Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers

by Unknown

G

GAIN THROUGH LOSS

Ella Wheeler Wilcox writes:

I will not doubt, tho sorrows fall like rain,

And troubles swarm like bees about a hive;

I shall believe the heights for which I strive

Are only reached by anguish and by pain;

And tho I groan and tremble with my crosses,

I yet shall see, through my severest losses,

The greater gain. (Text)

(1184)

Gain and Loss—See [Fast Living].

GAIT AND CHARACTER

The firm foot is the ordinary type in men. A firm walk is a sign of self-control as well as of power. When the shoe thickens so obstinately that the foot can not bend it, and when the walker does not care what noise he makes, the firmness and power are developing to a degree that may inconvenience weaker or more sensitive folk. The weak foot is the more common. The stand suggests a knock-kneed body and a mind not strong enough to make the best of life—one might almost say, altogether a knock-kneed character that is always stepping crooked and going its way with an uncertain gait.—Cassell’s Family Magazine.

(1185)

Gait of Criminals—See [Criminals, Gait of].

GAMBLING

The chaplain in charge of the penitentiaries in Kings County, N. Y., states that one-half of all the young men whose careers he has investigated show that the race-track and its attendant evils were the beginning of their downward course. The records of the evil and criminal courts, are replete with similar testimony. Bankrupts, women who risk their married happiness, clerks, pilfering from the till, embezzlers, forgers, defaulters, suicides, show how, to quote a victim who stole and then lost at one time $10,000 at the races, “that betting is the devil’s own joke,” and there are many full-sized victims.—S. Parkes Cadman.

(1186)

See [Juvenile Court Experience].

GAMBLING AS RELIGIOUS DUTY

One of the three great annual Hindu festivals is in memory of the occasion when three of the Hindu gods sat down to gamble. Krishna, the guileful god, won. This festival is celebrated by universal gambling. Indeed, the people believe that unless they gamble at this time, they will be born as rats, or take some other undesirable form in the next life.

After the festival is over, thousands of families have to start life again from the very bottom without a stick of furniture, as all has been lost at gambling.

(1187)

Gambling, Some Results of—See [Juvenile Court Experience].

GAME OF GREED

Ask a great money-maker what he wants to do with his money—he never knows. He doesn’t make it to do anything with it. He gets it only that he may get it. “What will you make of what you have got?” you ask. “Well, I’ll get more,” he says. Just as, at cricket, you get more runs. There’s no use in the runs, but to get more of them than other people is the game. And there’s no use in the money, but to have more of it than other people is the game. So all that great foul city of London there—rattling, growling, smoking, stinking—a ghastly heap of fermenting brickwork, pouring out poison at every pore—you fancy it is a city of work? Not a street of it! It is a great city of play; very nasty play, and very hard play, but still play. It is only Lord’s cricket-ground without the turf—a huge billiard-table without the cloth, and with pockets as deep as the bottomless pit; but mainly a billiard-table, after all.—John Ruskin.

(1188)

GATE, THE, OF STARS

H. Aide writes this apt fancy of the stars:

“Stars lying in God’s hand,

We know ye were not planned

Merely to light men on their midnight way.

Shine on, ye fiery stars!

It may be through your bars

We shall pass upward to eternal day.”

(1189)

Generalship—See [Opinion Changed].

GENEROSITY

A pleasant story about Andrew Carnegie is told by a tourist from Scotland in the New York Tribune:

At Skibo Castle, Mr. Carnegie had during the summer a beautiful rose-garden. There were thousands of red and white and yellow roses always blooming there, and the villagers were free to saunter in the garden paths to their hearts’ content.

One day the head gardener waited upon Mr. Carnegie. “Sir,” he said, “I wish to lodge a complaint.” “Well?” said the master. “Well, sir,” the gardener began, “I wish to inform you that the village folk are plucking the roses in your rose garden. They are denuding your rose-trees, sir.” “Ah,” said Mr. Carnegie gently, “my people are fond of flowers, are they, Donald? Then you must plant more.” (Text.)

(1190)

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There is a beautiful incident connected with the fall of the stronghold of the Cumberland which General Grant was too modest to include in the “Memoirs.” Many years after the event, General Buckner, speaking at a Grant birthday gathering, said: “Under these circumstances I surrendered to General Grant. I had at a previous time befriended him, and it has been justly said that he never forgot an act of kindness. I met him on the boat (at the surrender), and he followed me when I went to my quarters. He left the officers of his own army and followed me, with that modest manner peculiar to him, into the shadow, and there he tendered me his purse. It seems to me that in the modesty of his nature he was afraid the light would witness that act of generosity, and sought to hide it from the world.”—Col. Nicholas Smith, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”

(1191)

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A noble spirit despises pay and money. Garibaldi was always penniless; so, when he had occasion to give, as was constantly the case, he had to borrow or sacrifice personal belongings. Once he brought home an Italian exile, who, he explained, was poorer than himself. “I have two shirts and he has none,” and he proposed dividing. But one shirt happened to be in the wash, so, had he stript off the one on his back, as he was wholly capable of doing, the division would still have been unequal. “I have it!” then exclaimed Garibaldi. “There is the red shirt in my trunk that I haven’t worn since Rome. He shall have that!” A friend, however, intervened, and the Garibaldian red badge of courage was peremptorily rescued. (Text.)

(1192)

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If I were poor, and had no means, and was obliged to throw my remaining days on the generosity of the public for food and clothes and comfort, I should appeal to the Korean, knowing that he would never see me want, would be respectful while generous, and would never be so mean as to cast up my good-for-nothingness to me.—James S. Gale, “Korea in Transition.”

(1193)

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

In all London there was none more kind to the wretched, and none more ready to extend an open hand to every struggling man and woman who crossed his path. When he passed poor, homeless Arabs sleeping in the streets he would slip a coin in their hands, in order that they might have a happy awakening; for he himself knew well what it meant to be hungry. Such was Johnson—a “mass of genuine manhood,” as Carlyle called him, and as such, men loved and honored him.

(1194)

See [Acknowledgment]; [Humor and Generosity]; [Tact].

Generosity Betrayed—See [Displacement].

GENEROSITY, CHRISTIAN

If business men generally followed the Golden Rule, after the example of Mr. Frank Crossley, the great promoter of London missions, as indicated below, what a different world this would soon become!

One unfortunate man who had put in one of Mr. Crossley’s engines, and found it too small, but was unable to replace it, and was threatened with bankruptcy, found in him a rare benefactor, who not only replaced the old engine by a new and larger one without charge, but actually made up to him the losses in his business which had resulted from his own blunder. That man said to a friend, “I have found a man who treated me just as Jesus Christ would have done!” (Text.)—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

(1195)

GENEROSITY, THOROUGHGOING

Rev. A. J. Potter, the “Fighting Parson” of Texas, tells this:

Holding services at a place one time I took up a collection for the support of missions. There was a poor old lady present who I noticed dropt a $5 gold piece in the hat. I knew she was very poor and not able to afford so much, and thought she had intended to throw in a quarter, but made a mistake. So next day I met her husband and said to him: “Look here, your wife put a $5 gold piece in the hat yesterday; I think she must have made a mistake.” “No, no,” he replied, “my wife didn’t make no mistake. She don’t fling often, but, let me tell you, when she flings she flings.”

It is just such “flings” of the generous giver that lend “wings” to the glorious gospel.

(1196)

GENIUS

Oh, some there are with beauty bright,

And they are lust of eyes,

And some who blind us with the mind

Our spirit them defies.

But genius is the great white light

Nor mind nor beauty buys.

And some will play a wanton air

To catch the vagrant soul;

Some find it sweet with dancing feet

To foot it toward the goal;

But he who hears the whirling spheres

Can ne’er again be whole.

Oh, he who hears the whirling spheres

Wher’er his steps have trod,

Has reached the end of human trend;

With wings his feet are shod,

For he has seen, beyond the screen,

Into the face of God.

—Frederick Truesdell, Appleton’s Magazine.

(1197)

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The cultivated man is not in every case the best reporter. One of the best I ever knew was a man who could not spell four words correctly to save his life, and his verb did not always agree with the subject in person and number; but he always got the fact so exactly, and he saw the picturesque, the interesting, and important aspect of it so vividly, that it was worth another man’s while, who possest the knowledge of grammar and spelling, to go over the report and write it out. Now, that was a man who had genius; he had talent the most indubitable, and he got handsomely paid in spite of his lack of grammar.—Charles A. Dana.

(1198)

See [Small Beginnings].

GENIUS AND WORK

Edison, when asked his definition of genius, answered: “Two per cent is genius, and ninety-eight per cent is hard work.” When asked on another occasion: “Mr. Edison, don’t you believe that genius is inspiration?” he replied: “No! Genius is perspiration.”

(1199)

GENIUS CAN NOT BE HIDDEN

The author of “Uncle Remus” apparently succeeded because he did not try. The literary world and the publishers came to him; he did not go to them. Here was a young, unknown, untraveled printer, of narrow school advantages, tho profitably educated in the best classics, and possessing, besides, much curious knowledge of negroes, of dogs, of horses, of the way of the red stream in the swamp, and of the folk of the woods. He had some familiar old stories to tell—so old and so familiar that no one had thought them worth while writing down—and he told them as quietly and as simply as he talked. But good work, tho hidden away in an obscure newspaper, gets itself recognized sooner or later, and one day Harris received an invitation to write some of his tales for one of the foremost of American magazines. He couldn’t understand it at all, but he wrote the stories, among them an account of the amusing adventures of Br’er Rabbit, Br’er Fox, and the Tar Baby, which clinched his literary fame. His tales succeeded far beyond his expectations, and for the same reason that made “Æsop’s Fables” an imperishable classic. For they were the slow fruitage of the wonder, the humor, and the pathos of a race of primitive storytellers. They were instinct with those primal passions which appeal to human nature, savage and civilized, the world over. (Text.) Ray Stannard Baker, The Outlook.

(1200)

GENIUS DISCOUNTED

Those who know Goldsmith best had recognized his genius so little that when he published “The Traveler” it was difficult to persuade them that he had written it himself. He was throughout life the butt of inferior wits, and in the arts which secured earthly success was completely distanced by inferior men, because he had no power of impressing himself as others. He had the finest wit, but it was not at command; he had genius and eloquence, but an invincible awkwardness and timidity prevented the display of either when their display would have won him respect. In conversation he was like a man who has a purse of gold, but who can not produce the single silver coin which is wanted at the moment.—W. J. Dawson, “The Makers of English Prose.”

(1201)

GENIUS, DISCOVERING

Two boys, mistreated by their employer, ran away, taking the road to Rome. They reached the Eternal City. Peter was taken as cook’s boy in a cardinal’s house, Michael could find nothing to do, so he almost despaired and almost starved. But he liked to visit the churches and gaze at the fine pictures therein.

Something stirred within him, and he took bits of charcoal and sketched pictures on the walls of Peter’s attic room. One day the cardinal discovered them. The boys were frightened, and Michael declared that he would rub them all out. But he did not understand the cardinal, who was amazed at their accuracy and power. He took Michael to a drawing-master, and gave Peter a better position in his house. Michael worked diligently and became an enthusiast in his art.

His other name was Angelo. This was the humble beginning of the man who was almost a universal genius—painter, architect, sculptor and poet. (Text.)

(1202)

Genius Neglected—See [Friendship].

GENIUS NOT ALWAYS FORESEEN

It is not always easy to pass final judgment, or to say who will or will not become famous. The nestling’s first awkward attempts to use its wings seem to contain no presage of the warbling flight that will come hereafter. Once, at a literary banquet, Aldrich reminded Dr. Holmes that he had declared he could see no poetic promise in some of Aldrich’s youthful verses that were submitted to him.—New Orleans Times-Democrat.

(1203)

GENIUS, PERSECUTED

The last part of Milton’s life is a picture of solitary grandeur unequaled in literary history. With the Restoration all his labors and sacrifices for humanity were apparently wasted. From his retirement he could hear the bells and the shouts that welcomed back a vicious monarch, whose first act was to set his foot upon his people’s neck. Milton was immediately marked for persecution; he remained for months in hiding; he was reduced to poverty, and his books were burned by the public hangman. His daughters, upon whom he depended in his blindness, rebelled at the task of reading to him and recording his thoughts. In the midst of all these sorrows we understand, in Samson, the cry of the blind champion of Israel:

Now blind, disheartened, shamed, dishonored, quelled,

To what can I be useful? Wherein serve

My nation, and the work from heaven imposed?

But to sit idle on the household hearth,

A burdenous drone; to visitants a gaze,

Or pitied object.

—William J. Long, “English Literature.”

(1204)

GENIUS, PORTRAYING

When David, the painter, was commissioned to paint his picture of Napoleon crossing the Alps, he asked the First Consul to name a day when he would sit. “Sit!” said Bonaparte; “to what good? Do you suppose the great men of antiquity sat for their portraits?” “But I paint you for your own times, for men who have known and seen you; they expect a good likeness.” “A good likeness! It is not the exactitude of the features, the little wart on the nose, that makes a likeness. What ought to be painted is the character of the physiognomy. No one inquires if the portraits of great men are alike; it is quite enough if they manifest their genius.”—Magazine of Art.

(1205)

GENIUS, SECOND RATE

If a man can not be a great genius, is it worth his while to be a little one? Some learned men say not. Of the poets who flourished and were famous a hundred years ago, how many are known now? Of all the bright volumes that brought fame to their authors and made the booksellers of old wealthy, how many can we find upon the shelves of the bookstores to-day? Only a few. And yet, their authors, lauded by friends and flattered by reviews, threw all their souls into their songs, and fondly dreamed of earthly immortality. The fittest survive, and the world has sorted them out with unerring judgment. From the good it has taken the best, and we are thankful. But these little geniuses—did they live their lives in vain because they are forgotten now? Was all their music meaningless, and did the world never miss it when their harps were silent? They fulfilled their mission; their songs went home to human hearts and quickened them with feeling. They sang as sang the birds—brief, tender songs that made the world glad for a day; and tho their names are now unknown, their graves unmarked, their work has not been unrewarded. So let the little geniuses be of good cheer; their footsteps may not go echoing down the ages, but they may sound very pleasantly in the pathways of to-day. If they feel that they must sing, let no man say them nay; there will be ears to listen, voices to applaud, and hearts to feel. The world needs the low, soft notes of the humble singer, the homely harpings of the little poet, as a rest from the deep bass of the bards sublime.—Atlanta Constitution.

(1206)

GENIUS SHOULD BE FAVORED

A man of genius is so valuable a product that he ought to be secured at all cost; to be kept like a queen-bee in a hothouse, fed upon happiness and stimulated in every way to the greatest possible activity. To expose him to the same harsh treatment which is good for the hod-carrier and the bricklayer is to indulge in a reckless waste of the means of a country’s greatness. The waste of water-power at Niagara is as nothing compared with the waste of brain-power which results from compelling a man of exceptional qualifications to earn his own living.—Joel Benton, Lippincott’s.

(1207)

See [Great Men Should be Provided For].

GENIUS THE GIFT OF GOD

Let Raffael take a crayon in his hand and sweep a curve; let an engineer take tracing paper and all other appliances necessary to accurate reproduction, and let him copy that curve—his line will not be the line of Raffael. Rules and principles are profitable and necessary for the guidance of the growing artist and for the artist full grown; but rules and principles, I take it, just as little as geology and botany, can create the artist. Guidance and rule imply something to be guided and ruled. And that indefinable something which baffles all analysis, and which when wisely guided and ruled emerges in supreme excellence, is individual genius, which, to use familiar language, is “the gift of God.”—John Tyndall.

(1208)

GENIUS VERSUS TOOLS

A young Italian knocked one day at the door of an artist’s studio in Rome, and, when it was opened, exclaimed: “Please, madam, will you give me the master’s brush?” The painter was dead, and the boy, filled with a longing to be an artist, wished for the great master’s brush. The lady placed the brush in the boy’s hand, saying: “This is his brush; try it, my boy.” With a flush of earnestness on his face he tried, but found he could paint no better than with his own. The lady then said to him: “You can not paint like the great master unless you have his spirit.”

The same great lesson was taught once in a museum of old-time armor. When a visitor was shown the sword of Wallace, he said: “I do not see how it could win such victories.” “Ah, sir,” said the guide, “you don’t see the arm that wielded it.”

We need all the grace and tact we can acquire through studying the best models and imitating their example; but if we are mere imitators, our lives will be void of real power. (Text.)

(1209)

GENTILITY, FALSE STANDARDS OF

The story about Chief Justice Marshall has been told a good many times, but will bear telling again. As he was taking a morning walk, plainly drest, he encountered a young man who was standing at a market stall, evidently in great perplexity. A basket of moderate size was before him and he was saying to the market-man: “I wonder where all the niggers are this morning. I can’t find any one to carry my basket home.” The Chief Justice said: “Where do you live?” “No. 200 Avenue A,” was the reply. “Well,” he said, “as I am going your way, I will carry your basket for you.” They started, the judge carrying the basket. The young man noticed that the people they met all bowed very politely to his volunteer porter, and wondered who he could be. The basket was deposited at the door. Pay was offered, but refused. What did it mean? The next day, while walking with a friend, this young man saw his volunteer porter in a group of lawyers. He asked: “Who is that plain old fellow that they are all listening to?” “John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States.” “He carried my market-basket home for me yesterday; why do you think he did it?” “To teach you the difference between a real gentleman and a snob,” was the caustic reply. If some of these modern aristocrats who consider labor degrading had gone into the carpenter-shop of Joseph about A.D. 28 or 29, and seen a young man named Jesus at work there, they would have decided at once that he was no gentleman. If they had gone into the rooms of Aquilla at Corinth, a few years later, and seen Paul sewing on tents (“For he abode with them and wrought,” Acts 7:3), they would have despised him because his hands ministered to his necessities. They would not have gone into the synagog next Sabbath to hear that tent-maker preach. No, indeed! Now, can a standard of gentility that excludes Hon. John Marshall, Apostle Paul, and our adorable Savior be a true one?—Obadiah Oldschool, The Interior.

(1210)

Gentle Auxiliaries—See [Handiwork of Nature].

Gentleman versus Snob—See [Gentility, False Standards of].

Gentlemanliness—See [Kindness].

Genuineness, Tests of—See [Tests].

Germs, Moral—See [Sin, Subtlety of].

GESTURES AND USE OF HANDS IN THE EAST

As we (missionaries) talk in the street, or in chapels, we begin to gesture. Remember that many gestures have well-known and disreputable meanings. For instance, I have been holding my hand behind my back as I have been speaking to you. It is a most offensive thing in some countries to hold your hand behind your back. An African missionary was just about concluding difficult negotiations with a chief, when he closed his eyes and placed his hands over them. Instantly chief and subjects alike arose in wrath and nothing further could be done with them. That use of the hand had lost the missionary all that he had gained. The Westerner, in Kipling’s phrase, is always hustling. He must get to a place just as quickly as possible, but in getting there he offends propriety. He ought not to walk rapidly; he is not a letter-carrier nor a coolie. Why does he not walk as a gentleman should?—H. P. Beach, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

(1211)

GETTING AND GIVING

In South America grows a species of the palm known there as “the rain-tree.” It is so called because of its remarkable power of abstracting moisture from the atmosphere and dropping it in copious and refreshing dew on the earth around it. In this way it makes an oasis of luxuriant vegetation where it flourishes.

Is not that the ideal life that gets and gives; that draws the good only to communicate it to others, so blessing the world with moral verdure and fruitfulness? (Text.)

(1212)

See [Conservation].

Ghosts, Discredited—See [Reality versus Illusion].

GIANTS

A scheme to produce moral and spiritual giants would be of more value to the world than the following:

Some time since Count Alfred de Pierrecourt left a legacy of $2,000,000 to his native city of Rouen to pay the expense of the propagation of giants. The will was contested by his heirs, who naturally enough did not see the necessity of having giants on the earth in these days, particularly when they were to be bred, raised, fed and clothed at their personal expense. The courts, however, sustained the will to the extent of endowing the Brobdingnagian experimenters with a quarter of the estate, so that an institution has been established with an endowment of $500,000, under the supervision of the municipality, for the culture of giants and the production of monstrosities. The trustees are to search the four corners of the globe for men and women of large stature, and are to pair them off in couples and place them in the homes on a farm near Rouen. (Text.)

(1213)

GIANTS AND DWARFS

It is of more consequence whether we are giants or whether we are dwarfs in our moral and intellectual stature, than whether our physical stature is great or small:

Pliny mentions the giant Gobbara, who was nine feet nine inches, and two other giants, Poison and Secundilla, who were half a foot taller; Garopius tells of a young giantess who was ten feet high, and Lecat of a Scotch giant eleven and one-half feet in height. But we may take it for granted that these figures are greatly exaggerated, while we have a right to regard as authentic giants whose height runs up to eight and one-half feet. The Grecian giant, Amanab, at eighteen years old, was seven feet eight inches tall; the Chinese giant, Chang, eight feet three inches. The Austrian giant, Winckelmeier, who was recently exhibited in Paris, measuring eight feet and one-half, may be regarded as a specimen of the highest stature attained by the human species. At the opposite extreme may be found numerous dwarfs not more than twenty inches, and some even as little as sixteen and even twelve inches in height; but such dwarfs are only monsters with atrophied limbs or twisted back bones, or stunted infants, whose age is usually exaggerated by their Barnums. One of the most remarkable dwarfs on record was the celebrated Borulawsky, who was born in 1789, and died in 1837, who was never more than twenty-eight inches in height, but was perfect in every limb and proportion and was bright and intelligent.—M. Guyot Daubes, translated from La Nature.

(1214)

Gift, A, that Increased in Power—See [Little Gifts].

GIFT, A FREE

There is a legend of a rich man who sent a message to a poor neighbor: “I want to give you a farm.” The neighbor set out to get it, but carried with him what he thought was a bag of gold. Arriving at the rich man’s mansion, he said: “I got your message. I want your farm. Here is the gold to buy it.” “Let me see your gold,” said the generous donor. It was not even silver. The poor man’s eyes filled with tears. “Alas, I am undone!” “Why, it is not even copper,” he added; “it is only ashes. I have nothing to pay. Will you give it me?” “Why, yes,” said the rich man; “that was my offer. Will you accept the farm as a gift?” “Yes, indeed,” replied the poor man, “and a thousand blessings on your kindness.”

(1215)

Gift and Giver—See [Likeness of God].

Gift, Using Our Best—See [Advantage, Working to the Best].

Gifts—See [Love’s Acceptable Offering].

GIFTS ADJUSTED TO TASKS

In the hour of success, let not pride vaunt itself, while vanity looks down upon the crowd, exclaiming, “Why did they not work as I did? Why did they not have courage to launch out into the deep? Why did they not fling their plans as a whaler his harpoon, or a hunter his spear?” Well, because God and your fathers made you the child of special good fortune, through unique gifts of body and of mind. Why did not the poor and unsuccessful do as you have done? Why does the turtle-dove not soar like the eagle, and lift its stroke against any enemy? Why does not a lamb go out for its prey like a wolf or a lion? Why did not a modest violet grow tall as a redwood-tree? Why, because God had planned something other for a violet and a dove and a lamb, and quite another thing for an oak and an eagle and a lion. Men’s gifts vary because their tasks are unlike. What God asks is not success, but fidelity in the appointed sphere, in the ordained equipment.—N. D. Hillis.

(1216)

Gifts from God—See [God Sends Gifts].

GIFTS, SIGNIFICANT

When the Chinese make gifts they intend each gift to carry a meaning, so adding a peculiar charm. The peach and oleander-blossoms express the wish for long life rich in sustenance and beauty. The lotus-leaf indicates purity and modesty; as one writer puts it, “The superior man, like the lotus, altho coming through mire, is untainted; altho bathed in sparkling water and rising in beauty is without vanity.” The aster means superior to circumstances. The orange marigold, so fragrant and brilliant in the declining season, signifies beautiful in age. These emblematic flowers frequently accompany rich gifts to give them speech.

Every gift of the hand will be eloquent with a sentiment of the heart if the heart’s love is behind it.

(1217)

Girdle—See [Bible Customs To-day].

Girls, Betraying—See [Traps for Girls].

Girl’s Devotion, A—See [Loyalty].

Girls in Factories—See [Greed].

Girl’s Interest in Missions—See [Harvest from Early Sowing].

GIRLS, LITTLE, AND SLAMMING DOORS

A trick that every one abhors

In little girls is slamming doors.

A wealthy banker’s little daughter,

Who lived in Palace Green, Bayswater

(By name Rebecca Offendort),

Was given to this furious sport.

She would deliberately go

And slam the door like Billy-Ho!

To make her uncle Jacob start.

(She was not really bad at heart.)

*****

It happened that a marble bust

Of Abraham was standing just

Above the door this little lamb

Had carefully prepared to slam,

And down it came! It knocked her flat!

It laid her out! She looked like that!

*****

Her funeral sermon (which was long

And followed by a sacred song)

Mentioned her virtues, it is true,

But dwelt upon her vices, too,

And showed the dreadful end of one

Who goes and slams the door for fun!

—H. Belloc.

(1218)

GIRLS, TRAFFIC IN

Twenty-six years ago in New York City, when I first began to feel an interest in unfortunate girls, and established the first Florence Crittenton home, now known as the Mother Mission, one of the things which surprized and imprest me most in coming close in touch with the subject, was that almost every girl that I met in a house of sin was supporting some man from her ill-gotten earnings. Either the man was her husband, who had driven her on the street in order that he might live in luxury and ease, or else he was her paramour, upon whom with a woman’s self-forgetful devotion she delighted to shower everything that she could earn. In addition to this form of slavery, I also found that the majority had to pay a certain percentage of their earnings to some individual or organization who had promised them immunity from arrest and to whom they looked for protection.

But when we began to get closer to the hearts of the girls, to know their true history, we discovered that the commencement of this form of slavery had been even in a baser form—that before the girls had become so-called “willing slaves” they were “unwilling slaves.” Many of them had fought for their liberty and had submitted only because they had been overcome by superior force. Some of them had been drugged; others kept under lock and key until such time when either their better nature had been drugged into unconsciousness or hardened into a devil-may-care recklessness.—Ernest A. Bell, “War on the White Slave Trade.”

(1219)

GIVERS, CLASSES OF

First, those who give spontaneously and generously, but only to themselves—auto-givers they might be called.

Second, those who give thoughtlessly, without any real or high motive—givers of the occasion, as it were.

Third, those who give as a sop to conscience and self-esteem; in a species of atonement for the evil they do—penitential givers.

Fourth, those who give as a matter of display, to win public applause for their generosity—theatrical givers.

Fifth, those who give because others give, because they are expected to give, and are ashamed not to give, and therefore give grudgingly—conventional givers.

Sixth, those who give because they feel they ought to give; who give through a sense of duty and not through love—moral givers.

Seventh, those who give in the spirit of Jesus; who give because they love their neighbor as themselves, and above all things desire to help him—spiritual givers.

To which do you belong?

There are lots of men who will sing with gusto in a missionary meeting:

“Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small,”

but when the collection-plate is put under their nose and they are asked to put their sentiments into cold, hard cash, they drop a five-cent piece upon it with a sigh of regret, which suggests these other well-known lines,

“When we asunder part,

It gives us inward pain.”

—E. L. Meadows, Pittsburg Christian Advocate.

(1220)

GIVING

Kerman, in Persia, has been sacked at least six times. In 1794 the city was almost entirely destroyed by Agha Mohammed Khan, who later demanded twenty thousand pairs of human eyes before he would withdraw his troops. Kerman never recovered from this terrible blow, and to-day is a byword for its poverty and beggars. There is a quaint saying among its beggars:

“Khuda guft, ‘Beddeh’;

Shaitan guft, ‘Neddeh.’”

This means, “God says, ‘Give’; Satan says, ‘Don’t give.’”

The generous impulse is a divine motion: the selfish, is satanic. Many are poor because they are first blind and do not possess the enlightenment of good sense and God’s grace.

(1221)

---

Forever the sun is pouring its gold

On a hundred worlds that beg and borrow;

His warmth he squandered on summits cold,

His wealth on the homes of want and sorrow;

To withhold his largeness of precious light

Is to bury himself in eternal night.

To give

Is to live.

(1222)

See [Almsgiving]; [Benevolence]; [Generosity;] [Getting and Giving]; [Happiness]; [Personal Preaching].

GIVING, FAITHFUL

In the station over which Mr. C. T. Studd ministered in China every man who was a Christian gave one-tenth of his annual income to the Lord. One day a young man who was earning seventy-two shillings a year came to Mr. Studd and said, “Pastor, I want you to give me a few days’ grace. I have not yet got together quite all my tenth.” He handed a good sum to him, and the pastor asked, “Haven’t you been helping to support your father and mother?” “Yes.” “And kept your little brother at school?” “Yes.” “Well, that is more than your tenth,” said Mr. Studd. “You need not bring any more.”

“No,” said the young man, “I have promised God my tenth, and no matter what I give beside, I am going to give my full tenth to God.” And he did. (Text.)

(1223)

Giving that Grows.—See [Missionary, A Little].

GIVING THE MINIMUM

During the Civil War coins became difficult to obtain, and paper money was furnished in their place, and at one time the lowest denomination was a “five-cent scrip.” The time came when the government minted the three-cent nickel piece. The treasurer of a church, a fine man, who had a brother, a missionary in Siam, said to me, “Pastor, it is very unfortunate that the government should have issued this three-cent piece, because when we had nothing smaller than a five-cent scrip, people put that into the collection, but now, that we have got something so small as a three-cent nickel, our collections will fall off two-fifths!”

(1224)

GIVING THROUGH LOVE

Queen Tyi was a woman of marked ability, the consort of King Amenhotep III, who ruled in Egypt from 1414 to 1379 B.C. Recently Egyptologists discovered her shrine in Thebes. It was cut out of solid rock. Approach to it was by a descent of twenty steps, adjoining that of Rameses I. Around and within were all that material, wealth and skill of Egyptian art could offer. The coffin, itself intact, is a superb example of the jeweler’s craft, the woodwork covered with a frame of gold inlaid with lapsis lazuli, carmelian and green glass. The royal mummy was wrapt from head to foot in sheets of gold, bracelets on the arms, a necklace of gold, beads and ornaments encrusted with precious stones around the neck, and the head encircled by the imperial crown of the queen of ancient Egypt. “Behold how he loved her,” can be said of the king whose consort she was. Nothing is too precious for love to give. (Text.)

(1225)

Giving, Unostentatious.—See [Benevolence, Modest].

Giving What We Have—See [Talents].

GLITTER VERSUS DEPTH

To have an overwhelming flow of words is one thing; to have a large vocabulary is another; and very often Swinburne’s torrent of speech reminds us not so much of a natural fountain whose springs are deep and abundant, as of an artificial fountain, which is always ready to shoot aloft its glittering spray, and always reabsorbs itself for some further service; so that while the fashion of the jet may differ, the water is pretty much the same.—W. J. Dawson, “The Makers of English Poetry.”

(1226)

Gloom Dispelled—See [Sunshine, Scattering].

GLORY, FADED

When Charlemagne died, he was buried at Aix la Chapelle, “keeping royal state and semblance still.” The purple robe was around him, the crown glittered on his pallid brow. The sword of state lay near him, and the scepter rested in his hand. Seated on a chair of state, with all these insignia of royalty upon him and around him, he was left in the chamber of death. A century afterward, that silent chamber was opened by the barbarian Otho. And now the purple robe was dust and ashes. The crown was a faded spangle, the sword of state corroded metal, and all that remained of Charles the Great, a ghastly skeleton.

(1227)

Glory in Duty—See [Duty More Than Glory].

GLORY IN IDEALS

It is glory enough to have shouted the name

Of the living God in the teeth of an army of foes;

To have thrown all prudence and forethought away

And for once to have followed the call of the soul

Out into the danger of darkness, of ruin and death.

To have counseled with right, not success, for once,

Is glory enough for one day.

It is glory enough for one day

To have dreamed the bright dream of the reign of right;

To have fastened your faith like a flag to that immaterial staff

And have marched away, forgetting your base of supplies.

And while the worldly-wise see nothing but shame and ignoble retreat,

And tho far ahead the heart may faint and the flesh prove weak—

To have dreamed that bold dream is glory enough,

Is glory enough for one day.

—William Herbert Carruth, The American Magazine.

(1228)

GLORY OF CHRIST

Emery Pottle is the author of this sentiment appropriate to Advent season:

Strange, we so toil to fashion for our unseen ends

The splendors that the tarnish of this world doth mar—

Such palaces that crumble to a ruined age,

Such garbled memories upon Fame’s fragile page—

When all the lasting glory of our life depends

Upon a little Child, a stable, and a star. (Text.)

(1229)

GLORY OF NATURE

A teacher in Alaska went out one day with one of her pupils to do some sketching. The little girl she took with her was about ten years of age and quite skilful with her brush. When the day was nearly over the teacher looked at the sky where the sun was setting. “Try to make a picture of that sunset,” said the teacher to the pupil. The little girl looked at the beautiful sight in the heavens and then turned to her teacher and said, “I can’t draw glory.” It was a bright answer made by that little Alaska girl. It is God who has painted the sunset sky, and there is no human skill that can draw the glory which He has created.—W. M. Vines.

(1230)

GOD

God! Thou art Love! I build my faith on that!

I know Thee, Thou hast kept my path and made

Light for me in the darkness—tempering sorrow,

So that it reached me like a solemn joy;

It were too strange that I should doubt Thy love.

—Browning.

(1231)

God, A Coworker with—See [Children’s Religious Ideas].

God a Protector—See [Faith, A Child’s].

“God and We”—See [Gratitude].

God Cares—See [Extremity, God in].

“God Claims Me”—See [Claim, God’s].

GOD FIRST

Here is a lesson on pronouns in Christian grammar according to the Bishop of Cambridge:

We have learned to say, “First person, I; second, thou; third, he.” But to put it right, we must turn it upside down: “First person, He; second, thou; third, I.” “He,” means God, the first person in the first place; “thou,” my fellow man; and “I,” myself, comes last.

(1232)

GOD, FULNESS OF

The Scandinavian mythology tells of a mortal who attempted to drain a goblet of the gods. The more he drank, however, the more there was to drink. His amazement grew, until he found that the goblet was invisibly connected with the sea, and that to empty it he must drink the ocean dry.

So the soul may drink of God’s life forever without exhausting or diminishing the supply.

(1233)

GOD, GREATNESS AND SMALLNESS OF

Collins, the infidel, met a plain countryman going to church. He asked him where he was going. “To church, sir.” “What to do there?” “To worship God.” “Pray, is your God a great or a little God?” “He is both, sir.” “How can He be both?” “He is so great, sir, that the heaven of heavens can not contain Him, and so little that he can dwell in my heart.”

Collins declared that this simple answer of the countryman had more effect upon his mind than all the volumes the learned doctors had written against him. (Text.)

(1234)

God Help Us All—See [Forbearance].

GOD, IDEAS OF

The Indian’s god falls in his estimation as he himself declines. When confronted by a people greater than themselves, the Indians were easily convinced that their deity also must be greater. We find similar ideas among all uncivilized and semi-civilized peoples; when the people show great power it is evidence that their god is a powerful one. Thus Israel felt assured that Jehovah, or Yahveh, was greater than the gods of other people, because His people had conquered others under His banner.

(1235)

GOD, IMMANENCE OF

The works of God, above, below,

Within us and around,

Are pages in that Book to show

How God Himself is found.

*****

Thou who hast given me eyes to see

And love this sight so fair,

Give me a heart to find out Thee

And read Thee everywhere.

—Keble. (Text.)

(1236)

GOD IN A HUMAN LIFE

Mrs. Burnett has written a sweet and powerful story that turns around an old woman in a London slum. She had not lived a good life, and, in her wicked old age, lying on a hospital cot, some visitor had told her the gospel story. She simply believed it; no more than that. One who saw her afterward, at a time of dire need, says: “Her poor little misspent life has changed itself into a shining thing, tho it shines and glows only in this hideous place. She believes that her Deity is in Apple Blossom Court—in the dire holes its people live in, on the broken stairway, in every nook and cranny of it—a great glory we would not see—only waiting to be called and to answer.” —James M. Stifler, “The Fighting Saint.”

(1237)

GOD IN ALL CHANGES

I went back to the little town where I was born. I saw the friends of my childhood, and later I went out to God’s acre. There stood the little schoolhouse, and the old academy. The great oak-trees swayed above the house where I was born. The little brook still rippled over the stones; once more the fruit was ripe in the orchard and the nuts brown in the forest trees; again the shouts of the old companions were heard on the hillside and the laughter of the skaters filled the air; and yet all was changed. Gone the old minister, who baptized me! Gone the old professors and teachers who taught us. In the little graveyard slept the fathers. The stars shone over the mounds, the graves were silent, but God was over all. And all is well. For our times have been in God’s hands.—N. D. Hillis.

(1238)

God in Creation—See [Creation, Joy in].

GOD INDWELLING

The late Maltbie D. Babcock is the author of these verses:

No distant Lord have I,

Loving afar to be;

Made flesh for me, He can not rest

Until He rests in me.

Brother in joy and pain,

Bone of my bone was He,

Now—intimacy closer still,

He dwells Himself in me.

I need not journey far

This dearest friend to see,

Companionship is always mine,

He makes His home with me.

(1239)

God in Human Instinct—See [Religious Instruction Denied].

GOD IN INDIAN BELIEF

Of all the different kinds of people among whom I have lived the Indians of northern California carry the memory of their dead the longest, and, I had almost written, feel their loss the most. I have seen old women, bent with age, rocking their bodies to and fro with grief in some dry, grass-covered ditch, moaning as if their hearts were breaking, and upon inquiry have been told that they were mourning for a husband or children dead perhaps for years. But from amid the moans of Rachel sorrowing for her dead children the whisper of hope beyond the grave has always been present. For underneath the driftwood of their dim traditions and wild fables handed from father to son from time immemorial, around the camp-fires at night, with addition here, subtraction there, and darkness all around, I have always found among all the tribes that grand conception of a divine being who created all and who in the hereafter will reward the good and punish the bad. Everywhere my footsteps have wandered—on the Klamath and on the Trinity, from the Golden Gate to the Oregon line—I have encountered the Man-maker, who lives among the stars and loves his red children—A. G. Tassin, Overland.

(1240)

GOD IN MAN’S WORK

Dr. Henry Van Dyke enforces the lesson that God is in all the common tasks of life, after this fashion:

There was a man who wanted to find Christ, and he imagined he must leave his work. He was a carpenter, builder, perhaps, or a stone-mason. He imagined he could only be a Christian by going to the desert and living a hermit’s life. He never found Christ there. He then thought he must never go outside the cloisters of the church, or walls of the temple. He did not find Christ there. There was something defective about that man’s life. He was heedless of his children and his fellow men. He was seeking Christ for himself and not for others. The voice of the Savior came:

“You did not need to go to the desert to find me; lift the stone and thou shalt find me. Do your regular work as a stone-mason and as you do your work you shall find me in your daily labor. Cleave the wood and there am I. As you lift the timbers, sing out the song of praise.” Christ is with you in your daily task.

(1241)

GOD IN MISSIONS

The captain of the Trident, the ship on which Morrison, the missionary, sailed, and who knew something of the impenetrable conservatism of the Chinese, said: “And so, Mr. Morrison, you really expect that you will make an impression upon the idolatry of the great Chinese Empire?” “No, sir,” returned Mr. Morrison, severely, “I expect God will.”

(1242) God, Instinctive Sense of—See [Religious Instruction Denied].

GOD IN THE CHILD MIND

I have in mind a four-year-old girl, favored in many things, but especially happy in that she spends her summers on an island in a beautiful lake, mountain-rimmed. She has always been privileged to walk with her father and mother in the fields and woods; to “go a-trudging,” as she called it, has been her chief delight. “Where did the trees get their red and yellow leaves?” she asked. “Who made them red and yellow?” Her question answered, she ran to her mother with her chubby hands filled with her new treasures, saying, “See, mama! I have brought you some of God’s beautiful leaves!”

“How came the island here?” she asked. “Who brought the rocks and the trees?” She was told how the island was lifted into its place; how the soil was formed, the trees planted, and the island made ready for the birds, for the trees, for the rabbits, for the squirrels, and for her—just as her father had built the house for her, in which she lived. As the time for her return to her home approached, she sat one evening watching the sunset and the early evening stars, and said, “Don’t you hope that God will be at home when we get there, just as He has been here this summer?” So linked with her love of the beautiful in the world was her reverent thought of Him who had made it beautiful—Sarah Louise Arnold, “Proceedings of the Religious Education Association,” 1905.

(1243)

GOD IN THE DARKNESS

Robert E. Speer writes the following:

I was awakened the other morning about four o’clock in my room by a little voice just beside my bed in the dark asking for a drink. I got the little lad a drink, and he lay quiet for a moment, and then asked, “Father, may I sing myself asleep?” And I said, “Yes, dear, go ahead.” But soon he got up so much enthusiasm that I told him he would better stop, or none of the rest of us could sleep. Then he was quiet awhile, but soon I heard his little voice again in the perfect stillness of the night, “Father, have you got your face turned toward me?” And I said, “Yes, little boy,” and the darkness was as the light of day to him.

(1244)

GOD IS LIGHT

As there are no darkened rooms for the child when mother is near, so there can be no darkened worlds for the spirit as long as God is in them.—F. F. Shannon.

(1245)

GOD, LIVING FOR

Among the thirty-two “Sacred Songs” by Thomas Moore is the following exquisite lyric:

Since first Thy word awaked my heart,

Like new life dawning o’er me,

Where’er I turn mine eyes Thou art,

All light and love before me;

Naught else I feel, or hear, or see—

All bonds of earth I sever;

Thee, O God! and only Thee

I live for now and ever.

Like him whose fetters dropt away,

When light shone o’er his prison,

My spirit, touched by Mercy’s ray,

Hath from her chains arisen;

And shall a soul Thou bidd’st be free,

Return to bondage? Never!

Thee, O God! and only Thee

I live for, now and ever. (Text.)

(1246)

God Maternal—See [Maternal, God’s Love].

GOD, NOT NATURE

A great teacher of England, passing through a hospital, stopt beside a little wan-faced crippled boy, who was dying. The handsomest man in England stooped to that little stranger, saying, “My boy, God loves you.” An hour later, the little cripple, in a wonder of happiness, called one nurse after another to his side, exclaiming, “He said, ‘God loves me!’” and with smiles wreathing his face, the dying boy repeated the magic word. But to go toward the god of nature is to lie down in a bed of nettles. Nature exhibits God as a purple earthquake. Going toward nature is going toward a sheaf of red-hot swords. Man subdues nature’s fire and wind and water, and makes them serve. Back of these rude physical forces that are to help man’s body stands the infinite Father. Man’s body, on a snowy day, needs a blazing fire on the hearth, and man’s heart needs God’s love, that redeems, guides, and forever saves.—N. D. Hillis.

(1247)

God Our Guide—See [Guidance, God’s].

GOD OUR STRENGTH

At one time during the war of the Revolution, Washington sent Lee and Lafayette to meet the British at Englishtown. After a brief skirmish, Lee, without any apparent reason, except that it was for jealousy, ordered a retreat. Soon the American troops were all in disorder and were fleeing before the oncoming foe. Everything was in confusion and chaos.

Lafayette saw the condition, but he did not dare disobey. He hastily sent a message to the commander-in-chief, informing him of the state of things and beseeching him to come as soon as possible. In an incredibly short time, Washington appeared with fresh troops. He met the soldiers retreating. Giving Lee a cutting rebuke, he began to retrieve the error of the morning. When the soldiers saw Washington, riding back and forth on his white horse, almost under the banner of the enemy, they faced about as they cried, “Long live Washington.” His presence brought order and determined the victory.

In our moral warfare, when the enemy is pressing toward us, when the forces of righteousness within and without seem on the retreat, if we will send a message, lift up a prayer to the Captain of the Lord’s host, He will answer while we are yet speaking, and will get the victory with His own right arm, for He is a God of battles. (Text.)

(1248)

God Possesses a Body—See [Children’s Religious Ideas].

God, Presence of—See [Presence of God].

God Proved—See [Corn versus Gold].

GOD, RECOGNIZING

Dwight L. Moody in his sermons used to tell of a mother who had an only child that was an idiot. When it was fourteen years of age a neighbor came in and found the mother weeping in the bitterness of her soul. Asking what was the matter, the mother answered: “For fourteen years I have cared for that child day and night; I have given up society and spent my time with her, and to-day she does not know me from you. If she would only recognize me once it would pay me for all I have ever done for her.”

Mr. Moody would add: “How many are there over whom the Son of God has watched and cared for and blest, and who have never once recognized Him, have never once looked up into His face and said, “Thank you, Lord Jesus.”

(1249)

GOD REVEALED IN NATURE

The mosses on the rock, as well as the trees that bend stately above them, the birds that fly and sing in heaven, as well as the clouds that gather and dissolve there, the mimosa that closes its sensitive petals if a footfall approaches, and the stars that reign silent on empyreal thrones—each must in turn give witness to the Most High; till the frame of creation shall be all eclaircised, not so much a pillar engraven around with the trophies of omnipotence, as a solid but transparent sphere of crystal, lighted from within by the calm thought of God! (Text.)—Richard S. Storrs.

(1250)

See [Atom, The, A Witness to God].

God Self-revealed—See [Demonstration].

GOD SENDS GIFTS

A lady physician in one of the mission fields restored to health a beloved child of a native. In gratitude the parents knelt at her feet and not only thanked but worshiped her as a god. She remonstrated, saying that she was a mortal like themselves and worship belonged only to God. They replied that no one but a god could have saved their loved one from death. “Whom would you thank and praise,” the missionary replied, “for a princely gift sent by the hand of a coolie—the servant or his generous master, the giver? I am but God’s coolie by whose hand He has been pleased to send you this great gift of healing.” (Text.)

(1251)

GOD, SLEEPLESS CARE OF

This song of nightfall is by the Rev. Archibald Haddon:

The tangled threads, the untilled field,

The words unsaid, the tasks half done,

Battles unfought, and wounds unhealed,

Must wait until another sun.

Stars move, the tides and rivers roll,

Grass grows, rain falls on vale and hill.

And deep in my unconscious soul

The sleepless life of God works still.

I rest on thy unwearied mind;

Thy planning and thy love go on,

Nor dost thou leave me far behind;

I’m carried to another dawn.

The new day breaks. From earth’s old mold

Fresh flowers grow along my way.

New light is flashed on problems old;

On ancient life new forces play.

O wondrous, wakeful Warden! When

The last great nightfall comes to me,

From that deep slumber rouse me then,

That I Thy tireless child may be. (Text.)

(1252)

GOD SURROUNDING THE SOUL

Constant communion will surround us with an atmosphere through which none of the many influences which threaten our Christian life and our Christian work can penetrate. As the diver in his bell sits dry at the bottom of the sea, and draws a pure air from the free heavens far above him, and is parted from that murderous waste of green death that clings so closely round the translucent crystal walls which keep him safe, so we, enclosed in God, shall repel from ourselves all that would overflow to destroy us and our work, and may by His grace lay deeper than the waters some courses in the great building that shall one day rise, stately and many-mansioned, from out of the conquered waves. (Text.)—Alexander McLaren.

(1253)

GOD, THE OVERSEEING

The steamer Samaritan, on the St. Lawrence, was suddenly enveloped in a heavy fog, completely hiding the shore and every object from view. Yet the ship continued in full speed. The passengers became frightened and censured Captain Dutton and complained to the first mate. He replied, smiling, “Don’t be frightened; the fog only extends a certain height, and the captain is up above the fog running the vessel.”

We who fear the dangers of time and the world, often forget that God, the great Captain, is above the fog and knows just where and whither He is steering the life ship.

(1254)

GOD, THE SENSE OF

No wonder you yawn and know not what to do next if you have no God, for ennui is the mark of godlessness.

Nothing is worth while but God.

The very naming of God gives zest to life.

I love to feel God love the world through me, until I am fairly washed away by the current.

Of what moment is it whether I live or die so long as that goes on?—Ernest Crosby, “Swords and Plowshares.”

(1255)

God the Source of Goodness—See [Goodness from God].

GOD, THE UNSLEEPING

The Sleeping Buddha is one of the famous temples of China. A long avenue of large trees, with a stone pavement passageway, leads up to its entrance. Before it is an imposing gateway of colored tiles. But the pride of its interior is the wonderful figure of Buddha. A monster it is! Gross, indeed, must have been the mind which conceived it. There, lying on his side, with calm face, closed eyes, and head resting upon his hand, is a gilded wooden figure thirty feet long. It is well proportioned. His left arm is resting upon his body, and his bare feet are placed one upon the other. This Buddha is sleeping upon a Chinese K’ang. Standing about him are twelve crowned and beautifully drest images, and in front are the symbols of sacrifices for burning incense. But Buddha is asleep!

Contrast this with the conception of the God who never “slumbers nor sleeps.” (Text.)

(1256)

God the Weaver—See [Web of Life].

God, Walking with—See [Walking with God].

GODLIKENESS OF MAN

Leroy T. Weeks somewhat enlarges upon the saying of Kepler in the following verses:

We think Thy thoughts, O mighty God!

Thy thoughts, that thrill through space afar,

That hold in place each twinkling star,

And permeate the teeming sod.

We think Thy thoughts, and live thy life;

Our souls are fathered by Thine own,

And high as is Thy holy throne,

So high we mount from sin and strife.

We live Thy life, and love Thy love;

The tendrils of our souls entwine,

Entwines and draws us all above,

Our fellow men, as love divine.

We think and live and love and grow

Like Thee, in ever-bright’ning ways;

We are God-kind, and all our days

Are in His hands who made us so. (Text.)

(1257)

God’s Bridge—See [Self-consciousness].

GOD’S CARE

Mary E. Allbright, in the Christian Advocate, writes in rime the same lesson Jesus taught His disciples when He told them that the very hairs of their heads were numbered, and that Paul exprest when he said “for He (God) careth for you”:

O! strange and wild is the world of men

Which the eyes of the Lord must see—

With continents, islands, tribes, and tongues,

With multitudes, bond and free!

All kings of the earth bow down to him,

And yet—He can think of me.

For none can measure the mind of God

Or the bounds of eternity.

He knows each life that has come from Him,

To the tiniest bird and bee;

And the love of His heart is so deep and wide

That takes in even me.

(1257a)

What cares the babe for the blackness and the wild storm if only the mother holds it to her bosom and croons the hymn of peace. And in the hour when the world reels beneath his feet, frail man becomes almost omnipotent in the thought that beneath this world are the everlasting arms. (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.

(1258)

God’s House for All—See [Americanism, True].

God’s Image—See [Restoring God’s Image].

GOD’S INSCRUTABILITY

Incompetent to the making of a single cherry-seed, as Luther remarks, how can we expect to fathom the works and wisdom of an infinite God?

“I am not so much of a farmer as some people claim,” said Hon. W. J. Bryan in his lecture on “The Prince of Peace,” “but I have observed the watermelon-seed. It has the power of drawing from the ground and through itself 200,000 times its weight, and when you can tell me how it takes this material and out of it colors an outside surface beyond the imitation of art, and then forms inside of it a white rind and within again a red heart, thickly inlaid with black seeds, each one of which in turn is capable of drawing through itself 200,000 times its weight—when you can explain to me the mystery of a watermelon, you can ask me to explain the mystery of God.” (Text.)

(1259)

GOD’S PRESENCE

It is said that on the doors of Linnæus’ home at Hammarby, near Upsala, these words were written, “Innocue vivito; numen adest”—“Live blameless; Deity is here.” “This,” said Linnæus, “is the wisdom of my life.” “Thou God seest me.”

(1260)

GOD’S WAYS

God’s ways seem dark, but, soon or late,

They touch the shining hills of day;

The sinner can not brook delay—

The good can well afford to wait.

—Whittier.

(1261)

GOLD, TAINT OF

The ancient fable of King Midas and his gift of turning everything he laid his hands upon into gold has been exactly reversed in these modern days. This good king was delighted with the gift the gods gave him until one day he turned his daughter into a golden image by a careless use of his power, and the counterfeit presentment was so utterly worthless compared with his child of flesh and blood that henceforth his charm was a horrible curse. Now it is our brightest and best which come under the spell of gold itself, and how it does harden and fossilize them! Our artists paint, our literary men write, our business men take hazardous and doubtful ventures, our young men and maidens marry, all for gold. How bright was the promise of Bret Harte until he began to command high prices for his stories? Howells, James and Stockton all delighted us, but presently we found ourselves wading through such stories as “April Hopes” and the “Hundredth Man.” As soon as one begins to preach good sermons in the pulpit he immediately attracts the attention of some rich congregation and becomes a high-priced man. Everywhere the test of excellence is price, and all the choicest spirits are sought out and put into the livery of our sovereign gold.—Providence Journal.

(1262)

GOLD USELESS

It is true the California gold will last forever unchanged, if its owner chooses; but, while it so lasts, it is of no use; no, not as much as its value in pig iron, which makes the best of ballast; whereas gold, while it is gold, is good for little or nothing. You can neither eat it, nor drink it, nor smoke it. You can neither wear it, nor burn it as fuel, nor build a house with it; it is really useless till you exchange it for consumable, perishable goods; and the more plentiful it is the less its exchangeable value—Edward Everett.

(1263)

GOLDEN AGE, THE

That the golden age is not in the past nor in the future, but now, is the refrain of these verses:

There are no days for me in long ago,

No days in which to work and love and pray,

No richly freighted hours where sweet winds blow.

There is no treasure for me but to-day.

There is no field where I may sow my seed

Beyond the reach of evening’s setting sun.

If to this soil to-day I pay no heed,

The future’s fertile fields may ne’er be sown.

The age of iron, of bronze, they are not now,

The bright-gemmed present is my golden age,

In which I think and live and love and do

What deeds are worth life’s brave and noble wage.

And finding in to-day my age of gold

To-morrow glows with promise and delight,

As if the happy isles oft dreamed of old

Were dawning now upon my blissful sight. (Text.)

(1264)

Golden Rule, The—See [Circumstances, Taking Advantage of]; [Considerateness].

Good and Evil—See [Nature, Dual, in Man].

GOOD DISPLACING EVIL

The headquarters of the George Yard Missions, London, are pitched on an extinct volcano; the main block being built on the site of an ancient distillery, and the shelter on the ground formerly occupied by the infamous “Black Horse”—that rendezvous of highwaymen, robbers, and murderers.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

(1265)

GOOD, FAITH IN

In the following verse Eugene Lee-Hamilton shows the result of losing faith in the good:

There is a tale of Faustus—that one day,

Lucretia, the Venetian, then his love,

Had, while he slept, the rashness to remove

His magic ring, when fair as god he lay;

And that a sudden horrible decay

O’erspread his face; a hundred wrinkles wove

Their network on his cheek; while she above

His slumber crouched, and watched him shrivel away.

There is upon Life’s hand a magic ring—

The ring of Faith-in-Good, Life’s gold of gold;

Remove it not, lest all Life’s charm take wing;

Remove it not, lest straightway you behold

Life’s cheek fall in, and every earthly thing

Grow all at once unutterably old.

(1266)

GOOD FOR EVIL

Mr. Lincoln took from his pocket a paper he had prepared in the case, which comprized eleven reasons why he should be appointed commissioner of the General Land Office. Among other things, Mr. Lincoln presented the fact that he had been a member of Congress from Illinois two years; that his location was in the West, where the Government lands were; that he was a native of the West, and had been reared under Western influences. He gave reasons why the appointment should be given to Illinois, and particularly to the southern part of the State. Major Wilcox says that he was forcibly struck by the clear, convincing, and methodical statement of Mr. Lincoln as contained in these eleven reasons why he should have the appointment. But it was given to his competitor, Mr. Justin Butterfield. After Mr. Lincoln became President, a member of Congress asked for an appointment in the army in behalf of a son of the same Justin Butterfield. When the application was presented, the President paused, and, after a moment’s silence, said: “Mr. Justin Butterfield once obtained an appointment I very much wanted, and to which my friends thought I was fairly entitled; and I hardly ever felt so bad at any failure in my life. But I am glad of an opportunity of doing a service to his son.” And he made an order for the commission. The son was General Dan Butterfield, afterward the dashing and efficient chief of staff of the Army of the Potomac. (Text.)—Browne, “Everyday Life of Lincoln.”

(1267)

GOOD, IMMORTALITY OF

Over one of the town-gates of ancient Warwick, in England, stands a home for old men, known as the Hospital of St. John. It was founded three centuries ago by the ambitious Earl of Leicester and Lord of Kenilworth Castle. That castle is now in ruins, and for his perfidy the name of the earl is a byword and a reproach; but this endowment, after long centuries, still remains living and beneficent, shining through the dark to show for future ages that

“So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

(1268)

GOOD IN ALL MEN

Our fellow man is as valuable as we. He may be down, but he has it in him to stand. A writer says of the windfalls of apples:

We remember that in the windfalls a sweetness remains. That fruit, fallen untimely, or cast earthward by the storm, yet has not lost its flavor; often it is still sweet and pleasant to the taste. And, therefore, mindful of this, let us not think that the human windfalls have lost all their sweetness. Let us remember some good is left in all, and seek to gather them up. (Text.)

(1269)

Good, Making—See [Reformation].

GOOD, NOURISHING THE

Mr. Kaye Robinson, the brilliant English naturalist, describes a competition witnessed by him in the fields:

Owing to a peculiarity of weather the poppies had managed to get a start of an inch or so in the matter of height over the wheat and barley, and the obnoxious flowers were just beginning to burst into bloom that would have converted the stunted grain into lakes of scarlet, when down came the rain; in a single day and night the wheat shot up above the poppies, and for the rest of the season the poisonous things were overwhelmed in a wavy sea of prosperous green and yellow gold.

The best way to improve the world is not to fight against the evil directly, but to so nourish and cultivate the good that evil will be crowded out. (Text.)

(1270)

Good Old Times—See [Science Shattering Superstition].

GOOD OUT OF EVIL

Again and again is it demonstrated how God makes the wrath of man to praise him.

When he was seeking to do evil only, in the pursuit of his cruel and tyrannical policy, Sultan Abdul Hamid was all the time unconsciously promoting some of the great designs of divine Providence. He did good in ways altogether unintended, never for a moment foreseeing how his own policy in the end would recoil upon himself. For he banished hundreds of the most enlightened and patriotic of his subjects to various provinces, little thinking how their influence would work against himself. The head of the revolutionary party, Ahmed Riza, for twenty years quietly and steadily during his exile worked in the cause of liberty. And this heroic man toiled on in face of the depressing obstacles furnished by what seemed to be an utterly unresponsive country. When he was living in dire poverty in France he refused to accept £2,000 a month from the Sultan, and at one crisis he just as firmly and indignantly rejected an offered bribe of a million pounds simply to shut his mouth. (Text.)

(1271)

GOOD OUTWEIGHING THE BAD

It was a quiet little town, nestling snugly at the foot of a big hill. Many of the streets were lined with shade-trees. On one of the principal thoroughfares there stood a magnificent tree. Its shade and beauty evoked the admiration of the passers-by. It stood squarely on the middle of the sidewalk, and might be regarded as an obstruction. There were some who would have liked to see that tree taken down, because it was not where it should be, but the great majority decided to let it remain because of its beauty, its shade and its symmetry. So is it with individuals. Sometimes a man is very irregular at his business or he is careless in some of his habits, and the question comes up, what shall be done with that man. His good qualities are considered and they discover that they far outweigh his bad qualities, and thus he is allowed to remain.

(1272) Good Results from Bad Environment—See [Missionary Adaptation].

GOOD SAMARITAN IN PARAPHRASE

The following is a Hindu version of the parable of the Good Samaritan given by a schoolgirl in the mission at Sukkur:

There was once a rich merchant going home through a forest. He was suddenly attacked by robbers, who beat him and robbed him of all his money, leaving him half dead. A Brahman passed by, and seeing the man, said to himself, “He is only a sweeper,” and went away. A Mohammedan also came that way, but he said, “This man is no relation or friend of mine; why should I have any concern for him?” and so he went away. At last a Christian came, riding on horseback, and taking pity on the poor man, bound up his wounds with strips of cloth torn from his own turban, and placing him on his horse, took him to a hospital, and, giving the doctor sahib two rupees, said, “Make this man well, and when I return, you will get from me twenty rupees more!”

(1273)

GOOD, SEEING THE

It is the best art of the teacher to see the good in mixed human nature and give it encouragement:

Several years ago one of the New York producing managers received the manuscript of a play from an utterly unknown author. It was crudely written and most of the situations were utterly impossible. Produced in the form in which it came from its creator’s pen it could have been only a dismal failure. The manager was not for a moment tempted to produce the play he had received, but he saw possibilities in the author’s plot. He sent for him and pointed out a few of the more glaring defects and suggested that the manuscript be turned over to a professional dramatist.

This was done, and the rewritten play, only faintly suggesting the original manuscript, was produced and immediately achieved success. The amateur playwright applied himself to a close study of practical playwriting, and is to-day the author of numerous successful dramas. He realizes now just how hopeless that first play must have appeared in the original form, and appreciates the patience and good judgment of the manager who discerned the dramatic nugget buried in a desert of dreary dialog.

(1274)

GOOD SHALL PREVAIL

Near Geneva two great rivers meet but do not mingle. Here the Rhone pours out its waters of heavenly blue, and there the Arve, partly from the glaciers from which it largely comes, and partly from the clay soil that it upheaves, meet and run side by side for miles, with no barriers save their own innate repulsions, each encroaching now and then into the province of the other, but beaten back again instantly into its own domain.

Like mighty rival forces of good and evil do these rivers seem, and for long the issue is doubtful; but far down the stream the muddy Arve is mastered, and the Rhone has colored the whole surface of the stream with its own tinge of blue. So in the end the good shall prevail. (Text.)

(1275)

Good Shepherd—See [Fold, The, of Christ].

GOOD VICTORIOUS

In all the upward march of matter and force, there has never been one single crisis and conflict where the higher has not been victorious over the lower. Witness the first struggle, between the mineral and the vegetable. The marble is hard, and the moss seeks to spread its robe of olive and velvet thereupon; slowly the marble crumbles, and dies; the moss lives and grows—it could not be otherwise; the moss is the higher and therefore victorious. The husbandman plants his seed of corn. The seed dies, the little plant lives, and becomes a great stalk, with corn in the milk, and then the full corn in the ear—it could not be otherwise; the golden stalk is the higher, and must be victorious. In the forest there grow a hundred kinds of jack-grapes, small, black and aciduous, and a thousand orange-trees are there, bitter, and with acid that sets the teeth on edge. But on the edge of the forest, steeped in sunshine and blest with room, there grows one grape that is purple and one orange that is sweet. And at last all the thousand acid vines and the ten thousand bitter orange-trees perish, while the one purple vine survives, takes feet to itself and journeys to all vineyards, while the orange of the golden heart gets wings for itself and crosses vale and mountain—it could not be otherwise, they are the higher. And never once has the law been reversed.—N. D. HILLIS.

(1276)

GOOD WILL

By a divine birth long ago, peace and good will came between those that had been at enmity. An earthly suggestion of this is that related by Mrs. Pickett, widow of Confederate General George E. Pickett, on the occasion of the birth of a son:

General Grant had been a dear friend of my Soldier’s ever since the Mexican War. At the time our first baby was born, the two armies were encamped facing each other. Bonfires were lighted in celebration all along Pickett’s line. Grant saw them, and sent scouts to learn the cause. When they reported, he said to General Ingalls:

“Haven’t we some kindling on this side of the line? Why don’t we strike a light for the young Pickett?”

In a little while bonfires were flaming from the Federal line. A few days later there was taken through the lines a baby’s silver service, engraved: “To George E. Pickett, Jr., from his father’s friends, U. S. Grant, Rufus Ingalls, George Buckley.” (Text.)

(1277)

See [Christmas].

GOODNESS FROM GOD

When we see the million rain-drops of the shower we say, with reason, there must be one great sea from which all these drops come. And when we see, as it were, countless drops and countless rays of goodness scattered about in the world, a little good in this man, and a little good in that, shall we not say, there must be one great sea, one central sun of goodness, from whence all human goodness comes? And where can that center of goodness be, but in the very character of God Himself? (Text.)—Charles Kingsley.

(1278)

GOODNESS IN THE BAD

That human nature is a kaleidoscope of good and bad, rather than one stripe of plain color, receives a striking illustration in the case of one Vinzenzo Juliano, who was confined in the Newark jail on a charge of murder. According to a report, it was noticed that the prisoner grew weaker and more meager day by day. His wife visited him regularly, and she invariably carried away a small parcel. The suspicions of the warden were aroused and he made an inspection of the bundle, to find it contained the ration of food with which the prisoner had been supplied. Inquiries followed, and it appeared the prisoner was starving himself to provide food for his wife and children, who had no other means of support. On learning this fact, the warden doubled the ration, and took further steps to keep the family of the prisoner from utter destitution.—New York Commercial Advertiser.

(1279)

Goodness, Peril of—See [Christ, Goodness of].

GOSPEL, A MEDICATED

An ingenious Frenchman, it is said, has been experimenting in the manufacture of medicated honey. He keeps his bees under glass, giving them only flowers that contain the desired properties. In this way, he claims to obtain different kinds of honey—for influenza, for indigestion, for asthma, and for many other forms of ills that flesh is heir to.

Better than medicated honey is a medicated gospel that meets the multiform and variegated moral and social ills that afflict our world. (Text.)

(1280)

Gospel, Influence of the—See [Christianity, Practical Proof of].

Gospel in the Philippines—See [Latin America and the Gospel].

GOSPEL MAGNIFIED

The scientist tells us that rich meteoric dust first fell on our earth as soil for the earliest vegetable life. And ascending from the scenes they loved, the apostles, with their memories, the musicians with their solemn Te Deums, the artists with their transfigurations and crucifixions, the cathedral-builders with their sublime conceptions of worship, the philosophers, and the poets, rained the richest associations down upon that gospel, whose ideas had lent them their greatness.—N. D. Hillis.

(1281)

Gospel, No Substitutes for—See [Preaching Gospel].

GOSPEL, SENDING THE

M. B. Banks writes a missionary lesson after the style of “Mother Goose”:

Little Jack Horner

Sat in a corner

Eating a very queer pie;

He saw in a trice

It held everything nice

From the lands where the mission fields lie.

From Ceylon came the spice,

And from China the rice,

And bananas from African highlands;

There were nutmegs and cloves

Sent from Borneo’s groves,

And yams from the South Sea Islands.

There were nuts from Brazil

All the corners to fill,

And sugar and sago from Siam;

And from Turkey a fig

That was really so big,

Jack’s mouth thought, “It’s larger than I am.”

There were pomegranates fair

Grown in Persia’s soft air,

And tortillas from Mexico found there;

And there did appear

Grapes and grains from Korea,

And all of the things that abound there.

A Syrian date

Did not turn up too late;

He need not for tea to Japan go;

Tamerinds were not few,

There were oranges too,

And from India many a mango.

“Now,” thought little Jack,

“What shall I send back

To these lands for their presents to me?

The Bible, indeed,

Is what they all need

So that shall go over the sea.”

(1282)

Gospel, Spread the—See [Story, Power of the Old].

GOSPEL SUCCESS

Mr. Nagota, Japanese pastor of the Episcopal Church in Tsu, gives the following account of his conversion to Christianity: A colporteur was trying to persuade a soldier to buy a gospel. He was rebuffed by gross insults and most uncalled for anger. The colporteur bore the indignity with so much meekness that Mr. Nagota, who chanced to be passing by, was amazed, and bought the gospel for the sake of the maligned man. He took the little volume home and read it carefully, and through reading, became a Christian.

(1283)

GOSPEL, TRANSFORMING POWER OF THE

A striking illustration of this is found in the history of the noted African chief, Africaner, notorious in his day until reached by the gospel:

In 1819, finding it necessary to go to Cape Town, Moffat determined to take Africaner with him, attired as his attendant. The chief was an outlaw, with a price of one thousand rix-dollars upon his head, but finally agreed tc go. As they passed through the Dutch farms on his way, Moffat found that he was supposed to have been long before murdered by Africaner. One man told him that he had seen Moffat’s bones. Moffat told a farmer that Africaner (the chief being still in disguise) he knew to be a truly good man. This the man could not credit, and said that his one wish was to see that terror before he himself should die; whereupon Moffat turned and said quietly, pointing to his mild attendant, “This, then, is Africaner.” The farmer, looking at the Christian man before him, exclaimed: “O God, what a miracle of Thy power! What can not Thy grace accomplish!”

That which Africaner exhibited of the power of the gospel in character, is shown by a host of redeemed ones, such as Jerry McAuley, who through their careers, have magnified the power that saved them.—“Gloria Christi.”

(1284)

Gospel Truth Written in Faces—See [Face, The, Revealing the Gospel].

Gossip—See [Other Side, The].

GRACE

Grace in human agents is manifested in doing the good we are under no just obligation to do:

The Plymouth Congregational Church, of Cleveland, Ohio, years ago built themselves a beautiful church edifice. The contractor drew the money due for work done, and instead of paying his workmen, left for parts unknown, carrying the funds with him. These workmen had not a shadow of a claim upon the trustees, and expected nothing from them. But thirteen hundred dollars were due them from the absconded contractor, and they needed the money. The pastor, Rev. Mr. Collins, said to his people: “True, we do not owe these men a farthing; still, let us make an effort to give them what their dishonest employer owes them, and never let it be said that unrequited toil went into the rearing of this temple of the Most High.” And all the people said, Amen. The laborers went that night to their homes rejoicing, carrying their lost and found pieces of silver with them.

(1285)

See [Law and Grace].

GRACE, NOT GROWTH

Touch a piece of black coal, and flaky soot falls off; fuse that coal with fire, and nature makes it impossible for the carbon to throw off blackness, but only light and heat. One of the biggest facts in human experience is this, that a new heart is possible for bad men. Salvation is a gift. Once a bitter orange, growth and culture only increases the size and flavor of the bitter orange. The husbandman grafts, as a free gift, the new sweet fruit into the old root. Every tree in the modern orchard represents a twig cut from a tested apple, and grafted into the wild root. Education, the passing years, simply increase the size of the selfish man, the avaricious man, the pleasure-loving man, but the new impulse is an exotic from heaven, grafted into life. Not growth, but grace saves us. (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.

(1286)

GRACE, PERSEVERING

Polycrates, a prosperous prince of the Egean shore long centuries ago, to ward off misfortune, caused a very valuable signet ring which he kept among his treasures, set in gold and of exquisite workmanship, to be carried far out to sea in a fifty-oared galley fully manned, and cast overboard. He saw it sink, to rise, as he supposed, no more. A few days afterward a fisherman plying his profession on that coast, caught a fish of extraordinary size and beauty, and took it to Polycrates, who was amazed to discover, on opening the fish, his own precious ring.

It is just as hard to lose divine grace and love which we are so apt to throw away, but which persists in returning to us.

(1287)

GRACE SUFFICIENT

An eccentric divine preaching from “I will run in the way of thy commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart,” began, “Well, David, what is your first remark? ‘I will run.’ Run away, David! What hinders you? What is your next word? ‘In the way of thy commandments.’ Better yet, David. And what next? ‘When thou shalt enlarge my heart.’ No thanks to you, David. We could all run as well as you with such help.”

(1288)

GRACIOUSNESS IN WOMEN

Some club women interested in civic reform were gathered in the office of a city executive waiting for an interview. They were charming, clever women, well drest, and at ease in any surroundings. As they waited they chatted of various things, and one told that her little son had been quite badly burned a few days before. The others spoke sympathetically. On the opposite side of the office sat a poor, battered wreck of womanhood, there on an errand widely different from theirs.

“The next time your little boy gets burned you put linseed-oil and lime-water on it. You ought to keep it handy. There ain’t nothing like it to take out the fire,” said the poor creature.

It was her assertion of sisterhood in the common trials of humanity.

Most of the women froze instantly, indignant that she had dared address them in a familiar way. But the one faced her frankly. “Yes,” she said, “that is good. It is just what the doctor told me to use. It is kind of you to tell me about it.”

There was no familiarity in her manner, nor was there a hint of superiority. She, too, recognized the universal sisterhood, and spoke to the woman across from her on that level.

She was one of the women who always do the gracious thing because of an abiding grace within. There are too many women who appear charming in their own circle, but who must snub those they consider inferior. Manners at their best are but a poor substitute for the real graciousness that comes from the heart that has kindly thoughts for all.—The Housekeeper.

(1289)

Gradualness of Evil—See [Destructiveness].

Graft Rebuked—See [Character Not Purchasable].

GRAIN

The burning pen of inspiration, ranging heaven and earth for a similitude, to convey to our poor minds some not inadequate idea of the mighty doctrine of the resurrection, can find no symbol so expressive as “bare grain, it may chance of wheat or some other grain.” To-day a senseless plant, to-morrow it is human bone and muscle, vein and artery, sinew and nerve; beating pulse, heaving lungs, toiling, ah, sometimes overtoiling brain. Last June, it sucked from the cold breast of the earth the watery nourishment of its distending sap-vessels; and now it clothes the manly form with warm, cordial flesh; quivers and thrills with the five-fold mystery of sense; purveys and administers to the higher mystery of thought. Heaped up in your granaries this week, the next it will strike in the stalwart arm, and glow in the blushing cheek, and flash in the beaming eye; till we learn at last to realize that the slender stalk, which we have seen shaken by the summer breeze, bending in the corn-field under the yellow burden of harvest, is indeed the “staff of life,” which, since the world began, has supported the toiling and struggling myriads of humanity on the mighty pilgrimage of being.—Edward Everett.

(1290)

GRATITUDE

A young girl in Scotland was in danger of perishing in a storm, when the stream was in flood. She vowed that if God would save her life and help her in the future, she would build a bridge over the dangerous chasm. Her prayer was heard. She lived to build the bridge, and to leave an endowment for the poor of the parish. On the keystone of the bridge were written these words: “God and We.” That was the secret of success in her life-work.

(1291)

---

A missionary in China met an aged man who was measuring with the length of his body a pilgrimage of one hundred miles. He would kotow; that is, bump his head three times upon the ground, then prostrate himself full length; get up, repeat, and still repeat. When asked why he was doing this he said: “My son was very ill. I prayed and vowed to the god of health that if he would spare my son, I would measure with my body every mile of this pilgrimage to the tombs of my ancestors. He was spared to me. I must keep my vow. No one can help me. I must go alone.”

Was he not presenting his body a living sacrifice, mistaken, of course, in form, but faithful in spirit?

(1292)

---

Out of gratitude to the girl who saved the lives of his three children when fire occurred at his home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, William Landsberg cheerfully submitted himself to physicians at the Long Island College Hospital and allowed them to take forty square inches of skin from his body in order that it might be grafted upon the burned body of Miss Elsie Wobetta, who had been employed as a domestic at his home.

Landsberg agreed to the operation when he learned that it was necessary in order to save the girl’s life. Earlier in the morning the physicians had already taken twenty square inches of skin from the unburnt portions of Miss Wobetta’s body, but this was not nearly enough to cover her frightful burns, and her condition was too precarious to submit her to another shock.

Landsberg was notified, and he immediately quit work and went to the hospital, where he placed himself at the disposal of the surgeons.

“It is the least I can do for the girl who saved the lives of my little ones,” he said calmly, when the doctors told him that the test would be a severe one.

He was placed on the operating table and the operation of removing the skin was performed. Strips of skin an inch wide and five inches long were taken from Landsberg’s body.

The operation brought to light the heroic act on the part of Miss Wobetta that should entitle her to a Carnegie medal. Some time ago fire broke out in the Landsberg home. The upper part of the house was soon in flames and during all the excitement—it was early in the morning—no one seemed to think of the three children of Landsberg except this young domestic, who fought her way through the stifling smoke and flames until she reached the nursery. There, altho her own clothing was aflame and she was almost stifled by the smoke, she rescued the three small children and helped carry them to a place of safety.

She was frightfully burned on the arms, breast, side and back, and it was not thought for a long time that she could survive. For several weeks she lingered and the surgeons agreed that all that could save her life would be the grafting of new skin on the burned places that would not heal.

(1293)

See [Investment Return]; [Rescue;] [Unselfishness].

GRATITUDE, UNCALCULATING

Henry Van Dyke, in The Outlook, expresses the spontaneous nature of true gratitude:

Do you give thanks for this, or that? No, God be thanked,

I am not grateful

In that cold calculating way, with blessings ranked

As one, two, three, and four—that would be hateful!

I only know that every day brings good above

My poor deserving;

I only feel that on the road of life true Love

Is leading me along and never swerving.

Whatever turn the path may take to left or right,

I think it follows

The tracing of a wiser hand, through dark and light,

Across the hills and in the shady hollows.

Whatever gifts the hours bestow, or great or small,

I would not measure

As worth a certain price in praise, but take them all

And use them all, with simple, heartfelt pleasure.

For when we gladly eat our daily bread, we bless

The hand that feeds us;

And when we walk along life’s way in cheerfulness,

Our very heart-beats praise the Love that leads us.

(1294)

Gratuities—See [Ridicule, Apt].

GRAVITATION AND ICEBERGS

The hundreds of thousands of icebergs that every spring and summer terrify our ocean steamers are simply detachments from the glaciers that perpetually cover the face of northern lands. As far as can be learned, the interior of Greenland has a surface of tall hills and deep gulches, with an elevated range rather on the eastern side, running from north to south. Hence, if the climate of the interior of Greenland were mild, this extended range would serve as a watershed diverting streams to the sea on both sides. But the temperature some distance inland is nearly always below the freezing point, so that the almost constant snowfall and the brief midsummer rains remain on the surface, accumulating year after year, till there are formed thousands of square miles of blue compact ice, some of it over 1,500 feet thick. This enormous body of ice, like water, is subject to the laws of gravitation, and is eternally on the march to the sea. But its rate of travel is so slow as to be in most places imperceptible to the eye. So deep is this mass of inland ice that after a couple of days’ march from the sea there are no longer any hills visible, the entire landscape being white and naked. The ice from the higher ground is being constantly forced into the valleys and most of these valleys terminate toward the sea in very deep fjords. These fjords are in reality the launchways for most of the ice-floes and a great many of the bergs. You might lie for hours in your boat by most of the glaciers where they enter the sea, and not be aware that they were moving; but each one pushes constantly, and at a regular rate of speed, outward and outward into the sea, till the buoyancy of the water under it causes it to break at the shore, and sets it free to rove the ocean for thousands of miles, till it melts in Southern latitudes.—Edmund Collins, Harper’s Weekly.

(1295)

GRAVITATION, LAW OF

Time after time astronomers have found seeming irregularities in the planets’ motions, which they could not explain by, nor deduce from this law of Newton’s (law of gravitation). In every case, however, later investigations showed the fault to lie in the imperfections of their methods; their calculations, or their assumptions in regard to the number and size of the planets were in error, not the law of gravitation. A discrepancy of only two minutes between the observed and theoretical places of Uranus led to the discovery of Neptune, and possibly the minute discrepancy in the motions of Mercury may lead to important discoveries regarding the properties or distribution of matter in the neighborhood of the sun.—Charles Lane Poor, “The Solar System.”

(1296)

GRAVITATION, MORAL

When the strata of the earth forms, the heaviest elements work down to the bottom, the next heaviest fall on these, and so on to the top, where the lightest will be found.

The same is true of men. You do not have to do anything to men to put them down or lift them up. Every man sooner or later goes “to his own place.”

(1297)

GRAVITY

Shiel told Moore of a good thing said by Keller, an Irish barrister. Keller, meeting some judge, an old friend of his, a steady, solemn fellow who had succeeded as much in his profession as Keller had failed, said to him: “In opposition to all the laws of natural philosophy, you have risen by your gravity, while I have sunk by my levity!” (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

(1298)

GREAT MEN SHOULD BE PROVIDED FOR

We can not secure the great man’s arrival, but when he has come we can show that we know him and appreciate him, as the bees know and appreciate the one who is, of all others, most valuable to the hive. When “Dexter,” the famous race-horse owned by Robert Bonner, was found drawing a clay-cart, and the signs of speed in him were unmistakable, what a world of excitement there was! No harness was too fine, no stable too good for him. He had valets to attend his most delicate wants—watchers by night and by day. I do not say there was the slightest unappropriateness in this. I merely ask if the man of wonderful possibilities is not of as much account and deserving of as much care as the wonderful horse. The great man, or man of genius, will forego yachts and palaces and the muniments of wealth, tho he could enjoy them. What he needs at once is that sure provision which shall give him subsistence and leave him free from worldly toil and worry, as a prerequisite to prosecuting his work.—Joel Benton, Lippincott’s.

(1299)

GREAT MEN’S BEGINNINGS

The parents of Isaac Barrow, the celebrated English divine, conceived so mean an opinion of his temper and parts when he was a boy at the Charterhouse School, that his father used to say, if it pleased God to take from him any of his children, he hoped it might be Isaac, the least promising. Adam Clarke’s father was equally uncomplimentary to his own flesh and blood when he proclaimed his son to be “a grievous dunce.” Poe, at West Point, was a laughing-stock to his schoolmates. Sheridan’s mother presented him to a new tutor as “an incorrigible dunce.” Byron, at Harrow, was in no wise distinguished above his fellows. Napoleon and Wellington in their schooldays were distinguished only for dulness.—Lippincott’s Magazine.

(1300)

Great, The, and Little Contrasted—See [Sins, Accumulated].

Greater, The, Controlling the Lesser—See [Master-mind, The].

GREATNESS

Homer makes his hero, like Saul, a head and shoulders taller than the soldiers around him. And Egyptian artists paint their conquering monarch twenty times as tall as the pigmy enemy whom he is destroying at a single blow.

True greatness is more than stature.

(1301)

---

Upon his return to Washington, Grant made preparations to leave immediately for the West, but at the close of a consultation with the President and the Secretary of War, he was informed that Mrs. Lincoln expected his presence the same evening at a military dinner to be given in his honor, at which twelve distinguished officers, then in the city, were to be present. Frank B. Carpenter, who was then at the White House, working on his celebrated painting, “Lincoln and His Cabinet,” says Grant turned to the President and said that it would be impossible for him to remain over as he must be in Tennessee at a given time. The President insisted that he could not be excused, and here we have another manifestation of Grant’s independence and willpower. He said to Lincoln: “But the time is very precious just now, and really, Mr. President, I believe I have had enough of this show business.”

So, while the man of deeds—indifferent to blandishments and caring nothing for receptions—was speeding on his way to Nashville to meet Sherman and talk over the momentous business of trying to end the war, the twelve “distinguished” officers were banqueted without a guest of honor. But perhaps in the feasting and the merrymaking of the night, they could not but ponder over the strange things which had come to pass that day—a general so devoted to his duties in the field as to have no time or desire to be received by Congress or banqueted by the wife of a President; a man who had been out of the position of a common store-clerk hardly three years, given command of all the Union forces on land and sea; a great load lifted from the long-burdened heart of Lincoln; the bells of time ringing in a better day for the cause of the Union.—Col. Nicholas Smith, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”

(1302)

GREATNESS APPRECIATED

Mr. Moore, writing in The Congregationalist on “The Benediction of a Statue,” says:

The man was only one of the thousands that have stopt for a moment or two at least in front of the Phillips Brooks statue during the past week. He was a working man of about fifty, with a strong, square-jawed, bronzed face. He had evidently come over to look at the statue during the noon hour, for he had on his blue flannel shirt and carpenter’s overalls. He gazed a moment and then brushed his eyes rather furtively.

“How do you like the statue?” he was asked.

“It’s fine, but isn’t quite Phillips Brooks. It’s a strong face like his, but I sort of miss the light in the eyes. It isn’t as kind-looking as Phillips Brooks.”

“You knew him, then?”

“Yes, I knew him well. I have talked with him many times. He always spoke to me on the street. He used to always ask about the wife and baby, and now—the wife has gone on beyond, too.”

He took a last look at the statue and then hurried away, for it was almost one o’clock. Just then a colored man of about forty joined the group.

“Know him? Why, I knew him as well as I know my wife. I used to be charman of a house just a few doors away from his on Clarendon Street. He always said, ‘Good-morning, John,’ to me when he met me, as he was going over to the church in the morning. Of course, when I knew him he was older than the statue shows him. He never spoke to you like he was saying, ‘I’m the rich Mr. Brooks.’ He treated you just like you was as good as him.”

Two messenger-boys stopt for a moment. “Who’s that man?” one asked the other.

“Why, that’s a great preacher that used to preach in that church. They say he was an awfully good man. They say he could preach like anything, and yet he was just as common with folks as anybody.”

An intelligent, rather elderly Hebrew was criticizing the statue very severely to several people, but he said: “I used to go to school with him. He was certainly a wonderful preacher and a very, very good man. He surely deserved the best statue Boston could ever put up for him. But I dislike the background and the other figure in this very much.”

(1303)

GREATNESS CALLED FORTH

At every great call for great deeds the right man comes out of the common crowd to do it, this is the truth Sam. Walter Foss enforces in these verses:

Men seem as alike as the leaves on the trees,

As alike as the bees in the swarming of bees;

And we look at the millions that make up the state,

All equally little and equally great,

And the pride of our courage is cowed.

Then fate calls for a man who is larger than men,

There is a surge in the crowd—there’s a movement—and then

There arises the man who is larger than men—

And the man comes up from the crowd.

The chasers of trifles run hither and yon,

And the mean little days of small trifles go on,

And the world seems no better at sunset than dawn,

And the race still increases its plentiful spawn,

And the voice of our wailing is loud.

Then the great deed calls out for the great man to come,

And the crowd unbelieving, sits sullen and dumb—

But the great deed is done, for the great man is come—

Ay, the man comes up from the crowd. (Text.)

(1304)

GREATNESS DISCOUNTED

Daniel Webster in the very height of his fame, just after his famous Bunker Hill speech, took a run down to his native village which he had not visited in so many years that he found himself quite unrecognized by his former cronies. Accosting an old friend of the Websters, he gradually, after due discussion of the weather and the crops, turned the conversation upon his own family. Thereupon his companion burst out into enthusiastic encomiums upon the virtues and abilities of Daniel’s elder brother Ebenezer, who had died young and whose early death he fittingly deplored. Daniel slipt in a modest query as to whether there was not a brother named Dan. “He never was much account,” said the old gentleman, with a shake of his head. “I believe he went up to Boston and became some kind of a lawyer.”—Lippincott’s Magazine.

(1305)

GREATNESS, HEROIC

A truly great soul is the man described by Sarah Knowles Bolton in the verse below:

I like the man who faces what he must

With heart triumphant and a step of cheer;

Who fights the daily battle without fear;

Sees his hopes fail, yet keeps unfaltering trust

That God is God; that somehow, true and just,

His plans work out for mortals; not a tear

Is shed when fortune, which the world holds dear,

Falls from his grasp; better, with love, a crust

Than living in dishonor; envies not,

Nor loses faith in man; but does his best,

Nor even murmurs at his humbler lot;

But with a smile and words of hope, gives zest

To every toiler; he alone is great

Who by a life heroic conquers fate.

(1306)

GREATNESS, HUMAN, A BAUBLE

Having strayed by some odd eddy of circumstance into the House of Lords, when the King was present, John Wesley draws a picturesque little vignette of him.

“I was in the robe-chamber, adjoining the House of Lords, when the King (George II) put on his robes. His brow was much furrowed with age, and quite clouded with care. And is this all the world can give even to a king, all the grandeur it can afford? A blanket of ermine round his shoulders, so heavy and cumbersome he can scarce move under it! A huge heap of borrowed hair, with a few plates of gold and glittering stones upon his head! Alas, what a bauble is human greatness!”—W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”

(1307)

GREATNESS IN MEN

Edwin Markham describes a noble type of man in the following poem:

Give thanks, O heart, for the high souls

That point us to the deathless goals—

For all the courage of their cry

That echoes down from sky to sky;

Thanksgiving for the armed seers

And heroes called to mortal years—

Souls that have built our faith in man,

And lit the ages as they ran.

Made of unpurchasable stuff.

They went the way when ways were rough;

They, when the traitors had deceived,

Held the long purpose, and believed;

They, when the face of God grew dim,

Held through the dark and trusted Him—

Brave souls that fought the mortal way

And felt that faith could not betray.

Give thanks for heroes that have stirred

Earth with the wonder of a word.

But all thanksgiving for the breed

Who have bent destiny with deed—

Souls of the high, heroic birth,

Souls sent to poise the shaken earth,

And then called back to God again

To make heaven possible for men. (Text.)

—The Independent.

(1308)

GREATNESS OF GOD

The following verse from “The Marshes of Glynn,” by Sidney Lanier, shows how a reverent poet can see symbols of God and His care in a marsh:

Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea?

Somehow my soul seems suddenly free

From the weighing of life and the sad discussion of sin,

By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn.

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free

Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!

Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun,

Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won

God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain

And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.

As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,

Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God;

I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies

In the freedom that fills all the space ’twixt the marsh and the skies:

By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod

I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God;

Oh, like the greatness of God is the greatness within

The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.

(1309)

GREATNESS SERVING

A mother and daughter were traveling through a forest. Overcome by the long journey, the mother fainted and fell by the wayside. As soon as consciousness was partly restored to her she sent her little child to seek out a minister. The little daughter went weeping on her way. She soon met a stranger riding a horse. The man inquired of her why she was weeping. She asked him if he were God’s minister, and he said that he was. She led him to the side of her dying mother. His bodyguard soon arrived. Reverently did they uncover as they found the King of England kneeling in prayer for the dying peasant. The greatest among them was their servant. (Text.)

(1310)

GREATNESS, TRUE, OF A CITY

What makes a city great and strong?

Not architecture’s graceful strength,

Nor factories’ extended length,

But men who see the civic wrong

And give their lives to make it right,

And turn its darkness into light.

What makes a city full of power?

Not wealth’s display nor titled fame,

Not fashion’s loudly-boasted claim,

But women, rich in virtue’s dower,

Whose homes, tho humble, still are great

Because of service to the state.

What makes a city men can love?

Not things that charm the outward sense,

Nor gross display of opulence,

But right, that wrong can not remove,

And truth, that faces civic fraud

And smites it in the name of God.

This is a city that shall stand,

A light upon a nation’s hill,

A voice that evil can not still,

A source of blessing to the land;

Its strength not brick, nor stone, nor wood,

But justice, love and brotherhood.

—Author Unknown.

(1311)

Greatness Unrecognized—See [Help, Unexpected].

GREED

The large families in this country to-day are to be found only in the industrial centers. Greedy men have considered this their opportunity, and have located great stocking and silk factories in these places for the sake of employing the children of these families.

I saw in the ill-ventilated rooms of these silk-factories girls by the dozen under fourteen years of age. More than once I saw a stoop-shouldered, anemic girl, apparently not more than eleven years of age, standing all day before her machine so fatigued that she stood on one foot while she rested the other by holding it against the leg on which she was standing. To my inquiry as to her age the reply was, “The affidavit said she was fourteen.”

A girl in whose machine the silk by chance became tangled was approached by a foreman with the jaw of a bulldog and a face whose every feature indicated brutality, and who poured out a stream of profanity as he threatened to dismiss her if it occurred again. These girls were the daughters of coal-miners or of a coal-miner’s widow.

We are pretty generally agreed that society owes to every one equal treatment with his fellows in an effort to get a living and an equal protection in using the opportunities that exist. When one looks into the hollow cheeks and sunken eyes of veritable children to whom in so many cases the home was never the holy of holies, and where instead of the gentle voice and loving hearts of teachers there is the brutal taskmaster, one feels the need of some new Declaration of Independence.

A railroad that owns and operates mines in this region, last year, in addition to an already fat dividend on its stock, declared a stock dividend of fifty per cent. Would that it were possible to print on every share of that dividend a description of the existence that is called life in this section of our land! (Text.)—Jesse Hill, Christian Endeavor World.

(1312)

See [Dishonesty]; [Game of Greed].

Greed, Commercial—See Cruelty.

GRIEF, EXPRESSING

Great griefs can seldom be borne in silence; nor is it well that they should be. Just as the cry of pain springs to the lips of a child when it is hurt, so the wounded spirit longs for utterance to ease its sorrow. Far from being a rebellious and unnatural desire, this longing to somehow unburden the soul in words is a merciful gift of God, who, even when he chastens, would fain temper the wind to the shorn lamb. See how the noblest souls have sought and found, not only a balm for sorrow, but sorrow’s own deeper meaning in uttering their heart’s profoundest cry. Think of that magnificent memorial poem in which Tennyson gathered up, as in a sacred urn, the fragments of his broken heart. Was his sorrow for Hallam the less, that he thus robbed it of its bitterest sting, the sting of helpless silence and hopeless brooding? Was Cicero less noble, less heroic, because, after the death of his beloved daughter Tullia, he wrote a treatise, on consolation to alleviate his sorrow? No; utterance sanctifies the grief whose pang it softens. God does not will that we should suffer in white-lipped silence. He never drives the barbed arrow into the human heart.—Zion’s Herald.

(1313)

GRIEF, REVEALED

Clinton Dangerfield discounts in this poem the stoicism of the age that refuses to reveal its griefs and evils:

Sad hearts are out of date. We laugh and jest,

When we take wounds as well as when we strike.

One can not tell the conquerors on Love’s field—

Victors and vanquished look so much alike!

But sometimes when the mask unguarded falls

One sees the actor’s self behind the part,

And half holds those the wiser who, of old,

Washed, unashamed, with tears a broken heart. (Text.)

—The Delineator.

(1314)

GRIEVANCES

A man strikes me with a sword, and inflicts a wound. Suppose, instead of binding up the wound, I am showing it to everybody, and, after it has been bound up, I am taking off the bandage constantly and examining the depth of the wound, and making it fester—is there a person in the world who would not call me a fool? However, such a fool is he who, by dwelling upon little injuries or insults, cause them to agitate and influence his mind. How much better were it to put a bandage on the wound and never look at it again!

(1315)

---

I once said to a woman who had suddenly lost her best friend after years of the closest intimacy, without a quarrel or scene, and for no apparent reason, “every time he thinks of you he will be filled with remorse.” She replied, “Remorse? Not at all. He is quite sure that all the fault lies on my side. In retrospect, he has created imaginary grievance.” I indignantly protested, ready even to pity her the more. She smilingly silenced me by putting her finger on my lips, saying: “Do not pity me, I might have had grievances, but I have none; in spite of everything, mine is the better part.” And she was right.

Grievances are like a double-edged sword that wounds on one side the heart it enters, on the other the heart that sends it forth, and the most unhappy heart always holds the weapon, for the point that pierces sinks into depths from whence it is difficult to draw it from the wound. In reality everybody is a victim to grievances; they that harbor as well as they who create them, and for this reason frank explanations are never resorted to. And the saddest thing of all is, that the causes are often so slight and the suffering so great, as in the case of the Neapolitan, who, having never read the works of Tasso and Ariosto, fought seventeen duels on their respective merits.—Dora Melegari, “Makers of Sorrow and Makers of Joy.”

(1316)

GRIP

“He seems to have lost his grip,” said one man to another in talking of an acquaintance who had not been long in the ranks of the “middle-aged.” They both felt that their friend had talents; they longed to see him apply them with judgment and success. The term “grip” was an expressive one. Whatever one’s work may be, it can not be properly done unless the worker has firm hold of his tools. Lack of grip may often be resolved into lack of incentive, and, therefore, whoever imparts to his comrade a sufficient motive for holding fast, is doing him service of the most effectual kind.—Providence Journal.

(1317)

Growing Old—See [Old, How to Grow].

GROWING TOO FAST

It is said that during the wars of Frederick II of Prussia men became so scarce that they actually enrolled schoolboys. If there happened to be a child that was growing too fast the parents would be heard to say, “Don’t grow so fast or the recruiting officer will catch you.” Do not rush into responsibility. (Text.)

(1318)

Growth—See [Assimilation]; [Faith in God].

GROWTH, CAUSE OF

Carbon from the air entering the cells of plants comes in contact with a substance called chlorophyll resident in the cells. A wonderful change at once takes place. When the sun is shining, the carbonic acid and water contained in the cells are decomposed; i.e., separated into the parts composing them. These, with the carbon, then unite again and form a new substance very different from either the carbon or the water, viz., starch or like substance, which, with some of the mineral matters supplied through the soil water, serves as food for the protoplasm of the cells, so that the latter increase in number rapidly and thus cause the plant to grow.

There is real growth of the soul of man only when the divine spirit unites with the human powers. (Text.)

(1319)

Growth, Curious—See [Obstacles, Unexpected].

GROWTH, EVIL

Educators make much of growth, nor can we over-emphasize the importance of the principle. But if the thing that is increasing is bad, then growth is a curse immeasurable. Given a spark and growth means a conflagration that ruins a city. Given a gipsy-moth in the parks of New England and growth means the devastation of the forests of a State. Given a disease, and growth means death. Given any form of sin, and growth means the wreckage of character and destiny. (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.

(1320)

Growth in Educational Work—See [Needs, Meeting Children’s].

GROWTH IN NATURE

Once, a half-century ago or more, a farmer and his men came down from the pastures, and for purposes of their own cut a ditch straight through the middle of the bog to the open water. The hundreds of scrawny night-herons, sitting on pale blue eggs in scraggly nests in the cedar swamp, must have heard the cedars laugh as this went on. It was the swamp’s opportunity. Where the farmer and his men with incredible labor cut and tore away the marsh-grass roots the cedars planted their seeds, and called upon the alders and the swamp-maples and the thoroughwort, the Joe Pye weed, and a host of other good citizens of the swamp to help them.

So vigorous was the sortie and so well did they hold their ground, that you may trace the farmer’s wide ditch to-day only as a causeway down which the swamp has come to build a great wooden area in the midst of the bog, accomplishing in half a century what it might not have done in five times had it not been for human aid.—Winthrop Packard, “Wild Pastures.”

(1321)

Growth, Spiritual—See [Spiritual Perturbation].

Growth Through Struggle—See [Struggle and Growth].

GROWTH, UNCONSCIOUS

Moses, when he came down from the mountain, “wist not” that his face shone. So in much of our spiritual life, we are unconscious of the fact of growth. As a writer upon life in the fields likening the spiritual life to that of the seed says:

But all the winter through, tho it was hidden by frost and snow, the seed was growing beneath the earth; the difference is that now we can see it. And so it is with the growth of the soul. The soul is growing, tho we do not know it, in its winter weather, when all is dead and cold and dark; when the Spirit has convinced us of sin and we say, “I seem to have no part and lot with the saints, no joy nor peace; I only feel the burden of my iniquities; I question whether I am a living soul.” Ah, but the seed sown by the hand of God is growing through all those wintry days; if a man can feel and lament his weakness, his deadness, his barrenness, he is a living soul. (Text.)

(1322)

Growths, Undesirable—See [Barriers].

Guardian Friends—See [Pledge-keeping].

GUARDS OF THE SOUL

As there is a silence that thunders, so there is a severity that is the inflection of pity and love. That is not the kindest surgeon who refuses to make the wounded soldier suffer. That is not the truest mother who lets the child work its own will and riot in selfish pleasures. It is not a little thing for a pilgrim to make his way across a dark continent. Are there serpents and wild beasts in the jungle? Then on either side of the path through the forest let thorn-bushes be planted that they may scourge the child back into the path. Is the chasm deep? A veritable abyss? Then, when the bridge is strung across the gulf, let a railing be placed on either side, with sharp prongs of iron to hold the child back from the edge of the bridge, lest in a careless mood he fall and be crusht upon the cruel rocks beneath. It is a dangerous journey that man makes through the wilderness. And God has planted on either side of the way the Ten Commandments like ten thorn-bushes, buttresses and guards, that the pilgrim may be confined to the path that leads to prosperity, safety and peace—N. D. Hillis.

(1323)

Guest Surprized—See [Tact].

Guidance—See [Safety from Water-Brooks]; [Trust].

GUIDANCE, GOD’S

In the stern of a sea-going vessel,

At morning, at noon and at night,

I saw there a sturdy old boatswain

Who stood and uplifted his sight

To the mast that was towering above him,

While pendulant hung from his lip

The whistle whose shrill intonations

Determined the course of the ship.

And I wondered at what he was gazing

Till, stepping behind him, I stood

And followed his angle of vision

High up on the pillar of wood;

And there, far above the attraction

Of body of iron or steel,

Was fastened a compass whose needle

Corrected the man at the wheel.

O wonderful lesson of science,

That crystaled in parable there,

And brought in its transparent vision

The meaning and purpose of prayer!

I, too, am adrift on the ocean,

My compass, the spirit of man,

And with hand on the wheel of life’s rudder,

I only can steer as I can.

But, praise to God’s infinite goodness,

Thy compass above I can see—

The needle of truth that Thy spirit

Holds true for the spirit of me.

Unswerved by earth’s baser attraction,

It points to the glories that shine;

I read it at morning and evening,

And reckon my bearings from Thine. (Text.)

(1324)

---

Thomas F. Porter, in the Boston Globe, expresses in these verses the confidence of faith in God’s guidance:

It matters not what course my ship may go,

That leaves the port ’neath skies so calm and clear;

Tho later threatening winds may wildly blow,

Of harm I have no fear.

The storm may beat in fury ’round my bark,

The ocean’s spray up to the masthead leap,

The way be long, the night be starless dark,

Secure my course I keep.

It matters not how swift may be the tide,

Tho lightning cleave with lurid flame the sky;

But that my ship will every storm outride,

On this I can rely.

Nor does it matter when the goal I gain,

Nor if the ship be stript of every mast,

My heart no lips will murmur nor complain,

When safe the anchor’s cast.

Why, there is such a flood of hope in me,

To doubting hearts this much I will reveal:

The Hand that launched my bark on life’s great sea

Is ever at the wheel.

(1325)

Guidance, Spiritual—See [Spirit, Winds of the].

GUIDANCE EVILWARD

A story is told of certain mariners who followed the direction of their compass, believing it to be infallibly right as a guide, till they arrived at an enemy’s port, where they were seized and made slaves. The secret was that the wicked captain, in order to betray the ship and to beguile them into obliquities, had hidden a large loadstone at a little distance on one side of the needle. (Text.)

(1326)

Guide and Traveler—See [Confidence].

GUIDE, THE PERFECT

Once I was out with a guide climbing a mountain, and the guide himself lost his way. He was compelled, greatly chagrined, to beat about for quite a while till he found it. This could never happen to Christ.

Sometimes a guide in the Alps, in spite of all his care, loses the life of a traveler. The unfortunate man may slip and the rope may break; or, if the rope holds, he may be heavy enough to drag down his guide with him into the crevasse.

When a traveler hesitated to place his foot in the hand of a guide who asked him to step upon it out over a precipice when rounding a perilous turn, the guide reassured him by saying, “This hand never lost a life.” That was true of the guide, but it did not prove that he never would lose a life.

Of Christ’s hand stretched out to help us it may be said truly: “This hand never lost a life, and never can lose one.”—Amos R. Wells, in The Christian Endeavor World.

(1327)

Guides—See [Experience, Value of].

Guides and Prayer—See [Blessing the Ropes].

GUILT

The only thing needed to show guilt or innocence is sufficient light:

Aaron Burr once defended a prisoner charged with murder, and as the trial proceeded it became too manifest to him that the guilt of the murder lay between the prisoner and one of the witnesses for the prosecution. He accordingly subjected this witness to a searching and relentless cross-examination; and then, as he addrest the jury in the gathering dusk of evening, he brought into strong relief every fact that bore against this witness, and suddenly seizing two candelabra from the table, he threw a glare of light on the witness’s face, and exclaimed, “Behold the murderer, gentlemen!” Alarmed and conscience-stricken, the man reeled as from a blow, turned ghastly pale, and left the court. The advocate concluded his speech in a tone of triumph, and the jury acquitted the prisoner. (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

(1328)