The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, September 16, 1897, Image 3
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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*