Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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•ei r’zh to s-ju' 'zc tnoinst'ivc s m cio^e uj n . 'i' 1 ird n wii;- i'.'s' n'd a place by Mrs. Taylor. Out on the roofs that eonmniinl. il a view of the minister and the singers a motley cro a of ehildren. l»oys. youny men am n!d women and babies was elus- tei 1 in v 'l ions degrees of more or less noisy im rest, whic h quieted down to an intense s.T.Hness when the quartet rose to sing the first selection. The singers had evidently made up their minds to make the best of a very bad situation. They were tech nically skillful, and from a variety of ^reasons they sang with a power that probably astonished themselves. The unwonted surroundings, the very squalor and inhuman aspect of every repulsive physical thing, the staring white faces that grow up in tenement atmosphere until they become types that can he fitted on to any other tene ment house grown person, all this act ed with a definite measure of excite ment upon the quartet, and as a mat ter of fact Rev. Paul Falmouth said to himself he had never heard them sing with more expression or real feeling on any occasion. When the song ceased, a sigh went up through the rooms, and out on the roofs a movement could lie hoard that was like applause. Falmouth stood up and began to talk. He was not at all afraid or seemingly conscious of his unusual situation, lie talked of eter nal life, how it began, what it was worth, how it could be distinguished from physical life. The people understood him. Mrs. Caylor. who had sobbed all through the singing, was perfectly quiet while Falmouth talked and afterward, when he prayed for her and for all mothers who had lost children. Then the quartet sang again. When they ended, there was unmistakable api lause from the roofs. The soprano turned red, tiie alto looked confused, ti e tenor scowled and the bass seemed uncertain whether to smile or frown. Hcrdon came to the rescue by rising and helping Mrs. Taylor as she took a last look at the poor figure in ..ne cotfin. She shrieked and flung up her arms until the undertaker somewhat rough ly, but, as Gordon knew afterward, with no real intention of being so, thrust the sliding cover of the coffin up in its groove, covering the body from sight. Tommy Randall took*one end of the coffin, the undertaker took the other end, and the brief procession made its way unceremoniously out of the room and down to the wagon which was in waiting on Bowen street. Falmouth went in and spoke a few words of comfort to the mother, who seemed, now that it was all over, to have resigned herself to her usual apa thy. When the minister came out, Gor don and the singers were grouped to gether watching the crowd disperse from the roofs and back staircases, so as to get out on the street and see the coffin loaded into the wagon. “This is horrible—horrible! Let us get ovft^is soon as possible!” the soprano murmured. She was holding a fine scented handkerchief to her face. The smoke from the chimneys of the house below was drifting in heavy masses up through (he corridor and into the rooms of all the apartments that open ed on it as the only outlet. “First time I ever heard applause at a fun?ral,” the tenor mutter. 1. speak ing partly to Gordon. Gordon looked at the singer quietly and simply said: “Hfr.v many of the people ever hoard ^ first class music? Did you “ver think j there Is more than one kind of hun ger?'’ They all went down the stairway to gether, as they had come up. Gordon as before hading the way. Going dovrn the alto said: “But this is simply awful. How can human beings live in such places?” “They don’t live.” Gordon said, ex actly as he had said to Mr. Marsh. “Be careful of that step. The stairs are un usually clean today. I think Mr. Ran dall is responsible for that. I never saw the corridor so ch an as it was today.” “Clean!” the soprano gasped. "I shall never he able to wear this dress again. This is the most fearfully awful place I was ever in.” Gordon did not say anything until ithey were all down and out cf the (court into Bowen street again. Then he turned to the soprano. “Would you and the rest of the quar tet be willing to come down to Hope House some time this fall and take part in a free concert in the new hall?” “I—I—don’t know.” the soprano look ed doubtfully at the other singers. “1 think I could come,” the alto said adittle hesitatingly. “Don’t believe I could manage. Haven’t time,” the tenor answered shortly. Gordon shut up like a new knife and did not «ay another word until the party was back at Hope House. When they went out to get the car that went by at the next block, Falmouth said to Gordon: “Don’t get discouraged. But job, my God, what human misery, Gor don, you social settlement people al ways have to look at! It seems to me the sight would drive you mad after awhile. The utter hopelessness of it is enough to kill the heart of a giant.” “God is not dead,” Gordon answered, Le shook hands all around and thanked falmouth and the singers, feeling a lit tle ashamed of his curt silence at the tenor’s refusal to accept his invitation. Falmouth promised to come down soon and take tea at Hope House and parted with Gordon under the impression that the afternoon’s experience had brought them some closer together. How little any one of us reckons on the changes that come into all our plans by the accidents of life, and yet how many great events owe their greatness ^to apparent trifles that are called acci- ients for want of a better name. Go^on had gone up to see David Barton that same evening. Barton had greeted him cheerfully and again as- tonish'd him by his appearance. They bad lingered long over their evening talk, and Gordon had interested Barton tremendously in his account of the meeting with Tommy Randall. “You scored on him,” Barton chuc kled. “I don’t know. He is deep in certain directions. But 1 will know the secret of his hold. In fact, I think 1 have it already. He will never best me,” Gor don answered firmly, but modestly. They sat on, postponing bedtime until the clocks struck 12. “Time to put the cough on the shelf,” Barton said. He had not had a spell all the evening, to Gordon’s relief. Gordon went into his room, which had windows commanding a view of the lower part of the city. He came back instantly and called to Barton: “Come here! Look! Isn't that a fire over near the end of Bowen street. Waterside district ?" “Right you arc!” Barton exclaimed quickly. “The Moss street cars will take i’; within a block. Let’s go.” “David, you ought not to risk”— “Risk nothing! What’s a day or two more or less! Come!” Gordon put on his hat. Barton threw on a light overcoat, though the evening was not cold, and they went down as fast as possible. As they passed out Into the Boulevard and ran over to the next corner to get the first car a fine mist swept into their faces. Be fore the car came the mist had changed to a drizzling rain and a breeze had sprung up. “You ought not to have come,” Gor don said again. "Don’t give me away to my cough. Let’s fool it as long as possible,” Bar ton said, with a grin. They loft the ear where it crossed Bowen street and ran down toward the place. People were running in from all the side streets. "It's No. hi, Mr. Marsh’s double decker!” Gordon panted as they drew nearer. Barton did not answer. He was breathing painfully, but did not slack en his pace. In college he had been the prize winner for the half mile. The department had stretched a cor don across the street, but the mob dis regarded it. Flames were pouring out of the basement windows of No. Pi, where the bakery was. The wind was rising. “See there!” cried Barton suddenly. He pointed to the upp'i - story of the double decker. A child had come to the window. She held out a younger child in her arms. For a second she stood there in plain view of the crowd in the street, and then she disappeared. In another moment she came to the window again. “Look! Look!” a hundred voices called out. Up through Hie central air shaft sixty feet above the court a tongue of flame leaped. The next in stant out of every window except the row fronting on the street with a rush and a roar the fire broke, rattling the glass to the ground and licking the whole structure around with hungry, greedy, long anticipated delight. The child with her burden of the younger child again appeared at one of the top windows. The crowd roared. A wagon tore around the corner. Lad ders rattled as they were pulled out. "They will be too late. They can’t save her!” Barton groaned. The whole street was now bright as noon. The child did not cry. She stood there, her pale face looking down, her arms clasp ing the little figure tighter to her body. This story will be continued in next Friday's issii" of The Ledger. More Kioi*. Disturbances of strikers are not nearly as grave as an inoividud dis- onier of th^ 1 system. Overwork, loss oi sleep nervous tension will be fol- i.oved by utter collapse, unless a re- li-jiilc remedy is immediately nn- 1> oyeii. rtiere’s nothing so effi dent to cure disorders of the Liver or K’d- ne\.. 4,. Elect rie Bii ter**. 11 ’i a wonder ful tonic, and effective nervine and trie greatest ltd around medicine tor run down systems. It dispels Nervoi s- ness, Rheum'tism and Xeitra gia and eXDeis Mainria germs. Only ."iOc. and satisfaction guaranteed by . Meroke Drug To Stir np a man’s wrath u you w»nt his candid opinion of von Danger «»r Pneumonia A cold at this time is Inble to cause pteutnoriiH which is so often far>d, and even when the patient has r cov rred the lungs are weaki n<d, making them peculiarly susceptible n tin development of consunr.ptn n. Foley ’e H mey and Tar will s'op the cough, heal and strengthen the lurg- mid l rt vent paeum iiua. Cherokee Drug Co. With the pugilist not weighing too much is a weighty argument. A Severe Cold for Three Months. The following letter from A. J. Xus baum, of Btitesville, Ind., te!!s itt own story. ‘ H suffered for Hirer month j with a severe cold: A drug gist prepared ire some medicine, and a physician prescribe 1 for me. yet 1 did not improve. I then trier] Foley’s Honey and Tar, and eight doses cured me.” Refuse substitutes Cheroket Drug Co. it is not uncharitable to judge actors by appearances. Tragedy Averted. “Just in the r i"k of time our !itt <* b iy wh« «aved’ writes Mrs. W. Wat kins. of Pleasant City, Ohio “Pneu monia had played >ad havoc with him and a terrible cough set in besides. Doctors treated him but he grew •verse every day. Ar length we tried Dr King’s New Discovery for Consam ption, and our darling was saved. He’s now so.ind, and well ” Every body ought to know, it’s the only sure cure for Coughs, Colds and all Lung diseases. Guaranteed by Cher nkee Drug Co. Price oOc and $1.00. Trial bottles free. (■ T? ; . V t\ : i ■;xMon t? by Rev, FRANK DL WITT TALMAGE, D.D., i'astor of Jefferson Park Preaby- terian Church, Chicago Chicago, March 8. — In this sermon the preacher shows that there are other than commercial and financial obliga tions between nations and that Chris tian America owes a debt, both in the spiritual and philanthropic sense, to the modern Greeks and barbarians which she now has opportunity to pay. The text is Romans 1. 14, “I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians.” A national debt! It is popularly un derstood to be a financial obligation which a government has pledged itself to pay. Sometimes this is contracted in the interest of a single subject. About thirty years ago the English gov ernment assumed a debt of over $25,- 000,000 to liberate a single man, Cap tain Cameron, who had been unjustly endungeoned by the king of Abyssinia in the rocky fortress of Magdala. It took six months for the news of the outrage to travel to England, hut in less than eleven days afterward a Brit ish army of 15,000 men, under General Napier, was on its way. It not only crossed the seas, hut also marched a terrible journey of 400 miles under a tropical sun, until the troops reached Magdala and battered down the for tress and rescued their incarcerated countryman. A civilized country is usually ready to begin any undertak ing, assume any financial responsibili ty, in order to protect its own from the tyrannical clutches of a foreign foe. Sometimes an extra financial obliga tion is assumed by a government in times of peace as well as in times of bar. A depleted treasury during the financial panic of 1893 caused the pres ident of the United States to issue S'l’Ot mm io.ooo worth of government bonds. Some of these interest bearing bonds were purchased by foreign cap italists and others by American citi- zeiis. But there are still other forms and causes of international obligation. A government can owe to foreign lands more than money. Such definitions as we have given are right as far as they go. but they sire too circumscribed. When the Hebrew Paul wrote, “I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians,” I do not believe he had any idea of a financial interpretation. Referring to Greece, he was alluding to the intellectual influence of the Athe nian csipital, which made itself felt throughout the Avorld. That city sway ed the scepter in the domain of intel lectuality; it ruled the world of culture with the sculptor's chisel, the poet's pen and the Demosthenean oratory of a patriot rousing the people to wage war agsiinst King Philip. When Paul spoke of ttie barbarians. 1 believe he was alluding to the strength and the virility which the world had absorbed from the different provinces. As a man of learning he was indebted to those people to whom he was about to present Jesus Christ. So today 1 want to speak of America’s national debt in a moral and spiritual sense as well as in a financial: 1 want to show what we should give back to the lands across the seas it) return for what we have absorbed from them, consciously or un consciously. As we balance our na tional books the debit side of our ledg er must be cleared off. If we are na tionally honest, we are ready to pay tor what we have received. We Have Borroweil Europe'M IJcNt. our country has been the reservoir for the best and the richest blood of all- Europe. A few years ago a noted Irish leader, now a member of the British parliament, was addressing a great gathering of Irish-Americans in (’Idea- go. During ids speech he made this suggestive statement: “You Irish-Amer- icans congratulate yourselves because every year you send over a few thou sand dollars to help us in our struggle for home rule. But 1 want to tell you that you are doing no morq than you ought to do. America owes a greater debt to Ireland than Ireland does to America. America has not taken from us money, but she has taken from us what is of more value than money. Her magnetism lias come into our large cities and villages and factory towns and wooed from our shores the best and strongest young men and young women we had. She has taken them away annually not by the scores and hundreds, but by the thousands and the tens of thousands; she has taken away the strongest young men and wo men we had and has left only the weak lings—those who are afraid to start out in the new world. Meanwhile we, the stay at homes, must go on struggling while our stalwart Irish - American brothers and sisters are winning suc cess in another hemisphere.” What that member of the British parliament said in reference to Ireland can be said in reference to almost every coun try of Europe. Go down to the great seaport towns of Norway and Sweden. Germany, France, Italy, Holland and England and Scotland and ask those emigrants, those stalwart young fel lows and those red cheeked lassies, where they are going. Everywhere you can hear the same answer: “To America. We are sailing for America.” Has America no obligation to meet when she has taken from other lands such foreign born leaders as Alexander Hamilton to run her finances and Agas siz to read the records of her rocks and Ericsson to save her navies and John Summerville and John Hall to preach in her pulpits and Andrew Carnegie to build her steel works and John W. Mackay to develop her mines and Thomas Moran to paint her pictures and Dr Nicholas Seun to stand at her operating tables and Franz Sigel to fight her battles and Speaker Hender son to preside over her congress and Thomas Watson to plead at her bar? Shall the Goddess of Liberty feel no in debtedness to foreign countries when she has taken from their firesides their fairest daughters and their bravest and truest young men and clasped them to her own heart until these adopted sons and daughters look up and call her mother? If we were to blot out from Amer ican history the deeds of its foreign born children, we would obliterate many of the best pages of our national heroics. An old poem begins some thing like this: Oh, sive us men! A time like this demands Clean minds, pure hearts, true faith and ready hands; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men whom desire for office does not kill. The Demand Fop Men. To supply this national demand for eign countries have been giving us for centuries their best treasures. They have given us their sturdiest men of mental and moral worth and their fair est daughters, whose virtues are, as King Solomon says, “above the price of rubies.” Surely for such priceless gifts America must acknowledge she is a debtor “to the Greeks and to the barbarians.” Religious liberty’s cradle also was built across the seas. True, it was floated across the Atlantic, and during its tempestuous voyage of many miles its infantile occupant grew and waxed stronger. But, after all. we should not forget that the cradle of civil and reli gious liberty was first hammered to gether on foreign shores. In the astronomical world we find that stars generally travel in constella tions. or in groups. Thus we also find that every great advancement of the human race, spiritually or mentally, so cially or economically, Is in touch with other events, though they may be seen or unseen. The sweet voiced village church bell of today is not entirely of American manufacture. It was cast In the hot fires of the Covenanter’s per secutions; it was cast among the flames which wrapped their fiery tongues about the shriveling bodies of John Huss and Ridley and Latimer and Cran- mer; it was cast among the burning logs heaped about the dying body of Savonarola when the Italian priest, Elijah-like, was about to go to heaven in a chariot of fire; it was cast centu ries back among the Nerodian persecu tions in the days of the apostolic mar tyrdoms. Can we ever reach the day when we shall feel that our religious liberty Is not a natural outgrowth of the Chris tian heroes and heroines who dared to defy “Bloody” Alva, the persecutor of the Netherlands, or Lord Claverhouse, the persecutor of old Scotland, or de moniac Catherine, the fiendish female instigator of the St. Bartholomew mas sacre, or the bloody Queen Mary of the English throne? When that grand old man, Hugh Latimer, then over eighty, stood among the burning logs that were cremating him, he turned to Bish op Ridley, his fellow martyr near by, and said: “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as. I trust, shall nev er he put out.” Aye, they did; they did! They not only lighted a gospel torch for England, but a torch which would blaze in America centuries after ward. We have religious liberty in America because the first great battles for the enchainment and the decapita tion of Satanic bigotry were fought up on the other side of the seas. Our ArtiKtlc Debt*. America is indebted to foreign lands in a coimjKTcia! and an artistic sense as well as in a moral and spiritual souse. Some political speakers love to boast that comm reialiy we are inde pendent of the world. They assert it would make very little difference to us whether or no foreign countries held any trade relations with us at all. But tills is not true. You are a wealthy man. You invit > me to your home some night to a banquet. I accept As I sit waiting for the other guests to arrive I say: “Mr. So-and-so. this is a beautifully designed home. Where did your architect get the idea?” Y'ou an swer: “The plans of this house sire not his ideas. He merely worked them out in detail after I had described them. Some years ago, while I was in Eng land, 1 cal .e across a beautiful coun try home. I then said to myself that if I should ever have money enough 1 would build a house upon that plan. This home is the result of my resolve made at that time.” Under my feet is a rug of exquisite workmanship. Where was it made? In the city of Damas cus. It is an imported rug. When your wife comes in to greet me, she is dressed in a beautiful costume. It came from the silkworms of France. That diamond glittering upon your lin ger was dug out of the African mines. Up to a comparatively recent date our commercial dependence upon Eu ropean markets for nearly all our goods and chattels was almost absolute. In 1820 the Edinburgh Review of Scot land tauntingly asked: “Who In the four quarters of the globe reads an American book or goes to an American play or looks at an American painting or statue? What does the world owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances have their chem ists discovered? What new constella tions have their astronomer j discover ed? Who drinks out of American glasses? Who eats from American plates? Who wears an American coat or li( i s down to sleep in an American blanket?” Foreign manufacturers of the present day know only too well that since 1820 the commercial depend ency of America upon commercial Eu rope lias mightily changed. But we are still dependent upon Europe In many ways. Flnsen, the Norwegian, reache's across the seas to lessen the horrors of smallpox, Charles II. Spurgeon and Jo seph Parker sent their messages of the Christ love, Queen Victoria gave us the example of how a royal queen could be a domestic queen, and the ships which ply the Atlantic still return with as heavy cargoes as when they left our shores. How We Maj- Bent Repay. How. then, is America to cancel the national debt in a moral and spiritual sense which she owes to the modern Greeks and to the barbarians? “Well,” answers some one, “I suppose the best way to repay the debt we owe to for eign lands is to make our goods better and cheaper than they can make them and then go forward and capture their markets for our home industries.” Ah, my brother, I am not here to fritter away my time answering these selfish propositions prompted by mere com mercialism; I am here today to tell you how, in the language and the spirit of the apostle Paul, we are to cancel the national debt we owe to foreign lauds; I am here today to tell you how best we can pay the debt as individuals as well as a nation. We can repay our national debt first by conveying to for eign lands the sweet message of the Calvary cross. When many years ago five humble, consecrated students met behind a haystack in old Williamstown, where I used to go to college, and founded the first American foreign missionary society, one of the greatest purposes of America’s future life was given practical form. Those five young men planned an evangelistic work which had the same worldwide scope that Paul’s mission had for the Chris tian religion. If the religion of Jesus Christ is the beneficent thing that we profess to believe it, are we justified in keeping the knowledge of It to our selves? Are we not bound as debtors to the whole world to repay our obli gations by making It known far and wide? The medical profession sets us an example in its performance of this duty. No sooner does a physician dis cover a means of alleviating physical suffering than he places it at the dis posal of his professional brethren the world over. When Edward Jenner demonstrated the marvelous immunity of a human being who was vaccinated with cowpoy, did he keep his discovery from the world? Did he refuse to ad vocate it lest he might be persecuted by such medical authorities as Dr. In- genhousz and Dr. Pearson? Oh, no! As an intelligent man he deplored the awful destruction made by this terri ble scourge of smallpox. He knew that whole countries had been almost depop ulated by the pest. Mexico was not conquered so much by Cortes as it was made helpless by the invasion of this king of horrible plagues called small pox. When the pilgrim fathers landed upon the Massachusetts shores, they found that the Indian tribe which the year before had been inhabiting that part of the country had been entirely obliterated, with the exception of one man, by the fatal ravages of smallpox. So, in the face of derision and persecu tion, Jenner proclaimed the gospel of vaccination. Though he might, and to a great extent did, desjroy his private practice, he kept cry lug to suffering humanity: “Here is a remedy for this dreadful and malignant disease. Take it and live! Take it and live!” When James Y. Simp on perfected his investigations in chloroform, did he keep them to himself? Did he pat ent them and say, “You come to me or suffer and die?” No. Ho freely gave tiie ana'sthetie to the world. And to day thousands upon thousands of men and women who have been compelled to lie upon an operating table have risen up to call him blessed. Is the German p! y-acian. Robert Koch, work ing in his laboratory for personal gain? Oh, no. He is trying, purely on phil anthropic grounds, to cure consump tion. which causes at least one-fourth of the total annual mortality among the human race. If he ever perfects a germicid * for the tuberculosis bacilli, he will at once tell all he knows. He is struggling and working and analyz ing purely to save a dying race. Mak<* Known (lie Revelation. What a lesson do these illustrious benefactors of the human race teach us! How they study and investigate and labor to alleviate suffering and in crease the longevity of mankind! And when any of them discovers a remedy for disease or a means of removing de formity hew eagerly he makes the dis covery known that all the world may share in the benefit! In our hands we have a revelation of infinitely greater value. Their discoveries can at the best prolong life only a few years, while the gospel of Jesus Christ is the gospel of eternal life and the remedy for the universal malady of sin. Y’et there are among us men calling them selves Christians who make no effort to publish the knowledge of that rem edy. They say: “If the Chinese are not willing to receive our gospel missiona ries. then h't those missionaries stay at home. Let the Chinese hordes grov el and die! Let the human streams of heathen life become choked with moral vermin! It is their own lookout, not ours!” I tell you today that Christian America’s foreign obligations can nev er be canceled until Jesus Christ is preached to till people. Where we have now one missionary in the dark conti nents we should send a thousand; where we have one gospel messenger now for a hundred thousand people we should lutve so great a number that ev ery foreign town and village, as well as every city, should be persuaded to receive the open Bible and to study the word of God. Christian America will not be free from responsibility until the gospel of the Lord Jesus is preach ed unto all peoples. If those peoples receive It not, then they, not we. must bear the responsibility. The nations of the world have also other claims upon us as n Christian people that must not be ignored. If we have the spirit of Christ, we shall not he unmindful of their material wants. He who “had compassion on the multitude because they had noth ing to eat” would never have closed his ears to the cry of a famine stricken nation. If we would be like him, we, too, should feed the hungry and succor the homeless, the widow and the or phan. How better can we make known the grandeur and beauty of the Chris tian faith than by proving to other na tions its beneficent influence? As the hand of Christian America is stretched out -across the seas, bearing bread for the starving, they see Christ living again in us and bless hi# dear name. Having accepted from us the bread that perishes, they will listen as we tell them of the Bread that came down from heaven, of which if a man eat he shall live forever. Were the welcom ing doors of heathen India ever more widely opened for the gospel message than when the shiploads of American breadstuffs were floated across the At lantic. through the Mediterranean, down the Red sea and over the Indian ocean until they were safely landed in the harbor of Bombay during the awful Indian famines of 1897 anil 1900? I have seen it estimated that hundreds of thousands of starving and dying na tives were physically saved through American generosity during those two years. But no one save the recording angel of heaven will ever be able to keep track of the multitudes of immor tal souls who will ultimately be brought to the feet of Christ through the contributions and the prayers of those who tried to some extent to allay the horrors of that awful famine plague. When did Russia ever hear a sweeter gospel message than that played by the waves lapping the ships' prows which carried American food to her peasants during the famine plague of 1892? Ah, those were not idle words which Christ uttered when he said unto those on his right hand. “Come, ye Messed of my Father, Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I w r as an hungered, and ye gave me meat.*' It does seem that in a national as well as in an individual sense no Christian country can truly present the gospel to foreign lands if at the same time it is not ready to help those foreign nations when they are afliict. d w ith famine and plague. We say “frmiue” and "pl-.gue” in the same breath, l-'cmise starvation and disease ar > two horrors which always devas- tu!‘* the land at t’.ie same time. Where .1:1: goes, then ague follows close behind. And. w’ le we are thus con- siderii'g the philanthropic aspect our ■ ;i • ! dr‘y to e' .or lands sometimes assuiii s. 1 want to make an especial plea for famine stricken Finland. I make it the more earnestly because many of her sons and daughters have migrated to our shores, and therefore for that reason Finland has a special claim upon us. They are of the same household of faith with ourselves: therefore it is doubly our duty to aid them. I make this plea the more ear nestly because if food is not sent quickly thousands of those poor peas ants will soon be beyond human aid. Brothers and sisters will be dead; chil dren will be dead; fathers and mothers will be dead; whole communities will bo exterminated by famine and the plague. The Cry of Finland. Though the religious and daily news papers have been for weeks filled with the accounts of Finland's sufferings, the horrors and agonies which those simple people of the north are going through will probably never be fully told. But as I try to describe it to you in part no words of mine can so touch ingly present the condition of that af flicted land as does the simple state ment which Inspector Eugberg, who knows that country well, gave to a representative of the American press: “I have seen much of the suffering,” he says. “It has been awfully black and is so still, take my word for that. I have become through custom almost hardened to seeing women and children crying for food, that was common as recently as New Year’s day. When I hear people talk about conditions be ing exaggerated, I think of how I have seen human beings eating bran, of how an old woman, the wife of a formerly prosperous farmer, is In the habit of coming to my stable and begging per mission to scrape tin.* leavings in the bin of my horse for sustenance for her three cows, of how every mother in tiiis community is delighted to get meat bones tiiat have been discarded by more prosperous householders and boil them and reboil them until they float in the hope of extracting particles of nourishment. You will be right in say ing that we have staved off starvation till now, but God help us if relief should now fail us.” Oh, my brother and sister, could any plea for food lie more pathetic, more urgent, than that? Human beings compelled to eat bran— that food which today you would re fuse to give to your dog. Eating bran and cl:< [iped rye straw and the hark of trees merely to stifle the awful crav ings of hunger, and yet not able to even gsc that! Starving Finland is stretching her arms across the Atlantic, appealing for bread from Christian America. Dare we, can we, refuse to heed the cry? Dare we, shall we, stop our ears to this gospel tall? Remember that solemn question of the apostle, “He that hath this world’s goods and sooth his broth er have need and shutteth up his com passion from him, how dwelleth the love of GcmI in him?” As you love your children, think of those children that nr<‘ starving; as you love y mr wife, think of those wives and mothers and sisters who are now tottering upon the brink of the grave because they have nothing to eat! May God lead you to see your duty In reference to this call which comes from across the seas! Then, to some extent at least, we may be able to cancel a part of the national debt which Christian America owes to the modern “Greeks and to the barba rians.” [Copyright, 1903. by Louis Kloo-st h 1