Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers

by Unknown

F

FACE, AN INVITING

This is from The Boys’ World:

A poor fellow in trouble, a stranger in a big city, and sick and destitute, passed aimlessly along the street, wondering what to do and where to go. Passing an office window, he looked up and caught sight of a man’s face. “I’ll go in there and speak to him—he looks so kind,” was the instant resolve. He went and found a friend indeed, whose kindness brought the chance to help himself, which the young man never forgot, and afterward sought to repay.

“He looks so kind.” Could there be a higher compliment? The man’s face was an open invitation to come in and confide and get help.

Without speaking a word he gave this invitation, which led to so much for the friendless stranger.

But do you suppose that this kind look grew in a night or a day or a week? Can a fine steel-engraving be finished in a few hours? It takes line by line, day after day. Things worth while are not of instantaneous accomplishment. Now think of it. When is the best time to begin, if the art of looking pleasant and the possession of a kind face be achieved?

(1012)

Face Shows the Man—See [Countenance, Grace in the].

Face, The Benignant—See [Countenance, Grace in the].

FACE, THE, REVEALING THE GOSPEL

When Margaret Andrews was twenty-five, she received what she thought was a call to the foreign mission field. Her parents, altho they at first tried to dissuade her, put no obstacle in the way of her hopes, and, full of eagerness, she began training at a school in another city. One day, says the California Advocate, she received a telegram. Her mother had met with an accident, just how serious could not at once be known. Margaret packed her books and took the first train home, expecting to return in a few weeks. Long before the weeks had passed she knew that her dream must be given up. Her mother would never be able to do anything again, and Margaret, instead of making her journey to strange lands, saw herself shut in to the duties of housekeeper and nurse.

For a year or two she bore her disappointment in silence; then she went to her pastor with it. The pastor was an old man, who had known Margaret all her life. He looked at her steadily for a moment. Then he said slowly, “You are living in a city of two hundred thousand people. Isn’t there need enough about you to fill your life?”

“Oh, yes,” the girl answered, “and I could give up the foreign field. It isn’t that. But I haven’t time to do anything, not even to take a mission-class, and to see so much work waiting, and be able to do nothing—”

“Margaret,” the old minister said, “come here.”

The girl followed him to the next room, where a mirror hung between the windows. Her reflection, pale and unhappy, faced her wearily.

“All up and down the streets,” the old minister said, “in the cars, the markets, the stores, there are people starving for the bread of life. The church can not reach them—they will not enter a church. Books can not help them—many of them never open a book. There is but one way that they can ever read the gospel of hope, of joy, of courage, and that is in the faces of men and women.

“Two years ago a woman who has known deep trouble came to me one day, and asked your name. ‘I wanted to tell her,’ she said, ‘how much good her happy face did me, but I was afraid that she would think it was presuming on the part of an utter stranger. Some day, perhaps, you will tell her for me.’ Margaret, my child, look in the glass and tell me if the face you see there has anything to give to the souls that are hungry for joy—and they are more than any of us realize—who, unknown to themselves, are hungering for righteousness. Do you think that woman, if she were to meet you now, would say what she said two years ago?”

The girl gave one glance and then turned away, her cheeks crimson with shame. It was hard to answer, but she was no coward. She looked up into her old friend’s grave eyes.

“Thank you,” she said; “I will try to learn my lesson and accept my mission—to the streets.” (Text.)

(1013)

FACING RIGHT

When the Jews, exiled from the Holy Land, died afar off among the pagans and the persecutors, they had themselves laid in their tombs, with their faces turned toward Jerusalem! If your strength betrays you, if it is not for you, during life, to enter into perfect peace, to be delivered from certain enemies of the soul, from certain humiliating miseries that set your best will at defiance, if you must fall in the mêlée, fall at least with your face turned toward Jerusalem.—Charles Wagner, “The Gospel of Life.”

(1014)

FACTS, IGNORING

Thomas Reed Bridges, D.D., says:

Macaulay tells the story of a young scientist in India who became possest of a microscope. Beneath it he placed a drop of water from the Ganges. This is, as you know, the sacred river of India. He looked and beheld an infinite pollution. Then in his rage he broke the microscope in pieces and threw it from him. The Ganges ran on carrying its infection to the sea, but he would not see it. Foolish, you say. But not more foolish than the way in which many people close their eyes to the facts of their own life. They have not the courage to look at the truth. They prefer to live all their days in a fool’s paradise. In their sincerest moments there is some insincerity. Their self-examination is nothing more than self-defense. It is possible to put a favorable construction upon almost any action and this men do when dealing with themselves.

(1015)

FACTS, RELIGIOUS

Dr. Chas. F. Aked said in a recent sermon, concerning the multiplicity of modern faiths and fads:

I have not been in this country twenty months yet, but I am quite certain that there have been twenty new gospels launched upon an astonished public during that time. I remember one that was to take possession of the church to win the world to Christ inside of the next twelve months. The publisher sent me a copy of the book for my opinion, and I wrote him that I did not care two straws about that sort of thing, but before the ink in my signature was dry a friend called on me and I asked him how Dr. So and So’s scheme was getting on. “Oh,” he said, “he is about through with it.”

I said, “Why I have only just got his book from the publisher.” “That does not make any difference,” said my friend. “But,” I said, “how can he have got through with it already?” He said, “Have not you been here long enough to know how easily we take a thing up and how much more easily we drop it again?” (Text.)

New gospels come and go, but there is one gospel that abides.

(1016)

Failings of Christians—See [Cynic Rebuked].

FAILURE

Caligula once fitted out a fleet at great expense, as if to conquer Greece or to accomplish some other great undertaking, but the ships returned laden with pebbles and cockleshells, only to receive the scorn of all.

So many a life that is well equipped and has glorious opportunities flattens out into insipid nothingness.

(1017)

See [Defeat]; [Neglect]; [Success in Failure]; [Sorrow for a Lost Cause].

FAILURE LEADING TO SUCCESS

It is part of the compensation of life that nearly every dark cloud of disaster or disappointment has a fringe of light under it. An instance of this is seen in the career of Senator Beveridge:

It was a joke that sent United States Senator Beveridge, of Indiana, into public life instead of into the army. He took the competitive examination, but at a critical moment he laughed at another boy’s sportive remark and failed to pass by the smallest fraction. We are told by one chronicler that young Beveridge was so badly upset when the news reached him on the street that he had failed to pass that his distress was mirrored on his face so plainly that a passing acquaintance stopt to ask him the cause, and was himself so touched that he forthwith offered to advance him the money necessary to start him in college.

(1018)

Failure Made a Success—See [Sagacity Supplementing Science].

FAILURE ONLY SEEMING

These cheering lines are from Success:

There is no failure. If we could but see

Beyond the battle-line; if we could be

Where battle-smoke does ne’er becloud the eye,

Then we should know that where these prostrate lie

Accoutered in habiliments of death,

Sweet Freedom’s radiant form has drawn new breath—

The breath of life which they so nobly gave

Shall swell anew above the lowly grave,

And give new life and hope to hearts that beat

Like battle-drums that never sound retreat.

(1019)

FAILURE TRANSFORMED TO SUCCESS

A captain’s little son had tried all day to make a boat, but at night he had only succeeded in misshaping the wood. His father saw the tears on the sleeping lad’s face, and took up the wood and with the deft skill of experience soon changed the shapeless block into a beautiful little boat. Then, leaving it on the table by his son’s bed, he lay down to sleep. When morning dawned and the boy saw the boat, so perfect in its shape and style, he marveled how his own failure had been turned into success. Will not God take our endeavors, poor and faulty tho they be, and change them into triumphs? Let us do our best and leave our work at nightfall, awaiting His hand to complete it. (Text.)

(1020)

Fairness—See [Justice].

FAITH

The child lying at night in its little crib by its mother’s side cries out because of the darkness its eyes can not penetrate, and wants to get up. The mother says, “Lie still and wait till daylight, child.” And the little one asks, “When will that be?” The mother says, “It will be daylight after a while,” and taking the tiny hand in hers the restless child calmly drops into peaceful slumber, confident that at morning’s dawn light will come. So with God’s grown-up children. Amid the impenetrable gloom of limited knowledge we grow restless and uneasy because we can not see Him face to face, but by faith, putting our hands in His, we may confidently expect the dawning. (Text.)

(1021)

---

The Norwegian missionary Braadvedt once asked his native Zulu teacher, “What is faith and what is unbelief?”

The Christian Zulu replied, “In Zululand strong men carry people over the rivers when the water is high. Before these men go through the river they tell those whom they carry to take a firm hold. Those who have confidence in the carrier and obey him safely reach the other side, but those who lose confidence and let go their hold, perish in the water. That is faith and unbelief. To have faith means to take hold of Christ and His Word, to lack faith means to let go Christ and His Word.”

(1022)

---

A man stood upon a height, overlooking an estuary of the sea. On the opposite shore was a bold headland. Wishing to cross thither, he cast about to find a way, but the abyss of water lay between. Then One who stood between him said: “The bridge is safe; advance and fear not.” “But I see no bridge,” said the traveler. “Take this glass and look,” said the One who stood at his side. And the man took it and looked, and lo! a bridge was spanning the great gulf of waters. Yet he saw but a small part of that end that was nearest. He went forward courageously, and, as he advanced, the bridge stretched out before him, tho the farther end was still obscured. He marveled much at this wonder, and inquired the reason. “This glass,” exclaimed the One who had led him to look, “is Faith; it gives spiritual vision and reveals that which is hid from the eye of flesh.” Advancing more confidently, he saw the bridge now more clearly, as its proportions were gradually disclosed. And he went on his way across, singing and rejoicing, for he was glad at heart. (Text.)

(1023)

---

An English writer tells this incident and draws from it the lessons that follow:

The other day I was passing through a London square, and noticed a little girl feeding some pigeons. Quite a number were fluttering around her, some getting more, some less, of what she had to give them. But one, bolder than the rest, had settled on her wrist, and was getting his supply direct from the basin she was holding in her hand. Needless to say, that pigeon got the most of all.

Instinctively I thought of the verse: “Let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). But there was something else besides boldness that the bird possest; altho only a pigeon, it certainly showed faith in the good will of the little girl. Whether she had been there on the same errand before I can not say, as I very seldom pass that way; but it was evident that it regarded her as a child to be trusted, and one who would not do a feathered friend any harm. Thus, while its companions got comparatively little, this one, by reason of its faith combined with boldness, received all it could appropriate in the time. It had no need to plead with the pathetic look of its eye; it simply realized its need, and recognizing the means of supplying it, gladly availed itself of it.

(1024)

---

Faith is the standing-ground of the hopeful, the conviction of facts unseen. Sam Jones used to illustrate it in this way. Out West they have a place for watering cattle where the animals have to mount a platform to reach the troughs. As they step upon the platform their weight presses a lever, and this throws the water into the troughs. They have to get on the platform through faith, and this act provides the water. The steer that slips round to the barnyard and looks into the trough will find it dry, for it needs his weight on the platform to force the water up. If you slide back you will find life barren and dry, but if you step upon the platform of full assurance in God’s Word, blessings will flow abundantly.

(1025)

---

Herman S. Reichard is the author of this:

I dreamed a dream

Of white-robed Faith; with words of cheer and love

She took me by the hand and led me on;

And by some magic art smoothed out the way

Until my lagging zeal was fired anew

By future visions of unmeasured bliss.

I saw beyond the wintry cold and snow

The days of springtime, full of flowers and song

To greet and satisfy the longing heart.

(1026)

---

The following incident is related of Rev. John Wilkinson and his Mildmay (London) Mission to the Jews:

On one occasion two American gentlemen sat at Mr. Wilkinson’s breakfast-table and noted his opening of letters which brought God’s supply for the day. “This is all very well, so far,” said one of the gentlemen, “but what would you do, Mr. Wilkinson, if one morning the expected supply did not come?” The answer is clear in my memory, “That can only happen, sir, when God dies.” (Text.)

(1027)

---

William J. Long, in “English Literature,” writes thus of Samuel Johnson:

Since the man’s work fails to account for his leadership and influence, we examine his personality; and here everything is interesting. Because of a few oft-quoted passages from Boswell’s biography, Johnson appears to us as an eccentric bear, who amuses us by his growlings and clumsy antics. But there is another Johnson, a brave, patient, kindly, religious soul, who, as Goldsmith said, had “nothing of the bear but his skin”; a man who battled like a hero against poverty and pain and melancholy and the awful fear of death, and who overcame them manfully. “That trouble passed away; so will this,” sang the sorrowing Deor in the first old Anglo-Saxon lyric; and that expresses the great and suffering spirit of Johnson, who in the face of enormous obstacles never lost faith in God or in himself.

(1028)

---

In the self-appointed task of educating the public to an appreciation of the best in music, Mr. Theodore Thomas had a long and up-hill struggle which would have broken a weaker man. During those days he once said to an intimate friend, says the New York Herald:

“I have gone without food longer than I should, I have walked when I could not afford to ride, I have even played when my hands were cold, but I shall succeed, for I shall never give up my belief that at last the people will come to me, and my concerts will be crowded. I have undying faith in the latent musical appreciation of the American public.” (Text.)

(1029)

---

One day, at a little prayer-meeting, our deacon, Yi Chun Ho, startled the Koreans, as well as the missionary, by the suggestion that the natives should put up the new church without foreign aid. I at once said: “You have raised twenty yen, and believed that you had done all you could; it will take almost one thousand yen to put up the church. Can you do it?” I felt strongly rebuked by his quiet reply: “We ask such questions as ‘Can you do it?’ about men’s work, but not about God’s work.”—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

(1030)

See [Achievement]; [Guidance, God’s]; [Triumph in Death].

FAITH, A CHILD’S

A child’s faith and good will are manifested in connection with his idea of a personal, intelligent power in the world. In the latter part of his fourth year, a little boy was awakened one night by a violent thunder-storm. He was much frightened, and called to his mother with trembling voice, “Mama, God won’t let the thunder hurt us, will He?” When assured that the lightning was governed by God’s laws, and that there was little or no danger, he quieted down and slept soundly during the rest of the storm. So far as was known, this child had never been told that God protected him under such conditions. It was evidently an inference drawn from his own thoughts about the personal influence he felt to pervade the world. (Text.)—George E. Dawson, “The Child and His Religion.”

(1031)

FAITH AND POWER

When the soul of man is full of faith it is in a changed condition. The man is the same, but his state is not the same, and he in the new state develops new powers and new capacities. To be full of faith is to be full also of power of a new kind. For faith is spiritual dynamite.

Cold iron is precisely identical with iron heated in the fire; but tho the metal is the same, the fire that has entered it entirely transforms its condition and endows it with a new potency. And the fire also by entering the iron takes upon itself new action, making of the metal a vehicle of its dynamic potency. So does the Spirit of God transfuse and transform and vivify and fortify human nature. (Text.)

(1032)

FAITH AND PRAYER

As the Lucania was in mid-Atlantic a young man came to the purser and asked him to lend him £10, as he was without money, and every hour was bringing him nearer to London. The purser said he had made a rule not to lend money and suggested that the young man should borrow from some friend on board. “But I have no friend. The only person who would give me £10 is my mother, and she left London for New York the same day as we sailed from New York.” The purser thought for a moment, and then he said, “We may get into speaking touch with the vessel on which your mother is, and then you could ask her to lend you the money by wireless telegraphy.” The next night the young man was roused from sleep with the news that the Lucania was in communication with the boat on which his mother was a passenger. She readily handed £10 to the purser on her ship, and he authorized the purser on the Lucania to give the young man this sum. The vessels were many miles apart in the darkness of the night, and yet the need on the one ship was met by the love on the other. What a light that throws on the force of prayer! “Ask and ye shall receive.” (Text.)

(1033)

FAITH AND SUPPORT

Mr. Tornvall, of the Ping Liang station, Central China, made a test of a converted Taoist priest who wished to be a colporteur for the Central China Tract Society. When starting out for a distant city he asked the missionary for a few cents, as he had no money. Mr. Tornvall pointed out to him from the gospels the way in which Jesus sent out His disciples with no money in their scrips. “All right,” said the colporteur, “I will also make trial of that plan,” and off he started. A month later two missionaries found him in a distant city preaching and selling his books, and looking remarkably happy. He said that altho he had not been feasting every day, yet he could give the same testimony as the disciples: he had lacked for nothing. (Text.)

(1034)

FAITH BETTER THAN SIGHT

There is a true story of a man who crossed the river Usk, England, under circumstances where faith was far better than sight:

He had been absent on business for some time, and in the meantime the bridge had been washed away, and a new one was being constructed. While the buttresses were in place, he drove up in his gig one very dark night, and gave the reins to his horse, who, he knew, was well accustomed to the road. They crossed safely over what he took to be the bridge, and came to an inn near the river. The landlady asked him, being an old acquaintance, what part of the country he had come in from. “From Newport,” he answered. “Then you must have crossed the river?” said the woman in astonishment. “Yes, of course. How else could I have come?” “But how did you manage it, and in the dark, too?” “The same as usual; there is no difficulty in driving over the bridge, even tho it be dark.” “Bless the man!” said the landlady, “there is no bridge to drive over. You must have come along the planks left by the men.” “Impossible,” was the answer; and nothing could persuade the traveler that night that there was no bridge. But early next morning he went to the river-side, and found, as he had been told, that the bridge was gone. His horse had taken him safely over three planks, left by the workmen, where one false step, to the right or to the left, would instantly have plunged him into the swollen river beneath. The man stood aghast at the dreadful danger he had gone through, and so marvelously escaped. (Text.)

(1035)

FAITH CURE

Among the numerous applicants at the dispensary of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, a few days ago, was a negro who confided in awestricken tones that he was suffering from snakes. He declared he felt them wriggling inside of him ever since he had endeavored to quench his thirst by drinking from a garden hose when, he believed, at least one or two had slipt down his throat.

Argument being in vain, the patient was turned over to one of the physicians who, after hearing the story, pretended an examination. Deeming it a case for faith cure, he told the negro he would be all right as long as he would keep his mind off the subject of the creeping things of the earth. With smiles of gratitude he left the hospital.—Baltimore Sun.

(1036)

FAITH ESSENTIAL TO ACTION

All great leaders have been inspired with a general belief. In nine cases out of ten, failure is born of unbelief. Tennyson sings, “Faith and unfaith can ne’er be equal powers.” To be a great leader and so always master of the situation, one must of necessity have been a great thinker in action. An eagle was never yet hatched from a goose’s egg. Dante speaks in bitter sarcasm of Branca d’Oria, whom he placed among the dead, when he says, “He still eats and sleeps and puts on clothes.” In a case of great emergency, it took a certain general in our army several days to get his personal baggage ready. Sheridan rode into Winchester without even a change of stockings in his saddle-bags.—James T. Fields.

(1037)

FAITH FULFILLED BY WORKS

A youthful owner of swine had a wealthy uncle. His uncle cribbed corn for the market. One day he told his nephew that he could have all the corn that he could carry in a basket from the cribs, where the men were shelling, across the alley to the barn where the swine were kept. To his uncle’s surprize and delight, the boy took him at his word, and carried corn all day. The boy did this because he had faith in his uncle’s word. The nephew’s faith pleased him when he saw how much corn he had. If the boy had profest belief in his uncle’s promise without acting upon it, there would have been intellectual assent but no real faith.

This is a type of our relation to God. Faith takes God at his word. “His divine power hath given us all things that pertain to life and Godliness through the knowledge of Him who hath called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises.” Every gift of God that we accept and use for Him is a new proof of our faith.

(1038)

FAITH IN A MORAL UNIVERSE

Dr. George A. Gordon, in a sermon on “The Land of Pure Delight,” says:

The world of our ultimate and supreme concern, the world to which we give the name heaven, paradise, eternity, is the world of pure spirituality. I ask, what grounds have we for believing in the reality of that world? The answer, the sole answer which assumes many forms, is that we believe in the moral conception of the universe in which we live.

Let me illustrate. Longfellow, in one of his beautiful sonnets, speaks of being at Newport News after the war, and while there he sees a nameless grave, over which there was this inscription:

“A Union Soldier, Mustered Out!”

That is all—“A Union Soldier, Mustered Out!” And Longfellow said: “Here was a man who gave his all, his life, his name, that I might live. He gave his all, his life, his name, and went into oblivion that the Union might live.” On what basis did he make his sacrifice? The sense of duty. He died because he felt that it was his duty to die, because he felt that if he was true to himself he could not withhold that sacrifice. If the universe is worthy of that servant, will it let that soldier die forever?

Jesus gave himself on the cross for the world. Why did he do it? Because his moral nature told him to do it. He believed in the moral ideal of human life and died that men might be pure and come to their best. He died for an ideal—that alone explains His sacrifice.

(1039)

FAITH, INADEQUATE

A great many people’s faith is like the old woman’s trust. The horse ran away with a wagon in which she was seated and she was in imminent peril. But she was rescued, and some one said to her: “Madam, how did you feel when the horse ran away?” “Well,” said she, “I hardly know how I felt; you see, I trusted in Providence at first, and when the harness broke, then I gave up.”—John B. Gough.

(1040)

Faith in Christ—See [Christ, Faith in].

FAITH IN GOD

I pluck an acorn from the green sward and hold it to my ear; and this is what it says to me: “By and by the birds will come and nest in me. By and by I will furnish shade for the cattle. By and by I will provide warmth for the home in the pleasant fire. By and by I will be shelter from the storm to those who have gone under the roof. By and by I will be the strong ribs of the great vessel, and the tempest will beat against me in vain, while I carry men across the Atlantic.”

“Oh foolish little acorn, wilt thou be all this?”

And the acorn answered, “Yes, God and I.”—Lyman Abbott.

(1041)

FAITH IN MEN

A graphic account of how Adjutant S. H. M. Byers, of the Fifth Iowa Infantry, carried to Grant before Richmond the news of General Sherman’s advance through North Carolina on his march to the sea in 1865 is told in Harper’s Weekly. After a perilous trip, he finally reached Grant’s headquarters at City Point.

“I ripped open my clothing, handed him my dispatches, and excitedly watched the pleased changes on his flushed face while he hurriedly read the great news I had brought from Sherman,” says Mr. Byers. “General Ord happened in at the moment, and the good news was repeated to him. Ord clanked his spurs together, rubbed his hands, and manifested joy. ‘I had my fears, I had my fears,’ he muttered. ‘And I, not a bit,’ said Grant, springing from his seat by the window, ‘I knew Sherman—I knew my man.’”

(1042)

FAITH NECESSARY

If all the world did not trust all the world, we could not do business for a single day. The amount of coin and bank-notes in circulation is ridiculously inadequate to the needs of business. By far the larger part of every day’s transactions of every kind is conducted by means of promises to pay.

The National Monetary Commission has just reported an investigation of this matter. About seventy per cent of the daily bank deposits consists of checks. More than ninety per cent of the payments in wholesale dealings is made by checks, and even more than half of the retail business is conducted in the same way, while the banks report weekly pay-rolls aggregating $134,800,000, seventy per cent of which is settled by checks.

This is a gigantic illustration of the principle of faith. We have faith in the integrity of the average man. We have faith in the business institutions of the country. We have faith that the future will be as good as the past. And in this faith we continue to accept bits of paper in return for most of our labor and the goods we sell.

In exalting the principle of faith in our relations toward God and the concerns of the next world, religion is merely applying to the Owner of all things the same rules that we apply without question to the petty properties of earth.—Christian Endeavor World.

(1043)

Faith of Friends—See [Dependence].

FAITH, ROAD TO

Take the little “radioscope” in your hand—a tiny tube less than an inch in length, closed at one end, with a small magnifying lens at the other. In the closed end of the tube you observe a small disk of paper covered with microscopic particles of yellow crystals—sulfid of zinc. In front of the yellow crystals is a small metallic pointer, like the second-hand of a very small watch, and on the end of the pointer is—nothing, absolutely nothing, so far as your eye can see. Look at it very carefully. No! Nothing! Now, take the little tube, go into a darkened room, and look into it through the lens end, and you will see a sight incredible. The metal pointer does have a minute speck of something on its tip, and between that tip and the yellow crystals are leaping showers of sparks of light. Will the shower stop after a few minutes? No. After an hour? No; nor after a thousand hours, or a thousand years, or ten thousand years! The calculation is that that all but invisible speck on the tip of the pointer will keep that shower of sparks going day and night, for thirty thousand years! For that speck is radium, which actually seems as tho it were a hot fragment struck off from God’s great white throne, so amazing is its radiant energy.

It operates, not merely by setting “waves” in motion, but it throws off a stream of actual particles which move with an inconceivable velocity (at the rate, some physicists allege, of 200,000 miles a second), and without—and here is the miracle—without any apparent diminution in the morsel of radium itself. It can hurl these particles literally through six inches of armor plate. It can and does send them right through your own head while you are looking at them, just as if your brain were a loose sieve, as perhaps it is, or a grove of trees quite wide apart, and a bright, flashing bird, all crimson and gold, were flying right through the trees, without even hitting his wings.

Now, what I want to say is that the modern discovery of such marvels as these, as being real, actual, objective, demonstrated facts, stretches the mind out into a thrilling series of undreamed-of possibilities, and this is a preparation for faith. This is the first step. This is the first lamp on the modern road to faith.—Albert J. Lyman.

(1044)

FAITH, STEDFAST

Unanswered prayers are no reason for abandoning our faith in God. This is the lesson Ella Wheeler Wilcox teaches in this verse:

I will not doubt, tho all my prayers return

Unanswered from the still, white realm above;

I shall believe it is an all-wise love

Which has refused those things for which I yearn;

And tho at times I can not keep from grieving,

Yet the pure ardor of my fixt believing

Undimmed shall burn.

(1045)

FAITH TAUGHT BY NATURE

Faith bids us be of good cheer. Long ago, that old Greek studied the mental operations of a bee, with brain not as large as a pinhead. Here is a little bee, that organizes a city, that builds ten thousand cells for honey, twelve thousand cells for larvæ, a holy of holies for the mother queen; a little bee that observes the increasing heat and when the wax may melt and the honey be lost, organizes the swarm into squads, puts sentinels at the entrances, glues the feet down, and then with flying wings, creates a system of ventilation to cool the honey, that makes an electric fan seem tawdry—a little honey-bee that will include twenty square miles in the field over whose flowers it has oversight. But if a tiny brain in a bee performs such wonders providential, who are you, that you should question the guidance of God? Lift up your eyes, and behold the hand that supports these stars, without pillars, the God who guides the planets without collision. Away with fear! (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.

(1046)

FAITH WITHOUT WORKS

A story is told of three prisoners who were captured by pirates. One of them was put in a boat without oars and pushed out into deep water. The boat sped along safely at first, but when a storm broke overhead, the frail craft was tossed upon a rock and the man was drowned. The second man was placed in a boat with one oar, but he made no progress. Finally, he drifted into a whirlpool and was never seen again. The third man was given a boat with two oars and he safely crossed to the other side, where he was received by friends.

We are all sailors on the ocean of life bound for a harbor of safety whether we arrive in port or not. The unbeliever is the man in the boat without oars. The person who thinks that his faith without works will save him is the man in the boat with only one oar. But the man who believes in God, and works out his salvation with fear and trembling, is the man in the boat with two oars. (Text.)

(1047)

FAITHFULNESS

To the coolness and devotion to duty of John Binns, operator of the “wireless,” and one of the actors in the shipwreck of the Republic, was due the prompt assistance accorded the stricken passenger-steamer by sister liners. As he himself exprest it by wireless, Binns was “on the job” from the time the Florida crashed into the Republic amidships until the last passenger had been transferred to the colliding vessel.

It was a stretch of thirty hours, and every minute of that time the telephone receivers, which are part of the wireless apparatus, were strapped to his eager and listening ears. Seldom has there been a more shining example of that calm courage that goes hand in hand with a sound sense of business duty.

Almost until the Republic went down Binns kept his ship in touch with Siasconset and passing ships by the use of accumulators, for the shutting down of the engines ended the power of his electric dynamos that ordinarily give the power of transmission to the wireless.

(1048)

---

According to dispatches from Hartford, Col. Jacob L. Greene, who was the head of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company from 1877 until his death a year ago, left a fortune of only a little more than $50,000. The smallness of his estate created comment from the newspapers and much surprize in insurance circles. It was supposed that he had taken at least some little advantage of the many opportunities for money-making which his position gave him.

The settlement of his estate seems to show that, during all the time he was in the insurance business, he conducted himself in strict accordance with the axioms which he had laid down for the guidance of insurance men and insurance companies in general. One of these axioms was, “A mutual company ought not to be mulcted for the benefit of the agents.” Another was, “True mutuality in life insurance does not seek to favor a few at the expense of the many, nor to give to a few what many have lost.” (Text.)

(1049)

Faithfulness Before Rulers—See [Magnifying a Sacred Office].

FAITHFULNESS UNTO DEATH

A little girl one day, whose mother had entrusted her with a penny for some small purchase, was crusht in the streets. She did not drop the penny. Recovering from a fainting fit, dying, she opened her firmly-closed fist, and handed her mother the humble penny, whose small value she did not realize, saying to her: “I have not lost it.” (Text.)

(1050)

False Estimate—See [Work Despised].

FALSE INFERENCE

Rev. A. R. Macduff, in his book of anecdotes about missionaries on the frontier force in northwestern India, says that India is a land where, when a tale is once set going, it is no easy matter “to nail the lie to the counter.” Rowland Bateman, the celebrated cricketer, who went as a missionary to India, was a stanch teetotaler, yet a rumor was started that he and his fellow missionaries were worshipers of the whisky bottle. It came about this way: Once, on a preaching tour, they spent a night in a “rest-house” which had previously been occupied by some carousing European travelers. Empty whisky bottles were in evidence, and Bateman utilized a couple for candlesticks to hold the lights for the evening Scripture reading. With good conscience, Bateman gathered his little company around the table on which stood the candles, and they knelt in prayer all unconscious of the interpretation a spying native was putting upon the service. In the morning he and his band were hailed as whisky-bottle worshipers.

(1051)

FALSE LIGHTS

Young people, sincere people, impulsive people, and imaginative people have all a common danger—that of being led astray by false lights. Of these false lights there are many kinds—some bewildering the intellect, others entangling the affections in hopeless morasses, others again misleading the sympathies, the imagination, the belief. But they all end in the same thing—mischief, mistake, and a loss of way. To the young and sincere—and the young are generally sincere, up to a certain point—organized craft and falsehood are arts of which they do not know the formula, foreign languages whereof they do not understand the very alphabet. Appearances stand for realities, and words are not so much symbols in themselves. They are able to tell their own little white lies and act their own little falsities, of a small and insignificant and, for the most part, transparent kind; but they do not apply their own rules to the grammar of their elders; and when those elders say so and so the younger believe them, and when they show such and such lights they follow them—in many instances to the same result as those doomed ships which were deceived on the Cornish coast, at such time as that, let us hope legendary, parson sent out his hobbled horse on the cliffs in a fog, with a lantern fastened to his fore-feet, to simulate the plunging of a ship in the sea. Then said the sailing masters of those doomed and predestined ships: “Where one vessel can go another may,” and so plowed their way straight onto the rocks and into the hands of death and the wreckers. So it is with certain false lights held out to the unwary and ignorant.—London Queen.

(1052)

FALSEHOOD

A form of words that is strictly true may be used to state what is wholly false:

Daniel O’Connell was engaged in a will case, the allegation being that the will was a forgery. The subscribing witnesses swore that the will had been signed by the deceased “while life was in him”—a mode of expression derived from the Irish language, and which peasants who have ceased to speak Irish still retain. The evidence was strong in favor of the will, when O’Connell was struck by the persistency of the man, who always repeated the same words, “The life was in him.” O’Connell asked: “On the virtue of your oath, was he alive?” “By the virtue of my oath, the life was in him.” “Now I call upon you in the presence of your Maker, who will one day pass sentence on you for this evidence, I solemnly ask—and answer me at your peril—was there not a live fly in the dead man’s mouth when his hand was placed on the will?” The witness was taken aback at this question; he trembled, turned pale, and faltered out an abject confession that the counselor was right; a fly had been introduced into the mouth of the dead man, to allow the witnesses to swear that “life was in him.” (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

(1053)

Falsehood from Kindness—See [Kindness Violating Truth].

False Safety—See [Death, Christian Attitude Toward].

FALSITY, INNER

It takes the greatest cunning and a life of practical study to know how long, how thick, and exactly where the soundbar should be in each instrument. The health and morale of many an old violin has been impaired by its nervous system being ignorantly tampered with. Every old violin, with the exception of the “Pucelle,” has had its soundbar replaced, or it would never have endured the increased tightness of strings brought in with our modern pitch. Many good forgeries have thus been exposed, for in taking the reputed Stradivarius to pieces, the rough, clumsy work inside, contrasting with the exquisite finish of the old masters, betrays at once the coarseness of a body that never really held the soul of a Cremona. (Text.)—H. R. Haweis, “My Musical Memories.”

(1054)

FAME

Fame is the sound which the stream of high thoughts, carried down to future ages, makes as it flows; deep, distant, murmuring evermore like the waters of the mighty ocean. He who has ears truly touched to this music is, in a manner, deaf to the voice of popularity.—William Hazlitt.

(1055)

---

The following anecdote of Björnson, the Norwegian poet, illustrates the peculiar turn that seized a mischievous delegation:

Björnson was once asked on what occasion he got the greatest pleasure from his fame as a poet. His answer was:

“It was when a delegation from the Right came to my house in Christiania and smashed all the windows. Because, when they had thus attacked me and were starting for home again, they felt that they ought to sing something, and so they began to sing, ‘Yes, we love this land of ours.’ They could do nothing else! They had to sing the song of the man they had attacked.”

(1056)

FAME AND TIME

The crowning glory of the popular Japanese school was Hokusai, “The old man mad about painting,” who wrote of himself, in a preface to his “Hundred Views of Fuji”:

At seventy-five I have learned a little about the real structure of nature—of animals, plants and trees, birds, fishes and insects. In consequence, when I am eighty, I shall have made still more progress. At ninety I shall penetrate the mystery of things; at a hundred I shall certainly have reached a marvelous stage, and when I am a hundred and ten, everything I do—be it but a line or dot—will be alive. I beg those who live as long as I do to see if I do not keep my word.

Hokusai died in 1849, at the age of eighty-nine, his work revealing a continual increase in power to the last. Of his work, Mrs. Amsden writes:

His fecundity was marvelous. He illustrated books of all kinds, poetry, comic albums, accounts of travels—in fact, his works are an encyclopedia of Japanese life. His paintings are scattered, and countless numbers lost, many being merely ephemeral drawings, thrown off for the passing pleasure of the populace.

On his death-bed Hokusai murmured, “If heaven had but granted me five more years I could have been a repainter.”—Dora Amsden, “Impressions of Ukiyo-ye.”

(1057)

FAME, ILLUSIVE

A rather amusing illustration of the slender foundation on which literary fame rests is found in the following:

“Literary fame is not always highly regarded by the people,” says William Dean Howells. “I remember when I was in San Remo, some years ago, seeing in a French newspaper this notice by a rat-trap maker of Lyons:

“‘To whom it may concern: M. Pierre Loti, of Lyons, inventor of the automatic rat-trap, begs to state that he is not the same person and that he has nothing in common with one Pierre Loti, a writer.’”

(1058)

FAME, QUALIFYING FOR

Benjamin West’s picture of the death of Nelson is closely connected with an anecdote of the great sailor. Just before he went to sea for the last time, he was present at a dinner, during which he sat between the artist and Sir William Hamilton.

Nelson was expressing to Hamilton his regret that he had not, in his youth, acquired some taste for art and some discrimination in judging it.

“But,” said he, turning to West, “there is one picture whose power I do feel. I never pass a shop where your ‘Death of Wolfe’ is in the window without being stopt by it.”

West made some gracious answer to the compliment, and Nelson went on. “Why have you painted no more like it?”

“Because, my lord,” West replied, “there are no more subjects.”

“Ah!” said the sailor, “I didn’t think of that.”

“But, my lord,” continued West, “I am afraid your intrepidity will yet furnish me with another such scene; and if it should, I shall certainly avail myself of it.”

“Will you?” said Nelson. “Will you, Mr. West? Then I hope I shall die in the next battle!”

A few days later he sailed, his strangely exprest aspiration was realized, and the scene lives upon canvas.

(1059)

FAME, SUDDEN

The name of “U. S. Grant, Nashville,” on the Lindell Hotel (St. Louis) register was sufficient to spread the news of his presence with almost the rapidity of wildfire throughout the city. The Lindell lobby was soon thronged with people eager to catch a glimpse of the little man who had won the battle of Chattanooga. The streets which he paced in vain, time and again, only five years before in search of employment, now resounded with cheers in his honor.—Nicholas Smith, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”

(1060)

Fame Unsatisfying—See [Unhappiness of the Great].

FAMILIARITY

Acuteness of the perceptive faculties characterized the celebrated Maine steamship captain who, for more than twenty years, is said to have regularly navigated his vessel in the thickest fogs and darkest nights through the tortuous reaches, thoroughfares, and channels of the “inside passage” along the coast of Maine, without accident. When asked for an explanation of his remarkable record, he replied, “I knew the bark of every dog and the crow of every rooster on the line, and often steered by them.”—Sumner I. Kimball, “Joshua James.”

(1061)

FAMILY CIRCLE

In Korea the family exists, but not the circle. There is no table around which they gather for meals, no reading nor music, no evening parties which draw them together, no “At Homes,” no family pew in which to sit on Sunday, no picnic excursions in which all members join. The master eats by himself, the wife by herself, the sons and daughters each separately and alone. Because of this, our custom of conversing at table, and allowing the talk and attention to wander all over the universe, while semiconsciously engaged in the serious act of “eating rice,” seems very absurd. “When you eat, eat, and when you talk, talk, but why try both at one and the same time?”—James S. Gale, “Korea in Transition.”

(1062)

FAMILY OFFENSE IN STORKS

The following stories concerning storks seem to indicate that they have views concerning the purity of their race and act upon them: Bishop Stanley relates that a French surgeon at Smyrna, being unable to procure a stork, on account of the great veneration entertained for them by the Turks, purloined all the eggs from a stork’s nest and replaced them with hen’s eggs. Ultimately, chickens were hatched, greatly to the surprize of the storks. The male stork speedily disappeared and was not seen for two or three days, when he returned with a large number of other storks, who assembled in a circle in the town, without paying any attention to the numerous spectators their proceedings attracted. The female stork was brought into the midst of the circle, and, after some discussion, was attacked by the whole flock and torn to pieces. The assemblage then dispersed and the nest was left tenantless. A somewhat similar case has been cited by the same author as having occurred in the vicinity of Berlin. Two storks made their nest on one of the chimneys of a mansion, and the owner of the house, inspecting it, found in it an egg, which he replaced by one belonging to a goose. The stork did not appear to notice the change until the egg was hatched, when the male bird rose from the nest, and, after flying around it several times with loud screams, disappeared. For some days the female bird continued to tend the changeling without interruption; but on the morning of the fourth day the inmates of the house were disturbed by loud cries in a field fronting it. The noise proceeded from nearly five hundred storks standing in a compact body listening, apparently, to the harangue of a solitary bird about twenty yards off. When this bird had concluded its address it retired and another took its place and addrest the meeting in a similar manner. These proceedings were continued by a succession of birds until eleven in the forenoon, when the whole court rose simultaneously into the air, uttering dismal cries. All this time the female had remained in her nest, but in evident fear. When the meeting broke up all the storks flew toward her, headed by one—supposed to be the offended husband—who struck her violently three or four times, knocking her out of the nest. The unfortunate stork made no effort to defend herself, and was speedily destroyed by the troop, who also annihilated the hapless gosling and left not a fragment of the contaminated nest.—Popular Science Monthly.

(1063)

FAMILY RELIGION

During a series of revival meetings in a town in Ohio a very earnest and intelligent little boy was converted. Several nights after he brought his mother to the meeting, and was solicitous for her conversion. He spoke to one of the workers and asked that his mother might be invited to seek the Lord. The woman was approached, but said emphatically that she had been converted. The little fellow was informed of his mother’s answer, that she was converted, when with an astonished expression, he said: “First I’d knowed about it.” Certainly if that mother had given any evidence that she was a Christian her little boy would have found it out. What a low conception of Christianity some people have, and how poorly they exemplify it before their children and neighbors. They are so far beneath the Bible standard, as well as beneath the privilege, that no one even suspects that they make a profession of Christianity.

(1064)

---

A great many people say there is nothing in the Christian discipline of a household. Let us see. In New Hampshire, there were two neighborhoods—the one of six families, the other of five families. The six families disregarded the Sabbath. In time, five of these families were broken up by the separation of husbands and wives; the other, by the father becoming a thief. Eight or nine of the parents became drunkards, one committed suicide, and all came to penury. Of some forty or fifty descendants, about twenty are known to be drunkards and gamblers and dissolute. Four or five have been in state-prison. One fell in a duel. Some are in the almshouse. Only one became a Christian, and he after having been outrageously dissipated. The other five families, that regarded the Sabbath, were all prospered. Eight or ten of the children are consistent members of the church. Some of them became officers in the church; one is a minister of the gospel; one is a missionary in China. No poverty among them. The homestead is now in the hands of the third generation. Those who have died have died in the peace of the gospel. (Text.)—T. De Witt Talmage.

(1065)

FANCY, DECEPTIVE

It requires experience and love of reality to avoid the deceptions of life.

“During the conflagration at the Crystal Palace in the winter of 1866–67, when the animals were destroyed by the fire, it was supposed that the chimpanzee had succeeded in escaping from his cage. Attracted to the roof, with this expectation in full force, men saw the unhappy animal holding on to it, and writhing in agony to get astride of one of the iron ribs. It need not be said that its struggles were watched by those below with breathless suspense, and, as the newspapers informed us, with sickening dread.” But there was no animal whatever there; and all this feeling was thrown away upon a tattered piece of blind, so torn as to resemble, to the eye of fancy, the body, arms, and legs of an ape!—Edwin J. Houston, “The Wonder Book of Light.”

(1066)

Fashion, Absurd—See [Absurd Notions].

FAST LIVING

The railroad has compelled us all to live fast. The pace of the locomotive kills. Everywhere we see among our people an alarming increase of serious diseases. People become anxious, irritable, nervous and hurried. Something snaps, and the end comes quickly. As an evidence that this intensity of experience is harmful, we may notice the rapidly shortening hours of labor, the increase of holidays, the lengthening of vacations, and the disposition among the city people to spend more and more time in the country during the summer. All these are defenses against the wear and tear of city life—why? Because people and things can be moved so fast that all business moves faster and faster, and for such a killing pace we must have the relief of more rest and longer vacations. The railroad has in all these directions changed our social and business life so that we lead wholly different lives from all the men who have gone before. On the other hand, it has been of very great mental benefit. It is said that insanity was at one time very common among farmers. The dulness and stupidity of their lives drove them into mental collapse. The railroad now brings the town to the farm, the city paper comes to the rural fireside, and trips to town are cheap and easy. The appalling monotony of country life is quickened by the rush of the train through the quiet valleys and life seems more worth living, because more interesting. Balancing one thing against another we must conclude that there is a gain in all this.—Charles Barnard, The Chautauquan.

(1067)

Fastidiousness—See [Coolness in Danger].

FASTING

The month of fasting was probably borrowed by Mohammed from the Christian Lent. There are many traditions that tell how important fasting is. Let one suffice:

Every good act that a man does shall receive from ten to seven hundred rewards, but the rewards of fasting are beyond bounds, for fasting is for God alone and He will give its rewards. The chief Moslem fast is that of the month of Ramazan. The fast is extremely hard upon the laboring classes when, by the changes of the lunar calendar, it falls in the heat of summer, when the days are long. Even then it is forbidden to drink a drop of water or take a morsel of food. Yet it is a fact that Mohammedans, rich and poor, spend more on food in that month than in any other month of the year; and it is also true that physicians have a run of patients with troubles from indigestion at the close of this religious fast! The explanation is simple. Altho the fast extends over one lunar month, it only begins at dawn and ends at sunset each day. During the whole night it is usual to indulge in pleasure, feasting and dinner parties. This makes clear what Mohammed meant when he said that “God would make the fast an ease and not a difficulty.”

The hours during which fasting is prescribed are to be sacredly observed. Not only is there total abstinence from food and drink, but bathing, smoking, taking snuff, smelling a flower, and the use of medicine are prohibited. I have even heard Moslem jurists discuss whether hypodermic medication was allowed during the fast period. In eastern Arabia the use of an eye-lotion even is considered as equivalent to breaking the fast. The law provides, however, that infants, idiots, the sick, and the aged are exempted from observing this fast.—Samuel M. Zwemer, “The Moslem World.”

(1068)

---

In a remarkable case, recorded by Dr. Wilan, of a young gentleman who starved himself under the influence of a religious delusion, life was prolonged for sixty days, during the whole of which time nothing but a little orange-juice was taken. Somewhat analogous are those in which all food is abstained from while the person is in a state of trance or partially suspended animation. This state may be prolonged for many days or even for weeks, provided that the body be kept sufficiently warm. The most remarkable instances of this character have been furnished by certain Indian fakirs, who are able to reduce themselves to a state resembling profound collapse, in which all vital operations are brought almost to a standstill. In one case, the man was buried in an underground cell for six weeks, and carefully watched; in another, the man was buried for ten days in a grave lined with masonry, and covered with large slabs of stone. When the bodies were disinterred they resembled corpses and no pulsation could be detected at the heart or in the arteries. Vitality was restored by warmth and friction. It is probable that the fakirs, before submitting to the ordeal, stupefied themselves with bhang (Indian hemp), the effects of which would last for some time, and the warmth of the atmosphere and soil would prevent any serious loss of heat, such as would soon occur in a colder climate, when the processes by which it is generated are made to cease. (Text.)—Robson Roose, New York Review.

(1069)

FATHER ANIMALS UNPARENTAL

In very few animals do the males ever attempt to protect the females, even where the latter have their young to take care of. When the hen with her brood of chickens is attacked, it is not the cock that ruffs his feathers and defends them with his spurs; it is the mother herself that defends them. The cock is always found with hens that have no chickens, and only uses his spurs in fighting with other cocks that have no notion of injuring the females. In the entire animal kingdom the cases where the male uses his great powers to protect the female or the young, or to bring them food, are so rare that where they are observed they are recorded as curious approximations to the social state of man. (Text.)—Lester F. Ward, The Forum.

(1070)

FATHERHOOD

Dr. Cortland Myers, of Boston, relates the following story, as told by a ship’s surgeon:

On our last trip a boy fell overboard from the deck. I didn’t know who he was, and the crew hastened out to save him. They brought him on board the ship, took off his outer garments, turned him over a few times, and worked his hands and his feet. When they had done all they knew how to do, I came up to be of assistance, and they said he was dead and beyond help. I turned away as I said to them, “I think you’ve done all you could”; but just then a sudden impulse told me I ought to go over and see what I could do. I went over and looked down into the boy’s face and discovered that it was my own boy. Well, you may believe I didn’t think the last thing had been done. I pulled off my coat and bent over that boy; I blew in his nostrils and breathed into his mouth; I turned him over and over, and simply begged God to bring him back to life, and for four long hours I worked, until just at sunset I began to see the least flutter of breath that told me he lived. Oh, I will never see another boy drown without taking off my coat in the first instance and going to him and trying to save him as if I knew he were my own boy.

(1071)

---

There was once a Quaker, John Hartman, whose son enlisted in the army. Not long after he had marched away as a soldier, a battle was fought. In the list of the missing appeared the Quaker’s son’s name. The father went to the field of carnage, and scanned the many upturned faces. He listened to the faintest cry of the wounded to discover if it were the voice of his son. More than one lying in the agony of death thought, “I wish that were my father.”

After the darkness of night fell he lighted his lantern and continued his search. Then the wind began to blow and his light went out. A new thought came to him. Forming a trumpet of his hands he called, “John Hartman, thy father calleth for thee.” There was no answer. Going on farther he called again, “John Hartman, thy father calleth for thee.” There was a faint moan and a “Here I am father.” How gladly that father hastened forward and brought his son home!

Many are being beaten down in the fierce battle of sin and evil. They have fallen in the darkness and are perishing. The loving heavenly Father is calling to them. If they make the faintest cry of response, “Lord, here I am,” how gladly will He hasten to their relief. (Text.)

(1072)

See [Confidence].

FATHERHOOD THE KEY

The other day I had a cipher telegram. Glancing it over, I could read every separate word. But once I rearranged the words with the key, a hidden meaning and beauty flamed forth. Moses, Job, Isaiah, Plato, Confucius, astronomers, poets, philosophers, all read the separate words, but when Christ came the key-word, “Our Heavenly Father,” is given, and the whole heavens flamed with the love of God.—N. D. Hillis.

(1073)

Father-love—See [Lost, Finding the]; [Love’s Completeness].

FATHER, OUR

Miss Lilly Ryder Gracey, in The Missionary Review of the World, in a sketch of the life and work of the Rev. Egerton R. Young, in the land of the Cree and Salteaus Indians, of Canada, gives this incident:

“Missionary,” said a savage, stalwart-looking Indian to him, “gray hairs here, and grandchildren in the wigwam, tell me that I am getting to be an old man; and yet I never before heard such things as you have told us to-day. I am so glad I did not die before I heard this wonderful story. Yet I am getting old. Gray hairs here, and grandchildren yonder, tell the story. Stay as long as you can, missionary; tell us much of these things; and when you have to go away, come back soon.”

“He turned as tho he would go back to his place and sit down,” said Dr. Young in narrating the story, “but he only went a step or two ere he turned round and said:

“‘Missionary, may I say more?’

“‘Talk on,’ I replied; ‘I am here now to listen.’

“‘You said just now, “Notawenan” (Our Father).’

“‘Yes, I did say, “Our Father.”’

“‘That is very new and sweet to us,’ he replied. ‘We never thought of the Great Spirit as Father. We heard Him in the thunder, and saw Him in the lightning and tempest and blizzard, and we were afraid. So, when you tell us of the Great Spirit as Father—that is very beautiful to us.’

“Hesitating a moment, he stood there, a wild, picturesque Indian; yet my heart had strangely gone out in loving interest and sympathy to him. Lifting up his eyes to mine again, he said:

“‘May I say more?’

“‘Yes,’ I answered; ‘say on.’

“‘You say, “Notawenan” (Our Father); He is your Father?’

“‘Yes, He is my Father.’

“Then he said, while his eyes and voice yearned for the answer:

“‘Does it mean He is my Father—poor Indian’s Father?’

“‘Yes, oh yes!’ I exclaimed, ‘He is your Father, too.’

“‘Your Father—missionary’s Father—and Indian’s Father, too?’ he repeated.

“‘Yes, that is true.’

“‘Then we are brothers!’ he almost shouted out.

“‘Yes, we are brothers,’ I replied.

“The excitement in the audience had become something wonderful, and when the conversation with the old man had reached this point, and in such an unexpected and yet dramatic manner had so clearly brought out, not only the fatherhood of God, but the oneness of the human family, the people could hardly restrain their expressions of delight.

“The old man, however, had not yet finished, and so, quietly restraining the most demonstrative ones, he again turned and said:

“‘May I say more?’

“‘Yes, say on; say all that is in your heart.’

“Then came his last question, which millions of weary souls dissatisfied with their false régimes are asking:

“‘Missionary, I do not want to be rude, but why has my white brother been so long time in coming with that great Book and its wonderful story?’”

(1074)

Father’s Sake, For—See [Love Makes Patient].

FATHER’S VOICE

I was watching the sheep, and two little lambs got lost from their mother. They were black lambs, and didn’t know they were lost; but I did, and so did the mother. I stood and watched while the old mother sheep called and called and called. But the little black lambs didn’t answer—they didn’t know they were lost. So I continued to watch, and directly the lambs heard the mother calling. And there must have been something in the mother-voice that told the lambs they were lost, for they began bleating and crying and running about as if mad, so frightened were they. Finally, the mother and the lambs saw each other, and truly it was a poem of nature to see the mother leaping toward the lambs and the lambs running toward her! It reminded me of the meeting of that old father and the prodigal son when the boy came back home from the far country. And do you know that meadow scene made me turn my eyes everywhither—earthward, skyward, spaceward! And I said, “Oh, my soul, if lambs hear and answer the voice of their mother, wilt not thou hear and answer the voice of thy Father? Oh, soul, lambs are not afraid when mother is near. Why shouldst thou be afraid when thy Father is near, and God is everywhere?” (Text.)—F. F. Shannon.

(1075)

FATIGUE

Dr. Luther H. Gulick describes some effects of fatigue:

Fatigue promptly attacks and destroys our sense of proportion. I know no better illustration of this than the way we will leave our professional work. When I am really fatigued it is very difficult for me to go home when the time comes. It is, of course, true that there are always little things remaining to be done; but when I am especially tired I can not distinguish between those which are important enough to keep me and those which are not. I only see how many things are still undone; and I tend to go on and on.

If I see a scrap of paper on the floor, I can not help going out of my chair and taking time to pick up that wretched thing and put it in my waste-basket. It assumes, somehow, the same importance in my mind with that of thinking out my to-morrow’s schedule. I will stay and putter about little things that do not need attention. My sense of balance, of proportion, and perspective is gone. I’ve lost my eye for the cash value of things.—“Mind and Work.”

(1076)

Faults Blotted Out—See [Effacement of Sins].

Faults, How to See—See [Looking Down].

FAULTS OF THE GREAT

When the great Duke of Marlborough died and one began to speak of his avarice, “He was so great a man,” said Bolingbroke, “I had forgotten that he had that fault.”

(1077)

Faults, Unconscious—See [Self-estimates].

FAVORITISM

The advantage of position is well illustrated in the following incident:

When Louis XIV was at play with some courtiers, a dispute arose in regard to one of the turns of the game. The king was eager, and his opponent seemed resolute to resist; and the rest of the court stood round maintaining a dignified neutrality, and none venturing a remark. At that moment Count de Grammont was seen entering the apartment, whereon the king called out, “Come hither, Grammont, and decide this dispute between us.” “Your majesty is in the wrong,” said the count, the moment he approached. “How can you say I am in the wrong!” cried the king, “when you have not heard what is the point in dispute?” “Why, sire,” said Grammont, “if the point had been doubtful, all these gentlemen who are standing round silent would have decided in your favor long ago.”—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

(1078)

FEAR

Several thousand mine workers of the anthracite region, chiefly foreigners, refused to enter the mines to-day because they had a superstitious fear that the earth would be destroyed when enveloped in the tail of Halley’s comet to-night, May 18, 1910.

Efforts of the English-speaking miners, [at Wilkesbarre, Penn.] to get them to go to work were futile, and they said that if the world came to an end they wanted to be on the surface where they could see, instead of in the depths of the mines. A number of them spent most of the day in prayer, and many of them were in a condition of great fear and nervousness. A number of collieries were so short handed that they had to shut down for the day.

(1079)

FEAR AS A MOTIVE

The late George T. Angell, in “Our Dumb Animals,” gives this incident, showing that fear of unseen authority, is a forcible motive, even with would-be transgressors:

The incident occurred on the rise of land near Park Street Church (Boston). A horse, evidently laboring under the impression that he was overloaded, stopt and refused to go any farther, and a crowd gathered. Just then one voice called out from the crowd:

“Why don’t you whip him?”

“Whip him,” said the driver—“whip him! How do I know that there ain’t an agent of that darned old Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals standin’ right here in this crowd?”

We have never considered it good policy to send out any of our agents in uniform, and so any respectable citizen who seems to be interested in the protection of horses is liable to be suspected of being one of our agents. (Text.)

(1080)

FEAR OF GOD

Of all the memorials found in Westminster Abbey, there is not one that gives a nobler thought than the life lesson from the monument to Lord Lawrence. Simply his name and date of his death, and these words: “He feared man so little because he feared God so much.” Here is one great secret of victory. The prayer of the Rugby boy, John Laing Bickersteth, found locked up in his desk after his death, was: “Oh God, give me courage that I may fear none but thee.” (Text.)

(1081)

FEAR OF MAN

Ex-President Roosevelt is usually pictured as proof against fear, but the New York Times tells of an occasion when he admits that he was badly frightened.

It was on the evening of his first diplomatic reception as President, and the long and brilliant line headed by ambassadors, foreign ministers and attaches, and distinguished army and naval officers in gorgeous uniforms, was passing slowly before him. In this procession was a lady who knew the President quite well, and who confidently expected a hearty greeting. To her surprize, Mr. Roosevelt merely inclined his head over her hand, and bowed her on with the throng.

An hour later she met the President in the reception-room, and he spoke to her in the friendliest way.

“Why didn’t you come in time for the reception?” he asked.

“I did,” she replied, “and you did not even recognize me!”

“Impossible!” exclaimed the President, “but,” and he set his teeth together hard and whispered, “to tell you the truth, Mrs. ——, I was so fearful I wouldn’t do the right thing I could not think of anybody except myself!”

(1082)

---

Kindness, justice and a little heavenly wisdom would guard a ruler far more effectually than the precautions mentioned below:

The Sultan is chiefly afraid of the darkness, and it costs him $900 per night to have his bedroom guarded. This sum is split up between the eight generals entrusted with the work and their supernumeraries. Two generals take the long watch every night outside his door, and receive $200 apiece for it; beneath them is a colonel who is paid $150 a night, and guards receiving smaller amounts. All they have to do to earn their princely salaries is to tramp up and down the corridor with their eyes on the beautiful satin-wood door inlaid with mother-of-pearl which took an expert two years to inlay. (Text.)—Tid-Bits.

(1083)

Fear, Paralyzing—See [Hopeless Fear].

FEAR, RELIGIOUS

The missing qualities in Wesley’s religious state at this time [at Oxford] are obvious, It utterly lacked the element of joy. Religion is meant to have for the spiritual landscape the office of sunshine, but in Wesley’s spiritual sky burned no divine light, whether of certainty or of hope. He imagined he could distil the rich wine of spiritual gladness out of mechanical religious exercises; but he found himself, to his own distress, and in his own words, “dull, flat, and unaffected in the use of the most solemn ordinances.” Fear, too, like a shadow, haunted his mind: fear that he was not accepted before God; fear that he might lose what grace he had; fear both of life and of death. He dare not grant himself, he declared, the liberty that others enjoyed. His brother Samuel, whose letters are always rich in the salt of common sense, had remonstrated with his younger brother for the austerities he practised and the rigors of alarmed self-interrogation under which he lived. John Wesley defends himself by the plea—in which there is an unconscious pathos—that he lacks his brother’s strength and dare take no risks.

“Mirth, I grant,” he says, “is very fit for you. But does it follow that it is fit for me? If you are to rejoice evermore because you have put your enemies to flight, am I to do the same while they continually assault me? You are very glad because you have passed from death to life. Well! but let him be afraid who knows not whether he is to live or die. Whether this be my condition or no, who can tell better than myself?”—W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”

(1084)

Fearlessness of Death—See [Martyr Spirit].

Feast of the Soul—See [Chains].

Fecundity—See [Destruction Necessary].

FECUNDITY OF LIFE

An English naturalist has figured out that a single-stem mother of the common aphids, or “green-fly” of the rose, would give origin, at its regular rate of multiplication and provided each individual born lived out its natural life, which is only a few days at best, to over thirty-three quintrillions of rose aphids in a single season, equal in weight to more than a billion and a half of men. Of course such a thing never happens, because so many of the young aphids get eaten by lady-bird beetles and flower-fly larvæ and other enemies before they come to be old enough to produce young.—Vernon L. Kellogg, “Insect Stories.”

(1085)

FEEDING TOO MUCH

The apostle James puts the emphasis of religion on doing, not hearing alone. The one definition of religion we have in Scripture, and that given by him, is suggestive of the divine order—the best way to keep oneself unspotted from the world is to be occupied in ministry to others. A good deacon once complained to Thomas Dixon that his sermons placed too much emphasis on doing and reminded him of Jesus’ command to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” Mr. Dixon replied: “That is what is the matter with you; I have fed you until you are so fat you can not walk.”—Charles Luther Kloss, “Proceedings of The Religious Education Association,” 1904.

(1086)

FEELING A FOUNTAIN

Feeling is a fountain that gushes life. Emotions in the soul are like songs, pouring forth from the birds in the thicket. Orange groves and peach orchards exhale perfume, and feeling is the soul’s fragrance, rising toward God and its fellows. The seas send up their whitest mists, and the soul ought to send up its emotions in whitest clouds of incense toward the throne of God and toward man’s soul.—N. D. Hillis.

(1087)

FEELING AND PRINCIPLE

You know the difference between feeling and principle. Yonder is an old sailboat out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and when the wind blows, she travels ten miles an hour, but let the wind lull, and she will lie there two weeks, within a hundred yards of where the wind left her. She doesn’t go anywhere. That is feeling. When the wind blows, off she goes.

What is principle? Yonder is a grand old ocean steamer, and when the wind blows she spreads her sails and works her steam, and on she goes; and when the wind lulls, the engineer pulls his throttle wider open, and she goes at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, whether the wind blows or not. And that is the difference between principle and feeling.—“Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones.”

(1088)

Feeling the Christian Spirit—See [Consistency].

FEELINGS RESERVED

Among Scotch qualities, the deepest rooted, apart from the fear of God, is sentiment. And yet we do not receive credit for it because we have not sentimentalism, which is the caricature and ghost of sentiment. The sentiment of the Scotch is of the heart and not of the lips. If I saw a couple of Scotchmen kissing each other good-by, I wouldn’t lend five shillings to either of them. It is not an uncommon thing to see such an exhibition among Italians. I do not blame them. They are as God made them and so they must be. People doubt whether we have any sentiment at all. Some think we are hard-hearted and cold-blooded. Our manner is less than genial and not effusive. Our misfortune is not to be able to express our feelings. This inability is allied to our strength; strong people conceal their feelings.—John Watson.

(1089)

Fees—See [Ridicule, Apt].

Feet Showing Character—See [Character Shown in the Feet].

Female Animals Unprotected—See [Father Animals Unparental].

FENCING OUT ENEMIES

Moral evils are kept out not by a thorn fence, but by holy ideals and loving activities. These are quite as effective for character as this Arizona device for excluding rattlesnakes:

Did you ever hear of a rattlesnake fence—not one made of rattlesnakes, of course not, but one made of prickly thorns to protect one from the rattlers and keep them away? That is what the Arizona campers build, and the only way to keep these deadly poisoners away is by building one of these fences of oktea, a shrub covered with thorns which grows on the desert.

As the tents have no doors and are not set much above the ground, it would appear easy for Mr. Rattler to effect an entrance. Imagine the sensation of crawling into bed some cold night to strike against the clammy skin of a snake, and this is just where Mr. Snake likes to snuggle, in among the warm blankets.

To avoid this men who work in the mines have found that a snake will not go near this oktea, and they have built closely knit fences around their tents, with little gates to go in and out, and beyond this the rattler will not penetrate. It was first the Indians of the desert who discovered this deadly shrub, and they got the secret from birds and animals, which, to protect their young, travel sometimes many miles back and forth, bringing the thorns with which to cover their little nests. Gophers and other small animals there cover their nests in this manner.—Los Angeles Times.

(1090)

FERTILITY

These lines are by Edward Rowland Sill:

Clear water on smooth rock

Could give no foothold for a single flower,

Or slenderest shaft of grain:

The stone must crumble under storm and rain,

The forests crash beneath the whirlwind’s power,

And broken boughs from any a tempest-shock,

And fallen leaves from many a wintry hour,

Must mingle in the mold,

Before the harvest whitens on the plain,

Bearing a hundredfold.

Patience, O weary heart!

Let all thy sparkling hours depart,

And all thy hopes be withered with the frost,

And every effort tempest-tossed—

So when all life’s green leaves

Are fallen, and moldered underneath the sod,

Thou shalt not go too lightly to thy God,

But heavy with full sheaves. (Text.)

(1091)

FETISHISM

Miss F. M. Dennis writes from Ebu Owerri, a place about seventy miles southeast of Onitsha, North Africa:

It is a custom in this Ibo country when a child is born for the parents to go into the bush, cut a stick from a tree and plant it. When the child is old enough to walk and know anything it worships this young tree. All the Ibo people have them. But until the child comes to man’s estate and has a household, this is the only idol he has.

(1092)

The negroes of the Gold and Slave Coasts, like every other people low in the stage of civilization, believe that inanimate, as well as animate, objects have souls or ghosts, a belief which is proved by the practise of burying arms, implements, utensils, etc., for the use of the dead in Dead-land, and there continues the former pursuit of the man, using the souls or ghosts of the weapons buried with him; but the negroes have gone beyond this, and just as they believe man to possess a third element, or indwelling spirit, so do they believe that every natural object, everything not made by human hands, has, in addition to its soul or ghost, a third element of spiritual individuality. They hold that just as, when the man dies, the kra of the man enters a new-born child, and the soul, or ghost-man, goes to Dead-land; so, when the tree dies, the kra, so to speak, of the tree enters a seedling, and the ghost-tree goes to join the ranks of the shadowy forest in Dead-land. And it is these animating or spiritual tenants of natural objects and natural features that the negro fears and consequently worships.—A. B. Ellis, The Popular Science Monthly.

(1093)

Fetters Worn for Others—See [Hardship Vicariously Borne].

Fickleness in Work—See [Attainment Superficial].

FIDELITY AMONG ANIMALS

Instances of almost human fidelity are common among deer. We have several times been witness of them. On one occasion we had wounded a good stag late in the evening; the herd broke away, leaving him alone. In a few minutes another fine stag, evidently his friend, detached himself from the herd and galloped back to where the first lay wounded in a burn (brook). It got so dark that we could only tell the whereabouts of the wounded beast by seeing the other standing by his side. We crawled up to about a hundred yards of him, but still could not see the one we had shot. We stood up, expecting he would jump up and make a run for it, but he was too badly hit. Walking on, we at last saw his gray head in the heather, and a bullet finished him. Still the devoted friend kept close by and would not leave the spot. We had not the heart to shoot the poor beast after he had given proof of such wonderful fidelity, and at last had almost to drive him away.—Lord Walsingham and Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, “Shooting.”

(1094)

FIDELITY, CHRISTIAN

A little Korean boy named Twee-Sungie was brought by his Christian mother to church Sunday by Sunday and learned about Christ and accepted Him as his Savior. His father was a heathen and worked seven days a week, and forced little Twee-Sungie to do the same. The boy was broken-hearted at being deprived of attending the church services, but he also felt that he was sinning deeply in desecrating God’s day. Calamities came upon the family. A younger brother died, another, Twee-Sungie, was taken ill. As his strength failed he seemed to lose all desire to live. “If I live on in this world, father makes me break God’s commandments, and I will only add sin to sin, so it is better for me to die and go to Jesus.” He tried to turn his father’s thoughts Godward, but the man’s heart was full of evil and bitterness. When the boy died, the relatives proposed that they bury with him the Testament and hymn-book which he loved, for, said they, these books were the cause of his change, and if they are put away, his mother will return to the worship of spirits. So there lies in the grave of the little boy believer, outside the walls of Seoul, the printed page whose message the little lad wished so much to obey.

(1095)

FIDELITY, MISTAKEN

A pathetic story is told by the Savannah News of a tragedy caused by the terrible storm which swept the Southern coast. Captain Matheson, of the schooner Nellie Floyd, is the hero. The story runs thus:

When the Floyd foundered and it was certain that she must leave her bones in that marine graveyard off the North Carolina coast, a life-raft of hatches was constructed, and the crew, including the captain, piled on it. As they were about to push off, trusting to fortune to be picked up by a passing ship, Captain Matheson looked back upon his beloved schooner, then in its death-throes. His heart smote him. He felt like a deserter. The suffering but inanimate bulk called to him, and he could not resist the call. “I am going back, boys,” he said; “good-by, and good luck to you.” Then he scrambled back to the decks, by that time awash and fast settling. And in sight of the crew the ship and her captain went down to their fate.

(1096)

FIDELITY REWARDED

An English farmer sent his hired boy to prevent a party of gentlemen from riding over his fields. The leader of the huntsmen peremptorily ordered him to open the gate. Upon his refusal, he said shortly, “Boy, do you know who I am? I am the Duke of Wellington, and I am not accustomed to disobedience. I command you to open this gate.” The boy lifted his cap and stood unawed before the “man of iron will,” and said in a firm voice, “I am sure the Duke of Wellington would not wish me to disobey the orders of my employer, who tells me not to suffer any one to pass.” The Duke sat his horse for a moment, and then looking stedfastly at the boy, lifted his own hat and replied, “I honor the man or boy who is faithful to his duty, and who can neither be bribed or frightened into doing wrong.” He handed a bright new sovereign to the boy, who had done what Napoleon could not do; he had kept back the Duke of Wellington.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”

(1097)

FIDELITY TO COUNTRY

In the fight of Trautenau (Austro-Prussian War, 1866), a young officer, hard hit, was lying on his back in a ditch, where he begged his foes to let him remain. Shortly after, he died. Then it was found that, even with his life ebbing fast, his body had served to protect the “bit of rag” which on the morning of that day had been the standard of the regiment. He had carefully folded it up, and laid down upon it to die. “One thing” was in that soldier’s heart—to save his country’s colors from capture and disgrace.

(1098)

FIDELITY TO DUTY

The wrecking of the Maine, happening at night, was so sudden and the convulsion was over in so brief a time, that a chance for a display of heroism seemed next to impossible; and yet, in the terror of that awful scene, every surviving man immediately recovered himself and stood to his discipline. Not one comrade was forsaken by another. The last seen of the lost lieutenant was at the turret under his charge, weak and staggering with his wounds. The marine on duty, true to his habit of service, rushed through a dark passage flooded with water, and reported that the ship had been blown up and was sinking. It did not occur to him to save himself until his duty was done. Officers and men, in danger of being swamped by the death struggle of the ship, rowed around her, trying to save life, and careless of their own. The captain was the last to leave the ship. No man sought his own safety at the sacrifice of another, nor sought it first.—Youth’s Companion.

(1099)

FIDELITY TO THE RIGHT

Lydia M. Child said she would never work on a winning side. Lydia Maria Child was a writer in the full tide of popularity when she devoted herself to the anti-slavery cause. She was subjected to social and literary ostracism. Her books were returned, her friends forsook her, and Church and press denounced her. But this did not daunt her spirit nor swerve her for one instant from the cause she felt was right, and she consecrated the rest of her life to its support. Words can not describe the deprivation to which she was subjected, but she felt no loss. As the inspiration spread, mothers sent their children from house to house with her “appeal,” and vitally assisted the great movement.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”

(1100)

Fidelity to the Thing Undertaken—See [Thoroughness].

Fighting—See [Boys’ Adjusting Their Troubles]; [Strategy].

Fighting, Causes for—See [Peacemaker, The].

Fighting Qualities Admired—See [Accomplishment].

FIGUREHEADS

The time is ripe for abolishing figureheads in the moral, ecclesiastical and social world, as well as in the navy.

Secretary Meyer has approved an order originating in the United States Bureau of Construction for the removal from all the vessels of the Atlantic fleet of their figureheads. This action is based purely on war-service reasons. It is urged that in time of peace for maneuver purposes the figureheads, if gilded, afford a shining mark to reveal to the constructive enemy the whereabouts of the ship and in time of war, if painted with the protective war color, the artistic value of the figurehead is wholly lost. Furthermore, figureheads cost a good deal of money and have a good deal of weight, and serve no practical value whatever in warfare.

Even as far back as the times of the Greeks and Romans, and the Phœnicians and Egyptians, figureheads, made often in the image of the gods of war, were regarded as important to their triremes as oars or rudders. Great Britain has at her navy-yards at Southampton, Portsmouth and other points arranged figureheads from the old wooden ships of her navies as a feature of naval museums. Of course, the figureheads from American battleships would be a different thing. Most of them are made of brass, and are in some cases fine works of art.

The figurehead on the Olympia, which was designed by St. Gaudens, cost $12,000; that on the Cincinnati, which embodied the design of the Olympia’s figurehead, cost $5,700. The figurehead on the cruiser New York is a very fine model of the coat-of-arms of the State. Some of the largest of the figureheads weigh several tons, and in that respect are objectionable.

(1101)

Financially Strong, Morally Weak—See [Drink, Peril of].

FINITENESS

The tiny dew-drops as they rest

At morning on the flow’ret’s breast

Are children of the mighty sea,

Small gleams of its immensity.

The candle shining in the night

From the great sun derives its light;

Its little beams are truly fire,

And upward to their source aspire.

No less the humblest son of earth

May lay a claim to heavenly birth;

We are not born of senseless clod,

But children of the living God.

But after all is said and done,

The spark of fire is not the sun,

The drop of dew is not the sea,

Nor is the best man deity.

—Charles William Pearson, “A Threefold Cord.”

(1102)

FIRE, COST OF

Fire levies upon Americans each year an enormous tax, calculated by government officials at almost a million and a half dollars a day and 1,499 lives a year.

As a result of an investigation by officials of the geological survey, it has been ascertained that cheaper fireproof materials can be used to advantage in construction, that three to six times the necessary amount of material is habitually used in structural work, that the building codes are laxly enforced, that the fire loss in the United States is eight times as much per capita as in any country in Europe, and that the great fire waste in the United States is due, principally, to the predominance of frame buildings and to defective construction and equipment.

Contrast between the small losses by fire to government buildings and the immense losses reported from the country as a whole, led the geological survey to make an inquiry.

Not one person in a thousand knows that the United States Government owns buildings that cost more than $300,000,000, and is spending $20,000,000 a year for new buildings. It will be a surprize to every one, too, to learn that not one cent of insurance against loss by fire is carried on these valuable buildings. Insurance at the ordinary rate would cost more than half a million dollars a year, and the government avoids this great tax by constructing buildings that are securely fireproof.

After a careful investigation, it has been determined that the total cost of fires in the United States in 1907, excluding that of forest fires and the marine losses (in themselves extensive), but including excess cost of fire protection due to bad construction and excess premiums over insurance paid, amounted to the enormous sum of $456,485,000, a tax on the American people exceeding the total value of all the gold, silver, copper and petroleum produced in the United States in that year.

The cost of building construction in 1907 in forty-nine leading cities of the United States, reporting a total population of less than 18,000,000, amounted to $661,076,286, and the cost of building construction for the entire country is conservatively estimated at $1,000,000,000. Thus it will be seen that nearly one-half of the value of all the new buildings constructed within one year is destroyed by fire. The annual fire cost is greater than the value of the real property and improvements in either Maine, West Virginia, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alabama, Louisiana or Montana. In addition to this waste of wealth and natural resources, 1,499 persons were killed and many thousands were injured in fires in the United States in 1907.

The actual fire loss in the United States due to destruction of buildings and their contents amounted to $215,084,709 in 1907. This was $2.51 loss per capita. The per capita loss in the cities of the six leading European countries amounted to but 33 cents. Comparisons of the total cost of fires, which includes the items already stated, show that if buildings in the United States were as nearly fireproof as those in Europe, the annual fire cost would be $90,000,000 instead of $456,000,000. (Text.)—Pittsburg Leader.

(1103)

FIRE, HEAVENLY

It was the first engine on the new railroad running through the wilderness. At night, the puffing, snorting monster, belching forth fire and smoke, came dashing out of a dark forest with its one shining eye in front. As it fairly leapt along the track like a thing of life, green reptiles wriggled out of sight, vultures fled to the tree-tops, and wild beasts ran snarling into the jungle. The fire inside of the engine was what did it.

When the fire of inspiration gets inside of a man, how much he is like a steam-engine. He moves straight ahead, keeps on the right track, has his eye single to the forward line and his whole soul is full of light and heat. The creatures of darkness flee before him as he emerges into the light that shall never fade. (Text.)

(1104)

Fire Peril—See [Self-restraint].

First Aid—See [Knowledge Applied].

FIRST FRUITS

Have you been watching the buds open their eyes these spring days? They seem to have come out just to see what is going on in this wonderful world. Their number is increasing daily, but if you had put your ear close to the first and tiniest bud of spring, it would have whispered: “I am a hint of what all buds will be when waked out of their wintry sleep.” Will not the children sing for joy when the daisies come? Well, if you could somehow find the first daisy that peeps through the sod, it would say: “I am a sample of what the daisy harvest will be when Mother Summer has drest us all up in robes of gold.” On the brow of a certain hill, I once enjoyed more than a passing acquaintance with a June apple-tree. I used to watch for the coming of its fruit as they that watch for the morning. Now, there was a tradition that June apples were not good until they fell of their own accord. Sometimes, in spying out the land, I would find only one apple upon the ground. Of course, one apple to a growing boy is little more than a delusion and a snare, and it required more than Eve-like fortitude not to shake the tree. But after these many years, what I remember most of all is the taste of that one first apple. Precious in itself and very scarce, so it seemed to me, still it told of the good times coming when its luscious, juicy brothers would yield up their secrets, too.—F. F. Shannon.

(1105)

Fishermen Superstitious—See [Superstitious].

FISHERS OF MEN

In the Crystal Palace at Munich there is a little picture called “The Red Fisherman.” Satan is elegantly accoutered in red costumes, and he is fishing in a pond for men. For his hook he has a great variety of bait—gold, money, pearls, crowns, swords and wines. Apparently he has been fishing with some success, for the bait is much after the sort that men are wont to follow. To compete with the prince of evil, Christians who would be successful “fishers of men” must use bait that will really allure them. (Text.)

(1106)

---

In her “Fishin’ Jimmy,” Mrs. Slosson tells of a little French-Canadian girl. Her mother was a tramp, and the girl had developed into a wild little heathen. The mother fell suddenly dead near the village one day, and the child was found clinging to her mother’s body. The girl’s soul was shaken by bitter sobs, and when they tried to take her away she fought like a young tigress. There was in the crowd a small boy who knew “Fishin’ Jimmy.” With a child’s faith in his big friend, he hurried away and brought “Fishin’ Jimmy” to the spot. Very tenderly he lifted the child in his arms and took her away. Nobody seems to have known anything about the taming of the little savage, but a short time afterward she and “Fishin’ Jimmy” were seen on the margin of Black Brook, each with a fish-pole. He kept the child for weeks, and when she went at last to a good home, she had exchanged her wildness for a tender, affectionate nature. Then people wondered how the change was wrought. They asked Jimmy, but his explanation seemed to breathe an air of mystery. “’Twas fishin’ done it,” he said, “on’y fishin’; it allers works. The Christian r’liging itself had to begin with fishin’, ye know.” Yes, the religion of our Master had to begin with fishing; it will continue with fishing, and it will end with fishing, for this is indeed life’s divinest task. (Text.)—F. F. Shannon.

(1107)

FITNESS

One of John Wesley’s friends was terribly shocked to hear him preach to a well-groomed congregation a merciless sermon from the text, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” “Sir,” said Wesley’s friend angrily, “such a sermon would have been suitable in Billingsgate; but it is highly improper here.” Wesley replied, “If I had been in Billingsgate, my text should have been, ‘Behold the lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.’”

(1108)

See [Unfitness].

Fitness, Lack of—See [Accommodation].

Flag, Dishonoring the—See [Patriotism, Lack of].

Flag, Rescuing the—See [Symbols, the Value of].

Flaws—See [Charity].

Flight and Vision—See [Elevation and Vision].

Flight of the Soul—See [Soul Flight].

FLOOD-TIDE, SPIRITUAL

I stood on the coast of England, and looked out over a stretch of oozy slime and ill-smelling mud. There were the barges high and dry, lying on their sides—no matter what cargo they carried or how skilful the captain, they were on the mud. It would have availed them nothing to heave the anchor or hoist the sail. And I thought, What is the remedy? Were it any use for the corporation to pass a by-law that every citizen should bring kettles filled with water, and pour it out upon the stretch of mud?

But as I watched I saw the remedy. God turned the tide. In swept the waters of the sea, and buried the mud, and then came the breath of sweetness and life. And it flowed in about the barges, and instantly all was activity. Then heave-ho with the anchor, then hoist the sails, then forth upon some errand of good. So it is that we stand looking out upon many a dreadful evil which fills us with dismay—drunkenness, gambling, impurity. Is there any remedy? And the churches, so very respectable, but, alas, high and dry on the muddy beach—for these, too, what is the remedy? We want the flood-tide—the gracious outpouring of the Spirit; then must come the roused and quickened churches, the Christians transformed into Christ-like men and women who shall demand righteousness.—Mark Guy Pearce.

(1109)

Flowers—See [Service].

Flowers, Fond of—See [Generosity].

FLOWERS, MEANINGS OF

The most remarkable of the floral emblems is the passion-flower—the common blue one. Its leaves are thought to represent the head of the spear by which Christ’s side was pierced; the five points, the five sacred wounds; the tendrils, the cords which bound Him; the ten petals, the ten faithful apostles, omitting the one who denied Him (Peter); the pillar in the center is the cross, the stamens, the hammers; the styles, the nails; the circle around the pillar, the crown of thorns; the radiance, the glory. It is used on Holy Thursday. The fleur-de-lis, or conventional form of the lily, is the symbol of the Virgin Mary, adopted in the Middle Ages. It is also an emblem of purity. It is always placed by the medieval painters in the hand of the Angel Gabriel, and sometimes in the hand of the Infant Savior, and of St. Joseph. Lilies-of-the-valley are the floral emblem of Christ. “The Rose of Sharon” and the “Lily-of-the-valley” are emblems of humility. The rose is also an emblem of Christ. The laurel is an emblem of victory and glory, also of constancy, as the leaf changes only in death. Ivy denotes immortality. The laurestinus has the same meaning. (Text.)—The Decorator and Furnisher.

(1110)

FLUENCY, THE PERIL OF

The fluent speaker is sometimes reminded that his gifts are fatal; and here is a bright tip from the Atlantic to the fluent writer: “The writer who is unusually fluent should take warning from the instruction which accompanies his fountain pen: ‘When this pen flows too freely, it is a sign that it is nearly empty and should be filled.’”

(1111)

FLY, THE COMMON HOUSE.

The house-fly has developed along with the human dwelling. If we had no closed-in dwelling places, it is doubtful if the house-fly, as at present constituted, could continue to exist. It thrives simply because we afford it food, and a breeding-place.

At first he is only a little worm, wriggling his tiny grub-like form in some incubating pile of filth, usually the manure pile, the outhouse, or the mound of rubbish or garbage in the back yard. In this condition he is easily killed, and it should be the duty of every person to kill him then. The house-fly could not exist if everything were kept perfectly clean and sanitary. Exterminate the fly-worms, do away with their breeding places, and there will be no flies.

COMMON HOUSE-FLY

The common house-fly is coming to be known as the “typhoid fly,” and when the term becomes universal, greater care will be exercised in protecting the house from his presence. Flies swallow the germs of typhoid in countless millions while feeding on excreta. They spread a thousand times more typhoid germs in their excreta than on their feet.

As soon as the fly comes out of his shell he is full grown and starts out in the world to make a living, and if your home is not clean, he knows it; for the fly can discern an unclean odor for miles. A pleasant-smelling substance—the fragrance of flowers, geraniums, mignonette, lavender, or any perfumery—will drive them away.

Look at the picture of the fly. The feet, each of them, is equipped with two claws and two light-colored pads. The fly clings to rough surfaces by means of the claws and to smooth surfaces by a combined action of the claws and pads. The fly’s pads are covered with thousands of minute short hairs sticky at the end. There is no suction—merely adhesion. All his grown-up life, the fly has to manage with sticky feet. These are constantly becoming clogged with adhering substances, and this contamination the fly must assiduously remove if his feet are to act properly in supporting him on slippery places. If this contamination is too sticky to rub off, the fly laps it off, and it then passes off through the stomach.

The fly lays her eggs in the manure-pile or some other filthy place. All the germs—all the microbes—fasten themselves on the spongy feet. The fly brings them into the house and wipes them off. The fly that you see walking over your food is covered with filth and germs.

TRACKS OF A FLY, SHOWING THE WAY IN WHICH THEY SPREAD DISEASE GERMS

If there is any dirt in your house, or about your premises, or those of your neighbors, he has just come from it. Watch him, as he stands on the sugar, industriously wiping his feet. He is getting rid of disease germs, rubbing them on the sugar that you are going to eat, leaving the poison for you to swallow.

This does more to spread typhoid-fever, cholera infantum and other intestinal diseases than any other cause.

Intestinal diseases are more frequent whenever and wherever flies are most abundant, and they, and not the summer heat, are the active agents of the spread of such diseases. There is special danger when flies drop into such fluid as milk. This forms an ideal culture material for the bacillus. A few germs washed from the body of one fly may develop into millions within a few hours.—B. M. Clinedinst, The Christian Herald.

(1112)

See [Pest, Contagious].

Flying-machine—See [Tendencies, Inherited].

FOCUSING THE EYE

I can look one moment at a book six inches from my sight, at the next I can with ease look on a tree 200 yards away, and the next I can raise my eyes and view the sun millions of miles away in the upper heavens. As easily should Christians, compelled to look at the things close at hand, lift their thoughts and prayers to God. But it is hard to refocus the eye of the soul on the divine and eternal if the affections are too much set on things on the earth. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Text.)

(1113)

Foes Fraternize—See [Kindness].

FOLD, THE, OF CHRIST

When the Savior proclaimed Himself as the Good Shepherd, He was not only describing His own character in one of its most beautiful aspects, but was by implication suggesting very much more. The fact of a fold implies not only protection and provision, but also restraint, oversight, authority, and order.

A traveler who recently arrived in a remote region of Uganda, relates how amazed he was to see immense numbers of all sorts of wild animals, some in great herds, others in smaller groups. That was not a fold. But if the same traveler had looked across the great pampas or llanos of South America he would have seen vast flocks and herds of horses, cattle, and sheep, roaming and grazing over the immense expanse of prairie. It might seem to him at first that those thousands of animals were wandering about at their own will. But the spectator would quickly discover that they were in reality under close attention on the part of ranchmen, cowboys, and shepherds. Further, he would find that the vast pasture-lands were enclosed by wire. So that here is a fold under shepherds.

(1114)

FOLLOWING CHRIST

A missionary doctor at Shanghai was lying one night in his bed fast asleep, when he was awakened by a loud knocking at his front door. Even Chinese grown men are very much afraid of the dark, so he was very much surprized to see two little lads from a village five miles distant standing at his door. They said their school-teacher had been taken ill, and they had come for some medicine to help him. “Why didn’t some men come on this errand?” the missionary asked. “Because they were afraid,” said the boys. “Why were not you afraid?” “We were,” said the boys, “but we thought it was what Jesus Christ would like us to do, so we came.” (Text.)

(1115)

FOLLOWING, INEXACT

Two persons were walking together one very dark night, when one said to the other, who knew the road well, “I shall follow you so as to be right.” He soon fell into a ditch and blamed the other for his fall. The other said, “Then you did not follow me exactly, for I walked safely.” (Text.)

(1116)

FOLLY

Are there not people comparable to those discribed below, who, instead of seeking the substance of religion, are content with the mere breath of theology; and others who, instead of seeing and facing the world’s evils, “take out their eyes” whenever anything disagreeable happens along?

Lucian says the people on the moon lived on frogs that they cooked over a fire, but that, instead of eating the flesh, they simply breathed in the smell that came from the cooking; and that they had a custom of taking their eyes out of their heads to save them from seeing anything that might displease them.

(1117)

See [Carelessness, Cost of]; [Miracles].

FOOD AND CULTURE

A careful study of historical statistics shows the great influence that food and the laws of menu have exerted on the world’s progress. Did not an uncooked apple drive the human race out of Paradise? Did not a mess of pottage differentiate a nation? Did not a fit of indigestion lose the battle of Leipsic and check the career which threatened to change the face of Europe? Did not tea found the American Republic? The history of the dinner table is the history of civilization. The culture of any people may be gaged by its cooking and the amount of sentiment thrown into and around its daily meals.—Ethel A. Lennon, The Epoch.

(1118)

FOOD AND EXERCISE

The instruction of the pulpit and Sunday-school may well be likened to the food provided at the family table. It is, very likely, abundant in quantity, and nutritious in quality, but food without exercise makes the sickly, dyspeptic child. Food without exercise in the church is apt to produce no better results.

Even the horses in our stables can not long live without exercise. Fill their cribs ever so full of the best feed, they must yet do something to keep healthy. This is a natural law, which is imperative in the spiritual world. There are a great many dyspeptic Christians in all our churches. They are bilious and disappointed and hopeless and useless, except as they become by their continual growling and fault-finding a means of grace to the pastor and other workers. In fact, they have all the symptoms of spiritual dyspepsia. Now, the only remedy for this disease is spiritual activity. “Go to work,” said the famous English doctor to his rich, dyspeptic patient; “go to work. Live on sixpence a day, and earn it.”—Francis E. Clark, “Proceedings of the Religious Education Association,” 1903.

(1119)

Food and Work—See [Diet and Endurance].

Food and World’s Progress—See [Food and Culture].

Food Economy—See [Health, Economies of].

Food in Prehistoric Times—See [Prehistoric Woman].

FOOLISH CONFIDENCE

The King of Persia once ordered his visier to make out a list of all the fools in his dominions. He did so, and put his majesty’s name at the head of them. The king asked him why, and he immediately answered: “Because you entrusted a lac of rupees to men you don’t know to buy horses for you a thousand miles off, and who’ll never come back.” “Ay, but suppose they come back?” “Then I shall erase your name and insert theirs.”—Public Opinion.

(1120)

Foolishness Prevented—See [Prevention].

FOOLISHNESS SOMETIMES IS WISDOM

The wisdom or unwisdom of things is not always apparent on their face. Paul speaks of “the foolishness of preaching.” Most of the great inventors and discoverers were not considered wise in the initial stages of their great careers. Columbus was misunderstood and ridiculed, Watt was regarded as a dreamer, Morse found few supporters, Ericsson could not get Government support for building the Monitor, yet all these men were great and wise men. A curious instance of wise foolishness is that related of an important advertiser, who said:

We once hit upon a novel expedient for ascertaining over what area our advertisements were read. We published a couple of half-column “ads” in which we purposely misstated half a dozen historical facts. In less than a week we received between 300 and 400 letters from all parts of the country from people wishing to know why on earth we kept such a consummate fool who knew so little about American history. The letters kept pouring in for three or four weeks. It was one of the best-paying “ads” we ever printed. But we did not repeat our experiment because the one I refer to served its purpose. Our letters came from schoolboys, girls, professors, clergymen, school-teachers and in two instances from eminent men who have a world-wide reputation.

(1121)

Foot-gear—See [Bible Customs To-day].

FORBEARANCE

These lines by Harry Larkin, in the Scrap Book, seem to breathe a spirit of self-distrust and forbearance for faults in others eminently worthy of perpetuation:

Dare we condemn the ills that others do?

Dare we condemn?

Their strength is small, their trials are not few,

The tide of wrong is difficult to stem,

And if, to us more clearly than to them

Is given knowledge of the good and true

More do they need our help and pity, too!

Dare we condemn?

God help us all and lead us day by day!

God help us all!

We can not walk alone the perfect way,

Evil allures us, tempts us and we fall!

We are but human and our power is small:

Not one of us may boast, and not a day

Rolls o’er our heads, but each hath need to pray,

God help us all! (Text.)

(1122)

The speaker in the following account was Shang, a converted Manchurian missionary:

Over at the “Heavenly Lord Hall” (French mission) I was looking at the new building which is being erected. The boys’ school-teacher was with me. A Roman Catholic objected to our presence and struck us both. One of their principal members, seeing us insulted, blushed very red, and spoke to the offender. But we just came away.

“What would you like me to do?” I asked. “Shall I write to the French priest and complain?”

“Do nothing at all,” he replied. “Not to requite an insult is a blessing.” (Text.)

(1123)

FORCE APPLAUDED

Robert Barr, the author, has a part in an anecdote which throws light upon England’s present craze for the sinews of war:

When Mr. Barr was teaching school in Canada, an old college friend of his came along with a stereopticon, giving talks on Europe. The lecturer always finished with the thrilling recital of an anecdote about Queen Victoria. The Alake of Abeokuta visited her and asked, “What is the cause of England’s greatness?” The good queen handed him a Bible, which was in readiness to present him, saying, “This is the reason of England’s greatness.” The dramatic device was always exceedingly effective.

When the lecturer came around to Barr’s district, the lantern-operator was ill, and Barr was implored to take his place, which he consented to do. All went well until the grand finale arrived, when Barr maliciously substituted another picture for that of the Bible. “This,” cried the fervid orator, “is the secret of England’s greatness!” and was horrified on glancing up at the screen to see before him a picture of the gigantic battleship Consternation. The audience, which did not know the story of the Bible, cheered vociferously, rose to its feet, and sang “Rule Britannia” in a most warlike voice.

(1124)

FORCE, LIVING

Look at a full-sized oak, the rooted Leviathan of the fields. Judging by your senses and by the scales, you would say that the substance of the noble tree was its bulk of bark and bough and branch and leaves and sap, the cords of woody and moist matter that compose it and make it heavy. But really its substance is that which makes it an oak, that which weaves its bark and glues it to the stem, and wraps its rings of fresh wood around the trunk every year, and pushes out its boughs and clothes its twigs with digestive leaves and sucks up nutriment from the soil continually, and makes the roots clench the ground with their fibrous fingers as a purchase against the storm wind, and at last holds aloft its tons of matter against the constant tug and wrath of gravitation, and swings its Briarean arms in triumph over the globe and in defiance of the gale. Were it not for this energetic essence that crouches in the acorn and stretches its limbs every year, there would be no oak; the matter that clothes it would enjoy its stupid slumber; and when the forest monarch stands up in his sinewy lordliest pride, let the pervading life-power, and its vassal forces that weigh nothing at all, be annihilated, and the whole structure would wither in a second to inorganic dust. So every gigantic fact in nature is the index and vesture of a gigantic force.—Thomas Starr King.

(1125)

Force Unavailable—See [Loyalty].

FORCES, LATENT

Mighty forces often lie latent in nature until peculiar conditions elicit them. The trembling dew-drop is an electric accumulator, and within its silvery cells is stored a vast energy; the rain-drop and the snowflake are the sport of the wind, but, converted into steam, we are astonished at their potentiality; the tiny seed seems weakness itself, yet, beginning to germinate, it rends the rock like a thunderbolt.

Thus is it, only in a far more eminent degree, with human nature strengthened by the indwelling Spirit of God. In the first hours of trial we may be bewildered, stunned, staggered, but the latent forces of our nature, stimulated into action, render us equal to the most trying situation and the most trying moment.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(1126)

FORESIGHT

It would hasten the world’s progress if each generation would consider the welfare of those to follow as carefully as did the church mentioned here:

Anticipating that airships will be in common use in a few years, the officials of Wesley Memorial Methodist Church, of Atlanta, Georgia, when it was in process of building, instructed the building committee to so arrange the roof that there will be no difficulty in adapting it to airship landings.

The officials declared that in future years the communicants of the church would sail to and from the services in airships, just as they now speed their automobiles. They say that as they are erecting a structure that will stand for 100 years it should be modern in every respect.

(1127)

See [Prevision].

FORESIGHT IN BIRDS

Some red-headed woodpeckers in South Dakota, preferring their meat fresh, evolved a way to keep it so which compares favorably with the “cold storage” of man. One bird stored nearly one hundred grasshoppers in a long crack in a post. All were living when discovered, but so tightly wedged that they could not escape, and during the long winter of that region it is to be presumed the prudent bird had his provision. The observer found other places of storage full of grasshoppers, and discovered that the red-heads lived upon them nearly all winter.—Olive Thorne Miller, “The Bird Our Brother.”

(1128)

Foresight, Lack of—See [Prediction, False].

FORGERY, LITERARY

At the end of the eighteenth century the literary forgers were especially active. The Ossianic poems, the work of a Highland schoolmaster, James McPherson, who pretended to have translated them from the Gaelic, raised a controversy that stirred up much ill-feeling among the rulers of the literary world of England. Then Chatterton, “the sleepless soul that perished in its pride,” as Wordsworth sings, with his remarkable forgeries, deceived many of the antiquarians, among them Horace Walpole, and even Dr. Johnson “wondered how the young whelp could have done it.” Another young forger was Ireland, a most remarkable impostor, who, at the age of 18, not only forged papers and legal documents purporting to be under Shakespeare’s own hand and seal, and so deceived some of the most learned Shakespearian scholars, but also produced a play “Vortigern,” which he claimed was by that great bard, and which was actually performed at Sheridan’s theater. Whether or not Payne Collier tried his hand at correcting Shakespeare is still a matter of question; if guilty, his so-called “corrections” of the poet’s text appear but slight deceptions compared to the forgery of a whole play, altho these notes proved far more deceptive than the spurious drama. Mention must be made of George Paslmanazar, who called himself a native of Formosa, invented a Formosan language, and wrote a history of the island; of the forgeries of ballads by Surtees, who deceived Sir Walter Scott himself, and of the forged letters of Shelley, to which Browning, who supposed them genuine, wrote an introduction. Instances of this kind of forgery have been so frequent of late years that editors and publishers are at last beginning to realize that there is often less in a name than they suppose.—Boston Globe.

(1129)

FORGETFULNESS IN PREACHERS

Sudden forgetfulness is not an unusual thing in the pulpit. Aubrey, the antiquary, says that when he was a freshman at college he heard Dr. Sanderson, bishop of Lincoln, well known for his work, “Nine Cases of Conscience,” break down in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer. Even the great French preacher Massillon once stopt in the middle of a sermon from a defect of memory, and Massillon himself recorded that the same thing happened through an excess of apprehension to two other preachers whom he went to hear in different parts of the same day. Another French preacher stopt in the middle of his sermon and was unable to proceed. The pause was, however, got over ingeniously. “Friends,” said he, “I had forgot that a person much afflicted is recommended to your immediate prayers.” He meant himself. He fell on his knees, and before he rose he had recovered the thread of his discourse, which he concluded without his want of memory being perceived. Chambers’s Journal.

(1130)

FORGETTING AND REMEMBERING

Forget each kindness that you do

As soon as you have done it;

Forget the praise that falls to you

The moment you have won it;

Forget the slander that you hear

Before you can repeat it;

Forget each slight, each spite, each sneer,

Wherever you may meet it.

Remember every kindness done

To you, whate’er its measure;

Remember praise by others won

And pass it on with pleasure;

Remember every promise made,

And keep it to the letter;

Remember those who lend you aid

And be a grateful debtor.

Remember all the happiness

That comes your way in living;

Forget each worry and distress,

Be hopeful and forgiving;

Remember good, remember truth,

Remember heaven’s above you,

And you will find, through age and youth,

True joys, and hearts to love you.

—Youth’s Companion.

(1131)

Forgetting the Past—See [Old-year Memories].

FORGIVENESS

Alfred Austin, Poet Laureate of England, writes this verse on forgiveness:

Now bury with the dead years conflicts dead,

And with fresh days let all begin anew.

Why longer amid shriveled leaf-drifts tread,

When buds are swelling, flower-sheaths peeping through?

Seen through the vista of the vanished years,

How trivial seem the struggle and the crown,

How vain past feuds, when reconciling tears

Course down the channel worn by vanished frown.

How few mean half the bitterness they speak!

Words more than feelings keep us still apart,

And, in the heat of passion and of pique,

The tongue is far more cruel than the heart,

Since love alone makes it worth while to live,

Let all be now forgiven and forgive. (Text.)

—The Independent.

(1132)

---

In childhood you were guilty of your first deceit. At nightfall, with grieved face, your mother asked if you had disobeyed, and your lips uttered their first lie. Your father was a just man and stern, and he would have lifted the hand in indignation, and as a child you would have hardened your heart. But your mother, with all-comprehending and healing love, was wiser. She met the denial with silence. That night she was, if possible, more tender than ever. She lingered a little longer in the room of her little child. She smoothed the cool sheets with more delicate care, and stooping for the last kiss, she asked, “Is there anything more you want to tell me?” Then she went out and left you, with that lie, your first lie, to be your companion. Do you remember how that lie stood like a ghostly fear at the foot of your little trundle-bed? How terror arched black and sable wings above your pillow? How you tossed to and fro, until at last, broken by your mother’s love, you sprang up, felt your way through the dark hall, opened the door, flung yourself into your mother’s arms, sobbed out your confession, and was forgiven, utterly and squarely and forever forgiven? Don’t analyze your mother’s forgiveness—accept it and be healed thereby. Redemption is a passion flower, crimsoned with the blood of God’s heart. Don’t pick this passion flower to pieces, lest you lose it. The roots of God’s tree of life are fed with red rain, but the leaves of that tree, and the blossoms, heal the wounds of sinners.—N. D. Hillis.

(1133)

---

Mr. H. J. Whigam, a war correspondent during the Boxer troubles, tells the following incident:

A Christian Chinaman was shot by a Cossack, and, as he lay on his dying bed, a squad of Cossacks was marched up before him that he might identify the murderer. “I am dying,” he said. “What does it matter?” “But,” said the officer, “we are not going to kill your assailant. We are only going to punish him, so that he shall not kill any more of your people.” The dying Chinaman opened his weary eyes and made answer: “When he knows that I have forgiven him, he will not kill again.”

(1134)

---

John H. De Forest, in his book, “Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdom,” says that the relation of lord and retainer is the main controlling principle that has shaped the destiny of Japan. It is natural that ideal lords should have ideal retainers whose lives were devoted to their masters. He says occasionally this devotion took the form of rebuking the lord for some unworthy act, even when the advice would bring death to the faithful servant.

For example, an aged retainer of a young Shogun saw with deep anxiety his youthful lord’s frivolous life, his love of games and dances and flowers, and determined to arouse him to his duties as a ruler. So going to the palace, he noticed a most exquisite dwarfed cherry-tree in full blossom in a splendid flowerpot. He rather bluntly asked his lord to give him the cherry-tree. On being refused he seized the pot and dashed it, flowers and all, on the stone steps, saying: “You care more for things than for men.” He expected death, but his lord saw the earnest purpose of his servant and repenting of his own frivolous life, forgave him.

(1135)

FORGIVENESS, CONDITIONS OF

Lorenzo de Medici made confession to Savonarola, on his death-bed, of three special sins, involving plunder done by him to Florence and its citizens. While he confest, Savonarola consoled him by repeating, “God is merciful.” When Lorenzo had finished, he demanded three things of him before absolution could be given. First, that he should have a living faith in God’s mercy. Lorenzo replied that he had such a faith. Second, that he should restore what he had unjustly acquired. Lorenzo, after hesitating, consented. Then Savonarola drew himself up and said, “Give Florence back her liberties.” Lorenzo turned his face to the wall and uttered not a word, and Savonarola left the room without granting the absolution desired. (Text.)

(1136)

Forgiveness of Sin—See [Sin Consciousness].

FORGIVENESS, TIMELY

That we should forgive the faults of friends while they are in the flesh and can appreciate it is the lesson taught by Mrs. Marion Hutson in this verse:

Somewhere in the future, my lone grave

Will lie where flowers bloom and mosses wave,

And friends will stand beside it, speaking low

Of things I said and did so long ago.

My faults and follies all forgotten—dead—

And buried with me in my lowly bed.

Oh, loved ones! why not bury them to-day,

And let me feel forgiven while I may.

(1137)

FORM VERSUS REALITY

During the Civil War the late Colonel Bouck organized a regiment, says Everybody’s Magazine, which he controlled as a dictator. It was while the army was resting after the colonel’s first campaign that an itinerant evangelist wandered into camp and, approaching the colonel, asked if he was the commanding officer.

“Ugh!” snorted “Old Gabe,” as he was affectionately called, “what do you want?”

“I am a humble servant of the Lord endeavoring to save the souls of the unfortunate. I have just left the camp of the —th Massachusetts, where I was instrumental in leading eight men into paths of righteousness.”

“Adjutant,” thundered Colonel Bouck, after a moment’s pause, “detail ten men for baptism. No Massachusetts regiment shall beat mine for piety.” (Text.)

(1138)

Formation Versus Reformation—See [Economy in Work].

Former Days—See [Crime in Former Days].

FORMER LIFE, CONSCIOUSNESS OF

Our brains are inherited from our ancestors. Why, then, may it not be that the human brain is a palimpsest, containing more or less faded, yet recoverable records, not only of our entire past life, but of the lives of our ancestors to the remotest periods? Pythagoras profest a distinct recollection of his former lives; the writer of this knows two educated men who have lived before in the persons of rather more famous individuals than their present representatives; Lumen, in Flammarion’s “Stories,” finds that his soul had passed through many previous conditions. Indeed, the idea of transmigration, which is a poetic forecast of the more scientific doctrine here enunciated, is a very familiar one. Coleridge, in his boyhood one day was proceeding through the Strand, stretching out his arms as if swimming, when a passer-by, feeling a hand at his coat-tail, turned rudely round and seized him as a pickpocket. Coleridge denied the charge, and confest that he had forgotten his whereabouts in the impression that he was Leander swimming across the Hellespont—a wretched streetlamp being transformed by his imagination into the signal-light of the beautiful priestess of Sestos.—American Notes and Queries.

(1139)

Forms—See [Spirit and Form].

Forms, Value of—See [Experience a Hard Teacher].

Fortitude—See [Endurance of Pain].

FORWARD

At dawn it called, “Go forward without fear!

All paths are open; choose ye, glad and free.”

Through morning’s toilsome climb it urged the plea,

“Nay, halt not, tho the path ye chose grow dear.”

At noon it spake aloud, “Make smooth the way

For other feet. Bend to thy task, tho weight

Of sorrow press thee. Others dower, tho fate

Deny thy secret wish.” Through later day

It warns, “Climb on! Heights woo! The waning light

Bids haste! Yet scorn not those who lag behind,

Confused by lengthening rays that clear thy sight,

These, too, have striv’n all day their way to find.”

At eve, when flaming sunset fades, O hear

Dawn’s echoing call, “Go forward without fear.”

—Anna Garlin Spencer.

(1140)

Forward Look, A—See [Prevision].

FORWARD, PRESSING

In a poem, “The Second Mile,” by Dr. Oakley E. Van Slyke, occurs the following verse:

Be mine, dear Lord, to think not what I must,

But of the power bequeathed to me in trust.

Be mine, I pray, to go the second mile,

Do better than I need to all the while.

(1141)

FOUNDATIONS

All northern Italy from Genoa to Venice was shaken not long ago by a great earthquake shock. The seismic disturbances continued at intervals during several days. The people were terror-stricken, fearing the worst. It was significant that while the shock was severely felt on both sides of the Adriatic, it was scarcely perceptible in Venice, due probably to the fact that much care, forethought and skill had been exercised in laying the city’s foundations. Every building of importance is supported by piles driven from sixty to one hundred feet into the mud of the lagoons.

In character building our only safety lies in sure foundation. (Text.)

(1142)

FOUNDATIONS, FAULTY

The stone archway spanning a culvert under a railway at a certain point gave way and tumbled in, permitting the tracks to settle and sending trains away around by another line. Workmen came to study the cause of the trouble. One thought that the cement with which the stones had been laid was not properly mixed. Another was of the opinion that the mortar had been chilled, as the wall was laid up in cold weather. Still another examined the keystone and found fault with its shape. “The form of that stone was enough to bring the archway down!” he declared. “Just look at it! The man who made it never knew what a keystone is for!”

So the criticism went on. At last a quiet man who had been digging away at the foundation of things made the statement: “It was not the keystone; that is all right. The foundation gave way, and the wall could not help falling! It was the foundation!” And that was the verdict which stood. The very first stones had been laid on soft earth.

(1143)

FOUNDATIONS, SECURE

One stands before some of the palaces of the old world that have endured for more than one thousand years without a crack or seam, in perfect admiration. The Pantheon at Rome stands just as it did more than two thousand years ago. This would be impossible had not its foundations been right. The Rialto Bridge that spans the Grand Canal in Venice was erected in 1588. It has stood as it now stands for 320 years, but that bridge rests on 12,000 piles driven deeply into the soil. What is true of buildings is true also of life.—George B. Vosburgh.

(1144)

FOUNTAINS, EVER FLOWING

“To-day’s wealth may be to-morrow’s poverty; to-day’s health, to-morrow’s sickness; to-day’s happy companionship of love, to-morrow’s aching solitude of heart; but to-day’s God will be to-morrow’s God, to-day’s Christ will be to-morrow’s Christ. Other fountains may dry up in heat or freeze in winter, but this knows no change; ‘in summer and winter it shall be.’ Other fountains may sink low in their basins after much drawing, but this is ever full, and after a thousand generations have drawn from its stream is broad and deep as ever. Other fountains may be left behind on the march, and the wells and palm-trees of each Elim on our road be succeeded by a dry and thirsty land where no water is, but this spring follows us all through the wilderness, and makes music and spreads freshness ever by our path.”—Alexander McLaren.

(1145)

Fragility—See [Ossification]; [Preservation].

Fragments Reconstituted—See [Beauty from Fragments].

Fragrance—See [Character Imparted].

Fragrance from Storm—See [Affliction Producing Virtue].

Frankness—See [Retort, A].

FRATERNITY

When you describe to a blind man what strikes you on the very instant, you really give him the illusion of light. He sees through your eyes. There is in his soul both light and color. The green swell of the forest, the yellow waves of the harvests, that stream that unrolls yonder, across the fields, like a ribbon of silver; that river whose waters are transmuted into liquid gold in the brazier of the setting sun, all this shines before his inward eye. And yet it is not this that most delights the blind man. What moves him, transports him, not only if he is your father, your son, your friend, but even a simple traveling companion, is that he sees through you; that, for an hour, you realize the holy law that man owes himself to man, and that he lives, above all, by your bounty and fraternal exchange.—Charles Wagner, “The Gospel of Life.”

(1146)

FRAUD BY ELECTRICITY

It was noticed some years ago that a large number of light gold coins were in circulation, and the discovery was made that the “sweating” was accomplished by electrolysis. The scientific swindler constructed an electro-deposition plant, using a ten-dollar gold piece as an anode and a small metal plate as a cathode. The battery was “set in motion” and presto! in a few minutes fifty cents’ worth of gold was deposited on the metal plate, and the gold coin was worth so much less than before. As the gold was removed equally from all parts of the surface of the coin, its appearance was scarcely altered by the process, only an expert being able to detect the slight blurring of the design and lettering.—Electrical Review.

(1147)

FREEDOM CHOSEN

After our Civil War a white man suggested to a negro that he had been better off as a slave. He had had more to eat and been more certain of it, a better cabin and less concern about it, better clothes and more of them. The negro agreed, and added, “The place is still open if you want it, sir. As for me, I had rather starve and go cold and naked, and be free.” It is quite impossible for some men to understand that. For that is the heart of liberty. Eating and clothing and dwelling have become all important to some men, and compared with them liberty is not worth having. But there are hearts which have tasted slavery and so know the zest of freedom. (Text.)—C. B. McAfee.

(1148)

FREEDOM, GOD RESPECTS OUR

God, having made man a free moral agent, is a wooer, not a coercionist. If the knowledge of the sacrifice made for man’s redemption will not win man’s love, God will not apply physical force to compel acceptance, love, and obedience. A military chieftain, tho holding the lives of his soldiers in his hands, exhibits his greatest power by refusing to exercise compulsion, and realizes that the best service rendered is that which is prompted by love of the commander. Thus God shows His almighty power.

(1149)

FREEDOM, GRATITUDE FOR

On the 30th of August, 1833, the Emancipation Act passed the House of Lords. It was declared that all children under six years old should be free on the 1st of August, 1834; that all other slaves should be registered as apprenticed laborers and be compelled to labor for their owners for a few years—the time was shortened soon after. Antigua alone has the honor of having said, “We will have no apprentices; all shall be free.”

Meanwhile in all the islands dismal prophecies were made by the planters of rapine and ruin and negro risings; but the missionaries were busy teaching the poor blacks how to receive the coming boon of freedom. The eve of that momentous day, the 1st of August, was kept by the slave population of Antigua as a watch-night in church and chapel. They had been advised to await the midnight hour on their knees with prayers and hymns of gratitude. So, at the first stroke of midnight in the island of Antigua, all fell upon their knees, and nothing was heard but the slow booming of the cathedral bell, save here and there an hysteric sob from some overwrought slave-girl. The final stroke sounded through the clear air, and still the immense crowd kept silence, as tho they could not realize that they had become free. Then a strange thing happened: One awful peal of thunder rattled and crashed from pole to pole, and flash upon flash of lightning seemed to put out the feeble lights of cathedral, church and chapel.

God had spoken! The kneeling crowds sprang to their feet with a shout of joy; they laughed, they cried, they tossed brown arms abroad, and embraced one another in wild and passionate emotion; then they remembered God once more and prayed aloud.—Edward Gilliatt, “Heroes of Modern Crusades.”

(1150)

FREEDOM OF SOUL

What a remarkable invention is the airship! In it are wrapt almost boundless possibilities for good or evil. The Christian bound on his sacred mission may yet be able to use the viewless air for his highway, transport himself through its soundless solitudes, hundreds of miles before the dawning. He may transport himself with ease from place to place and behold all the marvels of creation on earth, having cut loose from gravitation and being free in the infinite ocean of starlight and sunlight.

The ideal of man is perfect freedom of the soul. (Text.)

(1151)

FREEDOM OR SLAVERY

I was in conversation with a man a few days ago, and we were talking with reference to evil propensities and signing pledges and forming firm resolutions to quit bad habits. He said, “I won’t sign a pledge because I won’t sign away my liberty.” I asked him what liberty he meant, and he said: “Liberty to do as I please.” I said to him, “That is not liberty. Any man that does as he pleases, independent of physical, moral and divine law, is a miserable slave.”—U. S. Shrimp, Church Advocate.

(1152)

Freedom, Religious—See [Liberty, Individual].

Freedom, The Appeal of—See [Earnestness].

FREEDOM THROUGH DRILL

R. H. Haweis gives an experience that would be good for all learners:

He (Oury) taught me Rode’s Air in G—that beautiful melody which has been, with its well-known variations, the pièce de résistance of so many generations of violinists and soprani. I was drilled in every note, the bowing was rigidly fixt for me, the whole piece was marked, bar by bar, with slur, p and f, rall. and crescendo. I was not allowed to depart a hair’s breadth from rule. When I could do this easily and accurately, Oury surprized me one day by saying:

“Now you can play it as you like; you need not attend to a single mark!”

“How so?” I said.

“Don’t you see,” he said, “the marks don’t signify: that is only one way of playing it. If you have any music in you, you can play it in a dozen other ways. Now, I will make it equally good,” and he took the violin and played it through, reversing as nearly as possible all the p’s and f’s, “bowing” the slur and slurring the “bow,” and it sounded just as well. I never forgot that lesson.

(1153)

Free Will—See [Will, The].

FRICTION DISSIPATING FORCE

An English writer says:

Three or four years ago an attempt was made to supersede the water-carts of London by laying down on each side of the road a horizontal pipe, perforated with a row of holes opening toward the horse-way. The water was to be turned on, and from these holes it was to jet out to the middle of the road from each side, and thus water it all. I watched the experiment made near the Bank of England.

Instead of spouting across the road from all these holes, as it should have done from any one of them, it merely dribbled; the reason being that, in order to supply them all, the water must run through the whole of the long pipe with considerable velocity, and the viscosity and friction to be overcome in doing this nearly exhausted the whole force of water-head pressure. Many other similar blunders have been made by those who have sought to convey water-power to a distance by means of a pipe of such diameter as should demand a rapid flow through a long pipe.

This is a clear illustration of friction dissipating force. How much life force needed for constructive works of righteousness is wasted by mere friction.

(1154)

FRIEND, A TRUE

At a “home” in the country which the children of the slums are allowed to visit for a short time in the summer, the following incident occurred. A party of about one hundred youngsters was returning to the city. The attendant noticed that one of the girls, Rosie, was walking rather clumsily. This is the way the New York Tribune tells the story:

When the attendant heard a chorus of gibes all aimed at little Rosie, she saw that the girl was wearing a pair of shoes of large size. Then the attendant remembered that Rosie had had a new pair of shoes, and the little girl was asked about it.

“Well,” said Rosie, “you see, the shoes ain’t mine. They’re Katie’s. I know they’re awful big, but her mama ain’t had any work lately, so she couldn’t buy her a new pair. She just gave her own shoes to Katie.

“Katie felt awful bad about it, and cried all the way to the station. The girls all laughed at her. I just lent her my new ones and took hers.

“You see, teacher,” said Rosie, raising her eyes to the attendant’s face, “Katie’s my friend.”

(1155)

Friend, The, of Animals—See [Kindness, The Power of].

FRIEND, THE ORPHAN’S

Margaret Gaffney was given the name of the “Orphans’ Friend.” She was an orphan left to the care of Welsh people who were very poor. Charity was the very spring of her being. Having lost her husband, her childless heart caused her to enter the Paydros Orphan Asylum, for which she solicited stores, wheeling them herself in a wheelbarrow when she had no other means of conveyance. She built another orphan asylum, and started a dairy to help its support. Later she established a bakery. She would not indulge herself in anything unnecessary because there “was so much suffering in the world.” New Orleans owes to this poor, ignorant woman her three largest homes for children, which are for orphans, black or white, irrespective of denomination. When the Fourth Louisiana Regiment was taken captive to New Orleans, Margaret went to the fort with a load of bread, and when ordered to halt, she replied, “What for?” When challenged, she jumped out of the wagon, grabbed the sentinel in her arms, and forcibly set him out of her path, and amid the cheers of the men, entered the fort with her baskets of bread. Whenever the Mississippi overflowed, her boat, loaded with bread, went daily to the submerged districts, feeding the needy. This poor woman was followed to her grave by the entire municipal government, merchants, professional men, and the children of eleven orphan asylums, who uncovered their heads to Margaret, the first woman in this country to be honored by the erection of a marble statue to her memory.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”

(1156)

FRIEND, THE SYMPATHETIC

Angels are good companions for a crisis, but for every-day use the warm, touchable, sympathetic friend is as necessary as oxygen to the blood.—Camden M. Cobern.

(1157)

FRIEND, VALUE OF A

“What is the secret of your life?” asked Mrs. Browning of Charles Kingsley; “tell me, that I may make mine beautiful, too.” He replied, “I had a friend.” Somewhere in her “Middlemarch,” George Eliot puts it well: “There are natures in which, if they love us, we are conscious of having a sort of baptism and consecration; they bind us over to rectitude and purity by their pure belief about us; and our sins become the worst kind of sacrilege, which tears down the invisible altar of trust.”—William C. Gannett.

(1158)

FRIENDLINESS

It is related of Alexander the Great, that he won the hearts of his soldiers by calling them “his fellow footmen.” And of Aristotle, the better to instruct his hearers, that he read not to them—as other philosophers used to do—from a lofty seat, but walking and talking with them familiarly, as with friends, in Apollo’s porch; so he made them great philosophers. (Text.)

(1159)

Friends and Foes Meet—See [Amity After War].

Friends Cancelling Debt—See [Kindness].

FRIENDS, CHOICE OF

The following poem was written by His Majesty Mutsuhito, the Emperor of Japan, for the students at the Peeresses’ School of Tokyo. It is translated by Arthur Lloyd:

The water placed in goblet, bowl or cup

Changes its form to its receptacle;

And so our plastic souls take various shapes

And characters of good or ill, to fit

The good or evil in the friends we choose.

Therefore, be ever careful in your choice of friends,

And let your special love be given to those

Whose strength of character may prove the whip,

That drives you ever to fair wisdom’s goal.(Text.)

—The Independent.

(1160)

Friends in Heaven—See [Heaven, Friends in].

FRIENDS, KEEPING

Somebody once asked the famous Roman Atticus how he managed to keep his friends up to the end of his life. His simple reply was, “I never expected anything from them.”

It is difficult, no doubt to maintain during outbursts of passion the serene indulgence peculiar to friendship, but without attaining to the state of Atticus, who expected nothing, where the desire to give much dominates a soul, the sting of wounded vanity would not be felt in the flesh, for wounded vanity would change its object, making it a matter of pride to give, and not receive.—Dora Melegari, “Makers of Sorrow and Makers of Joy.”

(1161)

FRIENDSHIP

John Macy says in The Atlantic Monthly:

Poe lived, worked, and died in such intellectual solitude that Griswold could write immediately after his death that he left few friends. Tho at the height of his career in New York, “between the appearance of ‘The Raven’ and the time when poverty and illness claimed him irrevocably, he appears as a lion in gatherings of the literati, yet it is asserted that among them his only affectionate friends were two or three women.”

No brilliant fame can atone for the lack of true friendships.

(1162)

---

A young man who had left home to enter business, and who had only a single acquaintance in the town where he was newly employed, was arrested upon the charge of stealing a pocketbook containing $1,000 from the desk of a man whom he had called upon in a business way the previous day. He was in a desperate plight, for circumstances were strongly against him. The man stated that he had the pocketbook just a few minutes before the young man came in, and upon looking for it immediately afterward, it was gone, and nobody else had been in the room. The young man’s only hope was in the establishment of a previous good character, and he had no one to whom he could at the moment apply. Not knowing what to do he sent for his single acquaintance, and told him of his predicament and the circumstances of the whole affair, and said, “Of course, you have only my word that I did not take the pocketbook, but it is the truth.” His acquaintance looked at him critically for a few minutes, and then said, “No, I don’t believe you did take it, and I am going to stand by you in this, and see that you are cleared.” The new acquaintance immediately gave bail, and told him to go back to work, and say nothing. Then he sent to the home of the boy, and arranged to have some influential men of the place come on at his own expense to testify to the character of his friend, and upon the day of trial, secured his honorable discharge. When asked why he did all this he replied, “Why, I am your friend.” This was his idea of the meaning of a friend.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”

(1163)

See [Kindness].

Friendship and Peace—See [Peace Pact].

FRIENDSHIP, CONCEPTIONS OF

The Greek idea of friendship is represented by the figure of a girl, with uncovered head; one hand on her heart, the other resting on an elm struck by a thunderbolt, and about which a vine, heavy with grapes, is entwined. Her dress was high and close fitting, her attitude chaste. The Roman conception of friendship was more complicated and modern. The girl’s dress was cut á la vierge, her head crowned with myrtle and pomegranate flowers; she held in her hand two hearts enchained. On the fringe of her tunic was written, “Life and death”; on her forehead were the words, “Summer and winter.” With her right hand she pointed to her left side; exposed over heart and on it was written, “From far and near.”—Dora Melegari, “Makers of Sorrow and Makers of Joy.”

(1164)

FRIENDSHIP, PERFECT

William Anderson tells us what true friendship is in this poem:

True friendship is a perfect, priceless gem.

Its greatest glory is its flawlessness.

My friends must give to me, as I to them,

Their best or nothing—I’ll accept no less.

I want the perfect music, or no song;

I want the perfect love, or none at all;

Right is not right when coupled with a wrong;

Sweet is not sweet when touched with taint of gall.

(1165)

FRIENDSHIP, SELFISH

The motives of some men in cultivating friendships may be compared to that of the foxes mentioned below:

To see a fox get round the farmer’s dogs, in order to make friends with them, is one of the most astonishing revelations of character. Usually the dogs seem hardly to know at first what to make of his advances, but the fox is pretty certain to succeed in bringing him to his side in the end, and after that they may be seen playing together day after day.—Witmer Stone and William Everett Cram, “American Animals.”

(1166)

FRIGHT

One of the numerous incidents connected with the Sicilian earthquake was the escape of an artilleryman named Gashane Valente at Messina which was remarkable. A tidal-wave swept him from inside the barracks out to sea, where a fishing boat rescued him. He was landed near Messina, and ran without stopping eleven hours, reaching Acireale, fifty-five miles away. Terror gave him the necessary endurance.

(1167)

Frowns—See [Smiles and Frowns].

Fructification, Spiritual—See [Life, New, from God].

FRUIT AND SOIL

A choice variety of plum was purchased and set out in a certain garden. When the tree came to maturity, to the keen disappointment of the owner, there was no fruit on its branches. Investigation showed that the fault was not in the tree. The land in which it was planted proved to be barren and lacking in proper nourishment.

A tree growing in poor soil can not bear, because it requires all the strength it can extract from the soil to barely sustain its life. It takes all the virtue there is in the soil to support the head and foliage so that the fruit is literally starved out.

There are church-members who branch into Christian profession but who are rooted in the world. Such will bring forth nothing but leaves. (Text.)

(1168)

FRUIT-BEARING

Suppose the tree should say: “My roots are strong, my boughs elastic and tough, firm against the stroke of wind and storm. Look at my bark, how smooth and fresh; and where is there a tree whose tides of sap are fuller or richer? What leaves, too, are these that I have woven out of the threads of sun and soil! Little wonder that the birds build nests in my branches, while the cattle find shade beneath my boughs.” Well, this is a good argument—for an apple-tree—but a poor one for a man. The hungry farmer-boy does not leap the fence on his way to the apple-tree looking for apple-sap or apple-boughs or apple-leaves—he is looking for apples. And God has built this world, not for the root moralities that support man. Industry is good—it is good not to lie and not to steal, and not to kill and not to perjure, but these beginnings are fundamental only, the man must go on from the leaf to the fruit. The fruit is truth in the inner parts, justice, measured by God’s standard, and mercy that tempers justice, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith that trusts, and will not be confounded. (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.

(1169)

FRUIT LIKE THE TREE

Tho I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and tho I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. In so giving and so doing, I would be acting merely in a way analogous to the jackdaw that would expect to be turned into a peacock by sticking a few peacock’s feathers into its black coat. This maneuver would not convert the jackdaw into a peacock; it would be still a jackdaw even after it had covered itself all over with peacock’s feathers. Let it first turn, if possible, into a peacock, and then peacock’s feathers will grow naturally upon it; its black coat will then soon be radically changed. To adopt the simile of our Lord, first make the tree good, and then its fruit will be good; you can not produce heaven’s fruit until the tree be first planted in heaven.—Alexander Miller, “Heaven and Hell Here.”

(1170)

FRUITFULNESS

The chayote is in many particulars the most remarkable plant in the vegetable kingdom. It is entirely immune from fungi, and is the only plant known which insects do not attack. Altho it bears fruit, it is a vine. Its growth is surprizingly rapid. It is a perennial and clambers about, clings to and covers fence, barn, tallest tree—anything. It will often bear as many as five hundred fruits, some of them weighing no less than three pounds. It blossoms and ripens fruit every month in the year. It is palatable and nutritious. Its flowers are rich in nectar and a prolific source of honey. (Text.)

(1171)

Fruits, First—See [First Fruits].

FULFILMENT DISAPPOINTING

It is the way with all ambitions not to satisfy when they are achieved. Here is a poem by Grantland Rice teaching this truth:

The little boy smiled in his sleep that night,

As he wandered to Twilight Town;

And his face lit up with a heavenly light

Through the shadows that drifted down;

But he woke next morning with tear-stained eye

In the light of the gray dawn’s gleam,

And out from the stillness we heard him cry,

“I’ve lost my dream—my dream!”

And he told us then, in his childish way,

Of the wonderful dream he’d known,

He had wandered away from the land of play

To the distant Land of the Grown;

He had won his share of the fame and fight

In the struggle and toil of men;

And he sobbed and sighed in the breaking light,

“I want my dream again!”

As the years passed by the little boy grew

Till he came to the Land of the Grown;

And the dream of his early youth came true—

The dream that he thought had flown;

Yet once again he smiled in his sleep—

Smiled on till the gray dawn’s gleam

When those near by might have heard him weep:

“I want my dream—my dream!”

For he dreamed of the yesterdays of youth,

And the smile on a mother’s face;

A hearth of old-time faith and truth

In the light of an old home place;

He had won his share of the fame and fight

In the struggle and toil of men—

Yet he sobbed and sighed, in the breaking light:

“I want my dream again!”

—The Tennesseean.

(1172)

FULNESS, CHRIST’S

The late Charles Cuthbert Hall said:

I recall the wonder and delight with which I saw the ocean tide come up the Bay of Fundy and fill the empty river-bed. Through the hours of the ebb, the Nova Scotian rivers dwindled and shrank within their banks. Broad and barren reaches of sand exposed themselves; ships listed heavily on their sides, deserted by the feeble stream trickling in mid-channel. Then came the tide up the Bay of Fundy, up from the abundance of the unfathomable sea. You could hear it coming with a distant sound of motion and life and unmeasured power. You could see it coming, with a pure white girdle of foam, that looked in sunlight like a zone of fire. It entered the river-bed; it filled the empty channel as one fills a pitcher at the fountain; it covered the barren sands with motion and sparkling life; it lifted the heavy ships, gave back to them their rights of buoyancy, set them free upon the broad water-way of world-wide opportunity; it changed the very face of the land from sadness and apathy and dulness to animation and color and glittering activity. So Christ comes into empty human lives, and fills them with His fulness, which is the very fulness of God. The difference between a life without Christ and a life with Christ is the difference between ebb and flood: the one is growing emptier, the other is growing fuller.

(1173)

FUNCTIONS AND GIFTS IN THE EAST

The function in the non-Christian world must be regarded, because there etiquette and propriety are on dress parade. Presents are another difficulty. Be sure to look into this matter, and do not think that you are doing all that is required when you send a present. You have to be very particular about the number of presents, about the manner in which they are wrapt, about their proper delivering, etc. Receiving gifts is quite as serious a problem to the person who desires to rank as polite, as is the making of presents.—H. P. Beach, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

(1174)

FUNDAMENTALS

Every life is dominated by a fundamental note, good or bad. All its overtones will ultimately correspond.

The wires strung from pole to pole are set into oscillation by the wind, somewhat as the strings of a violin are set into vibration by the bow. In skilful hands the violin bow can be made to bring forth from the string one powerful fundamental note and several overtones of higher pitch, but in perfect harmony with the fundamental. But the wind is a very skilful performer, and brings forth at the same time not only the deepest fundamental bass note of the wire, but a great variety of overtones, both harmonious and discordant. In fact, the many wires strung overhead, from pole to pole, constitute splendid Eolian harps.—Telephony.

(1175)

See [Vital Faiths].

FURY INCREASING STRENGTH

The almost superhuman pluck of certain prize-fighting animals—bulldogs and badgers, for instance—may in reality be founded on a temporary insensibility to pain, and the evident advantages of that negative endowment suggest its development by the agency of natural selection. Individuals gifted with that faculty of emotional anesthesia were less likely to succumb to the terrors of a life-and-death struggle, and therefore more apt to prevail in that struggle for existence which in a state of nature is implied by the frequent necessity of contesting the physical superiority of sexual rivals or alien antagonists. The invigorating tendency of certain passions may have been developed in a similar manner. The formidable and, indeed, quite abnormal strength of infuriated man is so well known that even an athlete will hesitate to try conclusions with an adversary under the influence of raging passions, and in such moments fury-inspired vigor has often accomplished feats which afterward surprized even the hero of the exploit. “The saints do help a man in a desperate plight,” said an old Creole planter, who had rescued his family from the attack of a brutal negro. The same strength-sustaining influence of fury may explain the almost miraculous victories of small bodies of desperate men over large armies of better-armed foes, as in the three murderous battles which the rustic avengers of John Huss gained against the ironclad legions of his enemies, or in that still less expected defeat of an entire Russian army by a few hundred followers of the hero-prophet Shamyl. Religious frenzy has often produced a similar effect, and on any other theory only a miracle could explain the almost constant victories of the Saracens, who, in spite of determined resistance of millions of better disciplined and physically superior opponents, succeeded in less than a century in extending their empire from the Ganges to the Bay of Biscay.—Felix Oswald, The Open Court.

(1176)

FUTURE DISCOVERIES

In view of the marvelous discoveries which the last half century has witnessed no one can doubt that there is quite as much that is marvelous to come. The dweller on the planet in the year 2000 will undoubtedly look back on these times with a good deal of the same feeling that we of the present day have for those who lived in the days of the stage-coach and the weekly mail; and it is quite likely that the philosopher of that period will speak of ours as “the good old times.” But however that may be, and whatever the advance they have made in our condition, we may be sure that they will find all their improvements as necessary to existence as we now find the telegraph and railroad and electric. If they have established intercommunication between the planets, they will be just as dependent on those new features as we are on the latest appliances of our civilization. And if the air line to Jupiter should break down in such a way as to cripple the Mars cut-off or the branch to Saturn, the public will be just as much hindered and embarrassed as we are by a wire-disabling blizzard in the commercial metropolis or a fire in a central telegraph office.—Detroit Free Press.

(1177)

Future, Forcasting the—See [Prevision].

FUTURE LIFE

I trace the river, swelling out by degrees from the spring to a rill, from the rill to a brook, from the brook to a mill-stream, from the stream to a river, taking into itself all minor tributaries, and rolling on with a current that bears the ship and the steamboat with the easiest majesty, still cleaving its way through meadow and hill, through forest and mountain, untroubled toward the sea. Shall I believe, then, that when that river has rounded a promontory, beyond which, as yet, I can not follow it, it is all at once dissolved into mist? or emptied into a cavern so deep and obscure that no trace of the stream reappears upon the earth? Nay, but I know—tho I have not seen the end, it is as certain to me as if already my vision embraced it—that that river flows on continuous to the ocean, and mingles its wave with all the waters that gird the globe, and are drawn into the skies!

And so I know that the great soul of man, aspiring from its birth to a nobler development, still matching its companions, still surpassing its circumstances, with ideas within it which no present can unfold, and with a deep self-centered force, to which the body is only an accident, will still go on when this body has decayed, and be only nobler and princelier in each power when mingling with that illustrious concourse of intelligent and pure beings who already have been gathered in the courts of the future! It were to reverse and violently over-ride every palpable probability, to deny or to doubt this! (Text.)—Richard S. Storrs.

(1178)

---

Sometime—dear hands shall clasp our own once more,

And hearts that touched our hearts long years before

Shall come to meet us in the morning land;

And then, at last, our souls shall understand

How, tho He hid His meaning from our sight,

Yet God was always true and always right;

And how, tho smiles were often changed for tears,

Along this tangled pathway of the years,

Yet only so these lives of yours and mine

Have caught the likeness of the life divine. (Text.)

(1179)

Future Life, Pledge of—See [Life a Cycle].

FUTURE POSSIBILITIES

The field of mental effort is not measurable, and so far as we know, is unlimited. To fix its bounds would be to set an arbitrary limit to the progress of the human race. In science, art, literature—in all that exalts and embellishes life—the space yet available for progress comes as near infinitude as anything we are capable of conceiving. To one who stands in a valley, the horizon is near; let him climb a hill, and his view is expanded. When he attains a greater height the prospect appears still wider. The inventive genius of the world is rising higher and higher every day. Its prospect never appeared so utterly boundless as now. All that has been achieved, all the grand conquests that are recorded, are but an atom in the balance weighed when brought against the possibilities of the future.—The Inventive Age.

(1180)

FUTURE REUNION

Richard Watson Gilder is the author of this:

Call me not dead when I, indeed, have gone

Into the company of the ever-living

High and most glorious poets! Let thanksgiving

Rather be made. Say, “He at last hath won”

Rest and release, converse supreme and wise,

Music and song and light of immortal faces;

To-day, perhaps, wandering in starry places,

He hath met Keats, and known him by his eyes.

To-morrow (who can say) Shakespeare may pass—

And our lost friend just catch one syllable

Of that three-centuried wit that kept so well—

Or Milton, or Dante, looking on the grass

Thinking of Beatrice, and listening still

To chanted hymns that sound from the heavenly hill.

(1181)

FUTURE, THE

Ethel Ashton writes of the value of the things not yet in view:

Beyond the forms and the faces I see ineffable things,

Above the cry of the children I hear the beating of wings;

Gracing the graves of the weary are blossoms that never were blown,

And over the whole of knowledge stands all that shall yet be known.

The city is not my prison—the world can not stay me there;

For whole wide earth and its beauty there’s beauty beyond compare.

The wealth of the wind-blown music, the gold of the sun are mine.

In light of the light men see not—in sight of the things divine.

For truer than all that is written is all that has not been told.

The yet unlived and unliving are truer than all the old.

The fairest is still the furthest; the life that has yet to be

Holds ever the past and present—itself the soul of the three.

—The Outlook (London).

(1182)

Future Uncertain—See [To-morrow, Uncertainty of].

FUTURE WELFARE

A nation may now become educated; a people may now be safe against poverty or famine; the world is even now probably past the critical point and sure of unintermitted future progress. We may be allowed to hope that later generations may continue to see an interminable succession of advances, made by coming men of science and by learned engineers and mechanics that shall continually add to the sum of human happiness in this world, and make it continually easier to prepare for a better world and a brighter. Who knows but that the telescope, the spectroscope, and other as yet uninvented instruments may aid us in this by revealing the secrets of other and more perfect lives in other and more advanced worlds than ours, despite the head-shaking of those who know most of the probabilities? Who can say that the life of the race may not be made in a few generations, by this ever-accelerating progress of which the century has seen but the beginning, a true millennial introduction into the unseen universe and the glorious life that every man, Christian or skeptic, optimist, or pessimist, would gladly hope for and believe possible? (Text.)—R. H. Thurston, North American Review.

(1183)