The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair / Their Observations and Triumphs

by C. M. Stevens

They concluded to go back home and then stroll out, and in their walk to go into the first church they found.

They did so, and came into a great church just in time to hear the minister read the text: "And God said unto Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the Lord, thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night; and should I not spare Nineveh?"

Uncle Jeremiah listened for the story of Jonah and the gourd to be applied in some way for a lesson to the hearers, but only once, when the minister told what he had seen in Palestine, did he become intelligible to Uncle. It was all so transcendently ethical. Uncle got a remote idea that Chicago was to be likened to Nineveh, and the gourd to the World's Fair, but when the sermon was done, and all said, he felt that he would have enjoyed the hour so much better in some of the quiet shades of one of the parks, where he would have heard so reverently the still small voice of nature's teachings.

After noon they went to Lincoln Park, and as they stood before Lincoln's statue, Aunt said: "This is greater than any sermon I ever heard." They read the words and sat on the bench encircling the statue, while Fanny read the sayings of Lincoln chiseled on the stone. Then they visited Grant's monument. They sat down on the stone steps and looked at the noble figure. Uncle was carried away with a religious patriotism that held all the emotions of divine presence.

"THIS IS GREATER THAN ANY SERMON I EVER HEARD."

"There," said Aunt, "we are listening to another sermon that can not be surpassed by the tongues of men. A whole life of great deeds for our country is here speaking to us. No man can be a bad man if he were to come every Sunday and give his emotions up to the lessons of the lives of Grant and Lincoln. Divine emotion is not aroused alone by words from the pulpit or the silent walls of a house. Seeing is as great a means of God as hearing, but seeing receives its sermons from the infallible; hearing listens to that which may come only from the brain."

"THE POLICEMAN CAME OUT OF THE BOX AND WALKED RAPIDLY DOWN THE STREET."

It was late in the afternoon when the four of them got off the cable car at Monroe and Dearborn streets and walked leisurely toward their hotel. At one of the street corners they saw a policeman come out of the patrol box and walk rapidly down the street. In a moment more he was joined by three other policemen from another street. Uncle turned to watch them, when suddenly they began to run, then faster, almost as in a race.