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k. i f ? ii REV. DR. TALMA GE. K [THE BROOKLYN DIV1 NE'S SUNDAY, SERMON- . Subject: " Under Disadvantages.'* J j f Test: "The lame take the prey."?Isaiah Xxxiii.. 23. The utter demolition of the Assyrian host was here predicted Not only robust men should go forth and gather the spoils of conquest, but even men crippled of arm and crippled of foot should go out and capture muca tbat was valuable. Their physical disadvantages should not hinder their great enrich ment. So it has-been in the past: so it 'is now; so it will be in tne xuture. ?o 11 is In all departments. Men laboring under .seeminRiy great disadvantages and amid the /most unfavorable circumstances, yet making grand achievements, getting great blessing Jor themselves, great blessing for the world, great blessing for the church, and so "the lame take the prey." i Do you know that the three great poets of the world were totally blind?Homer, Osiau. John Milton? Do you know that Mr. Prescott, who wrote that enchanting book, *'The Conquest of Mexico," never saw Mexico, could not even see the paper on Which he was writing? A framework across i the sheet, between which, up and down, ,went the pan immortal. Do you know that Gambassio, the sculptor could not see the tnarble before him or the chisel with which he cut it into shapes bewitching? Do you know that Alexander Pope, whose poems will last as long as the English language, was so much of an invalid that he had to be , Bewed up every morning in rough canvas in order to stand on his feet at all? Do you know that Stuart, the celebrated mn/<h nf h:c TOAnrlorflll work 11 n Her the shadow of the dungeon where he had been unjustly imprisoned for debt? Do you know that Demosthenic, by almost superhuman exertion, first had to conquer the lisp of his own speech beiore he conquered assemblages with his eloquence? Do you know that Est.on struggled ail through innumerable sicknesses, and that Lord Byron and Sir jWalter Scott went limping on clubfoot through ail their life, and that many of the great poets and painters and orators and historians and heroes of the world had something to keep them back, and pull them tfowu, and impede their way. and cripple their physical or their intellectual movement, and yet that they pushed on and pushed up until they reaohed the spoils of jworldl.v success, and amid the huzza of Nations and centuries "the lame took the -- I lroa Know tnat a vast muiutuae 01 mese men starred under the disadvantage of obacure parentage?Columbus, the son of the /weaver; Ferguson, the astronomer, the son *>f the shepherd. America the prey of the ; one; worlds on worlds the prey of the other. JBut what is true in 3ecular directions is more true in spiritual and religious directions,and .1 proceed to prove it. | There are in all communities many invalids. They never know a well day. They j adhere to their occupations, but they go panting along the streets with exhaustions, und at eventime they lie down on the lounge jwith actings beyond all medicaments. They (have tried all prescriptions, they have gone through all the cures which were proclaimed infallible, and they have now come to surrender to perpetual ailments. They consider they are among many disadvantages, land when they see those who are buoyant in ihoalth nasa bv. thev almost envy their robust frames and eaay respiration. j But I have noticed among that invalid <lass those who have the greatest knowledge .of the Bible, who are in nearest intimacy ,with Jesus Christ, who have the mo3t glowing experiences of the truth, who have had 'the most remarkable answers to prayer, and ,"who have most eihllarant anticipations of jheaven. The temptations which weary us rwho tiro in robust health they have conquered. r Many who are alert and athletio and swan by loiter in the way?"the lame take [the prey.'' Robert Hall "an invalid, Edward jFayson an invalid. Richard Baiter an inva 'lid, Samuel Rutherford an invalid. This imorning. when you want to call to mind those wno are most Christ-like, you think of some darkened room in your father's house from which there went forth an influence ipotent for eternity. , A step farther: Through raised letters the art ot printing has been brought to the attention ol the blind. ) You take up the Bible for the blind, and you close your eyes, and you run your fingers lover the raised letters and you say "Why, I never oould get any information in this ,way. What a slow, lumbrous way of readling ! God help the blind!" |. And yet I find among that olassof persons, {among the blind, the deaf and the dumb, the |most thorough acquaintance with Qod's jwori?. Shut out from all otner sources or dniormatlon, no sooner does their hand touoh the raissd letters than they gather a prayer. [Without eyes, they look off upon the kingdoms of God's love. Without near ins:, they catch the minlstreisy of the skies. I>ui>\ yet with penoil. or with irradiated countenance, they declare the glory of God. i A large audience assembled in New York at the anniversary of the Deaf and Dumb vAsyium, and one of the visitors with chalk ton the blackboard wrote this question to the jpupiis, :'Do you not find it very hard to bo (deal and dumb?" And one of the pupils toot: the chalk and wrote on the blackboard ,this sublime sentence in auswer, ''When the sons; of the angels shall burst upon our eniraptured ear, we will scarce regret that our ears were never marred with earthly sounds." Oh, the brightest eyes In heaven will be those that never saw on earth. The ears most alert in heaven will be those that in this world heard neither voice of friend nor thrum of harp, nor carol of bird nor doxology of congregations. A lad who had been blind from infancy was cured. The oculist operated upon the lad and then put a very heavy bandage over the eyes, and after a few weeks had gone by the bandage was removed and the mothet said to her child: ' Willie, can you see?" He said: 4iOh. mamma, is this heaven?'1 The contrast between the darkness before and the brightness afterward was overwhelming. And T tall you the glories of heaven will be a thousandfold brighter for those who never saw anything on earth. White many with good vision closed their eyes in eternal night, and many who had a good, artistic and cultured ear went down into eternal discord, these afflicted ones cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he made their sorrows their advantage, and so "the lame took the Prey.'' In the seventh century there was a legend of St. Modobert. It was said thnt his mother was blind, and one day while looking at his mother he felt so sympathetic for aer blindness that he rushed forward and kissed her blind eyes, and the legend says her vision came immediately. That was only a legend, but it is a truth, a glorias truth, that the kiss of God's eternal love has brought to many a blind eye eternal illumination. A step farther: There are those in all com. muniries who toil mightily for a livelihood. They have scant wages. Perhap3 they are diseased or have physical inarmities, so they are hindered Trom doing a continuous day's work. A oity missionary finds them up the dark alley, with no Are, with thin clothing, with very coarse bread. They never ride in the street car; they cannot afford the five cents. They never see any pictures save those in the show window on the street, from which they are often jostled and looked at by some one who seems to say in the look "Move on ! What are you doing here looking at pictures?" Yi?t many of them live on mountains of transfiguration. Jtheir rough table He who fed the 5000 breaks the bread They talk often of the good times that are coming. This v.'orld has no charm for them, but heaven entrances their spirit. They often divide their scant crust with some forlorn wretch viio knocks at their door at night, and on the bla3t of the night wind, as the door opens to lei them ic. is heard the voice of Him who said. "I was hungry, and he fed Me." No cohort of heaven will he too bright to transport them. By God's help they have vanquished tne Assyrian host. l hey nave divided among them the spoils. Lame, lame, yet they took they prey. A step farther: There are in all communities many orphans. During our last war and in the years immediately following, how many children at the North and South we heard say, "Oh. my father was killed in the war." Have you ever noticed?I fear you have not?how well those children have turned out? Starting under the greatest disadvantage, no orphan asylum could do for ithem what their father would have done had be lived. I. The Bklrmisher sat one night by light of fagots in the swamp, writing a letter borne, when a sharpshooter's bullet ended tile letter wmcn was never iuiu?u, mvm posted and never read. Those children came up under great disadvantages. No father to fight their way for them. Perhaps there was in the old family Bible an old yellow letter pasted fast, which told the 3tory of that father's long march and how he suffered in the hospital. But they looked still farther on in the Bible, and they came to the story of how God Is the Tather of the fatherless and the widow's portion, and they soon took their father's place in that household. They battled the way for their mother. They , came on up, and many of them have already, 1 in the years since the war, taken positions in t church and State, North and South. While many of those who suffered nothing during . those times have had sons go out into lives ' of indolence and vagabondage, these who t started under so many disadvantages because thev were so early bereft, these are the lame i who took the prey. " A step farther: There are those who ? would 11 Ke to do good. They say, "Oh, If I only had wealth, or if I had eloquence, or if I had high social position, how much I would accomplish for God and the church!" c I stand here to-day to tell you that you have 1 great opportunities for usefulness. j Who built the pyramids? The king who i ordered them built? No; the plain workmen who added stone after stone and stone after rstone. Wh* built the dikes of Holland? The government that ordered the enterprise? No; the plain workmen who carried the ' earth and rang their trowels on the wall. \ Who are those that built these vast cities? t The capitalists? No; the carpenters, the ? masons, the plumbers, the plasterers, the tinners, the roofers, dependent on a day's 6 wages for a livelihood. And so in the great work of assuaging human suffering and en- [ lightening human ignorance and halting human iniquity. In that great work, th? c chief part is to be done by ordinary men, t with ordinary speech, in an ordinary man- B ner. and by ordinary means. . The trouble is that in the army of Christ , we all wane to be captains and colonels and ' brigadier generals. We are not willing to march with the rank and file and do duty with the private soldier. We want to belong to the reserve corps and read about the battle while warming ourselves at the campflres J or on furlough at home, our feet upon an f ottoman, we sagging; back into an armchair. As you go down the street you see an ex- * cavation, and four or five men are working e and perhaps twenty or thirty leaning on the \ rail looking over at them. That is the way it is in the church of God to-day. Where * you find one Christian hard at work, there J are fifty men watching the job. i Oh! my friends, why do you not go to i work and preach the gospel? You say, "I { have no pulpit." You have. It may be the carpenter's bench, it may be the mason's wall. The robe in which you are to proclaim < this gospel may be a shoemaker's apron, c But woe unto you if you preach not this gos- , pel somewhere, somehow! If this world is ! ever brought to Christ it will be through the 1 unanimous and long-continued efforts of t men who, waiting for no special endowment, j consecrate to God what they have. Among j the most useless people in the world are men wit h t?n talents, while manv a one with only I two talents, or no talents at all, is" doing a great work, and so "the lame take the prey." There are thousands of ministers of whom you hare never heard ?in log cabins at the West, in mission chapels at the East?who are warring against the*legion3 of darkness, successfully warring. Tract distributers, month by month undermining the citadels of sin. You do not know their going or their coming, but the footfalls of their ministry are heard in the palaces of heaven. Who are the workers in our Sabbath schools throughout this land to-day'? Men celebrated, men brilliant, men of vast estate? For the most part, not that at all. I have noticed that the chief characteristic Of the most of those who are successful in the WOrt 18 tnattney KHOWineircime?, are truest in prayer, are anxious for the salvation ] of the young, and Sabbath by 8abbath are ( willing to sit down unobserved and tell of , Christ and the resdrrection. These aro the humble workers who are recruiting the great 1 army of Christian youth?not by night, not ] by power, not by profound argument, not by ] brilliant antithesis, but by the blessing of i God on plain talk, and humble story, and si- . lent tear, and anxious look, "the lame take J the prey," Oh! this work of saving the youth of our ( country?how feiw appreciate what it is! This generation tramping on to the grave? we will soon all be gone. What of the next? An engineer on a locomotive going across , the Western prairies day afterdaysaw a little child come out in front of a cabin and wave lo him. So he got in the habit of waving hack to the little child, and it was the day's joy to him to see this little one come out in front of the (cabin door and wave to him while he answered back. une aay me iraau was iremicu uu u uomo on to the dusk of the evening. As the engineer stood at his post he saw by the headiarht that little girl on the track, wondering way the train did not come, looking for the irain. knowing nothing of her peril. A great < Horror seized upon the engineer. He reversed the engine. He gave it in charge of the other man on boatd, and then he climbed over the engine, and he came down on the cowcatcher. He said, though he had reversed the engine, it seemed as though it were going at lightning speed, faster and faster, though it was really slowing up, and with almost supernatural clutch he caught that child by the hair and lifted it up. and when the train stopped and the passengers gathered around to see what was the matter, there the old engineer lay, fainted dead away, the littlo child alive and in his swarthy arms. 4iOh," you say, "that was well done." But I want you to exercise some kindness and some appreciation toward those in the community who are snatching the little ones from under the wheels of temptation and sin ?snatching thom from under thundering rail trains of eternal disaster, bringing them ! up into respectability in this world and into glory for the world to come. You appreciate what the engineer did. Why can you not appreciate the grander work done by every Sabbath school teacher and by every Christian worker? i Oh, start on the road to heaven to-day. l'ou are not happy. The thirst of your soul will never be slaked by the lountains of sin. 1 You turn everywhere Taut to God for help. Bight where you are, call ou Him. He knows you; He knows all about you. He knows all the odds against which you have been contending in lite. Do not go to Him with a long rigmarole of prayer, but just look up and say, "Help! Help!" i Yet you say. "My hand trembles so from my dissipations. I "caunot even take hold of ' a hymn book to sing." Do not worry about f that, my brother, I will give out a hymn at , the close so familiar you can sing it without a book. But you say. "I have such terrible habits on me, I cant get rid of them." My < answer is, Almighty grace can break up that i habit and will break it. But you say. "The , wrong I did was to one dead and in henvep s now, and I can t correct that wrong." You ' can correct it. By the grace of God, go into 1 the presence of that one, and the apologies i you ought to have made ou earth mate in heaven. "Oh," say some men, "if I should try to ' do right, if I should turn away trom my evil- < doing un*o the Lord, I would be jostled, 7 ( would be driven back, nobody would have , any sympathy for me." You are mistaken. Here, in the presence of the church on earth ' and in heaven. I give you to-day the right 1 hand of Christian fellowship. God sent me 3 here t?-day to preach this, and he sent you fKia ' **T of tho tpiaItoH frtran his way, and the unrighteous man his 1 thought, and Jet him return unto the Lord, < who will have mercy, and unto our God. who ] will abundantly pardon." Though you may have been the worst sinner you may become the best saint, and in 1 the great day of judgment it will be found ( that "where sin abounded grace does much j more abound." and while the spoils of an everlnstinsr kingdom are beinff awarded for 1 your pursuit it will be found that -'the lame I took the prey." Blessed be God that we are ( this Sabbath one week nearer the obliteration of all the inequalities of this life and all its disquietudes. Years ago. on a boat on the North Elver, the piiot gave a very sharp ring to the ball j for the boat to 3low up. The engineer at- , | tended to the machinery, and than he came ( up with some alarm on deck to see what was \ the matter. He saw it was a moonliirht nitrht i nnd there were no obstacles in the way. He j went to the pilot and said : "Why did you rintf the bell in that way? Why do you want 1 to stop? Ther.e's nothing the matter." And a the pilot said to him, "There is a mist gatb* { oring on the river: don't you see that? and there is night gathering darker and darker, 11 and I can't see the way." t Then the engineer, looking around and t seeing it was a bright moonlight, looked -* Into the face of the pilot and saw that hewas dyirg, and then that he was dead. God fl grant that when our last moment cornea wo V may be found at our post doing our whole duty. And when the mlsta of the river of death gather on oar eyelids may the. good frnm nnr hanria and guide us into the calm harbor of eternal rest! Drop the anchor, fori the soil, 1 am safe within the vale. WORDS OF WISDOM. He that preaches the gospel of good lard sense has an important mission ;o filL There is no possible process of legisative enactment by which a lazy man nay be made energetic. Some men are more careless about ;he company their children keep than .hey are of th9 breed of their doge. If a man should register all his >pinions upon love, politics, religion, iterature, etc., beginning from his routh, and so go on to old age, what a >undle of inconsistencies and oontralictions wouM appear at last. The importance of this powerful igent?publio opinion?for the prevention of injurious acts, is to obvious o need to be illustrated. If suffl- a siently at command it would almost 1 mpercede the use of other means. Look at Nature with science , as a t ens. The rock swarms, the clod J lances; the mineral is but the vege- r able stepping down, and the animal t in ascending plant; the man, a beast ixtended; and the angel a devoted ? mman soul. f One of Russia's "Queer S?cta. 1 * x The Old Believers, or Men of the c Lncient Faith, are a Russian sect, so a tailed because they cling tenaciously ^ o the old service books, the old ver- a lions of the Bible, the old hymn c x>ok, the old prayer book and all the t :ustoms that were in vogue in the n Russian church previous to the re- e brms effected by the Patriarch Nioon n the seventeenth century. They use 1 ;he old Slavonic alphabet in their lit- ^ irgical books; they make the sign of t ;he cross in a different manner to that ?iofnmoTO in f.Vio naranf. rthnrnh. The 6 rUOUUlUKlJ r j, jrocessions in their churches walk |, rom right to left instead of from left t io right, as Nicon ordered. They think e t unlawful to eat certain kinds of food, f ncluding hare and potatoes, and they c )royo from the Old Testament that it j 8 unlawful to cut their bearda They ( lever celebrate the eacharist, and t >nly administer baptism at the ap- i, jroach of death. Some of them are v ianatics, and delare all temporal and ;ivil government to be anti-Christian ; . ;each the community of goods, extol 9 luicide and voluntarily barn them- ' selves alive rather than be forced into ^ compliance with the rites and cere- n monies of the National church. They c v " a - * J ~ i ire cmeay iou.nu umuu^ mc ^coonuvo, md their poverty may be one of the t ;auses of their possessing no places of public worship and meeting in each c other's houses instead. They were per- 1 jecuted under Peter I., who laid double taxes on them, but his successors, es- t pecially Catharine 1L aud Alexander 1 L, adopted a milder policy with the ? hope, of winning them back to the j Eastern church. ?Brooklyn Eagle. Calamities Which Have Invaded Paris. Paris has undergone atrocious suf- f ferings through war, famine, peatil- ! snce, and calamities of all kinds. The [ Normans, after burning one-half of 3 D- tlio Mmainiloii fn Ha 1 L ai lO, oixurrcu vuv ransomed with an enormous sum of j money. In one of the famines by t which Paris in its early days was so $ often visited people cast lots as to . which should be eaten. The taxes 1 were so excessive that many pretended c to be lepers in order to profit bj the ] exemption accorded in such cases. ? But it was sometimes not well to be a \ leper, real or pretended; for it wae ? proclaimed one day to the sound of t the horn and trumpet that lepers i throughout the kingdom should be ex- ..: terminated. t;In consequence of j mixture of herbs and human blo^T 1 with which, rolling it up itai a i'nen ' doth and tying it to. * stone, they \ poison the wells and rivers." In the ? centre of the so-called "towns"?Paris { in general, that is to say* as distinct ' from the city?was "la Manbee" (di- ] rived, according to Victor Hugo, from i nauvaise fumes), where Jewsinnumer- ' able were roasted over pitch and green . wood, to punish what a chronicler of. t the time terms their "anthropomandy," t and what the Counselor dt l'Ancrs j further describes as "khe^arvelouik , cruelty they have.always shown toward \j Christians, their mode di life, their synagogue, so disptopsing to God, their uncleanlines9 and their stench." ?Old and New Paris._ I The- Wings ot Birds. ' M. de Lucy, a French naturalist. 1 has shown that the wing-area of flying ! miraals varies from about forty-nine i jquare feet per pound of weight in the I A J & I* ^1 ( ?uat, null nve squnrt? icon iu iuu ovr?itow, to half a square foot per pound jf weight in the Australian crane, which weighs twenty-one pounds, and yet flies well. If we were to adopt the last or smallest proportion, a man weighing twelve stone would require a pair of wings each of them fourteen feet long by three feet broad, or double the area of an ordinary room door, to larry him, without taking into ac;ount the weight of the wings themselves. To pick out other aerial instances, it may not be generally known that a frigate-bird can travel at the rate of a hundred miles an hour by jhronograph. and live in the air a week at a time, day and night, with3ut touching a roost; that large and aeavy birds can remain almost motion- * ess in the air for hours without flap- r sing their wings; that birds can exert t lontinuouslv about three times the j lorse-power per pound of weight that j nan can, and about the same amonut nore than a horse can. ? Pall Mall Tazette. * ? c A Woman's" Capacity. The powar of love, and the possi)ility of a woman's intellect, are both j ;xemplified in the case of a naval officer | | vho has ilevoted several years to an J mportant and complex invention, t iis girl-wife, through sheer determ- i nation to be his chief confidants, has | icquired as thorough a knowledge of 0 he invention as he possesses himself, c md has him come to her with every rial and attempt, able to be Bympa- I hetic and intelligent throughout. tfen who sneer at feminine minds * hould aee this wise man lean on that i] ittle wife of his. t / RELIGIOUS READING. EEUMIOK TW HEAVEN. Where the faded flower shall freshec, Freshen, never more to fade, Where the shaded sky shall brighten, ^Brighten, never more to shade; yy noro tne sun maze never scorcnes, Where the star beams cease to chill, Where no tempest stirs the echoes Of the wood or wave or hill, Where the morn shall wake in gladness, And the noon the joy prolong; Where the daylight dies in fragrance 'Mid the burst of holy song? Brother,we shall meet and rest 'Mid the holy and the blest. Where no shadow shall bewilder, Whore life's vain parade is o'er, Where the sleep of sin is broken, And the dreamer dreams no more; Where the bond is never severed? Partings, claspings, sob nnd moan, Midnight waking, twilight weeping, Heavy noontide?all are done. Where the child has found its mother, Where the mother flnds the child, Where dear families are gathered That were scattered on the wildBrother. we shall meet and rest :Mid the holy and the blest., OUB DAILY CH08S. Luke 9:23. What a blessed thing It Is that our cross is omething.we must , take up daily, not the leart-rending grief that comes to us now md then in our lives, but the cross wo ever >ear while this life lasts. It is not the great >ut the small events in life which make one tappy or miserable, or rather how to bear hem, but every child of God knows how nuoh easier it is to meet the severe trial than he corroding cares of every day. How often we are tempted to be impatient iver household annoyances, to be wounded >y the ingratitude of those we have beriended, the harsh judgments in those we ove; to fret over financial difficulties, the ack of spiritual intercourse in our lives, the reary waiting for the conversion or conseration of some dear one, or the healing of ome painful disease. Thus our blessed Lord, who knows our tearts better than we can ever know them, aysf "Take up thy cross daily and folio w ae/* We can rest in Jesus as completely in hese matter.- as about more poignant griefs. Be careful, dear child of God, you do not aake your cross heavier by the burden of elf. Sensitiveness is onlv a subtle form of self shness: it ifi the "I, "me," and "mine," in is, which makes the hardest part of the daily ross. for our Master did not give us that to. lear. All he sends us is necessary for our spiritual growth; our Father, who is the husbandman, annot stay his hand and permit us to be all aaven hidden from the sun's warm light fay, the pruning knife must cut deep and ut away all things which prevent the fruit rom coming to perfection. ' For consider him who endured such ontradiction of sihners against himself, lest e be wearied and faint in your minds." Heb. 12:8.) Listen, beloved, to what he says: "I will >ring the blind by a way theyknewnot; I will ead them in paths they have not known; I fill make darkness light before them, and rooked things straight. These things will I to and not forsake them."?(Tsa. 42 :16). We often ask our Master to make us intruments fitted for his service. One day rhen praying this prayer the thought came o me, --if I had a knife I needed to use, vbat must it be to be useful? Sharp, bright ind clean. And as the knife must be ground Imrn t,i mnlro if. liKAflll. SO milflt we be DOl shed and ground for hils service. (Isa. 49: I). We often And the grinding painful, but he Lord knows just how much we need. Dear sister, you know what your special ross is and Jesus knows all about it If he las complete possession of your heart all the ting will be taken from it. Let us fling wide open the door of our learts for Christ Jesus to enter and make his lome there, and, with him in us, we will be 'nabled to take up our cross with rejoicing, ind with it follow him.?I. B. K. in Young ^adies" Christian League. TEE PADLOCKED CHBISTIAN. The padlocked Christian wears a muzzle, >ut Christ does not hold the key. He never srays, "8et thou a watch at the door of my ips"; he sots his own watch ; but instead of shallenging the evil that would pass, he retrains the good. He is the man who, havng made a public profession of faith in Jhrist, never opens his lips in Christ's belalf. He probably has a reason for the faith hat is in nim, but nobody ever heard 'him jive it. A curious faet about the padlooked Chris3 * ? moffflnfl nf I till IBj lUab.Hr. SO VSIJ WUV/OliUug luuvtvig v? eligion that ms lipe .are closed. Oq every >ther subject he Ma t&lk well with anybody. But whoa mi opportunity to speak for Christ ippeacs, besttedtrnb. It may be that he Idgets in his chair, but his voice, like that of rirgU's hero, sticks in his throat There are iome Christians whose lips are sealed with a ime look; that is they are willing to speak in irayer-meetlng, but are dumb when they >ngnt to speak for Christ in private. The lips of the padlocked Christians are lot always fastened with the same kind of ock. In general it is a sinful indifference to ho welfare of the soul of his neighbor, and jyery where it is a false modesty and a wicked imidity. fn prayer-meeting it is a knowlsdge that he cannot speak us well as Doctor Ipollos which locks his lips; at the shop it s a dread of ridicule; in society it is a fear >f seeming peculiar; at home it is the knowledge of an inconsistent life. This lest ? a regular Yale lock, and can only be jroken by the power of Christ \JLiet the padlocked Christian learn the prater of the penitent king: '-Lord, open hou ray lips." Newton says that the Lord tnswers this prayer by opening the eyes and tart, and the heart. "Then the lips open ihemselves. as a matter of couise, and the noath is filled with thanksgiving and jralse."?[Golden Rule. \ V ' THE HOLY SriRIT. Any one desirous of learning who the Holy spirit la and la what relation He stands to the religion of the Bible will be greatly instructed and profited by taking a concordance :>f that book an<f studying each passage in tvhich there4s a reference to the Holy Spirit; "specially will he find-that in the New Testament thia Person has to do with the whole ivarp and woof of the system of Christian iaith. More especially from about the time >f Christ's crueiflxkwi after He had spoken Jiose precious words about the Holy G'om'orter. and the promises to be fulfilled in regard to the Holjv, Spirit's ^presence ifter Christ's resurrection and asoension. \J3 the potent influences of \ this )eing mark the history of the progress, )f the Christian faith in a nspet wonderful manner: whether we look at thtppower In jfar ation to the changes wrought li the lives ind characters of individuals, association*or :ommunities, this evidence is unm1stftkwt\; rhen talce the testimony of the iuwanB.BX-' ?erience of those in wliom this ohang|FBte >eeu wrought as confirmed by their stibeeluent lives, and what a wonderful attestation ve have. Then number up these testimonies n the living witnesses of the present day by housands and tens of thousands in lifforent lands, the noblest and the pursst of the children of men, and how glo iously have the promises of Christ been ultilled! What incontrovertible evideneewe mve of the reality, presence and j>ower of the loly Spirit in the" hearts of the children of tten! The world's philosophy may not be ible to see how it is, but the Scriptures are >eing fulfilled and his right arm of i^u^th J n the church of Christ is rapidly advaii'-'.ng he kingdom of God on theeafth.?[jUeligiois icniuL __ 1 *\ A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin ot ' ittle miuds To be gr -as is to fre misualarstood.?Em<}wou. j J f Fire Losses. | ' Fire losses in the United Stated and Can- I ida for the entire ye:yp?of 1890,- according to I lie New York Commercial Bulletin, amountid to ?100,998,345 : for 1891^?J87,716,150. and I or 1892. ?132.704,700. Bu,t nowrithstunding i he efforts made through higher insurance | ates and otherwise to keep down the record, i he eleven months of 1893/alone ?how a total ose of 8144.340,400. The (full y?sar will prob- | kbly bringtbe losses up to the Alarming total ' if $156,000.000. ^ i Srunswlclt's Yellow Fetfer Record. | During the yellow,fever epidemic at Jrunswick, Ga.. there irate 1003 eases, 322 ieiag white, 680 colore*! and one Chinese, 'here were llfty-six deaths, of which fortywo were whites. i . - ' "sabbath school INTERNATIONAL LESSON FOR JANUARY 7. Lesson Text: "The First Adam," Gen, I., 20-31; ii., 1-2?Golden Text: Gen. L, 27? Commentary. 2C. "And God said, Lat us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, and let thorn ha%-e dominion." At some time in the past, known only to God. called in the first verse ' the beginning,'' God created the heaven and the earth?that is, He spake them into existence?as is proved by Ps. xxxiii., 6: Heb. xi., 3. He must have everything good, for He always does. That He did not create the earth without form and void is stated in Isa. xlv., 18. Compare the R. V. What happened between verses 1 and 2 to bring about this chaos we shall know some day. About GOOO years ago God brought order aud beauty and frultfulnees out of the chaos and confusion into the snace of six days, as is here described. See also Ex. xx.t 11. . And now on the sixth day He makes man to have dominion over alJ. How He made man 1 nndwomau is more fully stated in chapter i ii., 7, 21-25. and that He called their name . Aaam is stated in chapter v., 2. The words, "Let Us" imply the Trinity, which fact i? 1 also clear to a simple minded Hsbrew scholar J in the word fcr God. I 27. "So God created man in H!s own im- ; age ; in the image of God created He Mm ; male and female created He them." Then ' this man and woman must have been the ] finest pair that ever walked the earth. What- j ever else is implied in this imaga of God, it is evident from Eph. iv., 24, that righteousness and holiness of truth are included. How ' much more we shall know when in that bright morning of the resurrection we shall have been made like Him who is the brightness of the Father's plory and the express image of His person (I John iiL, 2 ; Hab. : t 3 J 28. "And God blessed thpm, and God said ^ tinto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and re- ] plenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion." The blessing of the Lord it i maketh rich, and toil addeth nothing thereto (Prov. x.. 22, R. Y.) When in the sixth year i God commanded Hisblessing onlsrael, there ] was as much produced in one year as ordin- t arilyin three years (Lev. xxv., 21.) When Jesus blessed the lad's loaves and fishes, they ' .fed many thousands. He says, "Herein is < My Father glorified that ye bear much fruit; j so shall ye be My disciple^(John xv.,8.) The time is coming when tie last Adam will 1 subdue all things unto Himself, for He is < abie. But now He is gathering out and train- i ing the subduers, who shall in thar day have . dominion with Him. I find it halpful to pray, "Lord, inasmuch ns Thou art able to 1 subaue all things unto Thyself (Phi!, iii., 21.) subdue me wholly to Thyself now." 29. "And God said, Behold, I have given ^ you every herb bearing seed which is upon ' the face o! all the earth, and every tree in i lue WliJUIi lb lilt: JfUll ui a ucn ^luiujug oouu , to you it shall be for meat." God would have His children at perfect rest concerning food and raiment. As to clothing such as we 1 wear, they had none (ii., 25), but inasmuch i as an other creatures had a clothing which , was a part of themseives, doubtless Adam and Eve, made in the images of God, line God, clothed with light (P?. civ., 1, 2). And now here is full provision for their bodies as j to food. We have no record of flesh being eaten till after the deluge (chapter ix., 3), though we do not say that it was not eaten. 1 But He who fed sinlul Israel for forty years i in the wilderness will always provide for His own. i 30. "And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth wherein there >s life, I have given every green herb lor meat?and it was so." Not only man, but Kabo^ its fnr Thpa? wiiif nil iinnn i Thee that Thou mayst give them their meat in due season (Ps. civ., 27). Behold , the fowls of the air, your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ttve sparrows sold 1 for two farthings, and not one of them is t forgotton betore God (Matb. vi., 26 : Luke . xii., ft)? Observe the phrase, "I have given,"' j Jind think of Rom. viil., 32. He who spared not His own 3cn, but delivered Him up for 1 us all, how shall He not with Him also freely i give us all things? j 31. "And God saw everything that He had made, and. behold, it whs very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth 1 day." This Is the seventh time that it is | written, "God saw that it was good." God is lcve, and He cannot do or make that which is not in His sight good. He is good, | and his mercy endureth forever (Ps. cxxxvi., i 1). He is round about us as a wall of fire and , will not possibly permit aught that is not . good to come to us, so we can surely bless ' the Lord at all times (Zech. ii., 5 ;Ps. xxxiv., 1 1). In all the days it is ttrst evening, fol- | lowed by night and then morning. So now it Is the world's night, but the night is far 1 spent, and the day is at hand. The morsing I cometh (Rom. xii., 12; Isa. xxi., 12). j 1. "Thus the heavens and the earth were j finished and all the host of them." "Thus." How? Why. by the word of his mouth (Ito, ' xxxlil., 6). In chapter i it is written tea t times, "And God said." Now, since He thus ] created all things, what is tbere He cannot do? ,iAh, Lord God, behold, Thou hast ' created the heavens and the earth by Tby f great power and stretched out arm. and j there is nothing too hard forThee'' (Jer. < xxxH., 17). If Christian, how thankful we should be that God, who commanded thy f light to shine out of darkness, hath shined iu j our hearts to give the light of the knowledge | of the glory of God in the face of Jesus , oiinsc jix uor. iv., 0). On "the host of ' them" see D-?ut. iv., 19; Ex. xii., 41: Pi. oiii.,21; I Sam. i? 3. i. Anu on ine sevenm uay uou enuea His work which He had madp. and He rested on tho seventh day from all His work which ! He had made." The words "finished" and "ended"'are suggestive of some other works in due time finished or to be finished, as the tabernacle, tho temple, the work of atonement and the redemption of the world (Ex. xl., 33; II Chron. vii., 11: John xx., 30; Kev. xxi., 5,6). God "rested" cannot imply weariness, /or Hs fointptfi not, ueitber '3 weary (Isn. xl.,'2d). But Ho CcageJ'n9"th0 jpanna ceased or a work might cease (Joshua v., 1 !; Neb. vi., 3). And if we would enter into His rest we must cease from our own works as God did from His (Heb. iv.. 10). 3. ''And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it He had rested rAm nil TTic n'KinK /ir.intnnrl made." If we would know His rest, we must ? reverence His Sabbaths. Disobedience hern gave Israel seventy years captivity (II Chron. xxxvi., 21). Obedience in this particular will bring the richest blessings ( Ian. lviii., 13, 14: lvL. -1-7. We have come through nearly ?000 years since God created Adam. It would not be strange if tne seventh thousand should prove to be earth's Sabbath day, the thousand years Gf Rev. xx ?the milleuium. Let us cease from all our own w?rks b0,h as f0 salvation and sendee, and resting in His work let Him work in us (Phil. ii., 13).?Le*soa IiolDer CURIOUS FACTS. ;i In 1683 the city of Philadelphia "consisted of three or four little cottages." London's last census, taken in 1891, gave the metropolis a pop?iation of 4,231,421. The population of Ireland in 1841 . I was 8,196,597. Now it is a little over ? five million. c j The first city to offer aid to Chicago ? after the great fire in the Windy City v was Qnincy, 111. 0 According to his own account i Columbus was thirty-three days ami v | five hours in crossing from Spain to y I San Salvador. j; Pope John II., 532, had a "first- a I w.-.ter diamoud of five pennyweights, f upon which wfts carved an exact like- f, nets of Christ." o Cotton has been cultivated since n time out of memory. One of the n presents received by Jacob, Joseph's n father, from the royal hand of Pharaoh a was a "'cotton rope." & ? C! World's Oat l'roduct. . world's oat product for 1893 is 2,050,- ? iiuu.wj ousaftis. as against /.uuu.uuu dusu- ?" els Just year, and 2.216,000,000 bushels, ii whicli is the average production, the present Q year's yield being smaller than for many ,, years before. "J , . v..-, -> i ? AGRICULTURAL, rOPICS OF INTEREST RELATIVE TO FARM AND GARDEN. CUT BONES FOB HOGS AND POTTLTBY. Feeders of poultry and hogs are beginning to appreciat6 the value of cut raw bones in feeding their stocK. in the cool -weather of winter and spring this article is of great value for feeding growing pigs and chickens, and my farmer who is feeding much oi this kind of stock will do well to buj i bone-cutter and attach it to his windmill or other power, if he has any. Cut bones are well worth what thej cost for manure. They contain nitrogen and phosphoric acid, and are more valuable by far than bone ash or the ground steamed bones sold by dealers in fertilizers. There is no reason whj this material should be gathered bj the bone dealers, and after steaming to extract the glue, ground and sold is fertilizer. It can be bought at the meat market for about three-fourths af a cent per pound, and will pay well (or cutting and feeding. The poultry and pigs will grindfor yon', and their manure will be enough richer to repay the cost, beside whatever profit there may be in feeding it. It is not pleasant stuff to handle in warn (feather unless out and fed immedi'tely. ?Massachusetts Ploughman. Iili'i'EB FOB l'Hifi STABLE) The matter of litter for the stables is one deserving attention at this time. Formerly, -when economy was not considered as it is now, the straw was looked upon as worthy of no better use than to be trodden under foot and go into the manure heap. But now the straw is made a valuable food, and, by cutting it and adding some grain food richer in nutritive elements, it is easily made as valuable is hay, so that it cannot be used as litter any more. There are several other substances that may take its place that have no food value, and these should be collected for use as 3oon as possible. The first and best of these iB leavea from the wood lot or the forest. It has been found profitable to keep up i* ^ 1am a flrtl a a piaumiiuu ux uxiuuui ivi iwo awio use, if for no other. One acre of [eaves will supply a large stable, and should be gathered into heaps and covered from the rain. They are soft and warm and make the best of manure. . For the horse stableB they make it possible to keep the manure in the stalls, especially if they are loose box stalls, the whole winter, or at least half of it, and thus save much unnecessary labor in removing the manure daily, as is often the custom. Ihe litter is trodden hard and does not decompose, and thus, when kept renewed by additions every few' days, the stable is cleaner and lew) offensive than one that is cleaned daily. Sawdust is the best litter for cowstables, but it should be of hard wood and not pine. It is very absorbent, and a little of it sprinkled over a floor recently cleaned freshens and purifies bhe stable. But it will be better in every case to dust the floor with gypsum as soon as it is cleaned and before the litter is spread. Dry swamp mack is next to sawdust tor its cleanliness, and better for its use as manure, for its antiseptic quality sweetans the air of the stable, and it is the greediest of all absorbents, taking up ijuite its weight of liquid matter. If straw is used it will be trebled in value by cutting it small in a fodder cutter, [t then lies best on the floor, covers the manure better, and is more absorbent than long straw. Owing to ;he feeding value of straw, the dairymen had better use sand or dry earth in ;he placa of it, and feed the straw to ;he dry cows and the calves. It if ilso excellent rough food for the lorses. A horse may be kept in ex sellent condition -with any kind ol itraw, cut and wetted and mixed with ;he regular ration of meal, and this 'ood is far cheaper than feeding whole jrain and hay. The saving will be 'ully one-third, and the animals will De kept in better condition.?New fork Times. DECREASE OF SOIL FERTILITY. In a recent notable article the New fork Sun argues that the decrease of igricultural population in all the older [arming communities Is ma;aly dug ta rtie fact that improved machinery has essened the number who are needed to run a furm. Bather than be idle )he surplus young men- whom the new mplements lave superseded have locked to the cities. It is certainly ;rue, as the Sun says, that by laborlaving machinery one man on the farm ;an do the -work formerly required by ;hree to five or even more. So far as tgricultural production is concerned ;his decrease of the farming popula;ion has not affected it. A smaller jroportion of our population is engaged in farming than ever before. But prices of ail the grains are low, ind especially of wheat, that being the ;rop where harvesting machinery has )een most efficient in enabling one nan to do the work of three or four. The picture given by the Sun, hough true, so far as it goes, is not ;he whole truth. If it were, there is 10 reason why farmers should be es)ecially discouraged the past few ? 1. x 1 rears, xney can ao more worn man iver before; but while improvements n machinery have enabled them to do his, there has been a gradual diminuion of fertility which lessens the advantage they should have gained from t. The large lield cut over by a self)inding reaper is harvested very heaply per acre. It needs to be, for 10th the yield and price is small, and fill not warrant the expensive methids which were formerly considered nevitable. Thousands of acres of meat in the West have been cut this ear for crops of tive to eight bushels er ncre, worth after harvesting nd cleaning perhaps thirty-live to ortv cents nor bushel. The arnier may out eight to ten acres f such wheat in a single day, ,nd perhaps ildt have at night as lueh value of grain aud not mansion* bushels than the man with cradle nd rake would secure in the olden ime. In such case, it is plain that tie large cost of buying and mainlining agricultural machinery, and lie cost of keeping a team to go with has given the farmer of to-day no dvantage whatever over the farmer of hirty-five or forty years ago. ^r% ;: v v * M On a superficial view farming ha* been made easier by this increase of . labor-saving machinery. It is easier ' . [ ; mainly for the hired man. < His labor is lightened. That of his employer, who is obliged to pay wages, taxes and meet household expenses with less net profits than he made ten, twenty or thirty years ago, has beea increased. If seems quite likely, too,i i that the greater amount of land which ; modern improved machinery enable* a farmer to plow, sow or reap is in' l part responsible for the decrease of \i yield and of profit If we could har? - { ' large yields, such as the best classes of farmers used to arrow, the nresent A low price of wheat might be made to ^ ' pay something. But the crop ha* , gone down as well as the price. It has > ) been a necessity of farmers who had 1 > I jen used to growing wheat largely, 1 > and who had the machinery for har' vesting it, to keep on plowing ani p cultivating large areas that they could ; not manure. It is an unfortunate faot I that by the use of mineral manures ) wheat and other small grains can be ) grown even on lands to far exhausted I to grow other crops with profit.- Tht - mineral fertilizer most - needed for -4 I. wheat is phosphate. This has beea * ' Hi "used to grow wheat crops to the ex- ' ] ' -haustion of the nitrogen in the soflJ The farmer who has grown wheat in i this way finds after a few years thai his land will produce wheat if dressed " g 'with 150 to 200 pounds of phosphate^ but it will not grow, oorn, potatoes or />r/>r?a qq if tianrl /In ' ' ' /!-/? i The excessive; sowing of wheat on i large tracts with small yields has, we i i believe, ran its natural coarse. 11m i wheat grower of the fntnre must sow ? > fewer acrea and get large enough yield ' M to give him some profit, however low -j the price. But when this time oomes | i the prioe of wheat must advance to I point where it will pay to increase the permanent fertility of the soil, It will be slow work to retraoe the steps by | which much of our cultivated land has > been depleted of its fertility. Baft i* with the use of clover and the combination of wheat growing with other V ^ i crops and the keeping of a greater 'i % amount of stock this change can 1m made. But it can only be by an im provement in tne cnaracter 01 sxock, . . so that its keeping will be more than paid for, leaving the manure pile m the profit. This improvement of the character of farm stock meets us as the first necessity in any discussion of the means to secure better farming;-? / American Cultivator. fabh and gatoejt notes. There is no profit infounderedpigs. Poor quality lowers prices more than over-production. More fat can be laid on with ground than with whole grain. There is always a good demand for strictly first-class stook. Ventilation and warmth should gtf ^ together. Avoid draughts If turuips are fed before milking Yjj they will affect the flavor of the milk. Many poultry men say that a hen 4?* <MAA?a l??o /1/vrtA It AV KaO^. J UJL I/7IU y CO! a UUO UVUW UO* l/wvww* f?w? J nrjLeaves are excellent as a mtdohj atf stock bedding and as a stable absorb* ent. Cases of caked adder maybe quickly relieved by liberal applications of very hot water.? . The greatest profit in feeding sheep for mutton is made while the animate are young. Sheep produce four crops every year, namely, matt on, wool,. Iambi and manure. Before setting, air your milk thoroughly, so as to allow animal and other matter to escape. It is said that when the cows* have : been fed on bran the milk rises slowly , and is hard to churn. i Firewood is more easily cut when green and makes quicker and better ! fires when well seasoned. If the stock are to be kept thrifty i they need more variety of food in. i winter than at any other season. 1 Those trees whose leaves stick to the branches in the spring are to be looked upon as lacking in stamina. . *' When calves are found three to six months old and weigh from eightyfive to 100 pounds they 'are best for^ the market. Batter T5*om fresh cows is more highly flavored than that from oovrs '[ loiifi'in njpc, so the latter requires mdfe care in ripening. / Sheep are hardy and able toiju&d* rough* weather and to partly ^ without dying, but they do not yield their best results from such neglect. The care of butter does not end with its being packed in tabs or jars. The packages should be kept stored in a cold atmosphere kept pure by venti- , lation. One of the lessons that the farmer J needs to learn more thoroughly is that the quality of his stock can be improved without increasing the cost of the food. ? Sir J. B. Lawes writes that while - - - . M.i - I the various metuoas or preparing iou| der for aaimals, such as steaming en- . silage, etc., may be accompanied by practical advantage, all the experiments hitherto executed show that the digestibility is not sensibly increased. "Hog raising, either on a large or small scale, pays better in connection with dairying, especially butter-making, thau under any other conditions ;v known to us in this province," said ::J President Mills of the Ontario College in a recent address before a swinebreeders' meeting. I The fir*t year of a calf's life deter mines to a great degree its value as an animal for profit. If it is permitted to run with the cows, steers and older cattle, where it will be iostled about and made to stand bc.clc from the feed until such \ time as it can get to take i up the refus.. left after the stronger have their clu-iee, an unprofitable, stunted calf will bt* the result. Professor Lloyd, the well known English chemist, found as the result of analysis that butter churned at 78 degrees contained 11.Oi per cent. water, and that churned at 58 degrees contain 12.14 p?r cent, water, and that j churned at 52 degrees contained 12.19 I ---.l -U fam. per ueutv vatcr, siiumug lum i^ .i, perature i,t which churniug is done does not n^c^sarily control the percentage of ^ ater iu the butter. Ia 1891 one-3ixth of all the families iu London Were living iu single rooms.. -M