HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times, 1891-1-22, Page 2THE MODERN PULPIT.
THOU ART THE MAN.
BY Tan REV. C. V. CnENET, n.
"Ant David's anger was greatly kindled
against tbe ruan ; motile sale unto a than, "As
the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this
thing shall surly die ; atid he snail restore the
Iamb Menotti, becauee be bath done this thing
and because he had no pity.' Ana Nathansant
unto David, "inou art the UAW: sant. xn.
5, 0.7.
There are some things which we remem
ber by their negative rather than their posi-
tive qualities. The bell -tower of the great
cathedral at Pisa has a hold upon the mem-
ory and bnagination of manithed, not on ac-
count of its rare architectural grace, but bee
muse it leans out of the prepenalcu/ar. So,
perisape, David is remembered by them:14er-
ity of those who know his aistery, not far
his qualities that were kingly, his talents as
a poet, his excellence AS a man, or his faith
sae ehild of God, but for the one great sin
which blots his record. There are lessons in
his fall whieh it. is evident that God meet
should never be forgotten.
1. The account A David's great sin vindi-
cans the leanness and. lustiest of God.
When A, man professmg holiness falls like
an estk snapped, by a sudden blast, it is an
easy and aweeping method of disposing of
the ewe to say that he always was a hypo.
erne. When, in a hurricane, the steamship
Vera Cruz foundered off the Florida coast,
L0 one drew the coadusion that Axe was an
uneneworthy and rotten hulk. It by no
means followed. But when a Christi= mau
goes down auxidet some terrible cyclone of
ten:plata:in it is argned that Ise wea always
rotten :A the heart. Notice how that.
anginuteat applies here : had beeu de-
ist:wed to he " man after God's ea% heart ?"
a Is adultery, is murder, altar God's own
heart!' eries the ceviller. There is a sneer
upon the lips of every emeration of unbelief
wben it reeds how Nathan fetid to David,
" Thr Lord kWh. put atray ell thy sin." " Is
this the holy Goa of whom Christiens toak ?
How eaaily does he give absolution to this
royel elidarr
.Nov whet is the meaning of this apparent-
int:0114,Stent compromising with the horri-
ble guilt of Israel's king? Let as look at
ealusly and clearly. It it be true that the
Bible here represeuts the holy God as trill•
ing with the blackest crimes, and eoutlouiug
the mast raonetrous wickedness, the let us
honestly aeknowledge that the Scripture IS
beeonsietent with itself. But let us not ruaii
hastily to a. conclusion. What lil. the
Divine forgivenees of David isman a
When the prophet CAW to the eonseienee-
atricken kiog, Tee Lora teeth tn. away
thy sin," he oahleti, " Thou elielt not the.' it.
nos an a-surauta• that heel:multi not Immedi-
ately be cut tet Irma amongst the living, as
he telt that lite ells titeenveti. tiodewould
give bins tow at " forth fruns meet
tor Itmeatamea' 31(AWAVer. It gave to
j)on here A heaven. It haid to 11110 that
he was ma tor ever barrea out trout all reach
of tat: merey. But at t1te:et:14e time
Gael eloenet His hate of sin. See how He
nustaitel it, wlaile Doviths life was spared.
leol tnest sulfenthogeot, suiting; out Ins ,
anno e et the perils of battle while he re-
istaisani at teem in luxe:tante ease, a ressay
prey to Setan. hint Nathan :enures hun
dee he hes known Isis last dee- of quiet and
reel au tarth : " The sword 4ialI never de•
pelt men tiae- hotsee." He hell yielded to
the ea I1T1.4115 SIVay 4.1 %%bleu ful lust. He
kiiSJIIIA the. Ian 1iv Ala LICA to 4e0 1214
OWII reprettneed among itis own elsilaren.
He heel annulated murder, tor he had " slain
Ursula tle: Hittite with the word of the
ehilthen ot Ammon." He should not die,
bsit ; and live to Fee the hasul of one of
his same real unit the blood ad tuaother. He
had rebelled, against the plainest
410181 tat the lung of Kings. He should not
lest live ; anal live to eee himself fleeing
from his copied eity, driven lions his throne
by the rebellion of the Sot) whom lie blindly
los ea olieve his other aliases!.
But that is not till. David ai,1 ale at last.
He a al.. gathered to hie fathers nearly thirty
centurit•s ago. But the memory 01 his ein
liveta. Like tee pits eplaorescenee which gleams
throuell the sogla from sense dela and deate •
ing tree, tie aloes the lurid light of David's
sin hover t‘ht. re his grave. Her are we to-
day, in a remote genet -anion stud a distant
land, unable to forget the sin whieb teel put
away. It is only the horrible immortality of
wicktelnets.
My brother, I plead with you not to be
satisfied with ultimate entrance into glory.
Yon are putting off becoming a Christian be-
cause you believe that hi some way you will
attain heaven at last. Is that enough? Will
it make the last hours of earth more blessed
to kuoNit feat for twenty, thirty, forty years,
you live for the world instead of Christ? It
may lie joyful to set sail and emigrate to a
better land than that in which we live ;but
will it east uo shadow on the hour of embark-
ation to remernber that we have spent our
sojourning here sowing thistle seeds that all
posterity never can root up ?
But I may not leave this branch of my
subject without another thought. It is this:
David's sin was the sudden upheaval of the
evil nature, like the unlooked-for eruption
of an apparently extinct volcano. I have no
smooth wordswith which to palliate its guilt.
Fire is fire, whether it lie smouldering in
the walls, or flame forth with a lightning
flash from the summit of the roof. A sin is
sin, whether it be a secret in the soul, or a
sudden outburst in the life. But I have
this to say to those who sit in condemnation
upon the king who had been a man after
God's own heart. Do not cry out, "Here
is one of those hypocrites Who sing psalms
to God's praise, and yet wallow in wicked-
ness." For here is hope for a man who sud-
denly falls into sin which is contrary to all
his previous life. It may be like the eddy
in the stream, which seemed for the time to
turn the current back to its source. But
what about the sins which honeycomb the
heart, eating into its very texture through
the years! Ah, beloved, the sins which
destroy men's souls are those which, unlike
David's, seem to usso smallthatwenevertry
to check their corroding power. They are
the little iniquities with which we are never
shocked and startled. You say, as you pick
up your newspaper and read some sad story
of the fall of one who has publicly pro-
fessed the Saviour, that you thank God
that you do not pretend to be a
Christian. My brother, wait a moment,
and hear me. Deep in your inmost
soul there live, and have lived for
years, low desires, bitter animosities, cher.
ished purposes of revenge, habits of demi-
in little things. Would you be willing
to have all your methods of conducting
your business put into the focus of the
world's scrutiny? When men have 'praised
your generosity, have you never been glad
that they had no means to go behind the
scenes and see the ropes that moved the
machinery within ? Those things have
never shocked and horrified you like
such a fall as David's In that fact
lies their danger. They move like
an army velvet -shod. The King of
Israel,, overwhebned at the greatness of his
guilt, recoiled as from the preeipice's edge.
In horror at the sight of himself, he fled to
repentance and the repentance and the
bosom of las God. But your daily and
hourly sins do not shock you. Because they
seem so little, you do not repent ; you do not
flee to Jesus.
Sometime ago, off Nahant, I saw tfle rea
light on the rocky islet known as "Egg
rock." Now and then in a tVelVeMonth
there comes a sudien hurricane
from off the wide Adautie. The rage of the
great breakers makes the granite tremble.
But no sudden storm ever put out the light.
Yet on a summer evening, when the ocean
lay pulseless as the dead, and the stars were
shinuag brightly in the sky, I looked in vain
for the red beams). Iii particles ofmoisture
tootiny to be seen, the silent leg had climbed
the rugged elitt There was no noise. There
was no hurry. But the light was blotted
onit. Reloirea. It. in terrible WhAlfl Slatanervr.
ries the Bout by storm. It is more terrible
when he wire@ With the years, and with no
tread of feet. I should have more hope of
some who hear me, did they fall into sin
which suddenly surprised and shocked
them.
II. The text reveals the deceptive t
of sin upon the conscience.
The power of looking into one's self is one
of the mysteries of the mind. We have no
bodily organ which possesses such %power,
I cannot with my eye behold the retina, the
crystalline lens, or the optic nerve. But ex
aetly taat strange ability, God has given t
the minde While I think, lam museums
thinking. In a word, I eau so invert the
action of my toted as to watch its own
operations. But the effect of sin is too de-
stroy, or at least to weaken this marvellone
power. It prevents a man frent looking in
at hist ewe; soul. He sees other metas char-
aeter axal Arnaud, and forms his judgment
concerning them But his own eenduct
and his own diaracter seems to be beyond
the. vision of his spirituel sight.
Take Me ease of David. Nathan came to
him with the story of a great wrong. A. rich
Mali with exceeding mauy IlelH mut herds,
had spared to take of Itis own flock to give
to the wayfaeing Mil that wee cosue Whim,
Lt t robbed Isis pear mightier of the one ewe
lamlithateonstitutealds solepnestasion. I low
quickly Aloes the royal cousewuce respond te
that appeal. It w:ss no wickeduessof 'disown
that troubled bins, but that of another. His
eye is lot:king outward, and he sees the guilt
of Ids subject in all its blaekness and, mon
mity. There is 310 reason to defeat Davin's-
sinetnity. The eondeumation that rose to his:
Nee wee the honest expreshon of Isis real feel
seg. It only show:3 hoW Sin van lama anti pre -
vela 1. Ise Cing444110:. state the conseience
isensitive, but only to other men's sine.
Dark wsss yea t .tinly alive to the wicked-
nes4 of this aim Ile clearly$AW the rapacity
of this tinuesetion. Ile realized he eruelte.
Ile perceivea e istoottitutle to the God who
that there ought to be a bottomless pit for
such guilt. When France welcomes back to
her embraces of forgiveness the red-handed
Communists who butcbered white-haired
men, and dashed out the brains of little
childreu, the conscience of a civilized world
creed out that no Repablie can tong endure
such contempt for its own laws. The Gover-
nor of New York is blind to- the tears and
deaf to the entreaties of sentimental men
and women who plead diet crime may be
shielded and the solemn seutence of the law
reversed. And the conscience of somety ap-
proves the refusal, " anol all. the people say,
Amen." But what has become of God's law,
God's govertunent ? Ibis revolting to our
modern taste to speak of -future penalty?
Then it is David's case over again. Onr
conscience is quick to recoil frone other
men's sins. But We live without a pang,
indifferent whether God's law be fulfilled or
broken.
In conclusion, observe that God's aim
in the Gospel is to deal with men asindivid-
nels.
John Swart Mill has somewhere said that
the most dangerous sign of our modern civ-
ilization is the want of individuality. The
saying is true in a different sense from that,
in whieh the English philosopher meant it.
• There are streets in all cities where all the
houses seem absolutely alike, No man has
given expression in any one of them to any
thought or idea of his own. There is a tend -
may of that sort in human nature. Weseem
to build up character on the pion of univer-
set sameness. A SIMI buys a farm and goes
into fruit eulture ; but he nevertries ta make
all kinds of apples Mete exaetly alike, On
the contrery, if he suctieeds in aiscovering a
meding Whose flavour is wholly different
from any other ever produced, be feels that
he has achieved a triumph uot to be forgot-
ten, But when we enter on the culture of
the mind and soul we seem to proceed just
the other way. The plan amiss to be to
merge all individual character in, the
mass. It ie easier to drift with the crowd
than to have distinctive eon:actions of
one's tame It appeals to man's natural
love of ease to make himself a part of the
meat eurrent, whatever be the (Unction of
its stream. Now the effect of all this is the
t as of a sense of personal responsibility.
Wioin 5. 1114111 is putout:al he takesrefuge in
erowa. Ile loses himself its the unast of
inultitutle. Ito is 0)14 (1! the great su iss,
inere drop inereeti in the mighty ocean.
Precisely so do men escape moral and reli-
gious convictions. I am max tioiug as the
world does.' or, " Public opimon is on MY
Side." Orn "The people think thin, or do
that," is tbe quiekest way to get rid of the
trouble:seine questions which muscience puts
to the individual mem
I think that this state of things has been
lista given this riels twat so abutulantly. He encouraged by much of our preaching anti
felt the monstrems nature of the crime, anti religionsi effort- Front pulpit and press the
Jus sewn of honesty revolteal at its meannese. ere is, " How shall we reach the masses 1"
There is no doubt that David felt all that ht* WU inventnew methods to at
expressed when bis indiguation buret forth NN e regard our churches as fThI if tfra
against tIse %Aim which Nathan bad. so 110 not draw like the latest show. Heace
vivialy litseritell. But can you underatand quiet religious work is despised. To try to
how, all the while there sbould be no peiag
panting lais soul with agony for the rapacit
winch had robbed his neighbor of the wife
• of Isis leasena for the cruelty which hail
set the brave man in the fore -front of
the hotteet tattle, for the ingratitude
whieh forget that Goal bad freely given to a
shepherd tatty a. monarch's splendour and
authority, for tbe dishonesty whiell luta
sought by mean subterfuges to conceal Isis
hideous crime, e No, 'brother, do xsot de-
• mine yourself. The same ilistorting of con-
seience to see the wicketines of other men,
-while blind to our own, is as common to-
day as when Natant and David lived.
There are few men who do not find their
consciences rising up in stem contlemnation
of what is opposed to honesty and tar deal-
ing. On this most of los probably pride
ourselves. And when we know of e ease in
Wilieb our neighbor has withheld What is
justly due, our seuse of right and bouour is
touched to the quick. As with David our
• anger is greatly kindled agaiutat the man.
Ilut herti ettortIsa ease like this ; Your
life is the gilt of God. Its pretervation has
been Ilis ceaseless care. The ability to snake
your way in the world has been altogether
of Him. He has given yea every element
that has made up the success of your
eareer. Speculate about it as you will, ha
secret you admit to yourself that it. ;Janice
was right when he wrote, "Every gem' and
perfect gift is of Goal, laud cometh down
trom the Father of Lights." Is it not com-
mon honesty to recognize publicly that obli-
gation': Is it fair and just to seize eagerly
all that God sends, and all that life gives,
yet never stand out boldly and manfully as
being on the side of the (liver? When, as
in these days, the very being of your Heaven-
ly Father is sneered at, when blasphemy
steals even the Sabbath to revile the reli-
gion of its author, where do you stand? Has
your conscience been touched by the thought
"Am I dealing fairly, justly, uprightly, to
accept God's ceaseless gifts, yet stand aloof
from outspoken Christianity? Ah, my dear
brother, it is the oak, staunchest and
sturdiest of trees, that is most frequently
twisted and distorted by the winds. Itis
conscience, God's witness of Himself, that
the blasts of sin twist into a dwarfed and
misshapen caricature of its real self.
FOREIGN NOTE51. land roamed s.bout the country with well -
!armed tompanions, and was most probably
Breslau, the capital of Silesia, is to be killed Juan encounter with other robbers.
made into a that -class. fortress. iSeveral Turkish bandits, who Nvero caught
President Carnot cototemplates the entire elides° still kept in prison, are believed to
demolition of the fortifioations about Paris. he implicated zu the. murder. Stotau is
The latest modern improvement is to drop nova to have couutue,
tae M in the abbreviations A. M. aud , that of his Aster being among theist.- -
AS. for example, 11 A. and 4,30 P There Will SAM be an entrance fee of a
A journalist in Pesth has use.de Koch's bane for Vatican museums.
lymph the subject of a new play which will A Freneh pair of Siamese twins has been
be presented shortly for the benefit of super -
-born in Cannes. They are girls.
annuated Hungarian actors.
The Conunercial Travellere Society .beTinhgeablaoi;stg to write
wrSiairhas taken to literature,
e
en aemunt of a tourney
Francea founded ten years ago, has 7,500throug1l his country, in Fab,
Mr. George Alexander, formerly Irving's
assistaue now managing the St. James's
Theathceikssualigdtiutoeebes, centemplating a trial
of4o
Mrs. Wbistline Shaw bas baa great suc-
cess in St. PetAburg, The Russiaus are
supposed to have a superstitious horror
againet whistling, but it faded out for Mrs.
Shaw's beneat.
..The Russian Ministry of Education has
adopted a plantopromotepopularedueation
in Bessarabia. Scboola Neill be established
and teachers maintained at the expense of
theGovornment in all the towns of that
legion.
A rani -cad line willbebuilt in the Caucasus
along the coast of the Black Sea. It will run
from Vladikavkas to Beau, over Granata
Petrcvsk, Derbeen, and. Koebia There is
also a, project for a line to be built frail
Vladikenkas to Tiflis.
A. company of wealthy Men has been
formed to open iu St, Petersburg a "
ethnological exhibition." Living specimens
of the various rams and trilmax that populate
the dominions of the Czar will Ire collected
for $11QW, together with semples of their
thvelliugs mai the appointmeut of their
houses, their shrines of worship, their gar-
ments, the food they live on, the prolucte
of their peculiar industriesa awl even their
Mantlere and habits of lite, if poesible.
Should this exhibition be successful, it will
be earrietl about to all the itoportant cities
ot the empire. The American show of the
"Wild %Vest," in Moscow arta St. Peters-
burg last summer, gave rise to the plan of
this undertaking.
The Abghasiatts, a mountain tribe of Cau•
caste, follow Use very primitive enstom of
stealing wives for themselves. If a young
matt kidnaps se girl he likes, he makes her
his wife whethershe isagreeable to 1110 12141011
or uot This gives rise to frequent fighte
between the families of the tribe, will& never
end without human surfaces. But if the
kidnaped girl likes the man who ba.s taken
her, site nets as the saabinian women in an -
dent Rome did. When her family declare
war against ber groom, the runs to tueet• them
and to appease them, anti if they don't listen
to bee entreaties Ale joists her hut:VW in
fightagainst her own kin.
members. The President is M. Brisson,
member of the Chamber of Deputies.
The 110 -ton gun just pat on board the
Sanspareil after three shots with reduced
charges showed cracks in one of the strength-
ening hoops, which had shifted an inch out
of place.
The Academy of Sciences of Cracow has
just published a poem of the sixteenth cen-
tury which treats of the same subject as
"
King Lear," The copy has but lately been
discovered.
A discussion upon the modern pronuncia-
tion ot English leads to the observation that
the letter It has ceaeed to be beard. There
is now no differenm between law " and
"lore."
Tbe royal Saxon collection of china, the
fineat lot of Dresden china in the world, has
just been greatly increased by the addition
to it of the 14,000 pieces of Dr. Gustev
Spitzuer. The =sewn now contains about
342,000 pieces from the Meissen,factory.
The rise in the price of meat in Germany
has uot only inereese4 the general consump-
tion of horse flesh, but in western Germany
has lea many of the peasants, who benched
to forego the meat market altooether, te
draw blood for blood neusages every Satur-
day from the Jiving swine. The blood is
lot into sausage SUMS, la Crinkled with fat,
and, after having thiekened, is eaten with
sauerkraut for the Sunday dinner.
Prince Nicholas of Montene,grohas 01512011
-
el in his official gazette that every one of
his active warriors shall paint during 1891
200 grapevines ; every lingaitier mustplant
aD, every commander and under eommaud-
er of a battalion, JO ; every drummer or
calor bearer, a. Every guide, moreover)
mutt plant two olive trees, aud every 004."
p11141 one. The stemette calculates do in
muse:pence oi this order Montenegro aill
have 4.000,00 grapevines and 20,000 olive
trees on next Jan. 1.,
save an indsvolual soul is tho small a 'hula
Less. The weakness of many revivals of re-
ligion lies just hem. They are attempts to
push a erowd into the Gospel fold. They
main to forget that Christ, the titled Stale,
herd goes (sut after the one sheep that was
lost. -Hence, the very souls who need the
Gospel most, are waiting for the crowd.
They Neill go to church when the aisles anti
vestibules are thronged with a vast multi-
tude repenting and believing on Christ.
Now the whole Bible iswitues$ that Goa,.
in His blosed Gospel, aims at juet the oppo.
site to all this. He deals notwith theerowd,
but with the individual. " Then art the
man " is the 00110 of (sod's voice in every
human soul. His aim is to set you open
and by yourself, ana alone wit.* Him. lie
wonla have you in this hour mallet- your
isolation, your solitery respons1lar1tie4, as
*Waugh no other being inbabited tI t
Brother, for the moment IM Ond hen: 1i1
way with theta Let this assembly pas• frees
thy view. Thou art alone with God, as thou
wilt be when thou sin& go down into the
dark valley. God saith to thee, " Thou art
a sinner." Thou answerest, "Yea, Lord,
all tnen are sinners." But God answers thee,
"Thou art the man." Again His voice
speaks, "Death is near thee, perhaps very
near." " Ah, yes," thou. murmured, "it is
no true, all men must die." "Ten, but
thou art the man." Once more He speaks,
"Lay thy sins on the Crucified One to -day:
Christ died for thee." "1 know it, Lord.
Christ died for all men." "Nay, sinner,
nay. Thou art the man."
But David's conscience also recognized
that justice demanded the punishment of
sin.
In an old New England town, they pointed
out to me the ancient "whipping -post." It
was the ghastly relic of the barbarism that
measured justice by the cruelty of its punish-
ments. Hearken a moment. Thereisa solemn
oath on David's lips, the oath of a royal
judge, "As the Lord liveth, the man that
hada lone this thing shallsurelydie." What
tablet? Ah, David, that is a terriblepenalty
for so small an affair as the theft of sheep.
What is one ewe lamb to the death of a man
made to God's image? But David was look-
ing at it from a different point of view. He
thougbt not of the value of the lamb, but of
the grand underlying principle of a man's
right to his own property. Was a rich
man thus to grind the poor while he sat on Is-
rael's throne? Was might to crush right?
Was robbery to intrench itself in the very
shadow of King David's power? There was
nopunishment too severe to vindicate the
outraged supremacy of law. H w (-Lula
was David's conscience to recognize that at
all cost the sacredness of property rights
must be maintained! But, strangest of all
caprices of the human mind, he saw not how
his own principle condemned himselL Hit
conscientious devotion to the right led him
to denounce the terrors of the law against a
Expense attending the movements of
petty German oflitials isillustrated in the
case of the Saxon commission for estimating
the damages to crops during the manieuvres
of $axo,rktroopi2. The commission travelled
.tte infiles at an expense of all to assess
4laut*tges .estimated at at?, but subsequently
anded down to 85 cent). A reportthat thia
an t of bureaucratic extravagance Was fre-
quent ha' i led Chancellor von Caprivi to
onler that • such trips shall he undertaken
in the future only when large sums of money
are at stake."
The Hamburg eompanien in which Capt.
John OAK 0000 the Arolointe Jeletim of
Austria, brewed his ship, Santa Margherita,
h we announced than in case they hear
nothing about him before Jan, 14, they will
then pa.y over the amount of the polimes to
his helve. Dr. Hertzka of Vienna has juA
received front his brother, a Government
cng neer in Mita a letter conedning these
wonis "Oral's ship was chartered to take
on 4 loaa of :saltpetre at Junin, in the pro'
131100 Tarapaca, Nrhich after the last Nvar
with Peru fell to Chili. The ship has foun-
dered heyoud gi1 sluelow of mamba It has
g sumer with mutt and mouse, and this is
.tl dee van ever be known of it-."
A Wonderful Petition.
There is on its way to England from India
a petition to Queen Victoria which is an ex-
traordinary one. It is more than sixty feet
in length and bears the signatures of more
than two thousand women of India who pray
that the legal marriage age may be raised
from its present limit of ten to fourteen
years. The grievances of the Hindu women
stir the sympathies of the whole English-
speaking world. Something of the horrors
of the life of a widow there, widowed per-
haps at an age when Canadian girls are just
entering upon the brightest moments of their
lives, may be gathered from an extract
from catechism which a recent translation
of a book by Ramabai gives:
Q —What is cruel?
A.—The heart of a viper.
Q.—What is more cruel than that?
A.—The heart of a woman.
Q. ---What is the cruelest of all?
A.—The heart of a soulless, penniless
widow.
The suttee has been done away with in
India, but some of these wretohed
widows must almost deplore its abolition.
To be burned on the funeral pyre of their
husbands would. undoubtedly be a relief to
many of them, condemned as they are to a
wretched, degraded existence from the mo-
ment the breath leaves the bodies of their
conjugal lords and masters.
! Harr Agerailaw, of Copenhagen, has in-
t-a211e:114 thaeloight, fire-alurtn, wlsielt is calhel
ties " tulnimitm." It 0018.151 S of a small
earn -alms fillea e ids a Bengel light comps/.
sition, laud provided wills a fuse made from
pate:Wen), chlm ate, aud sugar. On the fuse
is a etyma of strong sulplutria acid. \alien
the temperature of the room rises above the
melting point of paraffin the sulphuric acid
is liberated, and ignites themixture of tailor -
ate, which in turn sets fire to the Bengal
light. The device can be supplemented by
a piece of fusible metal, which in melting
will establish an electric current and ring a
bell.
A telegram from Easington dated Dec.
31, stated that the barque Iris of Grim -
stoat, from London for Grimstialt in bal-
last, was ashore at Kilnsen. Crew saved
by rocket apparatus, but the vessel will be-
come a total wreck.
A telegram from Laurvig dated Dec. 31,
stated that the steamer Alpha, from Ant-
werp to Christiania, had gone ashore andlay
badly. She was obliged to lighten by throw-
ing part of cargo overboaru. Passengers
saved.
It had been thought that lightning could
not strike a train. The theory has received
a complete contradiction. At Dischau
(Prussia) an express train, running at the
rate of sixty kilometres per hour into the
station broke down the buffing apparatus,
run into the interior facade of the station,
and broke up against a neighboring house.
An investigation established that the ac-
cident is to be attributed to the effects of
lightning, which fell upon the train, kill-
ing outright the driver and stunning the
stoker.
An immense shoal of porpoises, number-
ing thousands, has been cast upon the north-
ern shores of Zanzibar Island in a dying con-
dition. The cause is unknown. For days
past the inhabitants have been occupied in
burying them.
Fifteen Hours in an Open Boat.
The Welsh newspapers report the ex-
traordinary adventure of two lovers in an
open boat in the Bristol Channel. A young
pilot and his sweetheart had arranged tojoin
a number of friends in their Christmas fes-
tivities on the little island of Flatholm, in
the Bristol Channel. Daring the summer
and autumn pleasure -boats ply at intervals
from the Welsh coast to the island; but
steamers were not available during Christ-
mastide. Nothing daunted, however, the
pilot with hisficoicee embarked in their own
criminal who did not wear 11 crown. The boat. Everything went smoothly untilthey
crowned robber in David's palace, David's got into mid -channel, when they were sud-
conscience had forgotten denly enveloped in a dense fog. Losing
Shall we pour out the vials of our wrath their bearings, the blighted pair rowed
on Israel's lung, or shall we stopand think about for severalhours, and eventually struck
m
for a moent ? The fai
shion is n our day the Culver Sands a long way down the chan-
t() be silent about any punishment of sine nel. They again put off, and, after hours of
God is a God of love. You must not talk exposure to the bitter winter weather, reach.
about His justice. When you get to certain ed the Holm shortly after midnight in an
passages you must close your Bibles, unless exhausted condition, rowing into the haven.
you know some interpretation that will The faithful pilot carried his prostrate lassie
fritter them away. But that is when we to a cottage on the island. The young lady,
are thinking about ourselvee. Our conscience who had borne the day's fatigue and anxiety
about maintaining the law of God wakes up with the utmost fortitude, has since been vestigation into the murder of the Pope Sto- almanacs.
sometimes when we deal with others. A confined to her room in a critical condition, janat Podgoritza has revealed an extraor- Cynieus--I know it. They • do that to
Universalist paper, recording the details of but the adventurous youth has happily re- dinary state of things. It bas been shown make the people sick so they will buy their
a horrible crime some years ago, , admitted covered. that Steam himself led the life of a bandit, medicines.
•
The press of St. la•to eiburg and Moscow
have been for tome t ms figlating against the
exorbitant charges for drugs at the ;apatite.
aeries', Now they have found 5 caste, lo IIL
A Moscow physician has peeseribed a Mon
for it child Solut. oehilliortei 3 per emit— I.
WO, which in the language of common mot •
tals nseant the solution of one ounce la
borax in a kilogramme Of water. The arugr
gist charged for the lotion one rouble and sas
kopecks. A reporter got leala of the pte-
seriptionefound out its meaning aud discover
ail that the mixture was not worth more
than two kopecks. Further inquiries re-
vealea the fact that every drug store basite
own pri ees ; estimates for the same pre -
se ript ion weresought at foerteen pharmactes
in various parts of the eity, and the prices
for it ranged all the way front thirty kopecks
to MS rouble 'and seventyefive. Columns
upon coalman are written.371 thS papers upon
this subjeet and legislation to control the
priees of drugs is demanded.
An atrocious murder was committed on
Sunday at the village of Merlimont, near
Berch Sur Mer, the victim being an old lady the bride pass over it. They believe that if
aged 89 years, the mother of the cure. the girl is not virtuous the Are must harm
The crime was committed .while the latter her.
was absent saying mass at the village chluelt. The mountain tribes of the Caucasus are
After taking the woman's life the murderers
threw her body on the fire, where it was
afterwards found with the head half charred.
Robbery was the motive of the crime, and
it is believed that the police are on the track
of the criminals.
The Ruselau Ministry of the Interior,
upon the recommendation of the Medical
Commission, has &signed. a 11031' set of laws
for pharmaceutic -al colleges and for drug-
gists. Accordiug to those laws women will
be allowed to practice in the capacity of
plutnnacists. Flans are 11031 preparing for
the establishment of phannacoutical colleges
for women ; they will be submittea for en -
previa to the imperial Cabinet.
The Lista of Revel, Russia, reports that
hi the neighborhood of Goldingen there are
seven villages whose inhabitants do not
beloog to any of the clams of society in
which the subjects of Russia are divided
"They are ueither counts, nor barons, nor
princes, ma nobles, nor merchants, nor
townsmen, nor peasants." They style them-
selves Kurische Koenige, and enjoy the
privileges of nobles, aids -ants they live and
work for themselves like simple peasants.
Up to 1854 they paid no Government taxes,
and were exempt even froni military duties.
In their local administration they subject
themselves only 10 4.110 ruling of thew "Ober
Hauptmann," without whose permission ilot
even the simple " Hauptinann" may leave
bis village. Historically no one knows how
.hose peasantshave procured for themselves
the rights they enjoy. But there is a. tradi-
tion current among their neighbors diet los
important services they had rendered to
the first Russian conquerors of their pro-
vince those privileges wore granted to them.
Among themselves they cherish the tradi-
tion that they are the descendants of the
ancient kings of Kurland. They keep in
their church a flag with the picture of a
king of Kurland on horseback, Nvhich they
regard as their family heirloom and their
escutcheon. The same image is cast even
on the old bell of their church.
An interesting heathenish usage exists
among the Polieshooks (a Ruthenian tribs)
in Volhynia. A bride being led to tile
church to be married must pass through the
fire. A small fire is built for the purpose on
the road, and the relatives of the groom dis-
pose themselves in files on both Aides to see
11:14 AGREEABLE Gm.
A Combination Thad More Tha- Ten Meta
are Loohing *or.
The aggreeabIe girl 1
She is sometimes rich, but seldom hand.
sine, yet we all like to meet her in this
w eaday world of ours.
S1f meets one cordially, does not rush
up hy erically and, catelang at one'a band
Oz' area; Wed one with her effusive iaquir-
ies, for she is in the highest and best sense
well bred. '
She is always well dressed, not conspicu-
ously, for that savors of vulgarity, but her
areas m always ha lutrineay with the time
and place. Soiled gloves and skirth with a.
fringe of braid that should have been re-
newed are never seem\
If one 18 111 aro my 1ut-KM:1S5 no disagree-
able maned is introducebat stall jar on
the sensitive nerves.
'Lent, indeed
e IOWA in SO.
; but by
lugs.
ening to
She is not necessarily br
seldom, yet she ahvays bolds
ciety, not by storsning at bis
her keen sense of the fitness of
She understands the art of lie
Ahern
My lady always takes pleasure in inn-
ing people with like interests, mot in kee
them apart that she may m000polize each
turn ;for to see Ahem happy adds 10 lter e
joyment•
She enema newcomers in the church 02
home half way, and does not forget faces
when she meets them two days later.
Her appointments are always met prompt
ly. If impossible to meet the eagageinent
she writes a note at once and eeplains,there•
by seeing much discomfort and inconven•
lessen
She uover addresses her gentlemen ae•
amends:nem by their first name ; that lama
etrity is reserved for him Nr110 has a dope
claim, than Imre etemmintance.
She is well versed in the current topknot
the day, and does not blunder through a
eonvereation with statements of which she
knows nothing.
Site does not inform an artist what the
standard works of art- are. He is suppose
to koala.
Sho minds her own beehives, leaving ether
tolook after theirs.
A. Cilium liorrar.
Chinese newspa,pcm reeeived at San Fran-
eiseo eantain au ottiend report of the Gover-
nor of Kangsee detailiug the penalties in.
1110(4(1 on he inlaabitants of a village near
Shanghai, who had penned Dearteen soldiers
iti 411101' boat and burnt them to death.
Thesoltliers were officials of the salt depart.
rnent, and were anthorieed to confiscate all
salt whials had not paid duty. They found
alteap of salt which they suspected to be
vontraband, and haN-Ing partly undressed,
they began removing it, aims the villagers
attacked Oman thinking. they '41440 pirates.
A fierce nein ensued, win& resnited in the
'soldiers ben stretched senseless. A smug-
gler, whom the soldiers had previously
triennia and left tied in the boat, was howl -
bee for assistance, and tbe villagers, on go.
iug aboard, saw theuniforms and flags lying
it the bottom of the loan and discovered
t hat the supposed pirates Nvere really officers.
alley thereupon decided te nonceal their
erime lay Iml-ning the hosiestid soldiers.
Thirty villagers <tarried the soldiers to the
loats, which were dragged to the mends ot,
the nver and burned, every vestige of tbe
erimo being thus destroyed. The Governor
sentenced the ringleader to 1m beheaded,
las head to be exposed at the scene of the
occurrence, four of the patticipants to be
strangled forthwith, and four , others to re-
ceive 100 lashes each stud to life lemishea itt
perpetuity. The magistrate 'who failed to
report the crime was let off with SO lasbes.,
Some stir has been caused in social circles
at Marseilles by the report that a mysterious
.duel was fought ha the neighbourhood of
Marseilles on Sunday, between an Austrian
nobleman of high rank, living in Paris, and a
leading member of the aristocracy. Two
shots are said to have been exchanged at
fifteen paces. The Austrian was wounded
in the neck, but the surgeons succeeded in
extraceing the ball. The affair rose out of a
purely private quarrel. A lady who was
concerned in the matter arrived too late to
prevent the meeting. She endeavoured to
obtain access to the room where the wound-
ed men lay, but was refused admission
by one of the seconds, and she was obliged
to return in the evening to Fens without
heaving seen him.
A telegramfrorn Sofia states that the In -
emigrating in large numbers to Turkey.
Russian settlers are not slow to take posses-
sion of their lauds. The Government has
been petitioned by such settlers to, divide
the lands that were vacated by the Caucas-
ians into regular settlements and to estab-
lish proper judiciary circuits there. But
the Governor of the Kooben district has in-
formed the petitioners that 'ho time has not
come yet for the central Government th
take into possession and to dispose of the
lands of the aborigines.
According th the new laws to be promul-
gated in Russia, Jews will be forbidden to
hold real eetate in all the dominions of the
Czar in Europe and in Asia; Jewish crafts-
men will not be Snowed to settle either in
the capitals (St. Petersburg and Moscow)
or in any of the largest cities of the empire.
The Reason.
• Humorist (boastingly)—Why, sir, the
patent medicine men put my jolces in their
Roll, BigRibber ofjordan.
Ole Joshua wuz a mighty moat man,
Roll big ribber of Jordato
'When Moses died, be tuk common',
Roll big ribber of Jordan.
The Lewd' He tole him he mus' go,
Roll big ribber of Jordan,
An' take de city of Jericho,
Roll big ribber of -Jordan.
When (ley come ter de ribber, deep and
wide,
Roll big ribber of Jordan,
The waters rolled back on either side.
Roll big ribber of Jordan.
Then (ley all march roun' and blow'd em
horn,
Roll big tibber of Jordan,
An' de walls fell down on de seventh inawn,
Roll big ribber of Jordan.
Then tley march right in an' had er big
fight,
Roll big ribber of Jordan,
But de Lewd he gub 'em de city dat night,
Roll big ribber of Jordan.
we all gwine ter join old Joshua's ban',
Roll big ribber of Jordan.
Were on our way to de promised Ian',
Roll, big ribber of Jordan.
We've got ter fight our battles, too,
Roll big ribber of Jordan
But de Lawil He'll see his chillun through,
Roll big ribber of Jordan.
CROItt'S.
Great bi,g ribber, de Lawd's own ribber,
The ribber that Joshua crossed.
Not a Ilan to be Trusted.
Landlady—Does the steak suit you ,
Boarder Perfectly, madam. a
Landlady—How is the coffee?
Boarder—Delicious
Landlady-aHow about the Muffins?
Boarder—They could not be bettor.
Landlady—Your references were unex-
ceptionable, Mr. (e ats, and you appear like
a gentleman ; but I alkali have to ask you to
find a new place to board. Such replies are
highly suspicious.
The Worst Yet.
" How strikingly this reminds ma
of the words of the poet," remarked Simple,
after complying With a third request to pass -
the butter.
" What words Mr. Simple ?" inquired tbe
hostess.
"Life's butter -passing dream, "was the.
reply.
Master (to servant whose feet are badly-
swollen)--" Have you ever been treated for•
those corns, Mike ?'
Mike -" Niver, sor, but Oi wouldn't mind
to.kin' a drink wid yer honor."
It is a great thing to love Christ so dearly -
as to be ready to be bound to die" for Hime
but it is often a thing not less great to be
ready to take up our daily cross and to lig
for Him.--Vohn Caird.