The Aiken recorder. [volume] (Aiken, S.C.) 1881-1910, June 07, 1889, Image 8
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BEY. DB. TAUIGE.
BROOKLYN DIVINE'S
DAY SERMON.
SUN
Suttfect: “Onr Need oT Cleansing.*»
Text: “7/ / wtuk myadf vitk num
waUr, and should J demise my hands in
•alkali, yet shall thou pinnae me *» the ditch,
.and mine own clothes shall abhor me.”—
Job ix., 80, 81.
Albert Barnes—honored be his name on
earth and^n heaven—weont straight back to the
; original writing of my text, and translated
.it as I have now quoted it, giving substantial
jeasons for so doing. Although we know
better, the ancients had an idea that in snow
water there was a special power to cleanse,
and that a garment washed and rinsed in it
i would be as clean as clean could be; but if
the plain snow water failed to do its work,
'then they would take lye or alkali and
mixed it with oil, and under that
preparation they felt that the last impurity
would certainly be gone. Job, in my text,
in moet forceful figure sets forth the
idea that all his attempts to make himself
pure before God were a dead failure, and
that, unless we are abluted by something
.better than earthly liquids and chemical
preparations, we are loathsome and in the
ditch. "If I wash myself with snow water,
and should I cleanse my hands in alkali, yet
shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine
own clothes shall abhor me.”
You are now sitting for your picture.
I turn the camera obecura of God’s
word full upon you, and I pray that
the sunshine falling through the skylight
may enable me to take you just as you
are. Shall it be a flattering picture, or
shall it be a true one? You say: "Let it be
a true one.” The first profile that was ever
taken was taken three hundred and thirty
‘.years before Christ, of Antigonus. He had
a blind eye. and he compelled the art
ist to take his profile so as to hide the
defect in his vision. But since that inven
tion, three hundred' and thirty years before
• Christ, there have been a great many pro-
. files. Shall I to-day give you a one-sided
view of yourselves, a profile, or shall it be a
full-length portrait, showing you just what-
you are* If God will help me by His al
mighty grace, I shall give you that last kind
of a picture.
When I first entered the ministry I used to
write my sermons all out and read them, and.
run my hand along the line lest I should lose
my place. I have hundreds of those manu
scripts. Shall I ever preach them? Never;
for in those days I was somewhat over-mas
tered with the idea I heard talked all around
about, of the dignity of human nature, and I 1
adopted the idea,and I evolved it, and I illus
trated it, and I argued it; but coming on in
life, and having seen more of the world, and
studied better my Bible, I find that that early
teaching was faulty, and that there is no dig
nity in human nature, until it is reconstructed
by the grace of God. Talk about vessels {going
to pieces on the Skerries, off Ireland! There
never was such a shipwreck as in the Gihon
and the Hiddekel, rivers of Eden, where
our first parents foundered. Talk of a
steamer going down with five hundred
passengers on board! What is that to the
shipwreck of fourteen hundred million souls?
We are by nature a mass of uncleanness and
putrefaction, from which it takes all the om
nipotence and infinitude of God’s grace to
extricate us. “ If I wash myself with snow
water, and should I cleanse my hands in al
kali, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch,
and my own clothes shall abhor me.”
I remark, in the first place, that some peo
ple try to cleanse their soul of sin in the snow
water of fine apologies. Here is one man who
says: "I am a sinner; I confess that; but I
inherited this. My father was a sinner, my
grandfather, my great-great-grandfather'
and all the way back to Adam, and I
couldn’t help myself.” My brother, have
you not, every day in your life, add
ed something to the original estate of
sin that was bequeathed to you ? Are
you not brave enough to confess
that you have sometimes surrendered to sin,
which you ought to have conquered? I ask
you whether It is fair play to put upon our
TJr which we ourselves are
le? If your nature was
i it, have you not some-
itional twist? Will all
»vo
immortal
ay: "I will try some-
I will try the force
That will be more
will be if you try to gather up thaae contrasts
and comparisons with others, and with these
to wash out the sins of
It will be an unsuccess-
Such snow water will
wash away a single stain of at
souL
But I hear some one i
tfcteg better than that,
of a good resolution,
pungent, more
more cleansing. The snow water has
and now I will try the alkali of the good,
strong resolution.” My dear brother, nave
you anj* idea that a resolution about
the future will liquidate the past? Sup
pose I owed you five thousand dollars
and I should come to you to-morrow and
say: "Sir, I will never run in debt to you
again; if I should live.thirty years, I will
never run in debt to you again;” will you
turn to me and say: "If you will not
run in debt in the future, I will forgive
you the five thousand dollars.” Will you do
that? No! Nor will God. We have been
running up a long soore of indebtedness with
God. If for the future we should abstain
from sin, that would be no defrayment of past
indebtedness. Though you should live from
this time forth pure as an archangel before
the throne, that would not redeem the
past. God,' in the Bible, distinctly
declares that he "will require that which
is past”—past opportunities, past neg
lects, past wicked words, past impure im
aginations, past everything. The past is a
great cemetery, and every day is buried in
it. And here is a long row of three hundred
and sixty-five graves. They are the
dead days of 1888. Here is a long row of
three hundred and sixty-five more graves,
and they are the dead days of 1887. And
here is a long row of three hundred and six
ty-five more graves, and they are the dead
days of 1886. It is a vast cemetery of the
past. But God will rouse them all up with
resurrectionary blast, and as the prisoner
stands face to face with juror and judge, so
you and I will have to come up and look
upon those departed days face to face, exult
ing in their smile or cowering in their frown.
"Murder will out,” is a proverb that
stops too short. Every sin, however small,
as well as great, will out. In hard times
in England, years ago, it is authentically
stated that a manufacturer was on the way,
with a bag of money, to pay off his hands. A
man infuriated with hunger met Him on the
road, and took a rail with a nail in it from a
paling fence and struck him down, and the
nail entering the skull instantly slew him.
Thirty years after that the murderer
went back to that place. He passed into the
grave yard, where the sexton was digging a
grave, and while he stood there the spade of
the sexton turned up a skull, and, lo! the
murderer saw a nail protruding from the
back part of the skull; and as the sex
ton turned the skull it seemed with hol
low eyes to glare on the murderer;
and he, first petrified with horror, stood
in silence, but soon cried out. "Guilty!
guilty! O God!” The mystery of the
crime was over. The man was tried
and executed. My friends, all the un
pardoned sins of our lives, though we
may think they are buried out of sight
d gone into a mere skeleton of
am
memory, will turn up in the cemetei
5ry
itn
know a devout
hemous parentage,
(whose father was a
i whose mother was
The hereditary tide
t there is such a thing
it that I have a cor-
i why I should yield
! of our soul can never
ow water of such in-
’ some one: "If I have
been through my com
ics and my associates;
ey taught me to drink,
le gambling hell. They
ae house of sin. They
I do not believe it. God
he power to destroy you or
'royed he is self destroyed,
i so. Why did you not break
If they had tried to steal
would have knocked them
[ tried to purloin your gold
tauld have riddled them
rhen they tried to steal your
ryou placidly submitted to it.
Iwshave a cup of fire to drink;
fur cup into it. In this matter
rery man for himself. That
are not fully responsible for
ove by the fact that you still
f them. You cannot get off by
Though you gather up all
ies; though there were a great
i,' though they should come down
[>rce of the melting snows from
icy could not wash out one stain
aortal soul.
ler, some persons apologize for
t>y saying: "We are a great deal
some people. You see people all
it us that are a great deal worse
You stand up Columnar in your
Y, and look down upon those who are
s in their habits and crimes. What
ay brother? If I failed through reck-
i and wicked imprudence for ten thou-
t>liars, is the matter alleviated at all
le fact that somebody else has
for one hundred thousand dollars,
f somebody else for two hundred
id dollars? Oh, no. If I have
Igia, shall I refuse medical attend-
because my neighbor has virulent
lid fever? The fact that his disease
rorse than mine—does that cure mine?
through my foolhardiness, leap off into
, does it break the fall to know
others leap off- a higher cliff into
darkness? When the Hudson river
1 train went through the bridge at Spuyten
did it alleviate the matter at all that
of two or three people being hurt
lere were seventy-five mangled and crushed?
tecause others are depraved, is that any ex-
' cuse for my depravity? Am I better
than they? Perhaps they worse
temptations than I have had. Per
haps their surroundings in life were
more overpowering. Perhaps, O Tn«.n
If you had been under the same stress of
temptation, instead of sitting here to-day,
you would have been looking through the
oars of a penitentiary. Perhaps O woman,
if you haa been under the same power of
temptation, instead of sitting here to-day,
you would be tramping the street, the laugh
ing stock of men and the grief of the angels
of God, dungeoned, body, mind and soul, in
the blackness of despair. Ah, do not let
us solace ourselves with the thought that other
people are worse than we. Perhaps in the
future, when our fortunes may change, un
less God prevents it, we may be worse than
they are. Many a man after thirty years,
after forty years, after fifty years, after sixty
years, has gone to pieces on the sand
bars. Oh! instead of wasting our
time in hypercriticism about others,
let us ask ourselves the questions, Where do
we stand ? What are our sins ? What are our
deficits? What are our penis? ‘What our
hopes ? Let each one say to himself: "Wbere
will I be ? Shall I range in summery fields,
or grind in the mills or a great night? Where?
Wbere?”
Some winter moi
snow bank in
aome heavenly
and as the sun glints it the luster is almost
insufferable, and it seems as if God had
wrapped the earth in a shroud with white
plaits woven in looms celestial.
And you say: "Was there ever
nything so pure as the snow, so
oeauniui as tne snow But you brought a
pail of that snow and put it upon the stove
and melted it; and you found that there was
a sediment at the bottom, and every drop of
that snow water was riled; and you found
that the snow bank had gathered up the
impurity of the field, and that after
all it was not fit to wash in. And so I say it
of the past and glower upon us wit!
their misdoings. I say all our unpardoned
sins. Oh, have you acne the preposterous
thing of supposing that good resolutions for
the future will wipe out the past? Good re
solutions, though they may be pungent and
caustic as alkali, nave no power to
neutralize a sin, have no power to
wash away a transgression. It wants some
thing more than earthly chemistry to do
this. Yea, yea. though “I wash myself with
snow water, and should I cleanse my hands
in alkali, yet shalt thou plunge me in the
ditch, and mine own clothes shaU abhor me.”
You see from the last part of this text that
Job’s idea of sin was very different from that
of Eugene Bue, or George Sand, or M. J.
Michelet, or of any of the bundreds of writers
who have done up iniquity in mezzotint,
and garlanded tho wine cup with eg
lantine and rosemary, and made the
path of the libertine end in bowers of
ea se instead of on the hot flagging of eternal
torture. You se^-that Job thinks that sin is
not a flowery parterre; that it is not a table
land of fine prospects; that it is not
music, dulcimer, violoncello, castanet
and Pandean pipes, all making music
together. No. He says it is a ditch, long,
deep, loathsome, stenchful, and we are all
plunged into it, and there we waUow and sink
and —* ■av
guage. It<
-i/ropriety and robes
are saturated in the slime and a ,
and our soul, covered over with transgression^
hates its covering, and the covering hates the
soul until we are plunged into the ditch, and
our own clothes abhor us.
I know that some modern religionists cari
cature sorrow for sin, and they make out an
easier path than the "pilgrim’s progress”
that John Bunyan dreamed of. The road
they travel does not stop where John’s did, at
the city of Destruction, but at the gate of
the university; and I am very certain
that it will not come out where John’s did,
under the shining ramparts of the celestial
city. No repentance, no pardon. If you do
not, my brother, feel that you are down in
the ditch, what do you want of Christ to lift
you out? If you have no appreciation of
the fact that you are astray, what do you
want of him who came to seek and save that
which was lost? Yonder Is the City of
Paris, the swiftest of the Inmans, coming
across the Atlantic. The wind is abaft,
so that she has not only her engines
at work, but all sails up. I am on
board the Umbria of the Cunard
line. The boat davits are sv.uhg around
The boat is lowered. I get into it with a
red flag and cross over to where the City of
Paris is coming and I wave the flag. The
captain looks off from the bridge and says •
“ What do you want ? ” I reply : " I come
take some of your passengers across
o the other vessel; I think they will be safer
and happier there.” The captain would look
down with indignation and say: ‘ ‘Get out of
the way, or I will run you down.” And then
I would back oars, amidst the jeering of
two or three hundred people looking
over the taffrail. But the Umbria
and the City of Paris meet under different
circumstances after a while. The City of
Paris is coming out of a cyclone; the life
boats are smashed; the bulwarks gone; the
vessel rapidly going down. The boatswain
gives his last whistle of despairing com
mand. The passengers run up and down the
deck, and some pray, and all make a great
outcry. The captain says: "You nave
about fifteen minutes now to prepare
for the next world.” “No hope!” sounds
from stem to stern and from
the ratlines» down to the cabin. I
see the distress. I am let down by
the side of the Umbria. I push
off as fast as I can toward the sink
ing City of Paris. Before I come up people
are leaping into the water in their anxiety to
get to the boat, and when I have swung up
under the side of the City of Paris, the
frenzied passengers rush through the gang
way until the officers, with ax and clubs
and pistols, try to keep back the crowd,
each waiting his turn to come next.
There is but one life boat, and they all
want to get into it, and the cry is: "Me
next! me next!” You see the application;
before I make it. As long as a man going-
on in his sin feels that all is well, that be is!
—min? out at a beautiful port, and has all
sail set,he wants no Christ,be wants no help,
he •wants no rescue; but if under the flash of
God’s convicting spirit he shall see that by
reason of sin he is dismasted and water
logged, and going down into the trough of
the sea where he cannot live, how soon he
puts the sea glass to his eye and sweeps the
horizon, and at the first sign of help
cries out: “I want to be saved. I
want to be saved now. I want to be saved
forever.” No sense of danger, no applica
tion for rescue.
Oh, that God’s eternal spirit would flash
upon us a sense of our sinfulness! The Bible
tells the story in letters of fire, but we get used
to it. We joke about sin. We inake merry over
it. What is sin? Is it a trifling thing? Sin is a
vampire that is sucking out the life blood of
your immortal nature. Sin? It is a Bastile
that no earthly key ever unlocked. Sin? It
is expatriation from God and heaven. Sin?
It is grand larceny against the Al
mighty, for the Bible asks the question:
"W ill a man rob God?” answering it in the
affirmative. This Gospel is a writ of reple
vin to recover property unlawfully detained
from God.
In the Shetland Islands there is a man
with leprosy. The hollow of the foot has
swollen until it is flat on the ground. The
joints begin to fall away. The ankle
thickens until it looks like the foot of
a wild beast. A stare unnatural
comes to the eye. The nostril
is constricted. The voice drops to an
almost inaudible hoarseness. Tubercles blotch
the whole body, and from them there comes
an exudation that is unbearable to the be
holder. That is leprosy, and we have all got
it unless cleased by the grace of God. See
Leviticus. See II Kings. See Mark. See
Luke. See fifty Bible allusions and confir
mations.
The Bible is not complimentary in its lan-
ioes qot speak mincingly about
It does not talk apologetically.
There is no vermilion in its style. It does
not cover np oar transgressions with bloom
ing metaphor. It does not sing about
them in weak falsetto; bat It thunders oat':
"The imagination of man’s heart is evil
from his youth.” "Every one has gone back.
He has altogether become filthy. He is
abominable and filthy, and drinketh in in
iquity like water.” And then the Lord
Jesus Christ flings down at oar feet this hu
miliating catalogue: "Oat of the heart
of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries,
fornication, murders, thens, blasphemy.”
There is a text for your rational
ists to preach from. the dignity
of human nature! There is an
element of your science of man
that the anthropologist never has had
the courage yet to touch; and the
Bible, in all tne ins and oats of the
most forceful style, sets forth onr natural
pollution, and represents inionity as a fright-
fpl thing, as an exhausting thing, as a loath
some thing. It is not a mere bemiring of the
feet, it is not a mere befooling of the hands;
it is going down, head and ears under, in a
ditch, until our clothes abhor ns.
My brethren, shall we stay down where sin
thruste os? I shall not if you do. We can- ■
not afford to. I have to-day to tell you that
there is something purer than snow water,
something more pungent than alkali, and
that is the blood of Jesus Christ that
cleanseth from all sin. Ay, the river
of sal vat/on, bright, crystalline and heaven
born, rushes through this audience with bil
lowy tide strong enough to wash your sins
completely and forever away. Oh, Jesus, let
the dam mat holds it back now break, and
the floods of salvation roll over us.
Lat the water and the blood.
From thy side a healing flood.
Be of sin the double core.
Save from wrath and make me pure.
Let us get down on both knees and bathe in
that blood of mercy. Ay, strike out with
both hands and try to swim to the other shore
of this river of God’s grace. To you is the
word of this salvation sent. Take this
largess of the divine bounty. Though
you have gone down in the deepest ditch
of libidinous desire and corrupt be
havior, though you have sworn all blasphem
ies until there is not one sinful word left for
you to speak, though you have been 'sub
merged by the transgressions of a lifetime,
though you are so far down in your sin that
no earthly help can touch your case—
the Lord Jesus Christ bends over you
to-day, and offers you his right hand, pro
posing to lift you up,first making you whiter
than snow, and then raising you to glories
that never die. “Billy,” said a Christian
bootblack to another, ‘"when we come up to
heaven it won’t make any difference that
we’ve been bootblacks here, for we shall get in,
not somehow or other, but, Billy, we shall get
straight through the gate.” Oh, if you only
knew how full aad free and tender is the
offer of Christ, this day, you would all
take Him without one single exception; and
if all the doors of this house were locked
save one, and you were compelled to
make egress by only one door, and I
stood there and questioned you, and the
Gospel of Christ had made the right impres
sion upon your heart to-day, you would an
swer me as you went on, one and all: "Jesus
is mine, and I am His!” Oh, that this might
be the hour when you would receive
Him! It is not a Gospel merely for
footpads and vagrants and buc
caneers; it is for the highly polished and the
educated and the refined as well. "Except a
man be born again, he cannot see the king
dom of God.” Whatever may be your
associations, and whatever your world
ly refinements, I must tell you, as
before God I expect to answer in
the last day, that if you are not changed by
the grace of God, you are still down in the
ditch of sin, in the ditch of sorrow, in the
ditch of condemnation; a ditch that empties
into a deeper ditch, the ditch of the lost.
But blessed be God for the lifting, cleansing,
illustrating power of His Gospel.
The voice of free grace cries. Escape to the moun-
tain;
For all that believe, Christ has opened a fountain.
Hallelujah! to the Lamb who has bought us our
pardon:
We’ll praise him again when we pass over Jordan.
BELIGIOUS BEADING.
KH BLOTTED OCT.
"I will forgive their iniquity, and I will
member their sin no more,” Jer. 31:34.
even I am He that blotteth oat thy
transgressions for Mine own sake, and will
not remember thy sing,” Isa 43.25.
I was sitting alone in sflenee,
For my heart was hushed and sad,
As I thought that my conscience pointed
To the records my Father had
Then it seemed that hesoftly whispered—
"I have blotted the records, child,
And the page of the book is open
Stainless and undeflled. ’
But I feared, for the tempter told me
Seme sins had so deep a dye
That a trace of the righteous record
8till stood in the court on high.
Bo again mv Father whispered—
“I have blotted the records all.
Not a lingering stain remaining,
Where my holy glances fall.”
Then I thought that the dead were rising,
I thought the last day had come,
I thought that I stood and trembled,
Fearful, anl cowed, and dumb.
And the awful book was opened—
But tbe jui'ge in the silence read,
*T have blotted out thy transgressions^”
In a moment my terror fleet
Oh! since He has kindly whispered,
I surely may trust His word.
And rest in the blessed message
My listening ears have heard.
Bo I will not think of the record,
For the record has passe d and gone,
’Tis blotted out now and forever,
And the page from the volume torn.
—William Luff.
■rwz experiments at reforesting Italy
are in the highest degree interesting
to Americans. When it seemed de
sirable to cultivate a forest, it was
rohesJ doneJit the joint expense of the Gov-
of worldly proression| eminent, the nrovince and thn com-
bomination.
ernment, the province and the com'
munity immediately interested. Twen
ty-two thousand acres have been re
forested, while plans are prepared for
covering an area of 261,000 acres.
The estimate is that in all over 500,000
acres must and will be planted for
public safety at a round cost of
$1^,000,000. This enterprise and ex
pense has been made necessary by the
reckless destruction of original forests
on the monntain slopes. It is full of
warning to our people, that so far is
not heeded, and probably will not be
heeded, until agriculture is perma
nently damaged beyond recovery in
half a century or more. This js now a
question of prime importance to the
American people.
A new child’s periodical is to be
started. It is doubtful if a great
amount of money is ever made in these
enterprises. When it is made, it is
made under difficulties. A periodical
for adults keeps for many years its list
of readers, if it is a good one. A peri
odical for juvenile readers must of
necessity be constantly changing its
constituency. Every year a set of
readers outgrow it, and another must
be added to take their places—a work
not often accomplished without con
siderable effort. The Youth's Com
panion, which has so- large a circula
tion, has attained this by taking on a
scope beyond what is implied in its
name. Tbe paper has been long a
paper for adults fully as much as for
children.
They are laughing over a blunder of
a United States examining surgeon in
Caribou, Me. He was examining for
deafness an applicant for a pension,
and to test the man’s left ear, held a
watch at some distance and asked him
if he could hear it tick. The answer
was “No,” and the same reply was giv
en to repeated questions as the watch
was brought gradually nearer. “Put
him down totally deaf in the left ear,”
tho surgeon said, and, holding the
watch away from the man’s right ear,
the same question was asked. To his
surprise the answer was the same. It
then occurred to the surgeon to exam
ine his watch, and he found that it had
stopped. The examination was begun
all over again.
THE FREE GIFT.
We need not attempt the explanation of
Christ’s p wer to overcome our w -aknesses
and subjugate our wills; it is sufficient to
know that He can do all this for the be
liever because it is of grace. That power by
which we become tbe sons of God at conver
sion is not merited in any sense by us; it
comes as a free gift. In the subsequent life
of the Christ an, even to the eud, all that he
receives is unmerited. He con boast of noth
ing. He who thinks that he can indicate the
secret grounds of righteousness, upon which
he may claim anything for himself, is wholly
astray. If he should mink at any time that
he is deserving, becaus; of earnestness in
Christ’s work, he at once depreciates the gift
of grace. In that hour be builds upon a
sandy foundation.
Who w 11 care to fix limits to this power
which is who ly a gift? Who will say, ‘T de
spair of deliverance from my weakness,”
when we know that deliverence is not
through finite strength, but of infinite grace?
Well may. we wonder how omnipotent
strength can be proffered to every one who
will receive, even to those who have nothing
to recomm nd them to divine regard. Lo k
around. Behold the multitude of witnesses
ready to own the excellency of th s plan of
salvation. Take, for example, those who
have been in bondage to timidity. Grace
fr m God only could set them at liberty. He
has spoken, and now all is changed. That
“fear of man which bringeth a snare” is
gone; that diffidence which is very often the
manifestation of self or pride has given place
to h ly boldness; lhat hesitating tone in
spiritual matters has risen to clear and em
phatic utterance. What spiritual progress
would there be among God’s people
were all to accept fully this “eternal life”
that is declared to be "without
money and without price! Think,
also, of the many who are being
comforted amid their earthly sorrows. Does
it not enhance the consolation to remember
that it is bestowed as a favor, not through
personal merit? Our heavenly Father is say
ing: "I know your need; I witness your
tears; I will not wait: I cannot leave you
comfortless.”. So Becomes to the lowliest,
and says: "I will rest you;’’ "Do not think of
being either worthy or unworthy;” "You
have only to think of me and of my help;”
"My grace is sufficient without any prepara
tion on your part.” Oh, the matchless gift!
Ob, how this thought is amplified in St.
Paul’s epistles! He tells ns that victory in
the dying hour is given to us. And tbe open
window in- the Apocalypse discloses the
celestial multitude,' having t heir golden harps
aiTatfuned" to tils'ifiei'bJy of grace.
TEMPERANCE.
Why call it a bar? Say, whence it derirsd
name for a depot of spirits of evfl?
* friend of
virtue
a, a
Wan the name by i
contrived.
Or, like the thing named did it come from
tbe devil?
TO tell you what it means—’tis a bar to al
And^^oonstant promoter of everything
evil;
’Tis a bar to all virtue—that’s well under
stood—
A bar to the right and a fort for the devil.
’Tis a
i bar
wealtl
to all industry, prudence and
1th,
A bar to reflection, t
A bar to clear thought
health,
A bar to good conscience, to prayer and to
piety.
a bar to sobriety;
tit and a bar to sound
■ of children to school,
iving them good educa-
A bar to the i
To clot
tion;
A bar to the observance of every good rule,
A bar to the welfare of family and nation.
A bar to the hallowed enjoyment of home,
A bar to the holiest earthly fruition;
A bar that forbids its frequenters to come
To the goal and rewards of a virtuous am
bition.
A STEAMER CUT DOW.
The Polynesian Sinks the Cyn
thia in the St. Lawrence.
A bar to integrity,
ieudship and
To
honor and fame,.
peace and connubial
frii
love.
To the purest delights the* on eaith we may
olai»n |
A bar to salvation and heaven above!
—Chicago Sun.
HIGHLY CREDITABuTtO THE STUDENTS.
It has long been the custom at Colombia
College for toe Sophomores, when they have
finished their college mathematical course, to
celebrate the event by a bout of beer-drink
ing, and by providing free beer for the rest
of the college. Last year the class of ’90,
much to their credit, voted to dispense with
the beer. The question came up again re
cently with the present Sophomore class,
when a motion to celebrate their "annual
triumph” without beer was carried by a class
vote of 26 to 23. It is greatly to be hoped that
no future class of Sophomores will return to
the injurious beer-drinking usage. That for
two successive years it has been voted down
is highly creditable to the young men of Co
lumbia, and a hopeful sign of the times in
connection with college life.—National Ad
vocate.
A citizen of Carthage, Mo., has in
his possession an original price list of
slaves, the property of Jeff Davis’
brother before the war. The list em
braces 106 names of both sexes, rang
ing from infants to the aged patri
arch. Babies are quoted at $100,
children of twelve years $600, able-
bodied women $800, and thirty farm
hands at $1,100. A man 50 years of
age was worth but $600, while an old
blind woman was set down at zero.
Husband and wife are quoted separ
ately. The document is queer reading
to the present generation.
SABBATH COMMUNION.
Do we sometimes find it difficult to with
draw ourselves from worldly affairs and fix
our thoughts upon eternal interests? Under
such circumstances there is no surer way of
relief than to select some portion of the Holy
Scripture, making this the theme of earnest
study. It is not best to wa t for the impulse
of feeling before beginning the exercise.
Open the Bible at any page. Remember that
every passage contains within itself a sacred
deposit of truth. More than i his, consider
that tbe divine Word possesses for the sin
cere soul a self-revealing energy, a power of
interpretation, as well 4* < f application to
the conscience, . Divine revelat on is infinite
ly superior to all human composition in this
particular. •
It was on a Sabbath morning, after a
week of unusual distraction, that a Christian
man sought to free himself from engrossing
cares. He realized the importance of laying
aside these burdens before engaging in the
public services of God’s bouse. He found
nimself utterly at the mercy of intruding
worldly thoughts. The spirit that rules in
all marts of trade would rush in unbidden.
He knew very well that to yield himself to
this clamor from without in the early morn
ing hours of the Sabbath would mar the sa
cred privileges of the entire day. Finally,
without any unu ual religious emotion, but
chiefly from a convict!, n of duty, he opened
his Bible, as was his habit, before attending
church. His eyes rested on these words: “It
is by the Lord’s mercies that we are not oop-
sunied, because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning; great is thy
faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith
my soul; therefore will I hope in Him. The
Lord is good unto them lhat wait for Him.
to the soul that seeketh Him. It is good
that a man should both hope and quietly
wait for the salvation of the Lcrd.”
His attention was arrested by the delight
ful melody of these verses. It was not long
before the compassion of hi - Heavenly Father
began to dawn upon him in a new way.
With fi sense of great indebtedndss, his heart
grew warm in love toward God. It was im
possible that the worldly spirit should hence
forth displace the devotional, having rained
through the living Word the knowledge of
Divine things.
We live in a lime when the Christian is
often sorely tried. Questions of public
finance, questions relating to civil policy and
the right method of removing great social
evils, will likely invade his hours of devo
tion. No ordinary means will avail He
needs supernatural assistance. The spell
binding mm to earth cannot be broken, only
as the eternal principles of righteousness are
revealed; and then not in mere intellectual
perceptions, but in the powerful unfoldings
of truth in his soul.—The Christian Ad
vocate.
Have you ever done anything for Christ
that has scarred your heart or your body?
"If a man keep my saying, he shall never
ree death;” when we come to die, our eyes
will so really see Jesus Himself that we
shall not see death.—F. R. Havergal.
Those who live in the love of Christ should
never be melancholy, lor they have a thous
and sources of jnv of which others know
nothing.—Mrs. Ellis.
God has lent us the earth for our life; it
is a great entail. It belongs as much to
them who are to come after us, and whose
names are already written in the book of
creation, as to us; and we have no right by
anything that we do or neglect to involve
them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive
them of benefits wh ch it was in our power
to bequeath.—John Ruskin.
DEATH TO THE MIND.
Alcohol is death to the mind. The brain,
the organ of the mind, is the first to feel its
power. This organ which nature protects by
a strong wall of Done, delicately lined, is par
ticularly susceptible to alcoholic influences.
The brain is the center of the nervous system,
which ramifies every part of the body. Al
cohol assaults the nervous system, shatters
and destroys it. No man can have steady
nerves and indulge the constant use of alco
holic beverages. The drunkard reels and
staggers and falls into the gutter because his
nerves fail him. For the work of life we
need steady nerves. When the nerves are
healthful tne hand is steady, the step is quick
and the power of endurance—other things
being equal—is at its maximum. But the
use of alcohol, long continued, indurates the
substance of the brain, cooks it. hardens it.
About seven per cent, of the brain is albumen,
and next to water, is its largest constituent
element. You can test the effect of alcohol
upon albumen by a simple experiment. Take
the white of an egg, which is almost pure al
bumen, put it into a glass and pour upon it
an ounce of pure alcohol, and note the effect.
In a moment yon can lift the whole mass out
of the alcohol upon the point of you pencil.
What hafl happened? Why, the albumen has
been indurated, cooked, hardened. Some
thing similar happens to the brain of a hard
drinker. A celebrated anatomist has stated
that he could detect the brain of a drunkard
in the darkest room with the first stroke of
the scalpel. The attack of alcohol upon the
brain is so direct that it is sometimes found
in its pore state in the brain cavity after
death. Some yean ago a London sot drank
a quart of gin upon a wager, which caused
his death in a few nours. An examination of
his brain revealed alcoholic deposit so pure
that when touched with a match it. burned
with a Biue flamer The use of alcohol lessens
the activity of the brain, produces stupidity,
dementia, delirium tremens and a horrible
death. What is more dreadful than death
from delirium .tremens?—Dr. Felix L. Os
wald,
SIGNIFICANT FIGURES.
In 1880 there were 3152 places in the United
States where liquors, distilled, malt and
vinous, were manufactured. These manu
factories had an invested capital of $118,-
037,729; they employed 33,698 persons; they
paid in wages $15,078,579; they used material
to the value of $85,921,374, and their manu
factured products were estimated at $144,291,-
241.
In the same year (1880) there were 20,303
places where agricultural implements, boots
' acludin!
Eight Men From the Grew of the
Cynthia Lose Their .Lives.
The Donaldson line steamship Cynthia,
bound from Glasgow for Montreal, was ran
into by the steamer Polynesian and sank,
just after daylight, a few miles below
Montreal, Canada, and eight persons were
drowned within one hundred yards of shore
and help.
Hie steamer Polynesian had the mails and
a cabin fall of passengers aboard.
The two steamers arrived in sight of each
other near Pointe anx Trembles, ten miles be
low Montreal, about 4:10. Through some mis
understanding the Polynesian attempted to
i am’ -
a ke]
heading directly for the Cynl
lision followed a minute latter. Both vessels
had stopped their engines. The Cynthia was
struck a lew feet abaft her stern on the star
board tide and ripped open as if she were
made of cardboard.
The Cynthia by the force of the current
backed off the bow of the Polynesian, and
the latter,.finding herself clear, started np
her engines again, and without as much as a
1 or an inc
The Cynt
i’s pilot, upon getting dear, at
tempted to ran her into the shore, only two
hundred yards distant, but before two-thirds
of the distance had been made the steamer
began to settle. Fifteen men who got into a
lifeboat were thrown into the water by the
fall of a mass of rigging. All of the crew bat
Perron and two seamen took to the rigging.
The three remained on the quarter deck over
the screw.
In the meantime John McYey, a Scotch
man, and about the only English-speaking
person among over a hundred who stood on
the shore watching tbe boat's crew strag
gling for their lives put off in a punt.
He reached the stern and told Per
ron and the two seamen to get into
bis boat, bat they told him to first rescue the
pilot, who >vas unable to swim and was drift
ing away on a plank. He did so. Then he
tamed to get tne other three men, just in
time to see the Cynthia’s forward deck burst
np with a loud explosion, and the
stern fly into the air and then sink.
Ferron never was seen again. His com
panions were rescued. Most of the others
on board jumped, while several of them
were carried down with the steamer. Low
was killed while drinking his coffee in the
forecastle forward, the collision debris crash
ing him to death.
Both the Cynthia’s pilot and Captain Tay
lor lay the blame upon the Polynesian.
The crew of the Cynthia say that if the
Polynesian had stopped or lowered a boat
the loss of life on the Cynthia would only
have been, that of Low. The crew in
their wet clothes and exhausted con
dition were compelled to walk the ten miles
to Montreal, the French Canadian conductor
of the horse car refuting to carry them fox
nothing, or to take the Captain’s watch as se
curity for the $1.50 worth of fares because it
was wet.
THE CONGO BAILBOAD.
It Will Cost $5,000,000, and Ground
Will be Broken This Fall.
The engineers who have been making the
surveys and preparing the plans for the Congo
railroad in Africa, around the cataracts have
completed their work. At a special meeting
of the Royal Geographical Society
they have made known the
under which the road will
They say that it will take $5,000,
the road, equip it with rolling
interest on the investment
of construction, which is
The total Jouttk of
264
the hesrfof na
to thr village of
Staatey Tool.
In the first fifteen miles between Matadi
and Palaballa are found the only difficulties
of construction, which are occasioned by the
rocky and rolling nature of the land. The
rest of the route is laid along the plateau be
hind the hills that skirt the left bank of the
Congo, and is exceptionally favorable for
% railroad building.
Only three important bridges will be re
quired. One of them will be 330 feet long
over the Inkissi River, and the others wifi
each be 250 feet long over the rivers Mpozo
and Kwilu. It is expected that ground will
be broken this fall.
ag custom work and re-
including rubber goods,
iblishments employed
THE MECCA OF MALT AND RUM.
These are hard times for saloon keepers—
outside of New York State.
There’s the Saloon Keepers’ Association of
Cincinnati for instance, which has resolved
that its members must keep open on Sunday,
and that it will fine them $10 each if they
don’t. And Philadelphia fines them if they
do.
If they don’t like it, they may come to
New York. There are still a few, a very few,
choice comers here which are not occupied
by saloons, and the people of the State
seemed, when last heard from at the polls, to
think that we haven’t saloons enough. The
$10 may be made payable to the police.—J)
York Press. ....
■New
and shoes, inc!
pairing, but not
were made. These estal
a capital of $118,658,333, about the same as
the liquor business; they employed 178,219
persons; they paid in wages $67,711,736;
they used material to the value of $154,073,-
915; and their manufactured products was
worth $276,028,389.
By making a comparison we find that
$118,000,000 employed in the manufacture of
intoxicating liquors gave employment to
33,608 persons against 178,219, when employed
in the manufacture of agricultural instru
ments, boots and shoes. The same sum in
vested in the former paid to labor $15,078,-
579 against $67,711,736 when employed in the
latter. The same sum employed in the’for
mer bought of the farmers and other pro
ducers of material in the United States, ma
terials to the value of $85,921,374 against
$154,073,915 worth of materials, when en-
gaged in the latter. So we see that $118,-
000.000 employed in the manufacture of agri
cultural implements, boots and shoes, em
ployed five and one-third times as many
persons, paid four and one-half times as
much in wages, and bought of the farmers
and other producers about twice as much
material, and its manufactured products
were worth twice as much money as the
same amount of capital invested in the
manufacture of liquors. And betides the for
mer was distributed to 20,000 localities, while
the liquor industry was confined to 3000
localities, mostly large cities.
Tested in this way, the liquor industry can
not stand a comparison with that of the manu
facture of agricultural implements, boots
and shoes.
TEMPERANCE NEWS AND NOTES.
Rhode Island has a local W. C. T. U. for
every ten square miles of territory.
It is probable that the next National W. C.
T. U. Convention will be held in Chicago.
Out of 125,000 deaths annually in Bel
gium, at least 15,000 are caused by strong
Estimated on the basis of the population in
1880 the loss to the people of Pennsylvania
from the liquor traffic amounts every year to
the enormous sum of $76,102,267—more than
forty times the revenue from high license in
1888 under the Brooks law.
Estimated on the basis of the population
in 1880, the loss to tbe people of Pennsyl
vania from the liquor traffic amounts every
year to the enormous sum of $76,102,267—
more than forty times the revenue from high
license in 1888 under the Brooks law.
The Northwestern Life Insurance Com
pany, of Milwaukee, has decided to refuse a
life insurance policy to any lager-beer brewer
or to any man employed m a lager-beer
brewery, stating that the business is injured
by the shortened lives of men who drink
lager-beer.
By exact experiment, science has shown
that a moderate drinker, who took only two
wine glassfuls of sherry at lunch, and three
at dinner, the glass containing two ounces ol
alcohol, would raise the beats of the heart
to 6000 extra in the twenty-four hours. This
was equal to lifting an extra weight of seven
tons one foot high.
Mr. S. A. Kean, the Chicago banker, who
has for years demonstrated the fact that con
scientious Christianity is practicable in busi
ness life, has on more than one occasion also
proven that a sumptuous banquet can be
S ven without wine. The annual spread of
e firm to its clerks and friends, m which
Mr. and Mrs. Kean, the night watchman and
his wife held equal place, was lately given in
the parlors of tbe Palmer House with
good cheer and no drunkenness.
The Palm Lea/, published at Bombay, says
that the Maharajah of the State of Baroda
and his entire court are total abstainers and
do all in their power to discourage the drink
ing habits of the people, bat that the British
Oopresissscxt is znn’rlng xicraem difficult.
great
THE LABOB WOBLP.
Coke is depressed.
Pittsburg iron is twenty-five cents lower.
An eight-hour league has been organized.
The building trades strike in Berlin is ex
tending.
Great distress prevails among the work
ingmen in Italy.
Maine farmers are complaining of the
scarcity of farm help.
Philadelphia has 182 carpet factories,
employing 17,800 hands.
Tesre are 20,000 cigarmakers of both
sexes in New York city.
The operators claim that they cannot com
pete with machine-mined coal.
The average German laborer does not ex
pend more than $15 every year in clothes.
In Germauv, the army was called upon to
force the striking miners back to their work.
In the Northwest farm laborers are holding
mass-meetings in the fields to discuss the
wage question.
Over five thousand hard-working women
in New York and Brooklyn support tick or
lazy husbands.
Skilled carpenters In Japan earn forty
cents a day, and some exceptionally good
men forty-five cents.
? Pennsylvania now has a law for the in
spection of factories in the interest of chil
dren and women workers.
On the South Australian railways engineers
who run their trains for two years without
accident receive a present of $50.
The Pattern Makers’ League of North
America, at their meeting in Pittsburg,
agreed to abolish all piece work.
The seventeenth annual convention of the
Journeymen Horsesboers’ National Union
has been held at St. Paul, Minn.
The manufacturing industries of Sweden
are represented by upward of 3000 works,
affording employment to about 74,200 hands.
Two thousand workmen are at present
employed on a new hotel in Tokio, Japan.
Over 7000 bamboo poles are used in the scaf
folding.
The laborers and mechanics of England and
Europe work an average from twelve to
twenty-four hours more per week than the
laborers and mechanics of America.
A million copies of the Declaration of
Principles of the K. of L. in the French
language are to be distributed among the
working people in Paris during the Universal
Exposition.
In London female typesetters are making it
hard for the men. Some of the offices prefer
the women, as they get them cheaoer, and say
they can pick up type as fast as the men, but
do not set so clean.
The building trades strike at Pittsburg,
which involved nearly five thousand men,
has been settled in favor of the strikers, and
work resumed On all the large buildings in
course of erection.
Citizens of Sioux City, Iowa, guarantee
$75,0(J0 to the National Railroad Conductors,
provided the association makes its permanent
home there. The offer has been accepted, and
a §200,000 building will be erected.
The street car drivers who have been on a
strike in Vienna, and who have finally suc
cumbed, average about sixty cents in wages
tor a day beginning at 7 in the morning and
ending at midnight or 1 o’clock a. M.
The Standard Oil Company
: Philadelphia for 200 boll dogs, which will
be used to guard the Standard tanks in the
Ohio field against tramps. Numerous fires
have been caused by fire from the pipes of
tramps, and the bulldogs are to keep them
away.
The Treasury Department has disbursed
$11,380,000 on account of pensions, thereby
exhausting the appropriation for the current
fiscal year, amounting to $81,750,000.
PEARLS OP THOUGHT.
Don’t repeat mistake i.
• Never try to outshine, but to pleased
Never press a favor where it seems un
desired.
Never intrude ill-health, pains, losses
or misfortunes.
Have order, system, regularity, and
also promptness.
A man of honor respects his word a#
he does his bond.
Do not meddle with business yow
know nothing about.
A multiplicity of vegetables leaves no
elbow-room for the turkey.
The host is a king supreme; a dis
loyal gue»t an abomination.
Guide your tongue deftly at the table
•—the teeth need no directing.
Help others when you can, but never
give what you cannot afford because it
is fashionable.
Learn to say No. No necessity for
snapping it out dog fashion, but say it
firmly and respectfully.
When there is love in the heart, there
are rainbows in the eyes, covering every
black cloud with gorgeous hues.
If you have a place of business, be
found there when wanted. No man can
get rich by sitting around stoves in sa
loons.
The reasoning power is the corner
stone to the intellectual building, giv
ing grace and strength to the whole
structure.
A most ridiculous habit among some
young people is the cultivation of
melancholy as an interesting accom
plishment. *
Good temper is like a sunny day,- it
sheds a brightness over everything; it is
the sweetener of toil, and the soother of
disquietude.
The Future of Alaska.
The Sitka Alaskan contains a very in
teresting account of the discovery of a
vein of coal on the shore of Yukutai
bay, and about two miles from the
beach. The vein has been prospected
and found to dip at an angle of forty-five
degrees. Forty sacks of the coal were
taken out of a five-foot vein, which
widened as the work proceeded, and the
outcroppings of the vein were found at
a distance of 900 feet from the discovery
shaft, and again at a mile and a quarter,
the indications being that the main vein
is continuous.
e gold mines of Alaska are yield-
cellent returns. Very little is
em, Vqjry little is known*
are actual tunn^hs proposi-
not merely stock-jfcibbing
es; but the'output of the preqjous
is steadily increasing, and
mines are being explored and opened'
every year. It will not be at all strange
if Alaska soon takes high rank as one of
of the gold producing Territories of the
United States.
Frequent allusion has been made to
the salmon fisheries of Alaska, and it is
enough to say that canneries are being
and have been established at different
places, and that their business compares
very favorably with that done anywhere
on the coast.
Taking these matters into considera
tion, together with the other resources
of the Territory, it will be seen that the
Seward purchase was not a mistake, and
that Alaska bids fair to become a very
valuable piece of property. This is es
pecially the case if coal is found there in
quantities to warrant working, and so
situated that it can be conveyed to tide
water cheaply and conveniently. A man
died in British Columbia a few days ago
whose wealth was estimated at some
$10,000,000, and it all came from his
ownership in a coal mine, and the peo
ple of this State were his best customers
for his coal.—San Francisco Chronicle.
A Tract of Gold Nuggets.
One of the oldest and most respected
citizens of El Paso, Texas, is Price
Cooper, who lives in the ancient Pueblo
of Ysleta, acd has several times held
local cfficcs in the county, the last of
which was Inspector of Hides and Anu
mala. He has lived nearly all his life
on the border, and has led the most ro
mantic kind of life. He haa recently
revealed an incident in his history which
is most interesting. —^
He was once captured by the Apaches,
who held him as a close prisoner in one
of their camps, about 50 miles south of
Janos, in the Sierra Madre, near the di
viding line, between the Mexican states'
of Sonora and .Chihuahua. While there,
he says, he saw the Apaches always have
an abundance of coarse gold and nug-i
gets, which they traded off to the Mexicans
for such supplies and ammunition as
they needed. One day he was taken
along out of the camp, some seven
or eight miles through an exceedingly
rough country, to a wild gulch, where
coarse gold was found in abundance in
the gravel and sand of the dry creek
bottom. He assisted his captors in col
lecting quite a quantity of it. Shortly
afterward he succeeded in making his
escaph.
This was many years agj, but he says
that he still has a general remembrance
of where the gulch i*. Until the last
band of host ilea under Geronimo were
captured by General Miles, it was im
possible to travel through'that section of
country; but now that it is perfectly
safe, the old man thinks of making up a
party to start from El Paso and make a
trip ol re-discovery. Quite a number of
people a$e willing to accompany him.-«•
Globe-Democrat. .
& ■ :.« *
va