Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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IThy a Blue Bose is Impossible. A florist makes the assertion that a blue rose is among the impossibilities, but, while an explanation of this curious fact may be equally impossible, he fails to mention a very interesting law which governs the coloring of all flowers. A knowledge of this law would save many flower-growers hours of unavailing and foolish hope. • The law is simply this: The three colors, red, blue and yellow, never all appear in the same species of flowers; any two may exist, but never the third. Thus we have the red and yellow roses, but no blue; red and blue verbenas, but no yellow; yellow and blue in the various members of the viola fam ily (as pansies, for instance), but no red; red and yellow giadoli, but no blue, and so through a long list.—St. Louis Repub lic. The Seamless Boat. There is a growing demand for the seamless boat, which seems to be able to stand any amount of rough work. This boat is pressed out of an ingot of steel and shaped by hydraulic power, and it fulfills all the requirements of an ordin* ary boat in a remarkably ingenious man ner. It is claimed for these boats that they will last twice as long as wooden ones, that there is less danger of their capsizing and that they are less liable to be aflected by changes of climate. The method by which the seamless boat is constructed is a larger application of the method which has long been used in this country for manufacturing cooking uten sils and other articles of small dimen sions.— Chicago A'eics. Fragrant Wood. Few of our native trees have odor iferous wood like the sandal wood of the islands in the Pacific Ocean; but a few of the conifer® on the Pacific Slope have sweet-scented woods. The fine church at Metlakatla, built by the civilized Indians of Alaska,is as fragrant as if incense was continually floating through the air, from the wood of the great arbor vitae, of which it is built. Libocedrus decurrens, found further south, is known as 4 ‘incense cedar” from its fragrance. The yellow cypress and the Monterey cypress have also scented wood. Enormous Demand tar Evas. An egg merchant, who goes from house to house buying eggs, told us a few days since that he expected to pay 50 cents a doz en for eggs before Christinas. Many persons who keep hens will prob ably not have an egg to sell when th-iy reach fifty cents. Some one may ask, ‘’what can a body do when the pesky old hens stop lay ing, and the pullets ret use to begin until spring?” Why! do as YVm. H. Yeomans, of Columbia, Conn., Editor of the Germantown Telegraph, did last winter. He says: “Last fall I made an experiment worth giving our readers. Until about Dec. 1st, I was getting from twenty common hens, only one or two eggs a day. I decided to try Sheridan’s Condition Fowder. I confess 1 had but lit tle faith in its value to make hens lay. Com menced feeding, and for nine days saw very little effect. Then the hens began laying, and in three months laid 858 eggs. Part of the time the thermometer was 12 degrees below zero, and mv hens were laying a dozen eggs a day, while my neighbors (who did not use the powder) were getting none. 1 now, without hesitation, believe it is a valuable aid to farmers for egg-production.” Well might he believe, for nearly 72 dozen eggs, in three months, from twenty common hens, with eggs worth 50 cents, is worth having. I. S. Johnson & Co., 22 Custom House St., Boston, Mass., (the only makers of Sheri dan’s Condition Powder to make hens lay). Will send, postpaid to any person, two 25 it packs of powder, and a new, " “^’uide, torOOcen*' REV. DR. TAOIAGE. THE BROOKLYN DIVINE’S SUN- DAY SERMON. Subject: "Temptatlonw WTiicb Beset Young Men.” Text: "Surely, in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.”—Proverbs i., 17. Early in the morning I went out with a fowler to catch wild pigeons. We hastened through the mountain gorge and into the forest. We spread out the net, and covered up the edges of it as well as we could. We arranged the call bird, its feet fast and its wings flapping, in invitation to all fowls of heaven to settle down there. We retired into a booth of branches and leaves aud waited. After awhile, looking out of the door of the booth, we saw a flock of birds in the sky. They came nearer and nearer, and after a while were about to swoop into the net, when suddenly they darted away, Again we waited. After awhile we saw another flock of birds. They came nearer and nearer un til just at the moment when they were about to swoop they darted away. The fowler was very much disappointed as well as myself. We said to each other, “What is the matter?” and “Why were not these birds caught?” We went out and ex amined the net and by a flutter of a branch of a tree part of the net hrd been conspicu ously exposed, and the birds <*oming very near had seen their peril ana darted away. When I saw that I said to the old fowler, “That reminds me of a passage of Scripture: ‘Surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird.’” Now the net in my text stands for temptation. The call bird of sin tempts men on from point to point and from branch to branch until they are about to drop into the net. If a man finds out in time that it is the temptation of the devil, or that evil men are attempting to capture his soul for time and for eternity, the man steps back. He says, “I am not to be caught in that way; I see what you are about; surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird.” There are two classes of temptations—the superficial and the subterraneous—those above ground, those underground. If a man could see sin as it is, he would no more em brace it than be would embrace a leper. Sin is a daughter of hell; yet she is gar landed and robed and trinketed. Her voice is a warble. Her cheek is the setting sun. Her forehead is an aurora. She says to men: “Come, walk this path with me. It is thymed and primrosed, and the air is be witched with the odors of the hanging gar dens of heaven. The rivers are rivers of wine, and all you have to do is to drink them up in chalices that sparkle with dia mond and amethyst and ebrysoprasus. Seel It is all bloom and rosate cloud and heaven.” Ob, my friends, if for one moment the choiring of all these concerted voices of sin could be hushed, we should see the orchestra of the pit with hot breath blowing through fiery flute, and the skeleton arms on drums of tnunder and darkness beating the chorus, “The end thereof is death.” I want to point out the insidious tempta tions that are assailing more especially our young men. The only kind of nature com paratively free from temptation, so far as I can judge, is the cold, hard, stingy, mean temperament. What would Satan do with such a man if he got him? Satan is not anx ious to get a man who after awhile may dis pute with him the realm of everlasting meanness. It is the generous young man, the ardent young man, the warm hearted young man, the social young man that is in especial peril. A pirate goes out on the sea, and one bright morning he puts the glass to his eye ana looks off, and sees an empty vessel float ing fr®m port to port. He says, “Never mind; that’s no prize for us.” But ffie same morning be puts the glass to his eye, and he sees a vessel coming from Australia laden with hold, or a vessel from the Indies laden with spices. He says, “That’s our prize; bear doubu on it 1” Across that unfortunate ship the grappling hooks are thrown. The crew are blnjafoldei and are compelled to walk the plank. It is not thp empty vessel, but the laden merchantman tbat is the temptation of the pirate. And a young man empty of head, empty ofJjgjjE^empty of life—you want no iristian Association to keep safe. He will not out of barbarism. Ask them when infidelity ever instituted a sanitary commission, and before you leave their society once and for ever tell them that they have insulted the memory of your Christian father, and spit upon the deathbed of your mother, and with the swine’s snout rooted up the grave of your sister, who died believing in the Lord Jesus. If these people scoff at you as though re ligion and the Bible were fit only for weak- minded peoole, you just tell them you are not ashamed to be in the company of Burke, the statesman, and Raphael, the painter, and Thorwaldsen, the sculptor, and Mozart, the musician, and Blackstone, the lawyer, and Bacon, the philosopher, and Harvey, the physician, and John Milton, the poet. Young man, hold on to your Bible. It Is the best book you ever owned. It will tell you how to dress, how to bargain, how to walk, how to act, how to live, now to die. Glorious Bible! Whether on parchment or paper, in octave or duodecimo, on the center table of the drawing room or in the counting room of the banker. Glorious Bible! Light to our feet and lamp to our path. Hold on to it! The second class of insidious temptations that come upon our young men is led on. by the dishonest employer. Every com mercial establishment is a school. In nme cases out of ten the principles of the em ployer becomes the principles of the em ployee. I ask the older merchants to bear me out in these statements. If, when you were just starting in life—in commercial life —you were told that honesty was not mar ketable; that, though you might sell all the goods in the shop, you must not sell your conscience; that, while you were to ex ercise all Industry and tact, you were not to sell your conscience; if you were taught that gains gotten by sin were combustible, and at the moment of ignition would be blown on by the breath of God until all the splendid estate would vanish into white ashes scat tered in the whirlwind, then that instruction has been to you a precaution and a help ever since. There are hundreds of commercial estab lishments in our great cities which are edu cating a class of young men who will be the honor of the land,* and there are other estab lishments which are educating young men to be nothing but sharpers. What chance is there for a young man who was taught in an establishment that it is right to lie, if it is smart, and that a French label is all that is necessary to make a thing French, and that you ought always to be honest when it pays, and that it is wrong to steal unless you do it well? Suppose, now, a young man just starting in life enters a place of that kind where there are ten young men, all drilled in the infamous practices of the establishment. He is ready to be taught. The young man has no theory of commercial ethics. Where is he to get his theory? He will get the theory from his employers. One day he pushes his wits a little beyond what the establishment demands of him, and he fleeces a customer until the clerk is on the verge of being seized by the law. W hat is done in the es- eablishment? He is not arraigned. The head of the establisment says to him, “Now, be careful; be careful, young man, you might be caught; but really that was splen didly done; you will get along in the world, I warrant you.” Then that young man goes up until he becomes head clerk. He has found there is a premium on iniquity. One morning the employer comes to the establishment. He goes into his counting room and throws up his hands and shouts. “Why, the safe has been robbed 1” What is the matter? Nothing, nothing; only the clerk who has been practicing a good while on customers is practicing a little on the employer. No new principle introduced into that establishment. It is a poor rule that will not work both ways. You must never steal unless you can do it well. He did it well. I am not talking an abstraction; I am talking a terrible and crushing fact. Now here is a young man. Look at him to-day. Look at him five years from now, after "he has been under trial in such an establishment. Here he stands in the shop to-day. his cheeks ruddy with the breath of the hills. He unrolls the goods on the coun ter in gentlemanly style. He commends them to the purchaser. He points out all the good points in the fabric. He effects the sale. The goods are wrapped up, and he dismisses the customer with a cheerful “good morning,” and the country merchant departs so impressed with the straightfor wardness of the young man that he will come again and again, every spring and every autumn, unless interfered with. The young man has been now in that es- .Hahmonf five unrolls the good 1 l tE he? man,X after temptal man wit But I! gone astra| propositior claimed. little astrayl troubled? IsJ ingj “What i you go there!! Is there a ms ou trembli earts. Ye commit imqi whole cataij hour. The O young ma cheer thee know thou t| bring thee ir Come home God. Come I mother’s God' teries of the 1 be red against i taking down would like to and recruit unt march out on al society. But lei Oh, Christian! with hope. The“ into the morning] and of which poe’J which painters hav bridal hour advanc? kiss the morning ra all the waves of th crystal keys of a fingers of everlasting march of a world re thorn there shall instead of the briar i myrtle tree, and the I shall break forth inf trees of the wood i MILLIONS INj The Funny Way ini wood Began Hi The saddest thii ney to the West wj rail fence in Penns ern Indiana and How cruel of fate wire fence to be inj before it was. ProbJ and timber have be€ building of the ole the past to pay of" like ours. It mf to think of thj been broken, o| out, the energb kept from schod splitting logs, rails for those rail fence i Wt wants a fence now] and a lot of barbj can put up half day. A rod of fl —labor, posts ant] mile of fence farmer had plenfl her of his own ht| man to cut out that money, rails. “Did you evi the barbed-wiri ade his mt