C
Calf Intelligence—See [Direction, Sense of].
CALL, THE, OF GOD
In the summer of 1871, Rev. Robert W. McAll and his wife, visiting Paris at the close of the war with Germany, and led by a deep desire to reach workingmen with the gospel, were giving away tracts in the hotels and on the public streets, when a workingman said: “If any one will come among us and teach us not a gospel of priestcraft and superstition, but of truth and liberty, many of us are ready to hear.”
Mr. McAll returned home, but above the murmur of the waves and the hum of busy life he heard that voice, “If any one will come and teach us ... we are ready to hear.” He said to himself, “Is this God’s call? Shall I go?” Friends said, “No!” But a voice within said, “Yes.” And he left his English parish and went back, and in a district worse to work in than St. Giles in London he began to tell the old story of Jesus. Soon the little place was crowded, and a larger room became a necessity; and sixteen years later that one gospel hall has become 112, in which, in one year, have been held 14,000 religious meetings, with a million hearers, and 4,000 services for children, with 200,000 attendants.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”
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CALL TO BETTER LIFE, THE
When summer is ending the wild bird in arctic zones responds to the call of the tropic winds and perfumes and plumes his flight for southern feeding-grounds. So the soul of man is drawn and responds to subtle and haunting attractions in the realm of holiness and heaven.
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Call to Duty—See [Responding to the Call].
CALLS AND CONVEYANCES IN THE EAST
A source of offense (in the East) are calls formal in character. One can ruin his social standing by going to make this call in a wrong style of conveyance. A friend of mine had bought a Chinese sedan-chair with shorter handles than those of an ordinary sedan. It was loaned to a millionaire from New York to bring him up from the river, and it caused the greatest excitement that the city had ever known. People were laughing for years over it. Why? Because those shorter handles made of that sedan a spirit chair, in which the ghost is carried at funeral processions. It was just as appropriate as if Dr. Anderson, of the First Presbyterian Church up here, should receive a visiting clergyman in a hearse down at the station and bring him uptown in it. It is safe to say that the sight of his guest looking out through the glass sides would not be forgotten. You have reached your place, and you desire to make a good impression; but you are in such haste that you leap down from your cart, or gharry. Well, if a lady should do this in China or India, she might just as well in America if she desired to make a good impression upon a new friend, approach this friend’s house skipping, or on the run; or a gentleman might just as appropriately vault a fence to get over into the yard, instead of entering by the gate where he was going to make a call.—H. P. Beach, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
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Calmness—See [Confidence].
CALMNESS IN A CRISIS
Speaking of that “anxious moment” in the decisive battle of Königgrätz before the arrival of the Crown Prince in the rear of the Austrians, Bismarck, according to Mr. Schurz’s autobiography in McClure’s Magazine, related the following incident showing von Moltke’s coolness:
It was an anxious moment, a moment on the decision of which the fate of the empire depended. Squadrons of cavalry, all mixt up, hussars, dragoons, uhlans, were streaming by the spot where the King, Moltke, and myself stood, and altho we had calculated that the Crown Prince might long have appeared behind the Austrian rear, no sign of the Crown Prince! Things began to look ominous. I confess I felt not a little nervous. I looked at Moltke, who sat quietly on his horse and did not seem to be disturbed by what was going on around us. I thought I would test whether he was really as calm as he appeared. I rode up to him and asked him whether I might offer him a cigar, since I noticed he was not smoking. He replied that he would be glad if I had one to spare. I presented to him my open case in which there were only two cigars, one a very good Havana, and the other of rather poor quality. Moltke looked at them and even handled them with great attention, in order to ascertain their relative value, and then with slow deliberation chose the Havana. “Very good,” he said composedly. This assured me very much. I thought, if Moltke can bestow so much time and attention upon the choice between two cigars, things can not be very bad.
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Calmness of Pupils—See [Discipline Among Children].
CALVARY, ANTICIPATING
Overbeck, the celebrated German painter, in one of his immortal canvases, represents the child Jesus at play in Joseph’s workshop. He is fashioning sticks and blocks into the shape of a cross, as if anticipating and rehearsing in his tender years the tragedy of Calvary. Child as he is, even in his play the serious work of his life looms up before Him.
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Canadian Resources—See [Money Power in Canada].
Candles, Illustrations from—See [Illustrations from Candles].
CANT
A professor, addressing an academic audience, warned his hearers against cant. At the close, questions were invited and one of the students asked the professor, “What is cant?” “There is a kind of religion,” was the reply, “which is natural to an old woman, and there is another which is natural to a young man; but if the young man professes to have the religion of the old woman, that is cant.”
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CAPACITY
You do not preach to the acorn that it is its duty to become a large tree; you do not preach to the art-pupil that it is his duty to become a Holbein. You plant your acorn in favorable soil, where it can have light and air, and be sheltered from the wind, you remove the superfluous branches, you train the strength into the leading shoots. The acorn will then become as fine a tree as it has vital force to become. The difference between men and other things is only in the largeness and variety of man’s capacities.—James Anthony Froude.
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CAPACITY LIMITING SUPPLY
You can limit the working of almighty power, and can determine the rate at which it shall work on you. God fills the water-pots to the brim, but not beyond the brim; and if, like the woman in the Old Testament story, we stop bringing vessels, the oil will stop flowing. It is an awful thing to think that we have the power, as it were, to turn a stopcock, and so increase or diminish, or cut off altogether, the supply of God’s mercy and Christ’s healing and cleansing love in our hearts. You will get as much of God as you want, and no more. The measure of your desire is the measure of your capacity, and the measure of your capacity is the measure of God’s gift.—Alexander McLaren.
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See [Receptiveness].
CAPACITY, ORIGINAL
During the trial in court of a case involving the originality of a picture, an eminent counsel put this question to Gainsborough: “I observe you lay great stress on the phrase, ‘the painter’s eye’; what do you mean by that?” “The painter’s eye,” replied the artist in a smart repartee, “is to him what the lawyer’s tongue is to you.”
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Capacity, Restricting—See [Routine].
Captain and Crew Stedfast—See [Loyalty].
CAPTAIN, CHRIST OUR
Among the old war pictures I remember one of a captain of artillery bringing his battery into action. His whole soul was in the effort to rally his men and guns on the line. You could hear the thunderous roll of the wheels, crushing over all unevenness and hindrance, the frantic straining of the horses, the fearless, intense resolution of the men, and above all, the captain waving his sword, shouting his commands—but shot dead just as the guns wheel into line. Our Captain died rallying us, but He rose again, and He still has His dying enthusiasm of love for each one of us.—Franklin Noble, “Sermons in Illustration.”
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CAPTAIN, OUR
Every ship has a captain. Some captains are good, some bad. Years ago, I went by steamer from Quebec through the lower St. Lawrence and around the Dominion coast. Our captain was under the influence of liquor the whole way, and you can easily imagine that I was glad to get ashore safely. One of the ocean steamship lines once dismissed a captain who, tho thoroughly capable when he was sober, was given to drink. Another ocean line took him up, hoping that he had reformed. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Bringing his steamer across the Atlantic, and being under the influence of drink, he ran her too far north and on a winter’s night rushed his steamer on to the rocks. That night 532 people found a watery grave. Surely that is not the kind of captain with whom we would ever care to sail. On the other hand, there was in my earlier days a captain of the Cunard Steamship Company—Captain Cook by name—careful, capable, endlessly vigilant. The passengers felt safe while he was on the bridge.
Some one has charge of us in all our life’s voyage, and either we are under the command of Jesus Christ as Captain of our salvation, or under the command of Satan, the captain of ruin and death and despair.—A. F. Schauffler in The Christian Herald.
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CAPTAIN, THE DIVINE
A vessel lies at the wharf. Her timbers are sound, her masts are stanch, her canvas is bent. The tide coaxes her seaward; the winds plead with her to move. The ship itself strains at her moorings to be leaping over the ocean. But the vessel must wait, wait for the skipper’s will. Not best timbers or fullest tide can carry that ship to the distant port until the master reveals his mind to the vessel. The earnest expectation of the vessel waiteth for the revealing of the captain.
So, here is the world; the master-builder has fitted it with all things needful for its consummation; it is ready for its wonder purpose; but it must wait; something is needed for the accomplishment of that end. The earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God.—T. C. McClelland.
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Card-playing—See [Amusements].
CARE IN PERFORMING DUTIES
The postal-clerk must know the various mail routes as familiarly as he does the faces of his best friends. His car, with its tier over tier of pigeon-holes, and its ranks of yawning mail-bags, is to him no labyrinth of mysteries. His eyes are in his fingers, and the skilful musician’s touch is not more accurate than the aim of this wizard of the mail-car. The department rules are exacting, and if an occasional error results from the hurried manner in which the mail is thrown, in course of distribution, it is sure to be detected by the next clerk into whose hands the stray piece of mail falls, and a report of it is at once sent to the division superintendent to be charged against the clerk making the error. During a given year the number of letters and other pieces of mail matter distributed was 5,329,521,475. The number of errors made in handling this vast quantity of matter was only 1,260,443. The number of pieces handled for each error committed were 4,228, thus making the percentage of correct distribution 99.98. All employees are required to attest their skill by frequent examinations, and for this purpose much of the leisure time of each is devoted to studying the mail schemes of the various States attaching to the division in which he is employed—John M. Bishop, Magazine of American History.
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CARE OF GOD, THE
There are winter times with blight and cold and fruitlessness and storm for us all; times when we do not see that the wonder-workings of the divine care are on us. But they are on us, definitely, “all the days.” The sun was not only bringing the earth around all winter to a time when spring should break forth; but the coal you burned to expel the winter’s cold that same sun had caused to grow in ancient ages in its original vegetation; the wood that enclosed the comforts of your home and shut out the driving storm, that sun had caused to grow in recent years; day by day all the winter through the sun sent light to cheer your rooms while snows lay deep and winds were wild; and day by day the sun purified the air and sterilized germs of disease, and so made it possible for you to baffle sickness and nurse your loved one back to health. The sun was working for your good all the time. Even so our Lord is ever working in us and in our lives to will and to do of his good pleasure.—Monday Club, “Sermons on the International Sunday-school Lessons for 1904.”
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CARE-FREE
The Baroness Burdette-Coutts inherited from her grandfather, of the Coutts Bank, a fortune of about $20,000,000. She managed it ably, but devoted it to great works of charity during her long and busy life. Not long before her death she said:
“I seem to be living in a transitional age. Every one is in such a hurry nowadays, and I don’t ever remember being in a hurry. The weather never depresses me. I don’t mind noise and rather enjoy the rush of the motor-busses past Holly Lodge. I don’t myself know what nerves are, and yet I’ve had to send Tip, my fox-terrier, to a restcure.” (Text.)
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Carefulness—See [Headwork].
Careless Work—See [Anyhow, The Land of].
CARELESSNESS
Down in the fire-room of a big steamer that was lying at the wharf in New York, a young man was told to do a certain piece of work in connection with the pumps. There were two pumps close together in the room—one for feeding the boiler and the other to use in case the ship should take fire. This latter one was capable of throwing a volume of water as large as a man’s body. The young man, who had been employed on the ship for three years, and who, when he concentrated his attention on it, knew all that was necessary concerning the work in hand, went to the wrong pump and removed the cap from the fire-pump. In a moment he discovered his error, but the force of the water was so great that he could not replace the cap on the pump. Without a word he ran to the deck, left the steamer, and took the cars for his home in another State. Before the accident was discovered the water had filled the hold of the vessel, and in spite of every effort the vessel sank, and many thousands of dollars of damage was done.—Louis Albert Banks.
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See [Ignorance].
CARELESSNESS, COST OF
The city of Butte, Montana, is built over a mine which has been on fire for seventeen years, not blazing out, but smoldering quietly, every effort being made to keep out the air, without which it can not spread very rapidly.
As to the origin of this fire the story is that a miner named Henshaw left his candle burning on a pine beam in the mine when he finished work one day seventeen years ago.
“Goin’ to leave the glim there, Bill?” his partner queried.
“Sure; what’s the difference?”
“Oh, nothin’, only there’ll be nobody round here for quite a while and I was just thinkin’ that if a fire started it might spread.”
“Well, we’ll take chances; let’s go!” was the glum response.
They went out, but the fire didn’t. A set of timbers caught and the flames spread quickly.
Since that time thousands of men have been engaged in fighting this fire without complete success, for it still burns, and a fortune has been expended in the conflict.
What a price to pay for a foolish act! All acts of carelessness are not followed by such serious consequences, but there is always an element of risk in doing the wrong thing.
In how many lives has the fire of sin been kindled by some deed of folly in early life, and it still smolders in the soul, cursing the man’s whole being.—Onward.
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CAREERS CONTRASTED
In the year 1877 two young men stood up with the rest of their class at Bowdoin University to receive diplomas. One was called Bob, the other was called Charlie. They were Maine boys, both of them, and of about the same age. Within the last few weeks those two boys, now grown into grizzled men in the early fifties, have been conspicuous in the news of the day.
One of them, Bob, went in for fame, and after devoting the best years of his life to wrestling with arctic storms, throwing dice with death, enduring the very limits of privation and hardship, more than once glad to chew tanned leather or bite into rancid blubber, he emerged the other day with a story of discovery which thrilled the whole world, and will send his name, Robert E. Peary, sounding down the ages to the end of time.
The other boy, Charlie, went in for fortune. He had already developed the knack of the money-maker, and he did not tie up his talent in a napkin. He sold candy. He sold ice. He sold lumber. He acquired banks and trust companies and juggled stocks and bonds until he amassed a fortune of twenty millions. Then something happened. On the day after New-year’s day of this year (1910), his money gone, his reputation destroyed, his liberty lost, he took the 10:43 train on the Southern Limited, escorted by a United States marshal and two deputies, on the way to the Federal prison at Atlanta, Ga., to which he had been sentenced for a term of fifteen years. Every legal device to save him had been tried, and had failed, and Charles Wyman Morse has now become convict Number 2814—that is all.—Current Literature.
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CARGOES THAT WRECK
Every ship has a cargo, or if no cargo it is seeking for cargo. Some cargoes are safe and some dangerous. In olden time they used to load grain in bulk, which was dangerous, for if the grain shifted in a storm it was apt to throw the ship on her beam ends. Cotton is a dangerous cargo, and many steamship lines advertise, “These ships carry no cotton.” Some years ago, an evil-minded man tried to ship an infernal machine on one of the steamers of a transatlantic line. His intention was that the clockwork in the machine should go off while the ship was in mid-ocean, and blow her to pieces. Fortunately, the clockwork went off while the infernal machine was on the dock. It blew off the stern of the steamer and killed thirteen men. Surely that would have been a dangerous cargo to carry.
Just so every man carries a cargo. By this I mean a cargo of opinions, passions, appetites, and these are sure to wreck any young man who carries them.—A. F. Schauffler, The Christian Herald.
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CASTE
Dr. Pauline Root, of India, gives this example of the tenacity of the Hindus to their rules of caste:
The Brahman custom which prescribes for every man and woman the ceremonial bath every day also prescribes that during any illness the bath shall be omitted. A woman who is ill is banished to a little room and left to take care of herself unless a hired person is sent to be her nurse. I had under my care a young girl of high caste who was ill with an illness which had already carried off the mother and two sisters. The father was ready to make almost any concessions to me if I would only come and save his daughter’s life. I insisted that she be brought out into one of the main rooms of the home, and that she be given a cot to sleep upon. When she grew better she wanted me with her most of the time to sit beside her and hold her hand. I really thought she was succumbing before love. Finally, I told her that she was convalescent enough to have her ceremonial bath. The next morning her father met me with a munificent gift. I saw the girl arrayed in her beautiful dresses, but a great distance had been put between us, and when I held out my hand she refused it, saying, “Please don’t touch me; I have taken my bath.”
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Catalepsy—See [Pathological Condition].
Catching Souls—See [Fishers of Men].
CATHOLIC FOREIGN MISSIONS
Probably few people outside the Catholic Church know what that body is doing for the evangelization of heathen lands. And if we are to believe the Catholic leaders and writers, their own people have shared to some degree this lack of information and interest, for the Catholic missionaries have had to struggle on with little support from home compared with the generous gifts the Protestant missionaries receive. A report has just been issued by Monsignor Freri, general director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, that is full of information on this subject. It is summarized in the New York Evening Sun and Post and many Catholic journals. Its figures afford some interesting comparisons. While an unmarried Protestant missionary receives about $600, the income of the Catholic missionary, who receives no stated salary, is less than $111. While the Northern Methodists of America alone last year subscribed over $2,000,000 in missionary funds, and all American Protestants more than $11,000,000, Catholics the world over contributed in all but $1,342,292.27.
Monsignor Freri’s report shows the actual receipts for 1909 to be $61,755.02 in excess of those of the preceding year. He directs special attention to the zeal of the Catholics of France, who, in spite of the extraordinary burdens imposed upon them by the confiscation of religious property and the separation of Church and State, contributed $630,688.51, almost half of the total.
The United States and its insular possessions hold the second place with the gift of $220,637.78. This is an increase of $27,583.38 over 1908. Germany gave $140,530.92; Belgium, $71,529.40; the Argentine Republic, $47,448.97; Italy, $46,898.74; Spain, $39,080.42; Mexico, $24,149.60; Switzerland, $18,532.74; Chile, $16,403.93, and the British Isles donated a trifle above $25,000, of which Ireland gave $15,478.92.
It is estimated that the number of Catholic missionaries in the foreign field, exclusive of converted natives who have taken up the work, is 54,000, of whom 10,000 are priests, 4,000 teaching brothers, and 45,000 nuns. In addition to their share of the general fund, the missionaries receive alms and contributions from various sources. Yet, to quote an address delivered by Monsignor Freri before the Catholic Missionary Congress:
“Including all these sources of income, and after consultation with many heads of missions, I think I am far within the truth when I say that the total contribution for missions, from all sources, is less than $6,000,000 a year. If we reckon 10,000 priests, 4,000 brothers, and 40,000 nuns, this would give an average of less than $111 per capita. With this they must support themselves, build churches, maintain schools, hospitals, asylums, colleges, pay the transportation of missionaries, etc.”
One of the chief missionary bands is that of the “White Fathers,” or Algerian missionaries, whose missions in Uganda Mr. Roosevelt visited in his African travels. According to the report, the total number of baptisms within the jurisdiction of this one organization during the year beginning July, 1908, was 10,000.
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CATHOLICITY, A KING’S
His (Edward VII) catholicity, the object of both praise and censure, was proverbial. An instance of this was given in a letter written by Archbishop Magee, in December, 1873. Speaking of a week-end visit to Sandringham, where Edward, then Prince of Wales, attended his services, he said: “Just returned from church, where I preached for twenty-six minutes (Romans, 8:28). The church is a very small country one, close to the grounds. The house, as I saw it by daylight, is a handsome country house of red stone with white facings, standing well and looking quietly comfortable and suitable. I find the company pleasant and civil, but we are a curious mixture. Two Jews, Sir A. Rothschild and his daughter; a Roman Catholic, Col. Higgins; an Italian duchess, who is an English woman, and her daughter brought up as a Roman Catholic and now turning Protestant; a set of young lords, and a bishop. The Jewess came to church; so did the half-Protestant lady. Dizzy (Disraeli) did the same, and was profuse in his praises of my sermon.”—New York Evening Post.
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CAUSALITY IN CHILDREN
A few illustrations will suffice to make clear the instinct of causality in children. I draw first of all upon notes taken on the religious development of a boy between the age of three and six years. At the end of the third year, while visiting Niagara Falls with his parents, this boy showed his first interest in the cause of things. While watching the water of the falls from Prospect Park, he said: “Mama, who pours the water over Niagara Falls?” We may imagine similar questions being asked by the American Indian ages previously, and answered in terms of “Gitchie Manitou, the Mighty.” From this beginning, the boy during the next three years seemed to be trying to make himself clear upon the question of where things come from originally, and who keeps the world going. “Who makes the birds?” “Who made the very first bird?” “Who fixt their wings so they can fly?” “Who takes care of the birds and rabbits in the winter when snow is on the ground?” “Who makes the grass grow?” “Who makes the trees?” “Who makes them shed their leaves and then get them back again?” “Who makes it thunder?” “Who put the moon in the sky?” “Who made the whole world?” “Who made people?” “Who made me?” “Does God make everything?” “Who made God?” “Was God already made?” “Is God everywhere?” Such were the questions asked again and again, with all sorts of comments in reply to the answers that were given him. The question of what is the origin of things was seldom or never asked. It was always who; and when the personal cause he was seeking was named “God” in connection with numerous objects, he finally generalized by asking if God makes everything.—George E. Dawson, “The Child and His Religion.”
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Causative Sense Instructive—See [Automatic Experience].
CAUSES CURED
A bitter fountain comes rushing down the mountain side, and drinking thereof, the people of the city are poisoned. Along comes a man who says: “I will build a lime factory just above the city, and pour a stream of lime-water into the bitter fountain.” Jesus’ method was simpler. Go higher up, into the mountain of God, and strike the rock, that sweet waters may gush forth, to flow through the land, carrying health and happiness to all that stand upon the banks of this river of water of life. Jesus reformed institutions by reforming human nature. He was a fundamental thinker. He dealt with causes.—N. D. Hillis.
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Caution in Revealing Truth—See [Truth Fatal].
CEMETERY, THE EARTH AS A
Again and again this old poetic fancy of the earth as one great cemetery buried several times deep with dead men, women and children, has been refuted by figures. But great is the error and will prevail, unless the truth be well and steadily upheld. The population of the earth is now about 1,500,000,000. Suppose the human race to have existed for 6,000 years and you have sixty centuries. In each century you may count three generations of mankind, or one hundred and eighty generations in all, each being a generation of 1,500,000,000. Now, lay out a cemetery for one generation. It will be a huge estimate to give to every man, woman, and child a grave five feet by two, or ten square. You want for your graveyard, then, 15,000,000,000 square feet of ground. A square mile contains something less than 28,000,000 square feet. You want, then, a graveyard fifty-five miles long by ten wide for your whole generation. Now multiply this by one hundred and eighty and you have your burial-ground for 6,000 years of mankind. That is, a strip of land, 1,800 miles long by 55 miles wide will be ample. In other words, a cemetery containing 100,000 square miles would be sufficient for the entire human race to lie side by side. The estimate which I have given you of continuous population is obviously enormously large. The estimate of the size of each grave is very large. A strictly correct estimate would reduce the size of the required cemetery more than one-half. But enormous as it is, you could lay out your burial-ground for all men who have lived on earth, so that they could lie side by side in Arizona or in California, or you could lay it out in Texas large enough to accommodate the race of 6,000 years past, and also the race for 6,000 years yet to come, all sleeping in the soil of that one State of this Union. But some one says the race of man has been on the earth 100,000 years. That is a pure imagination and there is not, so far as I know, a fact on which to rest it. But suppose it is true, and suppose the population always what it is now, you have provided for 6,000 years of it. You want nearly seventeen times as large a cemetery for the generations of a thousand centuries. That is, you want 1,700,000 square miles in it. Lay it out whenever you please, 1,700 miles long by 1,000 miles wide. It is but part of the United States. And so enormously large have been the rough estimates thus far used, it is safe to say that if the human race has been in existence 100,000 years, a separate grave could be provided for every individual of the race within a part of the United States east of the Mississippi River.—W. C. Prime, New York Journal of Commerce.
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Censure, Misplaced—See [Reflection, Imperfect].
Census-taking, Primitive—See [Collective Labor].
CENTER OF LIFE
Some men have a Ptolemaic notion of life; their little earth is the center around which all things move. If I have been of that sort, I will remember that the age has outgrown that. It is time to reconstruct one’s life on the Copernican theory, admitting that ours is only a little earth in the great universe, and finding our true solar center in the great moral gravitation of the divine love.—Franklin Noble, D.D., “Sermons in Illustration.”
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Ceremonial Purging—See [Prejudice, Religious].
CEREMONY, USELESSNESS OF
At Teschen, which town Stephen Schultz, missionary to the Jews, visited several times, he entered the store of a Jewish merchant to buy some articles. He conversed with one of the Jewish clerks on the necessity of an atonement for sin, when the Jew asserted that every man can atone for his own sins. Schultz made him agree to the statement that we are all become altogether as an unclean thing, and then asked him:
“How, then, can we pay our debts to God or atone for our sins?” “We must pray, fast, give alms, etc., for altho we dare not now offer any sacrifices, yet if we read over the institution and rites of sacrifices, it will be accepted.” Schultz, without paying any attention to this absurd statement at this time, asked: “How much do I owe for these articles I bought?” “Fifty-seven cents.” “Please write it down upon the counter, lest I forget it.” The Jew did so, and Schultz read ten times: “Fifty-seven cents,” and then walked toward the door as if he would depart. The clerk called him back, saying: “You have not paid me.” “What! Have not yet paid? Have I not read over ten times just what you wrote?” “Yes, but that will not pay your debt.” “And will you then deal so treacherously with God, and think to pay your debts to Him by repeating some prayers?” (Text.)—Missionary Review of the World.
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CHAINS
David had twenty-four columns of marble around his banqueting room, and he chained a bandit and an old enemy to each column, and in the presence of his enemies feasted. Christ enables the soul to chain hate, envy, lying, avarice, gluttony, jealousy, evil-speaking, sloth, and then the soul exclaims, Thou hast spread me a table in the midst of mine enemies! (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.
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CHALLENGE
The outburst of the matchless hymnic genius of Isaac Watts was the response to a challenge. When a youth of eighteen he complained to his father, who was a deacon in an Independent church at Southampton, England, of the poor quality of the hymns sung in the nonconformist services of the time. “Suppose you make a few,” said his father, with more than a suggestion of gentle sarcasm. Taking up the challenge, the poet retired; and soon, out from his seclusion where he had put on his “singing robes,” came the hymn: “Behold the Glories of the Lamb,” which was sung at an early meeting; and so began a career of hymn-writing which continued through the author’s life, and which later aroused to song a whole nest of singing-birds.
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Chance and Work—See [Toil and Providence].
Chance, Decision by—See [Coincidence and Superstition].
CHANCE FOR THE BOY
From Congregational Work is taken the following incident:
Patrick A. Collins, Mayor of Boston for a number of years past, believed that a boy’s word is worth listening to. One time complaint was made to him that a saloon was located too near a certain public school. The politicians and others interested in keeping the place open urged him not to interfere with the resort. The school authorities desired it closed and removed.
After the Mayor had listened to arguments from both sides, he said:
“Well, I’m going to let the boys of the school tell me what they think of the place. Send me,” he said to the principal of the school, “half a dozen of your brightest boys. I’ll listen to them.”
The next day half a dozen of the boys, ranging from ten to fifteen years of age, called on the Mayor. Each boy gave some reason why he believed the saloon ought to be taken away, until it came to the last one, a youngster of twelve. He looked the Mayor squarely in the eye, and gave as his reason:
“My school gives me a chance to be Mayor of Boston some day; the saloon can’t. I think us boys ought to have all the show we can get to be Mayor. That’s all I know about it.”
The Mayor threw himself back in his chair and laughed heartily; then, straightening up, he said to the last spokesman:
“My boy, you have said more than did all the politicians and the teachers. You shall have the show to be Mayor. That saloon will have to quit business at once.”
The boys gave the Mayor a hearty cheer, and marched out of his office. They had conquered, and were consequently happy and triumphant.
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CHANGE RENOVATES
Police captains find that if they change every man around to a different position about once in so often, it is good for the entire force. The managers of some business offices say that a good big jar is beneficial to almost everybody, and especially for those in danger of believing that they are indispensable. It is a most remarkable boy who is not improved, on occasions, by a genuine “calling down.”—James M. Stifler, “The Fighting Saint.”
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Change Wrought by Time—See [Time, Changes of].
Changes in China—See [Chinese Progress].
CHANGES WROUGHT BY CHRIST
The geologist tells us that ages ago vast and horrible creatures filled the air and waters—fierce and hideous monsters swarmed and fought in the primeval slime; but in due time God swept away mastodon, mammoth, megatherium, and filled the world with mild and beautiful forms of life.
To-day we see moral changes wrought far more wonderful than any to which the petrifactions of the geologist witness; we see the power of Christ destroying passions far more terrible than the lizards, serpents, and crocodiles of the antediluvian world, creating graces sweeter and fairer than the choicest forms of perfected nature.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”
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Channels, Choked—See [Life].
CHARACTER
That a life tells more than a creed is shown in this incident told in the Young Man:
Mr. John Morley said to a Presbyterian minister who was his guest: “How was it that your Church tolerated Drummond? His views were surely not those of the Free Church.” “No,” said the minister, “but we never took him seriously as a thinker. No one believed that he would shape the theological opinions of the Church. We regarded him rather as a religious influence.” “Ah, yes,” said Mr. Morley, “you are quite right; he wasn’t a thinker.” After some talk on other matters he returned to the subject: “You said a little while ago that Drummond was a religious influence. How did he show that?” “Well,” replied the minister, “for one thing, he cleansed Edinburgh University life for several years.” “Ah,” said Mr. Morley thoughtfully, “that’s better than being a thinker.” It is never easy for the Church to drive out heretics who are not thinkers, but who purify by love the sources of spiritual life in men.
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As the light is rayed back from the flower and the wave, from the rock and the roadside, from all objects in nature and all ornaments of art, no matter from what center it emanated first, so the excellence of a character, when serenely and brightly exprest through life, attracts an immediate and instinctive response from all natures around it.—Richard S. Storrs.
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See [Appearance]; [Trust].
Character and Evil—See [Evil Germinal].
CHARACTER AND FAME
Fame is what you have taken,
Character is what you give;
When to this truth you awaken,
Then you begin to live.
—Bayard Taylor.
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Character and Manners—See [Dual Character].
CHARACTER-BUILDING
Men might as well try to erect a skyscraper on a bog as to attempt to build a character on anything less enduring than Jesus. Every little while some one makes a new religion with Jesus omitted. These structures dot the plains of nineteen centuries. For a time they appear attractive. But, sooner or later, their tenants discover that there is something wrong with the underpinning. Happy they if they can succeed in moving out before the flimsy fabrics collapse and bury their misguided occupants beneath unseemly ruins.—Joel B. Slocum.
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CHARACTER CONDITIONED BY THE PHYSICAL
A news item from Toledo, Ohio, reads:
Skilled surgeons at St. Vincent’s hospital have transformed Harold Hurley, the bad boy, into Harold Hurley, the good boy.
A few days ago, Harold, aged twelve, who was slated for the Lancaster reform school, was taken to the hospital. To-day he was taken home, a changed boy, different in thought, acts, and even appearance.
Harold has been a problem to his mother and to the juvenile court officers for some time. Probation Officer Dilgart got a look at Harold recently and discovered a peculiar scar on the boy’s forehead. Inquiry developed that when five years of age Harold stumbled, and striking his head upon a stone, sustained a fracture of the skull. Gradually he became bad; but instead of being sent to Lancaster, he was removed to the hospital, where the pressure of a broken bone on his brain was removed.
After the operation the lad’s faculties gathered slowly. Dr. James Donnelly states that the pressure of the piece of bone upon the brain had gradually dulled all the higher sensibilities, and if it had gone on Harold would in time have become an utter degenerate. (Text.)
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CHARACTER, CROWN OF
That all men may attain the crown of a Godlike character is the lesson of this poem by Edwin Markham:
When punctual death comes knocking at the door,
To lead the soul upon the unknown road,
There is one crown, one only, never flung
Back to the dust by his fastidious hand.
Touched by this crown, a man is king indeed,
And carries fate and freedom in his breast;
And when his house of clay falls ruining,
His soul is out upon the path of stars!
This is the one thing stronger than the years
That tear the kingdoms down. Imperious time,
Pressing a wasteful hand on mortal things,
Reveals this young eternity in man.
The peasant, he may earn it with the king,
And tread an equal palace full of light.
Fleet youth may seize this crown: slow-footed age
May wear its immortality. Behold!
Its power can turn bare rafters to a home
Hallowed with hopes and hushed with memories;
Can turn a field of ruin to a place
Where pilgrims keep the watches of the night.
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CHARACTER IMPARTED
Said a young lady to her hostess: “I want to scent my lace handkerchief and I have no sachet with me.” The handkerchief was taken by the lady and placed inside a great rose-jar. “Your handkerchief will be scented in a few hours and the fragrance will never depart from it.” And it never did. The lady explained that the jar had been obtained in China and had been a rose-jar for generations. But when it came into her possession she spent a large sum of money on attar of roses to penetrate the inner glazing of the glass and her object was fulfilled. The fragrance would never depart from it and was communicated to any object placed in it for a few hours. Roman Catholic priests remark that if they can have charge of a child until he is ten years of age he will never depart from the faith. Certainly the pervasive influence of the moral atmosphere is a mighty power in determining character.
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Character Impugned—See [Modesty].
Character in Pictures—See [Genius, Portraying].
Character Like the Diamond—See [Reflection of God].
CHARACTER MORE THAN CLOTHING
A Scotch nobleman, seeing an old gardener of his establishment with a very ragged coat, made some passing remarks on its condition. “It’s a verra guid coat,” said the honest old man. “I can not agree with you there,” said his lordship. “Ah, it’s just a verra guid coat,” persisted the old man; “it covers a contented spirit, and a body that owes no man anything, and that’s mair than mony a man can say of his coat.” (Text.)
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CHARACTER NOT PURCHASABLE
In an address, made not long before his death, Bishop Potter, of New York, said:
About a year ago there came into my study in New York some one whom I had never seen, a stranger whose name sent in upon his card I did not recognize, and whose errand I could not divine. “Sir,” he said, “I am from such and such a part of the country. In that part of the country a very fierce political campaign is now in progress. One of your clergy is attacking from the pulpit the moral character and moral standards of a gentleman, a candidate there for a very high office, whom I represent.”
I said: “I have not got any clergymen out in that part of the world. I have no more jurisdiction there than you have.” He said: “Perhaps not in the sense you mean, but it is one of your men.” “Thank God for that,” said I. “As he came from here he believes in you, and he thinks that sort of talk is his duty.” “What do you want me to do?” I asked. “I want you to stop it,” said he, “and I am authorized by the distinguished gentleman whom I represent to say that if you will stop it he will make it worth your while.”
I felt like saying, “I will come high.” I got up and walked to the door. I opened it and stood there. He looked there a moment in some perplexity. I said: “Does it not occur to you, sir, that this interview is at an end.” He went out.
I mention that incident as a proof of the statement I have made here. Here was a person in a distant part of the country, a candidate for a very high position, who had not the smallest hesitation in sending an emissary to me with an intimation that if I were prepared to silence a speaker who was saying disagreeable things that money would be put to make it worth my while. I am saying that with that symptomatic you can not ignore the appalling significance of such a condition of things. (Text.)
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CHARACTER POTS
I had sometimes caught a glimpse of the small scullery-maid at my boarding-house; but one day, slipping to the kitchen for a cup of hot water, I had a queer bit of a chat with her. She was scouring granite pots with a vim and vigor which were bound to bring results, and all the while her face was as shining as her finished work.
“Do you like them, Alice?” I asked.
“No, I hate them,” she replied emphatically.
“What makes you smile so over them, then?” I asked, curiously.
“Because they’re ‘character pots,’” the child replied at once.
“What?” I inquired, thinking I had misunderstood.
“‘Character pots,’ miss. You see, I used to only half clean them. I often cried over them, but Miss Mary told me as how, if I made them real shiny, they’d help to build my character. And ever since then I’ve tried hard, miss; and, oh, it’s been so much easier since I’ve known they were ‘character pots.’”
I said a word or two of encouragement, and went on my way, knowing that I had been rubbing up against a real heroine. Everyday life is brimful of disagreeable duties. Why not turn them every one into “character pots?”—East and West.
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CHARACTER SELF-COMMENDING
It is told of Antipater, an officer in Alexander’s army and a favorite in his court, that one day Philip of Macedon, placed in a position which required special vigilance, made his appearance at a late hour in the morning, with the apology: “I have slept rather late this morning, but then I knew that Antipater was awake.” And at another time, when some person exprest surprize that Antipater did not clothe himself in a purple robe, the badge of nobility and greatness, as the other commanders and ministers of state were accustomed to do, Alexander replied: “Those men wear purple on the outside, but Antipater is purple within.”
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CHARACTER SHOWN IN THE FEET
Distinctions of character are not seen, really, in the feet themselves, but in what the owner does with them. Sometimes it is significant that their owner does not know what to do with them. He is vulgarly, defiantly self-sufficient and despises ceremony, so when he smokes a cigar he puts his feet on the mantel-piece, out of the way. Or he is a country-bumpkin, painfully self-conscious, so he stands on one foot and then on the other, and shifts them about, perplexed what to do with them, as ill-bred folks, when they sit idle and sociable, are perplexed by possessing a pair of hands. On the contrary, the fop—whose feet are clad without spot or speck, and regardless of expense—knows very well what to do with them; they are part of the exhibition which is his constant care. In general, it is a sign of vanity to thrust forward habitually a neat foot when one is at rest. A conceited man nurses a leg and admires a foot, which he twitches and twirls beneath his delighted eyes—quite unconsciously, and in a different manner from the fop; for the vain man thinks of the effect produced upon other people, but the conceited man is satisfied with himself, without any regard to the ordinary mortals who may chance to be observing him. Very different is the generous mind of the philanthropist, who thinks constantly of the rest of the world, and not of himself. There is nothing cramped about any of his ideas or of his possessions. He forgets such small matters as fashion and details of appearance. Except on state occasions, he considers neatness to be a hindrance; everything about him is large, from his benevolent schemes down to his well-worn shoes. His stand is not alert, but patient, well set on the ground; he is ready and steady; he waits to give what he can, and to do what he can, and while he thinks of weighty matters, personal details are forgotten. He may walk flat-footed in old shoes; insteps and heels are infinitely beneath his consideration, so his foot is not the type that the dancing-master believes to be the one thing necessary for a gentleman; but he has already flattened injustice under his feet, and the horror of the dancing-master shall never reach his ears.—Cassell’s Family Magazine.
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Character, Springs of—See Springs of Character.
CHARACTER, SUPPORT OF
A man once purchased a vacant lot on which stood a gigantic elm-tree.
So much did he admire the elm that when he erected his house he built it around the trunk. He did not care to mutilate it or cut it down, but desired that it should constantly exhale its aroma and moisture in his drawing-room. The silence of its growth and steady expansion would be a constant source of interest to himself and to his friends. The opening in the roof was capped to shut out the insect enemies and to shut in the fragrance. When a cyclone swept over the village and the lightning flashed around, the house had shelter and protection in the tree. Other houses might fall, but not that one.
We are all builders of character. Whether that character will stand the tests of life or not depends on whether we have built Christ into our character or not. If He is in us a real and living personality, we shall never fail. (Text.)
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CHARACTER, TEST OF
You can not read a man so well during his busy hours as by what he does after supper, or from the closing hour of business to bedtime. You can not gage his character so well by the money he spends for necessaries or the living of his family as by that little overplus of money which is left after the necessary expenses are paid. What does he do with his spare money, that margin left over from business and from living expenses? What he does with that margin will throw a wonderful light upon his character.
The largest part of every active life must be devoted to getting a living, attending to one’s affairs, and this is done by most people in a routine sort of a way. You can not tell much about the real man during these hours, because he has a system, his regular daily routine, and he does very much the same thing every day. But the moment he is free, he is quite a different man. Then his real propensities come out. People are not natural until they are free from restraint.
Watch the boy and the girl when they are free from their regular duties, and see how they spend their evenings, what society they keep, what companionships they form, what they do. This will be a pretty good test of their character.—Success.
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Character that Shines—See [Luminosity].
Character Unaffected by Death—See [Death Does Not Change Character].
CHARACTER, UNSEEN PLACES IN
The editor of the Central Presbyterian moralizes on flowers from a back yard as follows:
A lovely flower came to us last week from the back yard of a home in the city. It was a white hyacinth, large and full, white as the driven snow, and sweetly perfumed. And it came not from the florist’s hothouse, nor from the fine plot at the front of a good home, but from the little yard at the rear. What a thing of beauty and fragrance to spring up in this homely place, common, soiled and trampled! It is a happy thought, not uncommon nowadays, to make the back yard, not often seen by other’s eyes, a place of beauty and sweetness, turning the common and the obscure into a source of pleasure and all that is wholesome and inspiring.
One may do well to look after the back yard of his own life. He has sometimes a front that all men see and admire. Toward his friends and neighbors he is careful to make a fair exhibition of good morals and courteous manner. He maintains a front with which no fault can be found. But can the rear, the small and commonplace, the every-day and out-of-sight part of character and conduct, bear the same careful inspection? Are there any fair and fragrant flowers that spring up where no man ever looks, and only God’s eye can see?
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Character Wrought by Hardship—See [Saved in Service].
CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS
A look, a touch, a word is enough, not infrequently, to betray the man back of it, the unconscious being the characteristic.
Mendelssohn once revealed his masterhand as a musician to the organ-keeper in Strasburg Cathedral by the way he made the instrument speak, just as Giotto, as an artist, did to a stranger on one occasion by drawing a perfect circle at a stroke.
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Characteristics Revealing Authorship—See [Recognition by One’s Work].
Characterization, Improper—See [Badness in Boys].
CHARITY
Don’t look for the flaws as you go through life,
And, even when you find them,
It’s wise and kind to be somewhat blind,
And search for the light behind them.
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See Other Side, The.
Charity, Inadequate—See [Injustice].
CHARITY, LOGIC OF
Put a Chinaman into your hospital and he will get treated. You may lie awake at night drawing up reasons for doing something different with this disgusting Chinaman—who somehow is in the world and is thrown into your care, your hospital, your thought—but the machinery of your own being is so constructed that if you take any other course with him than that which you take with your own people, your institution will instantly lose its meaning; you would not have the face to beg money for its continuance in the following year. The logic of this, which, if you like, is the logic of self-protection under the illusion of self-sacrifice, is the logic which is at the bottom of all human progress. The utility of hospitals is not to cure the sick. It is to teach mercy. The veneration for hospitals is not because they cure the sick, it is because they stand for love, and responsibility.—John Jay Chapman.
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CHARITY RESPECTED
It is reported that during the late disturbances in southern China consequent upon the French expedition to Tonquin, a small Wesleyan mission station at Fatshan was at the mercy of a riotous mob. The chapel was wrecked. The hospital for days was menaced and was hourly expected to fall, but here, for the first time, the rioters appeared to hesitate. Some of the sick were removed before their eyes; others, they knew, could not leave the building. They constantly threatened assault, but the blow never came, and amid their angry menaces the doctor was allowed to pass freely to and from the hospital. A finer touch than that which compelled a kindred feeling between this rabble and its foreign benefactors does not exist in nature. The Chinese mob probably did not include many acute controversialists in theology, but it did, as a whole, recognize the presence of that charity which is rightly regarded as the essence of religion.—London Lancet.
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Charm, A, Surrendered—See [Reservation].
Chastening—See [Affliction, Uses of].
Chastisement—See [Discipline].
CHEER, GOOD
Eben E. Rexford writes this cheering philosophy:
Tell me, what’s the use of fretting when we think that things go wrong?
It never makes them better; but I’ve heard it said a song
Makes the heavy load seem lighter, and will cheer the troubled heart
Till it quite forgets its worries, and its vexing cares depart—
As the wind that sweeps the marshes where the fog hangs, chill and gray,
Moves the mists that mar the morning till it blows them all away.
So, whenever storm-clouds gather till they hide the sun from sight,
And it’s darker in the morning than it ought to be at night,
Then let’s sing about the sunshine that is on the other side
Of the darkest cloud, my comrade. Let the song ring far and wide
On the listening ear of others who climb the hill with you.
Till the rifted clouds are scattered, and the gray old world seems new.
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CHEER, SIGNALS OF
Sailors who navigate the seas on the South Atlantic coast are always glad when they near the harbor of Savannah, for that means that they will pass within saluting distance of the “little lighthouse girl.” This is the officially accepted title of Florence Martus, who has for the last eleven years waved a friendly signal to every craft passing between the city and the sea. It is a hobby of this young girl to greet the ships that go and wish them a safe return, and greet the ships that come and congratulate them on their voyage.
The Martus dwelling is the only habitation on Elba Island. There is no landing wharf, and visitors arrive on an average once a year. The barks, the steamers, and the various other craft never get near enough for an exchange of greetings other than that most expressive form of good will, the waving of a handkerchief by day and of a lantern by night. And as the girl sends out her welcome, the seamen who know all about her, and who would resent the elimination of the ceremony which she so popularized, send back an answering salute, three “toots” of the steam-whistle. Then Miss Martus is as happy as a belle at a debutante party.
It is her desire that no vessel shall pass the lighthouse without receiving a salute. She never overlooks a sail in the daytime, and her handkerchief is ever ready for its service of cordiality. She says it is her ambition to signal every ship that touches at Savannah. She was asked her reason for signalling the passing sea throng, and she answered that it was to cheer the crew.
This beautiful and unselfish ministry illustrates how a noble heart invents ways to scatter sunshine. The world passes us like ships on the sea. How much interest do we take in others? How far a kind word, or smile, or handshake goes to help the friendless and hopeless. It is not the great acts but the little deeds of kindness that make human beings happy. (Text.)
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“That boy,” said the foreman in the machine-shop, “will make a good workman. He always whistles at his work.” (Text.)
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Cherubim—See [Love Rather than Knowledge].
Child, A, as Reconciler—See [Good Will].
Child, A Little—See [Soul, Your].
CHILD, FAITH OF A
The prediction that “a little child shall lead them” applies in this poem to a skeptic rather than to ravenous beasts.
A little child walked by my side,
I had lost faith in God and man,
He prattled of his joys and hopes
As only little children can.
I did not try to blast his hopes,
I did not tell him of my pain,
And, somehow, when our walk was done,
My shattered faith was whole again.
—Rena Hurd Ingham, Congregationalist.(Text.)
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Child, Influence of a—See [Pardon for a Child’s Sake].
CHILD LABOR
The National Child Labor Committee was organized in 1904. Up to that time very little had been done toward preventing the employment of children in many industries, the worst of these being the work of coal-breaking in mines and long days of labor in textile factories. A summary of the work accomplished by the committee in six years will show the gains that are being made in saving children from the too heavy burdens of labor at a tender age, under which their growth is often stunted, and their education interrupted or prevented.
Eight-hour day for children under 16 established in 10 States and District of Columbia (in many or all industries).
Hours of employment for children reduced in 13 more States.
Child labor laws passed for the first time in 6 States.
Age limit of 14 years applied to factories and stores: In 1904, 12 States; in 1910, 19 States.
Also from factories and stores the limit in 1910 extends to offices, laundries, hotels, bowling-alleys, etc.
Age limit of 16 for work in coal-mines; 1904 none. In 1910 6 States fixt limit of 16 years; 18 States at 14, and 8 States at 12.
Employment forbidden during school hours: 1904 in 14 States; 1910 in 23 States.
Night-work prohibited: 1904 in 13 States, the age limit in some being as low as 12 years. 1910: 24 States with 16-year limit, 7 States with 14-year limit, 2 States with 12-year limit, 1 State (in certain industries) with 18-year limit. New York prohibited night work in messenger service 10 P.M. to 5 A.M. to all minors.
Compulsory education: Laws for the first time in 6 States. Age limit for attendance raised in 6 (more) States.
Child-labor laws now (1910) exist in every State except Nevada. They are being steadily improved.
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See [Missionaries in the Making].
CHILD, LEADING OF A
A young mother who had lost her firstborn, sat fondling its icy hands, and amid her tears said, “If ever I get to heaven, it will be these little fingers that will pull me there.” (Text.)
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Child Nature—See [Animism].
CHILD RELIGION
There is a striking story of a certain missionary who was sent for on one occasion to go to a little village in an out-of-the-way corner of India to baptize and receive into church fellowship sixty or seventy adult converts from Hinduism.
At the commencement of the proceedings he had noticed a boy about fifteen years of age sitting in a back corner, looking very anxiously and listening very wistfully. He now came forward. “What, my boy? Do you want to join the Church?” “Yes, sir.” “But you are very young, and if I were to receive you into fellowship with the Church to-day, and then you were to slip aside, it would bring discredit upon this church and do great injury to the cause of Christ. I shall be coming this way again in about six months. Now you be very loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ during that time, and if when I come again at the end of the half year I find you still stedfast and true, I will baptize and receive you gladly.”
No sooner was this said than all the people rose to their feet, and, some speaking for the rest, said: “Why, sir, it is he who has taught us all that we know about Jesus Christ.”
And so it turned out to be. This was the little minister of the little church the honored instrument in the hand of God for saving all the rest for Jesus Christ.
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CHILD, SAVED BY A
Dr. George Grenfell, who did much to open up to civilization and to Christianity the hinterland of the Kongo, was traveling in the little steamer called the Peace up a great tributary of the Kongo which had never before been navigated by a white man. Suddenly the craft was stopt and surrounded by a crowd of canoes filled with natives. These were armed with spears and their attitude was hostile and malignant. Dr. Grenfell momentarily expected that some of the murderous weapons would be hurled at him. But by a happy inspiration he called to his wife who was in the cabin, “Show them the baby!” She rushed forward and held out the infant she was nursing. The savages, amazed at the sight of the first light-colored baby they had ever seen, and charmed with its smiles and its entire lack of fear, dropt their spears, smiled in their turn with delight, and at once became the sincere friends of the missionaries. Thus once again was verified the prediction, “A little child shall lead them.”
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CHILD, THE
The value and possibilities of a new-born child are thus set forth by James Oppenheim:
You may be Christ or Shakespeare, little child,
A savior or a sun to the lost world.
There is no babe born but may carry furled
Strength to make bloom the world’s disastrous wild.
Oh, what then must our labors be to mold you,
To open the heart, to build with dream the brain,
To strengthen the young soul in toil and pain,
Till our age-aching hands no longer hold you!
Vision far-dreamed! But soft! If your last goal
Be low, if you are only common clay,
What then? Toil lost? Were our toil trebled, nay!
You are a soul, you are a human soul,
A greater than the skies ten-trillion starred—
Shakespeare no greater, O you slip of God!
(Text.)—Cosmopolitan.
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See [Faith, a Child’s].
Child, The, as an Educator—See [Home, Foundation of the Republic].
Child Training—See [Prodigy, A]; [Training Children].
Child’s View of God—See [Anthropomorphism].
Childhood and Nature—See [God in the Child Mind].
CHILDLIKE TRUST AND MATURITY
A few days since, just after the recent snow-storm, I passed in the street a little fellow drawing a sled; a little, rosy-cheeked boy, who was so full of perfect happiness that his entire face was crinkled into a smile. He made a beautiful picture. That sled was his only responsibility, and that, along with the snow, made out for him a perfect heaven. I watched the lad and wished I were a boy again. It was a foolish wish, and yet not altogether foolish. There was something exquisite in the situation which one would have been not only foolish but stupid not to appreciate. He had no burden. His sled was unloaded, and slipt along over the frosty pavement almost of its own momentum. He had no anxieties. The little fellow’s heart is sometimes bruised, I suppose, but child bruises do not last as long as older bruises.
But I had not gone many steps past him before I revised my wish, and thought only how beautiful it would be to have the innocence of the boy and his simple trust, and along with that the mature equipment opening out into the vast opportunities that form the heritage of years that are ripe.—Charles H. Parkhurst.
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Children—See [Cruelty to Children].
CHILDREN AND CIVIC SERVICE
Two hundred clubs of children on the New York East Side cooperate with the street-cleaning department in keeping clean streets in their respective neighborhoods. They hand prepared cards furnished by the city to every one seen throwing rubbish in the street, which read as follows:
Give your banana-peels to a horse. Horses like them. Orange-peels, peanut-shells, newspapers and other rubbish must not be thrown in the street. Keep yours and throw them in the receptacle placed at street corners for that purpose. You should sprinkle your sidewalk before sweeping. Don’t raise the dust, as it breeds disease. It is against the law to throw rubbish from the windows to the street. Don’t put paper, rags and other rubbish either in the ash-can or garbage-can.
A badge is given to each child to wear on which is inscribed the motto: “We are for clean streets.” Thus thousands of children are learning to take pride in their city.
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CHILDREN AND GARDENS
Professor Hanna, head of the Department of Natural History of the Board of Education, New York, divided an open lot into some three hundred little garden plots, took boys from the Bowery district, and girls as well. Each child spaded up its own ground, planted its seeds, pulled out the weeds, and watched the ruddy vegetables grow. A thousand questions arose to these city-born children. Given a black clod and a drop of rain-water, and a few seeds, how does the same clod make a beet red, and a carrot a golden hue? How could one clod condense the smells of a whole soap factory, into one little onion? How does a potato come to have starch in it? If one bunch of green weeds is worth ten cents for spinach, why doesn’t everybody in Wall Street go to farming? When some of the boys reached the Bowery Saturday night, the first question they asked their fathers was: “How much it would take to buy a ticket to Dakota.” Ah, Wordsworth, looking across the field, and writing, “My heart with rapture thrills and dances with the daffodils,” and Ruskin with his confession of what the fields and brooks did for his culture, throw a pathetic light on the lives of the little waifs of the tenement-house, starved for an outlook on the grass and the wave, and the shrub and the flower. Plainly the child has a right to its outlook upon the world of nature.—N. D. Hillis.
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Children and Music—See [Music and Children].
Children and the Bible—See [Adapting the Bible].
CHILDREN FORMING PARENTS’ CHARACTER
A friend once said to me: “So long as my children were little, I lived at peace with my faults and bad habits. Perhaps they were annoying to others, but they caused me no uneasiness. But since my children have grown up, I am ashamed to meet their eyes, for I know they judge me, observe my attitude, my manner of acting, and measure my words. Nothing escapes them; neither the little ‘white lie,’ nor my illogical reasoning; neither unjustifiable irritation, nor any of the thousand imperfections I formerly indulged in. I require now to be constantly on my guard, and what will finally happen is this, that, instead of my having trained them, my children will have formed my character.”—Dora Melegari, “Makers of Sorrow and Makers of Joy.”
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CHILDREN, LINCOLN’S REGARD FOR
When Lincoln, on his way by train from Washington to Gettysburg, was halted at a station, a little girl was lifted up to an open window of the car, and handing a bouquet of rosebuds to him, said: “Flowers for the President!” Mr. Lincoln took the rosebuds, bent down and kissed the child, saying, “You’re a sweet little rosebud yourself. I hope your life will open into perpetual beauty and goodness.”
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Children Missionaries—See [Song, Effective].
Children, Neglecting the—See [Home, The Old and the New].
Children, Religious Nature of—See [Animism].
CHILDREN, ROMAN CATHOLIC CARE OF
Bishop Fowler, in the Christian Advocate, describes the method by which Roman Catholic institutions in South America receive and care for foundlings:
No thoughtful man can watch the long processions of children which the sisters are teaching, and believe that Romanism is closing its career. She takes the utmost care of all the children she can obtain. In the great cities she has her foundling institutions. The arrangement for receiving foundlings is unique. It reminds one of the standard advertisements for stolen property, “No questions asked.” There is a rotary dummy in the side of the building above the sidewalk. This contrivance turns round instead of moving on pulleys. The outside is simply flush with the wall. Any one can turn it around. On the other side is a little bed. The waif is placed in this bed, the trap is turned back to its place, a bell is rung, a servant comes to the bed, takes out the waif, and no one is the wiser. The party depositing the child may be round the corner and gone in the darkness. The child is cared for, soon put to work, soon hired out, and becomes a source of income to the institution, and adds one more to the rolls of the church.
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CHILDREN SAFE
An old sexton in a cemetery took special pains with the little graves. When asked why, he said: “Sir, about those larger graves I don’t know who are the Lord’s saints, and who are not; but you know, sir, it’s different with the bairns.” (Text.)
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CHILDREN, SAVING
Judge Benjamin B. Lindsey speaks as follows of his work in dealing with juvenile delinquents:
I have often been asked how it is if I can trust a youthful burglar to go alone to a reformatory why can not I trust him to go alone to work?
The answer is that the individual is weak rather than vicious. He is strong enough to last over night, but not strong enough to last a month. He goes to the institution. He learns the trade of a carpenter or a stone-cutter—then he has some incentive in life. He gets out of the habit of being bad. When he comes out he is proud of his job, and as soon as we get him work he wants to show how well he can do it—the past is behind him forever.
This new children’s crusade started in 1900. We are now going on the theory that the law is not one-tenth of the problem. Psychology, for want of a better word, is the other nine-tenths. The solution of the problem of child delinquents lies chiefly in knowing how to get at truth, in getting loyalty to the state and to the law. Once you get a boy to go regularly to school the problem is solved. On the other hand, we do not want him to think that the court is a brute or dead easy.
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CHILDREN’S RELIGIOUS IDEAS
A CHILD’S PRAYER
Please, God, grandpa has gone to you. Take good care of him. Please always mind and shut the door, because he can’t stand drafts.
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A PRAYER TO THE DEVIL
A little child was seen to bury a piece of paper in the ground. On examination of the paper by a curious adult, it was seen to contain the following: “Dear devil, please come and take aunt. I can’t stand her much longer.”
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MEN ARE GODS
Seeing a group of workmen, a child said:
“Mama, are these gods?”
“Gods? Why?”
“Because they make houses and churches, same as God makes moons and people and ickle dogs.”
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A WRESTLE WITH OMNIPRESENCE
A girl who had been taught that God is everywhere said, one day:
“Mama, me don’t see God. I dess He’s don to take a walk.”
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GOD POSSESSES A BODY.
A child who heard the expression, “this footstool,” used in a conversation, asked the man on whose knees she sat at the time the meaning of the expression. On being told that the earth is often spoken of as “God’s footstool,” she exclaimed:
“O-h-h! what long legs!”
Another child drew a picture of Jesus and of God, making God have very long arms.
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HEAVENLY MAIL FACILITIES
A child whose grandmother had just died asked her mother if God had a street and a number. When asked why she wanted to know, she replied:
“Nothing, only I wanted to write a letter to Him to send grandma back again.”
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A COWORKER WITH GOD
A three-year-old boy was with a woman whose home was a second home to him. They were in the flower-garden. Seeing a crocus in bloom, and remembering that the previous fall he had put the bulb into the ground (as one of his age so often does things, by the help of others), he asked, “Did I make that flower grow?” When told that God sent the rain and the sunshine which made it grow, he insisted that he had had a part in the process, and finally dropt the subject by saying:
“God and I make the flowers grow.”—A. B. Bunn Van Ormer, “Studies in Religious Nurture.”
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Children’s Thoughts About God—See [Anthropomorphism].
CHINA AND AMERICA COMPARED
They tell a story of President Sheffield, of North China College, and a great military official, who is his friend. I met the general once during the Chinese New-year holidays. He is a large, fine-looking man, very liberal and progressive, and much interested in Western customs. One day, when calling, he was discussing these. Suddenly he drew his chair very close to Dr. Sheffield and said in a confidential whisper: “Tell me, is it true that in your country the woman and not the man is the head of the household?” Dr. Sheffield drew a little nearer and answered in the same manner: “Well, I will tell you just how it is. Sometimes it is the one, and sometimes it is the other. It just depends on who is the stronger.” “Ah!” and the general leaned back with a sigh of relief. “That is just the way it is with us.”—Frances B. Patterson, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
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CHINESE PROGRESS
The Rev. Dr. J. Walter Lowrie, returning to the field after a furlough prolonged by ill-health, writes in amazement that the changes that had taken place during his absence of twenty months were greater than had taken place during the preceding twenty years of his residence in China. Of course, there is commotion. You could not expect one-third of the human race to rouse itself from the sleep of ages without having more or less disturbance in various places. But the disturbances in China to-day are signs of progress. They mean that at last China is awake. We remember that of old, the dying Francis Xavier lifted up his hands and said: “Oh, rock! rock! when wilt thou open?” For nearly a hundred years Protestantism has been hammering upon that rock. Now it has opened.—A. Judson Brown, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
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CHIVALRY
The days of the Crusades are gone, but the spirit of chivalry abides to-day as then.
When Captain Moreu, of the Spanish cruiser Cristobal Colon, was in New York, he was interviewed by a reporter who, in the excess of his patriotism, put this rather indelicate question to the vanquished naval officer: “What do you think, Captain Moreu, of the chivalry of a nation whose women greet the admiral of a hostile power with kisses and flowers?” a reference to the way Admiral Cervera was lionized by American women on his way to a military prison. The bluff old captain of the Colon, who spoke English fluently, lifted his eyebrows, and, smiling indulgently, politely replied: “And what do you think of an admiral who could draw your brave Hobson from the water and kiss him in admiration of his courage? Remember, young man, chivalry is the monopoly of no nation.” (Text.)
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CHOICE
Not what we have, but what we use,
Not what we see, but what we choose;
These are the things that mar, or bless,
The sum of human happiness.
The thing near by, not that afar;
Not what we seem, but what we are;
These are the things that make or break,
That give the heart its joy or ache.
Not what seems fair, but what is true;
Not what we dream, but good we do;
These are the things that shine like gems,
Like stars in fortune’s diadems.
Not as we take, but as we give,
Not as we pray, but as we live;
These are the things that make for peace
Both now and after time shall cease.
—The Outlook.
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Choice by Chance—See [Devil, The, Chosen].
Choice, Everything Depends on—See [Experience, Value of].
CHOICE IN PRIMITIVE ORGANISMS
Headly, in his book on “Life and Evolution,” instances our old friend, the ameba, which we have since childhood all agreed to be one of the most primitive forms of life. This microscopic creature, a unicellular morsel of protoplasm, undoubtedly has the power of choice. It exercises this power whenever it eats. Diatoms enveloped in flint are its favorite food. When an ameba comes in contact with one of these minute vegetables it swallows it through an aperture—a mouth—which it conveniently makes at whichever point an aperture is required. But when, on the other hand, the ameba comes in contact with a small grain of flint he leaves it severely alone; he does not treat it as he does the flinty envelop of the diatom.
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Choice, Right—See [Way, The Right].
CHOICE UNFORESEEN
Men for high positions are not always chosen because of previous preeminence, but frequently through circumstances of situations or from expediency:
There are Presidential candidates and aspirants who have an erroneous idea of the candidacy, similar to that of many persons on the subject of wines and cigars, who consider the oldest as the best; while the real connoisseur knows perfectly well that such commodities are not permitted to exceed a certain age without losing rather than gaining in quality. Some keep their Presidential aspirations constantly before the people—as, for instance, Blaine and Sherman for several years. Others get up a drumming and fifing as soon as the year for the nomination comes on? If most of these people would poke their noses a little into the political history of this country, they would find that for a generation or more we have had no President whose reputation and “boom” was two years older than the hour of his election. When the Democrats nominated James K. Polk as their candidate, the politicians, surprized and disillusioned, inquired, “Who is James K. Polk?” The name of the Whig President, Zachary Taylor, was famous scarcely one year before the election. Pierce and Buchanan were absolutely less known than their rivals, Marcy and Cass, and before Lincoln’s nomination there was nowhere any talk about him; every one was thinking of Seward. Who, in 1862, would have prophesied that U. S. Grant would one day become General-in-chief and President of the Republic? Such an individual would have been regarded as fit subject of a lunatic asylum. Hayes owed his nomination to his hard-won victory of the year previous over the Democrat, Allen, in the gubernatorial campaign in Ohio; and no one had thought of Garfield two days before his nomination.—Der Deutsche Correspondent.
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Choices—See [Modesty].
CHOIR, THE
Church choirs are often a source of trouble to a pastor. A colored minister down South takes hold of the situation thus:
De choir will now sing dat beautiful piece, “We ain’t got long to stay heah,” after which dey will consider demselves discha’ged and will file out quietly, one by one. We’se gwine to hab con’gational singin’ heahaftah in dis yere chu’ch.
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CHOKED
It is a dreadful thing to be choked. Those who have either by accident or design suffered partial strangulation tell us that it is one of the most dreadful experiences. It must, to the all-seeing eye of God, be a dreadful thing to behold so many of His children gasping for a breath of life, being choked by the evil weeds, thorns, and tares indigenous to the flesh or diligently planted there by the enemy of souls while they sleep. It is a sad thing to see the corners of a corn-field left unreaped during the harvest (because the grain growing there among the thorns is not worth reaping), afterward reaped down and bound in bundles and burned, the thorns and choked product of a good seed together. It is a sadder thing to behold the lives of not a few Christians all overgrown and choked with thorns and weeds just ripening for the fire of destruction, because they are shriveled and choked and not fit to be gathered into our Lord’s garner. (Text.)—The Independent.
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CHRIST A GUIDE TO THE FATHER
Mr. Robert E. Speer met a poor blind Christian in Korea whose only knowledge of the word of God had come through the kindnesses of his friends, when they would read, translating out of a Chinese Bible and giving chapter and verse as they read. His knowledge of the life of Christ was wonderful, and when Mr. Speer asked him what incident he liked best of all in the gospel, he said, “I like best the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John, that tells the story of the blind man to whom the Lord restored his sight.” Mr. Speer asked the man what he looked forward to most, and he replied, “I look forward most to Christ’s meeting me at the gate of heaven. I wouldn’t dare to go up to see the Father alone, a poor blind man from Korea, but I shall wait at the gate, and He will find me out just as he did that poor blind man in the ninth of John, and He will lead me up to his Father and mine.”
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CHRIST APPROVED
In London City Temple, Dr. Joseph Parker was troubled by the absence of workingmen from church, and invited hundreds to lunch there. He said: “Bring your dinner buckets, and your pipes if you want to; I want to have a good talk with you.” Stepping out in front of them, he said:
“Men, why don’t you come to church?”
A leader among them said: “The Church is not for the likes of us, the Church is for the rich, and the Church is for the prosperous. You don’t want us there; that is what is the matter with the Church.”
Dr. Parker then said, “Men, what is the matter with Jesus of Nazareth?”
Instantly a working man swung his cap and said: “He is all right.” And a thousand or more working men kept swinging their caps and saying, “He is all right, He is all right.” (Text.)
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Christ a Protector—See [Protection].
CHRIST, A THERAPEUTIC
An experiment in treating neurotic patients was tried in the Massillon State Hospital, Ohio, when a picture entitled, “Christ Knocking at the Door,” a copy of Hofmann’s masterpiece, was unveiled during the religious services. The painting was life-size, on cathedral glass, and illuminated by electric lights. The hope was that by flashing the lights suddenly on the picture a beneficial therapeutic effect would be produced on the minds of the inmates of the hospital. (Text.)
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Christ as Pattern—See [Following Christ].
CHRIST, DESTROYER OF SIN
Recent science has enabled us to solve enigmas of the physical universe which once seemed forever impenetrable. Cholera has been, for example, through long ages “a pestilence walking in darkness.” There was no denying the plague; it demonstrated itself in the most awful manner, but none could divine its active principle, the secret of its power. But at last the cholera-germ has been tracked out, and the fatal pest never before seen by human eyes can now be studied under a powerful microscope, large as the human hand. The immense significance of this discovery to our race who may say?
For ages sin has been preeminently the pestilence walking at noonday, and the world has stood aghast before the obscure and terrible destroyer; but the glass of revelation in the hand of Jesus Christ has shown large and vivid the fatal principle which has tainted and decimated the race.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.” (Text.)
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CHRIST, FAITH IN
The last hours of the great Archbishop Whately are a brilliant testimony to the simplicity of his faith and complete devotion to Christ.
To one who observed his sufferings and asked him if he suffered much pain, he said:
“Some time ago I should have thought it great pain, but now I am enabled to bear it.” His intellect was unclouded by illness. He could think and speak. Some one said to him, “You are dying as you have lived, great to the last.” The reply was, “I am dying as I lived, in the faith of Jesus.” Another said, “What a blessing your glorious intellect is unimpaired.” He answered, “Do not call intellect glorious; there is nothing glorious out of Christ!” Another said, “The great fortitude of your character supports you.” “No, it is not the fortitude of my character supports me, but my faith in Christ.” (Text.)
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CHRIST FOR ALL
In an Austrian city there are twelve figures of Christ, each representing a different aspect. The country folk, crossing the bridge to the city in the morning, worship them as they pass. The stockmen pray to the image of Christ the Shepherd, the artizans to Christ the Carpenter, the market-gardeners to Christ the Sower, the ailing and infirm to Christ the Physician, the fishermen to Christ the Pilot, etc. “Enlightened minds will never forget that there is but one Christ, and yet to each follower the thought of Him that is born of a special need will always be the one that makes His image in the soul.”
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Christ, Glory of—See [Glory of Christ].
CHRIST, GOODNESS OF
A missionary was speaking with a Tibetan Lama about Christ. The Lama exprest himself charmed with the gospel story and then added, “Our saint Tsong K’aba was like Christ. He went about teaching and leading the people, and he was persecuted, too.” Then he added, “Even to-day it isn’t wise for a Lama to be too good!” (Text.)
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CHRIST IN THE CONGREGATION
Dr. George A. Gordon, the Boston preacher, tells of a dream that transformed his ministry:
I was in the pulpit before a great congregation, just ready to begin my sermon, when a stranger entered and passed slowly up the left aisle of the church, looking first to one side and then to the other, as tho silently asking with his eyes that some one would give him a seat. He had proceeded nearly half-way up the aisle when a gentleman stept out and offered him a place in his pew, which was quietly accepted. I remembered his face wore a peculiarly serious look, as of one who had known some great sorrow. His bearing, too, was exceedingly humble, his dress poor and plain, and from the beginning to the end of the service he gave the most respectful attention to the preacher. To myself I constantly asked, “Who can that stranger be?” And then I mentally resolved to find out by going up to him directly the service was over. But before I could reach him he had left the house. The gentleman with whom he sat, however, remained behind, and approaching him I asked, “Can you tell me who that stranger was who sat in your pew this morning?” He replied: “Why, do you not know that man? It was Jesus of Nazareth.”
One had been present in the church for an hour who could tell me all that I so longed to know; who could point out to me the imperfections of my service; who could reveal to me my real self, to whom, perhaps, I am most a stranger; who could correct the errors in our worship, to which long usage and accepted traditions may have rendered us insensible. While I had been preaching for half an hour He had been there and listening, who could have told me all this, and infinitely more, and my eyes had been holden and I knew Him not, and now He was gone. And then I awoke, for behold, it was a dream. No, it was not a dream. It was a vision of the deepest reality, a miniature of an actual ministry. (Text.)
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CHRIST, INTIMACY WITH
“I know Jesus Christ,” said Bushnell, “better than I know any man in the city of Hartford, and if He should be walking along the street and see me, He would say, ‘There goes a friend of mine.’” (Text.)
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CHRIST INVITING MEN
In the Doré Gallery in London is the artist’s last picture, left unfinished. It is entitled, “The Vale of Tears,” and was intended to illustrate the words, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.” Jesus is in the distance pointing to Himself. Over Him is a deep mist spanned by a rainbow whose light in varying degrees falls upon the multitude of faces and forms before Him, some just touched, others beaming and aglow with radiance.
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Christ, Monument to—See [Peace].
CHRIST OUR PILOT
Passengers from Europe to New York know that when the steamer reaches a point fifteen miles from Sandy Hook the pilot comes on board to superintend the navigation into New York harbor. The great steamer slows down and the pilot climbs on board. If this happens in the darkness of night the passengers looking down from the deck can see a lantern on the surface of the ocean where the pilot’s boat is lying. Presently he emerges from the blackness and is soon on deck. From that moment the anxieties of the captain and the officers are at an end. So when Christ is on board our life, the government is upon His shoulders. (Text.)
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CHRIST STILL PRESENT
A common and comforting Christian belief is put into verse by Edith Hickman Duvall:
He has not changed through all the years.
We know
That He remembers all the weight of wo
Which once opprest Him and the lonely way
Through which His tired feet journeyed day by day,
The pain He bore, the weariness and strife,
The toil and care of His own human life.
He is as near to human hearts to-day
As when He journeyed on the earthly way;
So near that all our wants are known to Him,
So near that, tho our faith, grown cold and dim,
Fails oftentimes to grasp the truth, He knows
The secret story of our hidden woes. (Text.)
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CHRIST THE CONQUEROR
Priscilla Leonard writes this verse on Christ’s method of establishing His reign:
Kings choose their soldiers from the strong and sound
And hurl them forth to battle at command.
Across the centuries, o’er sea and land,
Age after age, the shouts of war resound;
Yet, at the end, the whole wide world around,
Each empty empire, once so proudly planned,
Melts through Time’s fingers like the dropping sand.
But once a King—despised, forsaken, crowned
Only with thorns—chose in the face of loss
Earth’s poor, her weak, her outcast, gave them love,
And sent them forth to conquer in His name
The world that crucified Him, and proclaim
His empire. Lo! Pride’s vanished thrones above
Behold the enduring banner of the cross!
(Text.)—The Outlook.
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CHRIST THE DOOR
This poem by Mary M. Redding, is based on an actual incident of one of Dr. George Adam Smith’s Syrian journeys:
A traveler once, when skies were rose and gold
With Syrian sunset, paused beside the fold
Where an Arabian shepherd housed his flock;
Only a circling wall of rough gray rock—
No door, no gate, but just an opening wide
Enough for snowy, huddling sheep to come inside.
“So,” questioned he, “then no wild beasts you dread?”
“Ah, yes, the wolf is near,” the shepherd said.
“But”—strange and sweet the voice divine of yore
Fell on his startled ear—“I am the door!
When skies are sown with stars, and I may trace
The velvet shadows, in this narrow space
I lay me down. No silly sheep may go
Without the fold but I, the shepherd, know.
Nor need my cherished flock, close-sheltered, warm,
Fear ravening wolf, save o’er my prostrate form.”
O word of Christ—illumined evermore
For us His timid sheep—“I am the door!”
(Text.)—Sunday-school Times.
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Outside one of the beautiful gateways of the magnificent mosque of St. Sophia, in Constantinople, there is a picture of an open Bible with this inscription: “The Lord said, I am the door; by me if any man enter in he shall be saved.” The Mohammedans left this inscription when they took the beautiful temple from the Christians; because they could see no reference in it to Jesus Christ. Everything else that suggested Christianity or the cross was obliterated. There is a twentieth-century spirit that would obliterate Jesus Christ and the necessity of His saving work. But meanwhile He, the strong Son of God, calmly waits for the world’s recognition. He has presented His proofs, and the responsibility is ours. There is no other gospel, no other road, no other Christ. For his own convenience man has invented a number of “short cuts.” But it remains as true to-day as when Jesus Himself spoke the words, that he who climbs up some other way is “a thief and a robber.”—Joel B. Slocum.
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CHRIST, THE FIGURE OF
Monsignor Bonomelli, in a letter read at the World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh, June, 1910, said:
Jesus has, in reality, not vanished either from history, or from the life of Christianity. He lives at all times in millions of souls, He is enthroned as King in all hearts. The figure of Christ has not the cold splendor of a distant star, but the warmth of a heart which is near us, a flame burning in the soul of believers and keeping alive their consciences. Putting aside certain opinions, which, honored at the moment, may possibly be abandoned to-morrow, criticism had hoped to effect a complete demolition of the conception of Christ, but what criticism really demolished was merely irrelevant matter. The figure of Christ, after all the onslaughts of criticism, now stands forth more pure and divine than ever and compels our adoration.
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CHRIST, THE INDEFATIGABLE
From the Catholic World we clip Cornelius Clifford’s sonnet on “The Indefatigable Christ”:
Go where thou wilt, His heart shalt find thee out;
Be thou in quest of wealth, or power, or fame.
Above life’s tumult shall He call thy name;
His care shall compass thee with grief about;
And thou shalt know Him in thine hours of doubt,
When faith shall pierce thy darkness like a flame,
O dull of sense to Time’s imperious claim,
His love shall prove thy rainfall after drought!
For He shall come in many a blinding shower
To dye thy sick leaves to a healthier hue,
Till the scant years of youth’s once ample dower
Requicken with late fruitage rare to view;
Yea, He must shape thee by thine own heart’s power,
And fashion all this ruined life anew.
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CHRIST THE LAMB
The figure of a lamb slain dominates the whole aspect of the religion of redemption. Nature and grace seem to blend in harmonious echoes of this ideal presentation.
High up on the old German church of Werden is carved the image of a lamb, concerning which the villagers tell this story. Many years ago, a mason was at work on the portion of wall where now this figure stands, when the cord by which his plank seat was suspended snapt, and he was hurled down to what seemed instant death, for masses of rough stone lay thick on the ground below, the building being under repair. He arose unhurt, for there among the stone-heaps a little lamb had been nibbling at scanty tufts of herbage, and on this animal he had fallen safe and softly, while the lamb lay crusht to death. The man so strangely saved had the monument erected in grateful, lasting memory of his deliverance from a cruel death, and of the innocent creature to whom he owed it. (Text.)
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CHRIST THE LEADER
Mrs. A. E. Hawkins sings of “The March of Life” in these lines:
Sometimes the order comes to “Forward march!”
And falling into line my step I keep
Beside my comrades, o’er the toilsome road,
Nor think of rest or sleep.
Then suddenly the order comes to “Halt!”
And steadily I plant my feet and stand,
I know not why or wherefore—I can trust
The Captain in command.
*****
But suddenly the bugle sounds, “To arms!”
I gird my armor on, and join the fray,
Following my Leader through the battle-smoke
Until we win the day.
For well I know that, march and battle o’er,
Will come the great Commander’s grand review,
And then the lights of home, and the reunion
Of loyal hearts and true.
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CHRIST THE LIGHT
In the life story of Helen Keller, a picture of the governess and her famous pupil is shown with the blind girl leaning her head on her teacher’s shoulder. This is a fair representation of the way in which life with its deeper and hidden meaning unfolded itself to the child. She drew so near to her teacher that her hand could touch eye, ear and lip. Before her teacher came to her, existence seemed like a dense fog and a great darkness, while her very soul cried out, Light, light! But when her education began, the way grew clearer and the truth plain as the “light of the teacher’s love shone upon her.”
There are men who are spiritually blind. They are shipwrecked mariners at sea in a dense fog. They are without compass and have nothing stable from which they can take their bearings. But when Christ comes into their lives their heart-cry for light is answered. (Text.)
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CHRIST, THE REJECTED
At the exhibition of the Royal Academy, in London, the great canvas by Sigismund Goetze, entitled “Despised and Rejected of Men,” has created an artistic sensation. It is declared to be a “powerful and terribly realistic presentment of Christ” in a modern setting, and is described by a writer in The Christian Commonwealth (London), as follows:
In the center of the canvas is the Christ, standing on a pedestal, bound with ropes, while on either side passes the heedless crowd. A prominent figure is a richly vested priest, proudly conscious of the perfection of the ritual with which he is starving his higher life. Over the shoulder of the priest looks a stern-faced divine of a very different type. Bible in hand, he turns to look at the divine figure, but the onlooker is conscious that this stern preacher of the letter of the gospel has missed its spirit, and is as far astray as the priest whose ceremonial is to him anathema. The startled look on the face of the hospital nurse in the foreground is very realistic; so is the absorption of the man of science, so intent on the contents of his test-tube that he had not a glance for the Christ at his side. One of the most striking figures is that of the thoughtless beauty hurrying from one scene of pleasure to another; and spurning the sweet-faced little ragged child who is offering a bunch of violets. In rejecting the plea of the child we know that the proud woman is rejecting the Christ who has identified himself forever with the least of these little ones. The only person in the whole picture who has found time to pause is the mother seated on the steps of the pedestal with her baby in her arms, and we can not but feel that when she has ministered to the wants of her child she will spare a moment for the lover of little children who is so close to her. In the background stands an angel with bowed head, holding the cup which the world He loved to the death is still compelling the Christ to drink, while a cloud of angel faces look down upon the scene with wonder. As the visitor turns away he is haunted with the music of Stainer’s “Crucifixion,” “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?” (Text.)
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CHRIST, THE SEARCHING
A pastor tells of a talk he once had with an artist over the unsatisfactoriness of the pictured faces of Christ. In reply, the artist took up a crayon and rapidly sketched the picture of a woman with a broom in one hand and a lighted candle in the other, and a look of intense anxiety on her face.
“It is a fine representation of the woman seeking for the lost bit of silver,” said the pastor.
“You do not understand my picture,” was the quick response. “That is my conception of the Christ.”
Ah, what a conception! A searching Christ! Seeking in dark, dusty corners for His own!—Sophie B. Titterington.
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Christ Transforming—See [Changes Wrought by Christ].
CHRIST UNAVOIDABLE
A learned native of Saxony all his life long has attacked Jesus and His gospel. But in his old days he doubted if he had been right, and yet fought against his doubts and against Christ. Often he would stop before a picture of Jesus, and say, “After all, thou wast only a man!” Then, “What dost thou say? that thou camest from above? How terribly thou eyest me! oh, thou art dreadful! But thou art only a man, after all.” He would go away, then with faltering step return and cry out, “What! art thou in reality the Son of God?” That scene was often renewed until the unhappy man, struck by paralysis, died. (Text.)
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CHRIST, UNION WITH
Christ is necessary to the Christian, but is not the obverse true also. If both are bound up in the same life, can one be injured without suffering to the other? This is the lesson which a recent writer finds taught by the ivy:
Some of the creeping plants, it is said, such as the ivy, entwine themselves so intimately with the masonry to which they cling that it would be unsafe to try to remove them—the building would be injured by their being torn away. And so our Lord Christ, with reverence, be it said, can not endure the loss of one of His members: He would be injured, mutilated, by only one of them being taken away, so close is the union between Him and them. (Text.)
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CHRIST’S EFFECT ON BARABBAS
A picture that may not be all imaginary is given by Margaret Ashmun in this poem from The New England Magazine:
And they released Barabbas, and he went
Forth from his dungeon, joying in the grace
Of life regained; yet, as he passed, a face
Shone out from the dim corridor, and bent
Its gaze upon him; questioning, intent.
He knew that brow where anguish had its place,
Those lips prophetic, sealed now for a space,
Those eyes, deep-welled with awful, still content.
The robber paused to marvel at the Man
Whose death should serve for his; nor spoke aloud
The foul jest in his throat. He stayed to scan
Once more that visage calm; then, trembling, bowed
With fear and harsh soul-harrowing grief, he ran
And hid himself, sick-hearted, in the crowd.
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CHRIST’S FACE
The hymn beginning:
Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress:
’Midst flaming worlds in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head,
was written by Zinzendorf, whose culture and piety appear so conspicuously in the more than two thousand hymns which came from his pen. It was suggested by a picture in the Düseldorf Gallery, “Ecce Homo,” representing Jesus crowned with thorns. From the pathetic face above he turned to the legend beneath: “All this I have done for thee; what hast thou for me?” The vision and the question led him to adopt for his life motto: “I have but one passion, and that is He, and only He.” (Text.)
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Christ’s Fulness—See [Fulness, Christ’s].
CHRIST’S LOVE
Cyrus, the Persian, loved Lysander, one of his great generals, so much that, it is said, he exprest his readiness to melt down his throne of massive gold and give it to him.
But Christ, our King, left His throne for the love of the humblest soul. (Text.)
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Christian Currents—See [Currents of Life].
Christian Experience—See [Paradox].
CHRISTIAN FULNESS
A Christian is an unfailing spiritual Niagara, not a cow-track pool to be drunk dry by a thirsty sunbeam.—F. F. Shannon.
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CHRISTIAN HONESTY
A Chinese Christian ferryman, poor in money but rich in faith, one night ferried a man over the river. After throwing the cash for his fare into the bottom of the boat, the passenger departed hurriedly. The Christian went to pick up the money and found a magnificent pair of gold bracelets which the man had dropt. He tied up his boat and tried to find his passenger, but he was lost in the crowd. According to the Chinese law, he could keep the bracelets, but he did not feel comfortable in doing this. He went to the preacher and together they took the bracelets to the mandarin, and later it was found that a wealthy Chinese had been robbed and the man who dropt the bracelets was a thief. The owner received them very thankfully and gave the mandarin a small reward for the finder. The incident imprest the official very much. “I have never seen or heard anything like this,” he said. “Your religion must be a true religion and your God a loving God, thus to influence a poor man to give up wealth for conscience sake.” He praised the boatman, who went to his poor, damp, mud hut on the bank of the river with a contented mind.
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CHRISTIAN SPIRIT, THE
The King of Italy displayed a truly royal spirit when he went to the earthquake region at Messina and Reggio, and personally assisted the sufferers. An account in the press says of this:
The King has made himself dear to all his subjects, especially to those in the earthquake zone, by his prompt and personal aid in times of disaster. This makes plausible a story told by his companions to-day, who say that as the royal pair and the crowd surrounding them made their way through the ruins a man pinned under a great block of stone and supposed to be dead raised his head, repeated the cries of acclaim and dropt back dead. (Text.)
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Christian, The, and Christ—See [Christ, Union with].
Christian Travelers in Foreign Lands—See [Sunday Desecration by Christians].
CHRISTIAN UNITY
The Rev. John Fawcett, D.D., wrote the hymn, “Blest be the tie that binds”—perhaps the noblest hymnic expression of Christian brotherhood; and the author is himself one of the best examples of its sentiment. Brought to God by the Methodists, under the ministry of Whitefield, he joined that body, and became later pastor of a Baptist church in Bradford, England, and finally was settled at Wainsgate. Receiving a call to succeed the celebrated Dr. Gill in London, he had his goods packed ready for removal, when his loving people gathered, weeping, to say farewell, which so touched him and his good wife that he said, “I will stay; you may unpack my goods, and we will live for the Lord lovingly together.” This experience, it was, which led the author to compose the now popular hymn. (Text.)
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CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILIZATION
In Livingstonia, an industrial mission in Africa, an engineering feat was accomplished in bringing a supply of pure water a distance of three miles across a valley 300 feet deep. The natives did not believe the water could possibly travel. They thought the Europeans were deceiving them when they talked of water running down one hill and up another. The two or three preliminary tests did not succeed, and this increased the natives’ incredulity. But one afternoon in January, 1904, a nozzle was screwed on to a hydrant, and the engineering staff awaited results with certainty. The screw was turned and, true enough, the water had climbed over the hill, for a jet of it rose in the air amid cheers. Think of the enormous benefit Christian civilization is in the dark places of the earth. (Text.)
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Christianity and Survival—See [Social Strength].
CHRISTIANITY AS A CIVILIZER
James Chalmers, the martyred missionary of New Guinea, said:
I have had twenty-one years’ experience among the South Sea Islanders, and for at least nine years of my life I have lived with the savages of New Guinea. I have seen the semi-civilized and the uncivilized; I have lived with the Christian native, and I have lived, dined and slept with the cannibal. But I have never yet met a single man or woman, or a single people, that your civilization without Christianity has civilized. Wherever there has been the slightest spark of civilized life in the Southern Seas, it has been because the gospel has been preached there; and wherever you find in the island of New Guinea a friendly people, or a people that will welcome you, there the missionaries of the cross have been preaching Christ. (Text.)—Missionary Review of the World.
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CHRISTIANITY, CRITICISM OF
There is a humorous poem by John Godfrey Saxe about the four blind Hindus who went to see an elephant. They could not see the elephant, but they told what they had seen. One happened to lean against the elephant and declared it was much like a wall. Another got hold of his tail and described him as being like a rope. Another got his trunk and said he was like a serpent, and the fourth ran against his tusk and said he was shaped very much like a spear. The fact is that they had not seen the elephant at all.
So there are objectors who have never seen Christianity at all. They have seen mere fragments. Their criticism is correspondingly worthless.
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CHRISTIANITY, EARLY INFLUENCE OF
Let the temperature of a lake fall to the freezing-point; apply a piece of ice to it and see the radiating lines of crystallization shoot singing from that center of force in all directions, while other rays start from their thousand nodes of maximum intensity, until the whole surface of the water becomes a solid sheet of ice. Just so the Roman empires, east and west, were subjected to a superficial crystallization of Christianity started in Judea by Jesus Christ.—J. P. Lesley, The Forum.
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CHRISTIANITY, EFFECT OF
The thoroughgoing effect of the Christian religion upon a black chief of Africa is seen in the following account:
When, after many provocations, the crisis came, and notwithstanding oft-repeated warnings, there was drunken violence and uproar, the good Khama wore a stern face which always meant fixt purpose. He went and saw with his own eyes how his laws were trampled on, and then he said: “You despise my laws because I am a black man. Well, if I am black, I am chief of my own country, and I rule here and shall maintain my laws. Go back to your own country. Take all that is yours, and go. If there is any other white man who does not like my laws, let him go, too. I am trying to lead my people to act according to the Word of God, which we have received from you white people, and you, white people, show them an example of wickedness such as we never knew. You know that some of my own brothers have learned to like the drink, and that I do not want them even to see it that they may forget the habit; and yet you not only bring it and offer it to them, but try to tempt me with it. I make an end of it to-day. Go, leave my town, and never come back!”—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”
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Christianity in the Home—See [Family Religion].
CHRISTIANITY INVINCIBLE
In a sawmill in Canada, while the head sawyer was eating his dinner, a big bear came and sat on the log ready for sawing, and began to eat the sawyer’s dinner. As the log moved up the saw gave him a slight rub; he growled and went on eating. Presently the saw gave him another dig and he turned round and hugged it, and there was a bear sawed in two.
This reminds us of the enemies of Christ trying to stop the work He came to do. He uttered truths which cut them, but they continued in their opposition. They have gone to their own place, but the gracious work of Christ continues. (Text.)
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Christianity, Moral—See [Moral Satisfaction].
CHRISTIANITY, PRACTICAL PROOF OF
An unbeliever confronted a converted Fiji cannibal chief, saying, “You are a great chief, and it is really a pity that you have been so foolish as to listen to the missionaries. Nobody believes any longer in that old book called the Bible, or in that story of Jesus Christ. They have all learned better, and I am sorry for you that you have been So foolish as to take it in.”
The chief’s eyes flashed as he said: “Do you see that great stone over there? On that stone we smashed the heads of our victims to death. Do you see that native oven yonder? In that oven we roasted the human bodies for our great feasts. Now, if it hadn’t been for the good missionaries, and that old book and the love of Jesus Christ, which has changed us from savages into God’s children, you would never leave this spot. You have to thank God for the gospel, for without it we should have killed you, and roasted you in yonder oven, and have feasted upon you in no time.”
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Christianity, Reasonable—See [Reasonable Religion].
CHRISTIANITY SHAMED
Vessels from Christian lands that touched at the Hawaiian group first introduced there the damnable liquid fires of alcohol, and their licentious crews first made the harbors of Hawaii the hells of the most abandoned and shameless vice. Sin was literally bringing forth death.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”
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CHRISTIANITY, SOCIAL
Civilized man must often go a great distance for many of the things he needs. His wants are too diversified to be met within the small radius of his immediate dwelling-place. As heat and sunshine are unequally distributed over the earth, they produce differences of climate and consequently many varieties of vegetation. There is wheat in the temperate zones, cotton and rubber-plants of warmer regions. Some sections are also far poorer in useful rocks and minerals than others. Thus Holland has no building stone. Switzerland no coal and the United States much less sulfur than it needs. There must be a constant interchange of productions that each nation have its needs supplied.
Paul tells us that each man is the recipient of spiritual gifts differing in kind and degree from that of another. But it is all of the same spirit and all are members of one body. The Christianity of the future will be a brotherhood; it will be social. (Text.)
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CHRISTIANITY SUCCEEDING BARBARISM
Geologists say that the Bay of Naples is in reality the crater of an extinct volcano. In the cycles of ages past it was a great, deep, roaring pit of fire and burning lava. The fires subsided and the lava ceased to flow. The great sea overflowed it and now the calm waters smile back in sunshine by day and in starlight at evening. Christianity is a great calm sea that is gradually quenching and covering the old volcanoes and roaring pits of barbarism. (Text.)
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CHRISTIANITY, SUCCESS OF
Admiral Prevost gives this picture of the change wrought in the British Columbia tribes by the Metlakahtla Mission:
Peter Simpson had been chief of a cannibal tribe. Canoes were all drawn up on the beach on the Lord’s day, and not a sound was heard, save the hurrying of the whole population to the house of prayer. The admiral watched the incoming of throngs—here a notorious gambler, there a reclaimed drunkard, a lecherous leper, a defiant thief, a widow snatched from the jaws of infamy, a murderer who had first slain and then burned his own wife—all converts to Christ and children of God.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”
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Christianity, Successful—See [Church, Success of].
CHRISTIANITY SUPERIOR
Every strong man wants to know what his opponent can say. He covets criticism, asks for investigation, welcomes analysis and contrast. Christianity has won its greatest victory through comparative religion. If you can only get the man with an ox-cart to put his vehicle beside the new locomotive; if you can only get the tallow candle and the gas flame into contrast with the electric light; if you can only get Buddha and Confucius side by side with Jesus—that is all that can be asked. The stickler for a little fire and a tallow candle will have nothing to say after you open the curtain and let the sunshine in.—N. D. Hillis.
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Christianity Traversing Heathenism—See [Opportunity in the Orient].
Christianity Vindicated—See [Triumph of Christianity].
Christians, Dyspeptic—See [Food and Exercise].
CHRISTMAS
What angels sang on that first Christmas morn,
“Good will to men,” “The Prince of Peace is born,”
Breaks once again in benediction clear,
Sure song of God, the climax of the year.
Round, round the earth the blessed measures run,
Strife sheathes the sword, a thousand think as one,
Babes leap for joy, December hearts aglow
Burn with the hopes they burned with long ago.
Strain urges strain, benevolence is sped,
Dives relents and Lazarus is fed.
Mirth makes a laugh where sorrow made a sigh,
Heart wakes to heart—the Seraphim are nigh.
“Good will and peace,” the song is on the air,
“Good will and peace,” I hear it everywhere—
“Peace on the earth,” in purposes divine,
“Good will to men”—and a good will to mine.
Oh, friend unseen, no gift is in my power;
Gold would be dross in this triumphant hour.
Take, then, the strain the angels sing to me,
“Good will and peace,” I send it all to thee.
—L. O. Williams.
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Scattered snow along the hillside, white as springtime fleeces are,
With the whiter wings above them and the glory-streaming star—
Guiding-star across the housetops; never fear the shepherd’s felt
Till they found the Babe in manger, where the kindly cattle knelt.
Oh, the shepherds in Judea!—
Do you think the shepherds know
How the whole round earth is brightened
In the ruddy Christmas glow?
How the sighs are lost in laughter, and the laughter brings the tears,
As the thoughts of men go seeking back across the darkling years,
Till they find the wayside stable that the star-led wise men found,
With the shepherds, mute, adoring, and the glory shining round!
—Mary Austin.
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CHRISTMAS ABSURDLY OBSERVED
There is danger, unless a discriminating intelligence preside, of carrying otherwise proper observances to absurd lengths as shown in a recent occurrence in Rochester:
A unique Christmas party was given Christmas eve by Mrs. Louis E. Fuller, organist at Brick Church, at her home, No. 105 South Fitzhugh Street. The novel part of the affair was that it was given for Mrs. Fuller’s two pet cats, Limit and Sir Gobelin, and the five dinner guests were all cat-lovers, and each guest who came brought a gift for the two cats of their hostess. The presents were adapted to the amusement and decorative side of the cats’ lives. There were dainty ribbon collars with great satin bows, cunning little packages of catnip wrapt in tissue-paper and tied with ribbon, balls galore, tiny mechanical mice and teddy bears. The invitations were sent out in the name of the cats, and the place-cards were tiny cats, which served as souvenirs, being made of phosphorus and suitable for scratching matches. There was a Christmas tree, on which the gifts were hung.
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CHRISTMAS STAR, THE
There once lived a family in the South whose rigid rule sent the children to bed at sundown and made them rise after daylight. One of the boys grew to the age of seven years before he ever saw the stars, and when he was carried out one dark night and caught his first glimpse of the glorious constellations, he exclaimed rapturously to his mother: “Look! Look! Did you ever see anything so beautiful?”
The return of Christmas brings into view the Star of Bethlehem. How many human eyes have never yet seen this Star!
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Church and Business Men—See [Business Men in Church].
Church and Working Men—See [Christ Approved].
Church Cheer—See [Sunshine in the Church].
CHURCH, DEADNESS OF THE
Perhaps nothing is more common than a profession of spiritual life with very feeble evidence of its existence.
A preacher visiting an infirmary, guided through the institution by a member of the medical staff, described various cases as the two passed along: “Anemic condition,” “creeping paralysis,” “nervous dyspepsia,” “locomotor ataxia,” etc. Having passed through all the wards, the minister said, “I have known a church with just such people in it. It took six hundred members a whole year to bring eleven souls to confess Christ. The prayer-meeting was affected by creeping paralysis and four-fifths of the men seemed to be suffering from locomotor ataxia of the soul.” The doctor replied, “And I one day remember seeing a very beautiful engine at an exhibition, but it was on a table, not on rails. It was only four feet long and about two feet high, and when I asked the man in charge what it was for he said it was not for use in any way, but was simply on exhibition. And,” added the doctor, “I have seen ministers and churches just like that.” (Text.)
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Church-going Enforced—See [Worship, Enforced].
CHURCH, GUIDANCE FOR THE
There are no wrecks among the golden ships of the heavens, for a master hand keeps the movements of the fixt spheres in unison. An effort is being made to have unison among the movements of all ships at sea. The proposal is that the Eiffel tower be equipped with a wireless apparatus, powerful enough to send Hertzian waves completely round the world, that ships may not be wrecked by being confused as to the longitude. It is said that all ships in communication with Eiffel tower will harmonize in their movements. Noon and midnight will be indicated by a prearranged signal.
The Church is a ship of state with its members as the crew. Each church is commanded to keep in constant and direct communication with the great Head of the Church, the high tower of righteousness. (Text.)
(434) Church Hospitality—See [Hospitality in Church].
CHURCH INDISPENSABLE
A man in his Gethsemane utters words that burn themselves into your memory in letters of fire. The personal experiences of one’s friends are sacred; sacred forever the events of the household, when grief and repentance lay healing hands like angels upon a broken life. But recently I saw with mine own eyes, and heard with mine own ears, and received a charge. The house was a mansion on an avenue, and the man was approaching threescore years and ten. Beside us was the coffin of his dead daughter. On the other side sat his chum, his closest friend. Suddenly the sorrowing man broke into speech, and this was the substance of his soliloquy: “There is nothing in these things. You and I have been living for a good time and success. We have gotten everything we could during the week. We have been good poker-players on Saturday night, we have spent our Sundays in the automobile and driving, and in social pleasures. We have put the club and the bank first, and my son has disgraced me with his shameless marriage, and my daughter is dead. I tell you,” he said, using his friend’s name, “there is only one place in which to bring up a family, and that is the Christian Church. There is only one way to use Sunday for children, and that is to take them to church. What with money, and wine, and poker, and pleasure, all day Sunday, and parties all Sunday night, my family has been ruined. People don’t know what the result of this kind of living will be until the end comes, but I know.”—N. D. Hillis.
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CHURCH, JOINING THE
A physician meeting an evangelist said to him:
“I believe in religion as much as you do, and I accept Christ as my Savior, but I will never join any church.”
“Doctor, you are pension examiner.” “Yes.” “How many applicants for pensions have you examined?” “I do not know, but hundreds.” “Doctor, how many of these received a pension who had never joined the army?” “Not one, not one. My wife and I will unite with the Presbyterian Church.”
They did. This man, seventy odd years old, who had never been at church once, became a devout Christian and died in the faith. (Text.)
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CHURCH, LIGHT AND STRENGTH
Persia has well been called the land of “the Lion and the Sun.” The symbol of “the Lion and the Sun” originated in the days when the Zoroastrians were the inhabitants of the land. The sun, being the emblem of the fire-worshipers, was taken as their national badge. The lion was added later because Ali, the grandson of Mohammed, was called the “Lion of God.” The woman’s face in the sun was inserted some years later by one of the Persian kings as a tribute to his favorite wife.
What is the Church but the land of the Lion and the Sun, the Lion of Judah; the Sun of righteousness? What is its content but the bride of Christ?
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Church, Loyalty to—See [Loyalty to the Church].
CHURCH-MEMBERS, WORKING
Henry Ward Beecher was once about to take a ride behind a horse which he had hired from a livery stable. He regarded the horse admiringly, and remarked: “That is a fine-looking animal. Is he as good as he looks?” The owner replied: “Mr. Beecher, that horse will work in any place you put him, and do all that any horse can do.” The preacher eyed the horse still more admiringly, and then remarked: “I wish to goodness he was a member of my church!” (Text.)—Louis Albert Banks.
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CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP
It is not enough to say that you can be a Christian outside of the Church; an occasional boy can be a scholar without going to school; an occasional vine can grow in a lane instead of a vineyard, and an occasional newsboy can sleep in a barrel, and survive, instead of a home. But don’t stand outside of the Church and then crawl out of your barrel, and later on ask for all the privileges of the household. Some men watched the great parade in 1865, and regretted that they had not been in the ranks for the grand review. And if you come to the end of your career, never having shown your colors nor had a part in the fight, you will never cease to feel the regret that you did not die on the battle-field, and were not carried home like the heroes upon their shield.—N. D. Hillis.
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CHURCH, MISSION OF
In a sermon by Dr. James I. Vance in The Christian Observer, on “The Harbor-light on the Church Spire,” he points out the mission of the Church. He gives this as an illustration:
Recently, while on a visit to the old historic, picturesque city of Charleston, on a Saturday afternoon, I was taken for a sail around the harbor and a short distance out to sea. A friend took me to the forward deck and pointing to a light that glowed above the city in the distance, said: “That light is in the spire of St. Philip’s church. It is the harbor-light of Charleston. The channel here is an eddy channel, deep but narrow, and every vessel that enters this harbor must steer by the light in St. Philip’s spire.”
As I stood there in the deepening shadows, I began to think of the many vessels, great and small, which through the long years, had entered the port. Merchantmen and men-of-war, freighters and pleasure-boats, yachts and schooners and excursion steamers, ships of adventure and of exploration, rakish blockaders, boats stript to their decks, grim and threatening, with all the paraphernalia and munitions of war; and ships gay, with bunting flying, with music and laughter resounding, and with decks crowded with merry throngs of pleasure-seekers. For all, the light in the church spire shone to show them a safe port and to guide the ship to its desired haven.
It seemed to me to tell the story of what the Church is for, to answer, in part at least, the question why Christ wanted a church. The light shining over Charleston harbor from St Philip’s spire, and far out to sea, is a picture of the mission of every church in the world.
The mission of the Church is to shine the harbor-light. It is to illuminate the darkness and, through the gathering gloom, to point the true way. It is to show voyagers on the sea of life how to reach the true haven. It is to tell wanderers how to find their Father’s house. It is to guide the soul to God. It is to shine out the harbor-light, so that souls in the offing may reach, in safety, life’s true destination. (Text.)
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CHURCH, NEED OF THE
A message in the form of a letter from Monsignor Bonomelli was read to the delegates attending the World Missionary Conference, held in Edinburgh, June, 1910, part of which reads:
All of you feel the need of a church, which may be the outward manifestation of your faith and religious feeling, the vigilant custodian now and here of Christian doctrine and tradition. It sustains and keeps alive religion and individual activity, in virtue of that strong power of suggestion, which collectively always exercises on the individual.
“Sir,” exclaims Johnson, “it is a very dangerous thing for a man not to belong to any church!”
And this is true. How many of us would fall a thousand times were it not for this support!
From the various churches and religious denominations, into which you Christians are divided, there arises a new unifying element, a noble aspiration, restraining too great impulsiveness, leveling dividing barriers, and working for the realization of the one holy church through all the children of redemption.
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Church, Obligations to the—See [Obligations to the Church].
CHURCH ONLY A MEANS
A church is like the steps leading in to a beautiful mansion, but you do not sit down on the steps, you do not set up a tent on the steps, you do not live on the steps—the steps lift you to the level of the warm room, the blazing winter’s fire, the bower of home that receives you out of the driving rain or pelting snow. All the ordinances of the Church are steps that lead to the house of character, adorned with all those rich treasures, named truth, gentleness, meekness and justice and sympathy. The Church is a hostelry in which man stops for a night on his journey home. The end of the Church is character.—N. D. Hillis.
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CHURCH SERVICES
Dr. Donald Sage Mackay remarks on the effects on communities of neglect of church attendance:
One of the papers in New York has been making a personal examination into the political morals of a certain New England State. It has been alleged that politically that State is rotten, that its voters are regularly bought and sold at every election. A detailed description of each of the most corrupt towns in that State was given, and this was the appalling fact brought out: The worst towns (some of them with a few hundred inhabitants), where bribery was most persistent, where illegal liquor-selling was most rampant, where immorality was most flagrant, were those towns in which there was no resident minister and where no Christian service was regularly held. For instance, in one town known as “darkest Exeter,” there were twenty years ago six churches; four of them are in ruins to-day, two are occasionally used, but there is no resident minister. The result is “darkest Exeter”—a New England farming town, once peopled by the sturdy sons of the Pilgrim, heir to all the noble qualities of a sturdy race.—“The Religion of the Threshold.”
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CHURCH STATISTICS
The statistics and charts belonging with this illustration are taken from Bulletin 103 of the United States “Bureau of the Census” “representing conditions as near as may be, at the close of the year 1906.”
The general order or rank of the principal religious bodies in 1906 with respect to organization is presented in Table No. 1. (See page [104].)
The distribution of religious organizations by principal families and separate denominations in 1906, in comparison with similar figures for 1890, is given in Table No. 2. (See page [105]).
The seating capacity of the churches is given in Tables No. 3 and No. 4. (See page [106].)
Diagram 1—Distribution of communicants or members, by principal families or denominations, for continental United States: 1890 and 1906.
The value of church property, with gains by decades is shown in Tables No. 5 and No. 6. (See pages [107–108].)
The charts here shown exhibit at a glance (1) the comparative strength of denominations or families for 1890 and 1906 and (2) the relative size of the church and the unchurched population.
[Note.—The designation “not church-members” in diagram 2, p. [104], represents the difference between the number reported as communicants or members and the total population; it embraces, therefore, children too young to become church-members, as well as that portion of the population which is eligible to church-membership, altho not affiliated with any religious denomination.]
Of the total estimated population of continental United States in 1906, 39.1 per cent., or not quite two-fifths, were reported as church-members. The corresponding percentage for 1890 was 32.7, or somewhat less than one-third, showing that the church has gained faster than the population 6.4 per cent.
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CHURCH, SUCCESS OF THE
Mr. Beecher arose in his pulpit Sunday after Sunday for forty years with the invariable fortune of looking at a crowded congregation, tho the most eloquent political orator in the country can not draw the same people to hear him five times in succession. A country town of 3,000 people will support from five to ten churches when it will hardly pay the rent of an amusement hall. For centuries, against intellectual doubt and the weakness of the flesh, the Christian religion has more than held its own in Europe and America, and while the theater could attract only by a continually changing appeal to curiosity, the church has retained its power with slight change and with only enough flexibility to adjust its forms of government to the character of different people.—Kansas City Times.
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Diagram 2—Proportion of the population reported as Protestant, Roman Catholic, and “all other” church-members, and proportion not reported as church-members, for continental United States: 1890 and 1906.
Table No. 1—Denominational Rank. (See [Church Statistics].)
| DENOMINATION | Number of organizations | Rank in number of organizations |
| Methodist bodies | 64,701 | 1 |
| Baptist bodies | 54,880 | 2 |
| Presbyterian bodies | 15,506 | 3 |
| Lutheran bodies | 12,703 | 4 |
| Roman Catholic Church | 12,482 | 5 |
| Disciples or Christians | 10,942 | 6 |
| Protestant Episcopal Church | 6,845 | 7 |
| Congregationalists | 5,713 | 8 |
| United Brethren bodies | 4,304 | 9 |
| Evangelical bodies | 2,738 | 10 |
| Reformed bodies | 2,585 | 11 |
| Adventist bodies | 2,551 | 12 |
| Jewish congregations | 1,769 | 13 |
| Christians (Christian Connection) | 1,379 | 14 |
| German Evangelical Synod of North America | 1,205 | 15 |
| Latter-day Saints | 1,184 | 16 |
| Friends | 1,147 | 17 |
| Dunkers or German Baptist Brethren | 1,097 | 18 |
CHURCH, THE
Harriet McEwen Kimball puts into verse a hopeful view of the triumph of the Church:
Be patient! bide His time who will not tarry;
A thousand years He measures as a day.
All human plans, since human, may mis-carry;
His, never; keep His counsel, watch and pray.
Put up thy sword, He saith;
Be faithful unto death.
Since the first saints embraced His cross, and dying
No earthly triumph saw, yet were content,
On His dear Presence, tho unseen, relying,
His holy Church has walked the way He went;
Afflicted, destitute,
And sore from head to foot.
Thou yet shalt see her, all her trials ended,
Robed as in garments woven white of flame,
When He “by thousand thousand saints attended,”
Their lifted foreheads burning with His name,
Shall come to claim the rest
Who wait His advent blest.
She will be glorious; neither spot nor wrinkle
To mar the beauty of her holiness,
And all the nations which His blood shall sprinkle
The bride and bridegroom shall alike confess;
Forever one the twain;
Forevermore their reign! (Text.)
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CHURCH, THE COUNTRY
J. S. Cheavens remembers the church in the country in a poem, of which a part is here given:
In pillar’d aisles of vast cathedrals old,
Ablaze with splendor, garish gilt and gold,
Where clouds of incense ever seemed to dwell,
And rhythmic waves of music rose and fell—
I’ve heard the priest, in pomp of vain attire,
Prate ancient prayers that did no soul inspire,
Nor reach God’s ear. Religion’s whited tomb,
Appalling in its cold sepulchral gloom!
How far removed by all vain rules of art,
Yet deep enshrined within my loyal heart,
Is that plain building, simple, unadorned,
Loved by a few, altho by many scorned—
Unknown by those who seek wealth, power or place,
But very dear to those who seek His face—
The Country Church! O holy, holy ground,
For there the Lord Himself is sought and found!
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Table No. 2—Distribution by Families and Denominations. (See [Church Statistics].)
| DENOMINATION | Number of bodies: 1906 | RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS | |||||
| Number | Per cent distribution | Increase from 1890 to 1906 | |||||
| 1906 | 1890 | 1906 | 1890 | Number | Per cent | ||
| All denominations | 186 | 212,230 | [1]165,151 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 47,079 | 28.5 |
| Protestant bodies | 164 | 195,618 | 153,054 | 92.2 | 92.7 | 42,564 | 27.8 |
| Adventist | 7 | 2,551 | 1,757 | 1.2 | 1.1 | 794 | 45.2 |
| Baptist | 14 | 54,880 | 42,909 | 25.9 | 26.0 | 11,971 | 27.9 |
| Christian (Christian Connection) | 1 | 1,379 | 1,424 | 0.6 | 0.9 | [2]45 | [2]3.2 |
| Church of Christ, Scientist | 1 | 638 | 221 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 417 | 188.7 |
| Congregationalist | 1 | 5,713 | 4,868 | 2.7 | 2.9 | 845 | 17.4 |
| Disciples or Christians | 2 | 10,942 | 7,746 | 5.2 | 4.4 | 3,696 | 51.0 |
| Dunkers or German Baptist Brethern | 4 | 1,097 | 989 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 108 | 10.9 |
| Evangelical bodies | 2 | 2,738 | 2,310 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 428 | 18.5 |
| Friends | 4 | 1,147 | 1,056 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 91 | 8.6 |
| German Evangelical Synod of N. A. | 1 | 1,205 | 870 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 335 | 38.5 |
| Independent churches | 1 | 1,079 | 155 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 924 | 596.1 |
| Lutheran bodies | 24 | 12,703 | 8,595 | 6.0 | 5.2 | 4,108 | 47.8 |
| Mennonite bodies | 14 | 604 | 550 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 54 | 9.8 |
| Methodist bodies | 15 | 64,701 | 51,489 | 30.5 | 31.2 | 13,212 | 25.7 |
| Presbyterian bodies | 12 | 15,506 | 13,471 | 7.3 | 8.2 | 2,035 | 15.1 |
| Protestant Episcopal Church | 1 | 6,845 | 5,018 | 3.2 | 3.0 | 1,827 | 36.4 |
| Reformed bodies | 4 | 2,585 | 2,181 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 404 | 18.5 |
| Unitarians | 1 | 461 | 421 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 40 | 9.5 |
| United Brethren bodies | 2 | 4,304 | 4,526 | 2.0 | 2.7 | [2]222 | [2]4.9 |
| Universalists | 1 | 846 | 956 | 0.4 | 0.6 | [2]110 | [2]11.5 |
| Other Protestant bodies | 52 | 3,694 | 2,042 | 1.7 | 1.2 | 1,652 | 80.9 |
| Roman Catholic Church | 1 | 12,482 | 10,239 | 5.9 | 6.2 | 2,243 | 21.9 |
| Jewish congregations | 1 | 1,769 | 533 | 0.8 | 0.3 | 1,236 | 231.9 |
| Latter-day Saints | 2 | 1,184 | 856 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 328 | 38.3 |
| Eastern Orthodox Churches | 4 | 411 | 2 | 0.2 | [3] | 409 | [4] |
| All other bodies | 14 | 766 | 467 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 299 | 64.0 |
[1] Exclusive of 26 organizations in Alaska.
[2] Decrease.
[3] Less than one-tenth of 1 per cent.
[4] Per cent not shown where base is less than 100.
CHURCH UNION
If this world is ever taken for God and its sins overthrown it will be by the marching of all the hosts of God in solid column to attack. The sixteen kinds of Methodists will come under one wing, the ten kinds of Baptists must come under another wing, and the seven kinds of Presbyterians under still another wing. After all the branches of each denomination have united then the great denominations nearest of kin will unite, and this absorption shall go on until there shall be one great millennial church, divided only for convenience into geographical sections and as of old it was the “Church of Laodicea” and the “Church of Philadelphia,” and the “Church of Thyatira,” so it shall be the “Church of America” and the “Church of Europe,” and the “Church of Asia,” and the “Church of Africa,” and the “Church of Australia.” Of that world-wide Church there will be only one article of creed—Christ first, Christ last, and Christ forever. (Text.)—T. DeWitt Talmage, Christian Union.
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Table No. 3—Seating Capacity of the Churches (less a percentage not reporting.) (See [Church Statistics].)
| DENOMINATION | ORGANIZATIONS REPORTING SEATING CAPACITY OF CHURCH EDIFICES: 1906 | SEATING CAPACITY OF CHURCH EDIFICES REPORTED | ||||||
| Amount | Per cent distribution | Increase from 1890 to 1906 | ||||||
| Number | Per ct. of total reporting church edifices | 1906 | 1890 | 1906 | 1890 | Amount | Per cent | |
| All denominations | 179,954 | 97.3 | 58,536,830 | 43,560,063 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 14,976,767 | 34.4 |
| Protestant bodies | 167,884 | 97.4 | 53,282,445 | 39,896,330 | 91.0 | 91.6 | 13,386,115 | 33.6 |
| Adventist bodies | 1,431 | 98.4 | 287,964 | 190,748 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 97,216 | 51.0 |
| Baptist bodies | 48,042 | 97.9 | 15,702,712 | 11,568,019 | 26.8 | 26.6 | 4,134,693 | 35.7 |
| Christian (Christian Connection) | 1,221 | 98.6 | 383,893 | 347,697 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 36,196 | 10.4 |
| Church of Christ, Scientist | 245 | 97.6 | 81,823 | 1,500 | 0.1 | ([5]) | 80,323 | 5,354.9 |
| Congregationalists | 5,244 | 98.1 | 1,794,997 | 1,553,080 | 3.1 | 3.6 | 241,917 | 15.6 |
| Disciples or Christians | 8,702 | 97.8 | 2,776,044 | 1,609,452 | 4.7 | 3.7 | 1,166,592 | 72.5 |
| Dunkers or German Bapt. Brethren | 969 | 98.8 | 508,374 | 414,036 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 94,338 | 22.8 |
| Evangelical bodies | 2,461 | 98.1 | 659,391 | 479,335 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 180,056 | 37.6 |
| Friends | 1,088 | 99.4 | 304,204 | 302,218 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 1,986 | 0.7 |
| German Evangelical Synod of N. A. | 1,131 | 99.6 | 380,465 | 245,781 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 134,684 | 54.8 |
| Independent churches | 741 | 94.3 | 213,096 | 39,345 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 173,751 | 441.6 |
| Lutheran bodies | 10,493 | 98.1 | 3,344,654 | 2,205,635 | 5.7 | 5.1 | 1,139,019 | 51.6 |
| Mennonite bodies | 497 | 99.8 | 171,381 | 129,340 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 42,041 | 32.5 |
| Methodist bodies | 56,577 | 96.1 | 17,053,392 | 12,863,178 | 29.1 | 29.5 | 4,190,214 | 32.6 |
| Presbyterian bodies | 13,942 | 99.0 | 4,892,819 | 4,037,550 | 8.4 | 9.3 | 855,269 | 21.2 |
| Protestant Episcopal Church | 5,960 | 99.4 | 1,675,750 | 1,336,752 | 2.9 | 3.1 | 338,998 | 25.4 |
| Reformed bodies | 2,472 | 99.7 | 990,654 | 825,931 | 1.7 | 1.9 | 164,723 | 19.9 |
| Unitarians | 401 | 98.5 | 159,917 | 165,090 | 0.3 | 0.4 | [6]5,173 | [6]3.1 |
| United Brethren bodies | 3,637 | 94.4 | 1,060,560 | 991,138 | 1.8 | 2.3 | 69,422 | 7.0 |
| Universalists | 718 | 93.5 | 220,222 | 244,615 | 0.4 | 0.6 | [6]24,393 | [6]10.0 |
| Other Protestant bodies | 1,912 | 97.6 | 620,133 | 345,890 | 1.1 | 0.8 | 274,243 | 79.3 |
| Roman Catholic Church | 10,303 | 95.8 | 4,494,377 | 3,370,482 | 7.7 | 7.7 | 1,123,895 | 33.3 |
| Jewish congregations | 717 | 95.2 | 364,701 | 139,234 | 0.6 | 0.3 | 225,467 | 161.9 |
| Latter-day Saints | 837 | 99.1 | 280,747 | 122,892 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 157,855 | 128.5 |
| Eastern Orthodox Churches | 75 | 89.3 | 38,995 | 325 | 0.1 | ([5]) | 38,670 | 11,898.5 |
| All other bodies | 138 | 69.0 | 75,565 | 30,800 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 44,765 | 145.3 |
[5] Less than one-tenth of 1 per cent.
[6] Decrease.
Table No. 4—Seating Capacity—Gain by Decades. (See [Church Statistics].)
| YEAR | Population | SEATING CAPACITY OF CHURCH EDIFICES | |
| Amount | Per cent of population | ||
| 1906 | [7]84,246,252 | 58,536,830 | 69.5 |
| 1890 | [8]62,947,714 | 43,560,063 | 69.2 |
| 1880 | 50,155,783 | ([9]) | ([9]) |
| 1870 | 38,558,371 | [10]21,665,062 | 56.2 |
| 1860 | 31,443,321 | [11]19,128,751 | 60.8 |
| 1850 | 23,191,876 | 14,234,825 | 61.4 |
[7] Estimated.
[8] Includes the population of Indian Territory and Indian reservations.
[9] Not reported.
[10] Reported as “sittings.”
[11] Reported as “accommodations.”
CHURCHES AND THE CROWD
Jane Addams says that on a Sunday night in Chicago one-sixth of the entire population is packed into 466 places of entertainment. Churches? No—moving-picture shows! The churches on Sunday night in Chicago, and, we fear, in many other places, are not conspicuously crowded. The problem is this: If the Chicago churches had presented an up-to-date moving-picture show, instead of a sermon, would the crowd have followed the films? Inasmuch as the church admission is free and the theater admission is from five to twenty-five cents, it is a fair assumption that the churches would have been filled. Now, if the object of the Sunday-night service is primarily to reach the crowd on the street, and if, as has been shown, the moving-picture is a much more vivid and attractive way of reaching that crowd than is a sermon, why, in all seriousness, don’t churches give us the thrilling stories of the Old Testament, its beautiful tales of the New Testament, and its modern illustrations of Christian heroism in this and other lands, in the up-to-date form—in moving pictures? They may answer that they can not get hold of the films and the machine, but this answer is not a good answer. Excellent sacred pictures are shown in the present professional entertainments, and many illustrations of modern heroism, self-sacrifice, and virtue are in every program. Moreover, a demand for films for church use would enlarge the supply. Moving-picture machines are not expensive and can be easily operated. You can do it in your church. Why don’t you?—Woman’s Home Companion.
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Table No. 5—Church Property. (See Church Statistics.)
| DENOMINATION | ORGANIZATIONS REPORTING VALUE OF CHURCH PROPERTY IN 1906 | VALUE OF CHURCH PROPERTY REPORTED | ||||||
| Number | Per cent of total | Dollar Amount | Per cent distribution | Increase from 1890 to 1906 | ||||
| 1906 | 1890 | 1906 | 1890 | Dollar Amount | Per cent | |||
| All denominations | 186,132 | 87.7 | 1,257,575,867 | 679,426,489 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 578,149,378 | 85.1 |
| Protestant bodies | 173,902 | 89.9 | 935,942,578 | 549,695,707 | 74.4 | 80.9 | 386,246,871 | 70.3 |
| Adventist bodies | 1,492 | 58.5 | 2,425,209 | 1,236,345 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 1,188,864 | 96.2 |
| Baptist bodies | 49,339 | 89.9 | 139,842,656 | 82,328,123 | 11.1 | 12.1 | 57,514,533 | 69.9 |
| Christian (Christian Connection) | 1,239 | 89.8 | 2,740,322 | 1,775,202 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 965,120 | 54.4 |
| Church of Christ, Scientist | 401 | 62.9 | 8,806,441 | 40,666 | 0.7 | ([12]) | 8,765,775 | 21,555.5 |
| Congregationalists | 5,366 | 93.9 | 63,240,305 | 43,335,437 | 5.0 | 6.4 | 19,904,868 | 45.9 |
| Disciples or Christians | 8,906 | 81.4 | 29,995,316 | 12,206,038 | 2.4 | 1.8 | 17,789,278 | 145.7 |
| Dunkers or German Bapt. Brethren | 974 | 88.8 | 2,802,532 | 1,362,631 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 1,439,901 | 105.7 |
| Evangelical bodies | 2,515 | 91.9 | 8,999,979 | 4,785,680 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 4,214,299 | 48.1 |
| Friends | 1,097 | 95.6 | 3,857,451 | 4,541,334 | 0.3 | 0.7 | [13]683,883 | [13]15.1 |
| German Evangelical Synod of N. A. | 1,137 | 94.4 | 9,376,402 | 4,614,490 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 4,761,912 | 103.2 |
| Independent churches | 806 | 74.7 | 3,934,267 | 1,486,000 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 2,448,267 | 164.8 |
| Lutheran bodies | 10,779 | 84.9 | 74,826,389 | 35,060,354 | 6.0 | 5.2 | 39,766,035 | 113.4 |
| Mennonite bodies | 497 | 82.3 | 1,237,134 | 643,800 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 593,334 | 92.2 |
| Methodist bodies | 59,083 | 91.3 | 229,450,996 | 132,140,179 | 18.2 | 19.4 | 97,310,817 | 73.6 |
| Presbyterian bodies | 14,161 | 91.3 | 150,189,446 | 94,861,347 | 11.9 | 14.0 | 55,328,099 | 58.3 |
| Protestant Episcopal Church | 6,057 | 88.5 | 125,040,498 | 81,219,117 | 9.9 | 12.0 | 43,821,381 | 54.0 |
| Reformed bodies | 2,477 | 95.8 | 30,648,247 | 18,744,242 | 2.4 | 2.8 | 11,904,005 | 63.5 |
| Unitarians | 406 | 88.1 | 14,263,277 | 10,335,100 | 1.1 | 1.5 | 3,928,177 | 38.0 |
| United Brethren bodies | 3,839 | 89.2 | 9,073,791 | 4,937,583 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 4,136,208 | 83.8 |
| Universalists | 779 | 92.1 | 10,575,656 | 8,054,333 | 0.8 | 1.2 | 2,521,323 | 31.3 |
| Other Protestant bodies | 2,552 | 69.1 | 14,616,264 | 5,987,706 | 1.2 | 0.9 | 8,628,558 | 144.1 |
| Roman Catholic Church | 10,293 | 82.5 | 292,638,787 | 118,123,346 | 23.3 | 17.4 | 174,515,441 | 147.7 |
| Jewish congregations | 747 | 42.2 | 23,198,925 | 9,754,275 | 1.8 | 1.4 | 13,444,650 | 137.8 |
| Latter-day Saints | 909 | 76.8 | 3,168,548 | 1,051,791 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 2,116,757 | 201.3 |
| Eastern Orthodox Churches | 89 | 21.7 | 964,791 | 45,000 | 0.1 | ([12]) | 919,791 | 2,044.0 |
| All other bodies | 192 | 25.1 | 1,662,238 | 756,370 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 905,868 | 119.8 |
[12] Less than one-tenth of 1 per cent.
[13] Decrease.
CHURCHES, DEAD
There is a Scandinavian tradition which tells of seven parishes of the Northland that lie buried under snow and ice, but whose church-bells are heard ringing clearly.
May not churches ring their bells and maintain all the forms of life, and yet lie buried under the snow and ice of death? (Text.)
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Table No. 6—Church Property—Gain by Decades. (See [Church Statistics].)
| YEAR | VALUE OF CHURCH PROPERTY REPORTED | |
| Amount | Per cent of increase over value at preceding census | |
| 1906 | $1,257,575,867 | 85.1 |
| 1890 | 679,426,489 | 91.7 |
| 1870 | 354,483,581 | 106.5 |
| 1860 | 171,397,932 | 90.3 |
| 1850 | 87,328,801 | ..... |
CHURCHES, SELFISH
Most churches are religious cisterns instead of spiritual reservoirs. A cistern has all the trenches dug, the pipes laid, the roofs shaped to catch the showers of the favoring sky, and the water runs into it to be dipped out by the owner or occupant of the building, for the purpose of consumption. A reservoir has streams running into it, but all its trenches are dug and pipes laid in order that the water shall flow away from it, for the purpose of distribution.—Theodore S. Henderson.
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CIGARET SMOKING
Cigaret smoking is the most dangerous form in which tobacco can be used, because combustion goes on so near the mouth that all the products of burning are drawn into the mouth without change and are absorbed by the blood-vessels and carried to the brain. In the pipe and cigar many of the products from burning are condensed in the stem of the pipe and body of the cigar, and never reach the mouth. In the cigaret these poison products, small in amount, are constantly taken by the blood-vessels of the mouth and affect the senses. The sight, the smell and the hearing are all diminished and enfeebled, later the power of reason and muscular control. No form of tobacco is so cumulative in its action as the products from cigaret smoking; the quantity is small, the absorption is more rapid, and the resistance by nature is less active. The cigaret-smoker is slowly and surely poisoning himself, and is largely unconscious of it. In the young the poisoning is very acute and active; in elderly persons it is less prominent, but that it is equally dangerous, in the effects on the nerves, on the brain and on the senses, enfeebling them and destroying their activity, is beyond all question. The pipe- or cigar-smoker may not seem much worse for his addiction, but the cigaret-smoker is always markedly damaged by it.—T. D. Crothers.
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CIRCULATION IMPEDED
The moral and spiritual circulation, the free action of life-forces in character, may be checked and impeded as well as the physical forces, as described below:
From the experiments of Scharling, Gerlach, and others, it has been shown that appreciable quantities of carbonic acid gas are hourly exhaled by the skin. If this process of cutaneous respiration is absolutely interrupted, as by covering the skin with varnish, death follows very soon, the heart and lungs becoming gorged with blood, as in ordinary cases of asphyxiation. In ignorance of this physiological fact, certain monks in the middle ages gilded the skin of a young lad who was to represent an angel (angels being understood, it would seem, to have golden skin); but he did not live through the performance of the “mystery” or “morality” in which he had to play his angelic part. Even if the body be inclosed, all but the head, in a water-proof covering, asphyxiation follows. Some, indeed, present themselves in public gatherings, not within the walls of lunatic asylums, either, with the respiratory, circulatory, and perspiratory organs manifestly obstructed, and, in fact, with the whole economy of the body from head to foot hampered obviously to the eye by powder, paint, enamel, corset, tight gloves, tight shoes, and goodness knows what other contrivances for checking all the processes and movements for whose perfect freedom of action nature has carefully provided. These may, perhaps, be best explained as cases of reversion to the ways of savage progenitors.—R. A. Proctor, Syndicate Letter.
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CIRCUMSTANCES
Circumstances mold character, but character masters circumstances. No true life anywhere needs despair because its surroundings are uncongenial or depressing. A writer finds this lesson in the first flowers of spring, of which he says:
But among what uncongenial surroundings these new flowers have come! Gray, sunless skies, chilling winds, the frosts, the lingering traces of the snow—these are the things which the new flowers see with their opening eyes; courageous flowers indeed to creep forth into a wintry world like this!
If these flowers can brave the trials of the winds and cold and sullen sky, and still smile upon the sun, so can human lives, however bare and difficult their lot.
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CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND CONTROL
One of the strangest stories of false imprisonment comes from France. A woman was sentenced to imprisonment for life for having caused the death of her husband and brother. The three had lived together at Malaunay, near Rouen, in a cottage. The lower part of it was used as a shop. When the woman was sent to prison, other people occupied the shop, but the new tenants suffered, the man from fainting fits, his wife from nausea, from which she died. Another couple tried their fortune, but they, too, were overcome by the “spell of the accurst place,” as they supposed. They were subject to fainting and loss of memory. At last a scientific examination of the premises was made. Then it was found that adjoining the shop was a lime-kiln. In a wall dividing it from the cottage were many fissures, so that whenever lime was burned monoxide of carbon escaped into the inn. This was the secret of the deaths for which the woman was suffering. She was brought out of prison after six years of servitude.
While we should not put the blame for our sins on circumstances, we should remember that much which we condemn as sin would, if we understood it, be excused as due to circumstances that involve no blame.
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Circumstances, Making the Best of—See [Conservation of Remainders].
CIRCUMSTANCES, MASTERY BY
Genius levels mountains, spans rivers, causes wildernesses to blossom, links together with electric chains the ends of the earth. The gifted man cares not for difficulties; like a mountain torrent, he gains momentum from every obstacle; a master athlete, he throws the world. Masters of circumstance in many directions, but how soon we succumb to circumstance when it relates to character! He who is triumphantly strong in other directions is helpless here; he who heroically and magnificently succeeds in fortune ignobly fails in morals. He who successfully battles with circumstances to become a scholar is vanquished by fleshly desires; he who becomes rich in the teeth of circumstances is then mastered and degraded by his riches; he who surmounts circumstances to become great, immediately falls a victim to luxury and pride. Men make a grand fight with a circumstance in the kingdoms of nature and society, but a sorry light with circumstances as these menace the kingdom of the spirit; they fail most where it is exactly most desirable that they should succeed.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”
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CIRCUMSTANCES NOT DECISIVE
The danger of circumstantial evidence is illustrated by the French trial of a maidservant for robbery of some forks from a citizen of Paris. At the trial the circumstances were so strong against her that she was found guilty, and was executed. Six months afterward the forks were found under an old roof, behind a heap of tiles, where a magpie used to go. When it was discovered that the innocent girl had been unjustly condemned, an annual mass was founded at St. John-en-Grese for the repose of her soul.—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
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CIRCUMSTANCES, SUPERIORITY TO
R. H. Haweis tells the following of a celebrated violinist:
Leghorn received him with open arms, altho his appearance was marked by an amusing contretemps. He came on to the stage limping, having run a nail into his heel. At all times odd-looking, he, no doubt, looked all the more peculiar under these circumstances, and there was some tittering among the audience. Just as he began, the candles fell out of his desk—more laughter. He went on playing; the first string broke—more laughter. He played the rest of the concerto through on three strings, but the laughter now changed to vociferous applause at this feat. The beggarly elements seemed of little consequence to this magician. One or more strings, it was all the same to him; indeed, it is recorded that he seldom paused to mend his strings when they broke, which they not infrequently did.
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CIRCUMSTANCES, TAKING ADVANTAGE OF
A well-known lawyer related a good story about himself and his efforts to correct the manners of his office boy:
One morning not long ago, the young autocrat blew into the office, and, tossing his cap at a hook, exclaimed:
“Say, Mr. Blank, there’s a ball-game down at the park to-day and I am going down.”
Now, the attorney is not a hard-hearted man, and was willing the boy should go, but thought he would teach him a little lesson in good manners.
“Jimmie,” he said, “that isn’t the way to ask a favor. Now, you come over here and sit down, and I’ll show you how to do it.”
The boy took the office chair, and his employer picked up his cap and stept outside. He then opened the door softly, and holding the cap in his hand, said, quietly, to the small boy in the big chair:
“Please, sir, there is a ball-game at the park to-day; if you can spare me I would like to get away for the afternoon.”
In a flash the boy responded:
“Why, certainly, Jimmie; and here is fifty cents to pay your way in.” (Text.)
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CITIZENSHIP IN THE KINGDOM
In writing of the Polish women, one author tells how they perform a man’s labor of sowing, tilling and reaping in the field. Their work is preferred to that of men because it is better and cheaper. They work for German land-owners and receive free transportation by the government. Altho they are said to frequently marry Germans, they do not lose their identity, nationality or character.
Every church-member should be a citizen of the kingdom of Heaven. He should make its interests his interests and identify himself so closely with Christ, and show forth His life so that all would know that his nationality was of heaven; and his character Christ-like. (Text.)
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CITY, A HOLY
It would not be expected anywhere that New York would be called a holy city, and yet that is what it was recently called by a convert in one of its mission halls. A correspondent of the New York Tribune gives an account of a meeting he attended on a recent Sunday evening in a gospel mission hall at No. 330 Eighth Avenue. A man with a pronounced foreign accent told the story of his life at this meeting. At the age of eighteen, he said, shortly after his arrival at a German university, because of some fancied slight he was challenged to fight a duel with one of his fellow students. In self-defense he killed the man, and from that day had borne the sorrows of a homicide. Drink had the mastery over him and he was far gone in dissipation when he was shipped to Canada, where he still continued a life of dissipation. To improve his business chances he came to New York and took up residence in the Young Men’s Christian Association Building in Twenty-third Street. Said the speaker: “A good many talk about the wickedness of New York. I call it a holy city, because in that little room, No. 653, in the Young Men’s Christian Association Building, I lost the weight of sin which had been pressing my life out for years and entered a new life in which the past was blotted out.” Several months have passed and the speaker has been led into new evidences of divine favor and usefulness. This case illustrates the familiar fact that one can find what he is looking for almost anywhere, especially in a large city. If he is looking for a saloon or any form of evil he will have little trouble in finding it, but if he wants to find a church or some form of good, it will be found near at hand. A holy man is holy anywhere, and to him even New York is a holy city.—Presbyterian Banner.
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City Children—See [Children and Gardens].
CITY, GROWTH OF A GREAT
The growth of population in the area now covered by Greater New York is shown thus in The Tribune:
| 1910 | 4,766,883 |
| 1900 | 3,437,202 |
| 1890 | 2,507,414 |
| 1880 | 1,911,698 |
| 1870 | 1,478,103 |
| 1860 | 1,174,779 |
| 1850 | 696,115 |
| 1840 | 391,114 |
| 1830 | 242,278 |
| 1820 | 152,056 |
| 1810 | 119,734 |
| 1800 | 79,216 |
| 1790 | 49,401 |
The following interesting figures are given by the Washington correspondent of The Times:
New York now has a population greater than many of the countries of the world, for instance, Australia in 1908 had within its borders 4,275,306 persons, exclusive of the aborigines, while Ireland (1909) had a population of 4,374,158. Bulgaria in 1908 showed a census return of 4,158,409, and Denmark and Greece, respectively, had 2,659,000 and 2,632,000 subjects of their kings. Norway in the same year was populated by 2,350,786 persons, and Switzerland by 3,559,000.
The figures in the cut above exhibit fifty years of New York’s expansion.
The fifteen largest cities of the world, each having more than one million population are as follows:
| London | 7,537,196 |
| New York | 4,766,883 |
| Paris | 2,714,068 |
| Tokyo | 2,085,160 |
| Berlin | 2,040,148 |
| Chicago | 1,698,575 |
| St. Petersburg | 1,678,000 |
| Vienna | 1,674,957 |
| Canton | 1,600,000 |
| Peking (estimated) | 1,600,000 |
| Moscow | 1,359,254 |
| Philadelphia | 1,293,697 |
| Constantinople (estimated) | 1,125,000 |
| Osaka | 1,117,151 |
| Calcutta and suburbs | 1,026,987 |
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Cities and Atmospheric Impurities—See [Soot].
Cities Due to Discoveries—See [Discovery, Benefits from].
City versus Country—See [Society is Man’s Place].
Civic Pride—See [Children and Civic Service].
Civic Strength—See [Greatness, True, of a City].
CIVICS
It is said that one day recently a committee from a certain college investigated the Jacob Riis Settlement on the East Side of New York and made the criticism that civics were not taught. “I’ll show you how I teach them,” said Riis. “I noticed that the Jews and Irish did not get on together, so I had a straight talk with the leaders and told them they must do something. In a short time this notice appeared on the bulletin board: ‘Come to the Meeting of the Young American Social and Political Club, Dennis O’Sullivan, President; Abraham Browsky, Vice-President.’ That,” answered Riis, “is my way of teaching civics.” And it is a way we should not neglect to follow. (Text.)—The American College.
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Civilization—See [Knowledge Values].
Civilization Advancing—See [Advancement, Rapid].
CIVILIZED MAN AND SAVAGE
A savage who had been shipwrecked in a river may note certain things which serve him as signs of danger in the future. But civilized man deliberately makes such signs; he sets up in advance of wreckage warning buoys, and builds lighthouses where he sees signs that such events may occur. A savage reads weather signs with great expertness; civilized man institutes a weather service by which signs are artificially secured and information is distributed in advance of the appearance of any signs that could be detected without special methods. A savage finds his way skilfully through a wilderness by reading certain obscure indications; civilized man builds a highway which shows the road to all. The savage learns to detect the signs of fire and thereby to invent methods of producing flame; civilized man invents permanent conditions for producing light and heat just whenever they are needed.—John Dewey, “How We Think.”
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CLAIM, GOD’S
When the late Earl Cairns was a little boy he heard three words which made a memorable impression upon him, “God claims you.” Then came the question, “What am I going to do with the claim?” He answered, “I will own it, and give myself to God.” He went home and told his mother, “God claims me.” At school and college his motto was, “God claims me.” As a member of Parliament, and ultimately as lord chancellor, it was still, “God claims me.” When he was appointed lord chancellor he was teacher of a large Bible class, and his minister, thinking that now he would not have time to devote to that purpose, said to him, “I suppose you will now require to give up your class?” “No,” was the reply, “I will not; God claims me.” (Text.)
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Clamor versus Balance—See [Confidence].
CLASSICS, STUDY OF
If I could have my way, every young man who is going to be a newspaper man, and who is not absolutely rebellious against it, should learn Greek and Latin after the good old fashion. I had rather take a young fellow who knows the Ajax of Sophocles, and who has read Tacitus, and can scan every ode of Horace; I would rather take him to report a prize-fight or a spelling-match, for instance, than to take one who has never had those advantages.—Charles A. Dana.
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CLEANLINESS
At Minot’s Ledge lighthouse all “bright work” must be cleaned every morning—lens, lamps, etc. So also all inside copper pots and tin-pans. The inspector comes every three months unannounced, and is handed by the keeper a white linen towel or napkin, and he goes over these bright things. Then he enters the item in his diary: “Service napkin not soiled.”
A man should live such a cleanly moral life that nothing around him can suffer pollution as he uses it. (Text.)
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Cleansing—See [Purity of Associations].
Cleansing a Necessity—See [Discipline from Change].
Cleansing by Agitation—See [Discipline from Change].
CLEANSING, DIFFICULTY OF
It is impossible for the guilty soul to emancipate itself from the consciousness of sin. Dr. Seedham-Green, in his work on “The Sterilization of the Hands,” proves the absolute impossibility of cleansing the hands from bacteria:
Simple washing with soap and hot water, with use of sand or marble dust, however energetically done, does not materially diminish the number of microbes; the mechanical purification is practically useless. Turpentine, benzoline, xylol, alcoholic disinfection, and various antiseptics equally fail to render the hands surgically clean. (Text.)
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CLEANSING THE FOUNTAIN
Sam P. Jones used to tell of a man down in the spring branch trying to clear the water, so that he could get a clear drink. This man was doing all he could to filter the water, when some friend called out to him: “Stranger, come up a little higher and run that hog out of that spring, and it will clear itself.”
Unless life’s sources are clean, it is of little use to labor with external conduct.
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Climates, Different—See [Environment, Creating Our Own].
Climbing—See [Aspiration]; [Steps Upward].
CLINGING BY FAITH
There is a little limpet that is found clinging to the rocks along the coast; if you crawl up stealthily and hit one a heavy blow, you may detach it; but after you have struck the rock it is almost impossible to loosen the grasp of another limpet. These little limpets are good for nothing but to cling; but they do that with an awful tenacity. That’s what limpets are for—simply to cling. Oh, that we just knew how to cling to God by faith—nothing more, nothing less.—Bradford V. Bauder.
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CLUB WISDOM
Recently a traveler in Scotland, standing upon a mountain cliff overlooking the sea, found himself in great danger. It seems that the gardener desired to beautify even the steep cliffs and precipices. Loading his double-barreled shot-gun with seeds of flowers and vines, he fired the seeds up into the crevices of the rocks.
Not otherwise, for men and women who have a few moments for rest between hour, has life become dangerous. To-day, one can scarcely turn round the street corner without running into the president of some new culture club, who straightway empties into the victim two volleys of talk about some wisdom, old or new. The old shot-gun is less dangerous than the new club.—Newell Dwight Hillis.
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CLUES
Life would be simplified and made safe if men, like spiders, would always allow their life plans to be dominated by the clue that comes from above.
A great principle never forgotten by the spider is that she must always spin behind her a thread that will enable her to find again the points that she has left; this serves at once as her guiding thread for return, and as the road on which she travels. A consequence of this rule is that the starting-point, the center of the first operations, must be at the top of the web, and often higher still, so as to dominate the whole. From this point the explorer lets herself down, suspended from her inseparable thread, balances herself, and if she does not find the sought-for point, climbs back along the thread which she absorbs in ascending. (Text.)—Maurice Koechlin, La Nature.
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COCAINE RESTRICTIONS
One of the best laws ever enacted in New York State is the bill just signed by Governor Hughes which declares any person having cocaine upon his person, unless secured upon the prescription of a physician, and having a certificate from the druggist from whom he purchased the drug, guilty of a felony. This new law, which is directed against men who financially profit by the diseased appetites of victims of cocaine, will, according to health and police officials, sound the death-knell of the promiscuous sale of the most deadly of drugs. Chief Inspector Fuller, of the New York Health Department, says: “With this law on the statute-books I can promise that with the staff of inspectors I have at my disposal I will wipe out this most vicious evil. The jails are yawning for these criminals who are making fiends out of the New York boys and girls. This law will make possible the placing of those criminals behind the prison bars. Many a mother and sister will to-day rejoice, upon reading of this new law. It will perhaps mean the saving of their boy or girl from death itself. No one is more pleased with this law than myself and my inspectors, who have been fighting night and day to suppress the evil.”—Christian Work.
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Cocksureness—See [Self-centered].
COINCIDENCE
From Czenstochowa, the Mecca of Polish pilgrims, comes a story of coincidences. A pilgrim went to one of the priests and complained that some thief had stolen his purse while he was in church, and asked for money. The priest replied that he had no money and that the best thing for the pilgrim to do was to try to find the thief. “I shall go into the church and steal money from somebody else,” said the pilgrim, “for I have nothing to go home with.” He went into the church and seeing a man in the crowd with a wallet on his back slipt his hand into it and pulled out his own stolen purse, with the exact sum he had left in it. He was so glad to find his money that he hurried off to tell the priest and the thief got away.
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See [Criminals, Tracing].
COINCIDENCE AND SUPERSTITION
The German Emperor recently made an interesting presentation to the Hohenzollern Museum. It consists of the “death-dice,” by the help of which one of the Emperor’s ancestors decided a difficult case in the seventeenth century. How they came to be known as the “death-dice” is thus related by the London Tatler:
A beautiful young girl had been murdered, and suspicion fell on two soldiers, Ralph and Alfred, who were rival suitors for her hand. As both prisoners denied their guilt, and even torture failed to exact a confession from either, Prince Frederick William, the Kaiser’s ancestor, decided to cut the Gordian knot with the dice-box. The two soldiers should throw for their lives, the loser to be executed as the murderer. The event was celebrated with great pomp and solemnity, and the Prince himself assisted at this appeal to divine intervention, as it was considered by everybody, including the accused themselves.
Ralph was given the first throw, and he threw sixes, the highest number, and no doubt felt jubilant. The dice-box was then given to Alfred, who fell on his knees and prayed aloud: “Almighty God, thou knowest I am innocent. Protect me, I beseech thee!” Rising to his feet, he threw the dice with such force that one of them broke in two. The unbroken one showed six, the broken one also showed six on the larger portion, and the bit that had been split off showed one, giving a total of thirteen, or one more than the throw of Ralph. The whole audience thrilled with astonishment, while the Prince exclaimed, “God has spoken!” Ralph, regarding the miracle as a sign from heaven, confest his guilt, and was sentenced to death. (Text.)
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COINCIDENCE, REMARKABLE
Shortly after Robert Louis Stevenson published his curious psychological story of transformation, a friend of mine, called Mr. Hyde, was in the north of London, and being anxious to get to a railway station, he took what he thought was a short cut, lost his way and found himself in a network of mean, evil-looking streets. Feeling rather nervous he was walking extremely fast, when suddenly out of an archway ran a child right between his legs. The child fell on the pavement, he tript over it, and trampled upon it. Being, of course, very much frightened and not a little hurt, it began to scream, and in a few seconds the whole street was full of rough people who kept pouring out of the houses like ants. They surrounded him and asked him his name. He was just about to give it, when he suddenly remembered the opening incident of Mr. Stevenson’s story. He was so filled with horror at having realized in his own person that terrible scene, and at having done accidentally what the Mr. Hyde of fiction had done with deliberate intent, that he ran away as fast as he could go. He was, however, very closely followed, and he finally took refuge in a surgery, the door of which happened to be open, where he explained to a young man, apparently an assistant, who happened to be there, exactly what had occurred. The crowd was induced to go away on his giving them a small sum of money, and as soon as the coast was clear he left. As he passed out, the name on the brass door-plate of the surgery caught his eye. It was “Mr. Jekyll.”—Nineteenth Century.
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Colds—See [Vitality, Low].
Collection, Missionary—See [Crowning Christ].
Collection, The—See [Generosity, Thoroughgoing].
COLLECTIVE LABOR
A certain King of Scythia, wishing to make an enumeration of the inhabitants of his realm, required every man in his dominions to send him an arrow-head. The vast collection was officially counted, and then laid together in a sort of monumental pile. This primitive mode of census-taking suggested to Darius the idea of his cairn in his march through Thrace. Fixing upon a suitable spot near his camp, he commanded every soldier to bring a stone and place it on the pile. Of course, a vast mound arose commemorating the march and denoting, also, the countless number of soldiers that formed the expedition.
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College Men in Positions of Trust—See [Training].
COLLEGE OR EXPERIENCE
The following dispatch from Washington recently appeared in the New York Sun:
Uncle Joe Cannon was in fine form to-day when he received twenty-five young men, representing the Intercollegiate League, now in session here. Uncle Joe complimented his callers on their advantages, but he told them that knowledge gained in college was of little value unless it was crossed by experience and courage.
Years ago, the Speaker said that he received a degree in a law college in Indiana. He started to Chicago to make his fortune, accompanied by his diploma and $6. He was put off the train in central Illinois when his money gave out and that was why he wound up at Danville, instead of Chicago.
Uncle Joe said that he hung up his diploma in his little law office and waited for clients. For six months he had little to do aside from looking at the diploma and twirling his thumbs. Finally, one day, in a fit of rage, he pulled down the diploma and destroyed it.
“The diploma in itself was of no use to me,” said Uncle Joe. “I kept my courage, however, and by and by began to make my way in the world.”
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COLLEGE TRAINING, VALUE OF
Rev. W. F. Crafts says:
I have examined the educational record of the seventy foremost men in American politics—cabinet officers, senators, congressmen, and governors of national reputation—and I find that thirty-seven of them are college graduates, that five more had a part of the college course but did not graduate, while only twenty-eight did not go to college at all. As not more than one young man in five hundred goes to college, and as this one five-hundredth of the young men furnish four-sevenths of our distinguished public officers, it appears that a collegian has seven hundred and fifty times as many chances of being an eminent governor or congressman as other young men.
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See [Training].
Collegiate Ambition—See [Margins of Life].
COLLISION DUE TO LIFE
Men who never move, never run against anything; and when a man is thoroughly dead and utterly buried nothing ever runs against him. To be run against is a proof of existence and position; to run against something is a proof of motion.—Christian Standard.
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Collision, Ways of Avoiding—See [Paths, Keeping One’s Own].
COLOR-BLINDNESS
The great cause of error is imperfect vision. One says, “It looks so to me,” and therefore he concludes that it is so. He acts as if it were so. And, if he is mistaken, it may be a fatal mistake. The color-blind engineer saw the red light, but it looked green to him. He thought it was a safety signal when it was a danger signal. He went on and wrecked the train. Was he to blame? Yes, for if he could not distinguish between red and green he had no business to run a locomotive. Like him is the man who, with his prismatic eye, sees certain dogmas in the Book which God has written. He has persuaded himself that this danger signal is not red, but green. He insists that it looks so to him. Is it so, therefore, and is he safe? When we hear men talk, as we often do, about how it looks to them, and what seems reasonable to them, we can not help thinking of that color-blind engineer who wrecked his train.
But what can we do with these “evil” prismatic eyes of ours? We can not change them into clear and perfect lenses by a wish, or by one earnest effort. It takes an optician a long time to shape and polish a lens. And we must be willing to work patiently and hard to undo the wrong we have done. If there is any suspicion in our hearts that our eyes are “evil,” we must not rest a moment. We must test the matter at once by a close and prayerful study of the truth.—The Interior.
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Color, Protective, in Animals—See [Conformity].
COLORS AS EMBLEMS
Colors are emblematic; and in the middle ages were always used by the illuminators and church artists with regard to their significance. Red, blue and yellow, or gold, the primary colors; red, signifying divine love; blue, truth and constancy; gold, divine glory; when united, are supposed to be good emblems of the Holy Trinity. White, signifying light, purity, perfect righteousness, is to be used by the Church from Christmas eve to the octave of the Epiphany, symbolizing the purity of the Infant Savior; but it is not to be used on St. Stephen’s day, Holy Innocents, or Conversion of St. Paul. White, in an illuminated text, may be represented by silver. It is also the color for Maundy Thursday, Trinity Sunday, baptism, confirmation and marriage. Violet is the ecclesiastical color for mourning; it signifies passion, suffering and humility; therefore, martyrs are sometimes clothed in it. It belongs to advent, Holy Innocents (unless that feast falls on Sunday), Septuagesima to Easter eve, Rogation days, and Ember weeks. Red, the symbol of divine love and illumination (as flame) belongs to Pentecost; and as the emblem of blood shed for the Feast of the Martyrs on Whitsuntide. Blue signifies truth and constancy; when sprinkled with gold stars it signifies heaven. It is not an ecclesiastical color, but (as symbolical of heaven or truth) forms a beautiful and significant ground for a text. Green, the emblem of eternal spring, hope, immortality and conquest, is used on all Sundays. Gold or yellow signifies glory, the goodness of God, faith; it should be used on texts only for the divine name. Dingy yellow signifies deceit. Black is used only on Good Friday. It is symbolical of death and extreme grief. It is used also at funerals, frequently combined with white. Purple signifies royalty, love, passion and suffering. It is the color often worn by martyrs as well as by kings. After His resurrection Christ is sometimes represented in a purple mantle, as the symbol of His kingly power. Violet and blue are the colors of penitence, signifying sorrow and constancy. Gray signifies mourning, humility, and innocence unjustly accused.—The Decorator and Furnisher.
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See [Emblems].
COLORS, SYMBOLIC
Havelock Ellis, writing in Popular Science Monthly, says:
The classic world had clearly begun, as savages have begun everywhere, with an almost exclusive delight in red, even an almost exclusive attention to it, and for Homer, as for the Arabs, the rainbow was predominantly red; yellow had next been added to the attractive colors; very slowly the other colors of the spectrum began to win attention. Thus Democritus substituted green for yellow in the list of primary colors previously given by Empedocles. It was at a comparatively late period that blue and violet became interesting or even acquired definite names. The invasion of Christianity happened in time to join in this movement along the spectrum.
Yellow became the color of jealousy, of envy, of treachery. Judas was painted in yellow garments, and in some countries Jews were compelled to be so drest. In France, in the sixteenth century, the doors of traitors and felons were daubed with yellow. In Spain, heretics who recanted were enjoined to wear a yellow cross as a penance, and the Inquisition required them to appear at public autos da fé in penitential garments and carrying a yellow candle.
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Combination—See [Union].
Comfort from Faith—See [Korea, Work Among Women in].
Commander, The, and His Men—See [Difficulties, Overcoming].
Commandment, The Greatest—See [Love and Law].
Commandments, The Ten—See [Guards of the Soul].
Commerce and Missions—See [Missions and Commerce].
COMMON PROBLEM, THE
The common problem, yours, mine, every one’s,
Is—not to fancy what were fair in life
Provided it could be—but, finding first
What may be; then find how to make it fair
Up to our means; a very different thing!
—Browning.
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COMMON SENSE
When drowning men for aid implore,
Some people run along the shore,
And weep and pray and hope.
Till others with some common sense,
Come like a blest providence,
And throw a saving rope.
—Public Opinion.
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Mr. John Clerk, an eminent Scotch counsel, was arguing at the bar of the House of Lords in a Scotch appeal, and turning his periods in the broadest Scotch, and after clinching a point, added, “That’s the whole thing in plain English, ma lorrdds.” Upon which Lord Eldon replied: “You mean in plain Scotch, Mr. Clerk.” The advocate readily retorted, “Nae maitter! in plain common sense, ma lords, and that’s the same in a’ languages, we ken weel eneuch.” (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
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COMMON THINGS
Common things have their use which often surpasses the intrinsic value of precious, costly things.
A rich nobleman was once showing a friend a great collection of precious stones whose value was almost beyond counting. There were diamonds and pearls and rubies, and gems from almost every country, and had been gathered by their possessor at the greatest labor and expense. “And yet,” he remarked, “they yield me no income.” His friend replied that he had two stones which had only cost him five pounds each, but which yielded him a very considerable annual income, and he led him down to the mill and pointed to two toiling gray millstones.
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Communication, Easy—See [Social Progress].
COMMUNICATION IN FORMER DAYS
The progress of the world can be inferred from facts like the following:
In 1798 the entire business of the Post-office Department was conducted by the Postmaster-General, one assistant, and one clerk. In 1833 it required forty-eight hours to convey news from Washington to Philadelphia. In 1834 New York Saturday papers were not received in Washington until the following Tuesday afternoon. In 1835 the mails were carried between Philadelphia and Pittsburg daily in four-horse coaches, two lines daily, one to go through in a little more than two days, the other in three and a half days. In 1833 a contractor named Reeside carried the mail between Philadelphia and New York, ninety miles, in six hours, making fifteen miles an hour. The railroad, as a factor in the mail service, did not have a beginning before 1835. August 25 of this year the formal opening of the road between Washington and Baltimore took place. Amos Kendall, then Postmaster-General, at first objected to having the mails carried by rail over this road, since it would, as he feared, disarrange connections with existing lines of stages. In October, 1834, a writer in the Boston Atlas says: “We left Philadelphia on the morning of the sixth in a railroad car, and reached Columbia, on the Susquehanna, at dusk—a distance of eighty-two miles.”—John M. Bishop, Magazine of American History.
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Communication of Disease—See [Contamination].
COMMUNICATION, PRIMITIVE
Many explorers have commented on the speed with which news travels among savage tribes, says Amateur Work. A curious observation as to a possible solution of the problem of their methods has been made by the Rev. A. Rideout, who, as a missionary among the Basutos, has noticed their method of sending messages from village to village by means of a signal-drum or gourd. This gourd, covered with the dried and stretched skin of a kid, gives out a sound which travels and can be heard at distances from five to eight miles. The transmission and reception of messages on these drums is entrusted to special corps of signalers, some one of whom is always on duty, and who beat on the message in what is practically a Morse alphabet. On hearing the message, says Mr. Rideout, the signaler can always tell whether it is for his chief or for some distant village, and delivers it verbally or sends it on accordingly, and it is thus carried on with surprizing rapidity from one village to another, till it reaches its destination. All that took place in the Boer War, victories and reverses in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, were known to us by gourd-line message hours before the news ever reached us by field telegraph. The natives guarded the secret of their code carefully. To my knowledge, messages have been sent a thousand miles by means of it. This is probably one of the earliest forms of wireless telegraphy.
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COMMUNICATION, PSYCHICAL
Having discovered that we are immersed in the ether, and that it responds instantly, and to untold distances to electric vibrations, the daring inventor said, if I can set the ether ajar with a certain kind of vibration by shooting up into it strong electric impulses, then I can plant yonder in the distance another instrument keyed to that particular kind of vibration, and it will pick out its own from the ether, quivering, as it is, with an infinite number of vibrations. Just as when you run the scale of the piano in a room, each object responds to its own note. When you touch D a certain lampshade will shiver in answer. That is its note. It knows its own vibration, and is silent to all others.
This, then, is what is transpiring now among men. A code of signals being arranged, one here sends up his request or prayer into the heavens, speaks into space. The whole hemisphere of ether is set quivering. Another yonder, a thousand miles distant, picks out of space the syllables of that prayer, one by one, and then throws back through space the answer. Nothing so marvelous as this, so near spiritual conditions, has ever before entered the heart of man. It is not surprizing that the air is full of prophecies, dreams and visions. One says we will yet be able to carry in a pocket, like watches, little vibrators, so that we can communicate with our distant friends without wires or towers, or skilled operators, as readily as we take out our watch and tell the hour of the day. Others, in this prophetic madness, say we may yet learn the vibration of the planets, and fling off into space our “All hail” to Mars and Venus.—James H. Ecob.
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Communion Between Man and Beast—See [Kindness to Animals].
COMMUNION NOT BARRED
A board knocked from a dividing fence sometimes leads to pleasant associations, but they are possible with the boards all on. We can look over or through. And souls can thus, even without effort, live together while the bodies are kept apart. Fences, high and barbed, can not separate kindred spirits.—United Presbyterian.
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Communion with God—See [God Surrounding the Soul].
Community’s Interests Before Personal Interests—See [Convictions, Strong].
COMPANIONS, EVIL
A farmer’s corn was destroyed by the cranes that fed in his field. Greatly annoyed, he declared that he would find a way out of the trouble. A net was set in which the cranes were snared. There was also a beautiful stork among them who had been visiting with the cranes, and had come to them from a neighboring roof.
“Spare me,” plead the stork. “I am innocent; indeed I am. I never touched any of your belongings.”
“That may be true,” answered the farmer; “but I find you among them and I judge you accordingly.”
The only safe way is to keep out of bad company.
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Comparative Religion—See [Christianity Superior].
COMPARATIVE, THE
Vernon L. Kellogg writes about an ant dragon that he once observed, thus:
He was an ugly little brute, squat and humpbacked, with sand sticking to his thinly haired body. But he was fierce-looking for all his diminutiveness. Remember again that whether a thing is big or little to you depends on whether you are big or little. This dragon of the sand-pit was little to us. He is terribly big to the ants.—“Insect Stories.”
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COMPARISONS, APT
The Chinese call overdoing a thing, a hunchback making a bow. When a man values himself overmuch, they compare him to a rat falling into a scale and weighing itself.—Chambers’s Journal.
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Compass—See [Bible].
COMPENSATION
Judge Noah Davis, when asked by a company of American brother lawyers as to the comparative advantages of different periods of life, replied, with his usual calm simplicity of manner, as follows:
“In the warm season of the year it is my delight to be in the country; and every pleasant evening while I am there I love to sit at the window and look upon some beautiful trees which grow near my house. The murmuring of the wind through the branches, the gentle play of the leaves, and the flickering of light upon them when the moon is up, fill me with an indescribable pleasure. As the autumn comes on, I feel very sad to see these leaves falling one by one; but when they are all gone, I find that they were only a screen before my eyes; for I experience a new and higher satisfaction as I gaze through the naked branches at the glorious stars beyond.” (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
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Mongolian wolves are not so dangerous as Siberian ones. The reason is that, unlike the Russians, the Mongols keep such poor sheepfolds that a wolf can help itself to a sheep whenever it likes, and so is seldom driven by hunger to attack a man.—John C. Lambert, “Missionary Heroes in Asia.”
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A pioneer farmer found after a storm that the lightning had cracked the wall of his cistern and his water-supply had leaked away, but a gurgling sound showed that the same stroke had split a rock and opened a hidden spring of living water.—Franklin Noble, “Sermons in Illustration.”
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The one man who escaped the terrible eruption of Mt. Pelée was a prisoner who was in the jail at the time of the volcanic disturbance. He never imagined anything had happened until he missed receiving his meals and the visit of his guard. Then, escaping from the prison, he found himself in a city where thousands lay dead. God shelters his children behind many a strange rock. A prisoner—and yet saved! (Text.)
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COMPENSATION IN TRIALS
The difficulties which beset personal and family life are rich in compensation. We often speak of “keeping the wolf from the door,” and the majority find this a hard fight. What trouble the threatening animal gives us! If in the morning we are disposed for a little extra slumber, the ominous howl startles us from the pillow; if we are tempted to linger at the table, its fierce breathings at the threshold summon us straightway to duty; if we doze in the armchair, the gleaming eyes, the white teeth, the red throat at the window-pane, bring us to our feet. And yet how much the best of men, the most truly aristocratic families, owe to the wolf! Solicitude, fatigue, difficulty, danger, hunger, these are the true king-makers; and the misfortune with many rich families to-day is, that they are being gradually let down because they are losing sight of the wolf. The wolf not merely suckled Romulus; it suckles all kings of men. The wolf is not a wolf at all; it is an angel in wolves’ clothing, saving us from rust, sloth, effeminacy, cowardice, baseness, from a miserable superficiality of thought, life, and character.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”
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COMPENSATIONS OF PROVIDENCE
I met old, lean St. Francis in a dream
Wading knee-deep through the ashes of his town,
The souls that he was helping up to heaven
Were burnt or wrung out of the writhing flesh.
Said I, “When near a thousand are engulfed
In sudden indiscriminate destruction,
And half a million homeless are, I know,
This rotten world most blackly is accurst.”
“When heroes are as countless as the flames;
When sympathy,” said he, “has opened wide
A hundred million generous human hearts,
I know this world is infinitely blest.”
—Rodman Gilder, The Outlook.
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COMPETITION
Much of the joy of life would vanish if we had no races to run, no contests to engage in. The true spirit of competition is exprest in the following rime:
On Saturday, next Saturday, may I be there to greet
Those sixteen jolly Englishmen a-tugging for the lead.
And eight shall have the victory and eight must bear defeat;
But what’s the odds since all have pluck—and that’s the thing we need.
Oh, it’s rowing in a stern chase that makes you feel you’re dying.
But it’s spurting, gaining, spurting that makes you think you’re flying;
And it’s smiting the beginning, and it’s sweeping of it through
Just for honor, not for pelf,
And without a thought of self,
For the glory of your color and the credit of your crew.
And it’s “Easy all, you’ve passed the post,” and lo, you loose your grip,
But not until the falling flag proclaims you’re at the “ship.” (Text.)
—London Punch.
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Competition, Self—See [Anxiety, Cost of].
COMPLEXITY IN ORGANS
The tufts of feathers which distinguish the short-eared and long-eared owls, and are developed still more imposingly in the great eagle owl of northern Europe, are, of course, no more ears than they are horns; but the true ears of the owls are most remarkable organs. The facial disk of feathers, which gives them their most characteristic appearance, serves as a kind of sounding-board or ear-trumpet to concentrate the slightest sounds and transmit them to the orifice of the true ear, which is concealed in the small feathers behind the eye. Even in the barn-owl, which possesses the least complicated arrangement of this kind, the orifice of the ear is covered by a remarkable flap of skin; while in the other species there are striking differences in the size and shape of this orifice and its covering flap on the two sides of the head. The exact way in which owls utilize this elaborately specialized apparatus has still to be discovered; but it is a natural inference that two ears of widely different structure must give the owls which possess them a power of localizing sound which is of the greatest use to them when hunting small creatures in the dark. It is, therefore, all the more surprizing that the barn-owl’s ears have not this difference of structure, altho the power of instantly locating the rustle of the running mouse must be almost indispensable. For catching small birds, which are the especial prey of the wood-owl, keenness of sight rather than of hearing must be necessary, since they are chiefly caught when at roost; and the large nocturnal eye is developed in most of the owls almost as remarkably as the ear. In the short-eared owl, which is a day-flying species, the eye is correspondingly reduced. It has also a far less conspicuous facial disk; and this might also seem to be naturally explained as a result of its diurnal habits, with the consequent reduction of the need for acute hearing, if it were not for the marked difference in the structure of its two ears, which is even greater than in the case of the wood-owl. In the study of such complex problems, we are soon forced to realize how inadequate is even the most helpful and fascinating of single clues. The equilibrium of nature is no simple thing, like the balance of a pair of scales; it more resembles the complicated equipoise of an aeroplane among air-currents playing in three dimensions.—London Times.
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COMPLIMENT
Few have equalled Sir Joshua Reynolds in skill and graciousness of compliment. When he painted the portrait of Mrs. Siddons as the “Tragic Muse,” he wrought his name on the border of her robe, with the remark, “I can not lose this opportunity of sending my name to posterity on the hem of your garment.”
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During a visit once with Queen Victoria, who had sent for him to her palace, the poet Longfellow was seating himself in a waiting coach at the close of the royal interview, when a working man, hat in hand, approached, and asked:
“Please, sir, yer honor, an’ are you Mr. Longfellow?” Said the poet, “I am Mr. Longfellow.” “An’ did you write ‘The Psalm of Life?’” continued the questioner. “I wrote the ‘Psalm of Life,’” was the answer. “An’ yer honor, would you be willing to take a working man by the hand?”
Instantly Mr. Longfellow responded with a warm hand grip. In telling the story later the poet said, “I never in my life received a compliment that gave me greater satisfaction.”
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I recollect once standing in front of a bit of marble carved by Powers, a Vermonter, who had a matchless, instinctive love of art and perception of beauty. I said to an Italian standing with me, “Well, now, that seems to me to be perfection.” The answer was, “To be perfection”—shrugging his shoulders—“why, sir, that reminds you of Phidias!” as if to remind you of that Greek was a greater compliment than to be perfection.—Wendell Phillips.
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COMPLIMENTS, SPARING OF
The first time I ever stood in the pulpit to preach was in the meeting-house of the ancient Connecticut town where I was brought up. That was a great day for our folks and all my old neighbors, you may depend. After benediction, when I passed out into the vestibule, I was the recipient there of many congratulatory expressions. Among my friends in the crowd was an aged deacon, a man in whom survived, to a rather remarkable degree, the original New England Puritan type, who had known me from the cradle, and to whom the elevation I had reached was as gratifying as it could possibly be to anybody. But when he saw the smile of favor focused on me there, and me, I dare say, appearing to bask somewhat in it, the dear old man took alarm. He was apprehensive of the consequences to that youngster. And so, taking me by the hand and wrestling down his natural feelings—he was ready to cry for joy—he said: “Well, Joseph, I hope you’ll live to preach a great deal better than that!”—Joseph H. Twitchell.
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Compositions Compared—See [Education Not Vicarious].
COMPREHENSIVENESS IN EDUCATION
“What are these boys studying Latin for?” said an English visitor at a manual-training school as he looked in upon a class reading Cæsar.
“What did you study Latin for?” was my illogical but American response. “Why, I am a bachelor of arts?” was his prompt reply, with the air of one who had given a conclusive answer. “Perhaps these boys will be bachelors of arts by and by,” I added cheerfully. “Then, what in the world are they in a manual-training school for?” he exclaimed, with almost a sneer at my evident lack of acquaintance with the etiquette of educational values. I tried to explain my theory of an all-round education—and my practise of “putting the whole boy to school”—but he would not be convinced. He could not see the propriety of mixing utility and tool dexterity with culture—Calvin M. Woodward, Science.
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COMPROMISES IN GRAVITIES
All orbits, including the orbits of comets, are the result of compromises in gravities. Now you have got to get over the idea that because one body attracts another strongly it is likely to draw it smack into it. It doesn’t. I made an apparatus in my laboratory the other day to show my students about that.
I fixt up a little gun capable of shooting a steel ball quite a distance up an inclined plate of glass. The ball shot upward and then rolled directly back into the muzzle of the gun time after time. That was to show what a comet would do if just merely shot out into space to be uninfluenced by any other heavenly bodies after it got a start.
Then I put a powerful electric magnet under the plate of glass, quite a little distance away from the track of my steel ball. This time when it was shot upward instead of keeping on its straight path or swerving directly into the magnet, as some of my students expected it to do, it shot on past, curving its course toward the magnet, and then finally it swung around the magnet in very much the way the comet is swinging around the sun. On its return course it swung off in a new direction altogether. My students were quite delighted with the oval course taken by the steel ball. It was just such a course as they had seen mapped out for Halley’s visitor.—H. Jacoby, New York Times.
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Compulsion in Religion—See [Militant Evangelism].
CONCEIT
There are too many men who make the sentiment of this verse their creed:
This is the burden of my song,
I sing it day and night:
Why are so many always wrong
When I am always right?
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See [Comparisons, Apt]; [Self-flattery].
CONCEIT OF OPINION
When Lord Hardwicke’s marriage bill was in the House of Commons, Fox, afterward Lord Holland, saying that one clause gave unheard-of power to parents on the marriage of minors, proceeded to lay open the chicanery and jargon of the lawyers, and the pride of their mufti, and drew a most severe picture of the Chancellor under the application of the story of a gentlewoman at Salisbury, who, having a sore leg, sent for a country surgeon, who pronounced that it must be cut off. The gentlewoman, unwilling to submit to the operation, sent for another more merciful, who said he could save her leg without the least operation. The surgeons conferred. The ignorant one said: “I know it might be saved, but I have given my opinion; my character depends upon it, and we must carry it through.” The leg was cut off. (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
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CONCENTRATION
It has been told of a modern astronomer that one summer night, when he was withdrawing to his chamber, the brightness showed a phenomenon. He passed the whole night in observing it, and when they came to him early in the morning and found him in the same attitude, he said, like one who has been collecting his thoughts for a few moments:
“It must be thus; but I will go to bed before it is too late.” He had gazed the entire night and was not aware of it.
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See [Absorption, Mental].
CONCERT, LACK OF
Crazy people never act together, says the superintendent of a large asylum for the insane, quoted in The Medical Times. “If one inmate attacks an attendant, as sometimes happens, the others would look upon it as no affair of theirs and simply watch it out. The moment we discovered two or more inmates working together we would know they were on the road to recovery.” It is on this account that there are so few concerted mutinies in insane asylums; so that the number of attendants does not have to be large.
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Conclusion, A Reasonable—See [Ethical Principle].
CONDEMNED, THE
“Vessels fitted unto destruction”—how many may be unconsciously so marked by their Maker! A vessel is condemned as unseaworthy; her sails are sold, her spars and rigging, and when all that can be moved is gone, the dismantled hulk is moored in some coaling station. There, black from stem to stern, with a great white number painted on her side, she floats until her timbers rot to pieces—
Anchored forever—sea-lord once, and free—
Fouled by the creeping weeds that work unseen,
Lashed by the mocking winds that erst we braved,
Dread we the coming of the Southern night.
Stars that we tamed to guide our prows of old
Laugh in their sky of purple tapestry—
Ay, laugh: we are condemned of man to die! (Text.)
—Margaret Gardiner, Century.
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CONDESCENSION
A learned counsel (Mr. Brougham, as some say), when the judges had retired for a few minutes in the midst of his argument, in which, from their interruptions and objections, he did not seem likely to be successful, went out of court, too, and on his return stated he had been drinking a pot of porter. Being asked whether he was not afraid that this beverage might dull his intellect, he replied: “That is just what I want it to do, to bring me down, if possible, to the level of their lordships’ understanding. (Text.)—James Croake, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
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See [Greatness]; [Personality, Influence of].
Conditions Before the Advent of Missionaries—See [Missionary Work, Value of].
Conditions Modify Rules—See [Devotion to the Helpless].
CONDITIONS SUGGEST COURSES
During the last years of his life a brain disease, of which he had shown frequent symptoms, fastened its terrible hold upon Swift, and he became by turns an idiot and a madman. He died in 1745, and when his will was opened it was found that he had left all his property to found St. Patrick’s asylum for lunatics and incurables. It stands to-day as the most suggestive monument of his peculiar genius.—William J. Long, “English Literature.”
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CONDUCT, CANONS OF
Coleridge lays down three canons of criticism in literature, which hold equally in conduct and endeavor:
First, What has the author attempted to do? Second, Is it worth doing? And, third, Has he done it well?
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CONDUCT, PAST, UNCONSIDERED
Paul’s doctrine, that he who offends in one point is guilty of the whole law, is illustrated in this anecdote:
A notary public was convicted of forgery and sentenced to be hanged; and being asked if he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed, remarked that it was very hard that he should be hanged just for one line, considering the thousands of harmless sheets he had written in the course of his life. (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
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CONFESSION
One of the duties of the writer during the first days of his clerkship was to “lock up.” One morning in the very first week of his employment he found the door unlocked and a policeman standing guard. Had he forgotten to lock that door? A hasty survey revealed that nothing had been taken away, and the policeman was dismissed. Should he confess the delinquency? It was almost sure dismissal. But he resolved to make a clean breast of it, and when his employer came in later he told all the circumstances, and bravely admitted that he must have failed to lock the door. While making this confession, the policeman walked in, to report finding the door unlocked. But his report had been forestalled, and, with an injunction to be more careful in future, the matter was dismissed. The confession forestalling that report was all that saved dismissal. But that confession won the confidence of his employer, and won a higher trust and esteem than existed before. This is one of the first lessons to learn. Confess instantly a fault, a loss, a mistake, and it is half retrieved.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”
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See [Falsehood].
Among the hard-working Labrador fishermen was a rich man who had opprest them, but whom they believed to be strong enough to defy them. Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, the medical missionary, who is also a magistrate, went to the offender and told him that he must confess his sin and pay back to the fishermen a thousand dollars. He curst the missionary. At the next church service, the doctor announced that a sinful man would confess his sin that night. They couldn’t believe that the rich sinner would yield. At the evening service, Dr. Grenfell asked them to keep their seats while he went after the sinner. He found the man at a brother’s house on his knees in prayer, with all the family.
“Prayer,” said the doctor, “is a good thing in its place, but it doesn’t ‘go’ here. Come with me.”
He meekly went, and was led up the aisle, where all could see him, and, after the doctor had described the great sin of which he was guilty, he asked, “Did you do this thing?” “I did.” “You are an evil man of whom the people should beware?” “I am.” “You deserve the punishment of man and God?” “I do.”
At the end of it all the doctor told the man that the good God would forgive him if he should ask in true faith and repentance, but that the people, being human, could not. For a whole year, he charged the people, they must not speak to that man; but if, at the end of that time, he had shown an honest disposition to mend his ways, they might take him to their hearts.
The man finally paid the money and fled the place.
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CONFESSION NOT CONCLUSIVE
Two men named Boven were convicted in a Vermont court, mainly upon their own confession, of the murder of a half-witted dependent brother-in-law. They even said that certain bones found were those of the supposed victim. But the brother-in-law was found alive and well in New Jersey, and returned in time to prevent the execution. He had fled for fear they would kill him. The bones were those of some animal. They (the Bovens) had been advised by some misjudging friends that, as they would certainly be convicted upon the circumstances proved, their only chance for life was by commutation of punishment, and this depended upon their making a penitential confession. These and many similar cases have satisfied English and American lawyers that confessions alone are unreliable as evidences of guilt. When it is known that one accused, especially one charged with a capital offense, intends to make a confession, it is the practise in our courts to delay the trial in order to give him ample time to decide whether or no he will pursue that course.—Boston Globe.
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CONFESSION, UNREPENTANT
A sergeant was accused, once upon a time, by his brethren of the court, of having degraded their order by taking from a client a fee in copper, and on being solemnly arraigned for this offense in their common hall, it appears from the unwritten reports of the Court of Common Pleas, that he defended himself by the following plea of confession and avoidance: “I fully admit that I took a fee from the man in copper, and not one, but several, and not only in copper, but fees in silver; but I pledge my honor as a sergeant, that I never took a single fee from him in silver until I had got all his gold, and that I never took a fee from him in copper until I had got all his silver, and you don’t call that a degradation of our order!” (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
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CONFESSIONS
The Rev. Jonathan Goforth gives some striking instances of the confessions of Korean converts during a revival:
A prominent Christian who had bought some property for the mission confest that he had only paid eighty yen for the property, but had charged the mission five hundred yen. He sold his land so as to make restitution.
Another confest that he was proud and censorious, but this did not relieve him. A few days later he confest that he had stolen three dollars and a lamp. Still he failed to get peace. After a few more days of agony, he confest that during the war while he acted as manager of transport he had cheated the Japanese and Koreans out of two hundred yen. He made restitution and received blessing.
The leader of a robber band with some of his followers was converted in the great spiritual movement. He confest his sin, then went to the magistrate and delivered himself up. The official was so astounded that he said: “We have no such law that we can condemn a man without an accuser. You may have your liberty.” Here the Spirit of God was more effective than police and detective force. They needed not either to spend a term in the reformatory, for they were made new men in Christ Jesus.
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CONFIDENCE
Confidence is well placed when it rests upon a proved experience.
A traveler, following his guide amid the Alpine heights, reached a place where the path was narrowed by a jutting rock on one side and a terrible precipice on the other. The guide passed over, and holding on to the rock with one hand, extended the other over the precipice for the traveler to step upon it and so pass around the jutting rock. He hesitated, but the guide said, “That hand has never lost a man.” He stept on the hand and passed over safely.
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The medical missionary among the Afghans, Dr. T. L. Pennell, on one of his journeys came to a village across the border late at night. Many outlaws infested the village, but the chief to whose care he had entrusted himself took the precaution of putting his bed in the center of six of his men, fully armed, each of whom was to keep guard in turn. Dr. Pennell being very tired after a hard day’s work, soon fell sound asleep. This proved to be his safety. Some of the fanatical spirits wanted to kill him in sheer wantonness, but the others said, pointing to his prostrate form peacefully sleeping, “See, he has trusted himself entirely to our protection, and because he trusts us he is sleeping so soundly; therefore no harm must be done to him in our village.” His confidence disarmed their deadly impulse. (Text.)
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Two men were once standing by a building on which a little boy had climbed who was afraid to get down. Looking up at him, one man opened his arms and, with a kind voice, said: “Jump, my little fellow, and I will catch you.” But the boy shrank back and would not jump. Then the other man opened his arms and said: “Come, my boy, jump, and I will catch you.” Instantly the little face cleared, a smile chased away the tears, and with a rush he jumped and was safely caught in the outstretched arms. Why was the boy afraid of one man and willing to trust the other? Because the first man was a stranger and the second man was his father. He knew his father would not let him fall.
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A story is told by Colonel William Conant Church, of the Army and Navy Journal, which illustrates how unshaken was the President’s confidence in Grant’s ability to march the army of the Potomac against the army of northern Virginia and capture the stronghold of the rebellion. The incident took place just before Grant established his headquarters in the field.
When he called upon the Secretary of War, the latter said:
“Well, General, I suppose you have left us enough men to garrison the forts strongly?”
“No, I can’t do that,” was the General’s quiet reply.
“Why not? Why not?” repeated the nervous Secretary.
“Because I have already sent the men to the front, where they are needed more than in Washington.”
“That won’t do,” said Stanton. “It’s contrary to my plans. I will order the men back.”
Grant maintained a quiet determination, and replied:
“I shall need the men there, and you can not order them back.”
“Why not? Why not?” cried the Secretary.
“I believe I rank the Secretary of War in this matter,” remarked Grant.
“Very well, we will see the President,” sharply responded the Secretary.
“That’s right; he ranks us both.”
Going to the President, Secretary Stanton, turning to Grant, said:
“General, state your case.”
But the General calmly replied:
“I have no case to state. I am satisfied as it is.”
When Stanton had given his view of the matter, Lincoln crossed his legs, leaned back in his chair, and like the wise philosopher that he was, said:
“Now, Mr. Secretary, you know we have been trying to manage this army for nearly three years, and you know we haven’t done much with it. We sent over the mountains and brought Mr. Grant, as Mrs. Grant calls him, to manage it for us, and now I guess we’d better let Mr. Grant have his own way.”
The winter of 1863 was a trying time for General Grant. It was a winter of floods in the South, and a winter of discontent among the people of the North. He could not move his army, and many began the old cry after Donelson, “idle, incompetent, and unfit to command in an emergency,” and again arose a clamor for his removal. It was a season of false alarm and sensational rumors.
But there were two men in the land from whence came words of cheer. One was listening quietly in a store in Cincinnati to a great deal of rambling and grumbling talk about the way General Grant was trying to take Vicksburg. When all others present had given vent to their feelings, this man said in a moderate tone: “I think he’ll take it. Yes, I know he’ll take it. ’Lis’ always did what he set out to do. ’Lis’ is my boy, and he won’t fail.”
The other man who believed in General Grant was in the White House. He was too good to be unkind, and too wise and prudent to err. While men of large political influence were urging General Grant’s removal for the good of the country, the philosopher at the White House said: “I rather like the man; I think we’ll try him a little longer.” By these thirteen words the fate of Vicksburg was sealed.—Col. Nicholas Smith, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”
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When Alexander once was about to engage in battle with Darius, having completed his arrangements, he lay down to sleep. Next morning Tarmenio exprest surprize that he could sleep so soundly when such vast issues were impending. “You seem as calm,” said he, “as if you had had the battle and gained the victory.” “I have done so,” replied Alexander, “for I consider the whole work done when we have gained access to Darius and his forces, and find him ready to give us battle.” (Text.)
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See [Essentials]; [Versatility].
Confidence in His Own Ability—See [Versatility].
CONFIDENCE IN MEN
If a man can invest his hundreds of thousands of dollars on the ocean or in distant countries, where men can not understand the documents we write, it shows that there is trust between man and man, buyers and sellers; and if there is trust between them it is because experience has created the probabilities of truthfulness in the actions of men and all the concordant circumstances. If men did not believe in the truth of men, they never would send to China, Japan or Mexico their great properties and interests, with no other guarantee than that the men are trustworthy. The shipmaster must be trustworthy, the officers of the government must be trustworthy, and that business goes on and increases the world over is a silent testimony that, bad as men do lie, they do not lie bad enough to separate man from man.—Henry Ward Beecher.
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CONFIDENCE, INSPIRING
In his reminiscences concerning his career, Mr. John D. Rockefeller says this in regard to a critical epoch in his fortunes:
I went to a bank president whom I knew, and who knew me. I remember perfectly how anxious I was to get that loan and to establish myself favorably with the banker. This gentleman was T. P. Handy, a sweet and gentle old man, well known as a highgrade, beautiful character. For fifty years he was interested in young men. He knew me as a boy in the Cleveland schools. I gave him all the particulars of our business, telling him frankly about our affairs—what we wanted to use the money for, etc., etc. I waited for the verdict with almost trembling eagerness.
“How much do you want?” he said.
“Two thousand dollars.”
“All right, Mr. Rockefeller, you can have it,” he replied. “Just give me your own warehouse receipts; they’re good enough for me.”
As I left that bank, my elation can hardly be imagined. I held up my head—think of it, a bank had trusted me for $2,000! I felt that I was now a man of importance in the community.
The confidence of the bank president in him and his business ventures had strengthened his own appreciation and confidence. So each man reacts on the other. (Text.)
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CONFIDENCE, LACK OF
Admiral Dupont was once explaining to Farragut the reason why he failed to enter Charlestown harbor with his fleet of iron-clads. He gave this reason and that reason and the other reason; and Farragut remained silent until he had got through, and then said, “Ah, Dupont, there was one more reason.” “What is that?” “You didn’t believe you could do it.”
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CONFLICT, SPIRITUAL
Upon the side of the great entrance-hall of the Royal Museum in Berlin is painted a colossal picture of Kaulbach’s. It represents the last battle between the Romans and the Huns, which decided the fate of European civilization. The spirits of the slain, fierce and restless as before, rise from their bodies and continue the battle in the air. In the shadowy combat the forces are led by Attila, “the scourge of God,” borne aloft upon a shield, and by Theodoric, the Roman chief, with sword in hand and the cross behind.
The vivid portraiture is a symbol of the battle waging, not so much between brute forces as between the spirit of two opposing civilizations for the mastery of the world.
(531)
Conflict to Fellowship—See [Eternal, The, at Hand].
Conflicts of Nature—See [Strong and Weak].
CONFORMITY
Paul’s method of being all things to all men suggests that a wise and proper conformity to one’s surroundings, where it involves no sacrifice of principle, may be as useful as the white hue of animals in arctic regions described in this extract:
Wherever all the world around is remarkably uniform in color and appearance, all the animals, birds, and insects alike necessarily disguise themselves in its prevailing tint to escape observation. It does not matter in the least whether they are predatory or defenseless, the hunters or the hunted; if they are to escape destruction or starvation, as the case may be, they must assume the hue of all the rest of nature about them. In the arctic snows, for example, all animals, without exception, must needs be snow-white. The polar bear, if he were brown or black, would immediately be observed among the unvaried ice-fields by his expected prey, and could never get a chance of approaching his quarry unperceived at close quarters. On the other hand, the arctic hare must equally be drest in a snow-white coat, or the arctic fox would too readily discover him and pounce down upon him off-hand; while conversely, the fox himself, if red or brown, could never creep upon the unwary hare without previous detection, which would defeat his purpose. For this reason, the ptarmigan and the willow-grouse become as white in winter as the vast snow-fields under which they burrow; the ermine changes his dusky summer coat for the expensive wintry suit beloved of British Themis; the snow-bunting acquires his milk-white plumage; and even the weasel assimilates himself more or less in hue to the unvarying garb of arctic nature. To be out of the fashion is there quite literally to be out of the world; no half measures will suit the stern decree of polar biology; strict compliance with the law of winter change is absolutely necessary to success in the struggle for existence. (Text.)—Cornhill Magazine.
(532)
Congenital Neurasthenics—See [Inebriety, Incurable].
Conjugal Rights—See [Robbing Justified].
CONNECTION
You can get no water from your old pump. When you try you get only a painful wheezing. Pumps are not living things, but they, too, suffer exhaustion. Must you give it up, and dig a new well? Oh, no. The well is all right, and has given abundant and sweet water for a generation. You look it over, and find that the old leather valve is dry and worn out. Pour in a pitcher of water to wet it, and the wheezing is cured. Put in a new valve and the old pump is good for years to come. God’s supply of living water is abundant as ever. It is only your connection with it that failed.—Franklin Noble, “Sermons in Illustration.”
(533)
CONQUEST BY MAN
These vehement elements, of air and water, demand to be wrestled with and patiently mastered, by the vigorous soul, in order that they may administer to our happiness. There is the wax. In the soul is the seal, designed to impress it. There are the materials, upon which and with which the spirit is to operate. But no implements, even, are given it for its use. It must forge them, as it wants them. They are not found ready fashioned to the hand, as ornamental stones are, in the caverns and rock-rifts. They must be conceived by our skill, and completed by our labor. But the moment we begin, all is ready for our progress.—Richard S. Storrs.
(534)
CONQUEST, COMMONPLACE
Even the conquest of the North Pole takes on an aspect of the commonplace, especially after many years of hard work. The New York Times quotes this entry from Peary’s journal:
The pole at last! The prize of three centuries, my dream and goal for twenty years, mine at last! I can not bring myself to realize it.
It all seems so simple and commonplace. As Bartlett said when turning back, when speaking of his being in these exclusive regions which no mortal had ever penetrated before:
“It is just like every day!”
(535)
Conquest, Peaceful—See [Emigration, Conquest by].
CONQUEST, SEVERE
Death Valley is the most barren part of the Great American Desert. More men have died in its arid wastes than on any other equal area of the world’s surface, barring the great battle-fields. It lies, a great sink in the sandy plain, about 250 miles north and east of Los Angeles, Cal., and within the boundaries of that State. The valley received its sinister name owing to the fact that in the early fifties a party of emigrants, some hundred and twenty in number, traveling overland by wagon from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Los Angeles, perished in its awful solitudes, barely a man escaping.
In the Wide World Magazine is given the story of a man who, alone and unaided, conquered Death Valley in the hottest month of the desert year. The tale of awful suffering endured by this man, H. W. Manton, of Rhyolite, Cal., is told for the first time in his own words.
For almost a week Manton was lost in the heart of Death Valley. In three days he tramped eighty miles over sands so hot that he could scarcely walk on them, tho shod with heavy shoes. During those never-ending days he had no food, and but one drink of water.
When he staggered up to Cub Lee’s Furnace Creek ranch, more dead than alive, his tongue was swollen to such a size that his mouth could no longer contain it. His lips and eyelids were cracked open; his clothing was in tatters, and his shoes were coated with a heavy incrustation of borax and other alkalines, which had eaten great holes in the leather.
At first he could not drink, and the touch of water was as fire to his parched lips and tongue. Kind-hearted ranchmen and miners forced the precious fluid into his mouth with a straw, with a spoon—any way to get him revived. And eventually he spoke, telling the strange story of his crossing the dread pit; of how he had wandered therein for many days, with no companions save the lizards and the snakes of the barren sands.—Boston Transcript.
(536)
CONSCIENCE
There is an ingenious instrument used in testing the condition of railroads whereby every slight deviation in the width or levelness of the track, every defect of the rails, and even the quality of the steel and manufacture are registered.
Is not a well-instructed and carefully cultivated conscience just such a dynograph?
(537)
“Conscience makes cowards of us all.” The following rather amusing incident well illustrates this hackneyed observation of Shakespeare:
On one of Landseer’s early visits to Scotland the great painter stopt at a village and took a great deal of notice of the dogs, jotting down rapidly sketches of them on a piece of paper. Next day, on resuming his journey, he was horrified to find dogs suspended from trees in all directions or drowning in the rivers, with stones around their necks. He stopt a weeping urchin, who was hurrying off with a pet pup in his arms, and learned to his dismay that he was supposed to be an excise officer who was taking notes of all the dogs he saw in order to prosecute the owners for unpaid taxes. (Text.)
(538)
The religious ferment of the age made a tremendous impression on Bunyan’s sensitive imagination. He went to church occasionally, only to find himself wrapt in terrors and in torments by some fiery itinerant preacher; and he would rush violently away from church to forget his fears by joining in Sunday sports on the village green. As night came on the sports were forgotten, but the terrors returned, multiplied like the evil spirits of the parable. Visions of hell and the demons swarmed in his brain. He would groan aloud in his remorse, and even years afterward he bemoans the sins of his early life. When we look for them fearfully, expecting some shocking crimes and misdemeanors, we find that they consisted of playing ball on Sunday and swearing. The latter sin, sad to say, was begun by listening to his father cursing some obstinate kettle which refused to be tinkered, and it was perfected in the Parliamentary army. One day his terrible swearing scared a woman, “a very loose and ungodly wretch,” as he tells us, who reprimanded him for his profanity. The reproach of the poor woman went straight home, like the voice of a prophet. All his profanity left him; he hung down his head with shame. “I wished with all my heart,” he says, “that I might be a little child again, that my father might learn me to speak without this wicked way of swearing.” With characteristic vehemence Bunyan hurls himself upon a promise of Scripture, and instantly the reformation begins to work in his soul. He casts out the habit, root and branch, and finds to his astonishment that he can speak more freely and vigorously than before. Nothing is more characteristic of the man than this sudden seizing upon the text, which he had doubtless heard many times before, and being suddenly raised up or cast down by its influence.—William J. Long, “English Literature.”
(539)
See [Eye, The Searching]; [Missionary Accomplishments].
CONSCIENCE A LIGHT
The woodsman carries a box of safety matches protected against the rain and snow. In the arctic zone he knows that if he loses the match and the light he has lost life itself. Man can lose his health but not his conscience. But, if stumbling, the torch has fallen, and the light flamed low, snatch it up, and relight it, at the altars of God. So shall the light in thee wax into greater light, until conscience is a true pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, guiding thee into the summer land where man needs no light of the lamp, neither light of the sun.—N. D. Hillis.
(540)
CONSCIENCE A MONITOR
I remember when a boy my mother had a beautiful vase. I was charged not to touch it. My fingers, however, boy-like, itched to touch it. I frequently went around it, and peered behind it. I wondered if there might not be some painting on the bottom of it, as there was on the sides. In lifting ii up, one day, when I had grown bolder, it fell to the hearthstone and broke into a thousand pieces. I knew I had wounded the mother heart in that moment. She heard the crash and came in. I knew that I deserved punishment. But she only said, “My dear boy; do you see what you have done.” It was burned into my memory then what it cost to disobey law, and in all the sixty years that have elapsed since then, when I have looked upon the treasures of others, I have heard her voice saying to me, “Do you see what you have done?”—Bishop D. A. Goodsell.
(541)
CONSCIENCE A MORAL MENTOR
A writer speaks of a special form of the barometer, used generally by travelers, in which air supplies the place of mercury as a measuring medium. Speaking of its use, he says:
As the pressure of the outside air varies does it rise and fall, and by a beautifully delicate apparatus this rising and falling is magnified and represented upon the dial. Such barometers are made small enough to be carried in the pocket, and are very useful for measuring the heights of mountains; but they are not quite so accurate as the mercurial barometer, and are therefore not used for rigidly scientific measurements; but for all ordinary purposes they are accurate enough, provided they are occasionally compared with a standard mercurial barometer, and adjusted by means of the watch-key axis provided for that purpose, and seen on the back of the instrument. They are sufficiently delicate to tell the traveler in a railway whether he is ascending or descending an incline, and will indicate the difference of height between the upper and lower rooms of a three-story house. The unseen air in the aneroid is a mark of the rise or fall in altitude of the possessor of the instrument.
Conscience plays a like part in morals. It is always with us and always admonishes us of the varying moral altitudes to which we rise or fall.
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CONSCIENCE BENUMBED
One of the most astonishing things in prison life is said to be the deficiency of conscience in criminals. Scenes of heartrending despair are rarely witnessed among them. Their sleep is broken by no uneasy dreams; on the contrary, it is easy and sound: they have also excellent appetites. They have a sense of self-righteousness, and feel, on the whole, that they have been wronged. Recently the newspapers told us of the execution of a grave-digger upon the Continent, who had been convicted of four murders, five robberies, eight cases of incendiarism, and other crimes. When he was informed that he would be hanged early next morning, he said that he deserved his fate, but he assured his judge that worse fellows than he were running about the world.
To have no consciousness of sin, no proper consciousness of it, is no proof of our integrity; much more likely is it a proof that our conscience has become benumbed and indurated by years of worldliness and disobedience. (Text.)—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”
(543)
CONSCIENCE, CHRISTIAN
The following is told of Mr. Frank Crossley, a great promoter and founder of London missionary work:
Mr. Crossley was conscience incarnate. While yet a poor apprentice he had got free admission to a theater through the connivance of a fellow workman who kept the door; but when, as a renewed man, conscience demanded reparation for this sort of robbery, he reckoned up the entrance fee he had evaded, and sent the theater company sixty pounds.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”
(544)
CONSCIENCE, TROUBLED
A quiet, bashful sort of a young fellow was making a call on a Capitol Hill girl one evening not so very long ago, when her father came into the parlor with his watch in his hand. It was about 9:30 o’clock. At the moment the young man was standing on a chair straightening a picture over the piano. The girl had asked him to fix it. As he turned, the old gentleman, a gruff, stout fellow, said:
“Young man, do you know what time it is?”
The bashful youth got off the chair nervously. “Yes, sir,” he replied. “I was just going.”
He went into the hall without any delay and took his hat and coat. The girl’s father followed him. As the caller reached for the doorknob, the old gentleman again asked him if he knew what time it was.
“Yes, sir,” was the youth’s reply. “Good-night!” And he left without waiting to put his coat on.
After the door had closed the old gentleman turned to the girl.
“What’s the matter with that fellow?” he asked. “My watch ran down this afternoon and I wanted him to tell me the time, so that I could set it.”—Denver Post.
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CONSCIOUSNESS
Is there any difference between the vibrations of sound on the tympanum of the ear and those on the surface of the water? Science does not seem to see a great difference, but Ruskin finds, in the differing effects, an illustration of the mystery of consciousness:
It is quite true that the tympanum of the ear vibrates under sound, and that the surface of the water in a ditch vibrates, too; but the ditch hears nothing for all that; and my hearing is still to me as blest a mystery as ever, and the interval between the ditch and me, quite as great. If the trembling sound in my ears was once of the marriage-bell which begun my happiness, and is now of the passing bell which ends it, the difference between those two sounds to me can not be counted by the number of concussions. There have been some curious speculations lately as to the conveyance of mental consciousness by “brain-waves.” What does it matter how it is conveyed? The consciousness itself is not a wave. It may be accompanied here or there by any quantity of quivers and shakes, up or down, of anything you can find in the universe that is shakeable—what is that to me? My friend is dead, and my—according to modern views—vibratory sorrow is not one whit less, or less mysterious, to me, than my old quiet one.
(546)
CONSECRATION
A Chinese preacher, whose wages were twenty-two dollars a month, refused the offer of the post of consul at fifty dollars, that he might be free to preach the gospel to his countrymen. His countrymen said of him: “There is no difference between him and the Book.” (Text.)
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CONSEQUENCES
Mr. Justice Burroughs, of the Common Pleas, used to resort to the use of proverbs and parables in dealing with the juries. One day at nisi prius, much talk was made about a consequential issue in the case. He began to explain it to the jury thus: “Gentlemen of the jury, you have been told that the first is a consequential issue. Now, perhaps, you do not know what a consequential issue means; but I dare say you understand nine-pins. Well, then, if you deliver your bowl so as to strike the front pin in a particular direction, down go the rest. Just so it is with these counts. Knock down the first, and all the rest will go to the ground; that’s what we call a consequential issue. (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
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CONSEQUENCES, IRREPARABLE
The doctrine of the following verse (unidentified) is quite doubtful. Is it not the hope of Christianity that men now broken by sin will yet, by God’s healing grace, soar even higher than ever?
I walked through the woodland meadows,
Where sweet the thrushes sing;
And I found on a bed of mosses
A bird with a broken wing.
I healed its wound, and each morning
It sang its old sweet strain,
But the bird with a broken pinion
Never soared as high again.
I found a young life broken
By sin’s seductive art;
And touched with a Christlike pity
I took him to my heart.
He lived with a noble purpose,
And struggled not in vain;
But the life that sin had stricken
Never soared as high again.
But the bird with a broken pinion
Kept another from the snare;
And the life that sin had stricken
Raised another from despair.
Each loss has its compensation,
There is healing for every pain;
But the bird with a broken pinion
Never soars as high again. (Text.)
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CONSEQUENCES, UNNOTICED
A little girl in Kansas has recently given the telegraph companies a vast amount of trouble in a peculiar way. Her daily duty was to herd a large drove of cattle on a range through which passed the telegraph lines. For weeks, some hours nearly every day, these lines absolutely failed to work, and the trouble seemed to be in the vicinity of where this girl herded her father’s cattle; but it was a long time before they discovered the cause. Finally, they found out that in order to get a better view of the herd the girl had driven railroad-spikes into a telegraph-pole, and whenever she got weary watching the cattle from the ground she would climb the pole and seat herself on a board across the wires and watch her herd from that lofty station. Whenever the board happened to be damp it destroyed the electric current and cut off all telegraphic communication between Denver and Kansas City. (Text.)—Louis Albert Banks.
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CONSERVATION
Under the iron law of conflict in the “survival of the fittest,” the world finds a shipwrecked brother in its path and removes him without ceremony and covers him with scorn and contempt. Christ reverses this iron law.
Formerly when a war vessel discovered a derelict, the latter was immediately destroyed by dynamite. The government has now entered upon a new policy. Whenever it is possible, the abandoned vessel is towed into the nearest port. Recently two abandoned schooners were brought in, the value of the vessels and their cargo being estimated at more than sixty thousand dollars.
When Jesus finds a human derelict He does not destroy him. He cleanses him and rehabilitates him, and makes him valuable in the kingdom. (Text.)
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Christian treatment of the Indian not only has improved his character, but has saved him from threatened extinction.
The idea is prevalent that the red man is doomed to disappear from the earth at no distant day. But the census tables give no such indication. The first official count was taken about seventy years ago, and gave the number as 253,461. In 1880 the figures had risen to 256,127, in 1900 to 272,073, and now (1909), by actual count, the reservations are found to contain 284,000.
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A bundle of wood is placed in our kitchen stove to kindle the fire. It is consumed. Its ashes represent what the tree took from the soil. Its carbon goes up the chimney, restoring to the air what some tree took from the air. Nothing was lost. The earth received again what it originally gave. To the air was restored its original contribution of carbonic acid gas, which the leaf manufactured into wood. And so God has made a universe of perennial youth, where nothing is lost nor can be lost.—E. M. McGuffey.
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CONSERVATION OF INFLUENCE
Dr. F. F. Shannon, commenting on the early death of a talented man, says:
“Such a man dead at 40?” you ask. “Why, to what purpose is this waste?” Well, a man can make a match, but it takes God to make a sun. We know the match must go out, the sun never does, tho his shining face is often hidden from our eye. And so the sun of this man’s genius—of any man’s genius—can never go out. The flame is burning yet—in a few hearts still in the flesh, and in countless glorified spirits before the throne. There is not enough wind, loosed or unloosed, in the vast caverns of the universe to blow out that flame, nor enough blackness in the untenanted halls of space to swallow up its light! Do you tell me that the God who is so strict in the economy of His universe as to refuse a throb of energy to be lost, or an atom to be wiped out of existence, or a few pieces of bread to perish in the desert, will allow that genius, which is the breath of His own being, to be wasted without contributing wealth to the world, to the universe, to God Himself!
(554)
CONSERVATION OF REMAINDERS
A man was in possession of a great farm. The abundant crops finally failed, and other calamities came, and at last the wife of the great landowner lost her reason. Nearly all had been lost, and the farmer was left with only a few feet of ground as his possession. I had not the courage to visit this man in his destitution. After a lapse of time, however, I went to his humble abode, and was amazed to see the little garden in the highest state of cultivation. And I exclaimed: “Why, how is this? How did you have the heart to do this, after you had lost all?”
“Why, what would you have had me do?” was the reply. “This is all I had, and I tried to make the best of it.”
So it is for us to strengthen that which is left in the Church and in ourselves as individuals.—Olin A. Curtis.
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CONSERVATISM, FALSE
There stands the false conservative, anchored to the past. Whatever is, for him, is right and good. He is constitutionally opposed to change. Wagon-wheels make a rut an inch deep across the prairie, but when this man is thirty he is in a rut up to his eyebrows. When he dies, at seventy, you can truly say, that his image is truth lying at the bottom of a well. He loves his father’s house because it is old; he loves old tools; old laws; old creeds. He stands at his gate, like an angry soldier, waving his hands and shouting warnings to all who approach. He has one injunction for every boy starting out to make his fortune: “Watch your anchor, my son; don’t cast off your moorings”; as if any Columbus, who spent all his time throwing out anchors, could ever have crossed the sea! As if any world voyage could be made by a captain who never dared cast off his moorings! In the Arabian tale, when the sheik was lost in the desert, he took off the bridle, and committed the camel to God and his own instincts, trusting the beast to find its way to the water springs. But if the old sheik had been a false conservative, he would first of all have staked the camel down by a lariat, and then committed himself to God, like these church dignitaries and councils that stake the religious or political thinker down by a lariat, which they then label in a humorous moment, “liberty of thought,” and having made progress impossible, they commit themselves to the care of the God of progress.—N. D. Hillis.
(556)
Conservatism Natural—See [Progress].
CONSIDERATENESS
This incident is from a source not identified:
A few days ago I was passing through a pretty, shady street, where some boys were playing at baseball. Among their number was a little lame fellow, seemingly about twelve years old—a pale, sickly-looking child, supported on two crutches, who evidently found much difficulty in walking, even with such assistance.
The lame boy wished to join the game, for he did not seem to see how his infirmity would be in his own way, and how much it would hinder the progress of such an active sport as baseball.
His companions, very good naturedly, tried to persuade him to stand at one side and let another take his place; and I was glad to notice that none of them hinted that he would be in the way, but that they all objected for fear he would hurt himself.
“Why, Jimmy,” said one of them at last, “you can’t run, you know.”
“Oh, hush!” said another—the tallest in the party; “never mind, I’ll run for him,” and he took his place by Jimmy’s side, prepared to act. “If you were like him,” he said, aside to the other boy, “you wouldn’t want to be told of it all the time.”
As I passed on I thought to myself, “That boy is a true gentleman.”
(557)
See [Kindness]; [Service, Interested].
Consideration for Others—See [Others, Consideration for].
Consideration for Weakness—See [Weakness, Consideration for].
CONSISTENCY
Those who walk with God are sure to exercise a powerful effect, conscious or unconscious, upon their worldly friends and neighbors. It is said of certain of the apostles that those who watched them “took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.”
A certain mill-owner was an infidel. He ran his mill seven days in the week, yet on Sundays he stopt it for a short time in the morning and again at noon. At length some one ventured to ask him why he acted thus. His reply was, “It is because I know that Deacon B. will pass at a certain time on his way to church, and again on his way back. I do not mind the rest of you, for you do not properly live what you profess, but I tell you I do mind him, and to run my mill while he is passing would make me feel bad here”—putting his hand upon his heart.
Theosophy in its mystic theories includes the concept that the spirit within each individual forms a visible aura or halo around him, which can be seen by many who possess the faculty of discernment. The spirit of a true Christian is apprehended by those about him far more accurately than might be imagined. For the spirit inevitably impels the actions of the life.
(558)
CONSTITUTION IN OBSCURITY
A schoolboy in Brooklyn was asked: “What is the Constitution of the United States?” He replied: “It is that part in small print in the back of the book that nobody reads.”
(559)
Constraint—See [Acquiescence to Providence].
Consumption—See [Tuberculosis].
Consumption and Vocal Exercises—See [Singing Conducive to Health].
CONTACT
If one’s heart be charged with sympathy, he will convey it by his handshaking, as if he carried with him this ingenious toy:
An “electric handshaker” to shock unsuspecting friends, has been devised by a man in Paterson, N. J. The specification of the patent that he has secured reads, according to The Western Electrician: “It is intended that the cell or battery and coil be concealed in the inside breast pocket or other convenient hiding-place on the person intending to operate the toy. The two wires are to be run down the sleeve of the operator and the ring slipt on one of his fingers, the two contact buttons being turned toward the palm of the hand. If now, the circuit through the induction-coil and battery being closed, the operator shakes hands or otherwise brings the two buttons on the ring into contact with another person, this person receives a most surprizing and effective electric shock. Owing to the small size and the ingenious method of concealing the apparatus, the recipient of the shock does not at once discover the source of the discharge, and the toy is productive of much amusement.” (Text.)
(560)
See [Sympathy].
Contact with the Blind—See [Blindness and Contact].
Contagion—See [Post-mortem Consequences].
Contagion of Evil—See [Evil, Virulency of].
CONTAMINATION
A party of young people were about to explore a coal-mine. One of the young ladies appeared drest in white. A friend remonstrated with her. Not liking the interference, she turned to the old miner, who was to conduct them, and said:
“Can’t I wear a white dress down in the mine?”
“Yes, mum,” was his reply. “There is nothing to hinder you from wearing a white frock down there, but there’ll be considerable to keep you from wearing one back.”
There is nothing to hinder a Christian from conforming to the world’s standard of living, but there is a good deal to keep him from being unspotted if he does. Christians were put into the atmosphere of this world to purify it, and not to be poisoned by it.
(561)
Mr. Hilditch, of the Sheffield Laboratory of Bacteriology and Hygiene, Yale University, has demonstrated that the average number of bacteria in each of twenty-one bills was 142,000, while by far the most common forms present were the varieties of the pyogenic staphylococcus. These organisms were not in possession of their full virulence, but merely produced a more or less local reaction, on guinea-pig injection, with swelling of the lymph glands of the groin. Their constant presence on money is certainly of greater significance than merely indicating the exposure to the bacterial contamination of the air; they clearly indicate that the money has been contaminated by handling and without regard to the virulence or the danger of infection to which these particular organisms themselves expose those who receive the money, they establish beyond question the most fundamental and significant fact for scientific demonstration, viz., that money is a medium of bacterial communication from one individual to another.—The Popular Science Monthly.
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CONTAMINATION, DEATH FROM
For the soldier in the far-away Philippines, death lurks in many places. Perhaps it is the enemy in the open, or the shot from the thicket, or the assassin’s knife in the dark. These are not the deadliest foes, however. The cholera is everywhere. Man can guard against the one, but he falls a victim to the other. Not long since a certain constabulary officer had met the enemy and defeated them. Before he reached camp on the return march, however, disease laid hold upon him for its own. Ere he reached the camp he was dead. In trying to explain that sudden demise, a companion of the march said:
When we stopt at shacks on the roadside and asked for water it was furnished us in a coconut shell with the native’s thumb dipt in and the water so muddy one could not see the bottom, but down it went with some jest about a cool death.
The thumb of the native, dipt in the shell of water, brought death to the drinker. There is another sort of cup in which lurks the serpent of death—the wine cup.
(563)
Contempt of Patriotism—See [Memorials of Patriotism].
CONTENT
Robert Trowbridge wrote for Scribner’s Magazine the following verse:
My neighbor hath a little field,
Small store of wine its presses yield,
And truly but a slender hoard
Its harvest brings for barn or board.
Yet tho a hundred fields are mine,
Fertile with olive, corn, and vine;
Tho autumn piles my garners high,
Still for that little field I sigh,
For, ah! methinks no other where
Is any field so good and fair.
Small tho it be, ’tis better far
Than all my fruitful vineyards are,
Amid whose plenty sad I pine—
“Ah, would that little field were mine!”
Large knowledge void of peace and rest,
And wealth with pining care possest—
These by my fertile lands are meant.
That little field is called Content.
(564)
CONTENTMENT
There is a story of an old woman who was very uncomfortable in her temper. She was always fretting and worrying and complaining. Nothing ever went right with her, and everybody was tired of her continual crossness and grumbling.
At last, late in her life, there came a change over her, and this cross, crabbed old woman grew gentle, patient and amiable. She was so altered from her former self that one of her neighbors took courage to ask her how it was that she, who had always found life so full of prickles, now seemed to touch the smooth and pleasant side of everything.
“Well,” said she, “I’ll tell you how it is. I’ve been all my life a-struggling and a-striving for a contented mind, and now I’ve made up my mind to sit down contented without it.”
(565)
See [Optimism].
Contentment More than Raiment—See [Character More than Clothing].
Contest, Made for—See [Body, Mastering the].
Contingency—See [Common Problem, The].
Continuity of Life—See [Life, Continued].
Contraband Traffic—See [Evidence, Providential].
Contraction of Stomach—See [Adaptation].
Contrariness—See [Dourness].
CONTRAST NECESSARY TO INTEREST
In nature as well as in poetry the sense of beauty is stimulated by contrast. If all women were pretty, how soon we should cease to admire lovely eyes and fair complexions and the thousand charms which make women in their weakness stronger than men are in their strength; if all men were handsome fine features would be disregarded. In climates which have months of perpetual drought and heat, the blue sky becomes hateful, and the sun, instead of being the best of friends, as in temperate lands, is regarded as an enemy. An Englishman finds cloudy days depressing because they are so frequent in his own land; his brothers in tropical lands welcome them because they are so few. In animal life, too, the same rule holds good, and I question if we should admire the exquisite shape of a gazelle or of a well-bred horse, and the superb plumage of the peacock and the secretary-bird, were it not for the contrast afforded by the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and the vulture.—Illustrated London News.
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Contrasted Careers—See [Careers Contrasted].
Contrasts, Shameful—See [Extravagance, Censurable].
CONTROL, DIVINE
The late Prof. Henry Drummond was staying at the house of a friend whose coachman had imperiled his career more than once by drunkenness. “Do try and speak to him about it,” said the lady to Professor Drummond. Driving to the station, Professor Drummond sat beside the coachman. The carriage narrowly escaped collision through the carelessness of another driver. “Didn’t I manage that well?” said the coachman to Professor Drummond. “You did, indeed. How was it?” “Because,” said the coachman, “I understand the horses’ mouths exactly and they obey my slightest guidance.” Drummond seized the opportunity immediately. “I have only a minute,” he said, “but let me ask, Why don’t you throw the reins of your life to God, who understands your mouth and is ready and willing to guide you?” The word went home to the coachman’s heart. (Text.)
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CONTROL OF CIRCUMSTANCES
The time has not yet come when man may plow the atmosphere for rain as he plows the soil for crops. If mines must be worked and towns built in arid regions, let promoters of these schemes be required to build aqueducts and bore wells sufficient in advance to supply the needed water, not waiting until droughts come and the people die. Every place on this globe has its rainy years and its dry years. Areas of cold and heat, wind and calm, rain and drought, appear and move and disappear in irregular succession. We must prepare for them and provide against disaster. We can not control the weather, but we may control ourselves.
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CONVERSION
Rev. J. Hawksley, a missionary among the Indians of the Klondyke, was one evening holding a service and using a magic lantern. He threw upon the screen a picture of Christ cleansing the temple. An inveterate gambler in the audience was so imprest with the attitude of Christ that the words in explanation went straight to his heart. “If Christ was so angry at those who did such things in His earthly temple, I am sure He would never let such a sinner as I am come into His holy temple above. I will give up my gambling and ask His pardon.” And the man kept his word.
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That man steeped in iniquity can be won back by the grace of Christ to a life of decency and service is one of the marvels of the world.
Luther Burbank, the well-known botanist, finds in nature this renewing and generating quality. He can take a tree that shows distinct evidence of decay, that looks as if it were beyond recovery, and treat it, and treat it again, until he rescues it from its bad habits of many years’ standing. He directs its energies so that they flow in new channels and, as “if by the shock of recreation,” what was once blighted and blasted becomes beautiful, fragrant and fruitful. (Text.)
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In 1855 some Hebrew Christians met in New York to observe the Passover. The meal being over, one after the other rose to testify to faith and love in Christ. One man sat with head dropt between his hands, then sobs shook his body, and those around saw that a mighty conflict was in progress in his soul. Suddenly he leapt to his feet and cried, “I will no longer deny my Lord! I will follow Him outside the camp.” God took that Polish Jew—for it was Bishop Schereschewsky—and through him gave the Mandarin Bible to the vast empire of China. The Passover had become the Supper of the Lord.
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Like a ship becalmed in tropic seas, whose sails hang useless in the breathless air, whose sailors wearily, idly wander about the decks or lean listlessly over the bulwarks looking into the waveless, torpid sea, and over which the heavy gloom of despair and hopeless waiting hangs like a stifling air, so is many a soul arrested in the voyage of life. Its energies are like the useless sails, its thoughts like the listless sailors, the whole spirit of its life like the dull, weary scene of the idly drifting ship. And when at length the welcome wind comes rippling the sea’s dead calm, filling the drooping sails, lifting the ship onward in its course, what music in the rustle of its coming! what joy in the new force it brings to the forceless ship! what animation of life, revival of hope, fleeing of all the dull, dreary spirits which haunted the scene a moment before! So is a soul who has lived with no great, good purpose which gave progress, importance, and interest to life, when at length it seizes on the great Christian purpose of living unto God. (Text.)—W. R. Brooks, Baptist Examiner.
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See [Creature, A New].
CONVERSION AND A BUTTON
In the life of Charles G. Finney there is an account of the conversion of a prominent merchant. He went to hear Mr. Finney preach and was powerfully affected. Mr. Arthur Tappan, the eminent merchant, sat near him and noticed his agitation. In telling his experience afterward he said that as he arose to go, Mr. Tappan stept up and took him gently by the button of his coat and asked him to stay for prayer and conversation. He tried to excuse himself, but Mr. Tappan held on till he finally yielded. He said afterward, “He held fast to my button, so that an ounce weight at my button was the means of saving my soul.”
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Conversion, Evidence of—See [Family Religion].
CONVERSION, GENUINE
The convert is known by his fruits. Conduct, conversation, and character, are the infallible tests of a personality transformed within.
In a large iron factory one of the worst men in the place was converted. He had been a man of terrible temper, and could scarcely speak without swearing and blaspheming against God. After his conversion his comrades waited for his temper to break out as before, and to hear him give utterance to a string of oaths. But nothing of the sort occurred. So they prepared a trap for him, which they felt sure would cause his downfall. They heated a long bar of iron and tempered it so that it would look as tho it were cold. Then they laid it on the floor when he was absent, and waited for him to come in and pick it up. Presently he returned, and, stooping over, grasped the hot iron with both hands. His comrades now expected an explosion, for there was a badly blistered strip of flesh on each hand. But the man simply turned round and said quietly, “Men, I didn’t think you would do that.”
At these words, so different from what they expected, tears ran down the cheeks of those strong men; a revival broke out then and there, and many of those ironworkers found salvation, because that man had not lost his temper, but had shown the reality of his transformation.
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CONVERSION, NOT UNNATURAL
Why should people balk at conversion as if it was something foreign to the universe? The fact is that there is not a moment of time when the process ceases. Dr. W. L. Watkinson calls attention to it in this way:
You come away from your house leaving your inkpot with the sun shining upon it. You go back. Where is your ink? Why, if you look up into the sky to-morrow you will see it in the rainbow! Nature is absolutely full of cleansings, of refinements, of marvelous chemistries, upliftings, transformations, transmutations, transfigurations! And do you mean to tell me that in a world where you see every day the miracle of renewal, the miracle of transfiguration—do you mean to tell me that the only thing in it that can not be changed is the human soul, that which it is most desirable to change? (Text.)
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CONVERSION, SINCERE
Mr. C. T. Studd, a missionary to China, tells the following:
A white-haired old Chinaman, over fifty years of age, an old opium-smoker, came to us, and having learned of Jesus Christ, was converted, went home and took down his idols. The elders of the village came to him for a subscription to their heathen temples. “I now worship the true God and can not henceforth pay any money for idol worship,” said the old man. When his reply was known, his village and a neighboring village took counsel and decided that they would kill him. One day, as the old man sat in his chair, a mob surrounded his home yelling and cursing. He sat quietly praying. One of the six men who stood at the door ready to kill him shouted, “Now, old man, you come out.”
“No,” he replied quietly, “if you want me out, you must come and pull me out.”
A dispute arose among the representatives of the villages as to which should have precedence in this act of religious zeal, and the contention waged so high that neither one dared to kill the gray-haired old man. They dispersed to their homes, and after living peacefully a while longer, the old Christian passed quietly to his heavenly home in 1895.
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CONVERTED BY THE COMET
The first conversion to Christianity by Halley’s comet was recorded to-day. As far as the available records show, this is the comet’s first convert.
At 4:30 o’clock yesterday morning a number of people who had shortened their matutinal slumbers to watch the great sidereal visitor from the roof of a Fourth Avenue apartment house were startled by a loud cry from one of their party. The man, a professional skeptic, was standing with arms outstretched to the heavens, weeping profusely.
“This convinces me that there is a God,” he said to his friends. “Hereafter I shall always live as a Christian. These stars could not be unless there is a God.”
The profound impression created on the man by the spectacle had not worn off to-day, and he assured his friends he meant to attend church regularly hereafter and to conduct himself as a Godfearing man should.
“I had never seen the heavens as I did then,” he declared this morning. “I did not realize what a wonderful world it is.”
The man’s name is withheld in order to save him from what his friends say would be embarrassing publicity. His agnostic beliefs have long been the despair of his well-wishers, who are elated over his curious conversion.—Brooklyn Eagle. (May, 1910.)
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Converts in Heathendom—See [Native Converts].
Convict, A—See [Dead Tho Alive].
CONVICT LABOR
Last summer about forty per cent of the Colorado convicts were put to work outside their prison walls. A thousand were employed exclusively in road-building. The cost for each prisoner employed was thirty-six cents a day and the counties where the roads were built paid this amount, less the amount the State would have to pay to maintain them in the prison. The day’s work was eight hours, and for each month’s service there was a substantial subtraction from the term of imprisonment. No chains were attached, no stripes were worn and there was no armed guard to patrol the work camps; yet less than one-half of one per cent of those thus employed were lost by escapes.
The success of the method may be due largely to the tact and judgment of the warden. The road work is said to be the desire of every prisoner, but he must earn the privilege by good conduct. The warden personally has a talk with each prisoner before assigning him to this service and receives his pledge that he will be true and faithful to his trust. “The best effect of this,” he says, “is that every man who goes from prison to road work and keeps his word with me, has taken a long step toward reformation.”
This seems to be one of the best solutions of the two problems, how to get good roads and employ the inmates of our penal institutions in healthful labor, under conditions that appeal to their manliness and better nature. Of course, this method must be discriminatingly applied, but the proof that it is workable is a valuable contribution to penology.—Boston Transcript.
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CONVICTION
Alexander McLaren says:
I once heard that if you take a bit of phosphorus and put it upon a slip of wood and ignite the phosphorus, bright as the blaze is, there drops from it a white ash that coats the wood, and makes it almost impossible to kindle the wood. And so, when the flaming conviction laid upon your heart has burnt itself out, it has coated the heart, and it will be very difficult to kindle the light there again.
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Conviction as a Foundation—See [Human Nature, Insecurity of].
CONVICTION THROUGH A MONKEY
The Boston Herald is the authority for this story from Baton Rouge, La.:
Because their conviction for murder was based almost entirely on the animosity displayed against them by a trained monkey, Christopher Starr and his wife, Mamie, circus performers, are serving life sentences in State prison.
A movement has been started to obtain a new trial for them. During the circus season, James Ackerman, proprietor of a one-ring circus, was murdered while his show was playing at Devall’s Landing, La.
Mr. and Mrs. Starr, who had had a troupe of trained animals with the show, were arrested soon afterward, but there was little evidence against them, and they would have been released but for the actions of Scamp, a pet Himalayan ape, belonging to Mr. Ackerman.
Ackerman had been feeding the ape when he was slain, and when the animal, which was the only living witness of the crime, saw Starr, he flew into a terrible rage.
This action was repeated whenever Starr appeared, despite the fact that he formerly had been a friend of Scamp, and it was repeated when Mrs. Starr was seen.
The monkey’s actions caused husband and wife to be indicted, and when placed on trial the monkey was brought into court, and so imprest the jury that, altho the evidence was not over-strong, they were found guilty.
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CONVICTION, UNYIELDING
Lord Lyndhurst told a curious anecdote about a trial of a civil cause in which the jury would not agree on their verdict. They retired on the evening of one day, and remained till one o’clock the next afternoon, when, being still disagreed, a juror was drawn. There was only one juror who held out against the rest—Mr. Berkeley (M.P. for Bristol). The case was tried over again, and the jury were unanimously of Mr. Berkeley’s opinion, which was, in fact, right—a piece of conscientious obstinacy which prevented the legal commission of a wrong. (Text.)—Greville’s “Memoirs.”
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Convictions, Lack of—See [Incertitude].
CONVICTIONS, STRONG
Many years ago in the city of New York there was an organized set of dishonest men known as the Tweed Ring. They stole $51,000,000 from the State and city, and everybody knew it. When they told Tweed that he was under arrest, he dared to say, “Well, what are you going to do about it?” There was a merchant in New York named William Sloane. They put him on the Grand Jury. Because of his large business interests and the tremendous demands upon his time, he said, “I can not serve.” But earnest men said, “Here is the bulwark of sin and here is the need of righteousness.” Immediately he said, “I will serve.” Now, certain men on the jury had been bought up by Tweed. One man in particular stood out. For twenty-three hours that jury sat in council. They could not come to an agreement; this one man would not yield. Finally, Mr. Sloane put his hand on this man’s shoulder and said: “Do you know, sir, that the people whom we represent know the character of this man on trial? They know that we have explicit, convincing evidence against him. And do you know that I will stay here until I die before I will go out and say that this jury does not agree?” The man yielded, Tweed was convicted, sentenced and committed to jail.
There has never been a time in the history of our own land or in the history of Christendom when men standing for righteousness and truth have not accomplished something. It may sometimes mean their death. (Text.)
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Convictions versus Cash—See [Responsibility Affects Judgment].
Cooking, The Art of—See [Waste, The Problem of].
COOLNESS
During the battle of Waterloo the Duke of Wellington appeared frequently among his men. Sergeant Cotton, in his book “A Voice from Waterloo,” says:
Whenever the Duke came, which at this momentous period was often, there was a low whisper in the ranks “Here’s the Duke!” and all was steady as on parade. No matter what the havoc and destruction might be, the Duke was always the coolest man there; in the words of an eye-witness of this bloody scene, the Duke was coolness personified.
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COOLNESS IN DANGER
Michael Henry Ryan, able seaman on the liner Philadelphia, would rather drown than be rescued by means of a rope which had a poorly tied sailor’s knot in it. Ryan proved this by risking his life in mid-Atlantic waves until he could retie the knot.
The rescue in itself was one of the most remarkable in the history of the American line. The captain from the bridge saw Ryan go over the side. It was too rough to launch a boat and the liner was stopt almost in its own length and sent astern so that it drifted down upon the struggling seaman. A line was lowered.
When Ryan caught the rope he examined the knot. The sea was smashing him against the side of the ship.
“Who tied this knot?” he called out to the men on deck. And then he calmly untied the knot and retied it in his own way. All the while he gave his opinion of the lubbers on deck and their inability to tie a knot. Then he put the loop under his arms and called out to those above to haul him up.—Chicago Tribune.
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Cooperation—See [Help One Another]; [Working Together]; [World Improving].
Cooperation, Divine—See [Faith in God]; [Growth, Cause of].
COOPERATION, LACK OF
An old Norse legend tells of a departed spirit meeting his guardian angel in the other world, and commiserating him upon his forlorn and haggard looks, only to receive the reproving reply: “No wonder I am worn out. All your life I have been fighting in your behalf, and I never got a bit of assistance from you.” (Text.)
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COOPERATION WITH GOD
The farmer drops a seed into the ground and goes away and leaves it. It sprouts and grows, and by and by he reaps the harvest of the sowing, and he says, “I have harvested, I have raised so many bushels of corn to the acre.” Oh, no, he has not. He has sown so many seeds, he has cultivated so many acres, he has put in his sickle or his harvesting machine, and he has gathered so many stalks. But he could not have done it if some forces of nature had not been at work perfecting that which he began. He and nature, as we say—he and God, as I say—have worked together to raise the harvest. (Text.)—Lyman Abbott.
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See [Gratitude].
COPYING VAIN
It would never make an arithmetician of a boy at school if he merely copied the solution of arithmetic problems from his neighbor’s slate or paper, even tho the solutions thus copied should be the correct ones. To become an arithmetician the boy must himself learn to solve problems; and this means that he must understand thoroughly every step in the process of solution. The process must go through him, or through his intelligence, as well as that he must go through the process. He must know what he is aiming at, and why it is that he adds, subtracts, multiplies, and divides, every time that he does any of these. Merely to put down figures on his paper, even should they be the right figures by chance, unless he understands the why and the when, would do him no good whatsoever. And it would not make the matter one whit better if he imagined the schoolmaster would be pleased with seeing him put down right figures without understanding what he was doing, or why he was doing it. The whole would only show that he was far back in intelligence, and would hardly ever become an arithmetician. We can not become truly religious either by being mere copiers of the religion of others, or by fetish worship.—Alexander Miller, “Heaven and Hell Here.”
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Cordiality—See [Hospitality in Church].
CORN VERSUS GOLD
Drop a grain of California gold into the ground, and there it will lie unchanged to the end of time, the clods on which it falls not more cold and lifeless. Drop a grain of our gold, of our blest gold, into the ground, and lo! a mystery. In a few days it softens, it swells, it shoots upward, it is a living thing. It is yellow itself, but it sends up a delicate spire, which comes peeping, emerald green, through the soil; it expands to a vigorous stalk; revels in the air and sunshine; arrays itself, more glorious than Solomon, in its broad, fluttering, leafy robes, whose sound, as the west wind whispers through them, falls as pleasantly on the husbandman’s ear as the rustle of his sweetheart’s garment; still towers aloft, spins its verdant skeins of vegetable floss, displays its dancing tassels, surcharged with fertilizing dust, and at last ripens into two or three magnificent batons like this [an ear of Indian corn], each of which is studded with hundreds of grains of gold, every one possessing the same wonderful properties as the parent grain, every one instinct with the same marvelous reproductive powers. There are seven hundred and twenty grains on the ear which I hold in my hand. I presume there were two or three such ears on the stalk. This would give us one thousand four hundred and forty, perhaps two thousand one hundred and sixty grains as the product of one. They would yield next season, if they were all successfully planted, four thousand two hundred, perhaps six thousand three hundred ears. Who does not see that, with this stupendous progression, the produce of one grain in a few years might feed all mankind? And yet with this visible creation annually springing and ripening around us, there are men who doubt, who deny the existence of God. Gold from the Sacramento River, sir! There is a sacrament in this ear of corn enough to bring an atheist to his knees.—Edward Everett.
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CORRUPTION, INNER
Athenian society decayed at last, not at all because its artists had reached the limit of human invention, or its philosophers the necessary term of human thought, but because the moral faculties and tastes which should have presided in that society were not developed in proportion to the esthetic and intellectual powers which added to its ornament. It was outwardly like the statue of Minerva in the Parthenon, of costly ivory, overlaid with gold; but it was wood within; and the wood rotted; that is all that can be said of it. Then the cunning of the ivory, and the splendor of the gold, fell and were broken, and the nations gathered the shining fragments.—Richard S. Storrs.
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COSMOLOGY, PRIMITIVE
Knowing nothing of the planetary system, early man had to account in his own way for the apparent fixity of the earth, and as the Greeks invented the giant Atlas, the Hindus contrived a huge turtle to bear the world upon its patient back. What sustained the giant or the monster, the ancient mind inquired not. To make everything out of anything and believe with implicit faith in his own creations was the happy faculty of early man, not entirely fallen from possession in these days of all-questioning. The first Egyptians knew that the heavens and the earth were formed by the breaking of the cosmic egg, an idea suggested by the resemblance of the skies to the half of an eggshell. That is as poetic and more agreeable than the Norse idea of a giant dashed to pieces to make earth, water, and starry firmament. The Mexican legend as to the creation of man resembles the Hebraic, clay and the breath of life admitted. But the North American Indians explain the mixt nature of man by declaring that the daughter of the Great Spirit, living in the wigwam, Mount Shasta, stole forth one day, was seized by a patriarchal grizzly, who took her home and wedded her to his son. Man was the result of this union. As a punishment for the sacrilege in contaminating the race of the Great Spirit, grizzlies were deprived the power of speech and made to wander ever after on all fours.—Chicago Inter-Ocean.
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Cosmopolitanism—See [Americanism, True].
Cosmopolitanism in Education—See [Education by Travel].
Cost of Disease—See [Health and Science].
COST RECKONED
When your child throws away a piece of bread, make him pick it up again and tell him the history of that piece of bread. Tell him what has been requisite that that bread might exist. Tell him of the toils of the plowman and of the sower, under the sky, inclement and changeful; the obscure bursting of the seed in the ground, the long sleep under the snow, the awakening in the spring, when the green life along the furrows makes its orisons to the sun, source of life. Describe the hope of the farmer when the corn puts forth its ears, and his anguish when the storm rises on the horizon. Do not forget the harvester who wields his scythe in the dog-day heat, and that poor prisoner of the cities, pledged to nocturnal toil in overheated cellars, the baker. (Text.)—Charles Wagner, “The Gospel of Life.”
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COST, THE
In the Newark, N. J., public library is a statue of Benjamin Franklin carved in Carrara marble. It embodies an incident in his life. When a lad he bought a whistle from a playmate, giving all the coppers he possest for it. He whistled all over the house, until his brothers and sisters told him he had paid too much for the whistle, laughing at him until he cried from mortification and chagrin.
Franklin was not the first nor the last to pay too much for the whistle. Music is not the only thing that may come at too high a price.
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COUNTENANCE, GRACE IN THE
The face of the veteran missionary, John G. Paton, was itself an inspiration to the beholder and a revelation to the triumphs of the grace of God in the man. Once when Principal Story was introducing him to an audience, he casually remarked that much of Doctor Paton’s life had been spent among savages and cannibals, and many a time he had been in danger of being killed and eaten, but had escaped unscathed. “But,” added Principal Story, “I do not wonder, for had I been one of those cannibals, one look at that benignant face would have been enough to make me a vegetarian for the rest of my days.” (Text.)
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Counterfeiters—See [Criminals, Tracing].
COUNTRY ADVANTAGES
Only forty-seven per cent of our population of working age reside in the country districts; they furnish fifty-seven per cent of our successful men, while the cities, with twenty per cent of the population, furnish seventeen per cent.
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COUNTRY, A NEW
A Chinese lived in Yokohama some twelve years ago. He was a house-painter by occupation, and went about wearing a very much bedaubed suit of clothes, caked here and there with white and green and yellow. He was a Christian and attended church regularly. When the leader said, “Let any one pray who will,” John never failed to take part. The gladness of his soul spoke itself forth in a kind of Cantonned Japanese, the full meaning of which was known to himself and God only. When the Shinasan (Mr. Chinaman) prayed, many a face in the room became wreathed in smiles, and sometimes a hand was necessary over the mouth to help hold the hearer steady. John paid no attention; he cared not who laughed at his prayers, he was happy, God had forgiven him; and tho a Chinese, he said good-by to the world, and cut his cue off. One day a Korean friend met him and said, “Honorable sir from the great country, where is your cue?” “Cue? Cue belong no good, makee cut off.” “But you will not dare to go home, you have lost your country.” “Maskee country,” said John; “my country belong Htien-kuoa, Htien-kuoa” (“heaven, heaven”), pointing upward.—James S. Gale, “Korea in Transition.”
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Country Church—See [Church, The Country].
COUNTRY, LONGING FOR THE
If out beyond the city’s farthest edge
There were no roads that led through sleepy towns,
No winds to blow through any thorny hedge,
No pathways over hazel-tufted downs,
I might not, when the day begins, be sad
Because I toil among the money-mad.
If out beyond the distant hill there lay
No valley graced by any winding stream,
And if no slim, white steeples far away
Might mark the spots where drowsy hamlets dream,
I could, perhaps, at midday be content
Where striving millions at their tasks are bent.
If far away from noise and strife and care
There were no buds to swell on waiting trees,
No mating birds to spill upon the air
The liquid sweetness of their melodies
I might, at sunset be serene and proud
Because a few had seen me in the crowd.
—The Chicago Record-Herald.
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Country, Love of—See [Fidelity]; [Home Where the Heart is].
Country, Serving One’s—See [Seeking Service].
COURAGE
When a soldier ran crying to Pelopidas, “We are fallen among the enemies, and are lost!” “How are we fallen among them any more than they among us?” replied the undaunted spirit. And when the soldiers of Marius complained of thirst, being encamped where there was no water, he pointed to a river running close to the enemy’s trenches, and bade them take the drink which valor could give them in that direction.—James T. Fields.
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“Evils faced are half-conquered.” Such seems to be the purport of this poem by John Finley:
I’d have the driving rain upon my face—
Not pelting its blunt arrows on my back,
Goading with blame along its ruthless track,
But flinging me defiance in the race.
And I would go at such an eager gait
That whatsoe’er may fall from heaven of wo
Shall not pursue me as some coward foe,
But challenge me—that I may face my fate.
(Text.)—Harper’s Magazine.
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I have walked on the Mount of Gladness, I have wept in the Vale of Tears,
And my feet have stumbled ofttimes as I trod through the path of the years;
Yet my heart has ever lifted its song of thankful praise
To the God of all eternity, who has kept me in my ways,
Tho alone I tread the wine-press, or kneel in Gethsemane,
I know He has never forsaken, and that He leadeth me.
Tho I “walk through the Valley of Shadow,” my soul shall not be dismayed,
For my God is the God of the fathers, the God of the unafraid!
—Northwestern Christian Advocate.
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It is easy to be courageous when backed by the crowd. It is different when one stands alone against the crowd.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century Professor Simson, of Glasgow, was on trial in the General Assembly for dangerous heresy. He was convicted, and suspended from preaching and teaching. There were some who thought the sentence inadequate. Boston, of Ettrick, was one of them. He was a shy man. But no one else offering to rise, he rose, overcoming his timidity, to enter his dissent against the inadequate condemnation of Simson—to enter his dissent in his own name and in the names of all who would adhere to him, adding, amid solemn silence on the part of the assembly, “And for myself if nobody shall adhere.”
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See [Achievement]; [Fitness].
Courage, Calm—See [Faithfulness].
COURAGE, CHRISTIAN
During the Boxer rebellion the railroad tracks laid by the Russians in Manchuria were torn up, and the Russian troops were sent on an expedition to punish the Chinese insurgents. The Russians marched from city to city destroying and looting, meeting with practically no resistance. But at one place something unexpected happened, as told by Mr. H. J. Whigham in V.C. (London):
The Russians marched up to the gates and were just about to enter when the Boxers opened fire upon them. The army was withdrawn, the batteries were got out, and the general was just going to smash up the city when the Scotch missionary, Doctor Westwater (acting as interpreter) approached him and asked for a moment’s truce.
“I undertake,” he said, “to enter the city and to induce it to surrender without a shot being fired on one condition.”
“Which is?”
“That there shall be no destruction and no looting; none whatever.”
The general yielded, and mounting his pony, Doctor Westwater rode forward to the city alone.
Now, when you consider that the city was full of Boxers, you will realize that it was a pretty considerable act of courage for a minister, of all men, to ride unarmed through those seething streets. This was what Westwater did. The city was a roaring hive of armed Boxers, muskets peeping from roof and window, and the streets ringing with the noise of arms. At the missionary quarters Doctor Westwater was fortunate enough to find a Christian convert, who conducted him to a place where the merchant gild were holding a sort of cabinet council.
Westwater explained matters, appealed to the citizens to avoid bloodshed, and pledged his word that neither destruction nor looting should mark the Russian occupation of their city. The appeal was successful, and he rode quietly back to the Russian general.
The general was an awful brute, as bad as he could be, but Westwater’s action seemed to impress him, and his orders were very exact. During his occupation of the city there was no single instance of crime. Westwater’s gallant action, too, imprest even the Boxers. They named him the savior of the town, and when, some months later, he took his departure for home, he was made the honored guest of extraordinary banquets, and was accompanied to the railway station by all the grateful citizens, half of them waving flags and half of them banging musical instruments.
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COURAGE CONTAGIOUS
Charles Wagner, in “The Gospel of Life,” says:
You are struggling with difficulties, your look is troubled and your good will as well. One of those painful moments of strife and discouragement, when man is no longer anything but the shadow of himself, is passing over. In these circumstances a newspaper falls into your hands. In it you read that, on such and such a day, in the heart of Africa, surprized by an ambuscade, surrounded by enemies in superior numbers, an officer, who does not speak your language and who is not fighting for your cause, has kept calm; that, the better to show his tranquil resolution, he has, at a moment like that, before his troops, hemmed in, lost, lighted his cigar, recalled in few words the memory of the fatherland and the duty of a soldier; and then marched toward the enemy and to certain death. It is all told in three lines. And when you have read it, you arise, you come out of your depression, you organize your resistance; you look your trouble in the face, you feel high spirits, virility, a certain generous ardor for the strife. And all this life, this precious elasticity of courage that animates you, you owe to those who are unknown to you, to the vanquished, and to the dead lying out yonder without burial and without name. What a proof of what we can do for each other?
(602)
COURAGE IN LIFE
This poem has been printed as anonymous and it has also been attributed to Edmund Vance Cook:
Did you tackle the trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven heart, and fearful?
Oh, a trouble’s a ton or a trouble’s an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it;
And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it.
You’re beaten to earth. Well, well, what’s that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It’s nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there—that’s disgrace.
The harder you’re thrown, why, the higher you bounce;
Be proud of your blackened eye.
It isn’t the fact that you’re licked that counts,
It’s how did you fight, and why.
And tho you be done to death, what then?
If you battled the best you could;
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl or comes with a pounce,
And whether he’s slow or spry,
It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,
But only how did you die.
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COURAGE, MORAL
Mrs. George E. Pickett, wife of General Pickett, who led the fatal charge the last day at Gettysburg against the Union forces, writes of the tender memories she had of Grant. She called upon him with her husband while he was President. Grant knew that his old comrade of West Point had been made a poor man by the war, and he offered him the marshalship of Virginia. While sorely needing help, he appreciated the heavy draft made upon the President by office-seekers, and said: “You can’t afford to do this for me now, and I can’t afford to take it”; but Grant instantly replied with firmness, “I can afford to do anything I please that is right.”—Col. Nicholas Smith, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”
(604)
COURAGE OF HOPE
These lines from an unidentified source point a New Year’s lesson:
As a dead year is clasped in a dead December,
So let your dead sins with your dead days lie.
A new life is yours and a new hope. Remember
We build our own ladders to climb to the sky.
Stand out in the sunlight of promise, forgetting
Whatever the past held of sorrow or wrong.
We waste half our strength in a useless regretting;
We sit by old tombs in the dark too long.
Have you missed in your aim? Well, the mark is still shining.
Did you faint in the race? Well, take breath for the next.
Did the clouds drive you back? But see yonder their lining.
Were you tempted and fell? Let it serve as a text.
It is never too late to begin rebuilding
Tho all into ruins your life has been hurled,
For see how the light of the New Year is gilding
The wan, worn face of the bruised old world. (Text.)
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COURAGE OF UTTERANCE
James Oppenheim, in a poem, “The Cry of Men,” writes this verse inciting to boldness in uttering our truth:
Then put off the coward—live with the Vision!
Let me go to my work in the morning
With fire of God, let me strike in the open, let me cry, cry aloud the age dawning—
Let my life be real—faith in my heart! My eternity hangs on this day—
God in me dies or leaps godward as I thunder my yea or my nay!
(606)
COURAGE VERSUS ETIQUETTE
Here is a story of Gen. Leonard Wood, told by a Boston physician in the New York Times:
One day an infant was brought in suffering from membranous croup. The case was so far advanced that any delay would almost certainly result in death for the little one. Dr. Wood did not hesitate a moment. He began to work at once, carefully, fearlessly, promptly, and successfully. Five minutes later, and while both mother and patient were still in the room, the surgeon who should have had the case according to rule, walked in. The young doctor (Wood) explained, but would not apologize, as he was asked to do. He had done right, and he was not going to tell any man he was sorry for it, he said. The result was that he was first suspended, and then dismissed. And I call that courage. (Text.)
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COURTESY
Charles W. Eliot introduced [at Harvard] a system of discipline based upon personal loyalty to college interests. It is related that at a faculty meeting shortly after he had been inducted into office, one of the faculty asked him with considerable severity the reason for this doing away with time-honored rules of discipline, when the young president replied, with great sweetness and courtesy, “The reason is, we have a new president.”—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”
(608)
See [Kindness].
The Brooklyn Eagle has an office boy whose name, let us say, is Joe. The other day Joe was present when the wife of a member of the staff called to see her husband. The latter, having just returned from lunch, deferentially greeted the lady by raising his hat. Joe contemplated this act of courtesy with that fine scorn which office boys feel for all obligations that are not compulsory. “Huh!” he remarked to a companion. “You’d think them two was strangers!”
(609)
Courtesy Imitated—See [Symbols, The Value of].
COURTESY IN TRAVELING
Probably few people know it, but the institution of the bell-cord, by which the engineman is signaled to stop his train, was due to the courtesy of a conductor. A general passenger agent told the story the other day. Back in the fifties, when wood was still used for fuel in locomotives, the conductor on a local train rigged up a bell-cord so that he could let passengers off at will. The stop signal was given too often for the engineman, who finally became so annoyed that he cut the rope. At the next stop the conductor went forward to the engine cab.
“Jim,” he said, “I’m going to treat my passengers right. You tie up that bell-cord, and if you cut it again I’ll punch your head.”
The engineman cut the cord again, and the conductor, who valued his reputation for courtesy to passengers, went forward and delivered the promised thrashing. Conductors nowadays, tho, are not quite so primitive in their methods, and are not obliged to administer personal discipline to fellow employés.—Buffalo Evening News.
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COURTS OF JUSTICE AMONG BIRDS
Dr. Edmondson describes regular assemblies of crows of the hooded species—“crow courts,” they are called—which are held at certain intervals in the Shetland Isles. A particular hill or field suitable for the business is selected, but nothing is done till all are ready, and consequently the earlier comers have sometimes to wait for a day or two till the others arrive. When all have come, the court opens in a formal manner and the presumed criminals are arraigned at the bar. A general croaking and clamor are raised by the assembly and judgment is delivered, apparently, by the whole court. As soon as the execution is over, the court breaks up and all its members disperse quietly. An Alpine tourist relates that, during an excursion in the Swiss mountains, he accidently came upon a small secluded glen, which was surrounded by trees, and became the unexpected witness of a singular spectacle. About sixty or seventy ravens were ranged in a ring around one of their fellows, evidently reputed a culprit, and with much clatter of tongues and wings, were engaged in discussing his alleged delinquencies. At intervals they paused in their debate in order to permit the accused to reply, which he did most vociferously and with intense energy, but all his expostulations were speedily drowned in a deafening chorus of dissent. Eventually the court appears to have arrived at the unanimous conclusion that the felon had utterly failed to exculpate himself, and they suddenly flew at him from all sides and tore him to pieces, with their powerful beaks. Having executed their sentence, they speedily disappeared.—The Popular Science Monthly.
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Covenant—See [Blood, The Tie of].
COWARDICE
We see by the following account of English sparrows that any coward may seem brave when he is with the majority:
The English sparrow has been called pugnacious. He is nothing of the kind. He does not love a fight. Bird to bird, there is nothing too small to whip him. I have seen a chipping sparrow, which is the least among the pasture sparrows, send the poltroon scurrying to shelter with all his feathers standing on end. A cock bluebird, fighting like a gentleman, and like a gentleman fighting only when he must, will drive a half-dozen of them. The English sparrow has the true instincts of the browbeating coward, and loves to fight only when in overwhelming numbers he may attack a lone pasture bird without danger to himself.—Winthrop Packard, “Wild Pastures.”
(612)
Craziness Indicated—See [Concert, Lack of].
Crazy Spells—See [Absent-mindedness].
CREATION, A WITNESS OF
Ruskin finds God’s witness in creation in contemplating a leaf:
If you ask an ordinary botanist the reason of the form of a leaf, he will tell you it is a “developed tubercle,” and that its ultimate form “is owing to the directions of its vascular threads.” But what directs its vascular threads? “They are seeking for something they want,” he will probably answer. What made them want that? What made them seek for it thus? Seek for it, in five fibers or in three? Seek for it, in serration, or in sweeping curves? Seek for it in servile tendrils, or impetuous spray? Seek for it in woolen wrinkles rough with stings, or in glossy surfaces, green with pure strength and winterless delight? It is Mr. Ruskin who asks these questions: and it is Mr. Ruskin who adds, “There is no answer.”
(613)
Creation, Intelligence in—See [Design in Nature].
CREATION, JOY IN
God’s heart must laugh a mighty laugh of joy every spring and summer time. Oh, man! don’t you think you would laugh if you could make a leaf—not a great big green oak or maple-leaf, but just a wee, modest, unpretentious leaf, and yet a real leaf? Now, wouldn’t you thrill with joy to the ends of your finger-tips if you could make just one leaf? And well you might, for never yet was born the man who could make a leaf without God doing the major part of the work.
And yet every spring God grows a million leaves and flowers out in the corn-fields, back in the forests, down in the meadows of earth. Why, truly God is right down here among us watching things grow, going through the corn-fields and laughing to the rustling music of the green blades of silken corn.—F. F. Shannon.
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Creatorship—See [Life, Source of Man’s].
CREATURE, A NEW
The author of that noble hymn, “The God of Abraham praise,” was Thomas Olivers, the Welsh Methodist evangelist, popularly known as “the cobbler of Tregonan,” but who became a signal instance of the power of grace to change the heart and to quicken genius. Left an orphan early in life, he grew up neglected in learning and morals, and became known as the worst character in all the country round. But a sermon by George Whitefield, at Bristol, entirely changed the character of the young man, and the current of his life. Of that change he himself said: “When that sermon began, I was one of the most abandoned and profligate young men living; before it ended I was a new creature. The world was all changed for Tom Olivers.”
(615)
Credentials, Negative—See [Realism, Refraining from].
Credentials of Merit—See [Appreciation of Character].
Credit Refused—See [Need, Refused in the Hour of].
CREEDS, INSECURITY OF
It is natural to desire a few firm and unshakable beliefs. If we can only formulate the eternal verities and tuck them away in pigeon-holes ready to our hand when wanted, we feel a certain sense of security. To run the fundamental principles into molds and have them forever after in cast-iron rigidity and indestructibility is surely, we imagine, a consummation devoutly to be wished.
But soon we encounter unexpected and vexatious and puzzling difficulties. Truth has a way of losing its trueness by the very act of being exprest. Exprest, or squeezed out, it does, indeed, too often become; and nothing but an empty husk, a hollow form, remains. How often one has the vaguely haunting and curiously baffling sense that, if one were to say a certain thing, that thing would immediately cease to be so; and, that if one had only refrained from a certain other utterance, the thought intended would not have lost, so unaccountably, its quality of truth! In other words, how many times does truth show itself to be of a nature quite too shy to be caught and tamed, too slippery to be grasped, too elusive to be held fast! To take a homely illustration, Mrs. Smith says to Mrs. Brown, “I am more polite than you,” and straightway an assertion that might have been true, if unuttered, becomes glaringly false. An able lawyer was once arguing a case in court when the judge interrupted him by declaring, “That is not the law.” “It was the law, your Honor, until your Honor spoke,” was the two-edged rejoinder. Some such ironical retort is constantly being flung back at us by the inscrutabilities that we attempt to fathom. We know not well (tho we are learning) the subtle ways they “keep, and pass, and turn again.”
“Outworn creeds” is a phrase familiar to all. But why have we so abundant a heritage of these cast-off garments? Is not their undurability owing to the fact that truth is dynamic rather than static? We must believe that at every instant of time something is true; but that the same thing, stated just so and no otherwise, is true for all time, is not so certain, and he who depends on a fixt creed, of elaborate pattern, to bear him up through all the stormy seas, is likely to find himself clinging to a very poor life-preserver.—The Christian Register.
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Crime and Playgrounds—See [Play and Morals].
CRIME, EPIDEMICS OF
In the days of bank burglaries—now much less frequent, owing to the protections that science has provided for money vaults—it was not often that a single robbery was reported; they “came in battalions.” This was not because the same gangs engaged in many different enterprises, but because a universal similar impulse permeated the minds of the criminal class devoted to these forms of guilt. A curious study might be made of the causes of epidemics of crime. In superstitious times all evils were attributed to the influence of adverse stars. This may have been an approach to scientific truth, or its advanced shadow. The causes of meteorological change must be the causes lying back of the pervading disposition at times witnessed to commit peculiar classes of crime. A suicidal atmosphere must have its origin in some of the secret springs of nature. Advanced speculation has recently attributed cyclones, earthquakes, and other terrestrial disturbances to great changes in the surface of the sun or in the superheated ether surrounding it. A theory quite as plausible as this might attribute epidemics of crime to similar influences, by which weak reasons are overthrown and murderous intents are kindled in excitable minds with destructive tendencies. There are causes for all things in life and nature, and no study of such causes is in vain.—Chicago Journal.
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CRIME EXPOSED
Marshall P. Wilder describes a punishment common in China:
The cangue is a large square board that fits about the neck, and besides being very heavy and uncomfortable, is considered a great disgrace, for it has the prisoner’s name and crime pasted on it. In order to make the punishment more severe, the prisoner is often condemned to be taken to the place where the crime was committed and made to stand near the store or house where the nature of his crime, as well as his name, is plainly to be read by every passer-by. This is a terrible punishment, for the Chinese are very sensitive about being publicly shamed.—“Smiling ‘Round the World.”
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CRIME IN FORMER DAYS
Every week a host of young lads were hanged for theft, and the spectacle of a criminal riding through the streets to Tyburn, and getting as drunk as he conveniently could upon the way, was too common to attract attention. London was called the City of the Gallows, for from whatever joint you entered it, by land or water, you passed between a lane of gibbets, where the corpses of felons hung, rotting and bleaching in the light. Nor was crime supprest by this stringency of the law. Highwaymen rode into town at nightfall, coolly tying their horses to the palings of Hyde Park, and executed their plans of robbery in the very presence of the impotent protectors of the public peace. London was infested by gangs of youths, whose nightly pastime was to bludgeon inoffensive watchmen, and to gouge out the eyes of chance travelers. Dean Swift dared not go out after dark, and Johnson wrote:
Prepare for death, if here at night you roam,
And sign your will before you sup from home.
Ludgate Hill swarmed with mock parsons, and thousands of spurious marriages were celebrated every year.—W. J. Dawson, “The Makers of English Prose.”
(619)
Crime Prevented—See [Science Preventing Crime].
Crime Traced—See [Misery an Educator].
CRIME UNPROFITABLE
“I have talked with murderers, train and stage robbers, burglars, pickpockets, hobos, yeggmen and others guilty of nearly every crime known,” says Griffith J. Griffith, “yet I never found a prisoner but could easily be convinced that a criminal career does not pay. A sane young man so convinced can be reformed.”
(620)
Criminal Energy—See [Dishonesty].
Criminals Deficient in Conscience—See [Conscience Benumbed].
CRIMINALS, GAIT OF
All evil traits probably carry with them some bodily signs. Soul and body are intimately related.
Dr. Parrachia has made a curious study of the differences between criminals and law-abiding citizens, as exhibited by their walk. He not only has shown how we may distinguish criminals in general, but has laid the beginning of the differential diagnosis between various evil-doers. He found that in criminals in general (obtained from the study of forty criminals) the left pace was longer than the right, the lateral deviation of the right foot was greater than that of the left, and the angle formed by the axis of the foot with the straight line was greater on the left side than on the right. It would thus seem that, in general, the gait of a criminal betrays a marked preponderance of power of the left foot over the right—a true sinistrality. This also agrees with the discovery of Marro that criminals are often left-handed.—Public Opinion.
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CRIMINALS, TRACING
The tracing of counterfeit bills back to the persons responsible for their issue is a curious and exciting employment. The experts assigned by the Government to this work are among the most skilful members of the Secret Service.
A bank clerk in Cleveland had detected a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill in the deposit of a small retail grocer. An expert was sent for and undertook the case.
He found that the grocer had received the bill from a shoe-dealer, who had it from a dentist, who had it from somebody else, and so on, until the Secret Service man finally traced the bad note to an invalid woman who had used it to pay her physician. When questioned, this woman said that the money had been sent her by her brother, who lived in New Orleans.
The sleuth looked up the brother’s antecedents, and soon became convinced that he was the man wanted. The brother, however, soon proved to the satisfaction of the Secret Service man that his suspicions were unfounded. Indeed, it appeared that the money had been received by the New Orleans man in part payment of rent of a house he owned in Pittsburg. While the sleuth was a bit discouraged, he couldn’t give over the case when he had gone so far, so he took the next train for Pittsburg.
The tenant of the house in Pittsburg proved to be a traveling oculist, who spent most of his time in the Middle West. The Secret Service man had the good luck, however, to catch him just as he had returned from a trip; and the man at once recognized the bad bill as one that had been given him by a patient in Cleveland, the very point whence the sleuth had started.
The patient was a boss carpenter. The Secret Service man got his address from the oculist and went right after the new clue. At this point he had a premonition that something was going to happen, and he wasn’t disappointed.
The carpenter, an honest old fellow, said that he had received the bill from a certain Parker. The said Parker was the small grocer in whose bank deposit the counterfeit had turned up. The expert flew to the grocer’s as quickly as a cab would take him, and found it closed. He had left town.
Afterward it was shown beyond question that the grocer was the agent of an organized band of counterfeiters. His shop was a mere blind. That the bill which he gave the carpenter should get back into his own funds after traveling all over the continent was one of those miracles of chance for which there is no explanation.—Harper’s Weekly.
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CRISES, PREPARATION FOR
Let it not be imagined that the great souls who have made history by their heroic action and their momentous decisions in moments of critical exigency were unprepared, or that they played their grand parts at random. The hour of destiny comes, and the man comes with it, but he has always been in training for it. He has had his forty days in the wilderness.
On the ridge of Leuthen, far up above the plain, Frederick the Great through his glass watched the gathering of the enemy’s hosts in overwhelming numbers. He only gazed on the terrible spectacle five minutes, and then he had thought out the magnificent combinations which arranged his plan of battle. Ruin fell on the foe and a new era in history was inaugurated; but this was only because Frederick had trained himself for years for the crisis.
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CRITIC RIDICULED
A teacher of elocution from New Jersey went to hear Mr. Beecher, and when the sermon was closed he crowded himself up to the front and said, “Mr. Beecher, I am an elocution teacher from the State of New Jersey. I came over to hear the greatest American preacher, but I am disappointed, disappointed.” “What is the matter now?” said Beecher. “Well, sir, I counted eighty grammatical mistakes in your sermon.” Beecher replied, “Is that all? I would have wagered this old hat there were over eight hundred if you had not told me.” That is a philosophical way of looking at it, and treating deservedly a self-inflated and imposing upstart of a critic. Beecher could at times read human nature intuitively.
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Critical Faculty, The—See [Originality].
CRITICISM
It is not necessary for a child to know all about the lenses of the eye in order to see its mother’s face, or to understand gravity in order to enjoy the summer’s day. We use, enjoy and are saved by food and drink and sun long years before we know anything about their laws. It is one thing to pick to pieces your faith, and another thing to reconstruct it. A thousand boys can take a watch to pieces, and not one can put the wheels together again.—N. D. Hillis.
(625)
See [Cynic Rebuked]; [Judging, Care in].
CRITICISM, CARPING
If he is poor, he is a bad manager. If he is rich, he is dishonest.
If he needs credit, he can’t get it. If he is prosperous, every one wants to do him a favor.
If he’s in politics, it’s for pie. If he is out of politics, you can’t place him, and he’s no good for his country.
If he doesn’t give to charity, he’s stingy. If he does, it’s for show.
If he is actively religious, he is a hypocrite. If he takes no interest in religion, he’s a hardened sinner.
If he shows affection, he’s a soft specimen. If he seems to care for no one, he is cold-blooded.
If he dies young, there was a great future ahead of him. If he lives to an old age, he has missed his calling.—Christian Guardian.
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Criticism, Ignorant—See [Meaning, Logical].
CRITICISM, INCOMPETENT
It is an interesting study of human nature to watch a mixt crowd as they pass through a gallery of pictures. Some simply express admiration at everything; sure that they must be good, or they would not be there, they feel safe in giving indiscriminate praise. Others spice their approbation with occasional criticism. Some utter impulsively their first impressions; others, more timid, look silently upon all. The few who, being true artists themselves, are best qualified to judge, are usually the most reticent. Indeed, they seem more occupied in studying than in judging, and more anxious to understand what they see than either to criticize or to flatter. Doubtless, however, the majority of these spectators are secretly conscious of their real incapacity to pronounce judgment, and the wisest of them will refrain from doing so, however willingly they may express whatever pleasure or preference they feel. They know they are there for their own gratification or improvement, not to pass sentence upon works which they can only dimly fathom. Yet as they pass out of the gallery into the world of living men and women how quickly is this respectful diffidence removed! He who would not presume to criticize a picture, of which he knows but little, will not hesitate to criticize a man or woman of whom he knows far less. Willing to admit his inability to estimate the work of the painter, he yet feels competent, without study or experience, to estimate the noblest and most complex work of infinite wisdom.—Philadelphia Ledger.
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See [Christianity, Criticism of].
Criticism, Indifference to—See [Modesty].
Criticism of Christianity—See [Christianity, Criticism of].
CRITICISM, UNHELPFUL
One of the most brilliant of our younger poets was descanting on the Chinook vocabulary, in which a Chinook calls an Englishman a Chinhog to this day, in memory of King George. And this writer says that when they have a young chief whose warpaint is very perfect, whose blanket is thoroughly embroidered, whose leggings are tied up with exactly the right colors, and who has the right kind of star upon his forehead and cheeks, but who never took a scalp, never fired an arrow, and never smelled powder, but was always found at home in the lodges whenever there was anything that scented of war—he says the Chinooks called that man by the name of “Boston Cultus.” You have seen these people, as I have seen them, as everybody has seen them—people who sat in Parker’s and discust every movement of the campaign in the late war, and told us that it was all wrong, that we were going to the bad, but who never shouldered a musket. They are people who tell us that the immigration, that the pope of Rome, or the German element, or the Irish element, is going to play the dogs with our social system, and yet they never met an immigrant on the wharf or had a word of comfort to say to a foreigner.—Edward Everett Hale.
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Cross Anticipated—See [Calvary, Anticipating].
CROSS CENTRAL
It is said that two famous enemies of Christianity were once talking together of a plan for the reconstruction of religion. They believed only in the enjoyment of the life that now is. They talked of the building of a temple which would express the religious impulse and yet lay stress on the glory of the life that now is. And after they had talked of marvelous music, forever in the major key, they admitted that something was lacking in their scheme. “I know what it is,” finally declared one. “It is that hymn, ‘O Sacred Head Now Wounded.’ Without that there is a fatal lack of beauty and of power.” And this goes down pretty far toward the center. The compelling beauty of Christianity is in its doctrine of self-sacrifice. The cross sets the Christian teaching on high.—Francis J. McConnell.
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CROSS, CHARM OF THE
Rev. Edward Payson Scott, Baptist missionary in Assam, was strongly moved to visit a wild hill tribe—the Nagas—three days’ journey from his station, whereas yet he had made only a start in the Naga language and had to take a Naga teacher along. He was strongly urged by the British resident officer not to run such risk, but he could not be deterred; and, when an escort of soldiers was offered him, he firmly declined, as it would defeat the very end in view, which was to go as a messenger of peace. A military escort would give a false impression of his whole spirit and motive.
So with a native companion he set out, and when they reached the base of the mountain ridge where the native village crowned the summit, and began the ascent, the alarmed villagers forming in battle-line, waved their spears in menace, the chief crying out, “Halt! we know you! You are the man of the British Queen, come to make us prisoners and carry off our children. Come no nearer!”
The missionary drew out his violin, and began to sing in the native tongue, “Alas, and did my Savior bleed!” When he had sung one verse, the chief and his warriors had already thrust their spears into the ground and broken ranks. As Mr. Scott sang on, about the amazing pity, grace, love shown when the Maker died for the sin of the creature, the wild men began to creep down the hillside, nearer and nearer; and the chief cried out, “Where did you learn that? Sing us more; we never heard the like before.” The savages were subdued. The stranger was safe from their spears, and welcomed to their huts and best hospitality. The cross has never lost its charm. (Text.)—Missionary Review of the World.
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CROSS GLORIOUS
My God, I have never thanked thee for my thorn. I have thanked thee a thousand times for my roses, but not once for my thorn. I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross, but I have never thought of my cross as itself a present glory. Thou divine Love whose human path has been perfected through sufferings, teach me the glory of my cross, teach me the value of my thorn.—George Matheson.
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CROSS IMPERISHABLE
Matthew Arnold had a brother-in-law, Mr. Cropper, who lived in Liverpool, and attended Sefton Park Church, where Dr. John Watson (“Ian Maclaren”) ministered. Visiting Mr. Cropper, Mr. Arnold accompanied him to church one Sunday morning, which proved to be Arnold’s last Sunday on earth. Dr. Watson preached on “The Shadow of the Cross”; and the congregation afterward sang the familiar hymn, “When I survey the wondrous cross.” At lunch that day Mr. Arnold referred to an illustration which the preacher had drawn from the Riviera earthquake. “In one village,” said Dr. Watson, “the huge crucifix above the altar, with a part of the chancel, remained unshaken amid the ruins, and round the cross the people sheltered.” “Yes,” remarked Arnold in speaking of this, “the cross remains, and in the straits of the soul makes its ancient appeal.” (Text.)
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CROSS, THE
Many preachers, while they do not ignore the cross, dim or obscure it by eliminating from it the element of redemption. But however obscured, it will emerge in human life, for the cross is the center of faith.
One of the most magnificent ecclesiastical structures in the world is the mosque of Hagia Sophia, or “Holy Wisdom,” commonly known in our language as St. Sophia. This was originally the famous temple erected by Constantine in 325, as a Christian church. But it was destroyed by fire in 404 in a riot connected with the exile of Chrysostom. Rebuilt at once, in 530 it was again burnt to the ground, and the present edifice was reared by Justinian, and on Christmas day of 537 was dedicated as a Christian cathedral. In 1453 it was converted into a mosque. Jesus was put aside for Mohammed, the cross was supplanted by the crescent, and the Bible was dethroned by the Koran. Yet tho in many places the cross is wholly hidden under plaster with fine filigree work, here and there it can be perceived. (Text.)
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CROSS, THE VEILED
The cross of Jesus Christ was to the Greeks foolishness and a stumbling-block of the Jews. They could not see its meaning; just as I have walked out on the porch of a north Georgia home two hours before day, and in the dim starlight I could see only the faint outline of mountain and hill. I could not tell what they were. It was an indistinct picture that had in it no meaning to me. I have gone back to my room and after a while have walked out on the porch again. The sun had risen on the scene and bathed hill and mountain and valley in a flood of light, and then I looked and saw hills and mountains and valleys and streams that mine eyes had never seen before.—“Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones.”
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CROWD AND THE EXCEPTION
Sam Walter Foss sings of the man who comes up from the crowd in these verses:
There’s a dead hum of voices all saying the same thing,
And our forefathers’ songs are the songs that we sing,
And the deeds by our fathers and grandfathers done
Are done by the son of the son of the son,
And our heads in contrition are bowed.
And lo, a call for a man who shall make all things new
Goes down through the throng. See! he rises in view!
Make room for the man who shall make all things new!
For the man comes up from the crowd.
And where is the man who comes up from the throng,
Who does the new deed and sings the new song,
Who makes the old world as a world that is new?
And who is the man? It is you! It is you!
And our praise is exultant and proud.
We are waiting for you there—for you are the man!
Come up from the jostle as soon as you can;
Come up from the crowd there, for you are the man—
The man who comes up from the crowd. (Text.)
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CROWN, THE CHRISTIAN’S
A true Christian gladly works for the souls of the people without hope of any earthly fee or reward, but such an elevated policy naturally appears aimless to the selfish or unenlightened worldling.
Gipsy Smith says: “My father was once preaching in the open air at Leytonstone. A coster in his donkey-cart shouted out, ‘Go it, old party, you will get ’arf a crown for that job.’ My father stopt his address for a moment, and said quietly, ‘No, young man, you are wrong; my Master never gives half-crowns. He gives whole crowns.’” (Text.)
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CROWNING CHRIST
“Why did you put your five-dollar goldpiece in the missionary collection, instead of some silver?” Davie was asked. “Because,” he replied, “as the congregation sang, ‘Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown him Lord of all,’ I imagined that I could hear his steps coming down the aisle to receive his crown, and I did not want Him to wear a copper crown, or a silver crown, but a gold crown.” A part of the missionary work is giving gold for Christ’s coronation.
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Crucified—See [Martyr Spirit].
CRUEL GREED
A missionary from a north China city wrote to the Missionary Review of the World:
Recently some professional procurers going the rounds of the cities of northern China buying girls for the brothels of Shanghai stopt here in their diabolical quest. They negotiated a sale with a mother living near us for her seventeen-year-old daughter. As this daughter’s feet were not small enough to command the sum desired, the mother arose at midnight while the children were sleeping and proceeded to beat the feet of the daughter in question to a pulp. The agonizing pain, the heartrending screams were of no avail. The feet were bound into a smaller compass by this process and a more advantageous sale expedited.
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Dr. William H. Leslie, for many years a missionary in the Kongo, recently confirmed many of the stories of the atrocities that have marked the rule of the Belgians in that country. This is what he says:
With my own eyes I have witnessed many of the most horrible examples of cruelty practised upon the poor natives in that country. I have seen natives with one hand cut off and I have seen them with both cut off, and in many cases the poor victims were children.
Dr. Leslie also said that much of the cruelty had been practised in order to impress upon the blacks the necessity of their bringing to market the rubber wanted by their persecutors, and to emphasize the dire results that would follow their failure to do so.
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CRUELTY, CHINESE
There is a cruel custom which prevails in some districts in South China in time of drought. A large collection of brass locks is made, and each is marked with a Chinese character. One iron lock is added to the pile, and duplicate slips are distributed among all the male population of the villages. The unfortunate man whose slip holds the same writing on it as the iron lock must have a slit made in the front of his throat and through this, the bar of the iron lock passed. He is considered to be in some way the cause of the drought and must wear this lock until rain comes. Blood-poisoning often carries the victim off before the drought is broken.
As fast as Christian mission work prevails in China, these cruelties disappear.
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Cruelty from the Past—See [Mutual Suffering].
CRUELTY IN WORSHIP
Rev. W. B. Simpson, missionary among the Tamil people, writes of a most inhuman sacrifice, which was being offered in a village near Kumbakonam. A goat is brought, and its mouth tied up to prevent its crying out. Nails are driven into its nostrils, its mouth, ears, eyes, and the other two openings of the body. Then a hand-beating on its poor body takes place, which must be kept up till death comes to free the animal. This, the people claim, is worshiping God according to the Vedas, altho there is no foundation for it in any of its pages.
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CRUELTY TO BIRDS
The following is reported by the Daily Sentinel, of Fairmount, Minnesota:
A mother dove had been the target of some small boy. The bullet had passed through her breast, and had left her only strength enough to flutter homeward and reach the nest, where a half-grown fledgling awaited her coming.
Dying, she had snuggled up against her little one, her life-blood pulsing out over her own white breast and against that of her young. And there, with eyes staring wide, she breathed her last, and the fledgling starved, and then froze. The two were found with their heads prest together as in a last embrace.
The owner of the dove-house brought them down-town just as they rested in the nest, and the sight and the suffering of which it spoke were enough to melt the hardest heart.
The boy with the rifle may cause a like tragedy again, and many times.
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CRUELTY TO CHILDREN
Edward Gilleat tells of some of the horrors of the African slave-trade:
Children are thrown with the baggage on the camels if unable to walk; but if they are five or six years of age the poor little creatures are obliged to trot on all day with bleeding feet. The daily allowance of food was sometimes a quart of dates in the morning and half a pint of flour, made into a bazeen, in the evening. None of the owners ever moved without their whips, which were in constant use. Drinking too much water, bringing too little wood, or falling asleep before the cooking was finished were considered almost capital crimes. No excuses were taken; the whip exacted a fearful penalty. Sometimes the little children would cry bitterly for water when the hot east wind was blowing; if they fell down, the Moors would haul them up roughly and drag them along violently, beating them incessantly till they had overtaken the camels.—“Heroes of Modern Crusades.”
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CRYING BENEFICIAL
A French physician contends that groaning and crying are two grand operations by which nature allays anguish; that those patients who give way to their natural feelings more speedily recover from accidents and operations than those who suppose it unworthy in a man to betray such symptoms of cowardice as either to groan or cry. He tells of a man who reduced his pulse from 126 to 60 in the course of a few hours by giving full vent to his emotion. If people are unhappy about anything, let them go into their rooms and comfort themselves with a loud boo-hoo, and they will feel one hundred per cent better afterward. In accordance with this, the crying of children should not be too greatly discouraged. What is natural is nearly always useful. (Text.)—American Homeopathist.
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Cultivation—See [Selection by Purpose]; [Success by Experimentation].
Culture Counts—See [Training].
Culture Not Everything—See [Genius].
CUNNING
Almost always when you meet a fox in the woods he pretends not to see you, but changes his course casually, as if, perhaps, he had just heard a mouse over there among the stumps. He does not increase his speed in the slightest degree until he is behind some tree or rock; then away he goes at a tremendous rate, always keeping the tree between you and himself until well out of gunshot.—Witmer Stone and William Everett Cram, “American Animals.”
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Cunning Among Animals—See [Subtlety Among Animals].
Cure by Reversal—See [Reversed Attitude].
Cure from Bible Reading—See [Mind-healing].
CURIOSITY
The catbird has the courage of his convictions, and one of these convictions is that he has the right to the satisfaction of an ungovernable and enormous curiosity. Bait your bird-trap in the woods with something which strikes a bird as a curiosity that courts immediate investigation and you will catch a catbird. Other birds might start for it, but the catbird would distance them.—Winthrop Packard, “Wild Pastures.”
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Curiosity in a Boy—See [Conscience a Monitor].
CURIOSITY, RATIONALE OF
When the child learns that he can appeal to others to eke out his store of experiences, so that, if objects fail to respond interestingly to his experiments, he may call upon persons to provide interesting material, a new epoch sets in. “What is that?” “Why?” become the unfailing signs of a child’s presence. At first this questioning is hardly more than a projection into social relations of the physical overflow which earlier kept the child pushing and pulling, opening and shutting. He asks in succession what holds up the house, what holds up the soil that holds the house, what holds up the earth that holds the soil; but his questions are not evidence of any genuine consciousness of rational connections. His why is not a demand for scientific explanation; the motive behind it is simply eagerness for a larger acquaintance with the mysterious world in which he is placed. The search is not for a law or principle, but only for a bigger fact. Yet there is more than a desire to accumulate just information or heap up disconnected items, altho sometimes the interrogating habit threatens to degenerate into a mere disease of language. In the feeling, however dim, that the facts which directly meet the senses are not the whole story, that there is more behind them and more to come from them, lies the germ of intellectual curiosity.—John Dewey, “How We Think.”
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Current, Double—See [Joy and Sorrow].
CURRENTS OF LIFE
The waters of the Pacific are tempered for a certain width with a warm current flowing north from the tropics. The temperature of Alaska is affected by it, and the result of its genial influence is increased vegetation and civilization. But for this life-giving stream Alaska would be as destitute and uninhabitable as Labrador.
But for the enriching stream of Christian life the whole world would now be a moral Labrador. (Text.)
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CURRENTS, UTILIZING
Sir Wyville Thompson and, later, Sir John Murray, unraveled some of the mysteries of the hidden depths of the sea, such as the Gulf stream and the waters that wash the Cape of Good Hope. They have found that there are currents flowing over one another in different directions, as in the case of air-currents above us. The aim is to be able to utilize these cross-currents, both of air and water, for the benefit of man.
Still more were it wise to use the many and even the contrary currents of life so as to make all serve man’s best interests.
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Curse of Drink—See [Drink and Native Races].
CURSING FORBIDDEN
Bishop Benzler used to be a great favorite of the German Emperor, but recently the bishop fell into one of those quarrels about burial-grounds that in Germany, as well as in England and Wales, seem to have a great power of making people forget Christian charity. The bishop, because a Protestant had been buried in this ground, went to the extreme step of declaring that the ground had been desecrated, and decided to curse it.
The Emperor was furious when he heard of this, and when the bishop was imprudent enough to demand an audience, he let loose upon the head of the unfortunate ecclesiastic a flood of eloquent wrath which submerged him. Here is the principal passage:
“Your Reverence,” said the Emperor, “has asked for an audience, and I have granted it because I, also, have a few words to say to you. Before leaving Alsace-Lorraine I must tell your Reverence that your attitude has greatly displeased me. You were represented to me as a mild and peaceable man; your actions prove the contrary. You have done worse things than the worst fanatic. You have curst a cemetery situated on German soil, the German soil over which I rule. Do not forget, your Reverence, that I, as German Emperor, will never tolerate that even one inch of German soil should be curst—no, not one inch! It is a bishop’s duty to bless, and the moment you begin to curse you cease to be fit for your high position.” (Text.)
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CURVES OF TEMPTATION
An efficient baseball player tries to get at the secret of the pitcher’s curves; and the player in the game of life will look well to the curves of the world. This is a good world, and the men and women in it are of royal lineage—we are of God; but the glorious gift of liberty makes possible temptation and sin.
Because you ought to do right it is possible that you may yield to temptation, and failing to overcome a world curve be compelled to give up your place at the homeplate.—T. E. Potterton.
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CUSTOM
Whether in architecture, or in education, or in dress, or in other affairs of life, custom rules in Korea. Custom explains everything.
“What about this absurdity?” “Oh, it’s custom.” “Yes, but see here, why are the dead propt up on sticks and not buried?” “Oh, it’s custom.” “Do you sometimes marry off children as early as nine years of age?” “Yes, that’s custom.”
The reader must learn this word if he would understand old Korea, and if he would read into much of the life of the East still The forefather may have been an imbecile, or may have walked in his sleep, but what he did has come down, down to the present, and custom maintains that it is the sane and right thing to do.
“Why do you feed all these idle tramps, who come calling at your door, and you a poor man?” I once asked of my host.
He replied, “It’s custom, and for my life I can’t get out of it.” “What about these dolmens set up all through these valleys here like tables of the gods; what do they mean?” “They were set up by the Chinese invader, thousands of years ago, to crush out the ground influence that brought forth Korean warriors.”
“You mean that they have stifled out the life of the nation for all these centuries?” “Yes.” “Then why don’t you roll them off and get back your lost vigor?” “Oh, that’s no use now, never do.” “As it was, is now, and ever shall be,” is the only reply.—James S. Gale, “Korea in Transition.”
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Custom, Disregarded—See [Pilot, Need of].
CUSTOM, FORCE OF
Dr. Harlan P. Beach says:
In China there are customs which are more important than etiquette. I met a man who had been shaking from head to feet “You have had chills and fever, haven’t you?” I said sympathizingly. He came very near taking my head off, because there is a special god who runs chills and fever, and if he hears a man has chills and fever and is getting over it, he will give him another shake. I had gone against their deadly custom. Another incident of the same sort happened one day when a doctor of divinity saw a cheap sedan chair and bought it. A millionaire globe-trotter used it that day for sight-seeing, and when he reached the missionary compound, he exclaimed, “I have been outrageously treated by the heathen. The whole city was out laughing at me. As soon as I appeared, every man rushed out of his shop, and the streets were in an uproar.” The doctor of divinity asked his native teacher for an explanation. Now, a teacher is never supposed to smile from one day’s end to another, but that dignified teacher, glass, goggles, and all, doubled up with laughter when he saw the chair. “You really must excuse me,” he said, “but that kind of a chair is used only in funeral processions for the spirit of the dead to ride in.” It was as tho a man should ride through our city sitting up in a hearse.
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Custom Upheld—See [Experience a Hard Teacher].
Customs, Oriental—See [Gestures and Use of the Hands in the East].
Customs, Value of—See [Experience a Hard Teacher].
Cycles in Nature—See [Invisible, The, Made Visible].
CYNIC REBUKED
The late A. T. Gordon, D.D., told this incident:
A certain infidel, a blacksmith, was in the habit when any one came into his shop of telling what some Christian brother or deacon or minister had done, and say, “That is one of their fine Christians we hear so much about!”
An old gentleman, an eminent Christian, one day went into the shop; the infidel soon began about what some Christians had done. The old deacon stood a few moments, and listened, and then quietly asked the infidel if he had read the story in the Bible about the rich man and Lazarus.
“Yes, many a time; and what of it?”
“Well, you remember about the dogs; how they came and licked the sores of Lazarus? Now,” said the deacon, “do you know, you just remind me of those dogs—content to merely lick the Christian’s sores.”
The blacksmith grew suddenly pensive, and hasn’t had much to say about failing Christians since. (Text.)
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