J
JARS, DAILY
It is not often the great strokes of misfortune that break men down, but the daily wear and tear of small troubles. An editor writes thus:
A huge cart-wheel lies in the gutter near our office. The cart itself has been pulled with difficulty out of the way of the trolley cars. An axle has broken. And that axle! It is fully four inches in diameter and was originally forged of soundest steel. But as you look at the fragments of it wedged in the overturned hub you discover a peculiar condition. “The steel has been crystallized,” the mechanic would explain. No sudden strain broke it, no tremendous wrench twisted the spindle from the beam. The ruin was wrought by the constant small jars of daily traffic. Rumbling over stones, bumping over crossings, scraping against curbs threw the atoms of steel in the axle out of cohesive harmony. Then came the one jar, no heavier than the others, that sent the load of coal into the street.
(1683)
Jester, The—See [Humor Overdone].
JESTING COMMENDED
It is wise to laugh, and Joe Miller is right when he says that the gravest beast is an ass, and the gravest man is a fool. This opinion of the famous jester is in accord with Plato, who is reported to have remarked to his friends, when their social enjoyment was occasionally intruded upon by the approach of some sedate wiseacre, “Silence, my friends, let us be wise now, for a fool is coming.” Other notable characters, if not themselves witty, have sought relief from the strain of serious employment by a laugh and innocent merriment. Philip of Macedon, Sylla, the Roman dictator, Queen Elizabeth, and our own Abraham Lincoln, keenly enjoyed a good joke, while Julius Cæsar, Tacitus, Erasmus, and Lord Bacon compiled jest-books. So there is high authority for jesting, and a jest is merely petrified laughter—a laugh congealed into words, so as to be passed from mouth to mouth and handed down to further generations.—Edmund Kirke, North American Review.
(1684)
JESTS, OLD
To Hierocles, who lived in the sixth century, is attributed a book called “Asteia,” which contains twenty-one jests, the most of which are now alive, and passing themselves off as “real, original Jacobs.” Among them is the man who would not venture into the water until he had learned to swim; the man whose horse died just as he had taught it to live without eating; the other who stood before the mirror with his eyes shut, to see how he looked when asleep; the other who apologized for a negligence by saying, “I never received the letter you wrote me”; the other who kept a crow expressly to satisfy himself if the creature did live to the age of two hundred years; and the old philosopher who carried a brick about as a specimen of the house he desired to sell. But, older than Hierocles—old as Horace—is the stupid fellow who, wanting to cross a stream, sat down upon the bank to wait for all the water to run by. The French king who said, “After me, the deluge,” was thought to be original, but the phrase is found in the Greek of two thousand years ago; as is also the proverb, “There is many a slip between the cup and the lip,” which was the appropriate inscription upon the drinking cup of a rich Greek. Every one knows the lady who insists that her age is but thirty, and whose friend asserts that he believes her, because he has heard her say so “any time these ten years.” Bacon, in his “Apothegms,” asserts that the same anecdote is told of Cicero.—Edmund Kirke, North American Review.
(1685)
Jesus All Right—See [Christ Approved].
Jesus as a Character-builder—See [Character-building].
JESUS AS COMPANION
A missionary riding on horseback through one of the cotton States of the South came upon an old tumble-down cabin in the doorway of which stood a poor crippled negress. Her back was bent nearly double with years of hard work and her face was deeply wrinkled and her hair was white, but her two eyes were as bright as two stars. The man called out cheerily, “Good-morning, Auntie—living here all alone?” “Jes me n’ Jesus, Massa,” she replied with a bright smile. The missionary dismounted and went in for a little visit with her—and he said as he was riding away, and looked back for a last glimpse of the happy old saint, “It seemed as if he could see the form of one like unto the Son of God” standing by her side in the doorway of the poor little cabin.
(1686)
Jesus as Guide—See [Guide, The Perfect].
Jesus, Canceler of Sin—See [Christ Destroyer of Sin].
Jesus Crowned with Thorns—See [Christ’s Face].
JESUS, GREATNESS OF
Recently a flower was exhibited that was grown in a cellar by acetylene gas. But let no man be anxious. The summer’s sun is not seriously threatened by acetylene! The scientist knows that there is a large amount of condensed sunshine stored away in the acetylene that was released. There are a few soldiers of supreme genius that divide honors. There are a few poets of the first order of greatness. There are a few statesmen of equal rank. But Jesus is alone, one star, shining down upon the little hills.—N. D. Hillis.
(1687)
Dinocrates, a Macedonian architect, once proposed to carve Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander—the left hand to hold a city of 10,000 population, and the right hand to be a basin to receive the perpetual flow of the mountain and give it to the sea below. Jesus, a mightier architect, is carving all humanity into a kingdom that, like a stone cut out of the mountain without hands, shall fill the whole earth.
(1688)
JESUS, SECOND COMING OF
In Venice stands a very beautiful monument, a pyramid of marble, in which lie the mortal remains of a little child. By the door stands a sculptured angel resting one hand on the door-latch, and holding in the other hand a trumpet, and himself peering intently into the distant heaven; while carved upon the door is the inscription: “Till He Comes.”
Such a monument is the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Such an expectancy is appropriate to the soul. Such a lesson of patient waiting is not amiss. Such a readiness to respond to the last call were becoming even to the busy. (Text.)
(1689)
JESUS, SUPREMACY OF
On Chinese Gordon’s monument in St. Paul’s Cathedral, proud England has inscribed this epitaph, “Who at all times and everywhere gave his strength to the weak, his substance to the poor, his sympathy to the suffering, and his heart to God.” Well may old England gather young England about the monument of her dead hero who gave Jesus Christ supremacy over both life and relations. Henry George and Cardinal Manning were talking together. “I love men because Jesus loved them,” said the Cardinal. “And I love Jesus because he loved men,” was Mr. George’s quick reply. It does not matter which way you go to it, only that you do actually go to the real love of men. This kind of Christianity is not outgrown; this kind has not yet been tried.—Wm. F. McDowell, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
(1690)
“Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness”—See [Christ’s Face].
Jesus Would Have Done, Just as—See [Generosity, Christian].
Jewel, The Sympathetic—See [Sympathy].
Journalism—See [Classics, Study of].
Journey of Life—See [Soul Queries].
JOURNEY TO HEAVEN
Our highest aspiration must wait. We are here to get through the world. Life is a road where we camp for a night on a journey to the golden gate and the setting sun; a traveler who sets up his tent at dark does not plant corn or put out a grapevine, if when the morning comes he expects to pull his tent down and march on. Men are born upon the shore of one ocean; by traveling lightly and never losing a moment, and marching bravely on, through forest, over desert, mountain and river, the traveler can reach the other ocean in time to catch the little boat that slips out into the dark, and sails out of sight with God alone. But the traveler must not expect to plant harvests and grow vineyards while out upon his march. Yonder lie the happy hills of God. There no winter falls, there the summer sheds its warmth always upon the violet beds. There youth is perfect and beauty is eternal. There every ambition will be perfected, every dream realized; every hope turned to fruition, and the soul is a tree waving its fruit and casting down its purple vintage at the feet of the God of the summer. (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.
(1691)
JOY
John Kendrick Bangs, in the Atlantic Monthly, writes an ideal note:
To-day, whatever may annoy
The word for me is joy, just simple joy;
The joy of life;
The joy of children and of wife;
The joy of bright blue skies;
The joy of rain; the glad surprize
Of twinkling stars that shine at night;
The joy of wingéd things upon their flight;
The joy of noon-day, and the tried
True joyousness of eventide;
The joy of labor, and of mirth;
The joy of air, and sea, and earth—
The countless joys that ever flow from Him
Whose vast beneficence doth dim
The lustrous light of day,
And lavish gifts divine upon our way.
Whate’er there be of sorrow
I’ll put off till to-morrow,
And when to-morrow comes, why then
’Twill be to-day and joy again! (Text.)
(1692)
So take joy home,
And make a place in thy great heart for her,
And give her time to grow, and cherish her;
Then will she come, and oft will sing to thee,
When thou art working in the furrows; aye,
Or weeding in the sacred hours of dawn.
It is a comely fashion to be glad—
Joy is the grace we say to God. (Text.)
—Jean Ingelow.
(1693)
JOY AFTER GRIEF
I had a sorrow, and I wept salt tears
One winter night, and heavy beat the rain;
At dawn came frost, and on my window-pane
Each drop like fairy lacework now appears.
So shall my grief perchance become a pleasure;
Yes, tears maybe are jewels hearts would keep,
For in another life we’ll wake from sleep,
And light shall sparkle from our new-found treasure.
—Beatrix L. Tollemache.
(1694)
JOY AND SORROW
“Joy and sorrow are contemporaneous experiences in the same Christian consciousness,” says Dr. Cruddylan Jones. In the Straits of Gibraltar is a double current, the stream flowing back again from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. This phenomenon is analogous to the double current in the life of every believer. (Text.)
(1695)
Judge, a Considerate—See [Probation].
Judged by the Sun—See [Tests].
Judging—See [Cynic Rebuked].
JUDGING, CARE IN
A traveler in North Carolina saw an old colored man sitting in a chair in his garden, hoeing. The traveler laughed. He thought it was a case of monumental laziness. But he happened to look back as he laughed, and he saw a pair of crutches lying on the ground by the old man’s chair. At once what made him seem ridiculous before made him seem heroic now.
When disposed to criticize, remember human infirmities. (Text.)
(1696)
JUDGING FROM FACTS
We must not judge any act without knowing the facts of the case. “See that man! He has sat on the bank all the morning throwing pebble after pebble into the water. How lazy he must be!” “Is this a fair judgment?” I inquire. And at the end of a warm discussion, I tell my pupils how Turner, the artist, did that to watch the surface of the water in motion and learn how to paint its sheen and color. “A child is walking quietly along the sidewalk. Suddenly a rough looking man seizes her and pushes her into the gutter. Is he cruel?” Of course every one answers yes, at first. But no—a mass of ice is about to fall from the roof above the child’s head. Her assaulter turns out to be her protector.
In teaching, of course, every good teacher passes from examples to principles. Through such examples as these we elicit the fact that we can judge no act on sight, for every act is open to a good or a bad interpretation. The eager energy members of my class show in pointing out possible good motives for acts that at first sight look selfish makes me feel sure that they will not in later life condemn unheard. “The special part of this ethics course which stands out in my mind as important,” writes one of my pupils, “is that on right and wrong judgments. It makes me realize how little right we have to judge people from appearances. There are so many sides of people’s characters that we don’t half consider or appreciate.”—Ella Lyman Cabot, “Proceedings of the National Education Association,” 1909.
(1697)
JUDGMENT DAY
A traveler in Tennessee came across an aged negro seated in front of his cabin door basking in the sunshine.
“He could have walked right on the stage for an Uncle Tom part without a line of make-up” says the traveler. “He must have been eighty years of age.”
“Good-morning, uncle,” said the traveler.
“Mornin’, sah! Mornin’,” said the aged one. Then he added, “Be you the gentleman over yonder from New York?”
Being told that such was the case, the old darky said, “Do you mind telling me something that has been botherin’ my old haid? I have got a grandson—he runs on the Pullman cyars—and he done tells me that up thar in New York you-all burn up youah folks when they die. He is a powerful liar, and I don’t believe him.”
“Yes,” replied the other, “that is the truth in some cases. We call it cremation.”
“Well, you suttenly surprize me,” said the negro, and then he paused as if in deep reflection. Finally he said, “You-all know I am a Baptist. I believe in the resurrection and the life everlastin’ and the comin’ of the Angel Gabriel and the blowin’ of that great horn, and Lawdy me, how am they evah goin’ to find them folks on that great mawnin’?”
It was too great a task for an off-hand answer, and the suggestion was made that the aged one consult his minister. Again the negro fell into a brown study, and then he raised his head and his eyes twinkled merrily, and he said in a soft voice:
“Meanin’ no offense, sah, but from what Ah have heard about New York, I kinder calculate they is a lot of them New York people that doan’ wanter be found on that mornin’.”—Cosmopolitan.
(1698)
JUDGMENT DELAYED
A certain farmer, who was an infidel, sent to the editor of a weekly newspaper the following letter:
“Sir—I have been trying an experiment. I have a field of Indian corn, which I plowed on Sunday. I planted it on Sunday. I did all the cultivating which it received on Sunday. I gathered the crop on Sunday, and on Sunday hauled it to my barn; and I find that I have more corn per acre than has been gathered by any of my neighbors during this October.”
What a triumphant sneer lay behind these words of the skeptic! But one thinks the light faded from his eyes as he read the sentence which the editor appended to his letter: “N. B.—God does not always settle His accounts in October!”
(1699)
Judgment Dependent on Position—See [Point of View].
JUDGMENT, FAULTY
When President Roosevelt was in Idaho, shortly after the publication of his book, “The Winning of the West,” he entered a book-store one day and saw a copy of his book lying on the counter. “Who is this author, Roosevelt?” he asked the proprietor. “Oh, he is a ranch-driver up in the cattle country,” was the answer. “Indeed,” said Mr. Roosevelt, “and what do you think of his book?” “Waal,” said the dealer, thoughtfully, “I’ve always had the idea that I’d like to meet that author and tell him that if he’d stuck to running ranches, and not tried to write books, he’d cut a heap bigger figure at his trade, and been a bigger man.”
The ranchman’s judgment was doubtless defective, but it is often well to see ourselves as others see us.
(1700)
JUDGMENT, GRADUAL
Gibbon wrote and we speak of the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” and Maspero has written a magnificent volume on “The Passing of the Ancient Empires.” Gradual degeneracy is the cause and precursor of final collapse.
After a violent gale one night a great tree was found lying across the pathway in the park where through long years it had been developing a noble growth. Nothing but a splintered stump remained standing. Examination showed there had been another development besides that of its stately beauty. For it was rotten to the core, because of the secret workings of a multitude of little insects which for generations had lived and multiplied. Judgment was not passed on that tree by the sudden gale, but went forth from the very moment that the first insect nested within its bark.
(1701)
JUDGMENT, LACK OF
“I will never forget my first experience in the hospital work,” said Chief Surgeon Millar, of the Central Emergency Hospital, San Francisco. “There was a green nurse in the detention ward and we had a very violent case in there—a man in the worst stage of delirium tremens. I was awakened in the middle of the night by the head nurse, who requested me to come at once to the patient. When I got there I found him raving and very violent, with the new nurse scared out of her wits. I said:
“‘Why did you let him go so far? I left you some medicine to give him as soon as he got delirious.’
“‘Yes, doctor,’ she replied; ‘but you told me to give that to him if he saw any more snakes, and this time he was seeing blue dogs with pink tails.’”—San Francisco Call.
(1702)
JUDGMENTS, INDISCRIMINATE
It is to be feared that many verdicts against our fellow men are as indiscriminate as that of the juryman in the following extract:
A lawyer once asked a man who had at various times sat on several juries, “Who influenced you most—the lawyers, the witnesses, or the judge?” He expected to get some useful and interesting information from so experienced a juryman.
This was the man’s reply: “I tell yer, sir, ’ow I makes up my mind. I’m a plain man, and a reasonin’ man, and I ain’t influenced by anything the lawyers say, nor by what the witnesses say—no, nor by what the judge says. I just looks at the man in the dock, and I says, ‘If he ain’t done nothing, why’s he there?’ And I brings ’em all in guilty.”
(1703)
JUNK
The Rev. William Barnes Lower writes this telling illustration:
The dredging-machines at work deepening the channel of the Delaware River are bringing to the surface all kinds of junk and implements lost or thrown overboard from ships. All kinds of tools, brass and copper are being found and sold as junk.
Every life carries with it, some more, some less, a lot of worthless junk—old superstitions from which it is hard to break away, old prejudices that have hindered the progress of the soul and should have been thrown overboard long ago. Superstition is the greatest burden in the world. The imaginary, scarecrow superstitions of many homes is the worthless junk, that is a dead weight to its spiritual and intellectual progress. Superstition is the disturber of many homes. Very often superstition parades itself under the guise of religion. Superstition is the one swing of the pendulum, skepticism believes nothing. Prejudice always arises through inexperience of the world and ignorance of mankind. In any life it is as worthless as old junk.
(1704)
Just Punishment—See [Boys Adjusting Their Troubles].
JUSTICE
Over on the further side, in the shallow eddy, the pool was troubled a second, then there rose from it a wee sunfish, not more than three inches long, rose from it tail first and began balancing across the pool surface toward me, on his head. His tail quivered in the air, and I could see his freckles growing in the yellow transparency of his skin; yet, tho I watched with wide eyes, he was two-thirds the way across the pool toward me before I noticed beneath him the tip of the nose and the wicked little dark eye of a water-snake. At sight of him the demoiselles should have shrieked and flown away, but they made no move. I, however, indignant, arose, and seizing broken fragments of rock was about to lacerate him, and lose his prey, when I quite suddenly thought better of it. Had not I a few days before come down stream to the deep pool above and carried off a string of perch, sunfish, pouts, and an eel? Had not the water-snake also a right to his dinner?—Winthrop Packard, “Wild Pastures.”
(1705)
Some of the early settlers of this country bargained with the Indians that for each fish-hook given, they were to give as much land as a bullock’s hide would cover. But the settlers cut the hide into thin strips, and made it cover a large area. William Penn, when he first came to Pennsylvania, bargained with the Indians that he would give a certain number of articles for as much land as a man could walk around in a certain time. The man covered so much more ground than the Indians believed he would, that they became dissatisfied and threatening. But Penn said to them, “You agreed to this way of measuring.” His companions wished to force the carrying out of this agreement, but Penn replied that that would be wrong toward these simple children of the prairie; he asked them what they thought would be right, and they simply demanded a few more rolls of cloth, to which Penn agreed. Not only was war averted, but the Indians were pleased with the fair and just spirit shown by the strangers, and became their friends.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”
(1706)
The story is told of a boy whose mother gave him some food to feed the chickens and little ducks. While feeding them he noticed that the ducks were scooping in nearly all the food. He saw that their large bills gave them a decided advantage and this he did not like. It did not exactly square with his notion of justice, so he got hold of a knife with a good edge to it, and just as fast as he could catch the ducklings he cut down their bills to match the size of that of the chicks.
(1707)
JUSTICE BY MAJORITY
Mr. Justice Perrot was a servile political judge, whose power of discrimination was well measured by the celebrated way in which he summed up to the jury in a case of a disputed watercourse, at Exeter Assizes. He concluded thus: “Gentlemen, there are fifteen witnesses who swear that the watercourse used to flow in a ditch on the north side of the hedge. On the other hand, gentlemen, there are nine witnesses who swear that the watercourse used to flow on the south side of the hedge. Now, gentlemen, if you subtract nine from fifteen, there remain six witnesses wholly uncontradicted, and I recommend you to give your verdict accordingly, for the party who called those six witnesses.”—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
(1708)
JUSTICE DELAYED
A case that has been on Chicago court dockets for almost twenty years was brought to light, and an effort made to hasten the progress of the wheels of justice in its disposal. The case is a damage suit of the survivors of victims of the Tioga steamer explosion July 11, 1890. Since it was started the original lawyers on both sides have died. The Tioga was moored in the Chicago River, between Washington and Randolph streets, when the explosion occurred, resulting in an estimate of thirty deaths.
The suit was filed in the Circuit Court, but was transferred to the United States District Court. Technical pleas and hearing of evidence before a master in chancery have consumed the years of litigation.
(1709)
As I passed down through India I saw two little rice-fields side by side. One was green and growing; the other was dead and dry. I looked for the cause. The great lake was full of water. There was no lack there. Into the one the living water was flowing, for the channel was open. The other was choked. Brother, is your life green and growing, fruitful and joyful, or barren and dry because the channel is choked?—G. S. Eddy, “Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions,” 1910.
(1710)
JUSTICE, ETERNAL
Nations change their names, their boundaries, their creeds and their languages. The altars of yesterday are but the curios of to-day. The temples that have been raised to the worships that have now disappeared from the face of the earth but move our wonder that beliefs so simple and so transparent should have nerved the minds of men to raise such marvels of architecture. But tho creeds and dynasties and languages are ephemeral, the principles of justice are eternal; and this Government, founded and built upon them, will, I believe, last to the end of time.—William Bourke Cockran.
(1711)
JUVENILE COURT EXPERIENCE
Judge Ben Lindsey, who has been made famous by his remarkable work in the Juvenile Court of Denver, tells the following in The Survey:
A heart-broken mother whose child was becoming dependent can tell her own story: “My husband, judge, is a good man; he was steady at his employment as structural ironworker until recently. Now he is neglecting his home and his work. As soon as he quits work he goes down to the gambling-house and there he is being ruined. He used to go to mass with me on Sunday, and he was so good and loving to us all. Now he is indifferent, gloomy and melancholy. I am without clothes and the children have no shoes. He has gambled away two hundred dollars of the money that belongs to his union, for he was highly respected and elected its treasurer. I gave him fifty dollars to pay the chattel mortgage on our furniture, and I did not know that he had gambled it away until the chattel-mortgage man came and threatened to take the stove and furniture out of the house. I went to police headquarters and they were rude and insulting to me. But one of the officers came up to me and whispered confidentially to me that if I would go to the Juvenile Court they might help me out of my troubles.”
Of course the “big business” men who commercialize political parties had little concern about their part in the ruin of that home and in the dependency and delinquency of that child. I sent for their political partner, the gambler who conducted the hell that was burning up that home. He admitted it all. I told him I would make a noise if he did not pay back that money to the poor mother. He paid it back. It would have been useless to talk about arrest and prosecution, for the public officials of that period would do neither.
(1712)