The spirit of God is a signal of warning to the soul when floods of evil are imminent.
Spain is subject to more frequent sudden inundations, perhaps, than any other country in Europe, and the necessity for some device to give warning may be appreciated. Such an alarm, ready night and day to notify the population along a river-bank of the approach of a dangerous flood, has been invented by Ramon Martinez di Campos, an engineer of Murcia. It is described as follows:
“The device uses the electric current; when an abnormal stage of the river is reached the water closes a circuit and thus starts an alarm signal at a great distance down-stream. In the present arrangement the automatic circuit-closer consists of a galvanized iron float which at high water makes contact with a fixt sheet of metal on a pole or a masonry support.”—Cosmos.
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WARNING MESSAGES
Once when the Persians and the Scythians confronted each other for battle, there appeared at the Persian camp a messenger from the Scythians, who said that he had some presents from the Scythian chief for Darius. The gifts proved to be a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows. No explanation being given as to what the message meant, much curiosity on that point was manifested and many guesses were made. At length it was suggested that it meant threats and defiance. “It may mean,” said one, “that unless you can fly like a bird, into the air, or hide like a mouse in the ground, or bury yourselves like a frog in morasses and fens, you can not escape our arrows.”
The gospel message to us is not so ambiguous as this, but it is equally ominous if it be slighted.
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WASHINGTON, GEORGE
Perhaps one of the wittiest toasts on record is that of Franklin. After the victories of Washington had made his name well known throughout Europe, Franklin chanced to dine with the French and English ambassadors, when these toasts were drunk. The son of Britain rose and proudly remarked: “England—the sun whose beams enlighten and fructify the remotest corners of the earth.”