HomeMy WebLinkAboutExeter Times, 1899-11-2, Page 2etre,
T HE EXETE'R TIMES
VOTES AND CONNENTS.
Servia sinee she became en irelepend-
eat state, largely through the efforts
• u. aietion, who has reeently pass-
ed away, has been a constant disap-
poiatment to her friends txrid a source
• annoyaece and danger to the Bal-
kan. Peninsula. The causes are many
—the intrigues and sehemes for the
partition of 'the Gamma eetate, of
whichz nacedonian rising is always
the ohief feature, the endless dynas-
tio • quarrel of the Obernoritell and
Karageorgevitoll families, the scan-
dals attending the eareer of ex -King
Milan, etc, Most potent of calt thein -
fluences retarding progress, however,
have been the political division a the
Bolivians into manic parties, with shift-
ing and meaningless polieies, end their
relations with foreign governments,
and the efforts of the reigning dynasty'
and its supporters to get rid, a all
persons whom they regard as rivals
or opponlentsl. In view of the peaty
divisions, the number of the fatter is,
of coarse, aot small, and the suopieiou
with which they are regarded by the
government, and its • disposition to
make wholesale reprisals whenever op-
portunity occurs, tend to stimulate
polidoal turraoil and to retard mater-
ial progress.
`Such an opportunity has been pre-
se,n,Lea as the result of the atteraPteal
assassination of ex -king Milan in July
last, and the arrest of some fifty -fiver
persons, including ex -ministers, edit-
ors and politiciaas more or less out
o syympathy with the government,
for complicity in the crime. Follow-
ing the preliminary inquiry, conclud-
ed an &pt. I, sixteen of these were
set at liberty, but twenty-nine, most
a them leaders of the Radical party,
were held for trial on the charge of
high treason, mid ten on that of lese
neajeste. IVIany of them were named
by Keezevitch, who tired the shot at
ex -king Milan as Ms accomplices; but
though following the beginning of the.
trial on Sept. 15, he withdrew the
charges, accusing only four who were
of sympathy with the government,
proceeded to try all of them. The ob-
ject as, of coarse, to utilize the op-
portuniity to destroy as far as pos-
sible the Radical party, and to that
end it was intended, it was said, to
melee a clean sweep by the execution
oe all of the accused. But St. Peters-
burg and Vienna, which are specially
interested just now in maintaining
peace; in the Balkans, sent a warning
note: that the danger of revolution in
Servia must not be &injured up by
any excessive severities against men
charged witil complicity in a murder
plot, but who were practically poli-
tical prisoners.
As a warning from such sources was
nee to be disregarded, capital punish-
ment does not figure so largely as in-
tended in the sentences rendered,
though Inaezevitch was condemned to
death, no doubt justly; and M. Pasitch,
one of the most capable of the Radi-
cals, no doubt uniustly. Of the re-
mainder, ten were sentenced to twen-
ty years' imprisonment, one to nine
years' and seven to five years', and.
the rest were acquitted, which does
not imply that any high ideals of jus-
tice prevailed in their cases, but only
that in view of warning the govern-
ment feared to condemn them all. The
Liberal party, will, however, be badly
crippled as a result, while justice has
been as wholly disregarded as it was
at Retries, and the guarantee of safety
for foreign capital, by which Servia.
can alone be made prosperous, dimin-
• ished by a political proscription based
on. a miscreant's crime.
SMOKE IS COMMENDED.
HE
AS KING OF PERSIA.
Rev. Dr, Talmage Speaks of Aha=
sueras' Miserable Life
,
He Had Everything at His Command, But Was a
Most Unhappy 'Man—Thepe; Draws a Lesson
From the Life of This Man to, the,'PeOple of the
• Present Age,
A. despatch from Washington says; and, foot, and he is going to have four
—Rev, Dr, Talmage preached from the thousand two hundred ships. The
following text P On that. night could
aot the king sleep."—Esther vi. 1.
Three persons seated at a table in
a Persian palace. Ahasuertts, grander
in etatune and raore beautiful in fea-
tures than any man in all his army
of two million, three hundred and sev-
enteen thonsand men. Esther, the
belle a the empire, the most attrac-
tive women of all the nation brought
together in a group,• and she select-
ed out of the group poinerainently at-
tractive. Hamaa, who was prime minister, or secretary of State, the Bis-
ma,reir a the realm, stendiag next to
the king. It is a peivate party in the
eateele's' parlor. You may get some
queen of enithridates had a blue band
on hex forehead, showing that she was
queen of the realm; but one day that
band slipped from. her forehead un-
der her chin and strangled her life
aut. And so,,it is with the ambitions
of this world ;,,they loacl a soul not so
much to glory as to death. He had
raging passions, this man Ab.asuerus,
that would not let him sleep—pas-
sions that showed themselves in •a
ridiculous way, so that when he mune
back from that Grecian expedition he
was so mad at the river Hellespont for
breaking up his bridge of boats that
he ordered his servants to whip that
river with three hundred lashes, cone -
gelling his servants to or out while
they were lashing the river: "Thou
bitter water, thy muster puts upon
thee these stripes bemuse tnou hest
treated him so badly, 0, treacherous
idea. of the bill of Rine when, I tell and unsavoury stream." Of 'course
you that the whole empire was tribe an°
11 a man as that could not sleep.
Besides that, his conscience troabled
utary to that table. What rare meat him. It spurned the pillow. No
of bird, and fish, and quadruped! chloral, no extract of peppy, no mor -
What rare fruit of raisin, and fig, and Phine inn put a .man to sleep when
his eonscience rasps him. What had
pomegranate, and apples of gold in , A i„,,....,,,,„, ,
doing? Doing ? Why,
caskets of silver! What rare
. Inielesit—vh—en—V—Wht"ia,ehnis first wife refused to
smacking of the s'uetshine of Arabia come in and display her beauty before
ad Syria I The upholstery looking asanobscene and adulterous crowd of
; princes, he hurled her, weeping and
it it had been. dyed in rising and set- i exiled down the palace stairs, and til-
ting suns. The furniture of room and vorced her for nothing but her vir-
table most eneuliar—eaela chair, and toes. His appetite was his God, and
lounge, and cup, and tankard, end, he flung eontempt in the faee of
heaven. He had turned his palace in -
spoon, of an independent pattern, to a foul seraglio, and debauched the
drawn: out by the artists of the king. empire with his u.ncleanness. He had
I
The floor, looking like a fallen ram_ decreed the massacre of the whole
Jewish nation, saying: "Wherever you
bow. Clouds of curtains hovering amid
find a Jew, kill him." Of course he
could not sleep! Could you have slept
under such circumstances? 0! there
is nothing like an ermined conscienee
to keep a man awake when he wants
to sleep. There was a ruler who one
morning was found with his sword
cutting a nest of swallows to pieces.
Somela'sodo• cams up and said: "Wily
do you cut that ne.st of swallows to
, Pieces?" "Why," he replied, "those
swallows keep saying that I murdered
my father." The fact was, that the
man had committed the crime, and hes
conscience by Divine ventriloquism,
was speaking out a that bird's nest.
gering steps he gets into the sedan, No, Ahasuerus could not sleep. The
Two of Act.rtee—Sniolie With Ile/ter-
tian and Net gee neeepla.
Tobacco certainly seams to satisfy
some physiologic need in certain con-
ditions of the system, for persons who
are unable to smoke at certain times
can do so with pleasure and benefit
at some other period in their lives, as
was the ease with Huxley. Certainly
no habit is so common or so generally
harmless, says a writer in the Phila-
delphia 3eIedical jorunal. Comparative-
ly few use tobacco in such excess as
to suffer bad effects, no doubt fewer
than suffer from the overuse of coffee
and tea, and infinitely fewer than
those who suffer from overeating. No
one will question the harmfulness of
the use of tobacco in the yung hr in
excessive araounts, particularly with
nervous people. At no time is the ef-
fect of the weed mere pleasant and
soothing than. after dinner in the
evening; it helps one forget a hard
day's work; it is au aid to digestion,
and Makes one feel at peace With the
world; then, in the seclusion of one's
own quarters it cannot offend the non..
user, and the one or two oigars or
pipes can work no great personal in-
jury.
• Two bits of advice should be follow-
ed if one is to enjoy tobacco: Smoke
with moderation and do uot staeke too
cheaply.
COLD WATER. A. STIM.IJLAliT.
• According te a high authority, told
Water is a valuable ettenelaat to
ti teeny,
If not all, people. Its aetinon the
heart is more stimulating. than
brandy. It hes bean known to ranee
the pulse from seventensix to over a
hundred,
marble and statuary. The music of a
full bead mingling with the laughter
of Minnehaha, or the voices of falling
waters. But now the sun strikes
aslant through the queen's banquet -
ting -hall and across the rinds and
peelings of the grape clusters, and the
path of the spilled wine; awl the in-
toxicated cheeks of the blear -eyed ban-
qu.eters. Ahasuerus rises to depayt.
T.he officers of the palace appear as
his wort. With blundering and stag-
eme is canned to bus =ivied coach, more he tried te sleep.
arid retires for the night. Come in, 0; THE WIDER HE GOT, ineVAIKE.
sleep! through the window hangings All around about his pillow the
of Tyrian purple, and put your soft past came There, in the dark-
• feet on. the King's eyelids. Wait UP- ness, stood Vashti, wan and
on him, sweet dreams! Kiss him, wasted in banishment. There
breath of frankineense and rosemary I stood tbe princes whom he
There he is, the owner oe all the world had despoiled by his evil example.
than is worth owning irom India to There were the representatives of the
Ethiopia 1 Let the cbamberiains draw house he had blasted; by his infamous
the curtain around this son of fortune. demand that the brightest be sent to
Let the lights be lowered. Let the his palace; broken-hearted parents
sentry outside the door stop their crying: "Give me back my child, thou
pacing. Let everything be silent. The vulturous soul!" The outrages of the
officers of the guard outside give their past flitting along the wall, swinging
orders in a whisper. from the teasels, crouching in the cola
NIGHT IN SHUSHAN. ner, groaning under the pillow, setting
their heels on his consuming brain,
Night in all the land. Night in the
and crying: "Get up! This is the
praltece. Standing outside the sleep -
verge of hall! No sleep! No sleep!"
ing apartment of the king, I hear first
a cough, and then a groan, then the Are there not some here who have
turning over on the imperial couch, oceasionally passed sleepless nights?
and 18,st of all the voice of the king
What was the, reason? Was it sickness?
Was it overwork? Was it bereavement?
saying: "Let tl3e officers of the guard
Was it the unrepented sins of your
bring me the bopk at the record` Wes
life that came about your pillow?
the Chronicles and read to me. I can't
Was it trouble? You remember how the
sleep.'" Sleep for the scullions in the
king's' kitchen, and for the pages who clock ticked. You remember how
long it was from. the striking of one
run on his errands; sleep•for the gate -
in the morning until the striking of
keepers of the imperial park, and for
the grooms • who polish the smooth two, and still longer from two to three;
and when at last the day began to
coats of the horses in the royal neem
but, no sleep for their master. look through the lattice, how quickly
that night could not the ka,ingmsiletllep;you rose up and surrendered every at-
e' tempt to sleep. There are souk. in
made by
You seeGothaast 0.%rtsPfinigsee. We are this house who will not sleep to -night.
told that Re keeps in heaven a bottle You sae: "01 ray Lord, how can I
in which Ile gathers all the tears of sleep? The house is( so dreadfully still
His children, and after a while those
to
sinee amydrliinttkletoonine, tabieedn. igheIto, oNnoe o008tears are ohanged into pearls
for give to wake
crowns, and then the bottle is empty. sweet
cartel. i Trtohueb et morningTr°uwith a
ht
Methinks God puts into that bottle a
n
el Will
few drops of quiet, a few drops of ot the Lord take me out of it?" 01
fargetfelness, and a few drops of re-
bereaved soul, I can make up some-
thing you can sleep on, As name-.
storation, mingles them together,
times they make a pillow of Boothia
dih t •
then dips His finger int t emx
herbs that the patient may put his
and bathes as into new life and in -
head on and forget his pain, so to-
vigoration. 0, heaven -descended sleep!
night, bereaved soul, I would make
May God give as eight hours of it out
of every twenty-four. Ba pillow, for thy head,—a pillow ofetter be in a 1],P
hove' with sleep than in the Tuilleries Divine promises—promises of reunion
without it. But Ahasuerus cannot: In a tearless realm, promises of ex-
planation for things that axe dark,
get one drop of that raixture. What
ee promises of resurrection for all the
is the matter? "Why," you say,
is indigestion, He has been german-
dead. 01 put your head on that pil-
dizing. and now he is only paying the
low, and let the fingers of a comfort -
penalty." 0, no. He had taken
ing and aympatlaetic Christ close your
.
enough wine to counteract that. That eyelids in perfect peace to -night.
would not have hindered you froin1 HUSH ALL YOUR LOSSES.
hearing his drunken snore outside the Hush all your bereavements. Hush all
pada.ce. What was the matter? Ile your complaints. "So He giveth His
lies down upon his back, tryring in beloved sleep."
that way to sooth his pulse; but no But there are those here who will
not sleep to -night. for another reasoh.
Chis is the nighl. when your unfore
sleep. Ile turns •over on ILIS right
side; but no sleep. Then he counts
the eha.dows on the wall, hoping to put given sins will cry, out ageing you,
himself in a somnolent state; but no They will come clamouring around
sleep. "On that night could not the your pillow as the sins of Ahasuerus
king sleep." • clamoured around his pillow, You
Teere may have been three or four. think you can roll off a eolemn itn-
reasons for this fidget and restless- precision like this Moment, You will
nese. One was the eare of his king- go home. The, door tvill be elosed.
dom. A United States president, a After a few moments a conversetion
British qt.teen, a Russian Ozer, have no about, what happened at the Taber"
care eorapared with thia A.hastteras, mete,. you. will try to compose youee
Ile has one hundred and. twenty-sev- sell for sleep. bee if yOu are ae,‘
en provinees, not bound together by
telegraph wires or railroad tracks.
Any moment thet empire may be dis-
integrated; so he cannot sleep. Be -
Attlee that, he is ambitious, and he is have you been (Mine NO reeentauee.
going to make a conqueSt, It Yon No tears, No pardon. No life, No
kto-morrow that to-orrow merning you hove. No heaven,„ And you win say;
woilld make twenty thousand dollars "Wier ie it that
so addresses me?"
or oats hundred thotteand dollars, You And God wilt say: "It is thy 1VIeker
Would not Paean to-nlinht• Three or and thy judge;" and the weat of a
tout times you would be up in the great agony will coine out on you
tight, striking a match to see if it and before to -morrow morning, you
was not toward morning. And here win get no, ,and know, down, and pray,
this Ahaseerue cannot sleep beaaas,e That win be the history of hundreds
he is going to sonllusr Greeoe' 140 Is in thin 1101180 to -night. "01" sees
going to rally an army of. some ofte, "you doti't khow me. I
EMMY TtrousAND HORSE ntel e geed sleepier, ena no sootier
and one millien seven hundred thous- will pot my head 00 the pinew than
forgiving man, you cannot sleep; You
will get wider and wider awake. God
will stand by your pillow, saying;
"Where did you come ,from? What
I will be umionselous." Alit perhaps I
made a mistake, then, in regard to
stout' ease. I may he ntista.ken in the
prophecy with infereece to yon parti-
eularly, for you may be one oe theft
who go to sleep on earth and wake up
in hell, where they never sleep, "01'
saes sone one, "I'll joke off all this
irapression. I'll caricature the preaen-
en I'm good at drawing, And then
IP1 just say to my jeering °output -
lees. How ire your soul?" and with
merriment. 111 drown out iell though
of the present, arid all the thought of
the past, and all the thought of the
feture." No, you cannot do it. Ahasu-
erus tried to drown the voice of his
conscience with wine, veith libertinism,
with fame, with all litad,s of indulg-
ence, until, in hie satiety, he aetually
offered a reward for seinebodY who
would.
INVENT A NEW PLEASURE;
and while all the enjoyments, and hon-
ours, and exeitements came rippling
up against that pillow in the Shushan
Palace, "on that night could not •the
king ,sleep."
No, madame; no, sir; if the Holy
Spirit is in your heart • to.
talent you cannot drown out
this religious impression. It will
be as it was last Sabbeth night,
when there were two persons sitting
before me so thoroughly givee up to
merriment while 1 was plaice:mg, that
I thought I must stop in the midst of
my sermon and pall them to order; and
yet, at the close of the service, they
came asking the way to heaven, and
they are new in this house sitting in
nee peace of Christ, these few days of
pardon giving them more joy than all
the days of their worldly bilarity. Ah,
my friends, you cannot with outside
glee stop the inside tremor. 'Whirl
around all the dancers,• clap all the
umbels of •defiance, fill the air with
guffaw of ribaldry and mirth, and
Athaseurus cannot sleep to -night. 0
•man immortal, 0 woman immortal,
how ean you sleep unforgiven all
your lifetime transgressions gathering
together, each one of them enough
for your eternal discomfiture, yet pil-
ing up and piling up, and, spreading
out aid speeacling out, arid crowding
closer and closer. 0 God, what will
they do with their sins? the unfor-
givensins of their life like hounds on
their track, flashing like fiery bolts
from the clouds, slipping- from above
likean avalanche. • They might as
well try to sleep in the top story of
a house when all the rooms under-
neath are in flames, and the fire is
singeing their locks; they might as
well try to sleep wbile the foundering
steamer is making its last plunge.
How can you sleep at the memory of
misimprove,d mercies? Where is your
neglected Bible? Where is your
fathete, death -bed, your mother's
death-lbed? (What is that on your
bands, on your forehead, on your
c.heek, on your chin? It is the blood
of a neglected, despised, long-sufter-
ing, and agonizing Jesus. He has come
this night to save your soul, and you
will not let Him. if the devils in the
lost world had one such offer of mercy,
tbe.y would leap for it as a shipwreck-
ed man for the last life-buat, 0, how
ca.n you sleep when yea are so near
tbe last offer of pardon and mercy ?
Do you see that excitement in ileaven?
The Holy Spirit is departing from hea-
ven with
A V.ERY SOLEMN MESSAGE
He is coming with His last offer of
pardon to your soul, and the angels
gather aroundf the Holy Spirit, and
say: "Plead hard to -night. Do not
give him up. Plead. hard to -nigh;"
and the Spirit is descending, • coming
through the night. air. Re has alighted
this room. • He is right before your
soul. It is your immortal soul and
the Holy Ghost. 0, graolous Spirit,
conquer elm. to -night. Since heaven
and bell are involved in this interview
searob him, rouse him, melt him, save
him. "No," says the Holy Ghost: "1
will say no more. I will just stop now
for a minute to fine whether be will
accept pardon or whether he will re-
ject it." nand the Holy Spirit lifts
one wing for departure, and if He lift
both wiags, then He is gone; and with
that one wing lifted for departure, I
feel the last moment of waiting throb-
bing through the ,air—the last mo -
resat. For some soul here both wings
are lifted, and He vanishes. Gone,
your opportunity or pardon. Gone,
your hope for heaven; while a voice
breaks from the throne saying, "Eph-
raim is joined to his idols; let hire
alone!" 0, you unrepentant pouls,
how oan yott sleep tontiglit in .view- of
death, and judgment and eternity?
Mr. Faroe, our respected. fellow-eiti-
zetn, this afternoon, with all offices of
respect was carried out to his last
resting place. Last Wednesday night
he went to sleep sound and well. He
was; heard to be in a struggle, andoln
ten iminutes, though they tried to
bathe and rub him into life, and with
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.
INTERNATIONAL LESSON, NOV. 5.
44Nt`lienklithiS i`rayer." ioh. 1. 141. Oad"
Text, Nell. 1. le
PRACTICAL NOTES.
Verse 1 Nehemiah The cupbearer,
as we heve seen, of King Artaxerxes.
Modern European cued American usage
might class cuphearers among meniale,
but in the Last the most valued friend
of a king, the man who has highest
reputation as Statesman and largest
local influence, regards as his chief
honor appointment to such a Post.
Nehemiah was a man, of, ability, and
had beeome wealthy. The, raozah Chia -
leu. The ninth month of the Jewish
year, corresponding to the end of Nov-
ember and the beginning of Dec:either.
In the twentieth year. The twentieth
year ef Aetaxerxes's reign. This fixee
the date near to the close of. B.C. 445,
ninety years after the first re-
turn from Babylonian captiv-
ity. Shushan the • palace. "The
palatial city." Ona of the royal resid-
ences of the Persiaa empire; it stood
east of the Tigris and north. of the
Eunitrates; known to the ancient
Greeks, as Susa, to the modern 13edou-
ins.; as Shush. The ruins of, its pataees
were discovered in 1852. ,
2. Hanani, one of ray brethren. Not
a brother Jew merely, but his own
brotber. He was afterward made a
CiVin officer, Neb. 7, 2. He is to be
diatinguished frara the priest ot the
some naIlle, Nen 12. 36. Came. From
Jerusalem to Susa. Certain men of
Judah. • "Meal out of Judah;" that is,
men who had just returned from the
ancient province. 1 asked them con-
ce.rning tete Jews. From Josephus we
learn that Nehemiah, doubtless attend-
ee] by a gorgeous retinue, walked one
afternoon outside Susa's walls. Cer-
tain men with foreign accent and tra-
vel -worn,, were drawing near to the
city's gate. Listening, he discovered
that their speech was old; Hebrew, the
Language Lis' mother bad used. On
joining them he disoovered that they
had juat arrived from Sudah, and, more
aetontehing yet, that one of the,ra
was his own brother. • Naturally
his first question Wan about the Jews
in Jerusalem. Had escaped, Had been
made free from direct Babylonian pon-
trot by the earlier return. Though
ninety years had elapsed since that re-
turn, the Jews of Palestine were still
kn.own as "those who had escaped."
Left of the captiVity. This phrase
points to the terrible hardships whioh
Jerusalem had survived fxora thetime
of Cyrus until now. Conce,rning Jer-
usalem. This city was precious to
godly Jews, not 'merely as London
must always have peculiar interest to
.Britons or Paris for Erenonmen, but
as the chosen earthly -abode of the
Lrue God; the headquarters of the true
religion. 1. We should constently
have in one heart love for God's people
and interest in Gail's cause.
S. The province. Judea, now a prov-
ince- of the •Persian empire. The
remnant .. are in great -affliction
and reproach. They had never really
prospered, though the population
had been incr.eaeed, many houses had
been built, and foreign traders had
flourished. Phoenician fishermen ha,d
stalls in Jerusalem; traders from
Tyre had booths for their ware; and
Nehemiah has proceeded only a little
way with his story before we hear of
guilds, or an Win might call them,
trades unions, of goldsmiths and of
apothecaries, while carpetaters and
locksmiths and other craftsmen are
also mentioned. But this shows or-
ganization and effort, not prosperity!.
Untiring enemies, poor °rope, lack of
public conscience, and • a pitiable
lack oe lea,derseip had brought onthe
hardest of bard 'times. The nobles had
made alliances with some of the worse
enemies of the nation, and the poorer
elasnes were Ineglectful of the law of
God. Burdonecrme taxes were levied by
the imperial Pereiten government, but
Artaxerxes ltimeelf was unxible to pro-
-beet this 13:awaited. city from raids of
robbers, who stole men and women as
well as gold and cattle; and the sun,
often arose over the dead bodies of Jews
who had dared overnight to defend
their own. The wall of Jerusalem also
is broken. down, and the gates there-
of are burned wieh fire. This meant
to Nehemiah that the walls destroyed
by Nebtuantanezzar had not been re-
built nor the gates replaced, The ruin
wrought one hundred and thirty-seven
years before was unmitigated. t The
feeble attempts of the governors of
Jerusalem to. rebuild the walls lead
been foiled by vigortins attacks of
rival chiefs. • One fact was clear—the
f wall on Jesusalern must be promptly
the utmost atbautmu of 1nel:heal sin',e • rebuilt if the city was ever again to
to resusoitate him, in ten minutes his be the capital of the Lord's people. 2.
So Christ's Clatereb, the earthly Jeru-
salem, needs to be so protected that
foes shall be kept out an.d. friends kept
safe.
4. These words came with a terrible
sbock to Nehemiah. • Punning hie
donee at tbe i'ersiaa court, honored,
and with wealth easily in grasp, he
get the phial of restoratives. 1here hade often cemiortably thought of the
w1111: be no time to strike a light. ef colony at Jerusalem. But. now its de -
you are unprepared to go, your exit plorable condition is Sudnenly reveal -
ant of this life will be e falling swift- ed. Better even than the Jews af
er thee any comet flashed down • the jerusalem thin praneitesd statesman
night sky, How cap you sleep on the knew the imminent danger in which
borders of an eternity for which you they were so long aS the city remain -
have no reparation? Hear you not ed unevalled. Mourned certain days,
the da:shing of the waves of that and lasted, and prayed. These days
dreadful sea? Fiends exult at the were extended into about five Months,
prospect of your speedy entrance. ff as we learn, by Comparing Nen 1, 1.
after alt these years of rejecting the with 2. 1. All three of these pic•us oc-
unnaortal soul passed over from world
to world. If it had been you, where
would you have been now? Some of
you, my dear brethren, wit/ g� out of
life
JUST AS SUDDENLY,
There will be no time to reach the
physician. There will be no time to
love of God, the pardon of tend, the
mercy of, God, the eetreafies of God,
the wooing of God, you go out of ;this
world, what will remain for you
but the, wrath of God Von
may • be so near it. Do you
not feel its breath cal your cheeks?
no you not see its flush on your brow?
Do you not feel its quraking beneath
,vour feet? The eWord-arni of the
Lord Almighty swinge out teem the
cloud ready to atrike. 0! Sparc that
oeul, Mercy, mercy, mercy! We
ern. Lord, epare Ulm!. soul I Give it one
more obance for repentance and for
heaven, IT yet new repent, you •can
ge Immo to -night, and. ,gleap tie sound',
Ly as any. ehild ever in its ntother'e
aeMee• With pardon for it pillow,
eternal 'defences for e canopy, and the
angele 01 G,,a or a botty-guerd, you
eat afteed to sleep until the day-
break, While Ahanuerun theses on the
cotten and calls cat for the officer
01 the guava to Name and read the
book of the reeera of the Chrotielee
megat lotres-emourning, fasting, and
prayer—were doubtless formal as well
as sincere, for the oriental always
Lends to formal OXpres8Lon of deep
feelings. • The •God of heaven. Ihis
letge conception of God beeline mote
and mare promineet amoeg God's L0 -
lie, when for the first time i hey were
widely Scattered. e. Our prayete
&haunt take in the general interest of
Geills tense. •
b Lerd God of heavee. "Lord"
me a IA ebovah, Notwith,etandirig that
God's horne is the all-ineluding heav-
ens, lie in. still Ole pe,rsorial God of
Aeranien, Ieattc, and Jae,ob. The great
and terrible God, that keepeth coven
ant and naerey for them that love him
and observe hie commandments, it
tvould be diffneit in one Sentence to
compreee more at • reverent theology
than Vehement has here given us. The
binned temene' of jenusttlem, the dee
enoliehed wailer the dispersed 05t ,
tha destrii(4,1011 of ricklYlon, which ale
God's agent bad .svronget this dest rue..
tbo to' jgerTerttaielPel: —
ca
t,ildof tc.s.b(rwreibleiT°J,Wetl.
BilAt lin "keepetle oovenant " also.'Ilis
greatness will be used in fulfillment of
his promises. Bettee still, he ie a mer-
ciful Ged. He had promised rest:oration
and mercy end prosperity to the Jesvs
if then would turn to bine and urely
the God who keit his terrible prom'
is:rerois
willkeeL; Illecomtieoutcraxbloh
inprotioiuseos.
l ,
of confidenee thyougbout. Faulty as
Nehemiah and ills oompattiots may
have been, they loved. God aed, sought
to observe his commandments. There-
fore they had claim our God's °oven -
ant. 4 The miglatier God is the safer
are hie children, even though they be
full of human Infirmities. 5, God's
love is freely given to all men, how-,
ever wicked they may be; but only
tho.se who give their love in retern are
in condition to accept the blessings of
his ooveuant. 6, Thoee who clove God
will delight to do his will, for he asks
nothing beyond what a rightly cout
stiented nature freely gives,
6. Thine ear. . , thine eye.s, The
belief that man was made in the image
a God has always helped human de-
votione. • When saints of old reached
out after God they were comforted
by thoughts of his feet hastening to
their relief, his hands outstretched in
blessing, his eye § that never slumber-
ed nor slept watching them, his ears
attentive te their prayer, And when
in the fullne,ss of time, God really
came to earth it was in the person of
a man, vvhose feet and hancls and eyes
and ears were all used to bring suffer-
ing men and women close to their ilea,
venly, Father. Hear the prayer all
thy servant. Which prayer, how-.
ever, is not, for bhuself. I pray before
thee now-, day and night. How closely
Nehemiah meets the conditions of suc-
cessful prayer afterward laid down by
our Lord! The children. of Lsrael thy
servants. God's servants by rigbt,
even whex& unfaithful to God; the
chosen people. The sins. . . which tea
have sinned against thee. The favored.
courtier of Artaxerxes shrinks not
from identifietation with the sinful
nation from which he sprang. Both f
and my father's house have sinned. He
recognizes his personal failure to
please God in all particulars. 7, Who-
ever comes before God should come
heanbly.
7. We have dealt very corruptly.
Tile national character has been. so de-
pra.ved that Nehemiah can hardly use
too strong hinguage in deseribing it.
Have not kept the commandments, nor
Lha statutes, nor the judgments. Gen-
eral terms, these, expressing the law
given to Moses, and the spiritual
teaings of the prophets.
8. The word that thou oommandest
the .servant Moses, What follows is
not a direct quotation from any "book
of Moses" as WE Dow have it, but it
is in close harmony with Lev. 26. e7-30;
Deut. 28. 45-52, and ether passages.
9. 13dt if ye turn, etc. A continu-
ation of the quotation tram Moses.
Nehemiah finds in the fulfillment of
the threats a ground of hope tor the
fulfillment of the promises.
10. Vow these • are thy ser-
vants. -• The quotation is end-
ed, and Nehemiah resumes his
prayer. Redeeaneci by the great power.
The. history of Israel. is a hietory of
successive 'redemptions" from distres-
ses resulting from unfaithfulness to
Ged.
11. Tot the •prayer of thy servant.
and to the prayer of thy servants.
Here Nedenatah stregthens his faith by
recalling other earnest souls who of-
fered the same prayer. .
'Though sundered far, by faith we
Aroun'elclenje common mercyeseat."
Who desire to fear thy name. Delight
to fear it. Prosper, I pray thee, thy
servant this day, and grant him mercy
in •the sight of this ro,a.n. In Ged's
presence tne mghty king himself was
simply "this man," whose will could,
as 'easily be curbed. by God as the will
a his courtier. This was certainly
not a petition for the Judean governer-
ship; nevertheless Nehemiah's appoint-
ment to b3 governor of Judea was a
dioect a;newer to this prayer, exceed-
ingty abundanb above alt he asked or
thought.
DISCIPLINE OF WIVES BY THE
• FINNS.
• The Maniple epic poem called • the
"Kalevala," the oldest, portien,s of
which yvere probably composed three
thousand years ago, throws interest-
ing light upon the primitive social
arid marriage customs of the Finns.
The three chief • characters of the
"Kalevala" are the mistrel, Wain.a-
moinen; Ilma,rinen, tlae magic black-
smith; and Lemminkainen, the wiz-
ard. The blacksmitb pays ceuet to
the Daughter of the Rainbow, who is
called "the fairest dau,ghter of, the
'Northlaad." An account of their
bridal and of some of the amenities of
married life in those days is thus giv-
en by a writee in a late number of
the New York Times:
"The wedding feast prepared, the
beer brewed, .the guests feasted, Os-
niotar, daughter of Osmo, gives the
Rainbow bride advice:
Thou must acquire new habits
• Must. forget thy former customs,
Like the mouse, have ears for hear -
Like the bare, have feet for run-
ning. •
"But the gnick ears awl the nim-
ble feet are for the service of her
husband and his family. The 'Bride
of Beauty' must rise early, light the
meraing fire, fill the bucket India the
'crystal river Dewing,* feed the kine
and flecks, vvith.pleasurce' gather
fagots from the woodland, bake the
barley -bread and honey -cakes, wash
the birchen platters cleat, ainuee the
sister's beby, eetertain the strang-
er, 'tend well the sacred sorb -tree'
and other, vegetation; apin, weave,
make clothes, beer, `lend the needed
eervice' when the 'father df my hero
husband' bathes. The week ended,
she 'must give the li011ge a thorough
cleateege And all the while she
must wear the 'whitest linen' and
'tidy' fur shoe& fox. her hero husband's
gluey. Mid she must not goetip itt
lh vllagt tell of ,tattgleet, at 111
treatment, to bring eleanee to her kin -
:u4 disgrac,e to ber inisbaad'e
'household. Oatomar, daughter of
Osmo, omensele the bridegroom also:
Never ()ease the Bride of Beauty
To regret the day of marriage;
Never melte her shed a teardrop;
Never fill her cap with sorrow."
But strict martial diseittline must
be raaintained. These were the daye
when there were no women's oitths,
but clubs for WonlOn.
To thy yelling wife give instruction
Kindly teach thy bride in .seeret,
In the long and dreary .evening's,
When, thou sittest at the firesete;
Teach one year in Words of kind
Teaehnheesrs ;with eyes ol ley° a second:
In the third year teach her with firm,
• nesse
Lag.
If she should not heed thy Leach-
• Should not hear thy kindly come,
• sel
After three long years of effort,
Out a reed upoa the lowlands,.
Out a n.dtLle from the border,
Teach thy -wife with • harder mea-
• sures,
In the fourth year, if she heed not,
Threaten her with sterner treat-
ment, '
• With the stalks of rougher edges,
Use not yet the thongs of leather,
Do n.ol; touch her with the birch
shelVhidPn
oes not heed this warn-
• ing,
' Should she pay thee no attention,
I, Cut a rod upon the mountains,
eOr a willow in the valleys,;
'• Hide it underneath thy mantle,
, That the stranger may not see it;
'Show, it to thy wife in secret,
'Shame her thus to do her duty;
Strike not • yet, tho disobey-
ing,
Shlould she disregard this warn -
Inge -
Still refuse to heed thy wishes,
Then instruct her with the willow,
Use the birch •rod frora the mown -
take
In the closet le of thy dwell-
ing,
Ln. the attics of thy mansion.
A CURBSTONE TRAGEDY.
The Very Sad Side or Ltre In a Large City
—Scene In the ralrol-ll'agoit.
On the sidewalk of a dingy South
End street in Boston the other day,
there stood a pile of household flunk,
ture. •non
Two cheap, painted bedsteads, a
washstand, a few chairs, an old bureau
witn a cracked mirror, some mattres-
ses Limn witich a wisp of straw pro-
truded here and there, T ragged quilt
florxstiooa,—ugt jitueheseitveeryee.the things which
A second glance disclosed some old
dresses, a high chair, a pair of men's
boots, a child's hat and a heterogene-
one mass of cooking utensils piled eel-
_
ter-skelter in a precarious pyramid.
,The whole collection, if it had been
displayed in the window of soirie sec-
ond-hand dealer, would haedte aye
won a glance; but here it attrac
the attention of all who passed, for,
it spoke unmistakably of failure; of the
house builtnipon the sand; of poverty,
of dingrace,, of the wreck 'of that
sweetest ideal of life, a hoann
&erne of those who passed saw a ,
tired -looking woman, sitting on theenof
steps just inside the door, but very
few noticed the children. They were
buddled away in a corner, close to the
building. The oldest, was a frail girl
of eleven. In her arms she held a
baby, and curled up he an old rocking-
ehair beside her was a by of four -
After. a time the mother roused her-
self, and with a word to the boy and
girl, went away down the street. The
children still sat behind their barri-
cade. • When the baby cried the lit-
tle girl rocked. it hack and forth in
her arms till it became quiet: again.
The little boy fell asleep muted up in
the rocking -chair..
The afternoon drew to 0 close- It
was beginning to grow dark, and the
night patrolmen had just relieved the
day farce when. one of the naen from
station five strolled through the little
street on his first round of duty. He
stopped when he reached the pile of
furniture, and peering inbehind it,
DISCOVERED THE CHfLDREN.
"What are you doing -here?" he ask-
ed. ,
"We're waiting tor Cniinirfirt " said
the little girt. "She's gone Coefind
another placa. We was put out neve
'cause we coulent pay the rent."
The policeman soon persuaded the
children that they had better go to
the station -house. He rang the call -
Lan the • patrol -wagon, and in a few
minutes the van drew up beside the
cisivra.b:the ehildren were lifted in, the
gong clanged and the wagon rolled
a
Just as the driver turned the router
into Washington Street, a•poncemen
hailed him froin the sidewalk: Ile
had a prisoner in charge, and by dint
of much pusbing and pulling, linally
got him into the wagon.
'I'he prisoner Wan a middletaged
man, bloated and sodden and dixty.
Hie hat was missing, and blood from a
deep cut, on his forehead had tric,kled
down his cheek and soaked his ethirt.
He woe too far gone in drualten et upor
to resist cagest, or even to keep hie
place on the seat without assisi once.
• When the little girl caught eight of
this wretched figure she began to cry.
Still holding the baby • in her alum.
she croesed over to the drunken man,
and with her torn and dirty little
handkerehlee tried to wipe the blocle
fro0l his ceeek. •
One of the ponceanen interpoeed,
gently. "You needn't tin that'
he !mid. "They'll fix him up all right
at the station -house."
• "Ile's my papal He's my papa!' the
child cried between her sobs. "We
didet know where be was., tied he's
been gene all the week,"
r.the officere looked at each other in
silence. Even fan them, with ell their
expeeience of life at low tide, there
was nothing to say.
One of linen'tragedies had played
itself out to thelest at before their
eyes. No stage could have furnished
a situation ninon dramatic, or more
more impressive moral..
logleal, no pulpit a sermoo with a