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THE !.. L C11iD JI. SERMON OF DR. TALMAGE. IN PA-; SUNDAY, JAN. - 2. 2he Xsaurpation of Athaha0h-Iemarka&ble Prese~t~on n.% RtorationL 00 Joas.h. God wai Never Allow his True Line to Be Entirely Cut Off. PAras. Jan. 12.-The Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, D. D., of Brooklyn, preached in this city today. He is making his way home, which he ex Spects to reach in the early part of Februarv. Dr. Talmage's text was: "Jehosh!eba. the daughter of King Jo ram, sister of Ahaziah. took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king's sons which were slain; and ther hid him, even him and his nurse. in the bedchamber from Athaliah, so that he was not slain. And he was with her hid in the house of the Lord six years."-Il Kings, xi, 2, 3. He said: Grandmothers are more lenient with their children's children than they were with their own. At forty years of of age, if discipline be necessary, chas tisement is used, but at seventy. the grandmother, looking upon the nisbe havior of the grandchild. is apologetic and disposed to substitute confec tionery for whip. There is nothing more beautiful than this mellowing of old age toward childhood. Grandmio ther takes out her pocket handkerchief and wipes her spectacles and puts them on, and looks down into the face of her mischievous and rebellious de scendant, and says: "I don't think he meant to do it: let Lim off this time; I'll be responsible for his behavior in the future." My mother, with the sec ond generation around her-a boister ous crew-said one day: "I suppose they oight to be disciplined, but I can't do 'it. Grandmothers are not fit to bring up grandchildren." But here, in my text, we have a grandmother of a different hue. THE RESCCE OF JOASH. I have within a few days been at Jerusalem, where the occurrence of the text took place, and the whole scene came vividly before me while I was going over the site of the ancient temple and climbing the towers of the king's palace. Here in the text it is old Athaliah, the queenly murderess. She ought to have been honorable. Her father was a king. Her husband was a king. Her son was a king. And yet we find her plotting for the exter mination of the entire royal family. including her own grandchildren. The executioners' knives are sharpen ed. The palace is red with the blood of princes and princesses. On all sides are shrieks, and hands thrown up, and strug-le, and death groan. No mer cy! 'l! Kill! But while the ivory qoors of the palace run with carnage, and the whole land is under the shad ow of a great horror, a fleet footed wo man, acleroyman's wife, Jehosheba by name, steaYthily approaches the im perial nursery, seizes upon the grand child that had somehow as yet es caped massacre, wraps it up tenderly but in haste, snuggles it aginst her, lies down the palace stairs, her heart in her throat lest she be discovered in this Christian abuction. Get her out of the way as quick as you can, for she carresaprecious burden, even a young king. &ith this youthful prize she presses into the room of the ancient temple, the church of olden time, un wraps the young king and puts him down, sound asleep as he is, and un conscious of the peril that has been threatened; and there for six years he is secreted in that church apartment. Meanwhile old Athaliahi smacks her ' ' tisfaction, and thinks that But the six y - expire, and it is now time for young Joash to come, forth and take the throne, and to push back into disgrace and death old Atha liah. The arrangements are all made for political revolution. The military come and take possession of the tem ple, swear loyalty to the boy Joash and stand around for his defense. See the sharpened swords and the burnish ed shields! Everything is ready. Now, Joash, half affrighted at the arm ed trmp~ of his defenders, scared a the vociferation of his admirers, is brought forth in full regalia. The scroll of authority is put in his hands, the coronet of government is put on his brow, and the peple clapped, and waved, and huzaeand trumpeted. "What is that?"said thaiah. "What is that sound over inthe temple?" And she fies to see, and on her way they meet her and say: "Why. havent you heard? You thought you had slain all the rylfamily, but Joash has come to lih" Then the queenly murder ess, fatcwith rage, grabbed her mantle and tore it to tatters, and cried until she foamed at the mouth: "You have no right to crown my grandson. You have no right to take the govern ment from my shoulders. Treason! .Treason!" While she stood there cry ing that, the military started for her are\and she took a short cut a back door of the temple, and ran thogh the royal stables; but the battle axes of the military fell on her in the barn yard, and for many a day, when the horses were being unloosed from the chariot, after drawing out young Joash, the fiery steeds would snort and rear passing the place, as they smelt the place of the carnage. 'rmE LonD wIL PRERvE HIS SEED. The first thought I hand you from this subject is that the extermination of righteousness is an impossibility. When a woman is good, she isap to be very good, and when she is bad she is apt to be very bad, and this Athaliahi was one of the latter sort. She would exterminate the last scion of the house of David, through whom Jesus was to come. There was plenty of work for embalmers and under takers. She would clear the land of all God feariner and God loving pee ple. She wou a put an end to every thing that could in anywise interfere with her- im ial crnminality. She folds her hancand says: "-The work~ is done; it is completely done." Is it? In the sw-addling clothes of that church artment are wrapped the cause of ,and the cause of good govern ment. tI'hat is the scion of the house of David: it is Joash, the Christian -re former; it is Joash, the friend of God; it is Joash, the demolisher of Baalit ish idolatry. Rock himt tenderly; nurse him gently. Athaliah, you may kill all the other childr-en, but you cannot kill him. Eternal defenses are thrown all around him, and this clergyman's wife, Jehosheba, will snatch him up from the palace nursery, and will run up and down with him into the house of the Lord, and there she will hide him for six years, and at the end of that time he will come forth for your dethronement and ob literation. Well, my friends, just as poor a botch does the world always make of extinguishing righteousness. Sue stitionrnses up and says: "I will just put an end to pure religion." Donmi tian slew forty thousand Christians, Diocletian slew eight huzndred and forty-four thousand Chistians.- And the scythe of persecuton La been swung through all the ages, and the flames '-hissed, and the. guiotine chopped, and the Ba-stile grro-ned;- but d,id the foes of Christi~anity extermi nate it? Did they exterminate Alban, the first British sacrifice; orZainglius, the Swiss reformer;. or John Oldcastle, the Christian nobleman; or Abdallah, or Sanders, or Cranmer? Ureat woric o exttrrminationI then ade of it. Just -mi:1011 e](1I' a Vol~. of C'tiris"il do TILE iMPERISA1LE Mi1LE. Itdeuitv says: 'T'I just extermi Uate the Bible," and the Scriptures were thrown into the street for the mob to trample on, and they were piled up in the public squares and set on fire, and mounLins of indignant conteinpt were hurled on them, and learned universities decreed the Bible out of existence. Thomas Paine said: "In my 'Age of Reason' I have anni hilated the Scriptures. Your Wash ington is a pusillanimous Christian, but I am the foe of Bibles and of churches." 0, how many assaults upon that Word! All the hostilities that have ever been created on earth are not to be compared with the hos tilities against that one book. Said one man, in his infidel des'eration, to his wife: "You must not be read ing that Bible," and he snatched it away from her. And though in that Bible was a lock of hair of the dead child-the only child that God had ever given thei-he pitched the book with its contents into the fire, and stirred it with the tongs, and seat on it, and cursed it, and said: "Susan, never have any more of that damna ble stuff here!" How many individual and organized attempts have been made to extermi nate that Bible! Have they done it? Have they exterminated the American Bible society? Have they extermi nated the British and Foreign Bible so ciety? Have they exterminated the thousands of Christian institutions, whose only object it is to multiply copies of the Scriptures, and throw them broadcast around the world? They have exterminated until instead of one or two copies of the Bible in our houses we have eight or ten, and we pile them up in the corners of our Sabbath school rooms, and send great boxes of them everywhere. If they get on as well as they are now going on in the work of extermination, I do not know but that our children may live to see the millennium! Yea, if there should come a time of prse cution in which all the known Bibles of the earth should be destroyed, all these lamps of light that blaze in our pulpits and in our families extin guished-in the very day that infi delity and sin should be holding a jubilee over the universal extinction, there would be in some closet of a backwoods church a secreted copy of the Bible, and this Joash of eternal literature would come oit and come up and take the throne, and the Atha liah of infidelityand persecution would fly out the back door of the palace, and drop her miserable carcass under the hoofs of the horses of the king's stables. You cannot exterminate Christianity I You cannot kill Joash! THE WEAm A=t MAY SAVE. The second thought Ihand you from my subject is, that there are oppor tunities in which we may save royal life. You know that profane history is replete with stories of- strangled monarchs and of young princes who have been put out of the way. Here is the story of a young king saved. How Jehosheba, the clergyman's wife. must have trembled as she rushed into the imperial nursery and snatched up Joash. How she hushed him, lest by his cry he hinder the escape. Fly with him!'Jehosheba, you hold in your arms the cause of God and good ,eov enent. Fail, and he is slain. Suc ceed, and you turn the tide of the world's history in the right direction. It seems as if between that young king 'bbissassiothere is nothin~g .but the frail arm of a woman. But why should we spend our time in praing this bravery of expedition when God asks the same thing of you and me? All around us are the imperiled chil dren of a great King. They are born of Almighty parent age, and will come to a throne or a crown, if permitted. But sin, the old Athaliah, goes forth to the mas sacre. Murderous temptations are out for the assassination. Valens, the emperor, was told that there was somebody in his realm who would usurp his throne, and that the name of the man who should be the usurper1 would ben'in with the letters T. H. E. . D)., anid the edict went forth from the emperor's throne: "Kill every body whiose name begins with T. H. E. 0. D." And hundreds and thou sands were slain, hoping by that mas sacre to put an end to that one usurper. But sin is more terrific in its denunciation. It matters not how you spell your name, you come under its knife, under its sword, under its doom, unless there be some omnipo tent relief brouoeht to the rescue. But, blessed be Go, there is such athingl as delivering a royal soul. Who will snatch away Joash? This afternoon, in your Sabbath school class, there will be a prmnce of God-somne one who may yet reign as king forever before the throne; there will be some one in your class who has a cor rupt physical inheritance; there will be some one in your class who has a father and mother who do not know how to prav; there will be some one in your class who is destined to com mand in church or state-some Crom well to dissolve a parliament, some Beethoven to touch the wor-ld's harp strings, some John Howard to pour fresh air into the lazaretto, some Inor ence Nightingale to bandage the bat tle wounds, some Miss Dix to soothe the crazed brain. some Johin Frederick Oberlin to educate the besotted, some David Brainard to change the Indian's war whoop to a Sabbath song, some John Weslev to marshal three-fourths of Christendlom, some John Knox to make queens turn pale, somec Joash to demolish idolatry and strike for the kingdom of heaven. THE PRINCS IN THlE CRADLE. There are sleeping in your cradles by night, there are playing in your nurseries by day, imperial souls wait ing for dominion, and whichever side the cradle they get out w~ill decide the destiny of empires. For each one of those children sin and holiness con tend-Athaliah on the one side and Je hosheba on the other. But I hear peo pe say: "What's the use of bothering children with religious instruction? Let them grow up and choose for themselves. Don't interfere with their volition." Suppose some one had said to Jehosheba: "Don't interfere with that young Joash. Let him grow up and decide whether he likes the palace r not whether~ he wants to be king or not. Don't disturb his volition." Je hosheba knew right well that unless that day the young king was rescued, he would never be rescued at all. I tell you, my friends, the reason we don't reclaim all our children from worldliness is because we begin too late. Parents wait until their chil dren lie before they teach them the value of truth. They wait until their children swear before they teach them. the importance of righteous conversa tion. They wait until their children are all wrapped up in this world be fore they tell them of a better world. Too late with your prayers. Too late with your discipline. Too late with your benediction. You put all care upon your children between twelve and eighteen. Why do you not put the chuef care between four and nine? It is too late to repair a vessel when it has got out of the dry docks. It is too ers have broken in. May God arm us all for this work of snatching royal souls from death to coronation. Can "'Ou I::A:iai: anV Sull)ImelCr' work tln that ws wLht Ied MuuLon to rl.-C his life waid Bornesian cannibals; that was what sent Dr. Abeel to preach ui der the consuming skies of China; that was what gave courage to Phocus in the Third century. When the mili tarv officers caIne to put him to death for~Christ's sake, he put them to bed that they might rest while he himself went out, and in his own garden dug his grave, and then came back and said: "I am ready;" bA they were shocked at the idea of taking the life of their host. le said: "It is the will of God that I should die." and le stood on the wargin of his own grave and they beheaded him. You say it is a mania, a foolhardiness, a fanaticism. Rather would I call it a glorious self abnegation, the thrill of eternal satis faction, the plucking of Joash from death, and raiing him to coronation. GOD'S ALTAR THEY TRIE RyUGE. The third thought I hand to you from my text is that the church of God is a cood hiding place. When Je hoshe>a rushes into the nursery of the king and picks up Juash, what shall she do with him? Shall she take him t.some room in the palace? No; for the oflicial desperadoes will hunt through every nook and corner of that building. Shall she take him to the residence of some wealthy citizen ? No; that citizen would not dare to harbor the fugitive. But she has to take him somewhere. She hears the cry of the mob in the streets; she hears the shriek of the dying nobility; so she rushes with Joash unto the room of the temple, into the house of God, and then she puts him down. She knows that Athaliah and her wicked assassins will not bother the temple a great deal; they are not apt to go very much to church, and so she sets down Joash in the temple. There he will be hear ing the songs of the worshipers year after year; there he will breathe the odor of the golden censers; in that sa cred spot he will tarry, secreted until the six years have passed, and he come to enthronement. Would God that we were as wise as Jehosheba, and knew that the church of God is the best hiding place. Per haps our parents took us there in early days; thcr snatched us away from the world and hid us behind the baptismal fonts and amid the Bibles and the psalm books. 0, glorious inclosurel We have been breathing the breath of the golden censers all the time, and we have seen the lamb on the altar and we have handled the phials which are the prayers of all saints, and we have dwelt under the wings of the cheru bin. Glorious inclosure I When my father and mother died, and the prop erty was settled up, there was hardly anything left; but they endowed us with a property worth more than any earthly possession, because they hid us in the temple. And when days of temptation have come upon my soul I have gone there for shelter; and when assaulted of sorrows, I have gone there for comfort, and there I mean to live. I want, like Joash, to stay there until coronation. I mean to be buried out of the house of God. 0 men of the world outside there, ietraved, caricatured and cheated of the world, why do you not come in through the broad, wide open door of Christian communion? I wish I could act the part of Jehosheba today, and steal you away from your perils and hide you in the temple. How few of us appreciate the fact that the church of God is a hiding place. There are many people who put the church at so low a mark that they beg-rudge it everything, even the few dollars they give toward it. They make no sacri fices. They dole a little out of their surplusa-ge. They pay their butcher's bill, and they pay their doctor's bill, and they pay their landlord, and they pay everybody but the Lord, and they come in at the last to pay the Lord in his church, and frown as they~ say: "There, Lord, it is; if you will have it, take it-now take it, take it; send me a receipt in full, and don't bother me soon again!" sEEK GODLY SOCIT1Y. I tell you there is not more than one man out of a thousand that appreci ates what the church is. Where are the souls that put aside one-tenth for Christian institutions - one-tenth of their income? Where are those who, having put aside that one-tenth, draw upon it cheerfully? Why, it is pull. and drag, and hold on, and grab, and clutch; and g'iving- is an affliction to most people when it ought to be an ex Kiaration and a rapture. Oh, that God wuld remodel our souls on this sub ject, and that we might appreciate the house of God as the great refuage. If your children are to come up to lives of virtue and happiness, they will come up under the shadow of the church. If the church does not get them the world will. Ah, when you pass away-and it will not be long- before you do-when you pass away i't will be a saisfaction to see your chiildren in Christian soci ety. tou want to have them sitting at the holy sacraments. You want them mingling in Christian associ ations. You would like to have them die in the sacred precincts. When you are on your dying bed, and your litt-le ones come up to take your last word, and you look into their bewildered faces,, you will want to leave them o'- rer the church's benediction. I .n't care how hard you are, that is so. I said to a man of the world: "Your son and daughter are going to join our church next Sun day. Have you any objections?" "Bless you," he said, "objections? I wish all my children belonged to the church. I don't attend to those mat ters myself-I know I am very wicked -hut I am very glad they are going, and I shall be there to see them. I am very glad, sir; Iam very glad. I want them there." And so, though you may have been wanderers from God, and though you may have sometimes caricatured the church of Jesus, it is your great desire that your sons and daughters should be standing all their lives within this sacred inclosure. 3Iore than that, you yourself will want the church for a hiding place when the mortgage is foreclosed; when your daughter, just blooming into omanhood, suddenly clasps her hands in a slumber that knows no waking; when gaunt trouble walks through the parlor, and the sitting room, and the dining hall, and the nursery, you will want some shelter from t.he tempest. Ah, some of you have been run upon by misfortune and trial; why do you no~t come into the abelter? I said to a 'widowed mo ther after she had buried her only son -months after I said to her: "How do you get alona- nowadays?" "Oh," she replied, "I get along toler ably well except when the sun shines." I said: "What do you mean by that?" when she said: "I can't bear to see the sun shine; my heart is so dark that all the brightness of the natural world seems a mockery to me." 0, darkened soul, 0, broken hearted man, brokeni hearted womian, why do you not come into the shelter? Eswing the door wide open. I swing itfrom wall to wall. Come in! Conmc in! You want a place where your trobles shall be interpreted, where your burdens shall be unstrapped, here your tears shall be wiped away. Church' of God, be a hiding place to all these-gpeople. Give them a seat Flash sorne lgt trom your Chan deliers upon their darkness. *With I some soothing hymn hush their griefs. 0, CIurch (o l, I:t; of heaven, let me .o tinugh'it! Alt thI in:stitu of(;4 ai. foundaui n .A isk thxe --ock of .Aes," its charter is for everlast ing 'vear-s, its keys are held by the universal proprietor, its dividend is lieaven, its president is Grod! Sure as thy truth shall hst, To Zion shall be given The brightest gluries earth can yield. And brighter bliss of heaven. God grant that all this audience, the youngest, the eldest, the worst,.the best, may find their safe and glorious hiding place where Joash found it-in the temple. An Automatic SaVings 11ank. A Liverpool man has invented an automatic savino-s Unk. When a penny or two baifpennies are pressed intothe automatic bank the depositor pulls out a drawer and finds a printed ticket bearing a number in duplicate. He writes his name and address on the ticket, which he then presses into a cavity in the machine made to receive it, keeping the other half with the cor responding number. Thus, when those in charge of the automatic bank clear it of the tickets in order to enter them in proper forn in their books, each depositor has the duplicate of his ticket bearing his nanic and address. In this way absolute accuracy is ob tained, and depositors are credited with the exact amount they have put into the machine. Each machine is capable of holding $25 in pennies or half pennies, the coins being received in tubes, which are so arranged that any attempt to pass base coins would be very easily detected. No second penny can be received by the machine until the receipt for the first one has been duly removed by the depositor. -New York Telegram. Mrs. Mona Caird, who started the "Is Marriage a Failure?" business, has been studying Buddhism. There is a young giantess 6 feet 8 inches high, said absolutely to be only 12 years old, on exhibition in London. She is a Don Cossack. The fast mail service between New York and San Francisco has been re duced to four days, twenty-two hours and forty-five minutes. "What a fine thing old age is," said M. Augier not long before his death. -One is surrounded with care, atten tion and respect. But what a pity that it lasts so short a time." A sturgeon fourteen feet long was caught in the Sacramento river, near Chico, last week. Instead of killing it the fishermen fastened a rope to the body and turned it loose in the river to get fat. They feed it on the entrails of salmon, and the captive likes the treatment. Little Jim was but a few years old when there was a wedding in the fam ily. The aged grandmother kept her seat during the ceremony. In telling about it afterward Jim said: "We all stood up and got married 'cept grand ma!" A novel advertisement appears in a Gloucester (Mass.) paper. It is from a property holder, and notifies a certain gang of hoodlums that he intends to assert his rio-hts a-ainst annoyance. It also reminas the"parents of hoodlum minors that there is a legal responsi bility for destruction of property, arid closes with the remark that if the po lice did their duty there would be no occasion for the advertisement. The farmers of the neighborhood of Hiawatha, Kan., are burning corn for fuel, finding it cheaper than coal. Corn is sold~ on the farmt for twenty cents per bushel, while the average priec of coal delivered at the farm ranges- from twenty-one to twenty three cents per bushel. The Farmers' alliance brought the attention of the farmers to the relative prices of the two commodities, and advised that half the corn crop be used as fuel, thus advancing the price of the other half and saving money in their fuel bills. The farmers have begun to act on this advice. The construction of the canals de signed to overcome obstructions in the Tnnessee river at Muscle shoals has been completed. It was begun by the government in 1873, and nearly $4,000,000 has thus far been expended on the vor-k. The opening of the canal will give water transportation nine mne;'bh in the .year from Chat ' o.*-. - Mississippi river. a . .aoure charitable than me.a'idon street sweepers do not to. so. One of them on being asked for an opinion replied that it was no use asking ladies for a gratuity; they never did and never would give a poor man anything. Another said that a lady occasionally gave him a penny when her purse was handy. And still another said he never heard of a lady even noticing a poor sweeper. The marvelous~ growth of the colo nies is now a familiar story. Certain ly nothing more remarkable has been seen in the history of the wor-ld. Dur ing the fifty years succeeding the ac cession of her majesty, the area gov erned by the queen, exclusive of Great Britain, increased from 1,100, 000 to 8,400.000 square miles- the Eu ropean population of the colonies in creased from 2,000,000 to 10.000,000; the colored population fr-om 9,800,000 to 26,200,000; and the state revenues of possessions beyond the seas grew from ?24,000,000 to ?122, 000,000 a year. Z. T. Devore, a Parkersburg (W. Va.) merchant, owns a dog of superior in telligence. The dog goes to the store with theimail every morning, andfrom it takes the mail addressed to the pri vate residence to Mr. Devore's home. Nothing can divert him while-attend ing to his duties as mail carrier, and he never makes a mistake in taking the letteirs to their proper direction. Every evening he sees to it that the evening papers are taken to the house, and if by chance the papers should be missing, either by being blown away by the wind or carr-ied off by the-boys, thie dog makes a raid into some neigh bor's yard and hvy>othecates a paper, which" he carries off home. The Deserviing Poor. As superintendent of the Provident association, which seeks to relieve the distress of the worthy poor, I disagree entirely with the great mass of matter nrinted and preached about the men icant class. This is all to the-effect that hypocrisy and false pretense are the rule among the destitute. This I deny. St. Loums has no mendicant class, and the hardest part of our la bor is to hunt up and relieve the class of poor whom our organization de sires to benefit. The self respecting poor man or poor woman in dozens of instances that come under my notice every winter shrinks from asking alms until he or she has reached a state of destitution that is pitiable, and which we niever intend should be reached. They sell everything that will bring a coin before coming to us, and then in tears and trembling. Many of thenm after- awaiting for hour-s to pluck up courage to tell their sad stories, would depart with the words unsaid if we did not look for just such people. We frequently issue relief tickets, which are returned but half used because the head of the family has found work, and desires not to eat the bread of charity.-Rev. Edwe'd Well, eitlr yrSOMETIME After wN,4Evr is to say is said. Or i ur :.: m~ di-taceof th! 410h, r Armd -Andi yho iu .i-lo Pr ys and faces wan anel wer With Lif ' a--:r: grief, be-sidev ITlie ot'. a i~n, sealed with silenc', yet Sonittime' A.nd yo ir I i miIst liok Int' th o t-r's grave, or far or near. And real., ami a book, Writ in tim" dust. words we made bieer here, Sometinie. For boLX:. t h- the way Wh7e. ;. -:.e walk wgetiher, very woon; One i -1 -.'.;t shall stay, The oi r tsnt shall see the risingn moon - Sometime Oh! fast. r:st rriend of mine! Lft up tii- vice I love so muck. and warn To wring iaint hands and pine. Tell niw I :inay a left forlorn. forlorn Sometime Say I may 's thr.ugh tears, Forever fa:ling and forever coa One ribnW-a fro:n sweet years, Ono dear dead kaf, one prc'elous ringof geld Sometime. Say you unyie t"n: with pain o son ::n t grace, some timid wish to please. Some ;:--ook, half vain, IutE yor ieart some broken sobs like these Sometime. -Sarah M. B. Piatt A NEWSPAPEIR Yes, sir: I give it to you straight, or I'm a Chinaman. Foolin'? No. no: I'm not. I'm not one to fool: I drove a bob tailed car too long for that! What with the greenies that put their fares into the kerosene lamp box and the crooks that try to get off without paying at all, and the old gents with principles that make the driver come in and colleot "foir their own good," and the young ladic. that will stop to kiss each other on the platform, and the old ladies that are afraid to get off, and the boys tiat hitch on behind, and the old gerits that are going to write to the papers, and the folks that want twenty-dollar bills changed, and the folks you run over, and the wagons that run in)to you, I tell you a bob tail car driver gets savage after awhile and don't feel like foolin'. I was savage that day. There were two folks in the car-a man and a wo man-and ,;Ily onm fare in the box. I'd rung and I'd shouted. but neither of them attended to me. I laid the missing fare to the man because of his looks. He was about as poverty stricken as I ever saw. Not your laboring man's poverty. A laborer out of work never looked like that. It was tramp's rags this fellow wore, and lie had the hauds of a tramp too. Under their dirt a tramp's hands are like the hands of a fine gentleman same reason, he don't work. This man's hands were clean, and his face wasn't bad; but it was more likely he was try ing to beat me out of five cents than that the lady was. And if he was a tramp he had money enough about him-they al ways have-and after I'd done my best from outside, I stopped the car and went to attend to him. The minute I got in I saw-what it seemed to me sort of queer I hadn't noticed before-the lady was a Sister of Charity. She wore a black ben net and veil, and a white thing under it around her forehead and under her chin. Her hands were crossed in her lap. She was as holy and pure to look at as if she'd been an angel. I looked at her, and~ then I said to the man: "I wianit your fare." He looked at me-hungry eyes lie had -and says he: "I paid five cents into your box-isn't that' right, driver?" "All right, if you did it," said I. Then I went down toward the lady. It was my duty, but I found it hard to do. I stood before her feeling as queer as ever I did in all my life, and all I could say was: "Madam, shall I take your fare?"' She did not answer me, but pointed to a paper somebody had left upon the seat -a common newspaper. "Give it to him," I seemed to see her say with her lips-and by "him" I saw she meant the tramp. Now, a paper left in the car belonged to me, and I'm a man with a temper, and at my wages the price of a paper was something; so, what do you think, then, of my going and handing that paper over to that tramp, as meek as Moses? "Hers," says I, poking it toward him. "It isn't mine," says lhe. But my eyes were on the sister all the while. '-The lady says you must take it," says I. Now, she hadn't said anything; she had only lifted her hand. "What lady?"' said the man, taking the paper. "The sister there," said I. Theni all of a sudden, while I looked at her, the seat the lady had been sitting on was empty! She hadn't got up on her feet or moved. She just wasn't there any more, and I got Out to my horses again as quick as I could. Men do go out of their heads from overwork, I'm told, and I began to think I was going out of mine. I did not dare to look back into the car until the man inside pulled back the slide and spoke. "Driver," he said, "give me your name and residence." "What for?" I asked. "No harm." said he. "Do you mean to try to get me into troubley' I asked, knowing that there were "spotters" about and making up my mind that this was one in disguise. "1 tred my best to get that lady's fare, butI couldn't be rough to a sister." "I saw no lady. What do I care about the:fares?" said the man. "If you give me your name you'll not be sorry for it. Ithink." He spoke like a gentleman, for all his clothes. "Oh, well, I'm not ashamed of my nam-it's Jim Brown. This car is No. -, and if you want me you can find me!" "All r. i; " lie said; and [ saw that he ha f. - '*' paper .qu:'- -I a fastening it up in his coat, pinning it with a black headed pin. At the next corner he got off. That night I went to Dr. - -, as kind a mau as ever lived. I knew he wouldn't char'ge me for an opinion. I told him my story. "Now, doctor," I said, "if I'm looney, out with it!" "No, no, Jim," said lie; "very sane men have optical illusions now and then." "I don't want any more of 'em," said I. Collecting fares of optical illusions don't pay." "I should say not," said the doctor. "ut my o'pinioni is that you turned your back a inuiit' and that the woman got oil .: wic ot payting her fare. Prob ably she was not a real Sister of Charity. The city is fulhl of frauds. She made you taike the paper to the man to give herself a chancee. See now?" I didn't sie: but w hat can you do wet-. folks are so .-i:-.ihle' they can't be live' any thin.:? "'Twa~sn't like that -thecre she was anti the~re she wasn't," said I. "That's how~ it was." ''if it haippt'ns again. comtie to me and I'll write you a prescriptioni and make So I tfanked him kiny and weml, away, an. 1 di!n't happen again. And weeks; wnt on- and it was winter, and a .1s Gr(nland, and passen nIever k olI fellow tha w:wn-ti the horses ua alw:yis had a jei- for everybody, I Larl in llnm C:_l1 .1. eli I n . . - .Ji. sail sonie one, :tnd 1 went I ut into the street, and the nman t hat1jZ';1 (h'l a(l ine ointed to a gentlemn-about as tine a looking one as ever I kn 11w-ad h.:. tihe gentleman, walked up to me. "It's your dinner time, fan't t" said he. -Yes. sir." said I. "i've got a few mlinutes left.'' 4 "Cone along, then," said he. He walked me into a restaurazit close by the stables, and said: "Call for what you want," and I named it. Then said he: "You don't remember me. Jim Brown?" "'No. sir," said I. "You gave me a paper about six months ago," said he. "A newspaper. I asked your nanio "Oh, oh!" said I. -No, sir, I didn't know you. I begin to see the likeness, but you--you" "I know," said Ie. "I was pretty wpl down on my luck, then. See here" -he unbuttoned his coat, a seal skin, bless you. anti took out of the breast pocket a new spaper-"read that," he said, pointing to where it was folded. I read it. This is what it said: "If Ferdinand Melrose will return home all will be forgiven by his dying father," and after that where he was to inquire for "further particulars." "Well, I am Ferdinand Melrose," says the gent lenian. "The black sheep of my family. Long ago my stepuotber made mischief between my father and mrself. lie forbade me his house, and I rather went to the bad. No matter for my story. Besides the fare you inquired about I had only a bottle of laudanum in my pocket. I was going to the Central park to take it. I should have slept my self out of life into eternity, and the cty would have seen to my funeral if you had not given me that paper. I went to the place mentioned..and found, as I ex pected, that 'money had been left in a lawyer's hands to take me home. When I got there I found that my asepmothat had been dead three years, and that my father bad been attacked by a disease that must be fatal. We were reconciled, and when he died I found myself a ricA man. I had kept Jim Brown's address, and I feel that I owo him something." "Nothing at all," says L "The lad, the sister-told me to give it to you." "What lady?" said he. "I'd like to know myself. said I, and then I told him my storr. "It is strange," says he. "I could swear that I was the only passenger at the time. I felt so miserable and so shabby that I purposely waited for an empty car. And another thi' is strange, Jird Brown," said he. "We have a ghost in our family. A nun is said to appear now and then, always to do good. And my fatlier declared that while he was ill she appeared to him three times, always pointing to my por trait, which hung in his bedroom, and always conveying to him in some way that it was his duty to search for me. In fact, she was the cause of our recon ciliation." I couldn't say anything. Neither of us spoke about the thing again; but when he insisted on starting me in the eating house line I wasn't fool enough to refuse, and, as you see, I'm not a bobtail car driver any longer. No, I haven't seen anything quweer since that time, and I can't say I'm anx ios; but whether the lady was a ghost, or what the doctor called an optical do lusion, it's certain that she only did good to all concerned. Bless her for comning! -Mary Kyle Dallas in Fireside Coam pamn.L ______ ODDS AND ENDS. The circus elephant Empress was sold at auction in Philadelphia. She brought $1,700. In a handful of clover plucked in his yard, Edward Koehler, of Bethl hem, Pa., found fifty-four leaf stalks. Twenty-six thousand per'sons were present ~at the opening performance of Barnum's show in Lonadon. The continual use of Persian insect powder will drive moths away from furniture. Its frequent renewal is necessary until all are killed. The widow of the late King Luis ci Portugal will r'eceive a yearly allow ance of $64,000. which will be reduced one-half if she lives abroad. The electric bells of a certain hotel are accompanied by the printed in struction, "Press'the knob if you want the waiter three times."~ Evangelist Moody recently reccived a draft for $2 500 for the government from a Canadian smuggler converted at one of his meetingi. At Cincinnati a horse backed over the bank and fell down a declivity ol 100 feet, dragging his cart and driver with him. The driver did not get into the watei-, but the horse plunged into the river and swam across to Cvg ton, detaching the vehicle from him in midstream. Three men being unable to drive or drag a 400 pound pig from its pen 'at Reinhold, Berks county, Pa., they called in the assistance of John Berk e, a giant in strength. He deliber ately picked the kicking porker ul: ad carried it out unaided. Mrs. Bland, the poet and novelist, better known as "E. Nesbit," is de scribed as a very pretty woman with soft brown eyes, and a delicacy of look, dress and carriage which belongs to the old osthetic days, wich, in her costumes at last, Mrs. Bland revives. Patti, the div inc singer, receives the largest wages cever paid an artist, hu man or div inc. She is paid $3,500 every night sh'e sings in the Alberl Hall, London. Even with this and the expenditure of $5,000 for each con cert. her managfers are able to show ~rofit of from $2,000 to $3,000 per night. Fifty years ago there were probbly not more than 90,000 to I00.000 acres of fruit land in Great Britain. In 172, the date of the first reliable rec ord, it had increased to nearly 170,000 acres; and Mr. Whitehead, a well known authority, estimates the present acreage at about 214,000 acres. Unacquainted with the game birds of this country, a newly arrived Ger man near Scranton shot a barn yard turker under the impression that it was a wild fowl. He took it home and ad it cooked, and was about to sit lown at the dinner' tale to eat it when be was arrested for killing his neigh bor's poultry.. Baron Hirsch, one of the richest of the French bankers, who was black balled a few months ago by the Paris lockey club, is a bout to take his house hold to England. He thinks of buy ing Houghton hall, one of the most nagniicent of English places, near 3an drigham, for ?:300.000. The baron .s reputed to be worth ?10,000,000. John Eenson, a Rice couniy (Minn.) arer performled a mios t remnarkab le *eat on a lake two iles north of Fari at recently. On looking out of his i sindow he saw a bevy- of wild ducks vying to extricate themselves from ie ice which had frozen about theiri egs during the night. Seizing a corn< mtter, he rushed to the lake and ESTABLISHED 1844. Charleston Iron Works, Manu.fac' u s and Dealers in Marinle Sa d~ona1 r ad i. 8 ble Engines and Boilers. Sa w Mill Maelinery, ot toi resses, Gins, Railroad, steam boat, Machinists', Engiineers' and Mill Supplies. East Bay, Cor. Pritchard St., Charleston, S. C. R. C. B.KELEY, Fresicdet. C. BISiEL JENKINS, 'I. Ma a:.n r. 1- ; - S. GA.rr, Sec. & Treas. The Cameron & Barkeley Gompany. COMMISSION MERCHANTS, -AND AGENTS FOR Erie City Engine and Boilers. Atlas Engine and Boilars, the fawous 1.e Giant Hydraulic Cotton Press, Eagle Cotton Gins. We have in stock one each 60, 65, and 70 saw Eagle Gin, only shop worn, that we are offering way below cost. Send for prices. Oils, Rubber and Leather Belting, and a complete line of 3111 Sooples. We Guar'antee Lowest Prices for Best Quality of Gcods-~~~ CAMERON& BARKELEY CO., Chai-esten, S. C. ji F. J. PELZER, President. F. S. LODGERS, Treasurer. Atlantic Phosphate Company, C r A T.-smTonT, S. 0. MANUFACTURERS OF STANDARD FERTILIZERS, AND IMPORTERS OF 3PUi~ e GXel*.Da . KM --. PELZER, RODGERS, & CO., General Agts., BROWN'S WHARF, CHARLESTON, S. C. Mn. M. Lrvr, of Manning, will be pleased to supply his friends and the public gen erally, with any of the above brands of Fertilizers. SECKENDORF & MIDDLETON, Cotton Factors. NAVAL STORES, No. 1 Central Wharf, CHARL~EDSTON, 8 F. W. CAPPELMA DEALER IN CHOICE GROCERIES, WINES, LIQUORS, TOBACCO AND S. E. Cor. Meeting and Reid Sts., CHARLESTON, S. C. Choice Flour a specialty. Sugars sold near cost. No charge for drayage. Goods d. ivered free to depot. Countiy orders promptly attended io. In OTTO F. WIETERS, WHOLESALE GROCER, Wholesale Dealer in Wines, ionuors and Cigars, No. 121 East Bay, Charleston, S. C. 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