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HomeMy WebLinkAboutStore News, 1896-4-16, Page 5TIE 'WINTER BLASTS. REV. DR. TALMAGE SHOWS HOW TO WARM THE WORLD. A Claque 'rest aud gowerrcie seribon- 'nie sweet, of the asad-erarnicii or tee elitiveu oraoe-gree World's Fireplace. Waiaingeon, March 22. -The freezing gaunt viseges. Christ gave the world Lore preVacte tht 711 ro' tlAhlelemmulbtec blasts hat home swept over the country !" at tht tine we expected sprink we&.4 tude in the wilderness! He gave them thee made thie sermon especially ate- a, good dinner. When I was a lad 1 rememleir see- ptopriate. Dr. 'ealmage's text was Psalm celvii, 17: "Who can stand be- fore his csiet I" The almanac seye that winter is end- . ed mil spring has came, but the winds, snow irnepresneinstredantr a car:14(11ln othnt ant the frosts, aud the theenaoraeters at. the door of a, great mansion, g and in sonw pelves down to zero, deny it. he was all wrapped in furs, and bis The psalmist lived, in a more genial cla cheeks were ruddy, and, with, a glow- 01117th:hicltelc.'"id:pa"gicti mate than this, and yet he must some- sinntOwsl It sn CIVICS have been eut by the sharp wea- there was a miserable tenarnent, and ther. Ibis chapter he speaks of the the door was open, and a child, wan epee: itke wool, the frost like ashes, rd lictinegiedourtegf.nea lal,ondssidt.vretclig, hailstones like cparbles and. de- my God, it snows." The winter of :reeled the congealment of lowest tem- , geadness or of grief, according to our carcurastances. But my feiends . there porature. We heve studied the power is more than one way of warming u id the heat. !low few of us have this cold world, for it is a cold vvorlg studied the. power of the frost? "Who in more respects than one, .and I am Tea here to consult with Teti as to the can stand before his cold'?" best way of warming up the world. I challenge of the text has many times want to bave a great heater introduc- been accepted. ed into all your churches end all your Oct. 19, 1812, Napoleon's great army homes throughout the world. It is a heater (if divine patent. It has niany began it' retreat from aloscow. Oneipea hundred and fifty thousand men, 50,- Wtatildoor in twohLOLidlettilrowt, ttlaade 000 horses, 600 piece e of cannon, 10,- fuel, Once get tbis heater introdueed, 000 stragglers. It was bright weather and it will turn the arctic zone into ton. Hundreds of garments, hundreds of tons of coal. hundreds of glaziers at broken window sashes, hundreds whole-souled men and women are necessary to Warm tbe wintry wea- ther. What are we doing to alleviate the condition of those net so fortunate as we? Know ye not, my friends, there are hundreds of thousands of people who cannot stand , before this Gold? It is useless to preach to bare feet, and to empty ;stomachs and to ing two rough woodouts, but they made more impression upon me than any picture I have ever seen. They were on opposite pages. The one wood- the when they etarted from Moscow, but the tropts. rathsIndtiltebepotweerPfultea.uto t e soon something wrathier than the it is the glorious furnace of Christian Cossaeks swooped upon their flanks. eYeapatlay. The question ought to be, instead Of how much heat can we ebsorb. How much heat can we throw out? There are men who go through the world floatixig icebergs. They ereeze everything with their forbid- ding look. The hand with which they sbake yours is as cold as the paw troops at nightfall would gather Into of eyelet bear. If they float into a eireles and huddle themselves together religious meeting, the temperature drops from 80 above to 10 degrees be- lay zero. There are icicles banging from their eyebrows. They float uno a rat, ious meeting, and they chili Au army of tactics blasts with icielee for bayonets and hailstones for shot, and eommanded by voice of tempest, marched after them, the dying artil- lery of the heavens in pursuit. The for warmth, but when the day broke they rase not, for they were dead, and the ravens came for their morning ev meal of corpses. The way was strewn eryt ung with their jeremiads. Cold with the rich stuffs of the eaprep./ s, cold songs, cold greetings,st, brought , tele et, mons. Christianity on ice. as booty from the Russian capital. An The thuroh a great refrigerator. Chris - invisible power seized 100,000 men and! tans gime into winter quarters. Hi.- - hurled hand, there hurled them dead into the snowdrifts bernationl On the o and on the hard surfaces of the chill abrke people who go through the world e the breath of a spring morning. rivers and into the maws of the dogs Warm greetings, warm prayers, warna that bad followed them from Moscow. !smiles, warm Christian influence. There are such persons. We bless God. The freezing horror which bas appal- for them. We rejoice in their aera- ted history was proof to all ages that panionship it is a rain thing for any earthly I A e' general in the English army, the power to accept the challenge of my text, "Who could stand before his -a airmy having halted for the night, hay - cold ?" In the middle of December. 'aril% lost his baggage, lay down tired sick without any blanket. An 1777, at Valley Forge, 11,000 troops 'officer came up and said: "Why, you were, with frosted ears and frosted have no blanket, I'll go and get you hands and frosted feet, without shoes, a blanket." He departed for a few without blankets, lying on the white pillow of the snowbank. moments and then came back and cov- M during our civil war the cry t wt.., ered the general up with a very warm ' ' "On --ter' Richmond!'" when the troops ;blanket. The general said: Whose !blanket is this'?" The officer replied Revolutionary war there was a de- " , were not ready to march so in t e I got that from a private soldier in mend for wintry caxapaign until 1- the Scotch regiment, Ralph McDonald." a• Washington lost his equilibrium and 'ow." said the general, "you take this blanket right back to that soldier. He wrote eraphatically, "I assure those can no more do without it than I can gentlemen it is easy enough seated g by a good fireside and in comfortable do without it. Never brinto me the blanket of a private soldier." How homes to dra.w out campaigns for the A mefican army, but I tell them It is many men like that general would it not so easy to lie on a bleak hillside, take to warm the world up? The without blankets and without shoes." vast majority of us ate anxious to get Ob, tbe frigid_ horrors that gathered more blankets, whether anybody else is around the American army in the blanketless or not. Look at the fellow winter of 17771 Valley Forge was one feeling displayed in the rocky defile be- ef the tragedies of the century. Be- tween Jerusalem and Jericho in Scrip - numbed, senseless, dead! wive, on ture times. Here is a, man who has stand before his cold I" "Not we," been set upon by the bandits, and in say the frozen lips of Sir John Frank- the struggle to keep his property he lin and his men, dying in arctic ex- has got wounded and mauled and stab- ploration, "Not we," answered seta bed and be lies there helf dead. A watka and his crew, falling back Priest rides along. He eees him and. from the fortress of ice which they says: "'Why, what's the matter with had tried in vale to capture. "Not that man? Why he must be hurt, ly- we," says the adbancloned and crushed ing on the flat of his bac*. Isn't it decks of the Intrepid, the Resistance strange that he should lie there? But and the Jeannette. "Not we,"say the I can't stop. I am on my way to temple rocession of American martyrs re - services. Go along, you .beast. Carry turned home for American sepulture, De Long and his erten. The highest pillars of the earth are pillars of ice - Mont Blanc, jungfrau, the Matter- horn. The largest galleries of the world are galleries of ice. Some of the mighty rivers much of the year are in captivity of ice. The greatest sculptors of the ages are the glaciers, with arm and hand and chisel and hammer of ice. The cold. is imperial and has a crown of glittering crystal, and is seated on a throne of ice, with foot stool of ice and scepter of ice. Who can tell the sufferings of the me up to my temple Antics." After awhile a Levite comes up. He looks over and says: "Why that man must be very much hurt. Gashed on the forehead. What a pity I Tut, tutl What a. pity! Why, they have taken his clothes nearly all away from him. But I haven't time to stop. I lead the choir up in the temple service. Go along you beast. Carry me up to my tensple duties." Arter awhile a Samaritan comes along -one who you might suppose through a national grudge might have rejected the oor, wounded Israelite. .THB EXETER TIDIES parts. Before it has to be divided into two parts. Now she says to Elijah. "Come in and sit down at this solemn table, and take a third, of the last mor- sel." flow many women like that w.ould it take to WO,TIO the cold world up t 1 Recently an engineer in the south- west, on a locomotive, saw a train coming vrith which be must collide. He resolved to stand, at his post and slow up the train until the last minute, for there .were passengers behind. The engineer said to the fireman: " annap I One man is enougb on this engine! Jump 1" The fireman jumped and was saved. The crash came. The engineer died at his post. How many inen like 'that engineer would it take to warm this cold world up? A vessel stuck on a rock island. The passengers and the crew were without food, and. a sailor had a shellfish under his coat, He was saving it. for his last naorsel. He heard a litlle child cry to her mother: "Oh, mother. I am so hungry. Give me something to eat. I am so hungry 1" Tbe sailo r took the shell- fish from under Ws coat and said, "Here, take that." How many men like that sailor would. it take to warm the cold world up 1 Xerxes, fleeing from his enemy, got on board. a boat. A great many Parisians leaped into the same boat, and the boat was sinking. Some one said, "Are you not willing to make a sacrifice for your king 1" And the majority of those who were in the boat leaped overboard and drowned to save their king, How many men like that would it take to warm up this cold world? Elizabeth Fry went into the horrors of Newgate prison, and she turned the imprecation and the ob- scenity and the filth into prayer and repentence and. a reformed life. The sis- ters of cbarity, in 1863. on the northern and southern battlefields, came to boys in blue and gray while they were bleed- ing to death. The black bonnet, with the sides pinned back and the white bandage ori the brow, may not have an- swered. all the demands of elegant taste, but you could not persuade that sol- dier dying a thousand miles from home that it was anything bat an angel that looked him in the face. Ob, with cheery look, with iielpful word, with kind action ,try to make the world warra I waiter of 1493, when all the birds of coming along, he sees this man anti Germany perished, or the winter of says; "Why, that man must be terra ..1658 in England, when the stages rol- bly hurt. I see by his features he is led on the Thames and temporary a "man, and he is a brother." "Wboat" houses of merchandise were built on the ice, or the winter of 1821, in Am- says the Samaritan, and he gets down off the beast and comes up to this erica, when New York barber was wounded man, gets down on one knee, frozen over and. the heaviest teams listens to see whether tbe heart of crossed on the ice to Staten lelanatt the unfortunate man is still beating, Then come down to our own win at 'lakes up his mind there is a chance when tbere have been so ruanya4 ping themselves in furs, or gate' a themselves around fires, or thrash ng their arms about them to revive dam- lation-the millions of the temperate and. the arctic zones who are com- pelled to confess, "None of us can stand before his cold." One-half of the 'industries of our day are employed in battling incle- meney of the weather. The furs of the •north, the cotton of the southehe fistaeof our own fields,the wool of our own llocks, the coal from our own mines, the wood from our own forests, all employed in battling these incle- mencies, and still every winter, with blge lips and chattering teeth, an- swers, "None of us can stand before his cold." Now, this being such a cold world, God sends out influences to warm it. I am glad that the God of the frost is the God of the heat;that the God of the sinew is the God of the white blossoms; that the God of Janu- ary, is the God of June. The question; as to how shall we warm this world up is a question of immediate and all encompassing practicality. In this zone and weathers there are so many fireless hearts,*so many broken window panes, so many defective roofs that sift the snow. Coal and wooci and flan- nels and thick coat are better for Warming up stich a place than tracts and Bibles and creeds. Kindle that fire whereit has gone oat; wrap some- thing around those shivering limbs; shoe those bare feet, bat that bare head coat that bare back; sleeve that bare arm. Nearly all the pictures of Martha Washington represent her in courtly dress as bowed to by foreign embassa- dors, but Mrs. Kirkland, in her in- teresting boot kivesa more inspiring portrait of Martha Washington. She comes forth from her husband's hut in the ereampment, the hut 16 feet long by 14 feet wide -she comes forth from that hut to nurse the sick, to sew the patched garments, to console tile soldiers thing of the cold, 'That is a, better pleitise of Martha Washing - for resuscitatioa goes to work at him, takes out of his sack a bottle of oil and a bottle of wine, cleanses the wound with some wine,then pours some of the restorative into the wounded man's lips, and takes some oil, and with it soothes the wound. After awhile he takes off a part of his garments for a bandage. Now the sick and wounded man sits up, pale and exhausted, but very thankful. Now the good Samarit- an says: "You mu,st get on my saddle, and I will walk." The Samaritan helps and tenderly saddles this wounded man until he gets 'him on toward the tav- ern, the wounded man bolding on with the little strength he has left, ever and anon looking down at the good Samarit- an and saying: "You are very kind. I had no right to expect this thing of a Samaritan when I am an Israelite. You are very kindle walk and let me rale." Now they have come up to the tavern. The Samaritan, with the help of the landlord, assists the sick and wounded man to dismount and puts hira to bed. The Bible says the Samaritan staid all night. In the morning, I sup- pose, the Samaritan went in to look how his patient was and ask Inn how he passed the night. Then he comes out, the Samaritan comes out, and says to the landlord: "Here is money to pay thet man's board, and, if his convales- cence is not as rapid as 1 hope for, charge the whole thing to me. Good morning., all." He gets on the beast and .says, "Go along you beast, but go slow- lv, for those bandits sweeping through the land may have somebody else wound- ed. ancl half dead." Sympathy t Chris- tian sympathyl Hew many such men as that would it take to warm the cold world up. There is a widow with a son and no food except a handful of meal. She is gathering sticks to kindle a fire to cook the handful of meal. Then she is going to wrap her arms around her boy and die. Here comes Elijah. His two, black servants, the ravens, have got tired waitingon him. He asks that wedeln for food. Now that hand- ful of meal is to be divided into three meet the appetites starpened by the cold ride. Oh, ray friends, the ,churela of Jesus Christ is tile world's eireplaca and the woods are from the cedars of Le- banon, and the fires are fires of love, and with the silver tongs of the altar we stir the flame and the light is re - fleeted from all the family Pawns on the wall -pictures of those who were here and are gone now. Ob, come up close to the fireplace. Have your worn faces transfigured in the liglat Put your cold feet, weary of the journey, close up to the blessed conflagration. Chilled through with trouble and dis- appointment, come close up until you can get warm clear through. Ex- change experience, talk over the bar - vests gathered, tell all the gospel news. Meanwhile the table is bemg spread, On it bread of life. On it grapes ef Eshcol. On it new wine from the king- dora. On it a thousand luxuries oleic - tial. Hark, as a wounded hand raps on the table and a tender voice CODIeS through saying: "Come, for all things are now ready. Eat, oh, friends 1 Drink, yea, drink abundantly, oh, be- loved!" My friends, that is the way the cold world is going to be warmed up by the great gospel fireplace. All nations will comi e n and sit down at that banquet. While I was musing tbe fire burned. "Come in out of the cold: Come in out of the cold!" Count that day lost where' low descend- ing aun, Views from thy hand. no generous Ela- tion done. It was strong sympathy that brought Cbrist from a. warm heaven to a cold world.The land where he dwelt bad a serene sky, balsamio atmospbere, trop- ical luxuriance; no storm blasts in heav- en ; no chill fountains. On a cold De- cember night Christ stepped out of a warm heaven into the world's frigi- dity, The thermometer in Palestine never .drops below zero, but December is a cheerless month, and the pastur- age is very poor on the hilltops. Christ stepped out of a warm heaven into the cold world that cold December night. The world's reception was cold. The surf of bestormed Galilee was cold. Joseph's sepulcher was cold. Christ came, the great warmer, to warm the earth and all Christendom to -day feels the glow. He will keep on warming the earth until the tropic will drive away the arctic and the ant- arctic. He gave an intimation of what He was going to do when He broke up the funeral at the wile of. Nam and. turned it into a reunion festival, and when, with His warm lips, ele melted the Galilean hurricane and stood on the deck and stamped. His foot. crying, "Silence I" and. the. waves crouched, and the tempests folded their wings. Ah. I am so glad that Sun of Right- eousness dawned on the polar night of the nations! And if Christ is the great warmer, then the church is the great hothouse, with its plants and trees and. fruits of righteousness. Do you know, my friends, that the ohurch is the institution that proposes tvarmth1 I have been for 27 years warmer. Warmer architecture, warm- er hymnology, warmer Christian salu- tation. All outside Siberian winter we must have it a prince's hothouse. The only institution on easth to -day that proposes to make the world warmer. Universities and observatories, they all have their 'work. They propose to make the world light, but they de not propose to make the world warna. Geo- logy informs us, but it is as cold. as the rock it hammers. The telescope shows where the other worlds are, but an astronomer is chilled while looleing through it. Christiaaity tells us of strange combinations and how inferior affinity may be overcome by superior affinity, but it cannot tell. how all things work together for good. World- ly philosophy has a great splendor, but it is the splendor of moonlight on an iceburg. The chureb of God. proposes warmth andhope-warmth for the ex- pectations, warmth for the sympa- tbies. Oh, 1 ani so glad that these great altar fires have been kindled. Come in out of the cold. Come in and have your wounds salved. Come and have your sins pardoned. Come in by the great gospel fireplace. Oh, it was this Christ aim warmed the chilled disciples whee they had no food by giving them plenty to eat and who in the tomb of Lazarus shattered the shackles until the broken links of the chain of death rattled into the darkest crypt of the mausoleum. In His genial presence the girl who had fallen into the fire and the water is healed of the catalepsy, and the wither- ed arm takes muscular, healthy action, and the ear that could not hear an avalanche catches a leaf's rustle, and the ton.eue that could not articulate trills a quatrain, and the blind eye was reillumed, and Christ ,instead of staying three days and three nights in the sepulcher, as was suppose& as soon as the worldly curtain of. observation was dropped began the exploration of all the underground passages of earth and sea whereves a Christian's grave may after awhile be, and started a light of Christian hope, resurrection hope, which shall not go out until the• last cerement is taken off and the last mausoleum breaks open. Notwithstanding all the modern in- ventions for heating I tell you there is nothing so full of geniality and so- ciability as the old-fashioned country fireplace. - The, neighbors were to ecene in for a winter evening of sociability. In the middle of the a Lernoon, in tbe best room in the house, some one brou ht in a great backlog, with great strain, and put it down on the back of the hearth. Then the lighter wood was put on, armful after arm- ful. Then a shovel of coals was taken from another room and put under the dry pile, and the, kindling began, and the cracking, and it rose until it be- came a roaring, flame, which filled all the room with geniality and was re- flected from the family piatures on .the wall. Then the neighbors ()erne in two by two. They • sat down, their faces' to the fire which ever and anon was • stirren. with tongs and readjusted ma the rustic repartee and story telling and. mirth as the black stove and blind register never dreamed of. Mean- while the table was being spread, and so fair was the cloth and. so clean was the cutlery, they glisten and glisten in our mind. to -day. And then the best luxury of orchard. and farmyard was roasted and prepared or the table to HERE AND THERE A GEM, See the issue of your sloth; of sloth comes pleasure, c4 pleasure comes riot, of riot comes disease, of disease comes spending, of spending comes want, of want comes theft, and, of theft comes banging. Chapmaa, Jonson and Mars- ton. • Goodness I call the babit, and good- ness of nature the inclination. This, of all the virtues and dignities of the mind is the greatest, being of the ebaracter of the _Deity; and without it mau is a busy, misobievous, wretched thing -- Bacon, Infinite toil will not enable you to sweep away a mist; but by ascending a little you neyoften look over it al- ti al- together. So it s with our moral im- pmvement t we wrestle fiercely with a vicious habit, which could have no hold upon u.s if we ascended into a higher moral atmosphere. -Helps. Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to tbe Government, nor of dungeons to ourselves.' Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it-Abra- bam Lincoln, 1860. He experienced that nervous agita- tion to which brave men as well as cowards are subject; with this differ- ence, that the one sinks under it, like the vine uuder a hail -storm, and the other collects his energies to shake it off, as the cedar of Lebanon is said to elevate its boughs to disperse the snow which accumulates upon thera.-Sir Walter Scott. Those who have lost an infant are never, a.s it were, without an infant child. Their other children grow ap to manhood and womanhood, and suffer all the changes of mortality; but this one 1. alone is rendered an immortal child; for death has errested it with his kind- ly harshness and blessed it into an eter- nal image of youth and innocence. - Leigh Runt. A young maiden's beart is a rich soil, wherein he many germs hidden by the cunning hand. of nature, there to put forth blossoms in their fittest season; and though the love of home first breaks the soil, with its embracing ten- drils clasping it, other affeetions,strong and warm, will grew, while that one fades. as summer's flush of bloom suc- ceed the gentle budding of the spring. -Fanny •Kemble Butler. Let honey be as the breath of thy soul, and never forget to have a penny when all thy expenses are enumerated. and paid; and then shall thou reach the point of happinees,and independence shall be they shield and buckler, thy helmet and crown; then shall thy soul walk upright, nor stoop to tbe silk- en wreteh because he bath riches, nor pocket an abase because the band which offers it wears a ring set with ilia- monds.-Frankl i n . IN A MEXICAN CEMETERY, A correspondent describes the queer cemetery of the Mexican City of Gua- najuato. There is hardly room in Gua- najuato for the living, so it behooves her people to exercise rigid economy in the disposition of her dead. 'The burial place is on the top of a steep hill, which overlooks the city, and con- sists of area inclosed, by what appears from the outside to be a high wall, but which discovers itself from within to be a receptacle for bodies, which are placed in tiers, much as the confines of • their native valleys compel them le live. Each apartment in the wall is large enough to admit one coffin, and is rented for el per month. The poor peo- ple are buried in the Found without the formality of a coffin, though cans is usually rented in which the body is conveyed to the grave. As there are not graves enough to go round, when- ever a new one is needed a previous tenant must be disturbed, and this like- wise happens when a tenant's rent is not promptly paid in advance. 'The body is then removed. from its place in the mausoleum, or 'exhumed, as the case may be, and the bones are thrown into ehe basement below. 0 VETERANS OF BRITISH PEERAGE. -Thirty-one English peers will, unless the grim destroyer interferes, be able to vote at the next session of the House of Lords, who have all passed the 8011) year *cif their lives. Of these the Earl of Mansfield is the oldest, being 90, and the Bishop of Liverpool the youngest, ,having recently celebrated his octogen- arian 'birthday. The only one of these venerable noblemen reported to be ail- ing is the Duke of Northumberland, a mere boy of 86. His heir is .Earl Percy. , The latter's eldest son, Lord. Wark- iworth, who was born in 1871, was elect- ed to Parliament a few weeks age. One !peeress -and in her own right -is also I over 80, the Baroness Burdett -Coutts, now in her 83rd' year. -Another peer who is 82 is Lord Mashaae the million- aire silk and velvet manufacturer; and an inveterate believer la early rising. To that habit he ascribes the accumu- lation of bis great fortune, as his vari- ous inventions were all elaborated in the early bears of the morning. , AN OASIS IN THE DESERT, First Tramp -This is an anniversary wid me, pardner. Second Tramp -Anniversary of what? First Tramp-Dis day t'ree year agd Wuz de last occasion on which I smelt- ed a hull cigar. egree.. THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. NTERNATIONAL LESSON, APRIL. 5, "Tbe aesurrection or Cuiest.e Loam 24. 1-12. agiden Feet. exam 14.6. GENERAL STATEM.ENT. We study this lesson to -ay because this itt Easter Sunday, wad Easter, with the rest of Holy Week, is the one an- niversary of the Church -the one date -which we certainly know to be cor- rect. The Easters of Christendom have been celebrated for thirty-three cen- turies in a succession as unbroken as that of Dominion Day through twenty- six years, only that Easter day is ed by the lunar and not by the solar year, as astronomers would say; that is to say, it is dated by the full moans of the year, after the Hebrew method, rather than by the year's longest and. shortest da,ye, aceording to ancient and modern European fashion. Our Lord was crucified in that famous memor- ial week, the passover, whicb has been religiously kept by the Jews from an age long before men had learned to calculate time by the sun. It is this "lunar" method of calculation which makes Easter Sunday come in some years so much iterlier than in. others. Dr. Spence calls attention to five pot- able facts connected with the resurrec- tion: I. The holy women are the prin- cipal actors in all the circumstances connected witb time tomb, but their as- sertions were not believed by the dis- ciples. 2. When Paul (1 Cor. 15) sums up the great appearances of our Lard ite tee basis of our faith he makes no reference to his appearance to Mary Magdalene or to the other women. 3. No evangelist describes the resurrec- tion, for no earthly being was pres- ent, tbough Matthew announces some facts that accompanied the ressurec- tion. 4. be risen Lord appeared only to his own. 5. But he showed himself not only to solitary individuals. but to companies (once to over five laundred arethren), at different hours of the day, different localities, Confining our- selves now to our lesson, the order of the facts alluded to was probably as follows: Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James watched, with broken hearts, the burial of our Lord's body m Joseph's tomb, late in the afternoon of the day of the crucifixion; this burial must have been hurried, for at night- fall the Sabbath began. They stayed at home during the twenty-four hours of the Sabbath - which, beginning with what we call Friday evening, ended on Saturday evening. On that evening all the shops were opened and business re- sumed. These two sad women went to some shop and bought spices for the "embalment." But we are not to think of any such process of embaimimag as was pursued either by the ancient Egi ptians in the reeking of mummies or by the modern "undertaker" when he seeks to prevent decay for a few weeks or months. The dews applied to the body powders and oils of sweet and strong perfume, and sought, as we do with flowers, to hide with tokens of beauty the repulsiveness of physical death. After this purchase came the hours of night; then, at earliest dawn -say about four in the morning -they set out to make their way to the sepul- cher, which they reached when the sun had risen (Mark 16. 2). It was what in our phraseology would be called ethe dawn of Sunday. One item more. It IS always wise when studying this sub- ject to keep in mind the ten or eleven appearances our Lord after his resur- rection. So, the risk of being charge- able with repetition, we insert the list here: 1. 'To Mary Magdalehe (John 20. 11-17; lifa,rk 16. II). 2. To the wo- men returning from the sepulcher (Matt. 28. 9, 10). 3. To Peter (Luke 24. 34; 1 Cor. 15. 5). 4. To the disciples on, the, way to Emmaus (Luke 24. 13- 25; referred to in Mark 16. 12, 13). 5. To ten disciples and others (Luke 24. 34-49; John 20. 19-23; Mark 16. 14). (These first five appearances were all on the. day he arosec from the dead.) 6. To the eleven aremetles; the incred- ulity of Thomas removed (John 20. 26- 29). 7. To apostles, five of whom are named, near the Lake of Galilee (John 21. 1-24). 8. To eleven apostles on a mountain in Galilee, generally regard- ed as being identical with the appear- ance to five hunched brethren men- tioned in 1 Car. 15. 6 (Matt. 28. 16-20; Mark 16. 14-18). 9. To James, the Lord's brother (1 Cor. 15. 7). 10. Immediately before the ascension (Lake 24. 50, 51; Mark 16. 19, 20; Acts 1. 6-9). PRACTICAL NOTES. Verse 1. Upon the first day of the week. Which was the day after the Jewish Sabbath, and was the same as our Sunday, only that it was apsecular day. It began, like all Jewish days, not at midnight, as with us, but at sun- down on what we would call the pre- vious day, and lasted from evening to evening. (See "General Statement.") Very early in the morning. Literally, at deep dawn. Let us conjecture that it was about four o'clock. They came. The women mentioned in Luke 23. 55 and 24. 10. The sepulcher. The rook - hewn tomb of joteph of Aximathea. Tbe company consisted of at least five. The spices which tbey had prepared. The bodies of the Hebrews were notc embalmed like those bf the Egyptians, but aromatic powders and fluid perfum- es appear to have been used in laying out bodies of tbe dead for. burial. Evi- dently these women did not suppose that the Lord. would rise. 2. The stone. A door made circular like a millstone, and rolled in a groove in front of the doorway. This was, if it is fair to take the measurements of one or two such tombs familiar to mod- ern oriental travelers, about three or four feet in height, and from two to three feet in breadth. Rolled away. 13y whom? By an angel. For the eake of whom? For the sake of the discipl- es whose duty it was to be to inspect the empty tonale. not for the sake of the Lord, who is represented as ris- ing in spite of "the stone, the watch, the seal." The sepulcher. The site of our Lord's burial, like the site of his crucifixion, is not certainly known, but we know that the tomb was in a gar- den close 1.0 Calvary, and that it was hewn out of the rook.. . 3. Entered in. Such sepulchers were divided into apartments. We may fan- cy the women ni the outer apartment; the angels, who vvill presently speak to them, m the inner. The Lord. Jesus. This le the first time in the New Testa- ment that our Saviomeis thus termed. 4. Much perplexed. "Utterly at a loss." Two men. Angels ordinarily ap- peared as young men in white clothing, and they are- described jest as the wo- men saw them. In shining garments. Literally, flashing as with lightning, Matthew and Moak imaention only one angel, but that is not by any means a contradiction of this report. 5. They were afraid. Alarmed at the los of the body of their Master; alarm- ed, also, by messengers frora the unseen world.. Bowed down their faces to the earth. They made 'a profoundly hum- ble salutation, as being in the presence of superiors. Why seek ye the living among the dead1 Why seek ye Eter- nal Life aiming graveoloths and. iu ,a sepulcher ? Neither in the grave nor in the dying institutions of Jewry was Christ henceforth to be found. The so- called disorepaneies between the ac- t/omits of the gospels are beautifully Said by Dr. Lange to unite in the first of Easter harmonies, but these har- monies are not formed into a choral mu unison, but into a fouxaoiced and very agitated, but inexpressibly beautiful, fugue. (1) Men bave a nobler destiny than the dark sepulcher. 6. He is not here. According tti Matt, 28. 6 they showed the empty niche in the sepulcher where our Lord's body had lam. Remember how be spake un- to you. (See Matt. 17. 23; Luke 18 33; John 11.25.) They had not, however, for- gotten what be said so much as failed to understand it. Until we spiritually grow up to God's words they are ne- lected. When he was yet bere he had spent so much of his pub- lic career. These women were all Gala leans. 7. So many of our Lord's teachings were in parables and in symbolic lan- guage that it is not strange that even such words as those of this verse were not understood in their literal meaning. Sinful men proba,bly stands here for Gentiles, who by the Jews were pro- verbially called sinners. (See Gal. 2. 15,) 8. Rernenabered hes words. Reealled them and read a new meaning into them. (2) Events are after God's inter - 9. Returned from the sepulcher. To! pre leas. the city, probably by a walk of fifteen or twenty minutes across a little val. ley and through the city gate. Unto the eleven, and to all tbe xest. From the narrative in John it is probable that the Magdalene ran at once to John and Peter to tell them ibat the stone had been rolled away, and that she had not, therefore, seen the angels that first appeared. The eleven" very natural- ly 'meld together now. In the death of their Saviour the world bad lost all joy and value for them. Their associa- tion with the Galilean Prophet bad cut off many of tapir earlier friends, and now there was =thing left but to cling to each other. 10, Mary Magda -lope. We know very little about this woman beyond the fact that (14 Her surname indicates that she was a resident of the town of Magdala; (2) that out of her Jesus had. cast seven demons; (3) that she became one of the most devoted followers of our Lord. The traditional belief that she was that "woman who was a sinner," who gave peculiarly pathetic evidence of her love for her easter, has been popular 'in all ages; although there is little to sub- stantiate it. An argument might be made from the fact that in tbe ancient oriental world wonaen of good character were not independent householders; but most scholars reject the tradition. Ja- anlia is in another place (Luke 8. 3) identified as the wife of elerods' stew- ard. Mary was the mother of James the Less. and is supposed to have been sisterf the motherf T 11. Idle tales. Nonsense. They believ- ed them not. It is pleasant to recall this; if these remarkable stories had been straightivy believed, we might well doubt them. 12. Then arose Peter, "Than "should be " but." John was with him (see John 20. 3-10), but Peter as usual is the lead- ing actor. He was ready to believe. Ran. This shows the intensity of the moment. John outran him. Stooping. down. To look through the open door- way. Afterward he entered m (John 20.6). The linen clothes. In elaiall our Lord had been wrapped, as we incase our dead in a coffin. They were not garima.ente, but iinen bandages. Wond m er- ing himself. Astounded. AFRICA'S WHITE NATIVES. miller neasont roe neneving There Is totek a People. There have always been *vague tradi- tions of a white raw locked up in the. interior, but when the tales have eome to be tested the white race generally turns out to be merely a tribe of lighter colored Arabs. keeping all the charac- teristics of 'the race and having none of the white mans'. But in this race we have something much more correct and. precise. Capt. Lars -more, at present A.D.C. to Sir Frances Seatt, was sent up to Kor- anza on a mission, and stayed a consid- erable time in the capital. He took ad- vantage of the opportunity to inquire about this comparatively unknown race and its neighbors, and was surprised to find that there was an aempted tra- dition that there lived, an indefinite number of days' marches to the north- east, a tribe of white men. Further in- quiry elicited tbe statemeht that they lived on the skirts of a desert, which was difficult and dangerous to cross. Attempts had been made to avoid this desert by passing through their coun- try, but they were found to be so fierce and so absolutelly devoid of fear that the caravans preferred. the dangers of the desert to the hostility of the white tribe. Such circumstantial statements in- duced Captain Larymore to make strict- er inquiries, and at length he found a Mohammedan priest and Hadji, a mau of great integrity and considerable in- fluence. He had been to Mecca, and it was on his way there and back that he actually saw with his own eyes one of this white tribe. The man in question was armed 'Only with a bow and arrow, but such is the reputation of fierceness possessed by the race that the caraven did not re- main long in the vicinity, but left the place as quickly as possible. Al Hada saw him distinctly.. Capt. Larymore, who, by the way i is a typeof the fair Saxon, interrupted the priest in his story, and said that the man must have been simply a light-colored Arab. "No," said Al Uadjm, "1 saw him close at band and he had light hair and blue eyes, exactly as you have." This state- ment, and the confirmation it had re- ceived by many rumors and tales, was one of extreme importance, considering the strict integrity of the man who made it. Consequently, Cape Lary - more took down his testimony m writ- ing. The existence of such a .race is firmly believed, in by most of the gold coast travellers, and, among others, by Sir Fronds Scott. Unfoetu.nately, owing to the fact that the reekoning of the progress of the caravan is done in the. most careless way, the spot cannot be located. Al Hadji says it is many days from Kor- amaze which might mean 100 or 1,000 miles. Malice and hatred are very fretting, and apt to make our minds sore and un- ea,sye-Tillotson. PUT ELEPHANTS IN TERROR EXPERIMENT VVITR A RAT AT THE BARNUM HEADQUARTERS, Selettlitte Men lIttItes$ the Prittlet era nerd or Forty-ttve Inephaats at a Magic Rue -Double iiccestary-Prof. 0. Marsh's Acrobatic Perrormelice. 14 bas long been a question among scientific men whether the oommon belief that elephants are in- terror of rats and Mice, 13 wcathy of acceptance. It was conclusively proved the other day at Barnum ife Bailey's clams hes& quarters in. Bridgeport, Conn., 'that it Under the mentorship of Tody Harailton, one of the keepers, a.party of scientifie and. newspaper men saw for tbemselves the terrorizing effect upon forty-five elephants of the presence of a single rat, Tody Hamilton bad sever- al rata originally, having secured theist for the experiment, but all succumbed to the rigors of the weather and the exposure of travelling. One rat was enough, as the experiment proved, and that one was a rat caught in the morn- ing. The chief eaterest centred. in the ele- phant and rat experiment. Tbirty-five elephants, of whom half a dozen were httle fellows, were gathered in the large enclosure, double chained by or- der of ace. J. A. Bailey, who personal- ly conducted the visitors afterthey reached the headquarters. In spite of his reputation as a heatable and re-, liable animal, tbe elephant is more feared by circus men tiaan any other member of the menagerie. He is liable to sudden fits of RAGE OR PA.Nro, and on these occasions is about as man- ageable as a runaway locomotive and has equal powers of destruction. The visitors didn't know this, but a number of experienced circus men there understood it well, and stood lined ap near the door ready to eonteol a hasty exit of all the visitors in ease any of the giants broke away. The rat, on ac- count of which all these precautions were taken, was a particularly insigni- ficant specimen, and looked unhappy by reason of a long string tied to its tail. One of the emus men tossed it out among the elephants and the per- forraance began. First to catob sight, or perhaps it was scent, of it was one of the small elephants. He threw his trunk in the air, trumpeting shrill and loud. Tbis was the alarm. Instantly a swaying motion went through the elephant ranks. Some screamed, others plung- ed, and others doubled their feet down under them probably to keep the rat out of the crevices in them. Hindu =Or holds say that the elephant fear of the rat is a. dread that the rodent will crawl into his feet. Plainly tbe fear was there. It was not eonfined to tbe elephants either. The rat was just *as scared as they. Its shrill squeaks as 11 dodged about among the ponderous feet made the big fellows more fright- ened. Finally all the elephants began piling - hag. and at that Prof. Marsh perform- ed a feat that would doubtless have edi- fied Ws classes had they been there to see. A pile of big bales of bay stood near bine. AN AGILE LEAP carried him to a foothold upon the first tier and he squirmed up the rest of the way with the grace and. ease of a chipmunk ascending a tree. A num- ber of newspaper men went after bim. Prof. Marsh perched himself near the edge and looked clown at the elephants. "Self-preservation is the first law of nature," he remarked. "I can obser- ve in a raore scientific frame of mind from hero." Presently the rat having foundacor- nen stayed quiet until it was bauled back by the string. The attendant tossed it upon the back of Bed Maffei a particularly bad-tempered elephant., Hattie did everything but turn somer- saults in her effort to dislodge her rider, but the rat clung, while she bucked, flapped her skin, shook, plung- ed, and rubbed against the wall, shriek- ing with fear all the time. Finally one of the other elephants came to her res- cue and swept the rodent off with his trunk. Then there were more lively times, but filially a big fellow backed down upon the enemy and put a foot upon it., destroying- it. A. guinea pig was then tried upon. Hattie, but she didn't mind them at all. In this she differed from most of the others who made a great row until the little white fellow was crushed by at foot. It was not judged safe to try anyfurther experiments owing to the excited condition of. the animals. AN OPTICAL DELUSION. Hem is a singular illustration of the optical delusion which a change of posi- tion will sometimes effect. Take a row of ordinary capital letters and figures: 8SSSSSXXXXXX333333088838. They are such as are made up of two parts of equal shaees, Look carefully at these, and you will perceive that the upper halves of the characters are very little smaller than the lower balves-, so little that an ordinary eye declares them to be of equal size. Now turn the paper upside down, and, without any careful looking„ you will see that this difference in size is very much exagger- ated; that the real top half of the let- ter Is very much smaller than the bot- tom half. ..• THE FIRST FLAGS. At what time the form df standard which we call a flag was first used is hot known. As a military ensign it was probably developed out of the fix- ed standard of the Romans and other ancient nations, through the transit- ional forms of the voxillum and la,bar- um, in both of which a square piece of cloth was fastened to a crossbar at the end a a spear. It has beet assert- ed that the Saracens used flying nags prior to their ad.option by any country of Christendom. Another annent says the flag first acquired its present form in the sixth century in Spain. The 13ation"uxof titepesNtorry, mainn CtohnectnerstePorfeseEnntga-- latd, exhibits numerous flags 9,s born< by the knights of William's army. -- A. WOMAN'S BRAVERY. Another Amazon, who recently kept at bay the Spanish troops was the daughter of the insurgent leader, Sae &irreg. She fought to the last as gal- lantly as any of the men, and when her last cartridge was fired she grace- fully, gave up her revolver to the Spaniards, who had surrounded her, remarking, as she pointed to the sold- iers she had killed I", hope you will make as good USe, of it as I have," "