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Exeter Times, 1898-9-15, Page 3THE EXETER TI1VIES NOTES AND COMMENTS. 1 After twenty yrs of haggling and ishufaing the Sublime Porte has met Ir the demands for the settlement of the alaims of Ruseese subjeets for demagog oared during the last liasso-Turls- loll war in its usual leharecterisLi° l•fasilian. The sum unpeid With inter- est to §4,500,000, ]3'or this the Seltatha gieen promissory notes renoing over a period of. five years, •andl no doubt, like the celebrated air. Mantaini, considers the matter as now eettled. The interesting moraent will be when the first note comes due; but It is not neceseary just now to jantici- pate whether it will be paid or a re- -newel asked for, nor to speculate what the patient creditor may do in case of defle. It was the threat of the Rua - '&u ambassador at Constantinople that his Government might find itself • -compelled, in satisfaction of the long-standing claims of its subjects, to etake and hold the customs of the 'port o Trebizond onothe Black Sea, that brought the Turk to book on thie oc- Trebizond is one of the most productive of the Turkish customs ports and is, besides, an important and military strategical point, and not to be lightly given up. Promissory notes are easy to sign, and who knows what the ceapter of accidents during the •next five years may contain; so the notes have been given, and for the mo- ment Yildie enjoys its political rahat • Roukoum.. Meantime the wax indemn- of $150,000,000 or thereabouts hangs like the sword of Damocles over the Turk's head, but so long as the (Rus- sian does not demand and exact pay- ment, the Tuek will be cOntent to re- main under it and let it hang too. • There as, however, another 'matter between the two Governments that if en pressed by the Russians may eurn to troualle. The tens of thousands of ex- menians from the districts of Erzer- -oum, Bitlis, Moosh and Van who suo- -ceeded in saving their lives by flying into Russian territory at the time of the massacres, hive become a burden .on the Russian Government and the people with whom they took refuge. Russia. has insisted on the repatriation ,of these fugitives and the Turkish ••Government has protested, for compli- ance means trouble for the Turks in some form or another. Since the de- • parture of the Armenians their amines and lands have • been taken possession of by Kurds and others, who would surrender them to their former owners with reluctance, if at all, The &ham would then find himself under the necessity of evicting his faithful Kurds -again "febostalling the hated Arrnenians or leaving the latter to be extermin- ated by the former. In either case would be fresh disorders in Armenia. evhich, u.naike those of two years ago, would not le.s,ve Russia indifferent, for the Russian Government having forced ea the repatriatioa of the exiled Armen - 4 tans on the Turkish Government would be morally bound to see that they did not suffer in consequence of this act. A good deal now depends on the re- solution taken by the Russian Govern- ment in this matter, perhaps the peace of Asia Minor and the ending a the Turkish power in eastern Armenia. • WOMEN OF SARDINIA. The women of Sardinia are described by a visitor to that island as being of elegant figure and graceful carriage, with large blaok eyes, dark hair and brunette complexion. They dress in very much the same style as wemen in, oth- er parts of civilized Europe, except that there is not the same extreme haste to adopt the latest fashion. The wives and daughters of the farmers and trades= ate,n, by the gorgeousness of their cos- tumes, amply compensate for the sim- plicity of dress araong the upper class- es; arid at their religious fetes and other festivals, when they appear in gala dress, they present a wonderful spectacle. These costumes are a sort of family heirloom, handed down froze t mother to daughter and treasured as highly as hereditary jewels or ances- tral portraits. The fashion never chang- es and instead of feeling ashamed of being seen in the same dress at two different entertainments, they glory in Y its antiquity, and in the number of i occaeions vvhich.et has been worn. t The costumes a the women vary great- c ly in different parts of Sardinia. r some districts, a " small black jacket, h open in front, is worn over a very i short bodice of bright colored silk and t •broeo.de, which is loosely -laced before El and cut rather low; there are appar- a ently no corsets. The petticoat is of 13_ light brown cloth, very full, and be- w tween it and the bodice is a sort of nen- h tral ground of protruding garment, „, which by no means adds to the general xn beauty a the toilet 'LE llE FIOTUR BE T.14JE RRN.r. DR. TALMAGE PREACHES ON THE UNCLEANNESS OF MAN. Twelve 'Sundries simian Souls ehipsveeea. ed-apoioetcs Win. Not aseonse Tone Soul or sinalse aattrange stavises avers' One to 111111 Out 4t04 Whet% Whey Steed --Good Resolutions Win Not Wafilt AWRY FrallitgrOSSIOliS-APPeal to sl°0 etas. A deepatch from Washington eays:— Dr, Taime,ge preached from the follow- ing text: "If I wash myself with snow - water, and should I cleanse nay Weide in alkali, yet shalt thou plunge me in the aitch, and mine own clothes shall ab- hor me."—job. ix. 30, 31. • Albert Barnes—honored be his name on earth and in heaven—went straight back to the original writing of my text and translated it as I have now, quot- ed it giving substantial reasons for so doing. Although we know better, the ancients had an idea that in snow - water there was a special power to cleanse, and that a garment washed and rinsed in it would be as clean as clean could be; lout if the plain snow - water failed to do its work, then they would take lye, or alkali, and mix it withoil, and under that preparation they felt that the last impurity would certainly be gone. Job, in my text, in most forceful .figure, sets forth the idea that all his atteraps to make him- self pure before God were a dead fail- ure, and that unless we are ,abluted by something better than earthly liquids and chemical preparations, we are loathsome and in the ditch. "If I wash nayself with snow -water, and should I cleanse my hands in alkali, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." You are now sitting for your pic- ture. I turn the camera, obscurer of God's Word full aeon you, and I pray that the sunshine felling through the skylight may enable me to take • you just as you ale. Shall it be a flatter- ing picture, or shall it be a true one? You say: "Let it be a true one." The first profile that was ever taken was taken three hundred. and thirty years before Christ, of Antigonus. He had a blind eye, and he compelled the artist to take his profile, so as to hide the defeot in his vision. But since that invention, three 'hundred and thirty years before Christ, there have been a great many profiles. Shall 1, to -night, give you a one-sided view of yourselves, a profile, or shall it be a full-length portrait, showing you how you stand before heaven, and earth, and hell? If God will help me by his almighty g•raceeI shall give you that last kind of a picture. . • When:I first entered the ministry, I used to write my sermons all out and read them, and run, my hand along the line lest I should lose my place. I have hundreds of those onanusco•ipts. Shall -I ever preach them? Never; for in those days I was somehow overmaster- ed. with the idea I heard talked all armed about of the dignity of human nature, and I adopted the idea, and I evolved it, and I illustrated it, and I having seen more of the world, and argued it, ; but coming on in life, and studied better my :Bible, I find that early teaching was faulty, and that there is no &amity in human nature until it is reconatructed by the grace of God. Talk about vessels going to pieces on the Skerries. off Ireland 1 There never was such a shipwreck as Ln the Gihon and. the Hicidekel, rivers of Eden, where our first parents founder- ed. 'Talk of a steamer going down with five hundred passengers on board 1 What is that to the shipwreck of twelve hundred million souls. We are by nature a mass of uncleanliness and put- refaction, from which it takes all the omnipotence and infinitude of God's grace to extricate us.. "If I wash my- self with, snow -water, and should I cleanse ray hands in alkali, yet shalt Thou plunge me in the ditch, and my own clothes shall abhor me." I remark, in the first place, that some people try to cleanse their soul of sin in the snow -water of fine apolo- gies. Here is one man who says: "I ine a sinner; I confess that; but I in- herited' this. My fatter was a sinner, noy grandfather, my great -great- grandfather, and all the way back to Adam, and I couldn't help myself." My rother, have you not, every day in our life, added something to the orig. urn estate of sin that was bequeathed o you? Are .you not brave enough to onfess that you have sometimes sur- endered to sin which you ought to eve conquered? I ask you whether it a fair play to put upon our anoestry hings for which we ourselves are p,er- many responsible? If your nature was slsew when you got it, have you not oxnethaeagisren it an additional twist? ill all the tombstones of those who ave preceded us make a barricade igh enough for eternal defences? • 1 ow a devout man who had blasphe- ous parentage. I know an honest an whose father was a thief. I know pure man whose, mother watt a waif f the street. The bereclitavy tide may e very strong, but there is sueh 'a ing as stemming it. The fact; that have a cort•upt nature is 'so reason hy should yield to it. I The deep ains of oar soul can never be wash- out by the snow -water of such in- fficient Apology. ^ Still Luther says some one: "If have ne into sin, it has been through my mpanione, my comrades, and emce- es ; they ruined me, They taught me 'deirik. They took me to the garab- ag hell. They plunged me into the use of pin. They ruined nay soul." do not believe it. God gave to no one e power to destroy you or me. It an is destroyad, he is self -destroyed d that is always so. Why did you t break ,aeray from theta ? If they cl tried to stool your purse, .you Ind have knocked hem down; if ey had tried tis purloin your gold Leh, you would have riddled them 1900 NOT A LEAP YEAR, It in a generally accepted idea that every fourth year hes an extra day added to Vebruery, thus giving that - month 29 daye, and the year 386; but there are exceptions. The solar year is about 11 minutes 10 seconds less tha,n 305 1-4 dAYS ,; hence intercalation of one day in fear yeers sass too much. In tetra!, of centuries the bran' amounted to 8evotal days. To remedy this, Pope Gaegory x.tnr., in 1582, omitted 11 daye, and provided that tlae year ending each ce,utury ehould have 305 instead of 860 &.J -s; save when the swathes of the century is divisible by 4; eo that 1701t; 1800 and 1900 are nes leap saes's, but the yeast 2,000 is, ThIS was called the Greeotian caleodet but it was not adopted. in Great Britain till 1752, when 11 flays were AtrUeit olit of the month of Sepi ;tuber, • with hot;sbut when they tried to Steal yont immortal soul, you placidly sub- mitted to it, Still further, some persons apologize for *their sirs IV saying; " We are e greet deal better than some people. 'irou eee people eil around about us that are a great deal worse than we," TOU stead up columnar in. your integrity, and look down upon those who are prostrate in their habits and orimes. what of that, ley brother? I failed, through recklessness and wicked im- prudence for one thousand pounds, is the matter alleviated at all by the fact that somebody else has failed for one laundrecl thousand pounds, and somebody else for two hundred thou-, sand pounds? Oh, no, If I have the rseuralgia, shall I refuSe medical at- tendance becau.se ray neighbor has vir- ulent typhoid fever? The fact that lois disease is worse than mine—does that cure mine? If I, through my foolhard- iness, leap off into eternal woe, does it break the fall to know that others • leap off a higher cliff into deeper dark- • ness ? Because others are depraved, is that any excuse for my depravity? Am I better than they Perhaps they had worse temptations than I have had. Perhaps their surroundings in life were more overposvering. Perhaps, oh man, if you had. been under the same stress of temptation, instead of sitting here to -night -you would have been looking through the bars of a penitentiary. Perhaps, eh woman, had, yole'been under the same power of temptation, instead of sitting hare to -night, you would. be tramping the street, • the laughing stock of men and. the grief of the an- gels of God, dungeoned, body, mind and soul, in the blackness of despair. Ah, do not let us solace ourselves with, the thought that other people are worse than we. Perhaps ha the future, when our fortunes may change, unless God prevents it, we roay be worse than they are. Many a man after thirty years, after forty years, after fifty years, after sixty years, has, gone to pieces on the sand -bars. Oh, instead of wasting our time in hypereriticisna about others, let us ask ourselves the questions, where we standl what are our sins? what are our deficits? what are our perils? what are our hopes? Let each one say to himself ; "Where will I be? Shall I range in summery fields, or grind in the mills of a great night ? Shall it ba anthem or shriek? Shall it be with God or fiends? 'Where? Where ?" Some winter morning you go out and see a snowbank in graceful drifts, as though by some heavenly compass it had been curved, and, as the sun glints it, the lustre is almost insufferable—and it seems as if God had wrapped the earth in a shroud with white plaits woven in looms celes- tial And you say; "Was there ever anything so pure as the snow, so beau- tiful as the :Snow?" But you broughta. pail of that snow and. put it upon the stove, and melted it, and you found that there was a sedanent at the bot- tom and every drop of that snow -wa- ter was riled, and you found that the snow -bank had gathered up the im- purity of the field, and that, after all it was not fit to wash in. And so I say IL will be if you try to gather up these contrasts and comparisons with others, and with these apologies attempt to wash out the sins of eour heart and life. It will be an unsuccess- ful ablution. Such snow -water will never wash away a single stain of an immortal soul. . •e3u.t I hear some one say: will try something better than that, I will try the force of a good resolution. That will be more pungent, more caustics more extirpating, more oleansing. The snow -water has' failed, and now I will try the alkali of a good, strong resolu- tion." My dear brother, have you any idea that a resolution about the fu- ture will liquidate the past? Suppose I owed you a thousand pounds, and I should come to you to -morrow, and say: "Sir, I will never run in debt again; if I should live thirty years I will never run in debt .to you again;" will you turn to me and say: "If you will not run in debt in. the future I wilt forgive you the thousand pounds." Will you do that? Nol nor will God. We have been running up a long score of indebtedness with God. If for the future we should. abstain from sin, that would be no defrayment of past indebtedness. eThough • you should live frOM this time forth pure as an archangel before the throne, that would not redeem the past. God, in the Bible, distinctly declares that He "will require that which is pasta— past opportunities, past neglects, past wicked words, past impute imagina- tions, past everything. The past is a great cemetery, and every day is buri- ed in a. And here is a long row of three hundred and aiaty-five graves. It is a vast cemetery of the past. But God svill rouse them all up with resur- lectionary blast, and as the prisoner stands fa,ce to face with • juror and judge, so you and I will have tolsome up and look upon those departed days face to face, exulting in their smile or cowering in their frown. "IVIarder will out" is a proverb that stops too short. Every sin, however small as well Lis great, will out. In hard banes, years ago, it is authentically stated a manufacturer was on the way, with a bag of naoney, to pay off his hande. jA man, infuriated with hunger, met him on the road, and took a rail with a nail in, it from a paling fence, and struck him down, and the nail, enter- ing the skull, instaritly slew him. Thirty yeara after the murder went back to that place. He passed into the graveyard, where the sexton was dig- ging a grave, and while he 'stood. there the spade of the sexton turned up a skull, and 1.ol the murderer saw emit]. protruding from the back part of the skull, and as the sexton turned the glare on the murderer, and he, first petrified vvith horror, stood in silence, but soon cried out: "GuiltY1 Guilts"! Godl" The mystery a the crime was over. The mati was tried and execeeed. YIP friends, all the unpar- cloned sins at our lives, though we may thiak they are buried out of eight and gone into a mere skeleton of me- mory, will turn up in the cemetery of the pet, and gloever Upon us with thee: inisdoinga. X say all mix smear - cloned sins. • Oh, have you done the preposterous thing of eupposing 'that grad rovelutions for the future will wipe oat the past. Good resolutions, though they may be pungent saideaus- is ea a'keii, have nO power twneutra- Rae a sin—have no ,power to wash awa,y transgeszston. It wants soihething more than earthly chemis- try to do this. Yea, yea, though "I wesh myself wit h snowava,ter, and should I eleause my hands in alkali, yet shalt Thou, plunge me in i beeditch, and mina own clothes shall abhor me." You see teem the last part of this text that Job's idea of sin was very different from that of Lera BYton or Eugene Sue, or Greerge Sand, or M. J. Mhalelea or any of the hundreds •of writer:3 who have done up 'iniquity in mezzotints and. garlanded the wine eop with eglantine tied. rosemary, and made the path of the libertine end in bowers ef ease instead Of thg, hot flagging of infernal torture. Yoe see that ;Tab thinks time Sin is not ery parterre: that it is not a a flowery parterre; that, it is not a. table-laea of fiae prospects; teat it in not 'floosie, /dulcimer, violincello,• castanet, and! Pandeell pipes, all making musio together, No, sRome yssteineilisfua‘ld, tato, we are edeaelPpllouantgh-- ed into it, and, there we wallow, and sink, and struggle, not able to get out. Our robes of propriety asad robes of worldly profeossion are eaturateci in the slime and abomination, and our soul, covered over withi transgression, hates its covering, and the covering hate § the soul, until we are plunged ainbthoorthuse. ditch, a,nd our own clothes I know that some modern religionists caricature sorrow for sin, and they make out an easier path than the "pil- grim's progress" that John Bunyan dreamed of, The road they travel does not travel where Jahn did, at the City of Destruction, but at the gate of th'e university; and I am very certain that it will not come out where fJohn's did, under the shining ramparts of tbe celestial city. No repentance; no pardon, If you do not, my brother, feel that you are down in the ditch. •what do you want of Christ to lift you out? If you have 210 appreciation of the 'fact that you are astray, what do you want of Him who cameo selek and save that which was lost? Yonder is the Scotia coming acro'ss the Atlan- tic. The wind, is abaft, so that she has not only her engines at work; but all sails up. T am on board. the Spain. The boat -davits are swung around. The boat is -lower. I get into it wibli a red. flag, and crass over to where the Scotia is comin,g, and I wave Wee flag. Tls'e captain looke off from the bridge, and says: "What do you want?" I re- ply: eI come to take some of our pas- sengers across to the other vessel; I think they svill be safer and happier there." The captain would look with indignation, and say: "Get out of the • way, or I will run you down." And then Iwould. back oars, amid the jeer- ,ing of (two or three hundred. people looking over the taffrail. But the Spain and the Scotia meet under different eircumstances after awhile. The Sco- tia is combeg out of a cyclone; the life- boats all smashed; the bulwarks gone; the wheel off; the vessel rapidly go- ing down. The boat -swain gives his last whistle of despairing command. The passen.gers run up and down the deck, and some pray. and all make a great outcry. The captain says: "You have about fifteen minutes now to pre- pare for the next world." "No hope!' sounds from stem to stern, and from the raelinea down to the oa,bin. I see the distress. I am let down by the side of the Spain. I push off as fast as I can towards the sinking Scotia,. Me - fore I come up people are leaping into the water its their anxiety to get to the boat, and when 1 have swung up under the side of tire Scotia, the tfren- zied passengers rush through the gangway until the officen, with axe and. clubs, and pistols, try to keep back the crowd, eath wanting his turn to come next. There is but one life- boat, a.nd they all want to get into it, and the cry is: "Me next lane next!" You see the application before I make It. As long as a man going on in lois sin feels that ell is well, that he is coming out at a beautiful port, and has all sail set, he wants no rescue; but if under the flash of God's • convictin,g spirit he shall see that by reason of in he is dismasted and water-logged, and going down into the trough of the sea where he cannot live, how, soon he puts the sea -glass to his eye and sweeps the horizon, end at the first sign of help cries out: "I want to be saved. I want to flae. saved now. I want to be saved for ever." No sense of danger, no application for reseue. Oh, that God's eternal spirit svould flash upon us it sense of our sinful- ness. The Bible tells the story in let- ters of fire, but we get used to ,it. We joke about sin. We make merry over it. What is sin? Is it a trifling thing 7 Sin is a vampire that is waking out the life -blood of your immortal nature. Sin? It is a Bastile that no earthly key ever unlocked. Sin? It is expatria- tion from God and heaven. Sin? It is grand larceny against the Almighty, for the Bible asks tbe question: "Will a man rob God?" answering it in the affirmative. The Gospel is a writ eh replevin to recover property unlaw- fully. detained from God. The bell at the cemetery gate tolls. The procession goes through, and ropes are wrapped around the casket, and the casket lowered five or eix feet; but the body inside the cas- ket is no more dead than is every man entil he has been regenerated by the grace of God. It is not I say so, but the Bible, which pronounces us -dead, dead—in trespasses and sins. The maniac who puts around his brow a bunch ef straw, and thinks it is a OZOW11, and holds in his hand a stick and thinks 12 18 a sceptre, and gathers up some pebbles, and Wanks they are diamonds, is no more beside himself than is every one who bas not accept- ed the Lord Jesus Christ as his per- sonal Saviour; for the Bible, in the parable, intimates that every prodigal is beside himself, in phantasia, in (le- lirura, in madness, The Bible is not ramplimeatary in ifs language, It does not speak mincingly about our sins. It does not talk apologetically. There is no vermilion in its style. It cloes not cover up our transgressions with blooming metaphor. 'My brethren, shall we stay down where sins thrusts us? We cannot af- ford to. I laa,ve, to -night, to tell you that there is something purer than snow -water, something More pungent than (alma, and that is the blood of .Jesus Christ that cleanseth from all sin. Ay, the river of salvation, bright, crystalline, and heaven -born, rushes through this audienee with billowy tide, strong enough to wash your sins completely forever away, Oh, /Testis, let the datn that holds it boxes now break, road the floods of salvation roll over us. "Let the sva,tet and the blood, iteroin thy side it healing flood, Be of sin the doable oure, Sava frotri wrath and make me puee," The Lord jesus Cheat lamas over you to -night, and, offers you His right head., proposing- to lift you up, first making you whiter than snow, and then raleing you to glories that never die, "Billy," eald a Christian boot- blitelt to another, "when we come up to loeaven, it weria ounce any difference 1,114 we've been boolloitteles here, for we, shall get in, not somehow or other but, Billy, we shall get straight through the gate." Oh, if ybu only knew how full, and free, and tenedr is knaw how full, and free, awl tender is the offer of Christ, this night yoa would all take Hina without one single 0es:elation; and if all the doors M this house were looked save one, end you were cornpellea to melee egress by Pala" one door, and I stood there and questioned you, and the gospel of Christ had ramie the right impressien upon your heart to -night, you. would answer me as you went out, one and all; Jesus is mine, ana I am His,' Oh that this might be the night whet( you would receive Him. ONE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE. asenera1 seartettai Trumpeter the Inmate of it Workhoume. John Loudon, who with the gallant General Scarlett was one of the first men to draw Russian blood in the memorable charge of the Heavy Bri- gade at Balaelavas is an inmate of Str. Pancras workhouse', It Was he who sounded the charge of the "'Heavies" on that glorious morning when a mere handful of General Scarlett's men mowed down "tloe. o'er lapping Russian lines" after the manner of a reaping ma- chine, In an interview with a repre- sentative of the Lond,on Daily Chron- icle, Loudon, spoke as follows of the awful collison between General Sear- lett's theta hundred and the Russian line of thousands: "Well, I sounded the charge, and we then went for the Russians like tig- ers. I was stirrup to stirrup wag the gallant General • Scarlett when we plunged into the enemy's line, It was a neck and, neck race betweeni four of us to see which would have the honor of the first onslaught. But goodness only knows who unhorsed the first of the enemy. I know- that General Scar- lett was on a very speedy charger, and I believe he won an exciting, race by decapitating th,e first Russian. A mo- ment before we crashed throu,gb the line I dropped my bugle by my side and then I had to use the sword in earnest. I was wounded over the tem- ple, and in the right leg, which now troubles me periodically. .But I did not know I was wounded/ at the time For a few minutes we were scattered like a flock of sheep; still we mowed away; now to the right, again to the left, twisting and turning, thrusting and slashing. We made several aven- ues in the enemies' lines, through which we rode to the rally. • "Soon after the rally we hearce that the 'Lights' were going to have a 'go." "I suppose you had. a good view of the charge?" "Oh, yes, until the 'Lights' disap- peared into agelf of smoke from the Russian cannon. I was alongside Gen- eral Scarlett when he gave thee order. 'The Heavy Brigade will support the laghts!' These were, I believe, his ex- actwords. The Lights ha,d then broken into agallop, and were close to 'the Valley of Death,' I sounded and soon myself a,nd General Scarlett were some thirty yards in front of the advancing squadrons. • "Suddenly .he turned round in the saddle, and exclaimed, 'Why the Hea- vies are retiring I Have you sounded Retire?' He was very muell excited. I replied, 'No, General.' We gaeloped back and met Lord Lucan. _It was he who load stopped the Heavies,. As near as I can recollect Lord Lima said to Gmeral Scarlett. 'We've lost the Light 13rigade asad we must save the Heavies.' " "Had the Heavies not been stopped by Lord Lucen, what do you think would. leave been the upshot?" "Oh, undoubtedly, we would have shared the same fate as the Lights but we would not have troubled about that. We were just in the humor for another charge." Loudon holds several letters from famous warriors. , "Every 25th of October," said he proudly, "until the day of his death I was always reminded of the charge by a letter from the gallant General Scar- lett. 'When General Scarlett died I lost the best friend I ever had. I have not a friend left now, and here I am at last in St. Pancres work O'ousel" sighed the old fellow. So he is ending his days with a pen- sion of 9d. eer day—or at least, the St. Pancras Guardians get it instead. PORTO RICAN LADIES. When the music begins at eight in the evening, out from their prison dwellings troop the fair ladies of San Juan, Some are blonde, most are brun- ette. A.11, as seen in the dim light of the flickering lamps, seem beautiful. All are bareheaded; all carry fan, which remind one of the flicker of but- terflies' wings as they flit and start, half opening and shutting as if about balancing t hemselves on a bank of flowers. They are bareheaded save for the graceful mantilla, svhich often hangs across their bare shoulders instead of adorning their night black tresses, The ladies flock by themselves mostly, or, if they have male escorts, are in- variably acoampanied by a duenna, who was young so long ago that she has forgotten all about it and keeps sharp- est watch over her charge. TWO hours lane they revel in the music of the band from Cadiz, and when the MUSE - clans have started for their barracks with that light, swinging pace peeial- iar to the Spanish infantry, then the fair eenorita,s and the les e attractive auennas lateen to the seclusion of their dwellings, while the mon ens- petse to the tares to gossip and smoke. IVORY VENEER& Veneer cutting has reachedsuch per- fection that it single elephant's tuak, 80 inches long, is now cut in London into a sheet of ivory 150 inches lortg and 20 inches wide, and some sheete of roSewood and mahogany are only about a fiftieth of tin inela thick. IHE SUNDAY SCHOOL. INTERNATIONAL LESSON, SEPT, " CaptIvity or She lee Teases." g 17. 0118. (Olden. Text, 1 Cht•oa. 'M. 5. PRACTICAL NOTES. Verse. 9, The phraee the thildren of Israel has here the restrietea meaning of the kingdom oe Israel, "the northern kingdom." Did seeretly those things that were not riga, Thar national iLfe had been begun wrong by an offi- cial abatidonment of the temple in Jerusalem ana of the priesthood of Aaron, This "sin of Jero- boam, the an of Nebitt" was open and flagrant; but it was followed by reiig- ious obliquity immeasurably worse, Ahab and Jezebel introdioced the beau- tiful but venomous worship of Baal—a moral poison of the deadliest sort; and not until jerlou had, extirpated. the for- eign priests was its curse removed Not even tlaen, for idolatrous practices were covertly continued. True, the peo- ple turned again to a nominal wor- ship of Jehovah; but the formal wor- shipers of the true Gosi were really slave,s of superstitiou and practicers of vice. Bad as "calf -worship" was, it was not it which eventually destroyed Israel, but an omnipresent idolatry, as foul as that of Baal, and conducted by stealth, in darkened rooms and se- cluded woodland sanctuaries. They built them high places in all their cit- ies. Instead of keeping to the one tem- ple and the one altar commanded by Go& they erected many of these. This (bete not seem to us at first glance to be a very heinous offense, so long as they worshiped the true God; but in times of relative ignorance, when the beat means of worship were a ser- ies of symbols, types, or object -lessons, it was necessary that these symbols should be uniform; uniformity of priest- hood and one central sanctuary were indispensable. That the God-fearing people generally recognized this is made evident by the fact that Jeroboam could secure no priests except from the offecourings of the nation. From the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. From the loneliest and most ex- posed place to the most crowded and best fortified. 10. They set them up images. -"Pil- lars," such as at the outset were de - 'voted to the worship oi Baal; and by mean.s of these pillars, doubtless, Baal was still worshiped. But it is probable that many used these pillars in the worship of Jehovah also, observing rites invented by themselves rather than those commanded by God. Such rites must in the very nature of things be debased and debasing. Groves. Artifi- cial structures, probably poles, devoted. to the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth, which may in a rough and general way be said to have corresponded to the worship elf Bacchus and Venus. These images" and "groves" were placed in every high hill, and under every gree tree; for it was on hilltops and in for ests that the licentious worship of th ancient East was most indulged ire 11. There they burnt incense. Incense was the universal symbol of prayer; so regarded by heathen as Gwell as by worshipers of the, true God. But Moses restrieted the burning of incense to the golden -altar which was within the veil. The incense burned in. "high places" with heathenish accompani- ments could never be accepted the Lord aaxried away before them. Origina1 inhabitants of the land, whose indulgence in foul practices in connec- tion with their idolatrous worship was the chief cause of their providential overthrow by the Israelites. And now, strange to say, Israel copied their ex- • axaple, and, like them, wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger. Some of these wicked things" are mentioned in detail in verse 15, 16, and 17. There were four notable stages in the downvoard career of the Israelites; First, false worship of the true God, engaged in merely for political ends; secondly, open worship of talse gods; thirdly, a formal return to the true God, while the people in their hearts worshiped false gods with more en- ergy than ever; finally, the lascivious- ness, cruelty, and effeminacy develop - teristies are as bereditar sp1exio op aerta. th?4LtolurrtheirTiToltd. di'dianaont aolne of ti* ae who formalise werehlla ed him had 110 pr4OtiOal, trust in him, 15, They rejeeted his etatutes. 'knee slisobeyed the moral and the eeremone ial law. 111S covenant, (See Exod. 19, 0-8 and 23, 3-8.) His testimonies. The testimonies of God are his command. Meats. They followed vanity, and became vain Literally, "They follows c4renlit°tIairlitgerte nesshaPhdeeabt°'eli:iithmeral,t111%er nv':: roand about tOem. ',they had conquer- ed by moral rather than physical sup- eriority; and always a natien is as similated to the ebject of its Worship, But now they followed the evil ex. ample et their inferiors, sank to the same moral depths and were about to Meet the e.axne rub, The Lord had charged them, that they shoitid not do like them. (See Lev. 18. 3, 30; Deut.12, 24-31; 18. 9-14.) " 16. They left all tile commandments of the Lord their God. The rituel order being neglected, the stated feasts and siac rifices and even the Sabboah itiioseulfpeceriaosdeidoatioiscat101 atphierintuaationta'surabt.teAn- a astecaninisueots,ea4rnouenklesuianges,s,falasdeuistwerege.rianagd, bloodshed became characteristic of Israel. Molten images, eeen two eaies':hesasw has'e aid l» ready,nark:atbebeindo:uvidrarw,aitio presented not a falee deity, but Jehov- ah. One of them stood at Dan, and the other at Bethel, They were held tiA04,orsk* the deities of the na- tion, Bethel being called. the king's chapel. 1VIaide agrove. Pointing to the Worship introduced ay Jezebel, the grossest worship ever known in Israel. All the host of heaven. Not until /now has Israel been °barged with thie era minal worsbip. Manasseh introduced it into the southern kingdom from Babylon or Nineveh, perhaps from the Arabs; it was probably the "aavest thing" in the morbid religious enter- prise of the day. Served Baal. This is tlie elimax. Jehu had. destroyed the Open service, but its evil rites bad a lasting popularity, and we know that it continued to flourish' in underhand- ed fashion down 'to 4the days of Hosea, who had died ju.st before the captivity. 17. They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through ;the fire. This horrible sacrifice had only very rectently been offered to Moloch by the northern kingdom, though the citi- zens of andel taad for yeaxs shared this most inhuman of Camaanitish cus- toms. Used divine -time and enchant- ments. Reveled ip su.pentitioa. BY , omens and magical praetices of every sort (they superseded their faith in God. Modern endeavors in the same direction and with sinailer evil re- sults are spirit -rapping and theosophy. 18. Th'erefore. Because of all this departure the Lord (Jehovah) -eras very anrigeqea.Rem .Notixorvietdattehde,mout hh profoundlybutissigt g, As if Palestine was Jehovah's abode. Neglected privileges are taken. away. There was none left, but the tribe of Judah only. God's peculiar people, the object of his love and his care, incilud- ed both kingdoms; but the northern kingdom had so rapidly deteriorated that none was left for God to caress and prosper, but Judah. And, sad to • say, Judah learned no good lessons - from her sister's overthrow, but sinned e on tin. she too shared, Israel's punish - natant. d by these false systems of worship nfered into the nation's life, and amid he turmoil and anarchy of its closing years all sorts of crim.e were prevalent —oppression, drunkenness, robbery, and murder abounding in every part of the kingdom. • 12. They served idols. The word for idols is " Ulnas ;" followers of the true God, could not but regard with utter contempt these objects M false wor- ship. Ye shall not do this thing. This was said by Jehovah in the Ten Com- mandments mad in other places. 13. .Against Israel, and against jun- ah. The kingdom of Judah had been perhaps a little more faithful to Je- hovah's high ideals than the kingdom of Israel; at least they reverenced the temple, and the priesthood, and the royal line of David. But their morals, too, were rotten, Gal showed no pre- ference for either division, but sent his prophets alike to Israel and judalo, and the pet of the message of every prophet is, "Ire shall not do this thing." 33y all the prophets, ancl by all the seers. "Seer" was the older name. The words were nearly synonyms, To the king- dom of Israel these prophets had been sent ; Altijah and Shilonite, in the first Jeroboam's time: Sohn, the son of Hat- ent 13aashaes time ; Elijah and Mlf icaia, under Allah; Elisha„ dering the reigns of Jahoram, Jelm, Jehoahaz, and ,Toash; Jonah, Hosea. and Amos, al tb.e reign of jeroboam IL; Abed, under Xing Pekah. Tina list deas riot inehode those sent to Judah ; and there ware, doubtless, others whose names have not been preeerved. Turn ye from yOur evil ways, etnt keep my conuriand- ments and my statutes, according te all. the law, This was the very essence ef prophetie teething, as may be aeon from scores of passages ; for ex- ample, Hoe. 12. 6; 14. 2; joel O. 12,13; Amoe 5. 4-15; lea. 1. 16-20; 31, 6; Jr 3. 7, 14; Ezek. 14. 6 ; 18. 410, • 11. They %valid hot hear. Familiar., • ity with trust tends to harden the consciences of the diecobectiett. Hard - teed their neevv ks in A Hebtefigure of spandi for attibborn self-will. ?take to the necks of their fathers. COogged- 'leas of will mni, ethex inoral oharae- ADVANTAGE OF. SPECTACLES. 11Yearer of GlatostirlI esiehaospaitzhe Expense off Time was when the wearing of spec- tacles, except by the very old, was a ram sight, and the wearing of eye- glasses still rarer. In those days the story books were written in which there frequently appeared the " nified gentleman, wearing gold eye- glasses." That was supposed to be a sufficient description and one that im- pressed you at once with his import- ance. Strange to say, the days of the paucity of specs were the very days when everybody ought to have been wearing them, because that was the time when people read by the light of tallow candles and pine knots. But if they were near-sighted they never knew what ailed them and it was left for the drays of gas and electric light to develop a be -spectacled race. Now are not Uohlan wear them and re I • Perhaps some people wear glasses to ' improve their looks, as the English do wthasimpplarionvley Inhteeirndnedervfoe. rTsthaerinmgcmpluerie- poses, as am Man is near-sighted in one eye. It has also been discovered that at is a great help in goving a fellow time to think. While he is fumbling for j the glass he gains several valuable sec- t onds to collect Jais thoughts, and the pause correspondingly exasperates the other fellow. Eyeglasses are almost as good if handled judiciously, and there is one iclub man who acknowledges that he wears them to overcome his natural bashfulness. "Although they are only glass," paid he, "and any one can see through them, they undoubtedly act as a shield. You feel semething like the man on the inside of the house who is condoct- ing a controversy with a fellow on the sidewalk. They give one a judicial air and brace a man up, 1 don't mean that the man wloo always wears glass- es feels that way; 1 snppose they get to feel a part of him ; but the man who only puts them on to talk or read vine a ortoral advantage that is half the battle. I speak- from persorial exper- iseace when I advise, every elly men to bang in a pair of eyeglaeses, and let them be of gold." COAL OUTPUT OF NATAL, At a recent South African banquet, Sir Walteraljely-Hutchinson months/l- ed teat the monthly output of tool in Natal had inereased from 12,000 tons In 1893 to 30,000 tons itt 1898. He aelded' as a notable fact that on Alva 10 lest the ships in Durban larbor loaded 1,- 000 tons of coal in the day, APPRECIA.TED THE SITTIATIoN. larst TrarapeeIt wile an tour am) if half die morniti' before I cud find anybody dat 'd give me some break- fast, - Seeoncl Tramp (sympathetically) as It's a,wfui to have yer leisiire time broke up like flat! .„