U
UNBELIEF
Years ago, in my Sunday-school, a young fellow came to me and said: “I have come to the conclusion that there is no God, no future life, no heaven and no hell. When you are dead, you are dead, and that is the end of you.” My reply was: “My dear fellow, these opinions will wreck you before you get through.” Before long, he left the Sunday-school, and I saw no more of him for years. Then one evening a knock came at my study door, and behold! the young man appeared. He was much run down, was blear-eyed and bloated. “Is that you, Fred?” said I. “Yes,” he replied. “Is it drink?” said I. “Yes,” he replied again. “Do you remember that I told you your opinions would wreck you before you got through?”—A. F. Schauffler, The Christian Herald.
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The waves of unbelief mount and recede,
And jar the century with strong unrest;
They carry back the sands of many a creed,
But only leave the rock more manifest. (Text.)
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Uncertainty of Life—See [Precaution].
UNCONSCIOUS GREATNESS
If John Wesley himself, the little, long-nosed, long-chinned, peremptory man who, on March 9, 1791, was carried to his grave by six poor men, “leaving behind him nothing but a good library of books, a well-worn clergyman’s gown, a much-abused reputation, and—the Methodist Church, could return to this world just now, when so much admiring ink is being poured upon his head, he would probably be the most astonished man on the planet.” For if Wesley has achieved fame, he never intended it. Seeley says that England conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind. And if Wesley built up one of the greatest of modern churches, and supplied a new starting-point to modern religious history, it was with an entire absence of conscious intention. (Text.)—W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”
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UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE
A Persian fable says: One day A wanderer found a lump of clay So redolent of sweet perfume Its odors scented all the room. “What are thou?” was his quick demand. “Art thou some gem from Samarcand, Or spikenard in this rude disguise, Or other costly merchandise?” “Nay, I am but a lump of clay.” “Then, whence this wondrous perfume, say!” “Friend, if the secret I disclose— I have been dwelling with the rose.”
Dear Lord, abide with us, that we May draw our perfume fresh from thee.
It is nothing wonderful that men said of the early disciples that they had been with Jesus. They had in their life the perfume of the rose—the Rose of Sharon.
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Understanding, Perfect—See [Future Life].
UNDERSTANDING, SYMPATHETIC
If I knew you and you knew me—
If both of us could clearly see,
And with an inner sight divine
The meaning of your heart and mine,
I’m sure that we would differ less
And clasp our hands in friendliness;
Our thoughts would pleasantly agree
If I knew you and you knew me.
—Nixon Walterman, Epworth Herald.
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UNEMPLOYED, PROBLEM OF THE
The problem of the unemployed is emphasized by facts and comments such as these from the metropolitan press:
James Kelly, seventy years old, a homeless wanderer, was found frozen to death within a few feet of the General Philip Schuyler estate, near Irvington.
Wilson Meyers, seventy years old, and homeless, was found dead in a stable near the Long Island Railroad tracks, at Rockaway Beach.
And 2,000 people in the Bowery bread-line on these freezing nights.
At the extraordinary meeting held in the Bowery Mission, where five hundred men from the bread-line met at the invitation of the Rev. J. G. Hallimond to talk over the facts of their situation, it was made perfectly clear that a large proportion of the company had nothing whatever the matter with them as individuals. They were skilled and sober mechanics and clerks, capable of rendering valuable services to society and eager to do it. (Text.)
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UNEXPECTED, THE
At the critical period of the American Civil War when General Hooker was succeeded by General Meade, neither Meade nor Lee desired or expected to fight a battle at Gettysburg, Lee wishing to have it at Cashtown and Meade on Pipe Creek, but both were drawn into it against positive orders to the contrary, and yet that battle proved to be the turning-point in the fortunes of the war.
Many of the greatest results in history and in individual lives turn on circumstances wholly unforeseen by man, which some call accident or chance, but which the wise know to be an overruling Providence. (Text.)
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Unexpected Value—See [Appreciation].
Unfaith—See [Confidence, Lack of]; [Time Brings Fortune].
Unfaithfulness, Penalty of—See [Respect, No, of Persons].
UNFORGIVING SPIRIT, THE
La Tude, a young Frenchman, for a trifling offense, was seized and thrown into prison by order of Madame de Pompadour. There he remained until her death in 1764. Two years before she died he wrote this unfeeling woman: “I have suffered fourteen years; let all be buried forever in the blood of Jesus.” But she remained fixt in her determination to show him no mercy. This young Frenchman remained in prison almost thirty-five years. (Text.)
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UNFITNESS
A man who weighs one hundred and fifty pounds on the earth would weigh only two pounds on the planet Mars, and so could hardly stand; while on the sun he would weigh two tons and so would sink, like a stone in the sea, into its hot marshes. Each man is too light for some places, too heavy for others, and just right for others. Failing in a work for which he is unfitted often brings him to his true place.
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See [Attainment, Superficial].
UNHAPPINESS OF THE GREAT
How well do the instances cited below illustrate the oft-quoted sentence of Augustine, “Restless are our hearts, O God, until they rest in Thee.”
Sheridan, idol of his day, had for his last words: “I am absolutely undone.” “Take me back to my room,” sighed Sir Walter Scott; “there is no rest for me but the grave.” Charles Lamb said: “I walk up and down thinking I am happy, but feeling I am not.” Edmund Burke said he would not give a peck of refuse wheat for all the fame in the world.
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Uniform as a Preparation for Fighting—See [Dress Affecting Moods].
UNION
Where such things can be done in nature as are described below there should be hope of a time when the varieties of human nature, varying sects, creeds and practises may be merged into a common Christian type.
An orange-cucumber, or cucumber-orange, as the name has not yet been decided, is a freak combination raised by Howard S. Hill, a cucumber grower of Gardner, Mass., which he is cultivating as a new dish to tickle the palate of exacting diners.
The new fruit or vegetable resulted from an experiment made by Mr. Hill. At that time an orange-tree was in full bloom in his cucumber hothouse at the same time that the blossom of the cucumber vines first appeared. Mr. Hill transferred the pollen from the orange-blossoms to several cucumber flowers.
The first appearance of the fruit was the same as that of an ordinary infant cucumber, but as the fruit grew, the result of the inoculation became apparent. The cucumber, instead of lengthening out, remained round like an orange, with the orange-bloom scar, but the skin was that of a cucumber, with the same corruptions. When ripened the new product assumed a bright orange color, and from a distance appeared the same as an orange.
With the seeds from the best specimens Mr. Hill is growing a number of vines and thinks that the new fruit will become established and prove a favorite, as the taste of the orange and cucumber blend in an excellent manner and make a pleasing combination.
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UNION WITH CHRIST
There is an operation in surgery when an organ has gotten detached; the only way for it to be kept in place is to cut it, and cut the near-by muscles, and then sew the two wounds together. In process of healing, the organ grows fast to its support. The surest way for a heart to grow fast to Christ is to bring its own bleeding side to the side of the Christ who was wounded for it, and the two will become one. (Text.)—James M. Stifler, “The Fighting Saint.”
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See [Christ, Union with].
United States and China— See [America’s Attitude].
UNITY
The Rev. S. Miller Hageman predicts the unity of all human designs in this verse:
All things yet shall work together, and so working, orb in one,
As the sun draws back its sunbeams when the dial-day is done;
All things yet shall gather roundly, and unite, and shape, and climb,
Into truth’s great golden unit, in the ripe result of time.
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One of the Greek poets sings of two devoted friends who visited the shop of Vulcan, and desired to be joined in a closer and indissoluble union. Vulcan took out their hearts, accordingly, laid them on his anvil, and with many sturdy blows with his hammer welded them into one.
A mightier power than Vulcan in a gentler way joins human hearts to one another and all to Himself at a forge whose fire is love. (Text.)
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J. D. Freeman, in “Concerning the Christ,” says:
A building may include a multitude and variety of compartments. The town hall of Leicester you will find a building of this sort. The town council room is beautifully decorated with fine paintings, and the light streams in abundantly through stained-glass windows. It is an inviting place. But in the basement you will find apartments with bare walls, cold stone floors, plain benches, and iron doors with padlocks. These rooms are occupied by a less attractive set of people. Yet all the rooms above and below are part of one scheme, and the beautiful council chamber can not disown the repellent cell of the prison.
The same principles hold true of our life. You can not dismember your soul. You are not a lumber-yard where materials displace each other as they are carted in and out; you are a structure. You have your council chamber where reason and conscience deliberate, and also the dark cells where unholy desires lurk and lawless passions rage. (Text.)
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Unity Broken—See [Separation].
UNITY FUNDAMENTAL IN NATURE
As the glass reflects the face, so the creation reflects the qualities of Him who made it. Among other attributes, It speaks of His unity.
Notwithstanding the wide diversity that presents itself to our view in the countless varieties of living beings, it yet is true that all vegetable and animal tissues without exception, from that of the brightly colored lichen on the rock, to that of the painter who admires or of the botanist who dissects it, are essentially one in composition and in structure. The microscopic fungi clustering by millions within the body of a single fly, the giant pine of California towering to the height of a cathedral-spire, the Indian fig-tree covering acres with its profound shadow, animalcules minute enough to dance in myriads on the point of a needle, and the huge leviathan of the deep, the flower that a girl wears in her hair, and the blood that courses through her veins, are, each and all, smaller or larger multiples or aggregates of one and the same structural unit, and all therefore ultimately resolvable into the same identical elements. That unit is a corpuscle composed of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon. Hydrogen, with oxygen, forms water; carbon, with oxygen, carbonic acid; and hydrogen, with nitrogen, ammonia. These three compounds—water, carbonic acid, and ammonia—in like manner, when combined form protoplasm. (Text.)
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Unity of Christendom—See [Church Union].
Unity of Knowledge—See [Knowledge, Unity of].
UNITY OF LIFE
I was greatly charmed last summer by a sight in the mountains of four stately chestnuts growing from one root. I loved to sit in the shadow first of one and then of another, and to watch them swaying in the wind and kissing each other through the interlacing branches. So I have thought it is with the drama, the finer arts, and music, and with religious aspirations—each separate in some sense from the other, and yet, down in the deepest, one, blossoming alike and bearing fruit, shooting up into the light together, and glorifying the land where they grow.—Robert Collyer.
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UNITY OF MATTER
Theism is gradually being reenforced by the discovery that apparently diverse phenomena are really one.
The division of bodies into gaseous, liquid, and solid, and the distinction established for the same substance between the three states, retain a great importance for the applications and usages of daily life, but have long since lost their absolute value from the scientific point of view.
As far as concerns the liquid and gaseous states particularly, the already antiquated researches of Andrews confirmed the ideas of Cagniard de la Tour and established the continuity of the two states.—Lucien Poincare, “The New Physics and Its Evolution.”
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UNITY OF MIND
Spirit and foot rule have nothing to do with each other. The same light comes out of a dew-drop that comes out of the sun. The smallest bird that trills its infinitesimal melody utters occasional notes that would blend with the voluminous progressions of the grandest oratorio, or that would even chime in with the anthem of the heavenly host praising God and singing, “Glory to God in the highest.” And as the little note of the bird fits the splendid symphony of the angel-choir, so thought is still thought everywhere, mind is mind in both worlds, the sea-shell yet hums the murmur of the sea whence it sprang, the younger star still moves in the orbit it learned while one with the parent star from which it was born, God and man think in the same vernacular, the Father and His children understand each other, the hills and the mountains are divine thoughts done in stone, and in the heavens the interpreting mind of man calmly fronts and steadily reads the meaning of God, and in the scintillant paragraphs of the star-dotted sky, with a divine genius, spells out thought that lay eternal in the great Mind before ever He said, “Let there be light.”—Charles H. Winthrop Packard, “Wild Pastures.”
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Unity of the Soul—See [Soul a Unity].
UNITY, STRENGTH IN
These (cedar) roots so twine and intertwine that the original sap, drawn from the tender tips, must have nourished any one of several trees indifferently, for heart-wood joins heart-wood in scores of places near the stump and far from it, showing that each tree stood not only on its own roots, but on those of its neighbors all about it; not only was it nourished by its own rootlets, but by those of trees near by. No gale could uproot these swamp cedars. United they stood and divided they might not fall.—Parkhurst.
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UNIVERSAL FACTS
The religion of science will demand that a working faith shall have the universal note, rather than that which is local, temperamental or transient. All nature’s truths are universal truths. There are seven colors in the sunbeam—here, in Mars—in all worlds. The whole is equal to the sum of the parts, for Newton and Euclid and Moses. The laws of light and heat are the same in all zones. Psychology that can be taught in Yale or Harvard can be taught in Peking and Calcutta. A physiology with the story of the circulation of the blood in a white man can be studied in a college for brown men, and red men, and yellow men. The multiplication table is not American—it is for all men. The Ten Commandments are not Hebrew—they are for men who live and work and die, without regard to color, education or race. The master, therefore, whose music is to be a world music, must teach that which is universal, simple and democratic.—N. D. Hillis.
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Unkindness—See [Love’s Carefulness].
UNKNOWN REALITIES
We can not tell why of two exactly similar bulbs put into precisely similar soil one should bloom out as a tulip and the other come up as an onion. We do not know how the flowers receive their color or perfume, nor why it is that while we can catch the shadow in the camera we can not imprison the color. There are many things, too, for which we have not been able to frame laws. We can not agree as to the cause of earthquakes, the origin of volcanic fires, or the birth-throes of the whirlwind. We do not even know our own origin, and the thinking world is divided between evolution and creation. We do not know even the normal color of man, whether we are bleached from the dark original, or whether the dark races are sunburnt editions of the early whites. Was the flood local or universal? Did Atlantis exist? Were there giants in those days? These are a few of the many questions that might be asked and remain unanswered.—San Francisco Chronicle.
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See [Ignorance of Origin and Destiny].
UNKNOWN SAINTS
With golden letters set in brave array
Throughout the Church’s record of the year,
The great names of historic saints appear,
Those ringing names, that, as a trumpet, play
Uplifting music o’er a sordid way,
And sound high courage to our earth-dulled ear;
But, underneath those strains, I seem to hear
The silence of the saints that have no day.
Martyrs blood-red, and trodden souls, care-gray,
In hierarchal pride no place they boast;
No candles born for them where pilgrims pray,
No haloes crown their dim and countless host;
And yet—the leaven of their humble sway,
Unrecognized, unguessed, avails the most.(Text.)
—Katherine Perry, The Reader.
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UNKNOWN, THE
It is unsafe to deny the existence of things merely because we can not see them. Here is what Prof. Simon Newcomb says of invisible stars:
The theories of modern science converge toward the view that, in the pure ether of space no single ray of light can ever be lost, no matter how far it may travel. During the last few years discoveries of dark, and therefore invisible, stars have been made by means of the spectroscope with a success which would have been quite incredible a very few years ago, and which even to-day must excite wonder and admiration. The general conclusion is that, besides the shining stars which exist in space, there may be any number of dark ones, forever invisible in our telescope.—Harper’s Magazine.
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UNKNOWN WORKERS
Edward Everett Hale pays this tribute to the pioneer:
What was his name? I do not know his name;
I only know he heard God’s voice and came;
Brought all he loved across the sea,
To live and work for God—and me;
Felled the ungracious oak,
Dragged from the soil,
With torrid toil,
Thrice-gnarled roots and stubborn rock,
With plenty piled the haggard mountain-side,
And at the end, without memorial died;
No blaring trumpet sounded out his fame;
He lived, he died; I do not know his name.
No form of bronze and no memorial stones
Show me the place where lies his moldering bones,
Only a cheerful city stands,
Built by his hardened hands;
Only ten thousand homes
Where every day
The cheerful play
Of love and hope and courage comes.
These are his monuments, and these alone;
There is no form of bronze and no memorial stone.
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UNLOADING THE USELESS
The burglar hesitated. Back of him was a sheer drop of twenty-five feet to the ground. In front of him was a determined woman, grasping in her hand a huge revolver. She covered him steadily.
“I won’t shoot,” she said, “if you will remain still.”
She advanced upon him and poking the muzzle of the gun in his face reached into his pocket and pulled out his revolver.
“Come in.”
The burglar obediently stept inside the room. All his courage was gone.
“Sit down,” said the woman.
He sat down.
She got a huge ball of heavy cord from her bureau and spent the next twenty minutes in tying him up. Then she pointed out of the window.
“Is that your wagon out there behind the barn?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thought you would carry away my silver in it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The woman called her husband, who was hiding behind the baby’s crib in the next room.
“Here, John,” she said, “take some of this furniture out.”
John came in and got to work. The burglar watched with curious eyes. Suddenly his face blanched. He looked out of the window and saw in the light of the moon what John was carrying.
“What are you doing to me?” he asked.
The woman began cutting his cords.
“I’m going to load you up with all of the old eyesores that we have had in the house for these many years,” she said, merrily—“all the furniture presented to us at Christmas by kind-hearted relatives, all the prizes we have taken at card-parties, all of the things we have bought at sales, all the family portraits—everything that we have been simply dying to get rid of.”—Life.
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UNNATURAL EDUCATION
President Butler, of Columbia University, made the following reference to his friend, Dr. James H. Canfield, before the National Education Association at Denver, in July, 1909:
How patient he was with the typical errors of the pedagog, yet how fully he understood them! I remember a story that he told of himself when he was chancellor of the University of Nebraska. Toward the close of the college year a young tutor of mathematics who was completing his first year of service came into the chancellor’s office and asked whether he was to be reappointed for another year. The chancellor said: “Well, what do you yourself think of your work? What have you done that you are proud of?” The young tutor answered, “Mr. Chancellor, I have just held such a stiff examination in my course that I have flunked sixty members of the freshman class.” The chancellor looked at him kindly and said, “Young man, suppose I gave you a herd of one hundred cattle to drive to Kansas City, or Omaha, and you came in to tell me that you had driven them so fast and so hard, and had made such good time, that sixty per cent had died on the way. Do you think that I should want you to drive any more cattle to the Missouri River?” “No, sir,” said the tutor. “Well, I do not think we will let you drive any more freshmen.”
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Unrestrained Religion—See [Inadequacy of Non-Christian Religions].
UNREWARDED INVENTION
George Dawson, in his lecture on “Ill-used Men,” notes the shameful neglect that befell the famous inventor of the spinning jenny that revolutionized the textile industry:
Poor Hargreaves died in a workhouse; his wife, a widow, sunk into that black mass of under-current which ever underruns the tide of England’s prosperity; and thus the man whose labors gave England the greatest wealth she ever possest, sunk into oblivion unrewarded.
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Unseen Forces Trusted—See [Trust in God].
UNSEEN, RESPONSE FROM THE
The materialist says: “Scientific history seeks the discovery of facts.” The Christian answers: “It is not so; scientific history seeks first the discovery of the forces which shape facts.” And the first wireless telegraphers conveying a message that saves the world were the apostles of Jesus Christ. After His ascension into the unseen from that wireless station named the upper room there went out the call C Q. (“This is the signal that something important has happened and that all other stations and vessels in the wireless zone must instantly stop sending and give attention. The next flash came C Q D. The added D meant danger, and the three letters together are a cry for help, a general ambulance call of the sea.”) And it was in response to the disciples’ call upon the invisible Christ there came rolling across the spiritual seas the ships of Pentecost. Those same wondrous vessels, thank God, are still pushing out from port in the unseen, not only to rescue, but to greaten and eternalize the life of every storm-lasht pilgrim! Truly, with a fresh and vivid power wireless ships publish the reality of the unseen. (Text.)—F. F. Shannon.
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UNSEEN RESULTS
Dr. Buchanan, of Randolph-Macon College, tells of a lady who planted a rare rose-bush, worked around it, fertilized it, watered it, and yet saw no reward of her labors. But presently it was found that shoots from this bush had pushed through to the other side of the wall and were blooming in splendid beauty there. “Work on, undiscovered ones,” he says. “In the unseen world you may find your unseen roses in full bloom, scenting the air with fragrance.” (Text.)
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UNSELFISHNESS
There was a party of twenty-five boys and girls going upon a picnic, and when about to get into the carry-all which was to convey them to the picnic grounds, it was found that, with the utmost crowding there was room for only twenty-four, and one little girl was left standing on the ground, and was to be left behind. The disappointment was too great for her to control her feelings, and the tears began to fall, when one of her companions, named Alice, jumped out and said, “Don’t cry, Sadie; you get in and take my place; I have been many times, and do not care so very much.” The children had a very happy afternoon, but what do you suppose they thought and said about Alice?—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”
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This helpful poem is from The Outlook:
I thank thee, Lord, for strength of arm
To win my bread,
And that beyond my need is meat
For friend unfed.
I thank thee much for bread to live,
I thank thee more for bread to give.
I thank thee, Lord, for snug-thatched roof
In cold and storm,
And that beyond my need is room
For friend forlorn.
I thank thee much for place to rest,
But more for shelter for my guest.
I thank thee, Lord, for lavish love
On me bestowed,
Enough to share with loveless folk
To ease their load.
Thy love to me I ill could spare,
Yet dearer is thy love I share. (Text.)
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See [Patriotism, Disinterested]; [Self-forgetting].
UNSELFISHNESS, EXAMPLES OF
When Peter Cooper, who founded the Cooper Institute, New York, had completed his apprenticeship, his employer esteemed him so much that he offered to give him the capital to start in business, but Cooper refused because of his invincible repugnance to debt. At the end of three years he had saved up $500, but his father being prest with debt, young Cooper gave the entire amount for his relief. He purchased a glue factory and soon obtained the reputation of making the best glue in the country. He became interested in many successful enterprises, employing thousands of men, and conceived the idea of an educational institute for the advancement of the sciences. Abram S. Hewitt, with a son of Peter Cooper, took over the father’s iron business, and at one time over 3,000 men were employed, and for six years they ran the business at a loss of over $100,000 a year rather than bring upon their employes the distress incident to shutting down the plant. Partly for this reason the business was run for forty years with only sufficient profit to pay the men, and still by judicious foresight in buying iron the firm cleared over $1,000,000 in one year. Their policy toward their workmen was always to take them into their confidence.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”
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UNSELFISHNESS IN BIRDS
Sidney Lanier tells of a mocking-bird six weeks of age being kept in a cage with another young bird who was so ill he could hardly move. One day food happened to be delayed in coming, and Bob got furiously hungry. He called and screamed and made a great row. At last it appeared, and he took in his beak the ball of egg and potato, snatching it out of the hand, and then, instead of eating it, ran across the cage and gave the whole of it to his sick friend.—Olive Thorne Miller, “The Bird Our Brother.”
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UNSELFISHNESS, POWER OF
The way in which an unselfish example can inspire a like desire in others is seen in this incident:
We two students roomed over on the north side of the building where the sun never entered, and we were often chilled to discomfort and we would not stand it longer. The bishop beamed upon us with benevolent surprize, and said:
“Why, young gentlemen, this will never do; you are not going to leave the school. True, our mission is slow in providing better accommodations, but they will come soon. Meanwhile, we are bound to do the best we can for our students. We expect you young men in the future to become the bishops and leaders in the Japanese churches. As for yourselves in particular, I’ll tell you what we can do. I have a good warm room on the sunny side of the school; now you young gentlemen come over and occupy my room and I myself will go over and take yours.” “Oh, no!” we both exclaimed; “we would not have you do that; we did not mean that.” “But that’s what I mean,” said the bishop; “that’s what will be done.” We again remonstrated and my fellow student, a Christian boy, began to weep with chagrin and brokenness of heart, and soon I found I, too, was weeping. I never before had seen anything like that and my heart broke under it. Why, sir, there was a light in that good bishop’s face similar to that which I think Saul saw on the way to Damascus.—H. C. Mabie, “Methods in Evangelism.”
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Unsympathetic—See [Sympathy, Lack of].
UNTRUTHFULNESS
Dr. Edward Everett Hale said that once he dreamed of playing ball with a companion, and of throwing the ball through a large glass window, and that the owner of the house came out and asked him if he threw the ball, and he said, “No.” Then the man pounced upon his companion, saying, “Then it must have been you,” and dragged him into the house and gave him a tremendous whipping. Dr. Hale said he experienced a feeling of meanness and degradation that was inexpressible; he felt himself to be the most cowardly wretch on the face of the earth, and had not a single word to say in his own defense. He stood ashamed of himself before his own conscience. He said the impression was so vivid that he never got over the remembrance, and through life was given a loathing and abhorrence of all forms of deceit.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”
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UNWORTHY AIMS
When asked by a friend how he managed to wear always such becoming and elaborate cravats a British dude is said to have answered, “Why, my dear fellah, I puts my whole mind on it.” Such an answer is the measure of such a man’s mind. The aim was wholly unworthy of the attention given to it.
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Unwritten Law Waived—See [Devotion to the Helpless.]
Upper Worlds—See [Evil, Purging from].
UPRIGHTNESS
Confucius, wishing once to give a lesson of supreme value in politics, pointed one of his pupils to a lofty obelisk and said: “Seest thou yonder tall object? In its uprightness is its strength.” (Text.)
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Upward—See [Aspiration].
UPWARD LOOK
A story is told by the Rev. Silvester Horne of a college professor who often told in the class-room of thoughts that had come to him in the garden. The thoughts were often so beautiful, and opened up such vistas to the imagination, that the students, none of whom had visited the professor at his home, pictured the garden a very Eden—spacious, and a glory of trees and flowers. One day two of the students made a pretext to visit the professor and get a glimpse, if possible, of the garden. They were received and taken into the garden, which, to their surprize, they found was the narrowest strip shut in by high brick walls. “But, professor,” they said in their pained disillusion, “surely this is not the garden you are always talking about, in which such fine thoughts come to you?” “Oh, yes, it is,” he said with a smile. “But it is so small. We had imagined quite a large garden.” “But,” replied the professor, pointing to the clear sky studded with stars, “see how high it is!”
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The solar look is not only indicative of a desire in the individual to aspire to great and noble attainments for himself, it is sure to lead him to point out the upward pathway of the soul to others. Aspiration is an inspiration to altruism.
One of the most beautiful works of the celebrated artist in terra-cotta, George Tinworth, is his alto-rilievo of C. H. Spurgeon representing the great preacher surrounded by the children of Stockwell Orphanage, which he founded. Mr. Spurgeon with a heavenly smile is pointing to the skies and the children are gazing upward as he points. This statue is a vivid contrast to the one which stands in a square in Northampton, the monument to that pronounced infidel, Charles Bradlaugh, the “English Ingersoll.” The statue represents Bradlaugh addressing the people, but he is pointing directly downward. (Text.)
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Are not most of life’s fears due to the fact that we do not consider enough what is above us? The remedy is to look up.
When a goose goes under an arch she ducks her head; that is not because there is not space for her, but because she thinks there is not, and that is because she is a goose. Perhaps she does not see very clearly what is above her.—Bolton Hall, “A Little Land and a Living.”
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Francois de Bonnivard, whom Byron has immortalized in his “Prisoner of Chillon,” was for many years immured in the dungeon of the castle of Chillon, which lay below the level of Lake Geneva, but from which he could hear the sound of the water constantly. One day a bird came and sang at his window the sweetest carol he ever heard. The music awakened within him an inexpressible longing for a look at the outer and upper world, all so free and bright to that bird. Digging a foothold in the dungeon wall he climbed to the little window, from which he saw the mountains of his beloved Switzerland, unchanged, capped with eternal snow, and that upward look gave him new patience and hope. (Text.)
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Usage Rejected—See [Experience a Hard Teacher].
Usefulness—See [Service].
USEFULNESS PLUS MORE USEFULNESS
A young man who had worked up to the position of confidential clerk, became jealous of a new clerk, to whom his employer had just given a raise in salary exceeding his own. He went to his employer and said: “Are you not satisfied with my work and my faithfulness?” “Oh, yes,” was the reply. “Why, then, do you give this new man more salary than to me?” Instead of replying to the question, the merchant, who was a grain dealer, said: “Do you see that load of grain going by? Run out, and see to whom it is going.” The confidential man returned, and said it was going to Wilson’s place. “Run out and find out what they got for the grain.” He returned and said eighty-five cents per bushel. “Run and find out if Wilson wants any more.” He returned and said: “Yes, he wants another carload.” At this moment the new clerk came in, and the grain merchant repeated to him his first instruction: “Run out and see where that load of grain is going.” In a few minutes the new clerk returned and said: “The grain is going to Wilson’s; they are paying eighty-five cents per bushel, and want another carload.” The merchant, turning to the confidential man, said: “You have your answer. It took you three trips to find out what this man learned in one.” The new clerk had wit enough to know that the merchant did not care about where the grain was going, but if there was a probability of supplying some of the demand, and upon what terms.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”
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USEFULNESS VERSUS DISPLAY
One of these little flitting society girls, compared to a substantial Christian girl, reminds me of a butterfly compared to a honey-bee. The butterfly flits here and there with its beautiful color, and nobody ever knows what it’s for or where it goes. The honey-bee flies from flower to flower, lighting with a velvet tread upon each blossom, extracting its sweetness without marring its beauty, and lays up honey to bless the world.—“Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones.”
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USELESS LABOR
If all the efforts wasted on such tasks as that described below were put into useful and constructive work, the world’s wealth would be far more rapidly increased.
Mr. William L. Stuart, a young man engaged in business in New York City, has performed the seemingly impossible feat of engraving the entire Lord’s Prayer on the head of an ordinary pin, to which he has added his name and the year, making altogether two hundred and seventy-six letters and figures.
Mr. Stuart did the work at odd times during his regular employment and with very ordinary tools, which seemingly are not adapted to such fine engraving. The pin was set in a block of wood, and a common engraver’s tool was used. A simple microscope, costing only about twenty-five cents, and known as a “linen tester,” furnished the necessary magnifying.
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USELESS STRUCTURES
Science speaks of useless physiological structures, as when we read in “The Descent of Man”:
Man, as well as every other animal, presents structures which, as far as we can judge with our little knowledge, are not now of any service to him, nor have been so during any former period of his existence, either in relation to his general condition of life, or of one sex to the other. Such structures can not be accounted for by any form of selection, or by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts.
Useless structures are not discerned alone by science. History and experience, in the large field of life, have seen them many times. The efforts of man have often reclaimed “useless structures.”
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USURY IN OLD DAYS
Our Pilgrims were few and poor. The whole outfit of this historic voyage, including £1,700 of trading stock, was only £2,400, and how little was required for their succor appears in the experience of the soldier, Captain Miles Standish, who, being sent to England for assistance—not military, but financial—(God save the mark!)—succeeded in borrowing—how much do you suppose?—£150 sterling. Something in the way of help; and the historian adds, “tho at fifty per cent interest.” So much for a valiant soldier on a financial expedition. A later agent, Allerton, was able to borrow for the colony £200 at a reduced interest of thirty per cent. Plainly, the money-sharks of our day may trace an undoubted pedigree to these London merchants.—Charles Sumner.
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UTILITY
Many men decide values as Russell Sage did in this incident from The Saturday Evening Post, which illustrates the thrift which has always been present in all transactions made by Russell Sage:
A prominent New York financier says that recently, while on a tour of inspection over the Missouri Pacific system, President Gould took great pride in pointing out to Russell Sage the late improvements in equipment, and various new and ingenious devices and attachments. Among the latter Mr. Gould was especially pleased to show to Mr. Sage a certain device by which there is registered the speed of a train. The device in question resembled a steam-gage, and was connected with an axle, so that the pointer registered the number of revolutions every minute.
Mr. Sage examined the device with great interest. Then, after a moment’s pause, he looked up at Mr. Gould, and asked with great solemnity, “Does it earn anything?” “No, I think not,” answered the president. “Does it save anything?” “No.” “Then,” concluded Mr. Sage decidedly, “I would not have it on my car!”
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UTILITY AS THEISTIC EVIDENCE
Man reasons from himself to the great cause of things. That which is true of man may be true of God.
A prospect-glass or a forceps is an instrument; they have each a final cause; that is, they were each made and adjusted for a certain use. The use of the prospect-glass is to assist the eye; the use of the forceps is to assist the hand. The prospect-glass was made the better to see; the forceps, the better to grasp. The use did not make these instruments; they were each made for the use—which use was foreseen and premeditated in the mind of the maker of them. We say of each of them without a shadow of hesitation: If this had not first been a thought, it could never have been a thing.
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UTILITY, DIVINE
Preaching, like every other thing that God permits or ordains, can not be limited by human regulations. Rev. W. H. Fitchett says of John Wesley:
John Wesley heard at Bristol that his helper, Maxfield, had crossed the mystic border-line which separates an exhortation from a sermon, and the story has already been told of how Wesley rode post-haste to London to trample out the first sparks of what might prove to be a conflagration. His mother’s calm eyes and quiet speech arrested him. She made the one appeal which, to Wesley’s reason and conscience alike, was irresistible. This new and alarming phenomenon must, after all, be judged by the question: “Does God use it?”—“Wesley and His Century.”
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UTILIZATION
Darwin made the great experiments which have changed the whole aspect of natural history, with the common glasses of his house, and the common flower-pots in his garden.
There is a legend of an artist who sought long for a piece of sandalwood out of which to carve a Madonna. He was about to give up the search when in a dream he was bidden to shape the figure from a block of oak-wood which was destined for the fire. Obeying the command, he produced from the log of common firewood a masterpiece.—Hugh Macmillan.
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Not so long ago there arrived at a Pacific port a ship from Belfast, Ireland, after a voyage that was in one respect remarkable. It appears that this vessel’s ballast consisted of about 2,000 tons of Irish soil. This, when leveled off, made a pretty good-sized garden patch, and the members of the crew, with commendable thrift, took it into their heads to improve it.
They planted a good stock of garden truck—cabbages, leeks, turnips, radishes, peas, beans, lettuce and other things. These came up in due course, and flourished admirably, especially while the ship was in the tropics, and the men had fresh “garden sass” to their hearts’ content.
As they rounded Cape Horn they replanted the garden, and by the time they reached the equator everything was again green and the table well supplied.
The two drawbacks were the weeds, which grew apace, and the inroads of the ship’s drove of pigs, which were kept in the “farm-yard attachment,” and which, on several occasions, when the ship was rolling heavily, broke out of bounds and, of course, did their best to obtain their share of the garden truck.
The last pig was killed and served with green vegetables just before the vessel entered the port on the Pacific. On the arrival of the ship the sod was taken to its destination, ready to be used again for terrestrial gardening.—Harper’s Weekly.
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A public sentiment that fluctuates irregularly can be as little depended upon in making progress as the sun’s energy noted in the following:
The energy falling upon an ordinary city lot should run continuously a hundred-horse-power plant. If all the coal deposits in Pennsylvania were burned in one second, they would not produce as much power as the sun furnishes us in the same time. The difficulty in the practical utilization of the solar energy lies in its extreme variability. In the morning and afternoon, when the sun is low in the heavens, but a small amount of energy reaches the surface, and even at noon a passing cloud will absorb the greater part of the solar radiation.—Charles Lane Poor, “The Solar System.”
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UTILIZATION OF RESOURCES
A writer on the coal areas of the nation says:
A good geologist, Baron von Richthofen, has reported that he has found a coal-field in the province of Hunau covering an area of 21,700 square miles, which is nearly double the British coal area of 12,000 square miles. In the province of Shansi, the baron discovered nearly 30,000 square miles of coal, with unrivaled facilities for mining. But all these vast coal-fields, capable of supplying the whole world for some thousands of years to come, are lying unworked.
If “the course of manufacturing supremacy of wealth and of power” were directed by coal, then China, which possesses 33.3 times more of this directive force than Great Britain, and had so early a start in life, should be the supreme summit of the industrial world. If this solid hydrocarbon “raises up one people and casts down another,” the Chinaman should be raised thirty-three times and three-tenths higher than the Englishman; if it “makes railways on land and paths on the sea,” the Chinese railways should be 33.3 times longer than ours, and the tonnage of their mercantile marine 33.3 times greater.
China is thus shown to be, potentially, the wealthiest coal-bearing country in the world. Actually, she is one of the poorest. The difference lies in her lack of utilization of that which is hers. So many a man fails of the best results. He possesses untold wealth, but he is morally and spiritually poverty-stricken because he fails to work the moral and spiritual deposit.
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UTILIZING SEAWEED
Owing to the formation of the coast, seaweed is present in great quantities along the shores of Prince Edward Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The high tide leaves a long stretch of territory between high and low water mark, where it grows. As a fodder it is eaten by oxen, sheep, and deer in winter, and when boiled with a small quantity of meal added it makes a desirable food for hogs.
From seaweed, when reduced to ashes, are gained some of the most beneficent preparations in use to-day. Some of these are iodin, bromin, hydriodic acid, iodides of sodium, mercury, potassium, magnesium, and calcium. From it are extracted coloring matters, volatile oil, and its ingredients are used in photography. It is further employed as coverings for flasks, in the packing of glass, china, and other brittle wares, for packing furniture, stuffing pillows and mattresses, and in upholstering. The claim is made that furniture stuffed with seaweed is kept free of moths and other insects, owing to its salty flavor.
This weed is one of the best non-conductors of heat and finds use in thermotics, especially in the insulation of refrigerators and in refrigerating plants. It is also used between walls and floors to prevent the transmission of sound.
As the demand for this article is getting more active, large quantities are being gathered by farmers and fishermen along the shores of Prince Edward Island, dried, and prepared for shipment to the United States. (Text.)—Harper’s Weekly.
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UTILIZING SEED
“There isn’t one man in ten thousand who has the remotest idea of the vast number of uses to which the once despised cotton-seed is now being put,” said Captain B. J. Holmes, of New Orleans.
“From the clean seed are obtained linters and meats and hulls, the hulls making the best and most fattening feed for cattle that has yet been found. From the linters are gathered material for mattresses, felt wads, papers, rope, and a grade of underwear, and likewise cellulose, out of which gun-cotton is made. The meats furnish oil and meal, the oil after refining being now in almost universal use in the kitchens of this and other countries. Before refinement to the edible stage, the oil is known under many names, such as salad-oil, stearine, winter-oil and white-oil, oleomargarine being the product of stearine. The white-oil is the chief ingredient in compound lards. The original oil, also known as soap stock, has fatty acids used in the manufacture of soaps, roofing-tar, paints and glycerine, and from this comes the explosive nitroglycerine. I might also add that the meal, aside from its use as cattle provender, is transformed into bread, cake, crackers and even candy. Last of all come the doctors, who are saying that this wonderful seed is a boon to the sick, since from its oils an emulsion is prepared that has been known to be of value in tuberculosis and other ailments.”—Baltimore American.
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Utilizing Soap-suds—See [Sagacity Supplementing Science].
Utilizing Spider Threads—See [Nature Aiding Science].
Utilizing the Best We Have—See [Conservation of Remainders].
UTTERANCE
Criminals, even those hardened beings who, ordinarily, laugh at everything, and show but little trace of what we call conscience, rarely keep their secret. It seems to burn them. They chalk it on the walls, and they betray it in their dreams. Their security depends upon their silence, and this silence they can not keep. At every moment their speech skirts the terrible mystery, and takes on a hollow sound which recalls that of steps upon tunneled earth. One guesses a gulf even when he does not see it. Revelation is more than a need; it is a necessity. It takes place sometimes in spite of ourselves and against our will. (Text.)—Charles Wagner, “The Gospel of Life.”
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