The Buffalo, Pittsburg & Western Railroad Company has purchased the “Transit Line of Steamers” on Chautauqua Lake. The Chautauqua traveling public are to be congratulated on this change, for this corporation has already shown much enterprise in the extension of their line of railroad to the Chautauqua grounds. Under the management of this corporation we may reasonably expect that profanity and intemperance, which vices have been too common on Chautauqua steamers, will be suppressed. We shall now hope for a better administration.
No author of the C. L. S. C. has been more of a friend to us all than John Richard Green, the author of “Green’s Short History of the English People.” It is with sorrow that we chronicle his death. In the first year of the course we read his work. Mr. Green had the rare faculty of viewing history with a philosophical eye, and of describing its events and results in a lively, entertaining style. We have seen page after page of his writings read before a class of young people without their interest flagging for a moment. The man who can so write for the people, does more for his race than many investigators and critics. Though a popular writer, Mr. Green’s position as examiner in the School of Modern History, Oxford, proves his exact and critical knowledge. No historian who has recently died will be mourned by a greater number of people, and the C. L. S. C. will especially feel his loss.
Miss Helen Winsor, of Jamestown, N. Y., is a young lady who has been afflicted in body for many years, but not to an extent to prevent the cultivation of her taste for works of art. We remember some beautiful crayon sketches she wrought on the blackboard for a Sunday-school when she was a mere girl. She is now with friends in Philadelphia pursuing the study of art, and doing some excellent work with her own brush. We learn that she proposes to open a studio there for work, and for the sale of her paintings.
In this number of The Chautauquan our readers will find a new department under an old name. Turn to the “Editor’s Table” and you will see that we anticipate the questions of the questioners. The suggestion was made by a local circle in California—we have mislaid the letter—and emphasized by Dr. Vincent. We have therefore decided to try to throw a stronger light on the dark parts of the required readings in the C. L. S. C. course of study. This is not to be understood as a reflection on the authors who write for the C. L. S. C., but rather a necessity which grows out of the fact that our writers put much in little, as Plutarch says, “give the sense of things;” hence it is important that we supplement their articles with the pronunciation of hard words, explanatory notes, etc. It is the old “Editor’s Table” with this difference: we do not wait for our readers to send in their questions for answers; we anticipate them by a critical reading and re-reading of the articles, and then make the notes as you will find them in this number.
The Watchman is a neatly printed and ably edited little paper issued monthly by the Rev. E. K. Creed, for the benefit of his church at Silver Creek, N. Y. This is a better method than the “tract,” so called, in a congregation. It is fresh every month, and useful as the organ of every society in the church. It affords a splendid opportunity for the pastor to emphasize ideas and plans for church work. We are acquainted with four large churches where a little paper of this character has been made the medium for a vesper and praise service on a Sunday evening once a month. The Scriptures are selected and arranged for responsive readings by pastor and congregation, and two or three verses from about six hymns, set to tunes that the people know, are interspersed through the readings. It makes a delightful half-hour service, which may be followed by a fifteen or twenty minute address by the pastor. It breaks up monotony, introduces a pleasing variety into church services, and educates the people to read the Scriptures and sing the songs of the Church.