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DARKNESS ETERNAL What the Earth Would Be Without the Gospel. ATHEISM VS. CHRISTIANITY Rev. Dr. Talmage Vividly Por trays The Gioom of an Infidel World. Triumph of Atheism Would Mean Death to Civilization. In this sermon Dr. Talmage gives a glimps6 of what the world would be if the gospel were abolished and the hu man race left without divine guidance. The text is Acts ii, -0, "The sun shall be turned into darkncss. Christianity is the risiog sun of our time, and men have tried with the up rolling vapors of skepticism aLd the smoke of their blasphemy to turn the sun into darkness. Suppose the arch angels of malice and horror should be let loose a little while and be allowed to extinguish and destroy the sun in the natural heavens! They would take the oceans from other worlds and pour them on the luminary of the planetary sys tem, and the waters go hissing down amid the ravines and the caverns. and there is explosion after explosion. until there are only a few peaks of tire left in the sun, and these are cooling down and going out until the vast continents of flame are reduced to a small acreage of fire, and that whitens and cools off until there are only a few coals left, and these are whitening and going out until there is not a spark left in all the mountains of ashes and the valleys of ashes and the chasms of ashes. An extinguished sun! A dead sun! A buried sun! Let all worlds wail at the stupendous obsequies. Of course this withdrawal of the solar light and heat throws our earth into a universal chill, and the tropics become the temperate, and the temperate be comes the arctic, and there are frozen rivers and frozen lakes and frozen oceans. From arctic and antarctic re gions the inhabitants gather in toward the center and find the equator as the poles. The slain forests are piled up into a great bonfire, and around them gather the shivering villhges and cities. The wealth of the coal mines is hastily poured into the furnaces and stirred into rage of combustion, but soon the bonfires begin to lower, and the fur naces begin to go out, and the nations begin to die. Cotopaxi, A-esuvius, Et na, Stromboli, California geysers, cease to smoke, and the ice of hailstorms re main unmelted in their crater. All the flowers have breathed their last breath. Ships with sailors frozen at the mast, and helmsmen frozen at the wheel, and passengers frozen in the cabin, all na tions dying; first at the north and then at the south. Child frosted and dead in the cradle. Octogenarian frosted and dead at the hearth. Workmen with frozen hand on the hammer and frozen foot on the shuttle. Winter from sea to sea. All congealing winter. Perpetual winter. Globe of frigidity. Hemisphere shackled to hemisphere by chains of ice. Universal Nova Zembla. The earth an ice floe grinding against other ice floes. The archangels of ma lice and horror have done their work, and now they may take their thrones of glacier and look down upon the ruin they have wrought. What the destruc tion of the sun in the natural heavens would be to our physical earth, the de struction of Cnristianity would be to the moral world. The sun turned into darkness! Infidelity in our time is considered a -eat joke. There are people who re joice to hear Christianity caricatured and to hear Christ assailed with quib ble and quirk and misrepresentation and badinage and harlequinade. I pro pose today to take infidelity and athe ism out of the realm of jocularity into one of tragedy and show you whyt infi dels propose and what if they are suc cessful they will accomplish. There are those in all our communities who would like to see the Christian religion overthrown and who say the world ,vould be better without it.. I want to show you what is the end of this road and what is the terminus of this cru sade and what thig world will be when atheism and infidelity have triumphed over it, ifrthey can. I say, if they can. I reiterate it, if they can. In the first place, it will be the com plete and unutterable degradatiou of womanhood. I will prove it by facts and arguments which no honest man will dispute. In all communities and cities and states and nations where the Christian religion has been dominant woman's condition has been ameliorated and improved, and she is deferred to and honored in a thusand things, and every gentleman takes off his hat be fore her. If your associations have been good, you know that the name of wife, mother, daughter, suggests gra cious surroundings. You know there are no better schools and seminaries in this country than the schools and sem inaries for our young ladies. You know that while woman may suffer injustice in England and the United States she has more of her rights in Christendom than she has anywhere else. Now, compare this-with woman's condition in lands where Christianity has made little orno advance-in China. in Barbary, in Borneo, in Tartary, in Egypt, in Hindustan. The Burmese sell their wives and danghters as so many sheep. The Hindoo Bible makes it disgraceful and an outrage for a wo man to listen to music or look out of the window in the absence of her hus band and gives as a lawful ground for divorce a woman's beginning to eat be fore her husband has finished his meal. What mean those white bundles on the ponds and rivers in China in the morn ing? Infanticide following infanticide. Female children destroyed simply be cause they are female. Woman har nessed to the plow as an ox. Woman veiled and barricaded and in all styles of cruel seclusion. Her brith a misfor tune. Her life a torture. Her death a horror. The missionary of the cross today in heathen lands preaches gener -~ ally to two groups-a group of men who Sdo as they please aad sit where they Splease; the other group, women hidden Sand carefully secluded in a side apart Sment, where they may hear the voice of Sh e preacher, but may not be seen. No refinement. No liberty. No hope for this life. No hope for the life to come. Ringed nose. Cramped foot. Disfigured face. Embruted soul. Now, compare those two conditions. How far toward this latter condition that I speak of would woman go if Christian influences were withdrawn and Christianity were destroyed? It is only a question of dynamics. If an object be lifted to a certain point and not fastened there and the lifting power be withdrawn, how long before that object will fall down to the point from which it started? It will fall down, and it will go still farther hritian!. has lin1ed woman up frdin the ery depths i degradation almost to t is. If that lifting power be withdrawn, she falls clear back to the depth from which she was ressurrected, not going any lower, because there is no loser depth. And yet, notwithstand ing the fact that the only salvation of woman from degradation and woe is the Christian religion-and the only influ ence that has ever lifted her in the so cial scales is Christianity-I have read that there are women who reject Chris tianity. I make no remark in regard to those persons. In the silence of your own soul make your observations. If infidelity triumph and Christiani tv be overthrown, it means the demor a lization of society. The one idea in the Bible that atheists and infidels imost ha t, is the idea of retribution. Take away the idea of retribution and puni4hment from society. and it will begin very soon to disintegrate, and take away from the minds of men the fear of hell, and there are a great many of them who would very soon turn this world into a hell. The majority of tho-e who are indignant against the Bible because of the idea of punish ment are men whose lives are bad o: whose hearts are impure and who hate the Bible because of the idea of future punishment for the same reason that criminals hate the penitentiary. Oh, I have heard this brave talk about peo ple fearing nothing of the consequences of sin in the next world, and I have made up my mind it is merely a cow ard's whistling to keep his courage up. I I have seen men flaunt their immorali ties in the face of the community, and I have heard them defy the judgment day and scoff at the idea of any future consequence of their sin, but when they came to die they shrieked until you could hear them for nearly two blocks, and in the summer night the neighbors got up to put the windows down because they could not endure the horror. I would not want to see a rail train with 500 Christian people on board go down through a drawbridge into a wat ery grave; I would not want to see 500 Christian people go intn such disaster, but I tell you plainly that I could more easily see that than I could? for any pro tracted time stand and see an infidel die, though nis pillow were of eider down and under a canopy of vermilion. I havo never been able to brace up my nerves for such a spectacle. There is something at such a time eo indescrib able in the countenance. I just looked in upon it for a minute or two, but the clutch of his fist was so diabolic and the strength of his voice was so unnatu ral I could not endure it. "There is no hell, there is no hell, there is no hell ' the man had said for 60 years, but that night when I looked in the dying room of my infidel neighbor there was some thing on his countenance which seemed to say, "There is, there is, there is, there is!" The mightiest restraints today against theft, against immorality, against libertinism, against crime of all sorts-the mightiest restraints are the retributions of eternity. Men know that they can escape the law, but down in the offenders' soul there is the realiza tion of the fact that they cannot escape God. He stands at the end of the road of profligacy, and he will not clear the guilty. Take all idea of retribution and punish ment out of the hearts and minds of men, and it would not be long before our cities would become Sodoms. The only restraints against the evil passions of the world today are Bible restraints. Suppose now these generals of athe ism and infidelity got the victory and suppose they marshaled a great arny made up of the majority of the world. They are in companies, in regiments, in brigades-the whole army. Forward, march, ye hosts of infidels and atheists, banners flying before, banners flying behind, banners inscribed with the words: "No God! No Christ! No Pun ishment! No Restraints! Down With the Bible! iDo as You Please!" The sun turned into darkness! Forward, march, ye great army of in fidels and atheists! And first of all you will attack the churches. Away with those houses of worship! They have been standing there so 1ling deluding the people with consolation in their bereavements and sorrows. All those churches ought to be extirpated, they have done so much to relieve the lost and bring home the wandering, and they have so long held up the idea of eternal rest after the paroxysm of this life is over. Turn the St. Peters and St. Pauls and the temples and taber nacles into clubhouses. Away with those churches! Forward. march, ye great army of in fidels and atheists, and next of all they scatter the Sabbath schools filled with bright eyed, rosy-cheeked little ones who are singing songs on Sunday after noon and getting instruction when they ought to be on the street corners play ing marbles or swearing on the com mons. Away with them! Forward, march, ye great army of infidels and atheists, and n. xt of all they will at tack Christian asylums the institutions of mercy supported by Christian phi lanthropies. Never mind the blind eyes and the deaf ears and the crippled limbs and the darkened intellects. Let paralyzed old age pick up its own food and orphans fight their own way and the half reformed go back to their evil habits. Forward, march, ye great army of infidels and atheists, and with your bat tleaxes hew down the cross and split up tile manger of Bethlehem. On, ye great army of infidels and atheists, and now they come to the graveyards and the cemeteries of the earth. Pull down the sculpture above Greenwood's gate, for it means the Resurrection. Tear away at the en trance of Laurel Hill the figure of Old Mortality and the chisel. On, ye great army of infidels and atheists, into the grrveyards and cemeteries, and where you see "Asleep In Jesus" cut it away, and where you find a marble story of heaven blast it, and where you find over a little child's grave "Suffer Little Children to Come Unte Me" sub stitute the words "delusion" and "sham." and where you find an angel in marble strike off the wings, and when you come to a family vault chisel on the door, "Dead once, dead forever." But on, ye great army of infidels aud atheists, on! They will attempt to scale heaven. There are heights to be taken. Pile hill on hill and Pelton upon Ossa, and then they hoist the lad ders against the walls of heaven. On and on until they blow up the founda tions of jasper and the gates of Pearl. They charge up the steep. Now they aim for the throne of him who liveth forever and ever. They would take down from their high place the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost. "Down with them!V they say. "Down with them from the throne!" they say. "Down forever! Down out of sight! He is not God. He has no right to sit there. Down with him! Down with Christ? uh, my friends, there has never been such a nefarious plot on earth as that which infidelity and atheism have plan ned. We were shocked a few years ago because of the attempt to blow up the fidclity and atheism succeed in their attempt they will dynamite a world. Let them have their full way, and this world will be a habitation of three rooms -a habitation of just three rooms, the one a madhouse. another a lazaretto, the other a pandemonium. These infi del bands of music have only just begun their concert-yea, they have only been stringing their instruments. I today put before you their whole pro gramine from beginn ing unto the close. In the theater the tragedy comes first and the farce afterward, but in this in fidel drama of death the farce comes first and the tragedy afterward. And in the former atheists and infidels laugh and mock, but in the latter God him self will laugh and mock. He says so. "I will laugh at their calamity and mock when their fear cometh." From such a chasm of individual, na tional, worldwide ruin, stand back. Oh, young men, stand back from that chasm! You see the practical drift of my sermon. I want you to know where that road leads. Stand back from that chasm of ruin. The time is going to come (you and I may not live to see it, but it will come; just as ceitainly as there is a God it will come) when the infidels and the atbeists who openly and out and out and above board preach and practice infidelity and atheists will be considered as criminals against so ciety, as they are now criminals against God. Society will push out the leper, and the wretch with soul gangrened and ichorous and vermin covered and rotting apart with his beastiality will be left to die in the ditch and be denied decent burial, and men will come with spades and cover up the carcass where it falls, that it poison not the air, and and the only text in all the Bible ap propriate for the funeral sermon will be Jeremiah xxii, 19, "le shall be buried with the burial of an ass." A thousand voices come up to me this hour saying: "Do you really think infidelity will succeed? Has Christi tianity received its deathblow? and will the Bible become obsolete?" Yes, when the smoke of the city chimney arrests and destroys the noonday sun. Josephus says about the time of the de struction of Jerusalem the sun was turned into darkness, but only the clouds rolled between the sun and the earth. The sun went right on. It is the same sun, the same luminary, as when at the beginning it shot out like an electric spark from God's finger, and today it is warming the nations, and to day it is gilding-le sea, and toda. is filling the earth with its light. 'I.. same old sun, not at all wornor, though its light steps 190,000,000 m' 1 a second, though its pulsations are 450,000,000,000,000 undulations i.1 a second. The same sun with beaut'ful white light made up of the violet, and the indigo, and the blue, and the green and the red, and the yellow, and the orange-the seven beautiful colors now just as when the solar spectrum first divided them. At the beginning God said: "Let there be light," and light was, and light is and light shall be. So Christianity is roll ing on, and it is going to warm all na tions, and all nations are to bask in its light. Men may shut the window blinds so they cannot see it, or they may smoke the pipe of speculation un til they are shadowed under their own vaporing, but the Lord God is a sun! This white light of the gospel made up of all the beautiful colors of earth and heaven-violet plucked from amid the spring grass, and the indigo of the southern jungles, and the blue of the skies, and the green of the foliage, and the yellow of the autumnal woods, and the orange of the southern groves, and the red of the suns~ts. All the beau ties of earth and heaven brought. out by this spiritual spectrum. Great Britain is going to take all Europe for God. The United States are going to take America for God. Both of them together will take all Asia for God. All three of them will take Africa for God. "Who art thou, 0 great moun tain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain." "The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Halleluiah, amen! Pure Food Wanted Some very interesting and instructive facts have been brought out by the Senatorial Committee with regard to the general adulteration of commercial food products in this country. Prof. Mitchell, chemist of the Wis consin Dairy and Food Commission, said that the use of ant iseptics as pre servatives has become "alarmingly great." They ar& used extensively, ha explained, to color and keep milk and butter, one of them in general use being a chemical which "acts disas trously on the tissues of the stomach. Others," he added, are used on chopped meats, bulk meats, oysters, fish and hams, and possibly on corned beef." He also told of a drug that is "exten sively sold to butchers for the purpose of making their Hamburger steaks last and keep up a healthy appearance--at the expense, of course, of the healthy appearance and lasting qualities of the people who eat such meat. Dr. Wiley, the Government export. gave the cheering information that he identified one of the meat preserving preparations as ''the same which wat formerly used at some of the medical colleges to preserve corpses obtained for dissection, and is now occasionally put to service in disinfecting houses, where smallpox patients have resided." The materials commonly used "for the majority of jellies, manufactured nowadays," according to several wit nesses, are the cores and parings of ap ples," the substance of which "is mix ed with glucose in large quantities with sugar in small quantities, and then colored and flavored to suit the label on thepackage." In commenting on the above the News and Courier very truly says that in view of these, and the many other like revelations recently made before the committee, and elsewhere, there are many thousands of people who would be very glad to get certainly hour est and pure food products-jellies, butter, meats, baking powder, and so on-and to pay well for them. Any enterprising pers'n or corporation in the South should find a good profit in supying tplhe demand in any part. A Big Mill. A charter has been applied for the Olympia cotton mills of Columbia It s capital will be $1,500,000. The power will be electricity, furnished by the power plant on the Columbia canal. It will be the largest mill in the south, having 104,000 spindles and 2,600 looms. The corporators are Columbia's mill and bank presidents and leading business men. OverlookedCoogler. W. D. Howells, the n >velist, in an article in the North American Review, puts Rudyard Kipling and William Watson at the head of the living poets of the English-speah ng world and giv.es James Whitcomb Riley first place among distinctively American poets of the day. Can it be that Howells has -never heard of J. Gordon Coogler, the bard of the Congaree? Not to know I Mooler arges oane's .%f nn',n. A NEGRO DBGPERADO: Re kills One Policemen and Wounds Another, In Washington, D. C., last Wednes day Humphrey Taylor, a Negro sus pected of the Rosenstein murder at Sli dell, Md., shot and killed Police Ser geant Fritz Passau, wounded Police man Gow and kept a posse of a half dozen officers at bay from the loft of a house for nearly two hours. Dozens of shots were exchanged be tween the officers and the fugitive who only surrendered when preparations were made to burn the premises. Last Saturday morring week Louis Rosen stein and his vife, who kept a small store at Slidell, were found insensible and horribly wounded in their store room. Rosenstein soon died from his njuries and the woman is believei to be near death. Suspicion fell upon a Negro named Humphrey Taylor, alias Br~wn, w .o had disappeared. A Negro answering the description of Taylor was seen last Saturday evening, and information received by the police led them to believe their man was liv ing in a small house about a quarter of a mile west of Georgetown. Early Saturday morning Taylor .as seen to enter the place and word wab immediate ly sent to the nearest precinct station and a posse of officers hurried to the place. The men were posted about the house while Passau, Gow and another officer attempted to gain entrance through the front door. Finally the door was forced. The two small rooms on the first floor were empty and the officers ascended to the second story. The front room was also untenanted, and as the men passed into the rear apartmomt, Taylor opened fire from the trap door of a cock loft in which he had taken refuge. Sergeant Passau sank to the floor dead with two bullets through his chest. Policeman Gow opened fire through the trap but failed to hit the fugitive. Gow received a bullet in his right hand, bad ly shattering it and another struck his metal badge and glanced downward the entire length of his coat. The reserves of Lwo precincts were called out and the house surrounded. The shooting, mean while, had attracted several thousand persons. Occasionally the Negro would fire a shot at the officers and immediate a volley would answer it, but no one .ias hurt. With revolvers in hand they watched every window and tried several ruses to draw Taylor's fire. He seemed to have an unlimited supply of ammuni tion. Finally, concluding that he would not surrender, District Commis sioner Wright directed the police to fire the premises. A mattress was se cured, saturated with oil and the offi cers began to remove the furniture. Seeing his game was hopeless, Taylor surrendered. Surrounded by officers with drawn revolvers he was hustled out of the house to the patrol wagon, when the crowd surged forward with shouts of "Lynch him!" "Burn him!" and made a rush for the prisoner. A rope was secured and the mob made a desperate effort to place it around the wretch's neck. The coolness of the of ficers, however, saved Taylor, though he was rather badly disfigured by blows from the nearest of the crowd. Upon searching the premises the po lice found $192 and a gold watch and chain, where he had secreted them. He had a diamond ring and a small sum of money on his person. A Growing Town. The receipts of cotton at Houston, Texas, since the first of September, 1898, passed the point of 2,500,000 bales Friday last. This is a wvonderful re cord, and places Houston ahead of eith er Galveston or New Orleans as a cotton receiving and distributing point. Ten years ago Lhe receipts of cotton at Houston did not exceed a half million bales a year. Since then it has become one of the greatest railway centres of the country, at least 15 railroads cen tering there and reaching most of the cotton producing territory west of the the Mississippi. A Fortune in a Sewer. A descender into the Paris drains named Osais made a Monte Cristo sort of diocovery one night in the big sewer under the Rue Marie Stuart, not far from the Central markets. He had just gone down below to do some sweep ing and was working on the side path of the drain, when he saw a large packet lying close to the wall. He opened it and found inside a heap of railway and other securities, which he immediately took to the nearest police commissary. The bonds and obligations found are worth 8120.000 and Osais was compli mented on his honesty. It is supposed that the securities were either lost by a bank messenger or were dropped into the drain by a pursued thief, who had resolved to do away with all evidences of his guilt. May Cause Her Death. Near Starr, in Anderson county. a deplorable incident occurred Monday Liight utiit threatens to claim the life of a prominent farmer's wife. A Negro man and his wife on Mr. B. F. Gen try's place had quarreled and the latter had fled the former's violence and sought refuge in Mr. Gentry's house. The enraged husband, locating her and being ordered from the house by Mr. Gentry, proceeded to break down the door, so frightening Mrs. Gentry, who was in a delicate condition, that he~r life is despaired of. The Negro has been punished, though to what extent is not yet known, as he is still in the hands of indignant citizens. A Rich Beggar. Charles Burkowitz, a blind beggar of New York, who for a long time has fre quented the shopping district of the metropolis and who was arrested the other day for insulting a woman who re fused to give to him, is said to be the owner of two tenements, each valued at $25,000, and to have large sums of money in several of the savings banks of the city. "Ix a home in the country not far from town," says the Cattlettsbuirg, Ky. Indepenedent, "there may be seen quite a pile of set ing lying on the floor nearly in the middle of the room, that has been undisturbed for more than six months. At that time the head of the house wanted a chair, and seeing but one handy, he dumped to the floor the sewing which lay upon it. His wife asked him to pick it up. He said he wouldn't do it. She told him as he threw it there it could remain until he got reatiy to pick it up. She would nover touch it, and there it remains, a memorial to an incompatibility of dis position." THE Massachusetts House has voted, 107 to 59. in favor of a direct i iheri tance tax on personal property. An exemption of $10,000 is provided for, and the tax is graded from 1 per cent on inheritances not exceeding $50,000 I to a maximum of 8 per cent on those PEATS OF MEMORY. ttories of FamouA Men With Remarkabli Memorizing Facilities. Scaliger, the philologist of the six teenth century, who edited several of the classics, was so certain of his mem ory that he undertook to repeat long passages from Latin works with a dag ger at his breast, which was to be used against him in the event of his memory failing, while Seneca, the tutor of Nero, could repeat two thousand words exactly as he heard them. Pope could turn at once to any pass age which had struck him when read ing; and Leyden, the Scottish poet, who died in the early part of the cen tury, was also remarkable for his mem ory. When congratulated, on one occasion, upon his aptitude for remembering things, Dryden replied that he often found his memory a source of incon venience. Surprise was expressed at this, whereupon the poet replied that he often wished to recall a particular passage, but could not do so until he had repeated the whole poem from the beginning to where the passage occur red which he wished to recall. Leyden is also credited with having been able to repeat an act of parlia ment or a lengthy legal document after having heard it only once. The newspapers of January, 1820, contain a number of allusions to the case of a man named Thomson, who drew plans of a dozen London parishes, including every church, chapel, yard, court, monument, lamp post and innu merable trees and pumps without refer ence to a single book and without ask ing a single question. An English clergyman mentions a man of weak intellect, who lived about the same time, who could remember the nan:es and ages of every man, woman and child who had been buried in the parish during 35 years, together with the dates of burial and the names of the mourners who were present at the funeral. Food Wrapped In Paper. It is a very common practice to put away food that comes from the shop in the brown paper in which the dealer wraps it. While this may be conven ient, it certainly is open to serious ob jection on the score of health and cleanliness. Most of the cheap papers are made from materials hardly up to the standard of the housekeeper's ideas of neatness; and although a certain de gree of heat is employed In their prep aration it is by no means sufficient to destroy all the disease germs with which the raw material may be filled. When it is taken Into consideration that waste papers of all sorts, and those used for all purposes, are gathered up and worked over into new paper to wrap our food in, it behooves the housewife who cares for the health of her family to see to it that articles of food remain in contact with such wrapping the very shortest possible time. It is not unusual to see meat, butter, cheese and other extremely susceptible articles put away in the very cheapest, commonest brown paper. Immediately upon the receipt of soft groceries or fruits they should be put into earthen dishes, and under no cir cumstances should they be allowed to remain in the papers In which they are delivered. It is useless to expect that a better class of paper will be employed, and so we may as well make up our minds to guard against the trouble -by shift ing all articles of food to some dish that Is absolutely free from contami nating elements. sleeping Machines. Experiments have been made re cently with some curious devices in the shape of "sleep machines." Sleep will sometimes result from fatigue of the eyes. Dooking at trees or other ob jects as we rush along in the train will frequently "send us off." An ingenious gentleman has pro duced a machine for this purpose. It Is a box surmounted by two fan-like panels, one above the other, revolving horizontally in opposite directions. These panels are studded with mirrors that throw upon the retina a vibrating flood of twinkling light. A similar effect Is produced by star ing at a bright ball placed high above the hand, so that some slight strain Is caused by staring at it. Another apparatus for causing drow siness Is formed of clamps for squeez ing the arteries leading to the brain. The clamps remain in -position for less than half a minute, and by that time the sufferer from insomnia has been placed in a state of somnolence by the decreased flow of blood to the brain. Still another method Is to arrange an elastic battery in the bed so that a mild electric current acts upon the spine. Remarkable Longevity. In a southern family lives an old man named Jeff, who has been with them and the previous generation for more years than they can remember. Hie is certainly pretty old himself, 8o his mistress was rather surprised when he asked to have a few days off to go, as he put it, "up to de old state of New Haven," to see his aunt. "Why, Jeff," said the lady, "your aunt must be pretty old, isn't she?" "Yes'm," he replied; "yes'm; my aunt must be pretty ole now-she's about 105 years old now." "A hundred and five years!" exclaim ed the lady. "Why, what on earth is she doing up there in New Haven?" "Deed, I don't know what she's do n', ma'am," rejoined Jeff, in all ser iousness; "she's up dere livin' wid her grandmnother!" Wine-testers eat a small piece of bread with a scrap of cheese, between samples, to Insure an unprejudiced tasta. ___________ TrE sentiment of the Northern ' pie on the subject of lynching, in ertain caqes, is not all one way, it ap ewr. The~ Albany, N. Y., Argus :-' h Rev. A. D. Carlisle, a Pknusylvania Presbyterian, declares heia lynching under certain conditions is justifiable, and that under certain ircumstances he would cheerfully pull he rope. Spoken like a true man, who is not afraid to speak candidly. Under certain circumstances'- namely, he crime against woman-what man with a spark of manhood in his heart would hesitate to avenge by summary eans the honor and safety of his ousehold?" THlE Boston Journal says: "It isn't ften that an American ship refuses to end a helping cable, but when the ransport Senator, on April 30, five undred miles out from San Francisco, met the disabled steamer Elihu Thomp on, there was no choice for her but to o right on. Her orders wcrc to pro eed to Manila "with all speed." War s an imperative master. No doubt re ief will reach the Thompson in some LOVE SON . Oh, better than stars or sun, Oh, better than moon or foam Of the broken wave in summer cave When the green sea thunders home: Oh, better nan swallow's flight O'er the clear stained dawning pale, Or the long delight thro' the rose-steep ed night Of the love-drunk nightingale; Yea!-better than angel's song That wins with a love divine Is the light that wakes in thine eyes when breaks My soul from my lips to thine. THE GRAY TOWER. What I am going to tell you is not really the whole of the tale, but only the first chapter; yet it is a good story in itself, and there are some things which make me unwilling to say all I know, at least in print. The Gray Tower was the southeast corner turret of that stone building which stood until quite recently on Waverley place, at the corner of Wash ington square. It had a picturesque effect as you walked down University place from Union Square, and it was almost the only romantic building in New York. My first chapter opens on a winter's day about 1890 or 1892, if I recollect rightly. It was snowing heavily as T stepped into Broadway, and I turned up my collar and stood a moment ir resolute. The old horse cars jangled by with Weir bells muffled in the snowy storm; the tall newspaper offices across City Hall square twinkled and shone from their thousand windows, and I was slowly turning toward the Park place station, when I saw what I guessed, even at that distance. to be a familiar figure cross the brilliant light of one of the highest windows on the other side of the square. It was Collins. No one else moved about a room in just that loping, darting man ner. I knew it was his office, and I knew he was the very man I wanted to see before dinner. I hurried over to Park Row and was shot up to his floor. "Hullo, old man; busy?" "No, no; come in." Collins sat under an electric light, a pair of shears in his hand and a sea of papers tossing round him. He part ed the red hair back from his forehead with his left hand, and looked up quickly with that childish, gnome-like smile, and the piercing, glittering, blue eye-light, that his friends knew so well. Suddenly he dropped the shears and ran his long, conspicuous hand hurridly through the stack of old pa pers he had been clipping. "Look here, look here! This is what you ought to see! Where is that copy?" "What are you looking for?" "Something I found this afternoon. It's a romance; a whole story of forty years ago; the most startling piece of fiction in real life. And not a 'scare head' to It! 0, those felows didn't know how to make up a paper!" (Fumbling all the, time and rummag ing with that aggressive hand.) "Now, I have lost it. Where in the name of seven-" Then he swore feverishly in a high minor guttural. "Ah, here it is. Look at that, look at that!" His eyes were like glowing steely gimlets, and the perspiration started on his temples in his excitement. It was nothing but an old scrap of un believable romance he had unearthed. It had no possible use to him. But he was always a tinder-box of en thusiasm, and fired like a child at small things. Collins has no particular part in this story, yet I can never dis sociate him from it. Its strange un explainable quality has a certain kin ship with his half-canny personality, so that I never recall it without feeling his eyes burning into me with in credulity and delight and defiance and mockery, as he handed me that torn issue of a New York journal of half century ago. As he said, they made little display of startling matter in those days, and the story, as I remember, was told in that brief, sober way which has since become almost extinct among news paper men. Briefly, it was an account of a strange discovery made by some work men who had been repairing one of the towers of the old building on Washington square. In making their renovations they had come upon a dis used closet, whose door had been bricked up and roughly plastered over. On the closet floor, covered with im palpable dust, clothed in her silk even ing dress, lay the beautiful specter of a woman. I say specter, for it seems destruc tion had come upon her so gently, so furtively, that her body was almost unmarred, except for the dinginess of where she lay, or there had been some time. There are records of such in stances, showing that dissolution is not always swift to follow death. But whether the present case had been due to the sealing of the narrow room chemical treatment of her body and garments after death, was all surmise. But there was the fact. On the dusty floor, in a little apartment scarcely larger than an ample bath, as if she had fallen in a faint, with one arm spread abroad and the other hand at her throat slept young beauty, arrest ed in mid pleasure (so she looked), and held there in duress while the busy round of life rumbled in the streets below. It must have been the very pathos and wistfulness of beauty-the image of that shadowy loveliness, snatched away from the midst of joy and gayety, so untimely, and not even allowed the common boon of oblivion. Where was she all this while, the radi ant spirit who had dwelt in that come ly tenement? Had she herself, too, like her frail, indestructible person, been held in suspense somewhere, neither among the living nor the dead? It was white, white silk and a mass of white lace, that she was dressed in. And under the soilure of dust the pale gold of her hair was shining and alive. But the only clew to her identity was the small cambrie handkerchief, In itialed in one corner N. D. When I had read the article. Collins said: "How's that?" "Fine." "Why don't you inveStigate it?" "Investigate it? What Is there to ine restigate? This is all ancient history." "Well, perhaps. Still, I have an idea. You know the building don't you?' "Yes, I have seen It. I have novel been in it." I answered. "Very good," said he, "Now I knoWt an old fellow who lives there; hal rooms in one of the towers; the towel n the southeast corner. I'll give you a card to him. Go and see him. He uI 'ull of stories of the building; has had a roost there for fifteen years or more, and, if you can get him to talk, you may hear something." Collins gave his gnome-like inscruta le, childish laugh, and his eyes danced I elfish glee. He might have known verything or noth.ng at that very minute. "-What sort is he?" I asked. "Well, he Is old, queer, a character, a gentleman. You must be punctili us. You must be ceremonious. Hand im your card along with mine when you knock at his door. And by the ay, you will have no trouble finding he room. Enter from either side, wilk to the middle of the long hall, hen turn to the east out into the court, and after that in at anotner door to he south; then climb stairs until you an climb no more, and knock any where in the dark ahead of you. You an't miss the door. If you feel calre Makes the food more d so imano a inat will please him netter. *And what time should I call?" "This is as good a time as any. You would be sure to find him in about this hour." "Very good." I said. "I will go up there now. Give me your card." Collins scribbled a line on his card introducing me to Nicholas Denny, Esq., and I left him-not, however, be fore I had time to catch another mock ing smile as it vanished from his eager face. In less than half an hour I was cross ing Washington square in the gaslit gloom, with the gray bulk of the uni versity rising before me. I went by to the Waverly place entrance, pushed in the heavy, clanging door, and walk ed along the low hall, as Collins di rected me; then I turned to the left into the area, and next to the right in to another hall of the building. Then I began to climb the stairs, three or four flights, lit by a single, flickering gas jet on each one. At the top of these I was in the last hall, as I thoifght, with several doors going in to it; and I fancied I must have made some mis take when I noticed in the farther dark end of the hall a space blacker than the blackness, opening high Sp from floor to ceiling, like a gorge in the mountains, and right up this gorge the narrow treads of yet anotaer stair leading Into pitchy darkness, with sheer wall on either hand. There was nothing for it but to venture. Up I climbed, step by step, until suddenly a crack of light at my feet, a little to the left, told me I must be on his land ing. I stepped quietly to the. door, felt for the knocker-a huge old affair, very stiff In the joints-and knocked. A chair moved inside, and I heard the rustle of curtains or draperies. Then steps came slowly, stopping al together once or twice, and opened the door to me. "Mr. Denny?" said I. "Yes, sir." "Mr. Denny, may I have the honor of presenting an introduction from my friend Mr. Collins?" "Certainly, sir-certainly; and very pleased to see you, too. Walk in, sir, and pray be seated. Sit you down by the fire; you must be chilly. A dis agreeable evening is It not?" "Yes, it is cold; but you are very cozy up here, all by yourself." "Oh, yes, snug enough. You see, I have the whole tower to myself, small as It Is. '.Lere is no one else' on the same floor. That is something." We drew our chairs up to the fire. The fireplace, like the room, was nar row and tall, with a small grate of coals high up from the floor in the old fashioned way. The room might have been sixteen by twelve and was very lofty. All the upper walls and the ceiling were painted a heavy dark blue, which swallowed up all the light the fire and one candle in a silver candle-stick could give. The door by which I had entered was in one corner, and the fireplace in the middle of the other side. Directly opposite the fireplace was a wide double doorway hung with heavy portiercs which were closeu. The old gentleman talked easily, with a smile, spreading out his hands to the fire. He seemed just the one to be full of stories and traditions of the place, and I only waited the opportuni ty to interest him in that direction. "Yes, I said in reply to his last re mark, "the atmosphere of one's sur roundings is z ore important than the surroundings themselves;' don't you think so?" "Ah, yes, indeed; that is very true." "And your atmosphere here is so ro mantic. There is really no other place like this in the city. I should think there would be innumerable tales about it; are there not :" But he froze at this; gathered his fingers In from the blaze and opened them wide two or three times before he spoke; and I caught a sudden hunt ed glance quite out of keeping with his courtly demeanor. He seemed to consider before he said: "Yes, yes, Indeed, I believe there are many legends about the old building. I hear them repeated from time to time; and usually they have been a good deal embellished-a good deal em belished. Veracity is a difficult accom plishment, sir." And he turned to me with the most winning and wise smile. I said noth ing, and he relapsed into his attitude of consideration, watching the fire. It was just here that a curious thing hap pened. I leaned my head back on the easy chair a moment, waiting for him to take up the conversation where lhe had left it with hesitation. As I did so I noticed for the first time a small mirror hung over the fireplace, and in it I could see t..e dull green portiers behind us. I thought how restful the color was to the eye. And then, about five feet from the floor, they parted and a girlish face looked through and roguishly surveyed our backs. She smiled very merrily, and pressed the soft curtains against her yellow hair; then her dancing eyes ran unsuspect ingly over th~e mirror and caught mine fairly watching her and she vanished, in consternation as it seemed. "Oho!" thought L. But the old man gave no sign, and I, of course, said nothing. Yeracity Is a dizscult accomplishment. The little by-play was over in a few seconds-almost before my old friend could take up a new sentence. "You see, sir" (beginning with a long breath, and gazing into the fire), "you see, sir, one looks at things differently at your time of life. Truth seems quite true, and falsehood quite false to you, no doubt. But, when you come along to sixty, it will not appear so easy all offhand. And somehow, do you know, the little broken Incidents of life often please me best, the stories that have been left unfinished and will never be finished for us, perhaps. Not that 1 love the Venus more because she has lost her arms, poor lady; still the loss adds a wistfulness; and wistfulness, when you come to think of It, is a very large part of the charm of art. "I have just such a one of those tiny incomplete dramas in my mind now. I have not quite filled out the whole circle of the plot from the small arc which has come under my notice, but I shall, perhaps." Here he turned and smiled again doubtfully at me. "It is a very interesting--a very im teresting tangle of events, I am quite sure. Perhaps you know this large hotel on Broadway in the next block to us? Yes? It is muca affected by Southerners. I believe. However. that is neither here nor there, perhaps. At all events, there was an alarm of fire sounded shortly after midnight one February many years ago. I was liv ing not far from here, and was just coming home when I heard th'e com motion. As I reached the square, com ng down Fifth avenue. i saw the! smoke and flames in the direction of Broadway, and hurrieci to the scene with half a dozen companions. "When we reached the hotel the flames were spri. ging out of the third floor windows. There did not seem to be any Immediate danger to the in i ates. The fire r-as evidently confined to one or two rooms. Suddenly a man, P1OWDERI hURE elicious and wholesome 808N CS., MiW YUSC. oartially undressed I snould say, ror Y take it he had just laid aside his coat), rushed to the window next the one where the fire was fiercest and flung it open. We saw the room burn ing behind him. He put one foot on the sill. 'Make a rope, make a rope,' someone shouted from below. "He was too dazed for that. He vaulted through the window and struck the iron paling as he fell. "When my friends and I rushed for ward he lay moaning on the pavement: 'No, no; I'm done for. No, no!' Then le swooned, and we eased him where he lay, expecting he would die in a moment. - But he turned on his side, pulling feebly at his collar with his right hand. I loosened his cravat, and as I did so the fluttering fingers caught at a thin gold chain round his neck, snapped it and plucked themselves away in a weak spasm, grasping some thing in their clench. Then his eyes opened in terror and a wailing, broken voice came to us: 'She can't get out; she can't get out; she-can-nt-get out! Ah, dear God!" and it died into a moan again and he was quite still, with the shut right hand beside him. We thought him gone. But in another moment he looked up quiet quietly at me and smiled, as if we were qld ac quaintances. 'My friend,' he said-'you must keep it,' and he moved his prec ious handful toward me. It slipped, and with a sigh he was dead." "I have his keepsake," the old gen tleman continued; "it is a very curious piece of jewel work." Here he arose and went to a cabinet in the corner. A very curious piece of handicraft, you will say. If you care for such things you must examine this.' The coals fell in the grate, and a desolate street cry came up from the world below us, but the room was very still. He came back to the Are and showed me in his open-hand a large gold locket, apparently of Indian de sign, rough and effective. "How beautiful it is," he said, and his fingers dwelt on it gently before he cave it to me to handle. STORY OF A DIVER. Perilous Adventures of a Man Whose Daily Work in Under River or Se. Diver Robert E. Case of Portland, in the course of his ten years' employ ment as a diver has had many interest ing experiences and close calls from death. Chase Is about 35 years of age, stands about 5 feet 10 inches and weighs over 160 pounds, and Is one of the pleasant est men that one would care to meet. He Is very modest-seldom talkin about his own work, but a while ago the writer succeeded in getting him to tell a few of his experiences. Probably one of the most important jobs upon which he ever worked, and certainly one of the longest, was the laying of the water pipes across the Kennebec River at Bath. This job re quired the laying of 3,000 feet of big waterpipe, with a ball and sockA join in water, the average depth of which was fifty feet. Sometimes the depth was over seventy and at times down to about thirty. The conditions that pre vailed at that point were such that the divers could only work upon the tide, and so It took from August until the following April to complete the job. A few years ago Mr. Chase nearly lost his life while at work raising a sloop which had sunk in Boothbay Harbor. He got fouled with the cable of a buoy which marked the location of the wreck, and was hung up for fprty minutes. His air hose was caught In such a way that but very lit tle air could get through it with the pump working to its best advantage, but the pump was an old one and did. not work well. When he was finally cleared and hauled to the surface he was unconscious and black In the face from the want of air. It was feared that he would die, but he recovered, and on the next day went down and finished the work of raising the sloop. Proba'bly~ the closest call that Chase ever had was while using dynamite to blow out the pilings of an old bridge. which had been torn down. His ten der was a new one, who had never worked for a diver before. Chase went down and placed the stick of dynamite In position and started to come back to where he would be hauled to the sur face. He had covered part of the dis tance when he discovered a pile that would not have to be blown, but which could readily be hoisted to the surface with a rope, and sIgnalled the tender to send him down a rope. The tender misunderstood the signal, and, turning to the man who was look ing after the battery, called out: "It's all right, fire the charge!" Now it happened that the man who was looking after the battery was an old and experienced tender and knew hat it wasn't all right to fire the charge while the man was under water. He went to the aide of the float and took hold of the lifeline just in time to receive the second signal for a rope from Chase. The rope was sent down, but it was night before Chase knew of his narrow escape. The tender who came near ending Chase's experience as a diver only worked one more day and then quit-he never came around after his pay, either. It was while at work on this job that Chase, together with his tender and helpers, was blown up by'a dyna mite explosion. He had been down and placed the charge, but the tide, which was setting out strong, washed it down almost under the float. Chase had just reached the top and leaned over the side of the float in the usual attitude of divers when resting,-when te charge was exploded. The shock threw the fioat and all the men into the a--, and Chase must surely have been trown into the water but for the presence of mind of the same man who saved him the other time, who caught him and held him on the float. The wonder of this accident was that ay ote came out of It alive, for upon the float was a case of 100 sticks of dynamite, which, fortunately, was not exleded by the shock. hase says the most disagreeable prt of his work is diving for dead bo~es. He has made several quick re coeries of bodies during his career as a diver. One of thease was In Ijewiston about two years ago, when he recover ed the body of a Bates College student named Wells. In just nineteen min utes from the time he dove he had the body out of the water upon the bank. The deepest water In which he ever woked was off Egg Rock, near Bar Harbor. Here he was dowP. 100 feet at work- up.- th wreck of a Gloucester