Word Exercise.

LXVIII.—GOLDEN DEEDS.

What is a golden deed? It is something which we do for the good of others when we think more of them than we do of ourselves. And it is called golden, because the rarest and most precious things in all the world are the acts of unselfish men.

Let me tell you the story of a golden deed that was performed by Sir Philip Sidney. This brave English knight was fighting in the Netherlands, to help the Dutch in their struggle for liberty against the tyrant, Philip of Spain. In a fierce battle he was struck by a musket ball, which broke his thigh-bone. Thirsty and faint from loss of blood, he called for water.

He had just raised the cup to his lips, when his eye fell on a poor, dying soldier, who was looking longingly at the cool drink. Without so much as tasting it, Sidney handed the cup to the poor fellow with these words: “Thy necessity is greater than mine.”

Here is the story of another golden deed. A little boy, named Peter, who lived in Holland a long time ago, was once on his way home late in the evening, when he became alarmed at hearing water trickling through a sluice or gate in one of the many dikes which are so necessary for the safety of that country; for you must know that Holland is so flat and low that it is in constant danger of finding itself under water.

He stopped and thought of what would happen if the hole were not closed. He had often heard his father tell of the sad disasters which had come from such small beginnings as this—how, in a few hours, the little aperture gradually enlarged until the whole defence was washed away, and the rolling, dashing, angry sea rushed in, and swept on to the next village, destroying life and property. Should he run home and alarm the villagers, it would be dark before they could arrive; and the hole, even then, might become so large as to defy all attempts to close. What could he do to prevent such a terrible ruin—he, only a little boy? He sat down on the bank of the canal, stopped the opening with his hand, and patiently awaited the passing of a villager. But no one came. Hour after hour rolled by, yet there sat the heroic boy, in cold and darkness, shivering, wet, and tired, but stoutly pressing his hand against the water that was trying to pass the dangerous breach. The remainder of the story is thus told by an American poet, Miss Phœbe Cary:—

He thinks of his brother and sister

Asleep in their safe, warm bed;

He thinks of his father and mother,

Of himself as dying—and dead;

And of how, when the night is over,

They must come and find him at last:

But he never thinks he can leave the place

Where duty holds him fast.

The good dame in the cottage

Is up and astir with the light,

For the thought of her little Peter

Has been with her all the night.

And now she watches the pathway,

As yester eve she had done;

But what does she see so strange and black

Against the rising sun?

Her neighbors bearing between them

Something straight to her door;

Her child is coming home, but not

As he ever came before!

“He is dead!” she cries; “my darling!”

And the startled father hears,

And comes and looks the way she looks,

And fears the thing she fears:

Till a glad shout from the bearers

Thrills the stricken man and wife—

“Give thanks, for your son has saved our land,

And God has saved his life!”

So there in the morning sunshine

They knelt about the boy,

And every head was bared and bent,

In tearful, reverent joy.

’Tis many a year since then; but still,

When the sea roars like a flood,

Their boys are taught what a boy can do,

Who is brave, and true, and good;

For every man in that country

Takes his son by the hand,

And tells him of little Peter,

Whose courage saved the land.

They have many a valiant hero,

Remembered through the years,

But never one whose name so oft

Is named with loving tears.

And his deed shall be sung by the cradle,

And told to the child on the knee,

As long as the dikes of Holland

Divide the land from the sea.

Now let us hear of a golden deed done more than two thousand years ago—a deed that has made the names of Damon and Pythias famous for ever.

In Syracuse there was so hard a ruler that the people made a plot to drive him out of the city. The plot was discovered, and the king commanded that the leaders should be put to death. One of these, named Damon, lived at some distance from Syracuse. He asked that before he was put to death, he might be allowed to go home to say good-bye to his family, promising that he would then come back to die, at the appointed time.

The king did not believe that he would keep his word, and said, “I will not let you go unless you find some friend who will come and stay in your place. Then, if you are not back on the day set for execution, I shall put your friend to death in your stead.” The king thought to himself, “Surely no one will ever take the place of a man condemned to death.”

Now, Damon had a very dear friend named Pythias, who at once came forward and offered to stay in prison while Damon was allowed to go away. The king was very much surprised, but he had given his word; Damon was therefore permitted to leave for home, while Pythias was shut up in prison.

Many days passed,—the time for the execution was close at hand, and Damon had not come back. The king, curious to see how Pythias would behave, now that death seemed so near, went to the prison. “Your friend will never return,” he said to Pythias.

“You are wrong,” was the answer. “Damon will be here if he can possibly come. But he has to travel by sea, and the winds have been blowing the wrong way for several days. However, it is much better that I should die than he. I have no wife and no children, and I love my friend so well that it would be easier to die for him than to live without him. So I am hoping and praying that he may be delayed until my head has fallen.”

The king went away more puzzled than ever. The fatal day arrived. Still Damon had not come, and Pythias was brought forward and mounted the scaffold. “My prayers are heard,” he cried. “I shall be permitted to die for my friend. But mark my words. Damon is faithful and true; you will yet have reason to know that he has done his utmost to be here.”

Just at this moment a man came galloping up at full speed, on a horse covered with foam! It was Damon. In an instant he was on the scaffold, and had Pythias in his arms. “My beloved friend,” he cried, “the gods be praised that you are safe. What agony have I suffered in the fear that my delay was putting your life in danger!”

There was no joy in the face of Pythias, for he did not care to live if his friend must die. But the king had heard all. At last he was forced to believe in the unselfish friendship of these two. His hard heart melted at the sight, and he set them both free, asking only that they would be his friends also.

LXIX.—BY COOL SILOAM’S SHADY RILL.

Reginald Heber.

By cool Siloam’s shady rill

How sweet the lily grows!

How sweet the breath beneath the hill

Of Sharon’s dewy rose!

Lo! such the child whose early feet

The paths of peace have trod,

Whose secret heart with influence sweet

Is upward drawn to God!

By cool Siloam’s shady rill

The lily must decay;

The rose that blooms beneath the hill

Must shortly fade away.

And soon, too soon, the wintry hour

Of man’s maturer age

Will shake the soul with sorrow’s power,

And stormy passion’s rage!

O thou, whose infant feet were found

Within thy Father’s shrine!

Whose years with changeless virtue crowned

Were all alike divine!

Dependent on thy bounteous breath,

We seek thy grace alone,

In childhood, manhood, age, and death,

To keep us still thy own!

Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.—Psalm XXXVII.

LXX.—AGE OF TREES.

Man counts his life by years; the oak by centuries. At one hundred years of age, the tree is but a sapling; at five hundred, it is mature and strong; at six hundred, the gigantic king of the greenwood begins to feel the touch of Time; but the decline is as slow as the growth was, and the sturdy old tree rears its proud head and reckons centuries of old age just as it reckoned centuries of youth.

It has been said that the patriarch of the forest laughs at history. Is it not true? Perhaps when the balmy zephyrs stir the trees, the leaves whisper strange stories to one another. The oaks, and the pines, and their brethren of the wood, have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go, and so many generations pass into silence, that we may well wonder what the “story of the trees” would be to us, if they had tongues to tell it, or we ears fine enough to understand.

“The king of white oak trees,” says a letter-writer in the year 1883, “has been chopped down and taken to the saw-mill. It was five hundred and twenty-five years old, and made six twelve-foot logs, the first one being six feet in diameter and weighing seven tons.” What a giant that oak-tree must have been, and what changes in this land of ours it must have witnessed! It looked upon the forest when the red man ruled there alone; it was more than a century old when Columbus landed in the New World; and to that good age it added nearly four centuries before the ax of the woodman laid it low.

Yet, venerable as this “king of white oak trees” was, it was but an infant, compared with other monarchs of the Western solitudes. One California pine, cut down about 1855, was, according to very good authority, eleven hundred and twenty years old; and many of its neighbors in its native grove are no less ancient than it was. Who shall presume, then, to fix the age of the hoary trees that still rear their stalwart frames in the unexplored depths of American wildernesses.

In England there are still in existence many trees that serve to link the far-off past with the living present. Some of them were witnesses of the fierce struggles between Norman and Saxon when William the Conqueror planted his standard—“the three bannered lions of Normandy old”—upon English soil. Then there is the King’s Oak, at Windsor, which, tradition informs us, was a great favorite with William, when that bold Norman first enclosed the forest for a royal hunting-ground.

The Conqueror loved to sit in the shade of the lofty, spreading tree, and muse—upon what? Who knows what fancies filled his brain, what feelings stirred his proud spirit, what memories, what regrets, thrilled his heart, as he sat there in the solitude? Over eight hundred years have rolled away since the Norman usurper fought the sturdy Saxon, and, for conqueror as for conquered, life, and its ambitions, and its pangs, ended long ago; but the mighty oak, whose greenness and beauty were a delight to the Conqueror, still stands in Windsor Forest. Eight centuries ago its royal master saw it a “goodly tree.” How old is it now?

Older even than this, are the oaks near Croydon, nine miles south of London. If the botanist may judge by the usual evidences of age, these trees saw the glitter of the Roman spears as the legions of the Empire wound their way through the forest-paths or in the green open spaces in the woodland. Now, the Roman legions left Britain fourteen centuries ago, having been summoned home to Rome because the Empire was in danger,—in fact, was hastening to its fall. How wonderful, if fourteen centuries have spared these oaks at Croydon!

There is a famous yew that must not go without notice in our record of ancient trees. This venerable tree stands in its native field, ever green and enduring, as if the years had forgotten it. Yet it was two centuries old when, in the adjacent meadow, King John signed Magna Charta. If we bear in mind that in 1215, the stout English barons compelled their wicked king to sign the Great Charter, protecting the rights of his subjects, we may conclude that this patriarch-yew is at least eight hundred and fifty years old.

The Parliament Oak—so called because it is said that Edward I., who ruled England from 1272 to 1307, once held a Parliament under its branches—is believed to be fifteen hundred years old. If Fine-Ear, of the fairy-tale, could come and translate for us the whispers of these ancient English trees, and tell us ever so little of what the stately monarchs of the wood have seen, what new histories might be written, what old chronicles reversed!

On the mountains of Lebanon, a few of the cedars, famous in sacred and in profane history, yet remain. One of these relics of the past has been estimated to be three thousand five hundred years old. The patriarchs of the English forests cannot, then, so far as age is considered, claim equal rank with the “cedars of Lebanon.” But the baobab, or “monkey-bread,” of Senegal, must take the first rank among long-lived trees. Even the “goodly trees” of Lebanon must, if ordinary proofs can be trusted, yield the palm to their African rival.

An eminent French botanist of the eighteenth century, whose discoveries in natural history are of great interest to the world of science, lived some years in Senegal, and had ample opportunity to observe and study the wonderful baobab. He saw several trees of this species growing, and from the most careful calculations, he formed his opinion as to the age of some of these African wonders. One baobab, which even in its decay measured one hundred and nine feet in circumference, he believed to be more than five thousand years old. Truly, the patriarchs of the forest laugh at history.

LXXI.—ROCK ME TO SLEEP.

Elizabeth Akers Allen.

Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,

Make me a child again, just for to-night;

Mother, come back from the echoless shore;

Take me again to your heart as of yore;

Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,

Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;

Over my slumbers your loving watch keep—

Rock me to sleep, mother—rock me to sleep.

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!

I am so weary of toil and of tears—

Toil without recompense—tears all in vain—

Take them and give me my childhood again!

I have grown weary of dust and decay—

Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away;

Weary of sowing for others to reap—

Rock me to sleep, mother—rock me to sleep.

Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,

Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you.

Many a summer the grass has grown green,

Blossomed and faded, our faces between;

Yet with strong yearning and passionate pain

Long I to-night for your presence again.

Come from the silence, so long and so deep—

Rock me to sleep, mother—rock me to sleep.

Over my heart, in the days that are flown,

No love like mother-love ever has shone;

No other worship abides and endures—

Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours;

None like a mother can charm away pain

From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.

Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep—

Rock me to sleep, mother—rock me to sleep.

Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,

Fall on your shoulders, again, as of old;

Let it drop over my forehead to-night,

Shading my faint eyes away from the light;

For with its sunny-edged shadows once more

Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;

Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;—

Rock me to sleep, mother—rock me to sleep.

Mother, dear mother, the years have been long

Since I last listened your lullaby song;

Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem

Womanhood’s years have been only a dream.

Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,

With your light lashes just sweeping my face,

Never hereafter to wake or to weep—

Rock me to sleep, mother—rock me to sleep.

LXXII.—HEAT:—CONDUCTION AND RADIATION.

In a former lesson you read a description of the thermometer, a useful instrument which enables us to estimate the temperature, or sensible heat, of substances.

All bodies, even the coldest, contain heat; and they have also a tendency to part with their heat to colder substances around them, until all have the same temperature. Thus, when you lay your hand on a block of iron or marble, heat leaves your hand to enter the less warm material and raise its temperature; and it is this abstraction of heat that produces in you the sensation of cold.

There is, then, a constant communication or transmission of heat from one body to another. This communication is effected chiefly in two ways—by conduction and by radiation. In conduction, the bodies are in contact; in radiation, they are at some distance apart.

If you push one end of a cold poker into the fire, that end will soon become warm, and the heat will be propagated from particle to particle through the poker, until the end most distant from the fire becomes too hot to be touched without injury. This mode of transmission is called conduction. Different substances possess this power in very different degrees. Thus, if instead of a poker you thrust into the fire a bar of wood of equal length and thickness, you will find that, even when the inserted end is in flames, the other remains comparatively cold, and may be handled with impunity. Hence we say that iron is a good conductor, and wood a bad conductor of heat.

The conducting power of bodies depends in a great measure on the closeness of their particles—dense, solid substances being much better conductors than those which are light and porous. The metals are the best conductors, but they differ very much among themselves. The best is silver; the others stand in this respect in the following order—copper, gold, brass, tin, iron, steel, lead.

You will now understand why metals feel cold to the touch: it is because, being good conductors, they carry the heat rapidly away from that part of our body with which they are in contact.

Among the bad conductors of heat are fur, wool, cotton, silk, and linen; straw, paper, feathers, wood, earth, snow, water, and air; and loose bodies, such as sawdust and shavings, which contain a large amount of air in the spaces between their particles.

Our clothing, as you know, is made of wool, cotton, or linen. Can you tell why such materials are selected for the purpose? It is not, as many ignorant people suppose, because they are best adapted to impart warmth. The true reason is that, being bad conductors, they prevent the cold air and other objects around us from robbing us of the heat which is produced within our bodies.

When once you understand what is meant by conduction of heat, and can distinguish between substances which are good conductors and those which are not, you will be able to give a reason for many facts that must appear strange to every one who does not possess such information. A little reflection, for instance, will enable you to explain why a linen garment feels colder to the skin than one made of cotton or wool; why a silver spoon becomes hot when the bowl is left for a few minutes in a cup of hot liquid; why a metal tea-pot or kettle is commonly furnished with a handle of wood or ivory; why ice may be preserved by being wrapped in flannel or covered with sawdust; why a pump, in frosty weather, should be encased in straw or matting; and why the farmer welcomes the snow, and regards it as a protection to his crops.

Every warm body has the power of sending out rays of heat, as a luminous body gives out rays of light. This mode of communicating heat is called radiation, and it serves, as we shall see, a very important purpose in the economy of nature.

When you stand before a fire, heat-rays stream forth from the burning fuel, and create in you the sensation of warmth. In this case, the heat of the fire is communicated to you, not by conduction, but by radiation.

Everything in nature is constantly radiating heat from its surface. If a body be surrounded by objects hotter than itself, it becomes heated by radiation; if it be exposed to the influence of objects colder than itself, it becomes cooled by radiation; and if the objects around it are neither hotter nor colder than itself, its temperature remains unaltered.

But though all bodies radiate heat, they have not all the same radiating power. Some substances possess this power in a far greater degree than others. The metals, though they are the best conductors, are the worst radiators. This is particularly the case when they are polished. Dull, dark substances, and especially those which have a rough or scratched surface, are good radiators; light-colored and smooth substances, on the other hand, are bad radiators; and this explains why, as every good housewife knows, a polished metal tea-pot keeps tea warmer than a black earthen one—it does not part with its heat so readily.

Bodies which radiate freely have the power in an equal degree of absorbing heat; that is, they are as ready to take it in, as they are to throw it out again. Dark substances, therefore, must be good absorbers, as they are good radiators of heat. A very simple experiment will illustrate this fact very clearly. If you spread upon snow, in a place exposed to the sunbeams, two pieces of cloth of the same texture, one black and the other white, you will find, after some time, that under the black cloth the snow has been melted, but under the white cloth it remains as it was at first. The black material has been heated quickly and intensely; the white has not been heated at all: the former has absorbed the sun’s rays; the latter has reflected them.

The laws of absorption and radiation enable us to explain many curious facts. Thus, dark-colored clothes are cold in the shade, because they are then radiating heat from our bodies; but they are warm in the sunshine, because they are then absorbing the heat that falls upon them from the sun. On the other hand, light colored clothes are warm in the shade, and cool in the sunshine. Again, a dish-cover or metal tea-pot is kept as brightly polished as possible, in order to prevent the escape of the heat by radiation; a black earthenware tea-pot, on the contrary, has a dull and dark surface, so that it may be placed on the hob and absorb the heat. So, too, if a kettle is to heat quickly, the bottom and sides should be covered with soot, to absorb the heat; while the upper part should be bright, to prevent radiation.

It is radiation, also, that accounts for the deposition of dew. It is a common error to suppose that dew falls in the same manner as rain or mist, only in much finer particles. Dew, in fact, does not fall, but is formed on the surface of bodies by the condensation of the moisture of the atmosphere.

The air around us contains at all times a quantity of moisture in the form of vapor. Now this vapor has been formed from water by the action of heat; and it may again be turned into water by being brought in contact with objects that are cold. And this is just what takes place in the formation of dew. When the sun has set, the trees and grass and other objects on the earth’s surface immediately begin to radiate the heat which they have absorbed from its beams during the day. The best radiators, of course, become cool most rapidly, and quickly condense the vapor that floats in the air around them; and in the morning we find those objects which radiate freely, such as blades of grass, leaves of plants, and floating cobwebs, covered with this condensed vapor in the form of glittering dewdrops.

Clouds, in a great measure, prevent radiation, and hence the dew will be most plentiful on a clear and cloudless night. If the radiation continues till the temperature of the ground is very low, the dew freezes as it is deposited and forms hoar-frost.

You may see a smooth road or gravel walk quite dry in the morning, while the grass or box by its side is thickly coated with moisture. Why is this? It is simply because the road or walk is a bad radiator and cools slowly, while the grass and box, being good radiators, become rapidly cold and condense the vapor of the passing air into dew.

Thus by a wise arrangement, the cultivated fields receive an abundance of precious moisture, while not a drop is wasted on the bare rock, or the sterile sands of the desert.