A group of gentlemen, soldiers of the present and the past, were gathered upon an historic Southern battle-field, Missionary Ridge. They stopt to read the inscription upon a tablet, simple and unpretentious, which marked the position of a Confederate battery. This tablet bore the name of “Luke E. Wright, Second Lieutenant.” Luke E. Wright, Secretary of War of the United States of America, surrounded by his officers and friends, paused a moment to read again this chapter from his youth. A distinguished general of the regular army laid his hand affectionately upon the shoulder of General Wright and remarked: “General, how queerly things turn out! Who could have foreseen that the boy in gray, who served his guns upon this spot, would one day be my chief, at the head of the Army of the United States?”
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The instability of all mundane things is suggested by the following account, which may also remind us of the utterance of Jesus: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.”
“When, in 1890, Germany bartered away Zanzibar in exchange for Heligoland, great was the rejoicing,” says Shipping Illustrated (New York). “Much concern is now being manifested in Germany owing to the relentless attack of the sea, which has already reduced the island’s area nearly twenty-five per cent since it came under the German flag. At this rate the little island will, in another half-century, have melted entirely away. The North Sea has been from time immemorial an avaricious land-grabber. The Dogger Bank once reared its head above the surface, a fact proved by the bones of animals occasionally brought up in the fishermen’s nets. The eastern coast of England has suffered severely from its insatiable appetite. Dunwick, an important seaport during the Middle Ages, is now a part of the sea-bottom, and fishes and other marine denizens occupy the one-time habitation of men. Visitors to Felixstowe, once a Roman colony and now a modern seaside resort, opposite Harwich, have pointed out to them a rock a mile out to sea, on which the old church formerly stood. The Kaiser may yet live to see his cherished possession torn from his grasp.” (Text.)
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MUTUAL SUFFERING
There is no individual in society; it is one body corporate. If one member sin all suffer with him. The fearful forms of torture loom up yet out of the shadows, the paddle, the rack, the chair, the cangue collar, the strangle-ring, the shin-rod, and various forms of mutilation remind one of what we see in the Tower of London. Truly, we are brethren in cruelty if we go far enough into the dark past. But God, who is rich in mercy, when He transforms an Oriental, seems first of all to take out of his heart the poison of cruelty, and to leave the spirit of self-sacrifice and tenderness instead.—James S. Gale, “Korea in Transition.”
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MUTUALISM