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| ih. imp iij VOTED WASHINGTON DIVINE'S SUNDAY DISCOURSE. . s - '"? * The Different Lives Men Lead?Why Some Are Successful and Others Fail? V Life of Sin and Worldly Indulgence Is a . Dire Failure?The Life Worth Living, t Eft . Text: "What is your life?"?James iv., j V/ U. ?'* u we leave to the evolutionists to guess Iff- where we ca ne from and to the theologians j to prophesy where we are going to, we still have left for consideration the important I wv . fact that we are here. There may be some | r> 1 doubt ah nit whore the river rises and some j$. doubt about where the river empties,' it ^' there can be no doubt the fact that we are 8fe? sailing on it. So I am not surprised that U everybody asks the question, "Is life worth living?"Solomon, in his unhappy moments, says It is not, "Vanity," "vexation of spirit," K. i "no good," are his estimate. The fact is [v/ . that Solomon was at one time a polygamist ?' and that soured his disposition. One wife makes a man happy; more than one makes him wretched, liut Solomon was converted | from polygamy to monogamy, and the last words he ever wrote, as far as we can read ^ them, werethewords"mountainsof spices." But Jeremiah says life is worth living. In a book supposed to be doleful and iugu? brious aud sepulchral and entitled "Lamentations," he plainly intimates that the ; blessing- of merelv living is so great and ? ; grand a blessing that though a man have i.'- piled on him all misfortunes and disasters he has no right to complain. The ancient i ,v prophet cries out iu startling intonation to j all lands and to ail centuries, "Wherefore j doth a living man complain?" gst : A diversity of opinion in our time as well ! KT as in olden time. Here is a young mam of ^ light hair and blue e\es and "sound diges- , tion anil generous salary and happily j i afflanced and on the way to become a part- | w 1 ner in a commercial firm of which he is an important clerk, Ask hira whether life is worth living. He will laugh in your face IE?-'. " and say: ' Y-s, yes, yes!" Here is a man , who has civrie to the forties. He is at the tiptop of the lull of life. Every step has been a stumble and a bruise. The people j K ' he trusted have turned out deserters, and j the money he has honestly made he has V been cheated out of. His nerves are out of tune. He has poor appetite, and the food i' he does eat does not assimilate. Forty miles climbing up the hill of life have been '?1 to him like climbing the Matterhorn, and K! there are forty miles yet to go down, and descent is always more daugerous than as A . cent. Ask him whether life is worth living. 't- and he will drawl out in shivering and labubrious ana appalling negative, -.>o, i bo, no!'' How arc we to decide this matter righteouslv and intelligently? Yon will 2nd the i same* man vacillating, oscillating in his p. opinion from dejection to exuberance, and ft if he be very mercurial in his temperament j , it will depend very much on which way the iST'- wind blows. If the wind blow from the northwest and you ask him, he will say "Yes," and if it blow from tbo northeast and you ask him he will say. "No." How ?, are we, then, to get the question righteous./ , iy answered? Suppose we call all nations together in a great convention on eastern or western hemisphere, and let all those who are ir the affirmative say, "Aye," and All those who are in the negative say, "No." While there would be hundreds of thousands of those who would answer in the afUrinative, there would be more millions ? who would answer in the negative, and Rj because of the greater number who have [v sorrow and misfortune and trouble the noes m would have it, The answer I shall give jffi Will be different from either, and yet it will oommend itself to all who hear me this day off aa the rlirht answer. If vou ask me. "Is ^ | life worth iivia#??" It answer, "I all depends upon the kind of life you live." a"In the first place, I remark that a life of jft ,v. mere money gettiDg i9 always a failure^ beST" cause you will never get as much as you I% want. The poorest people in this country are the millionaires. There is not a scissors k grinder on the streets of New York or Brooklyn who is so anxious to mak" money as these men who have piled up fortunes * year after >*ear in storehouses, In Government securities, in tenement houses, in , whole city blocks. You ought to see them [ r jump when they hear the lire bell ring. . You ought to see them in their excitement p, when a bank explodes. You ought to see E their agitation when there is proposed a ~v/ reformation in the tariff. Their nerves .l, tremble like harp strings, but no music in jy ; the vibration. They read the reports from Eh Wall street in the morning with a concernE.v meat that threatens paralysis or apolexy, or more probably they have a telegraph or telephone in their own houses, so they oatch every breadth of change in the money market. The disease of accumulation has jtT" oaten into them?eaten into their hnart, into their lungs, into their spleen, into K , their liver, into their bones. E, Chemists have sometimes analyzed the Rr human body, and they say it is so much B'.. magnesia, so much lime, so much chlorate of potassium. If some Christian chemist gjf. would analyze one of these financial behemoths, he would find he is made up of ft; -copper and gold and silver and zinc and flj?. , load and coal and iron. That is not a life Worth living. There are too many earth-quakes in it. too tnany agonies in" it, too many perditions in it. Tiiey build their castles, and they open their picture galH&. lories, and they summon prima donnas, K and they offer every Inducement for happiB* ness to come and live there, but happiness p > will not come. They send footmauued and b postilioned equipage to bring her. She Kfjn will not ride to their door. They send 2"' princely escort. She will not take their arm. They make their gateways triumphal arches. She will not ride under them, r They set a golden throne before a goldeu K plate. She turns away from the banquet, b They call to her from upholstered balcony. I She will not listeD. Mark you, this is the 3 r failure of those who have had large accumwlaiion. * And ttien you must xaitc into consiueration that the vast majority of those who make the domiuant idea of life money getting fall far short of affluence. It is est ip? mated that only about two out of a hundred business men have anything worthy ^ the name of success. A man who spends f his life with one dominant idea of ilnancial accumulation spends a life not worth liv1* v Sf. j . 80 the idea of worldly approval. If that be dominant in a man's life he is miserable. Every foor years the two most unfortunate men in this country are the two men nominated for the Presidency. The reservoirs , of abuse and diatribe and malediction gradually fill up. gallon above gallon, hogshead above hogshead, and about mldsnmfj mer those two reservoirs will be brimming lull, and a hose will bo attached to each ^ one, and it will play away on these two i!\ nominees, and they 'wiil have to stand it ? and take the abuse and the falsehood, and the caricature and the anathema, an?l the ' . caterwauling and the flltb, and they will J V' be rolled in it and rolled over and over in ) ^ It until they are choked and submerged ; x and strangulated, and at every sign of rey turning consciousness they wiil be barked at by all the hounds of political parties 1 f Jtv v from ocean to ocean. And yet there are a t hundred men to-day struggling for that I privilege, and there are thousands of men j ffi;. " who are helping the in in the struggle. : How, that is not a life worth living. You [ t can get slandered and abused cheaper than ; ^ - that. Take it on a smaller scale. Do not j &< ; ' be so ambitious to have a whole reservoir y rolled over on you. But what you see in the matter of high ' political preferment you see in every com*35 munity in the struggle for what is called '* social position. Tens of thousands of peo- j pie trying to get into that realm, and they are uuder terridc tension. What is social j 1 position? It is a difficult thing to define. : but we ali know what it is. Good morals ! * and intelligence are not necessary, but ; ' wealth, ox a show of wealth, is absolutely j i Indispensable. There are men to-day as J notorious for their libertinism as tne night is famous for its darkness who move in what is called high soeial position. There j are hundreds of out and out rakes in American society whoso names are mentioned among the distinguished guests at the great levees. They have annexed nil the known vices and are longing for other worlds of diabolism to conquer. Good 1 morals are not necessary in many of the ex- : alted ciicles of society. Neither is intelligence necessary. You find in that realm men who would not know i an adverb from an adjective if they met it a hundred times in a day, and who could not write a letter of acceptance or regrets without the aid of a secretary. They buy their liDraries by the square yard, only anxious to have the binding Russian. Their ignorance is positively sublime, making English grammar a! most disreputable. And yet the finest parlors open before them. Good mortfls and intelligence are not necessary, but wealth or a show of wealth is positively indispensable. It does not make any difference how you got your wealth, if you only got it. The best way for you to get Into social position is for you to buy a large amount on credit, then put your property in your wife's name, have a few preferred creditors, and then make an assignment. Then disappear from the community until the breeze is over and come back and start in the same business. Do you not see how beautifully that will put but all the people who are" in competition with you and trying to make an honest living? How quickly it will get you into high social position? What is the use of toiling forty or fifty years when you can by two or three bright strokes make a great fortune? Ah, my friends, when you really lose your money how quickly they will let you drop, and the higher you get "the harder you will drop. There are thousands to-dny in that realm who are anxious to keep in'it. There are thousands In that realm who are nervous i for fear they will fall out of it, and there are changes going on every year, and every month, and every hour which involve heartbreaks that are never reported. High social life is constantly in a flutter about the delicate question as to whom they shall let in and whom they shall push out, and the battle is going on?pier mirror against pier ; mirror, chandelier against chandelier,wine cellar against wine cellar, wardrobe against wardrobe, equipage against equipage. Uncertainty and insecurity dominant in that realm, wretchedness enthroned, torture at a premium and a life not worth living! A life of sin, a life of pride, a life of indulgence, a life of worldliness. a life devoted to the world, the flesh and the devil, is a failure, a dead failure, an infinite failure. I care not how many presents you send to that cradle or how many garlands you send to that grave, you need to put right under the name on the tombstome this inscription: '"Better for that man if he had never been born." But I shall show you a life that is worth living. A young man says: "I am here. I am not responsible for my ancestry. Others decided that. I am not responsible for my temperament. God gave me that. But here I am in the evening of the nineteenth century, at twenty years of age. I am here, and I must take "an account of stock. Here I have a body, wnien is a divineiy constructed engine. " I must put it to the very best uses, and I must allow nothing to damage this rarest of machinery. Two feet, and they mean locomotion. Two eyes, and they mean capacity to pick out my own way." Two ears, and they are telephones of communication with all the outside world, and they mean capacity to catch the sweetest music and the voices of friendship?the very best music. A tongue, with almost infinity of articulation. Yes, hands with which to welcome or resist or j lift or smite or wave or biess?hands to ; hely myself and help others. "Here is a world which after 6<fo0 years of battling with tempest and accident is still grander than any architect, human or angelic, could have drafted. I have two lamps to light me?a golden lamp an'd a silver lamp?a golden lamp set on tne sapphire mantel of the day, a silver lamp set on the jet mantel of the night. Yea, I have that at twenty of age which defies all inventory of valuables?a soul with capacity to choose or reject, to rejoice or to suffer, to love or to hate. Plato says it is immortal. Seneca says it is immortal. Confucius says it is immortal. An old book among the family relics, a book with leathern cover almost worn out and pages almost obliterated by oft perusal, joins the other books in saying I am immortal. I have eighty years for a lifetime, sixty years yet to live, i may not uve an nour, uut then I must lay out my plans intelligently and for a long life. * Sixty years added to the twenty I have already lived?that will bring me to eighty. I must remember that these eighty years are only a brief prefaee to the Ave hundred thousand millions of quintillions of years which will be my chief residence and existence. Now, I understand my opportunities and my responsibilities, " If there is any bpinginthe universe all wise and all beneficent who can help a man in suoh a juncture, I want him." The young man enters life. He is buffeted, he is tried he is perplexed. A grave opens on this side and a grave opens on that side. He falls, but he rises again. He gets into a hard battle, but he gets the victory. The main course of his life is in the right direction. He blesses everybody he comes in contact with. God forgives his mistakes and makes everlasting record of his holy endeavors, and at the close of it God says to* him; "Well done, good and faithful'servant. Enter into the joy of thy Lor I." My brother, my sister, I do not care whether that man dies at 30, 40,50, 60, 70 or 80 years of age; you can chisel right under his name on the tombstone these words, "His life was worth living." Amid the hills of New Hampshire, in olden times, there sits a mother. There are six children in the household?four boys and two girls. Small farm. Very rough, hard work to coaxalivingoutof it. Mighty tug to make the two ends of the year meet. The boys go to school in winter and work the farm in summer. Mother is the chief presiding spirit. With her hands 9he knits all the stockings for the little feet, and she is the mantua maker for the boys, and she is the milliner for the girls. There is only one musical instrument in the house, the spinning wheel. The food is very plain, but it is always well provided. The winters are very cold, but are kept out by tho blankets she quilted. On Sunday, "when she appears in the village church, her children around her. the minister looks down and is reminded of the Bible description of a good housewife. "Her children ^ Kae hlocaa^* hap hnohunH ariSO up nuu vau uv& w.vo^vw, MV? 4.MW..UV. also, and he praiseth her." Some years go by, and the two oldest boys want a collegiate education, and the household economies are severer, and the calculations are closer, and until those two boys get their education there is a hard battle for bread. One of these boys enters the university, stands in a pulpit widely influential and preaches righteousness, judgment and temperance, and thousands during bis ministry are blessed. The otherlad who got the collegiate education goes into the law, and thence into legislative halls, and after awhile he commands listening senates as he makes a plea for the downtrodden and the outcast. One of the younger boys becomes a merchant, starting at the foot of the ladder, but climbing on up until his success and his philanthropies are recognized all over the land. The other son stays at home because he prefers farming life, and then he thinks he will be aMe to take care of father and mother wh<;n they get old. Of the two daughters, when the war broke out, one went through the hospitals of Pittsburg Lauding and Fortress Monroe, cheering up the dying and the homesick and taking the last message to kindred far away, so that every time Christ thought of her he said, as of old: "The same is my si^ ter and mother." The other daughter has a bright home of her own. and in the afternoon?the forenoon having been devoted to her household?she goes forth to hunt up the sick and to encourage the discour * ss? % * fHEf*? ' V * ? (.. - '. * - TP* aged, leaving smiles and benediction all along the way. But one dav there start iive telegrams from the villag fi?r these live absent ones, j saving. "Come, mother is dangerously ill." , But before they can h?? r i ly to start they ! receive another telegram, saving. "Come, jl mother is dead." The ol i neighbors gather in the old farmhouse to <1*: tiie last office of ! respect. But as th" farming sou aa 1 tho j elergymau, and tho Senat >r and the mer- , chant and the two daughters stand by the I easket of the dead mother taking the last j | look, or lifting th?ir little children to see once more the face of dear old grandma. I want to ask that group around the casket one question. "Do you really think her life was worth living?"*A life for God, a life for others, a life of unselfishness, a useful life, a Christian life, is always worth living. A W0U1U IlOl 11II11 11 I mm iu jTRuauc J uu that the poor lad, Peter Cooper, making glue for a living, and then amassing a great fortune until He could l>uild a philanthropy which has had its echo in 10.000 philanthropies all over the country?I would not I And it hard to persuade you that his life : was worth living. Neither would I find it hard to persuade you that the life of Sus- l annah Wesley was worth living. She sent , out one son to organize Methodism and the ' other son to ring his anthems all through the ' ages. I would not And it hard work to \ persuade you that the life of Frances Leere was worth living, ns ! she established in England a school for the I scientiAc nursing of the sick, and then . when the war broke out between France and Germany went to the front and with her : own hands scraped the mud off the bodies i, of the soldiers dying in the trenches and J with her weak arm?standing one night in ' the hospital?pushing l ack a German sol- j dier to his couch, as. all frenzied with his wounds, he rushed to the door and said, 1 "Let me go, let me go to my liebe mutter," I ?major generals standing back to lot pass | this angel of mercy. Neither would I have hard work to per- ( suade you that Gra'*e Darling lived a life j } worth living?the heroine of the lifeboat, j You are not wondering that the Duchess of ; ' Northumberland came to see her and that j ! people of all lands asked for her lighthouse | 1 and that the proprietor or tne Adeipni : i theatre in London offered her i'lOO a night : j just to sit in the lifeboat while some ship- |, wreck scene was being enacted. | i But I know the thought in the minds of t . hundreds of you to-day. You say, "While I I 1 know all these lived lives worth living, I < don't think my life amounts to much." Ah . try friends, whether you live a life conspic- ! i Sous or inconspicuous, it is worth living, I j you live aright. And I want my next j j sentence to go down into the depths of I all your souls. You are to be rewarded not according to the greatness of your 1 work, but according to the holy industries I with which you employed the talents you I really possessed. The majority of the j crowns of heaven will not l?e given to peo- j pie with ten talents, for mast of them were ] tempted only to serve themselves. The , vast majority of the crowns of heaven will be given to the people who had one talent, ' but gave it all to God. And remember that I our life here is introductory to another. It is ( the vestibule to a palace, but who despises ? the door of a Madeleine because there are ( grander glories within? Your life, if rigidly lived. Is the flrst bar of an eternal oratorio, and who^despises the first note of ' Haydn's symphonies? And the life yon * live now is all the more worth living be- ( cause it opens into a life that shall never < end, and the last letter of the word "time" i Is the flrst letter of the word "eternity"' j I WHEAT CROP SITUATION. | Estimated Deficiency of 14.000,000 Quarters in the World's Supply. The Mark Lane Express, of London, re- j viewing the crop situation, says: "The weather has been adverse to the completion of the harvest, and the quan Uty of grain still out is considerable. < "The French wheat crop is estimated at < 31,000,000 quarters by the chief writers of ( the Paris press. Correspondents of Eng lish business Arms state that the crop will , amount to from 33,000,000 to 36,000,000 quarters. The Austro-Hungarian crop is ] stated to be 17.000,000 quarters. If this is ' true.it adds creatly to the gravity of the ' situation. "The American crop is reckoned by careful judges to be 63,500,000 quarters, or 11,000,000 quarters improvement, to offset a decline of 9,000,000 quarters in Russia and 6,000,000 to 10,000,000 quarters in France. "All the figures point, therefore, to a deficiency in the world's supply of 14.000,000 quarters. Should the demand be actually as large as this, the stores of old wheat will be used up, and a crisis of great seriousness will only be prevented by generally good prospects for the spring of 1393. We > are not, however, entitled to argue that such prospects will be more than the aver- ! age." 1 STUDENTS' AWFUL CRUELTY. \ A Horrible Ht.zlng Episode at the University of California. There will be no more "rushes" at the | , University of California if President Kel- . logg's latest mandate is exercised. Haif dazed, his jaw broken, his face a 1 bleeding mass, Benjamin Kurtz, a newly < elected freshman, was found wandering ' about the campus after the rush between i the two lower classes. In the struggle | some one put his heel on Kurtz's face, aad : as a result he is disfigured for life and may have sustained injury of the brain. An ex- ' amination showed that a piece of flesh had ; 1 been torn from one nostril. The upper lip J 1 hung only by n shred and the rpggei na- i ture of the scar made the injury all the i f more serious. The front teeth were gone. , Four teeth had been knocked out of the . lower jawbone, in which they had been em- , bedded, and part of the bone was broken out with them. ' Both the upper and lower jaws were < smashed and the flesh of all the face 1 crushed aad bleeding. There were two 1 other serious c isualties. , HER SPECIALTY IS TWINS. A Colored Wife, Under Eighteen, lias Given Birtb to Four Fair*. Not yet eighteen years old and the moth 1? a! ?r Ui lUiu ^au: w* inius. , This is the rjcord uiado by Pearly Bradford, a colored woman of Cast St. Louis, ' III. The remarkable young mother asked J Dr. Woods, Supervisor of the Poor, for < food to keep herself and children from , starv ing. She has been a resident of East ^ St. Louis Ave years, she says, having come , there from New Orleans, whore her husband is now :rying to get employment, j All but three o! her children are. dead. The live ones are healthful and strong, though 1 quite young. Mrs. Bradford is very black. She will ; not be eighteen years old, she says, until November25 next, au I Is again approaching motherhood. She was married when a child. 1 Dr. Woods it ade a careful investigation 1 into the statements made by Mrs. Br.id- 1 ford and fount them to be correct and the < woman honest and truthful. Not Young, Itut They Married. Isaac Selover, seventy-four years old, a widower and a wealthy farmer of Spottswood, N. J., and Miss Mary Phillips, a spinster, sixty years old, have just been married. Selover Uved with his son, a married man, forty years old, but it is said that ho aud his son did not agree. So he thought he would get married again, and Miss Phillips agreed to become his wife. His children were opposed to the marriage, but Selover insisted that he knew his own business. Mutineers Kill Fifty-Nine Men. A mutiny has occurred among the troops of the Congo Free State in the Tore District of Africa. The mutineers, it is said, killed fifty-nine Belgian officers and men and destroyed all the forts, commuting depredations right aud left. < mBW: \rp Says It Is More Valuable Than the Klondike. POINTS OUT SOME DEFECTS. Cross Husbands and a Complaining Wife Meet No Compassion From tbe Sage of Bartow. The poet says that ' 'domestic happiness is the only bliss of paradise that nas survived the fall." If that is so, ind I reckon it is, what an awful sin it is for a man or his wife or a son or laughter to break it up. It is worse than murder, for there is then only one rictira, and he is dead; but the destroyjr of domestic happiness brings misery to the family, and they must live on in their sorrow. If domestic peace an'd love ?ou!d be purchased with money, what i price it would bring, and yet it can be nad without money if every member of the family would do right. I was ruminating about this and wondering if even the devil was mean enough to take pleasure in destroying the peace of a i l I .1 rr>\_ _ t ? # t t. i _ x uouse'ioiu. ice uook oi joDaoes not nake him that mean, for Job suffered ao sorrow from any bail conduct of wife ir chiidren. t-iatan wants worshippers, ind even dared to try to seduce the Savior to Lis allegiance*, but he did it in in open manly way, aud lost He is in adversary?a bad one?a powerful >ne ever since he wi,s thrust out of leaven; but accordirg to scripture he las not yet lost his power or his consequence, for the Lord talked to him in 1 ob and the Savior had a conference ivith him in Mathew, and Michael, the irchangel, had a dispute with him ibout the body of Moses. He is a bold, self-poieed, defiant spirit, and nses many irts to seduce mankind from their allegiance; but surely he wouldn't take iway and destroy the only bliss of paradise that is leltus. Hehasent done it from Ingersoll, for that notable man Lias a most loving household, aud so nave many infidels and atheists and skeptics. My opinion is that our original sin has more to do with bad couluct than the devil. We are born to un as the sparks fly upward, and the Jevil urges us on and apologizes for jvery mean thing we do and tr?^< :o comfort us, but I believe hat it is in the power of jvery man au J woman and son and laughter to preserve the family peace ind to make home the most attractive place ui>ou tlio earth. Then, why don't :hey do it? It sickens us with sorrow :o read the family troubles in the daily tapers. Sometimes it is the husband, sometimes it is the wife, sometimes the laughter, but oftener than all together t is the sou that brings the blight and larkens the doors and makes parents ?ud sisters seek to hide from the gaze >f men. What makes the young men io so? Every day there is a new case somewhere - murder, suicide, embezzlement and all is inixod up with the jails and courts and pictures in the papers and misery of kindred and the world's cold criticism. How many 'amilies that once moved proudly with :he social swelling throng have retiied from it to grieve over the crushing hte of u wayward son or a daughter's thanie. How many families have been broken down by reckless sons-in-law. [ know some aged paients whoso lair Las grown prematurely gray, nhose brows are furrowed wi'tlj ines of sorrow and w hose smiles are ilways sad, if they smile at all. j Young men, please etop and think. ; rhe happiness of home is worth millions )f dollars. It beats the Klondike, and is right close by, and no frozen lulls to jross. The pleasures of a happy home ixcel anything upon earth, and can be tiad so cheaply if father and mother and jhiidreu will mate it so. ''He that croubleth his own hoase shall inherit' ;he wiud." A cross husban.i, acontenlions, complaining wife, a selfish son or in indolent, discontented daughter can lestroy the i>eace oi: the honsehold. l'liere are some things that are worth so nnch they cannot be valued. Health of jody is oue of them, but peace of mind s worth more than that. Some years igo there was a verdict rendered in our join t at Rome giving $85,000toayoung nan because of a fall from the train at ught and a permanent injury to his ipine. Ho was a man of brilliant mind md high ambition and splendid prosiK'cts, but the doctors testified that he tvonld be a mental wreck, and his elojuent lawyer drew such a sad picture jf the wreck that the jury r?ave this large amount as compensation. No boues were broken nor did he suffer auy pain. Lie walked about and visited his Friends, and showed n o sign of imbecility, but bis mental force was impaired, tus high ambition gone, and this veriict was only an approximation of the lam age. What, then, is the peace of a family worth? Not merely peace of mm J, bat cf heart, for the heart outranks the mind as the mind does the body. I ft as ruminating about these ill assorted, ur happy marriages that seem in these later years to be more frequent than in the olden time, and are the prolific source of so ranch domestic trouble. U'he poet says: "How sad aud dreary is the home Where love,domestic love no longer nestles, But stricken t>y some < ruel doom lis corpse lies on the trestles " I wonder how many modern marriages may be called happy?in how many families do peace aud love rule the household. Not many among the children of the rich, I know, for they have known no want nor self-denial, and cannot bear patiently any misfortune. And eveu among the poor there is misery that the hard times have in- | creased. Only yesterday a sad-faced j woman camo to us begging food and 1 clothes for her children, and her story . was that her husband bad to run away for trying to make a living by rnuning a blind tiger. What a curse is this marriage tie when hastily and unhappily made. If I was a girl, it seems to me, I would rather remain single all my life than bind myself body auu soul to a young man who had no moral principles to govern him. The chains of matrimony! If a man commits a crime he can give bond and keep out of jail, but there is no bond provided tor a poor woman who is chained to I a bad, unprincipled husband. She timidly shrinks from seeking a divorce, for even that does not erase the scars of j the shackles she has worn. Her life and her hopes are blighted. There is no more pitiful sichtin all nature than a good woman chained for life to a bad unkind, unprincipled man. She clings to her children as her only comfort and i lives only to shield them from her shame. Hut why write about these things of sorrow? I know thev are unwelcome to my readers, but I have thought it a J duty, and that maybe some one or more might be influenced to stop and think. On yesterday I received a long letter from an old friend asking 1 me to plead with the young^ people ! and bee them to stop this mad career i that seems to be increasing in oar | Southern land?this unhallowed thirst for getting money by short cuts and I dishonest practices?this drinking and gambling that leads to suicide or the jail?this infidelity to their marriage vows that destroys the happiness of the family. But this will do for this time. It is not a good day for me no how. It is not Friday, but it is one of these hard, unlucky days that brings trouble in various forms. The old cow got out last night and went foraging in the suburbs and eat up a whole cottor patch, and Tm expecting the darkey every minute to come for his damages. But that 's nothing. A kittle negro girl was rolling our little Caroline throurh the long hall on a tricycle. The child is only two and a half years old, and is my comfort?a little blueeyed beauty that we borrow almost every day from her mother?and I wouldn't take a million dollars for her love. But, somehow, the nurse cut the wheels around too suddenly and threw Caroline) violently forward on to tne iron shaft, and the bolt on the top of it mashed out two upper teeth and one lower one. and bent the others in and cut her chin badly and buruised her little lips to a jelly, and when I took her up and saw it all it made me heart sick. I wanted to weep and cry aloud for grief. For an hour or two I wa? nearly heart-broken, for I can't bear to see s ach a helpless child suffer such agony. Her little mouth was all broken up aud deformed. But the good Lord tem;>ers such things to little children, and now the dear Tittle girl is getting along nicely and sings a lisping song to her dolly. The good book tells about a place where there will be no more pain or sorrow. Well, I want to go to that place as soon as the Lord wills it; and 1 want all my folks to go with me, and everybody else's folks too. -Bill in Atlanta (Ga.) Constitution. GFfEAT DESERT OF AFRICA. It Occupies One.Fifth of the Entire Continent. The desert area of Africa is estimated by Ravenstein at over 2,230,000 square miles, all of which but a small frartion is contained in the tract of land popularly known as the Sahara, says McClure's. Except for some sch ool children who know better, and schoolteachers who are instrumental for their doing so, the misconception of the Sahara, which is widespread, would be practically universal. The average man pictures the Sahara^ as a vast sea of sand, for the most part below sea level, across which the camel speeds before the poison blast of the simoon from oasis to oasis. Schemes for flooding the Sahara have come before the public occasionally, and we bare read accounts of the vast inland 9ei. 7hich might be formed, rivaling the Mediterranean in size, giving a ontliern sea coast to Morocco and Algeria and admitting steamers directly to the wealthy states of the Sondan. The Sahara, as known to the geographer, corresponds badly with this conception, for, in fact, there is no risk of the "ship of the desert" ever ?-_x-J i? iv. _u:? Deing suppiameu uy iuc nuip ui w? sea. Few parts are below sea level ind they are small and scattered. In the interior the desert is a plain, high above sea level, covered with vast dunes of red sand in many parts; in others it is an elevated plateau with lofty mountain ranges of bare rocks intersected by stony valleys. It is arid, save where a spring bubbles up and gives rise to a small oasis of grass and palm trees. The Sahara proper is unknown, except for a few j trade rontes regularly traversed by I Arabs and occasionally by adventurous Europeans. They utilize the oaseis as resting-places, steppingstones, as it were, and keep up communication between the wealthy Mohammedan states ronnd Lake Chad in the south, and Tripoli, Tunis, Algier or Morocco on the Mediterranean. Between the trade routes all is a blank of sand or barren rock. Exploration is only possible when water as well as food can be carried, and this condition has practically stopped all attempts at discovery for the present, on account of the great expense and the purely scientific nature of the possible return. A rail way running from the French possesRioua on the Mediterranean across the desert to Timbnctoo. the scarcely known trade centre near the Niger,, is talked of. Such a line may be constructed in the future, but the difficulties are enormous, much greater than those overcome by the Russians in the trans-Caspian line through the deserts of central Asia. Whet Is the aLluity between chewing gum and bicycling? If a count were taken it would be shown that seven out Oi. ten bicyclists chew gum whiie on their wheels. Does it give vigor to the muscles of the legs, or does it prevent thirst? llere are questions foJ the sciolist. It Is a pleasure to note that even tho highest class music is now within the reach c all. Paderewski Says he will charge only $5,000 a day to pla? at private rausicales ?vxt season. An Athens correspondent says that "Prince Constantice will stand much higher In public estimation throughout the world as soon as all the facts of his Thessalian campaign are known." Perhaps it is hardly fair to Judge him j fro? ruutdng accounts. j " CUftfOUS FACTS, ' \ Sidney, Australia, can now boast " the largest town hall and the largest' ?3M organ in the world. Frogs have been raining down in thick showers on Bizerta, in Tunis. ) The largest were the size of a man's thumb. An umbrella insurance company > NJm has just been organized in London. . It will insure canes as well ?3 urn- ;-.vSg brellf.s. ive-.-n eves of New York customs inspectors found in the false bottom t of a trunk, the other day, 10,003 glass optic3?smuggled from Switzerland. The largest order for carpets ever given for a single hotel, it is said, ?2 has been given for the new Astor hotel, New York, adjoining tho Waldorf. It has 1000 rooms. England is now trying submerged cannon. ouneu UCJIUJ miuyviw P?n inches thick and the hull of a ship ' V protected by three inches of boiler Y* plate were pierced by a solid shot from one. The rapidity of the growth of th? ' $! hair varies much in different persons. It has been calculated that the beard ?$ grows at the rate of one line and ? half per week, or six inches and a half in a year. On the head, the growth is mucn more rapid. St. Helena is probably the best known of all'the solitary islands in. T.jtl the world. Situated in the South Atlantic Ocean, it is Tfjd miles from the M nearest point of the African continent.. It is ten and one-half miles long and .-jiS six and one-half broad. * The tail of the fish is his sculling . k oar. He moves it first on one side ' ^ jj and then the other, using his fins as * balances to guide his motion. If the fish moves fast, and wants to step, he _ Atif liia fina inflt a a fKa< 'iW rower of a boat does his oars. Live bees are sometimes shipped on ice so as to keep them dormant during the journey. This is particularly the case with bumblebees, which have been taken to New Zealand, where they are useful in fertilizing the ' jjj red clover that has been introduced into the colony. The woodchnck is a great digger,- His hind feet a.*e shovels to dig the -h hole where he lives, and the bearer ' uses his broad, flat tail as the mason : does his trowel, spattering and . t 'j smoothing the mud with it as he builds the walls of his cabin, while his sharp, powerful teeth are his saws, ' with which he gnaws oft large branches > of trees to build his dams. There are several wooden railways f in Canada and the United States, One 'uffifyjj of them is in the province of Quebec,' 'i and is thirty miles long. The rails are of maple, four by seven inches, - ' HIlU u aiLiS uuv I u.ia w >ca bucrn wave* AV . markablo smoothness at the rate of twenty-live miles an hour. This road I is used for the transportation of tun* I ber, and the rolling stock consists of. one engine and thirty-Are cars, '' ) ' B?markable Mafit XMntalwitDt At the brilliant private entertain* f vl ments not long ago given by M. Badi- ' 'vj quet, a French lover of the magic of science, the guests entered a room w furnished with nothing more znys- Uwg terious than a cloth-covered apparatus seemingly like a magic lantern. The room contained a chandelier of *j glass and flowers in glass and porcelain vases. ; *' The lights were extinguished as in ^$51 an ordinary spiritual seance,' when * "4 crackling sound was heard, ) luminous hand moved slowly up and'down ^ above the audience, luminous Violins danced about, & phosphorescent glow f swung in the air like a pendulum, and aluminous bell rang. A mirror suddenly blazed upy tha vUies and the chandelier glowed ana ine wuoie room k] glowed with a phosphorescent light; As all became dark again, a phosphor- , .A escent decanter appeared suspended ' , ' * in the centre of the room, a pale bine tray came below it, a shining -glass placed itself on the tray, a spoon and sugar basin followed, phosphorescent pieces of sugar moved singly from the basin and dropped into the glass, and the spoon stirred the sugar. This apparition in turn, disappeared. Next, a *pale-greenish, human form came oat Y before & velvet etrrtain, then vanished in fragments, the bast disappearing ' : drat. -Finally a luminous bouquet blossomed into view in the centre of the room labeled with the explanation Y ?"X-Rays." The phenomena all depended upon the properties of the 'si Roentgen rays, which cause certain substances, like glass, and especially objects covered with barium plantinoeyanide, to become luminous,, while Q other objects, like the hand moving - . the decanter, remain invisible.?Trenton (N. J.) American. Biking on the Celling. A daring bicyclist who rides head downward, suspended from, the oeil?- fj ing, is the latest freak of the magicianit of wheeling. This clever wheelman* iS chooses a ceiling seventy-five feet*, above the floor for a track aud calmlydrives his wheel about, now here, now.there, like a human fly. This wonderful expert for a long > Js time past has been noted as one of the most skillful trick bicycle riders. A huge disc, covered with rubber, or some similar substance, is infixed to the ceiling of the hall where ho performs. Set about half an inch apart along the circumference of both tiros of his bicvclo are what appear to be liny cups of rubber. When the bicycle is placed in posU ^ tion, with the wheels on the lower surface of the big disc aad the saddle downward, the purpose these little cups is evident. As each cup comes in contact with the rubber flooring of the disc the air is forced out of it and ?oe suction which results holds the $ machine in place, and prevents it fall*