Dr. Rainsford, who has resigned his charge owing to ill-health, used to be a man of great physical vigor, a fact which emphasizes this suggestion of the New York Sun's:
The physical exhaustion which sent Dr. Rainsford abroad and now compels his retirement from duties so arduous seems to be a calamity afflicting clergymen more than other professional men and men of affairs. Is this because the emotional strain is so much greater in the case of a clergyman?
Dr. Rainsford—who was born in Ireland and educated in England—was fearless in his pulpit utterances. In one sermon he said:
It is vain to cry out against a thing that a vast proportion of mankind believes is not wrong. You can't make an Irishman believe it is wrong to have beer with his dinner; you can't make an Englishman believe it. And perhaps that is why I do not believe it is wrong to have it with mine.
LESSONS THAT MAY BE LEARNED FROM BIRDS.
A Careful Study of the Turkey Buzzard
May Teach Us the Secret of Flight,
Says John P. Holland.
John P. Holland, the inventor of the submarine war-ship, said some very interesting things at a recent banquet. The element that occupies his attention is not air, but water. He dreams of a time when his shark-like boats will make war on the sea a thing of the past. Yet he also has hopes of air-ships. His advice to Professor Bell was to forget about his kites and other artificial devices, and to study the turkey buzzard, which knows more about flying than all the colleges on earth.
The thing that beats you all, said Mr. Holland, is the humble turkey buzzard. There is an incomprehensible mystery which it is for mighty man to solve—how that bird can soar, circle, and sweep over a radius of half a mile without an apparent movement of its wings. Solve that mystery, and man will conquer the air.
It is not surprising that two men so practical as Professor Bell and John P. Holland are joining the ranks of the air-ship enthusiasts. The air-ship is not altogether a thing of the future. It is here now. Last month the French government bought a couple for military purposes. The Wright brothers, in Dayton, Ohio, have flown twenty-five miles on their machine and carried with them a load of pig-iron besides. And at the recent automobile exhibitions in New York, two flying-machines were put on exhibition and sold.
Both Bell and Holland were called fools and dreamers thirty years ago, because they believed it possible to send words along a wire and travel under the sea. To-day they are regarded as practical men of affairs—wealthy and honored. It is a striking fact that both of these veteran inventors are looking for bigger things from the future than those which they dug from the past. The air-ship age, they say, is at hand, and the human race may get ready to fly.