report oi. tfceHew York Cotton Exchange states the number of bales of rotton sold on "future" deals during the year at 32,487,300, or over three times the amount of the entire crop. Members of tne exchange now hold 375,uOO bales, or more than half the entire stoclc in the ports of ti? United States.