Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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VL. III. MANNING, CLARENDON COUNTY, S. C., WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27,18.NO24 A Brother's Keeper. I W011'S WORK OF LOVE AND DUTY. BY KARY HdBTWELL CATEERWOOD, ADTNOR or "CRAQUE 0' DOOM," "STEPHLN GuTaRE," "TaE LoNE MAN'S CAB=l," A)D OTaa STORInES. [Copyrightsd, 1887, by the A. N. Kellogg 2,ezcspa per Company.1 . - * O'~ CHAPTER I. 1r URLEY stepped out in the February dusk after spending a dull Sunday at home. His house rose between him and the western sky, and he paused a moment, as he often did, to look at it with some pride. It was an old building, abun dantly large, with many after-thoughts of wings and porches. Jesse Stone could be seen milking in the barn-bt, and the voice of $esse's wife could be heard crooning a psalm tune as a fare well to the Sabbath, while she placed the tubs ready for next day's washing. Mrs. Stone kept holy day with Scotch Presby terian rigor from five o'clock on Saturday evening until five o'clook on Sunday even ing; and if she attended night servico this was a free-will offering to Heaven. The homes of Gurley's various neighbors appeared here and there, and down wooded hilllstillsparkled the college town's steeples. Below, culture was life's law. Up hill, amidst farms and scattered school-houses, quite another class of people made another law unto themselves. As refinement and coarseness may dwell side by side in a city, so had Greensburg and the hills elbowed each other several generations withoat per ceptibly acting on each other. However solidly excellent those hill farmers might be, the college town despised their plano of living; while, on the opposite side, all hill farmers voted against appropriations for the improvement of the town. Gurley took a short cut across theupward slope of his meadow to spend an hour with an old chum whose homestead lay on the border of the hill region. He reached the muddy road, and a few turns brought him to the gate which opened on Tom Holmes' lawn. Poplars staked out with their stiff pillars' the path to the house. It was a staunch homestead, covered with knotty elbows of the trumpet vine. The sitting room windows were Bickering with firelight, and he ascended the wooden steps at that side and confidently knocked. But two or three knocks brought no re sponse, and, after waiting, Gurley opened the door and went in. The familiar room was in a receptive at titude toward chance comers; chairs stood grouped for conversation; a platter of ap ples and a pile of plates and silver knives were on the round table. The fire-place was piled high with blazing sticks. The whole room so suggested invisible presences that Gurley felt convinced he should find the family at home. He threw the end of his cigar in the fire, and-having the free dom of the house at all times-opened anoth door into the kitchen. It was still warm with suggestions of the past supper; a kettle breathed in the dark. The door closed behind him and he was turning to open it fora retreat when arod of light op posite and some subterranean voice calling made him venture ahead and lift a latch which gave entrance to the cellar. "It's Bandy, of co e" said Gurley. "Is that you, Randy? Where are all the folks?" At the foot of the stairs was a girllooking up. She held Tom Holmes' toddling child by one hand, and with the other lifted a candle over her head. She was very young, and had black hair curling away from an eager face. Her throatshowed white above her black dress, even in shadow, and her sleeves were tucked above elbows soft and round. A large calico apron almost covered her. The two looked steadily at each other a moment, he at the top, she at the foot of the stairs. Being a stranger, Gurley detected at once the sorr-owful curve of mouth which she would have concealed from eyes familiar. "Beg pardon," said he, hat in hand. "Aren't Tom and Mrs. Holmes in?" "They've gone to church," said the giL. "I heard you and thought it was Mr. Mc -Ardle." "Gurley, of the Mounds farm. I hope I haven't startled you?" "Oh, no; if you wait a little while they will be home. Toddles and I are keeping house. I promised to take care of him and strain the milk." Toddles, recognizing a play-fellow at the top of the stairs, shook a tin mug and ut tered remarks in a dialect peculiar to him self. "May I come down and help you?" in quired Gurley. "An ofrean he thought, "which she may resent." "If you would please lift the pails it. would be a help;" she replied. "Toddles keeps stepping on my dress." Gurley descended the stairs and they went back to the milk cellar. The crocks and pans were, already in line, and along this line they'progressed, Gurley carrying the vails and she the huge milk-strainer. Tod dIes, cuddling by, interposed his mug at such times as suited him. The blue veins started out on her arms under the weight ofte"1LuKE CEL.LARS," snE sAID. ofteflowing liquid, but she attended to this most pastoral employment in pastoral quiet. The candle was set on a swin,,ug shelf above. Jars, bottles and bins stretched their long shadows away from the light. The smell of apples and a spicy hiift of cider-taps came through a half-shut door. Just over the candle flame a ipider huddled, as if hiding his head in the gray blanket of his web. Nothing was said during the milk-strain ing. Gurley wondered who this girl could be. Tom Holmes had said nothing to him recently of having a guest in the family, and she was certainly not a successor to Emiay Thompson. She had the uncon a~sdignity of a lady, and there was. abdhrWahm i n fer that she at least came.of stock living on their own land, and, in the finest sense, ag ricultural. The pails were rinsed and put away, and this young lady carried the light upstairs, while Gurley assisted Toddles and his mug. "I like cellars," she said, lingering and 'looking back. "Though I met my first dis appointment in one. There was a jar full of something black which ought to have been jam; but it was tar; and I'm so cred iulous I kept licking my finger and tasting it over and over before I would be convinced. ,Credulous people do get so much tar in their mouths." Gurley laughed, and said he hoped she 1would have no further experiences in tar. ' They went into the sitting-room, and she -lighted the lamp. Gurley took an apple from -the platter. With a housewifely air this .young girl selected his knife and plate and brought him a fruit napkin. "I do love to handle things aboutahouse," ,she said, partially to herself. "Housekeeping is your forte, perhaps?" said Gurley. "It isn't my fate, then. Iteach the school in this district, you know," she explained. "Oh," remarked Gurley, to. show that his impressions were corrected. "Yes. But when Thorney and I begin our housekeeping, I shall help to farm." "I wonder who Thorney is?" thought Gur ley. "Thorney is my brother," she continued. "He is two years older than I am. He is working for a farmer across Black Hollow, and saving all his money." "That being the case," observed the young man, smiling, "he will some day be a .capitalist." "Oh, no," she replied, with pleased sin cerity. "But it is nice to be really working toward an object." - At this moment a rap resounded on the front door of the sitting-room. There were no halls in the Holmes house, 'so the new comer was distinctly visible to Gurley as soon as the door opened to admit him. En tertained as he felt himself to be by his temporary hostess, any body would have been unwelcome to him; but thrice unwel come, though a kinsman of the house, was Milton McArdle. Gurley could not assert that McArdle was the meanest fellow in college, but that was his conviction. He loathed McArdle's lady-like languors, his general readiness to be taken care of, his pimply blondeness. McArdle had placed himself in the hands of his religious denom ination and was allowing it to educate himx for the ministry. Other students were sup ported by the church; but what seemed in their cases a generous stooping to use means for a public good, seemed in him a cunning and contemptible grasping of what :could be got for nothing. Yet Gurley felt .certain if MeArdle had come to college rid ing on an elephant and having a nabob fa ther, he would have been a greedy sneal just the same, inspiring Gurley with the -desire to fly upon and kick and maltreat him as he deserved. - He was a long and nervous youth, with slight hands and drooping under lip. . "How do you do, Miss Phobe :" said Mo Ardle, unwieding a scarf from his neck while he lingered in releasing the young girl's hand. "So her name is Phoebe," thought Gur ley. "There's McArdle's patronizing famil iarity for you. Good evening, McArdle." "Oh, are you here, Gurley? Good even ng." He undulated toward the fire and warmed himself by the roaring logs quite as if he had come into his own. "You are classmates, aren't you?" in quired Phoebe. "?es," said Gurley. "But college toils are nearly over now,? said McArdle, in a high and rather mel ancholy key, "and then I suppose our paths .will widely diverge. I shall betake myself -to a theological school to continue prepara. tion for my humble calling. But with yout friends and advantages you can do any thing you please, Gurley." "Not quite," responded Gurley, indiffer ently, feeling he should never do that as long as he could not batter McArdle. "All the family are at church!" said the divinity student, helping himself to apples. "Yes," said. Phoebe. "Even Randy has gone to chapeL. I promised to take care o: -the house." "I apprehended that they might be out,' remarked McArdle, polishing an apple and softly slipping a knife under the rind. "And that's why he intruded himself,' thought Gurley. He watched his class mate's lean jaws working. "Miss White and I have begun a series oi radings together," explained MaArdle. "You couldn't take me into the class?" suggested Gieley. "Oh, yes," responded McArdle, stiffly. "Certainly, if you wish it. You'd be an ac quisition." Phobe White, who appeared to rest in nc part of the room, carried off Mrs. Holmes' unwilling young son into his adjoining nursery. -The two young men, after talking awhile, with little iinterest in each other's remarks. dropped into silence and listened to her voice. First it was remonstrating with Toddles: "0, my tiny son! How can Phobe joch such a milky-faced boy to sleeps She'-' think she has a calfie from the barn-yard; a real bossy calf that never will let its mamma wash its face and rub it nice and clean this way. And the cow's little child never has such pretty white clothes to put on, and doesn't get wrapped up and rocked." So, above counter-remonstrances of Tod dies, she began to sing half under her breath Tennyson's cradle song, and Toddles in due time begar. drowsily to echo her. Gurley looked into the fire, fancying how she swung in a rocker, and how the curve of her throat swelled with the sweet, re pressed crooning. He did not know miuchi about domestic life, having passed most ol his years with his farmer and housekeeper. But all this made him feel quite soft-heat ted "Sweet and low, sweet and low," sung Phoebe. "Sreet and ro," echoed Toddles. "Wind of the western sea" "-Res'm sea." "Low, low, breathe and blow," " Breave and bro," *Wind of the western sea," "Res'm sea. "Over the rolling waters go," "Doe," 'Come from the dying moon and blow," - Moony bro,'" "Blow him again to mc: While my little one, while my pretty one," "Pitty one" "Sleeps?" '%leep and rest, sleep and rest," "Father will come to thee soon." / "Soo-oon." '"Rest, rest on mother's breast, "Mnr' bes'," "Father will come to thee, soon. -T~ather will come to his babe in the west," "'Babe 'a wes'," "Silver sails al} out of 'the west," "Silv' sail," "Under the silver moon. Sleep my little one, sleep my pretty one," "Pitty one," '-Sleep!" The song was repeated until Toddles' re sponses grew far between and ceased al, -toethr. Then a silence followed. * It'sa loppy night," said McArdle. "tes, I suppose Tom- will drive slowli "I apprehend that he will," respoided McArdle, in the stilted English of his choice. By the time Picebe came back, however, a stamping on the steps proclaimed the family's return from church. Mrs. Holmes moved softly in, followed by her handmaid, Randy Thompson, who had been left and picked up again at the school-house meet ing. Last appeared Toi Holmes, rosy and stimulating, ready to stir the fire and all animate things as well. "How do you do, Jack? How do you do, Milton? Somebody give me a lift with this overcoat. Thanks. Drusie. How are things at the Mounds, Jack' You've been keeping yourself steadily at home." "All going right. I've bought a pretty young saddle mare, Tom. 1'd have ridden her over to show you, but I wanted you to see her first when she's fresh groomed. Jesse Stone has spoiled the old horses for the saddle." "Ah, pshaw! Jack. Why didn't you tell mc you wanted such an animal! A Gurley ought to know the points of a horse, but I could put you up to a thing or two." "You'll say you cou;ldn't have done better when you seo her," said Gurley, warmly. "Slight limbs. head well up. good shoulders, and full of tire." "Old. and weak in the knees, I'll b3 bound." "Just three years. and as quick as a cat." "There wasn't nothiu' about horse dealin' in our sermon to-night." remarked Raudy Thompson. with the freedom of a long prized domestic. "Is Toddles asleep?" asked Mrs. Holmes, warming her graceful han.s. --Yes, and snug in his crib," said Phohe. "I thank you so much for relieving Randy and mye." --I think of relieving Randy altogether." said Phobe. with a laugh. "We will e change work." "I wouldn't be a school miss for no money." remarked Randy, bluntiy. -:eith er in this deestrick nor any other." She was a bonny woman with one small blue eye the othier had been put out. Her A PAuTING GIaP OVER 'raE GATE. sandy hair was knobbed tightly at the back of her head, and as to her features they greatly slandered a kind nature. When Gurley started home the night was turning sharp and clear. Tom Holmes, continuing his talk about the horse, walked to the lawn gate with his old chum. "Good sugar weather," he commented, pausing there. "My men in the sugar camp are going to stir off a couple of kettles to morrer evening. Come over, Jack, and try a paddle-full. Ride that nag and let me look at her." "Perhaps I will," said Gurley. "You know the place-on the woods road near Black Hollow. We'll all be over there." "Well, count on me," said Gurley. "You wouldn't expect to see any of the modern improvement3. I haven't enough maples to make it pay. Adam and Mose Guy boil the old way, on the shares." 'The ground has turned stif," said Gur ley. "I shall have a bracing walk home. Who i. this young teacher you've taken into the1.ouse, TomI" "I don't know," replied Holmes, indiffer ently. "She's some nice little thing from nowhere. The district doesn't pay enough to employ a man.". "McArdle seems to admire her." "May be he do~es. McArdle's a kind of a sop. I guess, though, he thinks she ad mires him. Livinig directly by the school house as we do we're always pestered to board the teacher. Drusie was entirely wlling to take this one into the family, and she does seem comfortable enough to have about." "You don't know her people?" "No. Barker - the old schoolmaster vouches for her. She has nobody but an idiotic brother, I believe, and she put him out to work near her. Nice enough giirl, too. Pity she's cumnbered with the idiot. You've seen Psyche since her return?" " Oh! yes; a number of times. She's more like swansdown than ever." "You can't complain of ill-luck, my lad," said Toni Holmes, as they exchanged a parting grip over the gate. [To BE CON'TINU3ED) THE MOTHER OF ALBINOS. Four Very Curloous Speelmens of Daistorted Humanity (F'rom the A mericus, Ga , Recorder.) Mrs. Harriett Sperlin, colored, died at her home in this city about two weeks ago, of paralysis. Harriet was some what distinguished by being the mother of four genuine albmno children. She and her husband, Jerry Sperlin, were entirely black--that is, they had no white blood in them. Their three first children were as black as they were, and then then the next four, in succession, were as white as it is possible for a hu man being to be with blue eyes, which danced about in the sockets, and white hair which kinked like that of the genu ine negro. Then the last two or three of their cbildren were as black as the first. Of the four albinos three were girls and one a boy, and all grew up to man and womanhood, since which time two of the girls have died. The boy, Tom Sperlin, left here a short time ago for Florida. The father of these albinos is still living, and says that irom the time they were five years old till they were grown, he has been offered large sums of money for these children by showmen, who wished to exhibit them as curiosities. Some otfered hian a half interest in the net proceeds and promised a safe return of the children, but Jerry positively declined all such offers, say ing that his conscience would not allow him to speculate in his own flesh and blood. In Death Valley, Arizona, there are thousands of acres covered with a deposit of borax two feet thick, and, adjoining it, almost equal quanities of salt, lime and soda. 'The place is nenety feet below sca level, andi e vidently the bed of a DR. TALMAGE ON TlE PRESS. IF THE SUNDAY PAPER CAN'T BE SUPPRESSED, CONVERT IT. He Advises the People to Give the Re porters EasychairS-Don't Coudenn All Editors Because of Oue--His Idea of the Newspaper of the Distant Day. The Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage preached a very interesting sermon Sunday morn ing upon the subject: "The Pulpit and Printing Press as Allies." It was the last regular sermon that the popular divine will preach until after the sum mer vacation. This fact was sufficient to more than usually crowd the great Tabernacle building. Every inch of space was taken up and hundreds were turned away. Services will be held in the church for some weeks yet, the as sistant pastor officiating. Dr. Talmage took his text from Luke xvi., S: "The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the chil dren of light." He said: "Sacred stupidity and solemn incom petency and sanctitied lazilesh are here rebuked by Christ. He says worldliugs are wider awake for opportunities than are Christians. Men of the world grab occasions, while Chiistian people let the most valuable occasions drift by uuixu proved. '"A marked illustration of the truth of that maxim is in the slonvees of th Christian religion to take possession oe the secular printing press. The opper-f tunity is open and has for some time been open, but the ecclesiastical court: and the churches and the ministers of religion are for the most part allowing the golden opportunity to pass unim proved. That the opportnity is open I declare from the fact that all the secu lar newspapers are glad of any religious facts or statistics that you present them. Any animated and stirring article re lating to religious themes they would gladly print. They thank you for any information in regard to churches. If a wrong has been done to any Christian Church or Christian institution, you could go into any newspaper of the land and have the real truth stated. Dedica tion services, ministerial ordinations and pastoral installations, cornerstone laying of a church, anniversary of a charitable society will have resonable space in any secular journal, if it have previousuotice given. If I had some great injustice done me, there is not an editorial or a reportorial room in the United States into which I could not go and get my self set right, and that is true of any well-known Christian man. Already the daily secular press during-the course of each week publishes as much religious information as 'does the weekly religious press. Why, then, does not our glorious Christianity embrace these magnificent opportunities? I have before me a sub ject of first and last importance: How shall we secure the secular press as a mightier reinforcement to religion and the pulpit? "The first thing toward this result is cessation of indiscriminate hostility against newspaperdom. You might as well denounce the legil profession be cause of the shysters, or the medical profession because of the quacks, or merchandise because of the swindling bargain makers, as to slam-bang news papers because there are recreant editors and unfair reporters and unclean oolmns. "If instead of fighting newspapers we spend the same length of time and the same veh'emence in marshalling their help in religious directions, we would be as much wiser as the man who gets con sent of the railroad superintendent to fasten a car to the end of a rail train, shows better sense than he who runs his wheelbarrow up the track to meet and drive back the Chicago limited express. The silliest thing that a man ever does is to fight a newspaper, for you may have the floor for utterance perhaps one day in the week, while the newspaper has the floor every day of the week. Napoleon, though a mighty man, had many weaknesses, and one of the weak est things he ever did was, to threaten that if the English newspapers did not stop their adverse criticism of himself he would with 400,000 bayonets cross the Channel for their chastisement. "Don't fight newspapers. Attack provokes attack. Better wait till the excitement blows over and then go in and get justice, for get it you will if you have patience and common sense and equipoise of disposition. It ought to be a mighty seaative that there is an encr mous amount of common sense in the world, and you will eventually be taken for what you are really worth, and you cannot be puffed up and you cannot be written down, and if you are the enemy of good society that fact will come out, and if you are the friend of good society that fact will be established. I know what I am talking about, for I can draw on my own experience. All the respectable newspapers as far as I know are my friends now. Bat many of you remember the time when I was the most continuously and meanly attacked man in this country. God gave me grace not to answer back and I kept silence for ten years, and much grace it required. What I said was perverted and twisted into just the opposite of what I did say. My person was ma ligned and I was represented as a gor gon, and I 'las maliciously described by persons who had never seen me, as a monstrosity in mind, body and soul. There were millions of people who be lieved that there was a large sofa in this pulpit, although we never had anything but a chair, and that during the singing by the congregation 1 was accustomed to lie down on that sofa and dangle my feet over the end. Lying New York correspondents for ten years misrepre sented our church services, but we waited and people from every neighbor hood of Christendomr came here to find the magnitude of the falsehood concern ing the church and concerning myself." TALMAGE's DEBT TO THE PEsS. "A reaction set in and now we have justice, full justice, more than justice, and as much over-praise as once we had under-appreciation, and no man that ever lived was so much indebted to the newspaper press for opportunity to preach the Gospel as I am. Young men in the ministry, young men in all pro fes.;on. and ocainsn wait. You can afford to wait. Take rough misrep resentation as a Turkish towel to start up your languid circulation, or a system of massage or Swedish movement, whose pokes and pulls and twists and thrusts are salutary treatment. There is only one person you need to manage, and that is yourself. Keep your disposition sweet by communion with the Christ who answered not again, the society of genial people, and walk out in the sun shine with your hat off, and you will come out all right. And don't join the crowd of people in our day who spend much of their time damning newspapers. "Again: In this effort to secure the secular press as a mightier re-inforce ment of religion and the pulpit, let us make it the avenue of religious informa tion. If yon.put the facts of churches and denominations of Christians only into the column of religious papers, which do not in this country have an average of more than 10,000 subscribers, what have you done as compared with what you do if you put these facts through the daily papers, which have hundreds of thousands of readers. Every little denomination must have its little organ, supported at great expense, when with one-half the outlay a column or half a column of room might be rented in some semi-omnipotent secular publi cation, and so the religious information would be sent round and round the world. "The world moves so swiftly to-day that news a week old is stale. Give us all the great church facts and all the revival tidings the next morning or the same evening. My advice, often given to friends who propose to start a new paper, is: 'Don't! don't! Employ the papers already started.' The biggest financial hole ever dug in this American continent is the hole .n which good peo ple throw their money when they start a newspaper. It is almost as good andas quick a way of getting rid of money as buying stock in a gold mine in Colorado. Not more printing presses, but the right use of those already established. All their cylinders, all their steam power, all their pens, all their types, all their editorial chairs and reportorial rooms are available if you would engage them in behalf of civilization and Christianity. GIVE THE REPORTERS EASY CHAIRS. "Again: If you would secure the secular press as a mightier reinforce ment of religion and the pulpit, extend the widest and highest Christian courte sies to the represenatives of journalism. Give them easy chairs and plenty of room when they come to reportoccasions. For the most party they are gentlemen of education and refinement, graduates of coleges, with families to support by their literary craft, many of them weary with the push of a business that is pre carious and fluctuating, each one of them the avenue of information to thousands of readers, their impression of the ser vices to be the impression adopted by multitudes. They are connecting links between a sermon or a song or a prayer and this great population that tramp up and down the streets day by day and year I by year, with their sorrows uncomforted and their sins unpardoned. More than eight hundred thousand people in Brook lyn and less than seventy-five thousand in churches; so that our cities are not so much preached to by ministers of religion as by reporters. "Put all journalists into our prayers and sermons. Of all the hundred thou sand sermons preached to-day, there will not be three preached to journalists, and probably not one. Of all the prayers offered for classes of men innumerable, the prayers offered for this most potential class will be so few and rare that they will be thought a preachers' idiosyncracy. The world will never be brought to God until some revival of religion sweeps over the land and takes into the kingdom of God editors and reporters, compositors, pressmen and newsboys. And if you have not faith enough to pray for that and toil for that, you had better get out of our ranks and join the other side, for you are unbelievers who make the wheels of the Lord's chariot drag heavily. "TIhe great final battle between truth and error, the Armageddon, 1 think, will not be fought with swords and shells and guns, but with pens-quill pens, steel pens, gold pens, fountain pens-and, be fore that, the pens must be czrmvcrted. The most divinely honored weapon of the past has been the pen, and the most divinely honored weapoa of the future will be the pen; prophet's pen and evan gelist's pen and apostle's pen, followed by editor's pen and reporters' pen and ather's pen. God save the pen! The wing of the apocalyptic angel will be the printed page. 'The printing press will roll ahead of Christ's chariot to clear the way. THE sUNDAY N~,EwSAPER. "But some one might ask, would you make the Sunday newspapers also a re enforcement? Yea, I would. I have learn ed to take things as they are. I would like to see the much scoffed at old Puritan Sabbaths come back again. I do not think the modern Sunday will turn out any better men and women than were your grandfathers and grandmothers under the old-fashioned Sunday. To say nothing of other results, Sunday newspapers are killing editors, reporters, compositors and pressmen. Every man, woman and child is entitled to t wenty four hours of nothing to do. If the newspapers put on another set of hands, that does not relieve the editorial and reportorial room of its cares and respon sibilities. Our literary men die fast enough without killing them with Sunday work. But the Sunday newspaper has come to stay. It will stay a good deal longer than any of us stay. What, then, shall we do? Implore all those who ha're anything to do with issuring it to fill it with moral and religious information, live sermons and facts elevating. Urge them that all divorce cases be dropped and in stead thereof have good advice as to how husbmds and wive ought to live lovingly together. Put in small type the behavier of the swindling church member and in large type the contribution of some Christian man toward an asylum for feeble-minded children or a seaside sani tarinnm. "Urge all managing editors to put meanness and impurity in type pearl or agate and and charity and fidelity and Christian consistency in brevier or bour geois. If we cannot drive out the Sunday newspaper let us have the Sunday news papers converted. The fact is that the modern Sunday newspaper is a great imi provement on the old Sunday newspaper. What a beastly thing was the Sunday newsape thir years ago! It was enough to destroy a man's respectability to leave the end of it stricking out of his coat pocket. What editorials! What advertisements! What pictures! The modern Sunday newspaper is as much an improvement on the old-time Sunday newspaper as one hundred is more than twenty-five; in other words, above 75 per cent. improvement. Who knows but that by prayer and kindly consultation with our literary friends we may have it lifted into a positively religious sheet printed on Saturday uight and only dis tributed, like the American Messenger, or the Missionary Journal, or the Sun day-School Advocate, on Sabbath morn ings. "All things are possible with God, and my faith is up until nothing in the way of religious victory would surprise me. All the newspaper printing presses of the earth are going to be the Lord's and tele graph and telephone and type will yet announce nations born in a day. The first book ever printed was the Bible, by Faust and his son-in-law, Schoeffer, in 1460, and that conseciation of type to the Holy Scriptures was a prophecy of the great mission of printing for the evange lization of all the nations. "Again: We shall secure the seculiar press as a mightier re-enforcement of religion and the pulpit by making our religious utterences more interesting and spirited, andthen the press will reproduce them. On the way to church, some fifteen years ago, a journalist said a thing that has kept me ever since thinking. 'Are you going to give u-i any points to-day? ,What do you mean?' I asked. He said: 'I mean by that anything that will be striking enough to be remembered.' Then I slid to myself, what right have we in our pulpits and Sunday school to take the time of people if we have nothing to say that is memorable? "The tendency of criticism in the theological seminaries is to file off from our young men all the sharp points and make them too smooth for any kind of execu ion. What we want, all of us more point, less humdrum. If we say the right thing in the right way the press will be glad to echo and re-echo it. Sabbath school teaches, reformes, young men and old men in the ministry, what we all want if we are to make the printing press an ally in Christian work is that which the reporter spoken of suggested -points, sharp points, memorable points. But if the thing be dead when ttert d by living voice, it will be a hundredfold more dead when it is laid out in cold rype. "Now, as you all have something to do with the newspaper press, either in issuing a paper or in reading it, either as produces or patrons, either as sellers or purchasers of the printed sheet, . propose on this Sabbath morning, June 17, 1888, a treaty to be signed between the church and the prinfing press, a treaty to be ratified by millions of good people if we rightly fashion it; a treaty promising that we we will help each other in our work of trying to illumine and felicitate the world, we by voice, you by pen; we by speaking only that which is worth printing, you by printing only that which is fit to speak. You help us and we will help you. Side by side be these two potent agencies until the judgment day, when we must both be scrutinized for our work, healthful or blasting. The two worst off men in that day will be the minister of religion and the editor if the editor if they wasted their opportunity. Both of us are engi neers of long express trains of influence, and we will run them into a depot of light ortumble them off the embankmets. COVERTING A SCOFFING REPORTER. "About thirtEen years ago a represen ative of an important newspaper took his seat in this church one Sabbath night about five pews from the front of this ulpit. He took out pencil and reporter's ad, resolved to earicature the whole scene. \When the music began he began, and with his pencil he derided that, and then he derided the prayer, and then de rided the reading of the Scriptures, and then began to deride the sermon. But, he says, for some reason his hand began to tremble, and he, rallying himself, sharpened his pencil and started again, but broke down again, and then put pencil and paper in his pcket and his head down on the front of the pew and began to pray. At the close of the service he came up and asked for the prayers of others and gave his heart to God, and though still engaged in news p, sper work, in is an evangelist, and hires a hail at his own? expense and every Sab bath afternoon preaches Jesus Christ to the peop~le. "Andi the men of that profession are going to come iu a body throughout the country. I know hundreds of them, and a more genial or highly educated class of men it would be hard to find, and, though the tendency of their profe~ssion may be toward skepticism, an organized, com mon-sonse Gospel invitrtion would fetch them to the front of all Christian endeav or. Men of the p)encil and pen, in all departments, you need the help of Christian religion. In the day when people want to get their newspapers at three cents, and are hoping for the time when they can get any of them at one cent, and, as a consequence, the attaches of the printing press are by the thou sand ground under the cylinders, you want God to take care of you and your families. Some of your best work is as much unappreciated as was 'Milton's Paradise Lobt,' for which the author re ceied $25; and the immortal poem, 'Hohenlinden,' of Thomas Campbell, when ho tirst offered it for publication, and in the column called 'Notices to Correspondents' appeared the words: 'To T. C.-The lines commencing, "On Linden when the sun was low," are not up to our standard. Poetry is not T. C.'s forte.' "Oh, men of the pencil and pen, amid your unappreciated work you need en couragement and you can have it. Printers of all christendom, editors, re portas, compositors, pressmen, pub lishers and readers of that which is rinted, resolve that you will not write, set up, edit, issue or r-ead anything that debases body, mind or soul, in the name of God, by the laying on of the hands of faith and prayer, ordain the printing press for righteousness and lierty and salvation. Mll of us have some influence that will help in the right direction. Let us put our hands to the work, imploring God to hasten the con summation." Charles Dickens, the younger, says that President Cleveland is bound to be re-elected, 1 SOME CURIOUS CUSTOMS. Old Women Roasted and Eaten. In Tern del Fuego. (From the Pittsburgh Post.) Professors Lee and Townsend are both more than ordinarily successful as amateur photographers. They have brought back a fine collection of photo graphs of interesting places, people and situations, some of which are repro duced here. By far the most interest ing pictures are those taken .of. the coast of Terra del Fuego, the inhabitants of which are next to the lowest type of the human race known. Professor Lee ascribes a different origin to the name of the land than is given in the geopraphies that were studied in the schools. These text' books said that the number of volcanoes about gave the country its forbidding name, but the professor says there are no volcanoes anywhere about there. The natives of the co.intry live in long bark canoes,, in the centre of which a fire is always burning. When to kindle a fire meant to rub two sticks together until they started to burn, the savages were careful not to let their fires go out, and the custom survives. The name comes from these ever-burning fires. The natives have learned the use of matches and tobacoo, and these com modities command a high price in Terra del Fuego, even though there is no pro tective tariff there. A sheep or baby is considered a fair equivalent for a plug of tobacco or a bunch of matches. I the choice of the price is give the native he will always give the baby, as there is a much greater demand for sheep than for young Fuegans. It was reported that in one of the copper tanks, among the strange Ashes, a good specimen of the Fuegan baby was comfortably tucked away in alcohol, - but the scientists would not admit this. The Fueganis are not a warlike raos, though they are very skillful with their primitive bows and arrows. The arrows are not feathered, and the barb consists of a triangular piece of glass ground sharp. Though the Fuegans are very low in the human scale, they are careful not to offend the eyes of strangers. An ex plorer approaching a boar sees only the best-looking squaw of the party. She handles a paddle at the stern and steers the boat. Her less comely sister-there are always two famili on a boat-is hidden ignominiously under the seat. There is no old women in Terra del Fuego. Lest this should cause an exodus from the civilized world it would perhaps be best to explain why. When a woman gets to the right age, about forty-five, she is considered to have done her duty. With appropriate ceremonies, therefore, she is either lanced or strangled and the family larger is replenished with her roasted remains. The women, when they see the time of sacrifice approaching, never attempt to escape it. They regard it as about almost as settled a fact as that the wind should blow, and never trouble them selves about it. The Fuegans are not cannibals further than this. They never eat children, young women or men. SHE HAD SEEN A MOUSE. An Armed Amazon Who Carried Pistols, but Was Terrified by Bodents. (From the Pittsburg Dispatch.) Since the epidemic of burgalries and high way robberies broke out with such violence in the East End, a great many ladies, I am told, who reside in that otherwise favored locality, have taken to pistols and pistol practice. They not only have a large buildcgrevolver stored handily in a bureau drawer in their sleeping apartments, but some of them, at lest, also carrymlg a gun in a con venient pocket at their waist. The pistol used as a part of a street dress has to be very small of course, but there in every reason to suppose that it is likely to be dangerous to the wearer if not the foot pad, for whose benefit it is worn. Last night L was talking about thin fashion of firearms for women's wear to a lady who is rather disposed to criticise her own sex. She laughed at the idea of the East End ladies taking to self-defense with guns which are liable to go off and make a horrid noise. "Besides," said she, "I am pretty well assured that not one of the pistol-armed ladies would fire a pistol under any circumstances. I remember shortly after the close of the war meeting a young lady at a hotel in Nashville, Tenn. The young lady was said to be strong-minded, and she assumed rather a haughty style and a loud voice when she talked to me. More than that, she opened the jacket she wore and showed me her belt, in which were stuck two small pistols. "I would like to see anybody insult me!" she said, as she left me to go up stairs to change her traveling dress before dinner. "I went in to dinner, and had no sooner seated myself than we heard the most ap palling screech, and a series of ear-pierc ing screams coming from the upstairs region. The proprietor of the hotel, several gentlemen and all the waiters ran upstairs to see who had been murdered. "They all came down again in a few minutes, to the last man laughing fit to kill themselves. "We begged to be enlighted. What was the tragedy so mirthful in its finale? Then it came out. "The young lady with the pistols had seen, or rather had a vague msigiving that she might see, a mouse. She was sure it had run under the bed The men found the young amazon standing on the bed with a pistol in each hand, waiting for the first sign of a mouse." PIANOS AND ORGANs. One thousand Pianos and Organs to close out by October 1. All Organs and Pianos sold at cash price, payable November 1-no intereste-delivered to your nearest depot. Fifteen days trial. Organs from $24 up; Pianos from $150 u). Al! instruments warranted. Send fr circulars. Buy now and have the use of the instruiment. Remember we pay freight both ways if the instrument don't suit. Prices guaranteed less. than New York. N. W. TRUMP, * Columbia, 8. 0. The sudden float of the Chattanooga Sun from democracy to republicanism~ a snglar campaign incident.